Fic, rec & be fannish...

holy hardware batman!

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:44:57 GMT

Two things have happened since my last post: one, I had bronchitis. I finished the antibiotics today, and the cough has mostly gone as well. Man, I hate winter illnesses almost as much as they seem devoted to me.

Two, my computer finally crapped out on me after bravely struggling on for the past two months in a pitiful state of uncertainty. In the end it was the power pack, which I changed today All By Myself (\o/).

So If I haven't been around and you haven't heard from me when you thought I'd make a peep, them's the reasons. There were days when the browser wouldn't even load web pages beyond the most basic of texts.

Now, to get back in the spirit of things, Castiel's fall back career (actually true. no, really)

And why did I not hear Great Squeeing about this movie when it came out? It looks fantastic!!! (plus, I've actually visited many of the fantasy locations you see in the trailer during my trip to India... they're true! And it tickles me pink :-D)

Fic: A Breath of Fresh Air

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:23:41 GMT

I have commited commentfic in the form of an episode tag for 5.10 over at the spoilery meme that goes under a cut.

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And the prompt was: Castiel considers bringing Ellen and Jo back to life. Gen, ficlet coda is here. .

This is still in the vein of SPN-related stuff, but it ain't spoilery unless we still count 4.10, and we don't, do we? Check out the ~~angels Falling~~ meteor shower!

Jesus, it just took me forty minutes just to post these two things because the cuts weren't frigging working! Effe you, LJ.

Damn it it's hiatus again!

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:14:17 GMT

I said I was gonna post about 5.10 today, and I have a little time now, so I'm using it...

Now, you know what Changing Channels changed? From now on you can make any fusion/crossover ever to be canon, if you want.

Secondly, Gabriel? That's the guy that had to convince a barely adolescent Mary to get knocked up by the Holy Spirit and be the mother of Jesus? It's good I saw a clip of Richard at the Chicon where he said he'd had the following conversation with the writers:

R: So, I was looking up Gabriel in the Bible, and-
Writer: Yeah, we're not following that.
R: Oh, ok!

Suspention of disbelief: restored! Between Gabriel and Raphael (and Lucifer!) it looks like these uber-archaengels have some pretty overt uber emotions, know what I mean? Maybe the lower ranking angels are the only ones who are supposed to be emotionless terminator soldiers. I could do with a clarification, if Show can take time out of its busy "have you understood the ~~ANVIL~~ parallel between Michael&Lucifer and Sam&Dean yet?" schedule.

Next, the con episode. Reading metas around, I've finally made my peace with what Show meant to say. We will be back to BFFs once they give me a Phd Fangirl who isn't as batshit as Becky (and who survives! this is important, Show). Speaking of Becky, have you seen Four Times Becky called Chuck? Very funny. Also, there is never enough Chuck.

Finally, the angst-fest they prepared after the two crack!episodes (one crack episode for each beloved dead character?) that is Abandon all Hope.

For starters, Badger! (if you don't know who that is, fie! Also, watch Firefly). Mark Sheppard tweeted that that was his first on-screen kiss!! Oh, Badger. Really? He must have played plenty of baddies, and they never gave him some arm candy to smooch in establishing shots? Anyway, applause for the first on-screen gay kiss an all, it was pretty long and they shot it from many, many different angles, but it was pretty clearly not the kind of tonsil-hokey Dean went through when he did his own demonic deals. (also, bailouts are the devil's money! This is very intriguing if you add it to the giant banner that read "anti-God is anti-American!" in the deserted town. The demons are the terrorist, peoples! we can't let them win! Also, the rogue angels are the Terrorists! Can't let them win either!)

I relished every scene with Crowley, from his wistful, almost affectionate gaze on Hitler, to his calling the Hardy boys morons (work on your snappy comebacks, Dean!) to his shouting at them not to miss. But that rug? Had a plastic tarp under it where the symbols were written, so the bitching about the cost... eh, not so much.

Last night at Bobby's was a whole lotta love. Boys having found an equilibrium between them (I was a little intimidated by Sammy's bulging arm muscles, to tell the truth), Castiel doing shots with Ellen and Jo, Jo putting a close to her previous crush on Dean... also great parallel to 4.10 ;-P

I love how Castiel is so stiff in the picture. How many last-nights on Earth has he had now? *giggles*

The Reaper-riddled town shots were awesome. Also confirms my fanon that angels see much more than humans (you can't take anything for given in a show where angels fight like they do on SPN *sigh* if only they had a little more money for FX). Castiel looked exceptionally pretty with all the fire light, in great, subtle contrast to Lucifer who looked like a talking skeleton. Incredible love for the "automobile ride" talk, btw. Lucifer with his "I hear you waded through a toxic dump with only a pair of wellingtons. How was that?" subtext, and Cas with his alienness from humanity.

