bironic

I was tag-surfing on the AO3 last night, like you do, and with no great expectations gave an SGA story called Harem Girl a try, because it promised noncon of the Sheppard/OFC and Sheppard/OMC variety. I confess I skimmed some parts—huh, apparently the story was 43,000 words, which would explain it—but I finished it today and overall it was quite an enjoyable fic! Lots of kinks (shaving, chastity device, corsets and cross-dressing, group fellation practice, chains, harems, sex slavery…) that eventually combined to suit my tastes quite well, distinctive OCs, hot descriptions of building sexual tension and pleasure even when Sheppard's mind is scattered from gender-bending captivity, and the ending didn't take any easy ways out. Specific recs: deelaundry—it's full of forced feminization! synn—it's got some Sheppard/Ronon, not Sheppard/McKay! rubynye—sex slavery consent issues!

So that was nice. Also, out of nowhere that I can discern, last night I had an AU sort of dream in which the Inception team had gone corporate and I was Ariadne. We were gathering around a brainstorming sort of conference table in a warehouse to hash out the plans for our next job. No one looked like they did in the movie. Arthur was drunk and kept repeating some sing-song phrase. The mark's partner/boyfriend looked like Shepherd Book from Firefly; this was remarked on. Cobb was there. Eames was being flirtatious, which I/Ariadne loved, only he was also being a self-serving jerk, which I/she discovered when we were walking and he pressed a set of keys into my/her hand just before a police officer stopped us, which meant that if he'd noticed that something was wrong with the keys (they were stolen? it was something bad), I/she would have taken the heat and not Eames.

Oh—maybe because nightdog_barks posted that pic of Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Eh, I won't look a gift sexual-tension dream in the mouth.

…That sounded better in my head.

1. My Jurassic Park vid showed at vidukon this weekend, and at least three people liked it. :) Neat-o.

2. Speaking of Sheppard, which we were yesterday:

2a) Excellent SGA kink meme fill that transforms the "magical healing cock" cliché into a thinky and sexy story in which Sheppard has to deal with consent and privacy issues when his semen acquires actual therapeutic power. It features John/Jennifer with a lovely sprinkling of dom/sub dynamics; plus many other John couplings and a hefty dubcon warning. As I was writing in my comment that I loved the way Sheppard's bisexuality and submissiveness were simply part of the story instead of being treated with a huge amount of fanfare or angst, and ditto for the sexual preferences of two officers, just nicely done, understated, effective, it occurred to me that the author could be bluflamingo, as that's something I tend to like in her fics, and she has also handled consent issues well in the past. But who knows.

2a.1) I've already recommended the other sexy John/Jennifer story with even more medical kink and dom/sub dynamics and less dubcon, where John keeps showing up with things up his ass and eventually Jennifer puts them there, right? Right.

2b) I had this dream last night where I'd kidnapped Sheppard and had his wrists tied with an elastic hair band and was trying to get him to wear this mismatched pair of shoes, and actually it was all very heartwarming, but that is about all that will translate without becoming boring, so here, have some more recs.

3. Meanwhile, in the fandom I'm still not talking about, there was hot Eames/17-year-old!Arthur in Vegas. And another Eames/just-underage!Arthur fic, Making Partner. Both of these work just as well if you don't know the movie.

And I could assume that if you're interested in this ~mysterious unnamed fandom~ that you're reading helenish's stuff, but just in case, she did an amnesia fic in which forgetting allows the couple to remember and/or realize some things about their relationship; and a pair of older stories I'd missed one of, wherein Arthur (in one story; Eames in the other) had to pretend to be Eames' (ditto) boyfriend to avoid arousing the ire of serious criminals; and also today I finally read through her ongoing snippet series and found several parts to be quite sexy, either because there was sex (Arthur/OFC called Liesl) or because there was angst about not having sex when both of them (Arthur/Eames, that is) actually wanted to. Nice to be literate once again in a fandom helenish is writing in.

4. Yes, that ended on a preposition. The current essay in DF Wallace's book is about grammar snobbery and is both fun and interesting, even if he lambastes descriptivism. Today at work there was a prime example of his point that norms-based prescriptivism can never die because we'd be left with ambiguous sentences like the one in a summary I was reading: "[Woman's name] has a son who is 8 years old and has a part-time job in a hospital as a surgical technician."

Coworker One: Doogie Howser?
Coworker Two: He'd better go full-time or he'll never make surgeon when he's 10.

5. Aimee Mann concert tomorrow with cincodemaygirl and gblvr, hooray. Tidbit of the day: I would have used an Aimee Mann song for Festivids had my assignment been different.

1. Oh, man, Pete Postlethwaite died. I didn't even know he was sick.

2. Uh, so what does it mean when your fortune cookie fortune says: You can depend on the trust of the collective? My apartment has transformed into an Orwell story. Or a Borg ship.

3. Speaking of things in my kitchen that have funny words: I noticed the other day that the can of cooking spray says "Serving size: about 1/3 sec."

4. I dunno. I have Thoughts on stuff -- like comparing the unreliable narrators/inability for the audience to gauge "reality" in Inception and Black Swan and working through what I didn't like about them vs. what I just am not understanding -- but lack the energy to write them up. Fic recs, too, but I can't dump a bunch of links here without also telling you why I liked them and therefore why you might like them. Maybe over the weekend.

5. On the bright side, two finished festivids and a good old-fashioned Mary Sue-in-progress.

6. I apologized to someone at the office this morning, unprompted, because I'd been pretty short with her the last few months for reasons unknown. Felt good. Something to set the tone for the year, perhaps, since I fell off the "be more polite and give of your time" wagon after Rosh Hashanah.

7. musicisbelievng got me Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with Another Spoon for Hanukkah. It is fabulous. Girls and dinosaurs, boys and EZ Bake Ovens, a prince who wants his own glass slippers, a princess who wishes the frog will turn into another princess.

8. I know this is a long shot, but would anyone else local be interested in this Smithsonian seminar on existentialism?

9. Two days back into the work week, and I would like nothing more than a long massage (not helped by reading things like So this is the new year or Happy Endings - *warning*, the latter is not yet complete) and/or a resort vacation and/or for male prostitutes to be legal, safe, affordable and available. Never mind that the one professional massage I've ever had didn't thrill me or that I've never actually been to a resort and would likely be bored. Okay, replace "resort" with "cruise." Point is: extended period of relaxation, comma, it is needed. Or perhaps the point is: ways to manage 9-to-5 working life so as not to have a tiny nervous breakdown over insignificant business matters, even if due to their very insignificance, comma, they are sorely needed.

Dear friends: Some stuff is going on right now, and the good/neutral things are only most of the time balancing out the bad thing. Therefore I am taking license today to complain, even if about far less significant matters.

Unpopular fannish opinions, edition the first

( Inception )

( House )

( SGA )


*grump the second*

Things I wish I never had to read again:

• "amber liquid"
• "feet planted"/"feet flat on the mattress"
• "bemused" when you mean "amused"
• "woah"
• "yea" for "yeah"
• silicon vs. silicone
• vice vs. vise
• …Crap, I had a whole list of these but I seem to have misplaced it.

Anyway. Feel free to grump with me or offer happy things. I'll be computer-bound most of the weekend. Except tonight, when I am going to see The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, because I need deserve a movie after this week.