affably

"How deep can two actors' voices be?" - Jensen Ackles on Jeffery Dean Morgan and Fred Lehne, in the commentary on "In My Time of Dying"


Genderblended
"The return to biology as the ground of a specific feminine sexuality or meaning seems to defeat the feminist premise that biology is not destiny." - Judith Butler

As tired as I am of the gender complaints in Supernatural, I do find this genderswap exercise to be somewhat visually interesting.

Though I do take issue with the subject that "rehymenated" doesn't make sense canonically, since the entire point of that line was to argue against the concept that only females can be virgins.

While I find hypothetically casting new images for canonical characters to be pretty interesting (and I've had some fucked up extremely hot dreams about that version of Castiel) I would have to veto Katee Sackhoff for Dean, because 1) as a character I don't actually want to replace Dean with Kara Thrace — whose character I find to be extremely abrasive and not able to pull off that fantastic (masculine) vulnerability — 2) Dean being blond is an extreme pet peeve of mine (what is this, Smallville? Enough already!).

So I think "Dee" Winchester would look ( something more like this )

and oh hell might as well —
( Sam )

That being said, the greatest miracle of the show is the performative chemistry between the leads, and lassiterfics's point was in fact about recasting the show and starting from scratch which well, is not something I'm interested in watching. Ever.

Casting is not just about how an actor looks (okay okay sometimes it is BUT) but also how they act and also how they act against/with other people, which is where Supernatural struck gold. We've only got two main characters to view this narrative through, so part of what is compelling about the show besides the excellent production set design and camera work and all that "invisible" effort is watching these two brothers interact every episode — and that's 100% Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki — so "recasting" the show for the gender and remapped acting dynamics is not something that appeals to me. If you want to talk about what you think a character would look like when that inevitable witch's curse changes their genitals for some pointless, plot-related excuse or renegotiating the narrative through inversions, well. That's a more interesting mental exercise.

That being said, the "Rufio" picture and the "Ben" conception both make me laugh.

Oftentimes unfortunately I find that fanfiction handles genderbender dynamics extremely poorly; though I do believe pandarus still has written the best, most thoughtful version of a genderswap story of any fandom I've come across. The thing about fanfic is that people are often exploring concepts and politics, both in terms of gender and sexuality, through their writing, so it is often experimental and in large part the unconscious mores they've been carrying around are injected and propagated in their stories. And yeah sometimes it's examination and negotiation, and sometimes it's more problematic than they might be aware. Which is fine, free to be you and me and all that. Doesn't mean I want to spend my time reading the terrible ones.

And as far as discussing it, well. It's like someone saying "There are sexual politics going on in porn? Really? Well, whatever. I just want to get off, stop making me have to think about this." Everybody wants something different out of their fandom experience.

I've done it again; changed my layout. While I enjoyed Radioactivity, looking at my flist at night with Nocturne running would make my eyes bleed, which is not a pleasant experience for anyone. Particularly not when I need them to enjoy fanfic. (Pamela must've had a very hard life before she bit it.)

That being said, this layout is probably more political than usual; I blame the mastication of my brain cells from sludging through an overabundance of squabbling meta through linkspam*. I swear, if I hear one more self-proclaimed female fan talking about how online fandom is a "female spaaaaaaaace" I will not be held responsible. Stop gendering fannish practices it is not helping anybody.

To chill out, I've prepared my shanks.

But anyway, LiveJournal layout: "Female" robots. Regulating gender signification by mapping heterosexual binaries on nonbiological bodies. How does that even make sense? I love it. It's as theoretically intelligible as real life. Time to queue up some android sex songs.

Oh and porn. I still enjoy porn, though I think the word "spongey" should not ever appear in a sexual context. Puts a damper on the scene. So to speak.

I haven't talked about Supernatural in awhile, but I'm still reading as voraciously. It's still my primary source of fannish thought all the time — everything else I enjoy I manage to intertexualize with it. Though to be fair, the handprint burn in Legend of the Seeker is not a far stretch considering it is exactly the same thing. Good times. Anyway, Show continues to make me smile on a regular basis and keeps producing awesome fannish works. I'm working myself up to doing something creative, though the massive writer's block sitting on my pituitary gland will probably prohibit the kind of stories I want to be reading.

*Summary: female erasure and not enough femmeslash and women appropriating gay romance publishing genres and slash why are we talking about dicks since we all have vaginas and by the way I am queer today oh my god how dare you and you are a female h8r if you don't enjoy het and even if the chicks are secondary characters you have an obligation to fix them and make them awesome I swear no one will tell you you've made those characters into Mary Sues and it's not possible to appropriate anyway everything is free love but omg help help you are oppressing me stop policing my sexuality I can do what I want no you can't and on and on and on. Also if you're straight shut the hell up. Or something.