Black Dove // Extended Author's Notes
Some of my rambling about the genesis of this story:
This story actually came from a very, very vague notion of wanting to write an atmospheric story of solitary travels though wastelands. Which is not exactly an innovative thought I guess. I’ve collected some experience in my previous fandom when it comes to writing a post-apocalyptic world, but I knew I wanted to do something else. Strangely enough, the sounds, smells and colors where the first things that came to me, back when I was in England for five months during 2010. This is a long time for certain images and snippets of sentences and atmosphere to prosper, but since I thought I’d use it for another story in another fandom (that never happened) many of those initial ideas were actually tossed for something that I assumed to fit SPN better.
I don’t know exactly where the final spark of inspiration came from, but Tori Amos’ “Black Dove (January Girl)” must have played a major role in it. This song has always, always resonated strongly within me and if nothing else, it gave me the title and Castiel’s “name”.
The plot isn’t that intricate and it was supposed to be one episode - which of course means that it has it’s part in the series. It’s based on 7.12 and doesn’t take later episodes into count even though we were at about 7.15 or 7.16 when I started writing. Castiel hadn’t reappeared yet and even though the show went on as I typed my story, I tried not to let that influence what I wanted to write. Also, since this is one episode, it demands a sequel. :D
About the lack of geographical markers in this story; I have never been to America and know close to nothing about it. I tried to make up my embarrassing ignorance with spending hours on google maps, not really coming to any sort of conclusion but the occasional “this is just vast empty space!”. Which is confusing for a person coming from tiny Switzerland, so please, please forgive me for being sloppy and vague about locations. But while I worked with maps and tried to trace their journey, actual locations are not important for this story. It could be anywhere.
Apart from Europe. Sure, it’s my background that makes me want to keep Europe safe, but it’s also the show’s almost complete disregard of any other places on the globe that enabled developing Europe as a) a fugitive camp and b) a source of knowledge and mythical objects. It didn’t feature strongly in the story, but part of my head-canon about Europe is based on Esmerod’s take on European hunters and their organization.
While I was deep into the planning stages of this fanfiction I attended one of the traditional carnival events which inspired the take on Raunacht. The impressions I had where of people moving through the early morning darkness while all the lights had been switched off in the city. Lanterns cast flickering shadows on the high walls of the medieval house fronts and small allies. Shadows, sounds and knowing that this was a century old tradition made quite an impression on me. Raunacht is a remnant of old celtic traditions that are still found in German speaking regions, especially the Alps. There are 12 (in some instances 13) days that figure into this cycle; it starts with Christmas and ends with Epiphany. Those days were believed to be very magical; where you could meet demons, be frightened by witches, had to place offerings for Odin and Frau Holle, could be taken by the “Wilde Jagd” (wild hunt) and have conversations with magical creatures and the dead if you went to a crossroad and listened. There are a lot of such days found all over the world, it was merely my own setting that decided on that one. :D
Overall, it was terrific to write this story! To bring myself to actually finish a project and work together with a beta, an alpha (does that make me an omega or what? Some literary critics might agree) and an artist! It's been a great experience! ♥
This story actually came from a very, very vague notion of wanting to write an atmospheric story of solitary travels though wastelands. Which is not exactly an innovative thought I guess. I’ve collected some experience in my previous fandom when it comes to writing a post-apocalyptic world, but I knew I wanted to do something else. Strangely enough, the sounds, smells and colors where the first things that came to me, back when I was in England for five months during 2010. This is a long time for certain images and snippets of sentences and atmosphere to prosper, but since I thought I’d use it for another story in another fandom (that never happened) many of those initial ideas were actually tossed for something that I assumed to fit SPN better.
I don’t know exactly where the final spark of inspiration came from, but Tori Amos’ “Black Dove (January Girl)” must have played a major role in it. This song has always, always resonated strongly within me and if nothing else, it gave me the title and Castiel’s “name”.
The plot isn’t that intricate and it was supposed to be one episode - which of course means that it has it’s part in the series. It’s based on 7.12 and doesn’t take later episodes into count even though we were at about 7.15 or 7.16 when I started writing. Castiel hadn’t reappeared yet and even though the show went on as I typed my story, I tried not to let that influence what I wanted to write. Also, since this is one episode, it demands a sequel. :D
About the lack of geographical markers in this story; I have never been to America and know close to nothing about it. I tried to make up my embarrassing ignorance with spending hours on google maps, not really coming to any sort of conclusion but the occasional “this is just vast empty space!”. Which is confusing for a person coming from tiny Switzerland, so please, please forgive me for being sloppy and vague about locations. But while I worked with maps and tried to trace their journey, actual locations are not important for this story. It could be anywhere.
Apart from Europe. Sure, it’s my background that makes me want to keep Europe safe, but it’s also the show’s almost complete disregard of any other places on the globe that enabled developing Europe as a) a fugitive camp and b) a source of knowledge and mythical objects. It didn’t feature strongly in the story, but part of my head-canon about Europe is based on Esmerod’s take on European hunters and their organization.
While I was deep into the planning stages of this fanfiction I attended one of the traditional carnival events which inspired the take on Raunacht. The impressions I had where of people moving through the early morning darkness while all the lights had been switched off in the city. Lanterns cast flickering shadows on the high walls of the medieval house fronts and small allies. Shadows, sounds and knowing that this was a century old tradition made quite an impression on me. Raunacht is a remnant of old celtic traditions that are still found in German speaking regions, especially the Alps. There are 12 (in some instances 13) days that figure into this cycle; it starts with Christmas and ends with Epiphany. Those days were believed to be very magical; where you could meet demons, be frightened by witches, had to place offerings for Odin and Frau Holle, could be taken by the “Wilde Jagd” (wild hunt) and have conversations with magical creatures and the dead if you went to a crossroad and listened. There are a lot of such days found all over the world, it was merely my own setting that decided on that one. :D
Overall, it was terrific to write this story! To bring myself to actually finish a project and work together with a beta, an alpha (does that make me an omega or what? Some literary critics might agree) and an artist! It's been a great experience! ♥