#castielslostwings

Hi! I'm publishing a book! It's HERE, just in time for Christmas!! It's GAY!! It's romantic!!! It's HOT! It has firefighters and background sapphic romance, and is exciting AF!!!

I'm very excited, too!

Both U.S. domestic and international friends can order shipped Paperbacks from me directly via my Ko-Fi shop (retailers take less of a cut): https://ko-fi.com/castielslostwings/shop Or you can order on amazon directly, this is the only way to get the KINDLE ebook option: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1945687126

Standard EPUB format is available to download directly from me for $1 cheaper than Amazon: https://ko-fi.com/s/2a82c64d56

And WILL be available at other retailers soon!

Here's the thing: I had a pretty solid platform on Twitter, but since Elon took over, a lot of my followers left, the algorithm crashed, and the whole thing might go under. I don't have the same reach on other platforms, so I need some help! Please share this post if you like GAY SHIT and BOOKS and helping indie content creators be successful!!! Please follow me or check out my ko-fi for updates! Thanks!!! Here's my pitch, hope you like it:

"Fire & Ice": The flaming hot queer romance novel where a foray into BDSM helps two best friends find themselves, each other, and what it really means to burn. Summary: "Firefighter Tripp Truett has somehow tumbled into a whole new kind of relationship with his quirky paramedic best friend, Lee, but mutual relief from their high-stress jobs quickly develops into something more. With all the missed signals and crossed wires, can these two ever figure out that they're so much closer to being on the same page than they think?"

**************************************** About the author (info dump ahoy!!!!) :

I'm Robin, sometimes known as Wings! I'm a 36-year-old, queer, autistic, disabled mom of 2 humans and 5 senior rescue dogs, former R.N. & paramedic. I'm a hardcore fangirl and a proud fanfic writer (and reader), and while I know some people will judge me for that, I am not ashamed! I started writing as a hobby after becoming physically disabled and unable to work as an RN. Fanfic gave me an audience and an outlet, gifted me purpose and hope again. Transformative fiction is FUN! It fosters creativity and passion, heals wounds, and makes people happy. If someone wants to discredit me for that, then perhaps they aren't the audience I'm seeking.

Ultimately, I know I'm taking a risk, but since people seem to enjoy my fics, this book is my attempt to try and make ends meet through original fiction! I know some people WILL discredit me. But I'm always about being myself and speaking on what I feel matters: Fanfic should be legitimized as a creative medium. I assure you, friends—the thousands of hours I've spent on my fanworks are as REAL as it gets. The intersection of disparaging fanfic + sexism/misogyny can't be overstated—women (esp queer women)'s unpaid work is often treated as a "hobby," not worthy of uplifting. I'm here to uplift! The risk is worth it—I would have nothing without fanfic & I'm proud. Younger creators shouldn't feel shame about writing/reading fanfic. We should ALL approach it as a legitimate medium. In fact, MOST new media these days is transformative "fanwork" of SOME kind, whether it's inspired by, based on, or outright rebooting existing worlds.

Plus, we queer folk simply deserve to see our stories in the mainstream media and to see the characters we fall in love, identify with, and root for to get their happily ever afters.

TL;DR: I'm keeping my name and history. Hopefully, I'll be successful in original fiction, but if not, I'll still be a fangirl. Please consider supporting me + other creators attempting to dip into original works. Follow or subscribe to my ko-fi for previews, updates, access to my discord community where I share exclusive content, and more: https://ko-fi.com/castielslostwings FIRE & ICE IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH MULTIPLE PLATFORMS! Ko-Fi subscribers will have the option to buy signed copies & merch bundles! The link to purchase will also be posted there first.

A MAJOR thank you to my friends, editors, and to everyone who in my server for supporting and encouraging me to put myself out there and try something new. Love you guys so much. <3 Thank you to @chaoticdean for the beautiful cover. Many more thank yous to come. P.S. If you are reading this and know anyone with a platform who might be interested in receiving a free copy in exchange for promo (only if they enjoy, ofc), please holler at me, I can use all the help I can get!

While I have watched SPN a few times over the years (watching and rewatching as new seasons came out), I did not join the fandom until this year – this is (at the age of ‘older than most’) my first fandom, and I fucking love it here. Due to not being part of a fandom previously, I had also never read fanfiction until this year; and to say that I fell headfirst into the ocean of Destiel fic is an understatement.  I wanted to track my progress – I wanted to understand what I was capable of accomplishing in (less than) a year.  

