I just finished the Given movie and ran to tumblr to check for gifsets and if anyone else had seen it. I LOVED IT! I read the manga so I knew what it was about but being only an hour, I was curious to see how it would all be adapted and they did a great job!
ASDKASDK IM STILL SO !!!!! honestly i was pretty surprised to find out it was only an hour as well but it was so good oh my fuck ... im so emotional... the music, the animation, the art ahhh, im just so happy we finally to got see it :')
Summary: Castiel is the perfusionist on call when a young college kid, Sam Winchester, is brought in with Acute Respiratory Distress and needs to be put on an emergent life support machine called ECMO. His brother Dean is there with him every day, and along the way he forms a surprising bond with Castiel.
Afraid of hospital rules and his own self doubts, Castiel keeps their relationship strictly in the friendship area, wary of losing his job as he falls hard for a patient’s family member, that he is pretty sure isn’t into men anyway. Either way, it’s against the rules and he’s not about to break them.
Keep reading for a sneak preview!
Once Tessa left, Cas took over, inspecting the circuit and checking all of Sam’s lines. He brushed Sam’s hair away from his forehead and looked at him for the first time really. He had a strong jaw, straight nose, and clearly was someone who was in shape. The guy was tall, like extremely tall. In the bed though, he looked small and frail with a million tubes coming out of him. It had only been a few days but Cas knew his muscles would soon begin to atrophy if they didn’t try to get him up and ambulated. He felt for him, he really did.
“He needs a haircut, right,” a groggy voice said from behind Cas.
Castiel turned around quickly in surprise. Dean stretched his arms out slowly above his head and then dragged his hands down his face, rubbing at his eyes. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” was all he said.
“Tessa said you’ve barely slept,” Cas replied with a shrug as he stepped towards Dean. “Although I hate to break it to you that we’re going to kick you out shortly to get a few tests done.”
Dean waved with his hand, “I know, I know.” He narrowed his eyes at Cas. “I know we met but I’m sorry it’s just been a nightmare of a few days and many new faces.”
Cas interrupted him, “It’s Castiel,” he said, “It’s okay if you need to look at my badge too,” he noted as Dean’s eyes wandered towards his waist where the badge was clipped. Something in the way he did it sparked a slow heat in Cas and he turned away quickly, ignoring the small flush of his cheeks.
Dean cleared his throat behind him, “So, uh, Tessa left or?” He trailed off.
Castiel turned back around, “It was shift change. We were quiet about it.” The last thing he needed was to inadvertently flirt with a patient’s family member and get himself kicked off the case.
“So they change out one pretty nurse for another one then, eh?” Dean stated, with a smirk as he shrugged into his jacket.
Castiel didn’t know whether to be surprised, amused, or annoyed. “Not a nurse, a perfusionist,” he replied with an accusatory tone, pointing to his badge again.
This time, he noted the flush on Dean’s cheeks as his eyes traveled slowly down Castiel’s body and then quickly away.
Cas knew he should feel ashamed but he wasn’t one to back down from a challenge. A knock on the door saved him as Kali, the X-ray technician, poked her head in with a smile.
hit me up at the con! I’m not sure where I’ll be sitting (I don’t actually have a ticket yet...) so messages are probably the easiest way to track me down. I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday and probably for karaoke :D
So I was looking through the future convention schedules since I’m going to VanCon again and I noticed a new name: Matt Frewer.
Curious, I looked him up and found:
(x)
He played Pestilence in Season 5.
I don’t know if this means anything or who he will be playing this season, but he’s going to be at more than one convention next year, so I’m guessing he’s going to be pretty prominent.
While I agree with this meta and this meta, I have to admit that the first thing Ephraim threatening to cut off Cas’ genitals made me think of was actually the story of Abélard and Héloïse.
Abélard was a 12th century scholar, philosopher and theology professor. While the various theories he developed during his life caused more than one controversy, the scandal he’s most remembered by is the one born from his relationship with one of his students Héloïse. She was brilliant, but also a lot younger than him, and beyond the fact that he was her teacher his links to the church forbid him any form of romantic and/or carnal relationship.
A relationship they still had. Héloïse fell pregnant and they fled to Brittany, Abélard’s home region. She gave birth to a son and she and Abélard were forced into a marriage, which they kept secret and didn’t really acknowledge, as shown by Héloïse retiring to Argenteuil shortly thereafter. Matrimony wasn’t a bond she’d wanted to force onto Abélard, as she believed love (and especially their love) to be stronger and more pure outside of it. However, her departure led her uncle to believe that Abélard had repiduated her, and he had him castrated.
After that both spoused retired into religion: Héloïse entered a convent where she eventually became abbess; Abélard entered a monastry, became an abbot, but due to the controversial theories that he kept writing and that kept being condemned by the church, he often quarelled with his peers and moved around a lot. During that time the former spouses barely saw each other once or twice. Yet their love endured, as shown by the letters they exchanged for over twenty years, until Abélard’s death. Some of them have been peserved, and are still read today, which explains why and how their story is remembered and has been turned into such a myth.
I don’t think I need to point out the obvious parallels? We have the facts that:
both Castiel and Abélard were strongly linked to religion and both broke away from its established doctrins. Both were condemned for it by the standing religious institutions (Heaven and the Church) and repeatedly punished and/or rejected.
the parallel runs further, in that Abélard was a teacher, which can remind us of Castiel trying (and failing) to teach angels about free will, much like Abélard tried and somewhat failed to introduce new ideas and methods. Among others, he reflected on morals and was the first to start making a distinction between act and intention, by stating that the intention behind a speech or an act was more important than the act itself (which built the grounds for the distinction we have today between, for instance, manslaughter and homicide, in which nefarious intent makes for a bigger crime).
both Castiel and Abélard added insult to injury by entering a privileged and forbidden relationship with their charges, Dean (or, more generally, the Winchesters, or even humanity) and Héloïse. When scandal erupted, both refused to break it off: Castiel rebelled and, no matter how many times Heaven tried to brainwash him, chose and kept chosing Dean (or the Winchesters, or humanity). Abélard never renounced his love for Héloïse.
also, while Abélard was punished by Héloïse’s uncle for (allegedly) repudiating her, it is often thought that his castration was a punishment for breaking his celibacy vow itself. This would fit right in with Ephraïm’s threat on Cas.
and last but not least, both these relationships - Cas & Dean and Abélard & Héloïse - are, well, special. They go beyond the mere physical (Dean and Cas in canon never went further than the occasional hug or shoulder pat; Abélard and Héloïse didn’t have any form physical contact after Abélard’s punishment). They endure despite both people in it being repeatedly and durably separated (by their own choices or by others), with nothing but very restricted means of contact (letters or phone calls). Both are a solid bond (profound bound, anyone?), which doesn’t even have to be interpreted as a romantic one. In my opinion both go far beyond that.
(although my shipper’s heart totally sees the romantic parallel too because how can you not)
I actually make most of mine. I get a lot of my fabric from Spoonflower, because they’re amazing. When I really buckle down and get into the groove of making them it only takes about half an hour per hat.
If you don’t have a sewing machine, KimKaps has an option that will let you mail them your fabric and they will make you a hat from it, but then you can’t make certain it fits. I used them once and all the hats were slightly too big in the elastic area, but not so big that I wanted to go through the hassle of getting them fixed. (I can probably just do a quick gather or something next time I have the machine out.)