Oh, also? "I came alone." Cas needs to learn to lie better than that. Also, also? I think this confirms that it wasn't Lucifer who resurrected him, right?

The nearly thirty minutes that happened in between Cas walking his pretty ass in a trap and flirting his way with Meg out of it (damn it, I need angsty Cas/Meg now) are being repressed. Sufficent to say, my coping mechanism works only if I know a show is going to end at a precise date. If you say that SPN will end with season five, I can accept character death. If you say "we don't know, maybe season six could happen" I go to dark, rage-filled places, so it's better to ignore it. I think Tracy Dinwiddle said it best on her twitter: there's nothing like a mother's love. Aaand I'm getting misty-eyed again. Sniff.

When Dean sidled up to Lucifer with the Colt, I started flapping my hands and emitting a high-pitched "eek" sound. It was interpretive dance. The meaning was "Don't speechify Dean, shoothimshoothimshoothimRIGHTNOWSHOOTHIM!!!!".

Aaand the Colt didn't work. Nice way of getting rid of a plot-bomb, Kripke. This also means that future!Dean? 99% says he did shoot Lucifer!Sammy in the face. It just didn't work. It also makes me wonder about them not finding the Colt for so long. In this timeline Becky handed them the clue card, naming Crowley. Crowley claims he's been seeding rumors of the Colt to lead them to it. But Becky called Sam at the convention, and told Sam about the gun, so maybe in the other timeline Sam alone knew about the Colt, and I'm wondering if he didn't try and use it himself in Detroit. And Dean had to track it down only on Crowley's whispers and rumors.

And that's it, for now. I went in convinced that the episode would end on a massive cliffhanger, with all the characters in mortal peril, and we'd have to wait until January to find out who lived and who died *cue laughing and pointing* and I'm finding myself by turns horrified and relieved that we do know who lives and who dies.

Next, we're missing Pestilence and Famine, right? Also wondering what Death will look like.

Cheer up!

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:34:59 GMT

I have a lot to say about last night's SPN. So much so, in fact, that I'm feeling a little daunted by the amount of stuff. So I'm thinking I'll sleep on it, forget half of it, and then write a normal-sized post tomorrow-ish ;-P

And for now just cheat. BY POSTING THIS YEAR'S MERLIN'S CIN SKIT, FOR IT IS AWESOME!

It is so... iconable. You know, like quotable, but with icons!

The kingdom of Camelot

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:02:52 GMT

A quick note because it's too cool/geeky to leave this simmering. I was hunting for a reference for the show Merlin, and as usual I was having no luck with the BBC site or the great oracle (google). A helpful fan pointed me towards this: an official map of Camelot, drawn LotR-style, with all the places, borders and stuff. Awesome.

Incoherent rec

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:02:00 GMT

From the land of head colds and sore throats, I bring you a flaily, gushing author rec. And I'm only on aspirin, so I ain't pinning this on any cold-medicine nonsense, it's pure unadulterated genius, is what it is ;-D.

So, here's a little background to how come I'm this excited. Last night, feeling all miserable and sniffly, I went hunting for fic. Specifically, shiny new Castiel h/c. And I didn't find any that didn't set my teeth on edge with the prose or the characterization (or that wasn't a far AU, but I didn't want AU or anything funny. I wanted canon-compliant gen Castiel h/c, but I could settle for Dean/Cas slash and skip the sex like I always do).

So I ended up at Astolat's site, reading some of her Merlin fic.

Well, obviously I had given up on the SPN fic finding game, I was desperate for something I hadn't read already, and despite the heavy slant towards slash, Astolat writes such truly brilliant fic every damn time that I always enjoy it. Giggling my way through Arthur's and Merlin's exasperation with each other, I found myself wishing she shipped (or at least tried her hand at) Dean/Cas.

This morning? unoshot , who's relatively new to the whole SPN fic lark, posted a longish (I want more! MOOOORE!) canon-compliant gen Castiel h/c fic, with Sam pov, Dean being Dean, with everyone so perfectly in character really, in her usual lovely and very eloquent prose, and even the mode of the Whump was something I've been secretly waiting for since the beginning of the season. 5.03, to be specific.

You need to read all of her fics. Then regale her with praise, so she writes more.

I recommend in primis Aurora Borealis, which is a pg13 SPN/The Last Unicorn fusion. Now, I gather this is a pretty famous book for all you native English speakers... I hadn't even heard about it until I found this fic, but one thing I can say it's that the fic itself? Is bloody brilliant and I enjoyed it immensely. And makes me want to hunt down the book (!) and read it. And if you haven't seen season five, this one's perfectly safe, since it follows the events in the book rather than the show (if I'm honest it's also the reason I've started fantasizing about a Merlin/SPN fusion, I believe).

