EXCHANGE INTERFACE

1. Did the house where you grew up have a newspaper delivered regularly?

Yes, I think so. This was back in the 70s and 80s and a newspaper was a standard delivery to most households. I think there were even a few 'free' newspapers around the area at the time.


2. Have you ever subscribed to an actual print newspaper?

Probably back in my 20s - the 90s, when newspapers were still very much a thing.


3. When was the most recent time you physically picked up and read a newspaper?

I sincerely do not remember, it's been a while. I saw someone on the train the other morning who had a full broadsheet, opened it up, and shook it out. I was transported all the way back to the early 00s again, commuting in to the city and having to contend with all the guys who thought that because they were doing important things like educating themselves on the state of the world, they had the right to shove a newspaper corner in your face.


4. Do you pay for news online now?

I do, in fact, pay a subscription for The Guardian Australia, because I do believe in paying for some news so that it's not all funded by billionaires. In Australia we still have ABC and SBS which are relatively sane and unbiased (where 'relatively' may be doing quite a lot of heavy lifting). I was subscribing to the NYT and the Atlantic up until the US Election 2024, and then gave up. No hope of sanity there and I couldn't be bothered.


5. Do you have any saved newspaper clippings?

Not I. What would I have clippings about?

B1, however, has newspaper clippings from the 90s about...topics she was interested in then, and which she intends to read. Someday. (Like all the other things she intends to read/sort. Someday.)

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Sitting in a section of the local pub with a glass of wine, my laptop out and trying to write. It's a bit of a lot.

I'm slowly getting more involved in the local independent candidate's campaign. Delivering pamphlets. Going to trivia nights with the team. Stuff like that.

I think we have a real chance if we can persuade people to put her first, and then their preferred candidate second. And we could. We really could. And the current MP is definitely running scared. They have dodgy tactics, stupid fwittery going on, and no sense of humour. So much brusque shooting down and angry internet postings going on, really. it's pretty sad.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some flyer deliveries up and around my street to raise her profile. (Or maybe I'll do that on Monday? IDK. Have to decide.) I've booked in to wander around the markets with her on Sunday. And I'm contemplating helping do point-of-contact at the major train station junction on Monday morning. I think they could do with at younger, visibly Asian helper for Hornsby - a lot of East and South-East Asians will likely actually think about it if they have someone who looks like them stumping for her. And there's a pretty high percentage of people from those backgrounds in the area...

I can hear B1 complaining about how I'm doing too much again. So maybe let's see how Sunday goes, eh?

1. Who was your first James Bond/which movie did you see first?

Octopussy. So...Roger Moore? I think I was about 10 - Dad was watching it on the TV and I watched most of it (not understanding) until I got chivvied off to bed. Actually watching one through? Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye


2. Who was your first Doctor in Doctor Who/which episode or serial did you see first?

Tom Baker, glimpsed on TV, again most likely in the 80s. Actually watched? Christopher Eccleston in the "New Who" series of the 00s.


3. What is the first Dracula adaptation you remember seeing/which actor as Dracula?

The one in the 90s, billed as "Bram Stoker's Dracula" with Winona Ryder, Gary Oldman, and Keanu Reeves. I didn't get the appeal then. I still don't.

In fact, I'm not sure I've watched any other Dracula movies or shows since then.


4. Which Star Trek did you see first/can you name the episode/movie?

I think it was TOS at a friend's house back in 2003. I'd heard plenty about it, but never actually seen an episode, so we watched some OldSkool. Which...didn't appeal to me. I don't remember the episode, but I wasn't into it.

The first Star Trek that stuck was the JJ Abrams' movie - the NuTrek one, I think they're calling it.


5. Which Star Wars movie was your first?

My earliest memory of the Star Wars universe is watching Return of the Jedi which had been recorded painstakingly from the TV and which skipped the ads. But I had at some point watched A New Hope, obviously, because I knew what happened. I just don't remember actually watching it.

