All Episodes Talk: Saving People, Hunting Things

[Demented Daisy]

My reaction to Charlie's death was more about the numbers than the character herself.  I was never a Charlie fan, so the sheer fact she died meant next to nothing.  It was annoying that they did it for more manpain, but it's nothing new.

 

The other reason it annoyed me is that the show overdoses on testosterone sometimes.  IMO, of course.  5 to 1 ain't great.  

 

The final reason it annoyed me was, dammit, the Winchesters lost another ally!  The bad guys are stacking up, but they haven't been able to keep more than a couple allies at a time for years.  I miss the more ensemble-like cast.  The show is getting claustrophobic.

 

Wynterwolf, that's easy enough.  Gimme 10 minutes.  ;-)

[Demented Daisy]

Upping it to four episodes:

 

57 recurring characters

 

35 male  (61%)

22 female  (39%)

 

24 of 35 male characters dead  (69%)

15 of 22 female characters dead (68%)

 

So far, the stats hold.  Now, if I break it down to friends and foes (minus Sam and Dean; these numbers are going to be debatable but I'm doing my best):

 

14 of 16 male foes are dead  (88%)

16 of 25 male friends are dead  (64%)

 

It's tougher with the females because a lot (7, by my count) started as a foe, but became a friend -- or at least assisted the Winchesters.  I'll go with what they were right before they died.

 

4 of 5 female foes are dead  (80%)

14 of 22 female friends are dead  (64%)

 

Hmm.  Numbers are still pretty close.  Interesting.  

Edited July 20, 2015 by Demented Daisy

[Wynterwolf]

Awesome!!  Thanks DD!!  I too have never felt that there was that much disparity in who died gender-wise, just that there were a higher number of male characters on the show, and that fact alone doesn't bother me.  It gets trickier when you get into how the characters are treated, and what tropes their deaths fall into, but that's another issue.  Personally, I still have issues with Charlie's death, both for how it was done and for the fact that she was my third favorite character on the show.    

[Demented Daisy]

The second set of stats, if I switch it to 4 episodes, give us this result:

 

9 of 11 male foes dead  (82%)

15 of 24 male friends dead  (63%)

 

3 of 4 female foes dead  (75%)

12 of 18 female friends dead  (67%)

Edited July 20, 2015 by Demented Daisy

[Wynterwolf]

Heh, the percentages are staying so consistent it almost makes you wonder if someone on the show is doing the math.  

[Demented Daisy]

You know, I wondered that myself.  ;-)

[catrox14]

Thanks for that DD, I always had the sense that it was fairly even.

Edited July 21, 2015 by catrox14

[companionenvy]

I'm not surprised that the numbers came out the way they did. However, I do think that total representation matters, and if we look deeper at both the number AND type of roles women are occupying, the disparity becomes more significant. 

 

Sam, Dean, Cas, Bobby and Crowley are the big five in terms of episodes; no one else even comes close. Only Bobby is dead, and he got a lovely sendoff episode dedicated primarily to him. 

 

Next, we get Ruby (if we combine Ruby 1 and Ruby 2), with 19 episodes compared to Crowley's 50 (Crowley may well pass Bobby this season, but it hasn't happened yet). So, the most prominent woman in the show is a temptress who led Sam astray in the service of Satan. 

 

John Winchester and Kevin Tran each appear in 15 episodes (17 for John, if we include the 1970s version). While John may be a crappy father, both are "good" characters crucial to the show's mythology. 

 

Lisa Braeden and Meg (both incarnations) come in at 13. Meg is pretty sympathetic by the end, but she's still at best a reluctant ally. So, Lisa is the first woman we can unequivocally put in the "good" camp - and while she counts as a still living ally, she's more a symbol of what Dean can't have than a realized character, and her mind-wipe ending is hardly positive or empowering. The same is true of Amelia (7 eps), another living female ally, but one who never even found out about the existence of the supernatural world, a far cry from her male equivalent in Dean's season 8 story, Benny.

 

At 9 episodes, Jody Mills is the most frequently appearing, non-villainous non-regular of EITHER gender to still be living. I love Jody, but so far she's only been very lightly tied to the mythology of the show; we mostly get her in one-off episodes, and she's usually not even aware of, let alone involved in, the big season arcs. At 10 episodes, Ellen Harville is the most frequently appearing, non-villainous female to have a role in a major arc, and even there, she and Jo died pretty early in season 5 after being MIA for a long time. They never acted as consistent members of the team in the way that Bobby or even Kevin did.

