Unbreakable
UNBREAKABLE
A STORY ABOUT FAMILY
13,273 Words | PG-13 for violence | Written by Blacklid and Tahirire
prologue (912 words) | chapter one (523) | chapter two (1137) | chapter three (1678) | crossroad (1109)
chapter four (1030) | chapter five (1900) | chapter six (2115) | chapter seven (1828) | epilogue (1041)
image from Supernatural: Origins graphic novel
read the story on one page | download the pdf
Authors' Notes:
The story germinated around the middle of season four. Along with Tahirire's Repo Men, it is in response to the prompt, "take a season and perform a gleeful pretzelification of canon." Beginning in July of 2009, when season five started shooting, we wrote the historical half. I wasn't sure what it had to do with the Winchesters until I was staring at it one night and finally realized that it was a story about John. The summer 2010 season five hiatus was spent fleshing out John's half. A second epiphany hit me when I saw that the story had become an infinite loop. John's half goes forward in time while the historical half mirrors it going in reverse. All on its own, it had culminated in the overall truth of the story itself: that it is never over. As hard as we both worked on it, it is still one of those stories that you look back at later and say that it wrote itself.
The whole story is compliant and integrated with canon from the television episodes, John's Journal and the graphic novels. I'm not sure about the tie-in novels because I haven't read them all.
The soundtrack while I wrote down John's half was Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns.
I can't thank Tahirire enough for her contributions to the historical half; the poetry of Africa and the Colts is all her. Most people will recognize the Genesis stories being derived from the King James. What they might not know is--
the story about The Ghost and The Darkness is based on real events,
Ghosts of Tsavo: Tracking the Mythic Lions of East Africa, by Phillip Caputo
and the story about John and Samuel Colt is also based on real events.
Fire at the Tombs, Museum of the City of New York
Everything is Changed, New York Times, May 16, 1886
John Colt Trial: 1842, by Tom Smith
Melville, The Colt-Adams Murder, and "Bartleby", by T.H. Giddings
This is dedicated to a whole host of inspirational people, including:
themonkeytwin, Ben Edlund, mimblexwimble, feliciakw, windscryer, Jeremy Carver, Raelle Tucker, erinrua, Sera Gamble, Peter Johnson, missyjack, Eric Kripke, blackcat333_99, Troy Duffy, Daniel Knauf, William Ernest Henley, datenshiblue, samidha, and Robert Singer; also Louis Carroll, John Barrie, and Joseph Campbell.
In its deepest heart, this is for all of the characters who make this story true ... and especially for the people who bring them to life.
Footnotes:
1 The Life of Charles Marshall. Evans, William and Evans, Thomas, eds. 1840, Vol. IV, pages 137-138.
2 The Walrus and the Carpenter, Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll.
3 Dean and Reverend Roy La Grange, Supernatural season 1, episode 12, Faith, by Raelle Tucker and Sera Gamble.
4 Matthew 6:10
5 Gabriel, in Supernatural season 5, episode 8, Changing Channels, by Jeremy Carver.
6 Sam and the Woman in White, Supernatural season 1, episode 1, The Pilot, by Eric Kripke.
7 Invictus, by William Ernest Henley
8 Revelation 6:5-6
9 Revelation 6:2
10 Revelation 6:3-4
11 Revelation 6:7-8
12 Juba, Gladiator, by David Franzoni
13 Malachi 4:6
14 Ezekiel 18:14