By the time RotJ was screened on Australian TV, though, it would have been at least 1985, two years after it was released. I don't remember exactly when I watched it, just that I did.

✨ holiday love meme 2024 ✨
my thread here

(Does anyone know if you're supposed to reply to the people who comment all at once, or as they come along, or commenter's discretion?)

Where do you go when you need to get out of the house but it's raining?

I...don't understand the question. I stay in the house when it's raining. The library? The shopping centre? I'd probably pick the library before the shopping centre, and I'd probably drop in to a garden centre rather than a shopping centre.


What's your go-to tape?

Go-to music? Or movie? Or some other meaning of 'tape' that I don't get?

Music? My Spotify "M&P Conn-Pod Playlist"

Movie? Pacific Rim. Happy, world-uniting, brain-sharing, soul-melding, feelgood saving the world. We so need something like that right now.


What's in your freezer right now?

A lot of things. If I took an inventory, it would get a little crazy.
- meat (salmon, beef, chicken, lamb, goat)
- dumplings (home-made and shop-bought)
- vegies (at least three or four different mixes) and pumpkins
- croissants and flaky butter pastries
- stock (chicken, lamb)
- beef bones for making stock
- scallops, prawns
- dairy-free ice-cream (for the sister)
- gelato (2 tubs, also the sister)
- assorted herbs or herb mixes (garlic, ginger, coriander, shallot sauce for Hainanese chicken, home-made pesto)
- sourdough starter (don't ask how old it is; I don't even know if it's alive)
- breads and buns (several gluten-free breads, hot cross buns)
- individual serves of soups and curries ready for defrosting and eating

I also think I have two containers of bunya nuts in the bottom of the murder freezer. They've been there entirely too long. The woman I was going to swap them with is flaky about actual delivery (I once swapped her some things in advance for a cabbage that was growing in her garden; by the time the cabbage was ready, the cabbage moth caterpillars had gotten it, so she dropped it off and said "maybe the chickens can eat it" and that was it. No offer of a replacement or something else. So, yes: FLAKY is a good thing for pastries, but a terrible thing for people.)

That's the short version of what's in there; there's undoubtedly a lot of other stuff, much of which we've forgotten. We try to cycle around what's in there, work our way through it; it doesn't always turn out that way, though...


Last concert you attended?

My brain is telling me "Roxette" but that's the first concert I attended. I know that I saw Offspring in the late 90s, early 00s with friends. But I'm pretty sure I saw U2 during the 00s and it was an utterly miserable experience. Nosebleed seats and I think it was just me and a friend, and I wasn't hugely into U2 anyway.

Oh, wait, P!NK! I saw P!NK around 2013, and it was an awesome show, because she does showmanship with flair and style. So good. I was going to see her again earlier this year and simply couldn't get myself out there.


Favourite grocery store?

This is a bit of a weird question to me: we don't really have the kind of "brand loyalty" that Americans seem to have. My local is Harris Farm Markets/IGA Supamart and that's where I go for just about anything. I don't price-shop, I occasionally use the local Woolworths ("Woolies") when it's at the edges of 'open hours' for shopping, but I very rarely do Coles (the other major supermarket in our duopoly). I almost never do Aldi, unless it happens to be the easiest one to access (after physical therapy or when picking something up at the little shopping centre).

Probably Harris Farm Markets/IGA Supermart, if you go by frequency. But if there's local markets on, I will always go there and buy a few things at the least.

I saw spiffikins call this 'Old People's Meme' and I'm going to answer a few questions every couple of days:

What was the first piece of furniture you bought?

Bought? Probably the Apple IIe computer from work with modem capabilities and I used it for uni and writing.

Might have been the tallboy (multi-drawer set of drawers) that held my clothes for, oh, a couple of decades, and the bookshelf. I still have the bookshelf, but we sold the dresser when we moved out of the old house.

