#a lot of them are either ship-centric or have ships in the bg which I hope is okay!!

[angeltrapz]

i was just wondering do u have any saw fic recommendations?? (besides ur own, which are all great btw)

sjhfaskj thank u fr the comment on my fics <33 as for recommendations!! I do have quite a few I like!

the street cats (making love) series by doztoevsky literally knocked me out the first time I read thru it. It's SO well-written and they have both Hoffman + Strahm's characters down amazingly!! This series is actually what got me to like... understand where ppl are coming from when talking abt hoffstrahm tbh!! (related is also their series bad company which is also phenomenal... obsessed w how well they write Adam!!) - Ships included in this series: Hoffstrahm and Chainshipping! (though the latter only rlly appears in lost in the supermarket)

Strip the Paint by fiddlestick is actually one of the first fics tht came to mind when I saw this ask! Everyone is SO well-written and the dynamic btwn Amanda and Adam and Lawrence? I am Obsessed. It's literally been living rent-free in my head since I read it for the first time and I cannot recommend it enough!! I ADORE the way the three of them interact with each other (ESP Mandy and Adam) and with others SO much. (related is Friend of My Friend, which explores the dynamic btwn Lawrence and Mandy within the universe of Strip the Paint!!) - Ships included in this fic: Chainshipping, eventually!

all the little pieces that make up a life series by allegedly_writing! Not only is it an amazing exploration of what life after the bathroom trap is like for Adam and Lawrence, it's also phenomenal t4t rep that I don't see nearly enough of!!! It's also a lot of domesticity, which I am Also weak for. This series means so much to me and the care + tact with which it's written is beautiful and definitely deserves the love it gets <3 They've also got some good character pieces, esp the steady sting of realization (Daniel Matthews), the shadow of my life was hanging over me (Jill), + and death rode on a pale horse (Amanda)! - Ships included in the first series mentioned: Chainshipping!

There are A Lot of my bestie's fics that I could include here, but one that really struck me was Stop Bath (fakebodies)! It's so so sweet and I go back to reread it pretty often tbh. I'm very weak for fics where Adam like... realizes he's loved, yk? bc he deserves that. And this fic delivers!! + I am incredibly fond of the idea that Lawrence takes pictures of Adam occasionally as well + Adam getting emotional over that bc he's so used to being the one Behind the camera, and the fact that someone wants to immortalize him as he is in some manner,, pure fluff and well worth the read <3 - Ships included in this fic: Chainshipping!

rematch by unstuckintime is genuinely one of the most unique and interesting SAW fics I've read omg. I honestly quite like time loop-centric stories, and this one is absolutely incredible!! I know I've said this a lot so far but the way they write Adam is so so on point and very Him if that makes sense - both in his actions, his voice, and his introspection over the course of the fic. It's a very interesting concept that was executed brilliantly!! - Ships included in this fic: Chainshipping (not centric but definitely implied at the least)!

i could not stop for death by flwergardens is absolutely AMAZING like the prose in this fic... breathtaking. I honestly had never even thought abt the concept of vampire Adam (or vampires being introduced into the SAW universe in general) until I read this and the way that it's written is absolutely incredible!!! The way sensations and scenery and general atmosphere is described is genuinely SO appealing and really reiterates the vividness of what's occurring! (there IS some mention of gore, but it's not too graphic; it's tagged properly but proceed w caution.) - Ships included in this fic: Chainshipping, at least implied!

I don't see enough Lynnmanda but I Can recommend into my arms by lynndenlon! As ppl can probably tell from the content of my writing, I'm very fond of like... hurt/comfort fics, esp in regards to nightmares, but also the exploration of trauma that we otherwise don't see reflected Super often in the franchise itself (which might be bc I Also have PTSD, but. u know.), and this fic handles it very well,, they Do deserve to be soft sometimes. I also think it's a very skilled use of first person POV (Lynn's POV)!! (I care them so much omg,, I'm also like. not typically fond of first person but it Works here!) - Ships included in this fic: Lynnmanda!