Secondly, you need to read In Excelsis and then The Mountains In Reply (Mountains is the new Cas h/c one), which are both pg13, and gen, and I need a thesaurus here because I can't keep chirping "bloody brilliant" like some ignorant baffoon, really. In fact, you know what? I think I'll go and read them again right now... you know, to find the proper praise to convince you *shifty eyes*.

Huh? Or, eh!

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:38:30 GMT

I just read an interview with Anthony Steward Head where he said Dollhouse got picked up again after Fox cancelled it. So, not daring to hope, I went on wheadonesque and... well, found out nothing about this supposed "pick up", but I did find out that They (TPTB? looks too sophisticated to be fan made) put up a site for Rossum Corp, including an ad that is so subtly creepy if you've been following Dollhouse that it'll give you the chills. And apparently there's some treasure hunt going on where you have to crack clues for extra content, including phone calls that end with the remote-wipe sound (!). It sounds all very cool and new-media-savvy, but if I start another obsession I might have to give up sleep and/or food, so I'm staying away for now ;-P

Whaa Whaa Whaa (good grief, Charlie Brown!)

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:09:46 GMT

I'm in the middle of getting a head cold. Maybe. I've been in limbo two days now. Don't get me wrong, of course I don't want to get a head cold, but I'm starting to wish my body would make up it's mind, either throw off the bug once and for all, or get through it. Meh.

Went to the doctor yesterday to get rid of some moles, thinking it was going to be laser, but the good doc took out (with obvious I-get-to-play-with-a-new-toy-yay relish) something that looked like one of those kitchen creme-brulee torches- it was actually a spray can of liquid nitrogen. She flash-freezed the moles. No blood, no band aids, it stung like a insertverybadword and then they swelled up some, and the ride back in the car was pretty uncomfortable. My mom, who's had the laser done before, said the burning feeling would last about a day, but with nitrogen it went away after just a couple of hours, actually. Here's to hoping they fall off like they're supposed to in a few days.

You know what rocked last week?

Merlin rocked! All those Merlin & Arthur friendship scenes, the road trip,,, everything! Also, the expansion of the Daddy Issues. And Mommy Issues. Arthur's set up for good, innit? Oh, Merlin, with his sheer hope when Arthur says he doesn't think all sorcerers are evil... and then of course lying to him to protect him!

All of this could have been prevented if Ygraine simply told her son that she blamed Uther for impregnating her in the first place without elaborating on the how, of course, if she really meant all that "do not trouble yourself over this" lark. But what fun would that be, eh?

You know what else rocked last week? SGU!

First episode that I didn't delete immediately after watching. Even though at the opening I was all "SGU does Blair Witch, great" *eyeroll*, it actually worked for me. I even liked what'shisname's perfomance, Eli. I didn't like the character by sheer gut reaction to him being the fanboy avatar, but the actor really sold me here. I think I'm going to add him to the reasons to keep watching SGU, which now amount to... let's see... oh, yeah, two: Carlyle and whoever's playing Eli.

Oh, you know what else is pretty awesome? House. But House is a known "awesome" quantity, so that's hardly surprising ;-P

Last night I got ambushed by an utterly, decadently self-indulging piece of Merlin fic with no redeeming quality whatsoever. Then this morning I realized that by changing it around a bit, it could turn into a character exploration piece. Then tonight I realized that if I merged it with that SPN fusion bunny I had, hopping around plotless, I could get one whole fic out of the two of them.

I have the how, the why and the when. I just need the who. Given my limited knowledge of Arthurian lore, I'm inclined to crib the villain from the SPN part of the equation (Mostly I'm afraid of picking someone from what I find on wikipedia and then that someone turning out to be a very unsuitable villain in sixty% of the lore) though I fear it would make the whole thing a bit unbalanced. Either way, this one I'm tempted to actually write ;-P

Charity! Also huh??

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:31:09 GMT

It perplexes, yet diverts, me that Arthur's armour should warrant less bids than Merlin's scarf on e-bay... and such low ones too! Go on, people, it's for charity!

As for the subject of SPN 5.09, I spent most of the episode with my eyes closed and my fingers stuck in my ears, going LALALALA. The enormity of my embarrassment squick, let me show you it. Seriously, if Show persists in embarrassment-based comic relief our relationship might be headed for rough waters.

On the other hand, I now know for a fact that Chuck can make anything better. I ♥ U Chuck *blows kisses*

But I read a couple of metas that put things a bit in perspective, and at least allowed me to push beyond the LALALALA gut reaction to see what Show was actually trying to do here. And one thing that hadn't occurred to me was how this week's and last week's episode are paired in the "roles and how we play them" theme. I thought I'd run away screaming from this episode, but now I think I might ponder a bit.

Two things (both Chuck-related. coincidence? I think not):

"how do you guys feel about angels? Not as lame as they sound, really."

"It's not jumping the shark if you never come back down." O rly, Mr Kripke?

