whynot: etc: oh deer (another country)
Las ([personal profile] whynot) wrote2010-02-17 10:02 pm

things Sgrio makes me do

IT'S ALMOST REMIX REDUX TIME, GUYS. SO EXCITED. Click here to vote for this year's qualifying fandoms. Click here or here to get an AO3 invitation because that's where it's going down this year. Reeeeemiiiiix! \o/

This next thing is the fault of [livejournal.com profile] sgrio and her Biblical Studies homework.

Basically it poses the interpretation that angels are not messengers, but messages. Obedience to God is a moot point, because an email or a letter can't be obedient to you. They don't have the faculties to BE obedient, they just ARE. My knee-jerk reaction is of course to ask, "What if Castiel was just a message?" So I wrote


"Castiel did WHAT?" Michael rages. Then he sulks. "He's never been the most legible letter in the mailbag."

"He is but spam," Zachariah agrees.

"Always offering to enlarge my penis," Michael mutters. "I don't even have a penis on this plane!"


and then I wrote this next thing.

I'm not sure what this next thing is. It's Castiel meta, but also maybe sort of a fic, maybe. It is... an experiment? 'Cos someone, SGRIO, was like, "Hey, why don't you fap about religion and language in context of Supernatural?" and I can't say no to that. What is it with you, SPN, making me write 1st person POV, past tense, and now whatever this is idek. I kind of wanted to reference more episodes, but 500 words of this is probably more than enough for now.

So yeah, what if Castiel were words? Spoilers through 4x22, and maybe 5x02. Happy start of Lent, folks. ETA: And now there is a sequel -- unnamed.


untitled
Castiel, Dean, & God


i.

Castiel: just a message. it was God's words that wrote him out, God who punctuated him. Castiel was synecdoche, part of a whole, and he was metonymy, a shadow, but he spirits Dean out of Heaven's green room and becomes caesura, from the Latin caedere meaning 'to cut'.

so what does that mean to be JUST a message, because maybe messages aren't JUST messages, words aren't JUST words, because Castiel is God's words, in spite and because of them. people the world over insist that words can change the world, that stories can foment revolution, and maybe Castiel is beginning to understand why, can see beyond his own pentameter to recognize the irregular cadences of his Father's beloveds.

Dean says, Now shake them around a little.

Shake what?

Songs are what happens when you make words move, says Dean. So move.

far from Heaven, you need new hymns.


ii.

it would change everything, but perhaps it wouldn't be so different. it would become:

this is a story about words, about how they can save you but sometimes they, too, need saving, because if words would walk alongside demons to find you in the fire, you can sit on a park bench on some crisp november morning and listen to a message starting to wear thin. a tidy script, evenly-spaced -- that's what you saw at first -- and when you tried to tear it, it wouldn't tear. when you tried to burn it, it wouldn't burn. that was then, but this is now: you see the creases where the paper had been folded into three parts, reopened to be reread, refolded to be placed back inside the pocket.

do you believe, it asks, that something written is always meant to be read?

but you know that sometimes words are most useful when they are hidden, and you don't know how to explain this to those who need to ask. if words exist without paper and ink, then promises can exist without words, which in the end are only vessels after all.

are you a message or are you its meaning?

and then the familiar sound of rustling parchment and it is gone, leaving you breathless as only a loss of words can.


iii.

if in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, then the word was with you too, and it is with us all still. the word was God, seeping into the world like spilled ink across blank pages so get a load of this divine rorschach, friends: what do you see and what does that tell you about yourself? you are the graffiti smudged by last month's rains; you are initials carved into wet cement; you are a love letter that has been reread a hundred times.

i think every creator must dream that one day their creations will walk off the page and comfort them. God will recognize Castiel by his run-on sentences cut through with ellipses, such unwieldy paragraphs, and when Castiel says, "I have found you," God will bow His head and weep with relief.

[identity profile] 22by7.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
if in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, then the word was with you too, and it is with us all still. the word was God, seeping into the world like spilled ink across blank pages
I believe this, to whatever extent I can believe.

Songs are what happens when you make words move, says Dean. So move.
They should let him say things like that. And then they should slow-dance. Mhm.

Well there is just no point quoting bits of this back. I love it utterly. It made me smile, that last sentence, because that's exactly how I see that encounter working out, if it had to happen.