 

Where women do figure prominently in arc mythologies - regardless of number of episodes they actually appear in -- tends to be as villains: Lillith, Rowena, Abbadon, Eve. The male anti-Christ turns out to be a pretty nice kid; the female "whore of Babylon" is a sinister false prophet who must be stopped (both true prophets we meet are male, and, of course, Chuck is probably God to boot).

 

There are precious few recurring characters of either gender whose endings a) are personally happy and b) have a positive effect on Sam and Dean's lives and stories. I mean, Ed and Harry are still out there, but they weren't doing too great the last time we saw them, and Dean and Sam can barely tolerate them. Linda Tran's alive, but she lost her son; that relationship is another sad memory for Sam and Dean. Claire's ending is hopeful, but she's still lost both of her parents during a highly traumatic childhood and adolescence. Hannah's alive and well, but I can't recall if Dean's even met her, and her last appearance was in a male vessel - fine in itself, but worth noting when we've never seen a previously male-bodied angel switch genders, that I recall. The jury's still out, too, on whether Hannah will still be an ally after Cas released Metatron. It is also worth noting, here that the only other significant, non-evil female angels we've seen are (if you count the reaper retcon), Anna and Tessa, both awesome characters who nonetheless end by, respectively, trying to kill Sam and Dean and becoming an angelic suicide bomber in a misguided campaign. By comparison, Gadreel, Balthazar, and Gabriel -- all villainous to grey when first introduced -- go out as heroes. 

 

That's not to say that I think the show's writers are consciously sexist, and as a rule, I'm not someone who thinks every show needs proportional representation of all races, genders and orientations. But I do think Supernatural's strikingly disparate treatment of male and female characters deserves to be called out. It is fine to have a show about two brothers searching for their dad. But when it increasingly becomes a show about two brothers, their surrogate dad, their male-bodied angel friend, and their weirdly companionable, male demon adversary, it isn't enough to just say "well, we treat all of the other characters equally," even if that were truer than it is.

[AwesomO4000]

At 9 episodes, Jody Mills is the most frequently appearing, non-villainous non-regular of EITHER gender to still be living. I love Jody, but so far she's only been very lightly tied to the mythology of the show; we mostly get her in one-off episodes, and she's usually not even aware of, let alone involved in, the big season arcs. At 10 episodes, Ellen Harville is the most frequently appearing, non-villainous female to have a role in a major arc, and even there, she and Jo died pretty early in season 5 after being MIA for a long time. They never acted as consistent members of the team in the way that Bobby or even Kevin did.

 

I disagree here. Ellen was often a source of information for the boys, and she was in on the information about Sam's powers and that they were hunting for a demon. Ellen was present at the opening of the hell gates and the death of the Yellow-Eyed Demon right along with Bobby in the season 2 finale. Later on since she and Jo were hunters, in a way they were part of the mythology, in my opinion, and in their return episode - "Good, God, Y'All" they were there in the beginning of the horsemen arc. Both Ellen and Jo had heroic plot-related deaths, arguably, in my opinion, one of the more epic sendoffs of the series in a heavily plot-related episode.

 

Hannah's alive and well, but I can't recall if Dean's even met her, and her last appearance was in a male vessel - fine in itself, but worth noting when we've never seen a previously male-bodied angel switch genders, that I recall.

 

This happened at least twice that I recall offhand. Castiel temporarily used Claire as a host, and intended to keep that body until Jimmy begged Castiel to let Claire go and re-enter him as a host instead. The second occurrence was with Raphael. After Castiel destroyed his male vessel, he later turns up in a female vessel, working with Crowley (after Castiel had betrayed Crowley).

 

As for the leads all being male, for me personally, I'm perfectly fine with that. If a woman organically fit into the main group, that's fine, but I don't think one needs to be there myself. Even though I didn't watch the show, I wouldn't expect a show like "Sex and the City" for example to insert a male into the 4 main character set just because. "Charmed" (another show I didn't watch, but know vaguely of) was about 3 female leads with male characters as only periphery supporting characters, I believe. Then there was "Xena, Warrior Princess" - a show I did watch - which was definitely female-centric (though ironically my favorite character ended up being Joxer - go figure. And as an aside, Ares was nice to look at.)

 

Jodi for me is the one female character right now that really "fits" organically into that world so far (and I ship Jodi/Sam when I'm not feeling Sastiel), and if they eventually expand her character, I can go with that, but I personally wouldn't want them to try to fit a female lead in there just because. But I'm fairly odd perhaps in that many of my favorite TV characters are male anyway - and it doesn't have much to do with looks either (as evidenced by Joxer, heh). When we all made our favorite TV character lists a few months back here (in the "Small Talk" thread I think.), I think at least 75% of my list was male characters. So maybe my opinion might be a little biased / unusual.

