#DeanCas StabFest 2022

[naughtystiel]

JUST LIKE KNITTING

It's the day of Castiel's first date with Dean, the handsome construction worker he met at his favorite coffee shop. He copes with his nerves by working on his knitting. But when Dean arrives and goes in for a hug, Castiel... forgets to put down his needles.

I had the pleasure to work with @friendofcarlotta , they wrote such a sweet story and I'm so thankful for them guiding me through my first ever deancas fest! Which happened to be @deancas-stabfest ♡

[spriteofmushrooms]

The art for @lorewhorebloodfreak / luciferspartner's Dean/Cas StabFest fic, "Dear Diary, Dean Stabbed Me Again."

Check out other entries at @deancas-stabfest!

[kjosi]

Raising his sword, Dean slowly walked around the edge of the forest, looking for any movement between the trees, trying to see if he could see someone, a glint of silver from a sword or from an armour. 

There was nothing alarming and Dean couldn’t see any leaves moving anymore; was it all in his head? Had the lack of sleep made him imagine things? There hadn’t been anyone from the other army walking out of the castle, how could there be someone else there with them aside from Dean’s army?

Still, that didn’t make Dean less nervous or made his heart stop beating so fast. He was sure he had heard something and Dean wasn’t someone to imagine things; the tingling on the back of his neck also made him sure someone was watching him.

Here is my art and banner “catcher piece” for @gii-heylittleangel ‘s wonderful fic, made for the first-ever @deancas-stabfest! I really enjoyed this collab <3 Go check out Gii’s amazing fic and her other works, too! Read it here on AO3!

[lorewhorebloodfreak]

DeanCas StabFest!

Thank you to MBQ for the excellent fic that inspired this art!

ID: Supernatural fanart of bloody Ruby on Sam’s lap on a pale blue mattress (both nude), Castiel with the demon-killing knife in his chest, and Sam licking a bloody knife wearing blue. All art is splattered in blood and divided by clouds of it. Art is mixed media in pen, watercolor, marker, and colored pencil. End ID.

[deancas-stabfest]

STABFEST 2022 WRAPPED

GREETINGS, STABBERS

Last year was the debut of our precious child, DeanCas StabFest (FUNSIZED), and in the very humble opinion of the mods, it was a smashing success! we promised to bring you guys some stats to explore how the fest went down.

NB: The data is skewed more towards the fic, rather than the art. we know this, and we are sorry. we love love LOVE all the artists, and want to explore all that metadata as well, but we also want to protect copyright. The metadata for the fic is accessible manually from AO3 (the mods have been toiling in the spreadsheet mines for weeks), or was provided to us by the participants via the masterpost form. However, getting more metadata on the art would require us to feed the full images into an analysis program, and we just can't trust that data won't be misused.

The art metadata that is present in this Wrapped was attained either by human eyeball, or by using Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7.02, which was released on March 5, 2001 and does not have online capabilities. It has plenty of other capabilities, okay. Do not underestimate the grampa software. There is a HOT WAX filter. Also it was paid for ONCE. none of that subscription crap. suck our dicks adobe

NB2: STABFEST WRAPPED is not about competition (except for competing to make StabFest 2023 even more unhinged than 2022.) We are not ranking the participants; we are lining everyone up to give them a smooch on the forehead. There will be a few individuals mentioned here and there, but every team has oodles and oodles of data that we've been crunching, and everyone was part of making DeanCas StabFest 2022 into this handsome, virile beast.

Missed the Fest, or want to refresh your memory? Check out the MASTERLIST:

Part One

Part Two

You can also check out the StabFest2022 collection on AO3.

Alright, let's go!

Pitcher, Catcher? Author, Artist?

DeanCas StabFest 2022 (Fun-sized!) had 33 teams: 27 in the regular bang and 6 in the reverse bang. 31 authors and 25 artists participated. Three people participated as both author and artist, leading to a total of 53 participants. One person was on multiple teams as an author and four people were on multiple teams as artists.

Author/Artist switch hitters: KaylieMalinza (teams 4, 10, 12, 27, 200, and 600), Maple (teams 28 and 15) and Swirlycloud (teams 16 and 20.)