I'm so happy you're in this fandom writing Castiel fic.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 07:35 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you! I'm so chuffed you like it because truth be told, your Castiel poems were at the back of my head when I was writing this. It was like you were all, "Poetry as fanwork? Why not!" and I nodded my head contemplatively, yanno.

Ahahaha they should totally slow-dance. Castiel would be the awkward middle-schooler holding Dean at arm's length as they sway stiffly to Selena's "Dreaming of You".

PS: Is Psapp's "Eating Spiders" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m63A3jBtSkk) a Cas/Dean song or what. Also Thom Yorke's "Harrowdown Hill" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-UXk42ZY4o), goddamn.
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[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
thx bb! POST MOAR WEIRD BIBLE RANDOMNESS! <334

[identity profile] devilsduplicity.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 09:27 am (UTC)(link)
are you a message or are you its meaning?

Definite food for thought.

God will recognize Castiel by his run-on sentences cut through with ellipses, such unwieldy paragraphs, and when Castiel says, "I have found you," God will bow His head and weep with relief.

This. Just... this. How you describe Castiel in terms of words and build upon his character by way of grammar... lovely. Utterly beautiful. ♥

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 12:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! When my friend suggested the idea, I knew I wouldn't be able to resist.

[identity profile] roaringmay.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 10:40 am (UTC)(link)
:o <- Face Of Amazement

Wow. The whole idea is ingenious, I love when people add a... let's say biblical level.

That said, what a beautiful piece of fic/meta/poetry. IA with commenters above, picking out single lines is nearly impossible but for me, the third part stands out a bit from the rest because that is exactly how I want to envision the world in the context of God's creation. (And also I hope Castiel's encounter goes right this way.)

(I need to add that I read the first snippet after the second one and now I'km all lulzy. Castiel is spam and offers to enlarge Michael's penis that is pure gold.)
eta: Oh yeah I mem this. ♥
Edited 2010-02-18 10:40 (UTC)

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 12:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! Aww, I am glad you like. :)

Hee, Michael should've used the spam filter. Zachariah told him as much! Also, Zachariah will never give Castiel his credit card information ever again.

[identity profile] lexhibition.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 11:11 am (UTC)(link)
Songs are what happens when you make words move, says Dean. So move.

That is just gorgeous. Actually, it all is, but I like this line in the way that I kind of want to write it on a tshirt and tell people I came up with it. Which I wont do, obviously, but. It's lovely!

It makes me think about literary theory, readers response criticism and how authorial intent is unknowable and therefore irrelevant and it's actually all about how the person receiving the message (Dean) interprets the writing that makes it what it is. The text becomes its own source of meaning. Mm.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 01:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks so much!

...OH MAN, don't get me started on literary criticism because that's just adding fuel to the fire here. The world does not need a full-length Castiel-is-words AU! About how he makes for dense reading sometimes, but maybe it's just a matter of practice, or familiarity, like the way the faithful read their holy books over and over, the same passages, the same stories, until understanding becomes less important than connection. (Dean reads him like this.) And what if the text reads you back?

I reckon Castiel-is-words and God is almost like the Winchesters and Chuck. What happens when God loses His fourth wall?

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[identity profile] lexhibition.livejournal.com - 2010-02-19 06:40 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] hrymfaxe.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 02:18 pm (UTC)(link)
This is such a fascinating idea, and I'm blown away by the way you have executed it. Truly beautiful.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 11:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! :) I'm glad my friend brought up the angels-are-words idea in the first place.

[identity profile] littlehollyleaf.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
This is fascinating. I particularly love part iii, esp. this bit:

i think every creator must dream that one day their creations will walk off the page and comfort them. God will recognize Castiel by his run-on sentences cut through with ellipses, such unwieldy paragraphs, and when Castiel says, "I have found you," God will bow His head and weep with relief.

The idea of god being relieved when/if Cas finds him is adorable, as is Cas being a run-on sentance :) Plus, as a writer myself, the thought of characters comforting their creator is one I can relate to :p

Really interesting stuff in general, but nicely connected to the SPN version of theology. Thanks!

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-18 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! Glad you liked it. I confess, I'm sort of new to this fandom so I'm still in the honeymoon phase where EVERYTHING relates back to SPN somehow. XD

[identity profile] gabby-silang.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 06:13 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, my heart.

i think every creator must dream that one day their creations will walk off the page and comfort them. God will recognize Castiel by his run-on sentences cut through with ellipses, such unwieldy paragraphs, and when Castiel says, "I have found you," God will bow His head and weep with relief.

