be that girl

[melannen]

I am deeply amused that my last post had some neat music and meta, and a link to a filk project, and a dozen panels of fanart, but 80% of the feedback was about the sketch of AU Rachel in déshabillé.

SO let's talk about AU RPS girlsex, yesno? :D

I have a file that's been sitting on my desktop for about six months, entitled "Thirteen Ways Rachel Maddow (never) Had Lesbian Sex With Keith". I started it way back in February, after the big meta discussion about the ethics of 'shipping a real-life lesbian with a (presumably) straight man - the f_w post that rounded it all up has been deleted, but the start of it (more or less) was my comment here about Rachel/Keith and genderswap in havocthecat's journal. So Rachel, Keith, and genderfuckery, yes.

I have been slowly adding to the file in bits and bobs ever since, but I've come to the conclusion that I'm never going to write these stories (though if I did write one out full-length, it would be either #5 or #13. Or #10 and #11. Or #8 and #9. Or...)

Anyway! Yes, I totally love the story-sketches in that file and wish they existed full length: the reason I will never write them (besides my general inability to finish fic) is that I have come to realize that I still have limits when it comes to RPS. I'll read anything (well, theoretically: large sections of RPS still bore me); I'll draw anything (that I'm willing to draw in any other live-action fandom, anyway, there are limits to where I'll go with real peoples' bodies even if they're playing other people); I'll write genfic and AUs and really mild 'ship stories and crossover AUs set in an entirely different world. But when it comes to writing sex between real live people who have their own lives and know how to use the internet -- even under the safety net of "things that never happened" - I just squick myself when I sit down to write.

SO! Anyway! I am not writing the 13 ways Keith/Rachel lesbian sex stories. But the file as sitting on my desktop is around a thousand words anyway. And it has fanart. And a fanmix. That have also been sitting on the hard drive for months. So I'm just going to post it all. Yay?


Thirteen Ways Rachel Maddow (never) Had Lesbian Sex With Keith Olbermann
~1,000 words, pg-13 for having sex in but not being a real story, many different variations on lesbian sex and Rachel and Keith and co. Warnings for crack and for how someone else needs to actually write these things out. Everything on this list - from the bodyswap to the time travel - is canon at least in TCR-verse, except for the sex pollen, but if anyone had some sex pollen, it would be Anderson.

• 1. Somehow, This Is All Stephen Colbert's Fault...but Rachel finds herself being interviewed on Jon Stewart's show, and the conversation turns to being out and how she does and doesn't use that as part of her media persona, and she kind of says on-air that she'd probably make an exception for Keith if she were single, but on the drive home Susan calls her and says a) that was kind of cruel considering Keith's been in love with her for years, and b) also, Susan would totally make an exception for Keith too, hint hint. And, well, apparently *everybody except Rachel* knows that Keith is in love with her. And Susan's birthday is coming up. So she brings him home for a weekend. It was a very fun weekend. (It's still Stephen's fault somehow.)
• 
  
• 2. That time at the MSNBC holiday party, with Ana. (Okay, that was more lesbian sex for Keith than lesbian sex with Keith. But everybody should have a Christmas wish come true once in awhile. And they let him watch, even if he didn't get to touch, so it counts!)


• 3. Making out in the club. (See, there's this gay club Keith and Rachel go to sometimes after work, just the two of them, when Rachel's not safe to be in an empty apartment by herself but not up for anything much. They usually get a table in a corner and make fun of the dancers and get only mildly tipsy. But then Keith saw [prominent Conservative] come in - with a rather sparkly, and disturbingly young male friend - and they couldn't let him recognize them, so they had to hide their faces when even he came near their table, and there are only so many non-suspicious ways to hide your faces in a club, or at least only so many that Rachel and Keith can think of when lonely, slightly drunk and sitting too close together. But it was a *gay* club, so het sucking-face would be suspicious too. Of all the things Rachel never thought she'd end up doing, giving Keith a crash course in heavy petting the lesbian way was not one of them.)


• 4. The mpreg fic (Because anything Stephen can do, Keith can do better! ...actually he did offer, but Rachel laughed at him. And even in Massachussets the legal issues are a lot simpler if Rachel carries her own kid. Her and Susan's kid. Even if she and Susan did decide they should make it the old-fashioned way. With Keith. Yes, Keith is the luckiest guy in the world, funny you should ask!)


