#john special interest

[shallowseeker]

The ghostly specter of John's hopes and dreams in SPN 1x01:

Above Baby Sam's crib, we see John's symbolic hopes and dreams. The crib mobile is filled with the baseball items John adores.

Baseball is a consistent special interest of John's, from the djinn dream where he plays softball to his #SPNwin dream of becoming a minor league catcher.

In SPNwin, he's not yet the monstrous inverse of his "dreamer" self. He's still the thing that attracted Mary to him: the soldier who hasn't lost his ability to dream. He keeps believing, even when Mary, a child-raised-soldier, feels like she can't muster up the strength to. Aside// Mary is like Dean this way, with lines like: "it only ends one way... bloody." On the other hand, John doesn't start there. It takes lying, coercion, and manipulation to get John's world to shrink, for his path[s] to narrow to hunting.

Hope is "what" John is (until, of course, he isn't):

MARY: I don't know. He's sweet, kind. Even after the war, after everything, he still believes in happily ever after, you know? Supernatural, 4x13 In the Beginning

// Until Mary died, it seems his dreams were difficult to extinguish. His primary mode of being was hopefulness:

Note: As Mary and John discuss their dreams, we see behind Mary some Jack Kline types of motifs, "The Future," crowing roosters, sunflowers, and a rainbow.

JOHN: See, I, I wanted to be a catcher for the Kansas City Athletics. MARY (fatalistic) : My parents never let me dream like that. Being a kid who killed monsters was my only option.

JOHN (wistful): You know, when I was a kid, I, uhm... I made this list of all of these places I was gonna go to look for my dad. Kept it for years, crossing off destinations, adding more. Enough time goes by... all you see is a list, you know? MARY (angry): Are you saying I should stop looking for my dad? JOHN: I'm saying that once you find him and leave hunting for good, you're gonna need a new list. The Winchesters, 1x03 You're Lost, Little Girl

We're familiar with the Winchester gun, but in the 20s Winchester (yes, the same gun brand: Winchester Rifles and Firearms Co) made a short run of baseball gear, known specifically for its top-of-the-line catcher's gear. It was outlasted by brands by Rawlings, Wilson, and Spalding.

Vintage Winchester catcher gear goes for ~$700 on eBay.

//

Here, John, the ever-hopeful soldier who holds onto his dreams will lose those dreams. The dreams will go up in smoke, and he emerges from the flames like a demon possessed.

In the words of Lady Toni Bevell (12x21): "A mad slowly going mad, searching for revenge."

[arthur-lesters-spinal-cord]

Whoa thats whats the podcast is called!!

[dearsholmes]

[curlymantis]

Chat I’m so cooked. Video on the right was taken in 2020, started collecting stuff in 2018. Video on the left taken a couple weeks ago.

[doctorwhommm]

adding doctor who to the long tradition of media with absolutely shockingly bad beatles wigs

[natelia-aldelliz]

1 : Soap never had any idea that woman wanted him carnally, he's not the most observant on that front (he never noticed Ghost flirting with him and thought his love was one-sided for the longest time, but tbf Ghost was also very discreet about it)

2 : He sewed the hat, eyepatch and hook himself, because he's the best uncle and then got distracted as he was wrapping it up, so now he's watching a tutorial on youtube about how to build a voice box. Honestly how hard could it be, he builds explosive devices as a hobby (listen, Price doesn't have to know)

3 : He is out to his family, but doesn't want his mum to know he has a boyfriend because he knows she'll insist on meeting him and welcoming him to the family and making a big deal out of this, and he knows that Ghost isn't ready for that.

4 : Christmas is obviously a very hard time for Ghost, but he is very very in love with Soap and some days still can't believe that it's mutual, but then his Johnny does something like that and his head gets quieter while he's melting a bit.

5 : For the people that didn't see my other post : the bird is a Caique parrot, and they're supposedly very energetic, a bit loud, medium sized, unintelligible, very friendly to what they consider their family, adventurous and danger prone, with an explosive personality and a hate of boredom, so basically the adhd bird.

[good-to-drive]

how much of john and paul's relationship would you say was "two deeply traumatized guys who became codependent on each other" vs genuine/healthy chemistry, respect, and love for one another?

This is a really good question, and something I've definitely thought about a lot! Obviously it's difficult to know precisely what's in a person's heart, but I do think that -- while they certainly loved each other very much -- the intensity of their relationship also had a lot to do with mutual pain and need.

