TITLE: Working Order
AUTHOR: Mari
FANDOM: Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
PAIRING: John Connor/Cameron Phillips
RATING: NC-17 and how.
SPOILERS: Through the series.
PROMPT: Fucking machines.
CONTAINS: Sex toys, general extreme creepiness and possible coercive themes. Contact me if you need or want to know more before reading.

( The first time that she enters his room at night, it's on cat feet so quiet that John would not even know she was there if not for the squeaky hinge on the door. )

Metaquoted Animorphs love for the win!

Man. You don't even want to know how much of my current narrative kinks are wrapped up in that series.

Sign-ups for the Apocalyptothon end at midnight.

I entertained myself with thoughts of Derek and Cameron fighting zombies at work all day. Partly because I love the "dangerous machines in desperate need of socialization" parallel between Derek and Cameron and the irony of the monsters at the end of the world turning out to be human, and partly because, dude. Derek and Cameron. Fighting zombies.

Today was a good day. I was able to have lunch with a certain gentleman of interest, which was nice because we're usually on different schedules and don't get the chance. He talked about dumb customers, something of interest to both of us in our lines of work (Him: "Every time that someone walks up and asks me if I work here, I just want to chirp, 'No! I have an inordinate fondness for this shirt!'"), I talked about this book. Um, give me time to write up my full review, but I think that it's mainly going to come down to, "Any argument based upon affirming the consequent is made of automatic fail." For now it's mostly, "The Dworkin-esque approach to feminism always freaks me out a little bit, because even though I'm a big believer in the existence of male privilege? There doesn't seem to be any way under it for male/female relations to not be combative." At which point this gentleman of interest just grinned at me and said, "Don't worry, baby, I'm sure we'll have angry, post-fight sex at some point."

HEE. I think that I'll keep him.

Also, had my annual review today (no, I haven't worked here a year, but they do all of the "annual reviews" for anyone off of their probationary period in March), and it came with a raise. ROCK ON. Between that and my tax return, I can have the Santa Fe trip paid for my the end of the month if I behave myself. Naturally, I really, really do not want to behave myself.

Anywho, on to television:

( Dear Josh Friedman, I really, really hope that this show gets picked up so that I can get to know the inside of your brain better: )

Mildly related to an issue from tonight's episodes: A Human Reaction. It's creepy as hell, as all scenes between Derek and Cameron should be.

Oh, FOX. Please pick up this show. I don't think that it will disappoint you. (And how relieved was I to learn that everyone's ratings underwent a drop last week to accommodate A Raisin in the Sun? A whole hell of a lot, that's what.)

Celebratory for another show: Supernatural was picked up for its fourth season. My letter to Kripke was duly sent off, equal parts praise (because, in spite of how it's making me cranky this season, it must be said that there's still a hell of a lot that it does well) and PLEASE STOP WITH THE SKANKY ISSUES PLEASEPLEASE, and also fistfuls of hard candy for Jared. If things wrt Bela and Ruby are not what they seem, there's still time for the season to go out on an epic finale.

Well, okay, then, that's ten bucks I won't lay down.

( Mild spoiler for <i>The Other Boleyn Girl</i>, riffing off of Cleolinda's review above. )

OMG, y'all, Ultraviolet just finished playing on Encore, and wow. Um. This movie should be like crack. The scary, world-saving brunette archetype that has long since been my undoing, plus William Fichtner as a fucking vampire? And yet, I had my hands over my face and was giggling like a loon during most of the "emoting". IT WAS SO BAD THAT IT WAS IN FACT KIND OF EXCELLENT.

On now: The Covenant, and OMG. One of my very favoritest bad movies ever. The two girls of note in the movie are most just there as placeholders, which is vexing, but it turns out that the screenwriter put them in because this movie is SO GAY. SRSLY. THERE IS NO STRAIGHT HERE. It also has Taylor Kitsch when he was still just That Hot Guy and not yet That Hot Guy Who Could Also Act. There is no bad here. (And the way that Caleb and Pogue are written in this movie is so Jack/Sawyer that I could die a little.)

One last pimp of SCC before the finale airs tomorrow. If you like powerful, complicated women, you will like this show for Sarah Connor. If you like Summer Glau getting her creepy on, you will like this show for Cameron. If you like moody emo types growing up into hardcore hero types, you will like this show for John. If you like barely-hinged, PTSD-riddled badasses, you will like this show for Derek. If you like robots, or saving the world, or random violence, or intelligent conversations about philosophy of mind, ethics, and personhood riddled throughout all of that, you will just like this show, period.

How to Be a Fandom Jerk in Just a Few Easy Steps.

What the smart author said.



This is Thomas Dekker. Isn't he adorable? Don't you want to see him dance some more? Well, he'll be very sad and probably won't dance any more if his show gets cancelled, which is why SCC needs to score some outstanding ratings on its season finale this Monday. That's 8 p.m Eastern, 7 p.m. Central. (Look, I can do this all weekend, and I intend to.)

There's a peak oil video game now. *blinkblink*

Plzplzplz.

But firstly: Education by cynthia_arrow. It's Laura and Lee gen, and it's all about the little hidden moments in their relationship that we didn't see once they stopped getting scenes together in the past two seasons. Lee is quintessentially Lee here, kind of emo but a decent man who can be a dick at times when people don't measure up to his standards, but whose saving grace is that he turns that kind of intense scrutiny onto himself as well. And Laura! I won't lie to you: I fell out of love with Laura Roslin pretty hard over the course of the third season, but this fic explains why she did it in ways that make her actions understandable without excusing them, deepens the friendship between Lee and herself until the trial scene hurts that much more in retrospect, and then gives it all a lovely ending.