For similar reasons as that Lynnmanda fic, there are no winners (there are only survivors) by mewhiphand is an absolutely Amazing exploration into Amanda's life directly after her game & how she's coping with it. It's very tactfully written and it's one of those fics you can just Feel with the way things are being described, if that makes sense! It's a very well-written Amanda-centric fic and handles her emotions so well!! - Ships included in this fic: N/A!

okay I also have to include the sleeping with the television on series by jayjesus bc. It is fucking HILARIOUS. THIS is the Hoffstrahm dynamic (very, VERY dysfunctional, as I see it being btwn those two) I adore reading, and not only is the dynamic fun to read about, their usage of prose is also awesome too. Hoffman and Strahm are SO bitchy to each other in this series jkdsfaks I love it!! - Ships included in this fic: Hoffstrahm!

I'm sure there are. many more but these ones are some of my faves!!!! ty for asking <333

[aroarolibrary]

Oh man so, first off: congrats to angel/dean shippers on getting your canon thing in spanish but secondly:

Man this whole thing that’s been happening with this show over the last few weeks has 100% reminded me that this show and Sherlock were the two fandoms that made be super romance repulsed because of all the internalized self-hate and trauma they caused me. Like. I was romance repulsed before but those fandoms?? Jacked it up to 100% for years in which I couldn’t interact with any romantic stories or fandoms at all.

Story time!!!

Tw for: self harm, self hatred, hypersexuality, mental health issues, child neglect.

So imagine you are me: a young person who has just graduated high school and, very suddently, went from being “single mother of your little sister” who you had essentially raised on your own for the last four years when she was 5 to 9 yo to “every day college kid that sees their sibling that they raised for the last four years maybe once a month.

Also imagine that, out of all of your high school friends, none of them are attending the same university as you and so. Well.

You’re feeling pretty lonely and depressed.

Now also imagine: you didn’t really have a chance to consume media I HS because: parent. In fact 90% of what you watched was kids cartoons for your sibling +bonus Inuyasha at 3am as a...Uh....treat.....(that’s the kind way of saying ‘setting an alarm at 3am to check to make sure the parents actually got home from wherever TF they vanished to nearly every night).

But hey! You are free now and can watch/read what you want between classes! Only, well, where to start? You go to a book store and find a Sherlock Holmes book and think “okay ya I’ve always wanted to read these!” And proceed to consume them in one week flat.

They are amazing. The relationship between Sherlock and John reminds you of your and one of your best friends/honorary cousins that you haven’t seen in a while and it brings you comfort to read, but now you are out of stories so, you do what any person this day in ages does: you find fanfiction. Now, Sherlock wasn’t a thing at this point and so nearly all the fanfics were based on the books and, of those, 80-85% you gen. No romance at all. Just relaxing stories about friends and solving mysteries.

Then Sherlock happens and, don’t get me wrong, I was definitely a fan when the show started, but suddenly fanfiction was no longer mostly gen, it was shifting, becoming more and more shipping and romance related and it became harder and harder to find non-romantic stories.

Then a person I was living with suggested supernatural. “It’s a story about brothers and it focuses on them.” They said “very little romance. You would probably like it.”

And so I watched it and, they were right, I did. And ya, that one wasn’t exactly like the early Sherlock Holmes fandom, it had a lot of shipping from the get go, but I could also really easily find gen fics that focused on siblings and familial relationships and ignore the rest since there was a pretty even 50/50 split with a slight favor on the gen side.

(Keep in mind there is a LOT of other irl trauma going on in the BG of this story which I know I’ve talked about before. A lot of which is also feeding into the romance repulsion and my avoidance of romance in fandom spaces along with my “blossoming” hypersexuality)

Anyway, the familial relationship in spn was a comfort. At the point I moved from Sherlock to SPN I was in my second year on university and was doing a bit better mentally (in the “sadness” front at least) but I was still missing seeing my sister a lot and so SPN was a comfort in that sense. It was something to relax with that didn’t have romance or anything of the sort that, at that point, was only driving me further and further into hypersexuality (I was dating my first ‘official’ partner at that point and, while I can recognize it now looking back, romance in shows and movies made me feel inadequate as a partner. Like I was failing and not doing enough. Was not romantic enough. Was not showing affection enough. But physically I also couldn’t bring myself to do those things either. What I could do was sex. And, well, when that’s all you have to offer...)

ANYWAY: spn was the one show I knew of on TV that was low to no romance and that the fandom was also decently low on romance, instead focusing mostly on family and the brothers.

