I really like this undead journal theme lj has going on
is that enough reason to use the zombie_apocalypse tag? Why yes it is! But in order to make it even more applicable, I leave you with this link: Sarah Palin in Asheville for World Zombie Day. Remember kids, you can't be both pro-life and anti-zombie.
I <3 Halloween despite the fact I'm completely unprepared for it this year. I don't have a costume; I barely have a plan. Whatever, I'll wing it. I've decided against Panic because I have a friend playing a show that night in Adams Morgan so we're all going to that. And we're on a quest to find a screening of Rocky Horror closer than Greenbelt, so hopefully that will pan out.
However! Fandom better provide me with a moment-by-moment recap of the Panic show. Fandom, I am counting on you for my vicarious bandom experience.
Mom's in town, so I've been doing the touristy things. We went to all the monuments on Sunday. It's weird to be able to do that because I still don't really feel like I live in DC - I don't make it out of my neighborhood much. Sunday was the CORRECT day to be wandering around outside because now it is freezing and leaving my apartment at all causes me pain. When I am cold, I am angry and depressed. When there's no sun, I am angry and depressed. IT IS GOING TO BE A LONG WINTER. (I know, it's the same song I sing every winter. Thanks for indulging me, flist).
Hey, did one of my fics get recced somewhere recently? In the last couple days I have had multiple comments on three different fics in two different fandoms. It could just be a crazy coincidence, but I'm curious.
+++
Last week's Entourage was an excellent example of why I should never read recaps before watching the episode. Everybody was all focused on Vince's comment that he "wasn't even bi" and I was all . . . ugh. Is this going to be like the time I had to break up with Nip/Tuck for textually precluding the gay? (which admittedly, isn't even the only reason I broke up with Nip/Tuck. It was mostly the Matt/Kimber storyline the next season that did me in). I know shows aren't going to go there, so I would generally rather they not mention it at all and just leave us alone with our fantasies. JUST DON'T BRING IT UP if you're going to dismiss it. Because then we have to work harder. So I was all apprehensive, but then when I actually bothered to watch the episode, I had no problem at all with the way it played out because what was Vince supposed to say? And we already know he won't do anything that makes him feel like he's whoring himself out. So basically it made perfect sense and was completely in character and I should not ever read recaps until I've seen the episode, the end.
But this week I did it again, and I'm sort of glad that I knew all along that Dana Gordon was going to get the job and not Ari. I really like Dana and hopefully she'll get some more screen time because of this. I found Ari particularly awesome in this episode, but, as much as I love Vince and the slashiness, I think I fall into the camp that really believes Jeremy Piven *makes* this show. Also, I hate Drama. I have never liked his character. I find all the others endearing even at their most obnoxious. I think Turtle is adorable even when I want to punch him in the face. But I mostly wish Drama would be eaten by a bear already.
Anyway, as always, Vince and Eric are completely married and I want to bang Vince. That could more or less be my recap of every episode of this show ever.
+++
I didn't write up anything about SPN last week because I had a lot of thoughts and I really couldn't make up my mind about them. (Of course, I was also killing myself over a paper at the time so I was sort of ignoring my television). Mostly, I still think they hit "In the Beginning" out of the park this season, and I want the rest of the season to live up to its promise and it just . . . isn't.
There was some good stuff here. (Of course, the "Eye of the Tiger" bit at the end is completely ridiculous and amazing). Jensen was awesome and I love Dean's fear and the way it manifested itself - some of his comments to Sam, especially the whole rant about how they're insane, I think were very telling, even if they were couched in humor. (I wish it had been handled a little more seriously, though). I know a lot of fandom was upset about implication that Dean is a dick and I read where Kripke discussed what they *meant* to do there. The episode itself still implies Dean's a dick, which I don't have a problem with. (unpopular opinions!) He totally can be. Sam can be too, of course, but I'm with the people attributing his immunity to the demon blood. He was immune in "Croatoan." It makes sense he'd be immune to other things as well.
Sam was really unsettling in this episode - distant and detached and not as invested in saving Dean (or really convincingly sympathetic to Dean, though he was trying) as he should have been, and at the same time he was willing to enact a really gruesome, problematic crime in order to save Dean. I'm fairly sure all of that is completely intentional. They are trying to show us, subtly, that Sam is broken; he's either in the process of falling off the edge or he's already gone over.
Which brings us to my issues. SPN sucks at subtlety and that's a problem. The lynching - and it was a lynching - was horrific and if we were really supposed to see it as symbolic of Sam being willing to do more and more horrific things, which I'm willing to believe we were - especially given the fact they showed us Sam killing Gordon in the previouslies - then that needed to be more obvious. It needed to be portrayed as awful from someone's point-of-view. We needed a reaction from Bobby or from Dean or some kind of textual acknowledgment that the imagery there was not okay. The show needed to make it clearer that what we were seeing was a *problem.* Because the way it played out it left a bad taste in my mouth, but there was just enough there that I'm pretty sure I know what they were going for and it would have been absolutely chilling - and disturbing in the good way - if they'd managed it. As it stands, I don't think they did. SPN goes back and forth between lacking all nuance and trying to be so subtle that it doesn't say what it means to say. Sometimes I find this endearing. Sometimes, like now, I find it pretty problematic and really uncomfortable.
