To Fight in the Shade - Long Author's Notes
Long Author’s Notes:
I’ve been writing Sparta verse stories since March of 2008. I wish I could have written more than four installments so far, but real life keeps coming up, other writing projects, other big bangs. But this year, for the 2011 Big Bang, I wanted to work on a story that had been sitting in my head for a while.
To begin with, the Sparta verse stories started with some pretty pointed dialog from Bugs.
Now, Bugs wasn’t the most sophisticated of episodes, especially with that “instant morning” and all, but it had a lot of interesting ideas. Among them was the one where Dean emphatically states that he’d hate living in suburbia, and yet, goes weak at the knees at the thought of a steam shower. Then there’s the running joke about how everyone thinks that Sam and Dean are gay, and however you want to take that (either of course they are, they’re gay for each other or of course they’re not, they’re brothers), the joke was incredibly funny to me, and oh, how I long for the old days.
At any rate, Sam and Dean meet up with Larry and his son Matt. Larry and Matt don’t get along and watching them reminds Sam of how he and John Winchester didn’t get along, and he remarks upon this to Dean and some telling information reveals itself. It goes a little like this:
Sam: [about Larry with his son] Remind you of somebody?
[Dean looks at Larry and Matt, confused]
Sam: Dad?
Dean: [surprised] Dad never treated us like that.
Sam: [laughs] Well Dad never treated YOU like that, you were perfect. He was all over my case.
[Dean thinks about it, shakes his head]
Sam: You don't remember.
Dean: Well, maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes you were out of line!
Sam: [sarcastic] Right, right, like when I said I'd rather play soccer than learn bow-hunting.
Dean: Bow-hunting's an important skill!
That conversation stuck with me for a long time because I realized that it said a whole lot about Sam and Dean and their childhood.
First, as it is with all siblings, each of them has a different memory of how it was; for Dean it was fine, for Sam it was not fine.
Second, that while Sam can probably understand that their viewpoints on the whole matter were different, he realizes, just then, that Dean might be actually blocking out how horrible it was for Sam, and might even refuse to acknowledge it, even if Sam had proof. And since you only block out things that are really, really bad, so how bad was it?
And third, that Sam wanted to play soccer more than he wanted to learn bow hunting, and even years later, his lip curls at the memory and his words come out in such a derisive tone to indicate that the scars are still there. That he still resents it, still harbors a burning grudge.
It was from this that the idea was born: what if it really was as bad as Sam seems to be indicating it was? And what if Sam was desperate to play soccer and fought with everything he could against Dad trying, not just to teach them bow hunting, but everything else it took to be a hunter? And what if Dad, as Sam says, was all over Sam’s case, about it, all the time? What would that be like? And what kind of setting would support that kind of abusive treatment, over and over and over again?
I could not stop thinking about it, and the Summer From Hell was born. And while it was probably not as dark as Sam remembers in these stories, it was probably not as rosy as Dean seems to be painting it. Later, of course, Dean demonstrates some of the Dad-issues he has, but they seem to have more to do with Dean obsessing over being like Dad, wearing Dad’s clothes, listening to his music, etc.
While, of course, this started early on (with poor wee Dean at age FOUR), I think, back in the day, before Sam started to strike for independence, the three of them, John, Dean, and Sam, were more interdependent with each other, and it wasn’t quite so bleak. Well, maybe in John’s mind, as we now know, and being horrified at what he (supposedly) knew about Sam’s fate, but in general, it was a more innocent time for them, when problems could be solved by John yelling at his kids and handing out chuffs to the head and whippings as he saw fit.
As for Sam, and his constant frustration at not being understood on the most basic of levels by the people who should have been closest to him, that’s the kid that gets to my heart. That’s the kid I hear screaming in my head when I watch an episode and Dean says something disparaging about Sam’s “big brain” or how he’s a freak, and doesn’t seem to understand him at all.
