Hi!! I absolutely LOVE and admire broken road so much!!! I hope you don't mind me asking, but I was just wondering how you went about planning the fic!! There are so many important things you tackled and it all fit together so seemlessly!!! Like everyone's past traumas and dynamics with each other and the pov switches! Like that's so incredible and amazing and you did such a fantastic job at it
HI THANK YOU <3 i actually canāt believe i donāt have a post about how i outline/make things already, iām really happy i get an excuse to write one!! my main thing is that i am definitely a very firm believer in outlining,Ā i think itās important to have a way to zoom out of your fic and a way to keep track of what youāre doing so you donāt flounder in the middle. in my very unprofessional opinion creating a good outline is its own skill w/ its own benefits!! so my creation process for this fic or any other has a lot to do w/ that. since iām using broken road as my fic example here, content warnings for this post include very light discussion of child abuse, past sexual assault, & suicide. also this is a long ass post nobody is obligated to read all of it lol
so w/o further ado, PROCESS FOR CREATING A FANFIC/FIC OUTLINE:
step 1 - make a new outline doc. you donāt want this at the bottom of your fic generally because it may get long - mine usually end up having sections for different types of outlining/different character arcs (weāll cover that later). this picture is one from my merlin outline doc, but my broken road doc had sections too, they just werenāt as neat and pretty. when i started working on it seriously, i was so sure that i wouldnāt finish that i didnāt adhere to my usual organizational standards lol so itās not a good example
step 2 - write down everything you WANT to happen in this fic. like, i just make it a bullet list, i donāt worry about ordering anything, i donāt worry about making it make sense. iām just getting things from my brain to my computer. why are you writing this? what scenes randomly popped into your head while thinking about it? so for broken road the very first scene i imagined was deanās speech to john in chapter 6, and shortly after that was dean & cas in the impala in chapter 3. stuff like that. i really liked john and maryās reunion from 14.13 proper, so i added it only with more hollywood romance lol.Ā
step 3 - add the things you NEED to happen in the fic to make it work, the stuff you use to get from Point A to Point B, stuff that doesnāt make sense not to address. using broken road as the example, i need to have a scene where john comes back, i need to have a scene where sam and dean discuss flagstaff, etc. this also includes character combinations - i had a little tableĀ i used to make sure every major character had at least once meaningful moment with every other major character. this table was actually quite helpful because i realized once i made it that i didnāt have cas interacting with anyone besides dean, so i was able to go back and add ideas for scenes where he could interact w/ everyone else.Ā
and then you also have what each character NEEDS - sam needs to be able to address his anger at john, sam needs the catharsis of being able to stop john from putting his hands on dean (hence the punch), mary needs to learn about the whole awful truth, including flagstaff, dean and jack need to address early season 13 where dean emotionally abused him into attempting suicide, dean needs to address his own anger at john, and cas (the only character not directly affected by johnās abuse) of course needs to see to deanās safety, but also needs to figure out where he stands with dean romantically, since they sort of got together in the heat of the moment. so throw all that in there too! anything you can think of. you can always axe what you donāt use later. this is how iĀ ārememberā all of the important stuff and how iām going to make it fit later.
step 3.5 - research. if youāre working with unfamiliar topics (if youāre writing about trauma and have never experienced trauma for example) this is a good time to do a little reading. itāll give you ideas for things you might need to include.
step 4 - attempt to put your bullet points in some kind of chronological order. this is probably the hardest step/trickiest part for me and it usually takes many revisions to get it just right. like especially if you have a lot of bullet points how tf do you know which ones go first??
if there are certain arcs, you can sort the bullet points by type - this scene for deanās anger arc, that scene for johnās snooping around trying to figure out whatās wrong with dean arc, this other scene for john and maryās semi-divorce arc. i like to color-code them as well just because it makes things easier to keep track of and also because iām gay. then you can sort of make sure youāre distributing things evenly, so you donāt have 6 scenes in a row about mary my beloved.
