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the revolution will not be prophesied
Is anyone watching Happy Town at all? Because it is kind of AWESOME, and I should make a proper pimping post. But not today. Happy Town kind of reminds me of the "My Ainsel" section of American Gods, except told through the townspeople's perspective. It's set in a Great Lake state, AND there is a creepy bird, AND spring thaw festival shenanigans, AND there are even those magic tricks metaphor of which Gaiman was so fond. Availz on Hulu.
A small town in Minnesota is not as happy as the show title would have you believe. What's with these vanished people? What's with that new girl who just moved into town, and what does she REALLY want? The characters are excellent, with lots of familiar faces. Uriel (SPN), for one, playing Uriel. Ruth Fisher (Six Feet Under) playing the Machiavellian town mayor. Cardinal Woolsey (The Tudors) playing a dashing old man with a lot of skeletons in his closet. He owns a store selling a movie memorabilia and it's called--wait for it--THE HOUSE OF USHERS <33333. And don't get me started on Henley's reined-in chutzpah, or TC the reluctant sheriff, or the merry widows <333, or the Stiviletto brothers. THIS COULD'VE BEEN MY NEW SHOW. WHY SO PREMATURELY CANCELING, ABC? Do we have a movement to save it yet?
-- I actually like the Michael and Lucifer scene. Winchesters gone AU! I thought for a while that Lucifer's cage was, like, the ~ETHER or something, and I wanted the fic where Michael and Lucifer fell through nothingness for forever, fighting viciously at first, then getting tired of it so they talk, and then they get bored and play I Spy. But then Word of God had to be all, "Nah, Sam escaped from Hell", but I guess that's interesting too. What were Michael and Lucifer doing all that time they were in Hell? Where all the Lucifer/Michael fic at, basically?
-- Like many, I'm completely bewildered by the Chuck God and am not quite sure what to do with it. Depending on how much free will Chuck God has allowed, Chuck being an omnipotent deity who's been planning this all along cuts the legs off Supernatural as a story. How much of characters' decisions were actually the characters'? How much of it was Chuck's? How dare you, Chuck, tricking us into dramatic tension when maybe there was none!
So, conceptualizing Chuck as a writer/artist first, god second. Writing is hard! How often do people think that as a writer, you can just make your characters do anything you want -- kill them off, have revelations, get together with their crush, etc. And, yeah, as a creator you can technically do these things, but the best gods are not ex machina. The creator has the power to create the world and the characters and the rules, but yanno, once they are created, even the creator is subject to these rules. Or he has to be, if he wants to make a good, cohesive, satisfying creation. A creator is most free at that stage -- the brainstorming stage, so to speak -- because once they start writing the story for real, they will feel most free when they stay true to the rules they have established for this world.
So yes, endings are hard. Chuck, because he has pride in craft, won't just write "and then they lived happily ever after", not because his characters need to deserve it, but because he needs to deserve it too. It's like in the meta episodes where Sam and Dean are like, "These are our LIVES, they are not YOUR PLAYTHINGS," but ideally Chuck already knows this. If a writer has done their job well, characters gain their own momentum. You can try to make characters do what you want, but sometimes the scene won't work unless you let them do what THEY want, thus helping you realize that what they want IS what you want, because what you want is to make a good story. So you trust your characters. You trust your story. Their story. Whatever. Ideally, after a certain point, it will be difficult to tell the difference.
-- It's not stated outright that Chuck's God though, right? He could be a Trickster!
-- I do love the idea of God/Becky being canon though. She totally dumped his ass, okay. She lost faith in the relationship and in him. "I thought I loved you, Chuck, but I just love your creation. It's not that I don't believe in you; it's that I don't believe you." And then there should be crackfic-but-not where God tries to win Becky back, by trying everything chocolates and flowers to literally moving the stars in the sky for her, but Becky just sighs and says that is not what she needs, and that is not what he needs either if he thinks about it. They end up sitting on a park bench, Chuck being mournful and morose, all like, "You were mine," and Becky nods and says, "For a while." It was so fucking good, being loved by Becky and loving her, so good having that kind of love again. He may have left Heaven a long time ago, but he still hears people's prayers and all the times people take his name in vain. He swore not to interfere anymore, but to his surprise, his creation began interfering with him.
-- I've been discussing the idea of the Holy Trinity of Chuck with a few people. Say you got Chuck the Father, Chuck the Son, and Chuck the Holy Spirit. Chuck the Son, he's been a human on this earth for 30+ years, kinda like those 30+ years that got left out of the Bible between Jesus being born in a manger and becoming the Messiah. Maybe Chuck the Son didn't know who he really was, living among men to be a man, but now that this apocalypse shit is happening, Chuck the Father and Chuck the Holy Spirit make themselves known to the son, finally, telling Chuck the Son of his true identity and his inevitable return to divinity. And that all these three Chucks are the same Chuck anyway.
-- I also want fic about Chuck having coffee with Ganesh, Freya, and Aphrodite and they all dish the goss and help each other overcome obstacles. Being a god is hard, but with friends like these, you can do anything!! I mean, even more than you already can.
-- THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE PROPHESIED. Cas is gonna spearhead it when he goes back up to Heaven, okay. With Michael and Lucifer out of the way, Raphael is in charge and is head of the government and a nation devolving into anarchy. Cas thinks Heaven should be run differently, and leads a guerrilla movement against him. (Years from now, angels will wear shirts with Castiel's stenciled face on it and not know what he actually stood for.) And Anna didn't die in 5x13, okay -- NO BLACK WINGS SHADOW, OKAY -- she just got sent back to Bible camp, and Cas busts her out. THEY LEAD THE REVOLUTION TOGETHER <3333333
-- Obligatory appreciative head-nod to the montage and the assbutt.
