Jake R's 50 Question Copypasta Thingy · 6:47am Apr 8th, 2014
I could be productive tonight, but I just got done with my four mile walk and I'm tired, so Imma totally give you people too much personal information about me! (Anyway, I'm going to be at BABSCon in a week and a half, so it's not like my identity's going to stay secret for long.)
1. What is your first name:
Fletcher. That's right, my first name is Fletcher. Eat it, regular name people. I've actually had folks—completely out of the blue, knowing nothing about me—tell me that I ought to be a professional writer because my name sounds all writerly.
2. How old are you:
Thirty-motherf******-three. Yeah, bitches.
Damn it, Jake, why did you have to go posting Jesse Pinkman on your blog? "Breaking Bad" screws with my profanity filters something fierce.
3. What country are you from:
The United States of America, though I've spent significant amounts of time living in Japan and France (and slightly less significant amounts of time living in New Zealand).
4. What do you really look like, pictures are acceptable:
This is the most recent picture of me.
5. What do you wish you looked like:
This is me when I was a lot younger and hadn't put on weight. This is why I'm on Weight Watchers now (which, incidentally, is pretty awesome, as is walking).
6. How did you come across My Little Pony:
/b/, though I largely ignored it at the time. Later, one of my friends got into it. I don't really remember when I started watching the show, but it's fair to say I didn't join the fandom until after reading the last volume of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time. My favorite character died. I kind of needed a pick-me-up.
7. What is your favorite ship in My Little Pony and why:
Probably TwiJack, but I suspect that owes more to the few folks that write it than anything else. I've also got a big soft spot for canon ships like MiAmoreArmor and CheeriMac (though apparently quite a few people disagree with the latter's canonicity).
8. What is your least favorite ship and why:
The USS Caine, because seriously, fuck those guys. (If you've never seen "The Caine Mutiny", it's an amazing film and I totally, totally recommend it. Damn, now I want to go watch it again.)
9. Have you admitted to anyone outside of Fimfiction that you love MLP:
I'm pretty public about it, and I've gotten at least three good friends into the show. None of them like it as much as I do, but all three are fans.
10. Were they a family member:
No, but my parents are aware of the fact that I like it. They seem to think it's pretty weird, but they're parents. What can you do?
11. Favorite MLP Episode:
Probably "Sweet and Elite". Rarity's song in that episode is possibly my favorite song in the series thus far, and I love how the writers were willing to resolve the storyline in what I consider a more organic and less cliched fashion than you'd see from most TV shows. Though some people seem to see the ending as weak writing rather than the more satisfying conclusion I feel it to be.
12. Who is your favorite superhero:
I'm not huge on superheros. But probably this guy:
13. Who is your favorite anti-hero:
If you recognized Elijah Snow above, this one probably won't come as a surprise:
14. Favorite supervillain:
Ugh! I don't have strong comics-based opinions, okay? Is Hitler a supervillain? Can I exhaust my Godwin quotient on this one?
15. Favorite anti-villain?
Are we going for "villain you want to root for" or "well-intentioned character who's circumstantially a villain"? If it's the former, probably Tom Hiddleston's Loki. If it's the latter, Inspector Javert.
16. What was the last book you read:
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson.
17. Last movie you watched:
I watch so few movies... There's a decent chance it's actually "All Through the Night".
18. What is your favorite song at the moment:
19. What song do you always come back to:
20. What is your current job:
Teaching Assistant for introductory statistics.
21. If this is not your final job what job do you want in the future:
Professor of Statistics.
22. What is your dream job:
Professor of Statistics with a lucrative career writing speculative fiction on the side.
23. At this moment in your life, what is your greatest achievement:
Having the friends I do.
24. At this moment in your life, what is your greatest failure:
Tough. Probably not being married to one of those friends, but it's not really a thing I regret. I don't feel like I've got a whole lot of life failures to answer for.
25. Do you have any pets:
No.
26. What is your dream pet:
Probably a golden retriever. My family had one, Emma, when I was a teenager. It might be a bit weird having another; I don't know if it would feel like trying to replace her. But goldens are wonderful dogs.
27. Do you own any weapons:
I own a couple iaito—unsharpened Japanese swords used for practicing iaido and kenshibu. That's probably about as close as I have to a weapon.
28. Is there a gun you really want:
No.
29. What Religion are you:
Roman Catholic, with a heavy Augustinian flavor and some Confucian overtones. People also occasionally think I'm Buddhist, though I'm not.
