We will not cease this tomfoolery.

Coda: SPN 5.10

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:36:32 GMT

The tragedies we invent
Castiel & Jo. Coda to SPN 5.10

Jo catches his arm as he makes to join the Winchesters. He frowns down at her hand, petite, fine-boned, callused with a miracle of fine veins threading through animated flesh, and when it fails to remove itself, he lifts his gaze to her face.

She raises her eyebrows as if vaguely amused. “Let them be. They need time to bond.”

“Bond?” He knows this is a chemical entrenchment, this is an intertwining of matter, this is an adhesive process, and this is also mortal warrior of some athletic prowess whom Dean admires greatly. He does not understand the relevance of her semantics. They are not in contact. He casts a look over with some trepidation. They are not merging on a chemical level. They are not undergoing any discernible social ritual. They are not even concerning themselves with weaponry.

“You know, be boys, drink beer, talk shit about girls.” She pauses, and her eyes lower in the manner that indicates a shift in the intended impact of conversational tone, “learn how to be with each other again.”

“I do not understand.” Castiel considers adding an exhalation to punctuate his intellectual frustration, but does not feel sufficiently practiced in the process. He has become much more conscious of his failures in the minutiae of human communication since Dean took it upon himself to begin educating him on its finer points.

Her lips tilt, and for the first time, she looks him in the eye, an ulterior motive glittering in her own. “Of course you don’t. You never even learnt how to be a real boy.”

And that’s how the whiskey comes out.

At some point, Ellen joins them and arranges a line of glasses, her movements deft and practiced, and Castiel remembers that this is her chosen vocation. He wants to ask her why she would choose a life of dispensing mildly poisonous substances to her fellow human beings over a life spent in worship and adulation of a higher being, but is not sufficiently invested in her personality that he cares to take the time to arrange the conversation.

When he finishes the third line of shot glasses and begins to understand the pleasure of finishing a multitude of small portions over the simplicity of employing a larger vessel, he says that he feels something. Because the two humans across the table from him cease to be peripheral objects and begin to matter.

Sam and Dean matter because they are vessels, because they are the be all and end all of his father’s creation, and because when he looks upon them, he wishes them to be content. He wants to preserve them as they are, entities of skin and blood with particular patterns of behaviour and thought. The continued existence of their particular construction has become integral to his own understanding of the universe in which he moves.

These two humans, though, these two women, Jo and Ellen, Ellen and Jo, they are transformed. They have ceased to be a series of disassociated lines and edges and limbs, and become something happily blurred into whole beings, who laugh and speak and ripple through him.

He is, he realizes, quaintly, belatedly, enjoying himself.

After the photograph, Jo comes to him, smiling wide, and smacks her open palm against his breast.

“I can’t believe you’re still wearing this thing. Is it attached to your skin, is there anything underneath there? Hello!” She’s laughing, her words twisting around each other and she plucks at the coat that encloses his body, tilting so her hair falls in messy, golden waves and peering underneath the flap she has lifted.

Castiel experiments, he mirrors her face and smiles, and she, looking up from her tilted position, catches her breath in such a perfect mannerism of delight that Castiel records it for future use.

“I can take it off.” He declares, softly, because she is so very close, and he can hear her heart beating, can feel it through the fingers she still has layered against the coat.

“Do you – “ She doesn’t look away, not like Dean does, doesn’t move away from the space that Dean calls ‘personal’, comes closer, but doesn’t touch, no more than she already is, and she frowns up at him when he lowers his head to meet her halfway.

“Do I?” He asks, because suddenly he is curious, suddenly what she wants to say to him matters. He realizes with a start that he has failed to remove the trench coat, and thinks that maybe this is her question, worries that he has missed an implication to action. Quickly, easily, with a thought, the coat slides off his shoulders.

Her mouth makes a perfect circle. She snaps it closed after a moment, but he can still feel her breath, rich with whiskey, and warm. It’s always the warmth of humanity that disarms him.

She clears her throat, “Do you sleep?”

“I have not.” It is true. He has never tried.

“Do you want to?”

He has watched Dean sleep, seen Sam have nightmares. He understands the function, but not the desire.

“I … will try anything once.” He likes this phrase, keeps it strung up on the wire he hangs in his thoughts, the wire that started twisting itself when he first encountered the concept of agency. It was Bond, playing in the background of the Winchester’s motel room, who first gave him the means to put a name to that urge.

Jo laughs, suddenly, brilliantly, and grasps his hand. She is scared of the future. That is the look in her eyes, the energy coursing through her, pushing her to him and drawing him to her. They are both scared.

In the morning, when Dean walks through the room, a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and freezes, moving backward to stare at them, Castiel in shirtsleeves and Jo in jeans, curled up on the couch, sharing warmth and listening to heartbeats, Castiel practices the eyebrow arch that he learned from her.

-

Title from Pulse, by Ani DiFranco.

SPN Mix: Honeymoon Child

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:40:32 GMT

Honeymoon Child
Drabbles, picspam + a mix for pre-series girl!Sam

-

She was a beautiful child, but always scruffy, always with a smear of dirt across her cheek, always with something about her that made her not like the other girls. Dean had that same untamed quality, but he hid it better, distracting concerned mothers and teachers alike with charm and disrespect.

Sam didn’t learn how to make people trust her until later, and it was in the early years, before she mastered the puppy eyes and bashfully manipulative grin, that John had to continually check her bed at night, make sure that she hadn’t slipped away in the quiet hours, away into the wilderness, away like a stolen changeling child.

Dean, for his part, traumatized and grieving, barely took his eyes off her for the first five years, and not much more after that.

-

It was a lazy afternoon, the kind that only happened in the Disney films Sam loved so much, with the sun pouring golden light across the old farmhouse. It was a bed and breakfast that was run by an old couple, and so far removed from where they usually stayed that Dean had woken up not knowing where the hell he was.

He watched Sam trip over her own feet and gurgle happily, lying in the grass and reaching up at the butterfly with her grubby toddler hands.

“Dea’!” She demanded, waving the hand imperiously.

Dean heaved a long suffering sigh, but flopped down on the ground beside her, and when she climbed into his lap, curled up and promptly fell asleep, he let her, leaning back on his hands and for the sun to set.

-

For the first nine years she ran everywhere, as if she would fall over if her forward momentum slowed down in the slightest and wailed whenever John so much as suggested a haircut. Then came the Christmas, Sam’s ninth, Dean’s thirteenth, the fourth one that John had missed and the one during which Dean finally told Sam the truth. For five days, Sam wouldn’t talk to either of them, and John pretended that he didn’t know she was having nightmares every night.

She waited until Dean had gone out to the store, sat herself on the floor at John’s feet, and looked up at him, her eyes huge, hangdog and determined all at once.

“I want a haircut.” She said, defiantly glaring up at him from between straggly threads of dark hair, as if daring him to refuse.

John smiled, thanking God she was speaking again, set down the Desert Eagle he was cleaning, and ruffled her hair, “sure thing, kiddo, I’ll make an appointment the next time I head into town.”

“No. Now.” And John realized why she’d been holding her hands behind her back, because she was suddenly pressing a pair of scissors into his hands, “You do it.”

“Hey, hey Sammy, I can’t cut your hair.” Truth be told, the very idea terrified John. He felt like he might break her if he did it wrong.

“You cut Dean’s hair!” Sam’s eyes sparked, and she shifted restlessly, as if she’d been expecting this argument, had practiced and laid out her points in advance.

“Because he’s a boy, Sammy, I only know how to give boy haircuts, understand?”

Sam smiled triumphantly, and John suddenly felt like he’d fallen into a trap. “So cut my hair like a boy's.”

When Dean got back from the store and saw Sam, he froze in the doorway, blinking at her in incredulously, as if he didn’t quite recognize her. She beamed proudly back at him, gap-toothed and freshly shorn. That lasted about fifteen seconds.

Then, ignoring Sam, he turned to John and promptly threw a fit.

“What the hell did you do to my sister?”

-

She was a quiet child, her teachers always thought, understandable, they would say when they gossiped, considering the tragedy of losing a mother, terrible thing. Understandable, they would whisper, considering the state of her father.

Usually the illusion held, but sometimes something would happen, a crack in her impenetrable shyness, and words would spill forth, and the girl would be suddenly transformed into a shameless chatterbox, brilliant for her age, spouting fantastical stories delighting children and adults alike with her huge imagination and impressive vocabulary. Though, the amount of time she spent enthusiastically outlining the logistics and details of the weaponry tended a little toward the morbid.

-

They ran scams sometimes, when John was away longer than he said he would be, which happened more often than not, and there was barely enough money to pay for a room, let alone food.

One look at Sam’s shining, tearful eyes, at her dusty white dress with the floaty lace trim that Sam utterly detested, and instantly the hardest part of a con – forming an emotional connection between hunter and the mark - was over and done with. Sam left a swathe of confused and betrayed adults trailed across half the American continent before she was fifteen.

They never saw Dean; he was the one stealing their money, the stick to Sam’s carrot.

-

The hunt had gone to hell, and Dean cursed as his hands trembled, ruining his ability to sight down the gun barrel. The metal was slick with blood under his hands, and the bright, sick colours creeping around his vision weren’t helping matters.

His knees buckled as he backed away, scrabbling in the darkness and he tripped over something, a warm body, and as he fell the shafts of moonlight lit up John’s face, and Dean prayed he was only out cold and not, not-

The high-pitched scream crept closer, whining through the night, and the sweep of shining spines flashed through the patch of light almost faster than the eye could see. Dean breathed in sharply, sliding backward, desperately fighting the creeping blackness around his vision. If he passed out now the cat would tear through him, through dad, and then it’d go hunting for Sam, Sammy who’d come on her first hunt, her face mulish to hide her fear, Sam who’d stared blankly at Dean when he’d yelled for her to run, then turned tail and followed orders like a good soldier.

The cat slunk into view, spines arching upward aggressively as it sliced forward, whining at an unnaturally high pitch. It grinned like a hyena as it casually pressed a paw down against Dean’s chest, the claws slicing through his skin like butter.

“Come on you ugly motherfucker.” Dean spat, white hot pain searing through his ribs.
The shotgun blast went straight through the cactus cat’s head, splattering brain matter and blood across Dean’s face.

Just before he passed out, he saw Sam stalk into view with all her coltish, teenage awkwardness, gripping the sawed off shotgun Dean had made for her as if her life depended on it, breathing hard as she scrabbled over the cat’s giant corpse to get to him.

-

“Fuck the hunt.”

“Sam, you walk through that door, you don’t bother coming back.”

“Dad!”

“Keep quiet, Dean, this isn’t about you.”

“…Sir.”

“Sir. Sir this, sir that. God, Dean, do you even have a brain?”

“That’s enough, Sammy.”

“Yeah, dad. You know what? You’re right. That is enough; enough of your obsessed bullshit. And don’t call me Sammy.”

“Sam –“

“See you round, Dean. Or not.”

-

Honeymoon Child - Bill Callahan
Raised in the wild space between two hearts

Femme Fatale - Velvet Underground
She's gonna play you for a fool, yes it's true.

Rebel, Rebel - David Bowie
She’s not sure if you're a boy or a girl.

Academia - Sia
The mean of our heights is divided by the nights, which is times'd by the daggers and the route of all our fights.

Man-Size - PJ Harvey
Silence my lady head.

Control - Poe
Don't you mess with a little girl's dream, 'cause she's liable to grow up mean.

Going to California - Led Zeppelin
Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born.

Shameless - Ani DiFranco
I can't even slow this down, let alone stop this.

American Woman - The Guess Who
I don’t need your war machines, I don’t need your ghetto scenes.

Tiny Dancer - Elton John
Count the headlights on the highway

My Baby (Shoots Her Mouth Off) - Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
Come over and convert me, lead me straight to the cross. You're getting vulgar.

Explode - Uh Huh Her
I wanna explode. Watch me.

Luisa’s Bones - Crooked Fingers
Waits, for her killers to come home and for a fine revenge to pay.

Too Tough To Die - Martina Topley-Bird
You keep a-flayin til there's no skin at all.

Softly Moses - Erin McKeown
Sister, brother, sister. Fall on to your knees, the blush of the flower tastes of false gods and trickery.

She Just Wants To Be - R.E.M.
The how's up to us, me and you.
And now is greater than the whole
Of the past, is greater and now she knows that.

Now she knows.

Comments are love.
All image sources can be found at My ♥ it

This post has no continuity whatsoever.

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:49:38 GMT

I have a job! Granted, I achieved said job through judicious application of the nepotism of certain organisations with connections to certain relatives, but if I said more, I'd have to kill you.

No, really.

