Getting to know you weirdos meme

[attackfish]

Ganked without attribution from people on other people's f-lists

I know very little about some of the people on my friends list. Some people I know relatively well. But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself. Any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: "Ah, there's Parker ...she likes money and cereal." I'd love it if everyone who's friended me did this. (Yes, even you people who I know really well.) Then post this in your own journal [only if you feel inclined]. In return, ask me anything you'd like to know about me and I'll give you an answer*.

*Providing it's answerable/suitable for public posting.

Comments

[wolfs-lament.livejournal.com]

Hi, umm I'm terrible at these kinds of questions. I've spent my childhood in the US and UK. Consequently, my spelling (which is bad anyway) periodically switches if I'm not careful.

... also I like bunnies.

Where in the World, if you had no limitations financially or otherwise, would you most like to travel to? (can be a place you've been to, or a place you want to go)

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Every time somebody tells me they like bunnies, I think of Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her terror of them.

There will be no spelling shame here. I can't spell worth a damn, and I have only recently improved to the point where spellcheck knows what I'm trying to say.

This is actually a difficult question, because my first consideration is always my poor health, but I would like to travel to Russia, and also to the Middle East, especially Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. I speak Russian, Hebrew and Arabic, and it breaks my heart that I can't travel to where those languages are spoken in every day conversation. Maybe Israel someday. They have good anti smoking laws.

[floranna.livejournal.com]

I wish I could become a sea captain or a Hollywood actor.

But I can't and it breaks my heart.

What would be your ultimate dream job, no matter how 'silly'?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

YA fantasy writer in the south of France.

You would make an awesome sea captain.

[konrai.livejournal.com]

I live in Malaysia and have for the past 20 years though I grew up in California. My husband thinks I'm crazy 'cause I read so much:) Have you ever lived in another country than where you do now?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

No way, that's awesome!

No, and in fact, the only times I've even been outside the US were a day trip in Tijuana, and a stopover in Vancouver on my way to Alaska.

[konrai.livejournal.com]

Yeah I love it here. It's a beautiful place with amazing people and is home now with my kids and all here.:)

[somariel]

I have ideas for a bunch of original fiction stories as well as ATLA fanfics. (I have name lists for 16+ stories)

What's your favorite food?

[iamhere23.livejournal.com]

Yey! I like this. I always feel like I don't know much about people in my friend list.
I'm studying Veterinary Medicine. I have two crazy dogs, Wallace and Cooper. I'm socially awkward most of the time.

What do you do for a living? Work? Study?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

That's so cool! Between us, my family and I have eleven dogs and seven birds. Two of the dogs and Five of the birds are mine, but since we live together, the distinction isn't that important.

I'm finishing my Political Science degree and working on applying for part time work for a first job.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Me too. My novel (and my tendency to delete whatever I wrote the day before) is becoming a running joke in my family.

I'm a huge foodie, and very culinarily adventurous (within the constraints of my illness) so trying to give a favorite food is nigh impossible. The one thing that I would be most absolutely devastated if I could never eat again, however, are honeybells. We had a tree in my yard when I was a kid, and I used to pick them and leave their shredded bodies all over the yard. My family nicknamed me "the orange vampire".

[iamhere23.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's pretty cool. I very much love what I do and study.
You must have a lot of space to handle that many pets! I would imagine it's kind of chaotic and lovely at the same time.
Hey, my brother studied Political Science too! He worked with the Mayor of my city for a couple of years, but he started his own coffee business afterwards. It has absolutely nothing to do with political science, but they are just so corrupted in my country that it's really hard to be involved in politics here (I live in Guatemala).

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

All but two of the dogs are little, and the two big dogs are old. They take up less space than you would think. It's always a little crazy here, true, but I love it.

It always amazes me where people end up. You start out thinking you're going to do one thing, and you study for it, and then life takes you in a completely different direction. Good for your brother getting out of that. The city I loved in growing up had a huge problem with corruption and I knew I had to get out of there if I ever wanted to get a job in politics. I wouldn't have been able to stomach it, and I imagine it's small potatoes next to what he saw.

[lalunatique.livejournal.com]

I'm a freelance lawyer and translator working on my Ph.D. in law. My goal this year is to write my dissertation and the first draft of my first novel. I'm trying to work up the courage to start because I'm pretty sure I'll fail.

What books did you like when you were twelve? (Apropos of this: http://www2.citypaper.com/special/story.asp?id=16743 )

[(Anonymous)]

I love going to shrines in Japan to buy amulets. They sell all sorts of amulets for everything, from luck in love to staying safe in traffic to getting pregnant to having success in your exams. I always buy the amulets that say they'll make money come your way.

What's the one story (fic, original, whatever) you'd be writing right now, if there was absolutely nothing stopping you?

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

Is this for everyone or just people on your friends list?

Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies!

