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Remix names have been revealed!

Thank you, nessa_owen! What a lovely remix mine was. It took what was basically a PWP and gave it a nice level of depth, using Lily's point of view; If It's Us is a threesome fic, Sirius/James/Remus, in which Remus and Sirius, already a couple, offer James the chance for a little relief from his sexual frustration now that Lily is pregnant. Lily's POV is both poignant, eye-opening, and at the same time amused. I love it.

You can find nessa_owen's remix of If It's Us here: Complications (The Pregnant Pause Remix), and you should give her feedback. :D

My own remix of cupiscent's Mortified may be found here: Patient (The Gritty Comic Remix). It twists the fic, centred on the relationship between John Constantine and Gabriel, out of its movie-based canon and replants it in the comic book canon for the same characters. Patient refers to what is, for me, the major shift between the two fics: in the original, Gabriel is building a house of cards, "playing God" as John says; in the remix, Gabriel's game of choice is Patience (more commonly known as Solitaire).

I also remixed castaliae's Philosophy, which may be found here: Filios Eros (The Socrates Remix). I fell in love with this fic for its interesting and original take on the Order of the Phoenix, and mischeviously made it Lupin/McGonagall, though there's nothing graphic. The title derives from two of the three Greek forms of love: Eros, Filios, and Agape (Romantic/Erotic, Brotherly, and Spiritual/Philosophical). It is the Socrates remix because -- well, Socrates questioned everything.

Also, names have now been put to fics over at fanfic_in_jest, where you may find, among others, my remix of musesfool's fic Caesar's Wife here: Germanicus and Piso (The Caesar's Daughter Was A Whore Remix). Germanicus and Piso were contenders for the crown of the Roman Empire during a crucial turning point in Rome's history; it is widely believed that Piso killed Germanicus, who would have been a splendid Emperor. The remix title comes from a reference to the early Caesars -- the expression "Caesar's wife must be above reproach", from which the original title derives, is mocked in the reminder that Augustus Caesar's daughter was considered a whore and a disgrace.

Congrats to all the remixers and remixees. See you next year, if musesfool is still mad enough to do one. *grins*

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From a distance on an overcast night, Austin is marked by what appears to be a giant mushroom cloud, the illusion of which is created by light bouncing off the clouds.

Aside from the above observation, which I think is intriguing and hope to have taken some successful photographs of, today was a complete writeoff after 11am.

A quick primer: Lucky is my stepfather. Mama Ticky is his mother, who has adopted me as favoured grandson because I have manners. Lucky has brothers, who have wives, and they are fairly nice people, but his nieces and nephews are ridiculously horrible. They're my age, and act as if they're thirteen.

Anyway, we went down to see Mama Ticky, since it was her birthday a few days ago. I should have stayed in Austin, but she specifically wanted to see me and in that sense it was worth going down, because she's feeling so much better since her hip replacement. The change is remarkable, and she wasn't exactly lacking in feist to begin with. So it was good to see her.

But.

Well, there's the three hour drive down there, including the Harrowing Passage through Giddings, which is creeptastic at the best of times. I slept for about two hours of it, but I'm a tall person and our car, while roomy, is not THAT roomy, so by the time we arrived I was distinctly creased and cramped.

We went out to dinner with Mama Ticky, Lucky's younger brother and his wife, and fortunately only one of the Horrible Nephews, the son of Lucky's older brother. I felt kind of bad for him actually, because prior to going out, Mama Ticky gave him a tongue-lashing that was well-deserved but perhaps better saved for a private moment.

And the thing is, we went out to dinner at Macaroni Grill. After last time, with the odious lasagne, I decided to order something I thought would be fairly safe, fettucini alfredo. And it was pretty tasty, comparatively, except for when I puked it all up in a rest stop an hour later.

Argh.

The ride home was even more unpleasant, between the stomach cramps and the shoulder-cramps after I fell asleep again.

