Trabia Garden

Anne McCaffrey may have said some weird things in interviews, and her books may have included some weird implications (we have very different ideas about how much sexual assault a hero can commit before he starts to look rather less heroic), but she was the first woman to win a Hugo or a Nebula or to get a science-fiction book onto the New York Times bestseller list and, on a smaller-scale note of influence, I really loved the Pern series in my early teens.

I - I think I may have been involved on a Pern roleplaying guild on Neopets once? With a brown dragon named Zephyrith (no relation to the name 'Sephiroth'; this was before I discovered Final Fantasy) or something, despite the fact that women can't Impress browns because look I'm special okay. McCaffrey wouldn't have liked that, of course - she was opposed to fanfiction of her books - but it was nonetheless an act of love for her world. (Oh, hang on, I've just searched and found that she did eventually relax her stance on fanfiction. My inner twelve-year-old is suddenly itching to write reams of Mary Sue; my outer twenty-something-year-old wants dragonrider crossover AUs everywhere forever.)

(EDIT: On further reflection, I think Zephyrith may have been a green! But I think I had a special brown dragon in a different Pern roleplay I was briefly involved in.)

Curious fact: the (male) Tai in An Exercise in Pointlessness, my 2004 NaNo effort, was indirectly named after the (female) Tai from The Skies of Pern. In my first Final Fantasy VIII playthrough, I named both Squall and Rinoa after female dragonriders from the Pern series: Rinoa was Lessa, and Squall was TAI (I'd never played a Final Fantasy game before and at that stage hadn't realised that, if I named him in allcaps, EVERYONE WOULD BE SHOUTING AT SQUALL ALL THE TIME). 'Lessa' never stuck, but I recycled 'Tai' as a name for various original characters before it found a permanent home in my NaNo Tai.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry to hear McCaffrey has died. Maybe I should pick up my Pern books again.


Have some quick thoughts on television:

Misfits, episode 3.04: It's a little strange to watch Misfits when I also love so much television of questionable quality, because Misfits really is excellently written (although Simon and Alisha seem to have become slightly less interesting to me now that they are no longer such a massive failure at humanity and terrible person respectively). Kelly is still my favourite, and I find myself unexpectedly 'shipping her and Power Dealer Guy to tiny adorable pieces. I'm a little worried about the possible fate of their dynamic, though, because Misfits is an extremely hostile environment for adorability.

Glee, episode 3.06: I did have a few tears in my eyes towards the end. Santana's storyline is my favourite on Glee at the moment and I want her to take the lead on more songs. I have listened to the Adele mashup approximately a squillion times.

Waterloo Road, episode 7.20: oh my God Linda Radleigh what is wrong with you

The Broccoli Test is a meme that was going around a while ago, and that I’ve only decided to do just now, because I’m slow like that. It is a Test of Compatibility.

The rules are these:

One half of a couple is standing in the fresh vegetable aisle of a large supermarket. The other half is on the other side of the shop. The two can see each other, but cannot communicate verbally. Can the other half convey to the one in the vegetable aisle that he wants broccoli?

I am not going to do it for Fullmetal Alchemist, because cmshaw has already done that perfectly here. Behind the cut, therefore, are the Broccoli Test results for assorted pairings from Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X-2, Silent Hill 2, The Aeneid for some reason, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, my NaNo and, um, my friendslist.

( Very few of the pairings actually pass. )