At least the scarecrow had straw

[trinityofone]

I suck. Like, a lot. I know I owe people comments and e-mails (blueandomlettes! God, I am so sorry); I also have three essays due increasingly soon, and all I have managed are crappy, not-even-outlines for two of them. But my brain is mush. Babyfood. Strained beets.

Some things that have managed to make me happy? Well, over at artword, the current challenge for artists is based on my fic Realm of Dryads, and slodwick and tardis80 have already made gorgeous posters/covers which you can see here and here. Guh. They're both amazingly-shivery-good. (Plus, the current artword challenge for writers is awesome, too. If I ever get my brain back, I must work on the little kernel of an idea I have for it.)

Also, cynicatlantis made this fabulous little comic that combines two of my favorite things and is adorable to boot. *happy sigh* I think I'll be clicking back to that a lot today.

Finally, because I seriously doubt that I will get anything useful done today, and because I've been boring-as-hell lately (I like to think that I'm boring when I don't post, and not the other way around. No need to shatter my illusions, mmkay?), I figure I'll offer to do comment drabbles again. Comment with a prompt, and I'll write you a drabble. Eventually. (Hey, I did ALL of them last time! I totally win!) And, er, I'm gonna limit it to SGA this time, 'cause I don't really feel like writing anything else.

Now back to pondering boysex...er, "The Rape of the Lock" and Joycean epiphanies.

Comments

The Switch

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

He turns his head and John sees them: little plum-colored bruises dotting Rodney’s neck. “God,” he says, shuddering. “Did I do that?”

“Yes,” says Rodney, happily. He kneels, laying his head on John’s thigh. John wants to jerk back, but there isn’t enough room in here. Not enough.

Twelve hours, John thinks, not knowing whether he wants time to move faster or slower. Twelve hours until the switch, until Rodney remembers who he is again: so much more than anybody’s slave. Until John forgets he’s anything other than Rodney’s master.

Maybe this time, Rodney too can leave a mark.

[notpoetry.livejournal.com]

Ooo. Drabbles from you, joy! How about something in the "Human Vacillation" universe? I keep on reading that fic and constantly wanting more.

Good luck with your essays!

Lomonosov-Lavoisier

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

John likes numbers because numbers never lie. In the hospital, after blood and sand are washed away, after tests, after his name and face (his old name and face) vanish into a folder marked CLASSIFIED, he weighs and measures himself, comparing the figures to what he knew from before. It doesn’t make sense, these disparate totals of pounds and inches. Like everything else, it should be impossible, a grand, universal lie.

But numbers don’t. Neither does science. He knows the law of conservation of matter; he thinks about what he gave up for each new ounce, for every added inch.

[siria]

Oh, the strained beets feeling is never fun. I can sympathise. *hugs*

As for a drabble. Um. Um. John and Rodney, maybe something to do with these lyrics, something happy and warm? Or at least happy-ish? I need the happy right now. Oh yes.

No. 297

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

He could write a long list of ways Rodney is and has never been his type, starting with #1—has penis. Somewhere around #297 would be the fact that he is big and broad and, despite the height differential, makes John feel small sometimes, in comparison.

Yet #1 has switched to heading another list; and now, sprawled out across Rodney’s back, tracing patterns down his spine, John realizes that ol’ 297 isn’t what he thought, either. He can’t shelter Rodney’s body with his own, but he can rub the soreness out of tired shoulders, and let the comfort carry them.

[dogeared.livejournal.com]

Ooh, how about a little more Billy Collins? :D And later, when I say it to you in the dark,/ you are the bell,/ and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you

The Good Hurt

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

He never knew that happiness could be physically painful, but it’s a delicious sort of irony, and he can’t bring himself to mind. Here in the dark with his arms a white ring around Rodney’s neck, but he’s the one that’s trapped, frozen in amber-ecstasy. The moment stretches, like melted amber, like taffy, so sweet it hurts him: shakes his teeth and his spine so that even though he can’t say it back (not yet, not yet, but someday, soon) he knows Rodney can see it, hear it, ringing out from his pores like the wild bells of heaven.