Do you see those pretty, badassed people right there?* They're in trouble at the moment. Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles is getting its share of critical praise and is pulling in what ought to be a respectable 9 million or so viewers per week, but it still hasn't been renewed yet for a second season. Apparently, it's deceptively expensive to make, and last week it actually dropped a million numbers in the Nielsens. (Bitch about the insanity of Nielsen numbers all that you want; I'm right there with you.) It's doing all right on iTunes and other alternative forms of measuring ratings, but FOX ain't CBS. They're not going to be willing to fly this show along on a hope and a prayer just because they like it like CBS did for Moonlight**, and SCC premiered too late to get that final nudge from the People's Choice Awards. Next week is the season and possibly series finale. People, please, watch this show. Most especially watch it if you're in a Nielsen household, but DVR and download numbers are also very important at this juncture. The strike's over! You don't have to feel any guilt over giving iTunes a dollar any longer! And if don't like it, it's a couple of bucks of your money (the premiere's a little rough, start with 1.03 to get a real feel for the show as a whole), that's not big thing, right? But if the finale doesn't do very well this week coupled with an overall increased interest in the episodes that have already aired, then I fear that the show won't make it.

*Sooper Sekrit Message to sparky77: See, you give him a gun and let him emote, and there's hotness there! I swear that I haven't gone crazy!

**Is FOX even capable of enjoying a show? I mean, I tend to have a lot of sympathy for these kinds of decisions within reason (yes, I'm still smarting over Drive), since it's a business and not a puppy rescue, but every time I try to picture a FOX exec making human arguments based upon artistic merit, I feel my brain struggling not to blow up right there within my skull.

( The Art of the Deal. )

( Dungeons and Dragons )

By the way, if you live in a Nielsen household, next week might be a good week to start watching SCC. It's averaging about nine million viewers per week, which isn't bad, but apparently the budget is high enough to make the talking heads nervous.

Which means that Definitely, Maybe is actually very cute. I hesitate to call it a rom-com, because while it has its funny moments, it's on the whole much more mature than most rom-coms. All three of the lead actresses are delightful, Ryan Reynolds proves that he can do drama, and he and Abigail Breslin have a lovely familial chemistry between them. It's not flawless, but it's certainly worth the price of admission if you're in the right mood. I didn't realize just how much I was in the right mood until halfway through the movie, after I had consumed roughly my weight in chocolate-covered coffee beans (me for the next four hours: XDXDXDXDXD) and was making wibbling noises at every instance of good parenting: it's the first of those four days per month in which I entertain the idea of procreating, apparently, however casually.

( Spoilers )

P.S., for anyone who has actually seen the promo for tomorrow's SCC episode: ( spoilery question. )

The Iron Man commercial which aired during the SuperBowl was ranked in the five least popular. Common opinion (by which I mean my local DJs) is that it's just too difficult to picture RDJ as a super hero.

People. Tony Stark is an over the top asshole with substance abuse issues. Robbie was born to play this role.

( Prison Break 3.11-'Under and Out' )

( I have no idea what this episode is called, but it was made of kick-ass. )

Firstly: it's probably the battery on Kermit, Apple.com tells me, and they run about sixty bucks. That is...so not happening right now, is what I'm thinking, so it'll be listening to music off of the computer only for me at the moment. I mostly listen to my iPod during my early-morning writing brainstorming and during my post-episode pacings (and with Moonlight settled for the time being, the only show that's really making me pace about and get thinky at the moment is SCC until Lost comes back-and we all know that when I get thinky at Lost, I also tend to get ragey, so maybe it's for the best), as I think best both when I'm moving and when I have a beat. This is going to suck, y'all, because work isn't offering overtime again until back to school season, when I will already have long quit and be off to wherever for grad school.

I didn't follow Idol very quickly last year on account of being eaten up with work and school at once, and any way, much as I loved Blake and Jordin, I was convinced that my head over heels thing for one Mr. Young was a deeply bewildering and occasionally disturbing one time thing. Only (mostly) having work this season, though, I'm tuning in. I watched San Francisco last night, snerked at the fact that my two favorites were the non-Americans, and watched South Carolina tonight. ( To the show's credit, )

Is there the beginnings of an SCC fandom anywhere? Other than on the TWOP boards (which I'm actually enjoying, because hey: smart time travel discussion meets smart philosophy of mind discussion, interspersed with everyone being in complete agreement on Summer Glau's abrupt about-face from Joss Whedon's Weird Waif Obsession into utter hottie)? This show, guys, it's taken me all of three episodes to go head over heels. And for everyone, too, which is a rarity for me. (John still does irritating teenaged bullshit, but he intersperses the ITBS with flashes of the hero that he's going to be, so all right. That I should love Cameron and Sarah falls into the realm of "Hi, have you actually met me?") Completely shallow perving one second, completely appropriate citing of the Chinese room example the next, there is no bad there.

Dear Alex: I approve. Keep it up.

Dear Whistler: Cross that line one way or the other, please, so that I can know what to make of you.

Dear Sofia and Lincoln: I swear, you two. You bounce back and forth between creeping me right out (the casual way that he's commandeered her car), making me glee (any time that Sofia drops that dewy ingenue thing that she does), and bringing out my inner thirteen year-old girl.

Summer Glau looks as if she's put on about ten pounds since she was on Firefly, and they are in all of the right places. This is, uh, probably the point where I should let my final pretensions on being straight die a swift and ignoble death.

( Two, TWO women on one show who make all of my female character kinks dance. )