sometimes this is when i make sections in my outline. for example, i needed one for deanās anger - because john is so quick to shift the blame away from himself, dean also learned to shift the blame away from john. so i needed a few scenes where he got angry at other people for johnās behavior - angry at jack for spilling the beans about dean going to hell (when he should be angry at JOHN for taking it poorly), angry at sam for yelling at john (when he should be angry at JOHN for threatening jack), angry at mary for breaking up with john (when he should be angry with JOHN for abusing his kids), etc etc.Ā
within various character/plot arcs, there also needs to be a sense of escalation. for example, i also needed a section for michaelās antics and attempts to break out of the cage in deanās mind. heās not going to START with straight-up hallucinations, and heās definitely not going to start with the hallucinations most likely to break deanās will (i guess he could but it would make for badly paced fiction). so i had to organize them by order of how frightening they were, to gradually build up the intensity - he goes from giving dean headaches to making dean flash back to upsetting memories to creating brand new upsetting things to show him to actually moving deanās body to make sure dean canāt stab him.Ā
same with johnāsĀ ācaseā - he canāt find out right away that deanās got an angel inside him, so first he finds out about angels in general, then michael specifically, then the apocalypse and how possession bloodlines work, etc. same w/ deanās bodily autonomy and history of assault - first we talk about his issues & why they prevent him from being with cas, then they kiss, and then they do more than kiss. actually, if i hadnāt been so attached to the sex scene where it was, the smart thing to do wouldāve been to put it after their fight in chapter 4, because thatās a steadier pace/escalation, but i had a very firm picture in my mind of how i wanted it to be, so i cheated a little.
the trickiest part of broken road was also selling my audience on the idea that itās OK for dean to love john unconditionally, even despite the fact that john is an abuser, and that john might never love dean in the same way. a lot of john fics involve dean cutting his dad out or whatever and that wasnāt how i wanted mine to be.Ā i actually wound up going back to restructure this after i had already written a good 60% of the fic. i had to organize things so that dean revealed more of his feelings about john closer to the end, rather than attempting to get all that out of the way right off. thereās a bit in chapter 3 where dean talks about john being the reason he learned to talk again - believe it or not, that was initially in chapter 1. way too early! so sometimes you will realize there needs to be an arc you didnāt plan for and then have to *gag* edit stuff.
typically, you want as even a distribution as possible. work on one arc for awhile and then switch to another. juggle juggle juggle. especially for things like deanās anger - it takes time to sink in that john might actually be the one to be angry at about the abuse.
like i said, this sometimes takes a lot of tries to get right, itās hard to nail it the first time, sometimes i find myself changing my outline even after i start writing, and thatās OK. whatever works best for the story!
step 4.5 - this is also when i make other sections in my outline. if you want to keep track of your timeline, for example, itās best to do it as you go. this doesnt have to include precise dates or anything - just say x days later, or a few weeks later, whatever, so you donāt lose track of when stuff is happening. important for big projects. i couldnāt be assed to make one for broken road bc the entire fic takes place over less than a week but the fact that itās not longer, in-universe, is actually one of the things i donāt like about the fic. 108k feels like way too many words for a 4-5 day fic. i also like to make a section for editing notes - anything i need to remember to fix in my fic. another section for plotholes that need solving, as i think of them. a section for blocking, which we will get to later, and another section as just a free space - if you think of something for your fic and donāt know where to put it or itās just something you want to remember, you can write it down in the free space just so you donāt forget. the free space is also good for talking things out - when i was really stuck, i would simply start typing like i was describing my problem to a friend, and sometimes that helped me work it out (like the fanfic writerās version of the rubber duck). you can also add a section for writing you have to cut, just in case you find a place you can stick it back in later. thereās no specific time you have to add your new sections, i add them as i need them, but yk.
step 5 - anyway, once your ideas are all in a loose chronological order, you can decide things like which items go together in which scenes and whose pov those scenes are from, and then also divide it into chapters if you like. i wrote a whole thing about pov hereĀ but the shorthand is to write from the pov that has the most at stake. for broken road, my rule was to stick to deanās pov except for scenes dean could not be present for in their entirety, and then i switched to john. also sometimes you can combine multiple plot points into a single scene! for example i was able to have mary learning about flagstaff and dean and cas make up in the same scene, because they were thematically similar.Ā
i donāt use my original bullet point for this, i save it for later, but i rewrite the outline by scene from scratch.Ā when you finish it might look something like this or this:
this is the zoomed out scene outline for broken roadās first six chapters. as you can see, itās color coded according to pov and the slashes divide it up into chapters - though actually, i didnāt start dividing up anything into chapters until i was 2-3 chapters in. to be honest, my chapters were so long that now i kind of wish i had made them shorter lol. sorry if u canāt read it, i like to make my backgrounds dark when i have a headache.