SPEAKING OF WHICH:
Reunite Team Free Will Schmoop Meme @![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
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A small town in Minnesota is not as happy as the show title would have you believe. What's with these vanished people? What's with that new girl who just moved into town, and what does she REALLY want? The characters are excellent, with lots of familiar faces. Uriel (SPN), for one, playing Uriel. Ruth Fisher (Six Feet Under) playing the Machiavellian town mayor. Cardinal Woolsey (The Tudors) playing a dashing old man with a lot of skeletons in his closet. He owns a store selling a movie memorabilia and it's called--wait for it--THE HOUSE OF USHERS <33333. And don't get me started on Henley's reined-in chutzpah, or TC the reluctant sheriff, or the merry widows <333, or the Stiviletto brothers. THIS COULD'VE BEEN MY NEW SHOW. WHY SO PREMATURELY CANCELING, ABC? Do we have a movement to save it yet?
-- I actually like the Michael and Lucifer scene. Winchesters gone AU! I thought for a while that Lucifer's cage was, like, the ~ETHER or something, and I wanted the fic where Michael and Lucifer fell through nothingness for forever, fighting viciously at first, then getting tired of it so they talk, and then they get bored and play I Spy. But then Word of God had to be all, "Nah, Sam escaped from Hell", but I guess that's interesting too. What were Michael and Lucifer doing all that time they were in Hell? Where all the Lucifer/Michael fic at, basically?
-- Like many, I'm completely bewildered by the Chuck God and am not quite sure what to do with it. Depending on how much free will Chuck God has allowed, Chuck being an omnipotent deity who's been planning this all along cuts the legs off Supernatural as a story. How much of characters' decisions were actually the characters'? How much of it was Chuck's? How dare you, Chuck, tricking us into dramatic tension when maybe there was none!
So, conceptualizing Chuck as a writer/artist first, god second. Writing is hard! How often do people think that as a writer, you can just make your characters do anything you want -- kill them off, have revelations, get together with their crush, etc. And, yeah, as a creator you can technically do these things, but the best gods are not ex machina. The creator has the power to create the world and the characters and the rules, but yanno, once they are created, even the creator is subject to these rules. Or he has to be, if he wants to make a good, cohesive, satisfying creation. A creator is most free at that stage -- the brainstorming stage, so to speak -- because once they start writing the story for real, they will feel most free when they stay true to the rules they have established for this world.
So yes, endings are hard. Chuck, because he has pride in craft, won't just write "and then they lived happily ever after", not because his characters need to deserve it, but because he needs to deserve it too. It's like in the meta episodes where Sam and Dean are like, "These are our LIVES, they are not YOUR PLAYTHINGS," but ideally Chuck already knows this. If a writer has done their job well, characters gain their own momentum. You can try to make characters do what you want, but sometimes the scene won't work unless you let them do what THEY want, thus helping you realize that what they want IS what you want, because what you want is to make a good story. So you trust your characters. You trust your story. Their story. Whatever. Ideally, after a certain point, it will be difficult to tell the difference.
-- It's not stated outright that Chuck's God though, right? He could be a Trickster!
-- I do love the idea of God/Becky being canon though. She totally dumped his ass, okay. She lost faith in the relationship and in him. "I thought I loved you, Chuck, but I just love your creation. It's not that I don't believe in you; it's that I don't believe you." And then there should be crackfic-but-not where God tries to win Becky back, by trying everything chocolates and flowers to literally moving the stars in the sky for her, but Becky just sighs and says that is not what she needs, and that is not what he needs either if he thinks about it. They end up sitting on a park bench, Chuck being mournful and morose, all like, "You were mine," and Becky nods and says, "For a while." It was so fucking good, being loved by Becky and loving her, so good having that kind of love again. He may have left Heaven a long time ago, but he still hears people's prayers and all the times people take his name in vain. He swore not to interfere anymore, but to his surprise, his creation began interfering with him.
-- I've been discussing the idea of the Holy Trinity of Chuck with a few people. Say you got Chuck the Father, Chuck the Son, and Chuck the Holy Spirit. Chuck the Son, he's been a human on this earth for 30+ years, kinda like those 30+ years that got left out of the Bible between Jesus being born in a manger and becoming the Messiah. Maybe Chuck the Son didn't know who he really was, living among men to be a man, but now that this apocalypse shit is happening, Chuck the Father and Chuck the Holy Spirit make themselves known to the son, finally, telling Chuck the Son of his true identity and his inevitable return to divinity. And that all these three Chucks are the same Chuck anyway.
-- I also want fic about Chuck having coffee with Ganesh, Freya, and Aphrodite and they all dish the goss and help each other overcome obstacles. Being a god is hard, but with friends like these, you can do anything!! I mean, even more than you already can.
-- THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE PROPHESIED. Cas is gonna spearhead it when he goes back up to Heaven, okay. With Michael and Lucifer out of the way, Raphael is in charge and is head of the government and a nation devolving into anarchy. Cas thinks Heaven should be run differently, and leads a guerrilla movement against him. (Years from now, angels will wear shirts with Castiel's stenciled face on it and not know what he actually stood for.) And Anna didn't die in 5x13, okay -- NO BLACK WINGS SHADOW, OKAY -- she just got sent back to Bible camp, and Cas busts her out. THEY LEAD THE REVOLUTION TOGETHER <3333333
-- Obligatory appreciative head-nod to the montage and the assbutt.
SPEAKING OF WHICH:
Reunite Team Free Will Schmoop Meme @
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smilla02, screencap by grlmonday