affably

The Dark Side of the Moon was very quintessentially a Supernatural episode, which without giving away anything to those who've yet to watch it, I found fabulous in a similar vein as The Song Remains the Same/Back to the Future II (I'm very attached to its former name, so sue me) only moreso.

At the same time it makes me want to slit my wrists and wallow in my junkie!Castiel playlist, which is 100% songs about heroin and disenchantment. 5x16: I loved it, now I desperately want fic to make me feel better. But yes I want them all to group hug.

In an attempt to not end up dead in a bathroom, instead I've been listening to my Dark Side of the Moon inspired playlist with songs including but not limited to:

Everybody Hurts Helping Haiti
You Are Loved (Don't Give Up) Josh Groban
Hallelujah feat. Charlie Sexton Justin Timberlake
Keep Holding On Glee Cast
I Got You Leona Lewis

Again I reformatted my style, because obviously I have a long attention span. Now might be a good time to point out that because of real life obligations I'm rather drunk at the moment (in before drunk!post!!11!!21) so malfunctioning shit will have to be fixed when I am more clear-eyed.

Today I had a dream nightmare about Ianto Jones forcing Dean Winchester to square dance. It was quite horrifying.

[Poll #1482735]

Ellen: "John was like family once."
Dean: "Oh yeah? How come he's never mentioned you before?"
Ellen: "You'd have to ask him that." - Everybody Loves a Clown

JO IS JOHN'S DAUGHTER I KNEW IT I KNEW IT.


Okay so, this rpf fanmix I didn't initially click on because uh, I thought the cover was ugly. To be fair, I also judge books by their covers, so I'm an equal opportunity judgmental meanface. However, it INSTANTLY gets massive massive points because the first song on the mix is my Jared Padalecki Theme Song. I shit you not it's been in my bff/bromance/I'm-not-really-making-an-rpf-fanmix-am-I? mix for months now, and whenever I hear it I start spontaneously dancing the way I imagine Jared does (okay not so much imagine as know for a fact). So yeah, for that song alone the mix is 100% win.

Though it hits so many of my pet peeves for fanmixes: less than 8 songs and not labeling it as an EP, explanations/justifications in paragraph form for the song choices, no back cover, etc. But no, for having that song. Gosh.

I'm valiantly trying to deal with the fact that I just got pressured into giving up my Friday night for dance practice — which means my window for watching the premiere within a reasonable non-frothing-at-the-mouth time delay is getting narrower and narrower; I'll be squeaking by on the minutes as it stands. But no power in the verse will stop the goddamned Batman, not even Hope herself.

Also, I cannot deal with how awesome Misha Collins is. Why do these things happen? I just don't understand...

Okay, this definitely can't just me be hallucinating; my favorite author talking about my brain filter. y/n? Have I finally snapped?

And I definitely agree with her points regarding Show, and one thing I've always been impressed with her is that she's very lovely at delicately disagreeing and letting everyone space to enjoy their own sandbox. I've seen others take up the same issues with Show much more vitrolically — and emotively — which always seems to lead to either cries of "Hear hear!" or bitter defensiveness. Whew, I see intellectual dialogue really happening there!

Yeah, Supernatural is not a good example of shows for promoting the girls, though there is strong narrative grounding for that:

1. the show's inherent genre choice is horror and tragic heroism


2. the two main characters' only female role model was murdered when they were kidlets, on their vengeance quest they were raised essentially homeless, and their caretakers (when they weren't left alone) were strange bachelors like Bob Singer and Pastor Jim while their father was off accidentally making families with other people.

Yes, the treatment of chicks in the series could definitely be better; but the show's textual axis revolves around familial/domestic trauma. Consider the basic premise: two brothers drive around the continental United States (1) fighting violent supernatural entities that are almost always located within normative society. In this show the supernatural is disruptive and traumatic to domesticity.

Therefore, by it's premise there can't really be any longterm love interests, and latent female characters are almost always going to be civilians or sites of domestic disruption (read: sekritly evil). For narrative intrigue, this kind of domestic trauma is often going to be located in unexpected places; so in The Benders, not only are there adults that participate in ritualistic cannibalism that dehumanizes their victims, but the apparently innocent, timid girl assists and participates. These narrative twists in the series maintains suspense.

So anyway, disruption of domestic normality but as located in familial trauma it's unsurprising that then our "normal" expectations are overturned. Therefore apparently innocous characters will actually be evil/possessed/have a secret dating back fifty years of drowning their bff.

Which is a really long way of saying that not only are random male characters, ghosts, and demons often evil, but also women and little girls. Seriously, every time there is a child on the screen they are either going to be evil or be rescued (2) at the last minute by Sam or Dean (3).

So with that in mind, consider:
In Dean Winchester's universe, there are two types of people: people he has to protect (civilians/Sammeh) and things he has to kill (ghosts/demons/girl-demon-ghosts/chupacabras). His adult role models growing up were men who were either priests or widowed (and also involved in sites of domestic trauma), he's got his mom as the virgin martyr figure extraordinaire, and moved around too often to make friends so all of his female interactions are either as possible one-night stands or further sources of supernatural trauma. The only girl we've seen him actively "date" for any amount of time rejected him when he told her the truth about his life. Hell, the first friend he's narratively given on the show as someone for himself in whom he can confide his doubts and shit (4) took the series four years. The episode Sex and Violence articulated the problem excellently.

Sam is much better at interacting with wimmin but then again, due to the premise of familial trauma, they die for either being evil or in evil's way. So within the series I find the character's treatment of chicks to be legit. I mean it's shitty, but seriously, it's not supposed to be about a healthy situation. You barely need to see half an episode to see how fucked up these kids are.

Now I'm not in any way advocating the treatment of women on the show Supernatural to be normative; like episodes about cannibals or childhood murder, it's supposed to be wrong, a site of trauma/disruption, and an incredibly basic one at that.

The question the series poses as a whole is whether it is possible to recover from familial trauma; individual episodes indicate that it's possible — civilians are forced to learn that their nightmares are real (usually through really horrible practical experiences thereof) but at the end of the episode the family is shown to be beginning to recover from that disruption of normality. (5) So um, I'm actually hopeful that this whole thing isn't headed for a terrible wreck (though like a good tragedy that's what we expect), though it's just as likely that we'll get a Bonnie and Clyde/I Am Legend ending.

Basically no, the show is not a good/healthy example of powerful, progressive women (though you can't deny that Meg, Ruby, Ellen, and Jo all have pretty significant agency. Jury's still out on Anna though*). To be honest I'm much more disappointed with fandom's response to female characters/possible love interests for the characters than in the show itself.

The racial problems are of course, another matter entirely. But on a different note, this show is one of the first I've seen to significantly deal with class structure — particularly lower class — though not extremely overtly. (6)


tl;dr version: I <3 Show, but if I want awesome chick power I'm not going to be going to the show about the violent trauma of having your mom burned alive when you were a kid.(7)


(1) LOL they can't fix Europe because Dean can't fly.
(2) Kripke would totally kill kids if he could get away with it.
(3) Or be the angel Castiel.
(4) Since Sam falls under Dean's "people to protect" umbrella, it's very difficult for Dean to confide his doubts and fears to him since he has to keep his "game face" on.
(5) Unless it's the Winchesters.
(6) Ask me later.
(7) Okay, Calisto is a special case.

ETA: As of 5x13 "The Song Remains the Same," it's pretty well-established that Anna has plenty of agency, though ultimately not narratively rewarded with success. Still, what a badass.