Grit and Glittr
Currently catching up on Season 2 of Battlestar, Season 2 of Teen Wolf, and Book 2 of Avatar. I liveblog Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Elementary, under read-more and tagged for spoilers.
My fandoms: Angel, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Battlestar Galactica, Being Human (US), Bones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cardcaptor Sakura, Castle, Coupling, CSI (Las Vegas), Cowboy Bebop, Dexter, Doctor Who, Dollhouse, Dragonriders of Pern, Dresden Files, Elementary, Escaflowne, The Finder, Firefly/Serenity, Game of Thrones, Good Omens, Grimm, Harry Potter, Hawaii Five-0, House, Inception, Legend of the Seeker, Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit, Marvel movieverse, Merlin, Monk, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Neil Gaiman, Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Old Kingdom, Once Upon a Time, Psych, Quantum Leap, Scrubs, Sherlock, Smash, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis/Universe (RIP), Studio Ghibli, Suits, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Torchwood, Touch, Warehouse 13
Still need to see: Alphas, Community, Eureka, Fullmetal Alchemist, Justified, Legend of Korra, Lost Girl, Veronica Mars
One fine day a SPN-Fan obviously doesn’t have another chance then to deal with the topic ‘Wincest’ and the so called ‘Epic Love Story’ of Dean and Sam Winchester. To be honest, if I would’ve done so several years ago, when I entered the fandom, I’d leave it to never return,…
Two things, OP:
Wincest is just the Sam and Dean pairing. The other Winchester ships have different names.
The orientation of pedophilia and the act of child molestation have only a very small overlap. Child molestation, like other types of rape, is about power. Adults sexually abusing children rarely has to do with attraction.
Kansas pretty much covered the rest.
I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s great that you want to interrogate a fandom trend that doesn’t sit right with you; I do it all the time. I can imagine that an incest abuse survivor would probably be uncomfortable around Wincest shipping, and that’s kind of why we have a tag: so the people who like it can find it, and the people who don’t can avoid it. Posting an anti-Wincest rant in the tag is pretty counterproductive and comes off as remarkably concern-trolling.
I ship Wincest. I’m also an older brother. The one has nothing to do with the other. There’s really no need for a “think of the children” campaign. Furthermore, I couldn’t care less what real consenting adults do with each other, because it’s none of my business. I personally dislike humiliation play because it sends me to bad head spaces, so I don’t engage in it, but I’m not going to berate others for doing so in a consensual context. Some survivors avoid reminders of their trauma, others recreate and reclaim it in circumstances under their control and consent, and I am not about to tell survivors how to relate to their own experiences.
Do I want fic authors to warn for things like torture, underage sex, and rape? Absolutely. Do I read works with those themes? Yes. Do I want fic authors and readers to demonstrate awareness of the difference between consensual situations and abuse? Absolutely—and I avoid people who prove that they don’t care. Do I want to police the fantasies they have in their own heads? Absolute not. In the end, although there can be correlations, an individual’s taste in fiction isn’t a reliable indicator of their actual beliefs or practices.
Sam may not feel much anymore, but he remembers having Dean’s love, and he wants it back. He’ll kill anyone that looks like competition. He’ll also kill just to have something to do at 3 AM now that he doesn’t sleep. And a good murder always seems to quiet the sucking wound where his soul used to be.
Holy fuck this story is tough. High body count, Sam wears Dean’s consent down like a pro, and the inside of his head is scary. Deadly and disturbing and less AU than is comforting. Read with caution. But if it’s your kind of thing, it’s excellent.
Via buttsexalecki.
“Since I’ve been President, this is the fourth time we have come together to comfort a grieving community torn apart by a mass shooting. The fourth time we’ve hugged survivors. The fourth time we’ve consoled the families of victims. And in between, there have been an endless series of deadly shootings across the country, almost daily reports of victims, many of them children, in small towns and big cities all across America—victims whose—much of the time, their only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law—no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.
“But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that—then surely we have an obligation to try.”
— President Obama at yesterday’s vigil in Newtown, Connecticut
Can I just…
Drone strikes. Authorized by the president. Killing children and adults all over the world.
It’s really hard to hear the president talk this way about individual violence when he has such a huge hand in state violence.
(via samanddeanandcasarelove)
that shooting happened in my dad’s hometown
he’s a wreck he’s coming home early
all ican fucking do is make brownies for him i feel like a failure of a kid oh my fucking god
Oh shit. I knew he grew up around here but I didn’t realize it was that town. I’m like thirty minutes from it.
