Hell's Half Acre

1. For the past two (working) days, my job has required absolutely no thought whatsoever, so I was able to start listening to podfic again while I worked. (Sadly, I've now completed that task, so it's back to only listening to things that I can zone in and out of.) Anyway, my point is this:

Dear Podficcers,
I love you. I really appreciate all the time you put in to turning good stories into recordings so that my horrible job is a little less horrible. That being said, please do not try to imitate Dean/Jensen's batman voice...please, don't lower your voice and try to imitate any man's voice. I am able to understand and imagine the words in his voice even if I am hearing them in yours - and I much prefer having a greater range of emotion in the dialogue than "monotone head-cold". I'm just saying - you're own speaking voice is LOVELY podficcers, I would like you to use it for all characters.
All my best,
Hells.

2. This is actually not so much a pet peeve as something that makes me highly uncomfortable...

I absotely hate it when people call someone "perfect" or "flawless". This is a huge problem if I decide to hang out on tumblr, I've discovered. It makes me extremely uncomfortable. I get what you are trying to say, "Jensen is perfect" means that you think he is beautiful, a good actor, and a nice person. I would just prefer if people said "Jensen is beautiful, a good actor, and a nice person." To me, calling someone perfect is actually really dehumanizing...because no one is perfect and therefore, in my mind, "Jensen is perfect" translates to "Jensen is not a person" or more accurately, "Jensen is not allowed to be human."

I guess... I guess this is the whole "objectifying" thing...only, I know that's not what people are trying to do/say, but it's exactly how I interpret it... and I'm not joking when I say it makes me "highly uncomfortable" - I seriously feel a little sick to my stomach whenever I read it. I'm not sure what to do about it, because it seems to just be part of the lingo out there on the internet. Anyway, I just wanted to complain about it, because it drives me crazy... and I guess it might be a little ridiculous? I mean, seriously, "Jensen is perfect" gives me the same visceral reaction as someone saying "Jensen is a faggot" or "Jennifer Lawrence is a cunt"...I mean, how completely ridiculous is my brain? But that's exactly what it does. It's sort of like each "Jensen is perfect" is another piece of wood for the stake that you are eventually going to burn him at for actually being human and not perfect at all... and I'm just sitting here watching that thing being built and thinking "no no, this is all wrong!!!" but no one is listening to me because I'm that crazy person in the village that no one ever listens to because I'm crazy.

More Sherlock reaction...well, basically, this is my Reaction to Sherlock Reactions.


( Can: Open. Worms: Everywhere. )

I hate them.

I feel like starting a petition in support of the writers doing whatever the hell they want to do regardless of anyone's feelings.

Or, being REALLY contrary and starting a petition to kill Castiel and keep Gabriel dead and never have any time-travel episodes ever again...who else? Balthazar? He can never return too. And while I'm at it, I'll petition for the "Samulet" never to come back (I actually seriously don't think it should and don't think it ever will anyway.) 

Listen people, no matter what petitions are signed and no matter if the writers listen to them or not, there is always going to be SOME decisions that you don't like in the story. Seriously, for every 10 people who would be thrilled for Gabriel to return, there are probably 10 more who will be pissed off that death has absolutely no meaning on the show. Same with Cas living forever without any character changes.

[Poll #1733787]Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 
I submit two pieces of evidence:

Missing person’s report on one of the females lists the last time she was seen as 11/09/12. The women apparently disappeared in the last week. It was October, 2011 (well, actually it was 2010, but that didn't make any sense either), about 6 episodes ago, yet in Caged Heat (3 episodes ago), they say they’ve been working for Crowley for “months” – indicating that a lot of time had passed between All Dogs Go To Heaven and Caged Heat. I doubt “months” means a whole year though...which means that either “months” is incorrect and the date here is December 09, 2011 (which completely goes against US date-writing customs)...or we just have to disregard this date entirely for being completely unbelievable. I’m going with the latter option.

And then we have this:

The date on the missing person’s report from “a year ago” has a last seen date of “November 2, 2009” which is NOT a year ago and would have been mid season 5 (it's not even a year ago if the present date was 2012). Therefore, I think I’m justified in throwing out all date from the art/props department that appear in this episode – they obviously have absolutely no idea what’s going on.

Unless they some how get their act together, I'm going to have to work solely off of dialog for the timeline. I REALLY hope the writers know what freakin' year it is in the show. I'm beginning to think a side-effect of ending the apocalypse is that time has lost all meaning.
(caps by crystalchain )

According to the latest news....CW is postponing the mid-season premiere of Supernatural so that they can play Vampire Diaries and Nikita on Friday instead. 

