Thanks, recs, and claiming my erised

[birdsofshore]

I've been looking forward to finding the time to post and say thank you for all the wonderful things I received over the Christmas period.

First, my fabulous hd_erised gift, Morning Constitutional by mayfly_78. She packed so many things I love into a vibrant, witty piece of art. Please go and leave her love if you haven't already. The art will put a smile on your face - just look at their outfits, the way Harry is determinedly removing Draco's, and those amazing rainbow trees!

hd_owlpost was full of lovely treats. I was lucky to receive 3 beautifully varied gifts:

Veritaserum by obliqueo really hit my kinks - a deliciously intriguing piece of art where Harry appears to be forcing a half-naked Draco to take Veritaserum.

How to Fall in Love in Three Weeks by leontinabowie tells how Harry and Draco are forced to become partners in Potions. It's funny, smutty and full of great dialogue.

Bewitch and Befuddle by chantefable has such a great title. It's a lego tableau with drunk and smirky Draco and amused watcher Harry, which really made me smile.

Then lovely citrus_lime was sending Christmas cards, and drew me this gorgeous scene with Draco falling asleep on Harry at the cinema....Wonderful first date.

micehellhpdm kindly included me in her Secret Santa art giveaway, with this charming scene of Draco receiving a cute anonymous gift... Secret Admirer Present.

nenne sent a beautiful Christmas candles V gift; thank you, my dear!

And marianna_merlo wrote me a sweet and funny festive fic, Christmas Kisses, where Harry and Draco keep getting stuck under the mistletoe. ♥

Thank you all so much! And so sorry if I forgot anything.

~

A couple of recs from the last month:

firethesound is posting a chapter a day of the most brilliant getting-together fic, All Our Secrets Laid Bare. I had no intention of reading 10k a night, but I simply cannot miss each installment. It's an Auror fic full of favourite tropes, is fresh, funny and exciting, and the latest chapters are dripping with gorgeous UST. For those who dislike WIPs, she has finished writing the story, so you won't be left hanging. It's due to wrap up next week, but I urge you to start reading along now. It's wonderful!

And So Death Took, by icmezzo, was one of the fics at hd_erised that didn't get as much love as it deserved. I'll admit I personally avoided it while it was anon, as the warnings really put me off, plus it just didn't seem like the kind of genre I enjoy much. However, I trust icmezzo not to stomp on my heart, and while parts of this fic were indeed very difficult to read, I found it compelling all the way through. I don't think it's spoiling too much to say that the author pretty much fixes everything by the end of the story: I hope more people might take a chance on it.

~

Claiming my fic! My own hd_erised story was In the Company of a Rubber Duck. It's got quite a cracky premise, but I would say the fic as a whole is more humour / romance, with a touch of flangst. I don't know! I'm not very good at genres. Anyway, it's got first times, bath sex, Malfoys down on their luck, Quidditchstar!Harry, post-war shenanigans and, er, Draco as a rubber duck :D I'd love to hear what you think if you want to give it a read. A million thanks to everyone who gave it a try already. ♥

Comments

[nherizu.livejournal.com]

I'm actually reading In the Company of a Rubber Duck right now. I'm half way through! It's hilarious and the UST is killing me! :D

[birdsofshore]

Oh, thank you so much! That is wonderful to hear. Humour and UST are probably my FAVOURITE things to put in a fic.

[nherizu.livejournal.com]

Okay I've finished it! OMG it was sooooooo sweet, the ending was lovely. And I was grinning like an idiot! And Snape in the bathroom? OMG I almost died laughing! Thank you for writing it, I really enjoyed it. The fic made my day!

[birdsofshore]

Thanks so much! I'm really happy you liked it and that it made you laugh. This lovely comment gave me a big smile! It's wonderful to get that sort of reaction to a story.

[kedavranox.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about icmezzo's fic! Terribly underrated. I'm glad to see it rec'd.

I loved your fic! I hope I commented on it. I can't remember. Lol.

[birdsofshore]

You left me a lovely comment, and I replied; thank you so much! I'm embarrassed to say I've swerved yours. I'll freely admit I am scared of the angst - I'm not in a place to relish reading angst at the moment!

