New SGA story: Girlfriend

[resonant]

I've posted a new SGA story to my website.

Girlfriend
McKay/Sheppard -- NC-17 -- 6,900 words
"Rodney, you are the strangest man I've ever met. And ... almost the strangest woman."

Beta thanks to cesperanza and terrio.

Comments

[ectomycorrhizae.livejournal.com]

That's a fascinating gender study. See... that's why I read your stuff, eloquent, erotic, and EDUCATIONAL!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! I kind of wish I'd had the chance to leave Rodney female for the long term, among people he knew. I'd love to see someone unleash one of those words that are supposed to make women shrink back into their shells (words like 'abrasive' and 'nagging') and see Rodney go, "Yes? And?"

[ladyagnew.livejournal.com]

HEE. This is scorching hot and gives awesome Rodney (you managed to capture the elusive and irritating nature of his charming arrogance) -- but most of all, you writ such weird Sheppard. He's such a ... freak; I love your interpretation of his maladjusted, quirky personality.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it!

the elusive and irritating nature of his charming arrogance

Yes, that! I'm very glad I don't have to live or work with him, but I love writing him.

And screwed-up Sheppard: Yes, guilty. I know there are other ways of interpreting his behavior -- I actually think Flanigan is probably trying to play him as a man with a secret grief that has broken his heart so badly that he can't open up to anybody -- but the neurotic explanation is so much more fun.

[sloganeer.livejournal.com]

That is fantastic. So hot and with enough twists to make genderswap funny and new again.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! I had a lot of fun with it.

[nel-ani.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. *happy happy sigh* Thank you.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! I had as much fun with Rodney's breasts as he did.

[shadowserenity.livejournal.com]

Points for not having Rodney freak out! He's a scientist, it's an experiment, and hey, breasts! Excellent story! (ooh, I love genderfuck :D)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly -- why waste time freaking out when you can spend it looking in the mirror! Glad you liked it.

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

Nice!

Rodney is awesome. I especially liked this:

"Oh, please. This is an unprecedented opportunity for knowledge! Many men claim to know how a woman feels, but until now no one has ever known from experience. I'm going to win every argument ever!"

and this:

Maybe he should find someone who'd been born female and commiserate about the porcine nature of men. Maybe it would even get him laid.

and this:

"Well," Rodney said, mollified. "And well it should,"

I also love how Rodney emerges from his experience with no more understanding of and sympathy for the female condition than he had before. I would have been a little sad were that not the case.

Apropos, it's interesting that you used the male pronoun for Rodney throughout. Was that something you had to make a decision about, or did it come naturally?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it!

I also love how Rodney emerges from his experience with no more understanding of and sympathy for the female condition than he had before. Yes, true! He might understand more about the female body physically -- but even there, I think he'd very quickly be acting out of enthusiasm rather than expertise.

it's interesting that you used the male pronoun for Rodney throughout. Was that something you had to make a decision about, or did it come naturally? If the change were long-term, eventually I'd have had to make a decision about when we could really expect Rodney to see himself as female. But for such a short time, I don't think his self-image would change at all; he's more like a guy in a costume.

[countess7.livejournal.com]

oh, i love this! i love how its his choice so there's no freak out - he's so instantly confident in his female body because he wants it and gah! so hot! and john! so *meep*! oh, res - this is hilarious and extremely sexy and just utterly fantastic. yay!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm so glad you liked it! I think it may be a fantasy of Rodney's to have a female body to play around with without having to, like, deal with another human being who wants things.

[lilyfarfalla.livejournal.com]

Oh Rodney, thank you for being totally awesome.

Also, this: In the morning, Sheppard showed every sign of incipient freakout, but Rodney ignored it, and after a while it went away. was utterly perfect. The perfect way of dealing with Sheppard-freakouts!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

He's the greatest, isn't he? Evidently what John needs most in a partner is total obliviousness.

[fabularasa.livejournal.com]

Hmm, okay. I suck at feedback, and so I rarely try, but this demands some effort. I tend not to re-read fanfic, even well-wtitten fanfic, because really, why? It's like saving your cotton-candy for later; it's really a one-shot deal, people. But I've been coming back to this story in my head ever since I read it last night; I re-read it this morning and then skimmed it for my favorite bits just now. So I thought I would try to articulate why I think this idea worked so well.

The engine of it, it seems to me, is Sheppard, which is quite clever of you. So much of the focus seems to be on McKay (look! he's bouncing his breasts again!) that it's easy to miss what's actually going on here. And the beating heart of the story is that you let that ambiguity lie there, and you make the reader believe McKay would let it lie as well, because he would, wouldn't he? I mean, there's jut a limit to his curiosity about other human beings; most of his time and attention being taken up with the care and feeding of Rodney McKay. It's the delightful way he skirts the edge of sociopathy that makes him so fun as a character, and so believeable. But I digress.