Oh, all right, also "If you don't like the books DON'T READ THEM!!!111!!1" </RAGE> I found pretty funny. And it has been the Wincest-ers who have committed the lion's share of the batshit since season four..

It's been a while...

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:06:32 GMT

...since I've done this, but I'm currently pushing my way through a fic that has a very intriguing idea/premise, but is marred by some of the purplest prose I've had the misfortune to set my eyes on in a good long while. And last time it was on badfic_quotes , yo.

I have to see how it goes on, but share my pain: it honest-to-god has the phrase "chocolate colored eyes". In fact, have the whole sentence, it's a pretty good indication of what I'm dealing with: Sam pushed himself up on one elbow and his chocolate coloured eyes squinted through the darkness.

I made the sort of noise a body does when you're walking along, minding your business, and suddenly a fly commits hara kiri by flying directly into your mouth. Huh. That metaphore works also on the physical level, now that I think about it. ;-P

In other news, today I stumbled upon what might just be the finest piece of Trolling I've ever beheld. A fangirl mentioned in her journal that she'd heard somewhere that Kripke had said in an interview that Castiel keeps his coat on at all times because he thinks his wings are ugly.

...

The question here is, who's the troll? The fangirl or the Krip Himself? I love the idea of Kripke sending that into the net and sitting back to enjoy the results; either way, very lulzy. :-D

things that make me laugh

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:38:39 GMT

Can't embed the videos for this one because they need their context, but two gauranteed to put a smile on your face:

SPN vid, Holding out for a Hero, Starring Sam as the damsel in distress and featuring all the guys. Sparkly and funny as hell. (clips up to 5.07)

Stephen Colbert's My formidable opponent, with a guest spot by Al Gore. Gotta start working on those gills, people!

Trying desperatly to focus on thesis writing. Fells like trying to hold a bunch of eels in a bucket, argh!!!

New Delhi

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:11:09 GMT

Why is it called New Delhi, you might ask? Where is old Delhi? Turns out, old Delhi is right there in the center of New Delhi- it's just the oldest part of the city. Features the Red Fort and a humongous market/bazar, several important places of worship (including the biggest mosque of all asia and the biggest Sikh temple).

The pavilions in the Red Fort are lovely. White marble structures, where a stream of clear water (called the stream of paradise) would flow in the middle of the rooms to cool them down in the summer heat (I find that particularly romantic!). There's some pictures at the wiki link.

Another site we visited, one of the symbols of Delhi, is the Qutb Minar, a massive open mosque that at one point was supposed to be doubled but the mogul king financing the project died and... you know how those things go. It houses a rod of iron dating back to the four hundreds that has never rusted, a scientific curio that is still a bit of a mistery.

We didn't have a lot of time in Delhi. We only drove by Connaught Place and the Presidential palace (not that you can visit the palace, mind you), and up and down the embassys' road a few times, which is about as nice and luxurious as you can find anywhere. We dd walk around Dilli Haat, which is a government-sponsored market where artisans from all the states can sell their goods directly (and tourists don't run the risk of getting mobbed like a normal bazar).

J. and A. wanted to see Gandhi's memorial (because "it's multimedia!") over Humayun's tomb (which I wanted to see). We went to pay our respects to Gandhi, in the end, which was an experience I liked. You can walk in the grounds of the last house he lived in, and there's a landmark in the place where he was killed, and information about his life etc. The multimedia stuff, however, was an absolute waste of time. As I tried to explain to J., multimedia is generally codeword in museums for "kiddie stuff", and this was no exception. She didn't really believe me until she saw it for herself, I guess. But, as that was the low-point for me of the entire trip, you can comparatively see how it was all pretty great.

Delhi is, like any other major indian city, under construction. Make that, under hyperbolic construction. They're building an underground metro service, overpasses and bigger roads, and skyscrapers, shiny modern buildings everywhere. What they lack is better organization/funds to restore/maintain what they already have, which in many cases could be lovely but is left run down.

In a land of myth and...

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:39:39 GMT

Back from hot, sunny, dusty India to cold, rainy and very windy home. Man, I wish I could have stayed! One of the things I love about going to India (for the grand total of two, count 'em, 2 times I've been there! Clearly I'm an expert) is going native. It's only a cosmetic change, wearing the local clothes and such, but it really makes it into a special place where I can forget about RL for awhile.

I didn't take a camera (!) because I was going with my father (whose special pleasure is taking lots and lots and lots of pictures) and his wife and A., who can be described as my step sister though we've never lived together (but hey, our parents are married, so!) and A. is a professional photographer (or at least trying to scrape by on her photography alone). Between the two of them the pictures of our trip count over two thousand, I believe, so I'm covered.