[Demented Daisy]

That's not to say that I think the show's writers are consciously sexist, and as a rule, I'm not someone who thinks every show needs proportional representation of all races, genders and orientations. But I do think Supernatural's strikingly disparate treatment of male and female characters deserves to be called out. It is fine to have a show about two brothers searching for their dad. But when it increasingly becomes a show about two brothers, their surrogate dad, their male-bodied angel friend, and their weirdly companionable, male demon adversary, it isn't enough to just say "well, we treat all of the other characters equally," even if that were truer than it is.

 

But it isn't strikingly disparate, it just feels that way.  That's why I did percentages, not raw numbers.  Looking at the raw numbers, I think, gives us a clue as to why it feels like more females are killed or baddies.

 

14 of 16 male foes are dead  (88%)

4 of 5 female foes are dead  (80%)

 

Can you immediately name all 16 male foes, without looking them up?  I know I can't.  But I can name all the females easily.  In both cases, almost all are dead, but since females are foes less often, their deaths make a bigger splash.  IMO, of course.  

 

We also can't ignore our own biases.  Jo and Ellen's deaths were a huge focus of that particular episode, but lots of male characters have died with little to no fanfare.  That makes an impression on the audience.  On the other side of that coin, Gabriel and Bella were in a comparable number of episodes, but Gabriel's death meant much more to the audience than Bella's.  (They also had a similar character arc -- started as a foe, but eventually became an ally.)

 

I do agree that currently, the show is primarily about 4 males and their roles in the universe.  And the only female around is a foe.  I don't know why Carver has shrunk the universe so badly; I'd love some new blood in the mix that actually sticks around.  (Who knows what the next season will bring?  Maybe Jodi and Alexis and Claire and Kate and Krissy will be in more episodes.  Gonna need a lot of people to fight the Darkness.)

 

I considered breaking down the numbers by show runner, to see if there were any trends there.  (Say, that Carver kills more women than Kripke or Gamble makes more female friends, etc.)  I don't have enough data, unfortunately, to get any real impressions.  Kripke and Gamble created plenty of characters, but Carver has shrunk the universe too much.  I may try again, eliminating the episode number qualification.  Or reduce it to 2.  Hmm.  That might give me too much Kripke data, though.  I'll do some more calculations and post what I find when I'm done.

 

Long story short, appearances, feelings, impressions, they can all be deceiving.  But numbers don't lie.  *shrug*

[mertensia]

Why does there have to be gender equality? No, seriously why?

[DittyDotDot]

Hannah's alive and well, but I can't recall if Dean's even met her, and her last appearance was in a male vessel - fine in itself, but worth noting when we've never seen a previously male-bodied angel switch genders, that I recall.

 

Raphael switched from male to female in S6.

 

TBH, I think the main reason there aren't many women on the show is because the fans are relentless on the female characters. The only female characters who are usually tolerated by the fans are older women and evil chicks and even then they're picked apart.

 

I can't think of one female character, evil or not, who has been truly embraced by the fans. Jo, Bela, Ruby, Lisa and Amelia were all reviled from their first episode and most people were meh on Ellen and Charlie. Jodi wasn't even all that well-liked, but people seem to accept her now. Cass, Bobby and Crowley were all embraced from the start and, IMO, that's the main reason they keep surviving. Bobby and Crowley were originally conceived of as one-offs and Cass was originally only supposed to be in four or five episodes in S4 and then die, but they were so well received by the fans the show decided to wrap them into the show more.

 

Personally, I have no issue with the show being male dominated. I also wouldn't mind seeing a female dominated show provided the story was interesting and the characters rich and full.

 

ETA: Didn't Dean meet Hannah in the episode where Tessa died?

Edited July 21, 2015 by DittyDotDot

[Demented Daisy]

Here are the raw numbers (all characters recurring):

 

Kripke

• 41 characters created (24 male, 17 female)
• 22 characters killed (11 male, 11 female)

 

Gamble

• 35 characters used  (22 male, 13 female)
• 17 characters created (11 male, 6 female)
• 15 characters killed (11 male, 4 female)

 

Carver

• 31 characters used (18 male, 13 female)
• 15 characters created (8 male, 7 female)
• 12 characters killed (8 male, 4 female)

 

I could break that down further, if anyone is interested (friends and foes, for instance).  In any case, make of those numbers what you will.  The only big thing I notice is that, yes, Carver has definitely shrunk the universe.  Maybe he's too concerned with cost-cutting measures.

