Roads to Safe Places

I made some festive Minerva/Severus icons from a fireplace gif I had seen online several times and which I now stole from found on a site selling oil and firewood here.

I realise that it is hard to tell that it's them at all, but here the icons are, anyway, for those of you who might like them. 

Preview: 


( 10 variations )

Bremen is snowy at the moment, the annual Christmas market is in full swing, and our house is becoming more Christmassy, too - all the other windows are blinking or light up at night.

To join in, I put up some decoration as well, though compared to the lavish display of our neighbours mine is half-hearted at best, but then, I never really know what to do in terms of window decorations. I don't really like things that blink or light up, and thus I went for red sisal stars. And there's our tree and wreath, too. 



( Close-ups of decorations. )

It's Sunday evening already? I don't want to go out tomorrow. Thanks to autumn the weather has become really depressing around here. Our car is in the shop, too, so I'm taking the bus, which means leaving the house at 6:45am, and due to various meetings and parents evenings and that type of nonsense I am usually only home after 6pm, which means that in the mornings I go out and at night I come home and the sky looks like this: 

  
It's always cold, dark, and wet. Thanks, Bremen! 

Mild the mist upon the hill Poem

by Emily Bronte

Mild the mist upon the hill
Telling not of storms tomorrow;
No, the day has wept its fill,
Spent its store of silent sorrow.

O, I'm gone back to the days of youth,
I am a child once more,
And 'neath my father's sheltering roof
And near the old hall door

I watch this cloudy evening fall
After a day of rain;
Blue mists, sweet mists of summer pall
The horizon's mountain chain.

The damp stands on the long green grass
As thick as morning's tears,
And dreamy scents of fragrance pass
That breathe of other years.

Crocky and I went on a trip to Verden today. We were actually going to look at an abandoned ammunition factory in a village near Verden, but then found the entire area roped off and warning signs saying those going there were in mortal danger, so we opted out. 

I am now a bit sadder that the school in Verden that I applied with back in the day did not want me, the town is very pretty. 



( Touristy impressions of Verden. )

Love the use of singing in this series so far, I must say. 

( Here be spoilers. )

I know, I know, but hear me out. He is clearly in league with the Amyr. Whenever Kvothe searches for information on the Amyr and comes close to finding something, however unrelated, Lorren shuts him down. The first thing Lorren asks him about his is father, and why would he know about him? As far as we know, Arliden, thet trouper, is hardly the literary type. 

When he first sets for in the Archives and has Scrivs hunt down information for him, Lorren tells him not to engage in boyish fancies and Kvothe, chastised, leaves it. Shortly after, he is of course banned. 

There are no works on the Amyr in the catalogued parts of the Archives, and it must be really easy for Lorren to get rid of ledgers containing information about the location of books on the Amyr. 

When Kvothe does manage to track something down and tells Sim about it, it is Lorren who appears behind Kvothe and admonishes him for being loud in the Archives.

Even as a red herring, that would be pretty cool.

Anyway. Carry on.  

Vil wol gelopter got, wie selten ich dich prîse!
sît ich von dir beide wort hân und wîse –
wie getar ich sô gefreveln under dîme rîse:
ich entuon diu rehten werk, ich enhân die wâren minne
ze mînem ebenkristen, hêrre vater, noch ze dir!
sô holt entwart ich ir dekeinem nie sô mir.
frôn krist, vater und sun, dîn geist berihte mîne sinne:
wie solde ich den geminnen der mir übel tuot?
mir muoz der iemer lieber sîn, der mir ist guot.
vergib mir anders mîne schulde, ich wil noch haben den muot.

-Walther von der Vogelweide.

Elizabeth I is perfectly capable of making her own decisions regaring matrimony. 

Without magic of any sort, thank you ever so much. 

At the beginning of the twentieth century a Viking burial ship was discovered in a burial mound near Kerteminde.

Today, there is a a museum about the burial mound as well as a replica. They also have a shipyard in which they rebuild findings from the tenth century (with period tools!). 



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I was born in Hamburg. The city has a big harbour, and excursions to said harbour and prerequisite tours of it by boat are a school trip staple of all towns in a 50km radius. There is also the annua Hafengeburtstag a street festival celebrating the anniversary of the harbour, and plenty of other, harbour-and-boat-related activities. I get seasick and somehow never caught the any romantic ideas about a seafaring lifestyle. 