But one thing I did on my last day (because I couldn't get the time to do it before) was to get my hands painted with henna. It's called Mahendi, and it's a decoration that women get for special occasions, mostly weddings but even fancy parties and the like. They put a paste on that's like icing, then you let it dry for a couple of hours (holding very still, so as not to disrupt the desing), and then scrape it off and the tincture remains on for a week to ten days (depending on how often and how thouroughly you wash your hands, the quality of the henna, blah blah blah). In india I got a lot of compliments for it, but in Europe people keep thinking I've either permanently tattooed my hands and boggle thinking I'm completely crazy, or think I've somehow damaged/burned/scarred my hands and therefore politely keep their eyes averted and ignore them completely.

I've taken some pictures with my webcam (imagine the quality!) to show you anyways, 'cause in a few more days it'll be gone forever and... I want to show them off a bit before that happens.

Aaaand that's about as much of myself as I'll ever post on the net, so enjoy!

quick! Quick!

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:18:30 GMT

Before the internet card runs out! In Jaipur, The Pink City, After having risen at five am to go see the Taj Mahal at sunrise in Agra. So very worth everything, from the long flight, to the long car trips, to the hassle of getting all the legal stuff settled. Internet is available but Strider doesn't play well with the power adapter. Will try another one when I get the chance. Meanwhile, no shows of any kind! And you can't get a connection at Munich airport unless you make one online with a credit card... which i don't have! eight hour return layover looking more and more daunting O_O (still very very worth it though ;-)

It's the final countdown! (na na na na... na na na na naaaa!)

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:27:05 GMT

24 hours from now the first leg of my subsequent 24 hour journey to India begins! The trip would not take nearly as much if I didn't have to spend a whole afternoon in Munich waiting for my flight to Delhi, or if my father hadn't decided to go directly from Delhi airport down to Agra, which is a four-five hour drive. The opportunity to go went something like this:
Dad: I'm going to India for business.
Me: Okie dokie.
Dad: I want to take a week off while I'm there and do some turisty things. Want to come with me?
Me: HELL YEAH.

Netbook!Strider is coming with me. I'm counting on there being wireless in the hotels, so maybe an update from there is possible. My biggest hope is that the wireless in Munich airport doesn't block stuff like LJ (oh, man, and Torrents! please do not be blocking torrents!) otherwise it's going to be a looong afternoon. On the plus side, apparently Munch has won the prize for best connecting airport in 2009 (hum, yay?). There's also places you can visit that are near there, but I doubt I'll go, since it's freezing there (by my standards, of course: it's like ten degrees ;-P) and I'm going to be equipped primarly for temperatures around 30 degrees. I am looking forward to the heat in a way I cannot describe, and I'm not even sarcastic: I genuinely love heat, and the sudden autumn (and ten degree drop from one day to the next) got me down somewhat. One extra week of high summer! Yes, yes YES!

In honor of my trip, have some Bollywood vids!

Must brain, not fandom (dang it)

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:19:14 GMT

I keep getting these ideas for really complicated fusions/crossovers that would take a lot of effort to come out as glorious as my mind would like to picture them. For example I want to write a Merlin/SPN fusion where the Winchesters are hunters of magical creatures whose family was torn apart by a sorcerer they privately call Yellow Eyes, and who are called to Camelot by Uther for his no-magic revamp. John was the best tracker/hunter to ever serve under the king during the first war against magic, so now he wants the boys. Oh, and Castiel is a druid who saved Dean from a nasty witch. I'm a little in love with the idea, but it has no plot, so...

For some reason I also want to write a crossover between SPN and SGU. I haven't posted about SGU, and that... is prety much a summary right there of my fannish enthusiasm for that show. I checked it out because of one thing, and I keep watching it because of one thing only: Robert Carslyle. I have no urge to seek fic for it, or any other kind of fannish thing. I'm basically waiting to see if they make up their minds and have his character turn evil or merely sociophatic. But for some reason I have this very clear image of Castiel appearing on the space-ship and everyone freaking out, thinking he's an Ancient, while he doesn't really pay them any attention (wait, now that I've typed that out, I think my subconcious might have something to do with this particular urge ;-P). Again, no real plot. Might make it a drabble, though.

Still, I'm to spend all of Friday in an airport/airplane and netbook!Strider will come with me. If there's places to plug in, fic has a seventy percent probability of happening :-D

Of course, what I really should be doing is writing my thesis. Maybe I should set up a sort of nanowrimo scheme to do that. *ponders*

Are you watching Dollhouse?

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:54:54 GMT

The war against inertia is, well, moving along, so that's already a partial victory ;-P

To distract me from the impending yet inevitable doom of my computer, I've mainlined all of Glee, and whoa but it is such a sparkly, sparkly, show! And man, that Will Shuster is pretty fly (on his feet) for a white guy ;-P

Going to the opposite end of the entertainment spectrum, have you been watching Dollhouse? Because it's really brilliant, and creepy, and brilliantly creepy *fangirls*.

