#the eekp database

[durenjtmusings]

@garbledgrumbles You may also like my Expletives, Exclamations and Key Phrases meta-posts: https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/the+eekp+database?

one of many reasons castiel spent the first year of knowing dean trying not to strangle him: dean’s weird little winchester-only dialect

i’m fucking obsessed with this right now, so buckle in for a meta. a cool fun (horrible) thing about dean’s dialogue is that a good 90% of what comes out of his mouth is:

a pop culture reference (“you’re just gonna take some divine bong hit, and shazam, you’re roma downey?”)

references to real life phenomenon (“i don’t wanna wake up missing a kidney in a bathtub full of ice” “try new mexico, i hear he’s on a tortilla”)

these also often take the form of nicknames, and dean has a tendency to give people nicknames in general or call them something besides their given name, whether it’s affectionate or rude (“easy there, van damme” “so i’m girl interrupted” furthermore castiel = cas, ezekiel = zeke, etc, see also frequent use of “chucklehead” “asshat” and on the nicer/endearments end “buddy” “pal” “sunshine” etc)

an idiom (“a snowball’s chance” “if it smells like a duck…”)

slang (“drinking the koolaid” “jonesing for some hooch” not to mention the literal endless amount of words dean uses to refer to killing - gank, waste, juice, ice, etc)

a metaphor (“power up your batteries” “fly me back to my page on the calendar”)

a euphemism (“cloud seeding” “i’d have given you an hour alone with her first”)

sarcasm (his habit of replying “peachy” or “super” when asked how he is)

wordplay (see: the entire “vampirate” and “werepire” debacles)

completely nonsensical (guessing what happened to a magical artifact: “it was dug up by tomb raiders? it was seized by the king of the dead by warlords?”)

said at lightning speed - if you pay attention, dean actually talks a LOT, usually a mile a minute (this makes me feel a way when you recall his year of mutism at age 4 but that’s another post)

slang IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE (casual usage of “guano,” etc)

a lie, a deflection, a joke, etc

or worse, something dean’s NOT saying, deliberately, because he’s one of the most repressed people on earth

the end result of all this being:

dean winchester is utterly infuckingcomprehensible. 

think about this. there’s an ENTIRE SECTION on EVERY SINGLE EPISODE PAGE of the spn wiki devoted to JUST explaining dean’s pop culture references, because the average viewer won’t have seen everything he’s talking about either. they have a whole page for this called “hunter’s lingo,” but honestly, it’s not all hunters, just sam and dean’s fucking batshit communication style. even i don’t understand dean half the time. SAM gets it, sam speaks it back to dean a lot in the early seasons, but that’s because sam and dean are 1. practically two halves of the same person 2. FREAKS. every time we get an episode that involves outsider POV is devoted to them going “what the fuck is WRONG with them?”

enter castiel. technically speaking, the show implies that angels are omnilingual. castiel should understand every language known to man, but knowing the meaning of words doesn’t help him understand the following:

pop culture references

references to real life phenomenon

nicknames

idioms

slang

metaphors

euphemisms

sarcasm

wordplay

you get the idea.

listen to me. look me in the eyes. castiel cannot understand a single fucking word that comes out of dean’s mouth. my guy laid a hand on dean winchester in hell and immediately fell in love with him and has no fucking idea what he’s talking about ever. because not only is dean winchester’s way of speaking CLINICALLY insane, and sometimes incomprehensible even to other human beings who are not sam, castiel is an angel, and someone prone to taking things even more literally than other angels do

go back and watch and watch seasons 4-5 especially. the reason cas does so much squinting and head tilting is because every time dean opens his mouth castiel has to open up his mental “dean winchester dictionary” and translate entire paragraphs on the fly, because again, dean never shuts up!

what makes this extra hilarious to me is this gem:

this line is from 5.13. at this point cas has known dean for AN ENTIRE YEAR AND A HALF. what you see here is my guy SNAPPING. cas made an EFFORT in this scene. he asked who glenn close was. he’s telling dean that he can’t understand him. he is doing his level best to have a normal conversation with this guy he has a crush on and for the life of him he cannot do it (equal but opposite energy to cas blowing up the gas station and motel room in 4.01, tbh)

yes, cas can understand dean’s tone. he can use context clues, and he usually gets the general idea. and when cas DOES understand dean’s jokes, he laughs at them. the first time we ever see him smile is during their 4.07 heart-to-heart when dean says “it was a witch, not the tet offensive.” since cas has knowledge of human history, he knows what the tet offensive is; he got the joke, and he laughed.

but as far as actual dialogue goes, he consistently struggles to keep up. even after metatron gives castiel the pop culture knowledge in season 9, cas struggles to put it to put it to proper use (dean: “you wanna just walk right into the death star?” cas: “what does a fictional battle station have to do with this?”). whenever he asks dean to clarify it’s always when he’s most annoyed, like most of the time he knows it would be futile but he’s too annoyed to care. (dean: “i don’t know who’s on first, what’s on second!” cas: “what IS second???”) i’m pretty sure he spends seasons 4-6 wanting to shake dean by the shoulders and ask him why he is LIKE THIS. 

it takes cas - who, again, is omnilingual - YEARS to begin to acclimate to dean’s speech and start speaking that language back to him. it’s season 8 before we start really hearing him use slang, season 9 before he begins to understand wordplay, season 10 before he starts using pop culture references (to other angels, who immediately fail to understand him, which disappoints him immensely), and season 11 before he really gets into metaphors. i don’t remember what season he started using “yeah” instead of “yes” but i do know it took a really damn long time. 

and honestly, i don’t think cas truly got the hang of it until at least season 11-12. that’s something like 7 or 8 YEARS. it’s more than half the time they’ve known each other at the point of the series finale. 

so what’s true romance, fellas? it’s falling completely and totally in love with the most inexplicable person you will ever meet in your whole 4.5 billion year life, even though you have yet to understand a single thing he’s ever said to you. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[durenjtmusings]

The SPN Exclamatories, Expletives and Key Words/Phrases Database Project – #2 Croatoan chapter

(or TL;DR How Ben Edlund screws with research protocols.)

For those of you who missed it, I have set out on the totally insane project of researching SPN character language patterns for all 250ish episodes of Supernatural. I have also publicly agreed to share randomly regular reports on this research with fandom on Tumblr in an entertaining way. Linked below was the first report, inspired by @elizabethrobertajones​

The Great SPN Meta Scavenger Hunt: Round 2  - The Exclamatories, Expletives and Key Words/Phrases Listicle

This second chapter can also be blamed on credited to @elizabethrobertajones​ as it is the direct result of research for my entry into The Great Meta Scavenger Hunt - Round 3:  Pranks and Belief  –  for which I was forced to re-watch all three episodes that dealt with the Croatoan virus.* (Well, no, I didn’t HAVE to, I admit I wanted to.) SO, for your entertainment, listed below is the raw data and analysis for these three episodes, along with a bit of meta and some pointed opinions about Ben Edlund’s writing choices messing with my research.

For the convenience of those new to the research, the Definitions and Evaluation rubric for this research are listed immediately below the cut. Feel free to skip down to the good stuff (all the cussin’) at whim.

[Remember, you can skip this next part if you wish]

Research Definitions:

Exclamatory – ‘throw-away’ words which, if removed from the sentence, have no real effect – they are there for punctuation, character flavor, etc. and often start or end a sentence. Includes ‘pet words’ for people like son, boy, douche, Giraffe, etc. For my purposes, I did NOT count ah, well, alright or OK, because EVERYONE USES THEM ALL THE TIME in this show. Some words counted in this category ONLY if they were NOT used ‘correctly’ in context – examples (correct usage in brackets):  Hell (the place), God (the person/entity), hey (to get you to turn around), c’mon (to get you to come with someone) and man (to indicate a male person).

Expletive – swears, substitute swears and blasphemes (technically all exclamatories, but in a class by themselves). These were casually assigned ‘strength’ by how much I got in trouble for saying them when a kid (words like friggin’ were counted for strength as if they were the swear they replaced). We were not a religious family so blasphemes were all counted as lamer than more scatological swears.

Key Words and Phrases – Crack stuff said by characters that ‘define their voice’ – things that make them uniquely them. Fun phrases and sayings. Includes innocuous stuff like “Seriously?”, “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” and chick. Sometimes a colloquialism was counted, like ‘ain’t been’ because it seemed unique to the character. NOTE: Cas is a special case here – his entries tended to be overly formal words no one else ever really says OR cases where he starts to use human idioms at ALL.

Method: Watched or read transcripts for all listed episodes and recorded all entries in the above 3 defined categories by character, with extras grouped as a block. Then grouped all recurring characters of note in a ��friends and family” group for easier analysis, creating 4 main groups: Dean, Sam, F&F and Xtras. These four groups were then analyzed in the following qualities:

Evaluation Rubric:

Quantity - actual # of items recorded across ALL characters. Repetitions were counted individually.