But, this job lark is hilarious. It's like a grown-up version of when kids play house or shop or whatever. I play with cash, clothes and razor blades. Okay, razor blades might be a glamorous term for those little safety blades people use to slice up the duct tape on warehouse boxes, but you'd never get me to admit it. I am greatly enjoying my newfound out-of-pocket solvency. I can actually buy my own cocktails now rather than shamelessly using my assets! Which is fun, but I like being able to slap down a crisp note and buy a round for all my friends.

And my boss is awesome. Well, one of my bosses, the one with whom I have the most day-to-day interactions. She's twenty-something, tall, blonde, gorgeous, really nice, and my first impression of her was that she's a girl-next-door type, which is always cool in itself. But! Turns out she's from New Zealand, which is to Australia as Canada is to America, only with added Bob Marley fixation, and she has the most beautiful tattoo of angel-wings running full-length down her back, which I have yet to see in their entirety, but when she lifted her shirt to show me a bit of it, I noticed that she was wearing a hot pink bra. Amazingly, I do not have a crush on her, I just think she's fucking awesome.

-

More seriously,

Everything I want to say about this has been said by people much more eloquently and intelligently than I could ever do it. I've lost my temper in real life, which I hardly ever do, screamed into pillows and essentially lost my faith in half of my favourite people in showbiz.

Have some links:

Salon - Reminder: Polanski Raped a Child
Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done. - bookshop
Linkspam and more- by giandujakiss
Not On Hollywood - Dear Pedro Almodovar
Lawyers, Guns and Money

The thing that really gets me is the ongoing impact of shit like this on people, especially young girls, who are victims of sexual assault. Because there's rape, and then there's 'Rape-Rape'. Because people will rally to the cause of a wealthy, respectable man while the girl will be called sullen, a slut, that she was asking for it. Because her name will be dragged through the dust and to prove that she was molested, she will have to undergo a public trial that requires her to go into her ordeal in excruciating detail and even after it's over, it will mark her for life and at least 50% of people won't believe her, regardless of the outcome.

This is horrific, and yet unsurprising. I am furious, and resigned, and furious twice over that I am resigned, and trying desperately not to let my anger go, and it's not just anger over this singular event, but anger over the kind of society that allows an event like this to take place and engenders the kind of public reaction of sophistry and excuses that it has.

I am angry about a lot of things, but it's the ennui that gets to me.

I highly recommend Orwell's essay, Notes on Dali in relation to the topic of artist vs. the monstrous mortal:

So long as you can paint well enough to pass the test, all shall be forgiven you. One can see how false this is if one extends it to cover ordinary crime. In an age like our own, when the artist is an altogether exceptional person, he must be allowed a certain amount of irresponsibility, just as a pregnant woman is. Still, no one would say that a pregnant woman should be allowed to commit murder, nor would anyone make such a claim for the artist, however gifted. If Shakespeare returned to the earth to-morrow, and if it were found that his favourite recreation was raping little girls in railway carriages, we should not tell him to go ahead with it on the ground that he might write another King Lear.

Oh, if only.

-

Now, I'd like to talk about the happy place that's kept me from going totally off the deep end lately; an incredible little film called

The Fall

Really, I mean, there are no words. Has anybody else's heart and soul been stolen away and ground into diamond shards by this film? I tell you, I need people to obsess with me, dammit!

Lee Pace is incredible. I mean, I adored him from Pushing Daisies, but the utter heartbreaking depth of his talent is laid bare in this film and it comes off raw and beautiful and I'm off and running with my purple prose here because this performance was bleak and despairing, fierce and desperate, gullible and manipulative and utterly charming and roguish all at the same time.

And Alexandria, played by Catinca Untaru, was a joy to watch on my screen. Her voice was easily as gorgeous as Lee Pace's, which is no mean feat.

Everything about this film, from the mind-breaking visuals (which were achieved without CGI, and are proof that when it comes to these things, often sheer imagination, money, and a singular will to achieve one's vision work a hell of a lot better than computer imaging) to the darker, suicidal psychological implications fold together perfectly and by the end, I was past the point of tears or laughter or anything and was watching in this kind of transcendental state where I could barely believe a film like this was ever made.

Needless to say, I kinda liked it.

-

-

Supernatural Season 5 meta

To start with, holy shit it's mafia 'verse Misha on my screen!

And I think the show has been knocking it out of the ballpark in every way. Jared and Jensen's acting is just getting better and better. I'm loving this season.

• Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

The Winchester's codependence, for me, always seemed to undermine their love - they never had anybody else, not really, who knew and accepted them wholly, and so they defined themselves by each other. By breaking those capillaries that creep in and out of each other, and then, finally, choosing to return to each other, their love becomes more than the instinctual thing that it was.

I read the Winchesters as more unconsciously emotionally incestuous, rather than physically so.

There's a fantastic and highly personal meta about codependence and Sam and Dean by vichan:

That problem is codependence.

Before you hit the back button, I feel like I really need to make something clear. If you’ve researched codependence, read the shitty wiki entry on it or know what ‘textbook’ codependence is and you try to relate those definitions to Dean, it automatically casts Sam in a bad light. Codependency is also often related to drug and substance abuse, with the drug abuser manipulating the codependent.

This really isn’t the case. Someone with codependent tendencies will always have those tendencies, no matter who the person they are codependent on is.

The rest.

• The angels/selfishness.

Raphael was incredibly heartbreaking and has fucking intensely gorgeous eyes. I want to see more of him.

There are people wondering why Lucifer has been portrayed as infinitely more sympathetic than the angels. Of course the angels are going to be unsympathetic, because the ingrained presumption is that they're good, and vice versa for Lucifer, and the show is trying to undermine these basic notions of right and wrong. In the end, everyone's out for themselves, from the angels sick of running a godless universe and trying to bring about Utopia to ease their pain, to Lucifer who wants the satisfaction of getting ~~his ex~~ his maker to face some kind of judgment, to Dean who sentenced Sam to the hell on earth he couldn't abide with his sacrifice, to Sam who needs to be able to feel good about himself, feel that he is doing something right to the point where he'll destroy even himself to make that happen.

IT'S ALL ABOUT SELFISHNESS. And I love it. Preciousssss.

Except when it's not. There's something tragically noble mixed in with the acknowledged selfishness of the Winchester cycle of self-sacrifice. It's selfish precisely because it's based on the fundamental acceptance of family and love as the paramount priority of life, the universe and everything, and the utter inability of Sam and Dean to function with the idea of the other as dead or dying, and the subsequent and selfish need to make that despair cease through any means necessary would not exist without that original acceptance of the well-being of family as inherently more important than the well-being of the self.

And now, I think, while Sam and Dean have not exactly moved past that, they've achieved an awareness of the destructive nature of this aspect of their relationship, and while they can't emotionally cut that out, they can intellectually acknowledge that and try to not let it rule them and make them vulnerable to manipulation. Dean's been working this angle, with refusing to break when Zachariah threatened him, Sam, everyone they loved with crippling illness or injury, and further in the latest episode with first pushing away Sam, and then taking him back.

And speaking of that scene in 5.01, at first I was shocked by the lack of reaction in Dean when Zachariah switched from threatening him to threatening Sam. Then I realized, of course, in hell, the fabric of reality is easily bent, of course Dean would have dealt with torture-by-proxy through images of Sam in hell that were much worse than what Zachariah threw out at him.

• Vessels + Nephilim

I love the recurrence of the 'It always had to be you.' In response to Sam's plaintive question of why? Because that's what we want to know. Why? Why was John in particular slated to be the righteous man? Why are Sam and Dean such perfect vessels that they are the only humans on earth who can handle Michael and Lucifer, the greatest and oldest of angels? Is it that the Winchester line has the strongest Nephilim blood running in it? It almost has to be that going from the canon on angelic vessels we got from Jimmy and his daughter. But is it that? Or something else? Why the Winchesters? WHY? *throttles show*

On the topic of Nephilim, that was the only way I managed to take Castiel's reaction to the brothel and Dean's pushing sex on him with any kind of seriousness. Because it's legitimate proof that angels do feel sexual desire, and I get the feeling that Castiel reacted with embarrassment to being a virgin only because Dean's opinion is becoming a guiding force to this wayward angel, and Castiel knew Dean would be horrified by it, even if it wasn't such a big deal to Cas himself.

I do believe that Castiel's body is now his own, in a similar way that Anna's is, otherwise I cannot deal with the consent issues. I like to believe that Jimmy's off drinking Pina Coladas with God on a sunny beach in the Caribbean, playing Yahtzee and gossiping about the Old Testament.

Also, show? I want my grumpy, red-haired, bedhead, kickass rebel angel back.

• DEAN WASHING THE IMPALA

I mean seriously, not a single one of the reviews I read made mention of this singular moment. Dean emotionlessly slaughters a vampire with a singular kind of viciousness, then gently and lovingly immediately washes the blood off his baby. ♥ ♥ ♥

Have I mentioned how much I love the resurgence of the Impala as resident sex-symbol and bad-ass of the show? That car is one sexy beast.

• Why Sam said 'Yes.'

I reckon that heavy, heavy shit went down in Detroit, that Lucifer showed Sam just why Castiel is so fiercely stuck on his view that Dean is being utterly insane in maintaining his determination to kill Lucifer.

And I think that Lucifer, having circled and battered at not only Sam's defences, but also his very psyche and sanity, with no Dean there to shore up Sam's sense of perspective, knew exactly how to apply the pressure, how to say, look, see me and tremble, I may need this pittance of mortal flesh to survive on Earth, but if I can't have it, I'm sure as hell gonna make sure that it doesn't survive my passing from it, but, Sammy, if you do say 'yes' to me, all this, all the carnage here in wreckage of Detroit, I will never do this again, I shall leave humanity to its own devices.

And Sam, so determined to save the world, so broken and so isolated, might just say 'yes', might just try to save the world one more time. He'd probably also have the wherewithal to strike a deal, to make Lucifer promise that he would not hunt Dean.

Of course, Lucifer has his outs, his loopholes, Croatoan is already out and humanity, with Palin at its head, is doing a fine job of wiping itself off the planet, and Dean? Dean will hunt Lucifer down soon enough.

But then there's how Dean knew that Sam had said yes. This implies that Lucifer!Sam and Dean have encountered each other before. I wonder how that went down? Obviously Lucifer let him go, because Dean without the Colt was no threat at all, or perhaps Castiel spirited him away while he still had some juice left. Either way, that's the encounter I'd most want fic from.

• God.

I read somewhere that every character on the show and their dog can be boiled down to their essential daddy issues, and that God, when they find him, would also suffer this fate. I love this idea.

God: You think you've got daddy issues? I don't even have one? Do you have any idea how hard my adolescent existential rebellions were?

In conclusion:

Woah, that got long. TL;DR, I don't give a fuck what anyone says, I adored The White Suit of Evil.

Lucifer Rising

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:48:13 GMT

In anticipation of tonight, I threw together some words and pictures of the finale. All speculation; no spoilers please!

Lucifer Rising
A meta picspam.

-

Things come into focus, others fade away. Blood is thicker than water, but it'll freeze just as easy. Heat cools, flickers, in the ascendant, light will dominate all and after all the cracks and schisms, all the grey matter, blood, and painful light, after all the wheeling and dealing and all the blurred lines, here's an easy one: 'He's coming.'

-

See no evil. Hear no evil. Feel no evil. Speak no evil.

This is how the world ends.

-

Gold and candlelight. These are the ways the devil works his wiles. Is it a coincidence Azazel, master of deep-laid plans, has yellow eyes? Fevers, bellies, fire and Mary's hair. They all lead down the same brick road.

-

Bars and separation anxiety. They all go a little stir-crazy in the end. First Stanford, then a Scarecrow, now Satan. Was this always the way it went, patterns in patterns after patterns? This a determined path they walk, each too stubborn break down the doors that would let each other in and the both of them off the line of pre-destiny.

-

Who watches the watchmen? Men have angels, devils have demons, a boy has both. What do the angels have but reflections of themselves, masturbatory images, free from reality because the hand that crafted it has passed over this Earth and into new pastures.

-

Dean's happy to go along with destiny, that which has long been foretold, so long as it pleases his gut. Dealing death to a fallen angel, averting the end the of the world, for these things he will be a puppet, but damn the prophecy and the prophet should these things come between him and his brother. A lack of love was never Abraham's problem. Nor was it Cain's, for that matter. Humans are born and bred from this stock, this is what the angels believe, from when they once did walk the Earth.

But Dean, he's a new age kind of a guy. And so Castiel's now a walking nervous breakdown in a borrowed trenchcoat.

-

A halo of light on this prison-altar. Lines of fire, they guard and silhouette the mythic players of this long-game. Light, light, light. Everywhere in this chapel candles burn and fill the air with promises of the Bringer.

-

"You must find me a child. A very special child."

-

"Why me?"
"Because it had to be you, Sammy. It always had to be you."