I've seen people complaining that the premise squicks them, or that they can't get a handle on which character they should sympathize with, but that's missing the point. It's like complaining that Lost was too strange (btw, it's still an argument I understand: I stopped watching Lost because it was getting too convoluted and strange). The premise of Dollhouse is supposed to squick you. And each week they set out to show you just how much more creepier it can get in there. Sympathetic characters? There isn't one there that doesn't have at least something about them that is just plain despicable. They also have their good points. They're complicated characters, and very interesting, and it is a show that is willing to go there, especially in this second season (heard Fox loosened the reins on the Joss W. and it shows). This week is supposed to be a particularly disturbing and powerful episode, so I thought I'd share some thinky thoughts before it airs (and maybe making you want to check it out?)

I'm not going to go all out and meta this show, because it would take me too long, and because I can take the lazy path and link you to two very thoughtful posts that really highlighted just how many layers this show has. Read Power and Redemption and The strange and difficult path of feminist dudes.

Oh, btw, Fox has officially stated that they've airing the full run of episodes they've ordered. It hasn't been cancelled.

er...

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:55:41 GMT

Computer status: still slowly wasting away like some doe-eyed victorian waif with consumption. It wasn't ~~the butler~~ msn messenger after all, or not just that. It's driving me bonkers.

Yesterday was a bad day because it was a complete waste. I tried to break out of a vicious circle of going to bed around two am and getting up past eleven by getting up at eight sharp and then my brain was so useless the whole day I couldn't get anything done. Ended up sleeping all afternoon. If this keeps up graduating in december seems laughably impossible. To cheer myself up I mainlined some Glee (shiny! no deep thinking needed!) and today I'm determined to get some serious work down.

It's been very cold, very windy and very rainy these past three days. I've been surviving on what food I have in the house, but I might need to go out and ~~scavange~~ shop very soon.

I'll end this with a pretty picture of a french marble statue from 1923. If you've been anywhere near spn fandom in the last year or so you've heard of the line in the bible where the angels of the Lord gazed on the daughters of man and saw that they were fair and took them as wives... yes, today we hide our wing!porn on the net and under pseudonyms, but people used to have it hanging about all around their houses and gardens ;-P I especially love the craftmanship in the legs and the feet: they look so fleshy.

Take a break, have a rec

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:24:40 GMT

The latest installment in "Anniehow's computer drama" has had a new twist. Apparently now the evil ~~butler~~ msn messenger did it. So for now I'm keeping it at arm's length. Except, I need messenger. *ponders mythical quest for fully functioning computer*

Speaking of more fannish things, I've figured out I have a very specific button in my fannish preferences labeled "John Winchester character study mediated through the medium of Dean h/c". It's a pretty big button, done up in an eye-catching bright color, if I want to drag this metaphor out ;-P Point is, I read a fic that not only pushed this button, but leaned on it and then sello-taped it down and ran away giggling while I was stuck there gasping in delight. Gen, pre-series, case-fic, plotty story, gripping writing, and 'effed up Winchesters. Could you possibly ask for more? Read Deguello, by oselle

Second verse, same as the first!

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:23:01 GMT

Re: computer problems. My friend-who-knows-way-more-about-computers-than-me came over yesterday and together we did a big round of maintenance. Opened it up and vacuumed the inside (found a sizable spider in there. wtf spider? you're not going to get much fly traffic inside a computer!) which cleared the rattling noises, defragged the hard drive which makes it run much faster, and re-installed the video card (image card? I'm not sure what's the proper term in english) which cleared up the hiccups and the little wheezing noises it did at start-up... for all of twelve hours *headdesk*

Today I'm back to having problems. Though now we know it's definitely an issue with the video card. Should be easy, right? Get a new one, grumble about unforeseen expense, install, download new drives, etc... WRONG! Seeing as this device was nearly-top-of-the-line four years ago when I bought it, it is now so woefully archaic that not only they don't even make them anymore, but the technology's different so they don't make an equivalent that would slot inside my computer anymore. My only hope is to find someone who's selling a used-but-functioning one *tears hair out*

Aaanyway, this cheered me up considerably. I downloaded it and have already watched it more times than I care to admit. (here's the full, original song if you're interested ;-P) Oh, Merlin fandom! You're almost as shiny and care-free as canon show is!

Natter natter

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:26:54 GMT

Experiencing some computer problems recently. Today it took four tries just to boot windows, and now I'm afraid of turning it off and being unable to revive it (OMG what would I do??). Good thing I now have Strider, my unexpected!netbook to provide backup. Strider doesn't have an antivirus, though, so that needs to be rectified *makes note*

I fear it's more of a hardware issue than a software thing. I keep running virus and malware scans to be sure, and they all come up clean, but my friend who knows more about computers than I do says it's unlikely that it's hardware (apparently hardware malfunctions don't have shades of gray, it either works or not at all? I'm not sure I buy it). We'll see.