anyway, i find it very helpful to have scene numbers - i even type down what number the scene is in the fic docĀ (along w/ scene status but thatās for later) so i can keep track of it better.
step 6 - flesh out the outline.Ā down further, i also had someĀ āzoomed inā outlines:
i do this for every scene - i like to take my original bullet point list, the very first one i made of things thatĀ i wanted to happen in this fic, and make sure every bullet point is in one of these scenes. and if i think of more stuff i need to add later, that gives me an easy place to put it. for example i knew i wanted to address adam SOMEWHERE in this fic, and decided it fit best here, so in it goes.
sometimes i color-code those extra bullets. for exampleĀ āsam tells john he went to hellā is actually a piece of evidence john uses to figure out whatās wrong with dean, so thatās part of that arc. butĀ āsam tells john to back offā is part of samās arc, so thatād be in a different color. i didnāt do it this time but sometimes itās helpful to see your arc distributions.
i actually wound up doing a lot of revising to my outline as i wrote broken road (bad!) so itās not out of the question that i need to add scenes or swap bullet points around, and this makes it pretty easy to edit with copying and pasting w/o having to do a lot of retyping. in an ideal world, youād really solidify this outline before you got started drafting, but sometimes you can outline too much and kill your drive to work on it, or outlining becomes a way to procrastinate on actually writing, and in that case itās better to just fucking bite the bullet and get started.
step 7 - set up ur fic doc. i like to make sure i have important links at the top (to my spreadsheets if i have any, to for example the 14.13 transcript, to my outline doc) and make sure that it has the proper headings so it auto-creates that outline on the side (here are some pictures).
step 7.5 - spreadsheets! if you want to use a ticky-box spreadsheet to keep track of your arcs this is a good time to make it. if you like to use a spreadsheet to keep track of your wordcount you can make one of those too. (i donāt have a post about these, but itās easy enough to do one column for the date and another for the word count. then you can make graphs! i was too lazy to do this for broken road but i like to do it most of the time.)
step 8 - blocking!! i have a whole post on blocking here (which uses merlin as a fic example instead of spn, sorry, but it should still make sense). this post is already super long so iām not gonna rewrite all of that here, but essentially planning out the beats/dialogue of your scene before you write it will make the writing go faster. at least, it does for me.
step 9 - scene headers. this is the scene number, the pov, and theĀ āstatusā of the scene, which will sometimes be in your spreadsheets - i generally use W to mean needs Writing, R for needs Rewriting, E for needs Editing, * for done, and a checkmark for posted. since google makes the automatic outline on the side this is a great way to quickly jump around, especially for long projects.Ā it's also great to be able to see your fic "zoomed out" at a glance - the spreadsheets help with this too.
step 10 - actually write. FINALLY. as someone whose favorite part of the process IS WRITING i realize the rest of this may seem excessive to other people. personally i think itās well-worth the payoff. my favorite resource on writing is the triangle method, aka an article called how to go from writing 2k a day to 10k a day, which posits that in order to boost your productivity to the max itās best to have 1. time to write 2. enthusiasm and 3. knowledge of what the hell youāre doing, which is what my outlining process is about. if i block my shit out and i have a solid outline, itās nothing at all for me to write as much as 2 or 3 THOUSAND words in just an hour or two. in fact, i wrote about 8k+ in a single day when i was doing chapter 6 of broken road (yes i actually did the second half of deanās speech after the punch AND the entire michael scene in one sitting), because i knew what i wanted to happen and i was excited about doing it. my goal is to one day do 10k in a single day!!
i like to write in order, because i think itās a good way to add bookends/callbacks to previous scenes and remember what you have where (also a good way to not accidentally plothole yourself), but you can do what your heart moves you to. also, when writing, if there is a scene you really just CANāT get to go down on the page, you are allowed to skip it and come back to it! but my favorite thing is to quote something from close to the beginning of the story again near the end...it reminds us of how far weāve come and itās a good way to tug heartstrings.
