#if dean were written in character by fandom maybe I would read more dean fics

[anassemblageofpassions]

It’s just wild to me that so many people are obsessed with their fanon version of dean when canon dean is soooo much more fascinating than anything they could come up. He loves so much it aches, it’s a horrible, soul destroying love that consumes everything it touches, even whomever it happens to glaze. He’s the ultimate weapon. He carved himself into whatever he thought was needed of him, and he tries carving his loved ones into whatever he thinks they should be. He carved into souls in hell, just like he carved into his own soul his entire life but can never handle when anyone else does the carving for very long, and once he gets back from hell, he carves his loved ones into what he wants them to be. He only tortured people who deserved it, right? He is judge, jury, and executioner and he WILL fix things, because he is Right. He doesn’t realize how deeply he is Loved in turn because no one is able to Love the way he does, a love that carves and slices into your soul until you have no choice but to attempt to mold yourself into what he needs of you. And god have mercy on you if you fight back.

The agony is the entire point of it all. Every love that dean has ever known feels horribly impersonal because no one can ever live up to his impossible standards. He has no idea that he is Known, and he has no idea that he doesn’t Know anyone. He is unbelievably vulnerable, he wears everything on his sleeve that, for all his remarks to the contrary, Sam hides. He does not know how easy he is to read, and he does not know that no one will ever truly be enough for him. There is Sammy. There is not Sam. Dean doesn’t know who sam is.

Dean is Michael’s sword, he’s John’s good soldier, he’s Alastair’s protege, he’s everything and he’s nothing. He sees John’s personalized abuse of Sam as a deeper love that he has never known, because his own abuse was so IMpersonal because he acquiesced. He acquiesced to john and he acquiesced to Alastair and he will never be made vulnerable again.

Maybe it’s just me, but THAT character is infinitely more interesting than the sanitized, watered-down version of himself he has become in this fandom.

Past season five, any redemption arc for him has lost interest for me. Season five tried that, and at least in swan song, they did it well. Late seasons dean cannot truly recover from all the damage he has done, and that’s what makes him utterly fascinating. I don’t WANT him to get better. In fact, I want him to be WORSE.

Maybe the story I’m interested in hearing is just different from what most want to tell. But I dunno. Maybe I’m just not interested in turning dean into a watered-down version of Sam. I already have Sam for that.

[fiona-fififi]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @spotsandsocks. Thank you for the tag!!

How many works do you have on Ao3?

59

What's your total Ao3 word count?

250,243 words

What fandoms do you write for?

Currently only 911. In the past, Supernatural, Shameless, Bones, and BtVS.

Top 5 fics by kudos:

Breaking News

The jury's out, but my choice is you

On the Outside

say (don't) go

Believe in one thing, I won't go away

Do you respond to comments?

Honestly, no. Trying to respond stresses me out. It can take me literally hours to figure out how to respond to a single comment, and then I feel like, if I respond to one, I have to respond to all immediately, and my anxiety can't handle it. So I've mostly stopped responding. Every now and then, I will respond to a friend because I don't stress over those, or if someone makes a weird comment where they seem to have misunderstood something I might respond to try to clear things up.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

For 911, honestly, I don't think I have any angsty endings. Plenty of angsty fics, but most of my endings are happy or at least hopeful. I guess I would maybe say the one with the angstiest ending is Believe in one thing, I won't go away, but the end is still pretty hopeful.

Outside of 911, the angstiest ending was definitely in a little Supernatural fic I wrote many years ago titled The Things They've Left Behind. It's also one of fics I'm proudest of. But it's a rough one.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Honestly, there are quite a few happy endings to my fics, but I think say (don't) go takes this one. It's a little angsty through the main story, but the epilogue is just pure fluff.

Do you get hate on fics?

Not often, but once or twice. More often than hate for the fic, I get sort of weird hate comments about side characters in the story. Like, I'll have a fic where Taylor Kelly is kind of in the background, but not in any way written hatefully or even negatively, and people will just go off on the character in the comments, which is weird and not a great look. Don't do this, y'all.

I did once get a hate comment accusing me of villainizing Eddie based on the summary alone, I believe. I responded, and they apologized, which I appreciated. But I will never understand people's need to toss around accusations without even reading the actual fic.

Do you write smut?

I have in the past, but not recently. I really have to be in a very specific mood to write smut, and often I just cannot tap into the focus I'd need for it because I generally find writing smut boring. So it takes me forever to actually finish anything even a little bit smutty. I've had a post vow renewal smut fic in the works since the vow renewal aired, and I just can't get it together.

So. Often not my cup of tea as a writer.

Craziest Crossover:

Okay, I don't have this posted on Ao3 (I think it's on ff.net?), but I once wrote a series of Sam Winchester/Temperance Brennan fics. Those were fun times.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so. I had a couple of fanvids stolen back when I vidded for Bones, but never fics, I don't think.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think someone asked once and may have done the translation? I can't remember if anything ever came of it, though.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not. I don't have the focus or discipline to co-write with anyone. I would immediately lose focus and cause everything to go off the rails, and I would never want to do that to someone else.

All time favorite ship?

All time? I don't know. I really want to say buddie, but also, like Mulder/Scully and Sam/Dean. Honestly, I tend to be just very, very attached to my ship of the moment, so answering for all time is tough.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Probably this Natalia finds out about Chris fic because I keep accidentally fogetting it exists, which. is hindering progress.

What are your writing strengths?

I honestly don't know. I think maybe emotional scenes or angst?

What are your writing weaknesses?

A lot. Focus is the worst. I just don't really have it, and it makes writing near impossible. I also don't think I'm any good at scene transitions or dialogue sometimes.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I wouldn't personally do it because I don't have enough of any other lanuage to feel comfortable with it. I might use a word here or there if the character uses it regularly and I feel generally comfortable with the context and/or translation. I also don't love when people drop in dialogue or things in other languages and admit to just using google translate because that feels. not great.

I also don't think it should be translated in the middle of the fic. Sometimes, it's okay to not understand every single word of a fic, and people who speak and write in other languages shouldn't have to translate every word for their readers over a couple of lines in another language. Which might be a weird take, but that's where I stand on it, I think.

First fandom you wrote in?

Like, in my little notebooks before the internet was a thing in my house, it was The X-Files when I was like 8-11. That I posted in a fandom I actually interacted with, I think it was BtVS.

Favorite fic you've written?

This one's kind of a toss up. For 911, I think it's probably one of the following:

I got nothing to believe (unless you're choosing me)

say (don't) go

You were bigger than the whole sky

Home

I know I should narrow it down more, but I don't know. That first one is probably recency bias and the fact that parts of it are deeply personal to me. The second is the Eddie wants kids fic, which I worked on for months, so it has a special place in my heart. The third one is kind of a weird little experiment that was just unlike anything I'd ever written before. And the fourth one is a post break-up fic, and I really enjoyed playing with that kind of angst.

So they were all pretty different, and I can't choose.

Tagging (no pressure! and sorry for any double tags!): @messyhairdiaz @shortsighted-owl @elvensorceress @reachingforaspark @wh0re-behavi0r @daffi-990 @eddiebabygirldiaz and anyone else who wants to participate.

[trashquisitor-shirozora]

❤️ 👻 🎁 💕 🦋 🦈 🎨

❤️ What is your favorite line that you’ve written in a fic?

I'm gonna dig through my Tron Legacy/MCU barista AU for this one....

"He could be a fed," Sam said uncertainly. Then he thought about the words the man muttered as he left with his precious coffee. "Maybe he's with the IRS." "What does he need a gun for?" He shrugged. "People really hate the IRS?" "That's a CSI: Miami episode."

Ended up reading the whole fic while searching for my favorite line(s). There are a lot of references in this thing that I don't remember anymore good lord.

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

I'm still drawing a blank on headcanons in general, Anon, I'm sorry. God I'm so bad at these, fucking rip.

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

“How does a junk freighter get through our shields?” “I don’t know, I’m not there! Calm down and let the others deal with it. Kriffing hell.”

Chapter 3 of The Stars is currently happening because I want to get another chapter out on my birthday 🤪

💕 What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?

As a person with no children, I have to assume this is like asking which of my children - if I have more than one - is my favorite child. Can I make a short list?

The Storm :: The Mandalorian born in a thunderstorm :: Star Trek x MCU Waking Ghosts :: Dragon Age A Thousand Eyes Staring Backk :: Mass Effect Wishing Well :: MCU We Are Pilots :: Tron Legacy

So maybe this list is longer than one fic, but some of them are THE contribution I made to their respective fandoms and that automatically makes them my favorites. If you asked which is the saddest one, though, that would be Wishing Well.

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

I feel so bad for not having more than the same set of names for this question a;ldjfsdjjdj;ljfl;fjla;jd;lsdfka;sldfjksd

They would be Din Djarin, Dorian Pavus, Bones McCoy, Sam Flynn, Dean Winchester.

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

I'm a weenie who can't write as characters I'm uninspired by. Then there are characters like Kylo Ben and I know they'll be the toughest to write because I'll just not write them. I don't care what kind of backstory Disney gives you to try to excuse your genocidal behavior, white neo-fashy nepo baby, you did your parents and uncle and their friends and allies wrong af and I will never write you.

🎨 If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

Okay, okay, okay, I will allow myself a little indulgence.... if I see anyone draw anything from Meteors, I will lose my goddamn shit. I don't care that I did my own art, that doesn't count, I just wonder and want to see how other people would interpret that two-chapter spicy self-indulgent story.

Play ask games, win ask prizes!

[ladyknightskye]

I have been tagged by @quietwingsinthesky

Your name: Megs or Skye. I accept Meg and Hey You as well.

Your first fandom(s): Saint Seiya. Technically Sailor Moon. They were the first ones I wrote fic for, but Saint Seiya is the one where I had the my first fandom experiences. I used to hang out on Rusty Old Ankh's Saint Seiya Forum all the time. Stayka (A German fan who had her own website) wherever you are out there, shout out, you were always my model of how to act in fandom and I hope life is treating you well.

Your current fandom(s): Active fandoms that I still engage with all the time - Supernatural and Halo. Fandoms that I vibe with and sometimes reblog stuff about - Mandalorian, Reylo, Hannibal, Transformers.

How did you first get into fandom? So, I loved Saint Seiya and Sailor Moon, and decided one day when I had unrestricted access to a school computer to search them up. Stayka I mentioned up there? Her fan fic archive was my first exposure to fandom and I loved it. Mostly because I constructed these elaborate massively multiplayer crossover stories in my head, and how cool would it be to share them with the world?

How long have you been engaging in fandom spaces? Y'all, it's been nineteen, slutty, slutty years. Probably a little longer, but my earliest memories of really engaging was in my freshman year of high school.

How often do you read fanfics? Pretty often. I'm horrible about starting long fics and then not finishing them though.

Top three characters from your current fandom(s):

Supernatural: Dean, Lucifer, Castiel, my poor little sopping wet meow meows. I just, I love them your honor.

Halo: Master Chief John-117, Cortana, and Fred-104. My sweet gentle giants and the crazy awesome AI. They did ya dirty girl. Seriously though, I have all kinds of love for Fred and John. They are bae.