[kedavranox.livejournal.com]

It's quite all right. :P

I think many times I write a fic I think to myself, oh Birds will never read this. LOL.

We all have our things. :)

[birdsofshore]

Well, I feel a bit crap though. I'm sure you were hardly dying to read a fic where Draco spent most of the fic as a sock or something. O_o

LOL, oh dear

I like you thinking of me when you are writing, though. Even if it's to reassure yourself I'm never going to read it XD

[birdsofshore]

PSST

starfighter updated - the finale of chapter 3!

but I can't get it to load, aaaargh. I think a load of perverts must have rushed over there and crashed the site. Filthy people. *refreshes obsessively*

ahhhh

[kedavranox.livejournal.com]

Omgomg. I'll go look!

Re: ahhhh

[birdsofshore]

It won't load

grrrrrr
get off my filth, other people
i want to see pretty boys doing bad things to each other

Re: ahhhh

[kedavranox.livejournal.com]

The comic loads for me, but I haven't gotten to the new part because I wanted to reread some bits and savor. Maybe when i get to the new part it'll crash for me, too?

[capitu]

Icmezzo's fic was amazing. Even before I knew it was by her, I trusted the author to get me through it, and it was an amazing journey, to get to the end and look back and just wow.

[birdsofshore]

I took the disclaimer very much at face value, and just treated the first half like a bad dream or something. That worked for me!

[firethesound]

Oh Birds, you spoil me rotten with the rec! You are so very very good to me. :D

And So Death Took was brilliant. I love love love retellings of fairy tales and icmezzo did an amazing job of exploring the Deathly Hallows and oh, so many feels with that story. I didn't read the warnings before I jumped into it, so there was some amount of flailing when I came to the end of Ron's section, and I definitely need to give it a reread now that I know what's going on with it. My list of things to reread is currently miles long. I might finish at some point before 2016, but we'll see.

Your fic was fantastic, and I totally didn't suspect you of writing it. I read the summary and went "Draco as a rubber duck, that sounds like a faithwood plot to me!" and then read it and it didn't sound like her, and I had no idea what to do with that. I might've suspected you for it at that point, but I already suspected you of having written Side-Along, because motorcycle sex (do you see the reputation you have with me?) Really, all this means is that I'm really really awful at guessing authors. Anyhow. Harry taking Draco to the movies was wonderful (I think I've told you this already?) and is hands-down my favorite first date, er, first not-date I've ever read. Oh, and Draco as a hairbrush. And then the end with Snape, I nearly fell off the chair I was giggling so hard. :D

[birdsofshore]

\o/

I'm not spoiling you, you're spoiling me. I'll write you a rec every bloody day if you keep giving us fic like that to read :DD After sarasgirl's advent fic finished I was really bereft of bedtime reading. I realised how much I enjoyed having an installment of a very nicely-written long fic every night. And it has to be posted in chapters or I stay up til stupid hour, reading the whole damn thing. Or if it's just short I have to get into a new story every night - I can't be doing with that. So, in summary, I need you to carry on doing fics like this forever. Is it a deal?

I had been ASSURED that everything would be OK in And So Death Took. I must honestly confess I would not have touched it with a barge pole otherwise, LOL. So I just lala-ed through the first section thinking 'it's probably a dream, or a story, or someone is hallucinating, la la la." Such a good story!

Hahaha, capitu thought I wrote Side-Along at first, but whoa, that motorcycle sex was in an ENTIRELY different league to mine. I can only dream of writing motorbike sex like that :D I'm so happy you liked the cinema scene, and the hairbrush, and Snape. *sigh* I can't take the credit for it being funny, who_la_hoop thought of half of it (she told me about a year ago to write a story in which Draco is a rubber duck) but it was bloody good fun to write.

[firethesound]

Well, it turns out I really like writing long things, and All Our Secrets has been a learning experience in a lot of ways, so yes. I'll probably be writing more long things. It just takes me a while to get them written and then ready for posting. I have another long fic in the works (I'm estimating around 120k but I'm only halfway through so that could change) that I need to jump back into writing, and I'm hoping to have that one ready to go at some point in the not too far away future. It definitely helps to know that people want that sort of thing, so that gives me a lot of encouragement and motivation to make it happen!

