Howdy, friends and strangers!

This is my intro post. I figured I'd better have one.

This journal is a mix of fannish stuff, ponderings, computer geekery, art and random cookery experiments. More personal posts are friends-locked, some with tighter filters than others.
( thing you should know about me )
( other sites of mine )
If you want to write fic for me, here is my Generic Ficathon Elaboration Post.

If you have friended/subscribed to me, I would appreciate it if you drop me a comment here, saying hello and what brought you here.

Yeah, I know HP canon is full of holes, but that won't stop me from trying to fill them in, or extrapolate from what we know. So in the aid of my insatiable curiosity (and perhaps in aid of fic), here are a few ponderings and questions. Please help me with them!
( Read more... )

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Phrases to avoid:

S/he wasn't stupid.

I've had to resist the temptation to use this one, quite recently. But really, the character's actions will show whether or not they are stupid, which makes the sentence redundant.

S/he wasn't naive.

Similarly for this one. Again, the next sentence will presumably describe in more detail why s/he wasn't naive, in which case that sentence isn't needed, or it won't, in which case you've got a problem because you're telling the reader something which you aren't willing to back up with character-action.(*)

S/he wasn't the type to...

Wishy-washy phrasing. Do, or do not, there is no "type". Well, unless one is talking about personality types but that isn't usually how a sentence like that is used.

---

(*) I was originally going to say "show, don't tell", but now I'm afraid to use that phrase since altariel (I think it was her) jumped on me (well, on my icon that had that on it) because "it's all telling!"... that is, it's all storytelling.

I think there's two aspects to why "telling" is commonly frowned on.
1) Merely a matter of style. Narrative-heavy stories with strong authorial voice are terribly unfashionable nowadays (while they were extremely common a ways back). A more cinematic style is what is "in". For this, I can understand why the annoyance arises about the "no telling" stuff.
2) Less a matter of style, and more a matter of respecting the intelligence of your reader. To "show" gives the reader a chance to draw their own conclusions, rather than telling them what they ought to think. "Telling" can also be used to make assertions without evidence; for example, the author tells the reader that the character is clever, but the character keeps on acting stupidly. (I vaguely recall someone mentioning an example of this kind of thing from Twilight, but I can't remember what it was)

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So... here I've been using the NVIDIA video driver because there were problems with the Nouveau driver... and now I'm finding problems - different ones, of course - with the NVIDIA driver!
1) some fonts not displaying properly
2) wierd after-images
3) Looking at crochet tutorials on youtube... and everyone's hands are BLUE!

I'm not quite sure which set of problems is worse. But I've gone back to the nouveau driver for now. (sigh)
I hope this doesn't mean that my graphics card is breaking down. 8-(

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When I upgraded to Firefox 12, certain background images wouldn't display properly, while others wouldn't display at all. But it only happened on one of my computers. All the others were fine. The one where things weren't working was my desktop computer with the nice monitor, so it was rather important that things work. The symptoms were that (a) for some background images, rather than display the image, it would display the first line of the image, and repeat it over and over, in one long bleeding stripe (b) if one did "view image", the image itself did display correctly (c) for some semi-transparent images, they didn't display at all.
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I have been nominated at The Sunnydale Memorial Fanfiction Awards!

Story: In Truth, Beauty
Categories: Best Crossover Book, Best Crossover Book Pairing



It's interesting to note that the nominees for "Best Crossover Book" and "Best Crossover Book Pairing" this year are exactly the same. Why does nobody like gen?

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Because I wanted a better way of organizing my links collection, I joined Pinboard this year... and then I discovered Shaarli, a web application which allows one to organize and tag bookmarks on one's own web server. So I installed that on my site links page and haven't looked back; I love it.

But that left me with a Pinboard account I wasn't using, because all my general bookmarks were being organized with Shaarli on my own site.
So I decided to dedicate my Pinboard account to fanfic links instead, because that's how a lot of people use theirs. So go to http://pinboard.in/u:kerravonsen to see!

This collection of links is NOT the same as for my Net-Fic Reviews. They overlap, but they aren't exactly the same.
( explain the difference between my Net-Fic reviews and my Pinboard links collection )

So there you have it. I hope people find my Pinboard fanfic links collection useful.

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Pondering a bit how Harry gets treated in canon... we come to the incident in Chamber of Secrets where Dobby performs magic and Harry gets blamed for it. Which is odd. The Ministry simply assumed that any magic performed in the vicinity of #4 Privet Drive had been done by Harry... and then compounded the problem by sending an owl instead of a human being to actually investigate.

If that is the standard way of applying that law, then the law is obviously biased against Muggleborns (and Muggle-raised) because the implementation of it does not detect who did the magic, it simply assumes that any magic performed at a Muggleborn's residence is done by the Muggleborn child, and any magic performed at a Pureblood's residence is done by an adult.

"There is one law for rich and poor alike, which prohibits them equally from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges." -- Anatole France

In other words, there is one law for Purebloods and Muggleborn alike, which prohibits them equally from performing magic not in the presence of a magical parent.

