If you could choose only one fic for each of the descriptions below, which ones would they be? (Yes, aside from getting to know authors better, I'm also subtly asking for fic recommendations, play along please 🦖)

•One that broke your heart, but piece it together again.

•One that made you laugh out loud really hard.

•One that changed your perspective on things (you can interpret this any way you want).

Hi hello! Yay! I'm not the best reader, but I love it when I do get the focus to read, so I'm happy to rec some of the ones that are on my mind!

Only one for each is tough but...

💔Broke me and rebuilt me 💔

Well, I'm feeling VERY Contender-brained (I'm FIXATED fixated on this fic series again), so I think I'll start with Heavyweight by @dochollidayed / valleydean for the broken heart!

Mostly because it starts in the RUINS of a DeanCas super betrayal/fight. It has that season 6 flavor and this is the kinda fic that gives you high highs and low lows and it is gorgeously written and makes you love boxing too! The era details are to die for...

I need to add it to my Rereadables list now, because I've been overindulging this month, and it's officially joined the club of mega obsession for me.

Brooklyn, 1927. The Golden Age of Boxing. Two years ago, light heavyweight champion Dean Winchester and heavyweight champion Castiel Novak had a secret affair. After a scandal tarnished Cas’ name and stripped him of his title, the two parted ways. Now, with a heavyweight tournament on the horizon, Dean aims to up his weight class so he can compete for the title. He finds unexpected competition when Cas comes out of retirement and returns to New York to fix his reputation. Upon their reunion, the two contenders learn that, outside of the ring, some bruises never really heal.

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😂Made me laugh till I cried 😂

I'm gonna go with canticles by 2street2car.

It's early Dean and Cas going on something like a shitty date... in a parking lot.

This is one of the very first fics I read, AND it's definitely one of those where you're like, actively falling in love with the characters the whole time. Not only is it my comfort fic, but it has this ONE part where Dean looks over and Cas looks so so so foolish in that moment that you can't NOT fall in love with him.

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🧐For making me think differently... 🧐

I'm going to throw these two at you. ONE: I said show me something by ilovehowyouletmefall / @angelinthefire. The writer and their writing is Theee Weird-kinda smart and it shows, but what sticks with me the most about this fic is Dean embodying the desires of others in order to sidestep facing his own... and the frightening shape of Cas's unhuman desire. It was just SUCH a cool take on it!

AND it's a thoughtful look at Cas's (imho) controversial line: "I did all of it for you."

TWO: A Communal digging of a very shallow grave (A WIP, and worth your time) - It's really challenged how I think about and sit with Dean's Hell trauma. This fic brings in the concept of DEAN having his own Hell-students too, and I think it blew my mind. Also, I realized I was sleeping on Alastair as a concept.

OH HO! I HAVE THOUGHT OF THIS

The question is, do I stay on theme and make it "which is the *hottest* ship"?

Okayyyy! Let's goooo!

Jayvik

What made you ship it?

The scene where Viktor wakes up from the hexgoo is fucking insane. It had me chewing on the walls. The way Jayce is so unhinged. They're both unclothed. It's emotional and intense. "It was... affection that held us together." That was the scene that got me on board this ship 100%, I was like... they're in love, they're clearly in love, this is it.

I low-key shipped Jayvik season 1. But it was in a "lol this would be cute" kind of way. I didn't *really* ship them. I read them as platonic. It was season 2 that pushed me over the edge.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

They keep saving each other. They cheat death to be together. That sense of fate and destiny.

They have a shared dream, shared idealism, that they both stray from in different ways, yet come back to.

They're insane about each other. Jayce wears his feelings very much on the surface, while Viktor tries to cut off his emotions but is still guided by them.

It's SUCH a good ship. It's grounded in real friendship, camaraderie, shared values. And then it gets intense and melodramatic and tragic. But their love endures through everything, the anger and betrayal and violence, and it saves the world. Jayce's love for Viktor saves the world.

And idk they're both just hot together, I never wanted to see two cartoon men kiss so much.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I get the appeal of pining, but I don't think they were pining season 1. I think Jayce might have taken Viktor for granted a bit, before his illness really hit, but he was also very demonstrative with his affection and appreciation, I don't think Viktor doubted that Jayce cared about him. And Jayce DEFINITELY knew what he meant to Viktor.

There's that quote from the creators going around that Jayce couldn't give Viktor what he needed, and ppl are interpreting that in a shippy way, which, more power to you, but my interpretation of that is that Jayce's attention was divided and he wasn't on the same page as Viktor with their priorities regarding Hextech and the Undercity.

I said something as kind of a joke in a post once that I need to develop into a full idea, because I was only half-joking. Which was, yeah, Jayce and Viktor *did* love each other like brothers... and then they got weird about it.

Thank you so much for asking!! ♥

In the tag game I described this one as "a lot of romantic scenes taking place in the middle of bloody hunts/gore-splattered hunt aftermath/gross unromantic places." I'm realizing now the file is an absolute mess, so this is just about the only coherent part I have:

Squelch. It’s too wet-sounding to blame on the dew, so Dean stops.

“Uh. I think there’s some vamp on my boot.” Could just be blood, but it looks suspiciously like grey matter, so he’s not gonna examine it too closely. He rubs his foot against the ground, scraping and wiping it from the sole of his shoe, flattening the already wet grass. You’d think the dew would help clean the blood off, but no, that would be too fucking easy.

