I’ve attempted to write out this post more times than I can count at this point. It’s kinda pathetic how this is now five days after the fact and I still feel like Bambi on ice about it all.

I am sure about one thing: This is precisely the kind of episode I’m glad to have LJ for. The flail and the frustrations alike. The collective work of everyone's reactions this week have been an experience within itself. I’m going to talk about this episode in reference to a number of other people’s reactions around fandom the last couple of days, because they’ve been vast and varied, and a number of them of different sentiments I agreed with. To me, it’s the only way I can succeed in fully capture the myriad of emotions I felt about this episode this week.

( SPN - 5.10 - 'Abandon All Hope' - This time with coherency! Only five days late! Complete episode coverage this time, full of criticism and love and devastation [with link recs of fics and posts throughout fandom this week] )

And so I’m holding myself to this. This vid I started on the fly Thursday morning is TOTALLY getting finished before the end of winter hiatus. Stop laughing, I’M SERIOUS. Besides vidding kickass women source is totally therapeutic, even if it's totally depressing how little of it there is.

Any chance anyone might want to gab about tightening a vid storyboard structure this week? I’m totally fixated on this meta slant for it, but I think I’d benefit by talking it through with someone before I go any further with it than I already have. I’ve got only a very very rough first draft laid and a loose narrative structure at the moment, but I’ve got weeks of paring and tweeking and tightening ahead of me. I always hate this part. :/

The last week I've been drowning in grad apps, but I've been following along, and realized today, I haven't posted all week! Let's do some numbers! Top five topics of the week, and some recs for everyone today!

1) Ah, the issues of SPN 5.09. I'm glad so many people were able to enjoy an episode that on many levels should have been disastrous. But I'm also glad so many people had problems with it and voiced them, because it was so nice to get to the bottom of what was bothering me. Particularly sistermagpie's Girls Don't Get It post, paired with dotfic's post, gets to the heart of why the treatment of gender in 5.09 was so aggravating. I’m sure it wasn’t intended. In fact, I’m positive they didn’t once think about it. And that’s probably the worst part about it. Thankfully, this fic Mistaken for Strangers by bellatemple is like balm to my SOUL in wake of the episode. As counteragent said: 'That's the way meta-fan-interaction should be DONE.' Who said fic can't fix everything?

2) FNL: ( Spoilers for last nights episode )

3) I went away from the internets for a few days last week and ACKLES GOES AND GETS ENGAGED ON ME! It's times like these when you can find out just how sane your flist is and you guys proved to be absolutely the sanest. Of course, my first reaction was, 'FINALLY!' *g* But those two really are adorable and for both of their sakes I hope it can last. [Though I had to say, HORSE RACING, ACKLES? REALLY? Did you really have to go there? :(( Get educated, Ackles. Your co-star, animal lover that he is, would totally back me up on this.] As for how it affects J2 and RPS, I thought destina summed it up pretty well.

4) 5.10 SPN Promo - I broke down and watched it to see what all the ahoolaboolo was about. ( Promo Spoilers for tonight's SPN ep... )

5) It's been a while since I've done a links post! I've accumulated a whole host of links lately. Assortment of fic recs and articles:

- ARTICLE: Maureen Ryan At The Chicago Con An excellent "reporter's view" of a SPN con. She quickly gets to the heart of the cons themselves, getting to meet other fans and discuss the show. And she included acafans! Kripke should have paid her to get the con lowdown! Overall a very interesting read, it's neat to hear an outsider talk about fandom in a way that gets it.

- FIC: Four Times Becky Called Chuck, and One Time He Called Her by longsuffingly - AHAHAHA THIS IS PERFECT. Takes place between 5.01 and 5.09, chronicling how the con got organized in the first place.

- FIC: Not To Mention The First Son [J2 AU, 30K] by dev_earl - Lovely, totally endearing J2 AU fic, with an EPIC premise and plenty of satisfying and heartwarming moments to make for a ridiculously enjoyable read that will leave a huge smile on your face. GUARANTEED!

