I like the idea of W&Ping when the show itself is in repeats, but again, if we can stagger start times for W&P that would be a huge help to me. Starting past 8:00 board time makes work the next day a bit on the groggy side.
'Destiny'
Supernatural 1: Saving People, Hunting Things - the Family Business
[NAFDA]. This is where we talk about the CW series Supernatural! Anything that's aired in the US (including promos) is fair game. No spoilers though -- if you post one by accident, an admin will delete it.
Fic rec: The drop that makes it run over
It's a nice, long Bobby-centric piece that focuses on his perceptions of Sam and Dean over time. Wonderful stuff.
So I'm finally catching up on the SPN episodes. Last night we watched MM. I'm glad I was spoiled for it, because I probably would have been a lot more cranky about it than I ended up being. The writing felt rushed, and it felt like a bad rip-off of 80s horror movies instead of a knowing homage to them (which is the vibe I get from most SPN episodes.) Also, the episode felt like it was trying to fulfil the expectations of what non-viewers of SPN expect it to be. Kinda dumb, gory, and with a base of unthinking misogyny.
(And yes, I'm well aware that MM is the worst episode of the season.)
I ... oh lord, I hope none of you get annoyed with me for this. I have realized that I like fandom's version of SPN better than the actual show. I think the show is a kind of rickety scaffold that fandom has built an elaborate world around, and I worry that fandom is going to get its collective heart broken when that scaffold crumples. A lot of the really neat meta-discussion I see about the bonds of family, journey of redemption, battling of monsters turns one into a monster - I have to squint at the actual show to find more than tenuous support for it.
Yes, I know that we, as viewers, bring our own interpretation of things, that we're supposed to. But more and more I'm wondering if the interpretations that the majority of fandom brings to SPN is more wishful thinking than mining the text for metatexual themes.
I think that's a valid point, Jilli. It's certainly one I've wondered about with various fandoms. But I decided that for me, any show that spawned such thought, whether by actual content onscreen, or from viewers longing and creating material for what was obviously a shortfall onscreen, has worth.
Others may feel differently. In the past, for other shows, I have decided that making up stuff for the interstices was more trouble than its worth. SPN hasn't reached that point for me yet.
I think the show is a kind of rickety scaffold that fandom has built an elaborate world around, and I worry that fandom is going to get its collective heart broken when that scaffold crumples.
Too late. Or actually, that happens for me with every show; and the world I build is sometimes all I can take with me from the experience for a long time.
I think the show is a kind of rickety scaffold that fandom has built an elaborate world around, and I worry that fandom is going to get its collective heart broken when that scaffold crumples.
It hasn't reached that point for me -- I think the last time it did, I wanted to rewrite BtVS S7 from scratch, just for myself.
What's definitely true is that this fandom has created some amazing stuff out of the source, and it's as valuable to me as the show itself. I often have to remind myself that something I've read that really stuck with me *wasn't* canon, and was instead fic.
That said, for me, as was true with Buffy, even when SPN is bad, it's better than most of what else is on.
I think the scaffold analogy is a good one (though I also like to think of it as a skeleton), because a lot of what I like about the show is tied into the fandom that surrounds it and builds on it. I guess I just don't see the scaffold as being all that rickety, even though it's beginning to show cracks this year.
Jilli, absolutely. The fandom got me into the show, and likely I'll continue to be attached to the fandom (to some extent) after the show succeeds in driving me away.
The fandom got me into the show
That's it exactly. I wanted to understand what all of you were beebling on about. Because (and I KNOW this will get me some odd looks) the two main characters are not my flavor of eye candy. They're attractive guys, yes, but Not My Thing.
the two main characters are not my flavor of eye candy. They're attractive guys, yes, but Not My Thing.
The words, they are are in English, and yet they do not parse....
Okay, I suppose I can understand. It's the same reaction I have to, say, Justin Timberlake. I do not find him particularly attractive, nor do I like his music. And yet I know that much of the planet disagrees with me. So I just manage to say things like "hmmm" when people burble on about him.