Of course, most of the time Dean is teasing, but I think it kills Sam half the time, because he wants Dean to look up to him and admire him for what he can do, the same way that Sam looks up to and admires Dean. Are they moving that way in the series now? Well, I’d know more about that, wouldn’t I, if the two characters actually shared any screen time, but enough about that.
When I wrote the first story, I had it in my head that Sam was 12, because I didn’t want him too young to train or too old to punish with a belt beating. I also wanted Dean young enough to be a confused mess by the push-me-pull-you war of egos between John and Sam. But, in Bad Day at Black Rock, which came out about five months before I started the first Sparta verse story, the dialog indicates that Sam won the 1995 Division Championship Soccer trophy.
I guess I was more struck by the actual trophy (and couldn’t wait for the right time to slip it into one of the stories) than by the actual year given. Because even if the championship game was in the spring of 1995, when Sam might have been 12, but he’d turn 13 in May of that year, and so thus would be 13 during the summer from hell. Ah me, what a mistake, but it’s set in the story that way, for, what to my mind, seem to be good reasons, so I am going to stick with it. (Except that, in reading through some of the comments, all of the readers who remarked on Sam’s age agreed that he was 13; no one seemed to think Sam was too old, so I guess it all works out.)
Most of the Sparta stores are less than 20,000 words. They’re still hard to write, harder than I always think they’ll be, and that’s because of the constant war in my head about the balance between John’s discipline and John’s love, between Sam’s stubborn and independent streak and his desire to do well and be praised, not just by Dean (because, well, DEAN), but also by John.
I also fight with myself against writing stories that would slip into a kind of lovey-dovey mush, where John loosens the discipline and says sweet things like I love you and I’m proud of you, son. Because while John was, no doubt, proud of the sons he and Mary created, pretty much the only time John says anything nice is when he’s possessed by a demon.
Plus, a great deal, if not all, of the tension in the stories comes from the war between John and Sam. Having them go toe-to-toe is the easy part. The struggle for me comes not with getting them to the point where they knock bullheadedly against each other, it’s getting them to back down without killing each other (because if they were dead, then the story would be over) and without creating a weakness in either of them; both John and Sam have to save face, both in their own and in each other’s eyes.
I’m sure John is astonished anew each time Sam stands up and says NO, and I never forget how much it must kill John to have to say NO in return (even if Sam can’t ever see it). I’m pretty sure John was all chirked up about Sam winning that trophy (enough to keep it FOREVER), but he can’t say it, can’t ever let the glory stay, for reasons which I explore in this story.
One issue that kept coming up for people who read the Sparta verse was the balance for Sam between punishment and reward. The basic nature of the stories, in and of themselves, was to give me as a writer an opportunity to have John beat Sam; I’ve always admitted this: I am kinky that way, and I like beating stories. You only have to look at my Dark Shadows stories to see that this is true. There’s something interesting and stimulating about the dynamic between a harsh parental figure and their authoritarian rule over a child figure who cannot fight back (but tends to fight back anyway) and must find ways to survive without escaping.
My readers seem to accept this, they seem to understand what they’re getting when they click on the story and read the warnings, so I’ve not heard many complaints about the harshness of John’s treatment. Not one reader has indicated or asked that the beatings be less violent. They might indicate that they don’t see John quite this way (although many did), or that they found it disturbing but engaging, or something like that.
Many readers say they enjoy seeing John and Sam go at it, and that they themselves envisioned something similar. But I got not one complaint about the welts that Sam gets, the bruises, the cuts, or him crying his heart out because his bottom hurts so much. Sometimes, I would get something like, “Why do you keep tormenting Sam this way without so much as a kind word from John?” and “Gosh it would be nice to see Sam get rewarded…but not too much, I like John mean,” and so on. But nothing in any way that suggested the reader thought I should stop.
On the other hand…I’ve gotten a number of “When is Sam going to get those Otter Pops!” and this makes me smile to see, that readers picked up on the kid-ness that is Sam. Sure he can shoot a Baretta and hit the target, and sure he can shot a crossbow better than Dean, and sure he’s stronger and more capable than any kid his age, but in his head, he doesn’t think about that, he just wants sweets and candy and maybe some comic books, and maybe a trip to the library, and oh, yes, some Otter Pops. NOW.