Of course, when they nail it, they do it *well* and I have high hopes for the evil-Sam arch. Sam with yellow eyes - now that was chilling. This episode needed a few more obvious moments like that. (Though maybe not exactly like that or you know I'd be complaining about the *lack* of subtlety again.)
I <3 Halloween despite the fact I'm completely unprepared for it this year. I don't have a costume; I barely have a plan. Whatever, I'll wing it. I've decided against Panic because I have a friend playing a show that night in Adams Morgan so we're all going to that. And we're on a quest to find a screening of Rocky Horror closer than Greenbelt, so hopefully that will pan out.
However! Fandom better provide me with a moment-by-moment recap of the Panic show. Fandom, I am counting on you for my vicarious bandom experience.
Mom's in town, so I've been doing the touristy things. We went to all the monuments on Sunday. It's weird to be able to do that because I still don't really feel like I live in DC - I don't make it out of my neighborhood much. Sunday was the CORRECT day to be wandering around outside because now it is freezing and leaving my apartment at all causes me pain. When I am cold, I am angry and depressed. When there's no sun, I am angry and depressed. IT IS GOING TO BE A LONG WINTER. (I know, it's the same song I sing every winter. Thanks for indulging me, flist).
Hey, did one of my fics get recced somewhere recently? In the last couple days I have had multiple comments on three different fics in two different fandoms. It could just be a crazy coincidence, but I'm curious.
+++
Last week's Entourage was an excellent example of why I should never read recaps before watching the episode. Everybody was all focused on Vince's comment that he "wasn't even bi" and I was all . . . ugh. Is this going to be like the time I had to break up with Nip/Tuck for textually precluding the gay? (which admittedly, isn't even the only reason I broke up with Nip/Tuck. It was mostly the Matt/Kimber storyline the next season that did me in). I know shows aren't going to go there, so I would generally rather they not mention it at all and just leave us alone with our fantasies. JUST DON'T BRING IT UP if you're going to dismiss it. Because then we have to work harder. So I was all apprehensive, but then when I actually bothered to watch the episode, I had no problem at all with the way it played out because what was Vince supposed to say? And we already know he won't do anything that makes him feel like he's whoring himself out. So basically it made perfect sense and was completely in character and I should not ever read recaps until I've seen the episode, the end.
But this week I did it again, and I'm sort of glad that I knew all along that Dana Gordon was going to get the job and not Ari. I really like Dana and hopefully she'll get some more screen time because of this. I found Ari particularly awesome in this episode, but, as much as I love Vince and the slashiness, I think I fall into the camp that really believes Jeremy Piven *makes* this show. Also, I hate Drama. I have never liked his character. I find all the others endearing even at their most obnoxious. I think Turtle is adorable even when I want to punch him in the face. But I mostly wish Drama would be eaten by a bear already.
Anyway, as always, Vince and Eric are completely married and I want to bang Vince. That could more or less be my recap of every episode of this show ever.
+++
I didn't write up anything about SPN last week because I had a lot of thoughts and I really couldn't make up my mind about them. (Of course, I was also killing myself over a paper at the time so I was sort of ignoring my television). Mostly, I still think they hit "In the Beginning" out of the park this season, and I want the rest of the season to live up to its promise and it just . . . isn't.
There was some good stuff here. (Of course, the "Eye of the Tiger" bit at the end is completely ridiculous and amazing). Jensen was awesome and I love Dean's fear and the way it manifested itself - some of his comments to Sam, especially the whole rant about how they're insane, I think were very telling, even if they were couched in humor. (I wish it had been handled a little more seriously, though). I know a lot of fandom was upset about implication that Dean is a dick and I read where Kripke discussed what they *meant* to do there. The episode itself still implies Dean's a dick, which I don't have a problem with. (unpopular opinions!) He totally can be. Sam can be too, of course, but I'm with the people attributing his immunity to the demon blood. He was immune in "Croatoan." It makes sense he'd be immune to other things as well.
Sam was really unsettling in this episode - distant and detached and not as invested in saving Dean (or really convincingly sympathetic to Dean, though he was trying) as he should have been, and at the same time he was willing to enact a really gruesome, problematic crime in order to save Dean. I'm fairly sure all of that is completely intentional. They are trying to show us, subtly, that Sam is broken; he's either in the process of falling off the edge or he's already gone over.
Which brings us to my issues. SPN sucks at subtlety and that's a problem. The lynching - and it was a lynching - was horrific and if we were really supposed to see it as symbolic of Sam being willing to do more and more horrific things, which I'm willing to believe we were - especially given the fact they showed us Sam killing Gordon in the previouslies - then that needed to be more obvious. It needed to be portrayed as awful from someone's point-of-view. We needed a reaction from Bobby or from Dean or some kind of textual acknowledgment that the imagery there was not okay. The show needed to make it clearer that what we were seeing was a *problem.* Because the way it played out it left a bad taste in my mouth, but there was just enough there that I'm pretty sure I know what they were going for and it would have been absolutely chilling - and disturbing in the good way - if they'd managed it. As it stands, I don't think they did. SPN goes back and forth between lacking all nuance and trying to be so subtle that it doesn't say what it means to say. Sometimes I find this endearing. Sometimes, like now, I find it pretty problematic and really uncomfortable.
Of course, when they nail it, they do it *well* and I have high hopes for the evil-Sam arch. Sam with yellow eyes - now that was chilling. This episode needed a few more obvious moments like that. (Though maybe not exactly like that or you know I'd be complaining about the *lack* of subtlety again.)