- FIC: The Failsafe Way to Getting Your Ex Back [FNL, Landry/Julie] YES, you read that right, I am a TOTAL HERETIC for loving this, but I kinda don't care. Just read it! You won't be disappointed!

- ARTICLE: Why Is Joss Whedon On My Shirt?

"..the one thing that separates him from all other writers and contributors of pop culture: Joss Whedon knows that life really sucks." | "No matter who you are, life is unrelentingly hard and filled with horrible, endless pain, but the moments and memories of happiness you can find in it make it all worth while. This very simple, universal idea is the crux of everything Joss writes and it is what makes his work so meaningful & endearing to his fervent fans. His characters are always in pain, anxious, fed up, scared, uncertain, and worried about the future, but they press on." | "There are a lot of writers that can tell you how shitty life is, but Joss also shows us hope and the merit of pushing on through all the crap, it's what we are made to do. There are still friends, & family, & joy, & laughter, & love, & it's all worth fighting for [despite all the pain]." "He expresses the painful reality of life in an earnest, non-condescending, and inspirational way that resonates with me"

- antarticlust: Feminism & Pre-Code Hollywood - Really neat glimpse at how ground-breaking Hollywood started off before the Code was instated.

- META: Philosophy & Discourse of Free Will in SPN

"And that brings me to another thing that I really love about Supernatural: it couples free will with knowledge. It states (correctly) that in order for free will to work you have to have some knowledge of what is going on." "I’ve always believed that it is more important to teach people how to think rather than what to think. " "Granted, our lives rarely (fortunately) have such grand, obvious examples of free will. We rarely get to make grand stands for life and right and good. But I think that all of us, somewhere deep down, want to be able to make that choice. To fight a worthy battle, to choose our own path and to say, “If there is anything worth dying for... this is it.” After all, it’s our choices that makes us truly alive, isn’t it?"

- PICSPAM: 'You Jump, I Jump Jack' [Gilmore Girls] Most of you know my annoyance with Assface, but I will always adore the use of that scarf with that dress there. The boy did have taste, I will give him that.

I leave you with a favorite feelgood vid of the moment. This was made back in July (by secretlytodream, but it packs four years of hurt and love all together in 4 minutes that's still oh so very relevant even now. And given how much of a dousy we're probably in for tonight, I'm thinking we'll all be in need of some heartwarmingness...


Find more videos like this on BAM Vid Vault


It's the last WINCHESTER DAY of the year, guys! I'm kinda sad!

( SPN - 5.09 - The Real Ghostbusters )

Community was AAAAAMMMMAAZZZINGGG yet again. I keep waiting for this show to suddenly not be funny anymore, and they KEEP DELIVERING ANYWAY! And Bones was just all smiles and happy sighs. Gordon Gordon episodes are always my absolute FAVORITE, and this one did not disappoint!

So, apparently I’ve been out of school for too long and had the urge to write a paper? Who knows…

This thing got ridiculously massive very quickly, I blame it all on Serge Ladouceur for making me all thinky. I want my brain back, Serge!

I recognize whenever we start talking about colors we pass into nebulous territory, so you can take this all with the grain of salt it is. But the usage of colors red and blue by production design and cinematography in Supernatural have had me curious for years. And this season, with an increased prominence of these two colors together consciously placed within the same shot, finally made me organize my thoughts in one place. Includes picspam evidence from the first eight episodes, some background on the colors of red and blue, and my own interpretation of its meaning.





( META PICSPAM: 'The Balance of Red & Blue' - Color Symbolism in context of Fate & Free Will in SPN S5 )

Whew! That was kinda exhausting. NEW WINCHESTERS TONIGHT!

Hey, did LJ get rid of their old scheme last week? You know, the one with the vertical dark blue bar on the left with white letters? And the orange and purple and blue header? That WAS LJ for me, and I’m totally distraught without it! I’m guessing there’s no chance I can ever get that back now, is there?

