pauraque_bk: (Default)
2013-10-31 09:32 pm

halloween double-drabbles for everyone!

[livejournal.com profile] hp_halloween ficlets are up, wheeee! The one written for me is sweet and lovely and I just want to give it a big hug:

Autumn Chaos by [livejournal.com profile] dexstarr (PG-13, Luna/Pansy)
summary: Luna thinks Pansy needs to relax.

And as it happens, I also wrote for [livejournal.com profile] dexstarr:

The Maiden and the Crone by me (G, Minerva/Rose)
summary: Minerva has retired from Hogwarts, but not from teaching magic.

With what looks like 60-some ficlets, there surely must be something for everyone, and there were really a ton that I enjoyed. These are just a few that stood out to me:

The Dark )

The Heartbreaking )

The Hot )

The Funny )

Happy Halloween, all!

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/38479.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2013-10-31 08:56 am

kink bingo recs

Since it's the last day of [community profile] kink_bingo and the last day of Rectober (whoever decided that was a thing... I never quite figured that out), here, have some KB recs.

Harry Potter
Schoolboy Blues by [personal profile] delphi (Explicit, Snape/Filch, kink: class fantasies)
author's summary: Severus Snape knows every shortcut at St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys, including a few of his own devising.
If that summary hasn't already convinced you to read this fic... well, then you're clearly not me! This is the best kind of AU, where this new way of seeing the characters lets us look into them more deeply.

Star Trek: The Original Series
Feel Fine by [personal profile] sineala (G, Spock & Kirk & McCoy, kink: emotion play)
author's summary: Spock finds that he wants to be happy.
A wonderfully thoughtful and astute portrait of Spock after the events of STIV, learning and re-learning how to navigate the space he inhabits between Vulcan and human. Just lovely.

Warcraft
Scarlet and Ivory by [personal profile] usefulobject (Mature, Interrogator Vishas, kink: torture/interrogation)
author's summary: Vishas fantasizes that deep down, those damned Forsaken really like what he does. You don't get to be Scarlet Interrogator by not being creepy.
I love how Vishas projects his own twisted thoughts onto his victims — because, of course, they're the perverted ones! This fic nails the tone of how scary things are presented in WoW, with a hint of macabre humor that lightens the grotesqueness just enough.

X-Files
Palliative by [personal profile] sineala (Mature, Krycek, kink: enemas)
author's summary: Alex Krycek deals with his oilien experiences in a unique way.
Longtime friends know that the oilien episodes hold a special fascination for me, so it was a real treat to find this post-Apocrypha fic from KB 2010. The way Krycek experiences the trauma of the possession and the way he regains his sense of control are so perfectly him.

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/38307.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2013-10-09 04:03 pm
Entry tags:

silencio reveals!

The [livejournal.com profile] hp_silencio master list has been posted, so I can now say that I wrote:

Masquerade (R, Astoria/Pansy/Draco + Astoria/OFC) [AO3]
Pansy knows what Astoria can't let anyone find out, and now she's got Astoria — and Draco — right where she wants them.

Not being able to use dialogue didn't feel that limiting (I tend to be sparing with it anyway), though it did change how I would have written some things. Several times I had to stop myself from using reported dialogue, ask myself why I wanted it to be there, and come up with a way to get the idea across differently. I think it was a good exercise and I was happy with the results.

Probably the biggest surprise to me in the fest was not about dialogue, but about content. So many Harry/Draco fics! And Draco fics generally! I always knew H/D was popular, but I think in the past I've tended to hang out with people who, if they were slashing Harry with anyone, preferred it to be Snape, and the two pairings seem not to have a lot of overlap. I don't have strong shipping opinions in HP fandom — I'll read anything if it's well written — so I'm not sure why that was the social circle I fell into, but it was, so stumbling into this other world where H/D was the dominant pairing was strange! Not bad, just unexpected.

Anyway, good fest, good times. I hope it runs again next year.

