Entry tags:
DVD Extras--commentary and missing scenes
To begin, I need to say that you definitely shouldn't read these author notes without first reading the story, though I wouldn't be opposed to you reading the story, reading the notes, and then going back and reading the story again. I'd actually encourage that. To be honest, I've never read the story from beginning to end. I can't seem to make more than five thousand words at a time without wanting to change something, and I just can't do it anymore.
I'm hoping you have at least a few questions about the story after finishing it, because I left some things deliberately ambiguous. I'm not usually someone who grabs the reader by the ear and says, “This is what the story is about, and I know, because I wrote it.” I believe people read things in ways that are meaningful to them. So, if you like the story as it's written, are completely happy with your understanding of it, then don't read these notes. If you had a least a few bugs in your ear at the end that made you cock your head sideways and squint real hard like you were missing something, then please read on.
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold, and it's always summer, they'll never get cold. They'll never be hungry, never be old and gray.
Since you probably just finished the story, I'll start with what's probably freshest in your mind.
Was it the sun that revived Dean? Did Sam do something psychically to revive Dean? Was Dean just playing possum? And isn't that the second time Dean was revived in a really questionable manner?
The answer to all these questions is maybe with a lean toward yes.
Here's the thing. In my opinion, they cannot die in this world, not permanently... because they're already dead. I know. I never closed the loop on that, but I don't think Sam and Dean know it yet. Therefore, I never really spelled it out. I was never really sure if I was going to go there, but it was always in the back of my mind. One of my betas even said to me, about the sequence in which they climb out of Hell, that it seemed almost superhuman, what they did. I said, yeah, it's supposed to. Everything that happens in this story is supposed to be somewhat questionable and yet, on the edge of believable. After all, Sam and Dean have to believe they did it.
When I first started writing this story, it was for the
spn_goes_pop prompt, a song called, "The Way," by Fastball. There were several things in that song that inspired me, one being the lyric, "Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold, and it's always summer, they'll never get cold. They'll never be hungry, never be old and gray."
To me, that sounds like Heaven.
Do I think this world is Heaven? Not exactly.
There's a lot of mythology surrounding death and what happens immediatly after. I picked a few and manipulated them for my own purposes.
I don’t really think it’s Heaven/Heaven, so much as I think it’s the in-between place where they gain the peace that allows them to accept that they're finally finsihed. I think Heaven itself would be a real shock to their systems. So, I think this is where they find the things that make them happy and let them have peace. This is where I started to manipulate some of the mythology with regards to death and the afterlife for my own purposes. Don’t expect me to quote any texts, because I don’t remember where I read most of this stuff, it’s just stuff that has stuck with me over the years.
One belief is that, when we die, we get the chance to see ourselves from the perspective of every person we've affected in our lives. We get to see who we are to everyone else. That'd be hard to write into a fic, but I think, if I was the Almighty, whoever that is for you, and I wanted Dean and Sam to see what they meant to the world, I'd let them actually see themselves saving it, let them be the heroes they are, and see life thrive because of something they've done. Instead of driving away while people are still on the cusp of some tragedy or near-tragedy, onto the next mission, I wanted them to see how people go on and build lives because of them, and have them feel like they’re allowed happiness themselves. Hence, the whole, 'they've got to make the sun shine' storyline. They can't do that, can't see that, and see it change the entire landscape of the world, and not realize they are important and they are heroes.
So, why the asthma and the sickness if they're already dead?
First, I'll admit, illness and injury are good plot devices. People like a little H/C and Sick!Limp!Hurt! in a fic, myself included. As I'd set this up to be a man vs. nature conflict, I needed something to create some urgency in the story. It had a really easy-going feel to it the way I first penned it, and I just imagined people getting bored, but I didn’t want to make the conflict something so dark and predatory that it would completely undermine my theory that this was a special place for Sam and Dean to find each other in. I was thinking about the rain and the darkness, and how it made me start to wheeze just thinking about it. My bedroom back home was in my grandma's basement, and I wheezed myself to sleep every night. I didn't know that wasn't normal until I went off to college and could finally breathe, but yes, mold sensitivity would be a problem in a world with no light and constant moisture. Hence, asthma seemed a logical choice.