Variety - (scale of 1-5) measures how unique and interesting items are for this episode, as well as ‘strength’ of expletives.

Originality - 5 points per item that made me chuckle or raised my eyebrow the 1st time I watched the episode

Sam vs Dean - % of Sam items to Dean items as an integer. Sam hardly swears, so we want to give him lots of credit for when he DOES do so. This also serves as a measure of ‘balance’ in verbal creativity for the episode.

Family & Friends - (scale of 1-5) QVO (see above) across other core characters (+1 bonus point if Cas had ANY)

Xtras - (scale of 0-5) QVO across any Xtras

Impress me – 5 points per character whose performance REALLY stood out to me (purely subjective, don’t argue with the researcher)

As always, I’ve listed the episodes chronologically. First up is our premier Croatoan episode, a fairly straight forward SPN script with a decidedly odd Monster of the Week. Lots of brother angst, none of our favorite recurring characters, and a fairly wide range of speaking extras. The verbal creativity is within the average range shown so far by my limited research.

2.09 Croatoan (writer John Shiban)

Dean: ventilated (shot), weirdo x2 (adj), whatever, a little too Stepford,     whacked out of their gourds, God knows, friggin' Shriner convention, wipe out (kill), taken out (kill), bleeding heart (sympathy), stick around     (stay), hey (defensively), What's up?, handsome devil, I don't swing that way, take it easy, feel like Chuck Heston in the Omega Man, For God's sake, Hey, whoax4, easy there, chief (stranger), a good once-over, Hulk out, man, Damn it!, shut your pie-hole, Get the hell out, where the hell, friggin' , bang (have sex w/), stuck with,

Sam: Ring a bell, wiped out (killed), crapped out, hell, damn, get the     hell out, no clue (don't know), hey man, what the hell, pull that crap,

F&F:  - None in this episode

Xtras: Pam: Oh God x4; Dr Lee: What the hell, hey (calm down), dodged a bullet, What the hell?; Mark: put him down, it's your funeral. What the hell; Duane: Thank god, getting the hell out

Quantity –  59  

Variety –   3.5 [some     redundancy, decent range, avg strength]  

Originality ��  15 [whacked out of their gourds, feel like Chuck Heston in the Omega Man, a little too Stepford]

Sam vs Dean – 10/36 or  28

Family &     Friends – 0 +3 [Because none in this episode]

Xtras – 2.5 [good balanced team participation, wimpy variety, decent quantity]

Impress me – 5 [there was, across everyone, a LOT of hell in this episode]

        Total = 116 I note that this episode had sadly common themes of a) Dean deciding to kill a possibly innocent human, b) Sam being infected and accepting his fate/begging to be killed and c) Dean refusing to kill his brother and threatening to kill anyone who tries to. [This will be kinda important for meta later.]

Next we have our 2nd Croatoan entry and my FIRST Ben Edlund Headache – The End – an episode where no one is who they normally are – except Dean who spends the episode mouthing off to himself. My normal character categories (Dean, Sam, F&F and Xtras) were simply screwed, so I had to make adjustments. For analysis purposes, 2014!Dean is lumped in with 2009!Sam (who had almost NO lines) - this allowed me to have a balnce score of anythign close to reality. For interpretation purposes, Lucifer!Sam was treated as F&F Lucifer, and 2014!Cas is treated as a NORMAL F&F (that means we look for typical key words and phrases, rather than crediting him for overly formal phrases or mild idioms). Great – research parameters bent into line, off we go.

5.04 The End (Ben Edlund)

Dean: Too friggin' much, watching a Hell's Angel ride a moped, the mooks, Whoax4, come on, man, you can pop in, wearing you to the prom (possessed for apocalypse), be the dynamic duo, we're the, uh, the fire and the oil of the Armageddon, Oh, crap, this Back to the Future crap, Bible freak, dropped a dime, You have had your jollies, you son of a bitch, What the hell?, man, friggin',  man, come on, dick (at 2014!Dean), Jeez!, jeez, getting busted, friggin' , fly me back to my page on the calendar, what the hell, blew him away, freaked them out, mess you up, wacky, stick is out of your ass, love-guru crap, welcome to the club, into a meat grinder (kill zone), oh man, deep-fry the planet, sympathy-for-the-devil crap, same brand of cockroach, belly-to-the-ground, supernatural piece of crap, ghost of Christmas screw you, angel hocus-pocus, you're rusty, we are each other's Achilles heel

2014!Dean+ Sam: 2014!Dean: gank you, (kill), did the drill, scary as hell. went in the crapper, hell, whoa, version of the Parent Trap, what the hell, flipped (went crazy), plugging (killing), friggin, freaked them out, wearing him to the prom (possession), damn, cocky, whoax5, should be white-hot with (filled); Sam: sons of bitches

F&F: Lucifer (in Sam): handiwork, hairless apes (humans); 2014!Cas: dragonfly eye of group mind, our fearless leader, whoa, no dice, fearless leader, 'insouciant', grunts, bailed, my mojo, why the hell, baby (Dean), bang a few gongs, just how I roll; Zacharia - We want you to marinate a bit, boy,

Xtras: Screw you

Quantity –   90

Variety –  5 [OMG, strength and variety in spades – TWO Deans plus blissed out Cas.]      

Originality  –  35 [Hell's Angel ride a moped, wearing you     to the prom, deep-fry the  planet, ghost of Christmas screw you, dragonfly eye of group mind, 'insouciant', bang a few gongs]

Dean vs 2014!Dean – 22/50  or 44*

Family &  Friends – 4 [2014!Cas was brilliant, but Luci and Zacharia could have stepped it up – and Chuck was a total verbal wimp]

Xtras – 1 [this would  be zero, except there literally wasn’t screen time avaialable for them to talk!]

Impress me – 10 [Dean and 2014!Cas – while we all know Luci/Jared blew this episode away, this serves as proof that he did it with ACTING, not verbal creativity]

       Total = 189 This is a pretty damned high score amongst all 14 episodes reviewed so far. Who could have predicted that letting Dean argue and snipe at himself would create so MUCH verbal diversity. Oh, and that making Cas high for several years would shoot his verbal complexity RIGHT up. [Ok, everyone could have predicted this, but I’m the researcher, so I get to say sarcastic crap. For science.] Oh, and ALSO note that we once again have Dean (future Dean really) killing the infected/innocent human before anyone else is sure, Sam ‘infected’ (possesed), and Dean in a position to “argue” over killing his brother (with himself this time!). Hey - Meta!

Lastly, for our third Croatoan, we have something of a sleeper episode in the set. Bobby in the cast list generally means you get a few good rural flavorings, and Crowley almost always ups the score quite a bit. So I’m expecting this to be at least a high average episode. Boy was *I* wrong. Here Ben Edlund doesn’t mess with my character groupings and definitions, but rather with my rubric, which was NOT EQUIPPED to handle the imbalanced verbal creativity documented below.

5.20 The devil you know (Ben Edlund)

Dean: dealing them soft serve, up his sleeve, My heart's bleeding for you, get him to spill, Ah, crap, Oh, crap, Crap! Crap!, an 11th-hour thing, dropped (killed), jockeys (HoA), your little batcave, What the hell, you     son of a bitch!, hot stuff, (Crowley), Why the hell not, dammit, He buy your girl scout cookies?, My ass, sons of bitches,

Sam: Are you friggin' nuts?!, why the hell , no damn way, you son of a     bitch! X2

F&F: Bobby: another steamin'-hot pile; sick son of a bitch; eating his dust; got even a snowball (guess); chasing up zilch, time to go crazy, Rings a bell, shank myself, idjits, talking x off the     ledge, lining up to say "yes", million-to-one, pissant, brain-wrestling, chink in your armor, You're not exactly Mr. Anger management, watch your ass, get the hell off, before I blast you so full of rock salt, you crap margaritas, chat some demons up, snake-oiling me, natural-born idjit (22) Crowley: Call your dog off (Sam); the most buggered son in all of creation, months under a rock, got  his eyes out for me, friggin', on the lam, how the mighty have fallen, keeping a close eye on, easily trumps your , cram the devil back in the box, the horsemen's stable boy, Sneezy (Pestilence), Nuts at his pay grade don't crack, sold sin to saints, close (make sale to), Fantastic. keep the home fires burning, Go get 'em, tiger, Uncle (?), went like clockwork, Up yours, mate, tie our friend here down. No zapping off, no smoking out, Locked in the meat suit, They got history, "corn chute," you got him nice and fluffed, When the morningstar cleans house, we all get the mop, Do the math, moose (Sam), get bent, won't budge, I stick my neck out, desperate swashbuckle, kick open a hive of demons, bloody, toadsx3 (re:demons), lovers in league against Satan, darling (Brady), you're in my boat now, haven't the foggiest, God, no; Bloody hell!, feisty, my delicate ass. (46)

Xtras: load of  crap, pure profit-driven crap, Who the hell, What the hell, God, no!; infectious equivalent of a briefcase bomb; Awesome (7) Brady: enter the cutthroat world, awesome, I got the memo, fetal position on the floor (afraid), rip it right out of your ass, devil on your shoulder, Ding, ding! I think he's got it!, worried about our necks, crossed my mind, good kid --Straight arrow, all messed up, bitches, on the right track, ol' yellow eyes, worthless sack of piss, hooked you up, piece of tail, put the hit out on,  you've screwed me, yanked your chain     (20)

Quantity –  120 [73 of these are NOT Sam or Dean! Holy hand grenade.] 

