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[ananke-xiii]

So these are just memory-based, impromptu thoughts but I want to write them down as a starting point for when I'll finally write about Julia Wright and Jesse Turner.

I've said that I don't really like the general vibe of S14 regarding Jack because I feel like the story heavily relies on a false dichotomy that I don't personally find compelling. I'm talking about the trite "good vs evil"/"nature vs nurture" dilemma. The presence of evil is posited as an unquestionable presence while good is only present via its absence. By paralleling Jack with Nick the story implies that Jack is both evil by default (because of Lucifer's influence) and he can't do anything about it because he ultimately depletes his soul, the last symbol of human choice, to help his family out and to fix his mistakes.

Jack's story reaches its climax when he accidentally kills Mary and Cas says that what happened was due to "the absence of good". I think that it's a good summary of the whole season.

I'm absolutely not advocating for a real "good vs evil" dichotomy because that would be even more boring, but I just want to point out the unfairness of it all and how it flattens Jack out as a character: if you tell me that he's evil from the start but you also remove that one thing that could've created real conflict then you're basically saying that this character cannot change. And if he cannot change how should we understand his story? Or, to be more honest, how should we find it interesting?

So, of course, I've tried another way.

Although I still stand by all this, I also have to admit that not only does Jack tick all the items off the "Evil/Monstrous Child" trope list but he also happens to be a good Antichrist figure. In a way, he couldn't "only" be a Nephilim, he also had to be inherently connected with Lucifer and The Evil because he was written, I think, having in mind a conflation of the lore about the Antichrist, the Nephilims and their respective connections to the biblical/christian concept of World Ending.

So this got me thinking about all the ways in which Jack's an Antichrist figure and how it relates to the Alternate World where Apocalypse did very much happen. Not only does he help fighting that specific war but his birth is also precisely what opens the rift to a world where Apocalypse is sort of an on-going thing.

I was deep into my musings and speculations when I realized that, while this justification serves to make Jack a more distinct character, more disentangled from his father'/family' s looming presence and with his own individual attributes, it still doesn't free him from the comparison with another character: Christ.

For all its creative usage of God, SPN has always been careful when it comes to the other son of God, at least according to Christianity. Apart from the archangels and the angels, in the world of SPN God's son is the one&only Lucifer.

I don't know how to interpret this but even if I want to see Jack in this light I'm still not free from the above-mentioned false dichotomy: the "anti" part of "Antichrist" is very clear and very present, thank you very much, however, it's the Christ part that's still... absent.

If the absence of good left Jack to face his only other alternative (the certainty of evil), the absence of Christ leaves Jack with the only possible choice: he has to become Christ as well. This puts Jack in the uncomfortable position of being both the Antichrist and the Christ in a way that doesn't result in a unity between two antithetic parts but as a way to sacrifice what he certainly is (the Antichrist) for who he is not (Christ).

The moment Jack "chooses" to save humanity he's actually going against the very reason he was brought into the world for: to end it. This should settle the issue, right? Jack is actually free to choose? Well, I don't know.

For the narrative Jack can only be either Lucifer or Christ: the first is Bad and Sure, the second is Good but Absent so in order to be good, to make good present and manifest, Jack must kill who the story tells us from the start that he must be, someone who cannot change: in other words, in order to be good Jack must be willing to sacrifice his (supposedly) Evil Self, he "must" kill himself.

I feel like, although in different terms, this is the same route the show went with Dean and, as you probably know, I find that route very problematic.

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If you guys were on here at 11 years old what would you be posting about

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they're thee moment

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bc of jack's storyline: chuck is a grandfather as well. is it more fitting to see him through these lens rather than the "absent father" ones? was he maybe right when he said he was nothing like john winchester? (i often think about this)

how does he fit (if he does) with henry and samuel? are azazel and abaddon, with their obsessive minds, their constant threat of (sexual) abuse and their connection to those grandfathers (and therefore to dean) more akin to chuck rather than (s4-5) lucifer himself? is, perhaps, john weirdly more similar to lucifer, the abandoned son, renegade widower and obsessed father (mainly with sam)? what's really up with lucifer and dead wives? what's the real reason behind chuck choosing lucifer as amara's keeper? also very important to me.

both samuel and henry wanted to bring/go back (to) their child. very important to me.

very different from john and mary who wanted to bring back/avenge their spouse. also very important to me.