Transformers: Optimus Prime (in all his incarnations), Megatron (also all of his incarnations), Soundwave (most incarnations). Look, Optimus Prime is my beloved, my husband, my knight in shining armor, and I've yet to meet a version I didn't love in some way. Megatron is by turns awesome because he's just so deliciously evil or awesome because bitch has a point. IDW-1 Megs is admittedly my favorite because he had this journey from pacifist to warmonger to atoner that was beautiful. Soundwave, I say more incarnations because there are some versions I vibe with less, but I love that he's the stoic with fourteen kids.

Have you ever written fic for a fandom?

Have I???? Ever written fic??? I'm pretty sure you can still find my Saint Seiya fics from nineteen years ago on FFN. Look up "Niteskye" or "LadyKnightSkye." I have no shame.

Have you ever drawn fanart for a fandom?

Okay, this one not as much as the fan fic, but yes, I do have fan art of Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, and others floating around.

Share a personal headcanon that you feel very strongly about:

Look, I don't care if literally no one else agrees with me, but Lucifer SPN would have fucking rolled over and showed his belly if just one character had shown him affection without overtly mistrusting him and giving him shit. We talk a lot about Dean being a creature of Love (because he is) but so is Lucifer. His entire motivation for everything was love, and yes, he's a selfish bastard, but even selfish bastards want to feel loved. He is also touch starved like Hell because he was stuck alone in a cage for millennia.

You’re trying to convince a friend to get into your current fandom(s) with you. what episode, clip, or scene are you showing them? Depends on the friend. Also depends on where I met them. I am making my husband start Supernatural from the beginning with me because maybe with his encouragement I will actually be able to start season six.

And finally, what does fandom mean to you?

Home. Like, with the exception of college and the SCA, I've never really felt like I've totally belonged anywhere but in fandom spaces.

I am tagging... @heavenssexiestangel @authortobenamedlater and anyone else who wants to do this. :)

[googledocsdyke]

thinking incredibly earnestly about like why i unironically love bite me (a google slides social media au) as much as i do and why it’s so fucking funny and i think a huge part of it is that it lays bare the process of total decontextualisation that generally is at work within the self-contained world of like, fic in general. like, in many ways most fic is the same fic. i think we can generally agree on this. obviously there are like fics that transform the way you view the source text, or fics that generate their own world and fandom (down to agincourt), or fics with profound complex thematic engagement (so says the sword) or fics that have their own specific cult status (my immortal, twist and shout). but like the reason the fic ecosystem chugs along, the reason bajillions of fics are posted to ao3 every day, is because of the kind of fic that is so clearly based off other fic, maybe just shifted 2 degrees to the left.

like fanfiction IS by and large a repetitive medium that is often primarily interested in working off and re-articulating very widely accepted tropes. think of all the largely identical 15x20 fix-it codas you may have read. or this harry potter au i wrote when i was fourteen years old that could not have ANYTHING less to do with the actual characters dean, cas, or charlie as written in-show, or even like, anything to do with hogwarts as a setting. there was NO reason it needed to be a harry potter au. why the hell were the x-men there? there was no characterisation. the presence of potions homework, and gryffindor dean, and “charlie ships it,” were all just empty signifiers towards a narrative that i knew better from reading other fics than from watching the show itself. actually, i think at this point i hadn’t even watched any charlie episodes, but you wouldn’t be able to tell! because i lifted my concept of charlie wholesale from other fics that asserted that this was her “characterisation” and her place in the story. like it Was a 1600-word exercise in copy-paste, which is what large amounts of fanfiction are and historically have been. and is so fundamental to why we keep coming back to them

and i’m not saying this as like. a normative or “judgmental” statement in any way! i think there’s no point in insisting that all fic be like. deeply grounded in discrete characterisation or a sincere engagement with the complex themes of the original text, or whatever. firstly because a) most people writing fic ARE young teens/young adults who do so as a kind of participatory gesture, a low-effort way to signal their earnest investment in a particular ship or imagined narrative, and b) decontextualisation is like… at the beating heart of what fanfiction is. like most fanfiction is not “literary” (in huge skeptical quotes bc of how contested that very term even is) but it also feels like it’s a mistake to… ask it to be? i’m thinking along the lines of this post, where gothhabiba asks that we “articulate an actual theory of how and why fanfiction is created, its relationship to other kinds of media and writing, and what it does for the people who write and read it,” rather than “arguing about whether or not it’s ‘good’” . because that is truly a moot point!

i think as most of us return for the renaissance, some 6-7 years older, we’re now at the point where we’re able to engage (more) critically with the substantive text of the show, the actual themes it engages and (mis)handles, the cultural context in which it was produced, the texts it builds off of, intentionally or unintentionally, and the critical frameworks we can apply to it. and all of that is like overall a very good and interesting thing!! but it’s also so interesting when paired alongside the decontextualising impulse that drives a LOT of fandom engagement

ANYWAYS. all this to say that like 95% percent of the joy of bite me is how unapologetically ooc it is. like this is the continuous thing i’ve been talking about other people with. you could copy-paste any characters from any broadly popular media into this situation and the characterisation/speech would be no more or less jarring; it would still make the same amount of “sense” from an in-universe perspective. nothing about this au is really about dean and cas so much as it’s about decontextualised figures LABELLED dean and cas (and again, this is not some literary condemnation or smth, the majority of fic does this in some way! i’m just using bite me as an example). we are told to believe that sam winchester, a grown white man & published author, says “yall wildin” unprompted and that kaia nieves tweets things like “oomf famoose” and it’s fucking hilarious. it’s so good. because intentionally or not, it DOES reveal how much of fic, as a genre, is utterly separated from the characters they propose to be telling a story about.

i said earlier today that bite me is a social media au written in a riverdalian fashion, and i don’t just mean that in a general “it’s bad but good but outrageous” way, but more specifically that both bite me and riverdale decide on something objectively absurd and instead of shying away from it or trying to cover up the writer’s lack of knowledge, it faces it head on. like we ARE told unapologetically and continuously that actors live in their trailers when they’re filming a movie, that a hashtag trending for one day is enough to get a magazine writer that hasn’t been accused of sexual misconduct fired, that dean and cas are starring in a gay romantic comedy called fucking trainspotting. and the writer doesn’t/won’t/shouldn’t apologise for a word of that. in the same way that riverdale will look you dead in the eye and say “archie is going to war and world war ii-era combat aesthetics never ended even though it’s 2020” or “jughead got into the iowa writer’s workshop despite never having been an undergrad” and like what are you supposed to do? make fun of it?? the text doesn’t CARE if you make fun of it! it’s light years ahead of you! it’s so totally unconcerned with this “realism” you’re supposedly chasing that the joke doubles back on you.

so like tldr: bite me is emblematic of the decontextualising urge at the heart of your average fanfiction, lays bare its own ridiculousness, and raises genuinely fascinating questions abt what fanfiction as a text is meant to be or do. also kaia and claire fall in love on stan twt. UNPARALLELED media experience

[lqtraintracks]

Humbly and with so much gratitude for the love this story has already received (I love everyone in this bar tonight!), I claim my submission for the Harry Draco Big Bang 2021, Bolts. My dearest artist, @slytherco, who not only made SIX major pieces of art for this story, plus several wonderful scene dividers, also made me this gorgeous banner! Long header is long. I'm not sorry. Title: Bolts Author: @lqtraintracks Artist: @slytherco Pairing(s): Harry/Draco; also: Hermione/Ron; Firenze/Bane/OMC / OFC (all centaurs); OMC / OMC, OFC / OMC, ONBC / OFC; Dean/Seamus; implied past Draco/Anthony Goldstein; past Draco/OMC; past Harry/Ginny; some other pairings, none having to do with H or D Other Key Characters: so many OCs, but the main one is Samantha Peabody; McGonagall; Hermione; Ron; Luna; Neville; Firenze; Narcissa; a were-boy named Gerald;  a ribald portrait named Madam Blanton; house elves; a kraken (sort of) Rating: Explicit Word Count: ~115,000 Era: Post-Hogwarts, EWE Content/Warnings: curses; truth curse; nonconsensual truth-telling; one-sided accidental bond of sorts; some homophobia; polyamory (not between Harry and Draco); some recreational drug use; some alcohol use/drinking; angst but with a happy ending; humor; UST; pent-up sexual frustration; a dubiously consensual lap dance; skinny-dipping; aggressive switching; flip-fuck; deep-throating; dual/alternating POV Summary: Harry joins the Hogwarts staff as the new History of Magic Professor, while Draco has already been teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts for the past year. When Samantha Peabody, a first year, is being bullied one day and throws a made-up Truth curse at her harasser, only to accidentally hit Harry instead, Harry becomes cursed to tell the truth, and not only that, he has to regularly tell it to Draco Malfoy. Samantha is clearly gifted, maybe the most powerful witch or wizard to ever come through Hogwarts, and yet she has no idea how to take the curse off. As they work to remove it—and also teach Samantha how to control a power that’s becoming more dangerous by the day—will Harry’s truths become too much to handle? And will whatever’s going on with Draco just make everything exponentially worse? Author’s Notes: I began the journey of writing this story back in 2018. I’m so grateful that writing for the 2021 Harry/Draco Big Bang gave me the push I needed to finish. I’d like to thank Grace and Writ for running the fest and working so hard! To my tireless, AMAZING betas who gave this their time, attention, and who made this so much tighter and better than it would have been otherwise: @tackytigerfic and @maesterchill, I cannot thank you enough, you beautiful humans! To @magpiefngrl for being the alpha I needed at exactly the time that I needed it! You came in and read straight through and helped me remember why I loved this story so much. Your support, your expertise, and everything you brought to this story means the world to me. I’m beyond grateful. And @bixgirl1. You gave me the two prompts that I smooshed together to get the idea for this fic. You listened to me talk about it for hours and were so supportive, so enthusiastic. And you were everything I needed as I started a fic that would turn into the longest thing I’ve ever written. In so many ways, you gave me the confidence to not only start this story, but to finish it. It simply would not exist without you.

And lastly to my artist, @slytherco: You absolute badass! You talented witch! You are one of my favorite artists in fandom, and I knew that the energy you bring to your work would be a wonderful complement to this story, but… Ola, you demolished even my highest hopes for this. You are astounding, and I am so grateful, my friend. Beyond your skill as an artist, you also were just a joy to work with, and I have simply loved our conversations during this process. You are so fun and sweet, and your art is daring and beautiful. You brought Bolts and this Harry and Draco to life. Congratulations on the extraordinary work you did here. I am unutterably honored.

(The first one and a half lines of this story, I ganked straight from Andrew Sean Greer’s phenomenal novel, ‘Less’. Back when I began, I just needed a start, and I adore that book with my whole heart, so I went with it, and it got me going. I wanted to give credit where it was deserved.) Title inspired by the song Lightning Bolts by Iko. <3 Enjoy!

Bolts by lqt

[zmediaoutlet]

Ooh, why do you hate Last Outpost? I am intrigued.

lol let's go ahead and put this below a cut:

I think it's badly written and wildly OOC. That's what it boils down to, really, lol. To expand a little --

The Last Outpost is one of Those Reclist Fics. They get passed around by lots of people as 'classics' and everyone ends up reading them in their first couple of months of being in fandom. Some reclist fics are good! A lot of them are just pretty coherent, have at least one big sex scene, and are longer than 20k. Longer than 20k is really key in putting together some good list of Reclist Fics: because someone has invested the time in the fic, I think they're more likely to be moved and think that it's great. Like being Stockholm Syndromed.

