HSU IT Department

...and not one but TWO of my prompts got claimed already -- squeee! You are looking at one happy little fangirl :) It's almost enough to compensate for the truly horrendous amounts of snow and frigid temperatures we've had for what seem like YEARS, and which are rapidly driving me into terminal cabin fever :P Where is the sun?? ::mopes::

As my mom says, "Well, you're another year older, but at least you're still on the right side of the grass!"

Thanks to everyone who has sent birthday greetings, birthday wishes, and birthday prezzies, most especially rivertempest who sent me a mug with some gorgeous Severus art and the most incredible selection of teas I have ever seen, based on Supernatural, complete with special thingy for steeping!



Bobby Singer's blend has actual gunpowder in it. I'm a little worried about that one :O

And my dear Mr Psmith, who took me out to a NOMZ dinner and bought me the most lovely roses ever which currently have pride of place on the piano:

One of my stories, A Price Beyond Rubies, is part of the 300th quiz_sshg! I am so tickled, partly for me but even more so for the artist who did such a lovely piece based on it. Go check them out and take the quiz!

Signups for hp_holidaygen have been extended -- w00t! This is always a great fest, with intriguing prompts and some terrific stories. So what are you waiting for?

I know it seems like Christmas is a loooooooooong way away, but it's never soon to plan for holiday fic-ness. This is a fun, low-stress fest, and some lovely stories have come out of it. And how can you resist that adorable owl???
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...a fun and easy Holiday fest for the Harry Potter fandom!

Banner by capitu.

An infamously bad HP fanfic has been adapted as a very tongue-in-cheek web series. I hate to say it, but this actually makes me want to go read it. (Although perhaps it was meant from the start as a spoof? Surely no one would come up with the name "Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way" and expect to be taken seriously...) Regardless, this is very funny indeed:


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"What do you mean you haven't left a prompt yet? I expected better from a Gryffindor!"

Anybody out there not on AO3 that has a desperate yen to be? I have three invitations to give away :)

SS/HG is FINALLY out for beta ::falls into a limp heap:: I'm immensely pleased with it, hugely grateful to the mods for the extension, and in eternal debt to my betas (you know who you are!). I struggled with the ending all day yesterday -- it just wasn't jelling the way I wanted it -- but fortunately Mr Psmith was able to slice right through the nonsense and point out what the core of my problem was, and after that it was all beer and skittles. Figuratively speaking.

So now I get to go to bed. You have no idea how lovely that sounds. Nine-year-old me who tried every trick in the book to avoid going to bed would be horrified, but hey, that's what happens when you get old and decrepit (young 'uns, take heed!).

Also Obama kicked butt in the last election, and Amazon's product reviewers are going to town over Romney's binders full of women *giggle*. Yep, a good week.

A recent post on io9.com alerted me to the fact that Hilobrow has posted a series of 25 short essays by 25 different authors on the many faces of Star Trek's James T. Kirk. It's called, fittingly enough, Kirk Your Enthusiasm :) Some are meditative, some funny, some thought-provoking, some just plain Kirk-boosterism, but they're all well-crafted and all written from a place of respect and genuine affection for the series.

Each essay focuses on a single memorable Kirk-centric scene. Most of the writers chose a scene from the original series but there are also a few from the movies. They include Kirk's first self-destruct bluff (Let That Be Your Last Battlefield); Kirk recites the U.S. Constitution (The Omega Glory) which includes some perceptive comments on Shatner's acting style; "the canonical TOS episode of great slashiness" (Amok Time); Kirk's letting Edith Keeler die (Return to Tomorrow) which draws parallels between Kirk and John F. Kennedy; and lots more. The final essay is particularly interesting: it examines the scene in ST the Reboot where Kirk taunts Spock into losing control so that Kirk can take command of the Enterprise, and argues that Spock is the real hero of the scene since by stepping down he recognizes that being captain requires calmness and rationality, neither of which the rebooted Kirk exhibits.

The essays are a great chance to wallow in an excess of Trekkiness (yay!!) in the company of a bunch of writers who love it too. The index to the essays is here. Go. Read. Wallow :)