Variety –   5 [lotta ‘crap’ this episode, but really, a very good range in variety and strength]      

Originality –  30 [He buy your girl scout cookies?, brain-wrestling,     blast you so full of rock salt, you crap margaritas, Sneezy; morningstar     cleans house, we all get the mop; infectious equivalent of a briefcase     bomb]

Sam vs Dean – 5/20 or 25 [given how angry Sam was this episode, kinda low]

Family & Friends – 5 +1 [Simply stellar performance by Bobby and Crowley, plus 1 to reflect that.]

Xtras – 5 [Brady really brought this up – a one shot character with a strong showing, but the other xtras were no slouches either.]

Impress me – 15 [Bobby, Crowley, Brady – shocker, I know.]

     Total 206 Jesus, Mary, and Joseph look at the block of text data under Friends and Family! Out of 120 collected entries in the database, only 25 – only a FIFTH of the episode total – can be credited to the main characters. There is no way my rubric has given enough weight to the work of Crowley and Bobby. And even with that issue, the episode hits double an average episode’s verbal creativity score. [Damn you, Ben Edlund, stop writing such good Sh*t!]

Oh, and while this time, we don’t have the brothers trying to kill each other, we have the OTHER common theme of one brother protecting the monster(s) while the other tries to gank them every chance they get. Except this time it is Sam who is knife happy, and Dean who is making demon deals for all the right (wrong) reasons. This is also that episode where the Brothers admit that they are psychotic cold killers that monster mommy’s use to scare their kids into line.

Conclusion:

OK, so, what we can hesitantly conclude about the data so far with the additional information from THIS chapter of the project IS:

1) Standard MotW episodes – focusing on just the brothers, no F&F, tend to be average or lower in verbal complexity. This makes sense, who writes memorable dialogue for folks who aren’t ever coming back?

2) Dean talking to Dean, especially when both of them are angry or in crisis mode equals serious verbal complexity. And Cas on serious drugs loosens RIGHT up verbally. Again, who knew, right?

3) OMFG Ben Edlund can write for demons. And Bobby. In the Winchester’s defense, there literally wasn’t enough screen time FOR them to be creative. And from this we learn that increased verbal creativity for one character often results in decreased verbal creativity for another. If everyone is being verbally creative in an episode, likely no one will stand out.

Bonus: All three of these Croatoan episodes dealt with some of the big cross season overarching themes. No conclusions, just an interesting observation....

OK, that’s enough of this silliness for now. Next up for evaluation, a series of ghost-related episodes. Or not. Because I’m the researcher and I am in charge, that’s why.

* OK, yes, there IS a fourth episode dealing with Croatoan, 5x21 Two Minutes to Midnight, but for the purposes of the round 3 scavenger hunt meta I was writing, there wasn’t any information on the origin of the silly virus in it – it was just about shipping and delivery at that point. So I didn’t include it, shoot me (see previous “because I’m the researcher, that’s why” comments).

[durenjtmusings]

Great Meta Scavenger Hunt Round 4 – Language and Women’s Roles in 3.12 & 5.01

(or “Holy crud, I spend too much time in Excel and really like playing with numbers don’t I?”)

[This also serves as report #3 in the Exclamatories, Expletives and Key Words/Phrases database project]

This round’s task, set by @elizabethrobertajones, was to compare episode’s 3.12 and 5.01 in some meta way that suited our fancy, with a bonus for examining the role of any one or more of the women in these episodes. There was some gnashing of teeth that this was going to be kind of boring, as many had already examined 5.01 in Round 2, and 3.12 was a favorite for meta-analysis anyway. Not wanting to be boring, and something of a competition junkie, I decided to shoot for the extra points this round. This lead to some glorious additional Excel and math work, I hope you all can appreciate as it took forever and I am a hopeless idiot.

No shock to anyone that I am again analyzing the language of these two episodes for key words and phrases that help define character ‘voice’. I assumed this would be easy, as I had already reported on 5.01 previously, and so had only one additional episode to number crunch. In pursuing my investigation in to female character’s roles, however, I determined that my previous research into 5.01 was FLAWED and needed to be corrected. This helped lead me to some interesting conclusions about *myself* as a female viewer and how I perceive/d women in these episodes overall.

Enough with the boring intro – on to the more interesting swearing and math stuff! As in previous reports, immediately below the cut are the definitions and rubric for language analysis – feel free to skip it if you’ve already read it (or don’t care).

Key Definitions:

Exclamatory – ‘throw-away’ words which, if removed from the sentence, have no real effect – they are there for punctuation, character flavor, etc. and often start or end a sentence. Includes ‘pet words’ for people like son, boy, douche, Giraffe, etc. For my purposes, I did NOT count ah, well, alright or OK, because EVERYONE USES THEM ALL THE TIME in this show. Some words counted in this category ONLY if they were NOT used ‘correctly’ in context – examples (correct usage in brackets):  Hell (the place), God (the person/entity), hey (to get you to turn around), c’mon (to get you to come with someone) and man (to indicate a male person).

Expletive – swears, substitute swears and blasphemes (technically all exclamatories, but in a class by themselves). These were casually assigned ‘strength’ by how much I got in trouble for saying them when a kid (words like friggin’ were counted for strength as if they were the swear they replaced). We were not a religious family so blasphemes were all counted as lamer than more scatological swears.

Key Words and Phrases – Crack stuff said by characters that ‘define their voice’ – things that make them uniquely them. Fun phrases and sayings. Includes innocuous stuff like “Seriously?”, “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” and chick. Sometimes a colloquialism was counted, like ‘ain’t been’ because it seemed unique to the character. NOTE: Cas is a special case here – his entries tended to be overly formal words no one else ever really says OR cases where he starts to use human idioms at ALL.

 Method: Characters are listed in 4 main groups: Dean, Sam, F&F (recurring characters) and Xtras (in only one episode). These four groups were then analyzed via a rubric using the following categories:

 Verbal Creativity Analysis Rubric

Quantity - actual # of items recorded across ALL characters. Repetitions were counted individually.

Variety - (scale of 1-5) measures how unique and interesting items are for this episode, as well as ‘strength’ of expletives.

Originality - 5 points per item that made me chuckle or raised my eyebrow the 1st time I watched the episode

Sam vs Dean - % of Sam items to Dean items as an integer. Sam hardly swears, so we want to give him lots of credit for when he DOES do so. This also serves as a measure of ‘balance’ in verbal creativity for the episode.

Family & Friends - (scale of 1-5) QVO (see above) across other core characters (+1 bonus point if Cas had ANY)

Xtras - (scale of 0-5) QVO across any Xtras

Impress me – 5 points per character whose performance REALLY stood out to me (purely subjective, don’t argue with the researcher)

Report #3

So, firstly, I’ll look at the episode I previously analyzed, 5.01 – where I find that I did not accurately record dialogue for Becky and Meg – and overestimated Chuck’s verbal creativity. In point of fact, I seem to have forgotten about Chuck’s entire conversation with Becky! I have adjusted the data and ad the analysis below (bold indicates new data).

5.1 Sympathy for the Devil (Kripke)

Dean:  What the hell, keep our heads down, whatever, hey, stupid bastard, asshat, sons of bitches, cram it with walnuts, ugly; two-faced douche, jack squat, you dicks, son of a bitch, hey, bitch blood, yeah, right wavy gravy; thank god, angel condom (vessel), son of a bitch, eat me, big dicks, what the hell, screw him, screw [them], crap (adj), give 'em hell, crap, a snowball's chance, hell, man,

Sam:  Jeeze, hey, ass, meatsuit (possessed human), hey,

F&F: Bobby - Romeo (at Sam), ass, kid (at Sam), damn, snot-nosed son of a bitch, kick your friggin' ass, we're boned, nine kinds of crazy, boy x2 (at Dean and at Sam), damn (adj); Chuck - x the crap out of him, oh God; oh crap, sucks ass; Nick (pre-Luci) - man, why the hell; Zachariah - Chucklehead, screwing around  Meg (dark) - pain in the ass; ice the Devil (kill), you're the only bump in the road, just dying for a piece of you, let's ride (fight? go?),  Becky: Oh...my...god.