[wolfs-lament.livejournal.com]

I guess that's why Anya and I will never be compatible. Which is a shame, because she is amazing.

Wow. My language skills are pretty poor, but if I could speak multiple languages, I'd want to be able to use them in their native countries too. Here's hoping you get the chance. Health really does put a damper on things. I have several friends who need to really plan before travelling because their illnesses mean that insurance costs a huge amount.

Re: Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies!

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

For me, I have two real challenges to travel. First, I'm really allergic to smoke and petrochemicals, so wherever I go has to have good air quality and good anti smoking laws and a low proportion of the population that smokes. In both the Middle East and Russia, they smoke like chimneys. Second, I can only go places where I can next day ship frozen medications from the US. *sigh*

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

This is for everybody who reads this. Except possibly the couple of people who read this because we went to school together. I know more about them than I want to. ;p

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I'm a few years behind you, translating and working on my bachelor's and writing a novel. Trying to get trough my fears of failure too.

I'm not sure it's that books can't have the same power on me that they did when I was twelve (and deeply socially isolated, let's face it) but it takes better books to do it. I was much more willing to trust an author and let them take me through the story. I was more willing to let my emotions be stripped raw by a book. When I want that same intensity now, I write.

Anyway, the actual answer was pretty much the ones I like now. I was reading the Abhorsen series, Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Theif books, Redwall, Harry Potter, Tamora Pierces Tortall books and Circle of Magic books, Lloyd Alexander, The Moorchild, Robin McKinley, The Chocolate War...

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

*pokes* who? Nele, is that you?

That's a difficult question, mostly because I generally don't hold myself back from writing what I want to write. However, if I didn't have a White Lotus fic, a Hurricane Sandy fic, and the #$@*& White Collar slavefic to write, I would be filling Kindle the Wind prompts. That's what sounds the most like fun right now. As far as fanworks more generally, if I had the computing power, I would make two vids, one set to Bryan Adams's (Everything I Do) I Do It For You: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqoGmRM6ED8 about the horrible lengths Azula and Zuko to in order to compete for Ozai's love. The other is a vid set to Sara Bareilles's King Of Anything: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR7-AUmiNcA about Ursa and Ozai.

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

I think more than is wise about scenarios where I would be disabled again, up to and including a zombie apocalypse.

What makes you read-- and, having read, like-- a fanfic?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I horrified my 10th grade lit professor when I told her quite frankly that were I stranded with my class Lord of the Flies style on a jungle island, I would kill myself before my brain and body began to deteriorate without medication. She gave me a detention, and it took me a lot of explaining to convince her I wasn't suicidal.

*Blinks, rereads question, and blinks again* okay... I like to think that I like what I like based primarily on quality, but hah, we all know that's not true (and what defines quality anyway?) I like things that hit my non sexual, literary kinks. I love slavery/captivity fic, but not the fluffy crap a lot of people like. I don't want to see good masters and happy slaves. I want to see being a master ruin someone who might have been good. I want to see slavery and power differentials taint and slowly destroy what might have been real love. And most of all, I want to see people with everything against them fight. Win or lose, I want to see them fight, and get free, or negotiate a place for themselves in the screwed up world they find themselves in. I also love anything starring characters with disabilities that isn't about those disabilities, where they are treated like any other person with this challenge. I love Fantasy written from atypical cultural perspectives, and I have a special love for fantasy from a Jewish cultural perspective. I love smart, sarcastic, depressed main characters who fight like hell, especially when they're girls, but I like the boys too. I like reading about people working through trauma, or failing to work through trauma, or looking back on trauma. I like fiction where I get the feeling the side characters have thoughts and feelings that don't revolve around the mains. I like fiction that says it's okay to be afraid, to be angry, to be hurt and not to forgive. I like fiction that says it's okay to choose who you love and who you don't love, and that it's okay not to love someone who has hurt you, even if that person is related to you, even if it's your parents, or your sister, or somebody everybody else loves, that shows that some relationships can't be saved, and there's nothing wrong with cutting ties. Oh, and I like seeing bisexual characters where it isn't anything special. I like to see myself in what I read.

[chordatesrock.livejournal.com]

Teachers can be really terrible.

My standard procedure for self-inserts is to imagine that it's taking place in an alternate universe where my med-requiring condition has disappeared, and-- because I feel like it's not fair to just upgrade myself like that-- so has all my knowledge of canon. It makes things interesting.

I'm disturbed to learn that there is fluffy slavery fic. On the other hand, your fic likes sound interesting.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, that's for sure.

Self inserts? When I said I liked to see myself in what I read, I meant it more that I want to be able to identify with the characters. *shrug* I did use a lot of my personal flaws to create the main character of my current novel. That sort of counts, right?

It's mostly kinksters who find it hot and don't want to deal with the underlying realities of power dynamics, which is okay, as long as you acknowledge it's all a fantasy. But it's really really not what I want to read or write, and I have to sort through.