Writing From the Inside

So the other day I got this terrific email from a woman who reads my reviews on pinkraygun.com, and who sometimes posts comments to them about what she liked or didn’t like, whether she agreed or not, what made her laugh. I always appreciate posts like that because not only is it nice to get feedback, it’s nice to get feedback from people who think about things.

In this email, she says: “I know you’ve seen the anti-Motivational poster generaters, and in noodling around tonight, I made one that was inspired by you, and wanted to share.”

Then, enclosed in the email was the following poster:

Dithering Poster

She really captured the whole flavor of those motivational posters you see everywhere, that some dopey boss dreamed up because he thought it would acutally HELP with being a paid slave. And THEN she turned the concept on its ear, so that it actually IS fun and inspiring. So I would like to say a terrific SHOUT out to Cindi, who made me laugh and smile for days. I don’t think I’ve inspired someone like this in a while, so I really appreciate her efforts, not just for the terrifically clever poster, but for the fact that I’ve got a cohort in crime who thinks that boys who dither are incredibly sexy. I plan on getting a nice glossy print made of this and hanging it RIGHT by my computer, to always remind me what’s important in this world: Da Boys!

I have this friend. I’ll just call her Nik, though that’s not her real name. She writes fanfic, or at least she used to. Now she just writes for her work, and says that most of the time it’s incredibly boring. I don’t know why she doesn’t write fanfic anymore, she says she just can’t find anything to say. And maybe that’s because while she was writing it, she was so brilliant, she burned herself out. She was the kind of writer I aspired to be, and in fact, we had a kind of synergy going, and she says I inspired her as well, because she would write something and then I would riff off of that, and then she would riff, and the whole thing was so electric and bright, it’s a wonder we didn’t burn ourselves to ash. Read the rest of this entry »

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Jus In Bello” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An excerpt:

“As explained, the kink factor is already high, and Henriksen brings it up another notch, mentioning how glad he is to see the boys thusly restrained. (Me too, Victor!) Actually, it’s Dean who adds fuel to my fire with his, “Well, aren’t you a kinky son of a bitch, but we don’t swing that way.” (So, like, how many times has Dean denied swinging ANY particular direction and at the least provocation? When I know full well and good that he has to swing some way! Him and Sam both.) Henriksen just laughs and continues to take it out on Sam and Dean, to watch them squirm, because he can. And Dean and Sam, in hand and leg cuffs, can’t do a thing about it.”

Pictures…(Click on the links to display beautiful, full-size pics. Click on thumbnails for smaller but still beautiful pics.)

Dean doesn’t want to kill virgins

Standing as one

Sam, worse for wear

My review for this week’s episode Jus In Bello will be posted on pinkraygun.com on Tuesday. Thanks!

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Mystery Spot” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An excerpt:

“Favorite scene? Confession. In the midst of this everlasting Wednesday, there is a first aid scene. I have long complained, and loudly too, about the dearth of first aid in this series. It has to do with my desire to see affection and caring between the two main characters, not to mention it makes a whole lot of sense, seeing as they get so banged up so often. At any rate, Sam stumbles into his overly tidy motel room, his shirt caked with blood. He is grim. Then he then takes a pair of scissors and starts cutting upward from the bottom of the shirt towards the top, and it is at this moment that I realize what I am seeing, and that is, by Kripke, FIRST AID.”

Pictures…(Click on the links to display beautiful, full-size pics. Click on thumbnails for smaller but still beautiful pics.)

 Beautiful Dean

Sam without Dean

Beautiful Sam

Dithering Duo

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Dream a Little Dream of Me” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An exerpt:

“What makes this scene so cool is the fact that when Big Brother shows up, Sam is drunk. Sam drunk is like a petulant child with his “so what?” and his “you do it,” trying to excuse being drunk at 2 in the afternoon. Except this child is tall and built, has very large manhands, and a head full of Samhair. This scene is so blissful for me, because drunk Sam’s voice is only a register or two above being gravelly. I suppose, since he’s drinking whiskey, its his whiskey voice, his “I’m being tortured, here” voice. What’s even funnier is that when Dean finds out that Sam’s going all emo on him, he orders a double whiskey, neat. I mean, wouldn’t you?”

Dean orders a double

Contemplating Bella

Sprawled

I haven’t seen terribly many posts on this subject, but the ones I have seen have been intelligent and balanced. I imagine there are a few posts out there that aren’t, and each to their own, but I hope I don’t run across those. My weekly review is coming out tomorrow, and I’m thinking that I left the whole John as obsessive bastard out of it because I didn’t feel that PRG was an appropriate forum for my own private views on the subject. Plus, rather than posting to this comment or that, in that I agree or don’t, I thought I’d post my own personal thoughts here. 

