...What day is it again?

[bironic]

I wrote 4,000 words of story over the long weekend and felt good about it, even though I haven't been able to get back to it yet and it needs some rehauling.

I usually put off reading fic while I'm writing it, because if I didn't I would (a) lose faith in my own abilities, (b) start unconsciously mimicking other people's styles and phrasing, (c) get into passive rather than creative mode, and (d) not be able to stop reading anyway. The result was that I had a nice pile of things to read Tuesday and yesterday, and some of them were really good.

In no particular order:

Image Heavy by deltacephei - Short and funny Fairy Tale challenge entry at sga_flashfic recommended for fans of "Darmok," mythology and/or Earth popular culture infiltrating Ronon, Teyla and the Pegasus galaxy at large.

Aspects of Divinity (the world is my oyster) by rinsbane - An incredibly well-written story about John growing up and losing innocence and hope and slowly becoming the character we see on the show. It begins with an endless college summer spent driving an ice cream truck and hanging out with Rodney, and goes from there. I can't say enough good things about this fic. Just, go read it.

Harmonic Function by shaenie - Sizzling hot John/Rodney d/s BDSM fic, with bonus math!porn in the middle and such rarities as characters actually discussing what they do/don't like in bed. AU where Rodney picks John up in a bar one night and takes him back to his hotel room for something that turns out to be much more intense than either expected. Slow, real, visceral.

A Hundred Happy Things by busaikko - An interesting AU and (seemingly, to this reader) realistic portrait of transsexuality (and parenting) while still keeping all the characters recognizable, hopelessly flawed and thoroughly lovable.

Heart of Ice by crysothemis - Another Fairy Tale challenge fic in which aliens do something to Sheppard that strips away his ability and desire to care about anything. Rodney is not okay with that at all. A fascinating and troubling look at what drives John to do (and not do) what he does (and doesn't do) every day.

Hidden Depths by lamardeuse - My favorite of hers since quite a while ago. A reimagining of the movie Splash, which works very well as a metaphor for Sheppard's alienness and also provides for some surprisingly erotic scenes (er, not while he's a fish. Mostly.).

Don't get me started on how many people have written a ton of Kink Bingo stories already when I haven't even finished one, but sardonicsmiley has done, like, nine, and I particularly liked Blessings (gangbang) and Space Super Jet Gun (enema/gun!kink).

I almost forgot—thingswithwings's John/Rodney fucking machines story, Mechanical Advantage! I had the privilege of beta-reading this piece of oh-so-dirty-and-wrong hotness, and it certainly made my weekend a little happier.

Oh oh! This awesomeness (actually entitled "Hold") by foreverdirt - a Rodney/John double sestina that is tightly constructed, hot as hell, and contains some beautiful phrasing. I was so incredibly thrilled to find out that she was partly inspired by An Unanticipated Side Effect of Dosing Oneself with Wraith Enzyme.... It sounds / like madness, letting himself feel / like this over a man who would burn / his life away on a dime. It's not. ...She hasn't crossposted anywhere; I hope she doesn't mind me reccing it here.

.

I swear I'm still a House fan. See, here's a rec: Paresthesia and Pain by the always excellent mer_duff (post-finale, House/Wilson friendship, pain as metaphor). It's just that I've been bookmarking rather than reading since the season finale.

.

I also swear that I can and will talk about more than fandom/fanfic (but not that I can start sentences with words other than "I"). I want to have discussions about things like the difficulty of writing PWPs, and just how much stupider a person becomes as a function of how long it's been since they left school (and by "a person," of course I mean "me"), and how hot Stephen Colbert was while summarizing the shortfalls of string theory before guest Brian Greene, and whether the career path I've selected for myself is the right one, and whether my Saturday would be better spent relaxing on the couch or going into the city to see Alan Alda play Richard Feynman followed by a session with feminist astrophysicist Vera Rubin, and. . . but tonight does not seem to be the right moment for it. *yawn*

I blame an overtaxed brain; I worked for 9 hours straight on a new project at work today after spending the last three-odd years learning absolutely nothing, and then got through a cassette and a half of Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell audio book in the car. (No, he does not narrate it.) Picking up unfamiliar physics aurally, while navigating traffic? Not so much my strength.

I think I will go read about how Thoughts of death make us eat more cookies.

ETA: This is news? "The authors believe people with low self-esteem use consuming as a way of subconsciously escaping self-awareness, which is heightened by thoughts of dying." I've been consciously escaping painful awareness of mortality through (fiction) consumption for as long as I can remember.

Comments

[purridot.livejournal.com]

Multi-tasking again, I see! *falls on knees in admiration*

Career path, grrr. Hate hate hate.

But love love love how Stephen Colbert managed to undermine Tony Perkins' agenda of intolerance before gleefully interviewing Brian Greene and his invisible string theory ;-)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I missed Tony Perkins - was it awesome? I was doing some work when my sister called me in to see the Greene interview.

