Welcome, Fellow Gnerds!

A gnerd [pronounced, "NER-dh"] is a noun.
It is used to name someone who both reads Asimov and can fix a computer virus.

We know every line from Dr. Horrible and the subplots
and backplots of Who.

We lurk around bookshelves.

We listen to Josh Groban and Chameleon Circuit.

We are every Judith, Max and Russell.


We congregate conventions.

We are the next generation.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Supernatural tribute?

    Okay, so there is this fantastical show that is on the CW about two brothers [Sam and Dean Winchester] who hunt demons and evil creatures that lurk everywhere your parents assured you they weren't, and fight with angels and have to keep Lucifer from destroying the world because he just broke out of hell. It's in it's fifth season, and its on every Thursday night at 9p.m. Yes, I know it isn't Thursday yet, but I have missed the past six episodes of Supernatural because I work and by the time I get home, Joshua is watching some stupid sports game and has deleted the episode, so I had to get caught up. I spent almost twenty dollars on iTunes collecting them, and a week waiting for them to download [a week in which, of course, I missed yet another episode I have to now acquire]. So last night, they finished downloading, and I knew it was time for me to delve back into the world of Winchester.
    So it was while watching season 5 episode "The Real Ghostbusters," that I realized something. Supernatural rocks! Seriously, its the best show ever! What other show incorporates their fanbase and terms from wellknown fanfiction, their memorabilia, and Supernatural LARPing without loosing the theme!  [sidebar: LARPing is Live Action Role Playing...aka dressing up as a character and pretending you're them. Its totally awesome. Try it.]
    Before I rant any further, let me restate the premise of the show in slightly greater detail, but only for emphasis because I know that everyone has seen it [right?]; okay, here goes *deep breath* Two big, brawny, serious, emotionally scarred brothers with father issuesare trained by their father to be hunters and kill the wraiths that haunt you in the night [and day] after their mother dies because of one. But then the yellow-eyed demon  that killed their mother kills their father and sends him to hell, and then the brothers kill him but not before he kills Sam [the younger brother who denies his fathers ways and goes to college but is pulled back in when his girlfriend is murdered by the yellow-eyed demon] so Dean [older brother who looks up to his father and holds a grudge against Sam for leaving their father and not calling ever but really what it is is that he is jealous that Sam got all of his father's attention and never showed him the approval that Dean so longed for] sells his soul to bring back Sam, then he dies and goes to hell, and unwittingly breaks the first "seal" to set Lucifer free, but is ressurected by the angel Castiel who now is helping them find this magic gun "the Colt" [<---a legendary gun made by Samuel Colt, for real!] to kill Lucifer who has by now escaped from hell, which brings us to...*deep breath* the fifth season, currently running, where the brothers now find out that they are fighting in the last battle on the earth, fighting for the earth, and they are fighting for the angels, but the only way angels can walk on the earth is by "posessing" voluntary humans, called vessels, and that the most powerful angel of all, ArchAngel Michael, needs a very powerful vessel, and that vessel must be very specific, and that vessel just happens to be.....Dean Winchester. You think thats bad, well, Lucifer is walking the earth, but he also needs a willing vessel, and he has had to settle for a not-so-powerful vessel named Tim or Nick or something completely average, and he is breaking, so Lucifer has to convince his designated vessel to allow him in, which won't be easy because his vessel is none other than Sam Winchester. Twists like a soap opera, only clever and unexpected.
    Yeah, thats right, its epic. Twilight, you can suck it. You'll never measure up to Supernatural, so don't even try. Stephenie Meyer, your're no Eric Kripke.
   By now, I hope you're thinking to yourself, so how does a show this serious and dark [lighting-wise as well as plot-wise] manage to incorporate whole scenes of obsessed Supernatural fans, much less dedicate an entire episode to Supernatural LARPing? Well, I'll tell you how this superbly written show manages such a feat: they have a subplot about a prophet of the Lord named Chuck, who has visions about the brothers fighting in the war between the angels and demons and writes about them in a book series he calls Supernatural. Genius, isnt it?!?!
    Another sidebar: somewhere in the second season, insecure guys and hormone-crazed girls [myself included] began to form a Supernatural following, complete with convention booths at ComiCon [my dream to go...*sigh*], fanfiction, Supernatural memorabilia, and my personal favorite, Supernatural LARPfests. So, the show made this character, called Becky, who is every crazy fan rolled into one Superfan. This has enabled them to make several inferences to the Supernatural following, as the Supernatural books in the show have a serious following, and it also makes it possible to dwell on previous monsters they have fought and hear about their lives through other peoples' views, which infuriates Dean and intrigues Sam. Of course, when they do that, they are incognito because people don't know the book series is based off of real lives. They think its fiction [<---ha! Silly fools, of course the Winchesters exist! Even I know this.]
    Alright, so back to the topic at hand. The episode, "The Real Ghostbusters" centers around a Supernatural convention. The brothers get pulled there when Superfan Becky steals Chuck's phone and texts Dean that he needs to come right away, life or death situation. They show up, and come face to face with Sam and Dean impersonators, people dressed up as demons from their past, and tables full of Supernatural memorabilia, t-shirts with their catchphrases on them and junk like that [I don't own anything like that...but I want to haha]. So they find themselves caught up in a Supernatural LARPfest, where the coordinator arranges a scavenger hunt in which you have to solve a murder mystery Sam and Dean style. But of course, the background story its based on is true[ish] and its real. And the brothers are swept up in a real ghosty mystery, with several dozen versions of themselves running around and thinking that its all a game.
    HOW CLEVER IS THAT?!?! What other show do you know that makes fun of itself?? What other franchise has enough balls to throw the very fans that keep them on air to the dogs of comedy, and come out with even more love from them? Supernatural creator Eric Kripke has several followings, the Winchesters have innumerable fanbases, newcomer Castiel the gorgeous Angel rivals theirs, and even minor characters have groups. And the fact that they just embrace the fact that they're geekier than a play in Klingon written by Russell T. Davies starring Nathan Fillion and referencing Buffy every other line, makes me love them even more. No other show does that as well, and no show will ever do it better.
    So this is my homage to Supernatural, the best show ever, even better than Glee. Best thing about it? It is only going to last six seasons. Kripke made the decision before the show was even on air, making every single episode ever the more precious to fans as we are one episode closer to either world destruction or mass devastation, then we will be forced to go about our now meaningless lives after Supernatural and try and find something to fill that gigantiod void in our hearts after the final episode. Personally, Im rooting for the Supernatural movie series.



What I Learned Today:
When cooking, you can replace eggs with applesauce and still preserve whatever taste you were trying to get in the first place. 1/4 cup of applesauce replaces 1 egg.

2 comments:

jessmcfadden said...

I FINALLY FOUND YOUR BLOG!
So glad, too. You rule!!

Beth Kukuk said...

keep it coming!