I read LO in my first couple of months in fandom, just like everyone else. I thought it was great! Wow, so swoopy and romantic. Wow, rose-perfumed sex in an antique store. Wow, a cow! Everyone said it was good and so it must be good, right?

The trouble is that then I kept watching the show, and kept engaging with fandom, and realized that the common weird fanon characterizations that kept coming up didn't actually... sit right with me. Sam wasn't some weird brat, Dean wasn't some crass womanizer. I reached my own understanding of the characters, which I think is pretty influenced by canon instead of fanon (an easy thing for me to say, admittedly), and started to find my way to the fic that felt right for that understanding, and started writing my own, and so on. Then, a few years into engaging with the fandom pretty seriously, I reread Last Outpost thinking it would be so fun to go back to that great fic I loved, and...

God, I just really thought it sucked. Sam and Dean's reactions to almost everything read totally bizarre and OOC to me. Every paragraph I just kept getting appalled anew in this sort of what? ...WHAT? way. It's so entirely removed from canon that neither Sam nor Dean can act like themselves, and so they just... don't. I understand that it was written pretty early in spn's history, but even limited to s1/2 knowledge I don't find the OOC level to be excusable. Maybe if it were written the day after the pilot, idk. I get the impression that people who like their Sam pretty wooby like it more. Maybe if I liked that I'd be able to get past the characterization hangups.

Now: is it the worst fic I've ever read? Of course not. But its very ubiquity, while being (imo) extremely mediocre and underwhelming, increases my eyeroll every time it goes by. It's so average, and there are WAY better fics that would actually deserve to be one of Those Reclist Fics, and somehow people keep getting shunted along to the Last fucking Outpost.

In order to be positive, after a spilling of bile, I'll make a short list of fics I think should actually be on Those Reclists that serve the actual characters, who are the only reason I'm reading in the first place:

yellows, angles, and silences by queenklu

Primary Care by Molly

The Obituary Mambo by nigeltde

---

and, as always:

[unforth]

Why does everyone always recommend Twist and Shout for destiel? Like what happened in fandom at that time to make it so popular that it's now a staple? I haven't read it. I refuse. I know there is major character death and people complain it is OOC so I'm just wondering why do people love it so much? I have read so many long fics written by immensely talented writers in this fandom that end hopefully and tackle difficult subject matter while maintaining character voices that it seems a shame that T&S is always recommended

So, I also haven’t read it - I don’t do MCD, no matter how highly recommended a fic comes. However, here’s what I’d say in answer to this question.

Twist and Shout came out, it was during a period when the fandom was huge, and exploding. Season 8 was something of a Destiel renaissance (it’s when I started shipping it, for example) and it’s not a coincidence that a lot of the best known fic came out in 2012 and 2013 (for reference, T&S started posting on October 15th, 2012, according to AO3). I wasn’t active on AO3 Destiel fandom at that time (I started reading fic on FF.net in early 2013) nor was I active on Tumblr or in fandom circles where shipping was a big Thing, so I don’t know what the general fandom reaction to it was at the time, but presumably it met with a fair degree of popularity. People liked it. People recced it. I have no idea if it had the MCD tag at that time, but presumably it did. People read it knowing that. And presumably, some people didn’t like it, and some people didn’t rec it, but like any other fic it went through a process of developing popularity.

Why did it get to be first?

In my honest opinion?

Utterly random chance. If you look at ANY developing fandom, some of the trends are in fact totally random, at least to begin with. Once the avalanche starts, though, it’s self-perpetuating.

Think about it. You’re in a brand new fandom. You don’t know anyone. You haven’t read anything. You’re desperate to read something. What do you do? You go to AO3, find the ship you want to read, and you sort by most hits, or most kudos, or most comments, and decide - I’m gonna start by reading these. You see the first fic...okay, MCD, a little off putting...but it’s got SO MANY HITS and SO MANY KUDOS...just take the chance!

So, you (my hypothetical fan) read this fic. One of two things happen - you either love it or you hate it. If you hate it, you may not even finish it, but regardless, you’ve added to the stats - your views count, and maybe you liked the early chapters and kudosed, or maybe you remember everything you’ve heard about authors liking comments on early chapters of fully posted works, and you commented. So those stats have gone up, even if someone HATED it. And on the second, you love it - and you come out gushing! You kudos! If you’re super enthusiastic maybe you log out and give it a second guest kudos! And, as you start getting into the fandom and meeting people, you want to spread this love - you tell your friends - hey, I just read this great fic, and yeah, it’s MCD, but just give it a chance!

And so it begins again - if you tell four people, and they read it, and two hate it, and two love it, and those two tell four people, and two hate it, and two love it, and it just cascades.

Why is Twist and Shout the most popular fic in this fandom? Because Twist and Shout is the most popular fic in this fandom. Yes, it’s a tautology, but it’s entirely self-perpetuating. People read it because it’s listed first. People read it because they like it, and re-read it and re-read, and re-read it, to get that high. People hate read it. People read it just to find out what the big deal is. In a fandom with coming up on 100,000 posted stories, Twist and Shout has almost twice as many kudos as the fic in second (by the, in my personal opinion, far more deserving Annie D, though it’s also not their best work in my opinion, and the reasons it’s up there are likely the same), and almost four times as many hits. By any measure on AO3 surveys, it’s number one when people sort, and lots of people will read it simply out of curiosity.

That kind of popularity is self-perpetuating. And of course lots of people love T&S - it has 1.2 million hits, and almost 35000 kudos. Even if we go extremely conservative and say, 35,000 people have read T&S, that’s simply a shit ton of people, and if even only 10% loved it, that’d still be 3500 people gushing about that single fic. I’ve been writing for 5 years and I don’t have a single fic with even 3500 kudos, and I’m considered a relatively successful writer in this huge fandom.

But here’s, to me, the most important thing - I truly believe any fic can be a Twist and Shout. It’s a confluence of events that makes a fic such a juggernaut, and the vast majority are simply luck. Random drift means one fic is gonna end up on the top of the heap - and once a fic is there, reading tendencies, confirmation bias, and exposure guarantee it’ll STAY on the top of the heap.

I started the Destiel Favs Survey because I felt that the “top 20″ fics by hits in the Destiel fandom didn’t reflect the fics people actually like. I got curious, so I made a list.

In February 21st, 2017, the top 20 fics on AO3 by kudos were:

Twist and Shout by gabriel and standbyme (which, at the time, had 25,507 kudos)

Dean Doesn’t Listen to Eurythmics by Annie D

An Exercise in ‘Worthless’ by beastofthesky

Revealed by Valinde

Angel’s Wild by LimonadeGaby and riseofthefallenone

Into Your Hideaway by thepinupchemist

How (Thanks to Gabriel) Dean and Castiel (Accidentally) Raised Each Other (and Sam) by Vera_DragonMuse

A Room of One’s Own by NorthernSparrow

Out of the Deep by riseofthefallenone

Grey by Valinde

Convenient Husbands by Annie D

Forget-Me-Not-Blues by noangelsinthegarrison

When Charlie Met Cas by riseofthefallenone

Real Slick Dean by trilliath

In This Secluded Spot I Respond as I Wouldn’t Dare Elsewhere by RhymePhile

The Breath of All Things by KistmetJeska

Unfamiliar by riseofthefallenone

Shut Up (Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is) by kototyph

A Hole in the World by AnnelieseMichel

A Beginner’s Guide to Communing with the Dead by suspiciousflashlight

Today, 1/9/21, four years later, the top 20 fics by Kudos are:

Twist and Shout by gabriel and standbyme (no change in rank, now has 34,907 kudos)

Dean Doesn’t Listen to Eurythmics by Annie D (no change in rank)

Revealed by Valinde (+1 in rank)

An Exercise in ‘Worthless’ by beastofthesky (-1 in rank)

A Room of One’s Own by NorthernSparrow (+3 in rank)

How (Thanks to Gabriel) Dean and Castiel (Accidentally) Raised Each Other (and Sam) by Vera_DragonMuse (+1 in rank)

A Turn of the Earth by microcomets/mishcollin (not on the old list by kudos, but it was on the list by 2018 when I did another check in)

Angel’s Wild by LimonadeGaby and riseofthefallenone (-3 in rank)

Into Your Hideaway by thepinupchemist (-3 in rank)

Unknown Quantities by xylodemon (the first work to break through, and it’s in tenth)

Forget-Me-Not Blues by noangelsinthegarrison (+1 in rank)

Grey by Valinde (-2 in rank)

Convenient Husbands by Annie D (-2 in rank)

Professional Couple Only by saltyfeathers (our second new work)

Real Slick Dean by trilliath (-1 in rank)

A Beginner’s Guide to Communing with the Dead by suspiciousflashlight (+4 in rank)

When Charlie Met Cas by riseofthefallenone (-4 in rank)

Unfamiliar by riseofthefallenone (-1 in rank)

The Breath of All Things by KismetJeska (-3 in rank)

Out of the Deep by riseofthefallenone (-11 in rank)

In 4 full years, only three works managed to break into the top 20, even though - based on my original data, which you can view here - most of these works have nearly double in the number of kudos they’ve had in that amount of time. Further, the most recently written fic on EITHER of these lists is from 2015 - A Turn of the Earth and Professional Couple Only are from 2015 - and all the rest is older.

These fics aren’t the top 20 because they’re better, and if there was even an ounce of objectivity in this list, it would have actually shown any change in 4 years instead of looking virtually identical. 

Twist and Shout, and the other “most popular” and “most recommended” works in the Destiel fandom have that distinction because they’re the most read, so more people read them, so they’re the most read, so more people read them, so they’re the most read, so...ad infinitum.

And that’s not a judgement call against them! There are fics I LOVE on that top twenty list. But, dear anon, you ask me why I think Twist and Shout is the most popular?

All of this is why. Twist and Shout is the most popular because popularity in fic culture is the only perpetual motion machine in the universe. It is self-perpetuating, and as a result, Twist and Shout will always be the most popular fic in this fandom.

And that’s why I do the faves list - because the tops on AO3 tell us abso-fraggin’-lutely nothing, and I thought we needed a list that actually meant something for what fics people active in the fandom truly love - which DOES include some of those top 20 fics by AO3 data, and includes lots and lots of others that are just as or more wonderful.

*steps off soap box*

(sorry this is stupidly long, I have Opinions.)

[there-must-be-a-lock]

Lou’s Favorite Things Challenge!

About a week ago I hit 3,500 followers, which is crazy. In five weeks (May 27th) I turn thirty, which is also crazy! So... party time. 

I’m keeping it simple for this one. 

I made a list of 35 things I like; it includes kinks, tropes, songs, quotes, episodes, pairings, and more. 

Send me an ask to claim a Favorite Thing. 

Write the Thing. 

Keep it under 5k words. 

Post by June 18. 

That’s all, folks! 

Prompts and more guidelines under the cut. I’m so excited to see what people do with these. 

