Twenty questions
So this Formspring thing keeps glitching and not letting people see older answers, which also means that people are asking duplicate questions because they can't see what I've already answered. And I am getting asked a lot. I've answered 200, and I've got something like 83 still hidden in the inbox. So what I'm going to do is copy-paste the answers into LJ entries--but always backdated to 3/8/10, so that they don't keep cluttering up your f-list after today. I'll tell you when I've put up a new one, but we'll use 3/8 as the archive day. And that way, people can comment on the questions/answers without having to create new "this isn't really a question" questions to do so. I'll also put them in order from the top down, the way you naturally read, instead of the newest on top the way Formspring does it.
I'm sure some people will see posting all of this as incredibly egotistic on my part, but y'all, I just answered two hundred questions. That shit is not going to waste. So!
When was the last time you received flowers?
For my 20th birthday, which was a little more than 11 years ago. I love flowers, though, so sometimes I get them for myself.
What's the worst show on TV?
You know, I don't watch a lot of TV--and I don't mean that in an uppity way; I just spend so much time in front of a computer screen that I either forget things or on or don't feel like looking at yet another screen--so I don't really feel qualified to answer this.
Except maybe "The Hills." "Jersey Shore"? Let's go with that.
What's your favorite Aromaleigh eyeshadow? I keep trying to pick one out but am suffering from choice paralysis.
I really really like Angel Bouquet, which is a soft pink with kind of a smoky undertone. I'm still trying out a bunch of colors, and I can tell you a ton I like (Angelique, Chocolate Heart, Circe, Olivia, Burnt Roses, Jewel, Orinoco, and Fiona, the best blender/highlighter ever) but that's really a go-to color for me.
If you could have Tonner make a doll out of any fictional character you wanted (this does not include Alice Cullen), who would it be and why? by queenanthai
My soul craves a Violet Baudelaire.
http://costumersguide.com/violet.shtml
Although, duh, Galadriel.
Do you think Lost is going to end with any satisfaction for people watching, or not?
Given that we're--how many episodes into the last season now? I'm getting a bit concerned. I gave up on expecting any kind of satisfaction a long time ago, though; I'm more just curious to see where they've decided to take this after all these years. I mean, this is the show that, rather than give us any real forward movement, made up a one-episode alternate-universe kid for Jack just so we could visit his daddy issues one more time. So I'm not expecting to LIKE the answers; I just want to know what they are. IF THERE ARE ANY.
What would you like to do for the rest of your life?
What I'm doing right now, which is write. Except I'd like to make a smidge more money doing it.
Sometimes I have also thought that I would like to be a backup singer, though.
How come you've never posted a photo of yourself? Are you a private person, or is it a result of internet fame and the fact that some people are nuts? by bathbomb
I actually made a decision very early on not to give out certain pieces of information or post pictures of myself. Like, before I started my LJ, even. Mostly it was an internet safety issue--before I even had cause to worry about it. I set up on LJ as a writer because I knew that writers need places where readers can find them, and that it would be better to go ahead and set up something like that before I actually had need of it. And that since writing professionally was what I planned to do with my life, I knew that, if I was any good at it, people might get more interested in personal ways than I would like. Better to go ahead and protect myself.
That said, I've realized that if I'm ever going to do any kind of promotional work... people are going to have to find out what I look like. And I'm just insecure enough to want to put off that day as long as I can. It's not even so much that people on the internet are nuts (although some of them are); it's that they're *mean,* and I've seen how other female writers have been mocked.
Who would win a vampire match-up, Eric from the Sookie Stackhouse books or Edward from Twilight?
See, the thing is, when you consider this kind of question, you have to think about how the characters are actually written. Sparklepires are written to be virtually indestructible, so--I hate to say it--if you're honest about it, they're going to win a lot of fights. I mean, they're marble-hard, super fast, and weapons don't work on them. Not even stakes.
