Supernatural Season 2 - eps 4, 6 - 17 and a pandemic related rant

Season 2 is absolutely fucking gold.  Pretty much all the episodes are great, and it's filled with memorable gems that I was sure were in later seasons.

This season really looked at how depressed Dean is.  He does the job, hes good at it, but he feels empty.  He doesn't have much hope.  He loves Sam, and he gets enjoyment out of things in life, but he is mostly just sad.

I've already talked about eps 1-3 and 5, now I'll recount the rest.

Ep 4 - Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.  So I didn't watch all of this again. It just didn't grab me.  I remember Dean being very angry, and rightfully so.  His dad has just died, he's grieving.

Ep 6 - No Exit. Jo from the Roadhouse joins the boys on a hunt.  She's clever that one.  She's capable and ambitious but not quite got enough experience.  It's another creepy episode, with an excellent ending to the ghost.

Ep 7 - The Usual Suspects.  Sam and Dean get arrested for murder, we get another excellent female supporting characters as Diana, a lady cop, played by Linda Blair.  Diana learns about the supernatural, we find out who wronged the ghost and the boys get away to hunt another day.  We also get a great pea soup gag at the end.  Sounds simplistic but the execution is marvellous. The interviews with the boys, both focusing on the hunt and seemingly not bothered by the arrest, and the way the story of the ghost pans out is marvellous.

This episode means that from now on the boys are on the run from the law, which makes for a slight change in attitude from them, and is followed through in future episodes.  Back when the season arcs made sense and we had continuity.

Ep 8 - Crossroad Blues.  We meet a crossroads demon and learn about hell hounds.  The opening to this is just wonderful, the blues scene is full of soul (pardon the obvious language, I'm tired and lockdown has turned my brain to jam), and the arrival of the hellhound is masterful.

Ep 9 - Croatoan.  Dean tells San what their dad told him before he died, but honestly I'm ambivalent about that.  I know it provides angst, but I do not give two shits about John.  The Croatoan demon virus is what is really interesting and what grabs me.  I feel like The Darkness' plague in season 13/14(?) repeated the Croatoan madness.  Lazy writing in later seasons.

Ep 10 - Hunted. I don't think I paid too much attention to this one either, not after looking at a  synopsis.  Gordon turned up and tried to kill Sam.  That was never gonna work, or take, let's be honest.  I have no interest in Gordon.

Ep 11 - Playthings.  I found this difficult to watch because of the daughter's near death.  Powerful episode though.  The case is found in a hotel.  A mother, daughter and grandma live there and the hotel is getting sold.  The Grandma had a sister who died as a young child, 9ish.  The Grandma has been keeping her ghost at bay with hoodoo all her life, but now she's had a stroke so her ghost now befriend the daughter and kills people.

Ep 12 - Nightshifter.  Super wiki tells me this is mostly about a bank robbery and apparent suicides.  I have no idea. Brain jam you see.

After running out of steam the other day, I am coming back to this post and will try to finish it tonight. But first, a rant.

I have been so eager to do a re-watch and write a recap of the episodes, I've been daydreaming about how to do it, thinking about the episodes that had the most impact on me, trying to spot the foreshadowing and Easter eggs and all the innocuous but important bits that you notice when you adore something.

Yet now I am in the situation where I want to continue writing, and I want to wrap up each season before starting the next, but it feels like another pressured thing to do, on top of all the other endless things to do that are stacking up and up and up an becoming unbearable, because we're in fucking lockdown, stuck at home, with a shit incompetent government who would rather make money than protect people, doing our best to avoid catching a virus that could well fucking kill me, stuck far away from family who I cannot visit because they are vulnerable, with next to no space to myself, no time to think and relax because there is always someone else around.  I am hardly ever alone and it's ruining me.

There's homeschooling (or whatever it is that we're calling it), checking the school website for lesson plans and educational ideas, trying to catch up with people on video chat, meal plans, sorting out food deliveries, working out when to do a supermarket shop, paying attention to my asthma and mood meds, going for daily exercise, cleaning the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, doing the laundry, trying to read, trying to junk model, trying to think of exciting things to make with what we've got, negotiating the post office, trying to manage my trichotillomania (and failing), thinking of how we will keep the lad at home when schools allegedly re-open, worrying about the lad's social interaction with other, being convinced that family or myself will die of this disease, worrying about my family's actual real non-covid related hospital admissions, getting up, going to bed, wondering when I can have another eyesight test, remembering to take my iron tablets, trying to work out balanced meals for everyone, trying not to drink too often.  Remembering to adjust my chair when I sit down to work, trying to do my work from home, trying to manage my family's expectations and prevent them from falling into a pit of despair.  Trying to do my hobbies.

There is probably far far more also on my plate, which leads to me rage typing this.

I'm not the only one, most people feel like this.  We've had 67 days of lockdown and it's awful.  Sometimes it's good.  But mostly it's awful.  I miss normal contact with people, I miss being able to go places.  I hate homeschooling.

Fuck this shit, fuck this pandemic and fuck this virus.  Fuck the Tory government and their lies and half truths and misinformation and piss poor strategy.

Now this is off my chest, let's go back to writing up the episodes.

Ep 13 - Houses of the Holy.  This might be my favourite ep of the season.  It's where the boys discover angels, or it seems like they do.  This feels like the start of theology in the show.  Sam believes in God, Dean doesn't and he is shaken by Sam's belief.  I feel like given all the shit (dead mother, shitty father, many horrible demons and supernatural stuff hurting people) that Dean has witnessed he can't believe in the christian God because what God could allow it.  Whereas Sam, well Sam never knew his mother, he doesn't feel the loss like Dean does, and he never witnessed the change in John's parenting.  Dean was young, sure, but he remembers bits of Mary.  He parented Sam and protected him, kept him safe, but he didn't have anyone to do that for him.  I'm not surprised he doesn't have any faith and that he can't accept the existence of angels.  At this point in the show they believe that angels represent goodness.  They'll learn.

Then at the end Dean is forced to reconsider his stance, and it's so touching, so emotional, and seeing him start to feel differently, to consider the possibility of the divine, is just a stellar piece of telly.

Ep 14 - Born Under a Bad Sign.  This is also an exceptionally good episode.  Sam gets possessed by Meg, the demon from season 1.  MegSam kills people.  Dean finds out and his first instinct is to cover up the murder and protect Sam.  My heart, it bursts.  I'm a sucker for deep, abiding, I will move the earth for you love, and the Winchesters have it in spades.  There's a reason the show is also known as The Epic Love Story Of Sam And Dean.

Ep 15 - Tall Tales.  The Trickster arrives.  I adore this guy.  I was so pleased he came back in later seasons.  I'm not that fussed about the plot for this ep, but it's got some great character moments.  The scenes where the boys are recounting their evening in the bar to Bobby, and we see their versions of events, is just top quality.

