spring has sprung (behind my back)

You guys. Europe is so pretty.

I mean, yeah. I knew this. I've been drooling over pictures of England for years. But it really is.


What do I mean by this?
1) The grass is green. Like, really.
2) There are forests. Actual forests.
3) The forests are clear at ground level, so you can see through them rather than having two-metres-tall ferns in every direction.
4) The trees are really good at that whole "dappled sunlight" thing.
5) There are pretty flowers everywhere.

But mostly... it's the European gardens thing.

When I say "European gardens", I don't just mean "gardens that happen to exist on the continent of Europe". It's actually a type of garden – one I have often seen in Australia.


You see, when the colonists first came over to Australia, they had to leave behind their gardens. Gardens which were full of neat flowerbeds, manicured lawns, and trimmed hedges. Gardens sort of like this:



Or this:



And, being rather sentimental, they came to Australia and promptly started trying to replant their beautiful European gardens in the good old Aussie dirt. It... didn't work very well.

We have different soil, different weather, different temperatures, and different... just about everything else that you need for gardening. So the European gardens in Australia take an awful lot of work, and still never quite live up to their full potential. Quite a few people realised this, and have instead planted beautiful gardens full of native plants. They're lovely – but end up in quite a different style to the European ones.

So, the nice gardens I have seen have been 50% gorgeous native gardens, and 50% kind-of-nice European gardens. Now, though... I'm in Europe. And just walking down the street, I will see the gardens that the Australian European gardens are shooting for. THEY'RE GORGEOUS.

It makes me feel sorry for the settlers. They had to leave their pretty pretty gardens behind, put in twice as much effort for a much more lackluster result, and didn't really have the know-how with native plants to do anything as lovely with them.


(BRB, enjoying the outdoors.)

oops

This is the story of how a young fanficcer, taking her first steps into a new world of fandom, eagerly decided to do lots of research to make her fic extra-awesome, and did just enough research to totally screw up the whole thing.


Here's the thing. I'm not really a Star Trek fan, but I know the vague outline. These days, having looked at much of TV Tropes, I'm a bit more conversant than I was 6 years ago. Which... brings us to our story.

You see, I was writing a teeny ficlet starring Andrew. Nothing major - just 300 words or so. But I was trying hard to write him well, and keep it in character, and I threw in a Trek reference, because, why not?

The joke was that Andrew had gone to a convention, very eager to get a signature from an actor. An actor who'd only been in a single episode, but of course, Andrew being Andrew, he knew exactly what the guy's name was and which episode he'd been in, and was very eager to line up for a signature.

...so, I went on IMDB and Wikipedia, and looked at Voyager episodes, trying to find a one-episode character I could use. None of that making up names for me, oh no. I was going to do it properly. Sure enough, I found a character who'd only appeared once, put him in my fic, and thought no more about it.


Until a few weeks ago. When I was re-reading some of my old fic.

And I got to the one with Andrew, and was reading it happily when I got to the Star Trek bit and thought "...hang on. That sounds familiar."

Because, yes, I've been hanging round fandom for several years now. No matter how much Trek you don't watch, there's a few facts you're bound to pick up.

It took me less than a minute to check. And then several minutes more to stop headdesking, because, you see, what I'd done...

Well, what I'd done was have Andrew line up at a convention to get a signature from Commander Riker, that's what. Mister Growing-The-Beard Himself.

Which totally changes the line, and also makes Andrew look slightly moronic for talking about Riker coming from Voyager when he's actually from Next Gen.


Yes, I'm an idiot. Feel free to mock me. *grins*