The Nympherie

Long time no see! I've been very much enjoying reading at hd_holidays and smutty_claus this month, so how about some recs. Starting with the one that is mine all mine!

Harry/Pansy

What We Thought We Knew by Anon NC-17 7,500. Summary: Some things are better left unsaid, but that doesn't mean everything.

I really loved this. The author worked from my prompt "They never talk about it, but everyone knows," which I think was used amazingly here, the atmosphere is brilliant. It's 8th year and we get to see a few students point of view of the supposedly secret relationship between Harry and Pansy. The characterisations were great, and then there is some of the hottest smut I've seen in this fest! Harry, with the hints of how he is trying to figure out where he is after the war is wonderful. Especially read if you like a slightly domineering Harry, yum.

( 1 Tonks/Charlie, 1 James/Lily, 2 Harry/Draco fic recs under the cut )

Here's The Pencil, Make It Work by Anon NC-17 ~49,500. Summary: Harry thinks "Why is Malfoy working in a coffee shop in muggle London?" is a much simpler question than, "Are you going to accept that auror offer and, if you don't, what will you do?"

This is probably going to be the star of this fest and there is a reason for that. I find it hard to express the way this story made me feel, but it is something I've rarely experienced with stories written in the past 5 years. It is like I felt about fics when the whole idea of reading them was still relatively new. I think part of why I love 8th year (which this is not) is because I really want stories that deal with the aftermath of Deathly Hallows. This does this beautifully. The characterisations are so perfect for me. Harry is undirected and unsure. Draco is a mixture of determination and uncertainty. The wider cast of characters is beautiful. The trio are the trio I love and want them to be. It is a story about people and change and learning. It acknowledges Teddy's existence beautifully, with a particualrly lovely scene with Andromeda. If you don't read HP fic any more, if you don't read H/D, or long fics, or whatever, please still give this a try. It is worth it.

DiaCon was amazing and went so stupidly well, I am even managing to analyse it without just thinking about bits that went wrong with is a MAJOR achievement for me!

I am so happy, and so proud of everyone involved. Wow!

I had to go back to work today which was not fun, especially as my lovely manager had her last dy while I was away at con so I had that weirdness, too. I did make it to the pub meet yesterday which was nice and relaxed and managed to stave off my con drop for a day. I feel weirdly ok. Tired, but not ill which I've been expecting to come after the con for ages. Maybe it's still not hit me yet.

Hello to any new people. I still need to go over to the friending meme and starts finding people and stuff, but I don't quite have enough brain for that.

I cannot believe it really happened. Every report I've read of it has been lovely though, please link me if you've spotted any, even if I've probably seen it (although if someone totally hated it I probably don't want to know).

*glomps*

P.S. Now I want to reread books and discuss canon for hours!

What: A Harry Potter Con
Where: University of Kent, Canterbury
When: July 21st to 24th 2011
Why: Because the films are ending and we wanted to hang out with awesome people!

Our glorious website

This is going to be awesome! We want as many lovely people as can come to be there. We will have art and meet ups and academia and analysis of fannishness and squee and and epic Victory Ball!

Also, I meant to mention this before. I was always relatively open that Rachel wasn't my real name, but I don't know how clear I made it that Emily is! It's been fairly out online due to having more rl HP fans but I thought I'd make it clear as I am being Emily over there (partially an very vague attempt to keep different online lives separate).

Come to DiaCon Alley! It will be amazing!

First off, thanks to all the lovely people who sent me birthday wishes yesterday. I had a wonderful day, though the snow meant we didn't quite manage a ma-hoo-sive all family including partners dinner. I got some lovely presents (including sister taking me (and me taking her for Christmas, and both of us taking our mum for her birthday) to see Legally Blonde: The Musical. Cheesey, glorious musical fun). Possibly the most unexpectedly amazing gift was a gorgeous charm bracelet from my fiance including 10 lovely charms to represent who I am and the things I love. It has a little witches hat to represent Harry Potter! I mentioned once 4 years ago or something I had always wanted a charm bracelet and he remembered and put it together for me now. I also had some lovely people over for a thing on Saturday which was great, and the mix of fandom friends and non-fandom friends had no issues (I didn't think there would be, but you never know).

Also, I am getting really excited for hp_kinkfest. I have started writing but I've gotten all scared at the prospect of writing something and putting it out there. I am mostly just excited though.

Now I need to get some sleep :D

P.S. OMG SNOW! We made a snow man on Saturday night (at about 1:30 am after many cocktails) and it is sitting outside still looking snazzy, though a bit odd for having been snowed on.

The Christmas cheer has fully arrived for me! To begin with I received and amazing Hotel Chocolat Advent calendar just in time for December (isn't receiving an unexpected package you did not pay for one of the most amazing things? I got a Christmas card from son_of_darkness which lead to me putting up the Christmas tree here. On Saturday my sister and I went to see our Mum and put up the Christmas tree there (we have got our system to totally locked down, I love doing the Christmas tree with her. Our mum would never get it right herself. Or be able to reach the top of the tree!). Sunday I went to the Winder Wonderland in Hyde Park with some lovely people which is just fantastic and beautiful and Christmas-tastic and filled with yummy food and fun things. son_of_darkness gave me an amazing present of a Key for Santa (as I don't have a Chimney for him to use) it is so cute and fills me with Christmas glee. Finally, I woke up today to discover that there has been some sort of crazy amazing lj free vgift thing and fandom has exploded with it and the lovely snegurochka_lee and coffee_n_cocoa and lokifan were sweet enough to include me and send me v gifts! They are not just snowflakes, they are not just cookies, they are a snowflake cookies! How amazing is that!?