IT’S WINCHESTER DAY AGAIN! Let’s do some numbers for today, shall we? Links, recs, and random TV thoughts from the last couple weeks!

1) *CUE HIGH-PITCHED DOG-LEVEL NOISES & FLAILY HANDS* (Title Spoilers for SPN 5.12)

2) VID: 'Sunburn' by obsessive24 - What an AMAZING example of how powerful vidding can be at taking unsatisfactory source and making it into a piece that truly says something. You all know how much Twilight makes me want to shove red hot pokers in my eyes, but this just blows its main problems wide open and exposes it for all it's worth.

3) VID: 'Crazy Love' [J2] 'I don't know about the love, but I certainty can confirm the crazy'. SO HAPPY IT WILL BREAK YOUR FACE FROM SMILING SO HARD. Guaranteed to brighten your day and warm your heart anytime. Mostly I just love how she takes this schoomptastic song and puts a sorta ironic, irreverent spin on it all with the boys run around being insane five year olds with silly faces, stupid pranks, vamp teeth and nonstop giggling. I COULD WATCH IT ALL DAY.

4) Parody: Stupornatural [YT] BWHAHAHAHHAHA! I’ve been seeing this around the last couple weeks and didn’t know what people were talking about. This is HYSTERICAL. Totally low-budget parody, but quite well-done script-wise, making fun of the show but with definite fannish love that makes it just RIGHT ON and had me in fits of laughter several times in its short 10 minutes.

5) FNL! ( Spoilers for first two episodes... )

6) White Collar: ( Broke down and watched the first two eps... )

7) PICSPAM: SPN is the New Buffy? Errr. I have reservations comparing them past superficial means, because they are such very different shows to me. But the post does make for some pretty Buffy and SPN picspam!

8) For the first time in AGES, I finally posted a new SPN vid last week. Thanks to everyone who took a look and commented! I’m really interested in how it worked for the viewer (and where it didn't), so they're all ridiculously appreciated! [And if you haven't taken a look yet and have some spare time to give some concrit, I'd really adore you for it! XD]

WHEE!!! WINCHESTERS TONIGHT!! I'm sorta ridiculously excited for the sitcomic part of this episode! Especially those reportly hysterical credits?? I might just DIE of laughter.

Oh, LJ, I am so behind on you again. Just some quick and brief thoughts this week...

( SPN - 5.07 - 'The Curious Case of...Ugh, Kripke you did not just name this episode after a Brad Pitt film )

*runs off to catch up on the flist*

Oh, man, there are no words for how fulfilling it is to finally finish a vid whose song has been staring at you on your ‘to vid’ play list for years...

‘BLACKBIRD‘
Sam Winchester in Season Four
Song/Artist: ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles (both original and Across The Universe) versions
Vidder: zimshan
Show/Character: Supernatural/Sam Winchester
Length: 2:29
Summary: Into the light of a dark black night, you were only waiting for this moment to be free
Links: MPEG (640x320) (29 MB) | AVI (640x320) (26 MB) | BAM Vid Vault (Streaming)
Disclaimer: All clips property of Eric Kripke, WB & The CW. I claim no ownership of anything in this vid other than the editing I have done myself.


Find more videos like this on BAM Vid Vault


Special thanks to dev_earl for taking a last minute look at this and helping me frame the vid‘s overall tone!

( QUICK NOTES )

( LYRICS )

Comments are like cake and cookies with frosting on top. :)

8:48AM and the BUZZWHAAA???? Moment of the Day goes to...

NYTIMES: Vatican Bidding To Get Anglicans To Join Its Fold

I stared at that for five minutes thinking I was reading it wrong. I thought the absolute nuttiness of this was best summed up by this statement:

“I don’t want to be a Roman Catholic,” said Bishop Minns. “There was a Reformation, you remember.”

---

One nice thing about a small SPN hiatus? I have time for all that other TV!

So, first, I finally caught up with Dollhouse.