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/36688.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2013-09-22 10:41 am
Entry tags:

shhh

[livejournal.com profile] hp_silencio has started posting, for the fulfillment of all your dialogue-free needs. The entries are anonymous for now, but one of them will be mine! \o/

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/35645.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (world of warcraft)
2013-09-12 02:37 pm
Entry tags:

do we have a third surprise in the works somewhere?

Wow, a new Harry Potter movie. I did not see that coming! I would say I'm cautiously optimistic. It might be good, and if it is (or even if it's not), I could see it breathing some new life into the fandom, which is not dead by any means, but is certainly much quieter than it once was. (This is my usual way of thinking: I don't care as much about whether some things are good as I do about whether they would be good for fandom. And sometimes the best fandoms come out of flawed source materials.)

And of course, we've got our new warchief at last. Anyone who knows or cares what that means probably knows who it is already, but cut for spoilers just in case. )

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/35145.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2013-05-26 06:19 pm

beholder reveals!

Well, the master list is up and another year of [insanejournal.com profile] hp_beholder is at an end. My lovely gift was written by [livejournal.com profile] chaos_rose, and I've added author names to my post of other recs.

I wrote:

Triptych on the Sword of Ragnuk (R, Flitwick/Griphook) [LJ - AO3]
Summary: The beauty of a man may bring pleasure for an hour, but the beauty of a blade is eternal.

I've always been curious about the goblins in HP and their place in magical society, and felt it was a loose end after Book 7. The whole plot thread about the sword, and the open mistrust and easy betrayal on both sides made me want to dig deeper. I offered Griphook hoping I'd get a chance to write about that, and [livejournal.com profile] smallbrownfrog's prompts ended up being exactly in line with what I was already thinking about. I hadn't offered Flitwick, but her request for him reminded me that he's supposed to be part goblin, and that goblins legally can't even use wands (let alone teach how to use them), and how much of a loose end that is!

I wasn't sure how it would go over, since I have to figure not everyone finds Griphook as magnetic a character as I do :P, and I was glad to see people got what I was going for and appreciated it.

Yay like-minded people! Yay Beholder! :D

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/31744.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2013-02-22 11:37 am
Entry tags:

newfic and other thoughts

My other fic for [livejournal.com profile] hp_kinkfest is up!

     A Child That Knows Poems By Heart (R, Narcissa/Astoria) - LJ - AO3
     Summary: They all say Scorpius looks like his father. They are wrong.
     Content notes: Infidelity, age difference (50s/20s), mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship.

I promised myself that if this prompt (Narcissa has some way to get her female lover pregnant) was still available after I finished my first fic, I'd take it. It was, and I did. The prompter seems to have deleted their LJ sometime between their leaving the prompt and my posting the fic, so that's a bit of a bummer, but maybe they'll come back and see it.

Anyway! For a long time I've been guilty of complaining that nobody writes Fpreg, while not lifting a finger to change that, but now I can say I've done my part. A lot of things about it were a stretch for me, but I'm pretty satisfied with how it came out. It might be one of the happiest things I've ever written. Huh.


Ideas for [insanejournal.com profile] hp_beholder are still brewing. I matched my recipient on a character I definitely want to write but didn't expect to get, so I'm contemplating how I want to approach it. It's for sure going to involve re-reading the last book, which... will be a first. When it came out I found it pretty underwhelming, and then I wasn't writing in the fandom for a good while, so I had no reason to read it again. It'll be interesting to see if I feel any differently about it with some distance.

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/28101.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2013-02-02 01:27 pm

updates, PSAs, and a new HP fic

Ugh, my computer. Long story short, taking it to a local repair place did not go well. I'm in the process of ordering new stuff online. Still using [personal profile] hannelore's computer for now, so I haven't been keeping up with LJ/DW like I usually do, but fandom marches on:

Nominations are open for [livejournal.com profile] rarewomen, a multifandom fic exchange focusing on female characters in small fandoms, and rare female characters in large fandoms. This was new last year, and I had a blast writing in it, as well as receiving an amazing gift in a nonexistent fandom-of-my-heart, so I'm very excited it's running again!

