purplecat

Q11. Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

I seem to get less shippier as I get older. At present I seem to read a lot of Yusuf/Nicolo from The Old Guard and Crowley/Aziraphale from Good Omens but that is probably more about the general trends of what gets written in those fandoms than any particular investment in the ships themselves.

( Questions Under the Cut )

Q9: What's the hardest thing about writing, and why are titles the Worst™?

Hmm... it depends upon the length of the story. Over about 20,000 words the hardest thing is keeping track of everything, making sure things happen in a sensible order, characters are visited regularly, no one spends three days walking from their front door to their kitchen, that sort of thing. I keep thinking I should try out something like Scrivener to see if that helps - though its a while since I wrote anything over about 5,000 words in length. I guess, below that length the hardest thing is probably making sure the story has a good strong focus.

Titles are either really easy and obvious or a real pain - just like writing a good summary/teaser for the start of the story is often surprisingly difficult. You'd think you would know why someone might enjoy your story and be able to set that out pithily, just as it ought to be straightforward to come up with a title that somehow reflected the story in a good way. I guess the answer here is that summaries are hard particularly when they need to entice someone to read more without mis-selling what the story is, and that sort of extends to titles only multiplied ten-fold.

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Q7. What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?

I feel one needs to define fandom first but I suppose I'll treat it as actually interacting with other fans in some way as opposed to reading fic/books/magazines/collecting stuff and so on.

I guess it would have to be small - Doctor Who fandom is so large that even if I'm frustrated with one bit of it, I can find another where I feel well-served (I mean, I'm barely aware of the "not my Doctor" crowd even though I gather there are a lot of them out there). So it would need to be a small fandom that had become super-fractious or "there is only one true way to appreciate this thing" or just odd in some other way and even then I'd probably read the fic - I mean I read a lot of Sherlock fic back in the day but engaged with the fandom only so far as to eat popcorn while things got ever stranger (and tbh, Sherlock fandom was large enough, I bet I could have found a not completely crazy bit of it if I'd gone looking).

( Questions Under the Cut )

Q5: What's a fandom that you wish had a bigger following?

Again I'm not sure I have an answer to this. I fish in a couple of smaller fandoms such as Sapphire and Steel and The Queen's Thief but I'm not sure either would be improved by being larger (I'm a book behind on The Queen's Thief anyway so definitely less is more there).

I'd like to see more Robin of Sherwood fic, I think. Sapphire and Steel has a steady stream of stuff being written for it, but Robin of Sherwood not so much, though it doesn't lend itself as well to short fic (or at least not to short fic that isn't just romance at some level) in the way Sapphire and Steel does.

( Questions Under the Cut )

Q3: You've got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them?

Errr.... I'm not sure I really do OTPs but, for the sake of argument, let's pick Nick and Claudia from Primeval. I'd probably throw in Ryan since I've always thought Ryan/Claudia is a nice pairing and he'd be a good rock against Nick's more obvious foolishness.

( Questions Under the Cut )

I've been seeing this popping up on my flist. trobadora seems to be the origin and I thought I might as well give it a go. The concept that I might actually answer a question a day for a month is frankly laughable, but presumably I can let it take longer. Anyway Q1 is: "What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?".

To be honest, not a lot. There were some big changes a year or two back. Work got busier and fic writing took a nosedive. It's two years, I think, since I attempted Yuletide, and I only just staggered through Public Call and the Primeval Denial Secret Santa last year, though the fact that my father died shortly after sign-ups may have been a contributory factor there.

However, a year ago today, I was in the middle of the fall out from the first lockdown and, among other things, had stopped reading fic altogether. Since Christmas, I've been slowly getting back into it. At the moment I'm mostly reading my way through stuff posted last Autumn. I have hopes of catching up with saved fic around Christmas - but at least I'm reading again. I don't know about writing though. I'll definitely attempt Public Call again, apart from that we shall see - work is not going to be getting any less busy.



( Questions Under the Cut )

Via philmophlegm. Very bizarre, am I very, very certain that I'm not an Elf. I definitely put "Very Short" when it asked me my height.

I Am A: Lawful Good Elf Wizard/Sorcerer (3rd/3rd Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-11

Dexterity-14

Constitution-13

Intelligence-16

Wisdom-10

Charisma-11


Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment when it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.


Race:
Elves are known for their poetry, song, and magical arts, but when danger threatens they show great skill with weapons and strategy. Elves can live to be over 700 years old and, by human standards, are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. Elves are slim and stand 4.5 to 5.5 feet tall. They have no facial or body hair, prefer comfortable clothes, and possess unearthly grace. Many others races find them hauntingly beautiful.


Primary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Secondary Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

So there is an AFI 100 greatest movies meme doing the rounds (you know the "bold those you've seen" type). Anyway this is on the list and I realised that the sum total of my memories of the movie are:

a) It has donkeys in it
b) And possibly people undone by their own greed
c) I think I watched it in a Colorado motel room with adaese after (or possibly before) a somewhat tiresome search for somewhere to eat - given we were in Colarado and on foot.

I'm wondering if she recalls this at all, and if she remembers any more about the movie than I do!

A. Turn on your MP3 player or music player on your computer.
B. Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.
C. Write down the first 15 songs that come up—song title and artist—NO editing/cheating.

( And the Songs )

From which I think you can only conclude that I have a penchant for 80s pop and Classical Music.

The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. 15 games you've played that will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends.

I got tagged on Facebook, as usual I'm not tagging, but feel free to consider yourself tagged if you so wish.

( 15 Games under the cut )