More and more, the hints drop. Antichrist Idol was never about winning, the game was rigged from go to woe. I think this is going to be the 'What did John mean, if Dean couldn't save Sam, he would have to kill him?' of season five. Indeed, if anything, it's the same question, only further evolved; why these two brothers, for destroyer and saviour? What is Sam, now that his piece in history is played, is he, after all this, only meat, and demon-poisoned meat at that? Or is he something more, are these brothers something more than your average human, something that caused them, of all, to be placed in this quandary of determinism and free will?

-

Light again. The upper hierarchy of power manifests in light, be it of celestial, infernal or human stock. Angels and demons expire in light. Matter to energy, energy to light. I wonder if they burn hot or cold, when they die. If it depends on whether they come from heaven or hell. Sam and Dean die darkly, with whimpers and screams. I wonder if they still will, once all of this is over, one way or another.

-

It's all loathing and love in the wild west.

And it's also the end.

-

Summergen!

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:27:16 GMT

My contribution to spn_summergen:

Palindromes
She became the shivering tremble of a whetting stone across the edge of a blade, the heavy scent of gun oil and long afternoons working on the once-hated Impala.
For the prompt: AU. John dies on the ceiling, and Mary goes after the YED.

Go check out the masterlist, there are some brilliant fics, artwork and vids just waiting to be praised.

Fics:

Crooked Legs by hkath
It could start with something subtle, but it doesn't. It starts with tentacles. // Sam passes the salt and his hands don't move.

Absolutely sublime humour, wrapped through with true, utterly devastating horror. Short, harsh, brilliant and completely mind-bending.

The Hustlers by jadesfire2808
There was a look that hustlers got when it had been too long since their last successful job. Kind of hungry around the eyes and sort of mean, like they'd pat you on the back and smile at you, except you noticed that it didn't quite make it all the way to their eyes. You spend enough time in a bar - any bar - you knew how to spot them and how to pick up your beer and take it to another table. Because there was nothing friendly in it when they nodded their heads and called you friend.

I love a good outside POV, and this one is pulled off with great style. Quiet, jaded, but still naive to the nature of the boys. It's got a compelling voice, and the details of the hustle are fantastic.

Whisper Down a String by [Unknown LJ tag]
“Sammy.” Dean knew better than to try touching the book again, but he moved down a few inches and poked the meaty part of Sam's calf. Then he did it again. And again. “Sammy. Sammy. Sammy. Sammy. Sammy. Sammy Sammy Sambo. Saaaaaammm. Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam...” // Sammy pulled his knees in closer, the book only inches from his face, and buckled in for the long haul.

Adorable wee!chesters, dealing with a rainy afternoon at Bobby's house, secrets in the attic and old ghosts. Great Sam and Dean dynamic.

The Uilleann Ululation Undertaking by musesfool
"Sweet undead Moses, Ida! They don't look like zombies!" // "We're not zombies!" Dean said, but he didn't make any sound. Good thing Sam said it at exactly the same time.

Middleman/Supernatural crossover, need I say more? The voices are brilliant, the singularly unique lingo of the Middleman world is nailed, and Dean is rendered temporarily mute and has to rely on Sam to speak for him. Absolutely brilliant and hilarious.

This Bitter Earth by art_savage
"No one was ever able to accurately profile the Winchesters. Their crimes were all over the map – ritualistic killings with elements of sexual sadism followed by bank robbery and grave desecration. Victimology was seemingly random. The older brother, Dean, was thought to be responsible for the most violent acts, since he was caught literally red-handed more than once. But they always escaped before anybody could get them to talk."

Criminal Minds/Supernatural crossover. The author's mixed a compelling and deeply horrifying case story with the crossover element brilliantly, and neither subtracts from the other, rather, they harshly illuminate the nature of both world's and the work these people do.

Art:

Neither Heaven Nor Hell by ileliberte

Gorgeous, dark art of Sam and Dean, now half demonic and angelic respectively, standing together against the apocalypse. What more could you want?

I think my wings are falling below by animotus

Hilarious, yet still stunning Sam and Dean mixed-media, along with gorgeous pieces of Castiel. Go for the mug shots, stay for the gorgeous colours.

Also, belatedly, GIP! Check out the icon speccygeekgrrl made for me, it's my HBIC OTP. ♥

mix: the tendency is to push it as far as you can

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:30:04 GMT

For the maybe two people on my flist into True Blood, a mix! For the rest, a bunch of GQMF music!

A mix for Eric & Pam

--

♞ [Dialogue] - RocknRolla Soundtrack

People ask the question... what's a RocknRolla? And I tell 'em - it's not about drums, drugs, and hospital drips, oh no. There's more there than that, my friend. We all like a bit of the good life - some the money, some the drugs, other the sex game, the glamour, or the fame. But a RocknRolla, oh, he's different. Why? Because a real RocknRolla wants the fucking lot.

--

♞ Somebody to Love ’03 – The Boogie Pimps
The tendency is to push it as far as
you can.

--

♞ Creator - Santogold
Thrill is to make it up
The rules I break got me a place up on the radar

--

♞ Down By The Water – PJ Harvey
I had to lose her to do her harm.
I heard her holler, I heard her moan
My lovely daughter

--

♞ Blinding - Florence and the Machine
Felt it in my fist, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids
Shaking through my skull, through my spine and down through my ribs

No more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone

--

♞ Wicked Game – Giant Drag (cover)
And I don't want to fall in love. Nobody loves no-one.

--

♞ Gimme Danger – Iggy & The Stooges
I got a little angel, want a little danger.

--

♞ Hella Good – No Doubt
A performance deserving of standing ovations
And who would have thought it'd be the two of us?

--

♞ Love Punch – The Chalets
I'm coming home to a punch or a kiss.
I know you love me but you're fucking crazy

--

♞ I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked - Ida Maria
What the hell do I do this for?
You're just another guy
OK, you're kind of sexy.

--

♞ Filthy/Gorgeous - Scissor Sisters
'Everytime you get out of your Corvette Stingray in your white pumps and your pink acid wash jeans with the matching pink rabbit fur coat... we say miss thang you got it going on, you is gorgeous.'

--

♞ Fixin To Thrill – Dragonette
Come on and show me that you know how to use it
And do your duty

--

♞ Spank (KMFDM Remix) - kidneythieves
it's all your graces, your deadly sins
love and hate you it's so intense
if i could burn you walk away not see you anymore
i would try to burn you but i won't

--

♞ Heads Will Roll – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Off off off with your head
Dance dance dance ’til you’re dead.

--

♞ Got Love To Kill – Juliette and the Licks (MSTRKRFT remix)
Skip in and walk like you own the place, baby.

--

♞ This is the New Shit – Marilyn Manson vs. Goldfrapp
Sex sex sex and don't forget the violence.

--

♞ Hell is Round the Corner – Tricky
Passing the indifference ensures the struggle for my family
We’re hungry, beware of our appetite.

--

♞ I Want You (She’s So Heavy) – The Beatles
I want you so bad, it’s driving me mad, it’s driving me ...
She’s so heavy heavy, heavy, heavy.

--

♞ This Town – Frank Sinatra
You better believe that I'm leavin' this town.

--

♞ ’03 Bonnie and Clyde – Beyoncé and Jay –Z
Cruisin down the westside - highway
Doing what we like to do - our, way
Eyes behind shades,

I keep you workin that Hermes Birkin bag,
Manolo Blahnik, Timbs, aviator lens
600 drops, Mercedes Benz
The only time you wear Burberry to swim
And I don't have to worry, only worry is him
She do anything necessary for him
And I do anything necessary for her.

--

ETA: Now with a .ZIP file thanks to the incredibly generous amadi.

As a rule I don't usually write notes to my mixes - I figure they should speak for themselves. But I love talking music, so screw that. This is my GQMF music, and there's a lot of heavy synth beats, remixes and tunes that make you wanna grind up on a dance floor in the middle of a library. Some are what I listen to when I'm putting on my warpaint, getting ready to go out clubbing, some of it is fight music, and hell, there's a lot of sex tunes in there too. Because that's how I see Eric and Pam. Angst, unless Godric is involved, is just not up their alley. They are rich bitches, they look good and fuck if they don't know it, and they are totally into each other in an unexclusive, lackadaisical way that's more incestuous-brother-sister-fuck-buddies than angsty-romantic-melodrama-addicted-lovers. Which is only as it should be for a vampire and her maker. Together, they initiate crime. They are, to put it in Guy Ritchie's terms, real motherfucking Rocknrollas.

I've always loved Somebody to Love '03, and it always reminds me of the good doctor, Hunter S. Thompson and his own peculiar morality, where he utterly disregards all societal notions of sanity and safety and lives by his own, removed code, and spends a lot of time appearing to be simply amused by normal human beings. I feel Eric and Pam may be able to relate.
Down by the Water covers the incest vibe for me, that dirty, vaguely disturbing power dynamic that always exists between a vampire and their maker, and the song is a wonderfully haunting, vibing thing.
The cover of Wicked Game has a fantastic electric guitar solo, and the cover just grabs the song by the rock jugular and does things to it that are insanely awesome. Love Punch just cracks me up and is utterly apt at the same time, while Spank is one of the sexiest, most fucked up songs I've heard in a long time.
Fixin to Thrill is by Dragonette, a new discovery, and I love their music. They're kind of like the long-lost cousins of Lady Gaga who've spent the last three years trailing devastation, broken-hearts and phenomenal memories through half the clubs in the Eastern European bloc. She's So Heavy is the Beatles, what more can I say? To me, it's about a woman who can drive men mad and not give a flying fuck. Brilliant.
This Town. Frank. It's all about Sinatra in my heart. This one goes out to Fangtasia, lost in a dreary buttfuck town, but bringing its own style if it kills it.
Bonnie and Clyde, listen to the lyrics. Seriously, this is Pam and Eric in all their materialistic, hedonistic glory.

And one last thing, if you download nothing else, download Blinding, by Florence and the Machine. This band is mind-blowing, it is the music of my nightmares, soul, the universe and everything, and every time I hear this chorus my heart swells up like my ribcage is about to explode. So, you know. I'm kind of a fan.

~~Apologies for the lack of a .zip file. My internet connection is whack and won't let me upload large files.~~ See above!

Comments are loved and adored.

Mafia 'Verse, Misha Collins and memes, oh my!

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:53:39 GMT

You might have heard about the oh-so-secret (hah!), elaborate scheme I've been cooking up with egregiouslypink, otherwise known as The Motherfucking Mafia AU (Now With 100% More Misha Collins).

Rahm's shopping list looks like this:

2L x Carpet cleaner [industrial strength]

Bleach. Lots of fucking bleach.

Styrofoam packaging.

2 x Cell phones [disposable]

2 x Replacement window panes [shatter-proof glass, 56" X 120"]

1 x Apache Attack Helicopter.

1 x Eli's Cheescake [Dark Chocolate Pomegranate]

1 x metric tonne of ground Wagyu beef

Duct tape.

Milk.

5 x sets of underwear [boxer-briefs, fire-engine red, Calvin Klein]

1 x API Full metal jacket rounds for the ZPU-4 [tungsten carbide core]

57 x Cans of Spam.

2 x Pomeranians [black, NOT toilet-trained]

1 x The Care and Feeding of Your Psychopathic Ex, by B.A. Summers.

1 x Four-disk 'Unforgettable Hits of the 80's' compilation CD.

Kanye West's Miami mansion's deluxe surround-sound system [Louis Vuitton embossed, not the Gucci]

Duct Tape.

Milk.

-

And, better late than never:

Ask me my fannish (tv, movies, books, music) Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post.

Icon Meme

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:24:49 GMT

Drabbles from the icon meme posted a couple days ago.

-

For bessemerprocess

He's sitting alone at the bar, drinking the single malt Irish that he favours on the bad nights, and nobody's game enough to take him on over the cigar he's been steadily grinding down to dust and ash for the last two and a half hours.

He's your last customer, and you have a paper due in eight hours.

He looks up at you for a bare moment, his hand pressed so hard against his brow his knuckles whiten and strain, and you're not a fool, you've noticed the seal of the White House on the documents he's been glaring at, and you've also seen the deep lines folded around his eyes, lines that weren't put there by laughter or smiles.

You shine the last glass to a polish, yawn, and pour the man another drink.

-

For lizzy_someone

"So we're totally prepared, right? I mean, we have survival packs, three gallons of water, solar-charged generators, a three-person tent, satellite phone, spark plugs and enough canned spam to last us at least thirty years in an underground bunker, I mean, we are seriously all over this. We are hard core survivalists. You should see our truck. Did I mention the truck? It's one hell of a truck."

"Josh, you do realize we're going camping, not on a two-man jihad, yes?"

"You can never be too prepared, Sammy boy, that's my motto!"

"I thought that was the boy scouts?"

"Yeah, well they stole it from me. Moving on! How's it coming?"

"..."

