Maybe "A" was for angst.

Gossamer actually had a wizard for helping you figure out what codes to put on your story. A wizard in the computer sense, not the Gandalf sense. Although that would be cool.

"Your story must be classified MSR! You shall not pass!"

The Library of Congress catalog has a number for Demonology. I am so using this in a fic somewhere.

GR525 through GR540, FYI, with sub divisions for Witches, Sorcerers, Incantations etc. Charms, talismans, amulets etc. are further down in GR600-615.

I was recently looking at Roswell fic (although almost all the fics recommended at crack_van are at a website that seems to no longer exist)

Anyway-- they seem to have these really odd pairing names, like Candy and Dreamers. I don't know if they pre-date the Pumpkin Pie thing, though.

I'm pretty sure the Roswell stuff did. I was in that fandom for about five minutes, and every pairing had some sort of name. Max/Liz, Max/Michael, Maria/Michael, etc.

Huh. Minor epiphany. It's a lot like Smallville, isn't it? M/M is no help at all, because "M" could be anyone of three characters.

Bwah!

...really, Fiction Alley should have a wizard. 'Cause that would be funny.

Still feeling v. ambivalent about having some of my stories there. Still sort of enjoying the feedback, and yet a few of them have me banging my head on the desk and wondering whether maybe I just prefer having a handful of readers after all. Sample feedback:

r u sure? all that dialogue was begenning to confuse me...but r u sure?....remus/snape...gahh...im not saying ur fic was bad tho!

WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SAVE LETTERS? THERE IS NO LETTER RATIONING IN PLACE!!! THIS IS NOT A FRAKKING MOBILE 'PHONE!!!

Ahem. God, I'm such a curmudgeonly old cow.

I happened across a misplaced apostrophe in a menu at a famous coffee shop in York the other day, and was all "Eeek! Do I get my pen out?" and Mum and WeeSister stopped me. This led to a discussion of punctuation, in which my sister put forward the suggestion that we should just get rid of apostrophes.

Captain Rational abandoned my tugboat at this point, and was eaten by sharks.

However, I told her, after a shocked pause, that I still loved her.

I happened across a misplaced apostrophe in a menu at a famous coffee shop in York the other day, and was all "Eeek! Do I get my pen out?"

At the krav centre I borrow a sharpie and mark up one of the copies of whatever they've misspelled or punctuated and hand it in at the front desk.

They're pretty tolerant, considering.

They're pretty tolerant, considering.

Well, they probably realise that you could kill them with the sharpie if you needed to, and that you're being remarkably restrained.

Bettys, however...well, if they aren't worried about it in the name of their restaurant, they're not going to get their knickers in a twist about their menu, I guess. And they DO have very, very yummy food indeed. Traditional Yorkshire scrummy things, like proper Vanilla Slices and Curd Tarts and lovely salads and sandwiches and french fries chips.

...aaand now I'm hungry. Damn.

God, I'm such a curmudgeonly old cow.

I love you.

Captain Rational abandoned my tugboat at this point, and was eaten by sharks.

Hee! I love you.

Maybe "A" was for angst.

Dana gets it. Gossamer had a two-tiered system. First was the story type: Adventure, Casefile, Crossover, Story (i.e., drama). Then there was a subcategory for other things, usually R for romance, A for Angst, H for humor, and so forth.

So, something like one of Nascent's casefiles would be X, M/S UST, A. Once you understood the system, it made some sense. Although it's now more information than I'm willing to put on my stories. These days I don't even label the pairing unless I'm forced to. ::shrugs:: (But then I don't write much in the way of pairing fic, anyway.)