WIP meme

[resonant]

Every time I lack inspiration, I get the urge to do that WIP meme that I first learned from jjtaylor. Here's the latest.

Foam That Remembers

Leonard: Look, another wacky, anachronistic invention.
Lord Vetinari: Strangely, this makes me wish to have sex with you.
Leonard: I get that a lot.



Lacunae

Princess Buttercup: Who are you?
Morwen, Witch of the Enchanted Forest: The author had to import me from another story. In your story, you're the only woman with teeth. Have some cider.
Westley, Roberts, Inigo, and Fezzik: Are we in this story, or what?
Res: Haven't decided yet. Depends on rhythmic considerations. You might have to be pretty together in a separate story.
Westley, Roberts, Inigo, and Fezzik: What shall we do in the meantime?
Res: You have got to be kidding me.
Buttercup: All right, but you should know that I'm already in love with someone else, even though he's dead.
Morwen: Frankly, that's not as great an obstacle as your apparent lack of brain cells. Can you show me any evidence that you're anything other than a pretty vacancy?
Buttercup: [counts them off on her beautiful fingers] One: I don't know enough not to take your cats just as seriously as you do. Two: I give the author the chance to play around with supertextual commentary. And, three: I might be really good in bed. You never know. Even I don't know.
Morwen: OK, that's good enough for me.

Untitled Ray K/Fraser escort story

Fraser: I understand that a lonely, newly-divorced man at this address called for an escort?
Ray: No way. I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid. You are way too good to be true, which means that something is hinky, so you can just oh oh oh oh my god, OK, just this once.

Fraser: I understand that you called for a second appointment?
Ray: Something's still hinky, starting with the fact that the escort service claims they've never heard of you, so you need to keep your shirt on and answer a few oh oh oh oh my god, OK, just this once.

Res: OK, guys, the plan here is for this to cleverly merge into a slight AU of canon. Bright ideas?
[long pause]
[crickets]
Ray: Can he take his shirt off again?

Interlude

Woody and Buzz: You know, back in the first movie, it seemed as if ...
Res: Guys, I can't even finish anything for pairings that have fandoms. Or, you know, genitalia.
Woody and Buzz: There's no need to be rude.

Untitled RayK/Fraser aliens story

Ray: Did aliens make us have sex, or do I have a head injury?
Fraser: I find I can't remember clearly.
Ray: Um, what do you want the answer to be?
Fraser: Well, what do you want the answer to be?
Ray: I asked you first.
Fraser: But I wouldn't want to override your preferences.
Ray: Fraser. Yes. Or. No.
Fraser: You go first.
Ray: No, you go first.
Fraser: No, you go first.
Res: Oh, for crying out loud, now I remember why I never finished this story.

Innocence

John: I don't believe you don't recognize me.
Rodney: I think I'd remember if I'd ever met someone with hair like -- oh, my god.
John: Yeah. Been a while. We used to spend a little time together, back in high school.
Rodney: Yes! Naked! I can't believe you didn't say anything. This is so embarrassing.
John: So. If you, I don't know, wanted to do it again, I might not object, maybe.
Rodney: Why would you -- oh, my god, I made you gay, didn't I?
John: You didn't -- I'm not --
Rodney: That is so cool! By pure force of personality I bonded you to me like a baby bird! Have you been thinking of me ever since? It's understandable; after all, you don't meet someone like me every --
John: [does that thing with his hands]
Rodney: Um, what was I saying?
John: Declaring eternal devotion, I think.
Rodney: Yeah? Well, I'll bet it was really good eternal devotion. Best you ever had. Right?
John: We'll see.

Interlude

Deitrich and Lorenz: Ja, there gives a good deal of textual support for --
Res: Guys, no offense, but, one, you're Medieval Germans in a book nobody's ever read, and, two, one of you is a priest, and, three, signs point to at least one and possibly both of you being dead of the plague before the end of the story, and that's way too much research for so little payoff.
Hans: Well, then maybe I --
Res: You are an alien who resembles a grasshopper and comes from a species with three genders.
Hans: There's no reason to be offensive.

