Snowflake Challenge - Day 5

[dizzojay]

Day 5 - in your own space, promote a canon/talk about a part of a canon that you love. Leave a comment in this post saying that you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm going to talk about one of my favourite canons in Supernatural, which is that Dean's Impala, Baby, is a character in her own right and not just a car.

Dean always talks to and about his Baby as if she's a real person, and the fans have always viewed her as a real character and bonafide member of Team Free Will long before the show adopted that canon in Season 11 with their Baby-centric episode, 'Baby'.

I love the Baby episode, and it's one I will watch repeatedly and never get tired of. The one thing I appreciate most about that episode was that they never gave Baby a voice. You never heard her speak, she was just always there, as always, a loyal, silent stalwart support for the boys. Her being mute meant that fans could overlay their own interpretation of her thoughts and feelings.

This was important for me, because Baby is something of a fanfiction muse for me. I have a collection of almost fifty Baby-POV fics at my AO3 account, which go back almost ten years and which I know will carry on growing.

Baby speaks to me in a way that no other character does because I have been able to build her a personality.  Writing Baby fanfiction is almost like writing original fiction because I'm projecting my own interpretation of Baby's character onto a blank canvas.  

I'm almost the same age as Baby so I feel I can relate to her!

In my fics, Baby doesn't speak, just as she didn't in the episode.  She communicates with the reader entirely through internal monologue.  She's strong-willed, intelligent, and being a lady of a certain age, she has maturity and life experience and no shortage of sass. 

She loves both her boys more than life itself and is fiercely protective toward them, but won't balk at putting either of them in their place if she feels it's deserved.  She's sleek and beautiful, and she knows it.   Her love of her boys is reciprocated, particularly by Dean who spoils her and pampers her rotten.  

But what is most fun for me is that she's (and I think this is where the projection part comes in) a hopeless Dean fangirl, and a shameless 'dirty old woman'.  She isn't above breaking down deliberately on occasion so that she can get Dean under her hood and handling all her moving parts!  She has been known to have the occasional radiator blow-out as a result.

As someone who has no knowledge and even less interest in cars, it's ironic that one of my favourite canonical characters in Supernatural is a car. 

But then we all know - Baby's no ordinary car!

Comments

[gwenhwyfar1984]

Baby is awesome!

Thank you for participating!

[dizzojay]

Baby is most certainly awesome. :)

the Impala

[oldtoadwoman]

"Baby" was one of my favorite episodes. It made me so happy.

Re: the Impala

[dizzojay]

It was brilliant, wasn't it!

Re: the Impala

[oldtoadwoman]

It had such a perfect "this is the show" vibe. And that overhead shot of them sleeping in the car!

[fairyniamh]

Baby is an important part of the show and she is beautiful.

[dizzojay]

She is both of those things!

[tjs_whatnot]

Oh my gosh, I love this! I've only watched SPN up to Season 5, but I do watch occasional episodes with no understanding of the arc of the show. I'll have to check this one out because it sounds fascinating. ♥ ♥

[dizzojay]

It's a great episode - you won't regret it!

[tsuki_no_bara]

i think there's only one spn fic i read way back when that i can't find any more - steering wheels and safety belts, by silverkit on lj, which is about the car becoming a human woman. dean is delighted. sam is weirded out. she tells jo "i remember you - you had very clean shoes". it was such a cute fic and i'm so disappointed in myself that i didn't save it before silverkit purged their lj. (i remember other really good baby-centric fics but i think that's the only one i lost.) i bowed out of the show before s11, but i always loved how the fandom anthropomorphized the metallicar and gave her a personality. she was the boys' home and she loved them both, but she was always going to be dean's baby.

[dizzojay]

That sounds like a fun fic. I wrote a pic where Baby became human, but it was only a drabble!

Baby is such a major part of the show!

[why_me_why_not]

Baby is my favorite Winchester! I have a Metallicar hoodie from right after season 1.

[stellamira]

"Baby" is one of my favorite episodes, too! And I love how apparently big parts of it were filmed by hooking the car up with a couple of cameras and telling Jared and Jensen to just drive somewhere and record themselves saying their lines.

I also love how someone (I think it might have been Jared at a convention, but I'm not completely sure) said that Baby was a safe haven for the boys. Which is why Sam deliberately flees to her during the fight with Nick in "Game Night" (and honks to alert Dean).

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

It was brilliantly filmed, such an original concept. She really was home to the boys :)

[tyrsibs.livejournal.com]

I love the "Baby" episode, so much! And I've enjoyed your Baby fics, too--I hadn't thought about it this way, but I like the idea of Baby as an audience surrogate, and I love how you identify with her.

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Ah thank you! I've always imagined Baby as a character, and I really love exploring that side of her.

[cuddyclothes.livejournal.com]

This is perfect. "Baby" is one of my favorite episodes.

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Definitely!