In case you missed it, daily_deviant recently opened up it's most recent part game to celebrate their 13th birthday!



How it works is that you can pick any sexual theme you like and combine it with a location and an object from the lists they provide on the post. Rather than person, place, and thing, it's practice, place, and thing! Any character(s), any kink(s), anything goes! And fic only needs to be a minimum of 200 words, so it's perfect for something quick and dirty. :)

I loved the Wheel of Fornication from last year's celebration, and this seems like another fun game! I've already narrowed down a pairing, location, & object, but I am having a hard time coming up with a sexual theme/kink as we can pick whatever we want and that is too much for my brain!!

I'm planning to write some Albus Severus/Draco, so if any of you have any suggested kinks/sexual themes you'd like to see with them, please, please, please leave them below and hopefully help jump-start my muse! <3

I have some HP related thoughts and questions, so I thought it was time for a post! It's been awhile since I've done one of these, and I miss it! I'm here today, because I want to know:

Why are there not more canonically fat witches and wizards?
(I say canon, because I know that fanon would make them all skinny anyway and/or not write about them in favor of the two peripheral thin, moody white boys that interact once, because heaven forbid we have to read about fat people fucking, but that is a post for another day. Sorry, I keep mixing up my rants. Also, not a dig at anybody, because god knows I'm guilty of it as well.)

Now, I'm not even talking about this from a ratio/population diversity perspective (we've already seen that race-wise and sexuality-wise the HP characters are not the most diverse group of characters, and since fat people are reviled in different ways, I can't really expect any different there). And I'm not even coming at it from a body-positive perspective (though, yeah, of course, I'm here for that). Mostly, I'm wondering from a purely biological point of view, how are the majority of wizards not overweight?

The Case:

1. If you know the right spells, you can theoretically cook the most delicious of foods in a fraction of the time. Are wizards really using their mad skillz to steam broccoli? Some, probably. But most? That seems unlikely. I don't think broccoli was mentioned once in the books. Wizards hate broccoli. #fact


2. I know JKR could hardly mention everything that people do during their normal day in her books, but like, did anybody ever exercise even once in the books? The only sport we see is people flying around on brooms, which definitely would work out some muscles, but I'm not super convinced it's really a cardio activity. There doesn't appear to be any kind of physical education class at Hogwarts. Nobody was making them run laps around the great lake or do some crunches in the great hall. And there definitely wasn't mention of a exercise room or gymnasium for the resident jocks to get their lift on. Seeing as how Harry was a member of literally the only physical sport mentioned, surely he would have at least known of the gym if there was one at Hogwarts?


3. Freaking magic, people. I just feel like it would be really hard not to be lazy if you have magic. Walk 30 minutes into work? Why not just take the Floo? Clean your flat? That's what spells are for! Help your friend move? With your powers (literally) combined, you can have that shit packed up and sent off without breaking a sweat. So much of the daily bits of exercise that you get in throughout the day would not longer happen. I mean, sure, it's not like wizards never walk anywhere or do things by hand. But for those who grew up with magic, I'd imagine they use it a lot, and yeah, maybe they'll still walk through Diagon on a sunny day, but I bet they are also 1000% more likely to Apparate to that meeting across town when it's raining, instead of being forced to hoof it like us mere Muggles. Yes, for the students, Hogwarts is described as massive with lots of stairs, so maybe that's enough exercise for most of the kids. But they aren't spending the rest of their lives tromping around castles to get their daily 10,000 steps in.

So. We've got a bunch of people who can cook delicious and probably fattening food in a fraction of the time, who probably get less daily exercise than the average Muggle, living in a world in which making time specifically to exercise has never been mentioned, and at least doesn't seem to be as ingrained in the society as it is in Western Muggle culture. Sure, people like Aurors who have active jobs will probably be in shape, but all those paper pushers at the Ministry? All those undisciplined children who have unending access to feasts on a daily basis? Of course, I do imagine traversing the castle burns quite a lot of calories, but still.

Of course, there's always the possibility that having magic is like having a metabolism on steroids, and all the extra energy burns through calories quicker. I actually really like this idea BUT I don't think there's been any kind of mention of that in canon. Could be true. Could be a solution that happens to make sense but was not at all intentional. Could be false.

