I am a 50 year old, female, South African fic reader. I have written (and aborted after a scant few chapters when I couldn't get the plot to work as I wanted or envisioned it to) a JAG/Bridget Jones's Diary Xover fic on the JAG shipper site at Yahoo and I beta read for two fic authors, in the Harry Potter fandom on this site and GottaHaveMyNCIS in the NCIS fandom on this site.

I wrote a oneshot JAG songfic - though I generally LOATHE songfics with a passion, because I hardly ever know the (mostly very new) songs that they are based on - based on Alanis Morissette's song "Your house" (the hidden track on her wonderful CD 'Jagged little pill' - but the version on the original 'Jagged little pill' of that song is IMHO FAR better than the version that is on the acoustic 'Jagged little pill'). This oneshot is now loaded on this site at:

URL:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4237037/1/

In retrospect, my aborted JAG/Bridget Jones's Diary Xover fic should also have been a oneshot, but maybe with a oneshot-length A/N.

I read All Souls Trilogy/A Discovery of Witches, Bridget Jones, Harry Potter, JAG, Janet Evanovich, NCIS, Outlander, Pride and Prejudice and West Wing fics. I started reading NCIS fics again (after stopping for a while) on 19 July 2008. My favourite pairings are Kibbs, Gabby, Gabbi (meaning Gibbs and Coast Guard agent Borin), McAbby, McGiva, and though I haven't read any yet, I would probably like Fornell/whoever, as he should have someone, don't you think? I very rarely read anything with DiNozzo as a part of the pairing, as I find him so odious that I can't fathom how anybody would even GET into a pairing situation with him. Though they're scarcer even than hen's teeth, I like McKate fics too. I also like reading fics that has Jackie Vance, director Vance, Sarah McGee, Timothy McGee's little sister (from the season 4 ep 'Twisted sister'), Jethro (Tim McGee's dog) and Jackson Gibbs (el jefe's dad) and Tobias Fornell, Diane Gibbs-Fornell-Sterling and little Emily Fornell in them. Since the second week of July 2008 or 2009 (when DSTv, a South African satellite TV service provider, started broadcasting some season 1 eps, which I got into to the extent of buying all seven seasons on DVD) I read West Wing fics as well. I've read and loved all of the eight current novels in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series and I've seen every episode of season 1 and season 2. I have thus read and reviewed a small amount of Outlander fics. I have read and reviewed all of the All Souls Trilogy fics on this site.

My favourite pairings in all of the other fandoms I read are: West Wing - Jed/Abbey, Charlie/Zoey, Josh/Donna, Sam/Ainsley; JAG - Harm/Mac; Harry Potter - Harry/Hermione, Neville/Luna, Harry/Tonks, Remus/Tonks, George/Angelina, Fred/Alicia, Katie/Oliver, Sirius/Remus, quite a selection of the Harry harem fics and James/Lily.

I held off for the longest time from reading Bridget Jones's Diary fics (I LOVE all four of the books, but the first movie is IMO far better than the second one, as is the third movie) and only started reading BJD fics (I ship Mark/Bridget) after reading some of the IMO uber-crappy columns that there were rumours the third movie was going to be based on.

NCIS fics I would LOVE to see written and that I would read are any and all with Holly Snow in it (I find her fascinating, though I have more or less the same ethical/moral/women's kind of issues as Abby did with what Ms. Snow did for a living before acquiring the monitoring device around her ankle).

I beta read for Gottahavemyncis, an NCIS fic author on this site, David Robin (whose author name I have forgotten! Sorry, David!) and Chris400ad, a Harry Potter fic author on this site.

Whenever I read HP fics, the mental pic I have of Albus Dumbledore is Richard Harris, unless it turns out to be a manipulative and still evil sort of Dumbledore, then the mental pic is Michael Gambon.

I seem to have a weird kind of obsessive-compulsive thing about food in fics, in that I want as much detail about any food that gets mentioned. I suppose it is a bit like watching the cooking shows on Food Network or BBC Lifestyle (channels on DSTv with only or a majority of cooking shows): If the food mentioned has enough detail and seems appetising enough, I do not even have to eat! At first I was just like that over food mentioned in HP fics, but now it is all my fandoms.

And I have a total thing against any of my favourite characters in any and all of my fandoms getting or sleeping cold after a harrowing experience I had as an eight year old of having to sleep cold myself for four consecutive nights.