That said, you specifically asked about Eric and Edward. Eric could defeat Edward pretty handily by flinging an issue of Playboy at him, or maybe the panties of his most recent conquest.
What are some of your favorite time wasting websites?
I try not to waste a whole lot of time on purpose, considering that I'm very good at wasting it accidentally, BUT:
1) tvtropes.org. Always use the buddy system, or at least tell people you're going there, because they're going to wonder where you've been the last five days.
2) webkinz.com. I'm to the point where I don't even want to play, like, Solitaire or Free Cell anymore unless I can earn virtual pet not-money doing it. (Iorek the stuffed polar bear is a Webkinz.)
3) kingdomofloathing.com, although I haven't played it in a long while. They added so many new quests and made it so much more complicated that I couldn't really do speed runs and collect skills the way I used to.
4) Twitter. Let's face it, Twitter's a huge time waster. It's like a chat room that sometimes has famous people. And then you sit there and refresh it and wait for someone to say something else. And then people post links and you click them and three hours have passed.
5) Etsy. I never MEAN to, but someone links to a necklace or something and suddenly I'm going through looking at everything whoever's ever sold.
6) Google Reader. This isn't really a time-waster, since it's where I harvest linkspam (and yes, I flag links every day for my FriendFeed, whether I post an LJ linkspam or not), but because I have something like 220 sites/blog feeds coming in, it has that similar link-following timesink quality to it.
7) Formspring. Yeah. I've been on it for about an hour, and already I see my future.
Are you aware of the Tonner Virtual Sale next week? (And which doll would you get, if you could? (No, I'm not buying you any.)
Heh.
Yeah, I got an email about that (I have signed up for their newsletters and alerts, naturally). They had one a few weeks ago as well, and I tried to grab a Bellatrix because it was insanely cheap, and it was ripped right out of my shopping cart by someone who managed to pay for it first.
I'm trying not to spend money on shoppy-fun things at the moment, so I don't know that I'd even look at this one. But I never did buy that Queen Susan that I wanted, and the Twilight Victoria is pretty fierce with that pimp coat and all. They wouldn't have a White Queen from the new Alice in Wonderland--they haven't even revealed that doll yet--but I think that's the one I'm prepared to go nuts over next, just because I LOVE the movie costume.
If they were to make a reality show out of your life, what would it be called? by maleficently
Oh God, I don't know. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, probably. Never Making It Up, possibly. I pity the editor who would have to cobble together entire episodes from footage of me working at my laptop while the dogs snore on various articles of furniture for hours at a shot. They'd have to save the exploding appliances for sweeps.
Do you feel that you like Twilight as unintentional comedy, or genuinely, or a little of both? Which is the overriding feeling about the Twilight?
If you go back and read the entry I wrote on the first book, it starts off with something like, "I love this book like pink pony cupcakes." I then followed that up with "Keep in mind, I also love 'Van Helsing.'" A lot of people did not catch on to the significance of this statement (maybe they sincerely like 'Van Helsing'?). Of course, I had also not yet read the other three books, which made me want to punch things, generally in the face if at all possible.
I don't know. There are isolated moments that kind of hit me on a really silly, schmoopy level, even as I think they're objectively hilarious. Like Epic Lunchroom Romance or whatever. (But almost all of these are in the first book, before things *really* went to wall-punching hell.) And Bella is such an unapologetic wish-fulfillment Mary Sue in the last third of the last book that it's breathtaking.