Anyway, you let the ambiguity lie there. Is screwing guys something John has done in the past and can't let himelf do now? The text suggests maybe so. Is screwing guys something he doesn't even know he's into until Rodney? The text shurgs and says, you figure it out. Both answers are equally fascinating, and like I said, Rodney isn't going to waste time on it. And I adore that the story doesn't either, that it lets Sheppard's complicated sexuality alone, which only adds to the hotness -- watching all that repression unfurl is hot as the gates of hell, which well you know.

Laugh-out-loud, scroll-back-up-and-read-'em-again moments:

Far from wild-eyed sweaty abandon, Sheppard had more the attitude of someone who was teaching someone to drive.

He was obviously suppressing a 'baby' by sheer force of will.

The latter rivals "what the hell were you doing, interpretive dance?" ass posibly my favorite Resonant line ever.

Anyway, I think I have satisfied the feedback gods -- I better go have a lie-down before I wear myself out. It was hot, and brilliant, and profoundly WITTY, which is what you might call a rare commodity. Forgive the pretentiousness, but this deserves a "Brava," shouted defiantly from the loggia.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad you liked it!

For most people, Rodney would probably make a dreadful partner, because most people want someone who will, um, pay attention to us occasionally. But I suspect John would find it restful. In fact, I can see him letting Rodney get closer to him than anyone else ever has; it would feel safer, because Rodney would never push.

John: [small personal revelation]
Previous Lover: Really? Wow, that explains so much about you. So was this before or after ... and then you must have felt like ... wow, have you ever considered therapy, because that's really ...
John: [hastily throws on clothes] Gotta go. I'll call you. Maybe.

John: [deep, extremely personal revelation]
Rodney: Hm? Oh, I'm sure it was. Say, could you put some lotion on my back? It itches.
John: Sure.

[devin-chain.livejournal.com]

I love Rodney as a strong woman who gets annoyed at being treated like a porcelain doll. Thank you for that. I feel empowered now. :)

We should really see more gender-switch fic with exactly this attitude. *emphatic nod*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Hee! I'm glad you liked it. I think it's not so much that Rodney would be better at being a woman as it is that being a woman carries less baggage if you've only been one for fifteen minutes.

[bruinsfan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved this. I can so hear every line of Rodney's in my head as if I were watching it on the show. The utter lack of freaking out about the changes to his body was refreshing—I think you're right about the key being temporary changes that Rodney himself has decided to undergo.

I'll also agree that I'd have loved to find out how Rodney's new state would have made an impression in Atlantis if the effect had taken a few days to wear off. I can just see Zelenka exasperatedly informing him that he's spent four years without devoting a single instant's thought to his supervisor's appearance and sees no reason to break with that tradition now. Or Rodney pointing his finger at Lorne over a lunch table and daring him to name five women he knows personally with a better rack.

He adjusted fairly quickly to the keener senses and the higher center of gravity...
One quibble—wouldn't Rodney have a lower center of gravity as a woman, rather than higher?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! Rodney's so much fun to write.

I can just see Zelenka exasperatedly informing him that he's spent four years without devoting a single instant's thought to his supervisor's appearance and sees no reason to break with that tradition now. Or Rodney pointing his finger at Lorne over a lunch table and daring him to name five women he knows personally with a better rack.

Oh, oh, perfect! I can see it!

wouldn't Rodney have a lower center of gravity as a woman, rather than higher?

Hm. I'm almost certain I've read somewhere that a woman will have a lower center of gravity than a man of the same height, which was something I didn't actually specify in the story. Also I didn't bother to look it up to see if my memory was correct. But look! Breasts!

[cathalin.livejournal.com]

Former lurker coming out here. First, I actually owe you comments for prior stories - *lots* of comments, sorry.:) I find your writing among the best ever, anywhere. I particularly owe you comments for Transfigurations, which although I don't even really do hp, I *still* come back to. And now, having fallen into sga recently with a vengeance, all your sga work - ones that come particularly to mind are Undoing and Advantage and Term of Service and . . . well, all of them.

This story, Girlfriend, just like all your stories, has that *yearning* underlying the hot and the funny - yes, I've read your thing on writing sex and use that word on purpose - and that yearning is what makes your writing so beautiful and impossible to forget.

Here in Girlfriend, of course McKay is spectacular - hilarious and a steamroller in all the good ways. But what really makes this story more than that stuff is John, and this is where the yearning comes in, because somehow Rodney batters past all those defenses and discovers what John is actually yearning for, and wow.

And also, this story is hot like an incendiary hot thing.:)

Thanks for hours and hours of incredible reading.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! And I'm glad the yearning came through; since we only see John through Rodney's eyes, and Rodney is, um, not the most observant person in the world, I was just really hoping that it would be there for readers to see. I do think that John might find Rodney's obliviousness kind of pleasant, after what's probably been a lifetime of people battering away at him trying to get in.

Glad you've enjoyed the other stories, too. Believe me, there's never a deadline on good words!

[springwoof.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this. One of the things that pleased me most was how matter-of-fact and not-freaked-out Rodney was about becoming (temporarily) female. All scientific and experimenty. All: "this is so cool!"
<3 Rodney....

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! I do think Rodney would enjoy the chance to try out a different body for a while, as long as he had a choice in the matter.

