1. So, uhm, the combination of this and this has me in a weird, weird otter-slash-AU place today. I don't ACTUALLY want to read an explicit otter AU, you guys! Someone inform my brain?

2. Ahaha, remember the sga_flashfic PostSecret challenge? Well, turns out I made a postcard for it, only I never actually remembered to post it anywhere, and so forgot all about it until it turned up while I was organizing files on my computer today: ( it's kind of great )

How amazing is that! IT'S SO EMO! Maybe I was angsting about college decisions at the time, and decided to transfer my panic to John? I don't know, it was a long time ago! But I'm pretty sure I was totally serious at the time, and I also think I may have made it in my school library when I should have been doing work. I love that it's so clearly pre-lemondrama, too. \o/

Everyone at my school has lost their voice all of a sudden! Seriously, three or four people I interacted with this morning could barely talk. What is the deal with that? Was there some kind of screaming-themed party to which I was not invited, and no one wants to mention it because they're worried I'll feel bad? I won't feel bad, you guys.

In other news, today I encountered the BEST PARAGRAPH EVER:

"Coming from Mr. Bed Bath and Beyond, I'm not sure if that's insulting, or just ridiculous."

John sniffs, "So I have a few candles."

"Also the big sign around your neck that says, 'GOD I AM SUCH A HOMO AND I LIKE IT.' You always forget to mention the sign. Sir."

(from this story by princess_bunny)

(You guys all know about the thing with the curtains, right? John's sparkly gauzy curtains of prettiness with the matching gather? FROM CANON? Oh, John Sheppard, you are the gayest gay boy in all of Gaydonia.)

I wish I was better at coming up with ideas for fic, or better at actually finishing said fic. I don't ask for both! Just one or the other! Once in a blue moon I FINALLY come up with an idea, like "Benton Fraser = 19th century Egyptologist, Ray Kowalski = kind of flirting with some Egyptian guy, and oh, Fraser's FACE, but he's not jealous! He's not! It was just unexpected. And maybe there's some evil grave robbers or something, I don't know, and they dig in the sun all day and get really sweaty but Fraser never takes off his pith helmet and his hair gets all damp and sticks to his forehead." But then I never fucking write it, you know? Laaaaaaame.

I've just spent a productive few hours browsing around the Girl Wonder website, and I'm feeling a little twitchy about women and agency right now, to the point that I just tried to read a John/Rodney fic and had to close the window when there was an implication that *because* Rodney had suffered an accident that made him unable to produce testosterone, he was going to be taken off the team. I don't even know that it was going to a misogyny place, but right now? I'm not in the mood. Also, there had already been a little too much abortion-is-a-big-step rhetoric for my taste. I do recognize that with mpreg, "Why not have an abortion?" is a plot point that needs to be accounted for, but I'm really pretty intensely squicked by certain ways authors approach the problem, including guilt-tripping and heavy narrative consequences.

Anyway: women and agency. I think there's a reason I don't spend all my time with this degree of awareness regarding such issues, and that reason is that I would go insane. I can't imagine getting heavily involved in comics fandom, if only because it would be so difficult for me to ignore the rampant problems they seem to have in that area.

Even SGA is pushing it with me right now. I just, TEYLA. Why doesn't she spend a lot more time kicking ass and taking names, let alone having dialogue and history and motivations and asfajsdfljkj cannot deal. UGH. I don't GET IT.

Why is it so difficult for people (okay, mostly men) to write female characters? Here's a very simplified version: make a male character. Then cut off his dick. And yes, that's not the very best way to do it, but we're going to start with baby steps here. We'll save "understanding what makes women's experience of the world different than men's" for the advanced classes.

What's really getting to me right now is the idea of women characters existing primarily to provide emotional development and motivations for male characters. Also, rape. Rape is bothering me a lot. Especially rape that gets treated like a joke. (See: motherfucking LUCIUS, pages 1-965.) I just. AGENCY. Women who are people who do stuff and feel stuff and are the fucking point in and of themselves. Why is this hard? Why... what? There are lots and lots of women around you every day. Doing things. Being people. Open your fucking eyes.

