AngiePen ([info]angiepen) wrote,
@ 2007-05-18 07:55:00
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Entry tags:fanfic, rps, story, wtf27

Fic: Merciful Gods
Title: Merciful Gods
Author: AngiePen
Fandom: Celebrity RPS
Pairing: Viggo Mortensen/Sean Bean
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Viggo and Sean, rival archaeologists and adventurers who've formed a partnership of convenience, have finally found a temple of legend they've been searching for for years. But a night of celebrating their good fortune has unexpected consequences.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone you recognize. I know nothing about their social lives or sexual activities, more's the pity. This is fiction, period. It is done as a labor of love and I make no money from it.
Note: This is another one from the memething I did back whenever, based on a request from [info]anorienparker.



An Island in the South Pacific, 1946

Viggo woke up afterwards with some really amazing memories of the best sex he'd ever had. He'd never blacked out before but was more than happy to pay that price in exchange for that truly mind-blowing climax.

And speaking of mind-blowing, they'd found it! He and Sean had both been searching for the hidden temple of Kalanu Malee for years, running into each other on this or that island, in various libraries and markets and villages. Once, they'd found themselves practically eyeball-to-eyeball on a steamship out of San Francisco with nearly identical cargos to outfit expeditions into the Andes in search of the same Incan ceremonial center and the same gem-encrusted skull. After some weeks at sea they'd agreed to hunt for them together, although somehow both had neglected to mention same in either written reports or the occasional telegraph back home. They'd found the ceremonial center but not the skull, which at that point in their working relationship had probably been just as well.

Their rivalry had always been guardedly friendly, but they'd finally decided to pool their resources on a more permanent basis. Their respective sponsoring institutions, the University of Idaho and the Sheffield Institute of Antiquities, were bitter rivals so neither of them had mentioned their relatively recent pair-up to the people writing the checks. And they'd have to figure out how to divide things up... some time.

The fringe benefits were great, though. They'd ended up falling into bed together one night four months ago after a long evening of listening to the local kahuna of the spirits recite his tribe's mythological history -- from the beginning of course. It'd been a long story and it would've been insulting to their hosts to refuse the refreshments offered, so they'd staggered back to their hut afterward, leaning on each other and laughing and tripping over the shadows on the ground and slamming into the closed door a couple times before remembering how to open it. Helping each other undress had led to teasing and tickling and finally fucking. Which had become a comfortable habit.

But this -- this had been more than "comfortable," by a few orders of magnitude. Viggo rolled over, a huge grin on his face, ready to find out whether Sean wanted to get back to work or stay right here on the surprisingly comfortable sand floor of the buried temple and go for round two, when something struck him as weird.

Weird as in strange. Odd. Off. His body felt different. Not aching -- that wouldn't be very different, considering what they'd been up to just a short while earlier -- but off balance. Like his skin was on wrong and his flesh had shifted sideways or something.

Her turned onto his side to shake Sean awake and stopped, a cold sliver of dread piercing his heart. There was something... hanging from his chest. Some weight that shifted when he moved. He brought up a shaking hand, hesitated, then touched.

His scream -- a very clear, dulcet scream -- brought Sean jerking awake, yelling. He scrambled to his feet and looked around wildly, then looked down. Another bellow of shock echoed through the temple, bouncing off the hewn rock of the volcanic cave.

"Who the fuck are you?! What are you doing here? Did you follow us? Where's Viggo?? Shit!" Sean suddenly appeared to remember he was naked and went scrambling for his trousers.

"Sean, it's me." Viggo's voice was low and soft and he felt unaccustomed tears pooling in his eyes as he curled inward, his arms crossed over his breasts.

"You who?!" Sean spat, hopping up and down while trying to get his leg into the right hole. "No offense but I've have remembered you. Who the hell are you, how'd you find this place, and where the fuck is Viggo?!"

Viggo curled up, arms around knees, trying to hide the breasts that really didn't feel like they belonged. Shifting around brought a distinct lack of weight further south to his attention and he moaned, burying his head in his arms. He wanted to go exploring again with his hand but was too terrified of what he wouldn't find.

Sean did up his trousers and pulled on his undershirt, then strode over and glared down at Viggo. "I said, who the hell are you?" he growled. "I'm usually politer to ladies but you'll pardon if I assume you're not much of a lady, crawling around naked beside strange gentlemen."

That was low and Viggo tilted his head and glared up at him. "You're not much of a gentleman either, so we're even." His voice wasn't actually much lower than it'd been before, but it was lighter, with less strength behind it. He coughed and tried again, deliberately giving it more force. "Remember the time in Moana Apu with that fisher boy? And his sister?"

"How the fuck do--?" Sean stopped, then took a step back. "Wait...."

"It's me, Sean," Viggo said, still concentrating on projecting his voice. Better -- practice was helping, at least to his own ears. "Viggo? Your academic nemesis? The one who let you fuck him twice last night in exchange for a reasonably hot blowjob? It's fucking me, Sean! I just have tits now!"

"Missing a few other bits too," Sean muttered, glancing down between Viggo's splayed ankles.

"I know!" Viggo bellowed while scrambling to his feet. Her feet? Fuck that -- his feet. He stalked up to Sean, ignoring the swing-slap of his breasts, and poked him in the chest. "I've noticed, all right! If all you can do is point out the obvious then you can just shut the fuck up!"

Sean smirked. "Definitely not a lady."

Viggo decked him.



By the time Sean groaned and rolled over, Viggo was dressed and studying the altar they'd fucked in front of the night before. His trousers were obscenely tight, his shoes were too big but not horribly so, and the shirt fit surprisingly well; a narrower ribcage and shoulders made up for the extra bulk of his breasts.

