recs and links

Cerise Press Vol. 5 Issue 13. An international online journal, based in the United States and France, that builds cross-cultural bridges by featuring artists and writers in English and translations, with an emphasis on French and Francophone works.

Since 1996, 2River has been a site of poetry, art, and theory, quarterly publishing The 2River View, occasionally publishing individual authors in the 2River Chapbook Series, and, more recently, podcasting poems from Muddy Bank, the 2River blog.

Hee! Lucifer tries to convince Michael Westen to be his vessel. It doesn't go quite like he planned.

"You've probably made lists of them. In a book. An indexed book. An indexed book, in which all even-numbered pages are allocated to you, and odd-numbered ones to me. That, my friend, is the kind of person you are, and you are going to come into my home, and you're going to make schedules for all the cleaning activities, and an ordered system by which we will choose which TV programs we watch, and you'll start alphabetising things. And I will wish for death. And death will not come, Casey. Death will purposefully stay away, simply because it, too, is enjoying my pain and suffering." Casey needs to crash at Dan's for a few days. Dan's not thrilled, but they work it out in the end. With adorable banter, because that's what they do.

“This city is capable of moments unlike any moments you’ll ever experience in life. To see an Indian come down the street in full regalia on St. Joseph’s Night on an unlit street of messed-up shotgun houses and one burned-out car, and he’s the most beautiful thing on the planet, and everything around him is falling down. It’s a glorious instant of human endeavor. It’s duende from the Spanish, chills on the back of your neck, and then the next minute it’s gone. Lots of American places used to make things. Detroit used to make cars. Baltimore used to make steel and ships. New Orleans still makes something. It makes moments. I don’t mean that to sound flippant, and I don’t mean it to sound more or less than what it is, but they’re artists with a moment, they can take a moment and make it into something so transcendent that you’re not quite sure that it happened or that you were a part of it.”

"Do you even know where we're going?" Dean asked, loud over the noise of the wind and the engine. "Uh, yeah," Sam said, just as loudly. "East." Dean stared at him, waiting for the punchline, for an explanation, until Sam told him to keep his eyes on the road, please, which was close enough. He turned up the music and there was sunlight and the reverberations of the engine, the open road and Sam, like nothing had happened, like he hadn't ever been gone. And they couldn't start again, couldn't erase anything, but maybe they could move on, maybe they could pretend. Maybe they would be okay, all the same. Beautiful, quiet story of what Sam and Dean did in an alternate s4, where Sam rescued Dean from hell and they stopped the apocalypse. (Wincest)

Really cool story about the first meeting between John Winchester and Bobbi Singer. "Bobbi Singer runs the salvage yard just across the county line. Back in the seventies, she murdered her own husband. Chopped off his head with an axe."

Utterly wonderful Narnia/Mary Poppins crossover. This world does not know of small miracles and not-quite-tame lions, but if Susan prides herself on anything, it is her ability to move on and not be crippled by fear or loss or grief. So she does just that, until the day when the East Wind starts to blow in the streets and Mary Poppins steps neatly out of the sky and takes her by the hand. "Come with me," Mary says, and Susan doesn't hesitate because this is the second chance she thought she'd already lost alongside everyone who could give it to her.

Hard, heartbreaking coda to 5.16. “Do what you want, Sam.” The accompanying laugh was bitter, implying that’s just what Sam would do anyway. So much for Dean understanding Sam’s point of view.

“We know more about what Huey Long represented and the emptiness at the core of American political culture from reading Robert Penn Warren than from contemporary journalistic accounts of Long’s reign. We know more about human pride, purpose, and obsession from Moby-Dick than from any contemporaneous account of the Nantucket whaler that was actually struck and sunk by a whale in the nineteenth-century incident on which Melville based his book. And we know how much of an affront the Spanish Civil War was to the human spirit when we stare at Picasso’s Guernica than when we read a more deliberate, fact-based account. I am not comparing anything I’ve done to any of the above; please, please do not presume that because I cite someone else’s art, I claim anything similar for anything I’ve done. But I cite the above because it makes the answer to your question obvious: Picasso said art is the lie that allows us to see the truth. That is it exactly.”