[slodwick.livejournal.com]

Will you say when I’m gone away
"My lover came to me and we'd lay
In rooms unfamiliar but until now"

Will you say to them when I’m gone
"I loved your son for his sturdy arms
We both learned to cradle then live without"

Glass, Half—

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

John didn’t discover he was a pessimist until he realized that Rodney was an optimist, convinced that since they were now together, everything would be all right. He made allusions to things they would do ten, twenty, forty years from now as he curled into John’s sturdy arms, like the choice to hold on or let go was entirely theirs to make.

John’s own optimism stretches enough to imagine Rodney saying nice things about him when he’s gone; to look ten, twenty, forty years into the future and pretend Rodney will still be able to think of him and smile.

[svmadelyn.livejournal.com]

This is one of my two favorite poems in the world. I'd be curious to see what you'd do with it if it calls in any way. *G*

LXXIV (Michael Kadela)

there are ten thousand forfeit heartbeats
I have placed aside
for safekeeping

just in case you change your mind
and if by that the sun were then to rise
with meaning
I might take them out
and sweetly suffer them
to sight
and breath
with you

by my forfeit hearts which beat I swear this true
that you
that you, you are a blood
that runs
so and swiftly through
my what and ever what
my ever
my
my what
my every my is you

there are palaces wherein there I have wept
where I have wondered of your lips
where I have crept upon the dirty floors of if
and licked the bruises of my knees there into peaches

into paradigms

I do not give one single shit
for anything less
than my happiest thought

a truer me to see me through
sees this:

your eyes are closed
and you love me

The Fool

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

It’s never seemed fair that people aren’t falling at his feet, begging him to love them. He has so many appreciable qualities—they’re all fools if they can’t see it, see him.

Instead he is the fool, and like other fools, he falls in love.

He wants to tell them how lucky they are to be loved by someone like him. But his words fail and catch. I can invent a brighter future for us, he wants to say; or maybe, I could make you happy.

If anyone ever hears him, they’ll be the most fortunate fool in the world.

[adannu.livejournal.com]

Eeep! I hope the strained beets thing improves really soon.

How about:

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Lullaby

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

John is committed to: his people’s safety, no matter the cost; and his own belief, no matter how wrong, in what he thinks is right. He is not committed to: relationships he knows will only end in anger, in tears. He’s spread so thin already; he can’t afford to give what’s left over to another’s trust.

And yet: instinct wars with desire, watching him as he sleeps. The cost, he believes, will be quite high—to them both. But this feels right, in his heart. He gives it so little quarter.

Tonight, then—tonight he can find certainty in this.

[20thcenturyvole.livejournal.com]

Oooh, prompts! Okay: Rodney, and how his affections transferred from Sam to John.

Wisdom and Knowing

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

He carries him away from her, and he should be angry, should be sorry, sad. But his are the strong arms that wrap around his shoulders, and while her voice is still the one that whispers wisdom in his ear, he has whispers, too. They speak an older language.

He sees Sam sometimes. She is still beautiful and wise, and he still loves her. He doubts that’ll ever change.

But it’s something he’s left behind, and he doesn’t regret it. So when John asks that question, whispering late at night, he can with perfect ease answer, “When I met you.”

[tikiaceae.livejournal.com]

McKay/Sheppard (duh), kiwi (of fruit variety) and erm... lettuce. Can it be something happy???

*shrugs*

The Fruits of His Labors

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

On M5K-494, they’re served brown, fuzzy...things that even Ronon thinks look appalling. Rodney, however, chirrups, “Ooh! They’re kiwi!” and dives right in, using his field knife to peel away the skin and reveal a soft and juicy center, alarmingly blue and sweet. The juice dribbles down Rodney’s chin as he eats, and John abandons the tatter of lettuce he was picking at, staring, watching the rivulets Rodney sucks noisily from each fingertip, swallowing hard.