Also, just added an article link at the end of this post whose title might make you laugh.

[purridot.livejournal.com]

I think it's simply logical to eat cookies now -- after all, you can't take them with you! Mmmm, cookies...

Re: Colbert -- it seemed to me from the beginning he was in a strange mood leading up to the Perkins interview, and now I think I know why -- for the Perkins interview his character *should* in fact endorse Perkins' anti-gay agenda, but he had to try to satirize it simultaneously. Satire won out, thank goodness! He made Perkins seem like a hypocrite. And the audience booed him (Perkins, not Colbert).

But Greene was adorable! Colbert was so much happier and relaxed then!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

his character *should* in fact endorse Perkins' anti-gay agenda, but he had to try to satirize it

That is sense-making, and could explain it if he seemed off ahead of time -- maybe he was worried or nervous about having to play both sides so finely in a live interview.

Also, re: your first comment: if you knew how wiped out I am right now (even though I slept a lot last night!), you might not be so admiring. *g*

[perspi.livejournal.com]

Ah, good old terror-management theory, which seeks to explain everything about human behavior. :)

Also, I thoroughly approve of your recs--I just read rinsbane's fic this afternoon, and I was blown away.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Is it not amazing? I wanted to say more about it up there, but then it would've gotten spoilery, and the story needs to be experienced as it unfolds.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

double sestina asd;fkjhasdfkjdslkfjhadslfkjadshfl!

My love for fandom cannot be textually rendered, I swear. Holy wow. Fans are the awesomest.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[celebriangel.livejournal.com]

Oh, you dedicated reccer, you! *Pounces*

And, ohgod, another pop-physics geek. I don't know if we could have anything more in common if we *tried*.

Career path woes: egads, I feel your pain. I have the decisive ability of a particularly confused goldfish so, you know, I'm flailing in a vaguely sciencey direction atm. But that's subject to change anytime between now and, oh, next tuesday.

Biscuits are great comfort food (I'm *British*. Cookies are huge things the sixe of your palm with fruit/chocolate chips/oats in them) but, like you, I think fiction is better. And the best part is, fiction and biscuits can be consumed *at the same time*.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ficbiscuits? ...Okay, that sounded cleverer in my head. And yet I'm leaving it in this comment, and still talking about it.

Pop physics geekery and vaguely sciencey life thoughts ftw. I've also wanted to study fanfic in a media studies or English department for a while now (liberal arts Ph.D.!!), so of course, since I've made a different commitment, I yearn for it. The grass is always greener in the other grad program, or something.

Oh, you dedicated reccer, you!

*g* Self-assigned penance for reading so much -- turning it into something helpful & productive.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

I'm supposed to be writing, not reading, so I have bookmarked this post to come back later and read all.

Thank you!

I'm driving the bus for House on crack_van soon (June? July? can't remember) so I'm trying to decide what to rec and how. I'm actually not very good at writing up recommendations... I always want to just say, "This was really good! Go read it!" which is not helpful.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ooh, neat. I had a lot of fun planning what to rec, although you're right that it's hard to figure out what to say. Is it too obvious to suggest that you ask yourself why you remember them or love them, and write that?

[bell]

I swear I'm still a House fan.

Your mouth says yes, your actions say no. ;) I dunno, whenever I'm about to leave/change fandom, a sure sign of that is that I stop reading fic for it or I start reading another fandom's fic. Then again, I was never able to multi-fandom, so that might just be me.

I also swear that I can and will talk about more than fandom/fanfic (but not that I can start sentences with words other than "I").

You too? XD Hope you get around to posting those other things, though, hey, more fandom and fanfic is a-okay by me any day.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I think right now SGA fic is filling some emotional/stress-induced needs for me that House fic isn't, but I'm sure I'll get back into House mode soon. I've been reading (and writing, though obviously much less) in both fandoms for almost a year and a half now, so I'm not *too* worried that one will force the other out.

My maximum multifannishness seems to be a dualfannishness. When I got into House, I was still in HP, but since I've gotten into SGA, HP has fallen by the wayside.

[supertailz.livejournal.com]

Hi! I ended up here through ThreeSidedOrchid's website on which you have a little original story with no title that I loved. I was wondering if there were any chance you'd written more on that theme/in that universe/sequels or were going to?

Either way it was lovely, many thanks!

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

Do you know this is the first site the comes up if one googles '"Harmonic Function" shaenie'? This is how I find all my recs, now - googling stories I liked for rec lists that include them. Although, Harmonic Function isn't actually an AU. The author has also said that they have some idea for what happens when they meet again in Antarctica.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Oh, how strange! I suppose shaenie has opted not to have her LJ turn up in search results, whereas I have no shame. Anyway, I'm glad if the list supplied more stories for you to enjoy.

True, "Harmonic Function" could be more an AC - alternate canon, branching off from a point in canon rather than changing its fundamental rules - than AU, if its followup is in Antarctica and they follow the show's plot more or less from there.