step 11 - edit. BOOOOO i really hate editing, anyone whoās known me for 5 minutes has heard me complain about editing, but it must be done. the main thing to remember is to try your best to avoid editing while youāre writing. itās very tempting, but that is the SLOWEST way to do anything. try to finish the whole draft first, and if you canāt manage that, try to finish the whole chapter, or at the very least the whole scene! what helps me a lot is when i donāt like a sentence or i canāt find the turn of phrase iām looking for, i leave a note on it (or if youāre working with a program that doesnāt have that feature you can jot it down elsewhere) so i can assure myself i wonāt forget/over the mistake and then keep moving on. when the scene/chapter/fic is finished, i can come back to it and solve all those issues one by one.Ā
this is also where i can go back and restructure things if i need to, although sometimes you have to edit things before you can keep going because you need to know what you have written down so far. since i write in order, i have a hard time moving forward if i know one scene is going to change drastically.Ā
step 12 - summary/tags/title. tags are easy enough as long as you donāt go overboard but summaries SUCK. itās my pet peeve when people just leave excerpts because that doesnāt tell me anything...and then they wind up accidentally summarizing in the authorās notes. read some book jackets or watch some movie trailers to get inspired if you want, but even a bad summary is better than no summary, as long as it isnāt too long.Ā āi suck at summariesā is an instant way to turn people away from your work so donāt type that even if itās true
i wish i had better advice to offer about titles, but they usually come to me during the writing process - from a song, or a phrase in the fic itself, or just something else entirely. i canāt always do this, but i love being able to work a title drop into the fic. it just feels very exciting!!! and also sort of clues us in on what the title Means.
step 13 - post >:) i like to finish the whole thing before i post because otherwise i might just leave it unfinished FOREVERRR but then also i like to post the chapters one by one, then get to post as i edit (early dopamine!) instead of having to edit the entire thing first. and then posting weekly is a good way to have people read along and be excited with you. itās also fun to blog about it and post excerpts! thatās part of how i wound up drumming up so much attention for broken road, i think. honestly the response has been so huge, iām humbled every week. i canāt believe this thursday is the last chapter!
and...yeah. that was/is my process. idk if thatās interesting to anybody but me, or helpful to anybody but me, but itās how i make sure things fit and that theyāre paced well. i actually think broken roadās pacing could use a lot of work - probably my best paced fics are either anchor (teen wolf) or how arthur got his groove back (merlin), but like i said when i started it i never actually intended to finish, so it was more important to Go than to spend 6 zillion years on the planning process, or it wouldnāt have gotten done.
anyway, i know you said not to bother with this question but ty for sending it!!! i really love to talk about this stuff, it was a fun way to distract myself from vaccine symptoms lol.
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something dean and i are both learning over the course of this fanfic is that mary is johnās ONLY form of impulse control (if you donāt count the fact that sam got real big and could and would lay john out flat in a heartbeat). like it only works about 75% of the time but if mary saysĀ ājohn donātā he usually doesnāt. and then the rest of the time he just does whatever he wants, which usually falls under the umbrella of being a huge asshole and a horrifically bad parent. like we been knew sam and deanās childhoods were Like That bc john went crazy with grief or whatever but also they were like that because john lost hisĀ ājohn donātā person. dean could goĀ ādad donātā sometimes (we see him do it in season 1 when john and sam are fighting) but i think it didnāt work nearly as well as maryās - something iām sure he feels completely normal ways about the first time he watches mary stop one of johnās rages in its tracks with a single word,
thereās this funny thing i love to do in this fic which is that johnās opinion of cas is IDENTICAL to casās opinion of john.Ā āi donāt think youāre capable of real love because youāre an utterly inhuman MONSTER, but for some reason MY FAMILY loves you so i will tolerate you while hating your guts, even though i would KILL YOU given half a chance if the people I LOVE wouldnāt mourn your demise, also you are an interloper at this family tableā
i literally waited until now to answer these ask meme questions so i could do this w/o spoilers. anyway time to do an ask meme i got questions for THREE ENTIRE WEEKS ago
#5 - "my girl" john/mary reunion
Mary rushes forward into John's waiting arms. He gathers her up and holds her close, pressing kiss after kiss into her hair, tears running down his face. "My girl," he says, in aching disbelief, drawing back to cup her face in his hands. "My girl." She laughs through her own tears, and when he smooths one gun-calloused thumb under her eye she turns her face into his hand, and then he draws her close and kisses her, like they're the only two people left in the whole wide world.