I resisted through the writing of several stories, giving Sam peaches instead, and the occasional victory over John, and figured that would be enough. But readers, especially charmedstrange1, kept asking and asking that Sam should get Otter Pops, and I finally realize that to not give in would be cruel and unfair to readers, let alone Sam.
But I had to come up with a way to do it so that it wouldn’t soften the story’s framework, and wouldn’t turn either Sam or John (or Dean, for that matter) into soft characters who have slipped the tracks from the Summer From Hell. I had to make the story complex enough, as well, to support the idea of Otter Pops being eaten by Sam. It was difficult, enough so that while I had an idea in my head, I still wanted to get some outside perceptive, so I did a quite survey, which you can read here:
http://lovesrain44.dreamwidth.org/47469.html
or here:
http://lovesrain44.livejournal.com/48723.html
Readers seemed to agree that Sam should get Otter Pops, but no one could really agree, however, on what would be the perfect situation for this type of reward, which had become, at this point, rather huge in my head.
Many were struck by the difficulty in juxtaposing the gift that would, of necessity, come from John, and the reality of the story: if you have John give in, will he become too soft? What came out in the end was that the Otter Pops would have to come from a sense of guilt in John for something about Sam and also from John wanting to reward Sam.
You have to understand how IMPOSSIBLE this was; why on earth would John feel guilty, and why on earth would he think to reward Sam with treats, when in John’s mind, a job well done would be a reward in and of itself? I think I came up with a way, a tricky way, that’s both guilt and reward at the same time, and John still comes across as a harsh taskmaster. I’ll leave it up to the readers to determine whether it works.
As for the title, each of the Sparta verse stories has a title that is Sparta-ish in nature. I recently began roaming the online sites that have to do with the real Sparta and came away with some gems of ideas.
When I first started this story, I came across this quote:
The king later had the Theban prisoners branded with the royal mark.[88] Of the remaining defenders, Herodotus says: "Here they defended themselves to the last, those who still had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth."[87]
I had this idea that Sam would have some type of battle, where he would have no weapons, and only be able to use his hands and his teeth, and the story would be called “Hands and Teeth” etc. etc. But it didn’t seem to be enough, I needed a more potent idea, although the scene where Sam bites the officer is still intact.
Then, I came across this quote:
Herodotus writes that when Dienekes, a Spartan soldier, was informed that Persian arrows would be so numerous as "to block out the sun", he retorted, unconcerned; "So much the better...then we shall fight our battle in the shade."[136]
This felt like the symbol that represented what the Winchesters are: they do what they do and they don’t talk about it. Their battles (and heroics), stays in the shade, in the background.
I wanted to have John, at some point, offer a lecture to Sam about the importance of saving people, and hunting things, and all without reward. But this seemed a bit high-flying, besides, it wouldn’t be something that Sam would really appreciate, especially not at 13. It needed to be about Sam…but I couldn’t figure it out, so I started writing the story anyway, figuring it would come out in the wash. And besides, I liked the title To Fight in the Shade much better than Hands and Teeth.
Eventually it did come to me what the story was about. It was about Sam, fighting his own battles in his own mind, and coming to terms with what he needs to do, Not that any 13 year old would be sophisticated enough to understand it in these terms, to Sam, his life is a constraint struggle to get his own way, though, at the same time, Sam realizes a lot of the time that he’s on his own - and nobody can understand how hard this is for him. He is fighting, literally, in the shade of what John wants, and also in the shade of Sam’s overwhelming love for Dean.