"Come on Sam, if you can't get a simple jammed trunk open, how do you expect to survive in the manly, manly wilderness of-"

"Hey, Josh. Where did you say you got this truck from again?"

"Some guys down at the garage, why?"

"Well, I have good news, bad news and good news."

"That sounds ... promising?"

"I got the trunk open."

"Awesome! Now get me mah spark plugs and we'll get this show on the road!"

"Ah, see, now that's where the bad news comes in. And the good news. The second lot, that is."

"Sam, if you don't hurry up, I'm in danger of actually getting up off my ass to come down there."

"Well, all I've got are two Uzis and a shovel."

"Say what?"

"So, the bad news is, looks like we're stuck out here for the night. Good news is, I suppose this means now we can ... shoot things?"

"And apparently bury them afterwards. I'm going. To have. To. Recommend. That garage. For full service."

"Josh, Josh, stop that, JOSH! Denting the truck is not going to help!"

-

For evercourant

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about Zombies:

Of all the proposed modes of extinction hypothetically proposed by the spiritual, scientific, philosophical, political, religious, social, literary, artistic, meteorological, astrological, tautological, etc., etc., schools of thought, it has been universally agreed that, based on the groundbreaking logical math theorem developed by Sh'Krrim Doodaa (which purports that once the scientific improbability of an event based on the physically measured initial conditions of the universe has been established, the likelihood of that event occurring increases exponentially with every statement imbued with the copyrighted 'Fah-mouse Larstlyh Ngh'™ intonation) the Zombie Apocalypse will be the way civilized life, collectively, will kick the proverbial bucket.

The planet Earth has one of the most highly developed and nuanced global cultures devoted to the belief in the coming Dawn of the Dead, and all Hitchhikers who find themselves requiring a greater examination of this inevitable Doom are advised to avoid this sector of space entirely. The propaganda 2D media appears to have the somewhat ironic effect of inducing those exposed to a state similar to the monsters depicted therein.

This singular fact is also, as chance has it, the precise reason for the inclusion of the 'Mostly' addendum to the description of the planet Earth currently included in our database, for your utmost convenience.'

Barack grinned down at the device. "This is so cool!"

Arthur gaped. "President? Black?" He made a garbled sort of noise, the kind a fish might make upon discovering sea monkeys in its very expensive algae dinner course. "I'm starting to find I have a whole new level of respect for Americans. I might actually have some."

Barack ignored him, gleefully jabbing at the screen, while behind him on the plasma screen, zombies trundled their way across CNN.

The sound of a toilet flushing cascaded its way through the room, and then Ford Prefect emerged from a door Barack hadn't previously realized existed, toilet paper trailing from one boot, examining a towel.

"Say, Mr President, can I keep this? I always wanted one with the seal of a president."

Unfortunately, at that point this riveting set of determinedly self-sufficient monologues was interrupted by the flaming collapse of an entire wall of the Oval Office through which Rahm, his polka-dotted tie wrapped firmly around his head, hair spiked up and shirt ripped to the nines, strapped over with ammunition, wielding a smoking flamethrower, two axes strapped to his back and a still-animated head clutched in his free hand stalked through the flames.

"I'VE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIES IN MY MOTHERFUCKING WHITE HOUSE."

"My White Motherfucking House, Rahm," Barack corrected mildly.

"BARACK'S MOTHERFUCKING WHITE HOUSE."

Ford bounded across the room, the White House towel streaming from his shoulders in an uncanny imitation of a cape. "Rahm, old frood, how's it going? I haven't seen you since that mix-up with Zaphod and Area 51!"

-

For egregiouslypink

Eric rarely hunts. He prefers to be civilized, efficient, keep the humans handy and where they belonged. In cages. He always found the hypocritical horror with which the humans faced such treatment tedious, if ironic.

Now that the trade of blood, both human and vampire has taken on a capitalist bent, now that he can pay for the willing as well as cage the unwilling, the chance to watch him hunt has been greatly reduced. Pam finds this a pity. Even if she shares the essential laziness that has driven Eric to find ever more efficient means of keeping himself sated, there never quite was anything like Eric when he hunted.

"Darling," she drawls, and smiles when Eric languidly raises his head before the first syllable is even out of her mouth.

She licks the trailing blood from his jaw, and twists her stiletto more firmly into the human's bloody mess of a gut.

"We really should do this more often."

Eric grins, all teeth and maw, fangs flashing, eyes only for her as arches her back and comes.

-

And now to work on The Best Fucking AU On The Planet (Now With 100% More Misha Collins), As Dubbed, Instigated, Invented and Co-Written By egregiouslypink. I find this is a working title that tends to grow on one.

True Blood, Leverage, Icons, and Alexander Skarsgård

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:04:09 GMT

Alexander Skarsgård owns my soul. I fully believe that if this show was nothing but Pam, Eric and Lafayette running a vampire-blood drug empire by day and ~~fighting crime~~ walking around like cool motherfuckers with highlights, Gucci sunglasses and fabulous pumps making grand entrances and killing things, that it would be greatly improved in all imaginable ways.

All the reviews I've read seem to agree that Eric and Sookie are the main weakness of the show, and I honestly think it's just because there's nothing particularly compelling about them. Ideologically, they think the same way in terms of vampires, they are totally in love and fight only over temporary obstacles. All dramatic tension is imposed from the outside by physical danger. Bill is a young vampire, and Sookie, in comparison to him a newborn duckling, maintains that status quo of being younger, of being defined for us, the viewers, exactly as Hugo warned, in terms of Bill.

Now, I haven't read the books, but I've heard, and according to the indications, that the show is headed in a Sookie/Eric direction. Now Eric is one cool motherfucker, and I really have no desire to see a thousand year old vampire become fascinated by a - let's face it - while nice, open-minded, and fairly intelligent, still pretty vanilla, naive, oft-bone-headed, very generic, supposedly 'feisty' girl for the sake of an imposed narrative that in no way seems to trend naturally for the characters on their current course. That said, if the writers do a good job of it, the character of Sookie could bloom under that kind of a story line. But I swear by Pam's shoe closet, if Eric is woobified like Spike was for the sake of the romance, I am going to cut a bleeding bitch.

I'm disappointed that the orgiastic, devil-worshiping story-line wasn't played to its full potential. It could have been incredibly creepy, playing on the more suspenseful, horror and mystery elements rather than introducing the cause, in the lovely form of Michelle Forbes far too early on in the narrative for my liking.

Man, I hope Eggs survives this. I love him and Tara together, and I love the way Tara's gone through so much shit and is now slowly pulling herself together, broken piece by broken piece. She's so fucking gorgeous, that episode where she and Eggs were dancing at her birthday party, I literally had to replay it about ten times before I could bear to go on.

I <3 Jason Stackhouse, bless his empty, pretty little head. I especially love it when he gets all furious defending his sister, and quite steadfastly not being indoctrinated into the hate despite being totally and utterly lost to the influence of the church.

Mostly, I just want to see Godric and Eric interact. I want to see them have a fucked up power interplay, with Godric playing the soft, seductive, seemingly submissive master to Eric's lethal, thundering, utterly binding obedience and love.

Mmmm. Ancient vampire amoral psychopathic obsession. Now there's a compelling love story.

-

SHOW. YOU'RE BACK. YOU CAME BACK TO ME.

This is pretty much going to be a list of things I loved.

HARDISON. PARKER. ELIOT.

Argh. Not Sophie's new hair.

But, they must have done something to Nate, because suddenly I am seeing the appeal for the very first time.

Hardison pretty much fulfilled all the dreams of rahmbamarama right there. Hacking the White House email accounts? Where, thanks to the Obama administration's near-incestuous love affair with the hip new tech, pretty much everything from coffee orders to Rahm Emanuel's inter-departmental screaming Memos From Hell that send the interns to therapy on a regular basis goes through email.

...Now I want to write fic. The Obama Administration as seen through the eyes of Hardison first gleefully, then with growing horror, perusing their emails.

- "What you thought she was dressed as a nun for no reason?"
-"It's Parker"
PARKER DRESSED AS A NUN. THIS WILL NEVER NOT BE FUNNY. Made even more awesome by the fact that nobody mentioned it until the end of the scene. What other show could one of the main characters wander around dressed like a nun for no apparent reason at all without drawing any kind of explanation at all for whole minutes at a time?

The lock-picking set in leather strapped to Parker's thigh. Hot damn.

How much do I love that the whole team just rampages through Eliot's apartment as if it were fair game, treating it like a their own personal club house at the base of the garden? A ridiculous amount.

HARDISON BOUGHT THE ENTIRE BUILDING JUST SO HE COULD BE NATE'S LANDLORD. HARDISON I HEART YOU AND YOUR SHEER INCOMPREHENSION AT NATE'S DISPLEASURE.

Eliot with a chainsaw, destroying the apartment and beaming like a little boy. That is my new happy place.

My favourite parts of the episode were really just the fleeting bits of character interaction that Leverage does so well, scattering them through the action like little buts of cookie dough in triple-fudge-almond swirl icecream. ARGH. *squishes team*

In conclusion:

SHAKE THE BIBLE.

Um. Also, because I have an inordinate, entirely shameless amount of love for my icons, a writing meme:

Pick one of my icons here and I'll write you something based on said icon. If you choose a stock/text only icon, feel free to choose the pairing (or character) I write.

The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:51:49 GMT

spn_summergen fic is locked, stocked and off into the luminiferous aether of cyberspace.

In celebration, have a minispam!

Steampunk Disney Concept Art.

Go for the steampunk wasteland, stay for the cyborg Goofy.

bessemerprocess? Consider this incentive.

The new Ferrari 458 Italia

Asdfghjkl. Do want. Guh.

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

Interesting article that puts into words the vague kind of frustration I get whenever people organize short little things into the day that totally cramp my writing groove.

Tom Felton's Self-Declared Not-To-Be-Taken-All-That-Seriously Album

Dear god, what is this strange alien creature who looks like nothing so much as Fanon!Rockstar!Draco?

Pimpage: free_fiction is a little community that I'm helping out with. The basic idea is to keep this a small, word-of-mouth community where people can talk about - and post snippets/full forms of - both fanfiction and original fiction. I think it could be really awesome, even just in terms of getting feedback on WIPs and chatting and bouncing ideas around without having to worry about presenting a fully polished product. Once we get a few members, we're going to start out with a a kind of pimms-and-lemonade-mad-hatter's-tea-party of comment drabbles for WIPs or concept-fics that were fabulous in your head, all those crazy crossovers and original notions that never quite got off the ground and lurk on your hard drive chucking out the odd ninja-bunny, like ill-disguised espionage agents lingering around the duck pound, throwing out the occasional rye-and-raisin, surprisingly nutty breadcrumb.

...Wow, that got away from me.

Join up, watch it, who knows? You might like what you see.

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:38:13 GMT

I know I've already asked, but if there is anyone out there on my flist who could beta my spn_summergen fic - now at about 4k - I would be eternally grateful. Even just someone to bounce ideas off would be great, as I've run up against a wall and am as of yet too insecure about it to throw myself upon the mercy of a complete stranger. Help?

-

And now, as promised, the Mafia 'Verse drabble.

.700 words, warnings for foul language and a general lack of moral fibre.

This is the island in question.

Rahm Emanuel, jet-lagged, pissed off as hell - his only concession to the glittering expanse of Adriatic Ocean and clear blue skies an open-necked Armani shirt in place of the usual sleek jacket and tie - stomped off the jetty, grumpily cleaned the sea water from his sunglasses, threw some local currency into the water taxi with great irritation, and stalked off into the restaurant that had been carved, somehow, miraculously out of the very stone hill itself, with great ill-grace.

He was, in short, in a bad mood.

A mood that was not helped by the sight of Anderson Cooper lounging on the terrace at a beautiful old mahogany table, his cheekbones tastefully tanned, hair fashionably mussed by the salt-water, looking for all the world as if he’d strolled in off a yacht, just to take a quick breather from the tough job of relaxing on the deck.

Rahm stalked over, slung himself down onto the bench – yes, bench – opposite Anderson, narrowed his eyes, and took a breath.

“This has got to be one of the most godforsaken distant, hellishly difficult place to get to on Earth. I had to take three motherfucking flights - Ari’s got all five jets on some bloody smuggling mission in Phuket – two ferries, three buses and a motherfucking. Water. Taxi. To get here. To this fucking restaurant on this fucking island. So tell me, Anderson Cocksucker Cooper, to what do I owe the fucking pleasure?”

Anderson, who had listened to this diatribe with no small amusement, sipped at his white wine, made some esoteric gesture, and before Rahm could so much as draw breath for a new slew of insults - of which he had many prepared - a whole fish, its scales glistening in the sun, steaming slightly, surrounded by a veritable platter of garnishes and swimming in an obscene amount of oil was placed in front of him.

Anderson sipped at his wine again and hummed appreciation at the gobsmacked look that crossed Rahm’s face.

