Meme answer
Jun. 15th, 2007 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kat_lairYet another answer to the meme where I asked you to...
Name a character and I'll tell you three (or more) facts about them, from my own personal pseudo-canon.
pushkin666 requested John Winchester from Supernatural. I would like to take a moment to whine about how I’ve never written John and how it was hard, and I had to like stretch-myself-as-a-writer and move beyond my comfort zones, and omg why did you make doooo eeeeet??? That is to say: It was a challenge and, um, I hope I didn’t botch it up too badly.
Three things about John Winchester
1. John Winchester never killed a man.
The first time he held a gun was when he joined the Core. He was seventeen when his country handed him a M-40 sniper rifle and taught him to kill. He did it so well that they gave him a piece of metal for his chest, presumably to replace the one the doctor dug out of his shoulder.
After he got out, John locked away the medals and the gun, which he kept just in case but never really expected to use again. That wasn’t the first thing he got wrong in his life. Or the last.
There were a lot of kills over the years. John used shotguns and handguns and rifles, throw knives and hunting knives and small switchblades that folded neatly into his boot. He killed ghosts with salt and fire, demons with holy water and Latin, hunted down all manner of dark creatures with nothing but a crossbow and two young boys at his back.
Some of the things John killed wore a human face, screamed with a human voice, but they weren’t human. Not really, or not anymore.
They were like the enemies John killed in the
2. Mary wasn’t the first person John Winchester was in love with, but she was the last. Sometimes he thinks he lost the ability for all flavours of love with her death. At the very least it changed; turning into a dark and different thing. It was like looking at his own familiar face on one of those funhouse mirrors and seeing something twisted and ugly staring back.
He looks at his boys, his babies, and sees soldiers. What used to be pure, is now tainted with duty and sacrifice, endless roads and too much blood.
Part of him is glad when Sam leaves; perhaps it’s for the best, perhaps he is something to run away from. Dean is another matter though. He stays no matter how much John pushes, so in the end he does what every responsible parent should do: tries to make sure his children are as safe as he can make them.
John is honest enough to admit that by the time he disappears it’s not just the Demon he needs to protect them from; it’s him too.
3. John fucking hates the afterlife. He’s always believed in Hell, but not in Heaven, and so far all his experiences have proven him right on both accounts. As bad as Hell was – his mind slides around the details like a skater circling a hole in the ice, keeping the gash of dark bottomless water in his periphery but refusing to look at it directly – it was still preferable to this obscure nothingness he finds himself in now. Everything is less than it was before; a colourless, weightless, timeless existence without end or purpose. He can see glimpses of the world, clinging to the edges like a memory, but he can’t interact with it.
Perhaps he never crawled out at all, and this is just another version of Hell. Or maybe it’s a test that he failed, a judgement forever pending, a Boatman always beyond the horizon.
Sometimes he hears Mary’s voice, calling for him, but it’s a trick, it must be. After all, John Winchester doesn’t believe in Heaven.
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no subject
on 2007-06-15 06:47 pm (UTC)He did so well that they gave him a piece of metal for his chest, presumably to replace the one the doctor dug out of his shoulder.
Oh that says all there needs to be said about the opinions you don't talk about.
You have been challenged and found worthy...have a cookie!
no subject
on 2007-06-15 07:50 pm (UTC)that says all there needs to be said about the opinions you don't talk about. - because I'm all subtle like. or not. but regardless, I'm delighted when people pick out sentences and this one in particular I liked myself so yay!
no subject
on 2007-06-15 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-06-15 07:54 pm (UTC)dark cynicism indeed. And yeah I think he was partly relieved when Sam left, just as he was when he made the decision to leave Dean behind as well.
no subject
on 2007-06-15 07:13 pm (UTC)John is honest enough to admit that by the time he disappears it’s not just the Demon he needs to protect them from; it’s him too.
LOVE this.
no subject
on 2007-06-15 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-06-15 08:04 pm (UTC)As bad as Hell was – his mind slides around the details like a skater circling a hole in the ice, keeping the gash of dark bottomless water in his periphery but refusing to look at it directly – it was still preferable to this obscure nothingness he finds himself in now. *swoon*
All of #2. *lovesonsohard*
They were like the enemies John killed in the Nam, like the people at his side, like himself; men but not men, tools of war stripped bare and hollowed out. So damn simple but it says it all, donnit.
no subject
on 2007-06-15 08:17 pm (UTC)And you go and quote stuff at me. Now that's practically courting! *simpers* That is to say: THANK YOU for the wonderful compliments, I am so, so pleased you liked this.
no subject
on 2007-07-16 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-16 02:21 pm (UTC)Your icon makes me giggle! And resist an urge to snap to attention.
no subject
on 2010-03-31 08:15 pm (UTC)Reading this again (via AO3) makes me realise just how much I love John but also how damaged he was. But I love that he recognises what he's become. What's he's had to become.
And so sad that he doesn't believe it's Mary he's hearing.
no subject
on 2010-04-01 08:01 pm (UTC)Yeah, John was indeed damaged. I think he slipped too far into thinking that end justified the means.
In my head it was Mary who kept calling for him but John didn't let himself believe it.