"Unforeseen Consequences."
A/N: By choosing this as a title and then thus having to 'google' how to spell "Unforeseen.", I ended up finding some seriously golden inspiration, in the form of "The top ten most meaningful videogame quotes of all time." list over on destructoid dot com.. Each one of the quotes got little blurbs dedicated to them, written by the person who made the list and in every single blurb, I could find something that I could directly relate to the most recent events on Supernatural.. But the most relevant was the last one, which was.. :
NUMBER 1. "Would you kindly?..." and the blurb is this: "Not only is this a moving, shocking, and all-around incredible quote about the CONSEQUENCES of blindly accepting authority, but it also represents one of the most insightful statements about video-gaming in general.. (THIS.. Is my own, personal add on.. I think it's actually one of the most insightful statements about LIFE in general.. ANYWAY.. The blurb continues on with ..).. CUT SCENES are a form of gameplay SLAVERY.. (AND look how much Supernatural use freaking CUT SCENES and you'll start seeing why I thought this blurb about a video game quote was relevant to Supernatural (also gets a person to wondering about all of the cuts scenes in all forms of media, most especially news, press conferences and political debates).. They rob the player of control, take him out of the moment, and FORCE him to passively witness as the events of the game- the events he is SUPPOSED to have SOME DEGREE OF AGENCY (choice) OVER, play out.. Ken Levine knows this and chose to exploit it in one of the most memorable ways of all time..
When the player finds out that he has been SUBLIMINALLY CONTROLLED by Atlas throughout the ENTIRE GAME, he or she experiences a very sudden, shocking, reassessment of values. having gone through the game thus far with the single-minded intent of beating Andrew Ryan to a bloody pulp, the player is suddenly forced to ask a question, most other games would never dream of proposing to the player.. "WHY am I doing this?"...
Why upon entering the Rapture, do you inject a Plasmid into his veins for seemingly no reason?, Why do you follow Atlas's every instruction?, Why do you kill the innocent, nonviolent-unless-provoked 'Big Daddies'?, Why do you want to kill Ryan?".. The answer is depressingly simple: You did these things because you were TOLD TO. Not because you necessarily had any personal investment in the action, but because someone asked you nicely. Even after realizing this, the player remains completely powerless to stop himself.
In an older article written (Exploring BioShock's storytelling flaws."), this was said about the "Would you kindly?" cut scene:
"Noninteractivity is used brilliantly within the context of the scene: for perhaps the first time in the entire game, the player doesn't want to kill Andrew Ryan, but Jack's violent nature and REFUSAL TO QUESTION HIS ORDERS are too much and the player is forced to watch, horrified, as he mercilessly and uncontrollably batters Ryan to death."
"It stands as the single greatest noninteractive cut scenes in gaming history. Ever. As a STORYTELLING DEVICE, noninteractivity is used as A WEAPON AGAINST THE PLAYER: "You don't want to question why you're doing what you're doing? Fine- you're nothing better than a mindless robotic slave, and you have essentially given up the HUMAN GIFT OF CHOICE. Having control taken away is, within the context of the story, a tangible punishment for accepting things on face value and blindly following orders."..
I have absolutely no idea what game the writer is talking about, (I've heard of BioShock, but I've never played it or wanted to.), but holy crap it is so freaking RELEVENT to describing how I feel about what's going on with Supernatural, right now, most especially with Sam AND Dean (Now, might be a good time to WARN, for SPOILERS for everything up to the Promos of Season 9 Episode 11.)..)..
The other most relevant quote, blurb from the site was..
NUMBER 3 on the list: "War. War never changes." (from Fallout.).. "In the world of Fallout you can do varying amounts of good on your quest through the Wastelands but, more often than not, your efforts can just as easily be undone by bad luck or THE CORRUPTION OF OTHERS. You can save the 'Ghouls of Necropolis" from starvation, only to hear of their slaughter at the hands of the 'Super Mutants'. You can help the 'Brotherhood of Steel' find new technology, but they'll use it to further their WAR-DRIVEN, QUASI-FACIST agenda. And no matter how much good you do in the original Fallout- no matter how quickly save the denizens of 'Vault 13' from dehydration and destroy the "Super Mutant" base- you will ALWAYS be cast out by a hypocritical, bureaucratic 'Vault Overseer' who claims your heroism will make you a bad role model for the other 'Vault Dwellers'..."
It goes on to basically say 'Punishment of morality in an immoral world, the hypocrisy of authority, the petty and violent nature of humankind, can be seen quite clearly even today. Wars are driven by greed, necessity, STUPIDITY, or FEAR- and even after the cities have been burnt to cinders and the countryside irradiated, WAR, will never change."
And once again.. Holy crap it's relevant.. Videogames really do hold the meaning to life! (and Supernatural, but for me Supernatural IS life.)..
ANYWAY.. I saw relevance in something entirely unrelated and wanted to put what I gained inspiration from out there for everybody else to see.. on another note, Sam and Dean, have a code-word that Dean told Crowley to tell Sam so that Sam would listen to and believe Crowley.. The word was 'Pokipse' (Yes, I know there's another spelling as well..) as in "Train to Pokipse." by Rami Shamir and there's plenty of live readings that you can listen to on Youtube.. Talk about some scary relevance.. (Plus the backstory on the struggles the author had to go through to get his book out.. Seriously (coincidentally) relevant to some crap that's happened to Sam and Dean and how they keep struggling, to 'make their story, and keep their story, THEIRS')..