I was a little worried about using the asthma, because I have read it in a few other fics, and I hate when we all write the same illness or conflict. But here's the thing: There's some mythology that says we enter Heaven in our childlike or pure form. A lot of people have asthma when they're kids and then "outgrow" it, or think they've outgrown it. I didn't want to do an age regression or be too blatant about my, haha, they're really dead idea, but I thought something that Dean had had as a child and had thought was gone but then comes back was as close as I could get to regaining childlike qualities.
Besides that, the boys needed something to battle against, because I think the traditional descriptions of Heaven would turn out to be pretty boring for them. They know hunting and fighting. Just stopping abruptly, nothing to fight at all, would probably be pretty traumatic for them. Just my opinion, of course.
And with regard to Dean's first asthma attack. I don't think what Sam did, breathing the inhaler into Dean's lungs himself, would actually work. The mist is too fine and would probably mostly end up in Sam. I do think, faced with that situation, Sam would try it, though, and why Dean actually woke up was probably due more to Sam just being there, and the fact that he can't die there than anything that Sam actually did.
Then, Sam got sick for the same reasons I made Dean sick. Turnabout is fair play. I usually don’t like to write Limp!Sam (erm, unless the limp is post coital) because that doesn’t, in my opinion, leave me a lot of room to explore the character of Dean. We already know he’s an awesome, protective big brother. I like to explore other things, but I needed an in for the wincest to start to take seed, and a desperate, aching, and terrified/clingy Sam playing on Dean’s big brother heart strings was the best way I could come up with. In retrospect, I’m way better at writing established relationships than first time. *headdesk*
One of the things I really worried about while writing this was the dread "out of character" criticism. I knew I wanted to take them in new and different directions, but I didn't want people to be put off by that or think they'd never, ever go that way. I took some liberties and made some observations of my own about them. Not everyone will agree, but that's what we do, given someone else's characters.
First, if I exaggerated a bit with their accomplishments, that’s because characters are more memorable for their quirks and accomplishments, so exaggeration is just a tool I apply whenever possible to highlight things that might otherwise be forgotten or dismissed as average.
And then, I wanted to add new aspects to the characters without changing who they were. Here’s the thing... Another piece of mythology (maybe more than one, again I don’t know where I read most of this) suggests that we see our faults when we die, presumably so we can improve ourselves in the next life. So, our Sam and Dean, in this story, are still a little messed up, but now, they're in a position to take on new roles and discover things about themselves that have been pushed down below the surface instead of nurtured.
What it comes down to, for me, is the question of, were they, in life, the people that they were meant to be, or was the ‘nurture’ part of the nature vs. nurture debate too overpowering. In the show, we get Sam as the intellectual one, yet we know Dean is smart, just that his intelligence isn’t nurtured.
Does Sam want or desire to be the smart one? Is that how he defines himself, what he wants to be? I don’t think so. I think, like myself and a lot of other people I’ve met, he turned to books and the promise of education as an escape from something he couldn’t undo. I’m not saying he didn’t enjoy learning, just that I think, given a normal life, he’d have probably been much more happy go lucky, maybe still gone to college, but on a soccer or basketball scholarship, spent some years “finding himself.” Our Sam was forced to find a focus early on, didn’t have the luxury of finding himself, of playing around with the possibilities, but he knew he could learn.
The fact that he chose law as his career speaks to me. Someone who goes into law, given the somewhat marred perception of the profession, is either a greedy ambulance chaser, or a helpless romantic who really thinks he can save people and change the world, and without having to question morality. After all, law would be on his side, right? In my opinion, Sam is the latter, obviously, a hopeless romantic. A lover, not a fighter. I see wee!Sam much like the little girl in Kindgergarten Cop who kept insisting, “I’m not a policeman, I’m a princess,” over and over in a quieter and quieter voice, until she gave in and was a policeman like everyone else. Only with Sam, it was "I'm a lover, not a fighter."
So, here, there is no law, only their own hearts and conscience to answer to. Here, Sam learns himself as well as he learned all that stuff in the books that turned out to be completely useless. Here, Sam can be the lover, which is why I had him be the “aggressor” of sorts, in this relationship. I realize that’s done quite often, but it works for me.
And Dean, the scientist. We know Dean is intelligent, that he observes and learns as well as Sam, just probably a more ‘hands on’ experimental guy, moreso than a bookworm. He has a knack for seeing to the root of the problem, in this case, the lack of sun which has a domino effect on everything else, including his own health. And without the distractions of hunting, or the need to put on the cocky, haughty airs, (because everyone knows Sam sees right through his BS) I think Dean would dig into that intellectual acquifer of his mind, and I think he’d surprise himself at what he found.