And in the end, there’s that whipping scene, because you gotta have that, right? Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a Sparta verse story. : D
P.S. I tried as hard as I could to find songs to make a soundtrack, because what could be more fun than a soundtrack that represents how Sammy sees the world? Well, the only song I could find was one by Colin Hay, called “Waiting For My Real Life to Begin” because it completely spoke to how Sammy feels about putting up with the stupid hunter training. These lyrics in particular, say what Sammy would like to say, both to Dean and to John:
When I awoke today suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path
And up this cobbled lane
I'm walking in my own footsteps once again
And you say,
"Just be here now
Forget about the past
Your mask is wearing thin"
Let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I'm waiting for my real life to begin
It makes me cry, just to think of it, the way Sammy aches with longing for a life that will never be his.
Anyway, I got clever and found a way to post a link to a youtube vid of Colin Hay doing a very lovely acoustic version of this song.
Plus, for your viewing pleasure, I include some maps of the area where the story takes place. This first one is just how I imagine the layout of the cabin in the woods to be.
The second on is an actual map of Ft. Payne, with the areas where the story takes place, marked out.
Then this last map is of the area where the hardware store is, and its relation to the park where Sam plays soccer.
I can't seem to stop myself! But I wanted to include some links to my research sources, in case there's someone else out there who is as anal as I am about these types of things.
This is a website that teaches you how to throw knives, and how to determine what type of knife can do what type of throws. This is where I found information on the Faka and the flying knife.
http://www.knifethrowing.info/index.html
http://www.knifethrowing.info/faka_throwing_knife.html
http://www.knifethrowing.info/flyingknife.html
These are a whole bunch of links for ropes and rope tying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope
http://www.realknots.com/knots/
http://www.2020site.org/knots/turksheadknot.html
'
This is a website about fighting. I didn't really use it, but I wanted to have it on hand in case I needed it.
http://www.fighttimes.com/magazine/magazine.asp?article=160
This is an article about prison food. It also includes menus, which is how I figure that prisons don't really serve milk.
http://www.good.is/post/food-for-thinkers-wanted-prison-food-writers/
This is a hysterical article about Otter Pops, from which I learned aaaaaallll about each character. This was an invaluable piece or research, and perhaps the most important one.
http://kidicarus222.blogspot.com/2006/07/este-quelpo-es-delicioso.html
Master Fic Post
I’ve been writing Sparta verse stories since March of 2008. I wish I could have written more than four installments so far, but real life keeps coming up, other writing projects, other big bangs. But this year, for the 2011 Big Bang, I wanted to work on a story that had been sitting in my head for a while.
To begin with, the Sparta verse stories started with some pretty pointed dialog from Bugs.
Now, Bugs wasn’t the most sophisticated of episodes, especially with that “instant morning” and all, but it had a lot of interesting ideas. Among them was the one where Dean emphatically states that he’d hate living in suburbia, and yet, goes weak at the knees at the thought of a steam shower. Then there’s the running joke about how everyone thinks that Sam and Dean are gay, and however you want to take that (either of course they are, they’re gay for each other or of course they’re not, they’re brothers), the joke was incredibly funny to me, and oh, how I long for the old days.
At any rate, Sam and Dean meet up with Larry and his son Matt. Larry and Matt don’t get along and watching them reminds Sam of how he and John Winchester didn’t get along, and he remarks upon this to Dean and some telling information reveals itself. It goes a little like this:
Sam: [about Larry with his son] Remind you of somebody?
[Dean looks at Larry and Matt, confused]
Sam: Dad?
Dean: [surprised] Dad never treated us like that.
Sam: [laughs] Well Dad never treated YOU like that, you were perfect. He was all over my case.
[Dean thinks about it, shakes his head]
Sam: You don't remember.
Dean: Well, maybe he had to raise his voice, but sometimes you were out of line!
Sam: [sarcastic] Right, right, like when I said I'd rather play soccer than learn bow-hunting.
Dean: Bow-hunting's an important skill!
That conversation stuck with me for a long time because I realized that it said a whole lot about Sam and Dean and their childhood.
First, as it is with all siblings, each of them has a different memory of how it was; for Dean it was fine, for Sam it was not fine.
Second, that while Sam can probably understand that their viewpoints on the whole matter were different, he realizes, just then, that Dean might be actually blocking out how horrible it was for Sam, and might even refuse to acknowledge it, even if Sam had proof. And since you only block out things that are really, really bad, so how bad was it?