Cas walks on ahead, disappearing into the crisscrossing pine boughs; Dean doesn’t blame him. This is stupid—he’s already covered in vamp guts, and he can feel it drying in the light summer breeze, tacky on his skin and stiff on his clothes.

Then Cas comes back, a dark silhouette through the trees. “Come with me.” Cas lifts his jaw, beckoning Dean forward with just the angle of his head. Cas doesn’t explain, just walks on into the tangle of woods.

A field opens up ahead where the line of trees abruptly stops. Cas steps out into it, and a few feet behind, Dean follows—jeans swishing audibly against the tall grass. It’s knee-high, even higher further into the field.

There’s a rundown barn probably a hundred years old. Barely visible after dark, its almost concave roof a slightly deeper black than the sky behind it, a long rectangle slouching in the night. A chimney, a few feet from the barn, stands with no house to surround it. And all around them, flashing on and off, are white Christmas lights.

Except. No. It’s June.

(continued under the cut)

And who the hell would decorate a rotting barn, anyway?

Thank you for asking!! 💙

The full title (of the prompt) would be "the one where Dean holds tight and is taken too by the Empty" and i don't know about you but I'm already SCREAMING.

So you get the idea. When Cas tries to push him away Dean doesn't let him and he holds on to Cas with all the strength that he has --and they're both taken to the Empty.

It's one of the first prompts i came up with, but it's currently sitting there waiting with my other prompt drafts in my "fics to write" pile cause I'm writing another WIP at the moment.

Here's a raw sneak peek from my draft, set immediately after they find themselves thrown into the Empty (yes, they're awake because of reasons, will think it through when i actually write it 😆)

*********************************************

"No."

Cas dismayed, his low deep voice

"What have you done."

(D, shackled)"What have i--what have I done??"

Cas turns to it, angry

"You have to throw him back. You hear me? OPEN THE PORTAL."

(Empty/Meg)"No, can't do thaaat."

(C)"This wasn't part of our deal. He has no part in it all."

(D)"Cas..."

(C)"It was MY deal. You're going to let him out."

The Empty chuckles

"Well I opened the portal to get you, little angel, and if your boyfriend's stupid enough to follow you here, then that's his problem, not mine."

"--NO. (moves) No you're gonna--"

"--CAS."

Dean stops him from the shoulder. Cas turns.

He's still frantic.

"Just... just stop."

"What, what do you mean stop, you could stay trapped here forever, are you suicidal?!"

(D, mad)"Well, I don't know, are you??!"

This shuts him up. For the moment.

(C, guilty)"This... this wasn't supposed to happen."

"Which part?!"

Cas' gaze is suddenly lost, buried in self blame.

"All of it."

Hiii two other people have already asked about it so I thought I should dig up an excerpt. This is Cas pov stolen grace stuff. I alluded to his gay forehead bathing fantasies in my first answer, and the paragraph I have of it in my drafts in my drafts isn't too embarassing I don't think, so here you go! This is set during his motel bathrobe era. I have 3k of Cas introspection during his motel bathrobe era, which is especially hilarious given at the time that's more than I'd ever written for any single finished piece of fiction:

Sometimes he likes to imagine how Dean might tend to him now, if he were here, instead of wherever he is. Metatron seems to have had a penchant for regency romances at some point, which provide Castiel with lots of inspiration for how humans might tend to their ailing loved ones. Rain showers seemed to be treated as particularly hazardous in the past, something he can begin to appreciate from his time as a human, and in general humans in these novels are depicted as falling dramatically ill strikingly more often than he has witnessed spending time with Sam and Dean. His own affliction is of course very different to those of the characters being treated, but even with that, and with the time elapsed, he sees no reason why similar principles wouldn’t apply. Cas can imagine his eyes slipping closed to the sight of Dean at his bedside, and then blinking awake to still find him there, several hours later, just as a gesture of concern, to no practical end, but perhaps Cas’s comfort. He knows it’s not realistic, not even if Dean were fully Dean, rather than whatever it is that the combination of his death at Metatron’s hand and the effects of the Mark of Cain has resulted in. Dean would be more sensible than to dedicate all that time to the sunk cost Cas has become, and Cas isn’t foolish enough to pretend otherwise. He didn’t give up his angel army for Dean expecting to get something out of it. But he can still imagine that Dean might stay with him and rub his back when he coughed, or wipe his forehead with a damp cloth, or that he might wake up to Dean’s hand in his. He’s not sure what the damp cloth is supposed to achieve as such, but it is nice to think about Dean doing that. If anything, the fact that he knows it wouldn’t happen makes it a safer train of thought. He’s not being presumptuous if he doesn’t remotely presume.

hi!!

so for 11: (in no order

so says the sword.

my roots take flight

who ya gonna call by daphne ( @saintedcastiel) go read it right now it’s soo good. yku should probably read her other fics too they’re all so good!

20. i feel like i keep writing amara getting all of the good powers, a lot of dean having trouble saying what he wants to.. a lot of talk about cas getting a cat (and my wip has cas actually getting a cat. so) i also have two fics that are got their names from Hey Jude lyrics

43. i don’t whump characters as much i think - like i don’t put them in horribly angst situations - but i do like to explore existing angst in their characters, and so i guess i’ll put them in situations where that angst can really come out? i may just not understand what whump means entirely though