Thus at some point I did mention to Crocky that I am not, really, that interested in boats. She gave me a long look and said, "I may have bad news for you." She was not wrong. Still, the reconstructed harbour we visited was very nice. It's another living history museum and very much worth the trip. 

There were some boats. 



( This is Bork... )

( Modern Bayeux-style-tapestry on the history of the harbour )

The Ribe Viking centre go look at that page!) is a living history centre which uses volunteers from Denmark to play Vikings and introduce visitors to their various crafts. To boost their numbers they also take volunteers without any special skills (who then get to camp close to the centre for free in exchange for being a Viking for a few weeks), and Crocky and I were seriously tempted. They get lot f German visitors, after all, and need to translate for them, too. 

It has three different sites, a marketplace from around 710, a town from around 825, and a manor farm with a long house from 980. The buildings are all reconstructions from buildings archeologists found on the site, and they're fascinating to walk through. 


Inside the longhouse on the manor farm. 

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As of tomorrow, Crocky and I will be away on vacation in Denmark on an impromptu Viking-sight-themed-camping-tour. 

See you all in a week!

Title: Gotcha!.
Characters: Peter, Remus, James, Sirius, and Severus.
Rating: G
Credits: geoectomy-stock's JBD Runner, charfade's Grass Brush Set. Thank you!
Summary: four Gryffindors and a Slytherin. 
A/N: Had to spend the time during the match yesterday somehow, so I made this. 



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Title: Soft.
Characters: Lily Evans, Severus Snape
Rating: G
Credits osorrisstock's TheDuo Sitting, charfade's Ultimate Grass Brush Set".
Summary: Lily, Severus, two teddies and a pond. Sorry about the cheesiness.
A/N: I wanted to do something with water, and this was the result. Working up to the mermaid one. 



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If you are on DeviantArt and love HP witches, please consider joining 


It's a new community (and as yet in need of another co-mod, too) dedicated to the lovely witches of the Harry Potter series, especially the adults. There are of course also plenty of other great Yuri groups who have a lot of lovely art showing teenaged witches from the series, but I couldn't find one specifically for adult witches. So here is one. 

Title: Catch
Characters: Minerva McGonagall/Rolanda Hooch
Rating: G
Credits: *SenshiStock's Sailor Gossips, *charfade's Grass Brushes and ~eMelody's Bird Brushes.
Summary: This early, school and grounds were hers. Minerva soared higher, surveying the cold pitch, which low mists filled like water. For an hour she enjoyed the lonely rhythm of throwing and catching until far movement stopped her. She left, but the memory of the Ravenclaw's lean body soaring across the sky lingered on her mind all day. Minerva saw her again the next day, and the next. On their fourth day, Rolanda flew up and asked, voice gruff with shyness, if she wanted to join her. The speed of Minerva's weak-kneed agreement was mostly due to the girl's golden eyes.
A/N: My indecision when it comes to femme!ships makes my Minerva get a lot of action, and here is one more Minerva/Rolanda. Sorry about the clumsy quidditch title metaphor and the spam.



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Title: Summer.
Characters: Lily Evans, Severus Snape
Rating: G
Credits: *Eirian-stock for He and She, ~nathies-stock's Pouring Rain Brush and *charfade's Grass Brush set.
Summary: Severus and Lily frolicking in a field. 
A/N: Weather we had over here on Friday. This is very saccharine, be warned!



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If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again—
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man—who happened to be you—
At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud—I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place—
I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay. 

I'm a very casual MMORPG gamer who enjoys the RPG part of MMO experiences much more than the battles and this informs what I'm about to say. Also, I'm a noob. I'm not quite sure what to make of this game. I'm not that far yet (my character is level 14 a Lieutenant Commander), but it relies so heavily on space battles that I'm not sure I ever will. The battles (on PvE quests missions at least) which have been highly praised were, to me, rather underwhelming - you hurtle through space at snail impulse speed and circle each other to death, phasers blazing. Or maybe I'm doing it wrong, or it's just like that in PvE content and the real excitement happens in PvP areas, or I shouldn't be rolling a tankadin flying a Cruiser. 

The political situation is a bit weird. I am not sure I can buy all of the developments that lead to the situation in STO, but admittedly, my knowledge of the post-Voyager political situation is very, very foggy. The game is set in the original timeline in 2409, but due to numerous alliances you can fight any of the end-of-season bad guys TV Starfleet had to face. Occasionally you run into the offspring of canon characters, which can be fun, too. 