Mega Author: MBQ (teams 13, 14, and 15)

Mega Artists: Biscuit_tin (teams 100, 21, and 13), Lauryn T. (teams 22 and 27) and Mortea (teams 19, 25, 500, and 700.)

(yes, the two participants who were on the most teams (5 and 4) are the mods, but this was a pinch hitter/oh god the reverse bang is too smol situation okay don't look at us like that this isn't like the scene in chocolat where the antagonist breaks into the candy shop and gorges on everything this was SACRIFICE for the SAKE OF THE FEST. also it was fun and the mods regret nothing.)

What It Says On The Tin

Of the 33 teams, 22 of them showed STAB in the artwork and 7 of them referenced STAB in the fic title. (this was interpreted fairly loosely--if the STAB was imminent or the aftermath was visible in the art, and if the title held any mention of stab, cut, slice, etc. we counted it as a yes.) Of the 26 fic which did not reference STAB in the title, 3 did reference the stabbing implement.

You Must Be This Tall To Ride

Of AO3's four ratings, the majority of the fic were rated Teen and Up, and the next most common rating was Mature. There was only one brave fic rated General Audiences--but that may have more to do with people rating higher than needed out of caution. No one wants a nastygram from a puriteen who thinks Disney is too risque and scary for children. Anyway--the MPAA doesn't give official ratings to fanfic. We go on vibes, and reader beware.

Yeah, I Figured That Much. What Are You?

Of the artwork, 22 of the entries were digital art, 10 were traditional/physical, and 1 piece appeared to be mixed physical and digital (we were guessing on traditional vs digital art and may have gotten it wrong sometimes! sorry.) A 1:2 ratio of traditional to digital was a very pleasant surprise.

The STICKERS had a pretty good spread, too, with notable outliers being only 1 team receiving the Rebar of Shame and a whopping 18 teams receiving the Cannon of Canon Complicity. In total, 50 stickers were awarded. Special shout out to MBQ, who managed to qualify for every sticker across their three entries. The Rebar of Shame would have been so lonely without you.

Weapon of Choice

Speaking of rebar, there was a tasty variety in the stabbing implements used. 8 teams had multiple implements, leading to a total of 41 implements. Far and away the most used implement was a knife--5 instances of the OG demon knife, and an additional 14 knives of various types--cooking, hunting, ka-bar, etc. , for a total of 19. The runner up was the angel blade, clocking in at 5 instances, with arrow and sword coming in behind at 3 and 2 instances, respectively. The most exciting implements, however, are those which were unique, only one instance each.

Of all the implements, we estimate that 34 of them were used for their intended purpose--needle, syringe, and scalpel, for example--with 8 very special implements being employed "off label."

We can beat those numbers this year, team!

Let's make 2023 StabFest off label AF.

According to the Lore

Of the AO3 tags, it should come as no surprise that there were 33 iterations of STAB, and 30 iterations of Castiel/Dean Winchester (tabulated separately from Castiel & Dean Winchester--some fic were tagged with both.) The Sam Winchester character tag also showed up 19 times (not including variants such as "Injured Sam Winchester," pairing tags, or, a mod favorite, "pray for sammy.") Canon made an appearance in 22 tags--including Canon-Typical Violence as well as Canon Elements, Canon Compliant, etc. Angst and Blood showed up in 11 and 12 tags, respectively.

A few more tags were cherry picked for the chart below; including every tag would be very difficult, since the 33 fic were tagged with a staggering total of 372 unique tags.

The mods would like to give a special shout out to the freeform tags. They were delightful in situ and tantalizing out of context. Here are our top ten favorites, in no particular order:

a frankly concerning number of references to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah (All That Remains, by DoctorProfessorSong)

author was craving s'mores while writing this (Hunger Pains, by Followsthebees)

copious use of frog analogies?? (apologue of the boiling frog, by howldean)

dean is re-hymenated and as smooth as a baby's bottom (Rescue Burrito, by KaylieMalinza)

But Dean Forgives Him Because He's Smitten (Just Like Knitting, by FriendofCarlotta)

cas has a metaphorical c-section in here and that’s all you need to know (Fill Thyself with the Word of God, by themauvesoul)

Sam and Cas come up with a crazy idea and Dean counts to ten in the background. (The Good Old College Try, by silver_penny)

Cas triggers his own trauma by jerking off to the wrong thing (eros and thanatos, by autisticandroids)

oh well it's Cas what would you expect?! (Dusk When I Met You, by MiracleofWinchester)

There is also taco salad somewhere (Happy Kitty, by MBQ)

The mods also, with glimmering eyes and trembling hands, present a gold star to the tag that Understood The Assignment:

Apologies for attempted murder doubling as intricate rituals also (By your hand, by SlopeSlippers)

Thanks, buddy. StabFest feels Seen.