All this is beautiful. And there in the ending somewhere is the sadness in all the death of the author talk. The fear that once you let a message go, whatever you put into it of yourself is just gone, and you'll never get it back. It's why the word/message, father/son analogy works so well, that same letting go of a child who no longer needs you, and the prayer that they'll choose to find you again.

Also, it's been said, but holy crap, yes:

Songs are what happens when you make words move, says Dean. So move.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 09:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks so much. :D

The fear that once you let a message go, whatever you put into it of yourself is just gone, and you'll never get it back. It's why the word/message, father/son analogy works so well
This! I think you articulated what I didn't even know I was trying to express, but totally. Can God make a fourth wall so impenetrable that even He Himself cannot break it? ;)

[identity profile] orvaen-queen.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 06:43 am (UTC)(link)
I think I love you.

...because Castiel is God's words, in spite and because of them. people the world over insist that words can change the world, that stories can foment revolution, and maybe Castiel is beginning to understand why...

This whole piece, but those lines in particular, just make my pull a Cas!tilt and go "Huh..."

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Aww, thank you so much! I was kind of nervous that this piece might be too weird or something. Glad you liked.
ext_13391: (SPN: angel of the lord)

[identity profile] smilla02.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 10:00 am (UTC)(link)
WOW! This is the definition of gorgeous.
Songs are what happens when you make words move, says Dean. So move.

far from Heaven, you need new hymns.

a tidy script, evenly-spaced -- that's what you saw at first -- and when you tried to tear it, it wouldn't tear. when you tried to burn it, it wouldn't burn.

if words exist without paper and ink, then promises can exist without words

i think every creator must dream that one day their creations will walk off the page and comfort them.

And finally this:
God will recognize Castiel by his run-on sentences cut through with ellipses, such unwieldy paragraphs, and when Castiel says, "I have found you," God will bow His head and weep with relief.

which has so many levels of reading (God is Word [Writer], Creator] and all the awesome things that Words can do, new creation, indipendent, free. I'm totally amazed.
Please keep fapping about religion and language in the context of SPN. :)
Edited 2010-02-19 10:01 (UTC)

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you so much! And thank you also for reccing it apparently :D I am so flattered. I was actually kind of nervous that it might be too weird, but now maybe I might write more, especially since [livejournal.com profile] haruslex is putting literary criticism and reader response on the table. How do people read Castiel? Man, my inner geek can only resist temptation for so long.

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[identity profile] smilla02.livejournal.com - 2010-02-22 11:41 (UTC) - Expand

[identity profile] ratherastory.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow.

Came here through [livejournal.com profile] smilla02, and you win whatever prize there is to win for this.

Castiel was synecdoche, part of a whole, and he was metonymy, a shadow, but he spirits Dean out of Heaven's green room and becomes caesura, from the Latin caedere meaning 'to cut'.

The English major in me wriggled in GLEE when I read this.

It's simply beautiful. A finely-crafted metaphor from beginning to end.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
:D Thanks so much. Yay, fellow language geek! *high five* Hehe, the first draft of this namedropped Browning, Spencer, and Ginsberg but I dropped it because it was a kinda browbeating. XD

[identity profile] ultraviolet9a.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)
here via smilla. I love how one sentence spun out the whole concept meta fic thingy. Very nicely done, nice rhythm, for some reason the progression reminds me of cummings.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Aww, I enjoy cummings, so that is great praise indeed. Thanks very much!

[identity profile] tripoli8.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 05:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Here via [livejournal.com profile] smilla02. What a cool idea, and great execution. I would love to see you talk more about this, if you ever felt inclined.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you! This metaphor has kind of ensnared me now, I wonder what else one can do with it. I did want to reference other episodes, like how words can make you return to terrible things a la 4x16, how words can be revived even if languages are lost, because languages always change anyway. As the world changes, so do the things the world says, which leads to stuff like 5x04 happening.

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ext_11786: (spn:castiel:walkalone)

[identity profile] dotfic.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 05:51 pm (UTC)(link)
This is gorgeous. I don't think I'm going to see Castiel the same way again.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! Aww, I'm glad you liked. :)
ext_22293: ([ncis] the thing is)

[identity profile] anjali-organna.livejournal.com 2010-02-19 11:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Seriously, like I needed another reason to love your writing more.