Ep 16 - Roadkill.  There are 2 ghosts haunting a stretch of road and the boys lay them to rest.  The plot twist is that we think one of them is a living human until the end of the episode, and so does the ghost.  I know this is a trope that has been done before, but it feels fresh and compelling in this episode.  I have a note that says that the way Sam explains why ghosts exist echoes how Dean saw him explain stuff to the guy in Tall Tales.  I think this is referring to Dean's version of events in tall tales where Sam gives an uninterested witness a hug and is very emotional slash supportive slash puppy eyed at them.  So I guess it shows where Dean's version of events comes from.

I feel that these episodes are good examples of how Dean is very practical, very much in the here and now, wanting to solve the immediate problem then emotionally ditch it.  Whereas Sam is more of a thinker.  I believe that Sam and Dean are just as emotional as each other, they just express or hide the emotions in different ways.  Dean certainly isn't stupid either, he's framed as the least educated one, because he didn't go to University and he isn't widely read, but he's a good hunter and can put two and two together perfectly well enough.  I think he's more reckless than Sam, and I think he's more willing to take risks (so long as they don't risk Sam), and he's more willing to get killed in the line of duty.  Sam nearly got out. He tasted a normal life.  Dean has never felt he's had that option.

Ep 17 - Heart.  Dean goes to a strip club, Sam gets laid and the boys argue over what makes a monster worth killing.  All in the context of a werewolf hunt.  There's a discussion about an abusive ex and I think the scene did a reasonable job at showing how women get away from domestic violence and recovery.
The scenes were Sam has Madison tied up and is trying to get her to admit to being a werewolf are really compelling.  Especially when viewed in parallel with the earlier discussion of DV.  Sam switches to terrifying and Madison is genuinely terrified.
Dean offers to shoot Madison for Sam, and then cries on behalf of Sam when he does it.  I feel like this is quite a Wincesty moment.  Even though by the end Season 2 finale Dean is in more of a parental place with Sam.  These Winchesters are complex.

Supernatural's one-off women

The thing that really struck me on my first watch of Supernatural, was the female supporting characters.  I'm used to shows that treat their one-off supporting characters as disposable cliches at worst, as one dimensional at best.

This show though, it's really male.  It's a story about brothers, masculinity and family.  There's seemingly not a lot of space in it for women, yet within Season 1's supporting cast it's generally the men that get sacrificed for the plot and the women who survive.

If you've read my earlier posts you'll have deduced that season 1 follows a monster of the week format.
In Wendigo a woman is searching for her brother, lost in the woods.  Dead in the Water features mysterious drownings, we are led through the town by the Sheriff's daughter.  In Bloody Mary we meet a woman who is being stalked by Bloody Mary.  Hook Man gives us a preacher's daughter with sexual hangups.  Asylum has a male/female couple in a haunted hospital.  Scarecrow gives us a young woman in a town full of Vanir worshippers.  I can't be arsed to list the rest but you get the gist.

The thing these women have in common is that they all learn about the monsters under the bed, and while it scares them, obviously it scares them, they cope with it.  They accept it, they don't freak out, they figure out how they can help the brothers and carry on with life.  I expected them to be flat, and screamy, and not much use to be quite honest.  Instead, on the whole they are courageous and resilient.

This treatment changed in season 2, (bearing in mind on my rewatch I'm only on episode 8) where the supporting characters were usually male.  That makes me sad.  On the other hand we get to meet Ellen and Jo who are AH-mazing.  The Usual Suspects gives us a female cop who is just as capable as the season 1 supporting women.

I really want to read a fic where all these supporting women are in a bar, a few years after they first met the brothers.  They are mostly living a normal life, maybe they've killed a few things themselves, and they are chatting and catching up with the other women about the brothers and the cases where they met.  Some will get outrageously drunk, some will be snarky.  They'd gossip about the brothers and compare notes.  It would be such fun and we would get some brilliant outsider point of view stories.

I want this.

Supernatural: Se2 Ep 5 - Simon Said

Spoilers ahead, plus discussion of non-consensual sexual relationships and invading people's privacy with telepathy.
I am discussing the episode not from an in-story viewpoint, but from a real world viewpoint, looking at the mechanism of how things were filmed and the culture of the show and TV industry at the time.
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In this episode the brothers meet another psychic kid, Andy.  Andy is portrayed as a good guy. He's totally average, has friends, doesn't stand out at all.  In a high school show he would be the nerd loser type, with a couple of close friends, who never gets the girl but is fundamentally a decent person.  A bit like Buffy's Xander, but less good looking.  Compared to the Brothers Winchester he's short and scrawny, he has none of their charisma and glamour.  He's got a van with a painting of a Barbarian Queen riding a polar bear on the side.  He's that sort of dude.

We find out he has telepathic powers - he can make people do things.  For example, give him their coffee, let him into the police records department, borrow their car (Dean's car, for reference), and tell him whatever is on their mind.  Sam is the only one immune to his powers.  We see that Andy reads philosophy, he talks about the ethics of telepathy (a bit), he says he has never used to harm anyone and that he has certainly never used it on his possibly-girlfriend, Tracey. 

Andy has an evil twin, Webber, who is using his power to force people to commit suicide, in order to persuade Andy to become close to him.  Webber is clearly the bad guy, and Andy is positioned as the friendly telepath who harms no one.  He's certainly not positioned as a danger to anyone.

Now here is the start of my point.

So, with all that in mind, I find it interesting that in the first scene where we see Andy, he's leaving an attractive woman's flat in the morning, with the implication that he has had a one night stand with her.  It's not explicitly stated that is what has happened, but given the show's attitude to sexual relationships (hello Dean), and our cultural understanding of a bloke leaving a woman's flat first thing in the morning, wearing a happy grin, I think we can assume that Andy and unnamed woman had a lot of sex.

Andy is presented as a sort of lovable loser.  An everyday guy who becomes the secondary hero in the episode (the Winchesters being the heroes obvs).  All the cues indicate that this sort of guy is not usually successful with women.  So how did he have this one night stand?  I guess we assume that he used his telepathic powers to get this woman into bed.

That's a bad thing.  That's rape.  If telepathy were real, there would be laws about it, stating that using telepathy to get sex is rape.

Now my point.

Given that Andy is portrayed as the good guy it's astounding/interesting to me that this particular opening scene with him was filmed in the way that it was.  The episode goes to such pains to show us that Andy is basically a good guy, using his power in a harmless way.  I wonder if no one picked up on the implications of the one night stand scene, or if someone did but was ignored.  It just screams of everyday sexism and this stuff just not being on the writer's or director's radar.

It was filmed in 2006, I don't feel that there is much excuse for being ignorant of gender politics back then, but I accept that many people were.