Banged my wrist pretty hard two days ago and it still hurts. Not in a oh-god-make-it-stop as much as a oh-right-shouldn't-be-doing-that-yet way. in the first thirty seconds after it happened my immediate concern was "if it's broken how the hell am I going to drive myself to the hospital if I can't use one hand? No way I'm calling an ambulance for something this stupid", then I managed to unclench my fingers and investigate the damage, and I realized that I had nicked the skin right over one of the veins and there was a tiny drop of blood, and right then and there I had an epiphany: imagine how awful it would be to accidentally cut yourself across the wrist and have people think you were trying to commit suicide when, really, you were not. And if you went through it mostly ok but they had to stitch you up you'd go then through life with the same scars as an attempted suicide. It's one of those "ways you could die" that never ever occurred to me.

Right now it looks like I jammed an epi-pen right on my wrist or something. Hardly concerning.

Bah, here, have some Bradley James goofing off with his camera, which is always adorkable.

Plus Katie Mcgrath joking that she doesn't get to snog anyone... unlike her maidservant ;-P

And! Katie and Angel doing slashy commentary on Arthur/Merlin (and themselves!).

Instant mood uplift

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:37:29 GMT

Warning: children being amazing. Might cause misty eyes or outright bawling

A teenager in India runs a school for 800 of his poorest fellow villagers.

Aaaand! Girl power!

How being a woman soldier is actually better in Muslim countries (specifically Afganistan)

Completely silly, and yet mindblowing

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:37:54 GMT

I had a OMG WANT reaction, which I never would have expected. Look at her tiny wriggly tail!

A meta, a fic and an observation walk into a bar...

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:57:50 GMT

I mused about one thing regarding Sam (stop the presses! it isn't either about Dean nor Castiel!! I know, right? weird ;-P)

I've seen people around wondering what could have prompted Sam to give in to Lucifer in the end. Was it being separated by Dean? Is that reason enough to make Sam feel so utterly alone and defeated that eventually Lucifer manages to slip through the cracks and seduce/convince him?

But I've hit on another idea. Not sure it'll ever make it to a full fic, so I thought I'd just toss it out there, raw as it is: Sam didn't give in out of desperation, maybe Sam thought he could trap Lucifer and get rid of him on his own. After all, what is Sam's road at that point when Dean tells him they are better off on their own? Redemption, not vengance. And that means defeating the devil. So what I'm thinking is that Sam researched and researched ways of killing Lucifer, and finally came up with a plan, and that involved getting Lucifer inside himself. Well, obviously it backfired spectacularly, but I think it's much more in keeping with Sam's usual character traits, good intentions going horribly wrong, and maybe a good deal of hubris which wasn't mitigated by being around Dean, combining to him signing that last, misguidedly martyr act.

On an unrelated note, Now on time-travel it's Dean 2, Sam 1 (if you count Azazel's glimpse into Mary's death).

Don't worry, the world ain't ending just yet, I do have an offering of the Dean/Cas variety ;-P So far my favourite coda involving the two of them has been trinityofone 's Set Yourself On Fire, because it looks like porn and instead it is much, much more, full of lovely moments and a great, nuanced look at the characters..

And a meta rec (why not?) This was written before the start of the fifth season, so any virtuous Aussies can play too. Rather interesting stuff about 'How to End the World': Sharing Blame & Responsibilities in the context of Choice & Free Will (that's both brothers, you see ;-P)

SPN Fic: A Lesson Learned Is A Lesson Earned

anne_verba@hotmail.com — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:16:11 GMT

RATING: PG gen
SPOILERS: 5.04
CHARACTERS: Zachariah
SUMMARY: He keeps a close eye on the boy
WARNINGS: goes AU for the end of the episode

Disclaimer: Supernatural is owned by it's creator Kripke and the CW network, and I am in no way affiliated with them.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Zachariah is such a joy to have as a villain. And then it occurred to me that we got off lightly with canon, because it could have gone like this...

He keeps a close eye on Dean Winchester, shadowing him silently, because he doesn’t put it past the fool to get himself killed, and resurrecting him in the middle of Lucifer’s playing field would mean painting a big fat target on both their backs, and frankly Zachariah has enough headaches already.

Would that he could simply leave the human and fast-forward to three days later to pick him up, but he’s as invisible to an angel’s gaze five years into the future as he is in the present. It’s been difficult enough to find him now (and by little more than blind luck, really), and he’s not letting the boy out of his sight for a single minute until the fool sees reason and finally agrees.

His superiors are getting impatient. He’s never been under so much pressure before. Still, this plan will work. He’s appealing to Dean’s self-sacrificing streak, and any blind idiot can see that that’s a mile wide. He’ll see reason. He will.

