Memes, reviews and minis

[misscam]

I was having troubles sleeping, so I made a little meme and here it is. You can do it if you like nad post it in your own journal if you'd like that.

1. If you could change one thing about me, what would it be?

2. If you could ensure one thing about me never changes, what would that be?

3. The day pigs fly and hell freezes over, I...:

4. If I'd had a past life, who or what would I have been and what caused you to pick that in particular?

5. In the Agatha Christie version of my life, who ended up killing me, how was it done and what was his/her/their motive? Or alternatively, who did I kill, how did I do it and what was my motive?

(Obviously, question three is about what you'd never, ever see me doing and in question five the murder should be Christie-style.)

And then a meme I filled out that's been wandering around my friends list.

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says.

mellom trærne.

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?

The bookshelf.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?

Late night news on BBC

4. WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what the time is.

8ish

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?

7.53

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?

Distant traffic and birds chirping (through the open window)

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

About an hour ago, to get the cat in.

8. Before you came to this website, what did you look at?

BBCNews

9. What are you wearing?

A tank top with Union Jack on, track pants, underwear and a towel wrapped around my wet hair.

10. Did you dream last night?

Not that I can remember.

11. When did you last laugh?

Yesterday evening.

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?

Various art, pictures from Australia, a movie poster, a cartoon about the Mars landing

13. Seen anything weird lately?

Yupyup. Saw a car do a manoeuvre that shouldn't be physically possible in this world.

14: What is the word most often used in your vocabulary?

Bloody.

15. What is the last film you saw?

Star Trek: The Final Frontier on TvNorge last night

16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first?

All the DVDs I could get my hands on.

17. Tell me something about you that I don't know.

I refuse to wear socks and wander about barefoot inside the whole year.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?

I would make all countries channel their nationalistic and aggressive energy into sports rather than the military-

19. Do you like to dance?

No great fan of it, no.

20. George Bush: is he a power-crazy nut case or someone who is finally doing something that has needed to be done for years?

I pick option number one, your honour.

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?

Rita or Alexandra.

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?

Magnus - or if I do marry a Scot; Ian.

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?

I already have lived abroad. Would I do it again for a certain preiod of time? Sure.

Onto another subject...

I tend to get a steady trinkle of feedback, mostly for OFUM. Which is nice enough, feedback should always be appreciated. But why oh why must some of them use the exclamation point at the end of every sentence! AND SOMETIMES CAPITALISE A WHOLE REVIEW! I'm not deaf, y'know. Shouting is not required. And for the love of Freya, don't talk about 'ur fic'. Ur fic would be fanfic about the Babylonian city of Ur. Don't make me hurt you...

Hmm, perhaps there should be some kind of OFUM-seminar on the art of reviewing?

I do get some fun reviews, like this one I got on Nocturne:Why? Why? Why? Was writing a huge OFUM Student slash not satisfying enough?!?! I love your work, but why? why? why? is it to spite all the Legolas MarySue's? Did
you crack? Please tell me why!

I'm not sure if she means the 'did you crack?' as in 'did you go bonkers?', 'did you do crack?' or 'did you collapse under strain?' but it amused me more than anything else. I guess I'm evil like that.

And MarySue's. Ooooooow... It burnsssss, precioussss. Burnssss! Which reminds me - two most amusing minis I've found this week. I present to you -

Altar and Sarong!

Comments

[fondued-jicama.livejournal.com]

Straaange minis. Hmm, well, you wear one at the other. Possibly. *blinks*

I think I'm probably a very annoying reviewer. I don't use exclamation marks like I'm dying tomorrow, but I tend to kind of, oh, use fragment sentences...and if I'm feeling REALLY bad about life, I try to lighten up very serious reviews with smileys.

I've written 316 reviews at ff.net. By now, I kind of hate smileys, actually.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

314? More diligent reviewer than me, that's for sure. I have about 140 registered reviews.

Obviously, I'm lazy.

[kunenk.livejournal.com]

Sarong? *blinks, rubs eyes, stares* How, precisely, do you get a garment wrapped around the body from Sauron? For Pete's sake, they don't even sound the same, let alone come from the same place...