All in all, I see them both as intellectuals, but I see Sam as more of a social scientist and Dean as more of a physical scientist. That’s what I tried to portray in this story.
And of course, Sam would learn to fly. What lover wouldn’t risk his life in a grand manner for the one he loves. If he also saves the world? Well, so be it. Besides, who can resist the thought of him in a flight suit and aviator glasses? Top Gun, anyone?
They drank up the wine, and they started talking, now had more important things to say...
Now, about all the talking. I actually toyed with calling this story, "Conversations from the End of the World' Maybe I should have, because then people would've been more prepared for the pace of the whole thing. I'm not an action writer. I'm just not. I think a lot can be said through gestures, dialogue, and blocking, to create conflict. I enjoy doing that. I know a lot of people don't care to read it.
There were a lot of scenes in this fic that were basically just them having what appeared to be light conversation. A little like an episode of Seinfeld in that it seemed to be a story about nothing. That stems from the lyric of the original song prompt. "They drank up the wind, and they got to talking. Now had more important things to say." That lyric just put so many images in my head. Getting them to talk is always fun. What is sometimes difficult is adhering to the first rule of dialogue which is, “Never, ever let the character say what he actually means--with exception for comedy.” So, when I got the boys to start talking about things in which they really had to deal with the issues at hand, they tended to get in the banter mode, light conversation, jokes. I worried this would ruin the tone of the story, but at the same, it felt natural to me. It’s so what they would do. I feel, on occassion, I actually broke the rule, but well, no one is obtuse 100% of the time. I hope.
Also, Dean did a lot of talking, some of it as dialogue and some of it paraphrased, but he seemed to talk through pretty much the whole fic. This is where I confess that my favorite movie of all time is Empire of the Sun. I don’t know how many people have seen it. I think I was the only one in my family who could actually sit through the whole thing. To this day, my hubby has never seen it without falling asleep. I can watch it over and over again on continuous loop if I have the time. In the movie, the main character, Jim, (played by Christian Bale) pretty much talks over everything. He’s the soundtrack of the movie. He really just never shuts up, and you almost get the feeling that he’s full of himself and starved for attention, which maybe, at the beginning is true, but there’s this scene in the movie...
Basically, bombers are flying overhead, and he’s reaching out to touch them, names every single one, because he knows all about them from magazines, and the doctor goes up on the roof and grabs him, and Jim goes on, talking about the runway, how they built the runway, and how everyone who died is in the runway, how it’s their runway. He’s breathless, yet he goes on and on.
Finally, the doctor shakes him and says, “Jim, try not to think so much. Try not to think. So. Much.” And Jim stops talking, goes completely silent, and after a moment, his face crumbles, and he says, “I can’t remember what my mother looks like...” And there you have it, he’s not talking so much to be heard as to drown out the undercurrent of misery that is his life.
So, yeah, I totally gakked that for my Dean in this fic. So much is going on under the surface, but he’ll never say what it is. That would be bad writing, anyway. But Sam hears him, knows what he really means, because that’s what they learn from being in such close quarters all their lives and for just loving each other. Dean’s afraid of losing his brother. That’s it.
“That’s when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“The end of the world...” She shrugs. “Or the beginning.”
What really happened to the rest of the world, then?
I’m not sure. I think it really did end. Possibly, they really are living in it, the way it is, and they’re just not bound to it anymore, not like the rest. I think they really did destroy Hell, and it seems to me like that really would have some reverberations through reality. I think the world ended, and it's starting over again, and that the people who are left are there for a reason. That includes Dean and Sam, but I think Dean and Sam have done their time and fought their battles and will get to walk away from it all once they realize they have done everything they can and focus on each other.
I had originally planned for the character of Grace to join the story earlier on, and she was going to tell what it was like on the day the world ended, but I realized the drive of the story was to find other people, so lingering on her backstory after they found her was really anticlimactic. I did write the scene, though, and here it is:
“That’s when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“The end of the world...” She shrugs. “Or the beginning.”
“Wh-what’d it look like?” Sam’s listening so intently his t-shirt sounds like sandpaper against the tabletop when he leans closer.
