#camppodsquad

[astralspock]

DTA Reading update!

I'm in finals, so I am reading but not liveblogging - currently halfway through Ch. 9! I am filming a vid about my current melty-brain thoughts & quotes that will be over on the Queering Things tiktok (sometime Wed/Thurs)!

This week, readers -- finish Map of the World, start It's the Stars that Lie, cry about this Dean & Cas' dynamic x4569

One quote for the road, from a favourite recent scene:

"Worlds have burned to ash in the name of people who could do far less than what Dean does as instinctively as he breathes, and his major use of it is to make friends of his own soldiers....

"Hey," Dean says suddenly, turning to look at him, and the force of that smile is blinding, overwhelming, destroying everything in its path."

[hhw12]

I'm currently doing my first read of DtA along with everyone in #camppodsquad. 5 chapters down, 6 to go of Map of the world!

[astralspock]

Down to Agincourt - Chapter 1 liveblog!

Here we go. Chapter One #CampPodSquad 🪖✨🌌 I'm doing a combination of reading the text version and listening to the audio version (the latter of which was a delightful find today when I wanted to read but had house cleaning to do!)

Reactions 👇

First off, I remember why I struggled to get into this before. I always struggle with doomed!Sam plots and I trust this one will be worth pushing through but I AM too Dean coded for imagining Sam in pain 😭 that's MY kid brother

The wound cleaning scene is such a good introduction to the differences between what Cas expects Dean to be, and what Dean actually is.

The scene with the chair is .... something. That something is hot. That something is very, very hot. 🔥

This whole Dean/Cas dynamic is delicious.

Dom!Cas BELOVED.

What the hell is Cas if he's not human (allusions to making a deal for Dean's soul, is Cas being metaphorical or is this a clue and if so ...)? Dean later says "proto-god", but then obviously has no real idea. I did REALLY love that Dean figures it out when it (appears) that the rest of the camp hasn't even after years.

This is Season 7-ish Dean? I'm so curious about where exactly in the timeline this Dean is from, how he's gotten here, and exactly why. ...on to Chapter 2!

[astralspock]

down to agincourt liveblog!!!

Okay y'all I'm finally doing it. I don't know how I've been in the fandom this long without reading the seminal @seperis endverse work, but starting this week, along with my friends KJ , Beth and Elayna, I'll be reading Down to Agincourt and liveblogging it here under the tag #CampPodSquad

Follow me on Twitter and TikTok for other updates, as well as a Week-By-Week Schedule if you want to read along! If you want to join a discord to chat more -- shoot me a message!

(block tag to keep spoilers out out of your feed!)

[astralspock]

DTA First Read, Chapters 2-5 liveblog

Finally finished Week 1's chapters! Highlights, all in quote form with some comments italicized throughout and lengthier commentary at the end:

"To this day, he still isn't sure what he would have done if he was able to find Castiel's body in that reservoir; most of it is a blur of sleeping, eating, and searching that precluded anything like actual thought that only ended with Sam's insistence that he needed to stop, that maybe there wasn't a body to find." OKAY I am very glad we're getting this-Dean's s7 trauma worked out in these interesting ways

"for a second (only for a second) Dean feels a hot rush of bitter envy (of the Apocalypse, how fucked up is that?) because he's never been this to anyone, for anyone; no one's ever looked at him like this" I. Was. So. Fucked. by this line.

"If Dean needed him for something, Cas would show up. Late," he adds with a faint smile, almost affectionate, reminding him that Chuck is probably just as crazy as Cas these days. "But I'm pretty sure that was deliberate." "Dying of Croatoan is the least of our problems," Chuck answers with a snort. "Weird thing, international epidemics cause panic. Like mass panic, social breakdown, fragmentation revolution, any of that ring a bell?" I have got to admit this part was Something to read in 2022.

"Destiny is bullshit." "Destiny is a word far more vast than the definition would imply...sometimes, what you've become makes it impossible to see all potential paths. What you know limits what you believe can be achieved." "You can't believe that." YO this is the free will shit that I am here for exploring.

"We weren't always on speaking terms, but neither were we always...not on speaking terms." ohhhhhh

Commentary:

I highlighted approximately 75 quotes from this swath of chapters, and I also hit the part where I stopped reading before -- the very beginning of chapter 3, right before Chuck and Cas have their conversation about Dean and they go on the saving-Dean's-ashes mission. I DO NOT KNOW WHY I STOPPED GOOD LORD.

I think it's official that I'm in, now, and highly invested. I also realize how little I know about this fic beyond its basic premise and I am so stoked to see where the plot is going.

The Chuck/Cas dynamic is one that I'm very interested in, as well as exactly how Chuck's prophet-status will play out in both revelations of the past and in the current plotline.

The entire fucking scene where they get shitfaced and end up cuddling and then the immediate SHIFT in the morning after Dean takes a shower was such a sucker punch to my gut. "You seem to be under the impression that we have developed a bond due to excessive alcohol consumption while you shared your feelings in monotonous detail and I pretended to care." STOP.

The undercurrent of Sam's presence is both heartbreaking and comforting. I find fics where Sam is dead/permanently gone (as far as I currently know/expect) to be quite hard to read sometimes because either they ignore Dean's grief or else acknowledge it and it's all consuming and I am too Dean-coded to read it, but this story is treating Sam's presence with this tenderness that I am very grateful for. Dean is such a little SHIT to Cas (entirely warranted) and the layers of character interactions that happened to push their relationship forward in the span of 3 chapters is an absolute masterclass that kept me devouring it the entire time.

On to week 2! Chapters 6-10 liveblog coming later this week...follow the tag #camppodsquad!