I think of how the supporting women in season 1 were portrayed, how they were mostly supporting characters but were given agency, proper roles and were treated with respect, as characters and actresses.  I see that changing in season 2, mostly due the show moving away from a monster of the week episode, but that we get recurring female characters in the form of Ellen and Jo (who in my opinion are truly magnificent).

I wonder what sort of atmosphere it was on set, I wonder how the women involved in the show (n any capacity) felt.  Was it noticed and ignored, did it feel like yet another micro-aggression, did any of the men notice it and feel uncomfortable with it.  How did the set culture compare to other American TV shows being filmed at the time.

I have no answers, I'm just curious.

Note - I feel it needs to be said that the episode, and to some minds the whole show, doesn't examine the abusive nature of telepathy - in that most sensible emotionally literate people can figure out that using mind manipulation powers on other people is a pretty awful thing to do.

Supernatural - heroism

Just a few thoughts that keep rumbling around my mine about the show.
Spoilers ahead.
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It becomes apparent in the later seasons, that the brothers are honest to Gods heroes.  To paraphrase the Slayer's epitaph, they saved the world a lot. In Se1 though, they seem more like ordinary folk, not heroes so much, as two guys just doing a job.

I like that they aren't ever superheroes, they don't get magic powers (nothing long lasting anyway), they don't get power rings, they aren't superhuman, they aren't bathed in space beams, they can't do more than normal people can.

They have been brought up to shoot guns, hunt demons, do research, learn theological sigils and basic magic.  But they are ordinary people in ordinary bodies.  For the record, I don't think Sam's pshychic powers count as a superpower.

When they stumble along the riches in the Bunker they don't suddenly know everything, they still have to research, they've just got a comfortable base to do so from.  To be honest, they deserve a nice home, though the lack of natural sunlight would irk me. I bet it pisses Sam off too.  And Dean, though he might not ever admit it.

The brothers don't expect to live a long life.  They do what they do out of a sense of duty and responsibility, and because it's the right thing to do*.  They are intensely moral (until it comes to saving the other one from death or torture, then, ignoring those few episodes after the Trials, the rest of the world can go swivel).  To hazard a guess, they expect to die in their 30s or 40s. Most hunters get killed by something awful before they get old.

The thing about the brothers though, is that the older they get the harder they are to kill, because older hunters have got to be older hunters because they are very good at not dying*.  Or not staying dead in these two's case.  So in all likelihood they are going to get older and better and will die at a ripe old age of something boring.  Hopefully in each other's arms.

To get back to the original point, these are ordinary folks, like you and me, with specific training to be sure, but really just like you and me.  We could do what they do, if we tried hard enough and gave up enough.  That's an attractive quality in a protagonist.  It's more believable than Batman.


* Spot the Discworld references here.

Supernatural Season 2 recap, eps 1-3

I'm writing these recaps to get my head straight about the show, note down foreshadowing and interesting throwaway scenes or dialogue.  Don't expect many insightful comments.  These posts are totally for my benefit.
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Spoilers ahead.
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So while Season 1 was setting up the show, having the brothers trace their Dad, and finding a way to defeat the yellow eyed demon (later discovered to be named Azazel), Season 2 is about the psychic kids and Azazel's plan for them.  The finale neatly sets up for season 3 too but I won't write about that just yet.

Episode 1 - In My Time of Dying.
I think all the opening episodes of Supernatural are good, but this one is just pure gold.  There is not one wasted second of it, it's a powerful and emotive storyline.

After season 1's finale, John, Dean and Sam are in hospital.  Sam is mobile, John is more damaged, but Dean has had a horrific brain injury and he's dying.  We meet Tessa, the second reaper of the show, and she tries to persuade Dean to go with her.  John is scheming, doesn't tell anyone what he's planning, but then goes to Azazel and trades the colt and his life for Dean's.  John dies.

Notable points about this episode - the cast seem really, really settled in their roles.  It's smooth, seamless and every single bit of it works.
Dean says 'You can't kill Death'.  Spoiler - many years later he does.  And now I'm dreaming of rewatching the 4 horsemen episodes.
Bobby tells Sam he doesn't want to tow the impala, that it's ruined, but Sam won't let him.  This doesn't feel in character for what we know of Bobby later.  Nevermind.
Tessa is possessed by Azazel at some point and we see the reaper's true form.  I'm not sure if this ever happens again.
In a really heartfelt scene John apologises to Dean for being a shit parent.  Irritatingly enough this forces me to reconsider my view of John's parenting.  But then just before he dies he whispers something in Dean's ear, we don't find out what it is until much later in the show, but it brings us back to his shit parenting.

Episode 2 - Everybody loves a clown
This has the brothers first trip to the Roadhouse, giving us Ellen and Jo and providing me with two more on-screen loves.
This episode really drives home how much Dean doesn't talk.  It's been touched on before but this ep, with the aftermath of John's lonely, Hunter's funeral with just his sons in attendance, made a point of it.  We also see how cut off form other Hunters Sam and Dean are.  John really didn't clue them into the network that much, apart from Bobby.
The demon is this episode is a Rakshasha, posing a s a clown to get close to children and kill their parents.
Dean is busy fixing the Impala, and then after Sam tries to Talk to him, Dean smashes it up. that's how he's showing his grief, and it's another powerful scene.  It's one that stayed with me throughout the whole 15 seasons, and as such, was another one I'd pegged as happening much later on.

Episode 3 - Bloodlust
Finally, we have the right sort of music in the opening credits.  I remember this episode relatively well.  It's got Gordon the unbending Hunter, and Amber Benson as a vampire.  Benson's performance is magical.  She's just draws you in, she's wonderful.

Supernatural Season 1 recap

So, Supernatural again.  I remain obsessed.  I have had obsessions throughout my life, when I fall for something I fall long and hard.

As a wee girl it was ponies and horses.  As a teen it was music. Then piercings for a few years (alongside the music), then bonsai trees for a a year-ish.  Then my love affair with comics started and lasted, well, it's still there.  It just got sidetracked by my often mentioned grief.  Grief which is still there.

The comics fan in me is still there too, it's just fired into different avenues. I no longer buy lots of weeklies (as if I even could at the moment, since the fucking pandemic has stopped all distribution of weeklies for the foreseeable future), but I read Tiny Titans and other age appropriate comics to my darling rainbow son, and we play at superheroes and it's absolutely marvellous.

I'm pretty into my crochet and yarn too, but it's not an all living all breathing fannish obsession for me, it's more than that. It's a need to be creative, it's a way to calm my mind, it's a practical thing to do and it's soul soothing.  As well as exciting and giddy and fun.

I guess Supernatural is my new fannish obsession. I've watched a lot of telly since we had our second, and I've enjoyed a lot but only Supernatural has clawed it's way into my very being.  I have a section in my filofax dedicated to notes and thoughts about the show.  It's under the section called projects.  I'm such a fucking nerd.