Xtras: holy crap

Quantity –  60   [added 5 more swears – Meg and Becky)

Variety –   4 [nice range from both Dean and F&F]  

Originality – 25  [asshat; cram it with walnuts, right wavy gravy, angel condom, nine kinds of crazy]

Sam vs Dean – 5/30  or 17

Family & Friends – 4 [nice quantity and variety, with some originality and group participation as well]

Xtras – 0 [boring really]

Impress me – 10  [Dean, of course, stood out again, but also this was a standout episode for Bobby] [Removed Chuck from this score as it was based almost entirely on my thinking that almost all his lines had a creative element – 5]

           Total = 110 [unchanged]

So, in the end, the total score for the episode remains unchanged, but I find myself appalled that I, in fact, both a) underestimated the two female characters in this episode and b) overestimated a male role. I my defense, I did do a lot of this data collection and analysis after midnight and while watching the episode, rather than looking at the transcript. I am unsure if I failed to document these scenes properly because I got sucked into these female-based scenes or because I was more focused on the main male characters and overlooked them. I’d like to think it was the first, but am afraid that the last is more realistic. And what does it say about the conditioning of myself and my own gender that this might be so?

Next we look at the 3.12, which was reviewed not only while I was more awake, but also after I have learned a bit more about options available for analysis techniques. I present here to you not only the usual verbal creativity ratings but also some a start on some more formal comparative analysis of the verbal/language role of the women involved in the episode.

3.12 Jus in Bello (Gamble) Verbal Creativity Data & Analysis

Dean:  sweetheart. that bitch! , sourpusses, Heyx2, Watch the merchandise! , Houdini out of this, kinky son of a bitch, don’t swing that way, bust out  (bring out), What the hell, save your asses, awesome, hey, What the hell, kind of wild, awesomex2, howdy, comfy, jammed itself, You don’t poke a bear with BB gun, holdin’ up (doing), No clue,  the world’s gonna end bloody, go down swingin’, rockin’ the white picket fence, gunning for us, Wow, throw away the rule book, been laid, sure as hell,  beats (better than), All set (ready),

Sam:  come on!, wuss, heyx2, you figure (think/calculate),

F&F: Bela: Sweetie (Dean) Ruby: And they say chivalry’s dead, big new up and corner, real pied piper (re: Lilith), wants Sam’s intestines on a stick, I must have blood in my ear, fantastic, peachy, Damn straight, cherry pie (at Nancy), You win “understatement of the year.” So long (goodbye), I bet on the wrong horse, smart money’s on, Henriksen: you’re Mayberry , rodeo (situation), laid your eyeballs on., Think Hannibal Lecter and his half-wit little brother, for kicks, Satan-worshipping, nutbag killers; chopper (helicopter), damn, what the hell, Life sucks, Screwed up, a sob story, It’s surf and turf time,  chopper, What the hell x2, bust you two out, psycho, blood bath, the payoff, busting my ass, nail (capture), sign me up for that big, frosty mug of wasting my damn life; beat it (defeat), string of (number of), Throw x off your trail, (27)

Xtras: Steven: I’ll be damned, Screw that, Damn right, thorn in my ass, glue your eyeballs to them, gander (look at), come out of the woodwork, cut this short, (8)  Nancy: Oh, my god; I showed them,

Quantity –  93  

Variety –   4 [wide variety and originality, good team participation, low strength overall]  

Originality – 20  [sign me up for that big, frosty mug of wasting my damn life; Think Hannibal Lecter and his half-wit little brother; You don’t poke a bear with BB gun; rockin’ the white picket fence]

Sam vs Dean – 5/35  or 14 [LOW – and note below that Sam had HALF Dean’s lines, while Henrikson almost matched Dean]

Family & Friends –  4 [F&F plus xtras had more lines than Sam and Dean combined, plus strong variety and originality. Could have used more balance amongst characters.]

Xtras – 3 [All Steven – Nancy was a wimp, and other extras had no style at all]

Impress me –  10  [Henrikson, & Steven (every line included verbal creativity)]

          Total = 148

Results? Very strong verbal creativity for this episode – wins out over 5.01, which was only really average. Best Gamble episode I have evaluated so far. Note that this episode occurred during the season cut short by the writer’s strike and was specially designed to highlight Henriksen and set up the abbreviated season ender.

Some additional Meta notes in comparing these two episodes:

Similar to 5.20 and 5.04 (see EEKP report #2) Sam has very low creativity in both these episodes while F&F have a HIGH creativity. Dean, however, stays relatively consistent. Working theory – in order for other characters to be verbally creative, Sam takes a back seat, but not Dean.

Another tentative hypothesis -  Kripke generally uses stronger language than Gamble.

Analysis of Women’s Roles in episode 3.12

OK, and for the additional 20 points, some examination of female character roles vs male roles in episode 3.12. The stuff below is draw from PRELIMINARY understandings of the PhD-level Discourse Analysis course I am *insanely* taking thanks to sharing the 1st EEKP database report with a former professor (link). It is important to note that discourse analysis does NOT look at the content (meaning) of what is said, but rather the mechanics of how meaning was created. The goal is to search for purely objective measures (like word length, counts, structure, etc.) find insights into the way humans create meaning. It is also important to note, that, in this analysis, I am not attempting to come to any conclusions about the role of female characters in the series overall, as one episode is an insufficient amount of data. I am simply presenting some basic statistics about the # of lines per character and the number of words per line and making some interesting comparisons as to the possible ‘weight’ or importance of characters in the overall discourse of the episode based on these items.

Episode 3.12 Jus in Bello (Gamble)

For evaluation purposes, I divided the characters into their 3 main groupings, main characters (Sam and Dean), recurring characters (Friends and Family), and extras – characters seen only in this one episode (disposable). I also note with an asterisk, those extras that are ‘nameless’ – have speaking parts but are never named. We’ll start by looking solely at the simple presence of male to females in the episode:

Male to female ratio of named characters: 7 male to 4 female

Ratio of male to female in recurring characters: 1 male to 3 female

Ration of male to female in extras: 4 male to 1 female

Female characters seem to have significant weight in the recurring character role for this episode, but less weight in the extras category.

Below is a summary of data regarding # of lines, % of total lines and average words per line for each character in the episode. Grey rows indicate recurring characters and all extras are listed in the lower rows. ”Line” below was defined as dialogue test stated without interruption from another character or major show action. Words per line is typically used as a measure of weight or importance in a conversation.

Average lines per character: 23.733 Average # of words per line: 24.765

Further analyzing this information for female roles:

Based on the above statistics, it seems clear that Ruby, as a recurring character, has significant weight in this episode, while Bela has below average weight. Nancy, meanwhile, has solid significance in that she is very close to the averages for this episode and is tied with one other male figure (Melvin) for top ranking amongst extras for % of lines and is actually ahead of Melvin in words per line.

Conclusion: OK so what does this all mean and why should anyone care? With the recent Women’s Rights March on Washington, the balance of power amongst genders is prominent in many minds. Supernatural as a series has drawn a lot of criticism for how it ‘treats’ female characters (which I will not go into here). Using processes like the above can assist us to more objectively investigate the importance writers give to female characters in delivering dialogue. As an example, it makes sense to try to compare Henrickson’s and Ruby’s roles in this episode as they both play major recurring character parts.  While Henrickson’s # of lines is much higher than Ruby’s (like by 15% of total show lines); Ruby’s words per line is significantly higher – than ALL other recurring or main characters. In addition, while Ruby’s dialogue has a lower verbal creativity count than Henrikson, it is triple Sam’s.

Again, I don’t think I have enough data to be drawing any hypotheses here. Instead, my big take away from this is that I realized how unaware I was, really, of how *I* thought about women’s roles in the shows I watch. Partly due to the era in which I grew up, but also because of my sexual preferences, I now see that I tend to focus on male characters in a visual narrative. Which I find interesting, because I find I am often more drawn to strong lead female characters in a PRINT narrative. Hmmm…anyone have any conclusions as to my subconscious purposes for watching vs reading for me?  :)

[durenjtmusings]

The Great SPN Meta Scavenger Hunt: Round 2  - The Exclamatories, Expletives and Key Words/Phrases Listicle

(or TL;DR - “Suck as it may, our perky nipples are defcon screwed with signs of douchery, so shut your cakehole, you whackjob, before I make your posh spice ass have a code brown moment and use you for an angel condom. Asshat.”)

[No abstract here because writing them is hard and f*ck that sh*t it is 4 am.]

Introduction:

Thanks to @elizabethrobertajones​ for kickstarting my “SPN Character Voice Database” project with this challenge. The verbal creativity and qualities of each character’s “voice’ has always been one of the things that has greatly entertained me about Supernatural. So, in attempting to write SPN fanfic, I am pretty obsessed about making character’s dialogue *sound* right. @chiisana-sukima​  and I were chatting recently about our struggles to 'write’ the boys swearing convincingly (I make then swear lamely and she has to take swears out) and BOTH of us are struggling with making Sam swear right (tip – turns out, that’s because he doesn’t very much). [I think this is the presenting problem or sorta the research question, but again, 4 am and not getting paid so ;P]

In the spirit of scientific investigation, I have begun to address this problem in a typically “academic” way – I collected and analyzed unique character language patterns data for all 12 of the initial SPN episodes (using Excel and everything). Analysis consisted of *highly subjective* qualitative and quantitative methodologies using the rubric below (thanks to @k-vichan​ for the rubric framework from their “Dean the Action Hero” entry)

Review of Existing Research:

As far as I know – this research is unique in fandom – if someone has already done this, PLEASE let me know so I can do something ELSE with my time.

