Friday Memeage!

[dawn_felagund]

First order of business: gakked from just about everyone,

If you think you know me well enough to respond to this, what warning label would you slap on me before letting me leave the factory house?

Next, what happened to thefridayfive?? Gah. Well, I wanted to do this one two weeks ago but was busy, so...

1. How far back can you trace your family tree?
Umm...to my great-grandparents? Well, I suppose that if I made the effort, I could go further than that. But really, I've no desire to make the effort. Genealogy is one thing that has never appealed to me.

2. What is the most interesting (or strange) thing you've heard about one of your relatives?
On my mom's side, we are descended from Mary Queen of Scots (the House of Stewart, or something like that), and she was beheaded.

This also means that I am descended from royalty! My title, if you were wondering, is Lord of Caves, though I do not expect people to address me as such.

More recently in my family--like in the last century--my dad's grandmother had something like a half-dozen fiances: She would collect the shiny, then drop the guy. Once she had enough shiny, she had it all melted down and had a single large shiny made. Does that sound familiar? *ahem* Anyway, apparently my dad is in possession of the shiny, and I am due to inherit it. I shall try not to throw myself into a volcano upon receiving it.

3. How do you feel about legacy names like John Henry Smith IV or naming children after other relatives?
Well, my husband is a "third," as in Bobby, III...

And it is a pain in the ass.

Should he and his father have separate accounts with a company, they are constantly mixed up. We recently went through a snafu with Dell, where my father-in-law ordered some printer toner, and Bobby's account was charged. It was so tangled and without solution that we finally gave up, and my mother-in-law wrote us a check for the amount and we paid the bill without further argument. Luckily, my husband's last name is not a common name; I'd hate to be one of the literally thousands of "John Smiths," who probably get charged for every other "John Smith's" freakin' toner.

4. Would you consider yourself and/or your family to be traditional?
Eh...not really. And our traditions tend to be odd, single-generation things, certainly nothing like, "Grandma wore this pink dress for her sweet sixteen party, so you shall do the same, Dawn!" We always ate pizza on Christmas Eve, for example, and Dad would always make the pizza from a kit because we lived in the middle of BF Egypt, and no one would deliver (if pizza joints are even open on Christmas Eve. I don't know, since we never had one near enough to deliver to us!) Or I would always get to choose a place to eat for my birthday, only we'd never end up going until about March. (My birthday is in September.) The only year that I got to actually eat out on my birthday was the year that I was eighteen because Tropical Storm Floyd announced my coming-of-age by blowing down most of the power lines in Maryland, and we were without power for my birthday and the week after. So we had no choice but to eat out...and since it was my birthday, I got to pick.

Or Dad would always make cookies whenever we got snowed in which--see aforementioned comment on living in the middle of BF Egypt--was pretty often.

Bobby and I have far more "traditions," though mostly, they seem to be things that we really enjoy doing, so we call them "traditions" as a good excuse to do them regularly.

We also eat pizza on Christmas Eve, and Bobby also always makes it homemade...though not because no one will deliver to us!

5. What is one tradition you have passed on to your children and/or plan to pass on to them?
Since I don't intend to have children and Golden Retrievers don't make much sense of tradition, then this question is completely irrelevant.

And...the fannish5...

Name five fanfic cliches you secretly (or not-so-secretly) like.

1. I don't think this is really a cliche, but it is done a lot so...

Maedhros/Fingon. I will be a sucker for this pairing forever, I fear. As much as my better sense cries that they were cousins, and I'm reading it all wrong, and I'm on a huge bandwagon besides, I can't help myself. I trot alongside the bandwagon quite happily and occasionally add my chirpy little voice to the fray.

Meanwhile, there's a little cynical voice in the back of my mind saying, "Dawn, you like any story where Maedhros gets nookie, you perv!"

2. I despise the notion that Ambarussa = Weasley twins, but I do quite like stories where the Fëanorian twins have some sort of special connection. I've seen some where the author--probably in a vain attempt to combat the aforementioned Weasley thing--makes it so that the twins don't give a hoot about each other; it just feels wrong to me. It feels wrong canonically (since they are always mentioned together) and intuitively.

Of course, in By the Light of Roses, I created some distance between the twins myself, but I tried also to show that there was an underlying connection between them, even if neither brother would have particularly chosen it. I don't know how successful I was at that, but that was my intention!

3. The notion that Nerdanel and Fëanor had frequent hott monkey love...again, not exactly a cliche but done by the majority of authors who write this pairing. Just like the Weasley example for #2, I've seen stories that take the complete opposite perspective and try to make Fëanor into some kind of ascetic. Again, it just feels wrong, canonically and intuitively. (It would be an interesting angle to explore, actually: the idea of Fëanor as a character who is always trying to be in control of his passions and is not always so successful--hence the seven sons--but I already have a sexually repressed character who is passionately in love with his partner in my Midhavens verse, so I expend my efforts on him and leave my Fëanor quite the little horndog.)

And there's that cynical voice again, pointing out that the root of my liking for this particular manner of writing Fëanor/Nerdanel has nothing to do with canon or artistry but because I am a hopeless perv.

4. Celegorm had a little thing for Aredhel. I know, I know, I'm probably going to catch a thick, hardcover volume of HoMe to the head from rhapsody11, but I do have a weakness for this particular plot. I'm not fond of those that have an all-out sexual affair, but a little sexual tension is a good thing.

Okay, four done so far and three are naughty...I don't even need the little voice to tell me that I'm hopeless.

5. Maglor died at some point while wandering. Sorry again, rhapsody11. *winces* I just hate having him and his wife and brothers parted (mostly Nelyo) and also hate the unfinished feel to the story. That last bit is silly, I know, but with Maglor still wandering about, the story feels incomplete to me. I like to imagine them all back together so that they may begin healing, and I'm a big sap (as well as a perv) so I can't imagine that happening so long as the family is incomplete. I suppose that I need him to die in order to give the family closure...and also, it is necessary before he can be reunited with Vingarië in the Felakverse.

Comments

[juno-magic.livejournal.com]

CONTACT YOUR PHYSICIAN IMMEDIATELY IF YOU START SEEING NEKKID ELVES PRANCING ABOUT IN YOUR FIELD OF VISION.

I think it's impossible to improve on that label, so I won't even try.

ROFL!!!