I think my icon says it all.

And since Sam has had his say in icon form,  Dean would like to weigh in...

You know what annoys me about this fandom: The constant throwing around of the word "retcon" where it DOES NOT APPLY.

I'm not saying that Supernatural has never retconned something - actually, I recall a discussion recently (with claudiapriscus?) where someone finally was able to point out something to me that was ACTUALLY a retcon. But most of what people are calling retcons ARE NOT RETCONS.

There is a HUGE difference between CHANGING previously established canon, and ADDING to the canon that we ASSUMED we knew.

Brady is not a retcon. Did Sam ever give us a list of his college friends? Did we ever hear the story of how he met Jess? No...therefore, writing Brady into the show in S5 isn't a retcon, it it GIVING US INFORMATION WE DIDN'T HAVE BEFORE!

The Amulet as God-EMF is also not a retcon: Did we ever learn why Bobby told Sam that the amulet was "real special"? No. Now we know though!

The Trickster actually being the arch-angel Gabriel is not a retcon. It is the arch-angel Gabriel being damn good at pretending to be a Trickster!

Sometimes I think our knowledge of the way the writers work is detrimental to the way people interpret the show. Because we KNOW that Kripke didn't set out to have angels in the show - we know that when the Trickster was first introduced they didn't plan to make him Gabriel. But that doesn't make the the Gabester a retcon. It just means that the writers decided to add in the information after his initial introduction, and were able to do it in a way where it actually made a little bit of sense (because, seriously, what was it to the Trickster that the Winchesters kept sacrificing themselves for each other?)

Now if there had been a line where Sam and Dean did some sort of crazy Angel-test on the Trickster for no reason back in S2, and Dean announced that the Trickster was definitely not secretly an arch-angel, then Gabriel would be a retcon.

Right now, the only "retcon" I'll give lea-way on is Chuck=God (which is heavily implied but not specifically stated)...and that's JUST because they met him in S4 when Dean still had the God-EMF Amulet and it never "grew hot" - at least not to the extent that Dean noticed. 

Sigh...sorry, I get so annoyed at inconsequential things sometimes.

Also, if any of you are following the twitpics of Asylum Europe Con this weekend: I like Jim's shirt, but the grammar is incorrect and it's driving me crazy.

I hate it when people tease spoilers - sure, they put the spoiler behind the cut/link, but then they put enough REACTION outside the cut that you can pretty much guess what the spoiler is! ARG! That is not hiding the spoiler people! THAT IS JUST SPOILING ANYONE WITH A BRAIN!

Sigh....

So, I think I've been spoiled for a major event in the Supernatural season finale, but I suppose there's still a chance I could be wrong, so don't talk to me about it. This is just me venting about stupid people spoiling things because they don't seem to realize how easy it is to put two and two together.

That being said, if I'm right about the spoiler - I'm not actually that upset about it. And I'll explain why if/when it actually happens.

BUT PLEASE DO NOT TALK ABOUT SPOILERS. And if you DO want to talk about spoilers on your own journal, do not lead into the cut with LEADING INFORMATION.

Thank you

Alright, I'm going to rant about something. This is just personal taste, so I apologize if I offend anyone out there - that's not my intent. I certainly am not ranting about anyone particular on my flist or anything, so if you are an LJ friend of mine, don't worry, it's not you that I'm mad at.

Ok, so, I guess it's my own fault for liking meta - the problem is my definition of meta seems to be different than a lot of people's. To me, meta is analysis of the show, whether it be character motivations, explorations of themes, or notes on cinematographic storytelling. To others, it appears meta equals "personal review".

Fine, you know, that's all well and good. My Quick Reaction posts are not meta in my opinion. Sometimes, I'll touch on a thought and mention how I SHOULD turn it into a meta, or how I wish it was already a meta, but my Quick Reactions are too bogged down in whether or not I personally thought of the episode for me to post them on any meta-communities...because to me, meta shouldn't be about whether or not you personally liked the episode. Meta on an episode should be about what that episode adds to understanding character motivations, or how it adds to or changes the underlying theme of the show, etc...

The reason I'm saying all this, is just to say that USUALLY I DO NOT READ PERSONAL REVIEWS OF EPISODES. I make an exception for those people on my flist whose opinions I enjoy hearing (even when they differ with my own), because they are well thought out, or come from a place of positivity (and yes, it is possible to come from a place of positivity even when you don't like the episode...I will get into this.)

