mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
I am waiting for a visit from the IT guy at some unspecified time today, which means no writing (can't have all those documents open and the flash drive attached when he arrives; I am really trying not to dread next week, when Big Boss's Assistant ["BBA"] goes on vacation and I have been tapped to pick up the slack -- she always says it's going to be easy, but there's always something, and it's even more fraught now that he's an even bigger boss than he was before. It's been years since I regularly dealt with executives on that level - I don't know anyone's assistant, I don't know their moods and when they're being hyperbolic and when it really is an emergency, I don't know -- aw hell, what I don't know going into this could fill several libraries and I am trying really hard not to freak out about it, and obviously, failing.), so I am going to actually attempt to catch up on some comments, which I have yet again let go for longer than I would like.
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This morning, in between the first and second alarms going off, I dreamt that I was on a road trip with thistlerose (in a crappy silver Buick Regal from, like, 1984. What the hell is *that* about?) and we picked up Smash Williams and Matt Saracen at some point, and also snuck into the Taylors' house to steal a playbook and ended up in the neighborhood I grew up in. Um. Possibly FNL has infiltrated my brain on a seriously deep level.
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There was fic last night!
Winners Use the Door
Supernatural; Sam/Dean; spoilers through Born Under a Bad Sign; adult; 2,777 words
The problem, of course, is that when he thinks about guys, he's not really thinking about guys so much as he's thinking about Dean.
I am still figuring stuff out about how to write Wincest, or, maybe, about how I *want* to write Wincest, what I want to do or say with it, and how to reconcile it with how I see the characters, so I imagine I'll be trying out various first time scenarios for a while, but after discussing it in lyra_wing's LJ and reading a post she linked me to, which I unfortunately did not bookmark, and doing some thinking about it, I think I figured out a way it makes sense to me, a way I can reconcile the emotional OTP-ness of Sam and Dean, the "we're all we've got, it's us against the world" thing with the pretty overwhelming sense that Dean, to me at least, is straight, and it's not that he's against sex with men, but it's just not his thing (and sex with his *brother* is a whole other hurdle, but oddly enough, I can write my way through the incest, because I always try to treat it as problematic in the story itself, so it's not really an issue in writing). I think that is my biggest subconscious objection, because when Sam is a girl, I have no problem at all writing it (and when I say "problem" I am speaking only of writing issues, and not of any issues of morality, which is a whole different kettle of fish and one I'm not really interested in discussing in this post). Also set against the emotional OTP-ness is the desire to see them someday end up happily with families of their own, wives and kids and a real support network the likes of which they never had growing up, and which would be really good for both of them, I think, to have some grounding that isn't based on each other and the car.
And it hit me that how I really see them is as analogous to Achilles and Patroclus (or Alexander and Hephaistion [which would make the Impala Bucephalus, and god, I LOVE that idea], or even, in more modern fannish terms, Mal and Zoe) - there will be Deidamia and Briseis and Hippolyta and Penthesilea and a bunch of other people Achilles loves, but there is only ever one Patroclus, whether they are sleeping together or not, or they did and aren't now, or they may (yet or again) in the future.
Now, obviously, the actual roles don't map very well (both Sam and Dean can be slotted into both roles depending on the situation and how you want to read their characters, though I really want Dean-as-Diomedes fic *cough*), and I would really rather not have the tragic ending (which would almost have to slot Dean as Patroclus, heading out to face the YED alone in Sam's place, and getting his ass handed to him, and then enraged and grief-stricken Sam coming out to kick some demon ass; Dean-as-Patroclus works for me on various levels, except the dying young one *G*), but that kind of bond - yeah, that works for me. Because it's not just sex, and the sex isn't just about lust (though there has to be some element of it for it to happen repeatedly), but there's so much other stuff tangled up in it - home and comfort and need and desperation and "just we two" and so much love that it could shake the foundations of the earth. That there could be sex, or there doesn't need to be, and there can still be other people they love and are with, but the primacy of the Sam-and-Dean relationship, in whatever form, is never really challenged.
We'll see if that actually carries over to me being able to write the stories I want to where they are involved in a sexual relationship, or if I will continue to struggle with those and just write a lot of gen and Dean-het (which is where most of my ideas lie, I must admit; I just find it galling on a writing level to keep running into this roadblock in telling stories I want to tell). And AUs where Sam is a girl, because I am weak like that and own my kinks.
***
I have two musical requests:
1. Does anyone have "She's a Runner" and "Lonely Is the Night" by Billy Squier?
(Shut up. Emotions in Motion was the first album I ever bought on vinyl with my own money. Pyromania was the second. But my dad's record player was...problematic, so I switched to tapes pretty quickly. I didn't buy anything on vinyl again until Vitalogy came out on vinyl a week before it came out on CD.)
2. What songs by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club do you recommend? I have about four songs from them (checking the iPod, that would be: "Lien on Your Dreams;" "Fault Line;" "Shuffle Your Feet;" and "Stop") and I like them all and would like more. I am willing to spend money, so you don't *have* to actually upload anything, though if you want to, I wouldn't say no.
Speaking of music, on the bus this morning, I had "Sons and Daughters" by The Decemberists on repeat, and goddamn, it was making me teary. It's never done that before. Stupid hormones.