I started making notes about the show from season 7, and now I'm rewatching my favourite episodes so I can understand them more and delve into the mythos more.  And seperate it from all teh fanfic fanon I've devoured.  Fanfic rambling belongs in another thread.

ANYWAY.

Season 1. I wrote about the Pilot, Wendigo and Dead in the Water already.  What will follow is ramblings about the remaining season 1 episodes, plus Phantom Traveller agai, for some reason.  Spoilers, obvs.

Ep 4 - Phantom Traveller.  I thought this was a much later episode where Dean and Sam died in a plane crash and got resurrected.  It wasn't.  It did show us Dean's fear of flying though (I relate man, I really do).  Although not explicitly stated, it's the first time the boys come across a demon.  Again, I had assumed they knew about demons prior to this, but they really didn't.  I think there just weren't many demons on earth at this point.

Ep 5 - Bloody Mary. Ahh this one is sooo good!  The Bloody Mary Legend is taken, expanded upon, details are created and it just works so, so well.  It's scary, and creative and it's got mirror magic in it.  I have a note that Dean has good eyebrow action in this episode.  Dean has enough of Sammy's guilt.  Sam cannot see that Dean has ever done anything wrong. There is much angst.  This is a really good setup for the brothers' angst and love and adoration of each other.  I'll likely explore that in another blog post, along with Wincest. And fanfic.

Ep 6 is Skin. I watched it, I got a bit bored.  Even with all the Wincest implications.  It reminded me of an X-Files episode.  Shapeshifters are not my cup of tea at this stage in the show.

Ep 7 is Hookman. It's a very strong episode, and feels like the show has settled into it's groove.  the music so far has been pretty awful though.  All modern American college rock stuff. It's not what Dean listens to.  I have been told that this is because I'm watching on Amazon Prime and Amazon don't have the rights to the proper music.  Not sure how that works but hey.  Poor show Amazon, poor show.

What is interesting here is that the lady is hitting on Sam, not Dean.  Dean is set up to be a womaniser, but isn't actually all that successful up to now. We don't see him actually scoring with any women, but he's shown as a letch.  Later seasons show us that he is nearly always successful, and that he treats women with respect, but at this point in the show it could have gone either way.

Ep 8 - Bugs.  A Native American takes no shit from Dean.  There's lots of insects.  Folk think the brothers are a couple.  This is a fun episode.  Not the strongest, but fun.

Ep 9, Home, I skipped. Although I probably shouldn't have as it's big on the brother angst and their relationship.  John turns up at the end, apparently.

Ep 10.  Asylum. I didn't watch this one either.  I have very little thoughts on it.

Ep 11 - Scarecrow.  A pagan themed horror story with the Norse vanir.  This is so up my street it's practically set up home with me.  I found the depiction of the Vanir initially insulting, but as I thought about it more, it felt right.  Yes they are the agrarian Gods, but no one said farmers should be nice.  Farmers deal with a lot of shit, they see the violence in everyday life and they know what the results of a good and bad harvest is.  Bring prideful, selfish, bloodthirsty Gods into that and of course they will demand these bloody sacrifices.

Sam leaves Dean for the first time on screen (Stanford was off screen) and it does read like a couple's break up.  He meets Meg. Who I dislike.  Also notable for Sam going to save Dean before the girl. Wincest innit.

Ep 12 - Faith.  Dean get electrocuted and nearly dies.  Sam takes him to a faith healer to fix him.  We meet a reaper for the first time.  I stopped this 15 mins in as I couldn't be arsed. Bad fan.

Ep 13 - Route 666.  It's a possessed truck!  Possessed by a racist who is killing the people who killed him and covered up his murder in the 60s, the murder that happened because the racist was murdering the black folk.  The racist also set fire to a church which killed a children's choir, so predictably I went a bit squicky at that.  Overall though, a great episode.

My notes say that I started developing a crush on Sam around this episode.  Dammit, I'ma  Dean girl!  I've clearly read too much slash.  Other notes for this state that...
- Cassie is Dean's love interest in this, she's an ex of his, he had a an actual relationship, Gods alive, and she's OK.  The actress could have done with some better material, but she did OK with what she had.
- There is minimal drinking at this point. By season 6 Dean is clearly an alcoholic, but here, they don't drink so much.
- Sam is allowed to drive the car.
- The way they get rid of the truck is pretty inventive.  I approve.
- There's a good slashy moment in the car at the end.  All the looks, IIRC.

Ep 14, Nightmare. This kicks off the psychic kids storyline.  I've always felt like this storyline had something lacking at the start.  It's a bit piecemeal. I can't quite put my finger on it because actually this episode works pretty well. I think I find the way that Sam reacts to Max and delivers the exposition jarring.  It's a bit too much telling us how things are rather than letting the story show us. Maybe?  Hats off to whoever decided to put the boys in priest garb, because they look very attractive in it.

Ep 15 - The Benders.  Really fucking creepy. Gave us the 'Demons I get, people are crazy' line.  That sets the tone for the rest of the show.  Dean's voice is now gravelly, and not the weird breathy thing that it was in the earlier episodes.  Dean is notable for looking basically the same here as he does in season 15, minus a few crow's feet.  Whereas Sam looks totally different.

Ep 16. Shadow. I skipped this. Turns out to be the one where John comes back (and no doubt continues being a fucking horrendous father) and Meg gets revealed as a bad guy.  I just don't like this Meg.  The actress just doesn't do as much with her as the second Meg actress did.

Ep 17 - Hell House.  It's the Tulpa bringing Mordechai to life, and it's the ghostfacers.  Another group I could have sworn came in much later in the seasons.  Dean is being delightfully butch in this ep.

Ep 18 - Something Wicked. I skipped this because it was about sick children.

Ep 19 - Provenance.  About a a haunted painting.  Glorious.  Wonderful.  One of the best of the season.  Sam gets laid, Dean doesn't.  See  my earlier point about how Sam gets more women than Dean.

Ep 20 - Dead Man's Blood. It's the first lot of vampires on the show.  The brothers didn't know vampires existed beforehand.  The colt is introduced, the vampires seem like they've been pulled out of Buffy and John is back.

Ep 21 - Salvation - this was mostly overshadowed by my hatred of John.  I have no other notes.

Ep 22 - Devil's Trap, the finale.  I love the idea of a Devil's Trap, but am constantly bemused by how they always manage to get the demon in the trap. Sam draws a trap on the car, much to Dean's temper.  Azazel possesses John temporarily, and JDM does a great job of acting Azazel.  The brothers argue about their actions and how they should take deal with Azael.  Then the final scene is a demon ramming the family off the road and they are all knocked out and bloody.  Dun dun DUN.

The opening song was not Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son and for that Amazon deserve to be beaten.  If it's their fault.

It's a good first season with some truly great episodes in. I am very much looking forward to re-watching season 2.