I didn't get to talk much about this show last season. Mostly because it's really a show that I have to take in big chunks sparingly. Because to be honest, most of it is kinda hard to take. Actually, kinda is an understatement.

Anyway, once I got home, it was all about download issues since my bandwidth limits are not nearly as nice as they were to me at college. :(

But I just so happened to catch my internet a couple days ago at a point where Hulu would ACTUALLY work (seriously, most of the time Hulu does not even work on this internet connection, wtf?) while it was on the last five episodes that I had missed.

And I remembered all over again why I can so concurrently hate and love this show as much as I do. ( Some Dollhouse musings (general thoughts from S1 and S2 so far)... )

( SPN - 5.06 - 'I Believe The Children Are Our Future' - First post and with sane, coherent thoughts! GASP, SHOCKER, I KNOW! )

Anyone who's yet to see killabeez's new Sam and Dean vid, 'Little Lion Man', make sure you fix that right now! Really, you won't be sorry. :)

I completely epically failed at catching any other Thursday night shows last night. That's what the weekend is for!

Ha, and look at this. By the time I've actually gotten over my squee from 5.05 to post some sort of coherent thoughts, it's Thursday again already. Who's sick of 5.05 posts yet?

( SPN - 5.05 - 'Fallen Idols' - Brief thoughts about the rest of the episode... )

I still have so much other tv to get to. Bones has been its normal enjoyable self but nothing to scream home about so far. Community just keeps getting more insanely hysterical every week, Shirley is a riot and her and Jeff in their gossip mode last week had me crying in laughter, as was Professor Duncan and his Duncan Principle gone wrong. Those who aren’t watching this show yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!? I’m even enjoying Parks & Recreation! Amy Poehler’s character cracks me up and makes me sad all at once, because you kinda just can’t help but think she was made for something more than this, an overachiever stuck in a place of mundane work surrounded by underachievers. She‘s kinda like the flip of Michael Scott like that, who’s incompetence sometimes makes you wonder how the heck he got his job in the first place. Speaking of which, The Office wedding was all SPARKLY AMOUNTS OF AWESOME last week, which hellopoe commemorated in picspam HERE. Castle continues to make me giggle with glee that Fillion as a vehicle made so perfectly for him. I haven’t seen past the Fringe premiere yet. And i've been having downloading issues, so I still have Dollhouse to catch up on. UGH, TOO MANY SHOWS!!! TV, why you gotta be so awesome right now?!? And FNL hasn’t even started up yet! *facepalm*

My posting has reached spamming levels of annoyance this past week, I know but...

*waves flaily hands*

*incoherent high-pitched dog noises*

*points, jumping up and down*

VID: 'Little Lion Man' [SPN, Dean & Sam] by killabeez

THIS! THIS! Um, THIS!! YES! ALL OF IT! OH, BOYSSSSS. *clutches heart*

Really guys, I know I can rec a lot of vids but this one, even without the meta, just the atmosphere it creates is just...MESMERIZING.

*runs back to rewatch a zillion more times in awe*

I’ve been pretty absent for most of the last year, so I didn’t experience a whole lot of the SPN fandom craziness during season four, but I’ve been around fandoms long enough to imagine pretty well how it’s gone.

But the state of fandom even along the fringes as of late has had me all thinky about where I stand, and I came to the conclusion that a post like this was needed. Because it’s been too long since I’ve said all this. So in the spirit of clearing the air, a more up-to-date blanket statement for my own stance and journal...

( A Statement of Fannish Intent for 2009: Where myself and this journal stands currently regarding SPN )

---

I have one INSTA!FIC-REC to share this morning:
FIC: 'A Feast for Two at the Turquoise Dragon' [Sam, Cas]
This idea is TOTALLY personal canon to me now! How did Cas spend his time until his appointment with Dean in 5.04, you ask? Well, a theological and philosophical discussion with Sam on fate and free will at a Chinese restaurant at 5 in the morning, of course! And until I hear otherwise, no one is gonna tell me any differently. ;) But Kripke, you can still make it happen at any time and point this season.