[misscam.livejournal.com]

*ponders* Well, maybe the author thinks of Sauron as something she'd like wrapped around her body like a sarong is wrapped around her body.

Or she typed 'Saron' and MS Word autocorrected it. Though then it would probably have changed the capitalised 'S' and it was Sarong.

So who knows, really.

So...

[megaera-1.livejournal.com]

Is "Altar" so incredibly mangled that even you don't know what the hell it's supposed to be or is my brain simply not functioning?

The review also amused me. :-)

For Q3 of your meme, I could never, ever see you speaking netspeak on MSN.

Itz lyk soooooooooooooo not u, LOLZ!!!!!1 Or what I gather from your LJ, anyway.

Re: So...

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

Alatar, I'd guess.

Re: So...

[misscam.livejournal.com]

It's meant to be 'Atar'. The story in question had the Sue call out for her father quite a lot, and everytime it was 'ALTAR!'

Needless to say, I was amused.

[acaciaonnastik.livejournal.com]

Sarong?

..I'm wearing a sarong. As we speak. Type. Whatever.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

If the author was too, that could perhaps explain a few things...

So...

[huinesoron.livejournal.com]

What fandom would I have to go to to write Ur fanfic? 'cos that sounds kinda fun...

hS

Re: So...

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Biblical maybe?

[sasja-sokolov.livejournal.com]

1. If you could change one thing about me, what would it be?
Hmm... tough one... I guess I'd make you happier, richer, etc.

2. If you could ensure one thing about me never changes, what would that be?
Your intelligence.

3. The day pigs fly and hell freezes over, I...:
Will become a full- fleged, conservative, Bush fangirl.

4. If I'd had a past life, who or what would I have been and what caused you to pick that in particular?
You would have been a snarky Norse writer. Kind of like now. :P

5. In the Agatha Christie version of my life, who ended up killing me, how was it done and what was his/her/their motive? Or alternatively, who did I kill, how did I do it and what was my motive?
You were poisoned by rabid uber- conservative assasins after taking over the world. Or the other way around.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

I *like* the other way around! ;)

[rellielake.livejournal.com]

I'd feel kinda cheeky if I stole this meme and didn't fill it in so here ya go!

1. If you could change one thing about me, what would it be? well you'd be a less talented writer so the rest of us could feel better about our own writing ;)

2. If you could ensure one thing about me never changes, what would that be? Well I guess I'd hope you'd keep writing OFUM which completely contradicts the above responce but what the hey! *g*

3. The day pigs fly and hell freezes over, I...: write a Mary Sue complete with spelling mistakes, bad characterisation and no plot!

4. If I'd had a past life, who or what would I have been and what caused you to pick that in particular? Someone very scary and powerful...King or Queen of somewhere.

5. In the Agatha Christie version of my life, who ended up killing me, how was it done and what was his/her/their motive? Or alternatively, who did I kill, how did I do it and what was my motive?

The Mary Sue writer, on fanfic.net, with the terrible fanfic! Sorry that's more Cluedo than Agatha Christie.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

The day pigs fly and hell freezes over, I...: write a Mary Sue complete with spelling mistakes, bad characterisation and no plot!

Ah, so Hell was frozen over when I was a teenager?

Luckily, I had the good sense to never show it to anyone.

[support-gc-sp.livejournal.com]

Right...*looks suspiciously at Mini-Balrogs*
Um...may I ask what "Altar" is supposed to be?

[misscam.livejournal.com]

It's meant to be 'Atar', Elvish for 'father'.

[sinneahtes.livejournal.com]

Because it's always fun to get answers from a variety of people, I guess...

1. If you could change one thing about me, what would it be? Gah, you use the British spelling of "enrol" instead of getting it incorrect and spelling it "enroll!" That's the only word in British spelling that drives me absolutely bonkers! ^_^; Honestly though, if I thoroughly read your entire blog I *might* find one or two things I wish you'd chill about, but otherwise I'm thinking I'd have to change half the world to change what I don't like seeing when I read anything of yours. Which isn't a bad thing to say about you at all.

2. If you could ensure one thing about me never changes, what would that be? From what I can tell, your willingness to call things into question before your readers and offer what insight you give into the situations. (Like stuff about the war in Iraq and US policies and stuff.)