I read a limited quantity of Pride and Prejudice fics, Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy pairing, obviously. I think it was one of the authors in this fandom that recommended to me Linda Berdoll's two published sequels to Pride and Prejudice. I had so much fun reading that. Thank you, to whoever it was that made that recommendation to me.

Regarding fics of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series: If I were Stephanie, I would have long since hurled out the window and into the parking lot those people who constantly break and enter into my apartment, except Ranger. I ship Stephanie/Ranger.

I was laid off/retrenched/made redundant from my job of the previous 17 and a half years as a copy editor in the night production department for an Afrikaans group of newspapers in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 31 October 2020. I started reading fics on this site in the year I joined the night production department, where I have been laid off, as a trainee copy editor. I am reading and reviewing less fanfiction than what was normal for me when I still had a full-time paid job at this time in between submitting job applications (with a version of my resume that now has the web address of my Twitter profile, my LinkedIn profile and my profile on ff dot net on it). I got my first assignment as a freelance proofreader on 18 January 2021. The manuscript was delivered to me during the weekend of 31 January 2021. I earned $19.62 (ZAR300) an hour for the 11 hours of freelance proofreading work on 31 January and 1 February. I got one more freelance proofreading job in early March. I had a freelance proofreading job between May and December 2021 for a PR firm in Bellville in Cape Town. I invoiced them at the end of May at the rate of ZAR150 ($10.83) an hour and will do the same thing in June and every month (thus far it was May, June, July, August and December, after my contract as a half-day proofreader at a distance education firm 10 miles from my flat was terminated after four months.) I work for them from now on. The night of 8 August 2021 I was still only a freelance proofreader. By the morning of 13 August 2021 I had morphed into a slasher: Freelance proofreader/translator/desk researcher/social media and other content writer. Since 28 August 2021 I have morphed even further: Freelance proofreader/desk researcher/social media and other content writer/subeditor (copy editor).

In July 2021 I sent my resumé, applying for a half-day job as a proofreader 10 miles away from my flat. In late August I had a Zoom job interview and completed a proofreading test. I got a three month probation in the job. In my first monthly performance appraisal of my probation in the week of 15 October 2021 I scored 6 out of 10. Two more scores of 6 out of 10 each in November's performance appraisal and in December's and my contract was terminated at this job on 13 December 2021.

In August 2021 I started an online Copyediting and Proofreading course in Afrikaans, my mother Tongue. In February 2022 I passed the online final exam in this course with a grade of 85%. Also in August 2021 I got a freelance copyediting job where I copyedited articles at ZAR90 each for Big Issue Magazine. This copyediting job continued until January 2022.

In January 2022 I proofread an advertising brochure on a freelance basis and had an unsuccessful in person job interview for a job as proofreader at a marketing agency 15 miles east of my flat. I made an impression during the interview, though, since I had 12 hours of freelance proofreading work from them in March and April.

I passed with a D (58%) a ten module course on Copyediting and Proofreading in British/UK English that I enrolled in on Valentine's Day 2022.

Please bear with me, authors whose work I read and review on ff dot net. I am reading all of the fanfiction I read on the ff dot net app on my phone because neither Google Chrome nor the Avast secure browser on my laptop allow me to open ff dot net on it.

I got a job! In late July I sent in my resume in response to an advertisement for a junior online copyeditor at an English tabloid newspaper whose editorial offices are about 4 miles away from my flat. I had two rounds of in person interviews at their offices in August as well as a copyediting test. I thought I flunked the copyediting test solidly, so I did not hold out much hope. Then their HR person phoned me the last Monday of August telling me I got the job and could I start a three month probation period on 1 September. I agreed immediately and thus started on 1 September. I am being trained up still, right now but half of the work I am already doing competently.

I am now a proofreader and editor of grade 7, grade 7 and grade 12 question papers for private schools in Southern Africa at the Independent Examination Board. I have had this job since 1 March 2023. I work from 08:00 to 16:00, the same as my hours at the newspaper except I no longer work on Sundays as I had to do at the newspaper but my take home pay has increased stratospherically.

I opted out of email notifications for updates on 20 October 2023 because ff dot net was being such an utter prick. I strongly suspect it's because the developers and coder were and still are using their pricks to think with.