Viggo ignored Sean's pained griping and said, "This is all the same couple, here in the carvings. We thought it was an orgy because some of them were two men and some of them were a man and a woman but the second man is the woman. Or he is after this point." He traced a line of figures, right to left, the stopped and tapped on the first carving where the woman appeared. "This isn't a fertility temple, or at least not the way we thought. The rituals here weren't just some vague prayer to the gods to make the women pregnant, they were--"

"Wait, wait, just hang on a bit." Sean staggered over and laid a gentle hand on Viggo's shoulder. "I know this is upsetting but don't go all hysterical on me. There's got to be a--"

Viggo spun around and smacked Sean's hand away. He glared up at him and hissed, "Don't you ever patronize me like that again, you bastard. I don't give a damn what parts I have or don't have -- I'm a man and if you ever treat me like some hysterical woman again I'll plant your ass on the ground again and I'll keep doing it until I've knocked some brain cells loose!"

Sean smirked and raised an eyebrow. "I'm stronger than you now. You just caught me by surprise last time, is all."

"You've always been stronger than me," Viggo retorted. "But I'm faster and I know more tricks than you."

"The hell you do!" Sean puffed up and glared.

Viggo glared right back. "Look, it doesn't matter. What matters is what happened to me and how, and how we can get me changed back because I'm absolutely not going to spend the rest of my life as a woman!" He felt his heart slamming in his chest and his breath coming in sharp pants and he had an urge to just scream or cry like he was about to get hysterical and he knew it had to be fucking hormones or something and there was no way in hell he was going to let Sean see it so he concentrated on breathing deeply and forcing his muscles to relax. Getting all panicked -- and it had to be perfectly natural for a man to panic when he woke up and found his pecker missing! -- wasn't going to help anything.

Sean cocked his head and scowled. "I still think you're some broad Viggo found in the last port and that he's going to jump out and laugh at me for buying this rubbish."

"Well, you let me know when he shows up," Viggo muttered. He turned back to the carved altar and went down on one knee to study the pictographs closer to the floor. "Right now, though, remember what the kahuna said about this place?"

"Which one?" Sean drawled.

Viggo eyerolled and shot him an exasperated glance over his shoulder. "The last one, the one who gave us the clue that actually helped us find the place? As opposed to the four others who had us chasing our tails through the jungles on eight different islands all this time? Pay attention, will you?

"He said this was where their ancestors had come to ask the spirits for help when so many of their people had been taken by disease, and nearly all the women and children. And that this temple had been built by the original settlers who'd come from the south, across the open ocean for vast distances along a strong current. They couldn't go home and they had no women with them."

"Right," Sean agreed. "So they stole some women from the next island over and did their fertility dance and got them all pregnant."

"That's what we thought but that's not what the old man said. What he said was, they came to the temple, performed the ritual and the gods gave them more women."

"So, what, you think the gods just materialized them out of nothing...? No, wait, you don't think-- I mean...." Sean trailed off, staring down at Viggo, his eyes wide.

"Unless you can think of a better idea then this is going to have to be our working hypothesis." Viggo eyed Sean for a few more seconds but he didn't seem to be getting ready to relax and accept their altered reality any time soon, so he shrugged and ignored him. He had rolls of paper and charcoal sticks in his pack; he pulled out what he needed to take rubbings and notes and got to work.



"All right, I think I have it figured out," Viggo said. He (or she -- no, he dammit) stood up and stretched. The sand floor of the cave was more comfortable than bare rock would've been but he'd been sitting, kneeling and sitting again, leaning over to squint at more carvings, shuffling notes and flipping through what few references they'd brought. Viggo had always been better with pictographs than Sean so Sean had spent most of the day hiking back to the nearest village -- it was an amazingly short trip as the crow flew, without all the winding around from landmark to landmark they'd done while hunting for the temple -- since they'd only brought supplies for a couple of days. Viggo'd absolutely refused to leave until he'd translated everything he possibly could and until they'd tried everything they could possibly think of. Sean had said something about hauling "her" out over his shoulder for "her" own good and Viggo'd decked him. After that, Sean had shut up and gotten packed for the supply run.

Viggo'd hollered after him not to forget an ice bag for his jaw.

Sean had cursed at him because the nearest ice bag, to say nothing of the nearest ice, was a good thousand miles or more away. Then he'd apologized for cursing. Then he'd cursed again and stomped off.

He'd been grumping around the cave, just outside the temple proper, ever since he'd returned, unpacking his knapsack and arranging things for a longer stay than they'd originally planned. He'd brought food in to Viggo around nightfall, then curled up in his bedroll and gone to sleep just short of midnight.

Viggo had worked through the night, too keyed up to sleep. It was easier to concentrate once Sean was asleep anyway; having him banging and stomping around, muttering to himself and rattling boxes and clanging pans had been maddening.

The fact that Viggo's new bits had tingled whenever Sean was about hadn't helped either.

"You're sure?" Sean wandered over and stood with his arms crossed, leaning against a beautifully carved pillar depicting the rain god mating with the breadfruit goddess. "So what, d'we have to sacrifice a piglet or something?"

Viggo smirked at him, his hands on his hips. (His hips were too wide. His arms felt funny in that position.) "Nothing that drastic. We just have to have sex in front of the altar again."

"Umm?" said Sean. "Wait, you're sure? I thought the whole point of this was to give the stranded natives women so they wouldn't die out. If we have sex, how do you know the gods here won't just... just, put you in the family way, like, right off the first time?" His eyes were raking up and down Viggo's newly bulgy body but there was real concern in his voice.

"I can guarantee you won't get me pregnant," Viggo explained patiently. He noticed Sean's wince at the bald use of that word in what obviously was "mixed company" to him. "I need to show the gods that I have no desire or intention of being a woman, which means you have to take me the same way you did before."

"Umm?" said Sean again. "I mean, you're sure?" He looked comically disappointed, as though he'd been looking forward to trying out the newly installed parts.

"Yes, Sean, I'm sure. Believe me, I have much more to lose than you do and I'm not taking any chance of getting this body pregnant. The sooner I'm back to being myself and you stop behaving like a patronizing ass, the happier I'll be."

