I've been writing ff for a while - mainly longer pieces in part because I am way more DiNozzo than Gibbs - I can't shut up! 0=) After a very long hiatus from writing, in 2009, I completed an Earth2 story which just never quite left a corner of my consciousness: Missing and Presumed, which had been sitting on an ancient hard drive for over 13 years uncompleted and inaccessible without an obsolete program I finally was able to use. I won't even GET into where the notebook with multiple scenes went, only to say it was long gone... Suffice to say, it wanted to be completed and wouldn't leave me alone until it was!

After finishing MaP, the NCIS Big Bang was announced and it seemed a great impetus to write an NCIS story, which had begun formulating in the back of my mind. My original handle on ffnet has been my online pseudonym forever, but I considered a fresh break for my new stories, while still using it in the future for the remaining E2 stories I still have to complete, so I became Hinky Hippo. Then, as posting time came close, I had a change of heart and chose to use my original handle, Seleya889.

For my own writing, I only post completed stories - my writing style is very piecemeal, with the stronger scenes being written first then carefully woven together. My stories tend to have a main plot with subplots interwoven within, often playing off little asides on the show. While I tend towards dramas, the humor one can find even at the darkest hour tends to crop up from time to time. Life isn't only grim - a little comic relief can do wonders for pacing. I tweak relentlessly and will fuss with a story right up to the moment it is posted. I also deeply value the time the readers devote to my work and feel it is only fair to reciprocate by giving them a complete story, rather than leave them hanging indefinitely. I prefer ensemble stories, working with the entire cast of characters, and enjoy exploring the various relationships, not so much as a shipper, but more as friendships, rivalries and such. I tend towards hurt/comfort, but like to explore the motivations, emotions and reactions and try very hard to remain in canon while also pushing the characters in different directions. With E2 essentially as my foundation, I tend to seek out the answers to questions left hanging, scenes left unseen and backgrounds and futures left unexplored.

I enjoy reading pretty much any genre with the caveat that the characters have to be true to canon and the simple facts cannot be ignored. Geography, spelling and grammar errors are far more distracting and troubling and likely to turn me off than a possible AU story, provided the purple-haired alien cuffing the back of the lime green amoeba every time it acts up is still a gruff, grumbly functional mute with a heart of gold. Feedback pimping, holding chapters hostage, etc turns me into a functional mute and will likely send me scurrying for a different tale. There's plenty of really great writing out there and even good writing which could be made greater with a little encouragement. I do try very hard to remember to leave feedback - I LOVE getting it and know what it feels like to seemingly send a story into a vacuum.

Outside of the fandom, I show Flatcoated Retrievers and ornamental goldfish and own an Antonio Sabato, Jr. mailing list as well as maintain his official website.