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Title: House of Heretics (3/4)
Pairing: Draco/Astoria, mentions of Cormac/Astoria, Viktor/Pansy, also hints at various Slytherin ships
Word Count: <38,000, 9877 for this section
Rating/Warnings: R, mentions of infidelity and crime
Betas:

acidpop25 kept an eye out for flow and phrasing, and

grrarrg0908 battled my italics valiantly and came out triumphant. Any mistakes are due to my post-beta meddling.
Summary: Seven years have passed since Voldemort's defeat and Draco Malfoy is making do with the lot he's been given--distrusted by the most of the ministry, shunned by the House that he betrayed. When a ministry official goes missing, Draco is given the chance to help restore the Malfoys' place in society. But is Astoria standing in his way or is she just what he needs to be exonerated?
Author's notes: For Slytherins, the loves of my life. Narcissa probably wouldn't be here if not for Helen McCrory's performance in Deathly Hallows. The characters are JKR's, but Foxglove Bakery is Caroline's. Hope you enjoy reading! Written for

het_bigbang. On the HBB site here and AO3 here.

( iii. cunning just like him )

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Title: House of Heretics (2/4)
Pairing: Draco/Astoria, mentions of Cormac/Astoria, Viktor/Pansy, also hints at various Slytherin ships
Word Count: <38,000, 9769 for this section
Rating/Warnings: R, mentions of infidelity and crime
Betas:

acidpop25 kept an eye out for flow and phrasing, and

het_bigbang. On the HBB site here and AO3 here.

( ii. whose ancestry is purest )

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Title: House of Heretics (1/4)
Pairing: Draco/Astoria, mentions of Cormac/Astoria, Viktor/Pansy, also hints at various Slytherin ships
Word Count: <38,000, 9150 for this section
Rating/Warnings: R, mentions of infidelity and crime
Betas:

acidpop25 kept an eye out for flow and phrasing, and

het_bigbang. On the HBB site here and AO3 here.

( i. he left us quite downhearted )

Next

Sorry, afraid this week is going to be a whole bunch of fic posts. I'll space them out so they're not spammy. <3

Title: Scenes from the Hufflepuff Common Room
Character(s): Pomona Sprout, various others
Beta Reader(s):

jaggarte
Word Count: 2197
Rating: G
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): None..
Note: I wanted to write a story about the students, but Pomona became the best way to tell it. In the end though, I think she'd say this is still about the students. Written as a pinch-hit piece for

hogwarts_houses and originally posted here. This was kind of hard to write--we know so little about the Hufflepuffs in general!
Summary: One day Pomona Sprout put up a bulletin board. Then her students made it their own.

( 'But Voldemort is far away, and the danger facing Hogwarts lives inside the castle walls.' )

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/278868.html

I'm doing it. I'm applying to be sorted at

hogwarts_elite. Well.

sorting_elite, technically, but that's like the gateway to H_E. Just need to finish my app, which yes, is taking forever and a day, but getting there.

Check out their guide to Sorting and their FAQ for more info.

het_bigbang has officially launched.
~~Between reading all the other Big Bang stories and all of peyton07's fic recs, IDK how I'm gonna get any writing done this weekend, hah.~~

Title: House of Heretics
Pairing: Draco/Astoria, mentions of Cormac/Astoria, Viktor/Pansy, also hints at various Slytherin ships
Word Count: ~38,000 (AO3 clocked it in at 37341)
Rating/Warnings: R, mentions of infidelity and crime
Betas: The wonderful

acidpop25, who kept an eye out for flow and phrasing, and

grrarrg0908, who battled my italics valiantly and came out triumphant. Any mistakes are due to my post-beta meddling.
Summary: Seven years have passed since Voldemort's defeat and Draco Malfoy is making do with the lot he's been given—distrusted by the Ministry, shunned by the House that he betrayed. When a ministry official goes missing, Draco is given the chance to help restore the Malfoys' place in society. But is Astoria standing in his way or is she just what he needs to be exonerated?
Author's notes: For Slytherins, the loves of my life. Narcissa probably wouldn't be here if not for Helen McCrory's performance in Deathly Hallows. The characters are JKR's, but Foxglove Bakery is Caroline's. Hope you enjoy reading!