• 5. The time when Keith lost a bet with Stephen, and the PRT went out with Kay and Raven instead of Keith and Stephen. (Anderson took them to a bar he knew where nobody asks questions and everybody treats you as the gender you're presenting as. Raven was utterly convincing and Rachel's pretty sure at some point Stephen needs to confront his tendency to step into character at a moment's notice. Keith looked like Keith in girl's jeans and lipgloss and way out of his element, but somehow that was even more disconcerting, because everybody was treating him as a woman and addressing him as a woman, and Rachel (especially after a half-dozen cocktails or so) started responding to him as a woman, and by "responding" we mean *responding*, and after a couple more drinks going back to the ladies' room just seemed like a good idea, okay?)


• 6. never touch the skull. (You know. The one that swaps bodies freaky-friday style. The one that Jon borrowed from the AMNH for some reason. That was a really confusing couple of days until everyone got sorted out.)


• 7. never touch the sex pollen. Just don't. (And no, don't ask how Anderson got his hands on it, either. Or why he brought it back to New York with him.)


• 8. never touch the vaxadrine (You know, the pill bottle in Stephen's drawer. At least not without reading the most recently published list of side effects first. "Spontaneous genderswap" actually is on there, if you look with a jeweller's loupe.)


• 9. No, seriously, *never* touch the vaxadrine (and yes, I'm pretty sure that second time was on purpose, Rachel, at least a little bit. If you're a lesbian and having homosexual relations it counts as lesbian even if you both have boyparts at the time. At least according to Rachel.)


• 10. the time she went to the world with girl!Keith (and that Keith's Rachel was straight, which was evidence of the fundamental cruelty of the universe. Hey, if the universe is unfair, it's our job to try to make it better, right? She's pretty sure straight!Rachel is doing the same thing with her Keith, anyway.)


• 11. The time girl!Keith came to our universe here (and that girl!Keith was straight. Luckily, Rachel can turn straight girls gay. Also, Stephen really needs to get that portal above his fireplace fixed.)


• 12. The time when future!Rachel dropped by, and everyone was even more confused, but Anderson had a tape recorder.


• 13. Stephen Colbert Presents: Alpha Squad 7: The Sinister Sapphic Sisterhood of Space : A Tek Jansen Adventure, in which our hearty hero receives a cry for consolation from his competitor Countdown Keith, who has been captured by the Sinister Sapphic Sisterhood of Space. The mighty and majestic Mad Dog Maddow, matriarch of the militant maids, is keeping Countdown Keith captive as a concubine!
  How will our heroic hero liberate him from these lusty left-leaning lesbians?

Here Be Art

I originally posted this drawing to the deleted f_w post, to demonstrate to people that the best solution to Rachel being lesbian is to turn Keith into a girl, so you might have already seen it there or where I posted it to my JF account. You probably didn't though. So here it is.

I think this was meant to be an illustration for #9 - Rachel and Keith have learned what Stephen's magic pills do, and that the effects aren't permanent, and now they're just playing silly buggers so they can be together without either of them having to actually examine their day-to-day identity. (What happens while genderswapped stays while genderswapped.) So this is male!Keith in a female body; he's going for butch because the first time it happened, when they weren't sure he'd be able to switch back, Rachel was careful to point out that not everything had to change, and it's easier, and this way he doesn't have to think about playing female, just being female; and also he rather quickly realized that Rachel doesn't want him to be a girl, she just wants her Keith but in a body she has chemistry with.

This Keith has long hair because I decided that the magic pills grow out all your body hair to its natural, untrimmed length. So the boy!Rachel he's about to go clubbing with has long hair too. (She shaves the beard, but Keith told her to keep the three-foot ponytail. C'mon, you all went for Rachel in a miniskirt and go-go boots; you know you'd go for long-haired bishie swishy boy!Rachel. Anyway I would. :P)

It was done with my patented "i have no tablet" method, as it was during the period when my stylus was lost in the depths of my chair. Basically, penciled and inked with a fine-point marker by hand, scan the inks, do a lot of messing with brightness/contrast in Gimp to clean up the pencils, use select - grow - fill to fill in flat areas of color, then do the shading by using the touchpad to put in very rough darks and lights, and touchpad+smudge tool to smooth off the shading areas. I call it "computer fingerpainting". It comes out pretty good, given the tools.