“For that,” he informed Rahm with pleasure, then, when this failed to evoke the hoped-for reaction, added, “It’s the best fish this side of Italy, you know. The Adriatic’s nearly fished out, and if you’re looking for the culprit, it’s the old man in the corner drinking Jägermeister. He's slaughtered what little remained of the fish population and, according to him, is now working through the Moray Eels.”

Anderson glanced up from the hypnotic motion of the waves, and noticed that Rahm still hadn’t finished making soundless faces of outrage at the fish.

“Are you going to eat that?” He inquired mildly, “Because, if you’re not, I’ll have it.”

Rahm glanced up at Anderson with contempt, and promptly began slicing up the fish with deadly, if unsurprising skill.

“Oh, ha, ha,” Rahm pronounced sarcastically, “is that the scintillating wit I’ve heard so much about? Don’t quit your night job.”

Anderson grinned, like a shark, “Of that I have no intention. In fact, I actually wanted to introduce you to the family that runs this place.”

“Oh, joy.” Rahm deadpanned.

“Premier arms dealers in the ex-Yugoslavic region. The father was a sniper in the war, I think he might have even killed more men than you.” Anderson gestured over Rahm’s shoulder, “Hell of a cook, too.”

Rahm followed Anderson’s finger to glance at the sun-weathered man with lightly curling hair and a proud moustache regarding to the wood-fired oven with the kind of serious intent a hitman might regard his intended victim.

He leveled a look that could fell armies at Rahm, and winked, his eyes glittering with good humour and pure evil.

“Ah,” said Rahm, took a bite of the fish, and didn’t speak until the last vestige of what could conceivably be called meat had been cleaned off the bones.

Anderson hummed idly, drinking his wine and watching the ocean.

When Rahm had finished, Anderson leant forward and dipped a torn piece of bread in the oil and munching on it contentedly.

“Now, we need to talk about the situation in Beirut. I’m hearing rumours about some sort of apocalyptic mix-up between Claymore, the anti personnel mines, and Claymore, some sort of Japanese comic?”

Rahm was staring at the dripping piece of bread in Anderson's hand, and Anderson doubted he’d heard a single word of what he'd just said. His face had that odd look on it again, the one that seemed a cross between homicidal outrage, bemused amusement and a very eloquent interaction of his eyebrows that clearly evoked a suspicion of insanity.

Anderson laughed.

Rahm’s eyebrows twitched from suspicion of insanity to surety. He shoved away from the table, standing slowly.

“Hey, hey, hold up, where are you going?” Anderson had specifically chosen this place to make it hard to walk away from.

Rahm didn't even turn around.

“To join the fish-killer. I think I’m going to need some of his Jägermeister.”

-

The last thing I remember was someone yelling: 'Free shots!'

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:15:29 GMT

What's that you could say? Oh, just that I've been just a tad more silent than, say, a tomb might be? Well you know what? You'd be utterly wrong; I've been to some great parties in tombs.

In fact, I've been in Croatia. Well, Croatia with about a good dollop of Rome, a couple sprigs of London and a dusting of Bangkok thrown in.

And reading Douglas Adams, as might be immediately apparent to those of you who are acquainted with that most noble of institutions, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Rome:

Rome was brilliant, though I felt like a piece of meat whenever I walked down the street; not an entirely unpleasant experience, both arduous and amorous, just a different kind of culture, I guess.

My mother committed a pedestrian hit and run on a motorcycle, but as the whole of Rome seems to function on a set of traffic laws above and beyond all others, including those of physics, gravity, and each other, we won't go into that.

The coffee is terrible, the gelati is not. If you want good coffee, you got the Piazza Farnése and drink it with all the mistresses of the French ambassadors, for it is exactly opposite the French embassy.

Things in Rome seem to have been built not for humans but for Gods, which is appropriate, considering its history. The Pantheon was quite extraordinary, not only for the sheer, flip-gods-the-finger size of it, but also precisely because the ancient religion shone through the Christian trappings.

And did anybody know that there was a brilliant Dalì painting hidden away in a dusty corner of the Vatican museums? Or that there's a souvenir shop run by nuns on the roof of the Vatican? That it's more fun playing hide-and-seek with the door-guards on opulent churches than bothering to wrap a shawl around your shoulders?

Croatia:

Ah, Croatia, land of my mother. Our island is just off the coast, and when I say 'just', I mean a 3-hour ferry ride. It's called Korcula, and my keyboard seems reluctant to put the little hat that rightfully belongs above the C where it belongs, or, for that matter, the right way up.

What is there to say about this place that does it justice? Not much. It makes my heart grow wings inside my ribcage and my mind sing. Perhaps that's just because it feels more like home than anywhere does except the beach, and perhaps that's because Korcula is 90% beach. Granted, it's all stone beaches, but hell, sometimes it's nicer lying on an ancient expanse of jetty than sand that gets everywhere.

The food is incredible. Amaretti, which are tiny almond cakes with a recipe so secret that the woman who makes them has an international, top-secret cult following; the best fresh lemonade in the world at a Monastery village halfway up a mountain; mysterious, light-as-a-feather marmalade donut-thingamies called Krafne; Stupe lunches, about which there may be more later.

The Backpacker's bar is a heavenly place full of persian couches, free-flowing alcohol, fabulously good-looking people (they don't let the other kind in), free love and general iniquity. Apparently it's renowned in Hitchhiker circles.

What else can I say? We scootered, we kayaked, we boated, we drank many cocktails, we tanned, we swam, we snorkelled, we laughed. I read many high-brow novels. Other people read 'summer books'; I read Umberto Eco and Salman Rushdie.

Books:

Dune, by Frank Herbert.

I re-read this on the plane; I'd forgotten how addictive it was, the slow unfolding of the messianic path, the political maneuvering, the strange, appealing intelligence of Paul, the steel core of Jessica, the tragedy of the Red Duke. The Fremen culture and its unexpected but brilliantly chilling parallels to the Sardaukar, the whole, far-stretching, mind-boggling expanse of the Bene Gesserit agenda, the implied impact of the Butlerian Jihad on technological advancement. This isn't much of a review, but I loved this book, always have and probably always will. If anybody ever wants to talk Dune, rec Dune, write Dune, I'm up for it.

The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco.

The depth of knowledge incorporated about the politico-religious landscape of the medieval period was astounding, and the apocalyptic imagery was staggering. The labyrinthine nature of the library wound up in the human mystery of a murder, caught up in the tangled web of the nature of knowledge and religion itself was done with such elegance and subtlety that I closed the book, took a breath, and nearly hurtled off the balcony.

Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie.

This book won the Booker Prize of Booker Prizes, or some such masturbatory nonsense, but not without good reason. Going from the humble, novice monk narrator of Eco to the self-aware, self-mocking, arrogant narrator that Rushdie constructed was a shock, but not a bad one, just one of difference. If the breath and sweep of the medieval period was captured in The Name of the Rose, so did Rushdie tell the living, breathing story of India during its turbulent initial years of independence. I don't know enough about this to know if he really did so, but according to the reviews included on the front, back, leaf, blurb, etc., etc., I gather that he did. The sheer scope of imagination, the magical imagery and plots, the furiously visceral, unrelenting creativity of the actual wording, the linguistics and structuring of the writing was mind-blowing, and now I'm starting to sound like I belong on the back cover of the book.

The Name of the Rose

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.

*flails*

Kingdom of Fear, by Hunter S. Thompson.

This man is off his fucking nut. Utterly bonkers. Sheer insanity rolled up in violent intentions full of drug-fuelled rage. My god, I absolutely love it.

This was a kind of autiobiography, as only HST would write an autobiography. It's full of stories, letters, news clippings, commentary on his own work and full of blistering, eat-through-solid-metal acidic motherfucking brilliantly hilarious truth.

This dude would have gotten along with Douglas Adam's so damn well I wouldn't be surprised if they were sitting together on a beach drinking tequila's with the devil and drumming up an epistemological argument as to their proposal for a restructuring of the bureaucracy, religion, social dress codes and general fabric of reality of hell.

Oh, and he used to introduce himself as Johnny Depp just to mess with people. The fact that Johnny Depp had given him access to his personal checking account didn't help the matter.

The Salmon Of Doubt, By Douglas Adams

This was published after Adams's death, and is a collection of stories, letters, speeches, idle thoughts, jokes, and half-written chapters found on Adams's veritable fleet of his Apple computers, with which he apparently had a love-hate relationship of considerable depth.

The man calls himself a 'radical atheist', because he's had it with these piddling, half-hearted 'agnostics' who call themselves that out of some half-hearted notion of progress, inoffensive stances and tolerance. He dislikes that the sacredness of respecting people's religions has built up a kind of rapid-fire, fifty-foot deep titanium defence system against the logical and epistemological debates that investigate pretty much every single other social, political, geographical, mystical, scientific, philosophical, or really any possible notion of an idea that exists.

He also likes a good cup of tea, comparative test drives between under water engines and manta rays, Norse Gods with anger issues, getting rid of all the dongly bits that make working with computers so bloody hard, taking the piss out of policeman-logic, running full speed through the plate-glass windows of deadlines, lobster and Australia.

The man is a genius. I couldn't stop laughing the entire time.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

After reading The Salmon of Doubt I had to re-read Hitchhiker's. Zaphod Beeblebrox remains, always and forever, one of my favourite fictional creations in the history of Ever. I do love Arthur's sarcastic, deadpan self though, and Trillian just plain rocks my socks, Fenchurch is what all women should aspire to be.

And as for Ford Prefect, he really should get together with James Tiberius Kirk. I'm just sayin'. The morning after would be a catastrophe of pub-bills the size of Switzerland, stolen sports-spaceships, planetary economic collapses and general chaos theory in fast-forward.

Possession, by A.S. Byatt

Very, very, very literary. Written about such repressed, non-events of people that I very nearly gave up. I prefer reading about vibrant hot-messes of people, but the writing was very beautiful, and the concepts elegant and intelligent, and the literary mystery, while not as gripping as the glowing cover reviews (yes, those again) had promised, was intriguing and kept me reading.

Leaf Storm, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez,

One Hundred Years of Solitude is, if I absolutely had to give a solid answer, probably my favourite book. Leaf Storm was a book of short stories, two of which were placed in Macondo - the same setting as One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Marquez is ... I'm sitting here with my head in my hands trying to think of a word. I can't. And I'm only reading a translation. The story of a very old angel kept captive in an avaricious and enterprising family's chicken coop until his wings grow back, the corpse of the handsomest man in the world, who is larger than any man ever born, whose corpse alone had all the women in love with him, all these and more. There really is no way to describe this man's writing to someone who has not experienced it.

The world becomes something more, pregnant with the hot, blood-crawling insanity of high-flying, sharp edged, indolent human nature. I mean, fuck. Reading his stuff is not just the act of reading, it's a goddamn near-life experience.

-

London:

We went to see Arcadia, in which the playwright's son, Ed Stoppard, played Valentine, and was brilliant at it. For those who have read Arcadia, you'll know what I mean when I say that it is a play that, when performed, has high potential to go horribly wrong in myriad ways. The highly intellectual nature of the dialogue, the lack of strong dramatic action, the esoteric nature of its subject matter.

This performance did not go wrong. It was visceral, beautifully acted, furiously paced, wrought with sexual tension, and grabbed the high wit and humour of the text by the jugular.

The only off-note was the Thomasina, the actress didn't quite manage to pull off the genius of Thomasina; she was a little too crass, not quite ... ethereal? Elegant? Poised? enough. By no means was Thomasina a stuffy or repressed character, but the actress just made her too much a flushed, twittering, shouty young girl. She was good, just not my personal image of Thomasina.

We also saw Wicked, me for the second time. The London was just as brilliant as the Melbourne production - we'd heard that the Melbourne one was better than New York, which was in turn better than London, but that, in my opinion, wasn't the case.

I. Just. Utterly. Adore. Glinda. In more ways than I can possibly describe. And Elphie, of course, of course. The two of them together. More sexual tension than the Winchester brothers and Bones with anyone combined.

Bangkok:

Flew in. Got picked up by private car. Taken to five star hotel. Breakfast at said hotel. Taken on private tour in private car of Bangkok. Temples astounding. Went shopping. Back to hotel. Went to spa for Thai massage and facial. Showered. Dressed. Drank Bellini. Flew out.

'Twas only an 18-hour stopover.

Housekeeping:

Is anyone available to beta a Supernatural fic over the next few days? It'll be around 2-3k.

I was inspired to write a short little Mafia Verse' drabble by one of the places I visited. I dunno though, is anybody actually that interested in the mafia 'verse anymore? Let alone a mafia 'verse drabble?

Obviously, I've been away and unable to keep up, so if anything's happened that I should know about, drop me a line. What's new? What's crackin'? Apparently HBP sucked hairy elephant balls?

Why I will not let it go (and neither should you).