Sign-ups are open for [insanejournal.com profile] hp_beholder, a fic and art exchange focusing on the HP characters who get less love because they're not considered conventionally attractive. Such a great range of amazing stuff always gets written and drawn for this.

Also, posting for [livejournal.com profile] hp_kinkfest has started, and my first entry for it is up:

     The Secret Incantation (NC-17, Hermione/Sirius)
     Content notes: Underage sexual activity, age difference (15/mid-30s),
     dominance/submission play including body worship and orgasm denial.

I wrote this to the very first prompt on the list (Hermione/Sirius femdom), and as soon as I saw it I knew it was the prompt for me. :D I love to play with different kinds of power dynamics, and I've only rarely written Hermione as a main character, so I had a lot of fun writing this. You can also read it on AO3 if you prefer.

So what are you guys all up to lately?

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/27240.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-12-20 10:10 am
Entry tags:

HP PSA

Hey guess what, sign-ups for [livejournal.com profile] hp_kinkfest just opened up. A lot of good stuff came out of this fest last year. They do things a bit differently from most fests I've been in; there's a list of prompts you can claim, but you can also make up your own prompt on the spot, so basically you can do anything, as long as there's kink. Any rating, any pairings, fic or art. No word count minimum.

Last year I was too late to participate, but this year I'm in. You can be too! I think sign-ups are open until the end of the month.

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/26360.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-05-30 11:53 am
Entry tags:

beholder reveals

Now that the master list has been posted, I can share that my excellent gift A Magical Moment in the Life of Petunia Dursley, Née Evans was written by [personal profile] pale_moonlite!

And in case you missed it, I wrote The Two Names of Xiomara Rolanda Hooch, which you can also read on LJ, on DW, on AO3, or in the Library of Babel.

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/22326.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-05-29 03:03 pm

HP fic: The Two Names of Xiomara Rolanda Hooch

Title: The Two Names of Xiomara Rolanda Hooch
Rating: PG-13/Teen
Pairing: Hooch/McGonagall
Word Count: ~2400
Summary: Hogwarts changes. She changes.
Notes: Written for [livejournal.com profile] noeon in the [insanejournal.com profile] hp_beholder exchange. Thanks to [personal profile] delphi for taming the wild semicolons and to [personal profile] bethbethbeth for running the exchange!

The Two Names of Xiomara Rolanda Hooch )

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/22051.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-05-25 01:40 pm
Entry tags:

further hp reccage

Greetings, earthlings - this week I had a really bad pain flare and couldn't get jack shit done. However, I did manage to catch up on everything in [insanejournal.com profile] hp_beholder, I think, except for the one entry that is an actual novel. How do people find the time?!

Anyway, a couple more recs before reveals happen this weekend. There really were a lot of excellent stories - too many to go through listing them all.

Eyes Open (NC-17, Moody/Snape) by [personal profile] delphi
Pretty sure I know who wrote this, but if I'm wrong, someone has a new fan! This is a juicy interrogation fic, the kind that breaks down the psychology of both the prisoner and the interrogator in a wonderful way. It made me want to go watch the first season of Homicide.

Professor C. Binns: A Personal History (PG, Cuthbert Binns/Walburga Black, Walburga Black/Orion Black) by [livejournal.com profile] purplefluffycat
This looks like a crack pairing, but isn't. In fact it's a very touching and natural explanation of who Binns is, and who Walburga sadly became. Instantly added to my personal head-canon.

And an [community profile] hp_diversity rec:

And Giant-Winged Whatsits (G, Dean/Luna) by [livejournal.com profile] thimble_kiss
A gorgeous snippet of their lives after the war. Lovely.

[eta beholder authors]

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/21826.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-05-18 11:54 am
Entry tags:

harry potter recs

First, a Remix Redux rec:

King of Serpents (The Scrapbook Remix) (Teen, Tom Riddle gen) by [personal profile] delphi
Young Tom Riddle researches the life of Salazar Slytherin. Tom's characterization is chilling and brilliant, and Salazar's backstory explains so much... Don't miss this one, it's a real treat.


