#DeanCas Pinefest

[deancaspinefest]

Registration for the 2025 round is now open!

In the eight years since our first round, Pinefest authors have written 253 incredible fics comprising a collective 9.8 million words worth of pining, and artists have been inspired to create 811 gorgeous works of art to be viewed alongside them.

Now, we're excited to announce the opening of our ninth round – and we'd love for you to join us!

Registration will remain open until September 30th for authors, while artists may continue to sign up until December 1st.

Artists and authors will be paired through an anonymous claims process on December 14th, and artists will have 3 months to work on their art before posting commences on pi(e) day – March 14, 2025!

Full details about the challenge rules, requirements, and schedule can be found via the links below, and you can register here.

Until then... happy pining, everyone!

2025 Schedule | Rules & Requirements | FAQs | Previous Rounds

[eggchef]

so stanford era dean, an older version of him, and some angel from the future walk into a motel... (click to read Something Happening Somewhen, an amazing time travel fic written by the equally amazing allthismusic for the @deancaspinefest !)

[hawkland]

Art Masterpost: One Drop, when What You Need is the Ocean Written by: Baileys (@baileys101) Art by: sidewinder (@hawkland) Pinefest season is here again! It's my third year participating, and this time I'm excited to be doing art for two fics and writing a story of my own for it, for the first time, too! Those other collabs will be posting later in April, but today it's Baileys' and my day, so let's get to it.

This was the first piece I did for the story, Dean on the shoreline at Fort Foster in Maine. My original plan was to feature the loons in every artwork in some way, but as the story developed I changed my mind a bit and decided to just go more atmospheric in general. I really was struck by the role nature, the elements, and various settings played in the story repeatedly. So I decided to focus on that and it gave me a chance to play with some different watercolor techniques, maybe go a little looser than I usually do.

This piece came together super-quick after I had it visually planned in my head: Cas on a lake shore under the moonlight with mist coming off the water. In fact it was mostly done in one quick, maybe 10 minute wet wash once I'd drawn Cas in place and marked the horizon line. Just a little final detail work on the moon and relection as I feared ruining it by reworking it any further than that.

This last piece was mostly about trying to capture the motion of the parting waters and Cas with his post-Fall wings...I am always 👀 👀 👀 at a chance to paint them. It's a small painting like the one under moonlight (12" x 6") so I couldn't really get into heavy details, but I like how the water/parting of the waves turned out.

The cover piece was really where I put a lot of my heart and fussiness into...more of my usual over-obsessive detail work as I wanted to do one piece with Cas & Dean together. I had to bring the loons in for this one and wanted Dean & Cas to sort of mirror the pose/positioning of our feathered friends....those birds were NOT easy to paint. But I really like how it turned out so here's the image without any title text, too.

Please go read the story and enjoy!

[xfancyfranart]

Time for my @deancaspinefest collab!! 😍 For this one, I got paired with the awesome @samanddean76 whose summary caught my eye in the claims gallery right away and gave me chills.

Their fic has everything: Dean being stuck in hell and caught in a horrible dream that has that classic, not quite right, looming feeling of dread where you're only dimly aware of not being awake; among many others, an encounter with Pizza Man Cas; BAMF!Cas saving Dean from hell and cradling his soul; Dean finally being allowed to CRY a lot of real tears ffs - and so much more. It provided so many prompts I've always wanted to draw anyway, so I did.

Crying Dean, my beloved. If you know me or even have worked with me before, you know that I'm both strong and horrible at my deadline game. (Many apologies go out to @samanddean76 for cutting it so close multiple times, thanks for being patient with me through this whole thing!! 😂) But I actually painted this Dean just a few hours ago and I'm so, so happy with him - I feel like I haven't captured his essence in ages, but now I'm finally close again... 🥺

Without further ado though, please give Well, I Never Been To Heaven a read!

