Question meme
Dec. 13th, 2022 06:39 pmThems The Rules: If you'd like your own questions, let me know in the comments! I'll ask the first five commenters five questions each. Answer them in your own journal, offer to give the first five commenters their own sets of questions, and let the cycle continue!
Questions courtesy of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chestnut_pod
1. How many different fannish archives have you been a member of since you became an internet-based fan?
Every year there is a cycle of wank about AO3 that I pay no mind to because do these people not remember how bad things were before? I mean, they don't remember, that is the problem. FF.net was called the pit of voles for a reason. Every fandom had its own archive - the Doctor Who one was A Teaspoon and an Open Mind, the Buffy/Angel one was, I think Silverlake. Some of them allowed slash, some of them didn't, femslash barely existed. Some of them had ill-defined 'quality standards' and you had to submit your fic for approval. Then there were the character and ship specific ones, at one point I think I had a bunch of fic on an archive specifically for Tara from Buffy, which just goes to show how desperate we all were back them, because, wow, was that a terribly written character and a relationship with the least romantic chemistry it is possible for two people to have. I never could figure out if the actress had somehow offended the costuming department on day dot or if they just had no idea how to style someone who, while still very slender, wasn't rail thin.
In short, AO3 is good actually.
2. Which sort of non-murder crime would you most like to see more mysteries written about?
I can't get on with a lot of true crime because I have a hard time deriving entertainment from the very worst thing that ever happened to another human being, which is why my favourite true crime book is one called The Feather Thief about a dude who became obsessed with the Victorian art of fly tying, not actually fishing with them mind, just making the things. So much so that he ended up stealing a suitcase full of dead birds of paradise from the British Museum and missing the last train home. I want more of that; a weird person did a weird thing for weird reasons because humans are weird, and no one was hurt in the process.
Fiction at least doesn't have the problem of still living victims or grieving family members, but all too often it does focus on horrifying things happening to women's bodies. You know what I want, more fiction about white collar crimes and fraud. I might be the only reader of a series of mysteries about the doings of the securities and exchange commission, but I would be an incredibly loyal only reader.
3. Do you read the acknowledgements in books? Can you remember any particularly funny ones, if so?
I suspect I saw this on social media rather than in a book I was actually reading, but there was that one where the guy thanked the man who refused to give him a job as an eel salesman for his writing career. There's a whole other story just in that acknowledgment, like, eel salesman is a job, and a job you were unqualified for? Tell me that story.
4. What is your favorite dish to eat in winter?
Okay, so my mum makes this soup. My family calls it 'winter soup'. It is, at its most basic level, scotch broth. Except, I have tried to make scotch broth myself, I have tried about twelve different recipes for scotch broth, it is not the same. I have asked my mum for her exact recipe, and received one with measurements such as 'some' pearl barley and 'I'm sure turnips used to be bigger.' I have tried standing in the kitchen while she makes it so I can try to replicate it at home, it still doesn't work.
My mother, it cannot be emphisized enough, is not a good cook. This is almost certainly not, were you not Stockholm Syndrome'd into liking it as a child, a good scotch broth, and yet every winter I crave it so. Every year without fail, starting from about mid-November, I start hanging around my parents house like some sort of weirdo soup goblin until my mum takes pity and makes me a batch.
5. Which myths and fairy stories and folktales were the ones you grew up with most closely?
When I was a wee, tiny thing my dad used to read me The Lord of the Rings as a bedtime story, and I think that was responsible for 100% of my fannish identity and 75% of my adult personality. Ironic for somebody who has only been so-so on Tolkien ever since, but. So that was the sea I was cooked in, this sort of generic, ur British fantasy.
In a specific Scottish sense, the Loch Ness Monster, obviously. And, look, I know that everywhere in the world that has a deep, dark lake or a scary forest has its own monster myth, that it's a very basic, and very explainable part of human psychology, but I'm going to tell you the difference between those stories and Loch Ness - it's that on some level I really do think that there's monster down there.
Questions courtesy of
chestnut_pod1. How many different fannish archives have you been a member of since you became an internet-based fan?
Every year there is a cycle of wank about AO3 that I pay no mind to because do these people not remember how bad things were before? I mean, they don't remember, that is the problem. FF.net was called the pit of voles for a reason. Every fandom had its own archive - the Doctor Who one was A Teaspoon and an Open Mind, the Buffy/Angel one was, I think Silverlake. Some of them allowed slash, some of them didn't, femslash barely existed. Some of them had ill-defined 'quality standards' and you had to submit your fic for approval. Then there were the character and ship specific ones, at one point I think I had a bunch of fic on an archive specifically for Tara from Buffy, which just goes to show how desperate we all were back them, because, wow, was that a terribly written character and a relationship with the least romantic chemistry it is possible for two people to have. I never could figure out if the actress had somehow offended the costuming department on day dot or if they just had no idea how to style someone who, while still very slender, wasn't rail thin.
In short, AO3 is good actually.
2. Which sort of non-murder crime would you most like to see more mysteries written about?
I can't get on with a lot of true crime because I have a hard time deriving entertainment from the very worst thing that ever happened to another human being, which is why my favourite true crime book is one called The Feather Thief about a dude who became obsessed with the Victorian art of fly tying, not actually fishing with them mind, just making the things. So much so that he ended up stealing a suitcase full of dead birds of paradise from the British Museum and missing the last train home. I want more of that; a weird person did a weird thing for weird reasons because humans are weird, and no one was hurt in the process.
Fiction at least doesn't have the problem of still living victims or grieving family members, but all too often it does focus on horrifying things happening to women's bodies. You know what I want, more fiction about white collar crimes and fraud. I might be the only reader of a series of mysteries about the doings of the securities and exchange commission, but I would be an incredibly loyal only reader.
3. Do you read the acknowledgements in books? Can you remember any particularly funny ones, if so?
I suspect I saw this on social media rather than in a book I was actually reading, but there was that one where the guy thanked the man who refused to give him a job as an eel salesman for his writing career. There's a whole other story just in that acknowledgment, like, eel salesman is a job, and a job you were unqualified for? Tell me that story.
4. What is your favorite dish to eat in winter?
Okay, so my mum makes this soup. My family calls it 'winter soup'. It is, at its most basic level, scotch broth. Except, I have tried to make scotch broth myself, I have tried about twelve different recipes for scotch broth, it is not the same. I have asked my mum for her exact recipe, and received one with measurements such as 'some' pearl barley and 'I'm sure turnips used to be bigger.' I have tried standing in the kitchen while she makes it so I can try to replicate it at home, it still doesn't work.
My mother, it cannot be emphisized enough, is not a good cook. This is almost certainly not, were you not Stockholm Syndrome'd into liking it as a child, a good scotch broth, and yet every winter I crave it so. Every year without fail, starting from about mid-November, I start hanging around my parents house like some sort of weirdo soup goblin until my mum takes pity and makes me a batch.
5. Which myths and fairy stories and folktales were the ones you grew up with most closely?
When I was a wee, tiny thing my dad used to read me The Lord of the Rings as a bedtime story, and I think that was responsible for 100% of my fannish identity and 75% of my adult personality. Ironic for somebody who has only been so-so on Tolkien ever since, but. So that was the sea I was cooked in, this sort of generic, ur British fantasy.
In a specific Scottish sense, the Loch Ness Monster, obviously. And, look, I know that everywhere in the world that has a deep, dark lake or a scary forest has its own monster myth, that it's a very basic, and very explainable part of human psychology, but I'm going to tell you the difference between those stories and Loch Ness - it's that on some level I really do think that there's monster down there.