[Wynterwolf]

  The only big thing I notice is that, yes, Carver has definitely shrunk the universe.  Maybe he's too concerned with cost-cutting measures.

 

My sense is that this is eventual plot related, you have to reach bottom in order to show things being built back up and I think the eventual endgame is going to be adding characters back and building that alliance that Carver is now talking about.  But we'll see... I was seeing the beginnings of this early in S9, but we... detoured because of the S11 pickup.  

 

On the male/female thing, I also think that there is more of a perceived impact on how the women are treated, because there are statistically significantly fewer of them (seems to be roughly 60-40), and also because historical representation (in general, not just this show) is poor.  It's the same issue that I've seen discussed related to ethnic (or any minority group) representation.  There was an interesting article I read that, using similar statistical data to what is here, showed how much more of an impact it carried to replace one traditionally non-white character with a white actor, than it did the other way around.  But dang it, I can't find it now.  So yes, I think in the limited world of this show, it is male skewing, but not to the extent that it is sometimes painted, and by itself I don't find that to be an issue, but in the larger context the show does add more to poor diversity overall.  

[7kstar]

It's rather simple, the male character's that you remember and count as major players outweigh the women during a season.

Example

Season 2

Male - Bobby, John, Dean, Sam, Ash

Female - Ellen & Jo

 

Perception is a funny thing and is a strong emotion.

 

If you count how many men are on your set you will see that men vastly outweigh the women and that is on most shows, period.

 

When they kill the women off, they do it in the stereotype and cruel matter.  Charlie's Death just adds to the fuel that has been going on for a while.  You don't have female leads on this show, although to be fair they have tried but the fandom has not supported it.

 

To be honest I'm tired of let's strip the Boys from all of the people that care about them. 

 

[companionenvy]

 

But it isn't strikingly disparate. It just feels that way.

 

For me, the feeling is what matters. The statistics you provide are important only if the claim you are refuting is "women get killed at higher rates than men." But that isn't the claim - the claim is that even once you discount Sam and Dean, women tend to be less prominent and served less well than men by the story. I still think that is true, for the reasons I mentioned earlier (I'll concede that I forgot about Raphael changing genders). The problem isn't killing a minor recurring character like Pamela; for every Pamela, there's a Frank Devreaux. The problem is having an indisputably male dominated show (fine in itself) that has plenty of sassy female villains but never seems able to let a woman of potential prominence get close to the main action for more than a few episodes before getting killed off. In all the grief about Charlie, we shouldn't forget that she was only in 7 episodes in the first place. 

 

 

Why does there have to be gender equality? No, seriously why?

 

I don't think there does. The Wire, my favorite show of all time, is overwhelmingly male, and I tend to roll my eyes at criticisms of GoT (I'll buy that the show relies too much on rape at times, but there's a pretty decent range of female characters). I also hate the habit of reflexively calling every instance of a woman's death "fridging." For me, however, even as someone who doesn't watch TV looking to call out sexism, the trend in SPN's treatment of female characters is pretty glaring.

[Omegamom]

I'm not one to call the death of every female character "fridging", but Charlie's death was a classic example of the trope. Ellen and Jo went out in a blaze of glory, fighting for something they believed in; their deaths fit the episode and were epic, and the episode fit together. Their deaths weren't stupid. Charlie's death...well...it was excruciatingly stupid, in the middle of an episode full of epic stupidity. Every one of the hero characters acted stupid and out of character, and none of the story led to Charlie's death except the last few minutes.

Gah. It still makes me angry. I wanted to do violence to the writers.

[companionenvy]

Oh, yeah Omegamom, I agree that Charlie's death fits the trope. But people complain about the "fridging" of Ellen and Jo,too, without acknowledging that in a show with male leads, EVERY supporting character's story is going to be subordinate to theirs. Bobby also died to serve the boys' development, after all. The question is whether or not the character gets a respectful send-off commensurate with their previously established character and importance to the narrative. As you say, in Charlie's case, the answer is a resounding no. 

[Demented Daisy]

And S7 couldn't quite hit the right tone a lot of the time (imo the Leviathans were OK but needed a bit more of a creepiness factor. They weren't really scary or dark enough for me. YMMV, though).

 

 

Okay, call me a weirdo (weirdo!), but I never think of SPN in terms of scary.  I associate scary with being scared for the characters.  I can't do that with SPN.

 

It's been icky and creepy and gross and angsty and frustrating, but not scary.  I'm curious to know which episodes others find scary, though.  :-)

[Omegamom]

The very beginning episodes were pretty scary to me, but then, around Faith, it changed, and I haven't found many episodes scary since then.

