Still Learning, Anyway

Essays, scripts, and small gods at the bar. Still learning. Documenting anyway.

[caseytaylorwrites]

The Gardener - Ep. 1 Havanna

Caretaker’s Creed: We do not end lives. We tend to the ones at the end. That everyone might have a friend.

[Entry 57] September 17th, 2017

The sun was setting on Havana’s Sofá.

The sounds of vendor carts and footsteps were being replaced with busking bands and dancing. Toward the edge of the promenade sat a lonely bar full of lonely people. They gathered there out of habit and for the friendly conversation of el Patrón. There always seemed to be a fútbol game on the television, even when the season was over.

Barstools and billiard tables set the scene, and hanging pots with lazy ceiling fans decorated the space. The sweet scent of sea spray mixed with stale cigar smoke and fresh flowers.

There was a man half-lit by the sunset through wooden shutters and half in darkness.

A man by definition, sure, but the complete opposite of memorable.

Decked out in local fineries: neutral linens, shoes made by a third-generation cobbler, and the hat—the pièce de résistance—a handwoven, carefully trimmed Cuban fedora.

It helped him blend in with the locals while traveling, even down to the drink itself: a citrus-scented, nose-tickling mojito. The sprig of mint was wilting a bit.

-Please read the rest on my Substack, Link Below

The Gardener

Episode 1: Havana

[caseytaylorwrites]

Good Puns? Never Heard One.

Someone once told me that puns are the lowest form of humor.

Someone once told me that puns are the lowest form of humor.

That someone was my wife, who has also made it clear that I have never, at any point, told a good one.

She said it with the confidence of a settled matter, the way people say things they’ve inherited rather than examined. Like “you can’t start a sentence with and,” or “comic books aren’t literature,” or “you’ll understand when you’re older.”

I nodded politely, as one does. But my brain immediately began doing something else.

Because if puns are low, they are doing an extraordinary amount of work down there.

If you like this so far, go check out the full piece on my substack!

[nikasholistic]

Don’t compare yourself to others. Comparison kills your joy. Comparison makes you put other people on a pedestal. Comparison lowers your vibration. You really don’t have to compare yourself to others. Yes, it’s easy to do this in today’s social media-driven society. But realize that comparison only harms your life. 

Instead of comparing yourself to others, focus on your goals and dreams. Focus on the things you want to achieve in life. Instead of thinking that you’re not good enough and you can't live your dream life, focus on every single day doing one small step that will get you closer to your dreams. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media and feeling bad, do things that make you happy, do things that will get you closer to your goals and dreams. When you’re truly focused on the things you want to achieve, when you’re truly focused on your passions, you let go of comparison.

[caseytaylorwrites]

The thing I love about this post, is that it says that advocating for yourself in the moment and every moment. Is the best way to get back to the version of you that is able to hold with anything that comes at you. If you spread yourself out by comparing yourself to otheres, you flatten your resonance. Bring it back and self-advocate first, you are worth it. In my opinion.

[zairawrites]

Stay

This is the hour when the body shouts

what the heart has carried in silence.

A knot climbs the chest, grips the throat,

sharp on one side—like fear found a shape.

Your heart drums fast, not to leave you,

but to keep you here.

Every beat is a hand knocking, saying:

I’m trying. I’m trying.

Nothing is breaking—it only feels loud.

Muscle, breath, nerve, and worry

twist together like storm cords,

mistaken for the end of the sky.

But storms pass.

They always do.

You are not the pain.

You are the one inside it, still breathing,

still upright, still here

even when words fall apart.

You people close to you sleep because you exist.

The room holds you.

The night hasn’t claimed you.

Stay.

Count the exhale.

Let the wave crest and fall.

This moment is not your name.

This feeling is not your fate.

And you are not alone.

Stay.

[caseytaylorwrites]

I love this writer's grasp of emotional turmoil to storms. They both represent imbalance. But the line that stands for when a storm is coming or you are in emotional distress. "Stay" that says everything you need to know about the piece. Stay and read it, if you want.

[caseytaylorwrites]

Supernatural - The Road Home

It was not a burden.