“Light,” she breathes. “Like...someone set off a nuke in the center of the planet, and the flash found it’s way out every crack in the earth at the same time, so bright, I could see the bones in my hand when I tried to cover my eyes. The wind was so hot, I couldn’t breathe, and it seemed to go on and on. Then, just as quick as it came, it went out, and black smoke came roaring by like a steam train, almost seemed to be alive, running away from something.” She looks up as though the ceiling isn’t there and that long ago sky is painted over her head. “It didn’t get very far. There was some kind of barrier, and the smoke bounced off it and started swirling around and around, gaining momentum so it could take another run at it...I think, whatever it was, it killed itself. The second time it hit, sounded like the sonic boom from a hundred jets all at once, and it was like the sky broke, red and blue lightning streaking through the cloud from one end of the horizon to the other.”
“And?”
“And that’s it. When it stopped, everything was just the way it is now. End of story.”
Where were they going without ever knowing the way?
So, how shoddy was the science in this?
About as shoddy as it gets. I have to admit, before SPN, my first love as a writer was science fiction, with a heavy lean on the fiction. I make it up as I go and try to create worlds where it doesn't matter, because it's the human spirit that drives all discovery. There's always quantum theory if you need to write yourself out of a bind, everywhere and nowhere at once. How much more profound can you get?
Anything else I need to say? Well, yeah... I fail at storytelling.
This is a birth metaphor. Le sigh. I didn't intend for it to be a birth metaphor. I just wanted to write a story. I totally fail. But now that I go back and read it, yup, it's definitely a birth metaphor, climbing out of a tunnel, dark into light, rain and slime, pain and blood. It's rebirth, without a doubt. And since lots of mythology also says birth is death happening in reverse, I'm not going to change it. I think that makes it perfect in its own way. Though, I have to admit, when I realized what I'd done, I beat myself up about it. I said, "You moron! You wrote another friggin' metaphor. Why can't you just write a story, just once?! People don't want to read metaphors. They want to read stories."
Ah, well. I tried. *hangs head in shame* I'm completely incapable of writing a nice story.
The scene I never wrote.
So, now they’ve saved the world. What happens next? I think they hang around and reap the benefits for awhile. They are part of the family of colonists that have come together. They have a home, get really domestic...
And then, I think they get up one morning, get in the car, and drive off into the sunset. They're not blind. The notice they're not getting any older, that they exist outside the world, and they're restless. That’s when they know the only family they need is each other, the only home they need is the Impala, the only mission they need is the road. That’s when they’ll be in Heaven for real. And they drive through the pearly gates in a classic Chevy.
The End...this time I mean it.
I really wanna know what you think, so please leave all thoughts about these notes at the story.
I'm hoping you have at least a few questions about the story after finishing it, because I left some things deliberately ambiguous. I'm not usually someone who grabs the reader by the ear and says, “This is what the story is about, and I know, because I wrote it.” I believe people read things in ways that are meaningful to them. So, if you like the story as it's written, are completely happy with your understanding of it, then don't read these notes. If you had a least a few bugs in your ear at the end that made you cock your head sideways and squint real hard like you were missing something, then please read on.
Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold, and it's always summer, they'll never get cold. They'll never be hungry, never be old and gray.
Since you probably just finished the story, I'll start with what's probably freshest in your mind.
Was it the sun that revived Dean? Did Sam do something psychically to revive Dean? Was Dean just playing possum? And isn't that the second time Dean was revived in a really questionable manner?
The answer to all these questions is maybe with a lean toward yes.
Here's the thing. In my opinion, they cannot die in this world, not permanently... because they're already dead. I know. I never closed the loop on that, but I don't think Sam and Dean know it yet. Therefore, I never really spelled it out. I was never really sure if I was going to go there, but it was always in the back of my mind. One of my betas even said to me, about the sequence in which they climb out of Hell, that it seemed almost superhuman, what they did. I said, yeah, it's supposed to. Everything that happens in this story is supposed to be somewhat questionable and yet, on the edge of believable. After all, Sam and Dean have to believe they did it.
When I first started writing this story, it was for the
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To me, that sounds like Heaven.
Do I think this world is Heaven? Not exactly.
There's a lot of mythology surrounding death and what happens immediatly after. I picked a few and manipulated them for my own purposes.
I don’t really think it’s Heaven/Heaven, so much as I think it’s the in-between place where they gain the peace that allows them to accept that they're finally finsihed. I think Heaven itself would be a real shock to their systems. So, I think this is where they find the things that make them happy and let them have peace. This is where I started to manipulate some of the mythology with regards to death and the afterlife for my own purposes. Don’t expect me to quote any texts, because I don’t remember where I read most of this stuff, it’s just stuff that has stuck with me over the years.