While I can’t scream this from the rafters anywhere but here – I’m proud as hell of the number of fics and the total amount of fic I’ve consumed this year.  Of all the amazing authors I have found, followed, and screamed over – of all the stories (of the same two idiots) I have devoured and begged for more on, I know there are so many more stories to read and so many more authors to find.  

The 2021 Numbers:

I read a total of 222 Fics

Totaling over 11.3 Million words

I have learned that:

I tend to prefer AU’s (as evidenced below)

I love an author that can bring Dean to life WELL (he’s a tricky one, but I’m so Dean-coded, I get upset when authors don’t get him right, or over-do his issues – he has enough already!)

I like LONG stories over short one-shots (this doesn’t surprise me at all, as a high/epic fantasy reader)

I can get behind anything except A/B/O….I tried, but it’s just not for me. (I’ll try anything once...)

I am a Top!Cas truther, but have found a couple of instances where Top!Dean has cracked my top fics list…(I have no problem with Switch!fics)

Explicit or Fluff, either works, as long as it works with the story that’s being told

I’ve never cried reading a physical book (and I read A LOT) - but fics have made me cry/sob more often than I care to admit to…

I tried to start off by reading all the “big ones” – the ones that I had heard about all over the place (T&S, 4LW, 91W etc.), I’m sure there are so many more that qualify here (the mermaid fic, the hockey fic, the baseball fic, etc.) which I have also read – but I want them all, so please – please let me know your favourites.  What are the MUST READS?  There is no definitive list, everyone has different favourites, and it’s so hard to parse out what needs to go on the list to read.  I often found myself falling down small rabbit holes, which was fine with me (and often lead to me finding fics I’d never heard of, and some of them were spectacular).  

So, as a NEW fic reader, and a FIRST year of reading fic, wading through the LARGEST single pairing on AO3, here are some of my favourite stories/authors etc. (in absolutely no order, because I can’t possibly!) – but these are the ones I would generally tell everyone they need to put on their Must Read Lists (linked):

Domination and Submission: A Love Story (Series) – Anyrei/Queerwerewolf

The Inexhaustible Silence of Houses – Askance (doomcountry)

Talk (Series) – Bendingsignpost

Control – Dothraki_shieldmaiden

To Build a Home – intothesilentland

Ninety-One Whiskey (Series) – komodobits

Under the Midnight Sun – NorthernSparrow

Cursed Metaphors (Series) – Sobsicles

Out of the Deep – riseofthefallenone

Fire and Ice – Castielslostwings

That’s only 10…of 222…Choosing only 10 was no easy feat.  I have fallen in love with so many of these authors, not to mention a ton that aren’t mentioned here.  Thank you to all fic writers for making 2021 tolerable! For a year (well, the second year really), where I could not partake in any of my favourite hobbies/activities due to COVID related nonsense, I’m glad that I was able to find a new obsession to keep me interested and excited every day. Further, thank you to the fandom for being a new and exciting place to check in on daily, for being a space where we can love these two silly boys with reckless abandon in every way possible.

Aww thank you so much for the sweet words, it really is awesome to be able to contribute and be a part of a destiel fanfic review blog and be able to share all these amazing fics.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER | EXPLICIT | WORDCOUNT: 31,363 Author: castielslostwings | Artist: Anyrei Police Officer Dean Winchester’s younger brother Sam and his best friend Charlie Bradbury have had enough of watching him pine over his best friend, roommate, and partner on the force, Castiel. Especially when it’s so obvious to everyone but the two of them that the feeling is mutual. Subtle hints and encouragement just aren’t cutting it anymore. Now, it’s time to get drastic. It’s time… for Disney. Link to fic  | Link to art 

Tags & warnings under the cut!

Title: Darkness Round the Sun

Author: castielslostwings

Artist: Bees

Betas: coinofstone, Olive, and Bees

Pairing: Castiel/Dean Winchester

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: Genre: Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopian, Romance

Source Material: “I Am Legend” (movie, alternate ending)

Summary:

“Sometimes, Dean wishes he’d met Castiel before. Back when the world was full and alive instead of empty, and darkness was nothing to fear. But then, if he had, would Dean have even looked at him twice? He had Lisa and Ben in those days, a career, and a whole planet full of possibilities spread before them.

No, Dean Winchester had to lose everything before meeting Castiel could mean anything.

Not that it really matters. There’s no going back now.”

Or, the apocalyptic AU where Dean is fighting a lonely battle to develop a cure for the virus that made him the last man on Earth—until suddenly, he’s not. Dean’s old life ends the day Castiel shows up and turns his world upside down, giving him a reason to live and not just survive.