Supernatural: Dead in the Water and Phantom Traveler

I am not too fussed about Dead in the Water.  Amy Acker is in it, which was interesting, but only out of curiosity.  Dean chatting to the kid is quite sweet.  But it feels far too much like an X files episode, more so than other episodes.  It reminded me that I don't have to re-watch all episodes.  I can skip the ones I don't care about.

Phantom Traveler - I thought this was the one where God saved Dean and Sam from the plane.  It's not.  Still good though. The brothers deal with their first demon (we can only assume, it's not explicitly stated as so, but it's heavily implied).  They talk about being in a confused mental state as making a gateway for a demon to possess you, but that doesn't hold true for later seasons. In later season a demon can possess anyone.  It's possible that it was just their theory at this point.

We also see their first fancy suits, their first homeland security badges and get our first sighting of the EMF meter.  It's enjoyable watching Sam disparage Dean's meter.

Dean's voice is still soft and nasal, and it's odd listening to him when I've just completed what there is of season 15.  Yes, I watched a season 6 clip to check his voice, and it deffo changes.  His basic Dean facial expressions are all there though.  It's great watching actors grow into their roles.

As for the previous episodes, the female supporting characters are treated with respect and have more agency than the male characters.  Good work SPN.

Supernatural: Pilot and Wendigo

We're in a bloody lockdown due to a bloody pandemic and I'm getting stressed to fuck so I decided to watch Supernatural again from the start.  Continuing my mainlining of it.  I have a big long list of things to write about it, so I think I'll get to them ad I rewatch the episodes.

So yesterday I put the Pilot on.  When I first watched it I thought it was dated and some bits were a bit cringey, mostly Sam's hair.  He just always reminded me of Tom Welling in Smallville.  But ona  the rewatch I got SO MUCH MORE out of it.

That's the joy of rewatching something you love, you get more, you understand more, you see foreshadowing (I remember when I first discovered the concept of foreshadowing, it felt absolutely magical to me), you can judge how the characters grow from that point, you can see the bare bones of them, what they started from and you can see the actors grow.

On first watch I perceived it all a setting up episode, the origin story if you will.  I didn't remember much actual plot.  But now, I realised it's the Woman in White storyline.  That has always stayed with me (partly cos I've read so much fic base don it, tbh, but still) .  The boys have stupid hair, yes, I'm not fussed about their origin, although of course it's important, I find the ninja fight scene when Dean breaks into Sam's apartment hilarious - the fights didn't continue like that, that's for sure.  Jared seems far more comfortable as Sam than Jensen is as Dean.

But.  But, but, but.  The groundwork is laid really well.  Their relationship is established well, their shitty upbringing is covered.  Dean's reactions and facial expressions when Sam pisses him off, that's the stuff that continues through all 15 seasons.  It's beautiful to see it start here.

The importance of the car and the music is there.  It's iconic.  The horror story of Supernatural is there - the mysteries, the folklore, the scary shit these guys deal with, easily and confidently.  It is really atmospheric.  It seems to flow much better than on first watch.

Maybe on first watch I was apprehensive because I really really wanted to love the show, and I was worried I wouldn't like it.  But now I know I love it.  So I can just settle in and enjoy it.

I then got half way through episode 2 - Wendigo.  Another folkloric story that I love.  It's not necessarily the way I would portray a Wendigo, but hey I'm flexible.  Then you've got the female characters.  Dean hits on them all, but they are never just love interests.  They are competent, brave, survivors, they learn about the scary stuff and they continue with their lives, dealing with that knowledge. They don't freak out permanently, they react, absorb and process it and then continue. They are competent and they keep on living.  In contrast, most of the fellas in their lives get killed.

I know the show has issues with fridging women.  Let's ignore Mary and Jess' stories just now.  The treatment of the supporting cat of female characters in the early seasons is superb.  When the women start becoming villains later on, that's when I felt the show started to lose it's way.  Before that it was a very male show, male oriented, male stories, male relationships.  But this wasn't delivered at the expense of the women.  I suspect that when this changed was when Kripke, the show's creator (and writer?) left.  I am not sure yet.  I'll work it out when I get there.

I love being so in love with something. Love, love, love it.

Supernatural, let me count the ways I love you

Or, the ways I started to love you, or the ways that I realised I loved you from the beginning.

The music.  Oh the music.  I can't remember ever watching a TV show where the music was so integral to the story.  Guardians of the Galaxy did the same, with Quill's mixtapes (I wanted to call him Kevin there... why.. brain...just why...).  Dean's taste for classic rock permeates every episode, until approximately season 6/7.  It sets the tone, it establishes the brothers' background, it tells you about their tastes, it provides a constant in their chaotic lives.

I found Dean's playlist on Spotify (it's probably this one), and started listening to it and then stuck the songs onto a playlist for myself and now I have a Supernatural theme wherever I go.  As an added bonus, the child now likes Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son.  Don't know it?  It's played at the start of every season finale and it takes all my self control not to whack it up to 11 and throw my arms about.  Here are the lyrics:

Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high
Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreamin', I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know
On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune, but I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
Now your life's no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

I have ALL THE FEELS.  Honestly, the song makes me emotional and it wouldn't have done if it were not now indelibly connected with the Winchester brothers.

Dean's appetites. For food and sex.  I think that Dean is a pretty uncomplicated man.  He hunts, he's loyal to his family, he'd do anything for his family, he drinks, he eats, he has sex, he watches Westerns and Scooby Doo and horror films and he's not filled with existential angst.  Mostly.

He loves his food. He takes such great pleasure in his food.  It's an ongoing thing, not a couple of throw away scenes or pieces or dialogue.  I don't recall ever seeing this on a telly show before.  Buffy's Giles had a hankering for jaffa cakes and tea, but usually the specifics of the food isn't such a big thing on telly shows.

Same for the sex.  Dean likes sex, he's often out hooking up with a woman, he'll flirt with everyone, he's usually successful when he's hitting on women, but we also see the times when he's not.  I'm used to prudish America telly, where enjoying sex is reserved for villains, and casual sex is frowned upon.  Again, my mind casts back to Buffy, which had a horrible attitude to sex.  Thinking of Smallville, it was all very vanilla and lovey, until Lois came along and it was clear she liked sex too.  That struck me as unusual when I was watching it, and then she obviously ended up with Clark, presumably having lots of hardcore sex and introducing Clark to kinks.

Dean Winchester doesn't really do long term.  There's a few longish term relationships, but mostly he's just shagging around.  Importantly, these one night stands AREN'T criticised by the show, it's not used to show that he's gone evil, or is possessed, or is on a morally downward spiral.  He just likes sex.  And porn.  He doesn't disrespect the women he shags or watches either.  He just enjoys sex.  I love that.

Sam and Dean's unspoken conversations.