First, the whole of Dean’s dream sequence left me rattled. Yeah, TV uses the “confronting self” technique in more than a few places, and never in such a satisfying way. I mean, yeah, I got that Dean was going to face up to himself and that revelations were going to come of it, but NOT like this. If I thought Dean was hard on himself before, man, he was downright cruel. I mean, yes, he was helping himself face what needed to be faced, but like that? Don’t know when I’ve last been so moved, to the point of standing up and shouting out loud. I don’t know where Dean will go from that point on, but I sure as heck know he’s not in limbo anymore. The whole scene was vicious and hard to watch and utterly satisfying. I downloaded it and watched this scene several times, trying to get a grip. Did he say what I thought he said? And what does it mean?

Second, yeah, what he had to say…and how he said it. In the beginning he’s all like, yeah, Dean wake up, let me snap my fingers and you’re history, wake up. Like it’s that easy. Of course it wasn’t. I think he felt like he was in real trouble when he says, “Come on, wake up,” because he could see where Nightmare Dean was taking him and he didn’t want to go. Not at all. It’s one thing to know, in the back of your head that you are messed up and your own worst nightmare, it’s another to face it. So Nightmare Dean taunts him, saying stuff that I never thought I’d hear said aloud, but that I thought. 

Yeah, I always figured Dean had Dad issues, why else would he be driving his Dad’s car (and no other), wearing his Dad’s leather jacket, and listening to music that was HOT when his Dad was his age? Obviously, he adores his Dad and wants to be like him, and imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. So there’s that, and up to a point, it’s normal to admire someone and want to be like them. So that part wasn’t so bad. It was when Nightmare Dean started in with the  whole “all he did was train you, boss you around,” and “Sam he doted on, Sam he loved,” and “you’re just his blunt little instrument,” and Dean’s getting steamed. I was AMAZED that Show went this direction with this, and that they said it out loud. With FORCE and INTENT. Then Nightmare Dean says the worst thing ever, “Your own father didn’t care whether you lived or died, why should you?” Which is when Dean looses it and says all the stuff about The Dad being an obsessive bastard, and the part that broke my heart full out, “He was never there! He was never there for Sammy and I always was.”

True? Obviously Dean believes it, which is what makes it hard. But it isn’t, not really. Because, as any fan recalls, John sold his soul and the Colt for Dean’s life. A father’s love will sacrifice all, so it isn’t really true that John didn’t care whether Dean lived or died. But part of Dean believes it. Hell, maybe all of him does, regardless of what actually happened. He feels unloved, he feels like his one purpose in life has nothing to do with what he wants and who he is. He’s been going on so long with his one purpose being look after Sammy that he’s forgotten to be or want anything else and it’s taken him this long to get mad. So I take this scene as less a reflection of John’s parenting than on Dean’s inabitlity to….be his own man. There’s something whacked there. (Even though I’ve heard the theories that at around 30 you kind of fall apart and put yourself back together again. It happened to me, and then I read up on it, and warned all my friends who were approaching that point so they wouldn’t think they were going crazy when it happened to them.)

I’m not saying John was inculpable here. I belive that yeah, he did train his boys and he wasn’t nice. I think that he did make Dean his brother’s keeper, that he meant for Dean to be a good solider, someone upon whom he could depend, and when Dean turned out to be the best blunt little instrument ever, it must have been rather hard for him to not use that. And keep it honed sharp. John was wrong in that his singlemindedness trained his boys to be hunters before they were old enough to determine that’s what they wanted. Growing up as a hunter? My lord? That’s no life. John had tunnel vision and his boys suffered for it. I think he suffered for it, come to that.

But I don’t, at the same time think that John meant for it to happen. (If Mary had been around, demon or no, there would have been balance.) And I don’t think he had any idea how what he was doing affected Dean, but, being the man he was and in the situation he was he NEVER LOOKED.  That’s where he needs to take the blame. He never looked, he never thought, he never considered – and at the end of it all, his blunt little instrument is having nightmares where he shoots himself in the chest with a sawed off shotgun.

Dean was the kind of kid to take “look after Sammy” as the end all and be all of commands. And Dean doesn’t seem the kind to complain about it, after all, pulling your little brother out of the flames at four years, and then again when you’re 26 is going to solidify that command like cement. So while John’s intent was to keep his boys safe (if you see life as a war, you train for a war), because Dean is that kind of guy, it all went screwy. I think what Dean is saying in this scene, to himself, because no one is listening but him, has less to do with The Dad and more to do with what Dean did with what The Dad gave him. 

Don’t get me wrong, when I see the effect John’s parenting had on his boys, I’m boiling over with fury and I want to spring into action on Dean’s behalf. And I think both Dean and The Dad are both responsible for what went on, not in the same way, but it occurs to me, at this point, that for YEARS Sam kept saying “THIS IS BULLSHIT,” because for some reason he could see the forest for the trees. Dad never listened because Sam was his kid and a mouthy one at that. Dean never listened because Sam was his baby brother and golly, couldn’t possibly have a sane thought in his head that made sense. 

