HSU IT Department

pearle9240 has created icons for a number of stories from this year's sshg_exchange, and she created these two beautiful ones based on my story Bide, Lady, Bide. Aren't they little jewels? I love the detail, the colors, the way they highlight key pieces of the story. Lucky me, I can't wait to use them on things :)

sshg_exchange has posted the reveal -- and with 180 items, it is a freakin' HUGE reveal! The quality of writing and art that comes out of SSHG never ceases to amaze me.

I have squee'd in no uncertain terms about the gifts I received, but now I know who my bestower of loveliness is and I'm thrilled to be able to properly thank sixpence_jones for my two phenomenal gifts, For Love and Loss (art) and All Shadows Pass Away (fic). I treasure both of them. ♥ ♥ ♥ to you, my dear!!

And on the flip side, I can now claim authorship of "Bide, Lady, Bide," a combination of the folk song "The Twa Magicians" and a very manipulative Lucius who very nearly gets caught in his own net, which I wrote for owlbait. So many people were kind enough to leave praise and comments; I am both thrilled and humbled.

Title: Bide, Lady, Bide (on LJ) (on AO3)
Recipient: owlbait
Rating: Suggestive
Warnings: None
Genre: Romance
Summary: Lucius has a cunning plan. What will he do when it backfires?
Word Count: 8,521
Original Prompt: (Possible spoilers) Of the three prompts given, I've combined #2 and #3: (2) "Something inspired by "The Twa Magicians" - Childe Ballad verses here and Steeleye Span's spiffy version here. (3) "The Marriage Law Oopsie: With the war over, Wizarding Britain is worried about the rise in Squibs. In typical Slytherin fashion, Lucius connives to get his friend the girl of his dreams. He moves behind the scenes to get a Marriage Law passed requiring all Muggle-born witches to marry Purebloods. Lucius, recently widowed/divorced, petitions for Hermione. He engineers out all other escape routes in order to send her fleeing to Severus's offer. Finally, with time getting down to the wire for Hermione to accept another proposal or have to marry him, Lucius gets fed up and tells Snape to offer for Hermione, already. It seems our Sev has kept some things to himself. "What do you *mean* you aren't a pureblood?"

I finally had a chance to sit down and dig into Clockwork Angels, which I got for Christmas and which I'd been eagerly anticipating. I'm a huge fan of Rush and have been since high school; largely thanks to Neil Peart, who's incredibly widely-read, many of their songs and albums are strongly story-oriented (think Fountain of Lamneth, or Red Barchetta, or all of 2112), so a collaborative book/album project sounded intriguing. In the end I enjoyed this book very much as far as it went, but was left wanting a lot more.

The steampunk-y world-building had many lovely little details: the Clockwork Angels of the title, the invented names of alchemical stones and minerals, the news office of Barrel Arbor and its announcement of the daily predictions, the personal letters the Watchmaker sends to every citizen on important occasions, the brief glimpses of other people and continents beyond the kingdom of the Watchmaker, and lots more. Taken as a whole, though, the story reads like a parable because in the end that's all we're given: little details and glimpses. The characters -- except for Owen Hardy -- are ultimately one-dimensional, and even the Watchmaker and the Anarchist are in the end nothing but symbols of the two extremes between which Owen Hardy is pulled, the Watchmaker's total predictability and the Anarchist's total unpredictability.

I was happy for Owen that he eventually found a happy medium, but I wish he'd spent a lot longer exploring. I had a nagging sense that I was missing out on lots of exciting things just out of sight; I felt like I was constantly craning my neck out the back window or trying to sneak off down alleyways to see things for myself and getting brought up short.

Those of you with a mathy turn of mind will be interested to know that it's actually command gold that loses the highest percentage of its wearers, not the stereotypical expendable red shirts. But sciences and engineering are still the safest. Go Spock!

And since we're in a Star Trek moment, please enjoy the ten most awesome things that happened during ST:TNG's 25th reunion. (TWENTY FIVE. Wow do I feel old. So imagine how Jonathan Frakes feels!!)

Also, Patrick Stewart has made the NRA's enemy list (and is apparently quite proud of it). He's also been attacked by some sort of squid/fruit hybrid, but I'm sure there's no connection.

Oh, and Mississippi finally banned slavery.

That is all.

Ack, what is this new posting interface?? Bleah, LiveJournal, I loved you just the way were, why must you change? And on Valentine's Day, too >:|

I did manage to ship all the books claimed by my lovely flisties (watch your mailboxes, y'all!), and write a little ♥ Valentine note ♥ for Mr Psmith and prop it on the coffee pot before leaving this morning, but other than that All The Things have been work work work for about the last ten days, to the point that I am so far behind on sshg_exchange I fear I will never catch up and even missed my scheduled post on one_bad_man.

"What?!?!" I hear you gasp. Alas, yes.

Among all the things: helping to pack and load 40 pallets of material for transfer to another institution (involving dust, red rot, and the occasional mouse skeleton), dealing with a fit of pique from one of my direct reports, reviewing grant applications, filling out annual evals for staff, spotting (aka dodging) a bat in the hallway, absorbing two new staff members from a freshly dissolved department (said dissolution being spectacularly sudden and unexpected, even by the now-former head of said department), being handed a new part-timer (at the behest of Powers that Be; fortunately she appears qualified and I do have work for her to do), and finalizing the Specification That Shall Not Be Named. There was more, but that's enough to be going on with.

