Behind the scenes on plenty of ways to know you're not dying:
holy shit this has been a long time coming. I think I've had this idea for years (earliest would have been between 2011-2014), and honestly, have not written it partially because I think no one would be interested. (this might still be the case.) Probably would not exist if spntriangleweek didn't happen and I didn't think, "This might be the excuse to write the thing I've had in my head."
It's definitely evolved, and I don't think I could have written this version of it in 2011.
But anyway: as an endverse enthusiast who has never written endverse before, I think it's interesting to think about other canon characters who can pop up there. I've also brought forward the croatoan virus timeline, because I kind of enjoy the idea that things have been for a long time.
Title from "So Come Back, I am Waiting" by Okkervil River. Other songs (besides, like, the entirety of the Black Sheep Boy album by Okkervil River) that were integral to ~the process~ of figuring out the vibe between Lisa-Dean-Cas include:
I Am Easy to Find by The National
My Love is Real by Divine Fits
Maggie Told Me You Got a New Girl by Caroline Culver
Was going to name one of the women Maggie in the fic, but thought it would be too apt when I was thinking of using a line from that song as the title. Please feel free to imagine that there is a woman in the background named Maggie who is a huge gossip.
Originally this was just going to be Lisa POV, but uhhhhh it changed as I was figuring it out. It also wasn't going to be such a straightforward love triangle, and it was a coin toss if Lisa and Cas would actually be involved with each other or just be sort of....wistfully near each other like, wow, so he just got rid of both of us, huh. But I think this works. Especially as a triangle.
Lisa POV owes something to Meg Elison's The Book of the Unnamed Midwife. I have read it...five times? now. The transactional sexual relationship definitely owes something to that, as well as the calculation of how long her IUD is supposed to be good for. The transactional relationships kind of pop up again, with the steady revolving door of women Dean's entertaining, but it's mostly subtext. The line about the safe place already being overrun by the time you hear about it is an idea from Zone One by Colson Whitehead.
And oh boy, is everyone having sex! There is so much mentioned/implied sex happening right in the text, partially because that's what's happening in the episode but also, there's a dreary sort of "we could be dead at any moment so why not" hanging over everyone. Despite the fact that the sex is not triangular, the emotional entanglement is.
I had read but didn't remember until @autisticandroids linked it, the first church of the end of the world but its so interesting how that fic and the one I wrote are so different from each other. For me, it was kind of important to not have children in the fic and just have Ben haunting Lisa a bit. The only child you see in 5x04 is that croat child, and...well... the horror might be too horrific for me to write. I think every time I've imagined a version of this fic, Ben is long dead. Sometimes, Lisa dies too.
Confession: I have only read the first part of Down to Agincourt. I cannot read wips.
There's a lot of angst/passive suicidality here, including a general meditation on "what the fuck do you live for once you've lost everything?" If you've spoken to me IRL about the horrifying realization that once you have kids, your entire axis spins on them...well.... that's here.
This also is kind of a version of "dean doesn't deserve a home or loved ones" played nearly straight, with Dean pushing away the people who care about him. I kind of love Dean when he's all "no one likes me anymore. just because of all my issues :("
The only real levity comes from Chuck, who instead of being "God" is more straightforwardly a Prophet of the Lord, not receiving revelations currently, much to the relief of every single other character.
Only medium related to the fic itself, but very much so related to writing angst: I think I solved my angst imposter syndrome. Or at least, better understand where it comes from. I've been told pretty much my whole life a version of "your feelings aren't that bad" or "you're just being dramatic" or "my feelings are much more important/sad/bad than your feelings" and when I would put those feelings into writing, I would just sort of assume that these were the normal feelings, and there was a level beyond what I was writing that was actual "angst." No joke, once I wrote something, cried myself to sleep after, and posted it and never tagged angst because I truly thought angst was another level.
Anyway: endverse, my beloved.
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