Definitions of Key Terms:

Exclamatory – ‘throw-away’ words which, if removed from the sentence, have no real effect – they are there for punctuation, character flavor, etc. and often start or end a sentence. Includes ‘pet words’ for people like son, boy, douche, Giraffe, etc. For my purposes, I did NOT count ah, well, alright or OK, because EVERYONE USES THEM ALL THE TIME in this show. Some words counted in this category ONLY if they were NOT used ‘correctly’ in context – examples (correct usage in brackets):  Hell (the place), God (the person/entity), hey (to get you to turn around), c’mon (to get you to come with someone) and man (to indicate a male person).

Expletive – swears, substitute swears and blasphemes (technically all exclamatories, but in a class by themselves). These were casually assigned ‘strength’ by how much I got in trouble for saying them when a kid (words like friggin’ were counted for strength as if they were the swear they replaced). We were not a religious family so blasphemes were all counted as lamer than more scatological swears.

Key Words and Phrases – Crack stuff said by characters that ‘define their voice’ – things that make them uniquely them. Fun phrases and sayings. Includes innocuous stuff like “Seriously?”, “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” and chick. Sometimes a colloquialism was counted, like ‘ain’t been’ because it seemed unique to the character. NOTE: Cas is a special case here – his entries tended to be overly formal words no one else ever really says OR cases where he starts to use human idioms at ALL.

Method:

Re-watched all initial episodes over the course of 5 days and recorded all entries in the above 3 categories by character, with extras grouped as a block. Then grouped all recurring characters of note in a “friends and family” group for easier analysis, creating 4 main groups: Dean, Sam, F&F and Xtras. These four groups were then analyzed in the following categories and assigned scores by one completely biased reviewer.

Quantity - actual # of items recorded across ALL characters. Repetitions were counted individually.

Variety - (scale of 1-5) measures how unique and interesting items are for this episode, as well as ‘strength’ of expletives.

Originality - 5 points per item that made me chuckle or raised my eyebrow the 1st time I watched the episode

Sam vs Dean - % of Sam items to Dean items as an integer. Sam hardly swears, so we want to give him lots of credit for when he DOES do so. This also serves as a measure of ‘balance’ in verbal creativity for the episode.

Family & Friends - (scale of 1-5) QVO (see above) across other core characters (+1 bonus point if Cas had ANY)

Xtras - (scale of 0-5) QVO across any Xtras

Impress me – 5 points per character whose performance REALLY stood out to me (purely subjective, don’t argue with the researcher)

Controlling for Bias: @chiisana-sukima and I also discussed how the writer for each episode had a lot to do with language, so we’ve included that data in the results. Other items that may affect the data include a) how much silence there was built into the script, b) how MANY characters appeared in the episode, and c) how plot affected the character (Demon!Dean, Demon!Bobby, Leviathan!Cas, dead-hallucination Bobby-in-Sam’s-head, etc.). For my purposes, if they LOOKED and tried to ACT like the character, their words were categorized for that character. But, essentially, I didn’t sweat this stuff and did whatever I wanted, because no one is paying me, so there.

Results:

SO – no surprise this is stupidly long and full of illustrative screencaps. Read below the cut for the Fun stuff! {Oh, and pre-emptively: “Screw you, my math is perfect.”}

1.1 Pilot (Kripke)

Dean: Whoa; easy tiger, are you kidding me?; hell, gig, dude, not bad, scored (got); do some digging (research), cakehole, check it out, c'mon, I betcha, here's the deal; dude, took a swan dive, "what the...", I'm super, chick, what a bitch (she is), I don't get it, no chick flick moments, bitch, hey man, dude, five-o, take off, crap, boobs, nice work (well done), saved your ass, screwed up, shag ass, whatever, helluva,

Sam: crap, hell, hey, c'mon, the damn thing, working overtime on a Millertime shift; man, dean; jim, jack and jose; I swear, man; kinda, hey, genius (deprecating), hey, jerk, hell, we got work to do.

F&F: John –hell, (sports reference) ; Mary - oh my God

Xtras: hell, smartass, hell, Hell

Quantity – 60    

Variety – 4    

Originality – 20  [cakehole; no chick flick moments; working overtime on a Millertime shift; jim, jack and jose]

Sam vs Dean – 18/35  or 51

Family & Friends – 1

Xtras – 1

Impress me – 10 [Dean, of course, made a strong first impression in this pilot episode, but comparatively this is one of Sam’s strongest episodes as well.]

          Total = 142

2.1 In My Time of Dying (Kripke)

Dean: man, c'mon, gimme, thank god, screw you, c'mon, lay some mojo on me, c'mon, what the hell kinda, hey, frickin', man, dude, full on Swazy'd that mother. What the…, get the hell away, now what?, sorta, you gotta be kiddin' me, god, I'll be damned, damn straight, I'm screwed, son of a bitch (angry), chick, far too laid back, hell, cut me a break, I'll pass, not into (x) chicks, what the hell, ditch it,  c'mon, c'mon,

Sam: I swear to god, you wanna bet, lay some mojo on, thumbs up our asses, I got it covered, hey, aw man, pissed (mad), what's going on?, go to hell,  hey, man, hey, c'mon, man,

F&F: John - our only card, meet up with, hey, pick it up (for me), hey, dude, buttin' heads, I seen; Bobby – you got it (yes), damn; Tessa - freaked, I'm dealing, flipped out; YED - get the hell out

Xtras: oh my god

Quantity –   64  

Variety –    2.5  

Originality –  5 [full on Swazy'd that mother]

Sam vs Dean – 15/34  or 44

Family & Friends – 2

Xtras – 0

Impress me – 0  [Really kinda banal, noting major happened verbally in this episode. Dean was lively, but not really inventive.]

         Total = 117.5

3.1 The Magnificent Seven (Kripke)

Dean: freaky, weirdo, bupkiss, drivin' me crazy, I aint sweatin' it, get this, spiffy, whackjob, stupidx3 (in one sentence), showtime!, sit here with our junk in our hands, send [him] packing, hell warmed over, poor bastards, chick, whatever it takes to get you through the night, goose chase, welch out of it, so help me god, tuff, whatever, sons of bitches, raise hell,

Sam: ah, god; beats me, man, my god, what the hell, good bet, stark raving psycho, bustin' my ass,  

F&F: Bobby - (double negative), pack it up, damn it, half-cocked, this joker, son (at Dean),

Xtras: "Hell's Bells", Hell, bastards, damn fools, man, rat's ass, piss poor, damn

Quantity –   47 

Variety –    3 [very little repetition, several new words by several characters]

Originality – 15  [whackjob, sit here with our junk in our hands, stark raving psycho]

Sam vs Dean – 8/25  or 32

Family & Friends – 1

Xtras – 2 [more quantity and variety than previously]

Impress me –  0 [ solid performances, but no one really stood out]

          Total = 100

4.1 Lazarus Rising (Kripke)

Dean: Preachin' to the choir, dammit, bad mojo, some [one's] bitch boy, badass, hell yes, damn,  douche her up, bit it (die), freaky, weirdo, crap, I'm game, bring it,  work him over, perky nipples, cut me loose (from Hell), tell you squat, "don't come crawling to me when they show up on your doorstep with vaseline and a firehose", whatever had the juice to, bad mofo, peachy, (serious) as a heart attack, bigtime [knife], get caught with pants down, helluva, "ring the dinner bell" (call up bad guy), get the hell out, I'm not buying (it - belief),

Sam: hell, they booked up here, thank god, what the hell's goin' on, hell,

F&F: Bobby - dead set on it, took off, what in the hell, aint been, sticky question, damn thing (2 x), kid (at Sam), you can't be serious; Pamela - Grumpy (at Sam); ruby: getting pretty slick

Xtras: damn, gotah Hell

 Quantity – 47    

Variety –   4 [Dean’s range alone here pulls this up from a 3]  

Originality – 20  [douche her up ; perky nipples; don't come crawling to me … vaseline and a firehose;  Grumpy]

Sam vs Dean – 5/29  or 17

Family & Friends – 2.5 [about avg quantity and variety]

Xtras – 1 [pretty lame]

Impress me – 5 [Dean really lit this episode up – back from the dead and spittin’ words!]

