heidi | SPN! OMG SPN!

Who in the world planned for my copy of "John Winchester's Journal" to arrive the same day as 4.13 aired?

Who was that man?
I'd like to shake his hand!
That mesh of good things?
Made me want to SQUEE!
(All apologies to whoever wrote "Who Put The Bop In The Bop Shoo Bop Do Bop", or whatever the song is called.)

I'm putting comments about the episode behind the cut tag - and also, for those who don't want to be spoiled for the content of the book but want to read my episode review-squee, I am going to write spoilers for the book in red on a red background. Not all browsers will display it properly, and screen readers will read it all, so take care!

But here's a test to see if your browser gets it right:
The guy who wrote the Journal is the same author as one of last year's SPN Monsters books.
Highlight that and you can read the spoiler.

Oh, SHOW! You are the Kripke-est show in the WHOLE universe of SHOWS. I immediately thought of about a dozen fics that were Kripked in tone, plot, characterization, etc, especially

big_pink's Dazzleland and my own Zombie Meme Moment in which Sam has a bit of a writing sideline, which I wrote for

spn_summergen last summer.

I was re-watching Wishful Thinking this morning, and remember when Sam tells the first "victim" that he's writing a book called Supernatural? Hurrah for consistent characterization in the small things.

Speaking of small things, how about Dean's shorts?

No, really, how about them? I wonder if they will end up in clothing-cards from that trading card company, and if so, how much they will go for on eBay. If Show gets another budget cut, they really could make a million or so from just auctioning off all the garb.

I went out last night to a dinner-thing, but about an hour beforehand, UPS delivered my lovely Journal, so I managed to skim through about fifty pages before I went out, and I finished skimming it this morning. It was somewhat odd but very fascinating to watch Show last night knowing that Dean hadn't gone to kindergarten, and that Sam had missed enough school during his elementary school years that he was a year behind by seventh grade, which implies even more that Truman High was a 7-12 school, or at least 8-12. John chastises himself a bit, writing that he has a borderline-genius kid who'll be 19 when he graduates high school. The Journal also talks a bit about one-month stints in school being regular until Sam is in fifth or sixth grade, because by then Dean is old enough for John to leave them on their own for a few weeks at a stretch.

There are passages in the book about his fear for leaving the kids unprotected in classrooms, and he strongly implies that Dean went all the way through to graduation so he could be there for Sam as much as possible, to protect him from Evil Things. There's even an incident at a summer camp in Minnesota that I don't want to over-spoil, but I hope leads to fic! (No, not that kind of incident! Sam is uber-WEE!)

If you take the book as canon, it also gives firm information about when Sam told Dean and John about Stanford, when Cassie came into the picture, and when Dean got the Impala (which doesn't mesh 100% with last night's episode, but I will fanwank it so John's truck was out of commission, so he had to borrow the Impala back from Dean). It does not, however, answer whether John took Sam to Disney World when Dean was off shagging Gumby Girl whose real name I cannot remember at the moment.

Anyhow, so, back to last night's episode. It was just so perfectly adorable - and I think the fact that it meshes SO well with what so many of us have believed to be Backstory for the boys is a clear sign of consistent characterization by Show, for which they get a gold star and the best seat on the bus!

Colin Ford was beyond fantastic - he really did carry this episode and it would not have worked as well were he not as (a) adorable and (b) such a good mirror of Jared's mannerisms as he is. I hadn't been sure about Brock beforehand, mostly because he really does not look like Jensen at that age (no, I could not resist the eye candy, SORRY!) but he definitely was in good form with the mannerisms and especially in his speaking style. And I love how the jacket was still way too big on him!

So, where are the fics about Sammy's Growth Spurt in 1998 and 1999? And

yourlibrarian, Show finally gave me the last few clips that I mentally needed to finish off the vid. As soon as I get a logo-free copy, because a tag for 90210 was ALL over sam in a clip that I need...

Speaking of clips - the Previouslies last night were just WOOBIE. To look back at how slim and ickle and easily annoyed Sammy was in the early part of S1 especially, it's so fantastic to see how ~~Jared has grown and grown and grown to the point where he could easily lift a Jen *and* a Gen at the same time~~ things have changed.

And how they've stayed the same. Look at this cap:

And then think back to that absolutely iconic image of Dean leaning on the Impala in S2 (which I cannot find now) with the sun shining around him as he does that semi-turn.

Ah, cinematography - you make me smiley.

Sad!Sam, on the other hand, is such a wibbly woobie. The way he is when he gets to the classroom, compared to the way he walks down the hallway after besting Dirk - and then looking at both of those scenes through the filter of his final conversation with that teacher, where he can't say he's happy because he wants to be and he has Dean back so he thinks he should be and could be but he just isn't and it isn't because of Dean, it's because of this life and how much he wants to not be doing this when they're in their 60s because they're then doing something else and not because they're dead (again).

And Sad!Dean will never, ever admit that he is sad, or lonely, or that lost little boy who's had to figure out so many horrible things on his own, and raise his little brother because Sam is his responsibility and he will do right by him.

Maybe that's why the sections in the Journal involving Dean's reaction to Sam going to school made me ache so much when I read them this morning.

I mentioned last week that the ending I want for Show would be like

lyra_wing's American Gods-inspired fic Dust In the Wind - but an ending where they have a base - maybe in Lawrence, maybe near Bobby, maybe in Key West - and they "teach" hunters (correspondence course, via the internet - they're teachers and writers and everything this episode implied they could have been and could someday be) - that could be so lovely, too. And lead to a movie follow-up, like X-Files had.

Am I the only one who thought that the shotguns during the bus rescue scene were filled with rock-salt and the people were somewhat knocked out when the spirit left them, kind of like the disoriented kids we saw in the school?