Fic Pointer & Author's Notes: We Don't Want the Bacon (What We Want is a Piece of the Divine)

[cog_nomen]

Pointer to deancastiel:

Title: We Don't Want the Bacon (What we want is a piece of the divine)
Author: Cog_Nomen
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6,089
Warnings: War imagery, blood, very minor language.
Summary: There are some things war leaves behind, but one must trust that there is a greater plan.
Disclaimer: I'm just playing with the characters, and I won't claim WW1 either.



1. The title is taken from the 1918 Hit, We Don't Want the Bacon (What We Want is a Piece of the Rhine). I am slowly becoming familiar with more WW1-era music, and there were a lot of tentative titles for this piece from I Didn't Raise My Son to be a Soldier or Over There, but none stuck like this one. In part, Dean's obsession with bacon made it, in the other part I could make a terrible pun with it. There is some music in this fic, I feel music is important to any SPN themed piece, because it is already so important in the show.

2. The timeline in this is odd and not-exactly-linear, in present tense. With Castiel being the narrative party, I feel I can get away with this. Cass must surely experience time a little differently.

3. In addition, I tried to remember to transfer ownership of a lot of things to Jimmy, instead of Castiel all the time. Obviously the crude workings of a human body are a necessity, but that still does not make one feel ownership. If I should animate a puppet, swinging his arms around via sticks, I do not think of them as my arms. This did not always stick, and I would have liked to fix it, but time did not allow for a through re-editing. It shall have to just be a particular quirk of this piece.

4. Trench life sucked. There is no sex in this piece, which is unusual for me, but I could not in good conscience write it considering the filth, lice, and lack of treatment for STD's. Really, you did not want gonorrhea in the Great War - there were no antibiotics and the treatment was... highly unpleasant

5. The other two songs referenced in this piece are I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier , and Over There . I proudly own a copy of the sheet music for the latter. I have fudged a tiny bit that Jimmy would know it - assuming it has been heard around at some point while he was 'conscious' within Castiel. It was a hit in 1918.

6. The Angels at Mons.

7. There is a great deal of weapons-geeking, for which I apologize to the gun-illiterate. WW1 weaponry is some of my favourite, as it is so raw and so rapidly developing over the course of the Great War years. If there are any specific questions I will try to clarify for you, just drop me a note.

8. Lastly, First World War.Com is an invaluable resource and an excellent place to start if you are interested in learning more about what was, IMO, the more fascinating of the two World Wars. Also please don't hesitate to drop me a line and I will gladly geek out with you about it. I am lucky enough to have access to the WW1 museum in Kansas City, and the intent to visit it often.

I also apologize for the length of the piece, which I intended to be shorter, then longer, but overall I am happy with the balance I have achieved. These historical crossovers always seem to run away with me.

Comments

[libriscum.livejournal.com]

wow.... that's great. The entire situation, the questions of faith, the "perdition," the idea of Dean teaching Cas about good things, correlates suprisingly well. Loved the imagery and the really well done Cas perspective. :)

[cognomen.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I worried about readability, but in the end I went with the somewhat odd narrative anyway.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[rosemaryfaerie.livejournal.com]

I like the story, good characterization.

I am going to correct a bit on your historical accuracy. Truman was not the president during WWI. He became president during world war 2 so it's understandable. the president during world war 1 was Woodrow Wilson. Plus he would have nothing to do with shutting down the radio on the western front as it was in germany and france and he had no jurisdiction. Plus the radio wouldn't have been willingly shut down. it could have been destroyed or taken over.

I'm not trying to be mean. but i feel with the kind of admirable research you did, and your obvious enthusiasm for the subject, you'd want to know the mistake.

[rosemaryfaerie.livejournal.com]

i get a little up in arms when reading about american history or censorship. it's the topic of senior thesis and very close to my heart.

[cognomen.livejournal.com]

Okay thank you. I may have mentioned that the fic was unedited due to time constraints in my notes here, but yes I caught that mistake on my second read through and will now fix it.

My information on radio being shut down in the states came from this source:
http://earlyradiohistory.us/sec013.htm

Assuming Dean wanted to listen to American radio, however, he would have been SOL, and I am not going to further correct beyond the president as an artistic choice.

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

Oooo! Can we geek out together? I find WWI fascinating, but I seem to be a minority of those people in my life. Husband is a weapons geek, he sets me to rights on just about everything, but I find the whole story of WWI tragic, amazing, and the REAL story behind modern politics. I find it sad how so many people do not understand that WWII was more of a continuation than a revisitation.

Lucky you, the WWI museum! I hope to get there someday.

[cognomen.livejournal.com]

I am so much in love with the way that you can see how the war affected technology's advance - it really hurried things along, especially all the items that are very much prototypical, but mass produced that way and sent to work in the fields anyway! The field radios, for example, had all of their wiring exposed. Nothing had a 'finished' housing or look, like you see on all of our technology today - most of it was just the barest of workings nailed into a crude wooden box!

Well even WW1 is the continuation of unfolding European politics dating back even to the Napoleonic era and beyond, with all those monarchies having blood ties and alliances - which meant when one domino started falling...

The WW1 museum is really, really excellent. I was genuinely surprised - I've been to the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. as well, and you know you don't expect something on that level here in Kansas City. (Where culture is... um, questionable at best.) Really, though, it is on par with that experience - really an incredible place with lots of friendly volunteers. If you ever are in the area, it's a super awesome place to check out.

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

Honestly, this is when I fell in love w/ your story:
Unknowingly, they might have printed an angelic name on the death certificate of 'clean' warfare - horses were a wild element. Trenches would not bolt, or flee backward, even when filled with the light of a thousand angel's wings - or the light of a descending shell. They shared one trait with horses - when injured, they would often fall on their masters.

Because the changing role of horses and mules in WWI totally, 100% reflects the technological changes going on, and you showed that change while also demonstrating how little it meant to the men on the front lines.

We look at the role of planes and arial combat in WWII and take it all for granted; yet planes were barely off the ground at the start of 1913, in the sense of being combat (much less passenger) vehicles. I'm particularly fascinated with the matter of communication in WWI - from birds to 'by man' to wireless, it was a panoramic of ancient to modern, wrenching to catch up. Well hunh, I better shut up now...

That's the first actual review of the museum I've gotten from someone who has been there. Now, I'm very excited about getting out there! Maybe next year...

[cognomen.livejournal.com]

I was watching a special the other day that was talking about how many horses died in WW1, and I think the number was really staggering when you think that it was also a war that involved machine guns and tanks. It was in the millions, I recall, but not the exact figure. I do recall that out of however many charged at Mons, only four survived - the rest being the victims of the mashinengeweher. I mean it's totally common sense to you or me: machine gun vs horse, machine gun wins - but then again, no one really knew what a machine gun was or what it could do until they saw it in real action.

I have a picture somewhere, speaking of communication, of a dog harness used by the germans in WW1, to ferry messages back from the front line. Imagine sending a dog back and hoping it would get all the way to where it needed to be with vital information in time for it to matter! Never mind that their 'advanced' communication relied on laying miles and miles of wire through muddy, wet trenches and hoping that they wouldn't get shelled, stomped on, cut by the enemy, or chewed apart by rats.