On the positive side, we got more information about the family gas well that's set to go live in about two weeks (I might yet end up a trust fund baby).

Commentary post-hack: Two years later, I do not have a trust fund but my parents are significantly wealthier than we have ever been in my lifetime because of the gas wells.

And Mama Ticky taught me three new expressions:

1. Ring-tailed tooter: Really big deal. She used this in re the gas well, and what it is going to be.

2. Irishman's flea: Someone who is very difficult to get hold of. She used this in re my step-cousin, who was kicked out of the house this weekend.

3. Hollerin' Hole: a place to go and rant about one's problems. This one had no context, it was just in a yarn she was telling. Mama Ticky yarns like nobody's business.

(no subject)

Just a little information on the prank, because Simon's taking it down early tomorrow morning....

Today's prank was concieved of about two months ago, and Heidi and Cathy helped beta-read it, as well as Simon. Simon's wholly responsible for the site code (including hosting it), which he deserves a ton of applause for. Heidi was a great bouncing-board for ideas, and Cathy actually pointed out that "Harry cheered inwardly" is a patent Sam-ism, so everyone who pointed that bit out is just serving me right for forgetting to remove it.

The idea was to write two or three pages of what could concievably be book seven; originally we were going to have FA host it, but due to legal considerations I thought it wiser if FA wasn't afiliated with something claiming to be Rowling's work, and also if an immediate "gotcha" was included.

I tried not to make it anything extraordinary or particularly shippy or spoiler-ful, because that only kills veracity further. I'm amused mainly by the fact that reactions, both in email and on fanfic_in_jest, seem to be split almost evenly between "Your imitation failed miserably", "You only failed because JKR doesn't write this well", and "You got her spot-on!" To be honest, it's very hard to imitate JKR's style. And that's...all I'll say on that score. *zips lips*

A couple of notes on execution: the first two pages are not faked up to look crumpled -- ie, they are not text pasted over mock-crumpled paper. They are in fact scans of crumpled and stained pages. I printed out the pages, crumpled them up, spilled Coke on them, dried them off, and then scanned them. I didn't even clean them up before sending them to Simon to be compressed, beyond cropping off the top and bottom a bit.

Also, "The Potters" was meant to refer to the family, not Lily and James; Harry made a conscious choice to use the phrase in order to manipulate the adults. This is where most people felt the fake showed through, which is fair enough, but I doubt anyone reading this in a book would have given it a second thought. On that score, I have NO IDEA what Remus was going to tell Harry about the Potters, though the last paragraph I wrote, which got cut off in the final mockup, was Remus informing Harry that he's going to take him to visit his parents' graves. I'm taking suggestions for most imaginative thing Remus might have had up his sleeve to tell Harry about his father's family...

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Sam: I'm pondering posting some meta about Remus and Sirius...I really do wonder why Sirius left him nothing in his will. I wonder if it's that Remus told him he was doing all right and he wanted to believe it, or if he knew Remus would be too proud, or if he was just that thoughtless, or what.
Person Sam Was Talking With Who Shall Remain Anonymous For Now: Well. Wills don't always include lists of one's personal property. Technically.
Sam: It's clear Remus got jack.
"Just Person" For Short: Unless it was of the memento variety.
Sam: You'd think Sirius would leave him more than a lock of hair or whatever. Unless he took it and put it in trust for someone, or something. I could get behind the idea that Sirius left him a boatload of money and Remus funnelled it into a Werewolf Rights organisation.
You Know Who: Or he uses it all for wolfsbane
Sam: There's a thought.

Commentary post-hack: I now have NO IDEA who I was talking to.

Your thoughts, guys? I have no real stance on this other than "canon says Harry got everything", so I'm interested to see what peoples' theories are. I mean, even if they weren't involved as anything other than friends, Sirius had to have known Remus was hurting for cash.

And also, there was a ficlet in the idea:

( The Day Lunar House Bought Everyone New Robes )

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