[rue721]

Okay, call me a weirdo (weirdo!), but I never think of SPN in terms of scary.  I associate scary with being scared for the characters.  I can't do that with SPN.

 

It's been icky and creepy and gross and angsty and frustrating, but not scary.  I'm curious to know which episodes others find scary, though.  :-)

 

To me, "scary" means that the concept itself is scary. The kind of thing that, if you think, "WHAT IF that WERE true?," gives you a shiver.

 

Faith did that to me. A faith healer sacrificing people for the sake of his "flock" was very creepy to me, because the people begging to be saved really were good, scared people (not villains or monsters) and the faith healer himself was basically just a cynic who was fine with murdering people for his own personal gain.

 

Or Provenance -- but I happne to have a ~thing~ about dolls and paintings and am very easily freaked out by the idea of them coming to life. Just thinking about it makes me shudder.

 

Houses of the Holy was scary imo because again, good people (like the dead priest) did horrible things in a misguided attempt to do good. I guess I just have a ~thing~ about that, too?

 

Thinking about it now, I think that's a theme of the show that gives it a lot of its scare factor (at least for me) -- there's always the question of whether Sam and Dean are misguided. There's always the question of whether what they're doing actually *is* right. I mean, they spend all their time killing, and they've become really great at it. What if that's a bad thing? What if John set them on a terrible, evil path, and they've stuck to it, and now it's all they know? And, that they're not actually bad people is exactly what makes the idea fo them doing bad things so frightening imo. The show has sort of veered away from that question in some ways, but in other ways, I think it's still a major theme. I mean, there was the issue of the Mark -- the Mark really did make Dean a better killer/hunter, but it also made him a worse person. Idk, I think watching the corruption of a person's soul is a pretty scary, so I think that when the show deals with that theme, it can get pretty scary. That's why I think that Repo Man was one of the scariest episodes of the series. (YMMV! I think that's a pretty unpopular opinion).

 

Anyway, that's also why I really loved Henriksen as a character. I loved how he called into question whether Sam and Dean were doing the right thing -- especially since his perspective was actually perfectly reasonable and he was clearly a good, trustworthy person in his own right.

[Commando Cody]

I don't know about scary.  I have found that the creepiest episodes didn't involve monsters.  The creepiest episodes were when the "monsters" were just people. 

[SueB]

Two words: Family Remains

 

Yes, that scared the hell outta me.

[catrox14]

The last 5 minutes of Do You Believe in Miracles scared the shit out of me. Because I didn't want to believe what it seemed they were going to do. And then to see Dean's black eyes...I was horrified and upset.

 

I can't do spiders at all so Bugs ...FUCK THAT episode. 

[Omegamom]

Yeah, Family Remains and Bugs were scary for me. And the one about the cannibal family.

There's scary as in "oh shit I'm keeping the light on all night!" and then there's scary as in "when I think about this, it's unsettling what people can do to each other" or "OMG climate change!" One is gut-level, hair-raising stuff. The other is more intellectual.

[Mick Lady]

Rue, Provenance scares the hell out of me! I so agree about dolls and paintings! Have you read about E-Bays famous haunted painting?

Edited August 18, 2015 by Mick Lady

[AwesomO4000]

I was a little disgusted at "Bugs"... because they obviously used plastic spiders! Booooo! They could've at least used fuzzy fakes, and they should've been a little squished. Spiders are actually fairly delicate. They wouldn't stand up to being squished even a little bit. Intact spiders should've crawled away after being flicked out of the towel. Sorry - bug geek moment there... it took me out of the episode for a bit.

 

But I loved that Jared picked up that tarantula so nicely.* I kinda loved him a little for that. And Sam, too. You can't really do that and not like them a little bit, in my opinion. Unless you're an amazing actor - because someone really afraid of spiders would show it and/or would never pick up a tarantula so casually. I love bugs and spiders, and even I'd be a little cautious of picking up a tarantula, so I'm guessing Sam (and Jared) are a little bit bug geek. Loved that.

 

* Unless he had his stunt double do it. If you've got sensitive skin, you shouldn't handle them in most cases, and he probably had to pick it up a few times, so I would understand if Jared had his stunt double do it for him, instead. The tarantula hairs can irritate skin in sensitive areas like the underside of an arm and leave a rash.

 

 

And rue721, I found "Repo Man" definitely creepy with the idea that the person ended up being just as scary as the demon. I was creepily fascinated by that episode for that reason. That theme fascinates me in general. Angel (the series) also explored this theme in a very creepy episode.