There are so many other things I should be working on right now. Not to mention how behind I am on comments lately. This is the pretty much the last thing in the world I should have spent my time on. *facepalm*

So, the other day I said to myself, ‘Self, you must do something about this intense lack of 5.04 ending icons in your possession‘. But I was way too lazy to go hunting around icon journals and kinda fell in love with the coloring I achieved in the ending panel of my picspam last week. So, because I had zero confidence I could replicate that coloring, and because of the aforementioned laziness, I just cropped it directly from the panel. And then suddenly discovered all the fun that could be had cropping icons out of a panel of picspam! Hence a half an hour later, I was staring at 67 cropped pieces. And why I’m posting half of those in the first icon post I've done in...centuries. Figured someone might want to reap the benefits of my nuttiness! :)

PREVIEW:


( ICON POST: Supernatural 5.04 End Scene )

You know the drill:
- comment if you are taking
- credit zimshan
- textless icons are not bases
- no hotlinking

Hope you can enjoy! :D

119 icons and not one of them can adequately express my face right now...

( Quick SPN 5.05 Reaction - There is a time and a place for coherency. This is not that time. )

For television, the cinematographic work on Supernatural has been quite consistently precise and meaningful over the years. But in the case of such an important episode of the series as 'The End', the lighting and shot composition work (done by Serge Ladouceur with this week’s director, Steve Boyum) held an especially prominent position. While naturally easy to discount, the work here was essential to the success of the episode while also lending a richer meaning to the text itself. Since I had some extra time this week, I couldn’t help but highlight a few moments that left me absolutely delighted to see. ;)






( 'There is a Reason to Hope': The Cinematographic Use of Lighting & Shot Composition in SPN 5.04 [PICSPAM & META] )

---

Also, a quick INSTA!FIC-REC! This takes a stab at two scenes missing from 5.04 and ties them together so masterfully it's immediately personal canon for me:

FIC: No Love Greater Than This [Dean, Sam, Lucifer, spoilers up to 5.04]
( Just a bit of commentary, but I'm cutting because I'm nice... )

And, a HAPPY WINCHESTER DAY to all! Otherwise known as the TV Day that Broke the TV Viewers Backs. I'm actually kinda hoping this show won't break my brain quite so horribly the next couple weeks and I'll have some time to watch and talk about some other shows soon. We got our hope, now where's that fun apocalypse, Kripke?

Want to know the most devastating fact EVER about 5.03?

Curious about Dean's 'rusty' line at the end of 5.04, muridae_x investigated on the timeline for Season Five so far. My heart bottomed out at seeing the canonical date of 5.03. Just go look!

( Cutting in case someone hasn't caught up yet, because I'm nice like that... )

Tell me that fact doesn't do convulsions on your heart?

I've gotten so behind in the last year, but I just friended a couple people that I've been meaning to friend for AGES now, so if you're here now wondering who this random girl is who just friended you, HIIIII!! I've added you because your posts were just so awesome, I couldn't think of living without them. Or I've been running into you for so long, it's silly not to. Most likely, it's BOTH. :)

Please, don't feel obligated to friend me back, I know we all have our flist sizes we need to maintain, so don't think I'll hold it against you if you don't. ;)

---

Ever write something and a day later reread it and think, 'WHAA? Really? I wrote that?' I went back and reread my 5.04 post after rewatching with The Sis and surprised MYSELF at how harsh I was on the episode and Dean, which really was kinda ridiculous considering on rewatch this episode has single-handedly renewed my faith and love of Dean Winchester and the show ALL OVER AGAIN. It indicated SUCH a MAJOR shift from the darkness the show has been drudging through, and while I noted it mentally, I don't think it really *hit* me until later. Because, I can be really thick like that sometimes. I mean, HI, HALF THE EPISODE was shit I've been BEGGING FOR all summer for this season. WHAT MORE DID I WANT? What is it that makes an episode not work as well for you under a gut reaction, but subsequent viewings make you love it to ridiculous proportions anyway? Of course, finally having the nice pretty AVI HD version now probably has something to do with it, because now all I'm thinking is HOW THE HELL WAS I UNDERWHELMED the first time? Did I really call perhaps the most satisfying episode of the series UNSATISFYING? Rewatches have made me love this thing to an EXCESSIVE DEGREE.