Or else it might have been the couch set, which were 2nd hand, foam, and sooooo incredibly comfy for sitting on, flopping over, sprawling on, or cannibalising the big, puffy back-and-arm cushions.


What proportion of your meals do you cook?

Between 60-80%? Right now, there's a lot more buying of pre-prepped food because I simply can't be bothered half the time, but at the height of things, at least 80%.


Favourite chore?

None of them. That's why they're chores.


Least favourite chore?

All of them. But probably cleaning toilets. Oh, I know. Mopping floors. It's just such a huge inconvenience, and you have to get everything up, and then there's the whole issue of whether or not the damn thing is clean. Changing the water out, making sure that the mop gets all the things and doesn't just move them around to elsewhere. Awkward and not!fun.


Most precious thing one of your pets has destroyed?

Can't think of anything right now. Something they've peed on? Lounge room curtains, perhaps? A box of fabric? Don't think they've ever been given the opportunity to break anything. They've destroyed couch corners, but also we deliberately get old couches (and we keep our couches for a long time). My bedroom door has a series of scratches on it thanks to the cats clawing to be allowed in...

Cake? Mal once munched on a brown butter cake I made for bible study...

How do you pick the places you go when you travel around the world and have you ever been disappointed when you went to certain places? asked by timespirt

Mostly? I choose by the people I know. I've chosen cities that I wanted to see before, and while it turned out okay, it was pretty lonely because I travelled by myself. These days, I try to go somewhere that I know people, so I can catch up with them. And when they're busy, I take tours to see the city sights (and sites) and get a feel for travelling around the place by public transport as much as I can. (Or as much as the city allows.)

Previously, I would stay with friends wherever I landed, particularly in the US. One of the difficulties was that, in a lot of smaller cities (or even the large ones) you have to go by car, full public transport isn't an option. That's okay when you have friends who have the time to take you out and about. It doesn't always work that way, and so when I visited people in my late 20s and 30s, I would spend the day at their house (usually writing) and then we'd go out and do things in the evening. Or I'd stay with someone who could take the time off work that week.

Perhaps the biggest 'disappointment' has been New York City. Maybe that's an odd one to pick, but if I think about how I felt while visiting there (twice) then it's been interesting but...just another city, if you understand my meaning? I had no connection to it but a general touristy connection, and that wasn't sufficient for me to really feel like I had a "great time" in the city. So if I was going to recommend NYC, it would be as somewhere that you need to go with at least one person that you know, or as part of a group. I knew a few people who lived in and around NYC, but I stayed by myself, went sightseeing by myself, and only met up with the friends for a meal. If I'd had a travel companion, then I'd have gone to museums and the sightseeing places, and maybe had more emotionally connected memories of NY than I do.

You know that saying about "people don't remember what you say, they remember how you made them feel"? Well, the same thing holds for cities. If i don't have an emotional connection with cities - friends, memories with friends - then it's...just a city.

gingicat asked Any thoughts about gender?

I'm kind of in the camp of "gender is what you make of it". The problem is that gender is also often what our society and the people in it make of you as you perform gender. And in some parts of the world one's safety is wrapped up in how well (or perhaps how normatively) you fit into typical gender brackets.

( long and probably not very clear )

So, uh, yeah. Just a few thoughts.

What is the hardest thing you like growing in the garden? (i.e. it's complicated or difficult, but worth it) asked grav_ity

Fruit. Stone fruit, specifically. Peaches and nectarines in particular, because when you buy them in the shop they're large and sweet and perfect, but they're not tasty. The ones off my tree are tasty.

( just what it takes to produce tasty fruit )

--

And if you have a question, you can pop it in the March Memeness question post.

2. Best movie ever. Or most re-watched movie. What makes it so good?

At this point in time, probably Pacific Rim. It's just such a feelgood movie: found family and connection themes intersecting with an action movie, a capable and competent female lead, great loss and sacrifice to complete the final confrontation, and even the 'asshole on the side of the heroes' of the movie redeems himself in the end. 