look. am i valid? no. but they compel me. to them their story is just as real and longlasting as dean/cas is to us. so i added a little gutpunch to that reunion because itās my fic and i get to do what i want >:) actually, even though i made a point of calling johnĀ ādadā and maryĀ āmomā in deanās pov, in this moment, i deliberately used their names - itās more than just mom and dad, itās theee john and mary winchester back together after all these years. no, they donāt stay that way, but after a 22-year quest in her name, it still deserves to be like a Reunion.Ā
(other four are below the cut to spare ur dashes. there are major spoilers for the whole fic, just warning u)
#4 - john getting punched by [SPOILER]
Dean's shoves his father with all his might, yelling, "Let go of me!" Partially because even though just moments ago the dungeon was exactly where he wanted to be, he absolutely doesn't want Dad to be the one to put him there, partially because he's afraid that Michael is about to break free from that cage in his head and vaporize everybody in firing range, and partially because he's afraid that if Dad doesn't let go, Cas will kill him.
But Dean's only got one hand free, and Dad's grip is too strong. Michael and sleep deprivation have made Dean weak; he can't get away from Dad on his own.
Then, when Cas is still just out of arm's reach, Sam lays into Dad with the fiercest right hook Dean's ever seen.
Dean knows that right hook well. That's one of the first moves Dad taught him, one Dad forced him to practice a thousand miserable timesāhow to stand, when to turn, where to throw his weightāuntil he honed it to absolute unthinking perfection. And it is perfect: Sam nails Dad right on the jaw with all six feet and change of muscle, sending him staggering back, his grip on Dean slipping free.
Dad slumps against the wall for a moment like he's literally seeing stars, like it's all he can do not to pass out. His nose looks like it might be broken. Dean rounds on his brother; if he was expecting Dean to thank him for that, he's going to be disappointed. "What the hell, Sam?"
But Sam's looking at Dad, not at Dean. "He said," Sam pants, "to let go of him."
iām normally very anti-punching john, but i feel like if anybody has the right to do it, itās sam. heās spent his whole life being protected from john by dean and he finally gets to return the favor! all his problems are solved because heās literally the bigger man now in every way! i doubt sam would ever punch john on his own behalf, but it is UTTERLY in character for him to do it in defense of someone else, but i bet it was pretty fucking cathartic too. picking sam moments in this fic is like picking children but this...you know, it wasnāt even in my outline. it happened organically as i wrote. and it just. feels right.
#3 - sam telling john to clean up his mess
"Seriously, Dadāwe've had enough of your lip service. You're sorry? You want to help? Clean up your mess."
What? John frowns. Does he mean Dean?
But, noāSam twists and picks up an actual mop and bucket from the corner behind him. The bucket is full of red-tinted water. "Go in the kitchen," he says, "and if Dean says you can use the sink, run some clean water with bleach. We gotta get the blood off the floor, because the longer it stays there, the worse it'll staināespecially on the hardwood."
"Uh," says John.
Then Sam gives him a severe, no-nonsense look that nearly punches the breath from John's lungsābecause for the very first time, he sees his Mary in that stubbornly unimpressed face. "Do you understand? This isn't a motel. You can't expect someone else to do it for you. Don't go in the kitchen," Sam says slowly, enunciating every word, "unless you're going. To clean up. Your mess. You want room serviceāthere's the fucking door."
THEREāS THE FUCKING DOOR. i love this bc firstly i believe in man of the house sam and secondly it falls into the same thing of like...sam is finally big and strong enough to protect dean and by god he will make himself an impassable 6ā²4 between this man and his brother. i think especially since finding out about flagstaff, DOUBLY since becoming a parent, sam is like...so less than impressed with johnās bullshit, and even more impatient than he already was of johnās stupid excuses.Ā
thereās also this motif of cleaning throughout the fic - in john and samās very first scene alone together, they are washing dishes. at first this was a nod to sam and dean doing it in lebanon - dean washing, sam drying - but washing is theĀ āhardā part of doing the dishes; when my mom taught me how to do them i began learning by drying first. so of course dean has been washing and letting sam dry all their lives - almost literally, because john talks pretty early on about dean being a neat freak too, because john simply wouldnāt pick up after himself but still hated the mess. thereās a few mentions of it in the fic, how john liked being able to leave a mess behind in their motel rooms, how heād prop his feet on the table - but in season 10, itās sam on his knees scrubbing the bloodstained floors after deanās murder spree, and in broken road sam makes john wash the dishes, and at the end, sam makes him mop. @maulthots put it best:
like thatās it. that's literally it.Ā and then, finally, john offers to clean up on his own without being asked. thatās Growthā¢, at least in whatever way heās capable of it. at any rate, heās too afraid of getting hit again to NOT clean up after himself lol
#2 - dean/cas car scene [content warning for nsfw and discussion of past sexual violence - scroll down to #1 if youād like to skip it!]
