Unh, need to vent.
In the spirit of dotfic's recent PSA, I feel the need to get something off my chest.
I'm starting to get annoyed by people calling Dean "emo."
I mean, it was funny to me for a long time. He and Sam are both ridiculously, adorably emo, Sam from the get-go and Dean starting in S2. The single perfect tear and the chick flick moments and all that--they got to me, yes, and I also was able to acknowledge how OTT and unintentionally humorous they sometimes were.
But at this point, I'm so totally wrapped up in Dean and his anguish and completely justifiable depression and emotional fragility that I really don't know if I can handle people making fun of him anymore. (Even though I did it myself in that one story a little while ago...) It's possibly a measure of how deeply this season is affecting me, and a mark of how very, very strongly I identify with Dean. I just want to wrap him up in flannel (thanks, strangeandcharm) and keep him snuggly safe from everything. And that includes people accusing him of being emo, and OTT, and even just being bored with his story. I mean, there's nothing wrong with people having that reaction, not even you lovely folks on my flist--we all have the right to our opinions, and that includes YOU--but I just can't take it.
And the word "emo," to me, suggests a certain level of fakery, posing, of being in it for the attention. It's pretty much exactly the opposite of true trauma, which is what Dean has suffered and is struggling to recover from. He's not faking, he's not a poser, and he's not doing it for the attention--like most victims of horrific assault, what he really wants to do is just disappear and hide and possibly never come out again. You can see it all over him.
This last episode has totally done me in, of course. I understand that some people maybe didn't like it or found it to be too much or something, but I'm starting to avoid reading other folks' reviews and reactions so I'm not sure exactly what people are saying, just that, of course, there is wank, because there is always wank. Though I definitely felt a resonance with kroki-refur's review of doom, where she goes on about how torturer!Dean really didn't scare her at all, because all she could see was how much it was breaking him. Yes, me too.
And so, yeah, I kinda over-reacted when Sam told Ruby that he believed that Dean really was weak. I mean, Sam was absolutely right. Dean has been broken and wounded, and there are some things that he just can't do right now. But I didn't like Sam saying it. Especially to Ruby, whose allegiances are ambiguous at best.
(Sam's protectiveness and anger and vengeance and demanding a miracle on Dean's behalf were all completely and totally fantastic, though, don't get me wrong. I LOVE SAM.)
I just...Dean isn't emo, okay? If you knew a soldier who went to Iraq and came back with PTSD and nightmares and suddenly had a hard time holding a job and doing ordinary things and being around people, would you tell him that he was emo and to stop being boring and annoying? Yeah, that.
(Psst: If your answer to that question is "Yes," there's something wrong with you.)
Um. I think I'm done. Sorry for the rant. Feel free to ignore future ones if this one annoyed you.
ETA: Please take all of the above with a nice fat bottle of salt, 'kay? I'm over-sensitive and over-identifying and ARGH I forgot to take my anti-depressant today and if I take it now I'm going to be up all night (ALMOST ELEVEN ACK WHERE DID THE TIME GO?) so just, you know, keep cool, my babies. If I had the energy I would totally write another long rant about how the wank against Sam is stupid, too.
I'm starting to get annoyed by people calling Dean "emo."
I mean, it was funny to me for a long time. He and Sam are both ridiculously, adorably emo, Sam from the get-go and Dean starting in S2. The single perfect tear and the chick flick moments and all that--they got to me, yes, and I also was able to acknowledge how OTT and unintentionally humorous they sometimes were.
But at this point, I'm so totally wrapped up in Dean and his anguish and completely justifiable depression and emotional fragility that I really don't know if I can handle people making fun of him anymore. (Even though I did it myself in that one story a little while ago...) It's possibly a measure of how deeply this season is affecting me, and a mark of how very, very strongly I identify with Dean. I just want to wrap him up in flannel (thanks, strangeandcharm) and keep him snuggly safe from everything. And that includes people accusing him of being emo, and OTT, and even just being bored with his story. I mean, there's nothing wrong with people having that reaction, not even you lovely folks on my flist--we all have the right to our opinions, and that includes YOU--but I just can't take it.
And the word "emo," to me, suggests a certain level of fakery, posing, of being in it for the attention. It's pretty much exactly the opposite of true trauma, which is what Dean has suffered and is struggling to recover from. He's not faking, he's not a poser, and he's not doing it for the attention--like most victims of horrific assault, what he really wants to do is just disappear and hide and possibly never come out again. You can see it all over him.
This last episode has totally done me in, of course. I understand that some people maybe didn't like it or found it to be too much or something, but I'm starting to avoid reading other folks' reviews and reactions so I'm not sure exactly what people are saying, just that, of course, there is wank, because there is always wank. Though I definitely felt a resonance with kroki-refur's review of doom, where she goes on about how torturer!Dean really didn't scare her at all, because all she could see was how much it was breaking him. Yes, me too.
And so, yeah, I kinda over-reacted when Sam told Ruby that he believed that Dean really was weak. I mean, Sam was absolutely right. Dean has been broken and wounded, and there are some things that he just can't do right now. But I didn't like Sam saying it. Especially to Ruby, whose allegiances are ambiguous at best.
(Sam's protectiveness and anger and vengeance and demanding a miracle on Dean's behalf were all completely and totally fantastic, though, don't get me wrong. I LOVE SAM.)
I just...Dean isn't emo, okay? If you knew a soldier who went to Iraq and came back with PTSD and nightmares and suddenly had a hard time holding a job and doing ordinary things and being around people, would you tell him that he was emo and to stop being boring and annoying? Yeah, that.
(Psst: If your answer to that question is "Yes," there's something wrong with you.)
Um. I think I'm done. Sorry for the rant. Feel free to ignore future ones if this one annoyed you.
ETA: Please take all of the above with a nice fat bottle of salt, 'kay? I'm over-sensitive and over-identifying and ARGH I forgot to take my anti-depressant today and if I take it now I'm going to be up all night (ALMOST ELEVEN ACK WHERE DID THE TIME GO?) so just, you know, keep cool, my babies. If I had the energy I would totally write another long rant about how the wank against Sam is stupid, too.