I think there’s enough blame to spread far and wide here. Blame in the sense of taking responsibility, not in the pointing fingers sense. 

When I think about The Dad, I get a headache. Doesn’t help that he looks like JDM, which makes me want to think about him all the more.

Pictures (of course)

The Dad and his boys

The Dad

Demons Made Me Spill My Guts Like a Girl by merrin.

Slash.

This is a dark, dark fic, too dark, in fact, going all AU and impossible on me. Yet the writing was teriffic so I read the whole thing, shaking my head, not liking the premise, but liking the story and the result, if you see what I mean. So I get to this excerpt and I’m like, yeah. It’s like that.

”

“Damn it, Sam. I remember what it said, okay? I remember saying it. You’re doing this because you think I want it and I want you to stop. I don’t need this.”

But the thing is, Sam knows Dean, sometimes better than Dean knows himself. And even though some things have changed and there are secrets in Dean’s eyes he’s never seen before and can only guess at the truth of, he knows this. He knows that Dean wants it, even needs it as much as he does, and he plays the one card that always gets them what they both need.

“I do,” Sam says, and Dean’s resistance crumbles like Sam is the Big Bad Wolf and Dean is the house of straw and that’s how Sam finds out Dean kisses like he’s dying, or like he’s being reborn, like he’ll never need to breathe again. Dean’s hands are on his face and his mouth is open, pressed against Sam’s. He’s making the softest, neediest noises that Sam would be duty-bound to give him crap for if he wasn’t making the same noises himself and even if it’s nothing he ever thought of before, it’s everything he’s always wanted.

Make the Yueltide Gay by nomelon

Slash.

If anything is enough to turn me off a story, the title to this one is. Yeah, gay has been taken over as to mean something entirely different from when it was used as a lyric in a song. But, since this story was rec’d to me by a writer I respect (plutogirl10), I’m game. So I read it. Fell in love. You will too.  

An excerpt:

He looks Sam right in the eye as he makes the first swipe. Sam knows that look. It’s the one from when Dean’s playing pool and has given up any pretence of not being a total shark. It’s that moment where he lines up a shot then doesn’t even look when he takes it, preferring to look his opponent in the eyes and give him both barrels of the patented Dean Winchester cocky bastard grin of doom. Sam knows that Dean stole the move from watching Tom Cruise in The Color of Money, although wild horses couldn’t drag that admission out of Dean. He also knows how good Dean is at pool. That every shot he takes, he knows exactly where the balls are going to end up, that his showboating comes from endless misspent summer days during their formative years, and that Dean never, ever misses. So he just sits still and trusts his brother not to make him look like a lopsided idiot. Dean’s grin softens, and when he does the other side, he pays a little more attention.

Lament of Lost Souls by plutogirl10.

Slash (Sequel to Hunger of Old Mouths)

I loved Hunger of Old Mouths and I love this story too. It’s a big long fic, with plenty of development and sex that has purpose. Or at least sexual intent that has purpose. But it’s never dry or safe or easy. Where the sex pays the price and comes at a price and the connection between the two boys is more solid than before.

My favorite part is Dean holding Sam’s head under the water. Not that I liked him doing that but oh the TRUST there. And the sheer guts to DO it. On both their parts. And the fact that after, they come back together, just as they are (tough, not overly emotional), but changed.

I love this line:

“Anything you want or need, you should have,” Sam whispers carefully, mouth pressed to Dean’s temple and feeling the tension radiating off him in waves. “It goes both ways, Dean — I’m just as tangled up in you. You’re all I’ve ever known and taking that away won’t do anything but ruin me. It’s the only thing that could.”He tightens his fingers against Dean’s skull, gives him a rough kind of shake, then stands up and leaves the room before Dean has enough time to gather himself and kick his ass.

(Because…because…it’s about TIME someone should give their all for Dean, when he’s done it so many times…..and that whole giving thing. That’s love, Sam style.)

And this:

Dean has spent his entire life sweeping Sam aside, keeping him behind. One step further from even the vaguest of threats, and one step further also from Dean. Dean had stood guard, but had done it looking out at the world. He’d faced the darkness, and turned his back on the one thing that was his to nurture.Maybe not so different from their father after all, then.

(Which, is so true, it’s almost painful. It says a lot about John and his way of protecting. and now Dean finds himself doing the SAME thing.)

And THIS, which is perhaps the most profound and loving thing one person can say to another:

“I can see you,” Sam murmurs against his mouth, still trembling slightly. Dean doesn’t need to see Sam’s eyes to know what he means. He knows it has nothing to do with visiblity of flesh.“I know,” Dean says, without fear.