Oh, and the freelance work. Mustn't forget the paying customers.

So yeah, life is pretty crazy busy at the moment. How are things in your world?

The snapecase reveal went up a while ago -- so many great stories this year!! -- and I can therefore cop to being the author of "Wormwood and Gall." Thanks to all who were kind enough to leave comments!

Title: Wormwood and Gall (on LJ) (on AO3)
Age-Range Category: Three
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Severus Snape; Albus Dumbledore; cameo by Lucius Malfoy
Rating: G
Warning(s): Angst.
Note: No specific date is given for when Dumbledore hires Snape, other than sometime in 1981. It's unlikely Dumbledore would have hired him prior to Lily's death, since Snape would have been busy with his espionage work up until then, so I've placed it in late November of 1981, immediately after Dumbledore testifies on Snape's behalf. Also, no date is given for Lucius' appointment to the Board of Governors at Hogwarts, so I have (rather arbitrarily) placed that in the fall of 1982.
Summary: When Severus is offered the job of Potions Master at Hogwarts, he thinks that perhaps life might not be as desolate as it looked. Whether or not this is correct remains to be seen.

Yes, really. It's that time of year again where I weed my bookshelves and remove extra copies of books, books I read and enjoyed and want to pass on, books that weren't my cuppa but might be someone else's, and so on. The books are listed below; all you have to do to claim one (or more) is be the first to comment and ask for it. Claim as many as you like; I pay the shipping, because I love sending my books to happy new homes. If you have questions about any of them I'll be happy to answer if I can, but you should be able to look 'em up on Amazon or GoodReads or heck, just use "the google." Unless otherwise noted, assume they're in very good but not quite new condition. There are even a couple that are like-new, good enough to be a gift.

Really, they're free. No catch. Jump right in, and feel free to spread the word!!

The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason (hc)
The Semi-Attached Couple and the Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden (pb)
A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King (hc; part of the Holmes/Russell series)
The Good Fight by Ralph Nader (hc)
Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye (pb)
Lord of the Far Island by Victoria Holt (hc but former library book)
The Shivering Sands by Victoria Holt (hc but former library book, no cover)
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (hc)
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (pb)
Helliconia Spring by Brian Aldiss (pb)
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein (hc; book club edition)
Houseboat on the Styx by A.F. Moritz (pb)

The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul DiFilippo (hc; includes Victoria, Hottentots, and Walt and Emily)
44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith (pb)
The Physick Books of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe (hc)
New Eves: Science Fiction about the Extraordinary Women of Tomorrow (hc)
Clean & Green by Annie Berthold-Bond (pb; about “green” housekeeping and cleaning)
This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson (pb)
A Study in Sherlock, edited by Laurie R. King (pb)
Codex by Lev Grossman (pb)
Wine Journal (hc; blank journal for recording info about the wines you drink, never used, nice enough it could be a gift)
Creole Cajun Cooking Cards (30 or so printed Southern/Cajun recipe cards in a printed brown paper bag; cards are in great shape but bag looks a little tired)
Kitchen Gardener magazine, 11 issues from Apr/May 1999 to Feb/Mar 2001
Goodnight iPad by Ann Droyd (hc; spoof of Goodnight Moon; nice enough it could be a gift)
Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone (pb – as if anyone on my flist needs this lol)
Never Seen by Waking Eyes by Stephen Dedman (pb)
Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, all 3 volumes (The Wounded Land, The One Tree, White Gold Wielder) (hc; book club edition; jackets worn, faded, a bit raggedy)

"...Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart will revive the West End production of Waiting for Godot on Broadway this autumn. The actors will also star in a new production of Harold Pinter's No Man's Land in an out-of-town tryout over the summer. Both productions will be directed by Sean Mathias."
SQUEEEE!!! and SQUEEEE!!! and SQUEEEE!!!

And as if that were not enough, Alan Rickman will also be on Broadway this fall in a production of Krapp's Last Tape -- looky looky!!

I think I may have died and gone to fangirl heaven...

Thing 2 of the 100 Things Poems! "The Highwayman," by Alfred Noyes, has everything: true love and infinite courage, heartbreak and death, a deeply romantic tale and a lovely ghost story. I don't ever remember not knowing this poem. When I was in 8th grade my English teacher gave extra credit if you memorized poems, and this was one of them, but I'm pretty sure I knew it before that. It's best read aloud; it has wonderful rhythmic beat to it that evokes the hoofbeats of the highwayman's galloping horse. I can't come up with a word for how this poem makes me feel -- aching, haunted, sorrowful, longing, it's all of those and none of them and more -- but it's always drawn a real lump-in-the-throat response from me, more so the older I get and the more I revisit it (which is odd, you'd think it's impact would fade). Here are a few stanzas to give the the flavor; the full text is online here.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard.
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”

Loreena McKennit has done a gorgeously lush and haunting version of it, which to this day, no matter that I've heard it dozens of times, makes me tear up:

[Error: unknown template video]