9.01, or, Carver does it again

[brightly_lit]

Just saw 9.01 and loved it. And wow, my previous two posts sure did get jossed a lot, occasionally more or less word for word .... Ah, well; I always seem to find my way to the same wavelength with the writers. Consider this a blanket warning that any of my future fics (now that I'm keeping up with the show in real time) may end up spoily

Comments

[brightly_lit]

I had to tell you--I'd read that you said that 9.01 was ridiculous, which had me rather worried, especially as I'd just come back around to loving Show again and I REALLY didn't want that to go away again .... So then I dreamed that I watched the episode, in which Sam sang a Pearl Jam song (and Jared sounded just like Eddie!) to express his feelings, and Dean sang a butt-rock song that was really, really bad to express HIS feelings, and it was horribly embarrassing by proxy and UNDOUBTEDLY RIDICULOUS but on another level somehow it worked. I woke up and laughed my butt off ... and was extremely relieved when no one broke into song in the ep.

That said, after coming around in my way to getting where they're going with Show, it didn't seem shocking or ridiculous to me at all--it was pretty much all I expected, in fact--so I am most curious as to why you found it so. PLEASE DO TELL.

Ah, the Dean h/c, yes. I poked around your comment meme on hoodie_time and had a look at the prompts. It made me realize that though I do enjoy hurt!Dean and write it myself not infrequently, I seem to enjoy it on a completely different level than true Dean h/cers like yourself and the folk over at hoodie_time. Import, hm ....

I guess I like it when Dean is forced to see that he's not all-powerful and yet the bastard still refuses to see it. He will die before admitting he has any weaknesses, and I just love him so much for it, as stupid and short-sighted as it is. And see, I didn't find his agony over lying to Sam as satisfying as I wanted to, maybe because he really didn't have any choice other than to do what he did, and what he's suffering over is still amorphous and hasn't yet developed into a thing he should rightly freak out over, THOUGH YOU KNOW IT'S GOING TO. (Lucifer much? I'm thinking it's Lucifer in another vessel. But who knows. :-D Whoever it is, I'm going to enjoy whatever happens with it! Secret!angel in Sam.)

There WAS one prompt in the comment meme that inspired me, but probably just because I enjoy writing amnesia stories, but no one had filled it or even commented that they liked it (which I suppose I should go do). Maybe I'll come around to writing that thing one of these days, but it'll be a long time from now, I expect, and the prompter would be like, wtf?? :-D

[kalliel]

lolllll That would have been quite ridiculous! XD I for one hope they never do a musical episode, as much as their precursors would seem to have the world believe this is a rite of passage...

I've now seen the episode FOUR TIMES (once on Tuesday, thrice today--there is a story behind that, I swear, it is not as psycho as it sounds!) and I managed to calm down a little bit but that first night I was just SO excited and so tuned up and after really letting myself percolate in S8 while doing my Top 10 (not to mention the added energies of the HT meme) and just so, so ready. And it was beautiful. AND COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS. And like, YUP THAT ANGEL JUST HOPPED ON A TRACTOR. YUP WE GOT THE KING OF HELL IN OUR TRUNK. YUP WE LEGIT JUST DROPPED A BUNCH OF ANGELS ON THE PLANET. YUP GAS IS 2.35 IN COLORADO. (If it is, I'm moving in with you guys, jsyk because I'm not even sure how many years it's been since I saw THAT. I'm NOT A PRAYERFUL WOMAN, NOR DO I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES, BUT I CAN READ A GAS PRICE SIGN.) But not ridiculous in a way that is unique to 9x01, I mean. Like, I've recently clipped an watched scenes of 5x20, 4x06, and 6x11, and all throughout I was just like, oh my god, this is so completely ridiculous this show is ridiculous how is this a real show?!!! I LOVE THIS SHOW. Good energy, good energy.

Because like, THERE WERE VOICE OVERS. AND ANGELS. AND COMAS. AND ANGELIC POSSESSIONS AND GLASS EVERYWHERE AND ohhhhhhhh myyyyyyy goddddddd everything was so ridiculous and it was beautiful. I felt like 9x01 was such a great expression of what SPN is; I spend a lot of time lolololing about SPN on the Internet, and doing kooky things related to it, and all of that. And then when time comes to fic, it's time for serious business--not because there aren't fun fics, or that they can't be written or anything, but that's not where I tend to go with that, I guess. I feel like a pretty sedate, undramatic, stony (fic) writer most of the time. Though I've been having a little more fun with that of late, too, and the hoodie_time meme is actually a great example of that. There's so much craziness on there and it's just been SO much fun to read and write because omg we are so ridiculous, too!

