hale pupule

Last night, I signed on for five minutes to check e-mail and stuff before going out, and I saw that there were three new reviews for Babble. Suspicious, I checked out hermione_owl.

*smirks* You made my day, Professor Granger.

Also, congratulations to the winners and runners-up at the sshg_awards! Results are here: http://community.livejournal.com/sshg_awards/33422.html

Meeting Frederick got runner-up in the best short category. Thanks, everyone!

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Bad headache this morning, but it's my own fault. Phil took me to a Christmas dinner at church, and then we zoomed out to Palos Verdes Estates (posh!) to participate in a play reading. His buddies and their buddies get together and read a play once a month. They just read it, which gives the pleasure of performing for each other without all the time and effort of memorization and blocking and rehearsal and all that. We missed dinner but got there just in time for the reading. And, joy upon joy, it was Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest! I played Miss Prism, and Phil was assigned the vicar (I forget his last name) as well as Lane (Algernon's servant). Everyone sniggered because Miss Prism fancies the curate, so it's appropriate casting in this case. But Phil was very good, especially as Lane; he reminded me of Stephen Fry as Jeeves, with his very smooth and even intonation. I'd only seen the movie once about five years ago and never read it, and the dialogue reminded me of Wodehouse. (No surprise there.)

It was my first reading, and I hope I'll be invited back because they're tackling A Midsummer Night's Dream next month! That may be my only chance to perform Shakespeare.

The sshg_awards have begun again! I have two short fics eligible for this round:

Meeting Frederick
Summary: Leslie Wilkins and Frederick Smith are set up on a blind date.
Rated PG, complete in one shot. This fic has 5,085 words, so it's eligible in the Invigoration Draught length category and whatever genre category you think is appropriate. This fic is also at Ashwinder here.

Daisies
Summary: Snapshots of Severus and his daughter.
Rated G, character death warning, complete in two 100-word drabbles. This miniscule drabble series is eligible in the Hiccupping Solution length category and whatever genre category you think is appropriate. The original posting date for this series is months before this round started, so it was eligible last year, not this year. (Shame on me for not double-checking; I was going by the dates at OWL, not my journal, which is where I put the Daisies series first.)

Make your nominations for this round of the awards here. There's a link to the rules there, so be sure to read them first.

Two years ago, there was a writing meme that was going around. I put six requests up for grabs, and whoever made their requests first by choosing a pairing would get my take on the first kiss between those two characters. I managed three right off the bat, but I floundered with the others. One of them stuck with me, however, and I finally finished it and sent it off to misstee123 for beta work a week or three ago.

It's rated PG for crude terminology and one participant being somewhat under the age of consent (even though it's just a kiss). So without further ado, here's Lucius and Narcissa's first kiss, as requested by britt_1975.

Much gratitude to Misstee123, who caught a lot and made me think a lot and made this so much better than it was. ( Staking His Claim )

The mods at SH have chosen Meeting Frederick as a featured story for the month of May! Thank you!

I also want to recommend another of the featured fics. I don't know how I missed it in January, but Snapshots is a beautiful one shot.

It's taken me forever, but I finished my 1sentence assignment and have posted it here. Hermione and Severus were taken, so I went with The Vicar of Dibley and the pairing of Geraldine and David. #14 is slightly not safe for work (can't be avoided as the theme for that sentence is "sex"), but the rest are all safe enough.

Now I know who to thank! Much gratitude to verseblack for Two Teas and Bribery, my gift at the sshg_exchange! It's a charming fic -- one of my favorites from this round -- and if you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. Plotting, sarcasm, and the promise of romance to come; I love it!

I can also own up to writing Meeting Frederick for Shug. Much gratitude to Losille, Subversa, and Mom for their mad beta reading skills. Even though I had to coach Mom through the Shrieking Shack flashback, since she thinks Severus died there. Silly Mom! Gratitude also to Jimbo, who was working in Monterey and told me everything that I didn't remember from my own vacations that took me through there.

(Shug, dear, your birthday present is the fic I've been working on since I got your prompts. *sheepish grin* I'm still plugging away, never fear, and hope to start posting by the summer.)

Now that it's all out, I have to ask elise_wanderer: did you know it was mine before you mentioned it? I can't quite believe it's a coincidence that "Meeting Frederick" is the one fic you mentioned by name. I would have kept a straight face if Mom hadn't forgotten it's an anonymous exchange. Although I did tell Bambu a few days before.

My apologies to all for being such a rotten reviewer. Now that everything's in one place, I'm looking at my favorites, rereading them, and to my horror, I find all too often that I didn't leave a review. *hands head*

Slim pickings for me this time around. Lots of titles, but little substance: a meme response, an Exchange piece, and a bunch of drabble serials. Here are the fics that I have that are eligible for this round of the sshg_awards:

A Good Morning. One shot, rated Conservative.
Summary: A cup of coffee, a deserted library, and Hermione.

Dancing. One shot, rated Suggestive.
Summary: Severus and Hermione's anniversary doesn't proceed exactly as he'd planned.

Just Another Detention. Complete in six drabbles, rated Conservative.
Summary: A response to the Senses challenge at GS100: Severus finds himself dishing out equal measures of snark and compassion to his student.

I participated in a round robin at grangersnape100 last December. sshg316, ginny_weasley31, kribu, a_bees_buzz, misstee123, and I all collaborated to bring you Yuletide Potions. Complete, and most of it is work-safe.

I have other drabble serials that can be found if you're really desperate, but they haven't been archived: Regency Fluff, Happy Birthday, Severus, and Aperture.

The Drabble Trilogy:

Professor Longbottom. Complete in four chapters (thirty-odd drabbles), rated Conservative.
Summary: Hogwarts Headmaster Severus Snape and his Deputy Headmistress, Hermione Granger, find themselves short a Herbology teacher.

Pneumonia. Complete in five chapters (thirty-five-odd drabbles), rated Conservative.
Summary: Professor Granger neglects her health.

Hogwarts, a History. Complete in ten chapters (sixty-eight drabbles), rated Suggestive.
Summary: Professor Snape offers the irresistible to Professor Granger.

I've been tagged by Dear Dicky for the Dedication Meme, so this is my addendum to the original post.

This fic is dedicated to Danny from the old Friendly 21st Ward, whom I heard sing the song "The Last Touch" during many a Family Home Evening. Haven't seen him in years, but as I owe him ... this is yours, Dude.

Not tagging anyone else; I've already tagged six.

Chapter two of Wolfsbane 2.0 is posted at the Big Three:

http://www.thepetulantpoetess.com/viewstory.php?sid=10544

http://owl.tauri.org/stories.php?psid=7332

http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=19402

Fic Summary: With serious consequences for himself, Severus protected Hermione during the war, but even that couldn't keep her safe forever. Now she needs something that only he can provide...but is there only one thing that she needs from him?

Chapter Summary: Hermione comes the next month to purchase her potion.

Rated Teen (PG13, Brazen). Enjoy!

I recced a bit of fanart yesterday, and I was so taken with the drawing that I started to think about what they might be like in high school or college. Then Mama Angst (my omnipresent alter ego) began to take over, and this is what came of it. The little scene I've written isn't the scene depicted in the fanart; if I keep writing, the moment portrayed in the fanart will come later: ( fanart by ~nami86 and a fanfic prologue by me this way: )

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Very rough draft, not beta read. Only vague ideas of where I'd go after that. I must obey the muse; if I don't, she might go away and never come back.