My True Form is Approximately The Size of Your Chrysler Building

As StabFest is FUN-SIZED, it should come as no surprise that most of the fic had fairly low word counts. With a required minimum of 1,500, 5 fic were between 1,500 and 2,500 words, and 8 were between 2,500 and 3,500. With a grand total word count of 183,643 spread across 33 fic, the average word count is 5,464--but since the median was only 4,397, then clearly the three fic with word counts over 15,400 were outliers adn should not have been counted.

The stab-free zone between 10k and 15k requires further study. 🧐

The art sizes had no measurable minimum--the rules just stated one art piece minimum, with no details about dimensions, resolution, etc. Some curious numbers shook out, though.

The width of the pieces ranged from 500 to 2048 pixels, with a median of 1280. The height ranged from 386 to 4716, with a median of 1280. (NB: some artists did multiple pieces for a single team, such as a main art piece and a banner, or multiple main art pieces. E.g., that 4,716 comes from three pieces of 1572 pixel height being combined.) In total, the StabFest art from all 33 teams is 36,433 pixels wide by 41,378 pixels tall. Perhaps some enterprising soul can convert that to football fields.

File size, as reported by Windows Explorer, ranged from 49.1kB to 4670kB with a median of 638.5kB. Bear in mind that some of these pieces would have been resized by tumblr or another hosting service, and of course, multiple pieces for the same team are added together. The total size, based on the files currently available, is 25630.08kB, or 25.63MB.

Certain People, Special People, Can Perceive My True Visage

What's most fun is the little option is Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7.02 to show the number of unique colors. These ranged from a minimum of 11,323 (The art for Forest Fever) to a maximum of 894,465 (the art for Light Me Up With Your Ardent Sword--hi res versions available on AO3), with a median of 95,293. You'd think the sum of the unique colors would be HUGE--and yes, if you add up all the numbers you get a whopping 4,616,209--but of course there's going to be a lot of overlap.

After combining all the StabFest art into a single MEGAZORD, like the Power Rangers, we see that the number of unique colors is much smaller: 2,272,549. That means there are 2,343,660 colors which are shared by at least two entries. Isn't that sweet? It's like the art is holding hands.

Because The Mods Commanded It. Because We Have Work for You.

Well, that wraps up StabFest2022 Wrapped. If you had fun last year and want to see what StabFest Wrapped2023 will look like, please check out the new features (femslash!! new stickers! A DISCORD) and mosey on over to the sign up form. And please take a gander at our promo post tag and see if something catches your fancy for a signal boost.

[roxyandelsewhere]

Deancas Stabfest 2022

I had the joy of getting to illustrate @themauvesoul's fic:

Fill Thyself with the Word of God

"Dean lays his free hand along the place where Castiel is stretched around the tablet, and strokes his thumb along the edge of the weeping cut in Castiel’s belly. Castiel shivers. He grabs Dean’s wrist, hard, but Dean doesn’t stop. He lays his other hand atop Castiel’s, still clutched around his wrist, and starts gently stroking the skin there, too. “I think you and I both know what broke the connection,” Dean says, his fingers gentle on Castiel’s hands and belly, “and this tablet ain’t it.” Castiel closes his eyes. He doesn’t say anything—how could he? Instead, he lets himself feel it all; Dean’s hands on him, his blood smeared over Dean’s skin. He holds Dean there, because he likes how it feels. The sting of pain, the little hint of pleasure. Together, they make everything seem sweeter."