It's been a very up, carnivalesque week, all told.

I'm curious about your relationship to Dean H/C as a genre! As you might imagine, this is an exciting topic of inquiry for me. :D I think mine fluctuates, depending. When a meme's on, all bets are off, man. I love everything. The more sedate things are my tendency when a meme's NOT on, but if come meme time, I'm all for getting wet and wild with ridiculousness, strange diseases, really trashy H/C (not meant in derogatory way; it just IS, XP), the works. Though I think this meme is the most playful I've ever been, and I'm gunning to do more. :D

What Show will do with Dean's anguish here could not possibly satisfy the fantasies developing in my H/C heart, but I wouldn't want them to do that. But I have seen some really rockin' Ezekiel theories that I'd love to see happen. I mean, we know there are strings attached... It's simply a matter of seeing which ones. Naturally my inclination is ALL THE WORST ONES. (sorry Sam)

There was one theory about Ezekiel adapting really well into Sam and surreptitiously taking over, such that, with the level of distraction the Fall is sure to offer, Dean doesn't even realize whom he's bonding with sometimes. Sam, or the angel?

YOU SHOULD SO WRITE WHICHEVER PROMPT THAT WAS. And don't worry about the timeframe; I have prompts saved from 2010 that I seriously to plan to write still--maybe even this year! ...Maybe. XD Though many of them have since evolved, to the point where it's a rendition of a prompt left in 2010... but using all of the canon that's intervened since. So if the prompters are even in fandom anymore they certainly are going to be like WTF?? XP Oh well.

[brightly_lit]

BAH HA--yes, I really enjoyed farmer!angel jumping on his tractor, too. Very Beverly Hillbillies. I picture him arriving ten days after everyone else, going, "Where's that goldurn Dean Winchester at?"

And ha ha, gas $2.35 in Colorado! SPN literally sets things in CO five times more often than in any other state, and we are continually chortling over this, because we've traveled extensively, especially around here, and it never bears the slightest resemblance to where they say it is. "Just outside Grand Junction"? Then where's all the strip-mined mesas, and why are there so many trees? "Monument"? Very large police station for Monument, which serves primarily as a truckstop right on the highway between two major cities. You couldn't Google streetview this shit? I've been to B.C., too. I assume they like to assume it most resembles CO because of the mountains in the distance, but ... no. Just, no.

YES, IT HAS LONG BEEN SO RIDICULOUS. I guess that's why I don't even notice anymore. I was getting all upset about it, but then I too was remembering how the show started going off the rails ~S4 and has only gone farther afield ever since. Which is peachy by me, because I love careening all over terra incognita, but I can see how some people, you know, find the show MAYBE a tiny bit silly.

Comas. Well, we've already gone to amnesia and evil twins, so I suppose it had to come around sometime. ;-D (Brace yourself--I think they HAVE discussed a musical episode ....) The coma thing is one of the ways in which I got jossed--I'm dying to see what you think of that fic and the related meta.

Hmm ... Dean h/c, let me think about this, because I LOVE LOVE it, but yeah, not the trashy stuff (I TOTALLY agree about not a derogatory way, because there's trashy stuff I LOVE, just not this particular thing). I just read those prompts, and I'm like, "Really?" Dean breaks his neck, Dean loses his legs, Dean gets IBS. The idea of Dean laid so low kills me. What I love so much about Dean is his vibrant life-force, his never-quit attitude, so these things make me think of him kinda ... no longer getting to be Dean, which makes me sad. Whereas what I do enjoy is that which has already undone him. Frankly, I think he suffered WAY more than Sam did when they were kids. He bore the brunt of everything, AND he had to suck it up and try to make everything nice for Sam. I really feel like he got broken in a way Sam never did, partly because he saw to it Sam never had to be thus broken (and making him resent and passive-aggressively punish Sam consequently forever after), and I could write reams about that.

Then again, while I'm more into hurt!Sam, it's the same kinds of things I dig for him--psychological hurt more than physical, I guess, or physical as a manifestation of psychological.