The fanmix: 'I'll Be That Girl: Music To Bend Gender To'


I'll Be That Girl
The main thing I learned from making this mix is that Liz Phair is singing about her lover's "Hot White Cum", not "Hard White Cunt". Admittedly, that does make the facials bit make more sense. SO that song didn't end up on the list. I tried to do a good mix of keith/rachel songs with classic genderqueer songs, but there are surprisingly few songs that are specifically about men who turn into chicks so they can date lesbians and lesbians who go straight for their men (or possibly surprisingly many, I suppose,) so you have to switch pronouns (or voices) on some of these to make them fit. (Some of them come with voices and pronouns pre-switched.) Also there should probably be more queercore on here - queercore is a good genre for writing Rachel sex regardless - but I ran up against the fact that actually, I can't stand most hardcore punk. Sorry.

This tells the story (more or less) of the 13 times, but as if they had all happened in the same universe: they start out not sure what's going on, they acknowledge that they'd be together if only the parts fit, they decide that there's more to love than being the proper gender, they have lots of genderqueer sex where they play with roles, they get tired of playing games with labels, they have lots of sex as just them whovere they happen to be at the moment, they live happily ever after (a few degrees off from the rest of the world) until Rachel realizes she should have been using birth control. (Somebody should write that story, anyway.)

1. The Spotlight Cabaret - I Love You, Rachel Maddow.mp3
I know that you're gay / but I'm gay too / and at least that's a start!

2. Jonathan Coulton - Drinking with You.mp3
No big deal, we can play it nice and cool and keep the pressure off / Invite our friends

3. Bill Pritchard - I'm Your Man.mp3
If you want a lover / Ill do anything you ask me to / And if you want another kind of love / I'll wear a mask for you

4. Zanna Don't - Don't You Wish We Could Be in Love.mp3
I've got you, and that's enough / Do I really need to be in love?

5. Dar Williams - When I Was A Boy(1).mp3
And so I tell the man I'm with about the other life I lived / And I say, "Now you're top gun, I have lost and you have won" / And he says, "Oh no, no, can't you see

6. Melissa Etheridge - Come To My Window.mp3
You don't know how much I'd give / Or how much I can take

7. Cobra Starship - I Kissed a Boy.mp3
I know it's wrong, but I don't mind / I'm gonna start shit tonight

8. loudon wainwright iii - i wish i was a lesbian.mp3
I wish I was a lesbian, and that I wasn't straight! / I wish I were a lesbian, I'd like to be a dyke.

9. barenaked ladies - i'll be that girl.mp3
If you will not have me as myself / perhaps as someone else / Perhaps as you I'll be worth noticing

10. Plummet - 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover (MacQ Radio Mix).mp3
And then she kissed me / and I realized she probably was right

11. k d lang - Sexuality.mp3
How bad could it be? / If you should lose yourself with me?

12. bjork - venus as a boy.mp3
He sets off / The beauty in her / He's venus as a boy

13. Garbage - Androgyny.mp3
Get on board and have some fun / Take what you need to turn you on

14. Double Zero - Pacer.mp3
Today we're two little girls / tomorrow two little boys

15. Pansy Division - Flower.mp3
Every time I see your face / I get all wet between my legs

16. Madonna - What It Feels Like for a Girl (Album Version-GHV2).mp3
Hair that twirls on finger tips so gently, baby / Hands that rest on jutting hips repenting

17. Killers - somebody told me.mp3
Seventeen tracks and I've had it with this game

18. Aerosmith - Dude Looks Like A Lady.mp3
So never judge a book by it's cover / Or who you're going to love by your lover

19. The Exit Plan - Channel Zero.mp3
There must be some way for us to break through / to cover up all these lies that hide the truth

20. John Barrowman - I Am What I Am.mp3
Life's not worth a damn until you can say / Hey, world, I am what I am!

21. Ranma Opening.mp3
It's annoying, but / ...just for tonight, it's okay

22. Two Nice Girls - I spent my last ten dollars on birth control and beer.mp3
My life was so much simpler when I was sober and queer / But the love of a strong hairy man has turned my head I fear

23 (bonus track) Heather Alexander - Stolen Child.mp3
For he comes, the human child / To the waters and the wild / With a faery hand in hand / For the world's more full of weeping / Than you can understand.

Comments

[melannen]

And, y'know, I think Jon eventually gets to the point where he realizes he has to stop touching, it's not fair otherwise, and then Stephen asks why because he's afraid *he* gave it away, and they actually talk on a personal level beyond the way they immediately clicked in discussion, and they end up in this epic, totally chaste but still sexual platonic love affair where they sit up talking long into the night but support each other's oaths and obligations when one of them is tempted.

(And they're both getting active in efforts to change their respective faiths' attitudes toward homosexuality, which makes the whole thing oddly political, as well - both the in fact that they've acknowledged this thing between them, and that they can never, never act on it.)