          Total = 96.5

5.1 Sympathy for the Devil (Kripke)

Dean:  What the hell, keep our heads down, whatever, hey, stupid bastard, asshat, sons of bitches, cram it with walnuts, ugly; two-faced douche, jack squat, you dicks, son of a bitch, hey, bitch blood, yeah, right wavy gravy; thank god, angel condom (vessel), son of a bitch, eat me, big dicks, what the hell, screw him, screw [them], crap (adj), give 'em hell, crap, a snowball's chance, hell, man,

Sam:  Jeeze, hey, ass, meatsuit (posessed human), hey,

F&F: Bobby - Romeo (at Sam), ass, kid (at Sam), damn, snot-nosed son of a bitch, kick your friggin' ass, we're boned, nine kinds of crazy, boy x2 (at Dean and at Sam), damn (adj); Chuck - x the crap out of him, oh God; oh crap, sucks ass; Nick (pre-Luci) - man, why the hell; Meg (dark) - pain in the ass; Zachariah - Chucklehead, screwing around

Xtras: holy crap

Quantity –  55  

Variety –   4 [nice range from both Dean and F&F]  

Originality – 25  [asshat; cram it with walnuts, right wavy gravy, angel condom, nine kinds of crazy]

Sam vs Dean – 5/30  or 17

Family & Friends – 4 [nice quantity and variety, with some originality and group participation as well]

Xtras – 0 [boring really]

Impress me – 15  [Dean, of course, stood out again, but also this was a standout episode for Bobby, and Chuck because like 50% of his total episode lines counted]

         Total = 110

6.1 Exile on Main Street (Gamble)

Dean: crap (adj), chicks, dig (like), man, freakin', how the hell, [?] what the hell, c'mon x2, you gotta be kidding me, god knows why, sue me, damn, sons of bitches, stick my neck out, whatever, you bet,

Sam: Hey, crap, go gunnin' for (hunt), that's nasty,

F&F:   Bobby - dammit, mi casa es su casa, damn  

Xtras: thank god, what the hell, my god, shook loose, helluva, oh my god, you son of a bitch

Quantity –   30  

Variety –  2 [softer curses, common, some repetition – generally blah]    

Originality –  0 [not an danged thing new]

Sam vs Dean – 4/16  or 25

Family & Friends – 1 [only Bobby and lame showing]

Xtras – 3 [Better quantity than everyone but Dean, decent quality]

Impress me –  0 [for obvious reasons]

          Total = 61

 7.1 Meet the New Boss (Gamble)

Dean: this is nuts, c'mon x2, ah well; stick your neck out, figure it out, off the deep end, pissed, pray to god, kicked in the daddy pills, scuzzy, piece of…, thingy, hear us out, (X) is our bitch, both of you put your junk away, really?, crap, piehole, out of the cards, hey x2,

Sam: I guess (yes), seriously?, hey, friggin', crap, hey,  

F&F:  Bobby - diddly, c'mon, kid (Sam), sport (Sam), son of a bitch, Jenga (eureka); Cas - genitals, cannot abide, atone, unpleasant; Crowley - bollocks, jig is up, bend them right over, come on, giraffe (at Sam), mash us like peas; Death - you're joking, shut up; Lucifer - long time no spooning, right on, yank the wool off of your eyes

Xtras: heck, oh my god,

 Quantity –  49  

Variety –      3  [pulled up by some Dean inventiveness and the variety in F&F]

Originality – 10  [kicked in the daddy pills; long time no spooning ]

Sam vs Dean – 6/20 or 30

Family & Friends – 4 +1 [more than DEAN! And. Of course, Crowley’s imaginativeness, And Cas HAD some!]]

Xtras – 0 [Frickin’ BOring]

Impress me – 0  [Crowley was a near thing, but not really]

          Total = 97

8.1 We Need to Talk About Kevin (Carver)

Dean: you son of a bitch, you bastard, keep your nose clean, dammit, my ass, things got hairy towards the end, in the wind, turned tail on, knee deep in god's armpit, bully for you, damn, no signs of douchery, So what? You dropped your peanut butter in her chocolate?; 31 flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties, dental apocalypse (vamp), lookin' for a soul train, hey, wow, come sniffing around, I got bupkiss, sweet mother of god, come again?, wipe the slate clean, bastard, Spanky, by a long shot, jackass, hitting the head, helluva lot, beat a dead horse,

Sam: what the.., frickin', right, I did not have a roadmap (no clue), hey, throw a bitchfit, check this out, dude, it sucks, might suck, what the hell,

F&F: Crowley - Heavens no, sky's the limit, throw me a bone, hullo boys, moose (Sam), last time we danced (met), chop chop (hurry), meatsuit; Benny - what the hell, jackass, hump my soul (carry), howya holdin'up?,  keep your nose clean; Kevin - hell, eat me x2, what the hell,

Xtras: dude, bitch, dumbass

Quantity –    62

Variety –      5 [avg to strong performances from ALL involved, even the xtras]

Originality –  25 [knee deep in god's armpit; no signs of douchery; 31 flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties, dental apocalypse; hump my soul]

Sam vs Dean – 11/31  or 35

Family & Friends – 4 [good quantity variety and strength.]

Xtras – 1 [pretty basic]

Impress me – 10 [Dean, absolutely on this one; & Kevin – for eat me x2 said with absolute conviction]

          Total = 142

9.1 I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here (Carver)

Dean: whatever the hell, pissed at, we'll work it out, man, screw it, with ears on (listening), jimmied ourselves out, man, all due respect, don't be a pouter (speak up), son of a bitch, what the hell, hey, pissed, what the hell, dammit, whoa, give a damn, bite me, what the hell, you kidding me?, no way in hell, what the hell, dammit, dudn't mean squat, hell, hell no, angelic pacemaker, whoa, handsy, hell,

Sam: seriously? friggin' crapfest, shuttup (no/negative), the thing is, I bet you get off on this, what the hell, crap, we got work to do

F&F: Bobby - hell yes, you didn't do jack, suck as that may, idjits, basackwards crazy, son (Sam) x2; Cas – devote; Death - not my bag;

Xtras: what the hell x2

Quantity – 51    

Variety –  3 [lotta repetitive hell in this one, most not terribly strong, either]    

Originality –  15  [angelic pacemaker; friggin' crapfest; suck as that may]

Sam vs Dean – 9/31  or 29

Family & Friends – 3 [on the strength of Bobby alone, really]

Xtras – 0 [dull, dull, dull]

Impress me – 5 [Bobby (or Sam, however you want to think about it) for a dead guy with a small part, he was pretty verbally lively]

         Total = 106

10.1 Black (Carver)

Dean: oops, bitch, douche, you sold me out, you all suck, two-bit skank, sure as hell, knock yourself out, whatever jam he's in, damn sure,

Sam: you got it (yes), get this, jumped the gun, kick his butt, son of a bitch, meatsuit, what the hell, look buddy, turn tail, army recruiting ad that spit you out

F&F: Cas - I'm sensing awkardness, like a million dollars, put up much of a fight?; Crowley - you're budgin' it, moose x3, what's eating you up, out of your depth, what tickles me, what makes you lose your chickens, good luck with that, demon chum, does the tin man have a sheet metal willie?, fetid petri dish of broken dreams and beer, out with the club circuit and in with the stadium tour, my bad, midwifing you back to life; Cole - chicken wing (arm in sling), ass over teakettle, hurt like son of a bitch, I'm karma,

Xtras: eat me, jackass, douche, code brown moment, your funeral, screwed up

Quantity –  58

Variety –      4.5 [only because I’d like to see the variety more balanced among characters]

Originality –  25  [army recruiting ad that spit you out; what makes you lose your chickens; does the tin man have a sheet metal willie?; fetid petri dish of broken dreams and beer, code brown moment]

Sam vs Dean – 10/10  or 100

Family & Friends – 5+1  [Crowley, oh dear lord, was masterful, plus Cole was fun too. And Cas HAD some!]

Xtras – 4 [the Gas and Sip counter guy Rocked]

Impress me – 15 [Crowley OMG; the Gas and Sip counter guy xtra OMG, Sam – for EQUALING Demon!Dean in verbal skills this episode]

         Total = 212.5

11.1 Out of the Darkness and into the Fire (Carver)

Dean: What the hell, easy buddy, stay cool, heyx3, is this like a Magic Mike moment?, whoa, take it easy, everybody goes '28 days later'?, hell, like a sunnofa bitch, dudn't it, sumpin' straight, untenable, bite us in the ass, horse sense, we broke it we bought it, where the hell, defcon screwed, shove x up his ass, hell yes, farting sawdust, frickin', no way, c'mon x2, godspeed (good luck), screwy, kick her ass,

Sam: seriously? we know jack, you were on a roll, these things have a shelf life, hey, our crap, only half of the bumper sticker, hey, sons of bitches

F&F: Cas – transgressions; Crowley - you excrement, old school it is, daddy's home;

Xtras:  freaking out

Quantity –  43

Variety –    4 [actually quite a creative episode, verbally, with little repetition and not a lot of boring exclamations]  

Originality – 30  [is this like a Magic Mike moment; everybody goes '28 days later'; untenable;  defcon screwed ; farting sawdust ; only half of the bumper sticker]

Sam vs Dean – 9/29  or 31

Family & Friends – 1+1 [Because Cas]

Xtras – 0  [I mean, really]

Impress me – 5 [Dean kicked it for me this episode]

         Total = 115

12.1 Keep Calm and Carry On (Dabb)

Dean: flat on his ass, be pissed (mad), c'mon, new duds, whoa x7, hell yeah, what’s his face, bitch, (freak),

Sam: screw you, accent in a pantsuit, screw you, Screw.You., go to hell, screw you

F&F:  Mary - come again?,  sweetheart,

Xtras: Holy Mother…, hold up (wait), no way, were a bitch, chick, psycho, fricking, (demons): busted bitch, dude, gross,  posh spice ass

Quantity – 24

Variety –  3 [and not a 2 purely due to the xtras]    

Originality –  10 [accent in a pantsuit, posh spice ass]

Sam vs Dean – 6/15  or 40

Family & Friends – 1 [and not a 0 only because the way Mary says sweetheart to Baby melts me]

Xtras – 4 [good solid showing here]

Impress me – 10  [Sam – because, well Duh, Screw. You.  And the xtras]

          Total = 92

Conclusions:

In general, it looks like writers wanted to keep to at LEAST above 100 on the “@Durenjtmusings Verbal Inventiveness Rubric” for decent verbal variety in a script. Both Carver and Kripke were pretty good at this. Dabb should take note.