***
Lastly, it's Thursday! New Supernatural tonight! With [spoiler]! And [spoiler]! And OMG [SPOILER]! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Cool interview with Sera Gamble here. If she is not in fandom somewhere, I... I don't think I'd believe it. She sounds like one of us. Except that she's actually writing for the show. Sigh.
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***
This morning, in between the first and second alarms going off, I dreamt that I was on a road trip with thistlerose (in a crappy silver Buick Regal from, like, 1984. What the hell is *that* about?) and we picked up Smash Williams and Matt Saracen at some point, and also snuck into the Taylors' house to steal a playbook and ended up in the neighborhood I grew up in. Um. Possibly FNL has infiltrated my brain on a seriously deep level.
***
There was fic last night!
Winners Use the Door
Supernatural; Sam/Dean; spoilers through Born Under a Bad Sign; adult; 2,777 words
The problem, of course, is that when he thinks about guys, he's not really thinking about guys so much as he's thinking about Dean.
I am still figuring stuff out about how to write Wincest, or, maybe, about how I *want* to write Wincest, what I want to do or say with it, and how to reconcile it with how I see the characters, so I imagine I'll be trying out various first time scenarios for a while, but after discussing it in lyra_wing's LJ and reading a post she linked me to, which I unfortunately did not bookmark, and doing some thinking about it, I think I figured out a way it makes sense to me, a way I can reconcile the emotional OTP-ness of Sam and Dean, the "we're all we've got, it's us against the world" thing with the pretty overwhelming sense that Dean, to me at least, is straight, and it's not that he's against sex with men, but it's just not his thing (and sex with his *brother* is a whole other hurdle, but oddly enough, I can write my way through the incest, because I always try to treat it as problematic in the story itself, so it's not really an issue in writing). I think that is my biggest subconscious objection, because when Sam is a girl, I have no problem at all writing it (and when I say "problem" I am speaking only of writing issues, and not of any issues of morality, which is a whole different kettle of fish and one I'm not really interested in discussing in this post). Also set against the emotional OTP-ness is the desire to see them someday end up happily with families of their own, wives and kids and a real support network the likes of which they never had growing up, and which would be really good for both of them, I think, to have some grounding that isn't based on each other and the car.
And it hit me that how I really see them is as analogous to Achilles and Patroclus (or Alexander and Hephaistion [which would make the Impala Bucephalus, and god, I LOVE that idea], or even, in more modern fannish terms, Mal and Zoe) - there will be Deidamia and Briseis and Hippolyta and Penthesilea and a bunch of other people Achilles loves, but there is only ever one Patroclus, whether they are sleeping together or not, or they did and aren't now, or they may (yet or again) in the future.
Now, obviously, the actual roles don't map very well (both Sam and Dean can be slotted into both roles depending on the situation and how you want to read their characters, though I really want Dean-as-Diomedes fic *cough*), and I would really rather not have the tragic ending (which would almost have to slot Dean as Patroclus, heading out to face the YED alone in Sam's place, and getting his ass handed to him, and then enraged and grief-stricken Sam coming out to kick some demon ass; Dean-as-Patroclus works for me on various levels, except the dying young one *G*), but that kind of bond - yeah, that works for me. Because it's not just sex, and the sex isn't just about lust (though there has to be some element of it for it to happen repeatedly), but there's so much other stuff tangled up in it - home and comfort and need and desperation and "just we two" and so much love that it could shake the foundations of the earth. That there could be sex, or there doesn't need to be, and there can still be other people they love and are with, but the primacy of the Sam-and-Dean relationship, in whatever form, is never really challenged.
We'll see if that actually carries over to me being able to write the stories I want to where they are involved in a sexual relationship, or if I will continue to struggle with those and just write a lot of gen and Dean-het (which is where most of my ideas lie, I must admit; I just find it galling on a writing level to keep running into this roadblock in telling stories I want to tell). And AUs where Sam is a girl, because I am weak like that and own my kinks.
***
I have two musical requests:
1. Does anyone have "She's a Runner" and "Lonely Is the Night" by Billy Squier?
(Shut up. Emotions in Motion was the first album I ever bought on vinyl with my own money. Pyromania was the second. But my dad's record player was...problematic, so I switched to tapes pretty quickly. I didn't buy anything on vinyl again until Vitalogy came out on vinyl a week before it came out on CD.)
2. What songs by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club do you recommend? I have about four songs from them (checking the iPod, that would be: "Lien on Your Dreams;" "Fault Line;" "Shuffle Your Feet;" and "Stop") and I like them all and would like more. I am willing to spend money, so you don't *have* to actually upload anything, though if you want to, I wouldn't say no.
Speaking of music, on the bus this morning, I had "Sons and Daughters" by The Decemberists on repeat, and goddamn, it was making me teary. It's never done that before. Stupid hormones.
***
Lastly, it's Thursday! New Supernatural tonight! With [spoiler]! And [spoiler]! And OMG [SPOILER]! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Cool interview with Sera Gamble here. If she is not in fandom somewhere, I... I don't think I'd believe it. She sounds like one of us. Except that she's actually writing for the show. Sigh.
***