swan_bite

\o/ lemme just say that i love when strapping young men cuddle each other like cats. for realsies, it's better than sex to me. xP shut up.

/o\ i have been trying to steer clear off any spoilers for S7-Supernatural because i'm worried i'll get my heartbroken and suffer horribly beforehand and during and then after. better to just suffer during and after, despite all rumors to the contrary i am not a masochist. i am apprehensive though. that dread horror movie feeling you get when you know shit is about to go down like Jason on the Titanic. i'm so scared for Castiel-- not necessarily that he may die, because who are we kidding here, this is Supernatural, Jesus's resurrection is nothing next to these biatches. but i am worried that they might ruin the character beyond repair and that Cas-haters will use shoddy canon to get their Cas-hateration on. anyway, i'm already prophesying evil stories in my head, i don't need hysterical commentary and spoilers to make it worst.




\o/ read "Feed" by Mira Grant, and are now even more obsessed than i used to be about zombies. i love apocalypse movies, books, comics. when i was a kid i'd watch and rewatch "The Plague" with Raul Julia and William Hurt like other kids watched "Goonies."


"Feed" is a near-future political thriller where bloggers are respectable journalists with government licenses & pack heat, the Zombie Apocalypse has actually happened, and we survived thanks to savior of mankind: George Romero. WHAT WOULD GEORGE ROMERO DO? there are quite a few zombies still walking the Earth ready to eat us, but we've got the proper technology to survive them, and we do just like we used to survive all the other predators that tried to eat us back in the day of caves and clubs and bows and arrows. in this AU, there are different types of bloggers: Fictionals (who write fic & poetry), Stewarts (who give you news/opinions), Irwins (poking crocks zombies is their specialty), and Newsies (they give you the news straight up, no thrills and frills). in the middle of all this are Newsie!George and Irwin!Shaun Mason, an intrepid brother-sister duo who have been chosen to follow a political candidate in the road to the presidency. it's a book for nerds. yeah, the zombies are a constant threat, but the science behind the infection is a big deal (OMG I FUCKING LOVE WORLD-BUILDING SO MUCH I WANT TO GAY MARRY IN IT IN NY) and so are the characters. in the end, it's not the zombies who are the real bad guys in this story... this is what i love about good sci-fi, how it puts things on a grand scale in order to magnify the little things without being twee or corny about them. love and living large and carpe diem are not that trite when tomorrow your granny might be munching on yr brain.

in a way it's also an issues book (politics/corruption, the integrity of the news & journalists, fame whores, the culture of fear, terrorism, the role of Religion without discernment in promoting wtfuckery, truth and how far you'll go to preserve it, etc.). but a well written issues book. like, it transcends the issues and is all about the story with those issues added in making it all better. not many nerdy, smart, fun zombie books out there and this is one of them.

two --er-- caveats? i don't even know what to call them, because i'm not really warning you about these things, like Shaun would never try to dissuade somebody from walking into a zombie-infested zone because he wouldn't wanna deprive you of fun-- but, just keep your head about you is all i'm sayin.'

uno- not gonna lie there's also a bit of a sam&dean type of relationship going on with cynical George and jaunty, wise-cracking Shaun which left me interested, and no, not in the porny sense. i just love rly intense claustrophobic relationships that don't have a smidgeon of health to them. because screw health on the missionary, i just want intensity, intimacy, the realization that these two people work because of each other and if one of them was to die the other one would be ruined without them. grand passion, you know, and all that.

dos- one thing that didn't quite jive with me was how George would pretend to be a Newsie when she really felt like a Stewart in her blog entries. not objective and free from opinion at all-- specially as the story progressed and she became closer and closer to the Republican candidate. (yes, Republican, but don't hold that against him. the world has gone mad, zombies are walking the Earth and a Republican candidate is actually kinda cool for some of the values of...). that might have been intentional though, i'm still thinking about it.

i am desperately seeking susan looking for an artist to draw my summer header. and summer? it's almost over. okay, i'm exaggerating but not by much. what do I want?

Sin (from the very enjoyable Demon's Surrender) Baby Doll, Castiel, Erik, Harry Potter & Spock chillin' at the beach, like it's a Corona commercial, with said coronas and margaritas and whatever else being drank while tanning. is that really too much to ask? come on, you know you want to see Castiel and Spock building a sandcastle while Harry warns Erik on the dangers of becoming the Next Dark Lord while Erik flirts with him (having that thing for earnest, self-righteous boys that he does) and Sin and Baby Doll share a huge beach-towel and Sin rubs a LOT of sunscreeen on Baby's delicate skin because it could burn to a crisp and...er...my screen is getting foggy and i've lost my train of thought. what was i talking about again?

right. i need to find me an artist. =/ you know any? help me out. pls?

let it be known this is just my opinion blah blah blah i'm very picky blah blah blah sometimes i'll change my mind the more i think about a book and often i'll like it less and less blah blah blah.