SO.. Now that I've gotten all that out of the way.. I suppose that I should give a hint at what the plot for this story is going to be..
A/N: PLOT: Dean left Sam and Cass, Sam's 'Anti-Possession' tattoo, has been burned off, Sam still isn't back to completely one hundred percent due to the effects of the trials and his long stint as an angel condom didn't do a lot to help matters... Cass is still.. Well, Cass, he just has a little more ''life experience', but he's still too naive for his and Sam's own good.. Basically, Dean's gone and now both he and Sam are at their most vulnerable.. Several players on the board are definitely going to be interested in trying to take advantage of their vulnerability, Crowley, Abaddon, Metartron, Bartholomew, Malichi, etc… AND Gadreel is just the tinsiest bit obsessed with Sam and thinks he's (SHE'S (according to lore Gadreel is a FEMALE, Cheribum)..) in love with Sam, which is, not good, in all sorts of very bad ways, because Gadreel was imprisoned for a very long time and was tortured (In who know, what sorts of ways?) for as long as he (SHE) was imprisoned and all of the things he (SHE) saw in Sam's mind didn't help his (HER) perception of things, add that to Gadreel's over-abundance of naïvete' as well as Gadreel's lack of knowledge or experience with the way human emotions work and his (HER) inability to understand what the difference is between taking something that's completely given of a person's full free will and taking something without a person's full and knowledgeable consent..
A/N: WARNINGS: NonCon, DubCon, Descriptive Torture Scenes, descriptive mentions of past emotional, mental, verbal and physical abuse and neglect of minors (that are either now grown or not present in this story), mentions of more than one adult Main Character in sexual situations while still underage (being a victim of child molestation, victim of pedophiles and having to rely on prostitution while still a minor just to afford food and rent), mentions of at least one adult Main Character being a victim of rape in the past while over eighteen, mentions of memory alterations, mentions of mind control, mentions of nonconsensual drinking of demon blood.. BLANKET WARNING: For everything that may offend or trigger readers, that I may have missed… Rated "M" for a reason.. AND yes.. I do plan to actually finish this one within a decent time frame.. (and yes.. I am still working on my other stories, but I may need to ask for some help for more inspiration on some of them though.)
A/N: It's fiction, no flaming… Please review..
'A man chooses; a slave obeys."- Andrew Ryan- "BioShock."
"Unforeseen Consequences."
~0~
Those first two hundred miles were lonely, filled with nothing but the sound of his breathing, the buzz of his own bitter thoughts swirling around in his mind, and the mechanical drone of the engine, Cass hadn't done anything to attempt to comfort him, apparently the angel knew it was pointless to even try.
At least he wasn't the one driving.
That left him free to curl as far into himself as he could manage and rest his forehead against the front passenger side window. He was tired and pissed and just so damn sad. Just so damn lonely, without his brother there. It didn't feel right riding shotgun next to someone who wasn't Dean. Didn't feel right to sit inside a car that wasn't the Impala.
His whole life had driven away in that car. And he had let it go. He had told Dean to go… "Just go."
Those words were haunting him now…
Once again he was running away… Sure, Dean was the one who had left this time, but that didn't mean that Dean was the only one running away. No… This time, they were both running away.
Away from each other.
Away from their issues.
Away from a breaking point that only they could take each other to.
Away from the truth.
Towards self-destruction…
Away from resolution.
Away from absolution.
Both thinking they are poison.
And Sam knew it. When he told Dean to go, but not to go thinking that's the problem, he had wanted so badly to tell Dean just what the problem is, what the PROBLEMS are. But instead he had let Dean go. He knew that made him a coward but couldn't bring himself to say those things to his brother, because he couldn't bring himself to break Dean like that. To break Dean, the way Dean has broken him, so many times before.
~0~
He was running scared. He knew he had made the worst sort of deal to try to save Sam's life, only to find out he had screwed up in the worst possible ways, when the one he had made a deal with turned out to not be who he said he was. The bastard that had lied to him for, months, could have done anything to Sam at any time.
And he had tried to tell himself that everything he had, done, was because he thought he was doing the right thing, but he knew better than to try to lie to himself. He had basically pimped Sam's body out to an angel, all because he hadn't wanted to go through life without Sam.
"Look how great that turned out." He muttered to himself, just to fill the heart breaking silence.
Yes… Those first two hundred miles had been lonely and it didn't look like the next two hundred miles would be any better…
TBC…
A/N: Sam and Dean are traveling in opposite directions from each other, just to clarify things a bit…
Sorry there wasn't a lot of 'meat on the bones' in this Chapter, due to my long Author's Notes above. But hopefully everyone will understand the relevance of those notes, especially seeing as how certain characters (Dean, Cass, Gadreel) have had a thing for 'blindly following orders, like a good little soldier' without ever really questioning the "bigger picture" until it's too late and they're forced to sit and watch the consequences, of their failure to really question things, unfold.