One belief is that, when we die, we get the chance to see ourselves from the perspective of every person we've affected in our lives. We get to see who we are to everyone else. That'd be hard to write into a fic, but I think, if I was the Almighty, whoever that is for you, and I wanted Dean and Sam to see what they meant to the world, I'd let them actually see themselves saving it, let them be the heroes they are, and see life thrive because of something they've done. Instead of driving away while people are still on the cusp of some tragedy or near-tragedy, onto the next mission, I wanted them to see how people go on and build lives because of them, and have them feel like they’re allowed happiness themselves. Hence, the whole, 'they've got to make the sun shine' storyline. They can't do that, can't see that, and see it change the entire landscape of the world, and not realize they are important and they are heroes.
So, why the asthma and the sickness if they're already dead?
First, I'll admit, illness and injury are good plot devices. People like a little H/C and Sick!Limp!Hurt! in a fic, myself included. As I'd set this up to be a man vs. nature conflict, I needed something to create some urgency in the story. It had a really easy-going feel to it the way I first penned it, and I just imagined people getting bored, but I didn’t want to make the conflict something so dark and predatory that it would completely undermine my theory that this was a special place for Sam and Dean to find each other in. I was thinking about the rain and the darkness, and how it made me start to wheeze just thinking about it. My bedroom back home was in my grandma's basement, and I wheezed myself to sleep every night. I didn't know that wasn't normal until I went off to college and could finally breathe, but yes, mold sensitivity would be a problem in a world with no light and constant moisture. Hence, asthma seemed a logical choice.
I was a little worried about using the asthma, because I have read it in a few other fics, and I hate when we all write the same illness or conflict. But here's the thing: There's some mythology that says we enter Heaven in our childlike or pure form. A lot of people have asthma when they're kids and then "outgrow" it, or think they've outgrown it. I didn't want to do an age regression or be too blatant about my, haha, they're really dead idea, but I thought something that Dean had had as a child and had thought was gone but then comes back was as close as I could get to regaining childlike qualities.
Besides that, the boys needed something to battle against, because I think the traditional descriptions of Heaven would turn out to be pretty boring for them. They know hunting and fighting. Just stopping abruptly, nothing to fight at all, would probably be pretty traumatic for them. Just my opinion, of course.
And with regard to Dean's first asthma attack. I don't think what Sam did, breathing the inhaler into Dean's lungs himself, would actually work. The mist is too fine and would probably mostly end up in Sam. I do think, faced with that situation, Sam would try it, though, and why Dean actually woke up was probably due more to Sam just being there, and the fact that he can't die there than anything that Sam actually did.
Then, Sam got sick for the same reasons I made Dean sick. Turnabout is fair play. I usually don’t like to write Limp!Sam (erm, unless the limp is post coital) because that doesn’t, in my opinion, leave me a lot of room to explore the character of Dean. We already know he’s an awesome, protective big brother. I like to explore other things, but I needed an in for the wincest to start to take seed, and a desperate, aching, and terrified/clingy Sam playing on Dean’s big brother heart strings was the best way I could come up with. In retrospect, I’m way better at writing established relationships than first time. *headdesk*
One of the things I really worried about while writing this was the dread "out of character" criticism. I knew I wanted to take them in new and different directions, but I didn't want people to be put off by that or think they'd never, ever go that way. I took some liberties and made some observations of my own about them. Not everyone will agree, but that's what we do, given someone else's characters.
First, if I exaggerated a bit with their accomplishments, that’s because characters are more memorable for their quirks and accomplishments, so exaggeration is just a tool I apply whenever possible to highlight things that might otherwise be forgotten or dismissed as average.
And then, I wanted to add new aspects to the characters without changing who they were. Here’s the thing... Another piece of mythology (maybe more than one, again I don’t know where I read most of this) suggests that we see our faults when we die, presumably so we can improve ourselves in the next life. So, our Sam and Dean, in this story, are still a little messed up, but now, they're in a position to take on new roles and discover things about themselves that have been pushed down below the surface instead of nurtured.
What it comes down to, for me, is the question of, were they, in life, the people that they were meant to be, or was the ‘nurture’ part of the nature vs. nurture debate too overpowering. In the show, we get Sam as the intellectual one, yet we know Dean is smart, just that his intelligence isn’t nurtured.