I really should read warnings for stories so I'm not caught off-guard by things like that. I went along reading Ron's section, and things got worse and worse and I was still all, Well I'm sure they'll get better. And then I got to the end of his part and was like, Um. That's not... fixable. But then it was! And I was happy again!

I hear that the best way to get better at writing motorbike sex is to practice. So.... you should do that just to be sure. ::waits for all the motorcycle-themed porn::

I was just thinking about who_la_hoop the other day. She hasn't posted anything in ages. Or, like a month.

[birdsofshore]

Yay! Yes, we want chaptered long!fic. Hurry, hurry. *is totally not unreasonably greedy* I think I might go to bed early so I can read tonight's chapter.

I miss who_la_hoop mucking about on LJ terribly much, but she is quite alive. She sends me lovely texts detailing her sick fantasies about Benedict Cumberbatch (I keep hoping to smoke her out by mentioning her in a slanderous way, but it isn't working.... yet ;-))

[firethesound]

Glad to know that she's alive and well. I'm neurotic and worry about these things. That being said, I'm all for assisting you in spreading vicious lies about her until she comes back to refute them.

I HEARD THAT who_la_hoop THINKS THAT TOM HIDDLESTON HAS A TERRIBLE ARSE!

::waits::

[birdsofshore]

Yeah, *I* heard that who_la_hoop started shipping Harry/Ginny. She realised slash is filthy and wrong, no, I mean in a bad way, OK? Filthy and wrong like BAD. She's shaved her head in penance and is only writing het from now on.

[firethesound]

I heard that she thinks the Epilogue is totally legit. In fact, I heard it's her favorite part of the series!

[birdsofshore]

XDDD

I heard she had this tattooed on her buttocks.

[firethesound]

Oh, rofl. She better come back soon, these lies are getting vicious we're exposing all her deepest secrets!

[icmezzo.livejournal.com]

I love you, you darling, darling Birdbrain. Thank you for the rec. <3

Also, I knew Rubber Duck was yours. Beyond a doubt. It just...was you. I'd have known even if there wasn't a feathered shore bird at the center. (Rubber ducks are shore birds, no?) Also, I LOVED IT. Ty for the laughs. I almost peed myself at the movie theater. Er. I meant, when you wrote the scene about the theater and the popcorn and the...I didn't actually...you know... *shiftyeyes*

[birdsofshore]

LOL! I'm so glad you liked it. And kudos for spotting me. I had never thought of the fact it was a DUCK giving it away, you crazy person :D Someone once thought I wrote a fic of Omi's because it had a person NAMED after a duck in it, LOL

Anyway, I was happy to rec, and it seems to be getting a lot of love from everyone who has read it. Now we just have to force everyone ELSE to read it :D

[sassy-cissa.livejournal.com]

Did the card with the stamps arrive?

[birdsofshore]

No :( I'm so sorry but it hasn't. A parcel I sent naadi over Christmas took 20 days to arrive, but that was with the Christmas delays etc. Oh, I do hope it turns up safe!

[hd-ldws-mod.livejournal.com]

me too...I just heard from the other winner - her's arrived just yesterday so...

and crap...am in mod account. sorry. lol

[birdsofshore]

Ah, well, that seems quite promising if hers has turned up... I'll let you know, don't worry!

You're just rubbing my face in the fact that I can't play at ldws this year *sniff* :DDD

[knowmefirst.livejournal.com]

Oh, I just love the fic that Icmezzo wrote. It was fantastic, she did such a fantastic job that I actually went back and re-read it again :D

[birdsofshore]

I bet icmezzo will be delighted about that. I can well imagine rereading it when I have time.

[slashedsilver.livejournal.com]

I didn't keep up with hd_erised as much as I'd hoped to; I saved "In the Company of a Rubber Duck" to my reading list though, so I really need to be getting round to that once RL lets up on me a bit!

[birdsofshore]

Ah, thanks for that! I hope you enjoy it if you get time one of these days. I didn't manage to read everything by any means, but in the end I managed a good chunk, which was more than I was expecting to do!