I'm seeing a lot of Wincest 'shippers being upset about the episode (although I get the impression that perhaps a lot of them are not liking the season much?), whilst the Dean/Castiel people are all gleeful, for the most part. Which works for me.

Well, now we know for sure they aren't sleeping together.

Because, really, until now it was totally a possibility.

It totally was, ita. It was also a possibility that they rode unicorns when we weren't looking.

I feel kind of bad for them, in a OMGWTFRealityCheck kind of way. I mean, if you ARE calling yourself MrsDeanWinchester on a posting board, and madly shipping Dean/Sam, and have gone and got a tattoo, or whatever, then this is definitely a nasty little smackdown from your happy place.

Got to say, though, I do love the fact that SPN fandom is so avidly perverse with the Dean/Sam and the J2 stuff that they have consciously introduced big gay angel slashbait to try to distract the fangirls. This is made of win!

...I'm so not a Dean/Sam shipper. Which is hilarious, since I am nevertheless writing Dean/Sam at present. And I'm going with it, because it makes sense for the story, but it definitely came along despite my expectations and predisposition, and took 35,000 words to happen. But still, I find myself writing Wincest. Which isn't my beautiful cake. It makes me oddly squirmy about some of the comments it's garnered (and some people's icons, even); on the one hand, I'm engaged with the story, and invested in it, and I think it makes a fucked up sense - but on the other hand I'm still squicked, generally speaking, by the idea of Dean/Sam. I remain a very hard sell on the pairing, and just don't see canon through that lens at all. So people being all "OMG Sam/Dean2getha4evah twu wuv yay!!!" have me just blinking at the screen and wondering how to react.

It's the weirdest experience, as a writer.Here I was playing around with the conceit of Dean being zapped with a gender switch curse a la Tieresias, mostly because I thought Girl!Dean would be hot like woah, and potentially comedy gold, only then it all snowballed and became more Greek by the moment, and the narrative was all pushy about wanting to go there, and - yeah.

Odd.

I was late starting the show, so, when I came in, they were talking to publisher-girl. Having seen the beginning, I can imagine not liking the ep as well after the uber-meta in the first couple scenes.

Loved every inch of the meta.

So, am confused. An archangel did "appear" at the end, right? Even though we didn't see him/her? Or was the archangel *about* to appear and Lilith hit the road before the road hit her?

The opening meta kind of put me off despite not being a Wincest shipper - combo of too much winking at the viewers in general and the fact that I cringe whenever the protagonists of a show go into a comic shop and have Comic Book Guy geek out on them.

I'd have been a lot happier if the guys had just been horrified by their lives being on display in a series of NC-17 Harry Dresden-style novels and not made all the meta-commentary about internet fandom.

The meta was fine with me. All the crap the show takes (do this, no do this, how dare they did that), it was nice to see them dish it out a litte. Maybe even taken to a higher level, it doesn't matter what we cause an uproar about, because ultimately the writer is going to write his "vision" as dictated by the "creator."

They also addressed rape with the demon possession. I am guessing both for the meta and also for the characterization of Sam. Confined to this episode it didn't bother me because everything seemed to be side noted to the fans, but I hope that is the end of feeling the need to explain themselves on screen.

What I am finding interesting is how Rorschach this episode was to the fan base. It's not just love or hate. It's thinking loved things were emphasized, or hated things were emphasized, the making fun of #1 fans, the shipping, various beautiful cakes. For me the comments have been more interesting WHY something was loved or hated.

If I were a Dean/Sam shipper, I would have laughed at the show legitimizing it with an on screen acknowledgement. I didn't see where it makes it non-cannon. It made the boys thinking it was gross cannon, but surely that was already a given in the fics, and it opened room for plenty more fic. "Even though he knew it was wrong, Sam's mind kept going back to what was written on the page." Whatever.

It could have been right up there for me with favorite episodes until the ending. I was expecting some shocking or tragic revelation to really give it substance, like the Genie episode, or Tall Tales. Then I would have named it George. But instead they kept the meta contained to the MOTW and gave us a morality lesson that we, the fans, aren't writing the show. Which doesn't bother me, just expended energy and screen time on something I was already fine with knowing. For me that made it a funny little side episode, but probably not one that I will watch again and again. I can put it away and forget about it and go back into the fictional world where I was quite happy being just an observer.

Which doesn't bother me, just expended energy and screen time on something I was already fine with knowing. For me that made it a funny little side episode, but probably not one that I will watch again and again. I can put it away and forget about it and go back into the fictional world where I was quite happy being just an observer.

I think I'm getting there. Distance has dulled how appalled I was. I like my fictional characters inside the box, thanks. No, not the metaphorical box, the glowy box. Which is as often now the wall-mounted flat panel, I guess.

Oh, good. I was so sorry to see that it looked like your affection for the show had been shattered forever, because you were so fond of it! And I can understand the squick about the fourth wall...honestly, I don't know how it will hit me when I finally see it. I found Tanya Huff's Smoke and... stuff absofuckinglutely hilarious, with its look at vampire detective TV show fandom, but I did wince a little at the Avatar episode that took on fandom. I liked it, but in a cringey way. I loved Galaxy Quest, and Willow writing Doogie Howser fanfic, but did squirm a little sometimes at the way the Trio were the butt of jokes. (Although I loved Jonathan and came to love Andrew, which was kind of the problem.) So - I don't know how this will hit me when I see it, but I'm good with the concept.