You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed

Bizarre and exciting thing

2019-02-02T10:20:27Z

Somebody at the University of Western Ontario has written an academic paper about young women who read explicit fiction online and they analysed one of my stories as an example. She presented it last year at a conference and the abstract is online and you can read it here if you like: Reading for Alternatives: The Experiences of Young Women Who Read Sexuality-Themed Fiction Online. But I'd really love to read the whole thing! The paper sounds so interesting and talks about "how narratives of sexuality found in YA Literature have informed the sexual lives of young women readers."

I could read about that for days, but I completely admit the part that I most want to see is this:

"It includes a textual analysis of a piece of Harry Potter slash fanfiction to exemplify key differences and similarities between fanfiction and published YA Literature in regards to content, form, theme, language, and authorship."

And the footnotes reveal that this 'piece of slash' is MY FIC, HUNGRY: "Hungry, a fanfiction short story written by birdsofshore on AO3. Set in the world of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, this canon-divergent short story spins a tale of romance between Harry Potter and his nemesis Draco Malfoy that blossoms into a sex-positive discovery of their mutual sexual attraction to one another. The term “slash” refers to texts that have been queered by depicting homoerotic relationships between characters (Duggan, 2017)."

I'M IN A FOOTNOTE!!! It's very exciting. I threw dignity to the winds and emailed the author, Davin Helkenberg, and asked if she would consider sharing the paper with me, but I didn't hear anything back yet. She may be moving house to get away from the weird stalker person, I dunno. Or possibly snowed in and busy trying to dig her way out. But if anyone knows Davin, please say HIIIIIIIII, and tell her I'm just excited to read what she wrote. It's quite possible she said my fic was crap, hah, which is why she doesn't want me to see it. I don't care, I'm still excited. I'M IN A FOOTNOTE.

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Yes, more things I wanted to tell you (includes: art rec)

2019-01-22T20:27:07Z

Sooo... this is the second cool coincidence this week. I was chatting with a new fandom friend who lives halfway around the world from me, and she sent me a link to her website where she writes about fandom. There on the page she linked to is a photo of HP fans at Kings Cross... and there I am in the photo, wearing Slytherin robes :DDD

I also realised I had not linked to this fabulous art that the amazing mywitch drew as part of her 25 Days of Drawing. Every year she takes prompts for any pairing and scenario and then posts one during every day leading up to Christmas. All of the past years' work are on her LJ or on AO3, and they are well worth going through each one (especially if you like a smirking, constantly horny Snape, heh). She is amazing at drawing in many different styles but her specialities are humour and filth, so be warned, many are NSFW.

Anyway, the piece she created for my prompt is a gorgeous, boyish Harry having a very enjoyable dream. He looks so contented! And his dream is so delicious and feelsy and hot <3 Please leave her all the love here:

Dreaming in Colour by mywitch (NSFW, H/D)

I highly recommend having a look through her other works if you like seeing plenty of different pairings rendered with skill and humour.

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Fic: Sex and the Art of Castle Maintenance (H/D, NC-17, ~15k)

2019-01-11T16:12:40Z

I'm so excited to claim something that I wrote, after a year of no-fic.

Title: Sex and the Art of Castle Maintenance
Author: birdsofshore
Pairing: Harry / Draco
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~15k
Summary: "Come on, boys," Zabini drawled. "You're only delaying the inevitable."
Trouble always had a way of finding Harry, and eighth year was obviously going to be no exception.
Content notes: Consent issues, Eighth year, Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, Mistletoe, Matchmaking, Antagonism, Smut, Antagonistic Smut

So this was written for 8c / PukingPastilles for hd_erised , which was a fantastic experience for me! Thanks so much to lq_traintracks who saved me from utter panics and made brilliant suggestions, bixgirl1 who was super-encouraging and helpful, who_la_hoop who gave me the title (without having read the fic, hah), and the mods, gracerene , dicta_contrion and firethesound , who not only picked a superb match for me, but were kind and patient and calm (to my face, at least) when I kept messing up and then was horribly late. You are all THE BEST.

Thank you also to everybody who has read and left comments already. After a year of being in a bit of a lonely place with fandom, it's been such a joy to share something with everybody!

I've decided the best summary would actually be a quote from one of 8c 's comments:

"I'm just... letting Malfoy suck my cock... to figure out what he's up to."