Preview:

“Heya, Sammy,” Dean says weakly while Sam roars in his face. His brother’s jaws open wide, pointy teeth glistening in the pale moonlight reflected off of the water. Dean closes his eyes. So maybe he isn’t taking Sammy with him, no one could say he didn’t try. Add it to Dean’s very long list of failures, take a number, Dean fuckin’ gets it.

Only half-conscious, he’s barely even bothered by what a tragic loser he’s become. Here he is at the end of his miserable life, unable to see anything through, couldn’t even kill himself correctly.

And now, thanks to him, his brother’s going to be a cold-blooded murderer, too.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” he mumbles. “‘S’not your fault.”

Sam’s breath is hot and rancid, gusting over the edge of Dean’s face, teeth inches away from ripping out his throat when suddenly, the sun rises.

No, not the sun, Dean thinks blearily as he blinks into the bright light currently sending Darkseekers scrambling and screaming in any direction it’s not. Dean can smell the foul odor of burning, sizzling human skin, hear their pained cries as they scamper frantically away. UV light? How?

Barely clinging to consciousness, the happenings around him blink in and out over the next few minutes in a way Dean has absolutely no control over. There’s a man, or at least Dean thinks it’s a man, dark where he’s standing haloed in the light. Maybe it’s an angel. Maybe I’m already dead. Between Dean’s extended eyelash fluttering, the man shows up at his side, gripping his shoulder, tugging him from the warped wreckage of his own car. He’s speaking, but it’s all an indistinguishable, garbled blur to Dean.

Angel language, Dean thinks deliriously. He just wants to go to sleep.

The next time he opens his eyes, he’s in the passenger seat of a car, a big one, and they’re moving. He can still feel a hand on his shoulder, squeezing, shaking him, and there’s a voice yelling insistently in his ear. Dean groans and tries to bury his face in the hard sill of the window next to him before he remembers something important. The drying blood on Dean’s face cracks when he grimaces. Is he dead? Is this Heaven? Doesn’t feel very eternal-Paradise-y.

“Where do you live?” After a long moment of trying and failing to claw his way back to full consciousness, those are the first words from his rescuer that Dean is able to parse out. Their owner’s voice is low and gravelly, full of concern and pressed urgency but no less compassionate for it. Even in his messed up state, Dean’s pissed that he can’t just bask in the sound. “Hey, come on,” the voice persists. “Your address!” The man is yelling at him and Dean has no idea why. His head rests heavily on the glass window as the world flies by in a blur on the other side. Heaven shouldn’t be so goddamn loud. “Where do you live, hey, where do you live?”

The bleeding wound on Dean’s head throbs angrily and clouds his vision, threatening to drag him under again. Still groggy and confused and valiantly fighting against both the pounding pain in his head and the searing, burning sensations almost everywhere else, Dean has to open his mouth multiple times before he’s finally able to force a few words out.  

“Eleven Washington Square,” he mumbles after another shake from the mystery man. “They don’t know where I live, don’t let them track us. We need to stay out until dawn.” Dean knows that part is important, manages to slur it out half-heartedly only seconds before passing out completely.

Warnings: Graphic Violence

Tags: AU-Apocalypse, Last People on Earth, Solitude, Loss, animal companionship, post-apocalyptic setting, NYC, science, medical advances gone wrong, medical experimentation, canon-typical violence, injuries, Doctor Dean Winchester, Scientist Dean, Sad Dean, Lonely Dean, viruses and cures, monsters, suicidal thoughts related to isolation and loss, finding hope again, Dean has a dog, I Am Legend if it took a hard right into romance-novel territory, Romance, touch-starved Dean, touch-starved Castiel, love at the end of the world, fluff, Caring Castiel, explicit gay sex, happy ending.

Link to Fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483257

Wild by Castielslostwings

Under the Midnight Sun by NorthernSparrow

This is the first “Hello Dean” we’ve heard since Cas has been back, right? Off-screen happenings notwithstanding, the fact that the FIRST time we here that hallmark phrase is from an impersonator has to mean something? In that same vein, I don’t believe for one second Dean wouldn’t know. That its bucklemming makes me wonder if it wasn’t that deep, but they didn’t write the next ep. Hmmmmmm

YEP! I mean, I think we were supposed to fill in the "Hello, Dean" during that phone call as Dean's face lit up at the end of 13.05. And we were all screaming HELLO, DEAN at the tv at the beginning of 13.06, even if he didn't actually say it then. But yeah, the first "Hello, Dean" that WE hear... is just another "thing pretending to be another thing."

And just like Dean's phone call from Cas at the end of 13.05, WE DID NOT SEE THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CONVERSATION, NOR DID WE SEE THE AFTERMATH ON DEAN'S SIDE!