Writing From the Inside

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

An excerpt:

The road trip the boys take gives us even more good story telling and factoids woven in rather than being part of some stiff exposition. The car, for starters, is just THERE, and it is never explained why on earth the Boys are driving a car that’s surely got over 100,000 miles on it, gets terrible gas mileage (12 MPG), and is almost 40 years old. There’s the oft-told story of how Kripke was going to use a late ’60’s model Ford Mustang but decided in favor of the kind of car that when it pulls up beside you at a lonely intersection, you’d be rolling up your windows right quick. Plus, there’s more room in an Impala to store everything the Boys need. Not to mention, you could put six dead bodies in the trunk. If you stacked them right.

Defying authority, of course

Finding answers

Sam and St. Jessica

No chick flick moments

Flashlight guy

On the hunt

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

An excerpt:

Sammykins, on the other hand, makes a delicious priest, with his hair Brylcreemed down and his deep, green eyes paving the way for all sinners to find redemption. Oh, were I that sinner in need of saving and Sammy himself would come and wrestle for my soul. (Or wrestle me, come to that, though I have a feeling that my girly powers would be no match for the wrath of God in THOSE muscles.) When they arrive at Max’s house, he seems to know instinctively who needs saving and who he can leave to the tender though religiously inept mercies of Brother Dean. His voice takes on the right tone, his expression is sweet, and no one, and I mean but no one at that wake doubts for a minute that Sam is man of the cloth.

Sam-I-Am

Brothers

Dean and his toy

Negotiating

Dean contemplates death from his own gun

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

An excerpt:

The cuteness involving the boys (which is far more important even than my campaign for random about-to-be-dead-running-around-naked guys) starts right away when they pull into suburbia to check out the creepy bug thing. Their remarks about how cool or uncool the perfect green lawns and beautiful houses are telling. Sam thinks they are nice, because he’s, at this point, a very nice boy, and he likes nice things. He understands the concept of buying the cheapest house on the block, he understands the value of a savings account, and in fact, he probably has an IRA account (or, because he’s so smart, a Roth IRA) tucked away that even Dean doesn’t know about. Plus, more importantly, Sam’s dream is to live in a place Just Like This. Or rather his dream WAS to live in a place just like this. Right now, during this ep, he just wants to find The Dad and then finish it all up to get back to his old life. Or what’s left of it.

Whatchotalkin’bout?

Tricking little brother

Sam contemplates facts

Awesome!

The face

I’m terribly bad at checking my flist, I think I have it set up wrong, because each and every time I go in there, I’m overwhelemed. So one of my goals this week was to set the filters right, so they made sense. Only that didn’t work out right because I got distracted actually looking at my flist people. Which was lucky in a HUGE way, as it just happens that blacklid is at the top of the list.

As you may or may not know, blacklid won the bid to buy John’s truck, and this week went up to Vancouver (where they are currently filming 3.13 “Ghostfacers.”) She met up with the transpo people (those are the guys who take care of the Impala, the Camero, the Bug, and the Mini Van) and give our boys cool cars to drive!! From her description on her LJ, the car guys were VERY nice and wonderful and cool, and they sound like they are fans themselves, which makes it even better. Plus they went out of their way to help her get everything arranged so she could drive it home. (Check out her LJ for more details!)

Read the rest of this entry »

You can read my review of the Supernatural episode “Devil’s Trap” at pinkraygun.com. Thank you!

An excerpt:

Because they are smart, they find the apartment building called Sunrise, and devise a plan. (Check out Dean’s cute freckles as they hide behind the tree!) I love the fact that they know that if they pull the fire alarm that the city will respond in exactly seven minutes. Whether or not this is true for your borough, the fact is that I imagine that The Dad taught them the response times for all emergency crews, from firemen, to paramedics, police, swat teams, everyone. They are well trained. While you and I are aware that on Fridays, chicken is on sale at the local market, these boys know how long they have before the firemen arrive. Anywhere.

180 Degrees

Carrying Little Brother

Sam under pressure

Beautiful freckles

Watchful eyes

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

An excerpt:

Sam on his own is a lot like a lost child, with his schoolbag and his tan jacket that keeps slipping off his shoulders in the rain. Then he has a vision, which looks like a very bad migraine, but alas, there is no one there to comfort him. But instead of falling prey to his own misery, Sam pays attention to the vision, and figures out that the woman and her baby who are in danger live near the railroad tracks. Out comes his map, and off he goes. I like to imagine that he RAN the whole way, following the line of the tracks, stopping to check his bearings every so often, to pull his jacket up yet again, and then kept on going, regardless of how bad he feels. Sam’s like that, you see. He might whine about the food, or bitch at Dean for no particular reason, but on his own, like he is here, he matures about 10 years, and looks for help from no one. (I notice how badly Sam needs a haircut here. I hope he never gets one.)

The Colt and those Notes

Convincing Sammy

Trained to flirt

Charming the panties off a nun

Lonely man

Stopping the car

At Escapade this year, K’Kathy and I ran a panel called John: Bad Dad. But then we (K’Kathy) changed it a bit to be less provocative, because really, I don’t know any fan who thinks that John was totally horrible. So at the end, this was the description about the panel, and points for discussion, in case we ran out of things to say, which, needless to say, didn’t happen:
***

Panel: SPN: John: Good Hero, Bad Dad?