3. The day pigs fly and hell freezes over, I...: Vote for Dubya and pat him on the back for what a wonderful job he's done in the world. :P

4. If I'd had a past life, who or what would I have been and what caused you to pick that in particular? See below. I'm saying so because my creativity at the moment is a little dry. ^_^;

5. In the Agatha Christie version of my life, who ended up killing me, how was it done and what was his/her/their motive? Or alternatively, who did I kill, how did I do it and what was my motive? I'm imagining some shady guy who killed someone else first over money suspected that you, as a journalist or someone with too many feelers out for the situation, were on his case. He panics and sneaks into your room at night, while you're either sleeping or reading, either stabbing you or smothering you with a pillow or turning some sort of poisonous gas on. (Mom watches too much Poirot where I can see it, but I'm no mystery writer myself. :P)

Badly written reviews are such a pet peeve of mine. Even worse than bad spelling and punctuation is when they say the stupidest things (like when they take a character whose personality is not spelled out at *all* anywhere in canon and make up their own idea of him/her, then judge other fanfics by it), or use condescending tones, and then consider it to be "constructive criticism" and give some rant on the differences between "flame" and "con-crit" (and suggest that any author who isn't happy with the way they've reviewed is unable to handle "con-crit.") Dearies, there's a difference between "*sigh* I cannot understand people who say they're rusty on the Silmarillion and then go write about it, messing up all the characters! *sighs again* People like you should be banned from writing!" and "An interesting start - but the characters are off. For example, the Silmarillion explicitly describes the character of [character's name here] as being [explanation here] - you've made him look completely opposite, such as [quote from or reference to the fanfic], without justifying it in the writing." It doesn't need to be sugar-coated, but if you're going to call it "constructive criticism," make it constructive! :P (No, haven't experienced this for myself, though I have read it in other people's fics. Plus I am a creative writing major who has a fair enough part of her grades depending on her ability to give and receive decent con crit, so I'm not entirely ignorant about what's appropriate and what isn't. :P) If you do choose to write an OFUM seminar on reviewing, I will eagerly await it. ^_^

Speaking of reviewing, I should probably do more of it sometime. ^_^;

(-plasticgastropod, btw)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on! There's no such thing as too much Poirot.

Personally though, I actually prefered Miss Marple. Probably because I could imagine myself being a bit like that when old - sweet and knitting on the surface, but a mind for murder.

Reviewing is a tricky skill. And it is very easy to be condescending even if you don't intend to.

I think I will do a seminar. I could combine it with a bit on dignified responding to reviews as well. Odin knows some authors need to learn that...

[andy-longwood.livejournal.com]

1. If you could change one thing about me, what would it be?
Um . . . nothing, as far as I know. You're really cool.

2. If you could ensure one thing about me never changes, what would that be?
Your intelligence. I love reading your entries (along with your fics). When they're not hysterical, they tend to contain something really insightful and deep. Actually, they usually contain that when they're hysterical, too, so it's all good.

3. The day pigs fly and hell freezes over, I...:
Will proclaim your undying love and sexual fervor for George W. Bush.

*shudder*

4. If I'd had a past life, who or what would I have been and what caused you to pick that in particular?
A cat. Because you seem catty. Which I'm sure you realize is a compliment.

5. In the Agatha Christie version of my life, who ended up killing me, how was it done and what was his/her/their motive? Or alternatively, who did I kill, how did I do it and what was my motive?
Mary Sue did, with her Supar Sparklee Sord of Doom!!!!11eleventyone! for helping turn people against her EVAL. Alternately, you killed Mary Sue with a big spiky mace for raping canon up the ass with a pointy stick.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Dear Freya, now you've got me imagining me and Bush doin' it at the Oval Office on the desk. Me on top, of course. *deep, deep shudder*

Thanks for that mental image - I'll send you my therapy bill.

[starfishofelves.livejournal.com]

1. If you could change one thing about me, what would it be?
I wouldn't change you. I don't like forcing changes on people. Well, except when it involves drastically changing their writing abilty for the sake of the reading world, but that doesn't count.

2. If you could ensure one thing about me never changes, what would that be?
It's been said before, but I'd say your intelligence.

