Since you're gone my empty arms have nothing left to hold

1. Happy late birthday to 88mph and happy on-time-in-the-proper-timezone birthday to verucasalt123! I hope you both had/are having smashing days and that your next year will be more awesome than not (and filled with Kill Bill references on SPN). ;) If you want to leave a prompt I'll see what I can do. :)

2. In RL news: bad side, everyone in the uni's student office should be strangled. (News of the year: you can't even choose the exams that are in the STUDENT'S CHOICE box on the study plan. If I ever meet the thankfully now former ministry of public instruction, I'll make her want to crawl underground. Anyway, it's been solved by technically-not-so-honest methods. Did I ever say I want to be done with Italian bureaucracy?) Good side: tomorrow and the day after I'm going to Milan for opera reasons. Thinking about it makes me momentarily forget the bad side since it's bucket list item #2 to cross. \o/

3. In TV news:

a) Since I can't quit Ringer until Misha does his thing, I caught up on the last two episodes. Non-spoilery response: the more it goes on the more I laugh. Also... sorry, but I've never seen a show with a dumber lead character. There, said it. Also the writers should do research on how heroin withdrawal and genetics work (red hair is RECESSIVE!), but I stopped expecting coherence from that show after episode two.

b) I'm missing the latest H50 episode still but the previous was better than most of this season put together, even if I still don't get Lori's point.

c) Boardwalk Empire is still at the level of: ten minutes of it are better than everything I watch the rest of the week combined. Though it needs more Chalky and Jimmy and Richard making out asap.

d) I'm also watching Hell on Wheels. Which I'm enjoying a lot except when they try to be Deadwood. The pilot pushed more on that aspect which is why I liked half of it and checked out during the second, but the second was already better on that aspect so I'll stick with this from now. I really do like the lead character (and his lovely boots), the black guy he's apparently going to be bffs with and that entire storyline (also the first scene of the pilot was aces). I can't get into Colm Meaney's character because it seems to me like he wants to be Al Swearengen at all costs and.. well, apart from the character being miles from Al's glory, Ian McShane would eat the actor for breakfast. So I check out whenever he monologues to nothing. I still don't know what to make of the lady with the dead husband, but maybe once she actually does something other than running from indians I might appreciate it more. Also the guy playing Alistair in SPN being the sheriff made me cackle with laughter throughout all of episode two (which was a lot better than one). Anyway for now I'm sticking with it - it's not a masterpiece and it's definitely not in the Deadwood league, but when they aren't trying to re-do it it's pretty good and hey, western show on my screen! My western fetish is being fulfilled and if they keep on doing their thing and Colm Meaney stops trying to be Ian McShane I'll be okay. Still, whenever I watch it I curse because three seasons of Deadwood weren't enough for my needs, but I figured it'd happen.

e) About SPN 7x08, since it's obvious that I'm not doing a separate post for it and I won't have time this weekend.. there it goes. By the way: it was probably my least favorite episode of this show in existence, so read at your own risk/amusement/whatever.

Dear Sera Gamble along with Whoever Wrote This Episode,

this was Not Cool. Meaning: if you thought that it was funny for everyone, think about it again. I don't care that -very technically-, in this whole deal, Becky had been thoroughly led on and that in the end she came around. You know why? Because as many excuses as she had personally (she thought that it'd have worked just if Sam loved her back, the crossroads demon was totally leading her on etc. etc.) didn't prevent me for being squicked as hell whenever Sam and her were on scene. Because from -his- point, the whole thing was the epitome of non-consensual EVERYTHING, and when she was tying him to the bed and such the only thing going through my head was 'shit shit MISERY FLASHBACKS JUST PLEASE STOP THIS'. (Non-consensual stuff squicks me. A lot.) And sorry, but if Becky tying him to the bed and... saying very creepy things was supposed to be funny, I guess we have a different idea of sense of humor. But this whole thing excluded, that wasn't even my Issue Number One. My Issue Number One was about what you did with Becky.