If that is the standard method of dealing with underage magic. We have the other data-point of Hermione having performed spells with her new wand after she got her Hogwarts letter but before she arrived at Hogwarts, without getting into trouble.
I can think of a few different reasons for that:
1) It was classed as "accidental magic" because she hadn't yet started at Hogwarts.
2) The Ministry can't be bothered monitoring everyone, but they would monitor Harry Potter carefully.
3) Dobby took extra measures to ensure that his magic would be noticed and blamed on Harry.

I wonder if that law was introduced by a Pureblood?

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I am stuck and dithering because I'm not sure which way to go next with "Harry Potter and the Lore of Fiction". So I am going to ask you, my flist, for your opinions.
( Read more... )

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I have signed up for the sshg_exchange! Here is my sign-up.
I have signed up as a crafter as well as an author this time. Part of me is nervous about the craft, and part of me really wants to do craft as an opportunity to be really creative. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens when the assignments go out.

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As I mentioned in my previous post, the sshg_exchange is running again this year, very soon.
This is an unusual exchange, in that it isn't just fiction, but also potentially art or craft.

Now... when I've signed up before, I've only signed up to produce fiction, because while I'm arty and crafty... I don't feel that my... representational drawing skills are up to the level of quality that this Exchange has shown. And for the life of me, I have no clue how my craft skills could be used to fulfill any of the art prompts I've seen in the Exchange, since art prompts tend to be representational, and I can't see how a bead necklace could be made to look like Severus Snape or Hermione Granger. Or crochet at the simple level I'm at. I don't embroider or do cross-stitch.

And yet... I like doing craft.

So, I ask you, friends, Romans, fellow-Exchange-ers, should I cower in fear as I've done before, or should I put down "art/craft/fiction" when I sign up this year?

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The SSHG Exchange rides again!
Which is good, because I love it. Which is bad, because it is overlapping with the finish-a-thon and I'm behind on that already! Aiie!

(runs around like a crazy thing)

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Happy birthday, izhilzha! May there be many happy returns of the day!
And I hope you do something fun.

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I have now made myself a Harry icon. (points to icon)
Yes, it's textless. I couldn't think of any suitable text.

Now I just need a Harry in a Ravenclaw uniform. Reading a book. With the caption "Fight Evil. Read books." Anyone want to make me one? Pretty please?

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Okay, I've decided that Harry is going to have a friend at primary school; he's deaf and his name is Geoffrey. (No, I don't know why his name is Geoffrey; that's the name he wanted).

I have two more questions for you all:

1) If Harry is teaching himself teleportation (Apparition) - which I declare he could do, because he did actually Apparate accidentally before Hogwarts - would he be able to figure out how to Side-along Apparate a Muggle (specifically, his friend Geoffrey). This is important, because if he could, then he and Geoffrey could have adventures together...

2) How plausible would it be that Geoffrey is adopted?

(I still need a wee!Harry icon. Any good sources?)

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Hello mes amies.
(Darn, I need a Harry Potter icon)

Given that it looks like my Harry Potter Harry-in-the-Library pre-Hogwarts AU is going to win in the finish-a-thon, there are some things I'd like your thoughts on.

Should I have wee!Harry make friends with someone? In canon, he couldn't because he couldn't get away from Dudley and the Dursleys, but in this story, he has two ways of doing so:
1) In the library.
2) By Apparating somewhere. (Yes, this Harry will teach himself to apparate after the incident on the kitchen roof).

The problem with the Library idea is that the librarian is very strict and wouldn't allow anyone to talk. (Mind you, being strict is one reason why the library is a refuge, so I'm not going to change that)

The problem with the Apparition is that it's not like Harry is going to be able to go anywhere he hasn't been before. He's not going to be able to just appear in Diagon Alley, for example. So the chances of meeting with someone and making friends are still slim.

Even if I could figure out a plausible way that Harry could make friends with someone, the most likely thing is that this person would be a Muggle. This means that once Harry gets to Hogwarts, that person will be out of the picture. Yes, Harry could write letters, but how would they write back? And Harry could be in violation of the Secrecy Act if he wrote letters to someone he's not related to. So I'm not sure if it's even worth trying to give Harry a friend. Except that it would be nice if Harry had a friend.

Help?

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Giving a beader a broken necklace and saying "Here, have some beads" is like giving a knitter a moth-eaten sweater and saying "Here, have some wool".

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The voting for the finish-a-thon has not closed yet, but I notice that a number of you haven't voted. The deadline is Friday.
You don't need to be a member of Dreamwidth in order to vote. See the voting FAQs for info.
Go and vote on my bunnies! Make me write what you want me to write! VOTE VOTE VOTE! But only vote once. Only participants are allowed to vote twice.

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No, I'm not skipping episodes, I'm just not commenting on every episode. That would make this a chore, which I don't want.
( spoilers and ponderings )

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Thanks to lizbee, I have been watching the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I've just finished watching episode 13, "The Blue Spirit". Now, before this episode, I would have said that I liked ATLA, but I didn't love it. There have been episodes like "Jet" and "Imprisoned" that did not go down the usual cliched route, but actually touched on difficult issues raised by war. That was good, that was impressive; it means that the series is not as shallow as one would expect from a kids' cartoon. Good.

I also have to say that Uncle Iroh is made of awesome. But even Uncle Iroh wasn't enough to make me fall in love with this show.

However... we come to The Blue Spirit.
( there be spoilers, serious spoilers, do not read this if you haven't seen the episode! )

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