And third, that Sam wanted to play soccer more than he wanted to learn bow hunting, and even years later, his lip curls at the memory and his words come out in such a derisive tone to indicate that the scars are still there. That he still resents it, still harbors a burning grudge.
It was from this that the idea was born: what if it really was as bad as Sam seems to be indicating it was? And what if Sam was desperate to play soccer and fought with everything he could against Dad trying, not just to teach them bow hunting, but everything else it took to be a hunter? And what if Dad, as Sam says, was all over Sam’s case, about it, all the time? What would that be like? And what kind of setting would support that kind of abusive treatment, over and over and over again?
I could not stop thinking about it, and the Summer From Hell was born. And while it was probably not as dark as Sam remembers in these stories, it was probably not as rosy as Dean seems to be painting it. Later, of course, Dean demonstrates some of the Dad-issues he has, but they seem to have more to do with Dean obsessing over being like Dad, wearing Dad’s clothes, listening to his music, etc.
While, of course, this started early on (with poor wee Dean at age FOUR), I think, back in the day, before Sam started to strike for independence, the three of them, John, Dean, and Sam, were more interdependent with each other, and it wasn’t quite so bleak. Well, maybe in John’s mind, as we now know, and being horrified at what he (supposedly) knew about Sam’s fate, but in general, it was a more innocent time for them, when problems could be solved by John yelling at his kids and handing out chuffs to the head and whippings as he saw fit.
As for Sam, and his constant frustration at not being understood on the most basic of levels by the people who should have been closest to him, that’s the kid that gets to my heart. That’s the kid I hear screaming in my head when I watch an episode and Dean says something disparaging about Sam’s “big brain” or how he’s a freak, and doesn’t seem to understand him at all.
Of course, most of the time Dean is teasing, but I think it kills Sam half the time, because he wants Dean to look up to him and admire him for what he can do, the same way that Sam looks up to and admires Dean. Are they moving that way in the series now? Well, I’d know more about that, wouldn’t I, if the two characters actually shared any screen time, but enough about that.
When I wrote the first story, I had it in my head that Sam was 12, because I didn’t want him too young to train or too old to punish with a belt beating. I also wanted Dean young enough to be a confused mess by the push-me-pull-you war of egos between John and Sam. But, in Bad Day at Black Rock, which came out about five months before I started the first Sparta verse story, the dialog indicates that Sam won the 1995 Division Championship Soccer trophy.
I guess I was more struck by the actual trophy (and couldn’t wait for the right time to slip it into one of the stories) than by the actual year given. Because even if the championship game was in the spring of 1995, when Sam might have been 12, but he’d turn 13 in May of that year, and so thus would be 13 during the summer from hell. Ah me, what a mistake, but it’s set in the story that way, for, what to my mind, seem to be good reasons, so I am going to stick with it. (Except that, in reading through some of the comments, all of the readers who remarked on Sam’s age agreed that he was 13; no one seemed to think Sam was too old, so I guess it all works out.)
Most of the Sparta stores are less than 20,000 words. They’re still hard to write, harder than I always think they’ll be, and that’s because of the constant war in my head about the balance between John’s discipline and John’s love, between Sam’s stubborn and independent streak and his desire to do well and be praised, not just by Dean (because, well, DEAN), but also by John.
I also fight with myself against writing stories that would slip into a kind of lovey-dovey mush, where John loosens the discipline and says sweet things like I love you and I’m proud of you, son. Because while John was, no doubt, proud of the sons he and Mary created, pretty much the only time John says anything nice is when he’s possessed by a demon.
Plus, a great deal, if not all, of the tension in the stories comes from the war between John and Sam. Having them go toe-to-toe is the easy part. The struggle for me comes not with getting them to the point where they knock bullheadedly against each other, it’s getting them to back down without killing each other (because if they were dead, then the story would be over) and without creating a weakness in either of them; both John and Sam have to save face, both in their own and in each other’s eyes.