 

(One note though - it was actually the wife of the preacher who was the cold-blooded killer in "Faith." The blind preacher was just a pawn for her. He actually thought he was really healing people. And even creepier for me than the personal gain, she was letting them be killed also because she thought they deserved it. She found them morally inferior, so she felt justified in letting them be killed. Totally creepy and plausible, imo).

 

Probably the episode that was scariest for me, or at least the most unsettling was "The Benders." I was totally tense when they brought up that poker to Dean's face, and I felt scared for and awful for the people who were hunted. I agree though that "Provenance" was also up there. I might've been more creeped out by "Playthings," but I was too busy being amused, because hubby is so totally creeped out by dolls, I was trying not to be amused at him the entire episode.

[Mick Lady]

AwesomO4000, you know way too much about spiders! Usually I say I dislike something, and rarely say hate. Spiders? I hats, hate, hate them! If I could wipe them off the face of the earth, I would!

 

The Benders is a wonderful episode, "mans inhumanity to man" and all that, but I love Sam's question to his fellow prisoner. Something to the effect of "What do they look like? What are they?"  Shows you can never let your guard down, there are still some truly evil people in this world and they're not all actual demons.

[AwesomO4000]

AwesomO4000, you know way too much about spiders!

 

Heh, it's my job. Some people call me the spider lady. One thing I'm known for is identifying spiders. I am a secondary author on a scientific paper about brown recluse spiders in Georgia (it debunks some myths about them).

 

Hee, so no wiping spiders off the face of the earth... I'd lose half my job ; ). But seriously I do find them fascinating. And some can even be cute. (genus Phidippus for example... the "puppy" of the spider world.) I will not provide a link so that most of you here can keep your sanity.

Edited August 18, 2015 by AwesomO4000

[Mick Lady]

Heh, it's my job. Some people call me the spider lady. One thing I'm known for is identifying spiders. I am a secondary author on a scientific paper about brown recluse spiders in Georgia (it debunks some myths about them).

 

Hee, so no wiping spiders off the face of the earth... I'd lose half my job ; ). But seriously I do find them fascinating. And some can even be cute. (genus Phippidus for example... the "puppy" of the spider world.) I will not provide a link so that most of you here can keep your sanity.

 

::Looking frantically for thumbs down icon::

 

How the hell did you end up being "Spider Lady"?

 

Puppy of the spider world?! There is no such thing as a cute spider. No wonder you write such great fanfic, you're warped!

 

We have Brown Recluse spiders in Idaho, and they do bite, don't they? I've heard all sorts of stuff about them, but you're the expert. I'm going to kill myself for asking, but what about Hobo Spiders?

[AwesomO4000]

Brown recluse spiders do bite, but generally only if squashed against the skin by accident, and their bite isn't generally as bad as their reputation would suggest.

 

I wish I could tell you something about the Hobo spider, but we don't have those here in Georgia, so I don't know enough about them.

 

As for how I became a spider lady: I wanted to be an Entomologist since I was about 12 years old, so I just followed through with that. My other choice was a marine biologist... so instead snorkeling is one of my favorite hobbies.

 

And Phidippus spp. are cute because they have big eyes and fuzzy little "eyebrows." Here are two examples* I found on flickr (via googling): cute and cute and pretty, but you don't have to look - and if you do, I accept no responsibility if you are scared, disgusted, etc.

 

* It was hard to choose.

[mertensia]

I have grown to appreciate tarantulas since I've been here in Tucson. They're so darned personable. I thought it was adorable when I was heading to work one night and there was one charging past me on the sidewalk with a very determined "busy busy! Busy busy!" attitude as it charged past me. We had a baby one in the lobby of the hotel one night. There were three or four of us females standing around it admiring it and cooing how cute it was. The poor thing had its legs hunched up around its body in a "go away!" gesture. My security guard just gently ushers them into his hat and moves them some place safe.

[DittyDotDot]

While I don't want to cuddle up with them, spiders don't particularly bother me. As long as they keep to themselves, I appreciate their fly-eating ways. ;)

 

 

Okay, call me a weirdo (weirdo!), but I never think of SPN in terms of scary.  I associate scary with being scared for the characters.  I can't do that with SPN.