But he knew they were superheroes because he read a lot of comic books and some of them, especially the ones without special powers, had to do training. Even after they were good at it, they still practiced. Also, he couldn't think of anybody else who would be fighting each other like that at a rest stop unless they were mortal enemies. Adorable outsider POV on a Winchester sparring session.

He is something more than human, now. All of his impurities, his human failings have been washed away, purged in the heat of the divine wrath that filled him. A burning fire, the ultimate test of his soul, and it didn’t leave room for anything else. He is the hand of God. He is here to purify the masses, the same way he was purified himself. He will take their sins and weaknesses in unto himself and leave them nothing but the righteous, cleansing fury that fills him even now. His cup overfloweth. It is better this way. He is better, now. Gone are the petty human failings that had once defined him; gone are the trifling and troublesome worries that plagued him. He is more now, he is stronger. He is drunk on the glory of his own existence. Exceptionally creepy story of the crew of Serenity waiting out a Reaver attack post-movie.

Max doesn't deal well with her feelings for Alec.

oh, *heart*

Okay, so it turns out there actually is a place that Dean's conflict-resolution techniques work well. Prison. Of course. Missing moments from Folsom Prison Blues - Sam figures out how Dean's protecting him in prison. Hee!

Short, sharp look at why Roxy's made the choices she's made. Back then, she would watch him and think that how effortless it must be, not to have to hold every single second of every single day of every single choice.

SO. I have been working on this idea since the last meta, since I read In the Hunt. And it's kind of taken on a life of its own and eaten my brain. I have the first essay ready earlier than I thought I would, so I'm gonna post this as an introduction and Master Post.…

Short, sharp look at Crews and Reese's partnership. "I don't want secrets from you, Reese." His index finger slides up her neck, slightly, and she's suddenly so confused by the linking words underneath the spoken ones because it all seems to reaffirm that this man could be the most honest one she knows. (written before Tidwell's first name was revealed?)

I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE *SCENE* AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT *ESSENTIAL*? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT? ANSWER TRUTHFULLY. IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT.

Angel wakes up at Princeton-Plainsboro and House is his doctor. Neither is particularly overjoyed by the situation. Hilarious hijinks ensue.

Short, sharp heartbreaking coda to My Bloody Valentine.

While Mrs Lupin's intentions were surely noble, as the intentions of all witches who serve in Law Enforcement are noble, they need to remember that motherhood is the highest calling of all. Be mothers first, Aurors second. Fantastic look at the women of the HPverse and how we as a society treat them.

Aw, Sammy, haunted by his demons, both literal and metaphorical. Great use of the song, too.

"Of course I have a plan." "Oh, really?" He could hear Joy rolling her eyes right back at him. "And what's that? Pretend he's your boyfriend until he figures it out on his own?" "What?" Gus sputtered, nearly spitting out the water he'd been attempting to sip before his sister had to go and make wildly inaccurate accusations. "Don't be ridiculous." [...] "I was just gonna do it until I figured things out!" He blurted, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. "Oh, Gus," she said, and at least her laugh was affectionate instead of mocking. "If it didn't work with Denzel why do you think it's going to work with Shawn?" "That was completely different and you know it," he said. "I was five." Hee! Utterly adorable Gus/Shawn, with a great Gus voice. ♥

Neal, dealing - or not - with the aftermath of 1.14, and everyone else trying to help him. Lovely.

You could hitch a ride to the bus stop and leave him here. You would never look back and you would never miss him; for an instant, you will almost be able to believe this. He will look at you across the roof of the car, squinting against the sunlight, and he won't acknowledge the argument at all. Instead, he will answer a question you asked him the night before, one about which you were not serious. This will be so random, so unrelated and unexpected, that you won't have a choice but to laugh at him. He will unlock the car and you will get inside. Neither of you will apologize; that would be extraneous. Gorgeous, intimate look at Sam and Dean that takes full advantage of second person future tense.