etben | yes, it's the question meme! again! and also other things.

resonant8 had questions (*waves at south-of-here*), and I had time (well, not really, but close enough), so here are my answers:

1. Who on Atlantis uses pet names, and who would rather have their tongue removed? How do Athosian pet names sound? What about Satedan ones?

Well, he's not on Atlantis any more, but I feel like Ford definitely would have. Beckett, too.

Rodney definitely does—not, you know, in the lab, but whenever he's actually involved with someone for long enough to be comfortable with them (which doesn't happen too terribly often). It just slips out, this babble of endearments and affection and worry, and he feels tremendously awkward about it but it's good, it helps, and they settle together like old stones.

John doesn't, as a general rule, and I have a hard time seeing it from Teyla. Although, actually, I can see it from both of them in situations involving small kids. Then again, small kids tend to bring out the pet names in people. Neither of them would be particularly good with kids—Teyla, in particular, I see as being freaked out by babies—but they'd use the pet names, out of this helpless reaction to the vulnerability of small things. Athosian pet names are all repeated syllables and a reassuring murmur that catches over and over again.

Ronon—well, maybe. He speaks Satedan sometimes, and never translates it, and it sounds like a curse, with rough-edged syllables and consonant clusters that English runs away from, but it feels like an endearment. He had sisters, so he's actually not bad with the small children, after a while.

2. Is John Sheppard ticklish?

God, yes. It's just the one spot on his ribs, so almost nobody ever finds it, but it's very ticklish. I have a sneaking suspicion that one day, out in the field, Rodney pokes him in the side, fingers going unerringly to that one spot—it's not a big spot! it's totally not fair—and it makes John hunch over, protectively and convulsively, wheezing and gasping for breath.

When he gets up, Rodney looks amazed and Ronon's hiding a grin and Teyla's not even trying to hide it, she's grinning outright. And thus begins the tickle war, which goes on for most of a month before John and Rodney strike a truce and go after Ronon from either side during a briefing. Elizabeth makes them stop.

3. Would you want to switch genders for a day? (And what would you spend the day doing?) Would you want to switch genders for the rest of your life?

Absolutely. And I'm (mostly) not ashamed to admit that that day would be the day of the Penis, because I just—I don't get it. Penises confuse me, which is, you know, kind of funny, given that I spend at least some part of every day thinking about sex from the point of view of a penis-having person.

It would be a day of much excitement and sex, and then it would be over and I would go back to my own body, and much fun would have been had by all. Wouldn't do it for life, though—I'm entirely too comfortable as a woman, and plus then I'd have to run the boys cabins during the summer, and—and no. Just NO.

4. Are you an adventurous eater? What's the strangest thing you ever ate? What's the strangest thing you eat on a regular basis?

Well, I'm an adventurous eater in the sense of "I'll eat most anything someone puts in front of me, unless it's oysters in which case you are ON YOUR OWN because they are super-gross." In the sense of "I go out and look for New Things To Eat", I'm not so adventurous, mostly because I'm inherently lazy.

I've eaten ostrich and snails and probably a lot of other things that my dad never told me he was feeding me; we're like that. The strangest thing I eat on a regular basis...well, I don't eat anything that's inherently strange, I don't think, but I guess routinely eating peanut butter with a spoon is kind of strange.

5. Is there a word that you just can't pronounce, no matter how hard you try?

None spring to mind, but as a child, I had crap pronunciation, largely because I read so much, and at a high enough reading level that I was getting all of my new vocabulary from books. At one point, I definitely asked if I had plaque (which I pronounced as plague) on my teeth, and I've never quite lived it down.

So...if any of you want to do this meme again (or any of the rest of you want to step up), leave a comment and I'll give you five questions, which you will answer at your journal. You will then offer yourself up to give questions to other people, and so on and so on and so on.

Or, hell: combine two things in one: if you just want to ask me questions (hnarh), do it now. Go crazy.

Also-also: If I were to create a 'personal-shit-what-not-everybody-cares-about' filter, would any of you want to be on it? because I'm feeling revelatory, but also wouldn't want to needlessly subject you all to the inside of my head. No poll-making capacity, so just drop me a line if you want to get the inside dirt on

etben.