The next time the Daedalus arrives, it’s carrying four crates of pineapples, peaches, plums, mangoes, and of course, kiwi.

John believes in forward planning.

[aurora]

I'm totally procrastinating as well. We can be so self-destructive sometimes. :S:S

Yeah, I'm in an emo mood. Therefore you get an emo promt. :)

Anything with these lyrics would be perfect.

♥

Fade to Black

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

He knew he was screwed when he rewatched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and thought it had a happy ending.

He doesn’t want to be one of those people. He’s always thought Romeo and Juliet was a shit play with a shittier ending. But he doesn’t—he can no longer conceive of a world with only him in it.

Which is not to say that he’ll be throwing himself on anybody’s coffin, just that...he is suddenly more afraid of living without him than of dying with him.

He’ll do everything in his power to stop both from happening.

[niennah.livejournal.com]

I've been reading these, and they're beautiful. I love the way you can find so much in so few words.

I don't know if you're still writing, but if you are, then I'd love to see what you'd make of this verse of Nightswimming:

Nightswimming, remembering that night
September’s coming soon
I’m pining for the moon
And what if there were two
Side by side in orbit
Around the fairest sun?
That bright, tight forever drum
Could not describe nightswimming

Angular Momentum

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

In another life: Mizar and Alcor grow up together in Atlantis. They swim off its docks, stars and moon bright above their heads. They run its halls until they are too old, and then they stride them, the Lanteans’ best hope for the future.

When Alcor is killed in the fight against the Wraith, Mizar at first thinks that he, too, will die. But he does not. He asks, What would Alcor do? and he makes himself stronger.

He Ascends.

He waits. For years he waits, orbiting.

When he feels that pull, he falls to Earth like a shooting star.

[wychwood]

Sorry your day is sucking! But hey! John tormenting mini-Wraith, how can that be a bad thing? *g*

Prompt: "rueful pining". Because cereta is so right, it's a totally bullet-proof kink.

Love Stinks

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

“Have you noticed,” Rodney says, “that you can link almost all of Atlantis together in a giant chain of ‘Love Stinks’? For example, Cadman wants Carson wants Teyla wants Ronon wants Elizabeth wants—”

“Wants?” John prompts.

“Well,” Rodney admits with a shrug. “You.”

“Ahh,” says John. He taps his fingers on the table. “And where do you fit in?”

“Oh, well I want Samantha Carter, obviously. But she’s not here.”

“So you’re out of luck, then,” John says.

“Guess so,” says Rodney. He doesn’t seem too upset.

“Guess so,” echoes John, as with one last dejected tap, he turns away.

[reccea.livejournal.com]

(All of the artwork is so good! People totally love you.)

John, Rodney, "when the evening is spread out against the sky"

:)

Let Us Go Then (You and I)

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

They’ve started taking these walks. Just after sunset, when the sky is purple fading into black. They pace the halls together, often silent, without words: just because. “For the pleasure of your company,” they both have joked, because of course it is ridiculous. They see each other all the time.

They often end up on a balcony, pausing, staring out at the waves. Leaning against the rail, Rodney will turn in toward Sheppard’s face and watch the wind flick his hair across his forehead. Sometimes he thinks about leaning further, but he knows he never, ever will.

He doesn’t dare.

[rokeon.livejournal.com]

All of these are fantastic.

From "The Boat," by Patrick O'Leary-
In this whole world
There is only you and I and this boat
On this ocean. And what happens
depends on us or the ocean.

Turn the Wheel and Look Windward

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Rodney’s not sure when he realizes that Sheppard would go down with her. The bomb and the hive were not an aberration: Sheppard’s willing to risk himself, time and again.

He loves her.

Sometimes Sheppard stands on the balcony, staring at the wide arc of the gate like a captain at his helm. Symbols spinning, the wheel turns and Sheppard follows, and Rodney after him. Rodney knows this, but thinks himself a sorry Starbuck: not strong enough to pull Sheppard back when the time comes, but willing to be his companion at the rail as the waves crash over them.