Anyway, this got a little rambly, a little away from me, clearly. But basically, it just really makes sense to me for there to be more fat wizards and witches. Like, more than average even. Hogwarts students basically live on Honeydukes chocolate and fucking biscuits and sausages and treacle tart, and you're telling me there are like 5 "chubby" kids, and 3 of them are in Slytherin? (Also, don't even get me started on how the fat characters in HP are almost always portrayed in a negative, or at least not a positive light: Dudley, Vernon, Crabbe, Goyle, Millicent, Umbridge, Slughorn, to name a few. Even Neville is kind of a bumbling, if well intentioned, fool at the beginning of the series when he's chubby. But don't worry. He eventually loses the weight and OMG, look at that, he's upgraded to become a full-fledged member of the Scooby Gang at the same time. Not bitter. Molly is really the only one I can think of in a more positive light, and even she was described at one point as "dumpy". WOW. /rant)

Thoughts? Rebuttals? Agreements? Do wizards have to worry about their blood sugar or cholesterol? Should I eat this cookie? Did any of this make any kind of sense? Inquiring minds want to know.

I've mentioned this on my journal a few times, but I think I've settled on January for my "faux" NaNoWriMo challenge! I'd love if others joined me--it's always easier to keep going when there's support!

I'm altering the original challenge somewhat, in that the goal will be to write 50,000 words total in the month of January, but the word count can be spread across multiple works. I'm going to be focusing solely on fanfic, but others are welcome to work on original fic if that's where your muse is at!

I plan on writing daily (the goal will be 1,613 words a day) and updating with daily posts on my progress. I'll likely be hanging out in a chatroom and doing many sprints, though I'm still deciding if I should create a new chatroom, or just utilize hd_writers chatzy room. Thoughts?

So, who's with me?

[Poll #2059986]

You guys! It's been so long since I've done a proper post with thinky thoughts and/or questions about HP and fandom and it's kind of sucked. Mostly I just haven't had the time or energy, even though I have a few thoughts bouncing around. But this morning, I was TOTALLY inspired, so here I am! With thoughts and questions!! All for you!!!

Anyway, I was thinking about HP before bed, as one does, and started contemplating modes of travel in the wizarding world. I came up with:

• Brooms
• Flying Animals
• Apparating
• Floo
• Automobiles
• Trains (long distance)
• Portkeys
• Knight Bus

Am I missing any? Keeping in mind I was trying to keep it limited to somewhat reasonable everyday type travel, so I left out mysterious ships and vanishing cabinets. ;)

There is a point to all of this, and that point is a question:

How do wizarding families get around when they have infants and toddlers traveling with them?

All of these modes of travel seem well and good for children of a certain age, but for young children, many of these modes seem impractical and downright dangerous.

( Long-ish thoughts regarding the feasibility of the options with young children )

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Did I miss something totally obvious that I will be embarrassed over later? Come talk to meee!

still not over the awesomeness that was leviosa2016. getting to hang out with so many of you was unbelievably amazing, and I am already missing all the open discussion about shipping and slashing and representation and the amazing characters we all love and adore.

basically, it's addicting, and I need more.

So, I was curious if any of y'all are going to Misti Con?

It looks like there are a lot of pros, but I won't lie, I'm a little unsure about the lack of fandom-y panels, and some of the language the con uses in references to "fan-fictions" makes me a little nervous about how shippy/fandomy things would go over.

I am considering but definitely on the fence...However, the more fandom friends are going.... :D

Basically I just want to hang out with you guys all of the time!

Have any of you been to Misti Con before? Any thoughts? I'd love to hear more about the con from people who've been!

Okay, this is a weird question for all of you out there who do a lot of fanfic reading on tablets especially. How do you do it?

I read a decent amount on my kindle, and I'm curious if there's a better, more awesome and efficient way to go about things, or if I'm doing what y'all are doing!

Basically, there are three ways I read fic on my kindle:

1. If it's a short piece, I usually just read it in the browser, like I do on my laptop


2. If it's mid-length to long, and I plan on reading it right that minute, I download as a .mobi, and then read it like it's a kindle book, and it's saved in my downloads.


