#not the narrative itself cringing and not allowing the characters to be earnest at all. not the author pointing and laughing at the story

[lloydfrontera]

the webcomic can have one (1) funny "earnest moment interrupted by comedy" joke. as a treat. but also because it is so in character for them ajkshdjkas

yes they will say the most earnest shit to each other and then immediately try to cringe out of their own bodies. they are best friends but they would rather jump out of a window before admitting it. they are incredibly devoted and grateful to one another but you could not water board that out of either of them.

the only thing that can get either of them to admit how much they care for each other is if the other is in life threatening danger and not a second before aakjshdks

#i talk a lot <3 #tged #the greatest estate developer #lloyd frontera #javier asrahan #llojavi #i'm sorry i do think this is incredibly funny i'm still laughing ajksdhsjkfsd #they're assholes! they're best friends! they will risk life and limb for one another but you won't get them to say one nice thing #about the other unless it's a matter of life and death! and even then they might risk it if they're the ones in danger and not the other lo #like!! this is in character! this is a joke made by the characters and not at them!! this is them acknowledging how much they care #for the other and then cringing when they realize they let themselves be earnest out loud. #not the narrative itself cringing and not allowing the characters to be earnest at all. not the author pointing and laughing at the story #you're supposed to care about. #i'm getting serious again so i'm gonna stop!! just!! i do love them <3333 #ep 122

[darkstar6782]

3.13: Ghostfacers - My Rewatch Review

This episode is a truly worthy continuation of the story of Ed and Harry, the ‘professional’ ghost hunters that we met back in Season 1, and I love that it also serves as a bit of meta-commentary for the show itself on the writer’s strike that unfortunately cut this season of the show short. I also always find it strangely affecting, as well. The show does not exactly handle Corbett’s crush on Ed or Ed’s reaction to it with a whole lot of finesse, but it is not as cringe-inducing a story element as it could have been, and the earnestness of Corbett’s character makes him extremely likable, and therefore makes the fact that he is the one who dies very tragic. Not to mention, he ends up saving everyone else from the malevolent spirit that inhabits the house, quite possibly destroying himself in the process, and though the tribute that Ed and Harry try to give him at the end of their show is awkward and affected to the point of insincerity (which is very in keeping with their characters, though), the clip of Corbett himself always makes me tear up a bit no matter how many times I watch it. Supernatural’s ‘funny’ episodes always work best when they find just the right blend of humor, horror, and pathos, and that makes this episode in particular one of their best in that category.

I also love that the reality TV perspective gives us a slightly more realistic look at Sam and Dean than we usually get, even if it is only in the form of having them use curse words that the show then has to beep out. It is a fandom-wide headcanon that both Sam and Dean would actually swear like sailors, and probably smoke and have a lot more tattoos than they actually do (shout-out to last episode, where I missed mentioning that we finally got to see their anti-possession tattoos for the first time), and that if this show had aired on a network like HBO rather than the CW, we would have gotten far grittier and yet far more true-to-their-actual-lives characterizations of the Winchesters, the lives they lead, and the work they do. As fun as those ideas are for headcanons and fan fiction, though, and as neat as it would have been to have Sam and Dean pepper their vocabulary with a few more realistic and colorful curse words every once in a while, I am glad that this show was always grounded squarely in the PG-13 realm. Because, for all the limitations of network TV, they were actually able to get away with quite a bit when it came to the gore and the violence and the horror aspects, and I think having the boys be just as gritty and dark as their surroundings would have taken a lot of what I actually love about the show away.

An episode like this is a perfect example of that, in my opinion. Because the show doesn’t have to be 100% dark, gritty, and true-to-life all the time, you can have an episode like this that is simultaneously funny, heartbreakingly tragic, and also truly terrifying all at the same time. A show that allows itself that one-step removal from reality can play with genre and tropes in a way that the gritty, hyper-realistic, ‘stick to the story with no diversions’ narratives of a lot of prestige TV produced in this day and age cannot. So, while it can be nice to theorize about the recognition a show like Supernatural would have gotten if it were made in today’s TV landscape, on one of the networks that would allow Sam and Dean to be darker, grittier versions of themselves, in the end, I’m glad we got the show we got, because without the ability to play around within the story and the genre, and without the breathing room within the season to tell every type of one-off monster-of-the-week tale that they could come up with, we would have never gotten the show that we actually love so much, or episodes like this one, and that would be the true tragedy.

#supernatural #3.13 ghostfacers #spn rewatch #the great pre-convention SPN rewatch #tgpcSPNr