Sean snorted and glared. "Well, I beg your pardon for being well brought up, then. I know you're Viggo but right now you're a woman and my mum and dad taught me how to treat women properly."

"This 'woman' doesn't appreciate it," Viggo retorted. "Now, get over here, and don't bother bringing your clothes."'

Sean coughed out a laugh but showed up half a minute later without his clothing but with the stoppered bottle of cooking oil.

Their first clinch was awkward. There was a lot of hesitation and shifting and turning before Viggo tumbled them into the sand and straddled Sean's hips. "I'm on top," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'd fuck you if I could but I can't so this is the next best thing."

He slicked up one hand and carefully inserted two fingers into himself. By the time he was opened enough to think of replacing his fingers with Sean's cock, said cock was hard enough to make it practical. He knelt up and carefully lowered himself until he felt his body stretching, then stopped. Slowly a bit farther and then stopped.

It felt like his whole body was new, instead of being his old body with a few parts replaced. Which made sense, intellectually, if anything about this fantastical situation could've been said to make sense. His face had changed, if Sean's initial reaction were anything to go by, and what he could see of his body without a mirror was different all over. Smoother, less angular, less hairy. He was muscular for a woman but less so than he'd been as a man. His voice was different and his balance felt off. If the gods of this place had remade his whole body then he supposed he must be a virgin, even in ways he hadn't been before.

He was very glad he had no intention of losing his "female" virginity. He'd only participated in that particular exercise once and despite all his nervous care it hadn't seemed terribly enjoyable for his girlfriend.

By the time he was fully seated on Sean's cock, the two of them were panting together and Sean was visibly restraining himself from thrusting up. Viggo gave his hips another twist to loosen his passage a bit more, then said, "All right, I'm ready." He knelt up again until Sean almost slipped out, then settled down in a long, smooth glide. Then he did it again, faster. And again, harder.

His breasts were bouncing when he moved and the alien sensation was just distracting. He cupped them in his hands and the disconnect in his brain -- the conflict between the clear feel of someone else's body under his hands and the equally clear feel of his hands on his own body -- was enough to throw his rhythm off for a minute before he struggled to focus once more on what he was doing. On what they were doing together.

The next distraction was the tingling in his nipples. He yanked his hands away and leaned forward to prop himself up against Sean's chest. There -- that felt right. With his torso at an angle his breasts swayed but didn't slap and that was good enough; he focused on ignoring them.

Sean gave him a rumbling moan and grasped his hips, arching up in time with Viggo's movements. His eyes squinted halfway shut and his gasping had a low, vocal thread to it. Viggo saw a bead of sweat run down his temple and into his hair and his could feel Sean's heart speed up, deep in his chest where Viggo's hands were pressing.

Something was wrong, though, and it took several more minutes of frustrated activity before he realized what the problem was.

"Dammit! I don't have a prostate!"

"What?" Sean gasped. His rhythm faltered. "Wait, what did you say?"

"I don't have a prostate! I'm not going to be able to come this way."

Sean blinked a couple of times, then smiled up at him. "That's not a problem. I can help with that." He reached toward Viggo's crotch with one hand but Viggo slapped it away.

"No! I can't!" Viggo sped up again, angry frustration giving him the extra energy which usually came from the climb toward climax. I have to do this like a man, as best as I can. I can't do anything female. It's the act that's important -- I don't have to come." He shot Sean an evil grin. "You can owe me a blowjob after I get back to myself."

"Not a problem," Sean agreed. "Women don't feel the need like men do anyway."

Viggo cursed and smacked him, his flat hand making a loud slapping noise on Sean's sweaty chest. Over Sean's returned curse, Viggo said, "Believe me, I'm feeling every bit as much frustration right now as I ever did when I was a man. You definitely owe me and I will collect."

"All right, all right! If you say so. Just don't stop, then, and we can get back to normal!" Sean rubbed the reddened spot on his chest but kept his hands away from Viggo's alien parts. Sean thrust and Viggo rode him, and watched him with an intensity he usually didn't have the spare attention for when he was in this position and fucking himself to his own orgasm.

Sean really was an incredibly handsome man and Viggo knew it wasn't just female hormones saying so. His skin glistened with sweat, the shadows flickering in the light of the pair of oil lamps they'd brought in. There wasn't enough light to really see his eyes, but they'd fucked outside in the daytime sun and Viggo knew they'd have darkened to a deep green, the pupils wide and black. He was lean and strong and his hands were pressing Viggo's softer flesh into his hipbones; there'd probably be a pair of bruises the next day.

And I don't care a bit, Viggo thought to himself, so long as the bruises are on either side of a cock and a pair of balls.

He clenched his muscles around Sean and whispered, "Come on! Come for me! I know you can, you want to! Fill me up!"

Sean was always susceptible to verbal encouragement when he was close and that tipped him over. He arched and grunted, and his face screwed up and then relaxed when the built-up tension released and Viggo felt him spasming inside his body.

At last! There, any second now....

They didn't fall asleep this time, not being nearly as tired as they'd been the previous evening after four days of hard hiking and climbing, but Viggo felt everything go soft and run, as though the world were melting around him and taking him with it. His body felt weird in a way which would've been frightening if he hadn't expected something weird and been eagerly looking forward to it.

He felt Sean's cock shrink and slip out and smiled to himself.

Viggo rolled off into the soft sand and reached slowly down, exploring with one hesitant hand, then relaxed and let out a gleeful whoop when he found everything present and accounted for, from a smooth, solid chest on down to parts south. He yelled, "Thank you!" to whatever gods might be listening.

Sean echoed his yell a moment later, but he wasn't giving thanks.

"What the bloody hell?!" Sean screamed in a clear soprano. "Viggo! Whad'you do?!"

Viggo rolled up on his side and grinned down at Sean. A very smooth and curvy Sean, with lush, pink-tipped breasts and sweetly rounded hips, and an aghast look on his fair, stubble-free face.

