Writing From the Inside

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

An excerpt:

“Then Sam and Dean track the PGs to their lair, and pick the lock to enter the dwelling uninvited, no doubt staining the carpet with the heels of their muddy boots and sneakers. (They’ve brought stakes made of Evergreen, and there’s a fantastic scene where Dean sharpens these between his marvelous thighs. Don’t get me started.) As they wander through the house, looking for something e-vile, I got the feeling that they really didn’t have a clue what all the decorations were about. Yes, in theory, but why someone would have seven (yes, seven) snow globes, piles of cookies, miles of garland, and a plethora of Santa statues, etc., only to have to take them down in a few weeks is beyond them. I guess that’s my problem, too, why put ‘em up if you only have to take them down? So I’m projecting onto the boys, even though, by the looks on their faces, they would be agreeing with me: what IS all this stuff? You know, cause for the boys, stuff is stuff, and either it’ll be useful in a fight, you can use it to wash blood out of your clothes, or you can eat it. Otherwise, it’s just stuff.”

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

Sam hogs the couch

Beautiful Dean

Driving Down the Darkness by nutkin

Slash.

Oh, man. This story was perfect. It had no flaws. It was 40,000 words of pure goodness. I think what I liked best was the slow pacing and the atmosphere of normalcy in which the relationship built up. There was no slap dashed-ness to this. The story covers the first season by the end of which Sam and Dean are together, replete with all the “this is wrong, this is so wrong” angst that makes it so real for me and that I love so well.

At first I wondered how an author could actually pull it off, following through every ep and making coda scenes out of it, but it worked. In a few places the writer actually writes out the actual scene and gives us the interior thoughts, including the all important scene from Provenance, when Sam says “It’s not just Jess.” Always wondered what he meant by that, now I know.

 The writing is solid and good and descriptive in the right places. A pleasure to read all the way through. This woman knows her craft. Here’s a quote:

“The truth is, there had been times at school when he really wished they weren’t out here waiting for him. He wished the stories he told were true – a childhood spent traveling because of work, a drunk father, a brother who didn’t care. He wished he could sweep the truth under the rug and believe the lies. It would have made his life so much easier, and there were ugly times when he wished they’d just disappear, leave him to the life he had created.

In all his vague acceptance that death might come for him, he never stopped to think about what he might leave behind. He’s got another good twenty to thirty years before his midlife crisis comes knocking, so it’s never been much of an issue. Yeah, he lives his own life. Yeah, he fucks around. You have to find your pleasure where you get it when you live by the sword.

But when he saw death coming, when time seemed to splinter and dance blue sparks across the water, what flashed in front of him wasn’t his whole life. It wasn’t the good and the bad, the people he’s saved and the battles he’s won, his sins and lies and wrong-doings.

It was just Sam.

Like looking at photographs, he could remember the two of them chasing each other through roadside fields, playing cowboys and Indians and shooting cans on fences. Wading in muddy rivers and hopping between weeds in sidewalk cracks so their feet didn’t burn. Corner store Slurpees, lips stained blue with syrup. All the punched shoulders, all the noogies, all the late-night whispered conversations alone in the car and motel beds. Eighteen summers, eighteen springs, splashing in puddles and having each other’s backs.

That’s what his mind found to remember; that’s what his life was all about.”

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

An excerpt:

“Oh. My. Holy. Hell. It’s The DAD. The boys are shocked ghost white to find The Dad sneaking up on them. (The last time they were together, ages ago, they agreed that The Dad would be safer apart from his boys.) The Dad slips into the backseat of the Impala like he owns the place and takes the letter from Dean. Instantly the scene flips from two brothers floundering around to three men on a mission, one of whom is in charge of everything and everyone. The Dad doesn’t read the letter aloud, he merely scans it, mutters to himself (with those pillowy lips of his), and then starts barking out orders. There’s a vampire nest, they are going after it. There’s a gun, The Dad wants it. Follow me, The Dad says, and off they go.”

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

Dean and Sam hunting vampires

Sam laughing with The Dad

Sam and Dean and The Dad

I recently took a road trip. It was right after Halloween, and I drove from Panama City Beach, FL, to where I live in Colorado. For anyone else, I think the roadtrip would have been drudgery, but I had plenty of time, new tires on the car, and an interesting itinerary. I went along I-10 by New Orleans, up 45 through Texas, and then headed up 287 to Childress, TX, where I took 83 north up through Kansas. I took this route partially based on the book Road Trip USA by Jamie Jensen (which is a very handy book for those quirky road trips) and partially because I wanted to go someplace empty. Having recently been laid off, I wanted the emptyness to fill me up, and with the book telling me that there were plenty of gas stations along the way, I had the confidence to do so.