Read from the Het Big Bang site

Read from AO3

That's the last I write something with plot for a long, long time ~~holy crap~~. :|

I don't have much commentary ~~you've suffered through enough :|~~, except I do want to thank

grrarrg0908 and

acidpop25 for the beta (I'd offer my firstborn if you like :|), and

red_b_rackham,

tanyareed,

leigh57,

jactrades,

ivory88s,

buckbeakbabie,

flecalicious,

champagnescene and

alittle2happy for the support/cheerleading/what-have-you. ♥♥♥

And massive, MASSIVE thanks to

firefly1344, who made me some amazing artwork to go with the story! ♥ (Please leave her plenty of love!)

Oh, and I also did art for

ndnickerson's Nancy Drew fic rearview mirror.

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/278658.html

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It's gonna take awhile. It's normal to take awhile. You've just gotta fight your way through. --Ira Glass

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/278309.html

Here's the (writing) plan for the rest of the year (HOLY SHIT WHERE DID 2011 GO?):

Finish hp_zombiefest - due Sept30 ~~BLAH should be done soon though~~
Finish interhouse_fest - due Oct25 (halfway through!)
Plot out and finish smutty_claus - due Nov22
Write that fic for ccharlotte - let's say it's due Dec31
Drabbles for the flist for December

I did holiday drabbles once-- alllllll the way back in 2004. SEVEN YEARS AGO. Jesus. I can't believe I'm still friends with some of you from there! :| :D

Anyway in celebration of friends old and new (*waves to all the new friends*) I figured it was time to do this again.

The rules:

Comment with at least three characters or ships.
Add a selection of prompts for each.

And that's it. All ships are welcome-- I'm tempted to say the rarer the better, but some of you might see that as a challenge. :| Harry Potter is my preferred fandom, but I am willing to take on the following as well (with the warning that I've never actually written anything for these so apologies if I don't get any of their voices right):
* Criminal Minds
* Doctor Who (new series only)
* Feed, Deadline, that universe in general
* GoT (still slogging through the second book, sorry)
* Gossip Girl
* Hockey (gen only)
* How I Met Your Mother
* Sherlock (BBC)

Plus, IDK, anything that I may be familiar with. If in doubt, just add Harry Potter prompts and the fandoms/ships/etc that you like and I'll see what I can do for you. :D

Anyway I know it's only September but I'm planning on not writing much (or at all) in November and I figured I should get a head start on this ASAP. ~~Also September is a -ber month. TOTALLY holiday season tiemz already.~~ ♥

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/278164.html

I totally flaked out of doing all of the

womenlovefest days, and I wish I could say real life was to blame, but in reality, I ran out of things to say about Sansa that wouldn't be repetitive. I've read so little. :( Also, this is the last week of

het_bigbang and I've been editing on and off since getting the fic back from my lovely lovely betas.

I will be so happy come noon this Sunday, because that's essentially my buzzer going "Time's up! Pencils up! Submit what you have, please and thanks."

Because no matter how much I spend editing, I'm always going to find new things to fix. I probably waffled on the same thing five different times or something, IDEK. Blergh. Seriously. Editing is like the Doctor going to war with the Daleks-- you think it's the last time you face them, but you turn around and there they are again, challenging you in their new form.

I have battled italics, adverbs (still a few strays, but brain's too fried to figure out how best to reword those), prepositions, tenses (though I'm this close to admitting defeat), redundancies and repetitive wording, and today, it's "managed to" and other variations of prolonging sentences -- beware, "the fact that", for you are next. Or something. Yet I know, the next time I look, there will be something new to change, some stray word to pluck out and replace.

So glad there is a deadline for this.

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/277902.html

Originally posted by

darkspirited1 at SIGNAL BOOST: SAY YES TO GAY YA

This comes from an article by

rachelmanija entitled, Say Yes to Gay YA.
(click the link for the full article)

Our novel Stranger has five viewpoint characters; one, Yuki Nakamura, is
gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki's romance, like the heterosexual ones in
the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing.