I'm so mean ::evil laugh::

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Jeff from Coupling, on the TARDIS or Serenity.

oops!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I totally missed the part where you were limiting it to SGA.

Hm... Dr. Beckett and a little quirk of Asthosian culture. (not super-depressing)

[melagan.livejournal.com]

I traveled this way via sga_newsletter

This just floors me. Your ability to respond to random prompts and create these elegant works of art... well , I am both amazed and grateful that you do. Thank you.

[saturnalia.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I'm tempted to ask for another Human Vacillation-verse drabble, but I have a feeling I might jinx any future sequels by constantly bugging you about it. *grin* So, instead, have this poem (http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/Nick-Flynn/3663) from a prompt.

[saturnalia.livejournal.com]

Or for a prompt, even. Ye gods, the sleep deprivation is starting to affect my spelling. *facepalm*

[birdsflying]

You are awesome, dear.

"Need more sleep than coke or methamphetamines.
Late nights with warm, warm whiskey.
I guess the good times they were all just killing me." - The Good Times Are Killing Me. Modest Mouse.

I need to finish off some code and I'll have another belated birthday present for you. :g: Also, expect an email shortly re: ireland. bwee.

Good Times

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

These were the things he liked about being human:

Strawberry jam and pecan pie. Cello music by Bach, on the iPod they gave him, the one they said was his. Sleep, real sleep when the dreams weren’t bad. The way she’d looked, the way she’d moved, when he had been able to gaze on her without hunger, or at least hunger only of a different kind.

Now he is himself again, and human life nourishes his body just like it used to. But he drops the dry husks unsatisfied, craving something lost, gone before he even knew he had it.

[radiophonic.livejournal.com]

o_o This is like a dream come true.

How about a drabble involving coconuts, tennis shoes, and someone mocking Rodney's taste in music?

The Test

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

On the island, John constructs a coconut phone.

“Brilliant,” Rodney says. “Except you can’t call for help—you can can only call other coconuts!”

John laughs whenever he catches Rodney humming the Gilligan’s Island theme.

He fills Rodney’s sneakers with sand. Barefoot the next morning, he pulls him into the surf. The water crashes over his toes and ticklish, he can’t help smiling.

They have nothing but time, and given enough, John knows he will have Rodney barechested and easy in cutoff shorts. They will make love on rushes laid over the sand as stars rise and set above them.

[delurker.livejournal.com]

Ooh, drabbles! How about Lorne, and "a truly noble and impressive fish".

Endless Deep

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

Parrish names the plant gilly weed, and Lorne doesn’t even try to pretend he doesn’t get the joke. But the reasons behind his deep breath are manifold as he leaps off the pier. Parrish is waiting for him. He swims down deep, long legs kicking, ghostly pale in the filtered light.

They float, surrounded by the gleaming bodies of beautiful, monstrous fish, and their own bodies, swept together by the ebb and flow.

Lorne’s mouth tastes bitter from the chewed herb, but Parrish’s lips are welcoming, sweet. It’s a long, long time before they have to come up for air.

[seikaitsukimizu.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Can totally understand. *has own essays to complete*

As for a prompt....John and Rodney at dinner on Earth, Sam is at the same place (bonus points for jealous!John).

Physical Interactions

[trinityofone.livejournal.com]

He comes back from the bathroom and she’s sitting there, leaning in to him as he talks.

“Colonel,” he says, approaching the table with swift steps.

“Colonel Sheppard.” A nod. “I’m sorry, is this your seat?”

Before John can respond, Rodney’s jumping in: “No, don’t get up,” he tells her. “Sheppard can get another chair.”

John is seething as he scoots in between them—furious until the moment that he feels Rodney’s hand on his thigh, squeezing. Suddenly, the physics of the arrangement make sense, John thinks: smiling as if in answer to Carter’s joke, and not to Rodney’s touch.