It was a duty.

And it was an honor to ensure no one crossed alone.

Full piece here: https://caseytaylor918786.substack.com/p/supernatural-the-road-home

[caseytaylorwrites]

Part 1: Supernatural - "The Road Home"

First off, I spent fifteen years engaging with Sam and Dean while they had their ups, downs, heavens, and hells. I wrote a fan-fiction final episode. Not to replace the work, but to offer a "What If" I am posting the first part here today, but the rest is on my Substack. There is no paywall. Let me know what you think.

The Mantle

There is no thunder when Death falls. No trumpet. No choir. No storm. Just a quiet room at the edge of everything, where time does not quite know which way to move, and an empty cloak lies on the floor like a shadow that got tired. Castiel stands over it. The scythe leans against the wall, taller than he is, its blade dark and thin as a closing line of ink. The candle on the nearby table flickers, but there is no wind. He looks smaller here. Not because he is, but because the role in front of him is so vast it seems to stretch the room out miles in every direction. His voice, when it comes, is not spoken aloud. It is something older, something that sits beneath language and rises like warmth. When Death fell, the universe grieved. We see flashes, layered in the space around him. A reaper pausing mid reach as a soul slips free. A hospital monitor flatlining while no one arrives to guide the patient. A battlefield frozen in a half second of suspended impact. Someone had to steady the threshold. Someone had to keep the door between worlds from cracking. Someone had to help the souls that still wandered. Castiel kneels and touches the black fabric. His hand does not sink into it. It is not cloth. It is history. Function. The memory of every last breath that ever was. I was not chosen. I was not commanded. There was no decree, no coercion, no prophecy. No voice rings out. No booming order from Heaven, no snarling demand from Hell. Just the weight of an empty office no one else is willing to sit in. He takes a slow breath. Then he reaches for the scythe. He does it the way you would accept a folded flag from a soldier’s widow, with reverence, with sorrow, with a sense that this is bigger than you and will outlast you. His fingers close around the shaft. Light ripples up the metal and into his arm, not blinding, not burning, just true. His wings flare outward in silhouette, ragged but still there. For a second, the universe stabilizes, as if someone straightened a crooked picture. The mantle was offered, and I accepted it because the world needed someone who believed in mercy. The cloak does not fly up and wrap around him. It rises gently, like smoke remembering it was once a solid thing, and drapes across his shoulders. Castiel stands. His eyes change, not to black, not to searing white, but to a warm, endless glow, like distant stars seen through tears. Not power. Perspective. I did not become Death. I became a shepherd. A guide. A guardian of the last moment. He holds out a hand, and a lost soul coalesces in the air before him, confused, afraid, clinging to the echo of their last pain. He helps them to their feet. He looks them in the eyes. He smiles, small and real. It was not a burden. It was a duty. The soul takes his hand and walks through a door that was not there until they needed it. And it was an honor to ensure no one crossed alone. Castiel turns, looking out across a horizon only he can see. Somewhere, far down the line of time, two familiar silhouettes flicker like stubborn stars. Especially them. The candle goes out.

End Part 1

Link to my Substack:

https://caseytaylor918786.substack.com/p/supernatural-the-road-home

[caseytaylorwrites]

Supernatural - "The Road Home"

I wrote an alternate ending to Supernatural, not to replace anything, but to say thank you.

"The Road Home" is a fan-written homage to the characters, the cast, the crew, and the road we all walked for fifteen years.

SUPERNATURAL - “The Road Home”

A fan written homage by Casey Taylor

[caseytaylorwrites]

I’ve published a new essay series called Brightest Day, Darkest Night.

It uses the Green Lantern mythos to explore emotion as a system rather than a personality test. Color, psychology, myth, and lived experience, without self-help or prescriptions.

All essays are free and public, including a standalone capstone about why Green Lantern still matters to me as a fan.

Read it here: https://caseytaylor918786.substack.com

No paywall. Just sharing.

