in a van, down by the river

[skoosiepants]

So. I've been MIA all week... anybody miss me? Actually, I've been responding to posts and reading everybody elses LJs for a change *grins*

Also, I've been starting and discarding several SGA crack AUs, including the one where Rodney is an accidental author of intergalactic romance novels:

When he was nineteen, the bulk of the world thought Rodney McKay was a woman. Or, well, they thought R. McKay was a woman. To be specific, they thought he was a slim redhead with green eyes and a guileless smile, the stock photo of an aspiring writer who’d been slick-talked into giving up her image for a minute percentage of any residuals.

At the beginning it’d been a monumental fuck-up by an editorial shit named Laughlin, but the bigwigs had adored the idea and what had been tongue-in-cheek was suddenly “a romantic adventure full of passion, humor, and a love that transcends time and space.” Which was utter tripe, of course, but Star Warrior - working title: Space Vampires Attack! – was an instant money-making favorite in the sci-fi and romance sect.

Although, really, it came as no surprise to Rodney that a story about a man with more hair than brains stumbling his way through the cosmos on a Lone Star-esque clunker - having more sex than was surely considered healthy with a big-breasted space princess - was embraced so heartily. And as long as he got a fat check out of it all, he was content to snub his nose at the public and pretend he was a lithe, pretty twenty-five year old woman instead of a pudgy, bad-tempered astrophysicist not yet past his teens and already showing signs of premature baldness.

Apparently, R. McKay had a “poetic soul,” and a “deft hand with the fluid nuances of love.” He figured his sardonic wit just didn’t translate properly on paper. Which actually made him a pretty crappy writer, he thought, but hey. It sold.

[I was aiming for a Stargate AU where he still goes to Atlantis, freaks out and thinks the things he writes come true because lots of stuff in his first book bare vague resemblance to stuff in the Pegasus galaxy, until John slaps him upside the head and points out how ridiculous he's being because he isn't god and John isn't dumb. Or something more clever, but along those lines.

or

I was aiming for Romancing the Stone, and Rodney'd have to go traipsing off to Brazil because evil dudes are holding his sister ransom and she sent him something in the mail and - honestly - if I can get up the energy to learn some portugese or spanish or learn the topography of Brazil, this one might still happen. Because Rodney needs to believe in the power of love, and live the romance he writes about in his novels. Hee.]


Or the one based on Hot Dog, only with less nudity, and Ski Patrol, and, yeah, Out Cold, and probably more than a few really bad summer camp movies:

“Are you ready, my friend?” Radek called out cheerfully, dropping a stack of boxes by the counter and pushing his glasses back up his nose.

Rodney glanced up from the laptop, openly disgruntled. “What do you think?” he snapped irritably. The first few days on the mountain were always frantic, scrambling to get everything set for the start of the season.

“I think you are ready. I think,” Radek waggled his eyebrows, “you miss Sheppard.”

“Yes, of course I missed Sheppard,” Rodney cracked, narrowing his eyes back on his computer screen, tapping the keys with more force than was probably necessary. “I’m ecstatic he’s returning yet again, because otherwise my winter break would be productive, and I’d have the full use of my liver.”

“True.” Radek nodded sagely. “Would be horrible sin. Would be terrible, dull winter with no snuggling.”

Rodney glowered at him, face blooming red, and he cut his gaze quickly around the store before leaning forward onto the counter and hissing under his breath, “I will kill you.” John was a notorious and indiscriminate cuddler when he was drunk. As the man’s designated roommate the year before, there’d been a number of embarrassing incidents that Rodney would prefer everyone forgot.

Radek chuckled, flapping a hand through the air. “Please. You are in love. It is special, and should be treasured.”

“Oh ha ha,” Rodney ground out, then shouted, “Dex!” over his shoulder.

[Here, I was going to go for the Dex-McKay oddball friendship again, with Parrish as the new kid on the mountain, Sheppard as the hotshot head of the ski patrol, Kavanagh as the kiss-up to Caldwell, some Genii as potential asshole investors with an entourage of jerks who make life hell for the common folk, lots of buddy-buddy, eventually awkward, potential UST with McKay and Sheppard the snuggler, blah, blah, blah. I couldn't get past this part though. *pouts*]

And now I have yet another idea in my head which I haven't mapped out yet, so hopefully that will materialize sucessfully.

I've been re-reading Dirty Trousers, as promised, and I'm really seeing some odd similarities with how I'm writing Rodney and how I wrote DT!Draco. They're both brilliant, like cats (though Draco utterly adores them), endearingly self-centered (though Draco is more about looks than brains, despite being a genius), high-strung, love insulting people. I wonder if Rodney's just as unimpressed with creepy street mimes as Draco is. Huh.

Anywho, that sounds super productive, doesn't it? Wow. I suck.