Ranking of episodes:

Worst - 6.1 Gamble – 61  (note that both Gamble’s scores were low – not judging, just holding it up for ridicule)

12.1 Dabb - 92

4.1 Kripke - 96.5

7.1 Gamble - 97

3.1 Kripke - 100

9.1 Carver - 106

5.1 Kripke - 110

11.1 Carver - 115

2.1 Kripke - 117.5

8.1 Carver & 1.1 Kripke – 142  (Both good showings, although I like 8.1 better, personally.)

Best - 10.1 Carver - 212.5 (Aaaaannd, Crowley wins this episode the trophy – who is surprised? Plus someone hire that Gas and Sip counter guy - comedy timing gold. Also, of note, Demon!Dean talked less, and less creatively -  letting his sneering and violence say everything for him, evidently. Because of this, however, Sam EQUALLED Dean for verbal inventiveness this episode, for perfect brother balance. Yea for the Mark.)

Bonus: Results Presented Chronologically – in case you care:

1.1 Kripke - 142

2.1 Kripke - 117.5

3.1 Kripke - 100

4.1 Kripke - 96.5

5.1 Kripke - 110

6.1 Gamble - 61

7.1 Gamble - 97

8.1 Carver - 142

9.1 Carver - 106

10.1 Carver - 212.5

11.1 Carver - 115

12.1 Dabb - 92

Final Thoughts: I have begun to note a number of fun cross-episode meta things – like Sam tends to echo expletives that someone else has already said in an episode, Angels are REALLY boring verbally except for Zachariah, and Dean is way more verbally creative when he’s just come back from exile (hell, purgatory, etc.) – but I’m holding on to this until I have more data on the 250+ episodes I have left to analyze.

Extra Credit for the Obsessed Experts: Go back over JUST Dean’s collected words and see how much of the episode you can visualize from his verbal creativeness alone.

Also - this was fun and I am clearly a compulsive academic…someone please stop me before it is too late.

[lawboy-bloodfreak]

with the most sincere and gentle intent of saying this though, I promise

overanalyzing is fun but some of y’all are batshit insane

[durenjtmusings]

.....is doing all the research...ALL THE RESEARCH!!! BWAH ha ha HA ha ha. @elizabethrobertajones. Croatoan/Roanoke/Tulpa research....and while we're reading/watching, might as well collect all the expletives for the database, too. :p @rushianbeing and GHOST research toooooo....

[durenjtmusings]

Great, now I have to watch 3 episodes tonight…might as well work on another post for the eekp database

And. You scare me @missjakii

Pines Mobile Home Park, Bellflower

[durenjtmusings]

In response to my Kick-butt (humility, what’s that?) entry into the The Great SPN Meta Scavenger Hunt: Round 2  - The Exclamatories, Expletives and Key Words/Phrases Listicle, @frozen-delight commented:

Interesting. I think this analysis reflects really well what a vibrant script “Black” was (especially Mickey!!! <333), but doesn’t do “Lazarus Rising” any justice, considering that there was complete silence for the first ten, fifteen (?) minutes. It would be fun to pair this with an analysis of the show’s cinematography, to see if there’s any kind of connection. In case anyone needs a new hobby? *g*

A) Thanks for the comment. Really. This post has 10 x the number of notes than any other original post I have written so far, but so far only 2 comments (not counting @elizabethrobertajones wildly funny tag based comments in her official reblog).

B) I point our that in my “Controlling for Bias section does say, “Other items that may affect the data include a) how much silence there was built into the script,”  So yeah, I too noticed that some episodes were getting short shrift due to the cinematography/story decisions.

C) Re-reading my analysis of 4.1 Lazarus Rising, I point out that Dean, who was the only actor in that 1st silent bit, still managed a decent 29 entries into the database.  What REALLY brought this episode’s score down was the fact that Sam - who just found out that his brother was back AND who was off destroying demons with his brain (and a hot chick) had only FIVE (5) entries, making the balance score the LOWEST of all 12 episodes.  Essentially, the writers needed to have given Sam more interesting or emphatic things to say about all the stuff that was happening. Instead, they wrote him all verklept, secretive and verbally boring. The F&F and xtras were also pretty lame this episode as well.

D) Yeah, I really liked Black too. A lot. There *might* have been some pro-episode bias on the part of the researcher, but what really kicked it score-wise was that Sam talked ‘creatively’ more than usual and Dean hardly talked at all all episode. The 100 balance score was pretty epic, here. This might argue for an adjustment of the rubric, but F that, I’m the only one who really cares.

D) In the politest possible way, Screw You, I JUST accepted a fan prompted massive project related to this post/database, I DO NOT need another one. YOUR turn to volunteer <*eg*>

[durenjtmusings]

The Great Meta Scavenger Hunt - Round 3:  Pranks and Belief

For round three of this meta scavenger hunt by @elizabethrobertajones​, we are instructed to place our hands in the gods of the supernaturalwiki random page link. Excited, I poked the link and received:

Roanoke Colony - http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Roanoke_Colony

Hum, what? I say…and the bottom of the page helpfully refers me to episode 2.09 Croatoan and the exact transcript lines where this has been mentioned, all of twice, in 11.5 seasons.  OK then, Croatoan and how the Roanoke colony vanished paired with…and clicked the link again.

We’ll skip the part here where I got an obscure assistant director for like 1-2 episodes with 3 lines of text in the wiki and said nope, try again, whereupon I got:

1.17 Hell House - http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=1.17_Hell_House

A quick glance reminds me that, oh right, this is the Tulpa episode…and the first time we meet the Ghostfacer guys. The page also helpfully tells me: “tulpa = the manifestation of a thought.”

And then I get an idea. An awful idea. A wonderful awful idea. Heck a whole series of ‘em!  

What if the demise of the Roanoke colony was caused by something like a Tulpa?

What if the Croatoan virus was created accidentally via a Tulpa-like process?

What if the Roanoke folks *believed* themselves out of existence?

I did some excited flailing @elizabethrobertajones​ about how I wanted to write this fanfic/revisionist history rather than this meta, and she flailed back – “Do that!” And then there was more conversation, and she reminded me of the whole Lucifer/demons use the Croatoan virus to end the world plot line in Seasons five and then I had to go do more REsearch.

So I went and looked up the 3 Croatoan episodes and watched/read the transcripts, and then got bummed because the whole pestilence demon virus creation thing made it look like my idea wouldn’t work, so I went off and sulked for a few days. (But while I was there, I went ahead and collected data on those 3 episodes for the exclamatorys database, but that’s a different post).

But then it dawned on me that the wiki gods had asked me to compare ROANOKE and episode 1.17 – with Croatoan being only a small element of the Roanoke colony – NOT the thing itself I was supposed to compare. Which made my ideas all possible and stuff again. SO, backstory fully over-explained, read on below the cut for the meta. (Possible spoilers if you haven’t seen 1.17 or 2.09, 5.04 or 5.20.)

We’ll start with episode 1.17 Hell House and examine its two main themes: Pranks and Belief

Pranks: I had completely forgotten that THIS was the pranking episode – the one with the spoon, the blasting radio, the superglue, and the itching powder. Which is fantastically funny and all, but until this re-watch I hadn’t realized how much pranking threaded its way throughout all other elements of this episode. In point of fact, the whole “ghost of Mordechai Murdoch” was a prank by local kids to begin with, including the use of random theological and other symbols in the house. And then you have the ‘paranormal investigators’ Ed & Harry searching for a Ghost Story to increase their web notoriety. This taps into the audiences’ general knowledge that most reports of paranormal events are cons – pranks, essentially – designed to fool the credulous. Add to this that the attempted solution to the problem was to ‘prank’ Harry and Ed into putting information on their web site that would allow them to kill the ghost – effectively ‘pranking’ all the HellHound website viewers into believing BS about iron bullets in order to make it true for the Tulpa. And then we end with the brothers agreeing to call a truce after pranking Ed and Harry out of town with a fake Hollywood producer call and a dead fish. Take away lesson? Pranking is juvenile, and can be dangerous, so you shouldn’t do it (but we do anyway because we are stupid human).