Cut forward a few years, I’m back into a depression, I’ve failed at a relationship again because all I can offer is sex and that’s really not enough for people that are looking for actual romance and:

And supernatural introduces an angel character to the show. It’s interesting but I’m pretty depressed and not really all that interested in the show anyway at this point-

But then the fandom happens and it’s like a flood. The romance pours in from all corners along with the absolute hate for anyone that doesn’t see anything romantic happening. It’s like watching a wild fire go through a fandom, what was once a fandom that mostly was just about siblings all of a sudden became all about this angel character and Dean. So much so that it over shadowed everything and any attempt to just enjoy the show as a gen thing or as a family-centric show became impossible.

It was also around this point that a lot of...idk what to call it really because it wasn’t exactly hate, it was like a “this is the only way to read/be in this fandom and if you aren’t we are going to harass you non-stop until you see things our way”. If you couldn’t see the romance between these two characters it was because you were homophobic. If you preferred gen it was because you were homophobic. If you focused on just the brothers and their relationship it was because you were homophobic. If you couldn’t see that Dean was better off in a romantic relationship then with his brother who he had an ‘unhealthy’ relationship with then you were homophobic.

(Keep in mind at this point I was out as bisexual and had attempted to date a woman at this point. I say attempted because, well, again: aromantic even if I didn’t know it then)

It was intense and, from the POV of an aromantic person struggling with being unable to understand even basic romance: it was traumatizing.

I tried to see it, to understand what these shippers were seeing that I couldn’t. Yes, I could see how Sam and Dean’s relationship could be viewed as unhealthy, but as someone who had lived a similar life to theirs as a kid, and to suddenly be bombarded with this idea that the “healthy” way to cope with that is a “romantic relationship” it was a lot. And by a lot I mean a death spiral.

There was...a lot of one night stands and sex and half-attempted relationships after that, in that desperate attempt to understand. There was also panic, nausea, fear that my own relationship with my sister was unhealthy. Was causing both of us harm. That the only way I could keep from hurting her further was to find a “healthy” romantic relationship instead because siblings aren’t meant to be close, not even those where one raised the other alone for years on end.

I had no context outside of fandom about what a healthy sibling relationship looked like and, hell, most TV shows at the time painted sibling relationships as antagonist 90% of the time and with them only interacting when necessary. My parents both had siblings but my dad talked to his maybe once a month and my mom faught with Hers a lot. I had never faught with my sister. We got along perfectly, mostly because from the ages on 13 - 18 I lived for her alone and so I was used to putting her first no matter what.

But this fandom, that had been a comfort for me for a while, suddenly said that was wrong. That instead romance was the way to go and I...

Well. I am conscious of myself enough now to know that I was purposely hurting myself. A lot. Punishing myself over and over and over again, not just because I couldn’t figure out how to “feel” romance like I was supposed to do but also because I was a terrible sibling. Because I had failed my sister some how and had ended up in an “unhealthy codependent” relationship with her since, if Sam and Dean’s relationship was like that according to fans, then obviously so was ours.

(God and don’t get me started on the spiral that the new Inuyasha Sequel put me into a few months ago. I’m STILL not out of that spiral yet. These last few months have not been good for the “romance isn’t important/is unnecessary” front)

I would like to say that I soon realized how terrible the fandom was for my mental health and that it was causing me to harm myself but that isn’t how this story ends. How it ends is that I Eventually I ended up not being able to watch SPN any more. Every episode was just another dagger in my side. Another failure to press my face into. Another series of interactions where I couldn’t see. Couldn’t understand. Another episode that would let to another desperate one night stand/attempt at understanding how this was better. Healthier. How this was how things were supposed to be. Another night of not talking to my family or friend and another few days of not talking to my sister because talking to her too much was wrong.

So ya. This story doesn’t end nicely. It just slowly fades to black. To a point where I hate myself so much that I can’t bring myself to interact with the fandom or internet at all. Where everything just kind of...goes away and vanished but where the trauma still exists. Where stories that start out about family and, suddenly, introduce love interests leave me nauseous and choked. Where my romance repulsion gets so strong that I can’t sleep because I just keep remembering my failures. The fact that it’s not healthy to focus or care about your family. That there must be romance. There must There must there must. Because with out it all other relationships are bad/wrong/unhealthy and you are bad/wrong/unhealthy for only having those.

Just the endless mantra. All night long.

Bad.

Wrong.

Unhealthy.

Bad.

Wrong.

Unhealthy.

Bad

Wrong.

Unhealthy.

Over and over and over again.