They have all the facial expressions and all the reactions.  They don't need dialogue to get feelings or opinions across, it's all there on their faces, plain as day.  I don't know if the show was planned like that or if it developed from the two main's chemistry, but it works.  They are brothers, growing up they just had each other, their Dad and Bobby.  These physical conversations reinforce that and it;s a really good use of screentime.

The actors' camaraderie.  They just seem like they genuinely like each other.  I like that.

It's a show about brothers.  Family too, but mostly brothers.  I don't usually like such male oriented shows but this works.  I have a lot of thoughts about how the women in the shows are treated too, but that is a whole other blogpost.  It will include joy and rage. 

There is a frigging twitter called Jared as Cats.  How can you not love a show that inspires such delightfully mad fandom?

That's it for tonight. More tomorrow. Probably.

All Supernatural, all the time

Hello world.  It's been 21 months since I last posted here but now I have Thoughts I want to gabble on about.

If anyone has looked at this blog over the last 5 and a half years they will have noticed a distinct lack of posts, and of those posts, the tone changed somewhat from mid 2014.  As much as I feel strange bringing up my dead child into what seems every topic conceivable, the death of my child changed everything.  It took me out of everything I was enamoured with and my connection to random internet dudes with seemingly normal, happy, un-traumatised lives.

Yes I know that you can never tell what is going on in someone else's life, especially when you just read internet personas, but that's how it felt.

I kept buying comics, irregularly, and I tried really hard to regain the enthusiasm I once had, and it was in there, but buried, and I still can't quite connect with it.  I've been a comics fan my whole life, and a serious comics reader from age 23 ish.  Comics, superheroes, DC comics, are part of my DNA.  I really wanted to take part in them again.  For fuck's sake, I named my child after Superman.  I fucking love comics.  But because of all that, 5.5 and a bit years on, I am still finding it difficult to get swallowed up by them.

I've watched tons of superhero telly and films.  I've got my fix that way.  Some shows are better than others.  Some gave what I want, some didn't.  Titans series 1 is fucking awesome.  I haven't managed to watch series 2 yet.

Then last year I cancelled netflix and got Amazon Prime.  I watched a few shows and got very into them.  Then I settled down to watch Supernatural.  A friend has been into it forever, and it's always been on my list to watch, and then Prime had seasons 1-13 available.

So last October 31st, I watched episode 1.

It's now mid March and I've watched all available episodes, which is mid to season 15, the final season, now airing in the States.  They went on filming hiatus, presumably to do cons, and now the poxy plague has halted filming.

But that's 318 episodes (assuming I can count right), in 4.5 months.  I think I watched 1 episode of Picard and a few Teen Titans Go eps in this period, but no other telly really.

I fucking love this show.  I haven't felt so excited about anything since pre-2014.  That includes all the Star Trek episodes barring TOS that I marathon'd a couple of years ago.  And I bloody love Trek.

I care about the characters haircuts and food choices, and relationships, and personality depths, and in jokes, and the depiction of the monsters, and I have got my own headcanon for various episodes, and I love to hate some characters and plot developments, and I have shouted about my passion for this on facebook, and on twitter, and I CARE.  I care about who they fuck and who they fight, I imagine what would happen if they crossed over with the Discworld, I do comparative analyses of Supernatural vs Buffy in my head, I care about the philosophy of the show, the theology, the morals, the music, the actor's acting styles, the clothes.  I care about what the show has to say about women and about men and about justice.  I care that it has queer characters where being queer isn't a plot point, it's just normal.

I have fallen hard and fast for it and I am a fan again.  I fucking love fandom.  The passion and the nitpicking and the camaraderie and the jokes and the seriousness and the passion.  Fandom of nay sort can be pretty toxic, Supernatural has it's own toxic fandom, but on the whole I'm happy to be a part of it again.

Over the last few months I have had Thoughts about The Show buzzing around my head, but I was too busy watching it to write anything down.  Now I'm all caught up I have time to write, and to get my thoughts down.  Some will be Serious Thoughts, some will be Fluffy Thoughts.  This is the first post and now I need to work out what I'm going to do next.  And how to tag these posts because I swear, I have totally forgotten what my lists of labels are.

New year goals - an update

In January I wrote about what I wanted to achieve this year. In February I did an update.  I want to update again, so here goes.

Find a work/life balance

- Achieved.  I have been part time in a  new role since March and my mental health has improved considerably.  I still get tied up in knots and make stupid decisions but the balance is vastly, vastly better.

Spend more time with my toddler.

- As I now work 2.5 days a week only I get lots more time with my boy and it's wonderful.  I've got to know him much better, we do loads of fun things and he is much happier having me around more.  I've had a period of several weeks of frustration and crossness as he goes through a difficult phase, but that is far preferable to working full time in a job I don't like and can't do.

Teach the toddler to say thank you, tidy up after himself and like vegetables.

- He is now so polite! He says please, thank you and you're welcome in nearly every appropriate situation.  Other people comment on how polite and kind he is.  I'm in awe of his manners, he's better than me.  After prompting, he now tidies up with little complaint.  He is also eating vegetables now - that was clearly just a developmental thing and just took time for him to get there but he's got a better diet now.

Do yoga a few times a week

- Not managed this. But I have booked an outside personal trainer session for next weekend so we'll see how that goes.

Spend less money

- Given that I earn a lot less than I did I am now far more careful with money and I budget for and record everything I spend, so I am far more in control now.

Work on reducing my trichotillomania symptoms

- I started having electrolysis in August and my electrologist is amazing.  After my first session with her I threw away the tweezers.  15 years of relying on the damn things and I threw them away with not much concern. Since the start of August I have plucked on two occasions, which were each days that an appointment was cancelled.  Inbetween appointments I shave or trim my chin hairs and the only hair removal is by my electrologist at the appointment. I have just done 2 weeks without having any hair removed by myself or her (due to a gap in appointments).  I never ever thought I would be able to do that.  My skin is looking far better, far less pink, and the hairs are considerably finer and lighter in colour,  I am amazed.

Be more appreciative of my parents

- Hmm. I don't know if I do this, I can't be objective about my relationship with them.

Get my asthma and knee twinges under control

- Asthma is up and down. I took ibuprofen for a knee flare up and it made me wheezy.  My knee flare ups are less regular than they were, but I do need to work on strengthening the muscles.  Hopefully the personal trainer can help with that.

Cycle to work more - don't get the bus because it is easy.

- I usually cycle.  If my asthma is acting up, or my knee, I get the bus, but mostly I cycle.  I have realised how exhausted I was in my last job so actually I don't feel bad about not cycling in every day then.

Give up sugar for lent

- I did this. It was really hard, then easy, then hard again.  It hasn't stopped me wanting sugar but I go through periods of reducing my sugar intake. I'll do it again next year.

Boys Don't Cry and Wyrmeweald: Returners Wealth

A couple of books I have read recently.