Cas lets go of Dean, but it's to reposition his hands on Dean's knees, slide those huge palms up Dean's thighs. Dean feels the heat of them bleeding through his jeans. Then, holy shit, Cas rests his thumbs on Dean's belt buckle, and makes eye contact.
Dean wets his lips, a little uncertain. He has no idea what Cas is going to do. "Yeah, okay," he croaks.
Cas leans in and kisses him again while he undoes Dean's belt. Likeāfuck, like he knew Dean wouldn't want to watch. Dean hears the zipper on his fly, and all at once it clocks that, yeah, okay, this is really happening. Heart thudding in his ears, Dean reflexively lifts his hips so Cas can pull his jeans off. But Cas only slides them down a little. Then he reaches into Dean's boxers and gets a hand around his dick.
Oh. A small, quiet noise drops out of Dean into Cas's mouth, and he turns out of the kiss, panting as Cas pulls him out of his clothes. He's not sure what he was expecting, but this is okay. Just a handjobāhe can handle that. It's good, actually. A little dry, but Cas has a light touch, and Dean has decided that he likes Cas's hands. He knows the shape of them very well.
i really enjoyed writing this whole scene, but this was my favorite part. cas technically does get deanās consent, which was important to cas and a little bit of a big deal for dean too, but dean didnāt ask what cas was going to do before giving that consent, because he almost...doesnāt care? like, deanās previous experiences with men were all lousy at best, and violent and traumatizing at worst, and arguably none of them were 100% consensual. so part of him is figuring that whatever happens will be within that spectrum, and heāll just deal with it being awful no matter what it is because he almost literally canāt picture it not being awful. he's not doing it because he likes fucking men or expects heāll like fucking cas, heās doing because he wants to be close to cas, he wants to be away from michael and his dad, and because if he and cas are together now thatās part of the package and heās just done the fullĀ āfor keepsā commitment bit, so heās not gonna pussy out now, right? he trusts cas not to actually harm him, and be closer toĀ ālousyā thanĀ āviolent,ā but he is, in his mind, basically giving cas consent to hurt him, because to him thatās what sex with men IS. and heās understandably pretty nervous because he doesnāt know whatās going to happen - all heās sure of is that he wonāt like it.Ā
but then he does like it! he likes it a lot! trusting cas turns out to be the correct choice! because if cas had turned him down in that moment, trying to baby him or second guess him, i think dean would have felt really hurt and angry and embarrassed, he would have felt like he was broken or untouchable. which is why cas took him at his word, but ALSO did pretty much the most tame thing you can do and still count it as having sex. so cas managed to thread the needle perfectly because he knows dean so well and heās literally been inside his mind and witnessed that trauma and knew everything to avoid doing. so for dean it wound up being TRULY consensual instead of theĀ sort of fake consent heās used to handing out to johns. if that makes any sense. idk i just really enjoyed doing it. i think a valid reading is that dean has this physical fear of men that is just...not explored very much in fic. and it was nice to write something where cas was sort of able to undo or heal a little of that damage.Ā
#1 - michael
No, no, noāwe can't dieāwe can't die, we are eternal, we are our Father's most beloved, His favorite sonā
No no no no no no no no noāI can't dieāI can't dieā
Light fills the room, reflecting in Dean's eyes making them look as though they glow. And for the very first time, John sees him. John sees him, John sees him, John sees himā
Where is my Father? Is He watching? Can He see me?