30. If you could hang out with one person in all of history who would it be:
Augustus Caesar.
31. If you could bring back one person from the dead for one day who would it be:
My grandfather, Bill.
32. Are you political:
Extremely, but see (29). I'm a poor fit for conventional political categories. I believe society needs to be grossly reordered so that our motivational structures encourage us to help other people rather than helping ourselves. The pressures acting on a system cause it to move in the direction of least resistance. We've got some piss-poor pressures acting on our socioeconomic systems, ostensibly to minimize the total permissible badness. I'm confident we can do better.
33. Are you married:
No.
34. Do you have a special sonepony:
Not in the conventional sense, though I've got a few friends who hold a similar level of importance for me.
35. Have a crush on anyone:
Maybe bookplayer, a little. But in all seriousness, no. The last time I fell in love, I fell hard, and it's probably going to be a while before I meet anyone else I'm ready to give that depth of affection to.
36. Care to explain:
No, not really. It's not like it's a big secret, but there's not a whole lot of point dwelling on it either. Anyway, she's one of my best friends in the world, we communicate pretty regularly, and it's hard to feel all that bad about how things fell out in the end.
37. Do you consider yourself attractive:
I've got a suspicion that I'm charismatic, given how positively people seem to react to me. At times I've been considered attractive, too, though I've always had cyclical weight issues, so even when I've been attractive, it's usually been necessary for other people to point the fact out to me. Women can try to chat me up or spend all day checking me out, and I tend not to notice.
38. If you could spend one day with someone still alive who would it be:
Tough, again. Right now, I think I'd probably pick my mother. Ask me on a different day (or even a different hour) and you might get any one of a couple handfulls of answers.
39. Who is your favorite pony:
It's a three-way race between Applejack, Rarity, and Twilight. I think. Though it's not like I dislike the other members of the Mane Six, and conversations with bookplayer have made it pretty clear that I'm probably more similar to Pinkie than any of the others.
40. Any embarrassing secrets you would like to share:
I don't know that I really have a whole lot of embarrassing secrets. I can't think of any really good ones off the top of my head, anyway.
41. If you have done any stories/art what is your favorite piece(s):
Everyone seems to think the long-un-updated "Bell, Book & Candle" is my best work, but I think "Three Nights" is probably my favorite, warts and all.
42. Are you a virgin:
Yes, though by choice. The opportunity has been there at least once, but the potential cost greatly outweighed the potential fun. After I found myself in that position and realized what choice I'd be making, I kind of stopped caring about the whole thing so much. It's always seemed to me that half the urge to lose one's virginity is just an urge to be acknowledged as desirable. I've already gotten that piece, so I feel pretty comfortable waiting on the rest until I've got someone I really want to share that with.
43. What is the craziest thing you have done in your life that you have no regrets about:
Moving to Japan for three years after finishing my undergraduate degrees.
44. What is the craziest thing you have done in your life that you have regrets about:
Selling my MTG collection in seventh grade. The stuff would have been worth a small fortune if I'd hung onto it, but it was sucking my pocket money dry so fast, I felt like I needed to take extreme action to break the habit.
45. Do you have a fetish of any kind:
Yes.
46. Do you regret saying this fetish:
Given that I didn't elaborate, no.
47. What are some of your favorite FIM stories:
Why are you asking this? Check out my userpage.
48. Favorite Quote:
"You are mistaken, citizen. No one is screaming." – Written in my seventh grade yearbook by a friendly acquaintance.
49. Did you ever hurt someone’s feelings just to hurt them:
No, but I once made a conscious effort to correct what I saw as a flaw in one of my friends by subtly conditioning him into changing his attitudes and behavior. It worked—and the fact that it worked so well, and that he never seemed to notice, scared me so much that I pretty much promised myself I'd never try large-scale manipulation ever again. Which feels sort of thematically similar.
50. Did you answer these questions honestly:
I did.
Now if you, dear reader, want to fill this out for yourself and pass this along, go ahead! But I don't really want to encourage it, because chain letters bug the hell out of me, and I expect I may lose a follower or two just for posting one of these in the first place.
Current count: 323. Let's see what happens!
Well, count me as one who doesn't mind this sort of thing, at least in moderation. If you start posting memes every day, I may get annoyed.
Blegh, I need to hurry up and read Words of Radiance. It's sitting right here and I haven't even touched it yet.
1991131
It's pretty fun. Also, Snape kills Dumbledore.