Boys Don't Cry by Malorie Blackman
This was a good story about a 17 year old suddenly having fatherhood thrust upon him.  There were some inaccuracies about baby feeding which annoyed me. Fair enough to have them in the book but please please include a footnote giving correct information.

There was a coming out subplot which I take umbrage at. The character concerned gets beaten nearly to death by his closeted boyfriend. Coming out stories are important and they do have a place, but I am sick of reading ones that portray being queer as danferous, depressing, miserable, full of struggles and fighting the system/your parents/your peers. I would like to read ones written as a coming of age story like straight people get. Being queer isn't always horrible, and it won't get less horrible if people only read stories that paint queerness as difficult.

I think Blackman is straight and I imagine she thought she was being really sensitive and writing a thoughtful book. It's just that as a queer teen in the 90s all we bloody had were painful coming out stories. That's all anyone ever knew. I'd hope we had moved on by now.

Wrymeweald by Stewart and Riddle
This was better.  It's frontier fantasy woth dragons but the dragons come in all shapes and sizes and comprise most of the fauna in the area where the story is based.  They are hunted for pelts and meat and only one type bonds with humans. It was a different sort of fantasy read and I'm glad i read it but I'm not too fussed about reading anymore.

I am currently in the middle of reading Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu. An American high school girl gets really pissed off with the sexist shit at her school and anonymously starts a zine called Moxie. She is inspired by the Riot Grrl movement. It's pretty good so far.

Riots not Diets folks. 

Sugar free (ish)

I've nearly completed my Lenten fast of sugar. Tomorrow (thursday 29th march) is ky last day.
I've done pretty well. I have accidentally had sugar a few times but only in the following things:
Ketchup and brown sauce. I hadn't thought to check they had sugar.
Liquorice - i thought i was buying sugar free. I wasn't so i put the packet away after 2 bites.
Gravy - after the first time i realised sugar is an ingredient. I've since knowingly had ut two or three times because I was in a grump and didn't want a dry dinner.
Crackers - i have absentmindedly ate my son's leftovers, realising after one bite they are sugary.
Croissant - 2 bites of. First bite was automatically going for my son's leftovers, second bite was trying to persuade myself it was sugar free. It wasn't.
Cappuccinos- i kept forgettibg to request no chocolate. But when i was asked i said no.by week 3 i was requesting lattes instead.
Alcohol - i chose to not quit alcohol and have had my usual 2 beers, or 2 gins, or two glasses of wine one night on the weekend.

I have found sugar free chocolate, sugar free cereal bars and made sugar free scones. I continued to eat bread and didn't think to check the ingredients. I've eaten a lot of dried fruit and sugar free crisps. I have had honey on toast a few times. I discovered choc shots, like a sugar free hot chocolate but made with fruit juice, agave syrup and cacao bean powder.

The sugar cravings went at week 3. That was the point I stopped wanting to cry whenever I walked past the chocolate aisle. That feeling lasted a week then on the final countdown i have been craving cake again.

I would do it again, but I probably wouldn't fast on Sundays. Allegedly that's how the Catholics do it, and i was brought up catholic (it never stuck) so I wouldn't feel it was cheating.  I think i might end up eating less sugary stuff after this but i am not going to give it up forever.

It's been an experience and I'm glad I've done it. 

Hekla's children

I read another book. In just over 24 hours. I am full of the joy of reading again, it's just ace.

The book was Hekla's Children by James Brogdan. Started off as a thriller, seguing into a supernatural book. It contained mythology, or created it's own, whichever way you want to see it and had a very satisfying end. The women were real and central to the plot.  I very very much enjoyed it.

To follow this I am reading War for the Oaks by Emma Bull. It's urban fantasy. A rock n roll musician gets drafted into a war between the Seelie and Unseelie courts. I find books about music uncomfortable and beguiling. As a teenager my obsession was music and I knew a lot about the punk/metal/indie scene of the 90s.  But books about music can be embarassing. I feel like the two creative mediums shouldn't crossover. This book however is alright. The music bits work and don't make me cringe. At least with fairies there is a historical association with music which is explored here. I'm enjoying the fantasy aspects and our key fairy character too. 

New year goals

I wrote about what I wanted out of this new year.  I was at quite a low point when I wrote this but it seems I have already achieved some things. Let's see:

• Find a work/life balance and Spend more time with my toddler.

Achieved.  I go part time soon.  I am so relieved.  I am already happier and planning things to do with my son.

• Teach the toddler to say thank you, tidy up after himself and like vegetables.

This should be achievable when I'm part time and have more energy to parent him.  Mind you, he's already started saying sorry and excuse me more, so part of him learning thank you and please and other manners is just waiting for him to get old enough to get it.  I also want to teach him table manners because right now he's atrocious and I don't feel like I can take him out to lunch.  Although going part time will mean I can't afford to take him out to lunch.  As for the vegetables, he's starting to broaden his tastes anyway, nibbling on the odd bit of green stuff.  I will be following the advice in the First Bite book I mentioned in my last blog post and hopefully he will have a greater range of tastes soon.

• Spend less money.

Going part time means I will have less money to spend, so this one should be easy...

• Get my asthma and knee twinges under control/Do yoga a few times a week/cycle to work more

My asthma is already loads better - preventive inhalers are the bomb.  When my asthma is better I should be less prone to chest infections which means I will be able to cycle more.  being part time means I will spend more time on my feet and less at a desk which should be good for my health and my knee and. Doing yoga will mean that my knee should get better as well. I have had problems these last few days so I did a few sun salutations and seated forward folds tonight and was a bit narked at how far I didn't move.  So, another reason to do more regular stretches.

• Work on reducing my trichotillomania symptoms

I've not done anything about this yet. I appear to be pulling less at work, which is good, I hope that will continue.  I plan to get electrolysis on my chin done too, if I can afford it.  If that gets rid of some of the fuckers then my trich should reduce.

• Be more appreciative of my parents

I'm trying.  I've certainly be more truthful (in a kind way) to them recently.

• Give up sugar for lent

This will happen from Wednesday.  I will give up all processed sugar, including savoury food that has sugar added to it.  The exceptions are that I will keep eating honey and I will have alcohol as normal.  So about twice a month then.  I might blog it.  It might not be interesting and might just detail my dreams of cake, but wevs.  My blog, my writings.

Books that I have read recently

Some thoughts about a few things I have read recently:

First Bite - How we learn to eat by Bee Wilson
This is a non fiction book I recently finished reading. I don't think I've ever been so enthralled by non fiction. This book is highly readable and absolutely fascinating.  There are 8 chapters - Likes and dislikes, Memory, Children's food, Feeding, Brothers and Sisters, Hunger, Disorder and Change.  It covers how tastes are formed, why babies and toddlers don't like certain tastes, how we can teach children - and adults- to change their tastes, the relationship between eating and hunger and how family affects how we eat.  And more.