Please consider joining even if we haven’t talked much, or you’re new to tumblr, or whatever else; I promise I don’t bite, and I’d really like to get to know more of you! 

Unusual ways to find out someone is in love with you: The Dumb Bet by @deaan

Unusual nickname origins 

Accidental baby acquisition @wendibird​

Accidental psychedelic drug consumption: Shrooms by @cookingglitterfairy

Accidental relationship/ “didn’t know they were dating” trope: Untitled by @alexsian

Music festivals: Have I Ever Told You...? by @thinkinghardhardlythinking

Thunderstorms @useless-fanfictions

Blanket forts  @homoose

Communication as foreplay

Sex as character analysis: The Hero, The Myth, The Legend by @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior

Kink as therapy

“Maybe I’m not as straight as I thought” moments @fangirlextraordinaire

“Oh, shit, I’m in love with this idiot” moments @percywinchester27

“I hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me” moments: Different by @watermelonlipstick

Kink discovery/negotiation @calaofnoldor

Aftercare: Pillow Talk by @jillys-feral-fandoms​

Sam Winchester and the demon blood arc

Spencer Reid and the Dilaudid arc

The End (SPN S05E04): Some Stranger’s Hand by @thoughtslikeaminefield

Dark Side of the Moon (SPN S05E16) @lastactiontricia

Sam Winchester/Spencer Reid: Pretty Boy by @writethelifeyouwant

Any and all Supernatural/Criminal Minds crossovers: The Family Business by @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad 

Crack crossover pairings I never knew I needed 

Alternate universes

Time travel

Body swap: Switched by @beskaradberoya

“Going To Georgia” - The Mountain Goats

“Sunflower Vol. 6” - Harry Styles: White Gold by @addictedtocoffeeandsupernatural

“This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)” - Talking Heads @reidingdays

[Insert My Chemical Romance song/lyric/album/video here]

“It's never too late to have a happy childhood.” - Tom Robbins: Trainwreck by @msmarvelouswinchester

“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.” - Kurt Vonnegut

“What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?" - Neil Gaiman: La Raison Partie Trois by @wonder-cole

“And in that moment I swear we were infinite.” - Steven Chbosky: In That Moment by @fangirlxwritesx67

“On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.” - Hunter Thompson: Let’s Take A Ride by @waywardbaby

More info: 

Tag me in your A/N. I’ll reblog every submission with feedback; if I don’t do this within 48 hours, send me a message to make sure I got the tag! 

Warn appropriately and use a “keep reading” cut after 300 words. 

Proofread, please? If you need a beta, get in touch and I’ll try to hook you up. 

I like reading Supernatural, Criminal Minds, Marvel, Buffyverse, Lucifer, J2, and all sorts of wonky-ass crossovers! Really, I’ll read just about anything, but shoot me an ask if you’d like to write something that’s not on that list. 

Ships and reader inserts are both welcome. Threesomes and moresomes: also great. 

I will not read any pairing involving Lucifer -- the Supernatural version, at least; Tom Ellis is more than welcome to join the party. I’m also not really a fan of Ketch. 

I will not read rape or incest. 

I don’t like darkness or edginess for the sake of being dark or edgy; I do like reading about difficult subjects, as long as they’re written with honesty and not just used for shock value. 

I’m not always good at reaching out and finding new authors? But I want to a) broaden my horizons and b) support other writers. So I genuinely mean it when I say that my ask box is always open for questions about fic or whatever else. I can’t promise I’ll have time to edit for you but I’m happy to help whenever I can! Like I said, I’d really like to get to know y’all better. 

And now that that’s out of the way, send an ask to claim your prompt! 

[carryonmywaywardcaptain]

Imagine...finding out there’s fanfic written about you--and even Charlie ships you with Dean

CarryOnCap’s Masterlist

Warnings: Fluff? Crack? A dramatic fanfic within a fanfic that I got carried away with haha.

A/N: This is kind of ridiculous, but I had fun with it! Also, I’ve never actually seen GoT but it seemed like a reasonable reference from what I’ve heard about it.

“Hey, look who I found!” Sam’s voice echoed through the War Room.

Dean glanced at you from across the table in the library, sharing your surprised expression as you both pushed your chairs away and stood. 

“‘Sup, bitches?” Charlie grinned, making her way up the steps toward you.

“Hey! We were expecting you guys to come in through the main door. We’ve been keeping an ear out.”

Charlie stepped into your outstretched arms and pulled you into a tight hug. “It was a spur of the moment decision, but I decided to stick around a day or two longer than planned! Sam said I could go ahead and park in the garage.”

She let go of you and turned to give Dean a hug too. He smiled softly with a look that was uniquely reserved for her, cradling the back of her head while she pressed her cheek against his.

“Good to see you, Charlie. You know you’re always welcome to stay as long as you want.”

An involuntary smile crept onto your face as you watched them. You couldn’t help the way your heart swelled at the low rumble in his voice when he said her name. There was an undeniable protectiveness in his tone when he spoke to her--the sister he’d never wanted, as he affectionately called her.

When you shifted your attention to her, you noticed she was watching you. Before you could decipher the knowing glint in her eye, she suddenly twisted out of his arms and glanced back and forth between you and Dean. She began swinging her arms awkwardly before opting to cross them over her chest.

“You okay?” Dean asked, furrowing his brow.

“Yeah! Of course...Totes chill...cooler than a pack of peppermints.” She bobbed her head and flashed a nervous smile, twisting her hair around her finger as she struggled to act nonchalant. “It’s just that I remembered something. A story I read a while back--completely random. Totally unrelated to anything--I mean, now I’m starting to ramble. Hah! So how’ve you guys been? Still saving the world from evil sons-of-bitches?” 

“Uh, yeah…” Sam answered, scrunching his eyebrows together. “We stay busy.”

“So what’s on the agenda tonight?” you piped up, changing the subject.

You were hoping to avoid swapping monster stories for a night. Charlie typically assumed the role of introducing you to popular and noteworthy fandoms during her visits to the bunker and, even if the boys weren’t as vocal, the three of you appreciated her knowledge of all things geeky and nerdy. 

“I was thinking Marvel. Y/N, you’re obviously well-versed in the MCU because of your obsession with Steve Rogers--and, you know, clearly you’ve got a thing for the strong, righteous, self-sacrificing hero type. Dean, you could stand to branch out from the Batman references and, Sam, you’ve got this whole Thor kind of vibe going on.”

While Sam and Dean began teasing each other and arguing over “Batman versus Thor,” you gaped at Charlie, wondering what she’d meant by her remark about you having a “type.” You couldn’t help feeling like she was trying to insinuate something, but you shrugged it off and decided maybe it was all in your head.

***

After getting Charlie settled into one of the extra bedrooms, the four of you settled into the Dean Cave and agreed to start with the first Captain America movie. 

Last Christmas, you and Sam had teamed up to surprise Dean with a couch for the Dean Cave. He had originally only had two La-Z-boy recliners and you’d found him fast asleep in the stiff old chairs on more than one occasion. Dean had been over the moon about the extra seating and the three of you had rearranged the furniture so the recliners were angled toward the tv on either side of the couch.

“Dibs on this side of the couch!” Charlie said, diving toward the furthest end from the door.

Although it was subtle, you knew there was still something off about the way Charlie studied all of you. There was definitely something on her mind she was trying to keep hidden from all of you.

“You know, we should probably have some snacks,” you said slowly. “Charlie, you want to come help me grab some stuff from the kitchen?”

“But I’m already comfy in my spot.” She frowned, wiggling her hips to make a point of sinking deeper into the spot she’d claimed on the couch. “Why don’t you have Dean help you?”

When you narrowed your eyes suspiciously, Sam cleared his throat. “Dean, why don’t I help you grab some snacks while Y/N and Charlie...catch up, er, whatever…”

You heard the boys leave the room and waited until their footsteps faded down the hall before you started interrogating her.

“Alright, Charlie--what the hell is going on with you?”

“I don’t know what you're talking about,” she muttered, scrolling through her phone.

“Bull. We lie for a living and I know there’s something you’re not telling us. So spill.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “Okay, so remember the Supernatural books by Carver Edlund?”

“Yeah…”

“The series obviously kind of had a cult following when it was in print, right? Well ever since the unpublished works got uploaded, the following has really taken off. Every once in a while a new one still pops up and the fans love them. And you’re in them now too!”

“I’m...what?”

“I mean it’s just insane and totally got sucked into it too. It’s brought on this whole new wave of fanfiction--”

“What’s fanfiction?” you cut in, struggling to keep up.

“It’s fiction made by the fans about the series. Sometimes they put themselves in the stories and write about working cases and fighting monsters with you guys--”

“Why would anyone want to pretend to do this crap with their lives?”

She stared at you for a moment and frowned. “Because you guys are heroes. I mean, yeah, there’s the whole depressing side of monsters and death and trauma and world-ending apocalypses--but you guys save people. You go on these exciting adventures of good versus evil and a lot of times you win. You save people. The fans really look up to all of you.”

Your gaze fell to the floor as you let her words sink in, but she didn’t give you long before she was rambling again.

“But that’s not even the best part! Everyone ships different OTPs--” she paused, noticing your puzzled expression “--uh, one true pairing… So everyone has a favorite couple they think are soulmates and belong together. There’s stories about Sam with Eileen or Jess, Dean with different people--you get the gist. Sometimes they even make up characters or do these ‘reader inserts’ and imagine themselves with the boys or you but, hands down, everyone’s favorite couple they want to end up together is you and Dean.”

“...what?” 

Your eyes grew wide. It was hard enough to wrap your mind around the fact that strangers who didn’t know you were a real person were reading about your life, but learning they imagined you in different relationships? You’d never admit it out loud, but had it bad for Dean. And hearing you weren’t the only one that wanted the two of you together...

“I’ve gone deep into the fic and I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner!” Charlie shook you from your thoughts. “You and Dean are perfect for each other. For serious. I usually stick to the fluffy stuff because, you know, your entire life is kind of angsty and I don’t like to read about you guys being in pain or, like, dying...again. Although I definitely have to admit I kind of stumbled into some of the smutty stuff and, wow, that was something else.”

You opened your mouth to ask more questions, but she kept rolling.

“Right, you probably don’t know what that means either. Fluff is the cute stuff that gives us all feels, angst is kind of just what it sounds like, and smut is, well...the sexy stuff.”

“You mean people out there in the world write about me and Dean…”

“Going at it like an episode of Game of Thrones? Oh yeah,” she responded, unlocking her phone. “Here. Here’s an example.”

Swallowing audibly, you took a seat next to her on the couch as she extended her phone toward you. Gnawing your bottom lip, you began reading the words on the screen:

Y/N took a deep breath, holding it in briefly before she exhaled and began walking toward Dean’s room. Ever since they returned from the hunt, Dean had hidden himself away in his room--no doubt blaming himself for everything that had gone wrong.

When she arrived at his door, she raised her hand to knock. She hesitated, almost retreating at the thought of him turning her away, but she had to try. She had to get through to him somehow.

She rapped her knuckles on the raw umber barrier and opened the door of Room 11 before he could tell her to go away. 

She spotted him leaning over the sink, staring at his reflection in the medicine cabinet on the wall. His jade eyes flickered to where she stood in the doorway, their reflection somewhat distorted by cracks that spiderwebbed from where he had struck the mirror.