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:00:41 GMT

Sorry, I do realize that flooding ye old flist is annoying, but this really is important.

i realize now i do not fear death... i fear my daughter will not be free when i die

- From the Twitter of an Iranian medical student

"If it bothers you so much, then why don't you stop watching?" seems to be the question of the last few days from my friends and family who know how invested I have become in the cause of the Iranian people (as I have explained in great detail here) The answer is simple: one day of caring is not enough. We must be the voice for the people of Iran who would otherwise be silenced. They are without reliable news sources, they are without mobile phone calls, text messaging, facebook, twitter, youtube, AIM, Yahoo, Google, and pretty much every other useful outlet for information you can think of. Yet they persist on the streets and on the internet in any way they can. The least we can do, whether we are across continents, oceans, or time zones, is spread their words safely.

My death is irrelevant.Wht is important is that u do not forget my words.We want freedom.i will die 4that

- From the Twitter of a protester in Tehran

Right now, brave men and women in Iran, both young and old, are sacrificing their lives for their voices to be heard. They must fear not only the police, but also the Basij -a force of men loyal to the government who plant themselves among crowds in plain clothes in order to discretely attack protesters and incite chaos.The protesters are peaceful. They mass together in crowds that are reported to grow in size every day. At night they have very few, if any, safe places to stay. Houses with satelite dishes were attacked by the Basij tonight, and during the 50 minutes of Twitter's maintenance, another university was attacked.

140 characters is a novel when you're being shot at.

- From another Iranian Twitter

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

The most obvious thing to do is stay informed. Keep an eye on reliable sources on Twitter, refresh blogs and news sites that are covering the stories.

If you are on twitter, retweet information from reliable twitters, but REMOVE THE USERNAME if they are in Iran. People have died because of the lack of responsibility by fellow tweeters and the media in this front. They can be tracked down by the government of Iran.

Spread the information elsewhere. Repost this article or write your own on Facebook, Myspace, Tumblr, or anywhere else you can think of. If you write your own, make sure you are concise and accurate. Link to your sources for people to learn more.

Change your location on Twitter to Tehran or Iran, and your time zone to GMT +3:30.

DO NOT auto-refresh and take down websites, even if you are asked. It slows down the internet for the rest of the people in Iran.

If you make a proxy DO NOT post it publically, otherwise it is useless. Send it in a direct message to a trusted source.

DO NOT spam the hash tag #IranElection with useless things to "confuse the government". This does not help at all.

USEFUL SITES TO FURTHER HELP

Cyber War Guide for Iran Elections

Green Revolution - How to Help

Anonymous - Why We Protest - Iran

STAY INFORMED!

Follow on Twitter: @ProtesterHelp and @StopAhmadi

(REMINDER: DO NOT REPOST PERSONAL TWITTERS OF THOSE INSIDE THE COUNTRY, EVEN IF THEY ARE RELIABLE!)

Chronology of events

Live-blogging by Andrew Sullivan

General information from a poser on Fark.com

Live-blogging on HuffingtonPost

دنیارابگوییدچطورآنهاانتخاباتمان دزدیده اند
Tell the world how they have stolen our election

- original post by one_hoopy_frood

V.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:45:53 GMT

Here's a collection of quotes about what's going on in Iran that I thought were interesting, or different to what I'd read so far:

--

An anonymous Iranian with the handle “Censored Name” posted something a little bit different on his Facebook page:

What I saw today was the most elegant scene I had ever witnessed in my life. The huge number of people were marching hand in hand in full peace. Silence. Silence was everywhere. There was no slogan. No violence. Hands were up in victory sign with green ribbons. People carried placards which read: Silence. Old and young, man and woman of all social groups were marching cheerfully. This was a magnificent show of solidarity. Enghelab Street which is the widest avenue in Tehran was full of people. I was told that the march has begun in Ferdowsi Sq. and the end of the march was now in Imam Hossein Sq. to the further east of Tehran while on the other end people had already gathered in Azadi Sq. The length of this street is about 6 kilometers. The estimate is about 2 million people...

... I felt proud to find myself among such a huge number of passionate people who were showing the most reasonable act of protest. Frankly, I didn’t expect such a political maturity from emotional Iranians who easily get excited. My family and I had put stickers on our mouths to represent the suppression.

- Via Michael Totten

-- --

What's often forgotten amid the genuinely awe-inspiring spectacle of hundreds of thousands of long-suppressed people risking their lives on the streets to demand change is the fact that the political contest playing out in the election is, in fact, among rival factions of the same regime. Ahmadinejad represents a conservative element, backed by the Supreme Leader, that believes the established political class has hijacked the revolution and enriched themselves and is fearful that the faction's more pragmatic inclination toward engagement with the West could lead to a normalization of relations that will "pollute" Iran's culture and weaken the regime. Mousavi is not really a reformer so much as a pragmatic, moderate conservative who has campaigned with the backing of the reform movement because it recognizes that he has a better chance of unseating Ahmadinejad than one of their own would have.

- TIME.

--

I have been struck over the past few days by the response of American pundits to the events in Iran. I cannot remember the last time that there was such a clear consensus across the political Whereistheirvote spectrum that one side in an internal political dispute in another country deserved our unabashed support. Every publication from The Weekly Standard to The Nation seems exhilarated by the prospect of Iranian liberals standing up to the theocrats who rule their country.

- Richard Just

--

[T]he Obama administration has to be very careful about backing, or even placing great hopes on, someone like Iran's Moussavi and even on his impassioned followers. If we are seeing the beginning of another revolution--or structural transformation--in Iran, it is worth remembering that before the dust clears on this events, Kerensky can become Lenin and Bani Sadr can become Khomeini. The U.S. should use its influence--and get European countries to use theirs--but we should be careful and not allow ourselves to get into crusading mode where we think we can protect or defend one side against the other.

- John B. Judis

--

If a moderate were elected and negotiations with Iran still went nowhere, how would the U.S. and Europe stop Iran from going nuclear? With its centrifuges spinning, Iran could continue to amass enriched uranium while presenting to the outside world an openness to compromise, the diplomat explained. When it came time to confront a stalling Iran by dropping the carrots and applying the sticks, said the senior European diplomat, "Try to imagine how difficult it would be to say 'I stop, I don't negotiate anymore,' " if a moderate were in charge in Tehran.

- TIME.

--

Today begins with seemingly contradictory news from Iran: the Guardian Council, a body of clerics that holds more power than the President or the parliament, has agreed to recount some of the votes from Friday’s disputed election...

...The Guardian Council’s gambit, while not entirely without promise, should be viewed with some skepticism. First, the council is not recounting all the ballots, if they can be found; it is reviewing only disputed ballot boxes, whatever that means. Second, this is not a disinterested review of the election results; in Iranian politics, the Guardian Council is essentially the practical hand of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the organ by which he most directly intervenes in the affairs of state. Through it, he has veto power over all legislation and can disqualify candidates for public office at will. Its members are directly or indirectly appointed by the Supreme Leader, and manifestly beholden to him. So this is not a neutral intervention; it is Khamenei’s next move.

-New Yorker

--

ETA: There's an excellent analysis of the situation so far here at ontd_political

Tehran is burning.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:05:09 GMT

What is happening, this, here, right now, this is important. This is of monumental importance. We can't do much, we cannot take the baton-blows, we cannot break the lines of riot police, we cannot march through the streets of Tehran.

What we can do is what we do best; spread information in ways that are fast, efficient, and accessible, in ways that just might help tip the balance.

For a good overview of the situation, plus links to sources of information, I direct you to this post:

"On Friday, millions of people waited for hours in line to vote in Iran's Presidential election. Later that night, as votes came in, Mousavi was alerted that he was winning by a two-thirds margin. Then there was a change. Suddenly, it was Ahmedinejad who had 68% of the vote - in areas which have been firmly against his political party, he overwhelmingly won. Within three hours, millions of votes were supposedly counted - the victor was Ahmedinejad. Immediately fraud was suspected - there was no way he could have won by this great a margin with such oppposition. Since then, reports have been coming in of burned ballots, or in some cases numbers being given without any being counted at all...

The people of Iran took the streets and rooftops. They shout "Death to the dictator" and "Allah o akbar." They join together to protest. Peacefully. The police attack some, but they stay strong. Riots happen, and the shouting continues all night. Text messaging was disabled, as was satellite, websites which can spread information such as twitter, facebook, youtube, and the BBC are blocked in the country."

by one_hoopy_frood

Pimp!Post

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:22:34 GMT

Wow, it must be exam time. Operation Procrastination is at Defcon One.

-

Leverage:

'cause geek and muscle go together like horse and carriage
The Alec/Eliot comment fic party. You know you want to come and play ...

It's very timely, actually, considering this fascinating meta by facetofcathy on the stastics of the burgeoning Leverage fandom activity, and the surprising lack of Alec Hardison, the One Geek to Rule Us All. (Okay, that last bit was all me.)

My contribution: Snuggling.

Supernatural:

Pimping out a new community:

They too have a comment fic meme going on, the theme of which is 4.22: The Day After.

Eta: I forgot to note that the community is friendslocked. I'll probably repost the drabble soon in my own journal.

This is mine.
(Spoilery, obviously. Set immediately post-finale to the prompt: You-Know-Who is suddenly right there.)

The spn_summergen have gone out, and I'm very happy with mine; I've been hit with an awesome concept, and now all I have to do is pull it off.

If you got my prompts, don't worry about sticking to them exactly, I'm very relaxed, and you can go off on all the tangents you like.

--

Meme:

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write ~~a post~~ a reply about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc.

Dig yourself, Lazarus.

Mon, 25 May 2009 18:39:13 GMT

So there's this library on my campus, it's a secondary library, far away from the main one, sequestered away in an old corner, and in this library, there's a floor where hardly anybody ever goes. It's full of the most amazing books, in languages I can't begin to recognize, let alone read. I love it. There are, however, some books in English, old, old, old books. Wandering around, as I do sometimes in between study bouts, pulling random books off the shelves, I came across a small, red book that was in tatters, and full of old Irish spells and curses. This is one:

A Charm against Accidents, Fire, Tempests, Water, Knife or Lance.

"Jesus, Savior of men. In Jesus trust, and in Mary trust truly for all grace.
This is the measure of the wounds of Christ upon the Cross, which was brought to Constantinople to the Emperor as a most precious relic, so that no evil enemy might have power over him. And whoever reads it, or hears it, cannot be hurt by fire or tempest, or the knife, or the lance; neither can the devil have power over him, nor will he die an untimely death, but safety from all dangers will be his to the end."

Man. I really hope that we get a balls-out, cards on the table, hard-drinking, T.S Eliot inspired, no pulled-punches apocalypse. I want season 5 to open with a bloodied and charred angel stumbling down a cracked road, wings dragging across the melting tarmac, to pan out across a desert landscape, to see a smoking sign declaring 'You are now leaving L.A, city of Angels.'

None of this season 3 'the devil's gate opened, and nothing's really happening as a consequence except some demons having a bit of fun' nonsense. It doesn't break the budget to say a plague's broken out in Britain, to say Australia's at war with Japan, to make American cities the new version of seals, falling, tumbling one by one without showing every epic battle. Nobody ever goes for the full-on apocalypse.

Come, on Supernatural, game on.

Having just finished watching Carnivàle, you know what could be really awesome? Ron Moore on the writing team. Kripke can keep a hold on his myth arc, thankyou very much, but Ron Moore can do apocalyptic imagery and ongoing, creepy, bloody devastation like no other.

In Sam's condescension, there is the evolution of his belief throughout the season that Dean is weak made manifest, but presented in such a way that it is a statement of fact. It is a fact that women, on average, tend to have less sheer physiological strength than men. Sam, by his nature (or is it nurture?), is stronger. When he talked of Dean being weak, it wasn't contemptuous, as it was in his siren-fuelled declaration in Sex and Violence, it was a simple statement of fact. I occupy a higher hierarchy of power than you.

The whole episode of WtLB, seems to be geared toward establishing Sam's frame of mind - and that of the audience - to perceive him as in the ascendant, on his way to becoming something monstrously powerful. At the very end, after the harrowing process of internal rationalizations, conflict and dialogue with the hallucinations, after his last attempts at justification to an outside actor failed, he eschewed the need to explain at all, and embraced the role assigned him: Monster, the powerful, necessary evil.

Sam was so convinced that there was no 'after' for him. He was fully prepared to sacrifice his humanity and become a monster to do what he thought was right. And it was all for nothing. The demon blood, it was all a ruse. God. Sam.

Sam as a nuclear warhead. I just loved that analogy from WtLB, because Sam really is the blunt instrument here, and Dean the sharp one, with the imagery of Michael's sword/spear.