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the thing about "despair" that i like from a fanfic pov is that it gives me the possibility to play with the people's rapture in a way that wouldn't be possible with other stories that i know of. because in spn god's real and a writer and obsessed with the main characters etc etc.

so the show went "the leftovers" route in that people simply disappeared and the only people left were sam, dean and jack (+ without any explanation whatsover michael minus adam and lucifer in nick's body but okay, the point is to forget about "inherit the earth" and its mehness).

however, i would've gone a different way in the sense that it's not so much that the people are being raptured but planet earth itself is. like, the people just "leave" chuck's fictional world and "enter" the real world, which is exactly the same as their fictional world precisely because they're not sam and dean and chuck doesn't actually care about them at all. it's a world without the illusion of chuck. a world without god if you will, meaning that he has "left" that world because he's only interested in a world with sam and dean. but he still pretty much actually exists, extra-dimensionally speaking.

so, for instance, it's not stevie who disappears "in reality" but it's charlie because stevie is actually only "entering" the real world while charlie is still "stuck" in the fictional one. eileen goes for a run and simply "leaves" her phone behind in the fictional world for sam to pick up while she "enters" the real one. and so on and so forth.

like, we see these characters disappear but they're not,it's the earth that's being raptured because there's... another earth (idea taken from the homonyous movie): what we, viewers and characters, considered "the real, the main" earth (earth 1) reveals itself to be just another of chuck's fictional earths where he can enact his fantasies of solitude and pain for his "heroes".

to make things more interesting, these two earths are not supposed to ever meet. it's cas' deal, that triggers the entrance of the shadow into the earth 1, the fictional world, that causes the two earths to "meet" and it would look like this still from "another earth":

to make things even more interesting i've come up with a very convoluted way for cas to go back to earth by himself via billies' help, but he goes to the real-real earth (earth 0, let's say) while sam, dean and jack are "stuck" in chuck's fiction (earth 1).

because of the shadow's appearance, the two earths now know about each other because they can see each other but they can't do much more than that because one it's real, the other it's fictional. but it has "real" people in it who are, therefore, literally trapped in the narrative. in other world, chuck's big scam is majorly revealed, perhaps a few people have some serious existential crises, lol.

because of a series of things that i have in my mind, cas and jack can, after having figuring out how, communicate with each other (this is possible because jack's half-angel) so eventually earth 1 knows that cas&everyone are alive and well and earth 0 also comes to know that three people are basically taken hostage on another planet by literal god. a planet that it's exactly like their planet. that was their planet, but that turns out it's fictional.

so the thing would be: how can people from earth 0 reach earth 1 to save sam, dean and jack from god's captivity or how do the latter escape earth 1 and reach earth 0?

in my mind i have the solution but it's super dangerous and of course there are obstacles (see: chuck, lol) and it's basically the same thing cas did to save himself from the empty. these people need to learn how to... die.

i need to read and re-read some borges but i personally find this concept way cooler than a normal rapture without explanation! let earth be raptured and be done with god! let the people save the captive heroes!

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what I wouldn’t give for a friendship/creative partnership like what brit marling and zal batmanglij have

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[id second image]:

an excerpt of a letter that the artist Félix Gonzaléz-Torres sent to his partner Ross Laycock who was struggling with AIDS.

the drawing of two clocks showing almost the same time, side-by-side, touching.

below, the text;

Lovers, 1988

Dont be afraid of the clocks, they are our time, time has been so generous to us. We imprinted time with the sweet taste of victory. We conquered fate by meeting at a certain TIME in a certain space. We are a product of the time, therefore we give back credit were it is due: time.

We are synchronized, now and forever.

