electricalgwen

On the Cover of a Magazine is funny, clever, well-written, well-illustrated casefic written by selecasharp for the spnslashbigbang. Contains Sam/Dean (who have to go undercover posing as models) and some great OCs.

It's really good and I don't know why it doesn't have tons more comments than it does, so you should all* go read it and let her you liked it (assuming you liked it, but I'm pretty sure you will!)

*Except you, Anna, you're excused. :)

I think my spn_j2_bigbang is nearly ready to go. Wow. It's been consuming most of whatever time and energy I could spare from a highly busy RL over the last few months. I have a zillion things open in tabs and links, and my To-Read list is approaching, uh, 300? (At least I have the comfort of knowing that Supernatural will end someday soon but I'll still have years worth of reading material. *g*)

There's been a lot of stuff that happened recently that I have not commented on, here or where it happened. Sometimes it's because I don't have words, sometimes it's because I know I should just shut up and listen. Often, it's been because I haven't had time or energy. Or I've heard about it through someone's signal boost but haven't had a chance (or mental/emotional stamina) to search out the original before jumping in.

Race fail, again. Discussions of privilege and derailing. The Vividcon issues of warnings and accessibility, where things seem to have escalated startlingly fast and, in some cases, feel as if people are looking really hard for ways to see the worst in everybody else. Other majorly problematic fics containing Holocaust and transgender fail.

And yet.

People take the time to educate. To raise the signal. To explain (often more patiently than we have any right to expect) why this is not okay. To celebrate and create. To engage, and sometimes, to apologize. A couple of people on my flist, who I respect tremendously and are often my first links to problems and issues on LJ or in the world at large, have recently posted to acknowledge times when they made mistakes. To own one's mistakes, apologize, and not try to justify - that takes guts, and class.

amazonziti put huge amounts of work into compiling this list of posts/discussions (which most of you have probably already seen) around the J2 Haiti story. And says:

My real goal, which is one that I hope you guys can share with me, is to keep talking about this -- about the kind of not-ill-intentioned privilege that leads to causing lots of people lots of pain; about what it means not to think like a grown-up about what we create; about popular tropes in media that we silently buy into; about the many disguises racism wears. I want to feel safe, and I want all of you to feel safe, expressing anger or shock or hurt or sadness or resignation or whatever else comes up when people do or say or write racist things. I want to help make it safe for all of us to call out racism when we see it, rather than talking ourselves in circles or deciding it's not worth it. I want to be part of the effort to teach fandom how not to be racist, and to teach privileged fen how to react with empathy rather than defensiveness when it happens anyway.

I mean. There are amazing people here.

There's the Racebending Revenge Ficathon. And how much do I love glockgal's brown Sam & Dean and ghost-related death? A LOT. There have been discussions about vid warnings and accessibility that really try to see others' points of view. People discuss social justice and queer identity and all sorts of things here in ways that are respectful and illuminating. Yes, there's been some stupid shit lately. And it'll come round again, sadly. But there continues to be an awful lot of good. Thank you, fandom. For speaking up, and helping me listen. For your awesome shiny bits, and for (mostly) accepting it when someone tells you to put on some pants.

And people help each other. People cheerlead and send messages of support when you're down, your family is hurt, or you need help. People donate and create and raise money for the health care needs and housing needs and educational needs of people they've never met in real life.

nsilverwolf was one of the many fans who offered up her time and talent at help_haiti, and I was lucky enough to win her vid-making services. I asked her for Sam&Dean, to Maroon 5's "Harder to Breathe", and she made me this beautiful thing. :D

Youtube link is here (I tried to embed it but it's coming out weird.) Download link is here. If you like it, please go tell her so! :)

I can't write a coda to that, at least not now - I refer you to the incredible Fleshflutter and the legendary Chash, or this wonderful 'Year of the Living Dead'.

But anyone who's seen the ending may understand the impulse that prompted me to go find this haiku I wrote some months ago at spnroundtable, which I'd been meaning to put up here anyway. If not, well. Enjoy anyway.


Hunting’s in their blood.
Even had Azazel not
added his blood too,

they’d have ended up
on these roads, these ghost-ridden
creature-tortured paths.

Someone has to be
the guardian, standing tall
against the shadows.

They are the blades, the
guns, the cleansing flames. They are
weapons incarnate

from earliest days,
both of them, primed and pointed,
aimed into the dark.



P.S. and/or WARNING: I do not expect/intend that comments will be kept spoiler-free.

I was fortunate enough to win a story offered by the lovely kelleigh over at help_haiti. She created 8000 delightful words of Construction Worker!Jared and... oh, I won't spoil the surprise, but go enjoy the J2 love!

Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Go watch Kita's That's Not My Name. In her words: "Heroines of Color: The meta, the ass-kickingness, the fail, and the pretty."

Does contain spoilers for BSG, Torchwood, probably also for Heroes and possibly Lost although I wouldn't know because I haven't watched them. (There is a list of characters used at the beginning, in case you're worried.)

I MISS ZOE.

Two posts in one day, wow. Also, I don't rec much - mean to, never do. But anybody who can even stand Sam/Dean should go read this now. Or, you know, very soon. Because Sam's got less than 24 hours to live and Dean is... Dean. Destroyed and desperate. And it's really well written and it is TOTALLY worth your time. I think I actually stopped breathing for a while.

ETA: If you'd like to know whether the fic contains actual character death, leave a comment and I'll reply screened, for those who do not like to be spoiled for such things.

Many happy returns of the day to rm and missmurchison!

In honour of the occasion, may I suggest you go read some of rm's excellent Torchwood fic*, and/or missmurchison's delightful Bug on the Cosmic Windscreen, which features Spike in BSG and absolutely nails a number of different character voices.** (WARNING that it is a WIP, however.)

Okay, and now off to bed because I'm doing the CIBC Run for the Cure tomorrow.

*That link goes to her co-writer's LJ; that piece is the first in a series, for which other links can be found here.

**Here's a link to Chapter 16 which hasn't made it into that tag list yet.

A little hit to brighten your day: try this little drabble series by ubiquirk.

The Village People Offensive
That's Showbiz
I Don't Dance

And if you're wavering... Angel in leather chaps.

Recommended reading: quinntzadok's Leaves of Memory, found in tags or memories (also all chapters linked at bloodclaim.)

I'm only on chapter 3, but really enjoying it! Neat premise, well-written, and just wow.

I am way behind on reading, writing, commenting, and general life stuff too. More on that soon. I hope. Things have been a bit crazy.

But you should all read The Post-Finals Tradition, the fic that mireille719 wrote for me in the Oz round of maleslashminis. Because even if the idea of Oz/Connor makes you think wtf? were you on crack when you thought up that prompt? - this is a stunningly lovely, well-written story. Cute, sweet but with a bite, funny, and plausible. Go read. You won't regret it.