Read the rest of this entry »

Birds on a Wire and Beggars Would Ride by Killa.

Slash.

This story was the first SPN fiction I ever read. I remember that it was because I was looking at Amalthia’s rec list and being overwhelmed, selected the fiction that had the same title as a songvid I once made. I’ve always loved this song and what it was about, so click, off I went. Lucky, lucky me! I got a great story by which all other stories I read in this fandom will be judged. How’s that for subjective reading?

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had several discussions with fans over the past fiew days, for no reason in particular, but they all seemed to end up in the same place, and that is, whether or not fanfiction is superior to profiction. Read the rest of this entry »

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

An excerpt:

“Back in Bod’s office, the boys discuss that the stuff on the handle was sulphur (a very nasty mineral from Hell), and determine that the whole thing smacks of demons. They are leery because it’s their first time with demons and it’s not as straightforward as a salt-n-burn. They look durn cute, though, as they dither, ties undone, shirt collars unbuttoned, looking hot (in the literal sense), and just about ready to take those suits off. If they could hear me, I would tell them I could help them with that. (I’ve got a thing for English schoolboys, see, and this scene just about does me in. Sam looks like the good schoolboy, and Dean, you know, he’s the naughty one.)”

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

Dean and Sam at the airport

Sam peeks out

Dean looks worried

Season of the Witch by vaingirlfic.

Slash.

Sequel to Outside by the Blue, Blue Moon and OH man. Dean’s got to put the peices back together after rescuing SammySamSam from this horrible spell that was put on him. Sam saves himself, see, but he’s in peices. He needs Dean. Dean puts Sam back together, and all’s well that ends well. Only it’s not perfect, right, but it’s good. Winchester good. Where everyone’s alive and that’s all that matters. More like this, please.

When It’s Twelve O’Clock We Climb the Stairs by cormallen.

Slash.

 I hate stories like this one, I really hate them. Stories that are about the time AFTER Dean dies because Sam can’t save him, that are so sad, they rip your guts out, and so creepy and unnerving, you’ll be seeing them on the back of your eyelids for days. In this one, Sam manages to concoct a spell to raise Dean from the dead. Of course, it’s not Dean, but it takes Sam the entire story to figure it out. I had to read the WHOLE thing to find out for sure too. It seems to me that this author owes me a sequel in which Sam figures out the REAL way to do it and brings Dean back for real. Oh man. Tissues please.

The Placement of Water and Lead by katjad.

Slash.

Reads like an ep. Has many good elements of a lot of good eps, the conflict between good and evil and the choices the boys have to make to decide what to do. The save at the end is a little easy (Dean guesses), but I enjoyed the ep-feel of this one, and the action scenes, which were well done. How Dean thinks is true and clear, like:

“Sometimes when Dean thinks things through, his gut tightens into a dense leaden ball and he understands things that he didn’t know before. He tried to explain the feeling to Sam, once, right after Sam first told him about the visions, but this is nothing like the visions. Sam’s visions are about things he couldn’t possibly know, that push into his mind uninvited; the lead in Dean’s gut is made up of the things he already knows coming together until they fit, until they make obvious what he almost knew before and couldn’t put his finger on.”

and

“”Sam! You’ve gotta unlock the door, I can’t get in ’til you do,” he says, keeps repeating something on the same theme until it gets through to Sam and the bolt turns in the lock. Sam’s on the floor, fingers tangled in his hair, clutching at his skull and rocking. Dean pulls him out of the tiny, porcelain-hard bathroom, and into the room, onto the carpet, but the vision just won’t end; he’s practically howling now, and Dean stops thinking entirely and pulls Sam into his arms and close.”

and especially

“Since he was six years old Dean has catalogued every room he’s entered for exits, cover and weapons the moment he entered it, and this room is no different. He has the image of the whole place in his mind instantly. The bed’s the only cover, and Sam’s got his gun. The rest of the guns are under the front of the bed, out of reach. His knife is on his belt, which is somewhere on Sam’s side of the bed, near the bathroom. There’s only one door to the outside, which is on Dean’s side of the room, but he’d never make it the ten feet between here and the door without giving Sam a clear line of sight.”