fannishliss

Thanks very much to the lovely folks at spn-bigpretzel for this drabble challenge.  I wrote 17 drabbles in all (my goal was 14).  :D

~Jody loves her house~

Even after everything, Jody has never considered selling the house. She remembers the first walk-through so clearly, when she and Sean fell in love with the place. She remembers choking and laughing through streaming tears when the flue didn’t work the first time they tried to use the fireplace. She remembers the precious love they made later, the roar of flames perfectly stoked. She remembers painting Owen’s room robin’s egg blue, love and hope devolving to heartbreak. She’s so glad now, the house is full of life again, girls becoming powerful women in the home she’ll fight to keep.

~wards~

Bobby Singer taught Jody all he knew about warding a home. She never knew such things existed, or rather, she regarded it as pleasant folklore or harmless superstition. Now she would never consider closing the year without tacking holly over every windowsill, or passing a cross-quarter day without smudging. She invited Father Christopher every year to bless the house, painted salt onto every sill, inscribed dozens of holy names round and round the house, Enochian and hoodoo inked onto every lintel, cold iron and silver blades ready to hand in every room. Bobby’s legacy means the world to Jody.

~Jody loves her job~

Jody Mills loves being Sheriff. Fighting monsters is something she does on her own time, but her everyday job entails bringing law and order to Minnehaha County. She checks in on the folks in rehab, the kids in juvenile detention, learns their names and their stories, and works hard to help them stay on the straight and narrow once they get out. Bobby Singer may have been a drunk, but he was so much more. So aren’t they all. Jody knows now just how many horror stories are true, and she’s ready with a listening ear and a warm gun.

~the firing range~

The women head out to the firing range for rest and relaxation, honing their skills side by side. Earmuffs in place, they fire round after round, accurate, deadly. It’s not competition between them, just a rare sisterhood in hitting the target, switching from pistol to rifle to shotgun, hand, eye, and body all working in harmony, talent, hard work and determination making them who they are. Back at the house, Jody and Donna lay out the weapons, supervising as the girls break down, clean, oil, and reassemble. The women are in it together, expert at every weapon in their arsenal.

~the world~

Castiel stood for thousands of years, a Watcher, a task no human could endure. But Castiel was made that way, glorying in all of his Father’s Creation, glorying in his blessed task of watching. Waves, clouds, wind in leaves, every minuscule grain of sand was miraculous to Castiel, showing forth God’s glory into Castiel’s many worshipful eyes. Castiel was reassigned, remade as a warrior of the Lord, but he never forgot how to see the wonder in every aspect of all his Father had made, all the Lord had proclaimed was good in the waters, on earth, beneath the heavens.

~places of worship~

Castiel loves alcoves. In a phone booth, rare as they are these days, one may stand, receiver held to one’s ear, watching the world hurry past. Castiel loves the darkest rear seat in a dive bar, benches in parks and at bus stops, corners where almsgivers drop their spare change into the begging cup. Castiel has been the one in need, many times now; he knows what it is to be seen or unseen, to be loved or uncared for. Castiel loves the opportunity for benison, for succor, for redemption. Castiel loves a quiet chapel, whenever, wherever it may appear.

~playgrounds~

Castiel loves a swing set. There’s a reason Angels build gateways to Heaven on playgrounds (not just that the sandbox makes a convenient staging ground for the transmigration mandala). The rocking cradle meditation of a swing set awakens children’s innocent insight: they remember the power of flight inscribed on the deepest part of the human soul. Children throw all the strength of their whole bodies into that urge to soar, to transcend the limitations of physical laws. Every child knows, deep down: it is possible to swing that hard, to go all the way up. Castiel’s been, and can confirm.

~a room of his own~

That robe hanging on the back of the door, maybe used to be some dead guy’s robe, but it’s Dean’s robe now. Those are his boots by the door, his clothes in the closet, his secret undies in the bureau. His beat-up paperbacks, porno mags, blankets, weapons, memory foam, Those are his empties, waiting for recycling. Everything in this room belongs to Dean, not just the creased and faded snaps of Mom and Dad and Sammy on the wall. That’s his stereo, his LPs (not John’s, not Mary’s). He’s not putting anybody out. It’s been a long time coming.

Kalliel brings up a great point in her meta: that Supernatural has been destabilizing the human/monster binary since day one.
This is so true!  I'm not sure I can add to her essay, but I guess I'd like to try to get my own heart out there as well.

No spoilers beyond 10.02 please!

***April Swap.  Thanks to mahmfic for the awesome postcards! and to verdande_mi for the terrific fanmix! I am developing good ideas for your fics in response, and hope that I will get them done soon.  I am sorry that April is kicking my butt. But I will get the fic done soon.  :)

*** Why is April kicking my butt?
a. My Tax return is about 128 pages long.  Criminey!
b.  I played at SEVEN services between Palm Sunday and Holy Week.  Wow!
c.  I have a big grant and a big report due on Wednesday.  Argh!

*** thus I have completely failed at writing all month due to hiding my head in the ground from fear of Easter, taxes, and numbercrunching.  Zounds!

*** but I have a really good outline and start for my Sammy Messiah story.  Yay!

*** LOKI.  I want to write my next novel about the mythological Loki and how he functions in the mythos.  I there is extremely rich ground to be explored there.  Loki is, I think, a pot stirrer.  He stirs the pot.  The stew is tastier that way.  He gives birth to monsters.  He speaks the truth actually; in the stories he is tricksy but usually he is telling the truth but slant.  Fic writers who admire the character in Marvelverse have cottoned brilliantly to the fact that he is womanish somehow.  He is a lovely figure of our willfulness.  I think he is a spirit of fire and air, a Prometheus, a bringer of tales and harbinger of turning the gyre.  LOKI!!!  Notice how lovely the word Loki is when you type it on a standard qwerty keyboard.  :) He is a god of stories, like my other faves, Hermes and Thoth and Raven and Coyote and Kokopelli.  I loved it in the recent comic (Loki Agent of Asgard) when the artist caught him in silhouette with his horns and the rough fur around his shoulders and he looked just like Kokopelli.  :D  It is a really excellent creative team.  I hope they can keep it going!

*** Bucky!  Not enough Bucky stories.  Especially not enough stories about Bucky/Steve, Winter Soldier comes in from the cold, and his comics-verse backstory with Natasha is carefully handled.    Does anyone see how the Winter Soldier looks like Lars Ulrich from Metallica back when he had a little more hair???

**** Can I just say how much I love these beautiful, sad-eyed Marvel villains? <3333333  Anybody remember Krycek??  His was the ship that pulled me into online fandom -- back in the mid90s when we had email listservs!  Oh, back in the day, how the lovely heart-broken Russian triple-agent assassins would kiss their ex-partners on the cheek and call them tovarisch....  :D

*** Husband spent the weekend in Staunton VA carousing with fellow Bard treaders...

*** I had a huge event on Sat. and another on Sun. so I was wiped all weekend.  whoosh.

**** Dean just keeps washing his sad sad face in everyone's LJ.    I really fear that this coming season finale will truly be a HORROR.

Back to crunching numbers in the morning!