 

It's been icky and creepy and gross and angsty and frustrating, but not scary.  I'm curious to know which episodes others find scary, though.  :-)

 

Actually scary--curled-up-in-a-ball scary or compelled-to-rush-around-the-house-locking-all-the-doors-and-windows scary? No. They've gotten me to jump a few times in the early seasons, but nothing that forced me to turn it off and go think about kittens and ponies so I could get to sleep at night. There have been a couple more psychologically screwy ones and quite a few creepers along the way, but actually had me really scared? I can't think of one right now. I mostly think of the show as being cheesily gory anymore. Many times, I'd even say gross, but that kind of stuff doesn't actually scare me.

 

I live alone and it takes a lot to get me worked up. Otherwise I couldn't manage to live alone. There was a movie, I can't recall the name of right now, that had me creeping around my own house and locking all the doors and windows and huddling in my bed in a the tightest little ball after watching it one cold blustery winter night. Every time the house would groan from the wind or a tree branch would scrape the side of the house ran chills up my spine. Funnily, my dog at the time just calmly followed me around the house with her head cocked like I was the most unique sight.

[MYFAKETVBOYFRIEND]

Yeah, Family Remains and Bugs were scary for me. And the one about the cannibal family.

There's scary as in "oh shit I'm keeping the light on all night!" and then there's scary as in "when I think about this, it's unsettling what people can do to each other" or "OMG climate change!" One is gut-level, hair-raising stuff. The other is more intellectual.

I found The Werther Project extremely scary.   I really thought Dean might stay in Purgatory and Sam might kill himself. I thought that was one of the best  (top 5?) episodes of season 10. Well done.

[SueB]

Chances of me clicking on the spider links? Slim and NONE.  *shudders*

[Omegamom]

A bug lady! My bro is a bug guy, did his fuddy daddy thesis on parasitic wasps. The jumping spider pics are adorable! (I like spiders as long as they aren't huge wolf spiders dropping on me at night.) We have both brown and golden wolf spiders here. One of our porch spiders getting a fly:

http://yetanothersupernaturalfan.tumblr.com/post/126996852219/we-have-golden-wolf-spiders-here-thought-i-had

[catrox14]

Ugh. I can't even read most of this right now.  :(.  I just can't with spider talk. I can hardly see the word spider without getting freaked out.  I'm not saying don't but EWWWWWWW. NOPE .

 

LOL

 

Anyhoo, I forgot about Unforgiven put that in that in the freak me out because spider reasons.   Ugh fuck that for the gross factor for me. I'd rather be turned into a demon, a vampire, a shapeshifter, a werewolf, anything but that. NOPE NOPE NOPITY NOPE.

 

I mean I couldn't watch like 1/3 of the Lord of the Rings because of that fucking GIANT spider. NOOOOOOOO NO NO. Nopity

Edited August 18, 2015 by catrox14

[AwesomO4000]

Warning: More spider talk - though the spider squeamish may still wish to read the last part for some good spider avoiding advice...

 

... We have both brown and golden wolf spiders here. One of our porch spiders getting a fly:

http://yetanothersupernaturalfan.tumblr.com/post/126996852219/we-have-golden-wolf-spiders-here-thought-i-had

 

Good photo. You have a lovely orb weaver there (family Araneidae). Orb weavers are a large group, but their main characteristic is that they spin large, usually wheel shaped and vertically orientated webs. Some leave the web up, but many "eat" the web in the morning and rebuild in the same or similar location each night, generally being able to spin the web in about a 1/2 to an hour or so. I can't tell for sure, but yours is likely in the genus Araneus (see here) or Neoscona (The spotted orbweavers - see here). They like to build near porch lights in the late summer, because the insects come to the light.

 

Wolf spiders do not spin webs to catch food - they are hunting spiders. But really coolly - in my opinion - the mother's take care of the baby spiderlings when they are tiny. After hatching, the 100 or so baby spiderlings ride on their mother's back for a while. I have photos,* but for the sanity of some here, I will not post them. Here's a link to a smaller version: mommy transport.

 

* As part of my work (and hobby), I have 100s of photos that I have taken of spiders. They can be a tricky subject to photograph with regular cameras though. That's why those photos that I linked to are just amazing, in my opinion.

 

 

So helpful hint of the day: If you want to have fewer spiders on your porch or near your doors, use yellow bug bulbs in your exterior light fixtures.

[Wynterwolf]

Spiders!!!  <3333  Cute and Cute and Pretty are very cool!  And I wish I had the Porch Spider so it could help deal with my current fly problem.  :-P

[Omegamom]

Thanks for the ID!

I suggest we squash the spider talk, though. ;-)

[AwesomO4000]

Okay, back to scary movies and TV shows then. ; )...