Her heart seemed to drop into her stomach as she imagined him lashing out, knowing he punched the mirror because he hated the reflection staring back at him. Knowing he always carried the weight of the world on his shoulders when he didn’t need to.

Y/N carefully shut the door and locked it behind her--the click of the deadbolt deafening in the silence. Her eyes never left Dean, who refused to turn and face her. She inched toward him, closing the distance until she could reach out and touch him. Gently placing her hand on his shoulder, she guided him to turn away from the mirror. Still, he refused to meet her eyes.

“Dean…” she breathed, voice barely above a whisper as she cupped his face in her hands. “It’s not your fault.”

He squeezed his eyes closed, face contorting with grief and guilt. The ghosts of his past refused to let him go, but she was determined to make him believe that he was worthy, no matter the cost.

Curling a finger beneath his chin, she tilted his head up, waiting patiently for him to meet her gaze. When his dark green orbs finally met hers, she was surprised to see that they were full of longing and desire. They flickered to her lips, making her breath tremble under the intensity of his gaze. Time seemed to slow until it froze altogether.

Anticipation hung heavy in the air as they both struggled against their desire to maintain the friendship they’d always had and the desperate need to finally cross that line. To succumb to the magnetic pull that had always been evident between the two of them.

Dean swallowed thickly before suddenly rushing forward, crashing his lips to Y/N’s as he pulled her into a searing kiss. He wrapped his strong arms around her, trapping her to his chest, afraid it was all a dream and she would soon disappear. But she gladly melted into his embrace, feeling like she was finally returning home, to a place she’d spent her life searching for.

A moan slipped past her lips as he walked her backward, pressing her up against the wall. She gasped, feeling his--

“The snacks have arrived!”

You jumped in surprise, a small gasp of surprise escaping as the boys appeared with armloads of snacks. Confusion and worry painted Dean’s face as he surveyed your flustered expression. Between his scrutinizing gaze and the content you’d practically been caught reading, your cheeks grew warm. 

“Did I miss something?” Dean asked.

“Nope,” you responded much too quickly.

Charlie’s phone had fallen into your lap and, when she began cackling, you whipped your head in her direction and flung the phone at her thigh. You grimaced and the two of you had your own silent conversation as the boys spread the food across the bar Dean had built on the far wall.

“I was just telling Y/N how pumped I am about seeing my favorite OTP tonight,” she giggled.

“Your...what?”

Dean’s arm brushed yours as he plopped down on the other side of you. The accidental contact sent a wave of chills over your skin, making you shudder. You could feel his eyes on you again, but you refused to look at him.

“Oh, I’m so going down with this ship,” Charlie whispered under her breath before continuing in a louder voice. “Nothing--nevermind! Don’t mind me, just thinking out loud...”

“It says here an OTP means...one true pairing?” Your eyes grew wide as you looked to where Sam was reading his phone from where he sat in one of the recliners. “So, uh, ‘in the fandom realm, OTP refers to the coupling of characters--usually from the sci-fi or fantasy genres--by fans who think they make a great romantic duo and envision their lives together and share their imaginings with other fans.’”*

Charlie doubled over, beside herself with laughter. With your lips pressed into a firm line, you glanced at the boys to gauge their reactions. You knew there was no way they could possibly know what you and Charlie had been talking about, but that didn’t stop you from worrying about what Dean might think if he ever found out about the feelings you harbored for him. 

“So...you’re looking forward to Cap and his girl in the movie? I’m so freaking confused,” Dean grumbled.

“Yeah…” Sam agreed, making his way to the tv. “I’m just, uh...I’m gonna start the movie now.” 

“Good idea.” Charlie peered at you out of the corner of her eye. “Plenty of time to read and talk about all those ships later.”

Although you glared at her, trying to hide your amusement, nothing could deter the smug smile etched upon her face. As Sam turned the lights off and you settled in for another relaxing night with your favorite people, one thing was certain:

You were definitely going to have to take another look at that fanfiction.

CarryOnCap Crew (Forevers):

@abswritesfandoms​  @amanda-teaches​  @cosicas-cuquis​  @crist1216​  @droidyouseek​  @emoryhemsworth​  @ericaprice2008​  @flawless-disaster​  @janeyboo​  @jenn0755​  @ksgeekgirl​  @maresmiley​  @memyselfandmaddox​  @notyourtypicalrose​  @randomparanoid​  @rynabarnesrogers​  @sandlee44​  @scarletsoldierrr​  @shann-the-artist-moon​  @sheerioasteroidpanda​  @shynara51​  @someday-when-you-leave-me​ @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan​  @thisismysecrethappyplace​  @torntaltos​  @waywardbaby​  @waywardrose13​  @weebid​  @whimsicalrobots​  @wintersoldierbaby​  @wintersoldierissucharide  @yesfanficsaremylife​

Cap’s SPN Crew:

@adoptdontshoppets​  @akshi8278​  @alexwinchester23​  @chevyharvelle​  @deangirl7695​  @dean-winchesters-bacon​  @fandomoniumflurry​  @pisces-cutie​  @supernaturalenchanted​  @superromijn​  @waywardnerd67​  @x-waywardaf-x​

[americachavez]

Hey! I was wondering if you mind sharing why you keep reccing asunder by rageprufrock. It's one of my absolute favorite fics of all time and i recently couldn't 100% put my finger on why when I was reccing it to a friend. Of course all media consumption is subjective yadda yadda but I really like your meta so maybe..... Thanks in advance!

thank u for the compliment I resent the implication I’ve ever written meta in my LIFE but I’ll try on this one just for you!!!

the thing that really gets me about this fic is how rare it is in the realm of normal human AUs. it does the rare thing where it takes elements of canon and incorporates them into a non-supernatural AU in ways that are not only really interesting but that actually seem grounded in reality. obviously the easiest one is the demon blood to heroin addiction translation, but there’s a lot of smaller details that pull from canon but are still aligned with the world the story is set in. which is my main beef with AUs if I’m being honest—the lack of creativity when it comes to reimagining canon irks me because if you could just swap out the cast of your modern AU with that from another tv show/movie and have no major changes to the story I’m probably not going to be interested in it. not saying I HAVEN’T read those fics or judge people for enjoying them but they’re not really my jam. but asunder is like, it feels like the characters from the show with similar baggage but they’re still actual people for the most part. or as much as characters in a fic can be people, you feel.

and honestly it’s one of the few fics that actually felt like it could just be a short story. another caveat here I am NOT one of those people who is like oh I don’t need to read actual literature I only read fic because only reading fic is one of the reasons everyone on this webbed site is brain diseased. fic doesn’t serve as a substitute for published literature which is understandable because people do this for free as a fun hobby and shouldn’t be held to the same standards as professionals! that’s not what fic is for fic exists as an important and very specific aspect of fandom and is transformative for a reason I DIGRESS. the point is that asunder....hm. I know it would lose something if the serial numbers were filed off and it was presented as a short story about a Family Drama with A History because obviously the connection to supernatural canon is what makes it so ENJOYABLE but it’s damn close. I’d watch the arthouse movie version of it is what I’m saying.

this is way longer than I thought it would be so I’ll wrap it up but ugh there’s a bunch of other stuff I love. surface level it’s fake dating for a wedding, but that’s like, the LEAST interesting thing about it?? you have this complex relationship between dean and sam which is really similar to their dynamic in s4-5 canon but again, is closer to reality since they aren’t being manipulated by demons and angels. and then that unfolds slowly while also revealing the equally complicated dynamic between dean and cas, which is more than just a “oh we’re in love but we’re not dating because of Plot” it’s like oh they’re not dating because wow yeah that’s an awkward situation. plus I love my girl ruby getting some sympathetic screen time in a deancas fic, which is especially rare in older spn fic. also dean in!!! child protective services!!!!!!! less fics where he’s a cop more fics of This!!!!!!! I AM heavily biased because I am a Dean Girl (terminal) and I know the fic is like the EPITOME of a dean girl fic and is unfair to sam in a lot of ways but I still think it’s a good exploration of their relationship. which is another rarity in destiel fic where sam is either starry eyed destiel shipper, oblivious, or Sir Not Appearing In This Film. sorry, sammy.

anyways this is all to say. fic good. good words give me nice brain chemicals thank u mx. rageprufrock

[mittensmorgul]

Incoming sad rant about the spn ending. Don't read if you're not interested in reading something like that, but I literally don't know anyone in real life I can talk about this with, and I really need an outlet:

Sometimes I can put the way SPN ended out of my head and think "it's just a stupid show. I don't have to accept the finale, and the writers/network are wrong." But other times I just get gripped with really intense sadness at the disrespect that was done to my favorite characters. To the point where I'll sit still for hours a day, just wallowing in it. It ruins my whole day and mood. And then I think to myself "I'll just find some other stories that end better!" but then I get sad again, cuz I don't think I will ever love other characters as much as I love Dean and Cas, and then I spiral again thinking about all the potential this unique beautiful love story had, and how we're never going to get the closure we deserve.

I really hate that after all this time, I'm a grown ass adult getting sad over fictional characters. I know it's not that trivial, but I sometimes wish it was so I could get over it 😞

Hi hi, and first of all *socially distanced internet hugs* I’m sorry you don’t have an outlet, but you’re always welcome to chat with me (if you come off anon we can talk privately if you want. My DM’s are always open, even when it takes me a bit to reply. no one should have to feel alone in this.)

I’m actually gonna start at the bottom of your message and work my way up, because I also, as a grown-ass adult, get sad over fictional characters. And I need to emphasize that this is the *point* of fiction. A well-written and developed fictional character is *indistinguishable in our minds from an actual real human being.* The way we react to them *feels exactly the same to our brains and bodies* as how we react to real people, and that’s a testament to just how well developed Dean and Cas were in canon.

I am not a young person. I have engaged with a lot of media over my life, and have *never* felt this strongly about fictional characters before, so I understand what you mean when you struggle to think about finding another story that ended better, or struggle to think about finding other characters you might become this attached to or experience this sort of emotional investment in. And I think there is another factor you didn’t consider there: The vast majority of other media I have engaged with, I was able to relate to on a level of “oh that’s nice for them” or “wow that sucks for them.” I have never, and possibly never will again, feel so utterly invested in fictional characters, to the point where it affects my real life as much as Supernatural has. Period.

I will likely never experience *literal physical lovesickness* over two fictional characters ever again. I hadn’t ever experienced it *in my own real life* before, and yet 15.18 triggered all those symptoms in me. As an aromantic person, this was pretty shocking to me. It also says a lot about just how real these characters feel to us, and how important they have become to us. They make us feel this! This is not an accident. It’s *incredibly difficult* to create fictional characters with this range and depth of emotional connection, and yet here we are.

I think that’s the biggest evidence possibly to present in defense of the statement that THIS IS NOT JUST SOME STUPID SHOW.

