What’s your favorite kind of emotional damage to inflict on characters?
Oh this kind of question gets me 😌🥹
Angst is my favorite thing to write, to read yes but I’m a punk, my feelings get hurt so easily to read them in pain emotionally or otherwise. However that doesn’t stop me from inflicting said pain.
My emotional damage of choice: Regret.
Spn is wrought with all kinds of regret and resentment despite the characters need to change things but it isn’t so simple when these characters, especially are being toyed with by God.
I absolutely hate and adore in equal measure 15x03, The Rupture. It’s the bane of my existence and my inspiration for a lot of my writing for destiel but it’s because it’s so fraught with anguish and regret.
Jack dies, Rowena dies and the boys are hurt. There’s so much to go around and everyone is questioning everything they’ve ever felt and there’s other lingering hurts from Mary’s death and everything that could go wrong has.
Dean is so hurt that he’s relying on his rage to ground him because he isn’t mad at everyone else he’s truly mad at himself. He’s doing what he always does and internalizing all that pain and the one person he can take it out on is someone who can take it. Cas.
And he immediately regrets it.
Cas leaves and it’s a shit show. I fucking hate it but there’s so much regret to build off of from there that I froth at the mouth to make it better by making it worse first.
I love delving deep into how regret and the pain of the characters actions quickly spiral the plot. I love making the regret eat at them that they have no other way to escape except by making themselves worse. Falling into despair and not forgiving themselves for it until years later.
Miscommunication at its finest.
I love making Dean regret his quick shooting mouth but he doesn’t have the tools or the wherewithal to reach out because he’s now overthinking everything since chuck.
I love Cas being earth bound for so long that he’s so filled with human emotions that most of which he doesn’t know what to do with. He’ll never regret saving Dean but he does regret allowing the pain to consume him.
I’ve touched on different variations of regret in my fics and how it’s been a weapon to hold the characters back despite them “moving on”.
Despair was a phenomenal and angsty episode but for me The Rupture takes regret to a new level and I’m obsessed with fixing it, by making it worse of course.
Anyway, I know that was really long winded but I could talk about that episode for dayyys. Truly, I have about 5 more fics in my notes app that stem from that godforsaken episode.
But regret is my favorite kind of emotional damage to inflict on them. I think the fic that Ive explored it most is in Fallen and Found, which actually doesn’t take place during the rupture but after Cas is first human and is kicked out of the bunker. Regret runs rampant there and ugh it’s delightful.
Honestly it’s kind of a way for me to work through my own issues. I was raised by a mom who at every turn lived with, vocalized and weaponized the regrets and resentments of her life and I was the one it was taken out on. So now I make my characters work through it, granted I like to make it worse before making it better lol but what’s angst without a happy ending 😂😂