The first problem is that my meta-communities are inundated with people who have a different definition of what constitutes meta than I do. In that, they are posting personal reviews under the guise and fancy titling of a meta...this means, that I read these posts, thinking that I'm going to get a well thought out meta on character or theme or underlying social statement, and instead what I get is a bitch-fest about why someone thought the episode was a crock of shit.

Fine, you know, people are entitled to their personal opinions, I just wish that they wouldn't claim them as meta.

Now, RANT SUBJECT NUMBER TWO: FANDOM TREATMENT OF PLOT-HOLES.

I KNOW there are plot holes on Supernatural people...there are plot-holes on every show. I also know that occasionally, Supernatural has to do a retcon - Kripke had a 5 season plan, sure, but it has been quite obvious for some time that he never had the details of it worked out beforehand. You have people referring to Lilith as "he" up until 3x12, and that's just one example.

It's FINE, if you want to point out when they are trying to fix something, or when there is a bit of a plot-hole in an explanation...what really bugs me though, and has especially bugged me about this last episode, is when people point out the plot-hole from a place of negativity.

"Why did they do it this way? Obviously, that can't be true, because of suchandsuch."

Why focus on why an explanation doesn't work? Why not focus on why it DOES work. Why assume it's an inadequate explanation, why not see how it COULD BE TRUE.

Let's go back to my lame Lilith example from S3, just to avoid talking about spoilers.

When they introduced the demon holding Dean's contract as a FEMALE demon, did everyone sit around saying "But that can't be true, because the CRD and Ruby and Whateverhernamewas all said it was a HE, so this is all a load of shit and the episode sucks."

Or maybe they went for the more correct negativity and said: "Well, obviously Kripke changed his mind and changed it into a female, and now all those former episodes are stupid because they have the wrong pronoun."

But you COULD be more positive about it. You COULD say, "Well, obviously the CRD, Ruby, and Whateverhernamewas were all trying to throw Sam and Dean off by providing them with the wrong pronoun."

I'm just saying, that maybe Jake did kill Sam, and maybe Dean and Sam took a very odd unconventional route, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't following everything to plan...it STILL could have ALWAYS HAD TO BE THEM. There are plenty of ways to explain away the plot-holes if you just come at it from a place of WANTING to explain them away, instead of wanting to be all negative and disappointed in everything.

Personally, I prefer the positive approach. I have an explanation for everything. I don't care how crazy it all seems - the more complicated the explanation, the more cunning the YED, Angels, Lucifer, Winchesters, whatever, appear to be...the more complicated their world is.

So, in conclusion:

1. Please do not claim that your bitch-fests are meta.
2. Stop being so goddamn negative. You are harshing my buzz.

In return, I promise to stop reading personal reviews as soon as I realize that that's what they are - unless you are one fo the select few that can complain about something without being a complete douchebag.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to have a plot-hole explained away by yours truly, just leave it in the comments. It's actually a favorite activity of mine.

I can't turn people down on the phone. It's a huge problem with me. It's why I use a cell only and I don't have a landline...but still, my bank has my number, so when they call and offer me things that I don't need...sigh. It doesn't help when the person on the phone is some dude from New Jersey with a thick American accent - and I picture him hating his job, (because hell, what telemarketer doesn't hate their job?), but he needs the money and it's not manual labour and he's just trying to make ends meet - and his boss is already going to get into trouble for accidentally calling me "hon", so why not give him a sale so that he looks good....I have a month to cancel the service anyway before I have to pay for it. It just means that I've got to call back sometime and do that...talk to someone else on the phone who will try to get me to pay for something I don't need....

It's hospitalization/accident insurance. $13/month. You want to know the ironic thing? British Columbia is the only Canadian province I know of in which you actually have to pay for health insurance...and I can't afford it. If I wind up in the hospital, I'm going to have bigger fish to fry than whether or not my bank is giving me $200 a day to be there. Actually, if I'm in any kind of accident, I'm dragging my mangled body to the airport and flying back to Ontario in the hopes that the Ontario Health Insurance people haven't clued into the fact that I moved out of the province.

Sigh...I really am just going to cancel it.

Just felt like complaining...about myself...I'm so annoying. I don't know how I can stand to live with me.

Now I have to avoid LJ until Supernatural airs out here on the expensive west coast....