So, basically I very much full of Christmas love and looking forward so much to the rest of the Christmas season. I love this time of year so much! (Not that that means I have any clue what I am getting most of my family for Christmas, you understand ;))

Also, I am really enjoying HD_Hols, I don't have the time to even attempt to keep up with more than one fest, but I am watching out for recs. I think Give Chase and Savage are probably my two favourites so far - they have been recced around quite a bit, I think, but that's it because they are good. Oh, and Unexpected, A Holiday Tail of Mistaken Identity was a really adorable and fun seasonal one ♥ and Symbiosis the sort of 8th year fic that makes me very happy. And there is lots of good stuff!

I have fully given in - I have now watched every episode of Merlin, it is really awesome. I always enjoyed it as a casual viewer, but it much better with all the bits filled in.

( More Merlin talk behind here - includes spoilers )

I shall start this post by saying that I wish a very happy birthday to snegurochka_lee (it's after midnight here). She is pretty much the only person I am still in contact with from my first fandom home and it makes me so happy she is still around in Harry Potter fandom and I love seeing her posts, even if I am rubbish at commenting ever. She is an amazing author and gives good rec and is generally awesome. A lot has changed since we first met (for instance both of us totally used to avoid H/D ;)) but even though we have drifted out of contact I am very happy to know her. I totally blame her for getting me into slash as well! I was happily going along reading Snape/Various Female Characters and she went "Wow, what if Lupin and Snape had sex?! That is such an original idea!" And here I am now.

Second, I have the past few months been getting into fandom properly a bit more. I have never properly dropped out of it, but not having a working computer for 3-4 months last year made me drift further out then ever before. I've been enjoying some of the hp_darkfest fics and a few other things and I am totally looking forward to Christmas fests. I still love the Harry Potter world so much, even after more than ten years after (nearly 11 in fact) I first got addicted. Because of it I have met so many lovely people and even gotten closer to my sister. I am so lucky to have rl friends because of HP fandom. Now, we don't always talk about Harry Potter sometimes we talk about kink but it is great to have friends with whom you can analyse whether items in any given shop are the correct shade of pink for Draco to wear them.

I had an amazing hallowe'en weekend at an amazing place with amazing Harry Potter fans (I had so much fun cosplaying Hermione much of the weekend, and Andromeda on Saturday evening for the family reuion from hell!). Thanks a lot to this I have even been writing and am considering doing hp_kinkfest. I was not sure, but son_of_darkness was telling me I should do it and hedonisticated gave me a bit of a bunny. Which will probably not be SSC or even RACK! :P It is scary the thought of writing something and putting it out there, it has been so long!

Finally, Christmas is less then a month away! This is so cool! Eee! *throws snowballs*

P.S. Blah blah, I know I haven't updated in over a year, posts apologising for that are so dull. But I am sorry.

Yay! This is has all come together now and I can announce the new mini-fest the_ass_fest as doing 'Winter Shorts' our first flash fest.

Basically everyone can give prompts and then anyone can take prompts. It's intended as something to help people with their writers block if they are mired in their bigger winter fest fics and just want to be inspired to write something short that doesn't need to please anyone but themselves!


art by dysonrules and aki_hoshi. banner by aki_hoshi . inspired by davidkawena

Things have been good for me recently, I even had a relatively normal sleep pattern for a couple of days, which was fun, but it seems to have all collapsed again, as always seems to happen with me. What I really want right now is a really nice, funny H/D novella post-DH which I haven't read. I'm sure I could something that fits this if I looked/knew where to look, but I'm wary of wading into fics I know nothing about even once I find one. Also, that would further delay sleep :p

I'm now a mod on the_ass_fest which is fun, we're talking about our next step. I love doing this sort of thing and have wanted to be involved before, but I've only seen oppertunities with newsletters before and the work for them terrfies me!

Also, I now have lego Snader (Severus Snape/Darth Vader) earrings. This makes me disproportionately pleased! Especially as Snape is holding a laser gun. Sadly Vader has already lost his light saber. Oh well. I now want to turn more lego figures into earrings, they are actually not too heavy, much lighter than many of the earrings you see people wearing around!

I'm having problems pinning down my bunny for hp_darkfest. It sorts of wants to be au, but I don't want it to be :p

The new trailer for Half-blood Prince has been released and it is amazing. I'm so freaking excited! I thought about waiting until I could see it in cinemas and decided not to and it is awesome,I'm so excited. Here is the official msn movies page which links to a high quality version, top of the page atm.




Although, am I the only one who finds Dumbledore at the end hilarious? ... No.

And even though I'm generally not that all about the films that dumdum dumdumdum dumdum dum, dum dumdumdum dum-dum music sends chills down my spine. It's so perfect!