Brownies, brownies are good.
I’m on my phone so I can’t do a read more, so please just skip this if you need to avoid it.
I was trying to describe my depression to my dad the other day and I came up with something pretty good.
It’s like there’s a line.
If I’m above the line, making an effort helps. I can use positive self-talk, I can set my timer and do twenty minutes of cleaning, I can slog through my routine even if it takes me three or more times as long as I want it to, I can make a phone call after psyching myself up for it, I can hear someone’s words of encouragement, I can recognize that people in my life love and care about me, I can internalize that I deserve that love without needing to prove anything, I can attempt various strategies to minimize my lateness and distractibility, I can plan for the future, I can make therapy appointments and keep them. I rarely have it All Together but reasonable efforts are effective and I can at least coax and bluster my way to a level that is passably functional.
If I’m below the line, ain’t nothing getting done that day. I’ll be lucky if I can drag myself out of bed and eat something out of a carton. Forget about getting dressed or showering. I know that I will always be a miserable failure and that I’m a horrible person whom nobody should care about while simultaneously desperately craving human contact. Dishes pile up in the kitchen and dog hair consumes the floor and my bed and I run out of clean clothes because despite knowing from experience that taking care of those things is not strenuous and takes less than twenty minutes I simply cannot make myself do the necessary steps, not through yelling nor cajoling nor bribing nor reverse psychology. I can’t tell anyone how bad I’m feeling because nobody cares and they wouldn’t be able to help anyway. I lie about everything and pretend I’m okay even though on balance the pretending takes more effort than just taking care of things in the first place. I feel numb and useless and broken and know that I always will. I make poor sexual decisions. I’m responsible for all the pain in the world and I can’t lessen even an ounce of it. I can just barely manage to take care of the dogs because there’s no one else to do it, but when I can’t get out of bed until mid-afternoon they only get one meal a day and no exercise. I’m late for everything if I can even manage to get out of the house for anything. Everything aches, I’m always hungry but rarely eat, I forget to drink water for days. I know I deserved my abusive relationship because I didn’t leave it. The future doesn’t feel real and I can barely conceptualize beyond tomorrow. I don’t trust anyone. I can’t use the phone and I never make it to therapy.
Rereading all of that…JFC. I’ve never laid it all out like that before. I’m stunned I’ve never had suicidal thoughts. To be really really real, if I didn’t have the Internet and TV shows I like and a dog, being below the line probably would include suicidal ideation and self-injury. That sounds so awful but it feels true. On bad days watching TV and scrolling Tumblr are about the only things I can do.
It’s also a big reason I never started drinking alcohol, because even if it’s something I could do in moderation when I’m above the line, I don’t even want to know what it would look like when I’m below the line; safer just to avoid the whole business.
As an illustration of how I’ve been hovering right around that line this week, I wrote this post while parked in front of Starbucks because I’m pretending to be at therapy right now because I couldn’t deal with spending an entire day with my mom at my house but I don’t actually have an appointment for today because I slept through both my appointments last week and I’m too embarrassed to call my therapist and reschedule even though I know she won’t yell at me and I’ve been up for three hours but I haven’t had breakfast yet which is why I went to Starbucks but I haven’t even made it inside yet because I was writing this post and it’s almost time for me to return from my fake appointment and deal with my mom again. On the other hand, I’ve worked on my writing every day even if I can only manage a few dozen words some days, I did a round of dishes on Wednesday, and I’ve been able to tell two friends I’m having an off week.
Robert Downey Jr. discusses his off-screen chemistry with Jude Law.
WOW this is hugely NOT OKAY.
How about a little more A/E for a Friday night? Sinrepent is a gift from the slash gods.
[TW: rape, drugs, misogyny]
And this was actually the first story that Joss pitched to me when he asked me to come work on the show. He said, ‘These are the kind of stories we’re gonna tell.’I cringed so hard at this. What the fuck joss?
jesus fuck, I thought that syringe was a suicide thing in case of reavers. This is so much worse.
I thought this was sick and horrible. Even the actors are visibly disturbed (and not in a wow what a brilliant dark idea way)
Not indicative of Joss Whedon being anti-feminist though. Which is what a lot of you are suggesting/saying.
He’s using rape as a plot point to show how Mal feels about Inara (and to make him treat her like a lady, because rape makes him realise she’s worth more than when she has consensual sex?). Inara has no agency in this situation; she’s still raped, she’s still brutalised, she can’t escape. And the twist at the end isn’t about her, it’s about Mal.
