Roads to Safe Places

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. 

If there is one reason to watch Sherlock, it's the landlady. 

There are several others, but Una Stubbs is definitely the main attraction for me.  ♥

A lot, especially when it comes to her singing and the choirs she can sing in. Her ensemble performed "Lux Aurumque" at their last concert, which is beautiful piece by the conducter and composer Eric Whitacre (here's also a TTBB only version of this here commissioned by the Gay Men's Chorus of LA). 

Whitacre is not only noteworthy because of his beautiful music, but also because of his virtual choir- this is them with Lux Aurumque:



I love the VirtualChoir project, you can join here.

Have a great start into the new year, my dears! 

Hope 2012 will be kind to you. 

I have to try keeping closer tabs on my list. Most of the books I read during the first half of the year are on my Oyo - which died in November, which makes it harder to piece together what I've been reading. Though since the books I read and forget probably shouldn't count, anyway, this list works just as well. The bold titles are my top seven of this year's books. 

( Complete list and top 7 (bold) )

Half-assed statistics: 

	'09	'10	'11
Female authors	14	30	21
Male authors	36	36	29
Re-read books	18	09	11
New books	32	54	39

Is there a reason why werewolf fiction sucks this much? I thought Shiver was the bottom of the barrel in aTwilight-clone-filled world, but looking through the tag on Amazon, I find that most things I found look SO. MUCH. WORSE.

And why does everything have to be a romance?
Can this generation of Fantasy readers not conceive of any interaction with mythical creatures apart from boinking them? 

I probably need to dig a bit deeper than going through the first couple of results pages on Amazon, though. 

This is a fairly unorganised collection of really great SSMM pieces I really like, and mostly a calicogoat fanpost. Some of them are quite old and you've probably seen them all already, I'm also not very articulate in my fondness for these amazing pieces and they deserve a better introduction than my uncoordinated squeeing, but they're all worth checking out. 

( One: Duellers )

( Two: Losses )

( Three: Lovers. By ~Calicogoat.  )

Also noteworthy is ~hellanim's  beautiful 12 Pictures from Snape's Life in beautiful monochromes with a dash of red and ~calicogoat's Flight of the Goldfinch which has Minerva and Severus battling a dragon on a flying machine and what could be more awesome than that?

In my search for autumn-related arts & crafts projects I came across some very worthwhile-sounding things, like the leaf lantern, the idea to stick colourful dried leaves to your windows with self-adhesive book covers (not sure if I'd be looking forward to scraping the glue off the windows afterwards, though), a leaf mobile (or, as in this case, leaf gratitude mobile). 

I'm thinking about doing a leaf mobile now, and I kinda want to do it with dried leaves instead of paper or clay leaves. Let's see, maybe I can find some maples somewhere today. 

EDIT: also, if I was still in kindergarten, I'd totally want to do a leaf crown. This looks SO much easier and more convenient than the stupid daisy chains I tried to make over and over at that age. 

Lessons learned from the show:

1. If you have unprotected sex, you WILL get pregnant.

2. If you have protected sex, you WILL get pregnant.
3. If you use condoms, they WILL break.
4. If you are on the pill AND use a condom AND have lots of sex, you WILL get pregnant.
5. Girls don't know what masturbation is until they're fifteen.
6. Having an abortion at fifteen is a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE THING.
7. Having a baby at fifteen will make you SO HAPPY. 
8. Being a teenage mother will totally unite your fighting parents AND attract lots of cute guys! 
9. Women belong into the kitchen because they're just GOOD at it.
10. Having a baby at fifteen means your friends will be dying to spend more time with you.   
11. Divorce is WRONG and you WILL get back together. And the best thing about this: you'll have another child! 
12. You cannot keep a secret in High School, EVERYBODY KNOWS EVERYTHING.
13. Teenage dudes will fight tooth and nail to keep their children and get custody, so don't worry, you won't end up raising the kid alone. 
14. It is less likely for people to have a baby if they are married adults taking the same steps to avoid pregancy as teenagers. 
15. If you sleep around a lot before you have a child, your child will be a stillborn preemie. 

Who is funding this show?

I suppose it's good that there is a show that focuses on how having a baby at fifteen is NOT the end of the world and that there are teenage boys who really enjoy fatherhood, but seriously? Having an abortion at fifteen is fine, too, if you don't feel you can handle the responsibility of raising a child just yet and want to focus on, you know, not being a child yourself. 

In the real worlds, babies are not magical plot devices who can fix everything that's wrong in your life story. 

Putting to Sea

Who, in the dark, has cast the harbor-chain?
This is no journey to a land we know.
The autumn night receives us, hoarse with rain;
Storm flakes with roaring foam the way we go.

Sodden with summer, stupid with its loves,
The country which we leave, and now this bare
Circle of ocean which the heaven proves
Deep as its height, and barren with despair.

Now this whole silence, through which nothing breaks,
Now this whole sea, which we possess alone,
Flung out from shore with speed a missile takes
When some hard hand, in hatred, flings a stone.

The Way should mark our course within the night,
The streaming System, turned without a sound.
What choice is this — profundity and flight —
Great sea? Our lives through we have trod the ground.

Motion beneath us, fixity above.

"O, but you should rejoice! The course we steer
Points to a beach bright to the rocks with love,
Where, in hot calms, blades clatter on the ear;

And spiny fruits up through the earth are fed
With fire; the palm trees clatter; the wave leaps.
Fleeing a shore where heart-loathed love lies dead
We point lands where love fountains from its deeps.

Through every season the coarse fruits are set
In earth not fed by streams." Soft into time
Once broke the flower: pear and violet,
The cinquefoil. The tall elm tree and the lime

Once held out fruitless boughs, and fluid green
Once rained about us, pulse of earth indeed.
There, out of metal, and to light obscene,
The flamy blooms burn backwards to their seed.

With so much hated still so close behind
The sterile shores before us must be faced;
Again, against the body and the mind,
The hate that bruises, though the heart is braced.

Bend to the chart, in the extinguished night
Mariners! Make way slowly; stay from sleep;
That we may have short respite from such light.

And learn, with joy, the gulf, the vast, the deep.

— Louise Bogan

Since I'm house sitting, I have the fortune to peruse my brother's steam library, and this game was among them. There will be spoilers in this post, so if you don't want to read about the ending, please don't read this.

To sum up- the gameplay is repetetive and annoying, and the story - all you need to know about the priorities of this game with regards to story and fully fleshed, three-dimensional characters can be gauged pretty much by looking at our heroes: 



I mean, seriously. ( Read more... )