Seeing as I have a vegetable refusing 2 year old this book was a real eye opener.  It's not a parenting guide, it isn't about getting your child to eat, but it does contain some useful info about eating well.  A lot of it is written from the viewpoint that a great majority of people have disordered eating patterns, that we don't eat purely to fulfil hunger and that anyone can change their tastes with time and repeated exposure to new tastes.  I took a few things away from it, which are:

• We should enjoy every mouthful we eat.  If we don't like what we are eating, we should change it.
• If you want to enjoy new flavours, try them.  Try them repeatedly.  Give yourself  20 or so exposures to them before you decide if you like them or not.
• Cooking and eating should be pleasurable.  You can learn to enjoy cooking and eating.
• Children don't like bitter food.  But they can learn to.  If they refuse vegetables, don't turn it into a battle, don't hide veg in the rest of their dinners.  Offer them tastes of things outside of mealtimes, a lick will do, or a tiny pea sized amount of it the new food, which they can put in their mouth and spit out again.  Reward the try with a sticker or similar, do not reward them with chocolate or other food.  persevere with new tastes.  They will get it eventually and they can learn to like bitter food.
• If we feed our children sweet things to cheer them up when they are little, or as a reward for doing a good thing, then they grow up to associate sweet things with feeling good, and these sweet things become comfort food.  If we were to reward our kids with healthy food they would grow up to associate healthy veg etc with comfort.  Wouldn't that be a fab thing.
• Children's formula milk is manufactured to taste sweet because that's what adults think children's food should taste like.  The tastes and likes of children are most heavily influenced between the ages of 4 and 7 months.  What they eat then has a correlation to what they like as older kids and adults.  If we flavoured formula milk with spinach or other veg they would be more open to these vegetables as they get older.
• Breastmilk contains the flavours of what the mother eats.  However eating lots of veg and other good stuff does not guarantee that the toddler will like vegetables.  Don't I know it.
• When a child or adult is disgusted by a food they are genuinely disgusted.  Force feeding them the food won't make them like it, it will just continue to disgust them. If you want to get over your disgust of a certain food you need to repeatedly an gently expose yourself to it over a period of time.
• Food is a joyous thing and it's quite sad that lots of people don't enjoy a wide range of flavours and textures.

Bike Topia - Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories in Extreme Futures
This is a brilliantly enjoyable set of short science fiction stories which involve the use of bicycles.  I think cycling is the most civilised way to travel, and in a future where there may be little petrol or diesel available it makes sense that people will rely on bikes.  And that those in power will control the use of bikes.  I enjoyed all stories apart from one, which I found quite disturbing, but that's down to my personal sensitive points.  Find more info about the book here:
https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/6675

Hitler's Forgotten Children by Ingrid von Oelhafen and Tim Tate
This is a non fiction book about the children of the Lebensborn - those with racially pure parents that were selected to be raised in Nazi ideology and to form the Nazi warriors of the future.  I'm halfway through and so far we have mostly covered Ingrid's early post war life and been given an overview of her adulthood.  As a young child she found out her parents fostered her and I have just got to the bit where she is discovering that she was a Lebensborn child and she is trying to track down her biological family.  This is a really interesting book that makes clear the horror of a government directed drive to create racially pure citizens, and shows how not knowing your origins can seriously affect your life.

Plastics

I've been thinking about how much plastic I use. I want to do a list of all plastics I use in a week but that might be a bit much.  I might start with noting down all the plastics I use in a day. I wonder how much I really use and how much I rely on. And how much I recycle and avoid.

If there are any environmentalists reading this can theh explain why plastic is the worst substance? Is it because it is so prolific due to being cheap and easy to manufacture, in which case if we used metal instead would that become as big a pollutant? What about rubber? Is there such a thing as synthetic rubber?

Or is it simply because it takes so long for plastics to break down? Presumably all metals will rust and degrade much quicker. And rubber will degrade too.  Having saud that, i know that rubbish heaps on landfill don't rot because there is no air in the heaps. So all that crap just stays there, piling up, until big holes are put in it and then maybe the decomposition process will start.

All the plastics and crap we throw away make me feel quite ill. I try to live by the mantra reduce, reuse, recycle, but I'm not as good at it as I would like to be.

New year

I don't usually do new year resolutions. I think they are bound to fail because there is usually little structure to themand little support to continue with them. On a soggy March day or, a grim January, or even a sunby summer day you feel mentally miles away from 31st December and the goals no longer seem relevant or doable.

However, I have been thinking a lot about my life and the direction it is going in lately and I am starting to think I do need to do tjings differently. Not just for 2018, but in general.

I would like to:
Find a work/life balance.
Spend more time with my toddler.
Teach the toddler to say thank you, tidy up after himself and like vegetables.
Do yoga a few times a week.
Spend less money.
Work on reducing my trichotillomania symptoms.
Be more appreciative of my parents.
Get my asthma and knee twinges under control.
Cycle to work more - don't get the bus because it is easy.
Give up sugar for lent.

I feel like a lot of these things could be done if I had a better work/life balance. My job is very demanding and leaves me with little energy or headspace to do any of these other things. I was having CBT for the trich and I was doing really well, but work got on top of me and I had to stop.

There are other things I want to do as well. Some are everyday, like continuing to crochet, draw and wear more makeup, but these are part of my everyday routine now so don't feel hard to do.

Others are wishful thinking, like lose weight, tone up, become a size 10. But these aren't genuine wishes, they are internalised cultural pressures and they are bullshit.

I might end up writing about the things I do do, but am wary of this turning into a health blog. I don't want to be someone advocating for a way of life, or someone who inspires others to diet or exercise. I want to write for myself.

I've just noticed there is nothing about comics on this list.  It feels so eerie for comics to be such a minor part of my life now. 

Comic reviews

Just found this post in my drafts. May as well publish it!

Supergirl - Being Super 1
This has the most accurate teenage girl dialogue I have heard in a long time. It's vulgar and brash and loving.  It sounds like the teen girls conversations I hear on the street.  I don't know how this comic came about but it seems to be about a Kara who doesn't know her origins, and I don't recognise her parents' names either.  I'm not sure I've read any Kara story like this before, so I am quietly pleased I found it.  Includes a queer best friend too.

Supersons 1
This hasn't quite the carmarderie of Superman/Batman titles but give it time and the creators could get there.  I might try a few more issues.

Klaus and the Witch of Winter one-shot
A lovely myffic story about Father Christmas and his role in winter, with a lovely bit about how winter turns into spring, which felt very apt as this week the trees have turned to blossom and it's possible to go outside without thick winter wear on.

Books and comics

Recently I have read a few more books - the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld, The Perks of Being a Wallflower and two Tiffany Aching Discworld books (spoilers for the final Discworld book - A Shepherd's Crown).  I have also read a few comics.