An agent from a major agency, one which represents a bestselling YA novel in the same genre as ours, called us.

The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay
character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to
his sexual orientation.

This isn't about that specific agent; we'd gotten other rewrite requests before this one. Previous agents had also offered to take a second look if we did rewrites… including cutting the viewpoint of Yuki, the gay character.

It's time to stand up and demand change. Spread the word everywhere if you are just as angry and outraged by this.

I nearly forgot to post today... and I wasn't sure what to post, so here are a few other posts gathered from other places. :| Sorry.

From ASOIAF Confessions

And Amy Ratcliff at ScienceFiction.com:

She’s in a mindset that is ripe for harvesting when the Baratheon family comes to Winterfell. She longed for a prince in the cold keep and behold, Prince Joffrey shows up on her doorstep. She had to think it was meant to be. He was handsome and charming, and she was blinded by her dream world. She’s young – just 11 in the books – and the news that she would be leaving the dark north for the capital city of Westeros would be enough to dazzle any child. Add the betrothal to the prince arranged by her father and King Robert, and the situation is hopeless. Every silly, improbable fantasy of Sansa’s actually happens. Who wouldn’t allow themselves to be swept away in a similar situation? Especially as a pre-teen!

But why does she continue to allow herself to be deluded? Joffrey shows his true colors on the road to King’s Landing. He gives her enough wine to make her tipsy, and then he picks a fight with Arya. His actions result in the death of a boy and Sansa’s wolf. Sansa betrayed her sister and lied to protect Joffrey. It would have been stupid of her to do otherwise. She was put on the spot. How could she tell the King that his son is a liar? Joffrey’s obviously not the charming prince she believed him to be, but she still has to marry him. She doesn’t want to believe that her fairytale is slipping. She thinks lying about the events will endear Queen Cersei and Joffrey to her. Instead, Joffrey comes to hate her because she witnessed him being weak.

It takes far too long for her to realize that her Prince Charming is actually a monster. Even while her father is in captivity and she is held hostage by the Lannisters and forced to attend court and smile, she strives to find an excuse for Joffrey’s behavior. She blames it on the queen. She denies that her dream was just that – a dream. She doesn’t face it until Joffrey gives the order to have her father executed. Then, finally, she gets it.

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/276434.html

( Spoilers for the series )

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/276032.html

aka, Why Sansa Stark?

I just picked up Game of Thrones.

Well, that's a bit of a lie-- I just finished reading Game of Thrones, and that took me a few weeks to get through. I finished watching the series a few weeks ago as well, and now I can't wait to get through the rest of the series.

I'm not involved in the ASOIAF fandom as much as others may be, but I get the feeling that Sansa Stark probably gets the short end of the fandom love, at least for the first book, and especially when compared to Arya Stark.

I get it. Hell, I love Arya too. I liked her faster than I liked Sansa. Sansa, after all, is the perfect sister, the one who knows her manners and who wants to be the princess, whereas Arya is the adventurous one, the tomboy who never fit in, who bucks tradition because she wants to fight more than sew. Sansa is the delicate flower, and fandom rarely has good feelings towards damsels in distress.

But I can't help feeling drawn to Sansa Stark all the same.

( The cut contains spoilers for the first book and season. )

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/275787.html

Signing up for another commitment is probably the last thing I should be doing, but

lelek linked to this and I just think this is a ridiculously awesome idea: We Love the Women that Fandom Hates.

Basic idea: pick a female character you think is maligned by fandom in general, and then for an entire week-- from this Friday (September 9) to next Friday (September 16), post about that character daily. Could be a quote, a song, a graphic, a fic, anything at all. Any fandom, any female character.

Even though I'm only nearly done with the first book, and I'm not even at all involved in the fandom, I actually signed up for Sansa Stark. :D I was thinking of signing up for Martha Jones (Doctor Who) and Cho Chang as well, but I don't think I've got enough time for more than one.