Does Sam want or desire to be the smart one? Is that how he defines himself, what he wants to be? I don’t think so. I think, like myself and a lot of other people I’ve met, he turned to books and the promise of education as an escape from something he couldn’t undo. I’m not saying he didn’t enjoy learning, just that I think, given a normal life, he’d have probably been much more happy go lucky, maybe still gone to college, but on a soccer or basketball scholarship, spent some years “finding himself.” Our Sam was forced to find a focus early on, didn’t have the luxury of finding himself, of playing around with the possibilities, but he knew he could learn.
The fact that he chose law as his career speaks to me. Someone who goes into law, given the somewhat marred perception of the profession, is either a greedy ambulance chaser, or a helpless romantic who really thinks he can save people and change the world, and without having to question morality. After all, law would be on his side, right? In my opinion, Sam is the latter, obviously, a hopeless romantic. A lover, not a fighter. I see wee!Sam much like the little girl in Kindgergarten Cop who kept insisting, “I’m not a policeman, I’m a princess,” over and over in a quieter and quieter voice, until she gave in and was a policeman like everyone else. Only with Sam, it was "I'm a lover, not a fighter."
So, here, there is no law, only their own hearts and conscience to answer to. Here, Sam learns himself as well as he learned all that stuff in the books that turned out to be completely useless. Here, Sam can be the lover, which is why I had him be the “aggressor” of sorts, in this relationship. I realize that’s done quite often, but it works for me.
And Dean, the scientist. We know Dean is intelligent, that he observes and learns as well as Sam, just probably a more ‘hands on’ experimental guy, moreso than a bookworm. He has a knack for seeing to the root of the problem, in this case, the lack of sun which has a domino effect on everything else, including his own health. And without the distractions of hunting, or the need to put on the cocky, haughty airs, (because everyone knows Sam sees right through his BS) I think Dean would dig into that intellectual acquifer of his mind, and I think he’d surprise himself at what he found.
All in all, I see them both as intellectuals, but I see Sam as more of a social scientist and Dean as more of a physical scientist. That’s what I tried to portray in this story.
And of course, Sam would learn to fly. What lover wouldn’t risk his life in a grand manner for the one he loves. If he also saves the world? Well, so be it. Besides, who can resist the thought of him in a flight suit and aviator glasses? Top Gun, anyone?
They drank up the wine, and they started talking, now had more important things to say...
Now, about all the talking. I actually toyed with calling this story, "Conversations from the End of the World' Maybe I should have, because then people would've been more prepared for the pace of the whole thing. I'm not an action writer. I'm just not. I think a lot can be said through gestures, dialogue, and blocking, to create conflict. I enjoy doing that. I know a lot of people don't care to read it.
There were a lot of scenes in this fic that were basically just them having what appeared to be light conversation. A little like an episode of Seinfeld in that it seemed to be a story about nothing. That stems from the lyric of the original song prompt. "They drank up the wind, and they got to talking. Now had more important things to say." That lyric just put so many images in my head. Getting them to talk is always fun. What is sometimes difficult is adhering to the first rule of dialogue which is, “Never, ever let the character say what he actually means--with exception for comedy.” So, when I got the boys to start talking about things in which they really had to deal with the issues at hand, they tended to get in the banter mode, light conversation, jokes. I worried this would ruin the tone of the story, but at the same, it felt natural to me. It’s so what they would do. I feel, on occassion, I actually broke the rule, but well, no one is obtuse 100% of the time. I hope.
Also, Dean did a lot of talking, some of it as dialogue and some of it paraphrased, but he seemed to talk through pretty much the whole fic. This is where I confess that my favorite movie of all time is Empire of the Sun. I don’t know how many people have seen it. I think I was the only one in my family who could actually sit through the whole thing. To this day, my hubby has never seen it without falling asleep. I can watch it over and over again on continuous loop if I have the time. In the movie, the main character, Jim, (played by Christian Bale) pretty much talks over everything. He’s the soundtrack of the movie. He really just never shuts up, and you almost get the feeling that he’s full of himself and starved for attention, which maybe, at the beginning is true, but there’s this scene in the movie...
Basically, bombers are flying overhead, and he’s reaching out to touch them, names every single one, because he knows all about them from magazines, and the doctor goes up on the roof and grabs him, and Jim goes on, talking about the runway, how they built the runway, and how everyone who died is in the runway, how it’s their runway. He’s breathless, yet he goes on and on.