Dean by Alastair, Sam by Ruby, both have no changed from what they were, have elements of the demonic within them, Sam moreso than Dean. I hope that they continue with this line next season, that we see more and more of Sam as not-quite-human, Dean reluctantly, bit-by-bit becoming the holy warrior of myth.

I adored naughty-schoolboy look on Dean's face after he got caught breaking the angel. With the beer and the hamburgers, the unrelenting demands to see Sam and the fierce morality, there was a brilliant amount of classic Dean in Lucifer Rising.

WtLB: The hallucination of Mary read very much to me as the unholy mother of the Antichrist. In Sam's mind, she becomes the epitome of an undoubting believer in his compromised morality and methods, the inversion of Mary, mother of Christ, undoubting believer in the absolute goodness of God's laws.

Also on Mary, she says she's from a long line of hunters. Which brings to light fascinating questions on the hunting community from which Sam and Dean were kept sequestered. How do hunter's families work? Do they generally have family homes, home bases, from which they sally forth, each having a local sphere that reaches as far as the next reliable hunting community, so each unit doesn't have to travel ridiculous distances constantly? Most would not stay mobile, not with families. So why did John? Because he knew about Sam. But how? How long and how far back has John known about Sam, and for the love of all that is unholy, how did he know about Sam? Have I missed some explanation of this?

Speaking on the good old days, I loved that we got to see YED, though I wish they'd gotten an actor who could pull of charismatic and fuck-you attitude rather than seeming so ... oily? Slimy? I don't know, he just felt a little too minion-y to me. But how much do I love that his twisty, evil-plan-of-doom was so effectively and brilliantly laid out that it pulled itself off even without him pulling the strings after he died? So much.

I loved that Ruby was playing the long game. In my personal canon, she is one of YED's children, a Meg mark 2. Or perhaps Meg was Ruby mark 2. And I loved that she had cared for Sam, in her own fucked up way, that she was such a devotee that she couldn't conceive of the idea that Sam wouldn't understand, wouldn't forgive her in time.

The imagery of her death was disturbing and unnecessary. I think the writers were trying to use it as a way to demonstrate to Dean that Sam was back 'with him', which is even worse, making her death a method for bringing the brothers closer together in some kind of 'bonding'. Ugh. But my love for Ruby's crazy, fanatical, devious self remains unmarred.

Chuck and Castiel! Facing down the archangels! I nearly died laughing at that look Castiel gave Chuck when he touched him.

RUFUS.

BOBBY.

BOYS.

-- --

Deluge.

Coda to SPN 4.22

It’s raining when they stumble from the chapel, warm rain, too warm to be natural, with mist coating the air, brushing up against their skin like a living creature, twisting around the cracked road, still shaking with aftershocks, tarmac shearing up from the ground in miniature mountains and chasms that hadn’t been there before.

Before.

Dean remembers before, in the same vague, common way that he knows some families are nuclear and Afghanistan is at war. Time seemed to slow, in that light, Sam’s hand gripping his shoulder, eyes clear and holy in the blaze, unblinking and hypnotized. Light. Dean had never seen light of that particular shade before, not when Pamela’s eyes burned out, not when angels burned through the gore and grime of hell.

It burned and seared, twisting through the pores in his skin, gliding up his spine, freezing the world, changing everything and nothing, roaring through his chest, his blood boiling in his veins, and he could have sworn he felt bubbles cracking beneath the surface of his skin, sickening vibrations crawling up his belly, and down again, dizzyingly down, down, down.

Everything was falling apart, exploding under the unrelenting wall of light, and there nothing but need; he needed, needed – Sam, Sam was there, crashing against him, fists tight in his shirt, hot like no human could be and still be breathing, the heat burning through the three million layers of clothing he always fucking wore, his lips on Dean’s, harsh and biting, cracking with the heat, and salt and blood and pain was flooding between their mouths, blood sliding free down Dean’s chin, across his throat, hot and slick.

And then, just as suddenly, the light was gone, and it was like the whole world had gone dark, and the chapel shivered like a ghost, snapping in and out of a shadowy existence, the altar blurred, the floor not quite solid beneath his knees.

Silence settled like a shroud across the bloodied chapel. Lucifer was free. Somewhere. Somewhere that was not this chapel, and that was all Dean could seem to focus on, a strange sense of keening loss bolting through him.

After what felt like hours, and for all he knew, it might as well have been, Sam hauled him upright, hands still twisted in his shirt.

Dean let him, feeling his head loll, shoulders slumping, he felt all this with a detached kind of impotence, but he couldn’t seem to move; there was a magnificent kind of lethargy dragging him down, and oh, he remembered this feeling, it was a feeling that hell had taught him how to feel and that Alastair had taught him how to embrace.

He swore, something even he couldn’t quite make out in the thick muck of the air, and flung an arm cross the small of Sam’s back, and together they tripped and stumbled and struggled their way out.

The rain on Sam’s skin sizzled, evaporating into steam, and Dean could feel the heat dissipating beneath his hands as they walked further and further from the chapel.

They reached something, some point far enough away to satisfy Sam’s bloody-minded march forward, and they fell together, arms twisted, hands scrabbling, Dean’s head buried in the curve of Sam’s neck.

They lay together in the rain, the black dirt moist and crumbling beneath, the sky invisible above.

“This isn’t how it was meant to go.” Sam’s voice was cracked and so small, so desperate, so goddamned confused, and all Dean wanted to do was punch him in the face.

Instead, he reached out a hand, and pretended that the water he wiped off Sam’s cheek was rain.

The rest could wait until morning. Stars shifted like fireflies through mist above them. Sam was breathing, harsh and slow.

It was enough, for now.

--

Title and cut text are from the quotation attributed to Madame de Pompadour: "au reste, après nous, le déluge" which was used to convey the notion of: ruin, if you like, when we are dead and gone, or, when I am dead the deluge may come for aught I care. (Source.)

The Secret History

Sat, 23 May 2009 16:44:16 GMT

So I just finished The Secret History, by Donna Tartt (yes, I'm ridiculously late to the party, stop laughing), and my mind is satisfactorily blown. Rather than attempt to impart my impressions through words, at which I would no doubt fail miserably, I instead choose to use pictures, quotations and music.

Spoilers for the book beneath the cut.

r i c h a r d.

"'You don't feel a great deal of emotion for other people, do you?'

"Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.
A moi. L'histoire d'une de mes folies."

h e n r y.

'Nothing,' he said. 'Except that my life, for the most part, has been very stale and colorless. Dead, I mean. The world has always been an empty place to me. I was incapable of enjoying even the simplest things. I felt dead in everything I did.' He brushed the dirt from his hands. 'But then it changed,' he said. 'The night I killed that man.'

"I had never thought Henry handsome - indeed, I'd always suspected that only the formality of his bearing saved him from mediocrity, as far as looks went - but now, less rigid and locked up in his movements, he had a sure, tigerish grace the swiftness and ease of which surprised me."

f r a n c i s.

Only the day before Francis, in a swish of black cashmere and cigarette smoke, had brushed past me in a corridor. For a moment, as his arm touched mine, he was a creature of flesh and blood, but the next, he was a hallucination again, a figment of the imagination stalking down the hallway as heedless of me as ghosts, in their shadowy rounds, are said to be heedless of the living.

"The third boy was the most exotic of the set. Angular and elegant, he was precariously thin, with nervous hands and a shrewd albino face and a short, fiery mop of the reddest hair I had ever seen. I thought (erroneously) that he dressed like Alfred Douglas, or the Comte de Montesquieu: beautiful starchy shirts with French cuffs; magnificent neckties; a pale black greatcoat that billowed behind him as he walked and made him look like a cross between a student prince and Jack the Ripper."

t h e t w i n s.

And then there were a pair, boy and girl. I saw them together a great deal, and at first I thought they were boyfriend and girlfriend, until one day I saw them up close and realized they had to be siblings. Later I learned they were twins. They looked very much alike, with heavy dark-blonde hair and epicene faces as clear, as cheerful and grave, as a couple of Flemish angels. And perhaps most unusual in the context of Hampden - where pseudo-intellects and teenage decadents abounded, and where black clothing was de riguer - they liked to wear pale clothes, particularly white. In this swarm of cigarettes and dark sophistication they appeared here and there like figures from an allegory, or long-dead celebrants from some forgotten garden party.

c a m i l l a.

"I looked at Camilla, her face bright in the sun, and thought of that line from the Iliad I love so much, about Pallas Athene and the terrible eyes shining."

c h a r l e s.

"There was a grand piano, too, and Charles was playing, a glass of whiskey on the seat beside him. He was a little drunk; the Chopin was slurred and fluid, the notes melting sleeily into one another. A breeze stirred the heavy, moth-eaten velvet curtains, ruffling his hair."

b u n n y.

'...a sloppy blond boy, rosy-cheeked and gum-chewing, with a relentlessly cheery demeanor and his fists thrust deep in the pockets of his knee-sprung trousers.'

"He sailed through the world guided only by the dim lights of impulse and habit, confident that his course would throw up no obstacles so large that they could not be plowed over with sheer force of momentum."

j u l i a n.

George Orwell - a keen observer of what lay behind the glitter of constructed facades, social and otherwise - had met Julian on several occasions, and had not liked him. To a friend he wrote: 'Upon meeting Julian Morrow, one has the impression that he is a man of extraordinary sympathy and warmth. But what you call his "Asiatic serenity" is, I think, a mask for great coldness.'

"Nearly everyone had heard of him, and I was given all sorts of contradictory but fascinating information: that he was a brilliant man; that he was a fraud; that he had no college degree; that he had been a great intellectual in the forties, and a friend to Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot; that his family money had come from a partnership in a white-shoe banking firm, or, conversely, from the purchase of fore-closed property during the Depression; that he had dodged the draft in some war (though chronologically this was difficult to compute); that he had ties with the Vatican; a deposed royal family in the Middle East; Franco's Spain."

.
.
.

m u s i c.

As Serious As Your Life - Four tet

(instrumental.)

Hate To Say I Told You So - The Hives

Now it's all out and you knew cause I wanted to.

Auf Acshe - Franz Ferdinand

So look what you've done, boy.

Ashes To Ashes - Tarbox Ramblers

Dust to dust.

Make No Silence - Khoiba

This fear of someone else could make you fine.

I Know What You Are But What Am I? - Mogwai

(instrumental.)

Come Undone - Duran Duran

Lost, in a snow filled sky, we'll make it alright.

Hallelujah (cover) - Imogen Heap

Love is not some victory march.

.

Comments are love.

Oh no he di-idn't

Wed, 20 May 2009 22:06:12 GMT

GUYS. YOU GUYS. MISHA COLLINS IS SHIPPING HIMSELF WITH MICHELLE OBAMA.

I...I seriously don't know what to do with that.

Why yes, the footnotes do include footnotes.

Sun, 17 May 2009 01:28:22 GMT

[Crossposted to Dreamwidth.]

A silly, cracky Good Omens drabble for karanguni, who has recently reached egregiously unnatural levels of awesome.

Footnotes to the Strange and Varied Ethics of the Demon Formerly Known as Crawly.

If the Bentley is dented, scratched, crashed, dinted, sliced, keyed, egged, slashed, scored, nicked, notched, devoured, nicked, grazed, incised, regurgitated upon, indented, dimpled, shot at, blown up, melted, burnt, drilled, towed, stolen, sunk, eaten¹, mutilated, damaged, graffitied, cursed, possessed, insulted, maimed, defaced, marred, buried, electrocuted, smashed, hand-grenaded or in any way harmed, Crowley will not be held responsible for his actions².

1. Ever hear that old joke about a Kraken, a demon and a 1926 Black Bentley? That’s because everyone who has was Taken Care Of three eons ago.

2. Technically, he isn't responsible for any of his actions, what with being a demon and having an irredeemable demonic nature and all, which, yes, defeats the purpose of the whole 'Ethics' exercise, as has been expounded to a certain Angel numerous times, but said angel is stubborn, and has sat through three International Crime Tribunals in swift succession, and Crowley was in an easy-going state of mind, something that has only occurred five times since the beginning of the Arrangement, and - Just go with it, okay?

He loves his plants, he really does. He loves them so much that when he’s going to be away for a while, he leaves Countdown with Keith Olbermann on full blast, just so they’ll have someone to threaten them with death in his absence.

He popped into Guantanamo Bay once, a year or two back, and promptly fell off the face of the Earth. Aziraphale found him three weeks later on a beach in Scotland, twenty-seven empty bottles of Russian vodka lined up on the sand beside him¹.

1. Half the local town had, during this time, undergone a spontaneous epiphany, decided to ‘see the world’, and packed up shop in order to embark on ‘indefinite vacations, ’ all the while muttering madly about haunted beaches and unseelie beasties who screamed old pirate shanties during the night and despised humankind.

English is his preferred language, due in large part, though he will never admit it, to the influence of a certain Angel. The problems encountered in expressing himself start and end with the basis of the language upon certain constructions of faith and the ontological perception of the world as a product of a most unknowable divinity. But he is rather proud of the invention of OMG.