But anyway. I think it's a great idea, and you should sign up if you can! :D I think things can get linked to entries

womenlovefest afterward, but yes.

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/275560.html

DONE WITH BIG BANG.

September 6:

38282 / 25000 words. 153% done! +4415

( CONFETTI TIEMZ )

Well. There's still editing to be done. Details, details. :|

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/275288.html

I crossed the 25K mark on my

het_bigbang on July 10. I nearly broke 30K a week later, and then... I stopped. For about five weeks. Then I rearranged things (SOBBING I LOVE SCRIVENER), cut out-- oh, what's 10K words?-- and started writing again towards the end of August. In the interest of not getting ahead of myself, I will just post numbers and leave the commentary for another day, preferably when I have finished the whole damned thing. :|

September 4:

33867 / 25000 words. 135% done! +10126

( I've apparently been working on this for 11 weeks so far )

In other writing news,

hogwarts_houses (which I signed up for) has started posting, and will post throughout September. It's house-focused, and so far there have been some great pieces for it. I'm talking extreme minor characters (the Hufflepuff one is about a part-vampire once featured on JKR's site) and even an OC/OC one for Slytherin that was about Draco's grandfather's brother.

I also signed up for

smutty_claus and I have an outstanding prompt for

interhouse_fest that I still have to sort out plot-wise but can't wait to start writing. Smutty Claus assignments get sent out September 21ish, so I'm hoping to knock both out by October.

And then it's No-Write November for me, thankyouverymuch. Whew.

Current Music: PotC 1
Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/275174.html

Title: Oliver's Broom
Betas:

perculious and

melusinahp
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco (and a side dish of Blaise/Pansy)
Summary: Draco crafts the best custom brooms in all of Britain. Leave it to Harry to come along with a special request that puts that into question.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s): None
Epilogue compliant? EWE
Word Count: ~8000
Author's Notes: Written for

serpentinelion's GlompFest as a glomp for

steamyaffair, who requested Broommaker & Quidditch Team Owner. Originally posted here. It's been a while since I wrote H/D as well.

( Ginny had warned him the shop would have no name. )

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/274929.html

Argh, sorry, I don't mean to spam, but I've been going through this Tumblr account of Pottermore.

Anyway, Draco's wand has been described as:

The wand of Draco Malfoy is 10" precisely, Hawthorn wood and with a unicorn hair core. It was described by Mr. Ollivander as "reasonably springy".

( HP!Wandlore spoilers inside )

And now for some math:

Assuming the lengths of a wand are from 9 inches, moving up a quarter of an inch in gradation until it reaches 14 inches, we have 24 potential lengths for a wand.

3 wand cores x 38 woods x 24 lengths = 2,736 wand combinations

The actual wand selection process for Pottermore, however:

( insert more spoilers here )

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/274628.html

No, I don't have access yet, and I saw the greetings for all four houses a while back, but I just wanted to highlight this from the Slytherin house.

( Under a cut for the spoiler-averse )

Crossposts: http://slumber.livejournal.com/274342.html

...in trying to find that writing program you've heard people rave about so much, but whose name you can't quite remember, your first instinct is to type Schrivenshaft in the Google search bar.a

It was Scrivener, and I had to find it by looking for "Mac writing software". FAIL.

I have downloaded a free trial though, since I'm working through revising

het_bigbang in quite a big way and I don't want to lose all the randoms that I'm chucking away for now in case I'll need them later.

Pottermore

Today's sign-ups are between 10:30 AM - 2:30 PM CENTRAL.

It's supposed to get easier later on, so I don't think there'll be any need for anything other than a calculator (most answers have been numbers-based, if I'm not mistaken). Yesterday was a fluke in that Sony didn't have enough capacity to actually make people look for the magic quill, but I expect today might result in much of the same confusion yesterday.

Holiday Fests

smutty_claus sign-ups open on September 1. I'm not sure if I'm signing up for it or not yet--I love reading smut but not so much writing it. :| What other fests are there that aren't rating-specific? Any other holiday fests you're signing up for?

Don't forget to sign up for

hp_zombiefest!! :D