Going Under (You can read this one!)

[gigglingkat]

Title: Going Under
Supernatural Fandom, GenFic, Episode Filler.
This is meta, disguised as fic. It's how I see Sam during 114 Nightmare
Suggested "Mood Music": Coldplay's Don't Panic or Evanessence's Save Me

GOING UNDER

It's said when a person drowns, they come up 3 times. A divine number. If the person drowning can defeat three waves, the universe

Comments

[magickly]

Hee. Sorry I didn't reply earlier! What I left wasn't really real feedback anyway and I always try to at least leave something of worth in my fb comments, sorry.

The fear began to churn.
All we see on the screen is how they deal. The "no chick flick moments" rule is fantastic because it keeps the integrity of the characters, but it's also horrible at the same time because we all end up inserting our own context, what we imagine the reactions and feelings are. (As I saw over all the wank over the Scarecrow episode, when each person finished Dean's "I wish I'd..." sentence with something completely different from everybody else.)

You're giving it context, giving it emotion. It's a reinterpretation. It makes the story more concrete, gives it more weight.

Hollow reassurances. I could die the next time and all he has are hollow reassurances. Sam looked away.
We never really get to see thought processes or points of view on the screen, so it's great to have the undercurrents elucidated and interpreted like this.

You can't have my brother, you bastard. You can't have him.
We never heard it onscreen, we never saw it. But this statement was there hiding in the story, and you yanked it out to show to us.

Does that explain good enough? *g*

[gigglingkat]

My turn.

Thank you!

Hee. As I said in another comment. This started out as a review of the show. JP got to play alot behind the eyes.

I loved how JAckles shut both the audience and Sam out until the end. It keeps you from yelling at Sam "How can you buy that!"

Because you are only seeing what Sam sees. You don't know if Dean is covering or if he's really found a way to just see Sam and ignore the weird. We've seen him do it in the past. Given the choices Sam has you believe he'd choose to have faith in Dean. It keeps the character whole.

If that look had been over the car hood in the "Dad wasn't so bad" scene right before, you wouldn't have liked the end scene. Dean would have been patronizing and Sam would have been blind.

[tenaciousmetoo]

Late to the party, but wanted to chime in now that I've read it.

Wonderful coda, Kat! I totally wanted to yell at Sam about believing stuff at face value, and your fic just fills in all the underlying story that I felt was there.

And this:
You can't have my brother, you bastard. You can't have him.
We never heard it onscreen, we never saw it. But this statement was there hiding in the story, and you yanked it out to show to us.

AH, but we DO see it on screen -- in that glimmer of Dean's expression when he turns back from Sam and looks into the hotel room again.

Yay.

[gigglingkat]

Just saw this.

See you and witchy took similar things away from it. I saw more on JP's face than others did.

Sam is spiraling out of control. He's lost Jess, he's having horrific nightmares. Fine. He will just focus on finding Dad and then it will all stop and he can get back to normal.

Scarecrow was a watershed moment for Sam. He hates the hunter's life still but he will not leave Dean behind. He restructures his reality a little and settles in.

Route666 is good in that it shows Sam - if not at ease, then at peace with his life. He is "settled in". Just as he is, reality changes again.

Jared plays Sam as on the verge of hysteria. "What's going on?" from the moment Sam opens his eyes until the moment Dean says "You have me."

He is clinging to Dean as a life preserver. He accepts what Dean says because he would simply go mad if he did not. He is in a blind panic and accepts everything because he doesn't know what else to do.

I said it on TWOP - Sam gets louder and broader as he panics. Dean gets quiet and tighter. It makes them a matched set because on their own, Sam would fly about with no purpose. Dean would become slowly immobile. (Which is to me why is the middle of the hunt for Sam in Benders, Dean simply sits on the bench in the park. He's run out of options and cannot move. It's not calm. It's panic and freezing. He literally doesn't know what to do.)

[tenaciousmetoo]

I think we agree on a lot of this, although I personally don't think Sam would try to go back to his "normal" life at this point, whether they find Dad or not. It is interesting how they're progressing, isn't it?