Description: Leave your weapons behind but I think it would be interesting to discuss what kind of father John Winchester actually was. He has so many good qualities and so many bad ones….people get so riled about this subject, it might be nice to hear some debate on it. Read the rest of this entry »

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

An excerpt:

Outside, it gets good, and I mean good. Dean is incensed at Sam, asking, “Dude, were you bitching about me to some girl?” For Dean, it’s not what Sam said about the luggage, it’s the fact that he said anything at all. This particular complaint feels incredibly girly to me, because usually it’s one of your girlfriends who will say, “Oh, I can’t believe you told her that about me!” when in fact what she really wants to know is what ELSE you said about her. This is how girls often exchange information, through a third party. It maintains lines of communication, and also includes everyone. Which is how girls talk. So to hear Dean working this line, it’s almost like he asking, “What ELSE did you say about me?” Because what he really wants to know is, “Did you tell her I was your favorite brother?”

A Man Loading His Gun

Aiming For the Bad Guy

Brothers In Arms

Bruised

That Smile

Yet Another Message For The Dad

Last Outpost of All That Is by eight_horizon.

Slash.

This is the comment I made to the author, straight up:

I don’t like end of the world fic either because it makes me sad too. Amalthia, though, I trust her like crazy, and she assured me that this was fantastic. And it was, so very very much so. I read the whole dang thing in one sitting, because it was that good. Amalthia had warned me so I was ready. As I ever could be, considering.

First, your writing is so good, you capture the characters, Sam is Sam and Dean is Dean. Which, sometimes is much harder than it might at first seem.

Second, they don’t rush into sex. Sex becomes a part of who they are together, but it’s not the only thing that defines them, and you do that beautifully here.

Third, I think you got it right. I could tell you’d thought it through, and didn’t rush through thinking about gas stations and frozen pork chops and running water. Even though it boggles my mind to read about, you did a fantastic job, I believed it ALL. You never rushed any of it, it felt careful and real and honest.

And lastly, I was very brave. I read the whole thing and jumped at shadows when the boys jumped, and was glad when they pulled out their guns, or shouted to each other. I about died when Sam fell off the roof. And then I got to this part:

“Sam took up drawing. He’d sketched throughout his life for fun, but with more time dedicated to it, he turned out to be pretty good. The landscape around the house, the beaches of the reservoir, the way the light hit the stairs from the front windows; he captured them easily. Dean thought it was cool until he woke in time one morning to catch Sam sketching him.”

and

“Dean started writing his own music on the guitar. Sam knew it right away, and not only because he didn’t recognize the songs. He felt them in his bones as if he was listening to Dean’s voice murmur in the dark about things he’d usually never dare say.”

It was at this point that I bawled my eyes out, no longer brave. No longer to say, yeah, sure, apocalypitic fic, everything’s okay. Because Christ on a crutch, you….you, hell, I can’t even explain it. I can’t take stuff like this, just can’t. Thank GOD the story was over mostly at that point (except it wasn’t, because thank goodness you didn’t kill them off, they’ll outlive us all, and that’s something good, right?) because my insides felt like they’d been twisted around peices of metal and then that metal got twisted around something else, and just. Just.

You slay me. I don’t think I will EVER and I mean ever read apocalyptic fic again, not even if Amalthia rec’s it to me. Okay, maybe if it’s got Evil!Sam or something, then it’s just a fantasy, cause Sam would never really turn evil and hurt his beloved Dean.

Right? RIGHT?

Hell, I don’t know what to belive anymore. This story was SO good, my head is spinning. Are we done now? Can I crawl into bed and pull the covers up way high and try to think about pink ponies and fat sassy kittens and…something easy. Life Lite. Anything! (Yeah. Job well done. You got to me.)

Shelter Beneath the Mundane by drvsilla.

Slash.

I’ve decided that I quite like amnesia fic, which is what I thought this was. But it turned out to be Dean in hell fic, that is a story where Dean goes to hell and Sam gets him out. There’s not a lot of hot sex here, but there is intelligent storycrafting, whereby Dean suffers through the fires of hell by imagining he’s still got a purpose. And that is, running a little breakfast place for all those people he was unable to save, and who are also in hell. I quite liked the concept, because it was original and it FITS with how Dean sees himself. He’s one of those who does what must be done. He’s very duty bound, and his way of controlling the pain of hellfire is by doing his duty. Lovely.

Excerpt:

Dean began the day’s routine, same as yesterday, same as tomorrow would follow. Coffee first, left to percolate and fill the huge silver urns that lined the back counter; one of them gurgled and he thumped it with the heel of his hand, nodded in satisfaction when it groaned and steadied on. Grill warmed and eggs set next to it for omelets or sunnysides, bacon laid down to pop while it cooked, bread and muffins and rolls in case someone wanted it as a sandwich. Everything else was where it should be – plenty of fruit in the basket next to the register, cinnamon rolls still fresh enough to serve, mints in small tins just because.