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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
I'm always a little wary of this show's ability to tread carefully in areas that are socially volatile--like, say, killing off every woman/PoC ever--so I'd almost rather have them fight home-grown critters than appropriate religious structures without tact. However, because this show basically owns my soul at the moment, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and see where it goes.
And maybe they are not questions about god after all, but questions about love and devotion.
It's interesting you say that, because honestly, those are synonymous for me. My parents--I'm still unsure whether this was intentional--brought us up as agnostics, believing in the abstract idea of God as a force or a system rather than a being. In a lot of ways, the idea of "God" for me has always been "love" and "right" and "good intention." (Not always "truth," though, since we were taught also to measure the value of truth against the value of kindness and act accordingly.) And there are so many degrees of love! I love my best friend, my cat, my siblings, and my cast-iron skillet, even if sometimes I'd really like to smack the first three with the last. I love running (a physiological response), and reading (a psychological response), and the way the earth rumbles under your feet when you stand on an active volcano (a response motivated by something so huge and terrifying that it's humbling.) They're good questions to ask, I think, and I'm always glad when smart people ask them. Because then I get to read about it! I am not selfish at all.
Oh, American Gods was great. If you haven't, you should read Good Omens as well. It has an angel and a demon in it! And thought it is unrelated, if you haven't yet read it I think you would enjoy Norman Maclean: A River Runs Through It and/or Young Men and Fire. Both of them are just stunning, but the first is religion and philosophy and what it is to be human all tied up together in a great story. There's this one part where the narrator's brother says, "All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see something that isn't even visible." It reminds me of some of the topics we've been dancing around here: how to talk about things that aren't physically there, but nevertheless have a very real effect on people's perceptions and actions.
though there is a part of me that wishes he loves colorful fruity drinks and he makes a wibbly face when they forget the paper umbrella.
I love that! God: I will have a blueberry pomegranate margarita please.
Cas: *frowns*
God: What?
Cas: ...Dean Winchester informs me that margaritas are for. Well. Please excuse the crudeness and understand I'm only quoting, but he claims they're for "pansy-ass tools who couldn't get laid at a whorehouse." Or women. Though in retrospect, the only time I had occasion to test this assertion, there was beer involved--not that, you know, I mean, I was there simply at Dean's request; I had planned to spend the evening in quiet prayer--
God: All is forgiven. As long as they don't forget the umbrella.
Deadwood is great. It was weirdly cancelled, so the last episode is sort of "huh" and unsatisfying, but honestly that's no reason to avoid it. It's one of those incredible shows where every single character is compelling and well-written, and everything that happens feels realistic and logical.
lol, I am hardcore looking forward to your post-apocalyptic collaboration as well, since you guys are both great to read and, y'know, it's post-apocalyptic. SPN fandom will suck you into a whirling vortex of awesome. Just so you know. You may abandon all ambitions of carrying on a real life. :)
no subject
This is how I feel. Innocent until proven guilty! I mean, I already let it get away with a bunch of other things, like yeah, the weird women/race issues. Sometimes I feel I watch SPN to shop for tropes to write about in fic. It's a weird way to engage with media.
Ya dude, SPOILERS. The Norse and Hindu pantheons are gonna come into play. Baldur, Kali, and Ganesh have been cast. I am both superexcited and wary. I would be thrilled if all the pantheons band together to defeat Lucifer or whatever. It's like that scene from Prince Caspian, y'know. "Hinduism pledges its troops! Zoroastrianism pledges its troops! Shintoism pledges its troops!" Though if it comes to that, I guess it's the Winchesters gonna be heading that army, and We The Fandom might bust a nut quibbling over white man's burden and HAHAHA look at me anticipating wank. Let's not do that yet, self.
I was definitely raised to think of God as, like, a human with superpowers basically. Very anthropomorphized. I was wary of discussing religion with my parents, so I had to come across the conception of God as a 'how' rather than a 'what' on my own, helped along by certain books and movies, haha. I think what I'm learning is that how I think about god is largely related to how I engage with love and freedom, standards of which change as one grows up of course. So yeah, I started to think of god as this impartial force, as a description of how the world works, but now I'm coming around to anthropomorphizing him again.
I read Good Omens and absolutely love it. You are the second person to recommend "A River Runs Through It" to me! I guess I'll have to check that out.
All is forgiven. As long as they don't forget the umbrella.
HAHA OH GOD. What a goober. <3
We're in the home-stretch! We just hashed out how we're gonna approach the ending scenes, and now it's just getting to the doing of it. High five!