Untitled Hancock smutlet

Hancock, Ray, and Mary: You don't even really remember what you were getting at here, do you?
Res: Something about, um, vulnerability.
Hancock, Ray, and Mary: Yawn.
Res: Expressed through sex! Really hot sex!
Mary: Am I going to get any this time?
Res: Um ...
Mary: Thought not.
Res: No, yes! But offscreen.
Mary: Uh-huh.
Res: Look, I'm sorry! It's not my fault that Hancock is extremely close to the center of my fictional-love-object matrix, and you're a half-written character!
Buttercup and Morwen: Hey, over here. We've got cider.
Mary: I've got vodka.
Buttercup and Morwen: Better yet.

Untitled Miles Vorkosigan story

Miles: Get real. You know very well you're not going to do the work required to write in this fandom.
Res: It's just that you and Gregor are also pretty close to the middle of my fictional-love-object matrix.
Miles: Ahem.
Res: All right. You're right. I'm not.
Gregor: And anyway, 90% of what you know about us, you stole from lightgetsin anyway.
Res: Yeah. It is kind of a nifty idea, though, you have to admit.
Miles: You're thinking you can impress me with ideas?

Untitled Pseudopolis follow-up

Vimes: I am completely not on board with cheating on my wife. Not to mention that the only thing that stands between that bastard and total, unchallenged power is yours truly. But hot damn am I full of sexily repressed yearning.
Vetinari: I essentially created your marriage in order to manipulate you into a position of power for my own ends. But I'll see your repressed yearning and raise you years, years of fantasies about someone I didn't even know was you.
Vimes: [is all angry and full of pent-up passion]
Vetinari: [is all silent and smoldering]
Vimes and Vetinari: So what's the problem?
Res: Sybil? Honey? Sybil, you're the problem. See, my issue is that I'm only hot for them. But I love you and I can't stand you being the only person who doesn't get what she wants.
Sybil: I'm the mother of a small child. What I want is a good night's sleep followed by a day when I can think an entire thought without being interrupted.
Res: [wails] It doesn't work! It has to be hot! I won't feel I've done you justice unless your reward is hot!
Sybil: Maybe a nice massage.
Buttercup, Morwen, and Mary: Cider? Vodka?
Sybil: Enough with the depressants. Got any espresso?

Interlude
Louis the alligator and Ray the firefly: You know, actually there's quite a bit of canonical support for --
Res: No.

Comments

[zulu]

Hee, this is great!

I'd take up the banner of the meme, but currently my only WIP is my thesis. It goes like this:

zulu: *criez*

[resonant]

I give this WIP an A+ for angst, but it's strangly lacking in sex.

[zulu]

Hmmm, triumphant sex as the comfort part of the hurt? Man, I hope that's the way it ends! :D

[fox]

Hey, that's how my thesis went, too! :-/ Hang in there.

[zulu]

Thanks! Someday soon it'll roll over and concede that I am its master, I am sure!

[sara]

*cackles* You can have my Rodney's-a-fisherman-John's-a-giant-lobster plot, if you want it. You'd probably write much, much hotter fisherman/giant lobster than I would.

p.s. My actual WIP starts out, "[Station] proposes to build a 183-foot-tall stick-style AM radio tower and accessory structures on a parcel in the [valley], south of [town] in [a] County" and doesn't really pick up much in the way of steam from there (although I do go on to review whether the soil survey has accurately mapped the particular type of gravelly sand loam in the project area. My conclusion? No.)

[rydra_wong]

and doesn't really pick up much in the way of steam from there

Hmm. You could develop the whole [Station]/[valley] romantic subplot more, I think. I'm really feeling the subtext there.

