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things Sgrio makes me do
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This next thing is the fault of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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
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.
This next thing is the fault of
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
...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?
no subject
And what about the fact that Castiel had been remade/rewritten? Is it just a rewrite, has he been edited, or has he been completely translated by someone else?
no subject
At some point, Castiel finds his own pen. He's like that Escher picture of the two hands that draw themselves.
Can God make a fourth wall so impenetrable that even He Himself can't break it?!