AWESOME:
Swordspoint (relevant to slashy interests)
The Mismeasure of Man
Jane Eyre
Push
The Hunger Games (the first one)
Kushiel's Dart (relevant to slashy & femmeslashy interests)
Dragon Soul (Fandom authors)
The Master and Margarita
Slaughterhouse Five

COOL:
The Road (sadface)
The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas (sadface)
The Wet Nurse's Tale (saucy & sadface by turns)
The Panda's Thumb
Catching Fire (i started liking the series less and less with each new installment)
The Graveyard Book
Havemercy (Fandom authors)
Shadowmagic
Liquor: A Novel (relevant to slashy interests)
Gone with the Wind (compellingly readable)

YUCK:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (zzzzzzzzzzzz)
Blood Brothers (i tried, but the Romance genre is not my cuppa. not the author's fault.)
The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks
Wes & Toren
Silver Phoenix (this one moved from the like pile, to the meh pile, to the yuck pile)
Zero at the Bone
Dead until Dark
Mockingjay

MEH:
The Lincoln Lawyer
Whistling in the Dark

**idk if anybody's noticed but i've been on a bit of a hiatus! and not the kind of hiatus that means that Filomena is a partyin' ho with a really long dance card. oh, noes! Filomena has been studying and working and her life is a big workaholic mountain of poo. poo! FML. oh, and i'm talking about myself in the 3rd person which is totally a sign of major loserdoom and incoming depression.

***i am seriously loving USA shows, nerdy jewish doctors, suave bisexual conmen and their adorakable bisexual G-men, suits suits and more suits, notices that burn, guns and holsters, etc...well, except Covert Affairs. i know, i know. i really tried, and i wanted to love Annie, because idk if you guys know this amazing piece of information but Piper Perabo was a gorgeous lesbian in "Imagine You & Me" with the indomitable Lena Headey who is so hawtass that when people tell me Queen Cersei is a horrible bitch i say YES YES YES SHE IS DO YOU SEE THE HEARTS IN MY EYES THE PINK SPARKLY HEARTS?!?!? THEY ARE FOR HER BECAUSE I LOVE HER OMG! *runs around in circles* but yeah, Covert Affair sucks imo and if the CIA is that boring i'm going to have to stop using that as a come-hither line.


****i'm considering dipping my toes in the X-Men: First Class Fandom, but i'm sooooooooooooooo picky about exactly what i want that i think it'll just be an incoming avalanche of disappointment. after all, though the movie (i thought) did a good job of not being a Xavier or Magneto apologist, fanfic'ers already seem to be picking sides talking about "privileged" or "intolerant" or whatever. like, goddamn it, why can't you guys just leave stuff a little complex, ambiguous and not use fanfic as propaganda? when a movie about superheroes seems to be more nuanced than the meta on it-- idek, guys. this is why we can't have nice things or why i'm so freaking hesitant, either one.


*****i did somehow have time to read and not really like a few bigbang fics, but then again, i've purposely been leaving off anything that sounds truly good as a present for myself. like, umm, anything glassyskies has ever written and will ever write, 'cause that fierce bitch can do no wrong, and britomart_is 's big bang which I'm pretending was written for me, because j'adore Jess. yep, and though i have a hard time buying threesomes (they are usually graphic and not really passionate) Jess/Dean/Sam and any variation thereof is amazingly appealing to me in the right hands (like, the non-girl-hating hands? those hands) stfu, the woman has legs up to her armpits and she was clearly kickass. (in my mind canon, Jess is Girl!Dean and don't tell me that's not trufax, 'cause i ain't gonna listen.


*******if you haven't been reading "Captive Prince" I FEEL SO SORRY FOR YOU. SERIOUSLY. LIKE, OCEANS OF PITY IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION. yes, this is a rec. take this shit seriously, yo. it will change your life.