1991134
Planning to be there all weekend, though I think Horizon and I may be engaged in drunken debauchery on Friday night.
We were supposed to have an RCL panel with Benman, but I've got a suspicion that our panel's getting cancelled because BABSCon overbooked for panels. I kind of get the impression that we're collectively cool with that, though.
1991117
Also, no worries on the memes side. I figure everyone just likes my blogging for when I do thoughtful commentary on the writing process, anyway. And haha, I still have slightly more followers than you! (Dang, but you picked up followers fast...)
So that's what you look like...
1991156
It is, though sadly I couldn't quite do justice to the full Alfalfa thing my hair was doing that morning. From a less flattering angle, you'd be able to see that I had a bunch of hair sticking pretty much 3-4 inches straight up in the air.
If I were in architecture rather than statistics, it might have been worth a paper.
1991138 Luck into the feature box, then continue the story everybody weirdly likes, and what do you know, folks follow you!
I have no idea why it was that one and not anything else I've ever done, but I'm not complaining. I might even pick up a few more, since the thing has sprouted a sequel I'll start publishing this week.
Oooh, you got +1!
1991170
...oddly, yes. I'm not used to that happening for blog posts which, y'know, nobody finds out about unless they're already following you...
1991159
I don't think I've ever had a photo taken of me that I'm entirely happy with; I avoid them as much as possible. I always, always, always end up looking weird. I'm not even sure I could tell you when the last time I was in a photo.
(No, wait, it was an ID card thing).
The picture makes you look like you just woke up. The way your staring blankly and slightly upwards makes me think there is some sort of doom on the way. Anything from "no caffeine" to "here comes a 100 metre tidal wave, and I didn't even have time to make myself look presentable for my death."
1991172
I had just woken up, this is true. Your potential explanations for my expression are wonderful, though, and because of that I'm not going to say any more about the photo except to point out that apparently I'm still alive, so whatever may have happened, I survived it.
Also, I've had to get three ID photos recently. My CA driver's license photo makes me look like a 1970's hockey player (I only had the moustache when it was taken). My passport photo is likely to get me flagged for security checks one of these days (I had a one-year-plus full beard at the time, and let's just say I don't look much like that photo now). And my Student ID photo may well be the worst picture of me anyone has ever taken. It's the sort of thing that shatters glass and turns children to stone.
1991181
You should see my passport photo. At once point, I decided to grow my hair long (because you can do that when your a student, and life it too short for going to the hairdressers) but to get long hair you need to go through the awkward zone of hair that just covers your ears.
But due to bad timing, that brief moment was captured and preserved for eight (?) years in my passport photo. Thankfully, it's nearly expired now.
Being your pony co-conspirator of lo these many yea...months I knew all of these, but heaven above, you look adorable. You look like a plushie of you either exists or should.
1991189
I'm no oil painting in real life[1] but in pictures I am a symphony of horror. My passport picture, were I ever to go to the 'States, would result in my extraordinary rendition. Or getting shot. Or both.
[1] Well I am, actually. It's just a cubist one with maybe a bit of late Goya thrown in.
Yay, someone else that has an iaito
(Though I consider mine to be only the third most dangerous melee weapon at home. The second is my umbrella — one with a point and a solid metal shaft, the same length as a shinai and about the same weight and balance as a bokuto, chosen so I could have something to practice with without carrying something potentially recognized as a weapon around. The first is my heavy training bokuto, nicknamed "oar" after I read about Musashi.)
Should we bring Fluttershy along to meet you?
This is just a subjective observation, but there seems to be something about IT or Statistics that brings out ponyfic writers.⁽¹⁾ Perhaps it is the long, lonely days of looking at numbers marching up and down the page that drives them out into the world of colorful ponies and friendship. Or perhaps it's just a statistical fluke.
(1) IT here, because I can't make numbers add correctly. It was either IT or Government Accounting, and since I still have at least a small portion of my soul unblackened and whole...
I hope we at least get to say hi to each other at BABSCon, because you sound like a swell guy (and now I have to do one of these fifty question things, dammit!
I unfortunately have the same suspicion. Sorry about that (Really, I've fought hard for the Fanfiction panels!) :ajunsure:
1991573
Not exactly those, but I worked as an engineer for nearly a decade, which included writing and adapting software myself for my own needs. I was not working in the field anymore when I got involved with ponies, though.