I think what confuses people is that I'm really, really good at compartmentalizing. I can very easily say, I hate this/that/the other, but this sentence over here, that's actually kind of well done. So the net effect is that I feel like Twilight is not well written (and Stephenie Meyer herself has said that she was a very inexperienced writer), it has some really awful social messages, the main character is generally unsympathetic and infuriating, the love triangle is pointless and unbalanced, the author has no grasp of how to write action when she actually bothers to write it at all, and she undermines her best characters (IMO, Alice and Jacob When He Is Not Pining For Bella Or Imprinting On Babies, Which Is Not Very Often) by having them act like assholes. The movies are a bit better because they involve the courageous efforts of many, many other people, they're more self-aware, they're funnier, they're not dependent on Bella's selfish interior monologue, and they quietly chuck the most boring or offensive parts... so far. Mostly. But they're still working with the same limp, repetitive, infuriating story. But I have so much fun with the series--and my snark personality tends to be affectionate rather than rageful--that people seem to have a hard time figuring out where I'm coming from.
But let's face it: Twilight is AWESOME to make fun of and have fun with. There is an endless amount of snark material there, and I think that's really where my enjoyment comes from. In fact, at this point, I'm almost spending more time talking about the fan insanity than the series itself. Sometimes I'm reminded of Jon Stewart rhetorically wondering what the Daily Show would do after George W. Bush left office. And, of course, the show found plenty to talk about after he did. Which is why I keep hoping that "The Hobbit" will start up filming soon, so I can have something to talk about that doesn't make me feel like I'm part of the problem.
Did you seriously just compare yourself to Jon Stewart?
I compared myself, in making fun of a certain topic, to a show that makes fun of a certain topic. OMG HOW DARE I.
Just curious, why do you live with your parents at your age? That comes out all rude and judgmental, but I really don't mean it like that. It seems like you get a long great with your family.
Well, there are three valid answers to this question (which I have now gotten three versions of, and this one is the least judgmental), I guess:
1) Because, for a variety of health and financial reasons, it works for us. There are a lot of personal issues going on that I don't talk about.
2) Because I'm a loser.
3) Because none of your business.
You can pick whichever one you want, I guess.
Will you give us a count number on the inevitable creepy questions you'll get asked because this is the anonymous internet?
So far: four.
Do you ever find it creepy when people send you stuff? If not generally, has anyone ever sent you anything creepy?
I don't find it creepy in general; mostly I just feel grateful but undeserving. Little things are awesome (like handmade stuff, or some awesome doll accessory hand-me-downs I've gotten), because I don't feel as bad about those. And I really have gotten some wonderful things that I feel very grateful for and don't want people to feel bad about sending. I just don't want to encourage people to think that's What We Do Now, or like they have to one-up each other.
I can't recall getting anything creepy *in the mail* offhand. Most of the creepy I run into is purely online.
Will the Secret Life of Dolls be making a come back any time soon? I know you've been busy with life and the Compocalypse and whatnot, but I miss the Littlest Edward. And what about the gathering squirrels?! I ponder this and more sometimes.
It's coming back. I have a number of entries mapped out. The problem is just that the next one is a big plot moment, and I'm having a hard time getting it to be as good as it needs to be.
Squirrels are definitely involved, though.
Is there a character you'd like to add to The Secret Life of Dolls, but haven't because you don't know how to write for them?
I would still really like to get a Queen Susan, but I have no idea what to do with her, or how that would improve/enrich the story any. There IS a fairly inexpensive figure that I'm looking into adding, and I think people would be really happy with it; I just haven't had the time to look for it on eBay or to figure out when to bring it into the story.
I would also love to get a Tia Dalma or the new White Queen (or even hunt down the limited edition convention White Witch Tonner did. Yes, a Tilda Swinton White Witch), or even the Twilight Victoria, but I feel like those characters would work best as cameos, and who has that kind of money for really minor appearances?
OK, I totally have to know now that you've said you have Webkinz. How many do you have? Be honest. by bishsticks
I honestly don't know, and I'm afraid to look. People like to give them to me--like, people I actually know IRL, family. I don't think I've ever bought one of the stuffed animals for myself, although I bought a couple of the online-only ones. You know for sure that I have a polar bear and a sheep, though.
Why "unobtanium"? WHY? I have sought long and hard the answer to this question, but it seems lodged deeply within the reaches of the very-expensive-movie-with-a-screenplay-that-was-written-in-five-minutes caverns. Can you explore their depths?