I also need to mention, again, the asdfghjksdfghjkl art I got for my gift, Heat of the Moment, by isinuyasha , which has made me SO HAPPY and is an utterly breath-stealing moment of romance and desire. <3

Aaaand I need to nudge you to look at the so-hot-it-should-be-illegal art which 8c drew to illustrate my fic, which you can see here on AO3, now with rather NSFW preview (but it is 100 times more SFW than the actual art):
( Preview under the cut )( And lastly a mini update about my writing )

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HOLY BOOSHJDFKL

2019-01-08T00:49:39Z

I haven't finished replying to comments yet but I wrote a thing for 8c / PukingPastilles and SHE HAS ILLUSTRATED IT AND I AM SO EXCITED I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY FACE

For Sex and the Art of Castle Maintenance

It's super gloriously filthy and NSFW. Please please please go and leave her all the love. It's so beautiful and dirty and tender and amazing, aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

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KINKFEST <333

2019-01-04T19:37:36Z

hpkinkfest

is accepting prompts and I am very much hoping to be able to write something this year. Apart from being fabulous and filthy fun, I think kinkfest is a really important event with its ethos of kink positivity, where kink-shaming and ship-shaming are not tolerated.

I may have left a few ideas on the prompting post and I am wildly excited at the thought that someone might pick one. I'm also hoping to find a prompt on there that I just can't resist, so if you haven't already, please do go and spill out your most deviant and delicious thoughts.

ALSO: another rec from hd_erised...

this fic is eating my brain and I am at that stage where I'm torn between wanting to whoosh on and finish it., and also trying to slow down so it's not over *sob*. It's so funny and so original and SO BLOODY HOT. I'm in heaven. Please come and read it so we can flail together! I don't want to give away plot stuff but I think it's OK to say that it's an H/D fic which involves living in the Muggle world and also the world of pop music and a closeted Harry discovering what he likes, and features the best Parvati I've read, and phone sex that made my head pretty much catch fire. It's just FABULOUS.

Star Quality , currently anon, 118k, NC-17, Harry/Draco, summary: Two years after the war, and Harry’s content with his life. OK, so it’s a little annoying that he keeps winning Witch Weekly’sMost Eligible Bachelor award, and he’s really not looking forward to the unveiling of an enormous gold statue of himself, but he loves his friends, and he loves being an Auror. And if he yearns for something more, something he can barely bring himself to think about, well, he’ll probably get over it. No one’s happy all the time, are they?

But then everything changes, and Harry’s thrown into a new and dazzling world he’s not sure he can actually escape from. And as time goes on, he starts to wonder: does he actually want to?

OK DW just ate half my post again. Any suggestions? It seemed to happen after switching from Rich Text to HTML... everything looked fine but then when I posted, half the text, and my pretty kink picture, was gone, GRR.

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RECS, fresh hot juicy RECS

2018-12-30T15:50:23Z

Hello lovely people! I feel like I've been away for ages because I was trying to finish a thing, and then when I'd finished the thing, I was trying to do all the things I'd neglected while I was trying to finish the thing.

*sigh* Dreamwidth doesn't get any prettier or easier to use, does it? Never mind, here we are. I noticed a few people coming back from tumblr, and personally I am hoping to be around a bit more in 2019, but I don't really feel confident that I friended everyone over here that I was friends with on LJ. The lack of fest comms over here also makes it tricky - how do you make new friends? I dunno. Anyway, I'll make this post public and if anyone sees it and thinks that we are not friends and we should be, or they'd like to be, please do nudge me. I'll friend pretty much anyone who has an actual journal that posts fandom stuff.

ERISED RECS

I haven't read much at Erised yet but everything has been bloody wonderful! Either I was lucky, or everything there is in fact amazing. I'm going to start with MY GIFT, did you see it yet? My *hearteyes* beautiful *swoon* perfect ARTTTTTTT!

( Recs for H/D art and fic )

That's it for today but please tell me, what have you enjoyed at Erised? I'm looking for my next blissful hit of H/D.

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REC POST: HD_fan_fair

2018-11-12T23:37:55Z

I am so hopeless at posting on here, please excuse my html fails I beg you!

( Fan fair chat and recs )I hope you are all well? Please drop your own favourites from fan fair in the comments as there are so many I've missed.

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Post of great thanks and admiration for the retiring Erised mods

2018-08-04T12:08:47Z

First of all, it always feels so ruddy awkward posting after a massive break, but I'll dispense with the shuffling around and just go for it.

Yesterday I signed up for hd_erised for another year and realised I had not acknowledged anything about the fact that some of the mod team are stepping down. Erised has been one of the absolute highlights in my fandom calendar and I can't really think about it without getting a mix of excitement, nerves, joy and amazement. The amount of work the mod team have put in each year is phenomenal and I have no idea how they manage to keep everything running so smoothly and make it the glorious experience that we love. Each time my assignment has challenged me to do things I didn't know I could do, and I know other participants have experienced the same, because the work that has been created for Erised is among the finest that we have in this fandom. Also, most years I was a monstrous pain in the arse with deadlines, and the mods always worked with me to make sure I could still submit.

I want to say a very heartfelt thank you to gracerene , capitu and sassy_cissa for their patience, care, love, dedication, kindness, and hard work which always went above and beyond, for creating something which has been like no other fest. ♥ ♥ ♥

And good luck to the incoming mod team along with grace who is sticking around for another year!

