#can't believe I talked about Agamben in a fic post

[urne-buriall]

3 11 17 26 our lights in ashes, only if you're so inclined!

okay, our lights in ashes. probably my most ambitious and intentional fic. (the "time has come today" series is longer but it was all an accident.) let's jump in.

3. How did you find the visuals for this fic? Is there a method you have?

no focused method! whenever I see a picture that catches my eye, I save it. if I visit a place or read about a place, I keep a picture too. I do the same with quotations I come across. my memory isn't photographic, but it's not far off and my visual memory is the key to unlocking everything else about a place or a feeling. this was a really visual fic and I definitely made up a special folder of images saved over the years that got me into the right headspace. there wasn't much I looked up deliberately, but I remember I was looking at a lot of Andrew Wyeth paintings--though they're more Midwest than Southern--and I watched quite a few movies that fit the Southern Gothic vibe like Eve's Bayou (highly recommended) and Shy People.

11. Was there a scene that you hadn't originally planned to include? Why did you decide to fit it in?

in the outline I shared, I mentioned Cas as "homo sacer" which is a concept the continental philosopher Giorgio Agamben writes about. I read his book but, as is becoming a trend with me it seems, find it more compelling in summary than in depth. Homo sacer (sacred man) is "a figure of Roman law: a person who is banned and may be killed by anybody, but may not be sacrificed in a religious ritual." and I had considered how this might apply to Cas in relation to the other angels because he is an outsider, to my mind. it feels right to me that he can be killed but not sacrificed, should it come to that in Heaven. that was something I wanted to explore but then it was way, way too far outside the plot and would've been incoherent with the narrative. I love to read and write about philosophical concepts but I hate when an author includes them just because it's their hobby horse. so I sacrificed that pretty quickly and continued on with the romance.

17. What was the hardest scene to write?

I didn't want to write the hangman episode because I really wanted it to be so good and was afraid it would suck. 😶 but since I write in order, I couldn't continue unless I wrote it so I just had to.

26. Wild Card! I'll tell you a fun fact about this fic!

might've already said this before, but I originally wrote this for @deancaspinefest, finished in October more than a month ahead of deadlines, and was too impatient to wait till Feb/March for posting. I write fast and am very bad at waiting.

ask game