[autisticandroids]

my fics

this post has gotten out of hand, so i'm putting most of it under a cut. also, since this is my pinned, i'll link some other stuff:

[my fic rec post] [my amv rec post] [my amv tag]

alright. my spn fics. listed in increasing order of wordcount.

enjoying it, .5k: A little piece of an AU I've discussed on Tumblr (linked in the note). Linda has recently sold her soul. Meg has recently gotten hers back. They chat about it.

meg/linda tran. sure you could say that i'm mashing dolls together but you could also say that in my mind season nine is a beautiful land where the main characters of the show are cas, linda, meg, and kevin and making meg and linda kiss is just clearly the next step.

a family vignette, .5k: A couple of scenes from the bunker, starring the last men on earth.

man it must have been pretty bad in the bunker during 15x19 huh. like pretty awful. and miserable.

latch, .5k: A miracle happens. Dean feeds Cas.

hello destiel breastfeeding community.

voyeur, 1k: Dean watches his other self talk to Cas.

i feel like endverse fic is a right of passage, isn't it? this is one of only two three four i guess now five fics on this list which makes no mention of godstiel.

to act with intention, 1k: The family Winchester on the road back to the Bunker after Cas kills Billie, and more importantly, after Mary makes certain revelations about Cas' state. A rather unpleasant car ride for all concerned.

#mpregpocalypse, etc.

stability, 1k: Sam has noticed that Cas' feelings toward Dean may be more than purely platonic. He is concerned about the stability of his family.

a short little fic where i make the dynamics among tfw worse.

getting serious, 1k: A small vignette of family life in the bunker, and the difficulties therein. Dean pays no attention to Sam's escape attempt.

established destiel. sam and dean have a horrible little conversation.

no longer your brother, 1k: Michael and Lucifer pose a threat to His reign, though a small one. God pays them a visit.

OLD-ass godstiel fic from when i was like. sixteen. my interests have not changed at all.

cold storage, 1k: Crowley discovers something fascinating about Cas.

a little bit of lighthearted crowstiel fuckbuddies.

yeah, well, i don't want to, 1k: He didn't do it on purpose.

a little brothers-centric deanfic for the pilot. dean is very normal.

the follower, 1k: The world is being restructured. Dean can't stop it. He has a long conversation with someone instead.

an unpleasant and uncomfortable conversation between dean and godstiel. dean tries to make it sexual in order to make cas uncomfortable. it does not make cas uncomfortable.

squeeze, 1k: Soft, sweet Destiel sex. They're still getting used to each other. That's it.

destiel fluff. dean is so lovely when he's neurotic.

just gimme daddy's blunt instrument, 1k: Dean points a gun at Cas.

godstiel gunfellatio fic. they don't fuck in this but they do.

dog pit., 1k: Meg. And bodies. And guts.

meg fetishism.

damage control for a walking corpse, 1k: Meg escapes Crowley's dungeon, at least for a little while. She prays.

meg character study featuring faith, lucifer, masochism, and megstiel.

debug., 1k: Dean gets his crew to steal him an angel.

written for @au-roulette, an experimental cyberpunk au fic.

hunger, 1k: Endverse Cas talks about what it was like to have Dean inside him.

november fifth fic 2022. despite being technically an endverse fic, focuses on cas saving dean from hell.

eros and thanatos, 1k: Cas enjoys himself immensely, and then he doesn't. Dean can't find out.

my entry for @deancas-stabfest! casturbation feat. cas triggering himself and throwing up after.

soft and squishy, 2k: Dean shoots Cas. He processes that.

extra extra come get your hell trauma! come get your fluffy gore porn! written for @destielvalentinesexchange

the beautiful people, 2k: Dean and what it's like to be wanted.

dean has a pretty bad relationship with sex and sexuality doesn't he.

dean winchester really needs to make some gay friends, 2k: There was no way the answer to this question wasn’t funny as hell.

post canon fluff and humor, written and posted during the week of madness between 15x18 and 15x19. an exploration of a dean who is queer, but doesn't really understand how to be queer yet.

there is want., 2k: There is God. And there is a body. And there is want.

