affably

The Life and Death of Amy Pond has been on playlist Möbius repeat, because it still breaks my heart and dazzles me with equal measure.

Sometime last night it occurred to me why I've been so disappointed lately with Supernatural's episodes and it's because of the recent trend of utilizing cases as device rather than serving them deconstruction or origin stories.

"Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else." —Shifter!Dean, 1x06 "Skin"

Cases without context unfortunately fail to really engage my attention, because I'm in it for the metaphor narrated via CGI. Or even less than that, I'm not picky. Because Supernatural has always tried to flavor its monsters differently, tried to do new things with the metaphor to connect it with human experiences — through tragedy and trauma primarily. But after building an interiority like: the monster within, pedophiles, domestic abuse, years-dead secrets, being a POW, and so forth, well, just defeating the monster becomes not enough anymore.

Fringe's "monsters" trend towards "people who do insane things that cause unintended havoc for specific reasons," while Supernatural's has been more about how the monsters are connected to specific aspects of ourselves, magnified or distorted. I want to see how it, as a monster embodied, relates to other things in the mundane world — how it mirrors it, or subverts it, or how it feeds into the larger narrative, or how it changes the characters we are lensing through. Barring that, I want the monsters to have stories of their own — which is exactly why Gabriel worked so well for me.*

If you can recontextualize human problems into an internalized fantastic, then I will easily forgive a budget that doesn't deliver as dazzling a spectacle as I was hoping for — but in the absence of both, well. Character-wise as well, I've been feeling more off-balance and disconnected than I ever have, and it's been oddly disquieting not having that touchstone.

This has been a bit of a downer post. I still love the characters and spend a disproportionate time thinking about this show and all its little odds and ends, and even if I haven't been connecting to it the way I've used to I'll continue to watch with optimism for when I do again. I'm looking forward to this week's with a lot of glee, despite the miles of words above, so. :)

* Granted, sometimes the metaphor can go off the obnoxious deep end and/or is the Buffy episode "Beer Bad."

"The Boy is Mine" is playing on one of my coworkers' computers. GABE.

I am not prepared for tomorrow. Massive massive understatement.

I just read the episode summary of 5.09 and well...

I can't tell if it's irony, fate, or a Trickster messing with everyone that THAT episode is airing THIS WEEK of ALL WEEKS.

( Cut for the spoilerfree, but just the general episode summary, and some speculation )

So remember how I had a headslapping moment about canonical RPF here? Yeah, someone wrote a fanfic in which Becky and Chuck argue about fanfic and profic and RPF and what fanfic means and does to people... while having lolarious comments about Becky being a redshirt and meta and just win. All over.

Writing (And Other Things That Are Hard (Chuck/Becky, PG-13, ~2000 words) "You made me believe in Sam and Dean so much that I wanted to try to make them real, too."

Yes it is amazing read it read it.

While sitting around and thinking about Show (as usual) I had the stunning realization that since Chuck is actually just writing stuff that he sees in the tv of his head, he is, in fact, writing fanfic. Accidentally RPF, canonical fanfic, but "fanfic" in principle none the less. Oh no this is getting too meta: does that mean that (unlicensed) biographies are a form of RPF too? Is my crazy getting out of control?

I'm not sure, it made sense in my brain.

New preview scene for S5. But kind of unreleased/skeezy since it's on a cam. So I guess, spoilers? D:

Eunice from She's the Man — I thought her overexcitable fangirling was familiar. Hilarious intentional reversal with the crazy. Anyway, all I could think of? "Oh no! You cut her hair! I wanted her to have long hair like classic Gabby!"

Because I swear to God, Season 5 is going to be Xena Season 6. Lucifer included — though probably without Dean trying to talk Lucifer into becoming king of hell, since that would be awkward and has already uh, happened..

...Can we have an Old Ares Had a Farm equivalent for Castiel? Pretty please? Because that would be so beyond amazing I would joyvomit all over myself. Zack can be Gaskar.