Father, help me, I beg Youāplease, I don't want to dieā
I don't want to dieā
i could honestly paste the entire michael scene here, thereās not a thing about it i donāt love, but this was probably my favorite part. and look, i waited NINE YEARS to see michael!dean, i deserved to go apeshit!!! i think the fun thing about michael is that heās a great foil to both john and dean, the literal connecting tissue, especially when heās hopping bodies like that. heās deanās aggressor but heās also deanās twisted reflection, nearly broken by his fatherās absence. it was impossible for john to see dean as he really is until michael let him see it through deanās own eyes.
and thenĀ āiā at the end - i knew going in that i wanted aĀ āweā pronoun (though i almost chickened out of it), because michaelās in charge but heās also making his vessel do things with him, like laugh or scream or hurt people. but when michael dies, heās alone figuratively and literally, because johnās not dying with him, and his own father has forsaken him too - and thatās the way dean so often felt, and FEELING that was probably the only thing that could possibly give john the motivation to be even slightly less self-centered and shitty.Ā
michael was my whole reason for writing this fic - because i was livid they didnāt use him to tie dean and john together in canon, because the burden of being his vessel is just one more thing dean had to take...this whole chapter, this whole fic, hinged entirety on the batshit insane dynamic between michael and dean and john. and like there are parts of this fic i was insecure about and wished i could have done better, but this? i think i nailed it. definitely the part i had the most fun writing.Ā
but like, honorable mention?
"Dude," Dean says, flipping on his blinker so he can pull up beside the local grocery, "can we not do any touchy-feely shit, please? That'sā"
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i realized i wasnāt properly visualizing any real seating arrangements for the family dinner from hell in chapter one, and promptly set about rectifying it (with color-coding, OBVIOUSLY). this is the only arrangement that has mary to johnās right and cas to deanās right (parallels!) and also doesnāt have john close enough to jack to think about stabbing him OR cas close enough to john to think about stabbing HIM. and if this was stressful for ME, i canāt imagine how it felt for dean. iām so sorry, sam winchester. you do not deserve this
the ages of the occupants in the bunker as of 14.13, listed from youngest to oldest
inspired byĀ this;Ā since 14.09 and 14.10 took place during christmas of 2018, i feel like a good guess for the date of 14.13 is sometime in mid-january 2019, before deanās birthday.Ā in this meta, biological age refers how old they appear, chronological age refers to how many years on the calendar itās been since they were born, and for characters who went to hell, iām also using mental age toĀ refer to the number of years they have actually consciously experienced. (heaven time will not be calculated into mental age, because characters frequently seem unable to remember it beyond a few hazy impressions at best.)
jack kline: 18 years biologically,Ā 1.5 years chronologicallyĀ - born in may 2017, he would be about a year and a half old chronologically. theoretically his biological age is probably about 18 (or at least thatās what they claimed in season 14 - given that he also says he deliberately came into this world as an adult and that cas seems to think his lifespan will greatly outlast a human beingās, we can assume his biological age was 18 in 2017, and that since humans age normally and angels donāt age at all, jack is aging slowly as a compromise). itās worth noting that the half a season he spent in apocalypse world accounts for an entire THIRD of his total lifespan so far. he only spent a couple of weeks with cas before stuck, and once he returned dean was taken by michael almost immediately, so heās also only had his entire family together for about a third of his life, too.
mary winchester: 31 years biologically, 64 years chronologically - mary was born in december of 1954, so when she died in november 1983 she was 28 years old, just a month shy of her 29th birthday. this would have her turning 29 in during season 12, turning 30 during season 13 (in apocalypse world!), and 31 in season 14 - her birthdays for 2016, 2017, and 2018 respectively. since she wasnāt brought back on the same day she died, she did repeat part of a year there at the beginning of season 12, but it was only a few months. as a bonus, if eileen (born 1985, died 2017) were somehow brought back a season early, she and mary would be about the same age :(
sam winchester: 35 years biologically/chronologically, 157 mentally - samās age is something of a nightmare when you consider 1. mystery spot and 2. that his SOUL was dead and in hell for a year (a year which they later retconned out of existence so that the showās calendar would match the real-life one) while his body was on earth almost that entire time (depending on how soon cas sprang him after 5.22 - it was probably only days, but it couldnāt have been longer than a couple of weeks). mystery spot is fairly straight-forward; 100 tuesdays + 6 months is about 9 months (or 1 year, if weāre rounding) to his mental age. the separation of samās soul and body and how long his year in hell FELT to him is messier and something of a point of debate. since sam experienced the same time dually in both the physical plane and hell (years as both a body and a soul count), we have to add ANOTHER year to his mental age to account for that. as for how long his time in hell was from his perspective - itās generally accepted that 1 month on earth is like 40 years in hell, which puts it at a minimum of 120 years. but in season 6 he has a flashback which lastsĀ ātwo or three minutesā that sam says felt likeĀ āabout a week.ā since there are 525,600 minutes in a year, thatās potentially 175,200-262,800 weeks (depending on whether it was 2 minutes or 3), or a staggering 3360-5040 years. the nature of a flashback not matching reality, though, iām more comfortable going with 120 years than 5040, making his āmental ageā 157. (though if you pushed it to the maximum possible limit and added the 5040 years, thatād put him at 5077, or almost 51 CENTURIES, and in that case, deanās older brother privileges? officially revoked.) either way, as far as years experienced, he IS the oldest human on this list.