3. The day pigs fly and hell freezes over, I...:
Write a story whose summary is "Miss Camlynwynielessen Sparklysandflowergrrl suddnley appearz in the wHite Houes!! Will George w.bush Fall 4 her?? (A/n: OMG he iz soooooo hawt!) OMG teh supences iz killing me!!1! LOL!"

4. If I'd had a past life, who or what would I have been and what caused you to pick that in particular?
An Elf, which explains why you don't like seeing Arda canon raped.

5. In the Agatha Christie version of my life, who ended up killing me, how was it done and what was his/her/their motive? Or alternatively, who did I kill, how did I do it and what was my motive?
You sneak assassinitively (What another fun new word!) around the Pit of Voles killing Sues with the sorts of poisons that have interesting effects for the betterment of the fanficcing community. And that probably wasn't Christie style as I've never read an Agatha Christie book in my life.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Ow, that summary make my bones ache. Ew.

And obviously, if I ever somehow get invited to your birthday party, I shall have to give you an Agatha Christie novel. I shall have to think carefully about which one.

A good- no, essential idea.

[megalomaniac2.livejournal.com]

Proper reviewing is a badly neglected aspect of most fanfiction education. A class at OFUM would be excellent, and extremely amusing. (Poetic Justice Suggestion: Have Smaug exact discipline on unrepentant flamers.)

Re: A good- no, essential idea.

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Heh. I was considering using the flaming Grond meself to headknock students in the bum (obviously, it would send them flying into something nasty, which would be a bonus). But anything flaming could serve the purpose.

Reveiwing difficulty

[(Anonymous)]

I've always found it easy to reveiw. All I do is think about what I want to say and then find a diplomatic and encouraging way to say it. But then, I guess most people are'nt me, and the way I am makes it diifficult to see other people that way.
A reveiwing seminar sounda FUUUUUUN!!!!!!
Kyrh@*

Re: Reveiwing difficulty

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure many finds it easy to review. That doesn't necessarily make them good reviewers, y'know. It's a bit like how people can think themselves really good singers when they're not - because everything sounds better in your own head. And anyway, even those who are naturally good at reviewing can always learn something to improve.

[elvea-aure.livejournal.com]

...

Altar and Sarong. Yes, I wear a sarong (and kebaya) when I do a ritual in front of my altar. Nice of you to ask.

Honestly though, do I even want to know what universe that came from? (If it's LotR-verse, I might commit suicide. I mean it.)

[misscam.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was LotR all right. I did a little skim of LotR stories and found over 20 new minis, including Meerkwood and Glorien as well. People just can't spell.

Reviews...

[beregondsgirl.livejournal.com]

Bah Humbug.

I'm no good at doing them, so I'm trying to comment on the ones I like, so I can practice. I've, surprisingly, found several decent fics on ff.net this past week...

Anyway, most of my commenting is on quizilla.com, where I spend some time looking through the tests (Most of which make me wince and scroll quickly past...), and I just got flamed... :(

What do other people do when they get flames? I know I should probably just laugh at it, and use it to start up the grill for BBQ chicken, but I'm shaking, and I *had* to reply. I didn't flame her...I don't get what I did to deserve it. all I did was tell her that she was creating Mini-Balrogs all over the place and that she should look at OFUM... and I get two flames from her, written in all caps and swearing every other word.

*feeling kind of shook up*

Yes, I'm a n00bie. I'd like to know what everyone else does...

Re: Reviews...

[misscam.livejournal.com]

I don't get that many flames, so I'm not sure what I'd do. I tend to love war-of-insults, so I tend to reply with carefully composed insults and not one bit of Caps Lock. But I find amusement in that sort of thing. What you might do is point out that her swearing actually ruins whatever point she was trying to make and that if she has a complaint aganist you, perhaps she could explain it more in detail so that you could respond? If you don't want a conflict with her, you might explain that what you wrote was meant only to be an offer of help, not offensive.

But as it has been mentioned previously in this thread, if this someone is a teenager, she could just take anything even hinting at critisism as an insult and respond with a hissing fit. If so, she's a brat. (I was a brat myself at that age - most of us were, to a certain extent.) Anything you say will just get you more venom from her, so don't waste your breath. She'll have to grow out of it herself. Or not, which happens.