I love you.

via catch-fire, who includes a nice explanation on the letter and the set up of the piece

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Its the near future, You are in the last store that still sells dvds, it has been mostly picked clean, but before you sits several box sets, they are closing soon and have a strict 1 box set per person rule,

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M*A*S*H | 3.07 - "Check-up"

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you know what would have been the funniest thing ever. if sam had ever pulled rank with crowley

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no rizz but i’ll listen to ur favorite band’s full discography just to understand you better

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it really sucks that spn had such a limited show of jacks powers (consequences of being a live action CW show) and also could not write him with a consistent personality to save their life bc i know in my heart he is launching cars like a baseball and shoving his fist through ribcages and making windows break when he’s really really mad and other assorted shenanigans

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that moment in a movie when you realize "she's not gonna make it to the end, is she".

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among many other things, underneath the "art vs artist" discourse lies, untouched and protected, the myth of the innate, mysterious, unique and visionary genius.

perhaps it's less evident when it comes to the art of writing but it shows its true colors when it's about cinema. directors are usually hailed as "geniuses", people, usually white men, who have made huge contributions to the world of art in its entirety. and, i mean, there's definetely some truth to that.

but nobody ever talks about the "other artists" behind the Artists because they're usually considered more like "technicians" than "True Artists". less "genius" and more "technique", aka work, manual and intellectual but nevertheless repeated over time, specialized. so people are shocked when they hear one of their favorite directors say that their costume designer has spent months researching into a specific type of fashion that was what the director had in mind for his movie. or when, surprise!, there's meticulous, cared-for storytelling even in set design! or that there are other screenwriters who work with the director to co-create something for all of us, who provide ideas and images and visions.

an example that comes to mind is one of my favorite directors, Federico Fellini. He's perhaps The Director because of his visceral connection with his movies and with the seventh art. He was a genius indeed. But Fellini's movies would be less Fellini-like without Ennio Flaiano's writing or Nino Rota's music or Piero Gherardi's custome designs or Giulietta Masina's acting. and, mind you, these people here are ALL Oscar winners. like, they are Big Names as well but they're rarely mentioned when talking about how Fellini was a genius.

there's a tendency, when watching, for instance, Fellini's movies, to only think about him as The Artist, The Genius. Why? Because we are somehow incapable of seeing art as belonging to more hands than just two, those of the Great Genius. there's a collective behind the artist AND the art. at best, everyone has contributed to something beautiful. at worst, there's a tacit connivance for power's sake that either goes undetected or unconfessed.

one might think that the myth of the genius is detached from the "Separate the Art from the Artist" debate but it's not until we start stopping seeing Artists as these inherently unique, grandiose, amazing geniuses that are bestowing their incredible gifts on us. from a political point of view, this is a quite dangerous approach. dangerous not exclusively in the sense that these are people with a lot of power in their hands and they may or may not use to their own advantage and/or to the detriment of other people. but because we are far more likely to absorb these geniuses' ideology and views because of their genius status, not even because of their actual art. because we are still in love with Geniuses, the (usually) men of "multifaceted ingenuity".

in other words, there is a discourse about power, politics and aesthetics that comes well before, or maybe that's underneath the "single artist vs his art" discourse and it has more to do with how Art is perceived and how we currently approach Art in the first place: what do we want and why do we want it? what are we looking for? has it always been this way? why are we seeking escapism and/or entertainment and/or stimulation? why these are the Big Names of our generation? why have we chosen them? have we chosen them? + many more questions.

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choosing my truths (1): in spn's "stanger in a strange land" the "i thought you two were joined at the..." line is not just a "ihih dick joke" but It's another way of saying that everybody knows that dean and cas... grok.

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Female Trouble (1974) // dir. John Waters

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in light of the events of severance s2e1 the "innie dylan in the outie dylan's closet" scene in s1 might perhaps be seen in quite the figurative terms. (can't wait for the "innie dylan in the room for the outies" scene). mr milchick's words hint at it too: if we take things at face value....