********also, damn you rhythmsextion for making me like football enough that i'm watching "Necessary Roughness" right now and thinking J2! J2! J2!

from the very beginning i realized, along with the rest of y'all, that the philosophy of this show wasn't centered on redemption or victory or living in a world where evil could be overcome if you tried long and hard. that it wasn't about winning, but about going on, persevering? with someone you love and would die for and live for at your side.

at first i wasn't sure if this lovely pessimistic outlook was just bleed from Dean's bravado. a dystopian pov as fake and superficial as big bro's tough guy, idgaf macho persona, but soon enough the little Kripkean fatalistic streaks started to surface. i could recognize it because my grandmother was the same way. whenever things went well she'd be primly and patiently waiting for the Universe to right itself, sure that horrid shit was waiting in the bushes like crouching tiger, hidden dragon getting ready to jump and hit the fan.

found some ComicCon vids on youtube where Jensen talked about how the two brothers were like two cowboys (which made the fangirls go crazy and (SOME) fanboys yearn for a simpler time when "cowboy" wasn't synonymous with "gay"). going in i thought about how SPN's more like "A Fist Full of Dollars" than "Unforgiven." the type of cowboy film where the protag is the one the audience roots for because the other men around him are less badass and more assholistic than him. i, like Samn'Dean when they were looking at the speck of dust in the other one's eye, was critical of the Winchester's methods (even while i adored them, because unconditional love doesn't mean blind love in my part of the woods). shooting the shit, just waiting for the awkward moment when the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is the good guy's names are on the marquee.

a somewhat softer version of: There are no bad guys. There are no good guys. There are only better guys, and worse guys. -Blakes 7

i'm not saying that Samn'Dean weren't basically decent people, just that they lived in a dystopian world where morality was a moving target, and corruption was only a question of time. Gordon showed me the good hunter is not always the good guy and the good guy (air quotes) doesn't always win. just ask John.

cowboy movies tend to be about morally flawed individuals who are out for revenge or out to correct some injustice where injustice is the status quo. noir (to me) is the story of how that (metaphorical) cowboy turns into the kind of guy who can avenge and correct. not there to show you how he fucks people up, saves the wenches, drinks the saloon and rides into the sunset, but to show the audience what kind of dude can find a job like that and actually fucking marry it. so though SPN started out as a cowboy journey, the relationship btw the boys, the focus on the characters made it much noirish.

in SPN, Sam starts out as the ingenue, Jess's fiery death kickdropping him on his road toward revenge. in their world normal meant love, hope, a family born of affection and nurturing. ya know, not sacrifice, blood, sweat, tears and death. Dean? dude was set up as a foil, the jaded cynical soul who knew better than to expect well of a world that was a great black pit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it, and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit. and yet, looking back, i could see that he too went on a journey and he also had plenty of innocence to lose.

for me, noir was the name of the game until s6, funnily enough when Sera Gamble became conscious of just how film noirish the show was and decided to bite off more than she could chew. reminds me of "Dorian Gray" who loses his inner beauty the second Basil (or Henry?) makes him conscious of how gorgeous he is. Jensen's views about Dean's characterization would apply here too, Dean is cool because he is, but if he tried to be, consciously, it would turn into the Borat-worthy cringe fest that was his acting scene during "The French Mistake."

like i've said before (find noir meta here), s6 had all of the trappings of noir (trappings found in other successful versions of noir) and sprinkled them throughout the season all the while not realizing that the hero of the season, the Bud White, Veronica, Sam Spade was not Sam or Dean, but Castiel. not realizing who was slowly losing his soul in order to save everyone else's (the Cain's mark of the central character in any noir endeavor) was Castiel made the season feel so jumbled, boring, faily and disconnected. i'm not saying there weren't amazing episodes this season, episodes that made me cry with what could have been...but this is the first season i've ever felt bored with SPN and i never thought that could ever happen.

why? because the action was in hell, in purgatory and in heaven. why? because the most interesting journey took place off-screen. why? because the hero got just one episode. what a missed opportunity s6, was. here's hoping for the next one.

in conclusion?

i have to get used to this shit. so many of the posts there seem to be about askbox-people's flattering comments and the posters acting bashful, thankful, about how anonys and their friends think they are so awesome, amazingsauce, hawt, pretty, brilliant, so quirky and random and insightfuly cracky. which is fine every once in a while, but when 70% of the posts seem to be about that-- dear Gostiel. YES YOU ARE AWESOME, IF YOU WEREN'T I WOULDN'T FOLLOW YOU. GET IT, KNOW IT, STOP POSTING ABOUT IT.

reminds me of that character in Austen's Emma who was all, "Well, I've never thought my sandwiches were wonderful, but my friends always say my sandwiches are the very best in the world."

i'm so used to LJ, where people leave those in the comments section and i can and not a fuck was given on that day while i try to have crabbycakes conversations.


hand me my cane...i need to go tell these tumblr kids to get off my lawn dash.


x-posted (abbreviated less pleasant version) at tumblr.

-rape psa:


-i'm kind of in fannish love with Sandy and i've only seen her act as the crossroads demon. it's weird what being in fandom does to you, where you end up liking/giving a shit about people whose work you barely know. i used to have these impossibly high standards about liking famous people, because i hated this society's fascination with all things famous, and now look at me. liking a girl because i've seen a few youtube clips and i've read fanfic about her. also, her face and her body make every argument completely invalid, but yes-- my sense of discernment has gone by the wayside.