Also, the male gaze. I don't like it. Oh, hey, and people acting like anger negates your argument, that's pretty lame.

This is the first time in quite a while that my anger at misogyny and sexism is outweighing my anger at heteronormativity! Funny how that is! (OH, fuck you, Firefox spell-checker, for not recognizing the word "heteronormativity." NOT WHAT I NEED RIGHT NOW, THANKS.) That might be because I also recently discovered for the first time that whole wank from a while back about Ginny being a slut, and defined primarily by her sexuality. According to a male reader, at least. THAT was a keeper. I guess you hit a breaking point.

I'd imagine that all members of disempowered groups feel like this sometimes, have this wave of incoherent rage and helplessness rise up within them. I just want to hunt Frank Miller down and claw his face off, you know? (Although that wouldn't be very effective, come to think of it, given that I have short lesbian-nails right now. I guess biting could work.)

Whatever. I guess I'm going to go read some mina_de_malfois or something.

My love for John Sheppard's grotesque laugh continues unabated. I actually found and rewatched my copy of McKay and Mrs. Miller, and it was even worse than I remembered. WONDERFUL. Here, have a rec: Jump to the Left by princess_bunny. If you guessed that I am reccing this because it mentions The Laugh, then you are 76% right. The other 24% is that this is actually a really well-written and fun AU and I like it a lot. I'm not going to quote my favorite bit, but you'll know it when you come to it.

(Because it mentions The Laugh)

I feel like this post should have more content than that. Apparently not!

1. I am having a moment of wild, insane love for John Sheppard's weird laugh right now. It is SO HORRIBLE SOUNDING! Any fic that mentions the disturbing, freaky laugh gets an automatic A+ from me today.

2. Hey, anyone want to hear a super good song? I know you do, because the voice of science tells us that everybody wants to hear super good songs. Here it is: Grace Kelly by Mika. What I like about this song is everything. Also, the singer seems pretty gay, and his website has lots of colors, so you guys should like that, I think. Props to greyandgrey for giving me the song in the first place!

3. You know what I never do on this journal? Rec fic! And that is silly, because I read a lot of fic, and I like a lot of what I read, and I should share this with the internets because that is what fandom is ALL ABOUT. Today's theme is MISUNDERSTANDINGS, probably my single biggest narrative kink. There is nothing in this world I like better than a good story where Boy A is in love with Boy B but there are MISUNDERSTANDINGS so he thinks Boy B doesn't love him back, but really he does! And then there is angst and revelations and a happy ending and they make out a lot.[*]

Semaphore by helenish, Sports Night, Danny/Casey

I love Helen's dialogue, and I was curious to see how it meshed with Sports Night's very distinctive dialogue. Answer: very, very well. This is a good example of fanfic that maintains a strong authorial voice, while staying absolutely true to canon. There are other reasons to like this fic, though, and one of them is that Lisa isn't entirely responsible for the divorce, because Casey can be an idiot. Another one is that this provides a really cool reflection of second season canon events, had they transpired somewhat differently. There are many reasons! Go read it, if you haven't yet!

The Dating Disasters of Sirius Black, by kabeyk, Harry Potter, Sirius/Remus

One thing you can definitely say about Sirius Black is that he knows what he wants. Actually, I'd really like to read a Sirius POV fic that specifies when he knew that what he wanted was Remus, because I suspect it was shortly after they got off the train to Hogwarts. This is not that fic, but I like it very much. There are a lot of ridiculous pranks, and a long reveal – actually, maybe that's why everyone writes Remus POV. Sirius tends to know what's going on way too soon, emotionally. (But in no other way, to be fair.)

