A Bustle in Your Hedgerow

Gift For: yamapea
Title: Yours, Viola
Author: cryptaknight
Pairing: Ron/Pansy (background Draco/Hermione)
Summary: Pansy just wants to forget the night she spent with Ron Weasley. Unfortunately, Ron won’t let her.
Rating: NC-17
Length:~11,600 words
Warnings: EWE
Author's notes: Sincere thanks go out to K, S, and R for the beta work, plot bunnies, late-night chats, and just generally letting me whinge and vent and cheering me on. I adore you all. Yamapea I wish you a very happy holidays, indeed, and I hope this fic can play a part in a lovely holiday season.

Yours, Viola

Now that the reveals are up, I can sneak on and post this one!

Title: Seen Clearly, For The First Time
Recipient: luvscharlie
Author: cryptaknight
Rating: Hard R
Pairing(s): Charlie/Penelope
Summary: When Penelope makes Charlie question everything he is, that's when he's found himself.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe – all recognisable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
Warning(s): None, I don't think.
Word Count: ~5,100
Author's Notes: The middle bit of this fic is heavily inspired by the song Sometime Around Midnight, by The Airborne Toxic Event, and I did borrow a line here and there. I had to deviate from the song at some point, however, because I just can't resist a happy ending. luvscharlie, I tried to include a few of your prompts, and I truly enjoyed writing this fic so I hope you enjoy reading it! Thanks to K for the beta. Much love.

( Seen Clearly, For The First Time )

Title: A Nice Girl
Pairing: Charlie Weasley/Pansy Parkinson
Rating: NC17
Warnings: None
Word Count: ~5200 words
Authors notes: Aside from the usual disclaimers, this fic was originally written with 15pairings in mind, with the prompt "Shut up and listen." It grew into a gift fic. Hope you enjoy it, nightfalltwen!

( A Nice Girl )

Title: Not Bad At All
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Ginny/Zacharias, implied Trio
Word count: ~5300 words
Author’s note: This is unbeta-ed, so I’d appreciate concrit, if you have any. I actually wrote half of this 6 months ago, and came back to it as a way to jumpstart my creativity so I could get on with some original writing. It’s probably the first thing I’ve posted in years, so be gentle. Oh, and beware of angsty!Ginny.
Disclaimer: Standard- I don’t own any of the characters; they belong to J.K. Rowling and the publishers of her books.

( Not Bad At All )

So, did anyone else watch the John Edwards forum on MTV? (Should I be admitting I still watch MTV? Oh, well.) I found it really interesting. I had been leaning towards Obama, and will still wait to hear what he has to say before I decide one way or another, but I have to say Edwards won me over a little. I especially liked what he had to say about his proposed College for Everyone program, universal health care, and the environment. I also agree with his views on topics like the war in Iraq, Darfur, and stem cell research. I'm glad I got a chance to hear his points of view, because the media seems like it focuses so much on Hillary vs. Obama, and I didn't know too much about Edwards before this show. MTV is, for the most part, grown into a cesspool, but I have always liked their Rock the Vote campaigns. Good on them, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the other candidates handle the forum, because if MySpace graphs are to be believed, Edwards rocked it.

Title: Tonks Before the Battle
Media: Charcoal
Character: Nymphadora Tonks
Rating: G
Artist's notes: As I believe I mentioned, my store's current community relations manager is leaving at the end of the month (since I'm interviewing for her job :P). She dressed as Tonks for the Harry Potter release, so I did a pic of Tonks for her as a sort of thank you, and I thought I'd share it with you all here.

( Art under the cut. )

Con-crit is always totally welcome and heartily needed. ;)

This is a minor thing to complain about, I know, in the grand scheme of things, but I am feeling very WTF that the results show for So You Think You Can Dance is not on until Monday, especially as what's airing tonight instead is reruns of That 70s Show and Cops. Besides, what does that mean for the dancers? Do they only get two days to learn two routines? I mean, how would that affect the partnering? I'm confused. I hate it when airings of shows are randomly changed for no apparent reason, in ways that make no sense. According to Fox.com, even stranger, next Wednesday is Part 1 of the season finale. Bzuh? I suppose maybe they're not airing the Monday episode live... Still, random and irritating.

And yes, I know my level of disgruntledness is out of proportion, but with it being summer and all, there are maybe three shows I look forward to, and SYTYCD is one of them. Meh.

I'm testing Semagic right now. I used to use an LJ client back in the old iMac days, and I'd forgotten how convenient it was, especially if LJ was experiencing technical difficulties, or if I wanted to post to multiple accounts in quick succession (ala RPGs). So something positive has come out of all the drama, for me at least.

Also, I do have accounts on IJ, GJ, and Vox (cryptaknight at every one of 'em), although they are not used at all, in the case of IJ and GJ, and are a RL journal, in the case of Vox. I don't intend to leave LJ, but I figured better safe than sorry, and that way anyone who does choose to leave (and I totally understand why you might want to) can friend me, etc.

Wow, could I use any more parentheses in less sentences? (((( )))) There.

In other news, I had a customer complain about my quad the other day, demanding to know why I'd placed the Koran/Qu'ran in Religious Fiction. *sigh* Islam/Islamic scripture, etc, happens to share a bay with religious fiction, and as the ratio is 2/5 to 3/5, so although the shelves are clearly labeled as "Islam," and "Islam, Islamic Scripture, Sufism," the header sign is "Religious Fiction." Or was. I switched it to just plain "Religion." Tomorrow, time allowing, I'm going to look at the flow of the section and see if I can rearrange it so that sort of thing isn't an issue, but sheesh. Sometimes I think people just look for things to wank about.

So today I picked up the first volume of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter graphic novel, mostly because I found myself unable to resist the gorgeous artwork, but also because I like the idea of a graphic novel geared towards a female audience, and because it's Guilty Pleasures, so it's vintage Anita at her zombie-raising, vampire-slaying best. It's been forever since I read GP, but it's come back to me now. Phillip and his tragic self, crazy ass Valentine and Nikolaos, vulnerable and only sort of powerful Jean Claude, and Edward as cold and calculating Death. It really made me miss the early books in the series, and made me want to re-read... up to Obsidian Butterfly, anyway. I was like, Bert! What happened to Bert? And Dolph is sort of pleasant. Oh, and the wererats, realized with ink and paper, are pretty intimidating. I could never quite picture them before. Anyway, it was kinda pricey at $20, before my discount, but I'm glad I snagged it. It was really a beautifully packaged volume.