And some [insanejournal.com profile] hp_beholder recs, though I've fallen far behind in my reading:

A Story of Warnings and the Ignoring Thereof (PG-13, Irma Pince/Horace Slughorn) by [livejournal.com profile] therealsnape
I didn't expect this at all. At Albus's funeral, Horace looks back and takes us on a whirlwind tour of his life and misadventures. Great, confident Sluggy voice.

One More for the Road (R, Sirius/Rosmerta) by [livejournal.com profile] xylodemon
The brilliant character voices, sharp writing, and wry humor of this story are a complete delight.

Not Exactly the First Blush of Youth (PG, Galatea Merrythought/Griselda Marchbanks) by [livejournal.com profile] eeyore9990
An actiony adventure about badass, queer, mature women fighting evil. How often do you get to type those words in that order?

An Affinity for Dangerous Creatures (R, Silvanus Kettleburn/Millicent Bulstrode + Severus Snape) by [livejournal.com profile] anguis_1
There has been an abundance of good Millicent fic in this fest, and her characterization is particularly outstanding in this one. She's cantankerous, competent, and passionate. Snape's role in the story can't be described without major spoilers — you just have to wait and see how awesome it is.

Courtship of a Common Man (R, Viktor Krum/Percy Weasley) by [livejournal.com profile] synn
I love how the distance and isolation Percy feels is shown here, and Viktor's down-to-earth charm and maturity.

[eta beholder authors]

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/21684.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-05-03 04:16 pm
Entry tags:

my beholder gift is here!

I have a growing list of recs kicking around in my head that will be posted at some point, but it would be churlish of me not to set aside procrastination long enough to point to my lovely gift fic on [insanejournal.com profile] hp_beholder.

A Magical Moment in the Life of Petunia Dursley, Née Evans (R, Petunia/Snape, Petunia/Vernon, Petunia/Lily [of sorts]) by [livejournal.com profile] pale_moonlite

I asked for a story about Petunia in a relationship with a magical person and what that would mean to her, and said that I liked Petunia/Snape (which I thought it was likely I'd get) and had a pet thing for Petunia/Lily (which I never dreamed I would get in a million years). You guys, I GOT BOTH! And even though I didn't delve into how I see Snape/Lily/Petunia as a tragic love triangle of obsession, bitterness, and denial, somehow this author just knew.

It is such an awesome feeling when the person who writes for you in an exchange really gets your prompt, especially when you've asked for something out of the ordinary, something that many people would probably pass by just based on the headers (even in a rare character fest). It's a great story and it's for meeeee! :D

[eta author]

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/20768.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-04-13 10:51 am
Entry tags:

PSA

Hey guess what, [insanejournal.com profile] hp_beholder has started posting! If you don't do IJ you can also follow the fest at [livejournal.com profile] hp_beholder or [syndicated profile] hp_beholder_feed.

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/19978.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-03-19 01:40 pm
Entry tags:

wizard love fic revealed!

[livejournal.com profile] wizard_love reveals are up, so I can confess that I wrote:

Our truancy is defined by one fixed star (NC-17, Lily/Sirius, Lily/James). You can also read it on AO3.

I can also reveal that my beta-readers were [livejournal.com profile] _hannelore and [livejournal.com profile] fluffyllama. ♥

It was surprising and a bit funny to me how much my fic stuck out among the others, since of course I wrote something bleak and dysfunctional, while most people went for sweet and romantic. This is not a complaint! People should follow their own muse; mine just has a tragedy mask perma-glued on. :P

And now to work on the other fest fics that have piled up. /o\

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/19588.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-02-17 12:13 pm
Entry tags:

New HP fic

Two Februaries (1328 words) by faviconpauraque
Rating: General Audiences
Relationships: Cho Chang/Harry Potter
Summary: The second time Harry and Cho sit down together on Valentine's Day is twenty-five years after the first.

Hey, look, it's my first HP fic in a couple of years[1]! When [livejournal.com profile] thimble_kiss mentioned she liked Harry/Cho, I had a vague idea of writing some for her, and when I saw on the Lexicon that JKR had mentioned Cho married a Muggle, this all popped into my head fully-formed.