I JUST COMMENTED on another thing to you how I could not get in to SPN on fear of brainsplosion! You are bad for my productivity level.

if in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, then the word was with you too, and it is with us all still.

For some reason this whole section reminded me of A River Runs Through It, primarily in how threads of the book end up coming together so beautifully in the very last paragraphs. I can't remember if it was you who talked about this book years ago. If not, you should read it. Maclean's subject matter might be growing up the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister in Montana, but man, his words say so much more.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-20 02:42 am (UTC)(link)
SOON YOU WILL FALL AS I HAVE FALLEN. I'm taking as many people down into perdition with me as I can, goddamn.

I have never read 'A River Runs Through It'. Didn't they make a movie out of it? It this reminds you of it, it may very well be up my alley and I might have to check it out! Thanks bb <33

Image

Oh shit, sorry I have no idea how that got there.

[identity profile] cherryscott.livejournal.com 2010-02-20 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
This is amazing. I'm actually speechless. Wow is about all I can say coherently. Especially the last part there. Just...wow.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-20 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you so much! The last part is my favorite too. XD

[identity profile] ibroketuesday.livejournal.com 2010-02-20 01:36 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, this is so gorgeous and beautifully written and unique. And the last third is just amazing. I've never before heard it conceptualized like that! Truly fantastic.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-20 03:03 am (UTC)(link)
Aww gosh, thanks so much! I was kinda nervous about posting this, I'm glad you like it. I'm just such a language dork, I couldn't resist the idea. \o/

[identity profile] mute-mime.livejournal.com 2010-02-20 03:46 am (UTC)(link)
Are you expanding on this? I just feel like there are so many more places and episodes to consider that this piece could expand on. I really enjoyed the last part and the beginning.

I also LOVE that this is short because it keeps my attention the whole way where something longer generally means I'm skimming through paragraphs and focusing on sentences here and there.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-20 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
I'm considering it. I'm especially interested in what Castiel-is-words means for 4x16 and 5x04 (but then again I'm always especially interested in 5x04). Like, as the world changes, so do the things the world says, and what does that mean for Castiel? Also the idea of words/Dean is kind of breaking my brain in a good way, and I just might have to go there.

Haha, I know what you mean about the length. I was considering writing more, but it could have gotten really unwieldy really fast.

Thanks for reading!

[identity profile] marycontraire.livejournal.com 2010-02-20 05:05 am (UTC)(link)
SPEAKING OF CASTIEL. This week, on things I'm pretty sure Lass will like:

 

Just watch/skip till towards the end. The tweezers bit. You will know it when you see it.

[identity profile] montisello.livejournal.com 2010-02-24 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
The last paragraph alone is priceless; that you gave us more is a miracle. Beautiful. I've read it three times, and it grows lovelier. Thanks.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-24 09:19 am (UTC)(link)
Aww man, thank you so much! <3 I'm glad you enjoyed. (Confession: I just wrote another 500 words of words!Castiel because I am that big of a language dork? what is wrong with me.)

[identity profile] dapatty.livejournal.com 2010-02-24 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
This is beautiful! I am so in love with it. :)

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-02-25 08:52 am (UTC)(link)
D'aww, thank you so much! :)

[identity profile] emsana.livejournal.com 2010-02-28 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm slowly making my way through your fiction but I wanted to stop and comment on this line in particular: "i think every creator must dream that one day their creations will walk off the page and comfort them".

As a writer (well...) this really spoke to me and it is just So true. You really do have a gift with words!

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-03-01 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
Awesome, I hope you are enjoying them!

And thanks! Hehe, words are fun toys.

[identity profile] xaara.livejournal.com 2010-03-02 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
Let me preface this comment by saying that I spent four years of undergrad (and will spend an indeterminate amount of graduate school) as an English/medieval studies major. I can't read anymore without dismantling text like a clock: to see what makes it tick. (Carmen, destroyer of worlds!) So what I'm saying is that there will be flail and some nerdiness and too many parenthetical comments.

I love this piece. I love it for a lot of reasons, the first being that Castiel is a message. At least at first. He has no initial attachment to his form (this is a vessel...you're possessing some poor schmuck?). He is nothing but what he has been sent to deliver. When he becomes too close to his charge (you), he's demoted. No longer allowed to carry the message. No longer trusted as the Word, from metonymy to mute.