I’m sure John is astonished anew each time Sam stands up and says NO, and I never forget how much it must kill John to have to say NO in return (even if Sam can’t ever see it). I’m pretty sure John was all chirked up about Sam winning that trophy (enough to keep it FOREVER), but he can’t say it, can’t ever let the glory stay, for reasons which I explore in this story.
One issue that kept coming up for people who read the Sparta verse was the balance for Sam between punishment and reward. The basic nature of the stories, in and of themselves, was to give me as a writer an opportunity to have John beat Sam; I’ve always admitted this: I am kinky that way, and I like beating stories. You only have to look at my Dark Shadows stories to see that this is true. There’s something interesting and stimulating about the dynamic between a harsh parental figure and their authoritarian rule over a child figure who cannot fight back (but tends to fight back anyway) and must find ways to survive without escaping.
My readers seem to accept this, they seem to understand what they’re getting when they click on the story and read the warnings, so I’ve not heard many complaints about the harshness of John’s treatment. Not one reader has indicated or asked that the beatings be less violent. They might indicate that they don’t see John quite this way (although many did), or that they found it disturbing but engaging, or something like that.
Many readers say they enjoy seeing John and Sam go at it, and that they themselves envisioned something similar. But I got not one complaint about the welts that Sam gets, the bruises, the cuts, or him crying his heart out because his bottom hurts so much. Sometimes, I would get something like, “Why do you keep tormenting Sam this way without so much as a kind word from John?” and “Gosh it would be nice to see Sam get rewarded…but not too much, I like John mean,” and so on. But nothing in any way that suggested the reader thought I should stop.
On the other hand…I’ve gotten a number of “When is Sam going to get those Otter Pops!” and this makes me smile to see, that readers picked up on the kid-ness that is Sam. Sure he can shoot a Baretta and hit the target, and sure he can shot a crossbow better than Dean, and sure he’s stronger and more capable than any kid his age, but in his head, he doesn’t think about that, he just wants sweets and candy and maybe some comic books, and maybe a trip to the library, and oh, yes, some Otter Pops. NOW.
I resisted through the writing of several stories, giving Sam peaches instead, and the occasional victory over John, and figured that would be enough. But readers, especially charmedstrange1, kept asking and asking that Sam should get Otter Pops, and I finally realize that to not give in would be cruel and unfair to readers, let alone Sam.
But I had to come up with a way to do it so that it wouldn’t soften the story’s framework, and wouldn’t turn either Sam or John (or Dean, for that matter) into soft characters who have slipped the tracks from the Summer From Hell. I had to make the story complex enough, as well, to support the idea of Otter Pops being eaten by Sam. It was difficult, enough so that while I had an idea in my head, I still wanted to get some outside perceptive, so I did a quite survey, which you can read here:
http://lovesrain44.dreamwidth.org/47469.html
or here:
http://lovesrain44.livejournal.com/48723.html
Readers seemed to agree that Sam should get Otter Pops, but no one could really agree, however, on what would be the perfect situation for this type of reward, which had become, at this point, rather huge in my head.
Many were struck by the difficulty in juxtaposing the gift that would, of necessity, come from John, and the reality of the story: if you have John give in, will he become too soft? What came out in the end was that the Otter Pops would have to come from a sense of guilt in John for something about Sam and also from John wanting to reward Sam.
You have to understand how IMPOSSIBLE this was; why on earth would John feel guilty, and why on earth would he think to reward Sam with treats, when in John’s mind, a job well done would be a reward in and of itself? I think I came up with a way, a tricky way, that’s both guilt and reward at the same time, and John still comes across as a harsh taskmaster. I’ll leave it up to the readers to determine whether it works.
As for the title, each of the Sparta verse stories has a title that is Sparta-ish in nature. I recently began roaming the online sites that have to do with the real Sparta and came away with some gems of ideas.