[caseytaylorwrites]

Things I Have Learned

-On being a husband

[caseytaylorwrites]

Short Story - Scene 2

Cannon Canyon Canon

Scene 2: The Pub of Prosperity and Warning Signs

[caseytaylorwrites]

"Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If we stop listening, then we shut off the possibility to expand past our own." -Casey Taylor

[caseytaylorwrites]

Structure Without Walls

We trust walls.

If something matters, we expect it to be contained.

Bounded.

Outlined in solid lines we can point to.

A cell has a membrane.

A country has borders.

A house has walls.

So when we encounter a system without clear edges, we assume it’s loose.

Ungoverned.

At risk of falling apart.

Nature disagrees.

Some of the most stable systems we know don’t have walls at all.

Take a cell.

The membrane isn’t a wall in the architectural sense. It’s not a rigid barrier keeping chaos out. It’s a selective interface — flexible, dynamic, constantly negotiating what passes through and what doesn’t. Molecules flow in. Waste flows out. Signals cross freely.

The structure isn’t enforced by enclosure.

It’s maintained by relationships.

Or look at an atmosphere.

There’s no glass dome around Earth holding air in place. No lid sealing it shut. The atmosphere thins gradually, molecule by molecule, until it fades into space. It’s gravity, motion, and temperature doing the work — not containment.

The boundary isn’t a line.

It’s a gradient.

Magnetic fields work the same way.

Earth’s magnetic field doesn’t end at a wall. It stretches outward, invisible and elastic, shaped by solar wind and planetary rotation. It shields us not by blocking everything, but by deflecting, redirecting, and reshaping incoming forces.

No fence.

No border patrol.

Still effective.

In all these cases, structure emerges without enclosure.

What holds the system together isn’t a barrier — it’s balance.

Flow.

Constraint without confinement.

Walls feel comforting because they’re easy to see.

But they’re also brittle.

Nature prefers something quieter:

rules instead of walls,

relationships instead of barriers,

governance instead of enclosure.

A system doesn’t need to be sealed to be stable.

It needs to know what it allows, what it resists, and how it adapts when conditions change.

That’s true for cells.

For planets.

For fields.

And, uncomfortably, for human systems too.

Structure without walls isn’t weakness.

It’s resilience.

Because when pressure changes — and it always does — rigid boundaries crack.

But flexible systems bend, redistribute, and keep going.

Governance doesn’t require enclosure.

Sometimes the strongest structures are the ones you can’t draw a line around — only describe by how they hold.

[caseytaylorwrites]

Why Friction Is a Liar

We teach friction as resistance.

It’s the force that slows things down,

the reason boxes don’t slide forever,

the villain standing between motion and ease.

But friction is lying to you.

Or at least… it’s oversimplifying itself.

Because friction isn’t really opposition.

It’s cooperation.

At the microscopic level, no surface is smooth. Even polished steel looks like a mountain range if you zoom in far enough. Peaks touch peaks. Valleys miss each other entirely. And when two surfaces meet, their atoms get close.

Very close.

Close enough to feel each other’s electric fields.

Close enough to briefly bond.

Not permanently.

Not romantically.

But just long enough to matter.

Those tiny atomic bonds form and break constantly as surfaces move past one another. Each bond is weak. Insignificant on its own. But millions of them acting together? That’s friction.

Not a wall.

A handshake that lasts half a heartbeat.

This is why friction depends on materials, not just weight.

Why rubber grips better than ice.

Why chalk helps gymnasts.

Why geckos can walk up walls.

They aren’t “fighting” motion.

They’re negotiating contact.

Friction isn’t saying no.

It’s saying only this fast, only this far, under these conditions.

And that’s why it produces heat.

Breaking bonds takes energy.

So every time those microscopic connections snap, energy disperses—vibrations, warmth, motion bleeding sideways into the world. What feels like resistance is really energy being politely redistributed.

Nothing is being stopped.

It’s being shared.

This is why friction disappears in a vacuum only partially. Remove air resistance and objects still experience surface friction. Because the story isn’t about the environment pushing back—it’s about matter interacting with matter.

Friction is relationship physics.

It’s what happens when two systems touch and agree to acknowledge each other’s presence. Briefly. Repeatedly. With rules.