Summary:

Dean Winchester is living a plain, ordinary, and boring life. Until one day a new student shows up in the little town of Spain, SD. It’s love at first sight, but then an unimaginable tragedy happens, and Dean is left alone in his misery. Or is he a student attending Oxford University on a full athletic scholarship who finds a familiar face in his coxswain? Or is he hiking in the desert and attempting to save a known stranger? Or is he a traveler who stops for the night at a cheap motel and finds the pizza man of his dreams? Or is he none of those things? Just an unwitting victim of fate and destiny? Castiel had led the assault on hell, in order to save the righteous man and prevent the first seal of the apocalypse from being broken, lest hell should be allowed to reign on earth. In the aftermath of his disastrous mission, he is being held captive by Alastair, and his image is being used in a final, determined attempt to break Dean. But the profound bond that Castiel feels towards the pure soul won’t allow him to go down without a fight, and he makes a desperate prayer to his very old friend to set in motion a chain of events that might save him and his beloved mortal, or possibly, doom them for all eternity.

P.S. Here's an alternative banner. BYE! :D

[melle-otterwise]

Art for Heartland Flyer (Destiel Pinefest 2024)

I had the immense pleasure to illustrate @one-more-offbeat-anthem's wonderful fic for the @deancaspinefest 2024!!

You can read her wonderful fic here 💚💙

And below are the two illustrations I did:

[girlinthemirrorbluenight-library]

My art for this year's @deancaspinefest. Check out the fic by Tossukka here. This one stood out to me immediately during claims. Such an interesting premise and I just love the roles Dean and Cas are put in.

click for higher quality

I'm working on two fics for this round and I knew immediately I wanted to paint for this one. I love doing landscapes and looking up the different types of tornados and storms featured in the fic gave me a lot of inspiration. I painted the backgrounds with acrylics and added in the storm chasing car stuff digitally. Here's a photo with my hand and the painting for scale

[golby-moon]

I have zero self-control when it comes to creature!cas in any form so I saw a selkie!cas option for the @deancaspinefest and all other thoughts ceased to exist uh

I tried a mix of two styles for this fic's art by combining my usual thick black outlines with the crayon pen on Flipaclip to create layered colors, as per my author's request. this let me do almost like a children's story book vibe here but I think that's just the name of the pen talking. either way look seal Cas hdhfndi (and my attempt at drawing a boat but ignore that as well as the weirdly tiny credits)

here's Dean rescuing Cas who looks like he just woke up from a nap or something there. Dean's expression looked better before I erased half of it to make room for Cas' head and I'm now unsure what face Dean's really supposed to be making beyond exertion meets determination. I originally had a lighter blue sky here (as well as in the banner) but the author assures me the sky in Scotland only comes in grey, which has the added bonus of making this whole atmosphere a little more tense

it took me forever to get a decent angle for this one it was just weirdly impossible for no reason and I only got this after trashing six other partially complete sketches and it still looks kinda weird but it was unexpectedly impossible trying to get a view where you can see Dean and Cas. also just now realizing that the pipe on the showerhead leads nowhere oops

*obligatory image of Dean falling in the water while marine flavored creature!cas saves him (or, well, looks at him ig)*

still very bad at drawing water but an attempt was made though Dean's pose could be better and Cas looks too small to really be able to swim Dean back to shore. let's just ignore...all of that uh. I intentionally made Dean's outfit here symbolic and all that. in the other pics, he's wearing reds and greys but now he's wearing a tan not unlike Cas' trench coat (albeit darker) and his flannel is a mixture of blue and green, representing both the ocean and ofc him and Cas (desitle colors gjkdhdgf) because I'm weak and Dean was pining for so long that he subconsciously starting wearing Cas Colors ,_,

so yay style experimentation and double yay for Dean and Cas being dumb again 🎉

the fic this is made for is called "all out to sea" by @s7jacket for the deancas pinefest bang

(04/10/24)

[kireadraws]

Another year, another Pinefest! Yeehaw! 🤠🐎

I got partnered with melancholictearz for their absolutely wonderful fic ‘Of dust, gunpowder and holy water’: it’s full of cowboys, vampires and lots of pining (and maybe you can spot some references from a little show called Midnight Mass!!!). A big thank you to the @deancaspinefest mods and my pardner in crime, Lune, for this year’s bang, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Alright, go read it now!

As always, a spoiler warning for the art below

And a bonus little sketch of Cas <3

[neversleepuntilfive]

My first pinefest ever, with the wonderful @dothwrites! I can't believe it's already over and working with her was so so much fun, make sure to check her fic "all that we intend" on ao3 out!!

[hexentaenzerin]

This is the art I made for the amazing fic Suddenly I See by fanboi214 as part of the @deancaspinefest. Go read the fic and leave kudos!