3. If it's super long, and I don't plan on reading it right away, but want to have it available for something like plane ride, I download the fic as a PDF (usually on my laptop) and then "convert" the fic to kindle format, so it'll show up on my kindle like a book.

So, is that how you all do things? Is there some secret trick to awesomeness that I'm missing? It is very important to me that I maximize my fic reading experience. ;)

I have been thinking a lot about Next Gen lately. Not that it's ever far from my HP mind, but I think modding hp_nextgen_fest sort of reopened the feels floodgates. There are so many amazing prompts (and claiming is still open, btw) in so many different combinations that it sparked all sorts of headcanons and plot bunnies for me. I currently have seven Next Gen-centric WIPS/fleshed out fic & ficlet ideas for five different pairings. And that's not even counting Cross Gen....

Is it considered bad form to run a fest filled with mostly your own fic?

All this next gen fervor has made me really think about who my favorite Next Gen character is. I thought this would be pretty difficult to suss out, but it turns out, I feel pretty strongly that James Sirius Potter is my favorite character. I love him. I love his name, I love that we don't really know what he looks like so we can do whatever we want, I love his age difference with Teddy, I love that he's the oldest sibling, I love the little glimpse of his Gryffindor confidence that we get in the epilogue. I just, I really love him. <3

I'm also immensely fond of Albus Severus Potter and Teddy Lupin and Lily Luna Potter, really. The rest of the Next Gen characters I like, but I don't really love as much as these guys.

Those are my thoughts, but what are yours?! I made a fancy poll (since I really need to make more of those) asking that very question! You can only select one option, because I wanted to make your lives difficult. :D

[Poll #2022247]
I'd love to know why that person is your favorite! Who was a runner up? Any characters you aren't very fond of? Tell me ALL THE THINGS! Because I am bored, and I really need to flail some more about next gen. :D

[Sorry if this post is long on your feeds! Turns out, you can't actually put an LJ poll behind a cut...]

I had a question for ya'll, especially for those of you on my f-list who have been around for awhile.

Do you know if the HP fandom ever had a porn-a-thon challenge? Like mating_games for Teen Wolf or summerpornathon for Merlin?

I want to say no, but I could be totally wrong. I know there is the Humpathon by hp_humpdrabbles, but I think that's more like a comment-meme type thing, yes? Also, I think it might be all het. I can't find anything that actually says that, but I don't see anything other than het, so...

Basically, it's a multi-pairing, multi-week challenge, where people sign up and get put onto teams *cough*hogwarts houses*cough*, and then each week there is a challenge (like a prompt/word/picture etc.) and then everybody has a week-ish to draw/write something under 1k I think, and it has to be smutty or at least suggestive. You get points for your team for completing the challenge, and then all the entries are divided, and people vote for their favorites. And the winners get extra points for their team.

It honestly seems super fun, and it seems like HP, with its large variety of pairings, would be an awesome fandom for that kind of a challenge. But IDK if these days we'd really get the participation needed to make it work. :/

Just some ~thoughts~. Merlin is having their summerpornathon right now, and I seriously considered participating, but I figured I had enough going on with adding that to the pile. But I've been voting and watching and it really does seem like a blast.

In honor of Rectober having wrapped up (SO MUCH FUN! all the kudos to birdsofshore for being awesome!), I thought I would ask ya'll a few questions about recs.

Obviously reccing is a big part of what I do on here, and I read a ton of fic with a variety of pairings and in multiple different fandoms. But I was wondering how other people went about recs. My "process" is probably a lot different from those of you who don't do a ton of fandom hopping, so I was curious!

1. What do you like in a rec? What are the things you absolutely need in a rec or in a rec list?

For me, I need a Title/link to the work, a summary, and a rating. If it doesn't have all of those things (especially if it's a huge list from somebody I don't know), I usually back button pretty quickly. But I also think the author's name and a word count should be there. And I really prefer if there is some kind of reason why the reccer liked it.

2. Spinning off of that, how important is the "Why" to you guys? Does what a reccer says about why they are reccing a fic influence you?

It definitely does for me, and I'd say most rec lists I've encountered leave this part off. I'm guessing it's just a matter of time constraints, but I do think those lists are less compelling.

