Well kids, it's happened -- I've gotten into vidding! It's something that's interested me for quite awhile, but I've finally decided to bite the bullet, get some software, and start crankin' out some of the vids that have been floating around in my head. Three evenings of flying by the seat of my pants in the free trial version of Sony Vegas, plus footage from the only Region 1 DVD I have access to right now (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian), have joined forces to bring you my first ever fanvid!

Naturally, it is made of crack: a Miraz vid set to "I'm Too Sexy." (For those who haven't seen this movie, the villain Miraz is basically Claudius from Hamlet, played by renowned Italian actor/director Sergio Castellitto; he's easily the best thing about the film.) Again, my first attempt at vidding EVARRR (and made at the speed of light) so it's not gonna win me any medals, but I AM PRETTY PROUD.


Find more videos like this on BAM Vid Vault

We read a short story a couple of weeks ago in class called "Свои и Чужие" by Teffy, written in 1913. I thought it was funny, so the other day I translated it into English for my own amusement (and for practice, since I've never really done translation). No promises on quality, obviously, as I'm only an undergrad language student.

Original Russian version is available here.

For reference, 37.1 degrees Celsius is 98.78 Fahrenheit. 38 degrees Celsius is 100.4 Fahrenheit.

( Insiders and Outsiders )

I have always maintained the theory that I am incapable of writing anything about Snape, because he is a complicated, serious character and I prefer one-dimensional, hilarious characters (when I write at all, which is almost never). To test this theory I attempted to write a Snape ficlet. Unfortunately, Snape hates me, so the result was failure.

( Severus Snape Makes A Sandwich )

A very silly little ficlet I wrote last night instead of sleeping. czarna_pantera, this is for you. :P Features Karkaroff, OF COURSE.

( here there be dragons )

omniocular's April challenge is a non-fiction type of thing, but I'm mootarded and didn't realize it was request-based (like...you do it FOR the person who suggests the prompt you pick) and plus what I wanted to do was a modification of a prompt and you have to ask the person who suggested it if you can and...whatever. So because I have the dumb and can't follow instructions, I just did it for myself and not for omniocular.

ANYWHO, one of the prompts was to write Karkaroff's application for (or for resuming) headmastership after getting out of Azkaban. But I got the bug to write the letter he got back instead...plus I think he would have been applying or (IMO) re-applying for a teaching position and then became headmaster later. And my roommate has one of those all-in-one scanner/printer/fax machine/coffeemaker things and I wanted to mess with it and see if it would take parchment paper. (It does. :D)

The letter is under the cut down there. (It's short - only about 300 words.) It looks better in real life, because when I resized the original scan it lost a lot of the visible parchment texture. I added some fake texture in Corel IX but it's not the same. (And all the photos I took came out crappy because indoor lighting makes my camera cry.) So, um, whatever. The only way I'll end up submitting this to omniocular is if I add more letters, because like...just one letter is boring. xD And there's so much wrong with this (I left off the letterhead 'cause it would have made it more than one page and my handwriting for the signature bit is craptacular and BLAH BLAH BLAH) but whatever. I just wanted to play with parchment and my calligraphy quill (which I still cannot use worth shite, obviously).

( Anyway, here the darn thing is. Warning - big image. And sorry if the text is hard to read...if I made the image any bigger it would have been redonkulus. )

So here's my entry for the October omniocular fic challenge, a week late. >.> Ah well.

Title: Baba Yaga and the Wizard, or: The Tale of Karkarov the Cowardly
Rating: PG
Length: 2,900 words
Summary: The crossover prompt was: "On the run from Voldemort, Karkaroff stumbles across a mysterious house deep in the forests of Russia. It has chicken legs." Hence, this is a fairy tale starring everybody's (least?) favorite Durmstrang headmaster. Yes, I said fairy tale. :O
Warnings: Mentions of cannibalism. It's folklore, what do you expect?
Author's note/Disclaimer: Although I took bits of Baba Yaga folklore from several tales and made up some things of my own, this story is primarily an homage to "Vassilisa the Beautiful" (also known as "Vassilisa the Brave"). You can read two versions of that tale here and here. Also, kudos to czarna_pantera for inspiring the ending. ;-) I myself own nothing of the Harry Potter world (that belongs to J.K. Rowling) or Russian folklore (that belongs to...um...Russians).

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( Baba Yaga and the Wizard, or The Tale of Karkarov the Cowardly )

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I found some "Very Secret Diary" style PotC stuff on FF.N, but it didn't have a Barbossa chapter. So I spent the past few hours writing one.

Warning: I cannot guarantee originality or humor. Only complete and utter crack. PG-13.

EDIT 09/08/06: Barbossa fans go join whore4hector. Srsly.

( The Very Secret Diary of Hector Barbossa )

Crack + pirates = OTP.