This is a seriously misogynist thing to do. It isn’t the only sexist thing Whedon has done but it’s really awful that one of his favourite concepts for a show was to show a woman (specifically a sex worker) gang-raped, then have the key point of the episode be a man’s reaction to it.
I’m so glad they didn’t tell this story. Ugh Joss just stop.
(via qkazoo)
I recently realised that I actually think all PIV is rape. If I use my definition (weaponization of the penis), then consensual intercourse still falls under that. Even if you like it. Even if you have an orgasm. You can’t consent to being assaulted, after all. The physical…
5) This charming little intellectual exercise is really disgustingly disrespectful of people who’ve survived actual rape.
I’ve experienced PIV and I’ve experienced sexual assault. Pretty goddamn different experiences. How DARE you tell me that being assaulted was morally equivalent to warm happy snuggly sex with my boyfriend.
You can’t consent to assault because consent is the thing that makes it not assault anymore.
I also want to point out that classifying all penises as always weapons is massively, unforgivably transmisogynist.
It is also telling that so many of the people who embrace this line of argument accept without challenge the very concept of PIV sex as penetration. I believe that OP thinks they are trying to empower (cis) women by freeing them from the tyranny of patriarchal experiences of sex, but trying to make all PIV sex rape is such a backwards way to go about it. There are reasons that this sex act isn’t widely known as “engulfing” or “accepting” or “inviting.” Can we perhaps consider those reasons, and that summarily increasing the threat level of penises doesn’t take away any power from men but in fact gives them more, while degendering trans women and reducing the agency of all women to claim their own subjective experiences as real and significant?
I understand that “because I like it” feels like a weak argument but it is actually really important. It’s not the only thing that matters—I do give some weight to social forces constraining what choices individuals are even able to conceive of as possible—but dismissing it altogether does a huge disservice to the real people affected by all this theorizing.
I reject OP’s authority to define MY sexual experience.
Claiming that all PIV sex emphasizes women’s “fuckhole status” or whatever is merely a continuation of rape culture, plain and simple, and cissexist to boot. This entire tired line of reasoning that should have died out a long time ago damages women a lot more than any enjoyable sex act between consenting adults ever could.
I just realized that the fucked-up relationship I was in during high school that is unexplainable to most people would make perfect sense to fannish folks.
Because for nearly three years I basically lived a 24/7 enactment of my not-girlfriend’s RPF fantasies about James Taylor, with a little Frodo/Sam thrown in for good measure, and towards the end a lot of angels and demons, and more RPF involving one of her teachers and one of our classmates.
Wow. I feel like that just unlocked something.
It was the isolation, manipulation, erasure of self, emotional blackmail and occasional violence that were the real zingers. I don’t think most of the role play would have been bad by itself. And at the beginning of the friendship-thing-whatever it fed a lot of the things I needed. But abusive relationships are often fine at the start and then go sour when you’re already invested in them. And having it all tangled up like that, and not being able to explain that part of it to anyone even after it was over and I started sharing about the abuse, has been hard to deal with.
But wow, it was pretty much exactly like reluctantly living out an angst-filled RPF story. Which is why I know far too much about the young adulthood of James Taylor and friends. She tended to stick to two or three characters who were all versions of her, and I had to be everyone else in the cast—at least fifteen regulars not counting the random angels and demons. And before long I couldn’t even be me at all anymore. I guess she didn’t like me, she just wanted a vessel for her fantasies and I was the best she could get.
Anyway. It gives me an interesting perspective on the matter. And it explains why some aspects of fandom make me skittish, because activities that ought to be value-neutral, and actually are for most other people, simply aren’t for me. And I can’t force them to be; my history is what it is. She tapped something I already had in me that I don’t believe is wrong, and twisted it into something that still hurts me. But I’m still here, and I still want to have fannish sexy times and have it be okay.
So there.
…which is a lot rarer for me than it seems to be for other people. It is so ridiculous though that I just don’t know what to think of it.
Screenshot under the cut because of possibly triggering death references.
Personal Note: Over the last few weeks I have had many heavy heart and deep tissue conversations about things we push away and try not to talk about. I never repost from my personal page, but I want to pass this on to many of you.
Please remember, if you are having a rough month, week, day, hour, minute, moment:
You Are Loved(!), You Will Be Missed(!), We Need You Here(!)
You are not the only person who has felt those infinite seconds of everything in a blender of nothing.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
The Trevor Project Call 866-488-7386 (24/7)
National Domestic Violence Hotline Call 1-800-799-7233
Keep On, Keeping On!