"I didn't do anything," Viggo said with a lazy smile. "The gods of this temple are running things, not me. I wanted to get my self back as soon as possible and this was the only way to do it."

"Well, you can bloody well just fuck me, or I can fuck you or whatever it was we did and turn me back, then!" Sean was sitting trembling in the sand, clutching his breasts with a look of horror.

"Oh, no!" Viggo shook his head and scrambled up onto his knees. "You were a patronizing ass and I'm not going through that again! If you think you can persuade one of the locals to come back here and let you ride his cock, feel free to head down to the village and try. Mine isn't going anywhere near your ass, though, not until you're back to yourself, so don't even think it."

"How the hell am I supposed to get back to meself if you won't help me! Damn ye ta hell, this was your problem and y'just passed it on to me like it were nothing!" Sean's accent grew broader when he was emotional and he was very obviously angry and frightened and -- dare Viggo think it? -- near hysterical?

He grinned down at Sean and said, "Now, now, dear, don't go all hysterical on me," in a gently cajoling tone he knew would drive Sean right over the edge. Viggo had become quite familiar with that edge during the last day or so and thought Sean should get to know it too.

The explosion was composed of slapping and cursing and punching and tears. Viggo had no scruples about hitting a "girl," at least not in this case. Just as he hadn't been able to think of himself as a woman when it'd been him, he didn't really think of Sean as one either, tits or no. He pulled his punch because Sean was weaker now, and because a shot in the jaw where he'd hit him last time was going to hurt like a bastard regardless of the target's sex.

Sean ended up curled in the sand, cradling his jaw and struggling to stop the tears flowing. Viggo sank back down to one knee and laid a hand lightly on Sean's shoulder. When it was slapped off he didn't push.

"It's temporary, Sean," he explained, trying to be patient. He pointed to a series of carvings on the wall opposite the altar and said, "See? If you don't get pregnant then it lasts for a moon cycle. And you were right -- I'm pretty sure that one instance of intercourse, especially here in the temple, would result in a pregnancy, so we really can't do much for the next month. But all we have to do is hide you from the outside world for twenty-eight days and you should turn into yourself again and have all your bits back."

Sean sniffled and sat up, glaring across at him. He stared at the carvings and then back at Viggo. "You're a real bastard, you know that?"

Viggo rolled his eyes and snorted. "You were such a perfect gentleman for me, I just thought you should get an opportunity for me to treat you the same way."

He got another string of curses in return, the dialect so thick he could only understand about every fourth word.

"It's all right," Viggo replied calmly. He was enjoying this and had no intention of feeling sorry for the big jerk. Well, the smaller, curvy, soft jerk. He grinned and added, "I'll head back to the village tomorrow and get us a month's worth of supplies. I might even stop by the kahuna's hut and let him know their gods are still looking out for them. Of course, he probably knows already, but he'll probably want to add this story to his histories."

Viggo waited for Sean to struggle back into his trousers and shirt, muttering threats and complaints the entire time, before saying, "Oh, Sean?"

"Yeah, what?" Sean snarled back.

"You still owe me a blowjob."



(Post a new comment)


[info]dienw
2007-05-18 03:15 pm UTC (link)
I really liked it till the end... I mean Sean helped Viggo when he was panicky and needed help...but when Sean changed, Viggo's all like "Well tough luck. I'm back to normal so you'll just have to wait it out...not my problem" Made me feel like Viggo was being a real jerk. (Of course, any story that evokes emotion like that from me is a good story...it just means you made the characters very real.)

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-18 07:27 pm UTC (link)
Made me feel like Viggo was being a real jerk.

Huh, that's interesting. See, to me, Sean was a jerk first and Viggo just figured it was pay-back time. [wry smile] Thanks, for commenting, seriously. Now I'm really curious to see what everyone else has to say. [hugz]

Angie

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[info]brigantine1
2007-05-18 04:14 pm UTC (link)
Most fun story! But yep, Viggo'd better watch out if he tries to collect on that blowjob any time soon, and if he gets bit, I will not feel sorry for him. So there. ;)

At least Sean *tried* to be a gentleman when Viggo was female, however awkwardly that worked out. Hee. Sean trying not to curse.

I like the story behind this - the gods turning some of the men into females, so the society wouldn't die out. It actually makes a weird sort of sense, what with certain species of fish doing the same thing - or I think it's the opposite, girl fish turning to boy fish, but you get what I mean. :)

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-18 07:31 pm UTC (link)
Heh, I think he was mostly kidding about wanting that blowjob right then. ;)

At least Sean *tried* to be a gentleman when Viggo was female, however awkwardly that worked out.

OK, that's two votes of sympathy for Sean, then. [starts keeping score] This is definitely going to be interesting. :)

And yeah, there are some animals that'll do it spontaneously. [nodnod] But I figure, when gods are involved you can do pretty much whatever you want, right? I started this so long ago I don't remember where the idea came from, but it was kind of funny, so.... :D

Thanks!

Angie

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[info]obselizabeth
2007-05-18 04:54 pm UTC (link)
"You still owe me a blowjob."

i was laughing through nearly every word of this! such a hilarious situation they found themselves in.....

and then, the killer punchine :) (and he's not really being mean to sean....it's the regaining of male hormones that made him act like that! *giggles*)

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]angiepen
2007-05-18 07:35 pm UTC (link)
Thanks, I'm glad the humor worked for you! [beam] It's always a bit of a nail-biter when you post something funny; humor either works or it doesn't, there's hardly ever any in-between. [laugh/flail]

it's the regaining of male hormones that made him act like that!

Did it really come across as mean until you thought about male hormones? I'm sitting here sort of o_O at the reactions so far -- not in a bad way but sort of in a thinky way, 'cause I wasn't expecting that reaction. I definitely need more data; I'm not sure if I should've underlined a few things a bit more or if it's just a difference in worldview. [ponder] Thanks for commenting, though, 'cause this is getting really interesting. :D

Angie

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[info]obselizabeth
2007-05-18 07:42 pm UTC (link)
it's the regaining of male hormones that made him act like that!

