Question Meme - Resistance is futile
Instructions
Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile". I'll respond by asking you five questions to satisfy my curiosity. Update your journal with the answers to your questions. Include this explanation and offer to ask other people questions.
Answers to bananacosmic's questions
1. If you could meet one of the characters on NCIS, who would it be and what would you do/talk about?
Character wise, I would love to meet Abby. She just has so much warmth with people that I find her captivating. She’s also quite tolerant and doesn’t seem to judge people. She trusts easily and seems to like to see the good in people. Whilst that can make her endearing to others, it can also open her up to manipulation from some fairly unpleasant characters and that makes her slightly vulnerable. I like that vulnerability in her. What would we do or talk about? Well I’d love to go to a club with her because I imagine Abby being an absolute scream. I’d also like to find out more about her, her past and her family. I’d ask her how she ended up at NCIS as opposed to another agency. Why she prefers being in the lab as opposed to field work, and (of course) I’d press her for info on Tony and Gibbs.
I think I’d be worried about meeting Gibbs because he seems to be able to read people so well, especially all their little tells and I’m actually quite fond of my privacy. I can’t make up my mind whether I would like to meet DiNozzo or not. I don’t think I could be sure whether I was getting the ‘real’ Tony or one of his many masks.
Actor wise though, I would love to meet Michael Weatherly - hands down.
2. Pants or skirts/dresses?
Always pants. Never ever skirts or dresses. I also have an aversion to pink. I’m weird, I know.
3. What inspires you to write your stories?
With NCIS, Gibbs, Tony and Abby immediately grabbed my attention and Gibbs and Tony (in particular) had an on screen chemistry that I really liked. I have to like the characters. When I say ‘like’ the characters, I also mean liking a ‘bad’ character because they bring an element of upset to the team. I’m one of the few people who seemed to like the introduction of Vance in S5/S6 because it messed them up for a while. I do love to explore the angsty, dark, hidden sides to strong characters. After that, I like to take an underlying theme/sub plot or issue (most often it has an element of angst) that I see on the show and explore the possible reasons for that issue. That’s why I tend to focus on character studies or episode related fics. Sometimes it’s a scene from one episode, other times it’s a subtle thread spanning several episodes. But usually something intrigued me enough to try and figure out why the writers included it, or annoyed me enough to do some triple thinking and write a fic that gives a possible explanation/reason for what the writers might have been trying to do e.g. I wanted to explore what I saw as a distinct coolness between Gibbs and Tony in the early part of S6 so I wrote a couple of fics that explored that theme. Also I wanted to try and work out why Gibbs stopped slapping Tony in early S6 so I wrote a fic exploring the possible reasons for that.
4. What is your favourite animal?
I love dogs, especially Border Collies. They are so intelligent, affectionate and extremely loyal. Unfortunately mine died a few years back and I haven’t had another one since. I do have a feral cat that adopted me as its carer/provider of food. She’s weird because she doesn’t do affection at all. She hisses and bats me with her paw constantly (I’m covered in scratches) and she stares at me if I sit on the sofa when she wants to sit there (sometimes even when she doesn’t want to sit there). But she also likes to play fetch with rolled up pieces of cling film every so often. I’ll throw her a ball and it’s so funny to watch her play about with it, pick it up in her mouth and then run over and drop it at my feet. When she’s had enough she takes it to her food bowl and plops it in there. I’m sure she’s trying to show it where the food is... bless her.
5. Which holiday do you love the most?
Ooh - this is difficult because I had a fantastic holiday in New York recently and I loved my Yorkshire holidays as a kid, but I think I’d have to say probably my Aus/NZ trip five years ago. I went to Perth in WA and stayed with relatives for a few days, then took the Indian Pacific train across Australia from Perth to Sydney. Spent four days in Sydney - had an absolute blast there - and then flew to Auckland and stayed with my cousin, her boyfriend, dog and two cats before returning home to the UK. I loved the colour and texture changes that you see in the landscape as you travel across from one side of Australia to the other - I’ll never forget that. And the New Zealand landscape was absolutely stunning. I would love to go back there in the future.
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Answers to kaylashay81's questions
1. Was NCIS the first fandom you wrote for?
Yes (and No). NCIS was the first fandom in which I posted anything that I’d written. I only found *fandom* (in terms of online fanfiction sites, You tube and message boards) in Oct 08. I didn’t really know all these online places existed until then. Like quite a number of people, I’d been dabbling since my teens (writing what I now realise were mostly episode tags and missing scenes) although I wouldn’t have thought about sharing them with anyone. I started with Bergerac (many years ago) and then went through various shows including Taggart, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, BTVS, Dalziel and Pascoe, Stargate SG-1/SGA and finally NCIS. When I found ff.net I really had to pluck up the courage to press the button to post. That was so scary.
2. What draws you to Gibbs/DiNozzo?
The chemistry between the two. The unspoken emotional support they draw from each other and all the ways they do it. The fact that they know how far to go with each other, how much they can take, and know when each other is hurting and what to do about it. I like the fact that their strengths and weaknesses complement each other. They are both incredibly strong, multi-layered characters who have suffered heavy losses in the past.
3. What's your all time most favourite fic to read?
I don’t think I’ve got an all time favourite because my mood seems to influence my reading habits at any one time. Having said that, I do find that the stories I enjoy the most have to have several elements that hook me and then keep me reading. In NCIS, they tend to revolve around Gibbs and Tony or are Tony centric. There’s usually some exploration of the relationship between Gibbs and DiNozzo and the dialogue between the two characters has to be similar to that used on the show. I just find it really off putting if the dialogue is full of mush or I find myself frowning and thinking ‘But Gibbs doesn’t use those words.’ I’m not bothered about the different genres or the setting being in a different ‘verse’ but if the dialogue is mush, that really gets to me and I click the back button. I do find that I tend to go back and read Matt51’s fics quite a lot. His take on DiNozzo is very refreshing and his writing style is truly exceptional.
4. Of your current LJ icons, what is your favourite and why?
Hmm... I do seem to have quite a fixation with head slap icons. That’s rather telling. I like all of them and it’s really hard to choose a favourite so I’ve chosen my top two. The first is the one from ‘Witness’ (liresius made that one) where Tony thinks Gibbs just asked him what the name of the girl he was just talking to was when he was actually asking about the dead guy’s girlfriend (if I recall). Why do I like it? It was just a lovely Gibbs/Tony head slap moment where they’re completely comfortable with each other. The second is the Bounce one where Tony crouches down. Why? Because that was a rare moment where Tony lets the others see his pain.
5. What was your favourite subject in school?
I loved anything science related. Chemistry, Physics, Biology etc. I think my 6th form Chemistry teacher was absolutely amazing. He made colourless liquids sound a lot more interesting than they probably were. Time seemed to fly by in his lessons. And with only 10 of us in that class, we could have a bit of a laugh and a joke with him. He’d respond by throwing pieces of chalk at us. I’m sure there’d be laws against that now. Ah well.