I've talked about this a little bit before, but I think Paul's need for external validation may have dovetailed nicely with John's need to put a relationship/person on a pedestal. Being "chosen" by John could have theoretically provided Paul with a very powerful feeling of worthiness and that might partially explain the sheer intensity of their relationship. When the feelings between you represent something larger, believing in the importance and uniqueness of your relationship and leaning into the intensity/power of those feelings can become almost obsessive.

There's also this performance piece to being inside of that kind of bond, like you really, deeply need to perform the specialness of it to other people -- to self-soothe by witnessing other people witnessing how close and powerful and important your relationship is. Not just that it's the most important relationship in your life, but that it's the most important relationship, period. And I feel one of the most interesting things about Paul and John is just how many people they could perform the specialness of their relationship to, and how widespread and meaningful the understanding of that specialness became. To the point where it's basically a being unto itself.

(That sort of thing is also more effective when you're one of the most successful creative partnerships of all time).

But obviously they also genuinely liked and loved each other very much, and the degree to which their relationship was about mutual pain/soothing and the degree to which it was about sincere, healthy affection is basically impossible to say. And what's probably even harder to say is the degree to which the widespread understanding of the specialness of that relationship is about their mutual pain/soothing or their actual underlying love and affection.

(There's also some larger questions here about whether performative love is still a kind of love, which for some people I think it absolutely can be, and whether loving someone from a place of pain isn't still love as well.)

I think it's very tempting to say "John switched his hyperidealized connection to Yoko so easily, it must mean his bond with Paul was never about Paul as a person but just about using him as a prop in a narrative that brought them comfort." But those two things are not mutually exclusive, and I think sometimes the hardest thing about these kinds of intense, hyperidealized bonds is looking back on them after they explode and not assuming that if they weren't perfect, peerless, eternal, or whatever else you used to tell yourself, then they weren't anything at all.

That assessment is in some ways an extension of the obsessive specialness that you're trying to discard. It ignores the genuine affection that existed between them, which wasn't peerless or perfect or eternal, but it absolutely was real. It was of value. And in a way that's even harder to accept. But it does both of them a disservice to only reckon with what their relationship wasn't. Rather, I think it's equally difficult and equally important to reckon with what their relationship was.

[atlas-dr0wned]

when i was a kid i used to think i really understood beatlemania and why everyone was so crazy about them, but it turns out i’m just autistic

[xenoanamorph]

John T🩵❄️🌊

(Real ones will know why I wrote his name like that!)

Tip Jar

[goat-among-cycads]

Happy 4/13, homestucks!!!

[littleguy-pi]

God sorry I’m gonna be mentally ill for a second. I love the Beechey Island mummies so much they are such exquisite mummies. They are persevered soooo beautifully. Like look at Torrington’s hands and feet

They look perfect. Hartnells hands too

How magical it is that we can see their faces and know their names. To know the shapes of their noses and look in their eyes.

My artistic rendition of a recently deceased John Torrington in his coffin. He died at 19 years old of pneumonia after being sick from tuberculosis. He was only around 85 pounds at the time of his death

[anthemsofsuccess]

pretty sure fate decided to kill off jfk bc if he’d lived any longer then he probably would have met the beatles and god knows i wouldn’t have been able to handle them being in the same photo

(also if you’re wondering if they would have actually met jfk bc they didn’t meet johnson i’d still say yes bc why tf would johnson’s old wrinkly ass wanna meet them bro was like 60 pls)

[romeoisalesbian]

so. sherlock and co has already been adapting stories from after sherlock returns from the dead, in the timeline of publication of original stories. which makes me realize the possibility that the show might END somewhere around the final problem (or they will do some sort of seasonal divide, perhaps).

but my goodness imagine getting through all other 60 or so (depending on what, exactly, they decide to go into) stories, at least over 100 episodes at that point, and realizing the final problem is all that's left to adapt. I don't have many thoughts about this podcast, beyond casually enjoying it as a longtime fan of the original Holmes and Watson stories, but DAMN it would hit me hard if they had some sort of ending with Holmes' death.

I would actually be really into the show seeming completely done with the final problem and then, perhaps a few months or a year later, getting some sort of epilogue or resolution focusing on Holmes' return. I don't exactly think this will happen, but damn am I curious about if, when, and how they will adapt Sherlock's death.

on another note, I also am deeply curious about how their moriarty will turn out, but that is neither here nor there

[lostburkes]

Lost is being put on Netflix in the US soon and everyone on twitter is talking about a renaissance. How we feeling about this besties??

[pricearc]

That fucking Matt Lillard pic but it’s Price

[shitty-malevolent-aus]

Still always get hit by a truck when John just gets verbally abusive out of nowhere. Like ten minutes ago John was praising Arthur but now he's on an insult rampage