That line in "Avatar" is actually part of a long, proud, tongue-in-cheek tradition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium
That doesn't mean the line itself isn't clunky as all hell. If it had been something more like, "Yeah, we call it unobtainium, heh" that would have been one thing.
More in a bit.
I'm sure some people will see posting all of this as incredibly egotistic on my part, but y'all, I just answered two hundred questions. That shit is not going to waste. So!
When was the last time you received flowers?
For my 20th birthday, which was a little more than 11 years ago. I love flowers, though, so sometimes I get them for myself.
What's the worst show on TV?
You know, I don't watch a lot of TV--and I don't mean that in an uppity way; I just spend so much time in front of a computer screen that I either forget things or on or don't feel like looking at yet another screen--so I don't really feel qualified to answer this.
Except maybe "The Hills." "Jersey Shore"? Let's go with that.
What's your favorite Aromaleigh eyeshadow? I keep trying to pick one out but am suffering from choice paralysis.
I really really like Angel Bouquet, which is a soft pink with kind of a smoky undertone. I'm still trying out a bunch of colors, and I can tell you a ton I like (Angelique, Chocolate Heart, Circe, Olivia, Burnt Roses, Jewel, Orinoco, and Fiona, the best blender/highlighter ever) but that's really a go-to color for me.
If you could have Tonner make a doll out of any fictional character you wanted (this does not include Alice Cullen), who would it be and why? by queenanthai
My soul craves a Violet Baudelaire.
http://costumersguide.com/violet.shtml
Although, duh, Galadriel.
Do you think Lost is going to end with any satisfaction for people watching, or not?
Given that we're--how many episodes into the last season now? I'm getting a bit concerned. I gave up on expecting any kind of satisfaction a long time ago, though; I'm more just curious to see where they've decided to take this after all these years. I mean, this is the show that, rather than give us any real forward movement, made up a one-episode alternate-universe kid for Jack just so we could visit his daddy issues one more time. So I'm not expecting to LIKE the answers; I just want to know what they are. IF THERE ARE ANY.
What would you like to do for the rest of your life?
What I'm doing right now, which is write. Except I'd like to make a smidge more money doing it.
Sometimes I have also thought that I would like to be a backup singer, though.
How come you've never posted a photo of yourself? Are you a private person, or is it a result of internet fame and the fact that some people are nuts? by bathbomb
I actually made a decision very early on not to give out certain pieces of information or post pictures of myself. Like, before I started my LJ, even. Mostly it was an internet safety issue--before I even had cause to worry about it. I set up on LJ as a writer because I knew that writers need places where readers can find them, and that it would be better to go ahead and set up something like that before I actually had need of it. And that since writing professionally was what I planned to do with my life, I knew that, if I was any good at it, people might get more interested in personal ways than I would like. Better to go ahead and protect myself.
That said, I've realized that if I'm ever going to do any kind of promotional work... people are going to have to find out what I look like. And I'm just insecure enough to want to put off that day as long as I can. It's not even so much that people on the internet are nuts (although some of them are); it's that they're *mean,* and I've seen how other female writers have been mocked.
Who would win a vampire match-up, Eric from the Sookie Stackhouse books or Edward from Twilight?
See, the thing is, when you consider this kind of question, you have to think about how the characters are actually written. Sparklepires are written to be virtually indestructible, so--I hate to say it--if you're honest about it, they're going to win a lot of fights. I mean, they're marble-hard, super fast, and weapons don't work on them. Not even stakes.
That said, you specifically asked about Eric and Edward. Eric could defeat Edward pretty handily by flinging an issue of Playboy at him, or maybe the panties of his most recent conquest.
What are some of your favorite time wasting websites?
I try not to waste a whole lot of time on purpose, considering that I'm very good at wasting it accidentally, BUT:
1) tvtropes.org. Always use the buddy system, or at least tell people you're going there, because they're going to wonder where you've been the last five days.