Belief: To begin, it is worth noting that pranking and belief are, of course, related - as many pranks require the victim to believe something that is not true in order to work. This episode, however, goes beyond that to encourage us to examine not only the danger and power of belief, but also issues of credulity and the ease with which belief can be swayed/changed. As we meet Ed and Harry, we, the viewers have the brother’s POV towards the paranormal - it is fact, pure and simple, belief is no longer really involved in the issue.  Ed and Harry are almost embarrassing in their ‘true believer’ posturing – which eventually becomes actual belief as they witness and then actually interact with the vengeful spirit of the house.  And then there is the issue of “the madness of crowds” and the internet – where belief can be had for free clickbait pixels – enough belief to fuel the creation of a powerful violent spirit.  A spirit which, once created, then takes on a life of its own – almost as if it believes in its own horrible backstory.

Which takes us to the real world mystery of the Roanoke colony. Research shows us that, from canon, we actually have no answers; we have only speculation. Different people believe different theories (following quotes from 2.09):

Sam: Roanoke was one of the first English colonies in America, late 1500s? Dean: Oh yeah, yeah, I do remember that. The only thing they left behind was a single word carved in a tree. Croatoan. Sam: Yeah. And I mean, there were theories — Indian raid, disease, but nobody knows what really happened. They were all just gone. I mean, wiped out overnight. Dean: You don't think that's what's going on here, I mean...

 ******************************

Dean: A demonic virus? Sam: Yeah, more like demonic germ warfare. At least it explains why I've been having visions. Dean: It's like a Biblical plague. Sam: Yeah. You don't know how right you are, Dean. I've been poring through Dad's journal, found something about the Roanoke colony. Dean: And? Sam: Dad always had a theory about Croatoan. He thought it was a demon's name. Sometimes known as Deva or sometimes Resheph. A demon of plague and pestilence.

So, based pretty much on John’s theory, and the doctor’s virus-like findings, Sam and Dean finish their 1st Croatoan experience assuming that a demon virus wiped out the Roanoke colony. Before starting this meta, I had assumed (believed) that Roanoke was like a beta test of the Croatoan virus way back when, and then Pestilence was pulled off the project, or got bored/distracted/bound, and did not come back to it until Lucifer was released. But his was just BELIEF – we don’t really have even ‘canon facts’ to support these assumptions.

So, then, what if the Roanoke colony had nothing to do with the virus? What if the word Croatoan in the town of River Grove, Oregon in 2006 was like a demon prank? A code name for a project drawn from the annals of human history – selected as part of a kind of psychological warfare, connecting this strange and mysterious happening with a haunting mystery from the past in order to heighten fear and/or to serve as kind of a demon in-joke. This theory, however, leaves us back where we started, really, not knowing what happened in Roanoke.

I propose, then, a new theory, based on belief. What if the Roanoke colony members, cut off from almost everyone they knew, became afraid of something that didn’t exist. But that fear, in such a small confined group grew, magnified, and strengthened belief until the thing they feared became a reality – eventually rising up to wipe them out. This ‘fearsome thing’ could fit any pro-offered theory – a raid by natives, a disease, starvation, or even a paranormal threat (remember that this was the era of every day witch/demon fears). Heck, what if the colonists essentially believed a demon virus into being? A virus that caused them to infect and/or kill each other and then completely consumed the bodies?

What if the ‘demon of pestilence’ simply showed up after the fact and took credit for the thing, whatever it was, that wiped out the colony, by ‘signing’ his name to it? Essentially beginning a centuries long prank on humanity, which, in the SPN universe, culminates in Lucifer’s/Pestilence’s plans to wipe out humans via vaccination?

Oh God no, now we’ve tapped into the whole ‘belief and vaccination’ thing and I am NOT starting that conversation after midnight. Good night all – hope this was interesting for you. Off to write the EEKP database post for Croatoan...

[durenjtmusings]

Djtmusings Works in Progress Masterpost

[or I needed to get all my crap together before I lost track of it all.] [also, I need to prioritize and FOCUS, dangit!]

So this is a list illustrating the complete an utter distractability of myself as a writer. I am putting my foot down. Nothing NEW can be started until I have finished/published SOMETHING listed below. [Except for the SPN Canon Big Bang and the Dean/Cas Harlequin Challenge fics…sigh.]

ALSO, I CLEARLY need to pick a location and put them all in one place, dammit. [Items with question marks are working titles.]

Ghost Hunter/Ghost Writer series: (Set in SPN universe but contains no actual SPN characters)

Out of Gas – in TT Wordpress drafts – 518 words  (1/6-1/4 done)

In the Spring of ’68 – in TT Wordpress drafts - 1017 words (1/6 done?)

The Promise (1998)? – in TT Wordpress drafts – 98 words (I no longer have any idea where this was going.)

RW1 – Sara? – in TT Wordpress drafts – 161 words (also not sure where this was going – maybe combine with above?)

Sea Ghost Love Story – [only in my head]

Devon origin story [Only in my head]

SPN Ghost Hunter Series: (Cross and/or Slash of main character in Ghost Hunter series with SPN characters/Winchesters)

Prologue Stories:  - Other monsters and hunters [only in my head - Rufus & Bobby]  - Hacking the net  [only in my head - Ash & Ellen, 2003?] - Harold’s Schooling?  - on laptop – 38 words

Part 1: Hooking Up?   - Outline and random scenes – in TT Wordpress drafts – 191 words   - Chapter 3 (Both)  – in DCE Gdocs – 598 words (1st attempt at smut)   - Chapter 4 (Morning After) – in TT Wordpress drafts – 165 words

Part 2: The Rescue [only in my head - Baby POV]

Part 3: The Impossible   - Chapter 1 – on TT Wordpress drafts – 800 words

Part 4: The Gift  [outlined only in my head]

Part 5?6?: Homecoming?   - Chapter 1 – published on Tumblr  - 968 words   - Chapter 2 – published on Tumblr – 1,471 words (Note: these may become one chapter)   - Chapters 3 – 8 – on laptop - outlined with some scenes - 1768 words

Stand Alone Short Stories (SPN fanfic):

*Shottle Bop? –  on laptop - 2837 words (roughly ½ done)

Locke Thanksgiving?  - on laptop – 1390 (roughly 1/6 to 1/8 done – Goal by Nov 2017)

*Banishing the Boggart? – in Tumblr drafts – 217 words [*possible candidate for the SPN Canon BigBang entry.]

Collaborations:

> With @lunellumcas​ – Second Skin revision – in RW Gdocs

> Thing for @hazeldomain​ – in RW Gdocs

Sam backstory – 974 words - on laptop and RW Gdocs (done)

Dean backstory – on laptop – 2188 words (1/4 needs revision)

Dean prologue event story – on laptop 1205 words  (all of which has to be scrapped and re-written) [note to self, outline/write the Abbadon & Azazael prologue story/conversation.]

Chapters 1-4 “revised” – on laptop - 12,685 words  [Goal let her see it when Chapter 5 is done, but Dean backstory and prologue event have to get themselves sorted out first.]

**************************************

OK, based on this listing, priorities are (tentatively in order):

1)  Feedback for @lunellumcas​ – on Second Skin revision – in RW Gdocs

2) Move everything not collab out of Wordpress and Tumblr drafts and  and onto my computer or RW Gdocs account.

3a) Finish an SPN short story! Either:

*Banishing the Boggart? – in Tumblr drafts – 217 words

*Shottle Bop? –  on laptop - 2837 words (roughly ½ done) 

3b) Decide on/outline a story for SPN Canon Big Bang (*see above)

4) Finish or deep outline (for That Thing - all on laptop):  - Dean backstory - the Dean prologue event story, including outline/write the Abbadon & Azazael prologue story/conversation.]

5) Finish Out of Gas – in TT Wordpress drafts – 518 words  (1/6-1/4 done) 

6) Write abstracts or outlines (500 words or less each) for:

The Promise (1998)? – in TT Wordpress drafts

RW1 – Sara? – in TT Wordpress drafts (maybe combine with above?)

Sea Ghost Love Story – [only in my head]

Devon origin story [Only in my head]

Harold’s Schooling?  - on laptop – 38 words

Why ghosts don’t hunt vampires? [only in my head - Rufus & Bobby]

Hacking the net? [only in my head - Ash & Ellen, 2003?]

Goals: I’d really like to see if I can get through Item 4 (and one post for the eekp database) by the end of March, and through the rest (plus chapter 5 of The Thing and progress on the two writing challenges) by end of April.