Morningstar, that unholy bastard¹, lured him into the home stretch of his fall with the enticement of a fantastically stylish and anachronistic tie clip. He couldn’t help himself, really², and he figures that if he’s going to be evil, he might as well be evil with style. He’s only ever met one man who manages to pull off amorality with anywhere near his level of panache. But we don’t talk about Danny Ocean.

1. What? It’s a compliment Down There.

2. It was just so shiny. And unexpectedly functional to boot. What could possibly have gone wrong?

It's a shock to the cajones, a little death of the system.

Tue, 12 May 2009 04:01:04 GMT

Let me tell you a story about a girl.

She was a clever girl, but far too manic for most people; she reached too far into tangents and delved a little too deep into the extrapolation of possible realities for their comfort. You see, she'd had it tough for the last few years, starved, battered down by the gloomy hallmarks of monotonous people and cruel intentions. Then in a burst of colour, sudden and brilliant, she coalesced into what people now see when they look at her.

Her problem, and her gift, was that she was a child. She let forth with unprecedented spouts of creative, insane, joyous chatter. She wrote, she painted, she sang, she screamed, she capslocked the hell out of her life. In her ignorance was cruelty, but she didn't know much of pain or suffering, and didn't recognize it when she doled it out.

She grew up a little. Simmered in her juices. Her halcyon days were over. Resentment crept in. She was stifling and being stifled, old friends and golden, nostalgic times fleeing into the fogginess of memory, leaving only the harsh abandonment of adolescent realization. The world is not rose-coloured. She had known this, but it had always been external, and within herself she had always felt safe, secure, loved and adored, while now she felt betrayed by herself. Set in routines that were impossible to reroute, cursed with growths pronounced inoperable that were poisoning the flow of blood to her brain, and hence, her imagination.

She blamed herself. She blamed the world. She hated watching herself begin to wither with bitterness and crumble due to internal combustion. Self-doubt and crises of faith plagued her, paralyzed the blinding energy that had so recently been her defining characteristic.

But you know what? This kid just needed a good kick in the head. A suitable man for the job was found in the form of a wise bodyguard in a film about a pretty, pretty princess, who once quoted a brilliant woman. He said: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

She felt like giving up. If all she was going to cause was harm, what was the point in continued existence, in continued productivity and creation? If all creative impulses were to inevitably be shot down by her own doubts, her own ignorance, and above all, her own internal and opposing dialogues, then what was the point? Creativity tempered by reality ne'er did run smooth to genius.

But nobody was saying 'stop'. Nobody was telling her she was a horrible, ignorant gnat of a person. Don't stop writing. I want to tell this girl: Don't give up. Don't yell and scream and rend your garments at the setback of progressive thought. Don't be scared. You can do this. You can keep writing. Just write better. Listen. Learn. This is not a call for a complete and utter halt to production and your personal creations. For god's sake, take this knowledge, offered freely, search out some more, and just try.

Feel shame if you must, if shame is what this has provoked in you, for yes, shame is a learning tool, and it drives us on to remove the ignorance that led to that shame. But don't let guilt paralyze you. Guilt is the game of a self-pity that we engage in when we don't know how to fix things. She should be as much as she should be, no matter how terrifying it is to realize that everyone's been watching her walking around with her pants down for a while now, and that she really has no idea how to even begin to start constructing a new pair of pants. Ignorance, as a good friend of mine has said, is not ignobility. It is shameful, and dangerous, but not the sign of an ugly heart. We are all only human.

This girl is everywhere. She is me, in many ways, but in this case the girl I am talking to and about is RBR.

Yes, your halcyon days are over. So what? Here be beasties of depth. And you know what? You're all in this together, so rally the troops, sit down at the map table and start charting some new territory, or better yet, start erasing the lines and barricades of the old. It'll be a nice, family-friendly, educational adventure. Don't let the kraken scare you away. He has the wisdom of the ages, and he'll talk to you if you hunt him down, if you can look past the terrifying visage of something so far beyond your ken or control, if you just listen.

Ursula K. LeGuin once wrote, "The creative adult is the child who has survived." Peter Pan was so scared of growing up, he never even tried. Wendy was the one brave enough to keep living, to keep trying, to keep growing.

In conclusion: don't be scared. Be smart.

Heroes and Pundits

Sun, 03 May 2009 20:32:26 GMT

So my lgbtfest fic is up, written for the prompt:

RPF - Pundits, Stephen Colbert, When Stephen comes out to Jon in an unscripted toss, nobody's quite sure whether it was an in-character joke or not. Including Stephen.

- Life, and Other Things.

Ok, how fucking creepy would it be to find out that you are not you, that the life you've been living, the people you love, the body itself that you are walking around in, all these things are not yours? That you in fact, died months ago, only nobody told you, and they instead performed a secret mind-meld experiment and made you into this monstrous hybrid? Just the sheer psychological implications of that are kind of brain-breakingly awesome. I hope Fuller stretches some muscle here.

When Nathan figures this out, figures out that his very skin is not his, is not containing the thing he believes to be himself, but rather a man who he considers a monster, that he is, essentially, Sylar, because I have no doubt that he would see it that way, at least at first, some serious shit is gonna go down.

I like that Claire and Peter don't know. Neither would be able to accept Nathan in Sylar's body, and this way, when Sylar comes out to play, and the truth with him, Nathan hasn't been betrayed in that deep, visceral sense, by everybody he loves, by the very people he uses to define himself.

In regards to Nathan having Sylar's powers, I don't think that'll come into play till Sylar starts fighting back. Matt smacked Nathan with a hell of a whammo, and I seriously think Nathan having this baseline directive to believe that He is Nathan. Sylar is dead, will be a kind of mental block on those extra powers.

I admit it, I'm in it for the awesome of Adrian Pasdar having a good reason for darker motivations. I'm thrilled he's being given a complexly dark, imperfect, possibly dangerous character again. Nathan was like that, once, but never quite as fierce. If the Nathan facade falls and all that's left is Sylar's urges and Nathan's personality... - trinityvixen Here.

That perfectly sums up my excitement about this development. I know a lot of people consider Nathan, as a person, dead and gone now, but I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of organic memory, that it is memories and brain chemistry that makes the person, and the Sylar in Nathan's form, with Nathan's unique neural pathways and synapses, with Nathan's memories, is, to all intents and purposes, Nathan, but with those shifting, dangerous powers of Sylar's underneath, that still remain, no matter how many mental layers there are locking them up.

Loved Tracey. That effect of her body forming from the water was one of the coolest (hah! Pun intended) things I've seen on the show. I like that they seem to be capitalizing on Tracey's inherently greyscale moral compass, which seems to be a product of the same line of compasses as that of Jack Sparrow's.

The Sylar/Claire scene was just as morbid and creepifying as I could have hoped for. I wonder if Sylar's fascination with Claire will start to seep through into Nathan's interactions with her. *shivers* I really like what they've done with Claire, maturing her character away from the naturally self-centred teenage kind of whiney-ness without detracting from her general pig-headed, blunt instrument, let's plunge straight into the danger zone kind of stupid. Which I like. I like that in Claire very much. Loved her walking up to that cannon. You can tell she just loves fucking with people's impressions of her as a blonde cherub.

Noah and Angela were just the hardest badasses in the world, as per usual. Angela's scream, or as AP called it, her wolf roar, that sent shivers down my spine. I think the Sylar/Nathan melding was half her needing Nathan, and half her inflicting the worst punishment she could think of on the man who killed her son, a fate worse than death.

Also, on a purely superficial note: My god, was Peter hot! And we had some rockin' brothertouching! And staring-down-the-face-of-death declarations of love! Petrellis, FTW.

Help?

Sat, 02 May 2009 18:14:11 GMT

Hey, anybody up to beta a ~2k word punditslash fic sometime today for lgbtfest?

Poetry

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:08:53 GMT

(Dreamwidth cross-post experiment)

New Supernatural! Which I have not seen yet, but in celebration of this simple but joyous fact, in conjunction with this being poetry month, have two poems by Charles Baudelaire that seemed eerily appropriate, one regarding an angel, the other a demon.

-- --

The Rebel

A furious Angel swoops down like an eagle,
Grabs a fistful of the infidel's hair,
And shaking him says: "You shall know the rule!
(For I am your good angel, do you hear?) You shall!

Know that you must love without making a wry face
The pauper, the scoundrel, the hunchback, the dullard,
So that you can make for Jesus when he passes
A triumphal carpet of your love.

Such is love! Before your heart becomes indifferent,
Relight your ecstasy before the glory of God;
That is the true Voluptuousness with the lasting charms!"

The Angel who gives punishment equal to his love
Beats the anathema with his giant fists;
But the damned one still answers: I shall not!"

-- --

Destruction

The Demon is always moving about at my side;
He floats about me like an impalpable air;
I swallow him, I feel him burn my lungs
And fill them with an eternal, sinful desire.

Sometimes, knowing my deep love for Art, he assumes
The form of a most seductive woman,
And, with pretexts specious and hypocritical,
Accustoms my lips to infamous philtres.

He leads me thus, far from the sight of God,
Panting and broken with fatigue, into the midst
Of the plains of Ennui, endless and deserted,

And thrusts before my eyes full of bewilderment,
Dirty filthy garments and open, gaping wounds,
And all the bloody instruments of Destruction!

-- --

— Both by Charles Baudelaire.
Translation by William Aggeler.

Le Rebelle

Un Ange furieux fond du ciel comme un aigle,
Du mécréant saisit à plein poing les cheveux,
Et dit, le secouant: «Tu connaîtras la règle!
(Car je suis ton bon Ange, entends-tu?) Je le veux!

Sache qu'il faut aimer, sans faire la grimace,
Le pauvre, le méchant, le tortu, l'hébété,
Pour que tu puisses faire à Jesus, quand il passe,
Un tapis triomphal avec ta charité.

Tel est l'Amour! Avant que ton coeur ne se blase,
À la gloire de Dieu rallume ton extase;
C'est la Volupté vraie aux durables appas!»

Et l'Ange, châtiant autant, ma foi! qu'il aime,
De ses poings de géant torture 1'anathème;
Mais le damné répond toujours: «Je ne veux pas!»

— Charles Baudelaire

-- --

La Destruction

Sans cesse à mes côtés s'agite le Démon;
II nage autour de moi comme un air impalpable;
Je l'avale et le sens qui brûle mon poumon
Et l'emplit d'un désir éternel et coupable.

Parfois il prend, sachant mon grand amour de l'Art,
La forme de la plus séduisante des femmes,
Et, sous de spécieux prétextes de cafard,
Accoutume ma lèvre à des philtres infâmes.

II me conduit ainsi, loin du regard de Dieu,
Haletant et brisé de fatigue, au milieu
Des plaines de l'Ennui, profondes et désertes,

Et jette dans mes yeux pleins de confusion
Des vêtements souillés, des blessures ouvertes,
Et l'appareil sanglant de la Destruction!

— Charles Baudelaire

Important Life Event Notice

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:41:55 GMT

Things that are Good:

One Froggy Evening.

A seven minute long Warner Bros. cartoon from 1955, released as part of the Merrie Melodies series, and it will WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.

'Some critics and observers regard this cartoon short as the finest ever made. Steven Spielberg, in the PBS Chuck Jones biography Extremes & Inbetweens: A Life In Animation, called One Froggy Evening "the Citizen Kane of animated film."'

- Wikipedia.

It's utterly, utterly adorable and funny and, yet at the same time, a perfect summation of human nature that is incredibly relevant in the wake of the economic crisis. Watch it. It is 7 minutes of your life that you will never, ever want or need back.

--

Five Times Eliot Did What Had To Be Done by teand
Leverage. Eliot/...Well, everyone.

"Rock, paper, scissors?"

He shook his head, half smiling, and lifted his right hand. "On three. One, two, three…" His eyes narrowed as he stared at Parker's up turned palm and spread fingers next to his rock. "What the hell is that?"

"C4; it beats everything."

--

This is relevant to my interests.

And now, Jason Statham. I don't know how much say he has in the films he makes. But I get the impression that he reads the scripts. And if the script doesn't make him want to drive a bulldozer through a cake store, I'll bet he punches the script through a wall.

--

Her Beauty and Her Terror by ijemanja
Angel/Addams Family Values (Wednesday/Harmony)

It's quite disturbing to think of that girl, that pretty, blonde girl, as she knew her that summer, becoming a creature of the night.

Wednesday, naturally, approves.

--

Gorgeous Classic Hollywood Picspam + Quotes by likeadoll

--

Meme:

Ask me to, and I will:
1. Tell you why I friended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, a word etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.
~~7. In return, you must post this in your LJ.~~ Eh. Do as you will.

I have nothing of further value to contribute at this time. Except this: ♥