One look at this cap, makes me think, I CHANGE MY MIND ON SATISFYING. THIS WAS ALL I EVER NEEDED:





I'm never gonna get tired of seeing that.

But the details of an episode always ends up determining my long-term love for it. And this one had it in SPADES. The amount of epic thought going on in the background level VISUALLY with the camera movement, sets, colors and lighting was just MASTERFUL. There have been some great meta posts this week pointing a bunch of these out, and along with a bunch of other posts of fabulous FISTPUMPrie that have made this episode just that much better to me. So...

( MY TOP FIVE FAVORITE THINGS WRITTEN ABOUT THIS EPISODE THIS WEEK: )

There were a couple of especially awesome things going on with the lighting in this episode that I'd love to touch on at some point, though I've fallen so out of my cinematography speak and picspam skills this past year, who knows when I'll get it up. But this episode, I AM DYING watching this thing at how ridiculous the DP mojo was. KEEP UP THE AWESOME SAUCE, SERGE!

For the record, Community is the most delightfully hysterical and randomly silly comedy I've seen in ages. Rolling on the floor with laughter, my sides hurt so hard.

Also FOX is ridiculous if they think those pathetic one-second promos are ever going to make someone want to watch Dollhouse.

And I can hardly even touch the whole Roman Polanski shit, it has me seeing such red, but I'll just say, Salon.com's article? Is DEAD ON. And really the only thing that truly matters in all of this.

( SPN - 5.04 - 'The End' aka IT'S ALL UPHILL FROM HERE! )

Also, weekly THURSDAY Weekend Updates? Is quickly turning out to be NBC's BEST NEW IDEA. I'm finding them way funnier than regular SNL right now. THIS SKIT LAST WEEK? The Sis and I literally FELL OFF THE COUCH laughing so hard at one point. THERE WERE TEARS STREAMING DOWN MY FACE. STREAMING DOWN MY FACE, I LAUGHED SO HARD.


Keep politics classy, Meyers!

THURSDAY? HOW IS IT THURSDAY AGAIN? These weeks just keep going by WAYYYY too fast. I still never finished LAST WEEK'S Thursday shows. Two weeks in, and I'm already behind. *facepalm* Blame SPN, everyone. It is an evil evil timewaster that has totally consumed my brain.

Case in point! Today's link post? All SPN. I've got links! Old vid recs! Fic recs! I’ve got plotty SPN questions that just won't leave me alone. And I’ve got some meta thoughts I’m trying to hammer out.

( SPN Myth-Arc Questions of the Moment [spoilers up to 5x03] )

( Hammering out some SPN Meta-y musings )

I’ve got so many vid bunnies suddenly popping up in my head for this year, and I am ridiculously anxious for more new s5 source to start working with. But I was revisiting some old S4 vids and restumbled on this one that I remembered I’d never shared…

VID: ‘Above and Below’ [SPN S4]
'Cause living makes me feel ashamed," (or, Sam and Dean's amazingly similar S4 storylines)
THIS VID, GUYS. I wanted to rec this way back when I first saw it months ago, but if you’ve yet to see it, don’t walk, RUN to watch this puppy. I’m not sure how it works for everyone, but for me, this really just quite simply *IS* my S4. That was what I saw. I had all these plans to vid this summer to satisfy this incredible need to showcase all the mirroring of the boys in S4 and then she did that vid, and suddenly I didn’t feel the need to do mine anymore. Just SPOT-ON with all the parallels she packed in, and edited with a finesse that makes me incredibly thankful she did this when she did. The absolute EPICNESS called for more than I’d ever have been able to give, but she was just the person to tackle this. This is a kind of vid that makes the whole season worth it. Without a doubt, one of the top vids of S4 for me. [VID ANALYSIS HERE]