Poem: Human The Death Dance by Buddy Wakefield
Human the Death Dance
by Buddy Wakefield
November 15, 2006
On the face of her phone
Wileen programs a message to herself
so that when the alarm clock rings
the screen flashes:
EVERY DAY IS ONE DAY LESS.
EVERY DAY IS ONE DAY LESS.
For some people
happiness
it’s just a reduction in suffering.
Jordan.
Jordan tattoos the words
FORGIVE ME
in thick black letters
down the inside of his arm
so that when he looks at his wrist
he will remember not to hate himself so much.
What he keeps forgetting
is that there is life after survival.
After Dave left
Mary started sticking her face
between the film projector
and the movie screen
so that when the credits roll
she still gets to be somebody.
Whenever Tara’s past comes back she mashes
chalk into the sidewalk
until her knuckles bleed.
She scribbles and scrapes
scribbles and scrapes
till the words take shape
and this is what they say
I wanna die muther****ers
die DIE muther****ers
hold tight if I love ya
cause it might not last long.
Y’all, we’re all gonna die.
That’s the exciting part.
It’s learning how to live for a living,
that’s the tricky stitch.
Just ask Denise
whose family taught her when she came into this world
that Family equals Love
so Denise took that **** seriously
but after a lifetime of craving acceptance from their cruelty
she now finds herself jamming Polaroid pictures of these people into her typewriter
and pounding out the last letter of the word mercy
over and over and over again.
She strikes the key Y.
Y? Y? Y?Y?Y?
The answer?
The answer comes in the form of a handwritten letter from the moon.
It reads:
This is brutally beautiful.
So are we.
This is endless.
So are we.
We can heal this.
Signed,
Crater Face
P.S. See me for who I am.
We’ve got work to do.
But my father
he didn’t read moon
he didn’t speak moon
and he didn’t write moon
so there was no letter found next to his body in the garage
when he chose to leave this place on purpose
without saying where he was goin’ or why.
There are still days you can catch me
tape recording eternal silence
and playing it backwards for an empty room
so I can listen to his dieing wish
shh.
Yes,
it’s true,
the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree,
but my family tree
was in an orchard on a hill
that rolled me to the river
and that river
ripped me through the rapids
and those rapids
rushed me into this moment
right here right now
with you
at the mouth.
This is my church.
And if church is a house of healing
hallelujah welcome
come in as you are
have a look around
stay out of the porn.
There are massive stacks of bad choices in my backyard.
Haven’t finished cleaning the place up
but I’m workin’ on it
and clearly I have not yet reached enlightenment
for more than a fleeting moment
but I’m tryin’
and I found somethin’ here I want ya to have.
It’s not much
just a story
but it’s all I’ve got
so take it.
It’s called Dillon.
Dillon’s drug of choice was more
so Dillon took more
and more and more and more
until the day he woke up
babbling in a pool of his own traffic jam
realizing he was killing off the best parts of himself
and claiming he could read peoples’ skin.
When Dillon looked down at his heart flap
the skin read Boy, go find your spine and ride it outta here.
Wileen’s gut said Day 1.
Jordan’s arms were FULLY FORGIVEN.
Mary’s face: The Endless.
Tara’s knuckles: Healing.
Denise’s fingertip said C?
C. C. C.C.C.
And my smile
Dillon said my smile it said Fix it
so I came here to the mouth of the river
to look at my own reflection in the moonlight
and see what it says for myself
down my whole body
where it is written
in the skin
says
P.S.
See me for who I am.
We’ve got work to do.
As for Crater Face,
I can’t speak for him.
His skin
is a brutally beautiful
handwritten letter
from the sun.Damn.
world : you’re sick, it’s all in your head, you’re ugly, no one will love you, your body is wrong, your body is right don’t touch it, no you can’t have this heath care, but what do you have in your pants and can I see it, why don’t you just go the police, why don’t you just go to the doctor, why don’t you just die, why do I have to call myself a special word just because you’re a freak, you’re a freak, unman, unwoman, get out of my house, get out of my church, get out of this school, get out of that bathroom, get a job, just be normal god why can’t you just love yourself
trans people : 41% attempt to commit suicide
world : obviously that’s your own fault, it’s probably just out of regret
I just wanted some cute Johnlcck and then within two days of following it got rapey and now Sherlock fans are making excuses for that? JFC people.
Folks, the original instance is a problem. Y’all’s reaction to it? WORSE. Shut the fuck up with your rape apologist bullshit.