2) webkinz.com. I'm to the point where I don't even want to play, like, Solitaire or Free Cell anymore unless I can earn virtual pet not-money doing it. (Iorek the stuffed polar bear is a Webkinz.)
3) kingdomofloathing.com, although I haven't played it in a long while. They added so many new quests and made it so much more complicated that I couldn't really do speed runs and collect skills the way I used to.
4) Twitter. Let's face it, Twitter's a huge time waster. It's like a chat room that sometimes has famous people. And then you sit there and refresh it and wait for someone to say something else. And then people post links and you click them and three hours have passed.
5) Etsy. I never MEAN to, but someone links to a necklace or something and suddenly I'm going through looking at everything whoever's ever sold.
6) Google Reader. This isn't really a time-waster, since it's where I harvest linkspam (and yes, I flag links every day for my FriendFeed, whether I post an LJ linkspam or not), but because I have something like 220 sites/blog feeds coming in, it has that similar link-following timesink quality to it.
7) Formspring. Yeah. I've been on it for about an hour, and already I see my future.
Are you aware of the Tonner Virtual Sale next week? (And which doll would you get, if you could? (No, I'm not buying you any.)
Heh.
Yeah, I got an email about that (I have signed up for their newsletters and alerts, naturally). They had one a few weeks ago as well, and I tried to grab a Bellatrix because it was insanely cheap, and it was ripped right out of my shopping cart by someone who managed to pay for it first.
I'm trying not to spend money on shoppy-fun things at the moment, so I don't know that I'd even look at this one. But I never did buy that Queen Susan that I wanted, and the Twilight Victoria is pretty fierce with that pimp coat and all. They wouldn't have a White Queen from the new Alice in Wonderland--they haven't even revealed that doll yet--but I think that's the one I'm prepared to go nuts over next, just because I LOVE the movie costume.
If they were to make a reality show out of your life, what would it be called? by maleficently
Oh God, I don't know. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, probably. Never Making It Up, possibly. I pity the editor who would have to cobble together entire episodes from footage of me working at my laptop while the dogs snore on various articles of furniture for hours at a shot. They'd have to save the exploding appliances for sweeps.
Do you feel that you like Twilight as unintentional comedy, or genuinely, or a little of both? Which is the overriding feeling about the Twilight?
If you go back and read the entry I wrote on the first book, it starts off with something like, "I love this book like pink pony cupcakes." I then followed that up with "Keep in mind, I also love 'Van Helsing.'" A lot of people did not catch on to the significance of this statement (maybe they sincerely like 'Van Helsing'?). Of course, I had also not yet read the other three books, which made me want to punch things, generally in the face if at all possible.
I don't know. There are isolated moments that kind of hit me on a really silly, schmoopy level, even as I think they're objectively hilarious. Like Epic Lunchroom Romance or whatever. (But almost all of these are in the first book, before things *really* went to wall-punching hell.) And Bella is such an unapologetic wish-fulfillment Mary Sue in the last third of the last book that it's breathtaking.
I think what confuses people is that I'm really, really good at compartmentalizing. I can very easily say, I hate this/that/the other, but this sentence over here, that's actually kind of well done. So the net effect is that I feel like Twilight is not well written (and Stephenie Meyer herself has said that she was a very inexperienced writer), it has some really awful social messages, the main character is generally unsympathetic and infuriating, the love triangle is pointless and unbalanced, the author has no grasp of how to write action when she actually bothers to write it at all, and she undermines her best characters (IMO, Alice and Jacob When He Is Not Pining For Bella Or Imprinting On Babies, Which Is Not Very Often) by having them act like assholes. The movies are a bit better because they involve the courageous efforts of many, many other people, they're more self-aware, they're funnier, they're not dependent on Bella's selfish interior monologue, and they quietly chuck the most boring or offensive parts... so far. Mostly. But they're still working with the same limp, repetitive, infuriating story. But I have so much fun with the series--and my snark personality tends to be affectionate rather than rageful--that people seem to have a hard time figuring out where I'm coming from.