Did it really come across as mean until you thought about male hormones? I'm sitting here sort of o_O at the reactions so far -- not in a bad way but sort of in a thinky way, 'cause I wasn't expecting that reaction. I definitely need more data; I'm not sure if I should've underlined a few things a bit more or if it's just a difference in worldview. [ponder] Thanks for commenting, though, 'cause this is getting really interesting. :D


i put that BECAUSE of the comments. i never would have thought anything other than "silly boys" until after i read some comments. not that they're negative. just that people might be over-thinking your humor.

it does work well, and we all know that sean will have his come-uppance after his bout with this malady! :)

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-18 08:08 pm UTC (link)
Coolness, thanks for elaborating. [nodnod] I'm not getting the sort of response I expected (toward Sean's attitude and Viggo's response) but it's actually more interesting this way. :)

Angie

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[info]rifleman_s
2007-05-18 07:25 pm UTC (link)
"Then he'd apologized for cursing. Then he'd cursed again and stomped off."

I laughed and laughed all the way through this! What a brilliant invention!! But I think Viggo better not try to collect on the 'promise' too soon . . .

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]angiepen
2007-05-18 07:37 pm UTC (link)
No, I don't think he will, heh. He's just been through a traumatic experience but his brain is still intact. And he doesn't want to lose the equipment again so soon. ;)

And now I'm collecting opinions -- do you think Viggo was "mean" to Sean at the end? Or unjustifiably mean? A "why" or "why not" would be helpful as well, if you feel like rambling for a bit, but even just a "yes" or "no" would be helpful. :D

Thanks for commenting, as always! {{}}

Angie

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[info]rifleman_s
2007-05-18 08:14 pm UTC (link)
Oooh, great idea!

Okay, to ramble a bit . . . it was so funny reading it the first time that I didn't think of mean-ness at all; it was just such a cracking good read!

However, two things strike me, and unfortunately one leads me to think Viggo was mean and the other to think he wasn't!!!

First of all, I thought, yes, he was a bit mean towards Sean in that, after all, Sean had readily jumped to Viggo's aid when he was in a similar distressing (thought hilarious!) situation.

However, I think Viggo has quite sensibly worked out what occurred to me straight away - if they keep doing this, all that will happen is that they'd have to keep doing it for evermore as one of them would always be in the "female" state . . . so probably it is better to cajole a villager to take on that role, or wait for the full moon . . . It's just pure hard luck on Sean that he's the one who's going to have to wait!!

Bah, that doesn't really give you a definitive answer, does it? *sits on the fence*

But, once again, I have to say, it was a wonderfully funny and inventive story!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)


[info]angiepen
2007-05-18 08:25 pm UTC (link)
OK, now I have this image of two people swapping one cock back and forth between them over and over and I'm cracking up! :D

It's just pure hard luck on Sean that he's the one who's going to have to wait!!

Well, I'm sure from Sean's point of view it was less luck and more Viggo being a bastard who translated the pictographs and decided he didn't want to be the one spending the next month as a woman, heh.

I'm very glad you like the story, though, and enjoyed the humor. Thanks! [hugz]

Angie

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[info]alex_quine
2007-05-18 08:22 pm UTC (link)
Intriguing plot device and strongly delineated characters.
Since you're keeping score...yes, I have to admit I think your Viggo was being mean because the first switch was the first occasion for both of them in a wholly new experience and whilst your Sean tried, and sometimes failed, to work through the unfamiliar situation by following the tenets of the upbringing he'd had, to the extent of not fighting back, your Viggo makes no attempt to move forward, building on the experience to do better as the 'man' when the situations are reversed. Instead he's all for petty revenge with patronising bullying to tip Sean into tears, sarcasm and using his superior strength which Sean had deliberately refrained from doing.

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-18 08:27 pm UTC (link)
Coolness -- thanks! [scribbles notes]

And I'm glad you enjoyed the story. :)

Angie

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[info]brigantine1
2007-05-19 02:53 am UTC (link)
Yep! What Alex said! I mean, look right here:

Viggo rolled his eyes and snorted. "You were such a perfect gentleman for me, I just thought you should get an opportunity for me to treat you the same way."

He got another string of curses in return, the dialect so thick he could only understand about every fourth word.

"It's all right," Viggo replied calmly. He was enjoying this and had no intention of feeling sorry for the big jerk.


FemaleViggo's immediate response to Sean dealing clumsily - though earnestly - with this new situation was to condemn him and then slug him. That bit when Sean teased FemaleViggo for definitely not being a lady, and Viggo decked him - that was Sean treating Viggo like Viggo, which you'd think is what Viggo wanted, since being condescended to ticked him off, but apparently Viggo didn't really know *what* he wanted.

Then when it was Sean's turn to be female, Viggo just gloated and made him feel as bad as possible.

How is Viggo's treatment of FemaleSean the same way Sean had treated FemaleViggo? Both times Viggo hit Sean, whether because he didn't want to hit a woman, or perhaps because he didn't want to hit someone who's supposedly a friend, Sean chose not to strike back.

Viggo showed no such restraint with FemaleSean. Pulling his punch because Sean was smaller and because he'd already hit Sean twice - and this third punch after he'd deliberately pushed Sean into an angry response - it makes it sound like Viggo wanted to hit him again - didn't really do it for me as an example of him being the better man that he seemed to believe he was.

He condemned Sean for his imperfect behavior, but then deliberately withheld important information in order to get what he wanted from Sean, and to apparently punish Sean for a sin Sean hardly understood he'd committed, and in so doing forced Sean to be the one to wait it out, when he might have really taken the high road and come clean with Sean about the way the magic worked, thereby giving Sean the chance to figure out how to behave. Viggo behaved even worse toward FemaleSean, and justified his bullying and his deceit by holding up as evidence Sean's earlier clumsiness with an unfamiliar situation.