*sigh* more godstiel fic. this time with horrific and gratuitous gore. godstiel eats some copies of dean, to see if that will satisfy him. this one, the follower, and just gimme daddy's blunt instrument are a kind of triptych. they don't exist in the same continuity but they all follow the same themes: sex-without-sex between dean and godstiel, mixed with character and relationship exploration.

wink, 3k: Cassie deals with grieving her father, and has a little lesbian interlude.

my first piece for @spntoxicfemslashevent this year. hey have you guys heard about meg 1.0? have you heard about meg 1.0? what about cassie have you heard about cassie? have you heard about megcassie?

smorgasbord, 3k: An incident under the influence of Famine.

my bloody valentine fic (evil) (horny) (evil).

goldfish, 4k: Lisa Braeden opens the door for some strangers.

a study on cas in the aftermath of a slightly divergent moriah where jack did not die, through the lens of lisa braeden and her memory.

three card stud, 4k: A collection of script excerpts for a version of Season Six that goes a bit differently. Cas and Dean conspire. Lisa is oblivious, and they keep her that way. Dr. Freud always said nightmares were based on wishes, too.

finally! some deancaslisa infidelity. mindwipenatural (worse). live free or twi-hard (better). an experimental amv for a version of season six that doesn't exist.

i fold in half so easily, 5k: A study in learned helplessness, set in the Men of Letters Bunker. Cas clings hard to what he has, and doesn't think about what he doesn't.

this is my 15x18 anti-fix-it. my 15x18 make-it-worse. my magnum opus of the winchester family horror in late seasons, or at least cas' experience of it. established relationship destiel (derogatory). it's my favorite piece i've published in spn fandom, and maybe in any fandom. i put a lot into it and i hope you get a lot out of it.

circle, broken, 5k: A series of conversations and resolutions. Cas haunts the fringes of a new Heaven.

my piece for @spnangelbang! 5k of quiet cas angst and angel feelings, with a little bonus trueform stuff.

not him/not her/not me, 5k: Memory repeats itself: first as trauma, second as kink. Isn't that what Karl Marx said? Two pinned butterflies explore it together.

megstiel piece for @spnangelsanddemons-rb. what if you got brainwashed, huh? what if you were always getting brainwashed? what if your whole life was about getting brainwashed? brainwashed and remade?

he's gonna take my files, 6k: Dean goes to the Empty, where Cas is floating through his memories.

dean in the dean torture chamber. featuring guilt spirals, a deancaslisa threesome (arguably), stabbing, relitigation of the canon, and a cameo from the yellow-eyed demon.

so much smoke in a hall of mirrors, 6k: Humans kiss each other. Angels kill each other. Castiel distracts himself from the war he's losing.

doing angel politics, unconsensually watching dean rake leaves (and other things), working on his frustrations on the physical bodies available to him. it's season six and cas is having a terrible time. formerly known as the dean sex doll fic.

the real finale, 21k: Supernatural 15x19 and 15x20, as they should have been.

mainly the work of @beatsheetketch, but it is our shared brainchild. a lot softer and fluffier than either of our usual fair. our go at a finale rewrite.

[lorewhorebloodfreak]

Happy DeanCas StabFest Posting Eve Eve everyone

y’all will catch me posting with my partners on Dec 17 (my art) and Dec 22 (my fic) and I will prob be reposting some other submissions throughout the next days >:-)

prepare for all the Dean Stabbing Cas content you’ve (n)ever wanted

[deancas-stabfest]

HEY SO YOU REMEMBER HOW YOU PARTICIPATED IN OR READ FIC OR LOOKED AT ART FROM THE DEANCAS STABFEST (FUNSIZED) IN 2022 AND IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME?

well WE'RE BACK, BABEY

the second year of stabfest, aka 2STAB2FEST, will be just as awesome as the original, with MOAR and NEW. observe:

there is a mini-theme of saint sebastian, tumblr's favorite martyred twink. if your entry evokes stabby sebby imagery, then you can elect to post on his feast day, december 18th. also there's a sticker. of course.

FEMSLASH. look. we love destiel. they're compelling. they're fraught. twelve year slow burn. no one does it like them, etc. but also? we like women. so now all entries must contain EITHER dean and cas OR two or more female characters participating in Stabbing. (or both, if you're an overacheiver.)

do you want to participate, but you have mad heavy decision fatigue? are you listless and confused? do you want to put your fate into the hands of the whimsical universe? well LUCKY FOR YOU stabfest now has a JUST FUCK ME UP option for sign ups and claims! you will be assigned one or more roles at random--writer pitcher, writer catcher, artist pitcher, artist catcher. live más

WE HAVE A DREAMWIDTH AND A DISCORD. the dreamwidth is a little bare, but accessible. the discord will be up in about a week

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