How do you guys feel about links to AO3? Do you click on them, or are you more likely to read something if it's here (DW/LJ)? I know for me, for a while I didn't really know what AO3 was and when I clicked on links I was like, wait, where are you taking me, I don't want to go to some other site, backbutton! But maybe it was just me. I see people doing different things in terms of where they're posting, so I'm not sure what the typical way is these days.


[1] Strictly speaking, there was my [livejournal.com profile] wizard_love fic before this, but I can't show you that yet. [livejournal.com profile] wizard_love's started posting, by the way!

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/18824.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-02-09 02:14 pm
Entry tags:

drive-by recs

HP fic

Doll (NC-17, Draco/Hermione) by [livejournal.com profile] captainraychill. Wow. It's rare to find a fic like this, that is truly about kink instead of just including a kink. It's about early experiences shaping our desires, about the intimacy of revealing them, about negotiation and power exchange, and also about the all-too-real loneliness that sometimes comes when the person you play with isn't a person you can be with. I'm impressed. Draco's kink is dolls, and humans pretending to be dolls, and the story meticulously and lovingly expresses what's hot about that rather than assuming it's already your thing.

HP art

Formal (PG, Draco/Hermione) by [livejournal.com profile] kipre. Yay, co-ed crossdressing! There should be more of this.

DS9 art

Kira Nerys in 1940s menswear (G) by [personal profile] softestbullet. What it says on the tin. This picture makes me incoherent with glee, and can be enjoyed even if you don't know the character.

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/18142.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-01-25 12:04 pm
Entry tags:

just plain wrong

I have some recs of new fic in store, but until I get around to that, I'll rec an old fic:

The Ravenclaw Girl (Explicit, Filch/Luna, underage, blackmail, consent issues) by [personal profile] delphi. A retelling of the Pergamon anecdote from Petronius' Satyricon set during Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Mr. Filch attempts to have his way with a young student, only to have the tables turned on him.

I love this fic because it's both completely filthy and truly funny. It's so hard to find smut that makes you laugh without just being crackfic (which this isn't). This is a perfect example where you're laughing with the characters, not laughing at the premise.

Anyway, in discussing the fic [personal profile] delphi commented that it was one of the most wrong things she'd written, which of course made me wonder what the wrongest thing I'd written was...

musings on wrongitude )

What about you guys? What's the wrongest fanwork you've created, whatever 'wrong' means to you? And what does 'wrong' mean to you? (No, this is not just a ploy to find new dirty fanworks to consume, though it could be that too!)

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/16667.html. Comment here or there.
pauraque_bk: (Default)
2012-01-02 03:11 pm
Entry tags:

harry potta

So, let us pretend for a moment that it is 2005, and that this is the sort of thing we talk about. I'm using the HP Lexicon to refresh my memory about certain things for a fic, but I have questions that are not explicitly answered there.

1. Did Dumbledore tell Lily and James about the Prophecy before Lily got pregnant, or after? Is it possible that they were intentionally trying to fulfill the Prophecy by having a baby in July, or is it made clear that they didn't know?

2. In the PoA movie, Remus has some dialogue to the effect that Lily was especially nice to him. Is this canon, or did they add it for the movie?

3. My brain keeps insisting that James and Sirius had a bit of a falling-out over the incident with Snape and the Shrieking Shack, and that the incident precipitated Lily seeing James in a more favorable light. Is any of this true, or am I just remembering fic that filled in the gaps about why Lily started liking James? (I know Sirius was close friends with them later, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that James was angry at him for a while.)

4. After leaving school and before Voldemort's downfall, did any of the Marauders+Lily ever have jobs that we know of? I realize there was a war and whatnot, and that James had inherited money so he was taken care of, but I'm having a hard time picturing what life was like during the First War and to what extent people were still trying to carry on ordinary lives. The Order of the Phoenix is supposed to be a secret, so it never seemed to me like being a member was the only thing you would be doing. Wouldn't you have like a regular job or something to hide the fact that you were also in this secret organization working against Voldemort?