And while I’m at it, the ‘Low Red Moon’ of S4 needs some reccing as well:
VID: ‘A Charming Man‘ [Castiel, S4]
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them
NOW THIS IS A CASTIEL VID. JEEZE. I’ll admit that on a normal day, I kinda get bored with most of fandom's interpretation of Cas, but THIS VID. OH MAN IS IT BRILLIANT AND PERFECT AND JUST PLAIN AWESOME. It easily jets to the top of my SPN vid list, imo. Just excellent work. Totally adds so much to the character and the season. Just as only the best vids can do.

And I have a fic rec! I know, how often does THAT happen?! So you know how perfectly this fic really is for me to be reccing it. This is absolutely insta-personal-canon for me.

FIC: Unafraid [5.02 Dean Coda]
That the fear of what might happen is always worse that what actually happens—if only because being on the other side means you don’t have to be scared of what’s coming any more.
The most perfect Dean POV that captures the root of Dean's fears last year expertly. Not just for Sam and what he could become. But that he would lose Sam, and therefore his identity that he has forever attached to their relationship itself.

And speaking of fear, I ADORE this comment that was in missyjack‘s Redemption Meta a couple weeks back that‘s becoming more and more salient with time this season:

"[The idea] that love casts out all fear, and once fear is gone, there is no hate and thus leaves your enemy powerless."

I kinda don’t care how schmaltzy that is, after these last traumatic four years, I kinda NEED that to become canon. Of course, looking at how the season’s gone so far, there’s a pretty good chance that’s where we’re headed. *crosses fingers ferociously for tonight*

Hi bright shining morning. Except for how it's actually rainy and ugly and gross out. But hey, I'm good now! REALLY! I've only almost-hyperventilated, like, twice this morning. I might be just a smidge overly invested at this point. What do you think? XD

So let's talk about the ACTUAL episode this time, eh?

( SPN - 5.03 - 'Free To Be You & Me' - For real this time... )

Using this icon to cheer me up. I need to see everyone cheered up already.

Haven't seen the promo yet. No spoiling anyone. :D

Isn't it funny how I thought last week's was bad? HA..HA..HA....ha.

( SPN - 5.03 - CAUSE OF DEATH: SAM WINCHESTER [That last scene] )

IT'S WINCHESTER DAY AGAIN! How are the weeks really going by this fast? JEEZE. I swear it was just yesterday I said 'UGH, SHOW, I CAN'T TAKE YOU ANYMORE, YOU AND I NEED A BREAK', and now I'm all, 'Whee!! New ep!' I'm so highly predictable.

There's been so much awesome stuff posted lately, and I just must keep track of them all.

So, for this bright shining morning? Here, have a pile of links!

**NEWS: Supernatural S4 DVDs 3rd Best-Seller in Sci-Fi Currently, Expected 450K by Christmas

**PICSPAM: The Colors of Buffy
Really cool picspam exercise of arranging all the best caps of Buffy by colors

**PICSPAM: SPN Photo Shoots Collage
I THINK MY JAW DETACHED FROM MY SKULL FROM ALL THE PRETTY. GODDDD. This is GORGEOUS, and totally awesomely artsy, arranged in a collage-way that makes this the EPIC picspam that it is.

**PICSPAM: 'Your Face'll Get Stuck That Way' [EPIC J2 FACES PICSPAM]
THIS MAY BE MY FAVORITE THING OF THE YEAR! Sure to bring a goofy smile to your face for HOURS at a time.

