What TPTB, Plei? Showrunners? Specifically SPN staff? Or wider spectrum of blame?

My reaction wasn't as strongly focused on show staffing as it was on people in personal lives from whom one's involvement in fandom must be concealed. Highly subjective, admittedly.

Second, that within the confines and definitions of the "real world" what women's imaginations invent to keep them interested, invested, and inventively alive, and which spills into and fuels the "reality" of their lives, is viewed as a dirty secret, something which should or must be hidden from people in their lives who are supposed to know and support them. Or something which they should give up because their nearest and dearest disapprove.

All of which is true. But tying it wth the first issue (and using the title) seems to be saying creators have a responsibility to keep those activities hush-hush and under wraps, to not acknowledge it publically, lest they upset the social order by tearing off the curtain to reveal the disorder.

One thing mentioned in a flocked discussion of it was that Becky was, for all other flaws they saw and issues they had, not portrayed as ashamed of her hobbies, nor punished for them by the text. It isn't treated as something that should be shameful, even if it is treated as something weird.

The convention episode showed the fans as varying degrees of weird and risable, but the one pair came through in the end ("Why does Dean's lighter always work the first time!"). Heck, and they even gave Dean some renewed hope.

The showrunners may think the more volatile fans are a bit odd, but I don't think they have contempt for them.

Honestly, the episode didn't bother me nearly as much as the earlier one (the title of which I forget from S4 where we first met Chuck, yeah that one) did. I didn't get the feeling of being ridiculed as much as gently winked at for being a fan. I can see how people would feel otherwise, but I don't share that view.

I do agree that Becky was not treated unfairly, and I'm bemused at my faint surprise at that.

And I do get that the comic is weighted toward blaming the creators, and even agree, now my attention has been drawn. My initial reaction was more global than specific, though.

The showrunners may think the more volatile fans are a bit odd, but I don't think they have contempt for them.

More to the point, I honestly can't read the convention episode as anything other than Kripke and company nutting up and showing us their fannish equiv. of goofy high school photos. There is just too much insider knowledge of that type of con. It's acknowledging, yeah we may think your hobbies are weird and goofy, but you know what, so were/are ours, and in conclusion, let's make out.

That's exactly what I got from this episode, too. It never pinged me like the S4 ep did.

The comic pinged more, as I say, in regard to my own fannishness than as referring to the episode.

So Kripke was supposed to keep fannishness a secret so that Wincest fangirls in hiding wouldn't get in trouble? I can see problems with the eps in question (although I don't feel them), but he hardly has the responsibility to keep fans in the closet, nor was he outing individuals by broaching the topic. Slash is less low profile these days.

I don't think that Kripke has any responsibility other than to tell the best story he can, so the network can make money from the advertisers. (Whether he's doing that or not is a question best left for another day.)

I do think his depiction of fans tends to focus on the behaviors least comprehensible to an outside audience, and the least flattering.

So I don't think the character in the comic should blame Kripke for problems in her marriage, that there are problems in her marriage isn't unrelated to the whole societal attitude about women's sexuality, creativity, online relationships, the uses of sexual fantasy, and so forth.

All that said, I still think the comic was well-done, and I have great sympathy for that position even if it doesn't really hold up under critical analysis.

The comments seem to be chastising Kripke for being irresponsible, and the cartoon's author seems to be on board with that. It mystifies me.

I'd love to know what someone non-fannish and not fandom-adjacent makes of those episodes, but it's not like I know anyone to ask.

The cartoon came across as melodramatic to me. I agree that Kripke is the least of that woman's problems.

I'd love to know what someone non-fannish and not fandom-adjacent makes of those episodes, but it's not like I know anyone to ask.

My sampling of one thought it was hilarious, and wondered where they got the idea of people writing about them doing it.

(My other non-fannish sample for the show counts as adjacent, because he knows I'm fannish and that I write fanfiction.)

The comments seem to be chastising Kripke for being irresponsible, and the cartoon's author seems to be on board with that. It mystifies me.

That's the part I don't get. A sex-negative patriarchy is at fault for any situation in real life resembling that. And while I have sympathy for someone finding herself in that situation, I have basically *no* sympathy for an argument that it's irresponsible to break the fourth wall because some oppressive dillweed in the SNP might have a lightbulb moment and get pissed.