And oddly, I didn't really need to overthink this. That all was pretty much a domino-effect thought response as soon as I'd finished reading - click click click... What a hypocrite! And not much of a friend.

Still, awfully good characters drawn up, if people are reacting to their situation so strongly! I'm not sure whether this view of Viggo here is what you were after, but it's certainly good work if he's such a strong character that some of us are really mad at him! ;D

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-19 03:04 am UTC (link)
LOL! Well, at least it worked as characterization, even if not the way I'd intended. :D And yes, I'm very glad people are having strong reactions, even if they think Viggo's a shit. [rueful smile]

I knew Viggo wasn't terribly likeable, as in, someone you'd want to be best friends with, but to me, Sean is just as unlikeable. What I wasn't expecting was the strong skew of sympathy for Sean and against Viggo.

I'm thinking that in a few days, after everyone who's going to read has had a chance to do so and comment, I'll post a bit explaining what I had intended and how I thought people would react and why, and we can talk about it from both sides. Heck, if nothing else I'd like to see exactly where I went wrong (although I'm getting some ideas here) but I think it'd be an interesting topic to talk about. Or maybe I've just been hanging out at [info]metafandom too much lately, but we'll see.

Thanks for commenting! [hugz]

Angie

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[info]illuminated_sin
2007-05-19 09:31 am UTC (link)
First, I really enjoyed this fic a lot. I thought it was a clever, interesting story and you chose a setting that hasn't been done to death, and both of those earn you major brownie points in my book. :D And I didn't know how it would all turn out, either, so you get the "not predictable" bonus, while you're at it. ;)

With regard to the Is Viggo A Big Old Meanie issue, I think [info]brigantine said almost everything I was going to say about it. I'd like to add, however, that it was at the part where Viggo tells Sean he won't help him change back and that it lasts a month that I distinctly remember thinking "what a dick" and feeling bad for Sean. Viggo wouldn't have necessarily been so bad, but there were two things that really threw the balance off:

1) This was partly touched on already, but Viggo was a woman because of an accident neither he nor Sean could have predicted, while Sean was turned into a woman solely for Viggo's gain. Viggo stayed behind to decipher the pictograms while Sean hiked back to the village for supplies. Sean TRUSTED Viggo to interpret the pictograms and tell him what they said. While Sean may have behaved in the condescending manner in which it was acceptable for men to treat women in the 1940s, that was learned behavior and socially accepted. It wasn't regarded as being an ass to treat a woman that way at the time; it was considered proper and even gentlemanly to treat women like that (misguided though it was), and Sean would have been absolutely puzzled as to what he was doing wrong or WHY it was wrong. You can't expect Sean to go against social mores and suddenly start the women's lib movement because Viggo grew tits. =/

2) Viggo was a woman for a DAY, but because of his deception and mean-spirited magical buck-passing, Sean was stuck being a woman for A MONTH. If it had been an even or nearly-even balance -- say, if Sean had to remain a woman for a couple of days -- I don't think people would have gotten such a "Viggo's a dick" vibe. But he got handed down a penalty of 28 times the crap and panic that Viggo endured, all because Sean tried to help his friend, and Viggo knew in advance it would happen that way. What Sean did qualifies as clueless while what Viggo did could only be considered vindictive.

Great job on the story, and look at what a discussion you've sparked! LOL! :D

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-19 10:13 am UTC (link)
Yes, definitely a great discussion. [nodnod]

It's kind of like... have you, by any chance, ever read "Shakespeare in the Bush?" It was an article by an anthropologist which has been reprinted to death, about a woman who went to study a group of people in Africa whose name I forget now (it having been about twenty years since I read said article) and it underlined this sort of "Buh--?" disconnect. The people she was staying with told stories in the season after the harvest and asked her to tell one of her people's stories, so she told the story of Hamlet, since "everyone knows" that Shakespeare is universal. [cough]

Well, turns out it's not quite so universal as all that and the people of the homestead where she was staying didn't react to the story quite the way she expected them to. Because their customs and world view were very different, they approved of some of the things Shakespeare expected his audience to disapprove of and vice versa, and got into some discussions of the various points and actions as the story went, explaining to the anthropologist what the story really meant and how to interpret it. By the end, the anthropologist was rather dazed by it all, and the elders told her that in the future, if she wanted to tell them any more of her people's stories, they would be happy to explain them to her. [grin]

Aaaand, because Google-fu is powerful, I've found a copy! [beam] Check it out -- this is a great piece. :)

Shakespeare in the Bush

Anyway, yeah, I've been feeling sort of like her (Laura Bohannan) because there's this story I told and I know how I interpret it, but the people I told it to interpret it differently and I'm sort of flailing. [bemused smile] And I can't really say that this or that interpretation is right or wrong -- it depends what assumptions you bring to the party and where you're coming from. Both ways of seeing the story are valid and it's sort of cool to see where everyone else is coming from and why they interpret it differently.

Angie

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[info]illuminated_sin
2007-05-19 10:29 am UTC (link)
Never heard of this before, but you know I was an anthropology major for a while, and this is just the sort of thing that I love to read about. I'm fascinated by cross-cultural comparisons like that. Thanks for the link! :D

::scurries off to read it::

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[info]foxrafer
2007-05-19 02:54 am UTC (link)
I definitely liked this story but I got really pissed off at Viggo at the end. Sean was a bit chauvinistic, which isn't good, but he wanted to help Viggo. Then Sean's in the same predicament and Viggo's letting him stay that way for a month? No, if I were Viggo I'd be long gone before Sean changed back because if I were Sean I wouldn't just hit him. But I did like this; the premise was really interesting and funny until I wanted to stick Viggo under a bus.

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-19 03:08 am UTC (link)
"Stick ... Viggo ... under ... bus." [muttering while scribbling with pencil] Got it, thanks. :)

Sean was a bit chauvinistic

I'm glad you caught on to that. [beams] To me it seemed like more than just a bit, but maybe I was too close to it.