But then, as caesura, as the medial pauses in heroic verse, as the breath between stresses, he finds his melody, and makes words move, and makes new hymns. He sings his own songs (likely not in dactylic hexameter, though who knows, he probably speaks ancient Greek :P). With Dean, who hides within and behind music (Agents Page and Plant etc., and my personal favorite, Bachman and Turner), and who knows a little something about making things move, the songs of the open road.

So Castiel moves (moves his words, sings) from message to meaning to message and meaning. To a message aware of it[him]self. (Side note, since I've been wondering: does Castiel think of himself as male? Probably not. God's child. Anyway.) Or perhaps a message half-inscrutable even to itself, studied and argued and translated a hundred ways (Castiel as Nowell Codex, hehe). Sitting with a man who uses words as weapons, as tools, as tests, who reads the same story over and over (Dad died for me, I died for Sam), and finds new meaning each time. So he understands: sometimes Castiel needs to be re-transcribed, the broken bits filled with conjecture and footnotes, little works of attention and love.

That attention and love that started with God, but ended with his words, spun out and patched and bruised and beaten and returning ever to him.

Anyone, really, would weep.

--

Speaking of weeping, I am so sorry for this whole business, and thus give you the

tl;dr: that was awesome and thinky and beautiful. I've read it fifteen or twenty times and it doesn't get old. Keep fapping!

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-03-02 02:23 pm (UTC)(link)
This is one of the awesomest comments I have ever, ever received, holy shit. I LOVE IT, this lucid articulation of what I have drowned in metaphor hahaha. Yes, no initial attachment to his form, to his language and script! FROM METONYMY TO MUTE, that is great, I love that. What is a message without the message? Or what is the message without words? Or what is a letter without a message? I'm not sure which phrasing would convey my intention. I think all of them can in some capacity. What happens when the center cannot hold? What is the right question? I reckon it's like killing the messenger but worse.

Cas is totally robot. If Supernatural were a scifi show, Cas would be the android who is learning to be a real boy. In that sense, and in the sense of his fic, Cas is nothing but a function, a tool to function. So maybe there is the question I am looking for. What happens when you can't use a hammer as a hammer?

knows a little something about making things move, the songs of the open road.
A+ I didn't even think of that, hahaha. Awesome.

Castiel as codex! There is another fic unto itself. I dunno, I have a soft spot for creator/creation stories, yanno? I was commentficcing that (http://lassiterfics.livejournal.com/137408.html?thread=2618304#t2618304), I might spin this out into something more full-length. Like, initially freedom is a sad and terrifying and lonely thing especially for a creature like Castiel. At first it just feels like abandonment.

sometimes Castiel needs to be re-transcribed, the broken bits filled with conjecture and footnotes, little works of attention and love.
That attention and love that started with God, but ended with his words, spun out and patched and bruised and beaten and returning ever to him.
Anyone, really, would weep.

<333333333 I looooooooooooove yooooooouuuuuuuuu.

Thank you very much for the magnificence of your comment.

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Flagrant Liberties, Stupid Ideas

[identity profile] ferricent.livejournal.com 2010-03-19 07:34 am (UTC)(link)
Dean says, Now shake them around a little.
"Shake what?"
"The tiles."
"Why?"
"It'll be more random that way. You won't be able to cheat."
"'More random?'"
"Look, you think you're supposed to be a message, right? From God. Obviously you can't just say it out loud or we'd know what it is already. We need a way to have you manifest without Jimmy's humanity fuzzing up the picture. Or my head exploding."
"So, I'm going to be drawing random letters from a bag, and placing them on this board."
"Well, yeah... when it's your turn."

Re: Flagrant Liberties, Stupid Ideas

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-03-19 01:38 pm (UTC)(link)
"...What the hell is FJOIXUCLW supposed to mean?"
"This was your idea, Dean."
"I know, but--"
"I appear to have landed on a triple word score."
"Yeah--"
"I believe this puts me in the lead."

: - D

[identity profile] ferricent.livejournal.com - 2010-03-19 21:11 (UTC) - Expand

Re: : - D

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com - 2010-03-19 21:45 (UTC) - Expand
innie_darling: (dean sings the body electric)

[personal profile] innie_darling 2010-03-31 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
That's lovely. This line especially caught me - far from Heaven, you need new hymns.

[identity profile] twoskeletons.livejournal.com 2010-04-01 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
:D Thank you!

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