Zachariah has chosen the exact moment carefully. Three days from now, the Dean that lived through the passing of the angels and the beginning of the reign of Lucifer will die in a pointless attempt to kill the Devil. As if a mere human could. Perhaps Zachariah shares some of the blame for putting such a notion into the boy’s head, but the way Dean’s clung to it is all human stubbornness and a great deal of cockiness.

He has little doubt that his Dean will find his way to the big event (and if he doesn’t, well. Zachariah can remedy that too), but the speed with which he finds the camp is rather pleasing.

Humans are scrappy, Zachariah will give them that. Seeing how they’re muddling through the apocalypse strengthens his notion that no matter how many will die once Michael wages open warfare on Lucifer, humanity will endure. He takes some comfort in knowing that his Father wouldn’t have it any other way.

It doesn’t take long for the two Deans to meet up, and Zachariah can’t say that the manner of their encounter doesn’t please him (he’s wished time and again he could literally knock some sense into the boy’s head). The Dean that has been forged by the End of Times pleases him even more. He’s grown into a leader of men, he’s harder, stronger, and seems to have finally gained some perspective outside of his immediate circle of friends and blood.

Zachariah stands silently and invisibly in the room, his curiosity peaked by the sudden flare of this Dean’s soul when he demands to speak to him while the younger version relates his journey through time. He sees a steely resolve that is mingled with hope, quickly squashed by the facts. It’s too bad, really, that Dean isn’t like that yet. He would be really useful in the present, in ways that he cannot in the future, now that all hope is lost and the angels have retreated behind the Gates of Heaven.

He follows Dean around, noting with surprise that the Prophet has survived and seems to be doing well despite the lack of angelic protection (they have a pretty bad track record with getting prophets to survive beyond their usefulness to Heaven); he finds it less surprising that Dean hasn’t abandoned his fornicating ways. And apparently he’s even passed them on.

Seeing Castiel so diminished is a nice plus. The Gates must have been sealed even tighter than he thought, or else they’ve found a way to cut him completely off, because his Grace is so low it is all but entirely gone. A fitting end for a traitor. Zachariah must remember to consider this form of punishment more often.

Not human, not angel, not demon, just an empty shell void of all that once made him a proud Soldier of the Host. The haplessness and the utter uselessness of the creature are all but too clear to Zachariah, but Dean seems to miss it, seems surprised to find that an angel can be corrupted down to such an hedonistic life. Clearly he doesn’t realize just how far down an angel can fall, much further than a simple human being.

Castiel can’t even see Zachariah, though he still recognizes Dean for what he is. Zachariah hopes this means Castiel can sense him, at the very least. Hopes he knows the Brother he rebelled against can see what he has made of himself with his betrayal. And even if not, Castiel was always clever. He’ll know; he’ll figure it out.

When there’s the execution on the camp grounds Zachariah’s hope soars to see that Dean has the capability to become such a leader (but then he’s always known the boy had plenty of untapped potential). The plan to kill Lucifer is asinine in it’s bluntness, but then strategy is a strong point of Michael’s, Dean doesn’t need it to win this war properly.

Zachariah can already see it, the perfect combination of the mightiest of angels and of the strongest of righteous men. It will be magnificent. Lucifer won’t stand a chance. They will be able to throw open the Gates and rebuild Earth like the garden of Eden that once was. The children of men and women, free of temptation. The demons, vanquished once and for all. Paradise, finally.

He’s so far in his own mind that at first he misses the message this Dean imparts on his charge. He goes back slightly, to hear it all, would manifest himself to cheer if it wouldn’t defeat the purpose. Finally. Finally. Who better to make Dean see reason but himself?

If the blood could go cold inside his human vessel, it would when Dean finishes by negating all that he’s said. Dean won’t listen to his future. He’s not ready, and once he’ll be, it will be too late. Zachariah sees it clearly. He already knows the Dean that belongs here will die on the morrow. Now he’s as certain that the Dean of the present will not heed all the evidence and the advice he’s been given, and will continue in his stubborn selfishness.

He may alter some details with the hindsight he’s been given, but the one deciding factor will remain the same, and thus the road will bring about Lucifer’s reign, more or less just as they’re witnessing.

It is unbearable and maddening that a single human should damn the whole of creation when right here there is a version of the same human who is ready for the sacrifice. It’s an aberration. It’s proof that God’s divine plan is unraveling, His hand no longer pulling the threads to perfection.

And so Zachariah makes a decision. It’s abomination, and it’s dangerous, and he would never even consider it if he had any other choice, but these times must not come to pass. He takes the better Dean, the one who’s been whittled and sharpened to be the best sword for Michael and wrenches a hole in time and space, filling it up with the Dean he brought here as his charge.

It’s too late for that timeline and too early for that Dean, but the one he brings back to 2009 will save them.

He will save them all.