I'm very glad you enjoyed it, though, and thought it was funny up until the end. Thanks for commenting! [hugz]

Angie

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[info]foxrafer
2007-05-19 03:34 am UTC (link)
For me Sean's chauvinism is tempered by how readily he wants to help Viggo. Everything he says and does feels more inadvertent, the acts of someone who's so totally weirded out he can't even help with research that he'd normally be able to do easily. But once he's told there's a solution he's all about making it happen.

When they first have sex, neither of them knows what's going to happen. At the end, only Sean is the one in the dark. Plus, Viggo takes tremendous pleasure in reducing Sean to tears, hitting him and mocking him. Sean may have started treating Viggo differently but he didn't seem to want to take advantage of the fact that he might be stronger than Viggo now.

But the biggest thing that makes Viggo such an ass is he's the ultimate chauvinist. He's so cocky he thinks he's interpreted everything perfectly. What if he's wrong and Sean is stuck like that until someone has sex with him in front of the alter? (And then they'd only be dooming someone else to this problem.) I'm afraid it's the bus for Viggo.

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-19 09:40 am UTC (link)
He's so cocky he thinks he's interpreted everything perfectly.

Well, yes, there's that. :P I guess they'll find out at the end of the month. [crossed fingers]

Angie, careful not to get between Viggo and the bus

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[info]brigantine1
2007-05-19 03:37 pm UTC (link)
Gor, lookit the lovely discussion your story's started! Even if your audience hasn't seen the characters in the way you'd thought they would (references befuddled anthropologist in Shakespeare link), a story that gets people reading so carefully and thinking about what's happened, picking through the events, mulling over the characters' motivations for their actions... this is such a good thing! Go you! :)

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-19 07:56 pm UTC (link)
Exactly! I'm not at all unhappy about this. :D

Angie

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[info]helena_s_renn
2007-05-20 06:12 am UTC (link)
yay, genderfuck!! ha! i don't think that viggo's going to collect for 28 days, either. sean screaming in soprano? lolol!!

what i have to wonder is if they're going to be able to keep their hands off each other for that long. viggo at least has been with women before. you gave the year as 1946. we're dealing with men of our grandfathers' generation. who knows exactly how they'll manage. viggo's enjoying himself at the moment. after a couple weeks with female!sean, i don't think he will be any more. and he might even be over his snit enough to be a little sympathetic by then.

jerky!viggo didn't bother me. you know why? because you wrote him a lot more honestly in that moment than most writers will do with men and i can appreciate it, despite the un-lovely characteristics. (i don't mean rl viggo, before anyone gets offended) we make our men as we would have them so often, not necessarily as they are. this is ... appropriate, what can i say?

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-20 07:05 am UTC (link)
Thanks, hon. :) And right, I didn't intend for either guy to come across as terribly admirable; I just didn't expect sympathy to be skewed as sharply as it is.

I hadn't thought about what they'd be doing or how they'd be dealing with the situation two or three weeks from now, but you're probably right -- they'll both likely have transitioned on to different mindstates. [ponder]

Angie

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[info]strongplacebo
2007-05-22 12:02 pm UTC (link)
Hah. I followed the link that 'Viggo' left on the Fanlib thingy, and even though this is my pairing (on either count) I really enjoyed it. I grinned a lot when Viggo turned into a girl but a lot more when Sean did. Hee! Thank you!

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-22 12:26 pm UTC (link)
LOL! Well, it's a good thing I already thanked him for the pimp, then, isn't it? ;D Thanks for commenting -- I'm glad you liked it. :D

Angie

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[info]snuffle007
2007-05-24 01:10 am UTC (link)
I really liked this but I have to say I'm on Sean's side on this one too.

Sean may have treated Viggo a little badly, but he was reacting to a sudden and very strange situation. He was being confronted with a woman and was trying to act like a gentleman, and also trying to act like a bloke because it was Viggo too. I mean, how confusing is that??? Of course he would fuck up!! I know i would!!!

And for Viggo to hide the information he'd discovered so craftily just to get his own way, when Sean had acted like his friend and done what he could to help him was just plain nasty. Poor Sean. He'd done nothing wrong and Viggo has shafted him (no pun intended!)

Plus, Viggo was very violent with Sean as if it was all his fault. Hitting and punching Sean when he said he wasn't 'a lady' which is just how Sean would talk to Viggo and then attacking and mocking Sean again when he became frightened and upset at his sudden change.

Sean never laughed or mocked Viggo so cruely.

I'm all for Viggo under a bus on this one. He'd better not try and get that blow-job or if he does, Sean should bite it off so Viggo wouldn't be a 'man' either!!!!! (joking really...I'm not that cruel!)

still...great story! got us all talking...brilliant

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[info]snuffle007
2007-05-24 01:23 am UTC (link)
Also...Vig was a woman for DAY!! His revenge is to make sean a woman for a MONTH!! Hardly fair!!!

No...Vig was a total bastard in this one. Sean...you have my total support...100%. Vig should be made to get drunk and be fucked, made a woman and forced to wait it out for a month too.

Bastard...total total bastard!!!

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-24 02:07 am UTC (link)
Another vote for Viggo under the bus, check. [scribble/grin]

And yeah, I think Viggo knows better than to go through with the blowjob thing just now, even if Sean actually agreed. :D

And I agree that the discussion here has been excellent! [beam] Thanks for commenting!

Angie

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[info]alran
2007-05-24 07:26 am UTC (link)
This is really original and very funny. Sean's attitude is irritating AND funny, and Viggo's payback is perfect.
Loved it.

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-24 08:53 am UTC (link)
Hah, so another vote not to toss Viggo under a bus? [grin] There aren't many of us -- we need to stick together. ;) Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Angie

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[info]rotpunkt
2007-05-25 04:14 am UTC (link)
Hm, most things have already been said by Brig and others, but additionally, I think Viggo is no less a chauvinist than Sean here. Everything in his words and behaviour shows that he thinks it's far better to be a man - and NOT only because he's used to it, but because being a woman means to be weak and weepy in his eyes. THAT is why I didn't like him here - he's even more anti-female than Sean in my eyes.
Like the other comments, this doesn't go against your writing (but I think you know that). In the opposite, I think your style is really good, you definitely can write and you have a precise feeling for dramaturgy.