When I first started this story, I came across this quote:
The king later had the Theban prisoners branded with the royal mark.[88] Of the remaining defenders, Herodotus says: "Here they defended themselves to the last, those who still had swords using them, and the others resisting with their hands and teeth."[87]
I had this idea that Sam would have some type of battle, where he would have no weapons, and only be able to use his hands and his teeth, and the story would be called “Hands and Teeth” etc. etc. But it didn’t seem to be enough, I needed a more potent idea, although the scene where Sam bites the officer is still intact.
Then, I came across this quote:
Herodotus writes that when Dienekes, a Spartan soldier, was informed that Persian arrows would be so numerous as "to block out the sun", he retorted, unconcerned; "So much the better...then we shall fight our battle in the shade."[136]
This felt like the symbol that represented what the Winchesters are: they do what they do and they don’t talk about it. Their battles (and heroics), stays in the shade, in the background.
I wanted to have John, at some point, offer a lecture to Sam about the importance of saving people, and hunting things, and all without reward. But this seemed a bit high-flying, besides, it wouldn’t be something that Sam would really appreciate, especially not at 13. It needed to be about Sam…but I couldn’t figure it out, so I started writing the story anyway, figuring it would come out in the wash. And besides, I liked the title To Fight in the Shade much better than Hands and Teeth.
Eventually it did come to me what the story was about. It was about Sam, fighting his own battles in his own mind, and coming to terms with what he needs to do, Not that any 13 year old would be sophisticated enough to understand it in these terms, to Sam, his life is a constraint struggle to get his own way, though, at the same time, Sam realizes a lot of the time that he’s on his own - and nobody can understand how hard this is for him. He is fighting, literally, in the shade of what John wants, and also in the shade of Sam’s overwhelming love for Dean.
And in the end, there’s that whipping scene, because you gotta have that, right? Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a Sparta verse story. : D
P.S. I tried as hard as I could to find songs to make a soundtrack, because what could be more fun than a soundtrack that represents how Sammy sees the world? Well, the only song I could find was one by Colin Hay, called “Waiting For My Real Life to Begin” because it completely spoke to how Sammy feels about putting up with the stupid hunter training. These lyrics in particular, say what Sammy would like to say, both to Dean and to John:
When I awoke today suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path
And up this cobbled lane
I'm walking in my own footsteps once again
And you say,
"Just be here now
Forget about the past
Your mask is wearing thin"
Let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I'm waiting for my real life to begin
It makes me cry, just to think of it, the way Sammy aches with longing for a life that will never be his.
Anyway, I got clever and found a way to post a link to a youtube vid of Colin Hay doing a very lovely acoustic version of this song.
Click to viewPlus, for your viewing pleasure, I include some maps of the area where the story takes place. This first one is just how I imagine the layout of the cabin in the woods to be.
The second on is an actual map of Ft. Payne, with the areas where the story takes place, marked out.
Then this last map is of the area where the hardware store is, and its relation to the park where Sam plays soccer.
I can't seem to stop myself! But I wanted to include some links to my research sources, in case there's someone else out there who is as anal as I am about these types of things.
This is a website that teaches you how to throw knives, and how to determine what type of knife can do what type of throws. This is where I found information on the Faka and the flying knife.
http://www.knifethrowing.info/index.html
http://www.knifethrowing.info/faka_throwing_knife.html
http://www.knifethrowing.info/flyingknife.html
These are a whole bunch of links for ropes and rope tying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope
http://www.realknots.com/knots/
http://www.2020site.org/knots/turksheadknot.html
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This is a website about fighting. I didn't really use it, but I wanted to have it on hand in case I needed it.
http://www.fighttimes.com/magazine/magazine.asp?article=160
This is an article about prison food. It also includes menus, which is how I figure that prisons don't really serve milk.
http://www.good.is/post/food-for-thinkers-wanted-prison-food-writers/
This is a hysterical article about Otter Pops, from which I learned aaaaaallll about each character. This was an invaluable piece or research, and perhaps the most important one.
http://kidicarus222.blogspot.com/2006/07/este-quelpo-es-delicioso.html
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