Other evidence: this fandom, still going strong after 15 years. Look at every SPN convention for proof. Look at AO3, where there are more posted stories about Dean and Cas than literally any other pairing on the planet (by a not-small margin, too). If that isn’t enough evidence, we have fanart to look at as well. Look through @theroadsofararchive where at the time of this posting there are over 40,000 artworks catalogued, and more being added all the time. Same with @canonspngifs where you can search through through nearly 75,000 gifsets organized by an excellent tagging system and made by dedicated fans out of love for the thing. This is all proof that you are not alone, that so many of us care just as deeply about them as you do. Not even mentioning the people who have written hundreds of millions of words of meta, articles, and even masters theses and doctoral dissertations on Supernatural and the fandom. This is a unique thing, even within the larger fandom culture. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that your feelings for it are stupid or irrelevant or wrong.

But also don’t let anyone try to convince you that you must accept the finale as part of the story if you don’t want to. Don’t even let *yourself* believe that if you don’t want to. This show has done more to play with the themes of “what is reality” and “who gives a story meaning” and alternate universes and curses and djinn dreams to easily account for whatever the heck the finale was.

my current go-to theory: everything after Chuck’s defeat takes place in the Mockumentary Alternate Universe... it fits way too uncomfortably well... and then I just apply the fic I received in a cosmic transmission from the actual supernatural universe wrote detailing the events of what *I* hoped would transpire afterward. I know this doesn’t work for everyone, but it works for me, mostly because it *has* to. It means far too much to me not to.

You are not alone in having invested yourself into this story, and these characters. Your feelings about them are not wrong or stupid or frivolous. And the proof is everyone else who feels the same exact way, who connected to this story (and to each other through this story), and whose lives have been forever altered through this journey together. The fact that Dabb turned out to have been Chuck Junior and couldn’t see (or was prevented from showing us) what Team Free Will would’ve chosen to do with that after defeating their original creator just stands to prove to me that the finale can’t possibly be The Truth, you know?

I don’t know if any of this will help you, or provide you some small comfort right now, but maybe it will eventually. We’re all processing the loss of the show and the abject failure of story that was the finale in different ways, and I’m sure our emotional reactions will shift over time. It was just A Lot to process all in the span of a few incredibly emotional weeks-- not even mentioning how all of that emotional response was compounded by the american elections and surrounding nonsense, the general stress of enduring a global pandemic and all that entails, and *waves hands around broadly at everything else contributing to the trauma occurring in the collective of humankind right now.* We’ve all been emotionally compromised, so be kind to yourself in how you feel you’re coping with it all.

And know that no matter what, you are not alone in how you’re feeling. The grief is real, and our brains don’t care if it’s felt for fictional characters or real people. This was honestly a once in a lifetime experience for a lot of us, and not even the wtf of the finale can kill it for us if we don’t let it. I reject that particular piece of rusty rebar and choose to believe in a just and narratively coherent resolution. To do anything less feels like dishonoring the story and characters who have drawn me in and made me feel so much for them over the years. If the story itself couldn’t honor them properly, then I can choose to do so myself.

<3

[demonologist-in-denim]

Okay, let’s get into this, because I have put off talking about Crowley’s cut monologue from 12x23 for long enough. If you haven’t already, you can read it here, or in this great gifset.

I absolutely see why this was cut. And I’m only acknowledging it here to talk about why I not only think it doesn’t add anything to Crowley’s story or our understanding of him, but how it actually detracts from it. After that, I intend to ignore it and let it fade away into the ether of the spn fandom. That being said, deleted scenes and cut scripts live in a sort of canonical limbo – you can choose for yourself whether to accept them as canon, consider them glimpses from some alternative universe, or do away with them entirely. I’m choosing the latter in this instance.

(This was meant to be a post, but it turned into an essay.)

Whomever wrote this was either unfamiliar with Crowley as a character, or was intentionally twisting the character in such a way as to fit into the convenient narrative that removed him from the show. Blame it on Chuck in text, blame it on the showrunners outside of text, whatever your preference – this doesn’t read like Crowley.

There are very few parts of this monologue that felt in character, that read like something Crowley would say. Not just in the tone or the choice of words, but the openness of it. And that’s coming from someone who writes reformed and/or human Crowley, with his admittance to remorse and shame and love. In this cut script, he is uncharacteristically vulnerable, sharing self-reflections he would never have shared aloud at this point in his character development. His dialogue lacks the layers of meaning or deflection that Crowley would normally employ, that he employed everywhere else in the show, even when being emotionally vulnerable.

That’s not to say that Crowley didn’t think or feel these things – I will argue to the end of my days (in spn fandom) that after the cure, Crowley hated himself. He hated that he was alone and unloved. Some part of that was due to being a demon and the horrible, evil, messy things he’d done, and some of it he believed was due to his inherent lack of worth. And I think this monologue was written in part to have Crowley make that final confession out loud. Final because, if that’s the case and he’s willing to admit it – to his former enemies and now the only people he really has in his life – his story can only take one of two directions: redemption or death. Embrace the desire for change and move forward as a reformed demon and full Winchester ally, or dramatically (and unnecessarily) sacrifice himself.

And there is a way to write that, but with Crowley properly in character and with the emotional complexity we know him to possess, not this blatant declaration. Maybe the line would have worked depending on how Mark Sheppard played it, and it only falls so flat because it’s just a script – I’m willing to allow for that. But this moment, facing down the boys after letting Lucifer loose, in front of an audience of Mary Winchester that he doesn’t know well and isn’t comfortable with, it doesn’t feel like a moment for Crowley to be this open, this vulnerable, about something so personal and so monumental.

I’ve no doubt that Crowley expected the Winchesters would one day kill him, “for good this time.” He was a demon working alongside a pair of hunters; there was always going to be that risk. Crowley was intelligent, one of the smartest characters on the show. He had to know that was how things would play out – either that, or he would die on their behalf, or because of their actions, even if he had ended up leaving Hell and joining Team Free Will. That was what happened to people around the Winchesters. Crowley warned Kevin of that himself. “They use people up, and leave them to die bloody.” Crowley knew. And as he internalized more and more of his blood-born conscience, Crowley had to believe on some level that he deserved it, especially if he hated himself and what he’d done.

But once again, if Crowley was going to say something like that, that’s not how he’d say it. It would be as a dismissive aside, or a knife in Dean’s gut in a moment of intense emotion between the two of them, or as a rebuke that the Winchesters badly deserved. Or better yet, as something remarked between himself and Cas, who Crowley likely suspected would outlast him but also ultimately die in service of the Winchester cause. Words like those have power. And it’s unlike Crowley to lay them down in supplication like this. It doesn’t even feel like a heart-felt confession, like his monologue in 8x23. It reads like someone wrote what was meant to be under Crowley’s words, the intention behind his dialogue, the much-exalted subtext, but failed to add all the layers on top of it, to put it in actual character.

I’m just going to bundle the whole beginning of the monologue together and toss it out entirely. Firstly because I’ve argued more than once that Crowley is an unreliable narrator when it comes to his human life. What we know of it from Rowena comes with an agenda, and what we know of it from Gavin comes from a man who had a difficult relationship with his father. It’s about as reliable as young Dean telling stories to Sammy about their parents’ time together. And there’s canonical errors in this monologue to back that up – we know Crowley wasn’t buried in a pauper’s grave, because we saw it 6x04. The “dying in a puddle of his own sick” is a great detail in terms of storytelling, but it’s almost directly repeated from Rowena, who said it as a belittling comment to a young Fergus. It’s too forced. And we know at least Gavin came to the funeral, because he tells us so in a deleted scene in 12x13 (remember what I said about getting to pick and choose when it comes to cut scripts and deleted scenes?).

But more importantly – and this is the part that really grates – Crowley’s iteration of his human life reinforces the narrative of absolute morality in the spn universe. It supports the argument that if a character becomes a demon, it must be because they were a terrible person. There is no room for human flaws, for characters to have made mistakes – and that doesn’t just hinder characters in terms of backstory, but in character development and emotional growth moving forward. It’s a stance spn takes more than once, and especially with non-human characters, though never in regards to the Winchesters. The Winchesters can become soulless or demons, but they were “always good” before that, so they are deserving of redemption. If Crowley or other non-humans were “always bad,” that absolves the Winchesters from seeing them as people deserving of help, or of their ability to change, or even to be seen as beings deserving of any level of respect or agency. And it absolves the showrunners from writing a character capable of development, of being able to grow beyond their previous flaws.

That’s not to say that Fergus MacLeod wasn’t some or all of those things. But if he was a complex character – if he was a person, as all stories should aim to present their characters – then he was all of that and more, just as the Winchesters are their virtues and their faults all wrapped up in an individual person. And if Crowley had brought this up some other time, in reference to his human life, none of this discussion would be necessary. It would be easy to say: he’s an unreliable narrator, and this provides us with insight into how Crowley feels about himself, and it would be interesting and valuable. But here, it’s used in justification for Crowley’s status as irredeemable – which is not true – and as part of justification for what happens next.

Crowley’s death was written by the showrunners as an excuse to remove him from the show – attribute that to budget costs for the show, or running out of story ideas for Crowley, or creative laziness, whatever you want. And within spn, it can be attributed to Chuck not wanting another character like Cas muddling up his Winchester Brothersᵀᴹ grand narrative. I’ve written before both in posts and in fic about how Crowley’s character-central instinct for self-preservation crumbles into depression after losing Hell and the seemingly-irreversible depletion of his and Dean’s friendship in 12x23. And that this ushers in a desire to End in such a way that achieves revenge against Lucifer (not a significant motivation, in my opinion, you’ve got to outlive your enemies to win against them), earns him the appreciation of the Winchesters, saves the world (proving his capacity for good), and brings about an end to his waiting. Glory through death, redemption in death – tropes that are hard to associate with Crowley unless you buy into his character’s devolvement in the latter half of season 12, but which the writers do their best to smooth into place and the fandom was forced to choke down.

And I won’t argue that Crowley didn’t wanted an end to his waiting – I’d argue the opposite in fact. This blatant preference for suicide, however, is antithesis to everything Crowley. What Crowley wanted in that End wasn’t an end of himself, but an end to existing in a state of perpetual limbo. Be accepted by the good guys, embrace his more human aspects, or return to the full dark depravity of demonkind. An end to the emotional rollercoaster, to continuous and destructive self-doubt, to striving to be both the king Hell needed and the ally the Winchesters refused to admit they benefited from having. That’s entirely different than wanting to end himself. As much as Crowley hated himself, he would never have considered death to be a preferable option – not unless some outside force, be it Chuck or the spn showrunners, decided otherwise for him.

Even if that had been the case, and I am wrong about Crowley’s characterization and his motivations, I still do not think he would have been as open about that motivation as is written in this cut script. It is just not like him. It is too vulnerable, too self-pitying. Crowley was always concerned about the others around him, and especially the Winchesters, thinking less of him. He never would have said something like this to them, not as this is written. Nor would Crowley have gone to the Winchesters with the intention of them killing him. He might have known it was a possibility, once he confessed his actions, (and from his perspective, there was the chance the Winchesters didn’t know of his involvement in Lucifer’s escape anyway), but it would never have been his intention. It’s not unknown for Crowley to encourage abuse from those he’s wronged, and to revel in the attention and emotions of it (here I’m thinking specifically of Kevin beating him in 9x02), maybe considering the punishment just and due. And Crowley at this point likely suspected he would eventually meet his end in some way involving the Winchesters. But death by their hands in this moment would have involved none of the justifying benefits of death by his own hand only a few scenes later – glory, revenge, redemption, a sense of closure.

