rm | sundries + top 5 fannish things, pt. 2

Since I'm on a set tomorrow, I got my lip and eyebrows waxed. I hate it, or something, although it's better, now that I realize I look better as a man or a woman when I am well-groomed. But I used to get a lot more waxing done a lot more often, which made it easier. I would just let it go. Now I brace for the pain and it makes it worse. My face is swollen, but should be fine by the morning.

JC Penny's sucks. They have some cool looking cheap women's business clothes, but their smallest size is 4, which fits me like an 8 or a 10 at any other New York City shop. Super irritating. I am 36-years-old and I don't want to be looking for clothes next to the shitty prom dresses in Juniors. To get that taste of that out of my mouth, I popped down to their boys department, but no dress shirts or ties. The whole thing was made of fail.

I stopped in St. Patrick's today and sat for a while, for the first time in ages. That was good. It's just a thing, and one I should note in advance that I am disinclined to explain.

I did wind up buying a dress at H&M that's very much a Mad Men, secretary getting fucked over the desk dress. Which means it's clingy and demure and retro. And no jokes! NO JOKES! Unless you're really funny. Okay? Feh.

I've not committed new RPS yet, but

shy_anon has. SG/JB/GDL. It's exceptionally well-done. And for the person who asked, no, I wouldn't give a crap if someone wrote RPS about me, since it wouldn't actually be about me. I might only care if it was a veiled rape threat or something, but since the people who threaten to rape me (hi, the Internet sucks) are usually never veiled about it, don't really care!

spiderine is probably best known in Torchwood fandom for A Close and Holy Darkness. I will confess that when I first read it, despite being really fucking kinky and recognizing the technical skill of the series, it did nothing for me. And then I read it again last night. Hot damn. And not just hot, but lovely, gentle, romantic -- in its way, because seriously, if you don't know it, let me say, this story is pretty hardcore in some ways (although the actual sex isn't that outre). So apparently when I read it the first time, I was just in one of those phases where any and all references to BDSM made me think about how blindingly inadequate I find most people. So, shit yeah, you should read that, assuming you haven't already.

Torchwood people, this is made of smiles: http://kittypretzels15.deviantart.com/art/Pairing-Meme-Fffff-132443573
Found via the TWU crew.

FYI, Jack, although human, is not from Earth, hence why I consider him an alien. I realize this is a legitimate subject for debate. I note it here instead of in comments, or else I'd have to say the same thing like ten times!

Top Five Alternate Universes (not from fanfic)

You know, in a way, anything can be an alternate universe. But, I'm trying to stay relatively true to the idea here.

1. The West Wing. Jed Barlett will always be my president.

2. Torchwood episode Adam! Slutty Tosh, Nerdy Owen, and god, I am at least marginally ashamed of how fucking hot I think Ianto looks strangling chicks. Nothing, NOTHING, will ever be funnier to me than how many times I heard GDL say at last year's Dragon*Con that that was his favorite episode.

3. The Dominions of Imajica. Once when I was very sad and just broken up with, I desperately wanted to fly to London, eventhough I was an adult and knew better, to find Gamut Street, as I was quite certain that standing there, and going nowhere, would make me feel better. The fares were too high. I still murmur the name Hapexamendios for the sheer mouth pleasure of it, and take solace in Pie, who never looked like what he was, and I note was mostly described as looking like a woman in the book (after the first couple of chapters) but also always referenced as a man.

4. Since there is no true, true, true version of the Arthurian legends, it's hard to call any of the various books on them alternate universes. But I love The Mists of Avalon. That book was the first time the idea of a threesome was in my head, or the idea that two guys together turned me on, or, for that matter, in reading about Avalon, that I really understood how much it was that I would have liked to have given myself up to something; I was about twelve, and I still dream of Avalon.

5. And here's where you discover my kink for extra-fictional religious. Battlestar Galactica and its crazy-ass lost tribes mythos. I loved the show the first time around when I was eight because I wanted to be Starbuck, but also because of all that crap in the Egyptian ruins and the idea that this world could have been our story. I mean, why not?

Top best (or if you prefer, worst) dressed characters.

It can be argued that I have a thing for modest dressing. That's really not true. Rather, I'm incredibly fetishistic about clothes and find the more covered silhouette as a public representation of the body to be insanely arrousing, because it is so fussy in the way that our flesh is not, and it contains so many clues and lies to so many things. I love clothes and while I love what they conceal, I also love how they conceal. All of this, of course, is blindingly obvious from the selections below. I went with best, btw, if you couldn't tell.

1. Alma Garrett on Deadwood. If I had her wardrobe, I might even be willing to dress as a woman every single day of my life.

2. Ianto Jones. Specifically Ianto Jones in the second season of Torchwood when they started getting all his suits from Zara. I fucking love Zara. Most of my good womens clothes come from Zara and while the store isn't that expensive, goddamn do they know how to fit something. The shit makes me look like a movie star, and it did wonders for teaboy too. Also, love the color combos (Ianto's wardrobe, not Zara's suits which are pretty monochrome). I have learned a lot about men's clothes from Ianto Jones, or, I should say, from my unrequited love affair with Torchwood's costume department.

3. James Purefoy as Rawdon Crawley in Vanity Fair. When I dress Regency, this is what I'm going for.

4. Severus Snape, film version. Tiny. Little. Buttons. Everywhere. Yes. Please.

5. Satine from Moulin Rouge. Fuck my imaginary love affair with the Torchwood costume department, let's talk about my imaginary love affair with Catherine Martin. Actually, let's not. But shit, I admire her. Although I should note, I love the more somber, businesslike stuff. This isn't a red-dress fantasy for me.

Man, rereading this list, now I want to write a Torchwood/Deadwood crossover time-travel fic wherein Ianto has an affair with Alma Garrett. Because that would be HOT.

The trailer for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is out. It looks great. It's also a bit pang-y to watch, both because of the Heath Ledger factor (oh, oh, will I ever see his work and not think of that stupid night in sushi-e in Sydney?) and because anyone still reeling from Torchwood Children of Earth -- well, just trust me, it'll fuck with your shit.

Since all of the above is super-shallow, I feel a little weird noting here that I feel kinda strange about the helicopter/small plan crash over the Hudson yesterday. The small plane, in from somewhere else, took off from Teteroboro, which is where I took flying lessons. When I first started flying lessons, I commented to my instructor that maybe I'd check out the helicopter school on the other side of the airport too, 'cause that seemed cool, and he was like "No. Helicopters are how people die. This shit, it's about as risky as riding a motorcycle; that shit? is just stupid." It's stayed with me. And so has the photos of yesterday's crash, which makes it fairly obvious that in the small plane at least, death was not instant. *shudder*