**PICSPAM: SPN 5.02 - Gorgeous and artsy!

**PICSPAM: Fringe S1
The show sure is pretty! But _jems_'s makes it look even prettier in this picspam.

**VIDLET: 'I Am The Prophet Chuck'
If Prophet Chuck had his own movie? This would be the trailer. Hysterical.

**VIDLET: 'Bookends' [Dean, Sam]
Simple, small, understated, but totally perfect after 5.02's ending. Bring the tissues.

**META: Bardicvoice on 5.02 - bardicvoice had a fabulous review for this episode as always, but this section I ADORED for all the introspection it provided on Dean and Sam's their own personal breakthroughs in this episode as well the larger scope of the show's narrative regarding humanity:

Dean’s had his own similar epiphanies about the scary things at his core, about how far he’ll go and what he can become. He expressed it first in Devil’s Trap, after having killed first Meg and then her demon brother’s human host: "Killing that guy, killing Meg – I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just, uh – it scares me, sometimes." Later, after selling his soul to Hell, it got much, much worse: "I enjoyed it, Sam. They took me off the rack and I tortured souls and I liked it. All those years, all that pain, finally getting to deal some out yourself – I didn’t care who they put in front of me. Because that pain I felt? It just slipped away. No matter how many people I save, I can’t change that." His warning to Castiel in On The Head Of A Pin that if they sent him in to torture Alastair, they wouldn’t like what came back out was his acknowledgment that, given the right circumstances, he could again become as much of a monster as any demon, simply by giving in to the ugly human weaknesses he’s done so much to bury again.

However, where Dean has had to face his own inner demons for a long time and acknowledge that they were always a part of him, Sam up to this point had only ever seen his darkness as something apart from himself, something alien that wasn’t really a part of him. He saw it instead as what Azazel had done to him in feeding him demon blood, and as what could come out of that if the demon blood took him over. There was no acknowledgment that his own human drives and needs, his own human personality, could make him, like Dean, as dark as any demon simply through his own choices. This is a new thing for Sam to confront. It’s part of what any addict has to face and work though as well: that it’s not the drugs or the alcohol that makes the addict, but the human drivers and needs within.

Even as Sam said it, he clearly expected Dean to react the way he always had in the past, to fight to reassure Sam that things would be all right and to keep Sam by his side...Dean allowing Sam to go off on his own and admitting that worrying about Sam was impeding his own duty as a hunter was a measure of just how far Dean has grown. Sam is still the single most important person in his life – witness how reluctant he was to take off the amulet, the symbol of Sam’s love he’s worn since Sam gave it to him when they were 8 and 12, and loan it to Castiel – but his eventual willingness to relinquish the amulet serves to show, I think, that he’s no longer defining himself and his own worth purely on his relationship to Sam, and that he can choose to put duty to a greater good ahead of his personal desires. His hard-fought, painful choice not to rush off immediately to Sam’s rescue but to formulate a plan for all the survivors shows how much he has grown as a leader and an independent man.

Sure, it makes me cry BUCKETFULS OF TEARS but I DO ADORE IT.

**VID: 'So In Love With The Wrong World' [Bela] - proofpudding
THIS IS BELA VID I HAVE WAITED YEARS TO FINALLY GET. I have searched for so long to find a song right to do a proper vid that gave her justice, and damn if I could find it. But of course I'm thrilled beyond belief that proofpudding found it instead, because WHEW. What a packed little vid. In her comparison to Dean, she captured her beautifully, as this flawed, fucked up, but vulnerable and plagued woman in a way that the show never fully cashed in on itself. It makes me sad all over again that we lost this character and all her potential so quickly.

And my favorite creation of the week, one that is solely responsible for providing the solace I needed to watch this episode tonight:

**VID: 'Don't Fight It' [Sam's Story] - by mrscutedean

Such a favorite feel-good vid of the moment. Can I call this a feel-good? It's Sam's story at this point so it's of course very hurty but done with an empathy that's so palpable it swells your heart ten sizes, all with a song that's rich and awesome and I just can't stop playing it. UGHHH, SAM WINCHESTER MURDERS MEEEE. *checks clock* Eleven hours and counting...