Compare this cut monologue and its potential death – at the hands of the Winchesters after confessing his role in Lucifer’s escape – to this cut line of dialogue from later in 12x23. “Tell Dean he was right – you bloody fools have rubbed off on me.” This is Crowley. This is emotional complexity, admittance to a change of heart, self-awareness, and a brave act of equal defiance and sacrifice, with his usual smug, snarky dismissal. This isn’t suicide brought on by depression, by an uncharacteristic vulnerability. It is resolved, determined, if reluctant. This is Crowley choosing the greater good and the boys, even if it means sacrificing himself.

For me, this small addition smooths over much of the unevenness in the showrunner’s attempts to justify Crowley’s death. He has lost Hell, he believes he’s had an irreversible falling out with Dean – all of which could be overcome, grown beyond. But then a rift opens, and Lucifer is an immediate danger, and it requires a life to save the day. Crowley knows it can’t be either of the boys – that tends to have world-ending effects – and it can’t be Mary Winchesters or Castiel, because of “Winchester man-pain.” So that leaves Crowley. And having exhausted all immediate alternatives, Crowley does what internalized Winchester logic and conscience tells him is right. It would still require a moment of hesitation, a moment we see him combatting his deeply imbedded trait of self-preservation. But at least that would have been in character and show definitive character growth on Crowley’s part.

So yes, I completely agree with the decision to cut this monologue in 12x23. It doesn’t tell us anything about Crowley that we don’t already know, and is uncharacteristic of him, and provides out-of-character justification for his actions that wasn’t needed. You don’t have to agree with me, obviously. And I’ll end this rather long rant of an essay by saying what I always say: that Crowley deserved better. He deserved better than the mangling of his character’s motivations in the latter half of season 12, and he deserved better than this monologue. I’m glad it was cut from the final script.

[zandracourt]

I’ve been reflecting a lot on Cas’ recent confession of love and the responses I’ve been seeing across tumblr and Twitter. As a Destiel fic writer, I am thrilled to see this become canon and as a queer woman, also really touched to see how much Misha has embraced this as a really significant thing. I already ordered my Only Love merch. So I’m content with it all as much as it is. SPN has never made queer representation its issue. SPN *has* responded to its fanbase, who have both pushed the importance of representation and also brought the actors into a realm of growth over queer issues that they may never have come to without this show and this fandom. For that reason, I don’t think it’s helpful to be mad at Jensen or the Showrunners for Destiel not being perfect. You don’t have to celebrate them as allies, but the anger and vitriol just doesn’t help, in my opinion.

BUT...where my thoughts have been going is around what it means to be an actor in a ‘ship and what the impact of the story has on the actors, the fandom, and the constant dance of who controls the story because I think this has been something that even with straight characters has had serious impacts on how fans feel about an ending.

My first fandom, Starsky & Hutch, was mostly written by a gay man who wrote “straight” characters because that was what they had to be in 1974. The characters and show plots were such that the actors felt the love underneath the words and acted accordingly. Back then, it wasn’t so much queer baiting as queer coding. I find it amazing that my parents never thought for a minute Starsky and Hutch were gay, but even as a 7 year old, I knew they were in love and saw them that way. And anyone who watches the show now, it’s so clear that it’s almost laughable. When their show won the Peopel’s Choice award in 1977, David Soul said in his acceptance speech that the best part of being on this show was that people saw two men who “could be anything”. He knew that queer folk read their characters as gay and that straight folks saw them as straight and he was happy for both to be true. While the show never had an explicitly romantic declaration, the characters held hands, hugged, and in the final episode, their final scene is Hutch crawling into Starsky’s hospital bed with him, something done with amusement, but was completely coded to mean something else. It was never “canon”, but the ‘ship has lasted 46 years with new fic being written even now.

In the new SW films, actor Oscar Isaac was not at all quiet about his feelings that his character, Poe Dameron, was in love with Finn. He stated he played him that way (and was not directed otherwise) and he even explicitly asked for that ship to be made canon. He was told no and that is not how the story ended. The romance plot was instead focused on two other characters. Some fans liked that. Many didn’t. In general, though, the story is open-ended enough that shippers could have Stormpilot be their ship and there is nothing that really contradicts that. In that scenario, Oscar had his sense of who this character was and felt strongly about that, but in the end, it wasn’t his story, so the ending was what it was.

Hawai’i Five-0 ended its 10 year run last spring. Actor Scott Caan said in an interview during the show’s 5-year mark that he wanted to see his charcter have a romantic story line with his other lead, Steve McGarrett. And while Scott did not go so far as Oscar Isaac did to say he made his acting choices based on that, watching him and Alex play their characters, there was definitely some intention to show their characters as loving one another. Actor Alex O’Loughlin voiced a few times over the years that he felt his character would not get back together with Catherine, a woman his character was on-again, off-again with, because he felt Steve had reached his limit with what Catherine had done to him. The series made a decision to end with Steve leaving Hawai’i behind and flying away with Catherine. Neither actor has commented much about the show’s ending, but clearly it went against what both actors had publicly expressed in the past. Again, they don’t control the story, but they do understand their characters after playing them for so many years and they are invested in that. In that sense, the actor’s subsequent silence about how the show ended says quite a bit. And McDanno fans were very unsatisfied with the show’s ending, myself included.

So we come to Destiel. Over the years, this ship has been very controversial in part because one actor (Misha) has clearly been OK with his character being perceived as being in love with Dean, while the other actor (Jensen) has not. At times he has been very negative about it, and that has been taken by some fans to imply how Jensen feels about homosexuality in general. I’m not convinced it does, but I understand why people feel that way. Over the 12 years since Cas’ introduction on the show, there clearly has been a shift from the writers and showrunners avoiding the topic entirely, to talking about it, and now to having Cas confess his feelings of love to Dean in canon. In the days since, Misha has been unequivocal in saying Cas is romantically in love with Dean and that he has played him that way, at least for this season and likely longer. Misha is proud that he was able to advocate for Cas to be gay and he clearly understands why it is important for the show to have made this choice. For Jensen’s part, however, he has stated he has not played Dean that way and from video clips of him talking about the show’s ending, it appears that he needed some convincing to accept this as the story. To his credit though, once he was convinced that this was something show creator (Eric Kripke) could envision as part of Dean’s character arc, he was on-board with this ending and feels statisfied with it. And I think some of the frustration folks feel stems from both in how the actors portrayed their characters and in which takes were chosen to be in the final cuts of episodes. In that way, the show has fed this ship, whether the actors realized it or not, and that is why Destiel has felt particularly painful at times. The fanbase has been gaslighted for seeing it at all (from actors and showrunners) while the directors have seemed to go out of their way to choose shots where the actor’s choices were more tender and affectionate and write lines where characters make explicit statements about Dean and Cas as romantic. I can’t help but wonder if Jensen really didn’t see Dean as being in love with Cas, but that we saw Jensen’s own affinity for Misha bleed through in their incredible chemsitry together or if Jensen has just been in denial of this ‘ship having teeth for his own personal reasons. I don’t know and so far, he hasn’t been willing to talk about that. Maybe he will once it’s over. Maybe he won’t and I’m not going to be angry with him for it. He’s an incredible actor and he’s lived this character for 15 years, so he has a right to who he believed Dean is and isn’t.

The issues of representation continue to be pressing and what I see happening with Destiel and these other ‘ships is exciting because it shows growth on all sides. We have audiences able to voice not only how they perceive characters without shame but can express a desire for characters to be together. None of that is new for straight characters, but it is for queer characters. We have actors who not only can see these same things, but feel enough ownership of their characters to expresss what they believe their characters would do or feel. And we have showrunners who are going to make their story, sometimes in response to feedback from their fans and actors, and sometimes in spite of it.

What Destiel becoming canon gives me hope for is that as new shows come into being, characters that take off, actors who have unexpected chemistry, and ‘ships that gain a life of their own, will lead to shows that are less inclined to care if those ships are queer or not and just go with what fans respond to. That it will normalize that people can (and do) come out an all different times of life, even after being het-married, having kids, or presenting as straight to everyone else for 40 years. That it will reflect that sometimes, it’s not about having been queer or straight from the beginning, but be about that ONE relationship that just is different, special, or grows into a deep love regardless of the genders of the people. I hope we can get to a place where deep intimacy between same-gender characters doesn’t have to be a war over romance vs. platonic and the story can just develop without the pressure of representation because queer characters will be so prevalent that we don’t have to feel like we must cling so tightly to every one we get. I hope we can come to a place where sometimes relationships don’t go romantic because one person (regardless of gender) just doesn’t feel that way, because that is very fucking true in real life. I want to watch shows where the sexual identity of any character doesn’t have to be etched in stone from the word go, never to change ever because that’s boring and limiting, and honestly, not real life.

I am deeply grateful for actors like Isaac, Caan, and Collins who are willing to see characters outside the heteronormative lens and to advocate for queer romantic arcs. I’m thankful to showrunners who are making shows with greater queer representation than ever before. And I’m grateful to actors like Ackles, who while it wasn’t who he thought his character was, was able to expand his view enough to go where the story was going to go. The arc of the universe does bend towards justice, and we will get there. Until then, there’s fic. And thank God for that.

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Hi, I'm working on a SPN fanfic right now and I was hoping I could get some character ideas from you. It's a destiel fanfic-I know you don't ship them anymore but I'm kind of stuck on what to do with John? I want him in the story because I love Jeffrey Dean Morgan and the way he plays Dean but I also don't want to write him in a repetitive way, I want to do the character justice and not make him all cringe. Got any ideas?

Hi! Yes, I'd be more than happy to give you some advice.

To me, John Winchester is such a fun character to write, full of angst ripe for the picking with Sam and Dean, ya know? And Jeffrey does such a good job bringing the character to life, I just hate reading fics where the the writers just make him the cringey, abusive, alcoholic, homophobic father, the obstacle needed to overcome for Destiel (or whatever ship) to truly be together, you know? I'm not saying that we shouldn't use the abusive parent trope in coming out stories because obviously those family dynamics exist in real life so of course many who have suffered through that trauma want to write about it to work through it and I do not begrudge them at all for that. But, the trope is overplayed and typically there isn't a whole lot of nuance to it so its kind of boring to read about all of the time, and when something gets boring, it gets cringey.

So my advice if this story you're writing is going to have some sort of coming out story feat. John Winchester aka Abusive/Homophobic Father of the Year, then try to add a little bit more nuance to it to give it a freshness so it doesn't feel so overplayed to your readers. No one likes carboard cut outs of characters, they want characters not caricatures (at least that's I want but you know depending on your audience, maybe they're ok with caricatures as long as they get their fanservice). So definitely, if you can, try and dive a little more deeply into the psyche of John Winchester. Really analyze his emotions, his motivations, his reasonings for why he does the things he does. If he's gonna be abusive and homophobic, think about why is he really those things? Is he abusive because he can't look at his kids because they remind him of Mary? Is this his own way of protecting them? Is he homophobic because he's a product of his time? Or is there a deeper reason behind it? Is it a means of protecting his sons from the harshness and brutality of living that life? Because while it is freeing and liberating to come out and truly be able to be yourself, sadly, the world is filled with bigots that won't see it that way, that are threatened by it and will enact violence because of their bigotry.