[deancaspinefest]

Congratulations to all of the incredible artists and authors who participated in the eighth round of the Dean/Cas Pinefest!

Over the past month, 34 authors and 23 artists teamed up to share a collective 1,420,869 words of pine-filled fic and 117 works of art. The talent and artistry of this fandom absolutely floors us every year, and we're so happy that you're all still here sharing your wonderful creations with us 🌲 

With that in mind, we'll definitely be back for more! An official announcement for the 2025 Pinefest -- our ninth year -- will come sometime in July. Follow us here on Tumblr to make sure you don’t miss out on any details!

Under the cut, you’ll find links to every fic & art masterpost from the 2024 round, and you can also check out the collection on Ao3. Make sure to let the authors and artists know how much you enjoyed their creations with a like, kudos, or best of all, a reblog, rec, or comment!

following the light

One Drop, when What You Need is the Ocean

Of Dust, Gunpowder and Holy Water

Books, Pies, and Roommates

A Fairy Tale Cliche!

All in Honesty

Another Kind of Memory

Not our kind of thing

Different Currencies

In The Dog Days

Whatever Makes You Happy

Significant severe

all that we intend

Something Happening Somewhen

Two Princes

Broken (The Worst Is Over Now)

Well, I Never Been To Heaven

The Reel Deal

A Fabulous Evening's Apocalypse

Foxfire

Super Double Bus

Suddenly I See

Lavender Fireflies

Heartland Flyer

Something Blue

Wouldn't It Be Nice

If Only You Return to Me

all out to sea

Dear Father

Opposites Distract

Faking It?

Given to Fly

Take The Long Way Home

A Glacial Pace

All caught up on this year’s crop of pine? There are 694 more works of art and 219 more fics to be found in the previous seven Pinefest rounds -- and if you're into numbers, you can find a full breakdown of this and past year’s stats here!

Until next time… happy pining!

[thevioletcaptain]

buck is hereby summoning all the destiel sleeper agents who’ve been focusing on the weewoo show…....... pinefest is back babeyyyyy

(screenshot source)

[hawkland]

Art masterpost: If Only You Return to Me Author: arlingtonchamberofgay/ @arlington-chamber-of-gay Artist: sidewinder/ @hawkland Time for Pinefest art post #2 for this year! I'm always up for tackling a good fixit fic, and I had a lot of fun doing my pieces for this story.

This was the first piece I worked on, as it was just a scene/moment in the fic that immediately jumped out at me. I won't say more than that for spoiler reasons, but as much as I love painting elaborate backgrounds and scenes, sometimes it's fun to do an "Empty" scene because of the chance to really just hone in on the character(s) and their emotions against a complete black background.

The second piece I did for the story is for a scene where Cas, newly resurrected, finds himself back in the bunker right where he died. So I wanted to suggest the sigil still there but faded/darkened on the door behind him. Like the first piece, I did this one on smooth/hot press paper which I've been slowly getting more fond of for certain types of illustrative pieces. I was going to stick with using it for all my art for the story and to do them all on the same size (12"x6") watercolor block, but then...

...When I started thinking of a banner art piece, I wanted to go bigger. I also felt the need to go back to my usual rougher/cold pressed paper for the layering I wanted for the image in my mind.

This was a really challenging one to try to capture what I envisioned: Dean, in Heaven, chasing through different multiverses looking for Cas (and haunted/thinking about the moment of his death and not getting to respond to what Cas said to him.) So it's meant to be kind of overlapping images with a not-quite-real look to it. I went back and forth working on it a lot and it's a BIG piece (20"x16") but it finally came together in time to post today!

This last piece ended up being my favorite, and I tried to keep it kind of soft and warm and dreamy to fit the moment :)

Thank you to arlington for being so easy to work with and so enthusiastic for my work! Please go read the story now, and enjoy (and I'll be back next week with, at long last, my own Pinefest fic!)

[jollyrolls]

It was a blast to make art for the beautiful story by @LoversAntiquities (ao3) thank you so much for the encouragement and fun conversations! I had a blast🔆

Read the fic here!

[basketcasebetty]

Here's some art I did for @mrbotanyb's 2024 Pinefest fic. A Hitchhiker's Guide crossover! Go check it out!

[girlinthemirrorbluenight-library]

Art for my second @deancaspinefest for this year! You can read the fic by MBQ here to find out about this international journey.