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.

So apparently Sam really DOES only want death. And is his request for assurance from Death that he STAY DEAD the whole reason he didn't look for Dean when he "thought he was dead"--Sam assumed that Dean must feel the same way he does and want to stay dead? Makes sense. (I heard Carver said they would continue to go into that issue in the show, yay!) "Sacrifice" was magnificent, and 9.01 was all I would have hoped for out of a follow-up. Hurt!Sam and hurt!Cas and hurt!Dean, oh my! And feels, all the feels! *drooooool*

Loves me some Tahmoh! And ooh, as hurt!Dean scenes go, his angel beatdown was imo one of the BEST. EVER. I may even get to see 9.02 next week on something bigger than a teeny screen!!

Comments

[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.livejournal.com]

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!