-Cas & Dean

"HELLO, HUMANS. LOOK AT YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER. NOW BACK TO ME. NOW BACK TO HIM. NOW BACK TO ME.

"SADLY, HE IS NOT ME. BUT IF HE SWALLOWED BROKEN GLASS AND CHASED IT WITH WHISKEY, HE COULD SOUND LIKE HE'S ME.

"LOOK DOWN, BACK UP, WHERE ARE YOU? YOU'RE IN A DEN OF INIQUITY WITH THE ANGEL YOUR MAN COULD SOUND LIKE.

"WHAT'S IN YOUR HAND? BACK TO ME. I HAVE IT: IT'S A WINCHESTER. LOOK AGAIN: THE WINCHESTER IS NOW NAKED. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE WHEN YOUR MAN SOUNDS LIKE CASTIEL AND NOT A LADY.

"I'M A BADASS MOTHERFUCKER."

:D:D:D:D:D fandom even makes that horrible finale palatable. i think the trick is to treat heart-break with crack. imagine Godstiel as a grandstanding megalomaniacal kinkbastard and for a sec you can almost forget that Castiel, devoted guardian angel in the worship and service of Dean Winchester, no longer exists. omg, i make myself cry again. poo.


- anybody else going to watch Cry Wolf and chat tomorrow? no? just me? meh.

* the little train is Castiel

* "bitch" and c*nt (use of star to avoid possible triggers) are positive words to me. which is why, while i agree with the sentiment (Jared shouldn't have to worry about getting sexually harassed at cons) calling the woman who did it a "bitch" does not fly with me. at all. stop calling women who do something you don't approve of skanks and bitches. seriously.

* i've been watching "Community" to get to my happy place and omg, it's the best thing to happen to me since i found out that if you pour nutela in your Coke, the world may sneer at you and call you a teenage boy, but your life will be that much better. i need to find me some icons.

* this is epic ftw. i watched the vid yesterday --wait, was it the day before?-- morning and it made me cry my eyes out + grin like a loon all day. seriously beautiful. it's actually not that surprising to me. i've been called slurs (of the sexual orientation kind) in NYC (home of awesome people and rapist cops). never in the South and i lived in the South for a while and have only visited NY for weeks at a time at various stages in my life (because as i said, home of awesome people). (also ran into some trouble in Paris, which o.O, but there you go. being in a metropolitan area is no guarantee that you're going to be treated like a human being.)

* today must be my unbirthday (THANK YOU SO MUCH cherie_morte AND glassyskies ♥ ♥ NO WORDS, SERIOUSLY, NO WORDS.) :D:D:D:D:D:D

( cut for Cas-based cryes bc no1curr )

in fiction, as in reality, what counts many times is not whether the two characters/people actually consummate their relationship either by words (you know, asexual romantic people) or by actions (sexy tiems!) but whether there is the great and on the edge potential for a romantic relationship.

if we claim we are all about “show, don’t tell” then Cas/Dean are certainly about that. i’m not saying that this is the only possible interpretation to the canon— I would never say that. yet, i resent the accusation that if i do see their relationship as romantic i am using my slash goggles. no, i am not. i am perfectly happy with seeing two men love each other without adding any sort of sexual element to the equation and some of the Dean/Cas stories i most adore are no more graphic than canon is (little touches & intense and/or loving looks). i do think there’s a romantic element to how Castiel thinks of Dean, even if sometimes i consider it one of the most gorgeous, tragic, unrequited love stories of all time. (not because Dean doesn’t return the love, but because he doesn’t recognize it for what it is.)

maybe it’s because i love epistolary love-stories (sometimes the characters have never seen each other when they’re already embroiled in a passionate love-affair; Griffin & Sabine, anyone?) and i ship Abelard and Heloise (Abelard was castrated, yikes! no sexing for them— also Francis/Claire? no sexing, loads of romance, though). for me, the sexual element is secondary to the great meeting of two souls that could be embodying any bodies at all. besides, in fiction, if it’s not ALL about the titillation and the hawtness and it’s a little bit about something else, then the sex is also a metaphor for “the profound bond.” just like “the profound bond” can then be a metaphor for sex.

***

reblogged as a reply to another meta post (by homoerotics) from my tumblr found here. (trust-you-less)

;D i can't promise i'll ever post anything of any sort of substance or whatevfuck, but if you have a tumbler i'd like to follow you. so, umm, tell me where it is, bbs? <3 ty!