[sara]

The hard part (or, perhaps, the not-so-hard part) is that the engineer tells me we're only penetrating to a depth of about 48" for the foundation, and 6-12 for the ground system, which...well, I have trouble seeing how that's really going to register for a valley with a vertical displacement of several thousand feet. *GRIN*

[resonant]

This WIP, on the other hand, has about as much sex as those stories where John and Rodney are Girl Scout cookies and paper clips and whatnot, but the characterization is kind of ... mechanical.

[jesse_the_k]

Or perhaps the word you're searching for is "loamy."

Hmm, I wonder what sex act could be so described?

*snerk*

[rydra_wong]

Res: You are an alien who resembles a grasshopper and comes from a species with three genders.
Hans: There's no reason to be offensive.

... now I really, really want to read this fic.

Or at least to know which book has grasshopper aliens and medieval Germans. I know the book that has grey aliens and the Spanish Inquisition, but not this one.

[j00j]

Or at least to know which book has grasshopper aliens and medieval Germans. I also wish to know this. It could be your opportunity to create a fandom of three!

[fiamaya]

Me too! Amusingly, the book is the first hit with a search for "grasshopper aliens and medieval Germans" -- it's Eifelheim, by Michael F. Flynn.

[resonant]

Yep! That's the one! And really it's not wildly slashy, but there are these passing moments where I go, "Hmmmm."

[china_shop]

Fraser: You go first.
Ray: No, you go first.
Fraser: No, you go first.
Res: Oh, for crying out loud, now I remember why I never finished this story.

HEEEEEE!

[resonant]

I still love them, but sometimes I want to smack them.

[azurelunatic]

Miles is more impressed with follow-through.

[resonant]

Well, sure. Ideas are a dime (or planetary standard equivalent) a dozen for him.

[tevere]

I love this meme!

Res: You are an alien who resembles a grasshopper and comes from a species with three genders.

You can't just reject him because of that! It could be hot! Come on, I've read your kangaroo-alien story; I know it can be done.

[jesse_the_k]

I love Ray's weak defenses in the escort story.

[foursweatervests]

Pseudopolis follow-up please!!

[fox]

Please don't ever change. :-)

[mific]

I seem to be running to psychiatric WIPs, although there is a Mythbusters one featuring way too many oysters.

e.g.

Pegasus Clinic
John: You're bluffing, Rodney. I'm gonna call you.
Rodney: You are wrong wrong wrong and you are so going down. In terms of cards that is. Cards.
John: Whatever. Here's my hand then. A full house of PTSD.
Rodney: Hah! My generalised anxiety disorder and incipient stress-related psychosis trump your PTSD!
John: Rub it in why dontcha. Or not. There's no damn privacy on this goddam psych ward.
Mific: Yeah, sorry about that, it seemed like a good idea at the time but there's a limit to how long the staff are going to fall for that "pillow in the bed" trick on their rounds. Probably why I never finished this.
Rodney: The group therapy scenes are fun, but you could have done more with Radek as comic relief.
John: You're the comic relief, Rodney, don't lose the plot here.
Rodney: Speaking of which... *looks pointedly at the author*
Mific: Oh shut up.

[mergatrude]

I don't know which I love most: Buzz and Woody, or Sybil: I'm the mother of a small child. What I want is a good night's sleep followed by a day when I can think an entire thought without being interrupted.

&hearts

[montanaharper]

Vetinari: ... But I'll see your repressed yearning and raise you years, years of fantasies about someone I didn't even know was you.

Yes, yes, a world of yes! So nice to know that I'm not the only one who wanted to run with this interpretation, post-Night Watch.

Can you be bribed to finish this? Is there anything I could offer? Chocolate? Rum? On-call errand-running for all eternity? Please?

[paceus]

Ooooh, is Innocence a sequel to Experience? I love it! (And the names, that they're the other way around than you'd think.) Especially that Rodney is so, you know, Rodney. Hee. I haven't read SGA for a while and now I feel kind of overwhelmed by him, but I guess he's like all the time, I was just used it back then!

[isis]

The voices in your head are an interesting lot!

[torch]

Now I'm thinking about Vetinari as a babysitter. *tries to stop brain from going sideways and falling out of head*