#and do not even get me started on the leak storyline - not as egregious as last week's *hate crime* thing but shitty along the same lines

[queen-mabs-revenge]

it's the pacing thing again — like i'm not one of those ppl who has a snit fit that there's not enough football in the football show, but to totally fade in from black on 5 weeks of successful total football after the way it was presented as the hinge point to the season both on the pitch and off?

we're supposedly another month past last week's ep and yet again it feels like the characters haven't gone through a month of time. according to beards tally they're 25 matches into the season???

so like..... it should be february with them just starting the return leg but like does this look like february???

like i feel like i'm in the twilight zone whenever they've done these skips this year? this is the first season they're trying to do an entire football season and oof it's truly not working imo.

that coupled with the fact that even tho they're racing through the calendar the characters feel like they're running through jello.

8 episodes and ted's still not really confronting his depression, nate's entire character arc has been 'went on a bad date. now went on a good date' and that's supposed to be his self esteem journey?, genuinely what has happened in kjpr? honestly? shandy and barbara have been nothinged. jack - again what is the forward motion on keeley's character arc here? rebecca??? sam's throwaway one-off very special episode?? jamie honestly feels like the only character that has actually escaped the torpor, and I've got my fingers crossed for colin, but my god the pacing is just absolutely bananas.

idk man i know this season went through massive rewrites, but this is what they settled on after all that? really???

[icantgetnosapphicaction]

Okay, I have exactly 1 follower that isn't a bot so this won't be seen by anyone but I need to rant into the void for a moment.

Everyone is talking about Dean and Cas (as they should since that was a huge scene and I have A LOT of thoughts about it myself) but I really want to talk about Charlie for a minute.

Charlie is one of my all time favorite characters on Supernatural and when she was killed off I was furious. I was devastated. And I felt betrayed. I have watched Supernatural since the very first episode aired on the WB back in 2005. I was 13 years old and I had just figured out I was queer.

Supernatural has always been very important to me because I frequently use horror movies as a way to cope with my anxiety and Supernatural started as a very horror centric show. Even as it strayed away from the horror genre, it became a staple of my life as comfort TV. It wasn't always GOOD but it was always fun and I loved the characters. I loved Sam and Dean and Cas and I loved all of the guest stars. I loved Charlie. I saw a lot of myself in her.

When they killed her off, I quit the show for a long time. It was not because they killed her off. It was HOW they killed her. They killed her off in a way that completely disrespected her character. It was a totally shit episode for a lot of reasons but I'll try to mainly focus on the Charlie stuff.

So, going through the scenes in Dark Dynasty leading up to her being murdered, there's a lot of plot problems. They are holding Eldon Styne prisoner in the bunker in the stupidest way possible. They know he's got superhuman abilities and they've got him handcuffed BY ONE HAND and then they leave him completely alone in a room with the door wide open. OF COURSE he was going to escape. Was there a gas leak in the bunker that made them all dizzy and confused? Because that is the ONLY reason they should have thought that that was an acceptable way to imprison a guy who wants them all dead.

THEN he goes after Charlie and (in an extremely egregious case of Third Act Stupidity) Charlie somehow forgets that she has the option of either fighting OR running and chooses just to....stand there and get murdered? Bear in mind that just three episodes earlier in Book of the Damned, she had successfully fought off the Stynes who were trying to kill her and escaped with the Book of the Damned which is there most treasured item. Then a single Styne (with only one arm) attacks her and she can't find a way to fight him off? I vividly remember the part where she holds up a knife to try and fight him off and she's visibly terrified and her hand is shaking so badly that it doesn't even look like she's holding the knife right. SHE IS A HUNTER. SHE HAS HUNTED MONSTERS. AND SHE HAS FOUGHT OFF OTHER STYNES. PLURAL. Even if she couldn't fight him off, when she locks herself in the bathroom, THERE IS A WINDOW IN THAT BATHROOM SHE COULD HAVE CRAWLED OUT OF TO ESCAPE.

Instead, she stays hidden in the bathroom so she can email the Winchesters plot relevant stuff (when she could have just escaped and given it to them in person) and then she ends up murdered and her bloody body is shown in an extremely gratuitous shot.

So, A LOT of terrible, out of character decisions led to her death. Sam and Dean forgot how to restrain the bad guy (even though they do that every week) and Charlie forgot that she is canonically both a badass and extremely clever.

But that's not the worst part of her death. The worst part was that her death wasn't even about her. Her death was used as a plot device. Her death wasn't about her as a character in any way, it was completely centered around Dean's reaction to it. She got fridged to make Dean lose control of himself and give into the mark. There were a million different ways they could have pushed Dean over the edge and they chose to kill Charlie in a way that didn't even make any goddamn sense.

When I think about Dark Dynasty, I can't help but think about Death's Door. Bobby's death is terribly sad but that episode was so fucking good. Not only is it a great episode, but it pays tribute to a great character. We get to see directly into Bobby's mind, we get more of his backstory, we get to see his priorities and motivations first hand. We get an entire episode both ABOUT him AND from his perspective. They didn't dignify Charlie's death anything close to that beautiful send-off.

They killed her for a cheap shock.

They killed her because it was nearing the end of the season and they wanted to amp up the drama. Carver says that they story led them there. The story didn't lead them there. They had to have multiple characters act incredibly stupid for this end result to happen. They shoehorned this in because they thought it would drive up ratings.

Anyway. Eventually, I did start watching the show again and now we're coming back to last night's episode.

I was so excited to see Charlie again. God, how I fucking missed her. And she's not OUR Charlie, she's AU Charlie but I still love her. Her whole storyline coming from apocalypse world has been fascinating. I still wanted justice for Our Charlie but I was happy to see AU Charlie.

And then they killed her. Again. For shock value. Again. To motivate a male character. Again.

Everyone keeps joking about how having Cas admit to loving Dean and then immediately be taken by the Empty is a hate crime.

The real hate crime is making us watch the only long term openly queer character on this show die to provoke an emotional response from a Winchester FOR THE SECOND TIME.

The show isn't over yet and I don't believe we've seen the last of Cas. I believe we'll see more resolution involving his character. But what about Charlie? Our Charlie or AU Charlie?

Will either Charlie ever get justice?