Finally, the doctor shakes him and says, “Jim, try not to think so much. Try not to think. So. Much.” And Jim stops talking, goes completely silent, and after a moment, his face crumbles, and he says, “I can’t remember what my mother looks like...” And there you have it, he’s not talking so much to be heard as to drown out the undercurrent of misery that is his life.
So, yeah, I totally gakked that for my Dean in this fic. So much is going on under the surface, but he’ll never say what it is. That would be bad writing, anyway. But Sam hears him, knows what he really means, because that’s what they learn from being in such close quarters all their lives and for just loving each other. Dean’s afraid of losing his brother. That’s it.
“That’s when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“The end of the world...” She shrugs. “Or the beginning.”
What really happened to the rest of the world, then?
I’m not sure. I think it really did end. Possibly, they really are living in it, the way it is, and they’re just not bound to it anymore, not like the rest. I think they really did destroy Hell, and it seems to me like that really would have some reverberations through reality. I think the world ended, and it's starting over again, and that the people who are left are there for a reason. That includes Dean and Sam, but I think Dean and Sam have done their time and fought their battles and will get to walk away from it all once they realize they have done everything they can and focus on each other.
I had originally planned for the character of Grace to join the story earlier on, and she was going to tell what it was like on the day the world ended, but I realized the drive of the story was to find other people, so lingering on her backstory after they found her was really anticlimactic. I did write the scene, though, and here it is:
“That’s when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“The end of the world...” She shrugs. “Or the beginning.”
“Wh-what’d it look like?” Sam’s listening so intently his t-shirt sounds like sandpaper against the tabletop when he leans closer.
“Light,” she breathes. “Like...someone set off a nuke in the center of the planet, and the flash found it’s way out every crack in the earth at the same time, so bright, I could see the bones in my hand when I tried to cover my eyes. The wind was so hot, I couldn’t breathe, and it seemed to go on and on. Then, just as quick as it came, it went out, and black smoke came roaring by like a steam train, almost seemed to be alive, running away from something.” She looks up as though the ceiling isn’t there and that long ago sky is painted over her head. “It didn’t get very far. There was some kind of barrier, and the smoke bounced off it and started swirling around and around, gaining momentum so it could take another run at it...I think, whatever it was, it killed itself. The second time it hit, sounded like the sonic boom from a hundred jets all at once, and it was like the sky broke, red and blue lightning streaking through the cloud from one end of the horizon to the other.”
“And?”
“And that’s it. When it stopped, everything was just the way it is now. End of story.”
Where were they going without ever knowing the way?
So, how shoddy was the science in this?
About as shoddy as it gets. I have to admit, before SPN, my first love as a writer was science fiction, with a heavy lean on the fiction. I make it up as I go and try to create worlds where it doesn't matter, because it's the human spirit that drives all discovery. There's always quantum theory if you need to write yourself out of a bind, everywhere and nowhere at once. How much more profound can you get?
Anything else I need to say? Well, yeah... I fail at storytelling.
This is a birth metaphor. Le sigh. I didn't intend for it to be a birth metaphor. I just wanted to write a story. I totally fail. But now that I go back and read it, yup, it's definitely a birth metaphor, climbing out of a tunnel, dark into light, rain and slime, pain and blood. It's rebirth, without a doubt. And since lots of mythology also says birth is death happening in reverse, I'm not going to change it. I think that makes it perfect in its own way. Though, I have to admit, when I realized what I'd done, I beat myself up about it. I said, "You moron! You wrote another friggin' metaphor. Why can't you just write a story, just once?! People don't want to read metaphors. They want to read stories."
Ah, well. I tried. *hangs head in shame* I'm completely incapable of writing a nice story.
The scene I never wrote.
So, now they’ve saved the world. What happens next? I think they hang around and reap the benefits for awhile. They are part of the family of colonists that have come together. They have a home, get really domestic...
And then, I think they get up one morning, get in the car, and drive off into the sunset. They're not blind. The notice they're not getting any older, that they exist outside the world, and they're restless. That’s when they know the only family they need is each other, the only home they need is the Impala, the only mission they need is the road. That’s when they’ll be in Heaven for real. And they drive through the pearly gates in a classic Chevy.
The End...this time I mean it.
I really wanna know what you think, so please leave all thoughts about these notes at the story.