Roads to Safe Places

When life gives you a pandemic...



Lock Down Fest is a non-anon, self-posting, multi-ship and multi-fandom mini fest focusing on a twofold theme: a. Isolated Together, and b. Quarantine/Covid-19 related. LDF will run from 20-30 March 2020.

It's lockdownfest on  tumblr and also on Ao3.

This entry was originally posted at on DW where it has comments. You can comment there using OpenID.

Good morning, everyone! I hope you are all still doing well.

I'm a teacher in home office, so I've got a large pile of exams here to keep me company and students e-mailing me questions to make me feel like I'm working. Other than that my natural state already is self-isolation so not much changed, which is kind of making me rethink my life style choices.

I've taken up a knitting project and I'm learning how to Morse Code. What pursuits have you taken up to keep you busy?

if you feel lonely, why not go over and check in on the Covid Coffee Corner.

This entry was originally posted at on DW where it has comments. You can comment there using OpenID.

Somehow, I'm still pretending this is not real in my head. I feel a lot like Ian McEwan, who writes, "Brexit, the most pointless, masochistic ambition in our country's history, is done".

I still cannot understand voting yourself away from a union built on the rubble of a wartorn and divided Europe, a union based on solidarity, freedom, human rights, and peace. A union in which historic perennial enemies became friends and wars became unthinkable.

I'm trying to cling to my hopes for Scotland.
This entry was originally posted at on DW where it has comments. You can comment there using OpenID.

I am home sick. A tummy bug my daughter brought home which nobody got knocked me flat, so I should listen to my body when it tells me to stay TF home and get some rest.

I had a very pleasant weekend, though, with watching Picard, which turned out to be surprisingly unhorrible. What I had missed dearly in ENT and the eternally godawful Disco is finally back - something approaching an ethical backbone within a universe that is again closer to Trek than Wars inspite of the Blade Runner influence.

Even though I enjoy a good morally grey character, I'm heartily sick of their ubiquity. Not everything needs to be dark and gritty, visions of utopian societies are permissible now as necessary as before. Utopias, even though they always become Dystopias when they are out-dated, show us what we can dare to hope.
And I'm saying this as someone who does even not exist in Gene Roddenberries original utopia. Anyway, rant over, I had a good time and enjoyed watching Patrick Stewart as much as ever and will be very unhappy once the dark-and-gritty-crown mess this up, as they do.

This entry was originally posted at on DW where it has comments. You can comment there using OpenID.

Title: Home, adrift
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 9597
Characters and/or Pairings: this is mostly a story about Severus and his father, but there is Severus Snape/Minerva McGonagall, past Severus Snape/Lucius Malfoy, Tobias Snape/Eileen Prince

Summary: Professor Snape was dead, and Severus was alone. He did not mind. He was adrift, unmoored. It was difficult to feel professorial in Cokeworth. It was difficult to feel anything but out of place. Not that he had ever fitted in. He walked up and down the high street for hours, not even getting suspicious looks from the other people. This was not an area where grown men in funny clothes walking up and down high street aimlessly in the middle of the day got funny looks. This was not the kind of place where people looked at one another at all.

Author's Notes: I did a thing. There were several things floating around my mind when writing this. Mostly how I think it is unfair that working class fathers seem to be portrayed as violent substance abusers more than middle class parents, and the fact that I can see Severus having developed his precocious and excellent Occlumency skills early on as a defence mechanism when dealing with an abusive Legilimens. Also how much of Severus's life is spent doing what other people tell him to. So, this happened. Thanks so much Crocky, for bearing with me.

( Collapse )

Since Crocky already said it on her journal, I can say it, too: Crocky is pregnant, we're going to be mothers in November!
This has been well a decade in the making and we've been through a lot to get to this point and we're thrilled that it finally worked.

Crocky's holding up well, and I'm glad that she's the one to get pregnant first, because of course her family and a whole lot of other people will want to get involved in our lives now that we're expecting a child, and I am not sure if I had been able to handle it as gracefully as she is, and this way I will get used to the aunts, neighbours and strangers unexpectedly butting in.

All of this is so surreal. Even though I've seen the heart beat with my own two eyes this is still so far from real to me. Even though I have seen that this fetus has arms and legs and a head and a spine it is far from real, but until I am holding this being in my arms alive and well I cannot make myself believe that this is really going to happen.