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Questions about estimating fic lengths

2018-03-06T19:50:53Z

Hello! I don't know if people still have discussions on here, but I can't find any other platform where I can follow the conversation, sooo... Any advice gratefully received.♥

I've signed up for the H/D Bang, and having finally got started with it, I'm now having a crisis that the fic I've planned is not going to reach 50k.

The length my fics turn out is always a surprise to me. This year's erised ended up being 65k, and I had NO IDEA that was going to happen. I still don't really know how it did. Foolishly, I let this give me confidence to sign up for the Bang. After all, if I could write a 65k fic by mistake, how hard could it be to write 50k on purpose? /o\

So, I got a rough plan together and it's around 30 scenes long. No problem, I thought. My 65k erised only had 25 scenes! This was going to be easy!

Then I wrote the first scene and it's only 800 words long. FUUUUCK. What's gone wrong? No way is this going to be 50k! I looked back at some other fics. My next longest fic has 42 scenes. But it's only 41k! OMG!

I looked at my other mid length fics.

28k = 18 scenes
28k = 19 scenes
22k = 14 scenes
32k = 19 scenes
28k = 16 scenes
34k = 18 scenes

This is reassuring. But what about the rogue '42 scene / 41 k' fic? How can I be sure this one isn't going to go fucked up like that one?

I have so many questions. How do you estimate the length of a fic? Are you anywhere near being right when you do so? I've never even TRIED before, so I have no freaking idea.

Thank you if you can help! ♥ And I hope you are all well?

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Oh Draco, you didn't...

2018-01-30T21:43:42Z

Woman denied emotional support peacock on United flight

I am pretty sure this was Draco trying to take his Auror Peacock on a Muggle aeroplane. There's not really any other explanation. I don't know why he was trying to do this, but I'd imagine it was a top secret mission, and that someone will write or draw a full explanation for us at some point :D

Of course if you want to brush up on the backstory, you'll need to reread dustmouth's exceptional Auror Peacock Extraordinaire. <3

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Fic:You open always (petal by petal)

2018-01-18T18:16:39Z

I still have no idea how to use Dreamwidth and I forgot half the html I knew, so if I cock this up just ignore me, please! I don't think my spoiler cuts worked, or maybe they worked too well because I lost a lot of the post?? I'm so sorry if this looks awful on your feed.

Here's my erised fic. It's long and full of tropes and quite ridiculous in places, (plus! Bonus pretentious title!) But there's also rimming and sentient Grimmauld Place and plenty of fanon!Draco. \o/

Title: You open always (petal by petal)
Author: birdsofshore
Recipient: bixgirl1
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, background Ron/Hermione
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~65,000
Warnings: Homophobic slurs and attitudes, internalised homophobia, derogatory attitudes to sex workers, some mentions of sadistic violence, brief thoughts of sexual activity with a sleeping partner, rough sex, brief mention of Harry with a woman (past relationship), mentions of dubious consent in connection with sex work
Content/Enticements: Post war, Rent boy!Draco, down-and-out!Draco, top!Harry, inexperienced!Harry, Grimmauld Place, house magic, house-elves, portraits, first times, antagonism, hurt/comfort, coming out, antagonism, pining, angst, UST, kissing, wanking, frotting, blow jobs, rimming, intergluteal sex, anal sex

Summary: Harry’s not the kind of person who pays for sex. He really isn’t. Until he is.
Author's Notes: bixgirl1 , I was equal parts delighted and intimidated to receive my assignment to write for you. Your sign up was a treasure trove of inspiration and I dearly hope you find plenty to enjoy here.
Thank you so much to my betas, lq_traintracks , and dicta_contrion , for their extraordinary patience, kindness, and skill. Any remaining mistakes are entirely down to me. Thank you also to the mods for their support and their tireless work running this beloved fest.
The title comes from e.e. cummings’ poem, somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond.

You open always (petal by petal) on AO3

I wanted to say a very heartfelt thank you to everyone who left comments on this. I appreciate it so much.

I also wanted to blether a little bit and basically post pretty pictures I found inspiring while I was writing.

( Tweed and cheekbones and hair, oh my )

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I don't know what the ruddy hell I am doing

2018-01-01T15:42:29Z

I don't think I ever posted to dreamwidth before. I hate learning new things, but here I am to wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR and stuff. I don't know if anyone will even see this, because I was away when all the shit went down about the LJ TOS and I don't think I have friended anyone on DW... maybe I can work that out, hah!

Anyway I have no idea if people still chat on here or whether you are all at tumblr or the other mystical discord thing I hear tell of, but I'm alive, and I hope you are too, and doing well, and that 2018 brings much joy and wonderful things into your lives. ♥

I don't know how to post an image! It says I need a URL? Can you upload photos on here, or not?

LOL now it says my crossposting failed. This Luddite wants to go back to bed...

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