This might sound a little weird, but:
I had no idea how I expected you to look, but on seeing the picture, my brain immediately processed it as "Yup, that's Bradel." You know how there are some people who you meet and your brain connects a picture to the mind-map and all is right with the universe, and there are some people who you meet and your brain instantly whacks its shins into the furniture and has to stagger back and readjust because your mental map got the landmarks all wrong? You're the former.
1991170
...annnnd I lost one, too!
1991879 Well, it's the unicorn horn, cleverly disguised by that shock of hair that gives him away.
That's why I wear a hat.
1991474
I really loved doing iaido and kenshibu when I was in Japan. I don't know if I actually have a bokken, though. I did a bit of kenbu with the kids at my high school, but never got as into it since it's more competitive than artistic. But the whole thing was a lot of fun, and now I'm all hankering to go back.
Note for people not in the know: there's almost no connection between those two things, except through equipment. My friend Katie did iaido, and got me involved in it. My friend Katrina did kenshibu, and got me involved in that as well.
Iaido is a Japanese martial art involving drawing and striking with the sword, and is close to a pure performance art these days because, well, people don't generally go around killing each other with swords, and it's kind of hard to do competitive sparring with (1) an art that emphasizes single motions and (2) live steel. At major Japanese competitions, they'll often have some performance sparring, but it's essentially just choreographed, slow-motion sword fighting—because, y'know, live steel. People with my level of experience or higher often train with sharpened blades rather than iaito, but I left Japan pretty much right after getting to that level and my teacher was big on fundamentals and not getting sidetracked into "oh cool, I've got a sword!"
Kenshibu, which is substantially less well known outside of Japan, is a form of interpretive dance using sword and fan, usually done to sung narrative poems about important battles in Japanese history. I'd post a link, but I can't find videos of my school, and the sword work for most schools is pretty weak, so I'm not big on broadcasting it around.
1991892
Nooooo, the balance has been restored, all hope is lost!
Quickly, +1 to the follower count, right away!
1991976
I've practiced Kendo and Iaido myself, and besides an iaito I have a bogu — but I had to move to another town, and where I now live there is no Iaido or Kendo school in, at the very least, a 100 miles radius
Everyone that I was practicing Iaido with had to have a bokken. The instructor wouldn't allow us to use even an unsharpened iaito for the first few weeks, until he was sure no one would lose his grip — iaito might not be sharpened, but they still have a sharp point. Though the one bokken I have that I consider a dangerous weapon is not the light, training one I used back then, but the heavy, muscle-building one I got later, which does looks a little like an oar
Well hot damn Bradel, don't you look deliciously smeksy with a hot voice to boot. Yeah, I listened to the recording of your singing on Three Nights. I'm not going to say much on the actual singing, but you sound gorgeous. I dunno why but you look like you could be magician. Something screams "tricky" about you.
Eheh... do you remember what magic sets you bought? Just out of curiosity. If I'm calculating right, you played until Antiquities or Fallen Empires (which was a shit set, so it'd be completely understandable if you quit then). Do you remember of your cards at all? Juzaam Djinn?
1993107
Most of what I had was Unlimited, Antiquities, and The Dark, if I remember correctly. I also had some Legends (though for some reason not a lot; it's possible that its release coincided with me traveling internationally, or that I just didn't have much money during the summer, when it came out—most of the money my parents gave me was tied to school grades), and a smattering of Beta, Arabian Nights, and Fallen Empires (though only a few of the last; that was pretty much when I left MTG).
I know I had at least one Unlimited Ancestral Recall, though, and possibly as many as three. Also, a number of dual lands and a couple time cards. At least a couple thousand worth (at today's prices), just in high name cards.
I don't feel all that bad about it, though. In the long run, getting out was probably good for me, and I've got a rather extensive pre-WWII stamp collection to make me feel better about owning obscure, valuable things. (Also rare books, but those are more about personal value for me.)
Just because I'm curious, so who was your favorite WoT character that died?
1994129
Egwene
1997353
You knew it was going to happen after dumbass got himself killed, but it was so epic that I couldn't really be that upset.
Sorry, Bradel.
1991573
Ooh! Evidence of a FimFic BB code I haven't seen yet!
How'd you get the superscript? Is the code [super]?
2012139 Nope. Cheated. I've got the actual superscript characters on my home page, so I can just copy/paste from there. Heck of a lot easier, and I'm lazy. Something else from my IT background, I suppose.
˙ɯǝlqoɹd oN
2012300
Hmm. Clever trick.
That baseline's messed up, though. Can't have everything I guess.