Visit to a Weird Planet 33 1/3

[rivkat]

1.  I choose to believe that Sam didn't have sex with Genevieve.  We talked about being less rapey, show, and you listened, right?

2.  I am intrigued by the levels of meta, but unable to unpack them all.  I'm particularly interested in the difference between diegetic and extradiegetic Jensen v. diegetic and extradiegetic Jared.  "Real" Jensen's public persona is more private/reserved, and (therefore?) we don't see SPN Jensen's wife or house, even though I doubt we're supposed to think that's "real" Jared's house, Warholized portraits, or alpaca (though I admit I don't know enough to say they aren't).  So the correspondence between Jared and "Jared" and Jensen and "Jensen" is actually fairly parallel, just using privacy versus exhibitionism as the translating mechanism.  Thoughts?

3.  Oh Sam, don't you know by now that when Dean says "you should have a normal life," he means, in his charmingly dysfunctional way, "I wish I had a normal life," because he can't filter his own emotions through himself?  There's nothing for him back in the supernatural world.  And Dean, I really wish you'd heard what Sam said, which was that none of the other stuff mattered unless he had his brother, but I don't think you did.  Prozac for this guy, stat!

Comments

[cathexys]

I'm so with you on 2. I feel it's so overdetermined that I have a really hard time articulating all the layers and pulling apart the contradictory meanings.

i have to admit, I was totally Doylist in thinking, Oh, they couldn't get Daneel on the set. But yes, i think there was a weird public/private vibe. But then, as giandujakiss complained, there seemed to be a lot of inside jokes.

The Alpaca and the not talking are the two I'd like to see where they came from. But I kinda fear treading into that territory :)

(Btw, listened to two recent SV podfics of yours and they were marvelous! your fic podfics so very well!!!)

[on_verra]

I'm with you both on #2. I don't even know where to begin.

I also choose the believe that Sam did not have sex with Genevieve... and there was a line the next day where Sam said he's been "up all night researching", so I read that as an indirect answer to the question.

Though perhaps I'm giving Show too much credit.

Rivkat, I love your #3 as well! But as far as Dean having nothing going for himself in the supernatural world... well, let's just say I am going to be unsurprised - though be hella pissed off at the writers - if he ends up back with Lisa.

[rivkat]

Good point re: "up all night." I will definitely choose to read that as confirmation.

I think it would be very healthy for Dean if he were able to end up with Lisa, but I don't think he's there, and I don't think he wants to be there as long as Sam exists on the earth, and the growth I want for him is for him to recognize that, as she was asking him to.

[on_verra]

Healthy for Dean, sure.
I guess I meant my statement more in terms of it being unrealistic and uncool for Lisa to even want to be with someone like Dean who is so fundamentally unhealthy.

You're right that Dean doesn't really want to reach that realization, and your #3 speaks to that. I guess my point is basically that a Dean this broken can't be fixed. At least not enough to make for any satisfying ending that involves him living with Lisa.

[rivkat]

Hmm. I mean, I see what Lisa sees in Dean, right? And she's been handling him about as well as I could imagine her doing. She's been saintly in tolerating a bunch of stuff, but she also set very clear lines and it seemed for a while like Dean could follow them; when he couldn't, she said what she needed and got out. (Though I really don't get why she apparently started calling him. Not helpful, show.) I don't want them to go down the "bad boy with a heart of gold is fixable if you love him enough" route, because I think that's a bad message and not right for Dean's character besides. But at least if he does, Lisa's asked him all the right, hard questions, and it's clear that he is making some sacrifices--and affecting a number of lives--no matter what he does.

[on_verra]

I don't want them to go down the "bad boy with a heart of gold is fixable if you love him enough" route, because I think that's a bad message and not right for Dean's character besides.

I completely agree. But I guess you are more forgiving of the possibility that they'll go this route in the end, vis a vis Lisa's handling of him so far.

Retcon of her calling him after their split notwithstanding ;)

[cathexys]

nods. i can see the lisa scenario though i'd really prefer more of an open end that allows us different outcomes..

[rivkat]

Thank you! I am very grateful whenever anyone wants to podfic one of my stories. I have to admit, I like listening to podfic of some of my older stories more than rereading them, because what works stands out better than what doesn't, whereas when I reread it's the opposite. I am now a complete convert to "read your dialogue out loud," because hearing people speak makes such a huge difference.

[cathexys]

It's amazing how much good writing shows in podfic. I'm such a fast reader that I can read a lot of bad stuff by simply glancing over everything from typos and factual errors to bad sex scenes and OOC moments. when you listen to it, however, every painful bad phrase and repetition, every wrong dialog is there :)

And podfics are recs, of course, in and of themselves. And now I think I'll settle in tonight with Captured :D