3. Do you look for recs lists? Or do you just stick with recs from people you know/trust? Or do you rarely even read fics based on recs?

I often read fics based on recs. When I break into a new fandom I usually google rec lists and make my way through some of the prominent ones. I also frequently read recs from people I know. Especially this Rectober! I actually ended up reading a fic whose canon I'm not at all familiar with, which was a first for me.

4. I know a lot of rec "forms" have a place for excerpts from the fic. Do you find this useful? Do you look at these?

For me, I don't think I have ever once look at an excerpt included in a rec. I tend to make my decision on whether or not to read based on the header/reccer's thoughts, and it's just as easy for me to get a feel for the writing once I've started reading.

Finally, I had a personal question about reccing:

If I had a fic I liked, but I was hesitant to rec because of XYZ reason, do you think its better to leave a warning about said problematic issues, or just not rec it at all. This has happened a few times, and I've sort of waffled back and forth.

For example, I read an older H/D fic awhile ago that I thought was generally good, but there were (what I felt) were some significant issues regarding characterization and a few other details. In this particular fic, there ended up being a later scene that bothered me so much I had to stop reading, but before that I was enjoying the fic overall and would have recced it, but I don't know how comfortable I would have been doing that it without letting people know about some of the issues (it was a loooooong fic, and I think people should have an idea of potentially bothersome things, if they are planning to commit that much time.)

This fandom especially is super positive, but sometimes I feel like that hinders the ability to completely address problematic issues. I honestly appreciate reading candid notes when I look through rec lists, but I was curious what others thought.

LOL, I probably should have made a poll, but I already typed all this up, and not I'm too lazy to go and create a poll too...SORRY GUYS!

I like to take advantage of the Amazon Prime Kindle Lending Library, and I'm trying to pick out a free book for October. So I was wondering if any of you guys use this program and have any recommendations? I've been mainly reading m/m romances, but I'm pretty open.

So far I've read:
The Backup Boyfriend: FANTASTIC
Blue Notes: Enjoyable + cross gen :D
A Marked Man: Not a fan. Boring story, no chemistry between the characters, and not great writing.
Winter Wolf and sequel City Wolf: Surprisingly enjoyable, though the last book ends on a cliff hanger...

Like I said, any recs are welcome. Even if you don't have Amazon prime, I'd love to hear if you have any new m/m recs! I've really only been reading about one a month lately, and I miss reading them. :D

I know several of you on my f-list read fic on your tablets/ereaders, and I was wondering how ya'll went about it? Do you read them in PDF or some other format? Is there a particular app you are fond of?

I've started reading more fic on my Kindle Fire, and I usually download the EPUB version off of AO3 and then read it in Moon+ Reader. This has been working fine, but I was just curious is there is a better way out there. :D

I've just been thinking about random HP things, as one does, and I was hoping ya'll could clarify a point about Pensieves for me.

My question is: When you are putting a memory into the pensieve for viewing, is that silvery stuff the actual memory, or just a copy? For example, if Harry decided to view the Sectumpsempra incident, and took out the memory, would he still have any recollection of the memory BEFORE looking at it again?

ETA: And if it is just a copy of the memory. Do you think this memory copying spell can be applied an unlimited number of times? Could Harry withdraw/copy that Sectumsempra memory multiple times, without any degradation? Would it being copied affect the original memory, or just dilute the copy?? I'm over-thinking this.

So...I was making a list of all of my favorite pairings, as you do, and realized that significant chuck of them are cross-gen pairings. Which got me thinking about all the fests I follow and the fact that I can think of a single active fest for all-pairing Cross-Gen fic. I know there is hp_darkages, for angsty cross-gen, but I'm not a huge angst reader, and while I definitely enjoy in on occasion, a whole fest of angst overwhelms me. There are also a few pairing-specific cross-gen fests, like the Snarry-a-Thon at snape_potter and hds_beltane, but I was thinking on a broader scale. I know there was hp_cross_fest, but I don't think that has run in 4-5 years....

Anyways, am I missing a fest? Or is fandom just not as interested in cross-gen as I am? I'm curious about people's opinions/stance etc. and since I have been dying to use LJ's poll feature, I figured this would be a good chance!

[Poll #1962189]