There are clear advantages to the new Star Trek series.

1. It made me give a second chance to Enterprise and I'm actually enjoying it quite a lot. I would not have believed that to be possible.


2. There is new Star Trek in the world and I get to talk about that with colleagues and students.


3. It made me watch different other Sci-Fi series in the attempt of finding a science fiction series that is optimistic about humanity, because Discovery is clearly only concerned with being gritty for grit's sake without bothering with this entire "making sense"-aspect of TV.

Other than TV woes, life is fine. I am in love, I mostly feel good and haven't had a stress-related panic attack in months. Months, people. 

I wrote this for Crocky years ago, while she was on her Highland trip with her Chapel Choir. It is a silly little thing, now, and, like so many fics of that time, an AU, but I love it, nonetheless. There are, sadly, a lot of minor mistakes in it, I hope you don't mind too much.

Title: Stalking Severus Snape - A story in 25 receipts and shopping lists.
Pairings: Minerva/Severus.
Author's Note: I would like to apologise for any errors concerning Morrison's products or their prices if they are being portrayed inaccurately by this. I found it very hard to find accurate prices for the items I needed for the late nineties, or even which products they offered back then.
Summary: The items in this file were all retrieved while supervising the convicted and evicted Death Eater and Half-Blood Severus Snape, who was sentenced to the destruction of his wand and exile from the Wizarding community. He is being covertly supervised until his next hearing to ensure he is no longer a threat. See excerpts below.


( Collapse )
 

I Am A: Lawful Neutral Elf Ranger Druid

Alignment:
Lawful Neutral characters believe in the triumph of law and order above all else. It does not matter whether the leader is for good or evil; the leader will be followed, because the order they provide is the most important thing.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.

Secondary Class:
Druids are a special variety of Cleric who serves the Earth, and can call upon the power in the earth to accomplish their goals. They tend to be somewhat fanatical about defending natural settings.

Deity:
Silvanus is the True Neutral god of nature. He is also known as the Patron of Druids. His followers believe in the perfect balance of nature, and believe that nature's bounty is preferable to any other 'civilizing' method. They wear leather or metallic scale mail, constructed of leaf-shaped scales. Silvanus's symbol is an oak leaf.

Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy of NeppyMan (e-mail)


o_O I am SO. Not! I am not a Lawful neutral friggin' Elf Ranger!! Grrrrr. I am a Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc Bard! *glares*





This is one of the coolest quizzes I have ever seen.

*jaw drops*

Draco's birthday is on the same day as mine...? 
Why, of all people...? 

Oh, and... hey, do I already know this? I have the feeling that I talked about this before with lordhellebore. Hm, maybe not. Boy, I'm really getting old... Well, at least he's three years older than me. Ah, well. Gemini are nice and creative people who love to talk and to socialise, if I remember correctly. And we're easily bored, artsy and have many interests. Hmm... well, film-Draco can do origami and he writes poetry. Hmm.

Oh, other fandom activity than checking up my least favourite character on the Lexicon for an RPG I've been dragged into - I am on this PG-13 RPGing site, yes? It's a Harry Potter RPGing site. I know, it's a waste of time, but it's fun writing stories together with very creative people while being able to mock the non-sapient.

Today, I'm just browsing about, and what do I find in my inbox apart from the usual junk?
A request to be the "online slave master" for someone. I had the hopes that she is a non-native who was looking for someone to join her in some peculiar RP, but no... she, 16, meant it. She wants an online "master".
Which leaves me with three questions - why on earth do I qualify in her eyes? 
Secondly - do I report her to the mods and hope for the best? I guess I should. 
And thirdly - why on earth does she look for such a person on a PG-13 Harry Potter role playing site? Kids today... here's hoping it was either a dare, or someone I had a row with a while ago who wants to have me banned.

Sorry about the randomness, I have to kill my time somehow. 
I'm waiting for Crocky to return, their bus left Oban at ten, I, in an optimistic spirit, thought it would take them only around two hours to get here, but apparently, I miscalculated that. But maybe they left later they wanted to or something. 

I guess I'll fulfill a promise and read a bit, if I can retrieve the address of the Fanfiction.net account...

Special *hugs* to Rye.