CAS THEE TIEL: 35 biologically, 4.5 billion chronologically - jimmy novak has no canon age, but since sam and dean were the same age of their actors, iām going with misha collinsās age at the time cas possessed jimmy - he was born in 1974, and even though the timeline around jimmyās possession is confusing, either way misha collins would have had his 2008 birthday but not his 2009 one, so that puts him at 34 (even though misha collins the human aged, cas warns jimmy in 4.20 that he will NOT age). cas was also a fallen angel during the last month or so of season 5, and for about 6 months in season 9. assuming he DID age during that time, and that misha collins was closer to his 35th birthday than his 34th one during the time cas possessed jimmy, iām comfortable with saying his body looks like and will always look like a 35yo holy tax accountant - assuming he continues to be an angel, of course. as for his chronological age, iām going with the age of the earth, since they probably would have been created at about the same time. (unless you read named, in which *gunshots*)
dean winchester: 39 years biologically/chronologically, 79 mentally - again, since this is right before deanās 40th birthday, heās still 39 for just a couple of weeks. he likely stopped aging when michael possessed him, though (which was about a month - who knows if dean would age while caging michael as he is as of 14.13). add the 40 years dean spent in hell, and he is now MENTALLY almost as old as he was when he got aged up in 5.07 (being ~30 at the time, and adding 50 to that). this means right now heās biologically older than cas, but he would have been casās age during 2013-2014 - interestingly enough, when cas was human (and for about a year after he became an angel again - so, during deanās time with the mark of cain, including, yes, The Beatdown).
john winchester: 51 years biologically/chronologically, 151 mentally - the john that canonically got pulled from 2003 was 48 years old in every respect, but iām calculating his age based on if he was ACTUALLY revived and pulled down from heaven permanently, since thatās what iām doing in my fanfic. thereās some conflicting canon about johnās birth date, but best guesses put him in december of 1954 like mary. thereās also conflicting information about what month he died, but it was in 2006 and before his birthday in december, so that puts him at 51. alastair says he was in hell forĀ āclose to a century,ā so weāll round that and call that 100 years.Ā
apocalypse world michael:Ā n/a biologically, between 4.5 billion and 13.7 billion chronologically - older than cas, but younger than the universe. currently has no physical form due to being stuck inside dean winchester, something i will happily continue to be a freak about >:)
6. Whatās the detail you wait on bated breath for readers to notice?
HMMM...oh, i know! the first time the phraseĀ āfor keepsā comes up in the fic, it isnāt when dean and cas are in the car together - itās much earlier, near the start of chapter 2, when heās thinking about john and maryās marriage. i didnāt have michael call that their marriage vows for no reason - i literally did genuinely intend for dean to be more or less popping the question, or answering the question. like theyāre literally engaged now like i mean that genuinely and without irony dean did that on purpose and cas understood his intentions perfectly they just didnāt talk about it bc theyāre freaks and too many honest conversations about emotions will scare dean away like a feral cat
12.Ā Whatās the hardest thing to write for you?
oh i feel like i have talked about this a lot lately, but itās the ARGUMENTS. i can write action, i can write sex, but i canāt write people being shitty to each other on purpose. as an eldest daughter iām trained in de-escalation so it goes against ever fiber of my being to actively make arguments WORSE. itās my weak point
