After musing on the subject, I have come to a Very Important Conclusion.

Ensemble shows are like poker hands.

Most of the time, you have one or two cards that aren't so good. Maybe you shuffle things around, hide the bad cards in back, and the hand looks a little stronger. If you're not too good at the game, you stick with what you have and your wimpy hand gets its ass kicked, or you fold. Maybe you ditch the weak cards and pick up a replacement or two. Sometimes that works out well (NCIS), sometimes not (SG-1). Sometimes you ditch a card that you REALLY wish you hadn't (House, from what I've heard).

And then there are the hands that you pick up and everything is lined up perfectly: four of a kind, royal flush, full house, straight. Shows like Firefly, Criminal Minds, The West Wing, Bones, Sports Night. What's *really* impressive is when they manage to replace a member of one of those casts and make it even better - kinda like dropping a card from a full house to draw four of a kind.

I have no real deep thoughts here. Except that I am debating whether to get a paid account because I crave icons, or see if anyone has Dreamwidth invite codes.

(The secretly funny thing about this post is that I don't even play poker. But bridge is not exactly metaphorically rich.)

It's always terribly disconcerting to find that favorite fictional characters are younger than you.

For instance, Elizabeth Bennett was 20 in Pride and Prejudice. Miles Vorkosigan was 23 in Brothers in Arms when he managed to talk his clone out of 17 years of assassin training (bless his heart). Veronica Mars was 16/17 when her best friend was murdered, Aang is 12 and expected to save the world in less than a year with almost no training, Smallville's Clark Kent started out as a 14 year-old who just found out he was a super-powered alien, reboot Jim Kirk is barely 25 and captain of a starship with hundreds of people in his care, Buffy was 16 and knew she was going to die, Harry Potter willingly sacrifices himself at 17.

When you're a teenager, all this seems quite natural and fun, and it's often not unbelievable as an adult, but it takes on certain wistful, heartbreaking aspect when you're 22 and comparing life stories.

inmyriadbits posted a great bit of meta about the influences of the Western genre on Supernatural. I helped out with some of the background, but she did all the hard thinky stuff herself. Go read! (no spoilers for S3)

Dean & Sam = Calvin & Hobbes: Y/N?

( Supporting evidence )

Dude, now I want fic where Dean eats Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs and drives John up the wall....