Skip them and we'll do a fun night of catching up eventually, Jilli. Not a good idea now.

Much healing~ma to you, Morgana. I hope everything goes well going forward.

Healing~ma to you, Morgana.

Buddytv's slideshow of the best SPN Guest stars of 2011.

Thanks, gang.

Morgana, I hope everything heals quickly and well.

Christmas story. With pie.

Hee! I was just coming here to rec that!

I sincerely hope they get a little better in the end, but even I can't take that much brokenness.

I guess all fandoms have their pathologies, but I swear I don't remember Buffy being like this. I mean, I just liked Buffy for what it was, and I liked some characters more than others, and, that was it. I liked it a lot, but that was it.

However, with Supernatural, there is a *way* I like things to be, and a fair to decent amount of it hinges on (for me) things that aren't mentally healthy for the protagonists. And I'm *really* attached. Whether it's substance abuse or co-dependence or whatever, it's a big part of my enjoyment of the franchise.

And from reading meta and fic and seeing pictures from other people, it's clear that it's pretty common that other people are bringing their hangups and dumping them all over canon and then taking away all they can from it through that particular filter.

I wonder if I'm seeing it in Supernatural because it's there more than in other fandoms (although I'd say the asexual filter is strong in Who and Sherlock, for instance, I didn't see such a panoply of needs), or because I have it, or because I'm more in the fandom, or because I'm more able to see at this time.

I mean, Kripke and Gamble aren't the first creators to break or cripple their heroes. But we keep breaking them more and crippling them more, and "rewarding" them in the most peculiar ways.

All of which is triggered by my reaction to Roque's famous predilection for not just any old hurt!Dean, but specifically lame!Dean.

I don't think I have particular things to tick off. I do know I hope the characters both--or neither--survive the end of the show, in a form recognizable to themselves and each other *as* themselves. I like to think of them running that school for young hunters, that clearinghouse for dead hunters' journals, information, sources and resources for supplies and rituals. A database of accessible information. I'd like to see that knowledge and expertise passed on, and I think it's a way to ease them out of the field with a little comfort and purpose.

I want them to have lives, I think they've earned that. I know probably more than half the fandom wants that final burst of glory, but I think they've earned semi-retirement and some ease, with a little possible excitement from time to time. Respect and acknowledgement from their peers and successors, and close proximity to each other, no matter who else they elect to share their time with.

Don't know if I'll get it in canon. But Wash isn't still flying in canon, either.

But we keep breaking them more and crippling them more, and "rewarding" them in the most peculiar ways.

Both of them, Sam especially, were more broken in that fic than makes me happy.

But I think that fandom especially keeps breaking Dean physically because it's symbolic, whether that's conscious or not. Dean is action, strength, the physical, so breaking his body is hitting the hardest. And Sam has always been so cerebral and emotional, pouring on the crazy sauce probably seems like the natural thing.

Maybe it's hard to imagine them not hunting unless they're forced not to? Because almost every curtain fic I've read (and some I've imagined writing) makes hunting impossible, or at least improbable, before stashing them in a home somewhere. Except that old age one where they'd finally retired to Key West, which was adorable, but almost too adorable. And Wincesty, iirc.

Maybe it's hard to imagine them not hunting unless they're forced not to?

I think that's a large part of it. Also, for me, stories like that one aren't so much about the brokenness as they are about the fact that Sam and Dean are still Sam and Dean even if you take away the things that make them effective hunters.

I'm still torn on how I want the series itself to end. One of the many things I love about fanfic is that it allows us to explore a wide range of different (and differently satisfying) endings that would never happen on the show itself.