Aw, you're so sweet. Chances are I will write that fic one day, after it's percolated in my mind for a while and maybe collided with something else. (And I saw that someone else at least said they liked the prompt, too! So I don't feel so bad about it just not feeling right to comment.)

[kalliel]

Oh, if I'd seen anything earlier than S4 recently I'd have mentioned that, too. XD Some of the episodes I watched over the summer were like, 1x02 and 2x04 AND THOSE ARE SO RIDICULOUS, TOO. XD And some of my most watched, because I love them so. But I mean, it's a show called Supernatural--if things aren't ridiculous they are simply doing it wrong! (Not that everything ridiculous is supernatural; I think easily the most ridiculous thing about 2x04 are the Winchesters' sad googly eyes...and that episode had zombies raised from the dead by college TAs. XP Ugh, I love it. <3 Though wait, hm, maybe I just think everything is ridiculous right now. XD Because I've also read Hawthorne in the recent past and that was ridiculous, too. Hawthorne may have suffered more for this because I have never and now will never be able to take him seriously; SPN I take...even more seriously than ever. XD

Yeah, I think--at least for me, I'm sure it's a first love for many--that particular brand of H/C is a learned/acquired taste. And challenging to write (or know when to read, if I'm feeling a bit more selective about my H/C that day), because Dean's personhood can drop of so quickly if you're not paying attention, or it's just some kind of laundry list of ridiculous symptoms that are like, well, okay then. XP I think I struggle with the former more so than the latter, if only because I'm not big on the Real Chronic/Terminal Illness or Permanent!Injury prompts to begin with, so I have less experience with that. That mostly slides into "Well, I guess this Dean H/C fic is actually mostly a fic about Sam!" Typical of me in any genre, frankly, as I fee like this happens a lot. XD

What's great about meme is how inventive people get with what seem like really clinical or highly ridiculous prompts. The Dean-with-a-broken-neck fic, for instance, is AMAZING, and is in truth more about Dean and Sam post 1x10 than it is about cervical fractures. "Dean loses the ability to FEEL" tends more toward the depressive dissociation side of things than the Dean is an Ice Queen Automaton side. They make me so happy. :'D

Ultimately, though, my preference for H/C will probably always tend toward the lighter end, unless some other more vindictive moment seizes me briefly. Not lighter in the 'Dean has an adorable cold' sense, or 'Dean gets a hug from Sam' sense, but I'd be all over stress/sleep deprivation/depression/non-life threatening blood loss before going in for amputations, tuberculosis, or permanent brain damage. THOUGH I'VE READ ALL OF THOSE WILLFULLY AND JOYFULLY IN THEIR TIME AND PLACE, TOO. I am completely 100% full up and done with Sam H/C for now (thanks a lot, fandom this summer, XD) but that is also the kind of Sam H/C I enjoy--just exclusively. I haven't quite hit that order of fandom where like, brain damaged!feral!Sam is okay for me. XP I'm actually pretty sure I'm not okay with that in Dean H/C either, but it's more likely I'd have a moment where I took the plunge and tried it out wrt the latter.

[brightly_lit]

The thing is, h/c can be SO GOOD; I guess where my problem comes in is when there's nothing to deepen it, or no significant emotional aspect, or anything going on except, as you mention, just a list of symptoms. But I need the emotional aspect to be intense and heavy. I guess I feel about it the same way I feel about PWP: there's only so many things one can insert/lick/kiss/suck on another person, so if there's nothing but physical description, I'm just like, "Yeah, and?" I need more than some vague hint that Sam's upset about Dean's hurt, too; I need it HEAVY, or for it to work on multiple levels, or for it to elucidate something about the brothers' relationship. I thought I would love the h/c, but too often I've tried to read it and come out of it feeling like nothing really happened except Dean suffered, which, you know, sad face.

[kalliel]

Oh man, I so feel you. In the end, it's hard for me to entirely understand how H/C without those aspects is even a thing because, in the end those are all the...point of it, right? Right? Well, apparently not, but still, you'd think it would be, 100% of the time. XD

This is, of course, not to say I haven't also trawled fanfiction.net, opened up a bunch of tabs, and read only the relevant H/C parts of very.. hrm, ff.net-y fics until I was well and glutted. And then gone back and returned to my normal reading habits back home on LJ. XP Which, if I were interested in porn, would probably be my relationship to PWP, too. PWP as a primary reading genre, or that kind of H/C as a genre, are not for me!