[berettelser.livejournal.com]

really, really good!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

[ceares.livejournal.com]

This is possibly the best genderfuck story I've ever read. It's certainly the funniest, and hot like whoa! Your girl Rodney is seriously awesome beyond words, and oh John!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! I had a lot of fun with Rodney's world, and poor John angsting in the corners while Rodney admired himself in the mirror.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I read the print-out in bed last night. I just wallowed! It was like diving into sweet fresh water. I loved reading this so much! It is a wonderful spin on aliens-made-me-do-it because Rodney wanted to do it. I loved Rodney having experimented loads already before John even got to him, and Rodney being unashamed. I loved Rodney's breasts!!! The descriptions of Rodney's body are all fantastic: the big nipples, the big breasts, the soft belly, the waist. And ah, the hotness of John at the end...

What I love here is how the characterisation works through the sex, and how the sex is an expression of character. There is a seamlessness between character and sex; I just love that. And the way John has his hands up on the wall at the end, when Rodney is a man... *wipes brow*

I loved also the way the story takes apart gender stereotypes, the way Rodney gets annoyed with John's limitations, the 'careful' lady-sex of John, all that that says about John and about Rodney and about men in general and about us.

I loved how we got bad-sex-John, and then finally, the pay-off of John losing it (anticipated so nicely in Rodney's earlier wishing that John would lose it a bit more). I love it how John is the fucked up one, and Rodney not. I love the zest of the prose, and the pacing that skips from delicious bit to delicious bit and glides effortlessly over the stitching-together bits.

Thank you!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! It was fun to have a female body to play with for a change, though as I've said to some other commenters, I've never written het this explicit before and I found it trickier than I expected; the words we have for girlparts all carry so much baggage.

Sometimes I think sex is the only way to get at John in any profound way. Not always -- I have occasionally written a version of John who's not too screwed up to function in a relationship -- but at least this John is one who'd better change in bed, because he's got effective guards against every other kind of change.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

P.S. I've missed your writing so much. :-)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Me too. [sigh]

[miso-no-tsuki.livejournal.com]

See icon. On steroids.
*wow* I don't think I've ever seen Rodney's headspace done so well. It was just *him*(...*her*?)I love the twist that John's boring in bed, doing it by the book. So many good lines.
*Worships you*

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! And, see, this John probably thinks he's a fantastic lover. He does everything right! Everything except show a little vulnerability, and without that, it's like having a sex toy with a face.

[celestialcuming.livejournal.com]

Oh dear Lord, this was so, so hot!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it!

[yin-again.livejournal.com]

*squawk*

I love you a lot. Like, a lot a lot.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it!

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Hee! I loved Rodney's matter-of-factness about the whole thing, and John's hesitance hiding his realizations. And actually, I adored the setup - because it makes perfect sense to me that science, as a quickening of the mind, would be the domain of women!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Well, you'll notice I gave men official responsibility for all the dead stuff!

[tiki-92090.livejournal.com]

loved that rodney got all the options out in the open in the end, loved that John ran away like John always does.

I totally love that Rodney didn't even care and did it all for science.

Love this story, I just love it. Thanks for writing!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Aww! I'm so glad you liked it! Sometimes it's fun to just hit John over the head and drag him home while he's unconscious. Less whining that way.

[bitter-crimson.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha, I adored this. Rodney's reaction to being turned into a woman was spot-on with all the sexual experimentation. And I loved how Ronon was his first choice, bwahaha. Also, "Sheppard's psychosis really wasn't his problem." <= I think that was probably my favorite line. It made me giggle like a mad thing.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it! It's fun to write Rodney because he really spares you from the temptation to make characters too emotionally accessible, you know?

[mutecornett.livejournal.com]

Trifling with a lady's affections! BAHAHAHA! I usually find sudden genderswitch a bit of a turn-off, but I enjoyed this so much. Rodney was so matter of fact about being female! And I loved how he notices all the little details of being female that you don't normally pay any attention to.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I think later Rodney might claim to be disappointed that he didn't get the opportunity to observe menstruation, or even pregnancy, for scientific purposes and also to win even more arguments and be even more obnoxious.

[mythdefied.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was just perfect! It's one of the few (if not the only) genderfuck fics I've read where there's no total freak out or existential crisis over the change in genders. Rodney's wonderfully matter-of-fact about it, scientific and blunt all at once. Of course he's already run his new body through a good test drive before getting John in bed. It's so him.

I really loved how he just ran right over John in that last scene. Because, of course he had it all figured out the instant he saw John's reactions, and he knew exactly what to do about it. So any further talking was pointless and letting John argue/protest was a waste of time they could use fucking. Brilliant! And all of it is just so very much Rodney. John doesn't have a clue what hits him either time. But that's okay, because Rodney has him well in hand.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you liked it! I can certainly see Rodney freaking out if a female body was put on him without his consent (though I would totally love to hear his dithering and threats in a different voice), but as long as it's for science? He's so there. Totally oblivious to any conflicts John might have, but ready to learn!