Let's go back a second. I love Becky. Or loved her. Whatever, depends on how soon I forget this episode existed. She never squicked me before or gave me secondhand embarrassment, even if she was over the top. Reason: I like to think that I have a sense of humor, and she was an exaggeration of the typical not-casual-viewer fangirl, but it was done in good spirit. I know how to laugh at myself, thank you. This stated, it's been pretty much obvious that Becky is the avatar of that part of the audience who: is a fangirl, likes to write (slash) fic, goes to cons, discusses the show on lj/message boards/whatever. Which is also who I am - I'm a fangirl, I've been to conventions, I buy your dvds, I write fanfiction (okay, D/C rather than Wincest, but whatever), I might be slightly obsessed with fictional characters. BUT, dear Sera & Guy Who Wrote This, if Castiel suddenly appeared in front of me, other than flailing a bit and give him a hug or fifty, I wouldn't want to have sex with him or marry him or roofie him or similar. Okay, Misha is very attractive, but it doesn't mean I get delusional fantasies about me and Castiel being together forever. He's Dean's anyway, he wouldn't want me.. Having fantasies, as I'm sure both of you know since you're human beings, is normal. Thinking that having fantasies about a fictional character makes you delusional is not understanding shit. That's where the problem was - so Becky (who is the fangirl avatar) wasn't popular in high school/people hated her because she was a nerd, only found people who understood her (seemingly) on the internet THEREFORE only lives on the internet, and she can't have a functional/normal relationship in Rl because oh wait, she knows that her only love is her Favorite Fictional Character. Dear Sera/Whover Wrote This Episode, if this is what you think about fangirls in general, which is what most people who don't get the point do (you don't want to know how much time I've been told that I like fictional characters too much/celebrities too much because since I'm an atheist I use them as God-replacement...), then.. think about it again. There are crazy fangirls who should get the hell off their computer and find themselves a life along with a wiser use of their free time (which is a lot more than I'll ever have..), but most of us are perfectly normal people. We happen to be obsessed with certain fictional characters that we like, and we might discuss your show on the internet since we don't know people in RL who are into it. We might like to write fanfiction (which half of the time we do because canon frustrates us). And fine, we have fantasies about said characters like every normal human being might have, and we might write fiction about it. Sometimes we even say that damn, those guys you have on your show are ATTRACTIVE. (Or: how to find out that hot water exist.) That doesn't mean that it's all of our life and that we'd want to have sex with them/want them those characters to fall in love with us if they existed. When I was in high school (and I still did fandom stuff) I had RL friends who didn't know shit about it, and I had a perfectly good social life. Okay, I wasn't OMG POPULAR, but I never gave a damn about it and what I do on the internet/what I used to do on the internet never was the one thing that made me feel fulfilled. I know that reality is different from porn. And that's what pissed me off: you had your avatar fangirl and you made her life a bunch of trite crap that consists in what people who don't do fandom think about people who do. And I don't like it when the show I'm supposed to support sends me a message like 'by the way, we think that you're kind of pathetic' Also: Becky having basically fangirlish reactions a) while she killed the demon, b) when Crowley showed up were totally out of place, because she looked like someone who still couldn't distinguish her porn and her reality. If you wanted to imply that she understood that the entire thing was SERIOUS, then you did it wrong. Believe me, if I had been in her place I'd have been scared out of my wits, not being like OMG OMG OMG CROWLEY. I do it when I watch an episode. I wouldn't do it in RL.

Okay, this also had a couple good things (IE: Crowley, Dean's vest, Jensen's bitchfaces, and I'll give it to you - DJ Qualls's character was cute), but the rest? Please, no. Just... re-do it. Making fun of your audience is something - slapping them in the face is another. And this stated, I'll give it to you: at least the whole plot was originl. It's the first time this season when I didn't think that you were trying to rehash S1/s2 in some way except for episodes one and two. At this point... the only thing I have left to say is, look at your choices and please, PLEASE think about it twice next time.

Thanks,

Me.

PS: I'm not hating this season - actually I'm enjoying it whenever you're not rehashing S1/S2. But please, please don't ever do this again.

4. Also, tomorrow the entire insane gishwishes thing apparently begins. Clearly I'll miss two days because I'm out *eyes Misha and his timing*. But let's see where it goes. Considering how embarrassing it was to ask someone to take a picture of yours truly with the gishwishes sign I think this is going to be shock therapy for my tendency to get embarrassed.

5. I'll probably do Yuletide. As if I needed ANOTHER exchange... but there are some fandoms which are too shiny for me not to do it.

6. Aaand that's all also because my train is at eight in the morning. *sigh* hopefully I can do some fic exchanges on there tomorrow.