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-26 05:15 am UTC (link)
Right [nod] one of the reasons Viggo was so upset about the transformation is that he does think it's better to be a man than a woman. He's a product of his times, definitely. He was particularly mad at Sean for how he treated him because despite the physical changes, Viggo didn't feel like a woman -- he still thought of himself as male no matter what his plumbing looked like and he was annoyed with Sean for changing his attitude so quickly over something like that. He thought Sean should treat him like himself rather than just like "a woman," and realize that no matter what the idol had done to him, he was still Viggo inside.

But he's definitely sexist himself, yes. Although I think that in the future he might think about some individual women he knows well and maybe treat them a bit differently. I don't see him changing his ideas about "Women" as a class, but maybe one woman at a time. [ponder]

I've been thinking that this should probably have been longer. The action is fairly compact but I could've worked with that, and there are a lot of threads and currents running through this and I can see now that I just didn't develop them very well. Classic writer's myopia -- I can see all the stuff that's there so I thought everyone else would too. I do know better than that, really. [headdesk] The discussion has been very interesting, though, so I'm not too disappointed. :)

And thanks -- I'm glad you enjoyed the story as a story, even if you're on the side for tossing Viggo under a bus. ;)

Angie

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[info]rotpunkt
2007-05-26 05:37 am UTC (link)
I think you really have no reason to be disappointed - an open but constructive and respectful discussion is something so very important, and still happens far too rarely between writers (maybe it's better in the meta area).
You can be proud that readers and slash mates trusted you to be able to handle a discussion, and that you proved they weren't wrong! I respect you especially because by now I've seen how you react in several discussions and you have always been fair, open-minded and thoughtful - and not bitching or sulking or something like that.
I'm not sure whether the story should be longer - the dramaturgy is very good. I see another point you might consider: you say inwardly Viggo was still Viggo or, in other words, inwardly they stayed men. But that leads to some problems with the coherency, because on the other hand they both start to feel the "effect of the hormones" psychologically, and they are more inclined to weep than before etc. Therefore, I thought that in some way you IMPLY that women are fundamentally different from men in their psyche (in the way it's usually assumed), and I had problems with that.

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[info]angiepen
2007-05-28 05:22 am UTC (link)
Thank you, seriously. [hugz] I try hard to behave like a rational adult and not get pissy if it turns out I'm wrong about something, or if something doesn't go the way I expected. I learn a lot more that way and I prefer not to have people think I'm a twit. [wry smile]

About the hormones thing, yes, hormones do make a difference, and I figured that whatever level Viggo and then Sean had to deal with would probably hit them even harder because they're not used to dealing with them. We learn to deal with our hormones as just one more thing to control and adult women are expected (well, usually :/ ) to be able to handle normal emotional stressors without freaking or whatever. Sometimes it's hard, and different women have different hormone levels and different women were raised to handle emotional stresses differently, but just in general, if that means anything -- someone who was born a woman and lived to be forty-five should have a better handle on dealing with hormone levels than someone who was a man for forty-five years and then suddenly switched. Does that make sense?

From Viggo's POV, though, he's still the same person inside. He might have had some trouble controlling his feelings but he still thought of himself as a man and the same person he'd always been. When I was trying to figure out how they'd behave -- and especially Viggo, who was a woman for a lot more of the story than Sean was -- I was actually trying to go deliberately UNlike some of the genderswap stories I've read where a guy is turned into a woman and suddenly has this intense desire to wear make-up and high heels and get his nails done, which to me sounds pretty unlikely. So I was trying to blend in the hormone factors with Viggo's still-present sense of himself as the man he's always been.

I do like the pacing of the story as I have it, but if I could expand it without losing that feel I think it might've been better. If I'd had more time (in the story) to establish a sense of time and place and attitude, where it all came from and how their attitudes fit into the culture -- showing it rather than just relying on the datestamp at the top -- I think I'd have had a better chance of communicating what I had in mind. I'd originally thought of having Viggo be a woman for the whole month (talk about URST! [grin]) but although I implied it at the end here, if I'd been actually showing all that time, it would've been harder to make having them hang out near the temple cave the entire time work. I mean, OK, they're just sort of sitting around all day waiting for a month to pass. Wow, thrilling. :/ I'd have pretty much had to have taken them back to civilization, even if only to the nearest port town or something, just to keep the story moving. Which would've been good so far as showing the time and place and attitudes would've gone, but would've made the story a lot more complicated. I'd have had to toss in another sub-plot or two and I didn't want to do that. Maybe I should've, though. [ponder]

And yes, it would've been difficult to keep the "shape" of the story, which works nicely, intact through that kind of expansion. Sort of like buying a size 8 dress pattern and altering it for a size 18 -- not impossible but definitely difficult. [nod]

Angie

PS -- sorry it took a while to get back to you. I'm at an SF con and away from home and haven't been online much. :/

PPS -- wanted to say I love your icon! :D

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[info]shegollum
2007-08-11 03:36 am UTC (link)
I just like it! I am too old or too cranky or too fried or something to think through the hormone and POV parts. I'll try that another time (Clearly I won't get younger but perhaps at some point, I'll be less cranky or less tired. LOL). I just think it's adorable and funny and well done like your stories always are! *mwah*

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[info]angiepen
2007-08-11 06:50 am UTC (link)
Thanks, hon! I'm glad you liked the humor and that it all worked for you. [hugz]

Angie

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testing this one...
(Anonymous)
2007-11-25 09:50 pm UTC (link)
Very interesting... as always! Cheers from -Switzerland-.

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Re: testing this one...
[info]angiepen
2007-11-25 10:13 pm UTC (link)
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :D

Angie

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