But let's face it: Twilight is AWESOME to make fun of and have fun with. There is an endless amount of snark material there, and I think that's really where my enjoyment comes from. In fact, at this point, I'm almost spending more time talking about the fan insanity than the series itself. Sometimes I'm reminded of Jon Stewart rhetorically wondering what the Daily Show would do after George W. Bush left office. And, of course, the show found plenty to talk about after he did. Which is why I keep hoping that "The Hobbit" will start up filming soon, so I can have something to talk about that doesn't make me feel like I'm part of the problem.
Did you seriously just compare yourself to Jon Stewart?
I compared myself, in making fun of a certain topic, to a show that makes fun of a certain topic. OMG HOW DARE I.
Just curious, why do you live with your parents at your age? That comes out all rude and judgmental, but I really don't mean it like that. It seems like you get a long great with your family.
Well, there are three valid answers to this question (which I have now gotten three versions of, and this one is the least judgmental), I guess:
1) Because, for a variety of health and financial reasons, it works for us. There are a lot of personal issues going on that I don't talk about.
2) Because I'm a loser.
3) Because none of your business.
You can pick whichever one you want, I guess.
Will you give us a count number on the inevitable creepy questions you'll get asked because this is the anonymous internet?
So far: four.
Do you ever find it creepy when people send you stuff? If not generally, has anyone ever sent you anything creepy?
I don't find it creepy in general; mostly I just feel grateful but undeserving. Little things are awesome (like handmade stuff, or some awesome doll accessory hand-me-downs I've gotten), because I don't feel as bad about those. And I really have gotten some wonderful things that I feel very grateful for and don't want people to feel bad about sending. I just don't want to encourage people to think that's What We Do Now, or like they have to one-up each other.
I can't recall getting anything creepy *in the mail* offhand. Most of the creepy I run into is purely online.
Will the Secret Life of Dolls be making a come back any time soon? I know you've been busy with life and the Compocalypse and whatnot, but I miss the Littlest Edward. And what about the gathering squirrels?! I ponder this and more sometimes.
It's coming back. I have a number of entries mapped out. The problem is just that the next one is a big plot moment, and I'm having a hard time getting it to be as good as it needs to be.
Squirrels are definitely involved, though.
Is there a character you'd like to add to The Secret Life of Dolls, but haven't because you don't know how to write for them?
I would still really like to get a Queen Susan, but I have no idea what to do with her, or how that would improve/enrich the story any. There IS a fairly inexpensive figure that I'm looking into adding, and I think people would be really happy with it; I just haven't had the time to look for it on eBay or to figure out when to bring it into the story.
I would also love to get a Tia Dalma or the new White Queen (or even hunt down the limited edition convention White Witch Tonner did. Yes, a Tilda Swinton White Witch), or even the Twilight Victoria, but I feel like those characters would work best as cameos, and who has that kind of money for really minor appearances?
OK, I totally have to know now that you've said you have Webkinz. How many do you have? Be honest. by bishsticks
I honestly don't know, and I'm afraid to look. People like to give them to me--like, people I actually know IRL, family. I don't think I've ever bought one of the stuffed animals for myself, although I bought a couple of the online-only ones. You know for sure that I have a polar bear and a sheep, though.
Why "unobtanium"? WHY? I have sought long and hard the answer to this question, but it seems lodged deeply within the reaches of the very-expensive-movie-with-a-screenplay-that-was-written-in-five-minutes caverns. Can you explore their depths?
That line in "Avatar" is actually part of a long, proud, tongue-in-cheek tradition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtainium
That doesn't mean the line itself isn't clunky as all hell. If it had been something more like, "Yeah, we call it unobtainium, heh" that would have been one thing.
More in a bit.