Scenes from an Accidental Courtship, by torakowalski, Stargate Atlantis, McKay/Sheppard

I love it so much when John pines, you have no idea. Because he's really a hell of a lot gayer than Rodney, isn't he? I generally am a big fan of fic that supports the "John likes cock, Rodney likes sex and also John" characterization. Also, Rodney is the science team pimp. FANTASTIC. I haven't got anything smart to say about this at all; it's well written, and the sex scene has a really wonderful tension in it, and. John is repressed and sad a lot. Basically, I really like it.

Le Dormeur du Val, by pun, Smallville, Clark/Lex

Hey, I also have a sleep kink, did you know? Almost as much as I have a kink for Lex being kind of really needy, and in love with Clark, and sort of two steps behind what's going on for once in his life. I seem to have less and less to say with each one of these recs, isn't that mildly interesting? If I did another one, it would probably say "Fucking read it already," and I'll take that as a sign that I should go to bed now.

[*] I also like sugary brightly colored drinks with umbrellas in them.

Okay okay okay guys, just wait a second and let me explain my theory. (Disclaimer: this is where I cross the border from "srsly they were joking with the lemon" rationalization to actual fanwanking.)

That thing with the ( Atlantis spoooilers )

Sorry I have been all out of touch guys! I was working all week, and then I went to a party and swam in my underwear. But I am BACK and it is SCI FI FRIDAY! Get ready for some extravagant abuse of caps lock, babies.

( spoilers for Progeny )

There's a cool discussion going on in brooklinegirl's journal about characterization in HCL here, and I got to thinking about Billy Tallent. She makes some excellent points, but the one that really stuck in my mind was this:

I don't think Joe can convince Billy to do anything. I don't think it's a power struggle like that. I think it's a game where Billy has a whole other rule book. Joe maybe knows what works, but he doesn't know why it works. I don't think Billy is ever planning on throwing it all in and staying with Joe and having happy-fun-tour-time for the rest of their lives. I don’t think that's even an option, and I don't think any amount of sex with Joe is going to even make Billy hesitate when it comes to leaving.

And it's true, you know? Billy's just not that invested in making HCL work; he is ready to get the fuck out of Dodge. Which there's two ways to interpret, in my view: relatively positive, by saying that Billy's aware that HCL is never going to make it, and Joe's self-destructive, and therefore that Billy's just escaping a bad situation; or relatively negative, by saying that Billy's a self-centered asshole.

Honestly, I tend more toward the second.

It's not that I think he's a bad person. But I don't think he – or, for that matter, anyone else in HCL – is actually capable of putting someone else's happiness/needs above their own. Joe Dick loves Billy, no question about it, and yet he's not ever going to make the choice to let Billy go, even if he got it through his head that HCL was never going to make it big. What I said in BLG's journal was, "For me, HCL is largely a story about what happens when a whole group of massively self-centered people try to interact in ways that are inherently about getting out of the self – being in a band, having a relationship, negotiating details of everyday life – and failing spectacularly." There's love there, there's talent, but there isn't maturity – that quality that lets people go through the day without fucking up their lives.

So ultimately, how Billy ends up being characterized frequently has a lot more to do, in my opinion, with the author of a fic than with canonicity.

( Which brings me to John Sheppard. )

I've just written some shameless Fraser/Kowalski smut for oxoniensis's porn challenge, which can be found over here. I also wrote this for svmadelyn's badfic summary challenge, responding to ladyvyola's prompt:

"NOT your average new grrlz come 2 Atlantis High fic! WHen twin sisters Jeanni & Roddi Makay show up, popular AH boy John Shepherd can't decide who 2 d8 - but 1 of them is hidding a big secret! Heart-braek & tender confessions follow this crazy mixup!"

*facepalm* Not, perhaps, my finest moment in fandom.

Not much to say about this episode, but I loved the scene in the beginning where ( spoilers )

I've just begun trying my hand at making icons, and I thought I'd post some of my first efforts here, since I'm too cheap to spring for a paid account and more icon space. Comments/credit appreciated, though not mandatory.



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