news from television land

[aria]

i. My mother, on Community: "So when are Troy and Abed actually going to start dating?" This from the woman who loves both Life on Mars and White Collar, but thinks that Sam/Gene and the OT3 are far-fetched notions. Hey, Community writers! My het-centric mum thinks it should be canon Troy/Abed time!

ii. After ... roughly six years of a quiet internal will-I-won't-I and laughing at the fandom from afar, I ... appear to be watching Supernatural. I am watching it in a way where I am vetting episodes via wiki summary, and mostly watching the arc-plot stuff or the episodes with guest stars I like, and it is entirely possible that I will hit "Can't do this, too many dead women," sooner rather than later but on the other hand I watched all of s1 Game of Thrones. In any case, this television viewing brought to you by Dragon*Con, or more specifically Becca and Pali's two-hour late-night pitch about a show of, yeah, problematic stuff, but also codependency and moral ambiguity and other stupid things I love. And also Mark Sheppard's face. MARK SHEPPARD, WHY DO I HAVE TO WAIT SO MANY SEASONS FOR YOUR FACE.

iii. I'm not actually sure I have a third television thing! But it seems asymmetrical otherwise. Eh, it's okay, I should be devoting more energy to writing than to watching things anyway.

Comments

[sentientcitizen]

You're watching the John Winchester Is An Asshole Show (With Bonus Dead Women)! I will be very excited to hear your thoughts on it as you watch on.

[aria]

YES I HAVE. So far I have in fact successfully (with the exception of Fridged Women In Flames On The Ceiling) avoided dead women! There was equal-opportunity-torture-porn in one, but so far there have actually been far more dead dudes than dead ladies. I think this may have more to do with the episodes I'm choosing to watch than with the actual content of the show, though.

In other news, oh my god John Winchester is an asshole! I am terrible people and love it, though? Screw takes on the horror genre or whatever else this show thinks it's doing, mostly I am here for HORRIBLE AWKWARD TIMES WITH THE FAMILY WINCHESTER.

[sentientcitizen]

I am trying to remember to resent the dead women. Which - ack, haha, is a terrible thing to say, but they point I'm trying to make is that it just becomes so normal after a while, I've stopped registering as outrageous. And - just because you know it's a cheap gambit to manipulate you emotionally does not mean you can avoid being manipulated emotionally. I watched one of the infamous single-sparkling-tear-of-manpain episodes (for the record, Dean shed a single tear, Sam bawled his eyes out) and almost cried too. Because - and then they - and she was a monster - and they had to kill her - and so sad!

I wish I had your ability to take gleeful delight in his assholeness! Every time he shows up on my screen I start shouting things like "would it kill you to explain your plan, you bastard!" and "for fucks sake just man up and tell your boy you love them!" and, most often, "diaf you obnoxious son of a bitch".

[aria]

Ohhh yes, I know what you mean about it getting normalized. :/ Ridiculously enough, I think the solution in that case, at least for me, would be to go find something, say a vid, that highlights it again -- The Price generally, or Women's Work for SPN specifically. I mean, then I would have a lot of RAGE, but hey.

Ahaha, see, John is just so utterly awful that I can't even be properly angry with him. Like, this dude has clearly made all the worst life decisions possible, and I just -- man, it's too bad that demon wasn't into killing dads instead; maybe Mary could have raised Sam and Dean to be remotely functional human beings. But I apparently like the Winchesters Are Not Functional Humans show. :D?

[sentientcitizen]

Oh - yes, that is *clever*. Women's Work always makes me angry, and I suspect it'll work even better now that I'm at a point in canon where I actually know who all of these women are. (The Price is also excellent beyond reckoning, but I'll always resent the inclusion of that clip of Laura Roslin's grave; fuck you, her death was the end of her journey, and that is not invalidated by the fact that it made Bill really sad.)

See, I really enjoy the Sam and Dean Are Not Functional Humans show, especially when they awkwardly try to talk about their feelings or point out to each other how much their childhood warped them. But I think what I'm enjoying most is how they're working things out now that John is out of the way and they can't just operate my automatically obeying (Dean) or disobeying (Sam) his orders. They actually have to make decisions for themselves! They have to evaluate the world and come to their own conclusions! They have to make incredibly stupid decisions based on their epic co-dependence and inability to even pretend to be functional humans without the other person in their life!

I mean, okay, they don't have to do that last one. BUT STILL. And then John shows up and suddenly they're like kids again, and Dean's just obeying and Sam's just rejecting, and while that's... probably pretty true to, you know, psychology, I just can't get into it as much.