Which means friction isn’t the enemy of motion.

It’s the reason motion becomes controllable.

Without friction:

You couldn’t walk.

You couldn’t write.

You couldn’t hold anything without it slipping away.

Even timekeeping would fall apart.

Pure motion is chaos.

Pure stillness is collapse.

Friction lives in between.

So the next time something slows you down, remember:

it might not be opposition.

It might be structure.

It might be cooperation.

It might be the quiet intimacy that lets movement exist without losing itself.

Friction isn’t resistance.

It’s intimacy—with rules.

- Casey Taylor

[caseytaylorwrites]

Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?

Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?

A Question That Refuses to Be Solved

#pop culture

#movies

#film discourse

#essays

#culture

[caseytaylorwrites]

Small Gods at the Bar

A Sauron × Human-Sized Godzilla

PRELUDE — THE BAR BETWEEN WORLDS

Somewhere between universes, there is a bar.

Not special. Not famous. But reality bends around it like warm air around a candle.

Those who enter are usually tired. Those who leave are usually changed.

Tonight, two ancient forces arrive reduced in form, but not in weight.

SCENE 1 — THE TITAN, SHRUNK

The door opens.

A man steps in — six feet tall, hoodie too small, posture heavy as bedrock.

This is Godzilla, temporarily reduced to human size by Pym particles and deeply offended by the situation.

He sits. The stool groans like a fault line.

GODZILLA

“Whiskey. A lot.”

The bottle rattles until he grips it.

Somewhere outside, a car alarm panics for no reason.

SCENE 2 — THE DARK LORD, DISGUISED

The door opens again.

This time, the room listens.

A beautiful man enters — calm, radiant, terrifying in the way of things that know exactly who they are.

This is Sauron, in his fair Annatar form.

He sits beside Godzilla without asking.

Wine appears.

The bartender does not remember pouring it.

SCENE 3 — TWO POWERS, TEMPORARILY CONTAINED

They sit in silence.

The air hums.

SAURON

“You carry the weight of continents. How curious to see it dressed in denim.”

GODZILLA

“Some guy with particle tech made me portable. I don’t recommend it.”

SAURON

“Does smallness trouble you?”

GODZILLA

“Yes. Very much.”

Sauron smiles faintly.

SCENE 4 — THE CIGARETTE

Sauron removes a cigarette from a silver case.

Pauses.

SAURON

“…I appear to lack a lighter.”

He glances at Godzilla.

Godzilla nods.

GODZILLA

“I got you.”

Godzilla inhales.

His eyes glow atomic blue.

A precisely controlled micro-beam flickers from his mouth — no larger than a flame.

The cigarette lights.

So does part of the jukebox.

Godzilla pats the fire out with his hand.

Sauron takes a slow drag.

SAURON

“Thanks, bro.”

GODZILLA

“No problem. Thai food’s kicking back. Hope I don’t get an ulcer.”

Sauron exhales smoke, amused.

SAURON

“If you erupt, try not to erase the Shire. It irritates certain people.”

GODZILLA

“Deal.”

They clink glasses.

SCENE 5 — THE QUIET PART

After a long moment:

SAURON

“Do you miss the size you were?”

Godzilla looks down at his glass.

GODZILLA

“Sometimes. But being small… I notice things. Fear. Fragility.”

A pause.

GODZILLA

“Ever feel like even when you’re huge, you’re still carrying hurt that doesn’t fit?”

Sauron stills.

SAURON quietly:

“Yes.”

SCENE 6 — THE BLESSING

SAURON

“Perhaps smallness is a gift. A chance to feel the world without crushing it.”

GODZILLA

“And maybe beauty’s a curse. Everyone listens. No one hears.”

They sit in that truth.

Two destroyers, briefly at rest.

EPILOGUE

Sauron stands, placing a hand on Godzilla’s shoulder.

Not command. Recognition.

SAURON

“Even gods deserve gentleness.”

GODZILLA

“Even dark lords deserve second chances.”

They leave together.

Behind the bar, the bartender whispers:

“Maybe the world isn’t ending tonight. Maybe it’s healing.”

END