I live alone and it takes a lot to get me worked up. Otherwise I couldn't manage to live alone. There was a movie, I can't recall the name of right now, that had me creeping around my own house and locking all the doors and windows and huddling in my bed in a the tightest little ball after watching it one cold blustery winter night. Every time the house would groan from the wind or a tree branch would scrape the side of the house ran chills up my spine. Funnily, my dog at the time just calmly followed me around the house with her head cocked like I was the most unique sight.

 

Besides The Exorcist when I was a teen and maybe parts of Aliens the first time I saw it, I only remember one movie really scaring me into close-all-of-the-windows-and-lock-all-of-the-doors territory and that was the made for TV movie The Deliberate Stranger with Mark Harmon as Ted Bundy. I watched it with my Nana in Florida on a college break, and as soon as it  was over, we both got up, and without a word, started closing all of the downstairs windows (which were never closed) and checking all of the doors. That movie scared the crap out of me. For anyone who wants a scare, I recommend it if you can find it.

[SueB]

Thanks for the ID!

I suggest we squash the spider talk, though. ;-)

Pun-tastic!

[Mick Lady]

Brown recluse spiders do bite, but generally only if squashed against the skin by accident, and their bite isn't generally as bad as their reputation would suggest.

 

I wish I could tell you something about the Hobo spider, but we don't have those here in Georgia, so I don't know enough about them.

 

As for how I became a spider lady: I wanted to be an Entomologist since I was about 12 years old, so I just followed through with that. My other choice was a marine biologist... so instead snorkeling is one of my favorite hobbies.

 

And Phidippus spp. are cute because they have big eyes and fuzzy little "eyebrows." Here are two examples* I found on flickr (via googling): cute and cute and pretty, but you don't have to look - and if you do, I accept no responsibility if you are scared, disgusted, etc.

 

* It was hard to choose.

 

I'm not looking!

 

Quick question. We have something in our yard that look like yellow jackets, but they dug a hole in the lawn! There are millions of them constantly flying in and out of the hole, and I swear they dug this thing overnight. Do you have any idea what we're dealing with?

[Omegamom]

Taking my reply to Mick Lady to Small Talk...

Edited August 19, 2015 by Omegamom

[Mick Lady]

Thanks Omegamom!

[Omegamom]

I have no idea whether this is the right place to post this...

I just rewatched "Changing Channels".

At the very beginning, a guy is killed by a "bear" in Wellington, Ohio. The sheriff seems mighty nonchalant about this, considering it's smack in the middle of flat farmland. And then he says "they live way up in the high country" to explain the "bear" attack.

Guys. The highest point in Ohio is a whopping 1,500 feet, and it's named "Campbell HILL". HILL. (I googled it, just to be sure there wasn't some odd high spot in Ohio that I didn't remember; what I remembered was that Ohio is flat, flat, flat.)

I never noticed that before...

[FlickChick]

Omegamom, back in the day when it first aired there was much laughter over at TWOP. This is what happens when the writer doesn't research his "location". :)

[catrox14]

I grew up in Colorado and every time they go there I just laugh.  I mean they do better because they can get to the BC mountains but the foliage and fauna is totally different, but at least it's closer than Ohio or say Texas...

[Omegamom]

It's not like it takes a lot of research! The entire Midwest is well-known to be flat, it's a common joke all over the US! Hell, just having a stupid-ass elementary school relief map of the US on the wall in the writer's meeting room would help!

And, yes, catrox14, all those spruce trees and oodles of undergrowth in all the shots of "Colorado"...but at least they use mountains that have evergreens.

Oh, well. It's like someone being on the Eisenhower Expressway in Chicago in a movie and suddenly they're driving on Lake Shore Drive in the very next shot. Or someone doing a car chase scene down "The Crookedest Street In The World" in San Francisco, when driving any faster than 10 mph on that street is next to impossible...

[Mick Lady]

Here are the raw numbers (all characters recurring):

 

Kripke

• 41 characters created (24 male, 17 female)
• 22 characters killed (11 male, 11 female)

 

Gamble

• 35 characters used  (22 male, 13 female)
• 17 characters created (11 male, 6 female)
• 15 characters killed (11 male, 4 female)

 

Carver

• 31 characters used (18 male, 13 female)
• 15 characters created (8 male, 7 female)
• 12 characters killed (8 male, 4 female)

 

I could break that down further, if anyone is interested (friends and foes, for instance).  In any case, make of those numbers what you will.  The only big thing I notice is that, yes, Carver has definitely shrunk the universe.  Maybe he's too concerned with cost-cutting measures.

 

Once again, I understand why you're "Demented", and thank you, you just lit a fire under  catrox . I so wanted a peaceful weekend!