Me personally, if I were to ever write for John Winchester, I'd choose to stay away from the abusive, alcoholic, homophobic angle that so much of the fandom likes to depict him as. Like I said before, its overdone, boring, and cringey. And truth be told, I've never jumped on the band wagon of hating John Winchester. Honestly, when I rewatch Season 1, the episodes featuring him are always so enjoyable to me because he's so interesting. Sure, he's terrible for his sons, but digging into his motivations and how he thinks, in his own twisted mind, he means well and he's genuinely thinking that these means are what's going to keep his boys safe. So I don't know, if I were to write a coming out story whether it be destiel or sastiel, I'd kind of like to depict John as being supportive of his son coming out because there is an aspect of his personality there that does treasure his boys. Sure, it doesn't negate that he's a terrible father who has treated his children abysmally but everything that he's done in the show, it's never screamed at me that he's homophobic. I'm sure some Dean Winchester stans will come at me, get up on their soap box and try to tell me that we can gather that John Winchester was homophobic because of Dean's own homophobia and repressed feelings towards men, how he womanizes and fetishizes women, etc. He learned it from John. Or maybe, just maybe, John Winchester was not around a whole lot and Dean watched a lot of macho cop shows and things of that nature whilst spending endless hours cooped up in a hotel room. Or Dean Winchester actually is straight, I know horror of horrors for me to suggest something like that and I'm not really here to make an argument on that. If you want to yell at me and tell me all of the reasons why Dean Winchester isn't straight, don't bother because I don't care. SPN is done and over with and we all now have the freedom to characterize Dean however the fuck we want and we need to stop getting into such heated arguments about this. If you see Dean has a repressed homosexual, great I totally see how you would see that so you should write about it, I don't have a problem with it. But I also don't have a problem with him being characterized as straight either. I have written Dean as straight before and I've also written him as LGBT as well. I'm not more partial to any reading of his sexuality really, he's never been a favorite character of mine, most of the time I have to really fight my own dislike of him to even find him palatable. If I think of a story and I want to include him in said story, I'll characterize him in whichever way befits the story I'm writing. But the point is, in regards to John Winchester, I kind of went on a tangent there, but what I'm essentially getting at is John can be abusive, he can be alcoholic, but I would also find it interesting if amongst those things he was supportive of his sons' sexuality or at the very least apathetic to it.

But anyway, those are my thoughts/advice. Hopefully it helps and good luck on your story. If you post it on Tumblr, be sure to tag me, I'd love to read it.

[tomhardysteeth]

u wanna say anything for spn ending? Today's their last day of filming

Yeah sure! I love how you worded this ask, it makes me want to give a very serious answer. I’ve been rewatching random episodes the past few days and thinking about how much of my life was shaped by this random lil tv show, both positively and negatively, so here we go. 

I started watching Supernatural during my junior year of college, when I was grappling with being gay and religious, and had a pseudo-girlfriend who was emotionally abusive. I remember I started watching the show because I had been on tumblr for a while and thought, well this is a popular show on tumblr and looks like something I’d enjoy, so I might as well try it. I remember barely paying attention to the first season and thinking it was kind of silly, and I distinctly remember making fun of it right up until the season 1 finale when that truck slammed into the Impala and I said oh.

I remember sitting in the dining hall between classes, hiding in a corner with my pink headphones and my laptop, watching one episode after the other, completely consumed by it. My personal life was a mess at the time and I was angry and sad and frustrated, but I could forget about everything for a little while when I watched spn. I remember falling in love with Dean Winchester, season 3, when Sam gave him the amulet. 

Because I had already spent a lot of time on tumblr, I knew about Castiel. I couldn’t wait to get to season 4, the anticipation killed me. I didn’t really have a choice in shipping destiel, I literally shipped it before I even watched a single episode of the show lol. My first time watching seasons 4 and 5, I remember how mad I would feel every time the opening credits scrolled at the bottom of the screen and Misha Collins wasn’t listed. I cared about almost nothing but Dean and Cas interacting with each other. I was totally enamored by them, by their potential. At some point I got over that and watched the show because I liked the show, but boy did my heart and brain break for destiel. 

I broke up with my abusive girlfriend. I started coming out to more people, including people involved in the Christian campus ministry I was heavily involved in, and it was very very hard. It was 2013. The first episode of Supernatural I watched live was the episode where Dean turns into a fucking dog. 

I don’t remember when I started reading fanfic, and I had no idea how to read fanfic. A friend invited me to ao3, what is ao3? I didn’t know. I used my email address as my username. I read Twist and Shout and Pie Without Plot and other very popular fics that I knew about because everybody knew about them. I vividly remember the first fics I read because I was 21 years old and had never had an orgasm in my life and believed sex was sinful and so when the sex scenes in fics turned me on, I felt guilty about it. 

I quickly got over that and started writing explicit destiel fanfic. 

I still had no idea what I was doing. I know the very first fic I ever wrote was a mess, I’ve completely erased all traces of it, but other than that I began posting with abandon. Pretty much everything I’ve ever written for spn is still on tumblr and/or ao3. I was running a Hannibal blog at the time and started posting more Supernatural content than Hannibal content, so I created a sideblog, @deancasheadcanons​, and things very quickly got out of hand after that.

I was depressed, I was confused, I was spending my last couple years of college trying to figure out my sexuality, trying to hold onto a religion that was rejecting who I was becoming, trying to find my identity while picking a career path and being sad and being pulled in a hundred different directions. Sometimes I was working three jobs at once, on top of 17-credit-hour semesters. I was getting a degree in a field I did not care about, and I spent every class reading and writing fanfic, scrolling through tumblr, making internet friends, letting my life be consumed by Supernatural. I projected myself completely onto Dean Winchester and partially onto Castiel and did not even realize it. 

I started dressing like Dean, and my sister and brother-in-law noticed and assumed I was gay. They were extremely unsubtle in their attempts at getting me to come out by pointing out the flannel and army jackets, and I did not have it in me to admit to them that I was dressing like a fictional character, but I DID tell them I was bisexual. 

I went to therapy every week during my senior year of college, and I was embarrassed about how often I talked about my “internet life,” as I called it. I remember having the arbitrary goal of getting 1,000 kudos on a fanfic, and I remember the day it happened for the first time and I remember going to therapy that week and saying that I didn’t feel any different, that I thought getting attention for my writing would make me feel better, somehow, but I still felt the same, and my therapist asked me if I would still be writing if I was the only one who got anything out of it and I said yes. But I was still obsessed with writing things that were meaningful, and despite the fact that I would receive 10 negative/mean anons per day, I never turned anon off because I desperately wanted people to tell me that my writing meant something to them, that it mattered to them. I was fighting with myself every day over my sexuality and my identity and my purpose, and I put all of that on the shoulders of Dean and Cas. 

There was also chubby!dean. I had lived my entire life with this inexplicable thing, this shame that I knew I could not share, that I knew I would just have to suffer with for my whole life, and then I joined the spn fandom and found that there were others like me, others that had a fetish and had similar experiences as I did and were drawn to Dean Winchester because there’s no other character that could make eating and gaining weight be as enticing as he makes it (in fanfic). For the first time in my life I had a community of people that I could relate to about a thing that I never thought I would ever be able to talk about with anyone in my life. I don’t remember if I consciously chose to start posting publicly about it, but at some point I did, and I started writing kink fic, but I was still so uncomfortable with myself and so scared of the things I felt, and I tried so hard to temper myself and not offend anyone and not go “too far” and not be too weird and I was so sexually repressed and pent up and full of guilt and shame, and so now when I go back and reread some of the stuff I wrote it feels like reopening an old wound and letting myself bleed out. 

I was constantly comparing myself to others and wondering why I wasn’t getting as much attention as so-and-so, and I always made excuses about how maybe my writing was too weird and I was too much and maybe I just wasn’t good enough and I hated myself and wanted to delete everything I ever wrote, but also I’m awesome and receive a lot of attention and get a lot of good feedback but maybe that means I’m just a narcissist! I acted like an asshole online and justified it by saying it wasn’t really me, that I could be someone totally different on tumblr than the person I was in “real life,” but in hindsight, now when I think back on my early 20s, I cannot separate what I was doing in “real life” from what I was doing in the spn fandom. I shared so much of myself with the spn fandom without even recognizing that that’s what I was doing. 

And I made mistakes, god I made mistakes, and I tried to be so careful about everything I said but I was also presenting a certain version of myself to the spn fandom so that people would like me (for instance: running a destiel blog and trying my best to hide the fact that I also ship wincest) and still I got in trouble constantly, and I grew bitter and mean because you can only receive the “when are you posting the next chapter?” comment so many times before you want to bang your head into a wall. I became defensive and unkind, afraid to check my inbox because it was a nightmare, and yet unable to turn off anon because, like I said, I desperately needed that feedback, I needed people to tell me that they felt what I felt, that they understood what I was writing and why I was writing it.

I expected Supernatural to give me everything I needed. I fantasized about Dean Winchester being canonically bisexual because I thought it would confirm something in me, that it would somehow make my life a little bit easier. I didn’t want to watch other shows that could maybe help me, I wanted Supernatural to do things for me that it had never promised and would never deliver, and it’s because I was defined by it for so many years. Now that I’m back on tumblr, I’ve been going back through some of my old posts on deancasheadcanons and it’s like reading a stranger’s words. Even so, I find myself telling people “I was deancasheadcanons” instead of “I ran a sideblog called deancasheadcanons” because it really was such a huge part of my identity. What’s wild is that every time I’ve tried to explain it to someone in real life, they just look at me like I’m not making any sense. 

It was easy to stop watching Supernatural. I didn’t have cable, and I had been driving to my dad and stepmom’s house each week and watching it on their tv after they had gone to bed. I was in a new relationship with a woman I nearly married, I was back in school for a new career, I was working full time and absolutely did not have time to continue writing fanfic as prolifically as I had done for so many years. I finally reached a breaking point in 2017 and haven’t watched any new episodes since then (I don’t remember the last episode I saw). But now, as I rewatch some old episodes, it is easy to feel the way I felt the first time I watched the show. It’s easy to see why this campy little heartfelt show was a lifeline during my formative adult years.

So it turns out I have never reckoned with any of this, have never written it down, hence the 2k jumble of words you see here. And it’s like, I know that a lot of this may seem silly, trivial, especially for a show that in itself is not very serious, but as it comes to an end I have to reflect on it as a person who put so much of my heart, my creativity, my pain and my floundering identity into it. I am somewhat embarrassed and wish I could respond to this ask with a joke instead, but we’re in a pandemic and I live alone and have had way too much time to think and reflect and become a lot more self-aware, and part of that reflection has definitely been about my time in the spn fandom. I remember thinking the show was never going to end, yet here we are at the end and I felt compelled to type all this out with a desire to, I don’t know, get some closure? Convince myself that I was a whole person, that I wasn’t just a faceless URL posting destiel fics into the void, that my real life was not at all disparate from the time I spent online? In any case, I’ll always think fondly of the time I devoted to Supernatural, and I’ll take the good and the bad and everything in between. Thanks for the nice ask, anon, apparently I needed to get some things off my chest.