Here's an interesting thought, though. If you'd asked me which was my most re-watched movie before Pacific Rim came out, I would have answered (perhaps rather unexpectedly) with S.W.A.T (2003). Colin Farrell, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L Jackson, Michelle Rodriguez, LL Cool J. I know it's panned by most critics, but I've watched that movie frequently and I still enjoy it.

Thinking it over decades later, I couldn't have explained why it was my favourite back in the day, but if I consider it now, it was for much the same reasons as Pacific Rim. It features an outcast former hero, a found family, a capable and competent female character, and the confrontation of the hero with his past as he tries to move on into the future. 

The conflict in each movie is simple and straightfoward with no major twists or big betrayals (the minor betrayal in S.W.A.T at the climax of the movie doesn't feel like it counts - emotionally, for Street, the big betrayal is Gamble's decision to walk away from the cops instead of take his knocks and work his way back into grace, and that happens at the start). The connection between the male lead and the main female character can be read either romantic or platonic. I lean platonic in the case of Street and Sanchez, but romantic in the case of Mako and Raleigh.

Personally, I also really liked the portrayal of loving/caring extended families in both movies. Sanchez' daughter and her family connection and the willingness to welcome Street into that. Deke's nuclear family out doing the shopping on his day off, and his connection with the pizza parlour and affection for his cousin. And, no, Pentecost and Mako are not your touchy-feely-huggy kind of family the way the S.W.A.T characters' families are, but their care and tenderness with each other is still palpable and very much within character range.

Think I picked this up from badfalcon who picked it up from Tumblr.

1. How many works do you have on ao3?
As at today: 947. By the end of the year it will be at least 950, since I have two sedoretu exchange fics and a yuletide to write.

2. What's your total ao3 word count?
3,067,170 - Three million, sixty-seven thousand, one hundred and seventy words.

3. What fandoms do you write for?
I have 91 fandoms on my dashboard at AO3. Some of those are fandoms with slightly fuzzy edges - eg. the MCU & Avengers, Justice League & Batfam, Cadfael TV & Cadfael Books, etc.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
And Baby Makes Eight - MCU, Maria Hill & Avengers
a most pitiful business - Bridgerton, Anthony/Kate
wade into the water, learn to live again - Rogue One, Cassian/Jyn
Battle, A Different Kind - Mulan (1998)
A Woman Of Edges - MCU, Maria Hill/Steve Rogers

It's a bit odd, actually - as little as three years ago, that would have been entirely an MCU top five. For the others to catch up so significantly is pretty big. (Probably helps that Bridgerton is a big fandom with lots of A/K shippers, and Rogue One got a second wind after Andor. No idea why Mulan suddenly hit the bigtime, though. Even with the movie, I wouldn't have expected people to come looking, because I don't think Shang (as Shang) is in the live-action movie.

5. Do you respond to comments?
Yes. Mostly. I've been through periods where I replied to every single comment, and others where I just couldn't face replying. And sometimes if people went through my fics one by one and commented on a slew of them at once, I didn't reply to all their comments because that felt kinda stupid. I did comment to them at least once, though. And I do read all the comments.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Oof. So it might be 'Every Breaking Wave' which runs under the premise 'Steve is the Time Traveller's Husband', or it might be 'The Worth Of A Woman' which is the Avengers finally comprehending the cost of the power they so casually wield.

In the case of 'the worth of a woman' I didn't even know how it was going to end until I wrote Clint and Wanda's conversation and suddenly I realised this was not going to have a happy ending.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
'Happiest' is a misnomer. The most satisfying ending I wrote was in 'And Baby Makes Eight' - there's a reason it's a favourite.

The fic I'm most satisfied with is the MCU Endgame "divergent fixit" 'the other side of infinity' fic, which is all the things I hoped for from the MCU, and none of which I got. Which is probably why I'm most satisfied with it.