Still, it's the Star Trek universe, it's free, and it's fun to gambol about in a uniform- even though in STO, Starfleet has for some reason abandoned a fixed dress code, so you can make your Starfleet uniform whatever colour you like, and if you think the look would be improved by making your crew sport Slytherin colours, so be it. An odd choice, given who their fanbase are, but maybe some trekkies are heavily invested into which shade of mustard yellow their engineer's uniform are. 

What has convinced me to keep playing so far is the fan-made content, which has often been assembled with great care and an eye for detail. It's a nice place online to be an easily pleased trekkie in, and for now, this is good enough. 

Title: Ghosts.
Characters: Lily Evans, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Dougal McGregor.
Rating: G.
Credits: Lily by ~Gracies-Stock and Dougal by ~Johnny-Yong, texture by `cloaks, grass and flowers by !ro-stock. 
Summary: Sometimes, if the light was right, in the hours around dawn, they almost seemed close enough to touch.
A/N:  Severus and Minerva being haunted by the ghosts of their past - Lily and Dougal. Loved ones who died remain a part of you, and navigating a relationship around those still half-with you must be pretty challenging. Yes, I caved in and did something Pottermore-backstory-related and kitschily indulgent. Apologies! 



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Title: Troubles.
Characters: Tobias Snape, Eileen Snape. Severus Snape.
Rating: G.
Credits: pose for Tobias by ~thepropagation3, Severus, texture by `cloak
A/N: Another non-subtle one, I'm afraid. There is a companion drabble that goes with this "drawable". Also maybe I did have a little too much fun when I was doing "Argument", but overlapping silhouettes are awesome. And my deepest apologies to the arachnid community for the blobby specimen, I don't seem to do spiders well. 



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I'm usually late with recs and such, so scroll past if you have seen these already. 

1. Tigerbeatdown: "G. R. R. Martin is creepy" - putting into words what I've thought about the series for years. It's one of the series that I get as 24/7 kinkster Fantasy series, but not as mainstream Fantasy without the niche SSC context or a warning label. 

2. If you haven't updated your knowledge in 2009 what you learned about female reproductive anatomy at school is probably outdated and not as awesome as reality. 

3. McGonagall and Umbridge, a new piece by ~ehay. Her Minerva's cheekbones are as delightful as ever. 

4. If you haven't already, check out The Half-Life by *Sigune, a watercolour portrait of Snape. 

5. Though I'm not a Snarry fan I can recommend Cordiality and comfort of my new home, which has amazing light. 

6. ~LadyMacbeth1755 has the four heads of houses as silhouettes here. 

7. I'm late with this rec, but if you haven't already, drop everything and read In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning by atdelphi, which is hauntingly beautiful and powerful. 

Title: Weekends.
Characters: Tobias Snape, Severus Snape, Eileen's broom and cloak. 
Rating: G. 
Credits: Texture by `cloaks, grass by ~cougarLV, tree by ~Winerla, and the bike by ~fudgegraphics, first cyclist reference by ~paulussebastian, second cyclist reference by ~fantanicity. 
Summary: The Snapes on a clandestine family outing beyond the borders of the city. 



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Title: The Curse.
Characters: Severus Snape, Lord Voldemort 
Rating: PG-13
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Title: Favour
Rating: G
Characters: Remus Lupin and Severus Snape.
Credits: Wolf: ~MoonsongStock here, Severus: *SenshiStock here, Trees: ~Winerla here. 
Summary: Lupin never remembers what he does or does not do in wolf shape. Severus does not mind that at all. 

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Firstly, I'd like to recommend the HumbleBundle to everybody who likes indie games out there. It's an awesome concept - you purchase a collection of indie titles and support the bundle's developers as well as Child's Play Charity at the same time - at a price you set yourself. You can give as much as you want and get the games and support whichever party with an amount you can set yourself, too. According to the site most people give around $6, though the games purchased individually would cost about $25. 
This time, they're offering a bundle which includes World of Goo, which is a fun game with a very enticing art style and a cool physics engine. Since this is a game that 90% of its users play illegally I'm happy about this because it's bound to support this cool little thing and might make more people purchase it and support not only the publishers, but also charity! 

Secondly, I'd like to invite everybody to look at this, because it's amazing: 

The Prince's Tale - Animation by *RandomMumble on deviantART

Now I'm going to bundle up in a blanket again and drink some more ginger water. Thanks for the recipe, Tetley, it's a miracle cure.