The other one with an 'all ends tied up' and an added 'facing forth into the future' angle is 'To The End Of Love' but by that time fewer randos in the fandom were willing to read Maria/Steve fic, particularly my stuff.

8. Do you get hate on fics?
Not in my comments. I know there's at least one or two people out in fandom who have hateboners for me, and a lot of people who wouldn't piss on my fic if it was burning, etc.

The most memorable - but not necessarily particularly delightful - comment I ever saw about my fic (not on one of my fics, but about one) was "It made me like [pairing]! Now I feel dirty!" Well, it's a tossup for that or, "You ship [pairing]? You must be really shallow!" (That was in a chatroom.)

9. Do you write smut?
Yup. All sorts, although only for specific pairings.

10. Do you write crossovers?
Yep! I have 50 of them, from assorted fandoms. I regularly write for intoabar and the Crossover Exchange, so I have a bunch of stories from those.

I think my favourite crossover is A Sanctuary For All which is a crossover of Caroline Bingley from 'Pride and Prejudice' with Helen Magnus of the television show 'Sanctuary'.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Yes. Back in my SG1 days when I was writing Sam/Jack, some tweenie took one of my fics and tried to pass it off as her own.

Since 2006, nobody's bothered. I write rare pairings so that's no inducement, and I guess I write them characterised uniquely enough that copypasta-ing isn't worth the bother.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes. There was someone who was translating several of my fics into Russian a couple of years back.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?
I think a very long time ago. Back in SG1 land, with Denise, whom nobody but me will remember. (No, not that denise. Another Denise, who was known in SG1 Sam/Jack land, although she was more Sam-focused and gen.)

Not since.

14. What's your all time favourite ship?
That's tricky. My most consuming one was Maria Hill/Steve Rogers. But that came to a bad canon ending for all involved, and while that doesn't have to stop my love of it, it does make it difficult to play with other fans (most of whom were never invested in the first place).

I've created ship fandoms out of pairings (SGA: Elizabeth/Ronon, anyone?) and built followings from writing characters whom nobody else would touch (because all the character's goods weren't displayed out in the shop window, which seems to be the requirement for the fannish favourite.

Okay, I had a sudden thought

, is the significant incidence of spectrum in fandom the reason that "characters with all their goods in the shop window" are so popular? Because that might explain a metric fuckton of fannish favourites whose obsessive appeal is utterly lost to me. I like them as characters, but in small and measured doses, because they're just waaaaaay too much as characters. Like chillies, a little bit goes a long way.

)

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
So many of them. But I guess A Practical Acquaintance With Bees is probably the one that I'd like to finish most, and...I just don't have it in me anymore.

16. What are your writing strengths?
Characterisation extrapolation. a.k.a. "uncanonicity of characterisation". Basically, give me a character (female) who doesn't get much time in canon, or whose subtleties are lost on most, and I can expand on their backstory and characterisation in a way that helps others expand their view of the character.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?
A desire to write all the details, particularly in profic.

IDK, maybe my weakness is for minor characters who have great possibility for them which is never elaborated on in canon. To some people, this is apparently a Bad Thing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
It's usually only a line or two, for emphasis here or there. If I want a conversation in another language to be readable to the main audience, I usually go with italics.

I find a translation/transliteration in the language I want(depending on what's available) and then put a hover-over anchor link with the English translation.

19. First fandom you wrote for?
She-Ra: Princess of Power (the 1980s cartoon version) and M.A.S.K (a kind of supertech/moral theme cartoon show of the 80s) with a literal insertion of myself and my friends walking into these universes. I was 10, it was the 80s, I didn't even know fanfic was a thing, and my teacher made a class assignment for us to write a story.

If I don't count that, then...X-Men: Generation X.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written??
I have too many fics to have a favourite. Also, there are things you sometimes want and othertimes you don't, and I write all over the shop. So it depends on my mood and what I want to go back and feel in the moment.