#relucant

i bought a giant stingray for my nephew recently which i still haven’t been able to bring myself to send because i love it so much

On the House by relucant

Wordcount: 34,424

Rating: E

Summary: "In a past life," the guy at the end of the bar began, "I lived in Kansas. Was a hunter. Hunted things. Hunted things." He stared into his glass, swirling the liquid.

Castiel sighed inwardly. The morose drunks were always the hardest to gauge. Some wanted sympathy; some wanted to get angry; some wanted to be cheered up. Some just wanted to talk.This guy wasn't sloppy-drunk, at least. Didn't seem particularly drunk at all, really, though in general hitting the whiskey at 6:30 on a Tuesday afternoon wasn't a good sign.

And anyway, Cas was perfectly willing to admit, if he had to play bartender-therapist, it's nice when his patron-patient's disgustingly attractive.

Reminder: we’re limiting our use of tags related to sexual activity because of tumblr shenanigans, so please pay extra attention to tags, warnings, and notes on the fics themselves.

The time when I started reading SPN fic has become hazy over the years and the millions of words I’ve consumed since then, but I’m fairly certain this was one of the first WIPs I followed as it updated. It will always have a special place in my heart for that reason, but also, it’s just really good.

i want the million ants story

Yippie-kai-yai-yay motherfuckers, it’s post-10x14 coda roundup time. I hunted them down, I read them, and I did it, all of it, for you. (Also in order to bind up my own tattered betrayed bleeding heart—I survive the grave insults of television writing through the cool blue-white healing grace of such fix-its.) NB that per this post, most of them involve “Cas coming into Dean’s room and spooning him until Dean stops shaking and falls asleep”; but the better ones go beyond that. If there’s an awesome one I didn’t see, tell me!

(At some point I have to do a “Best of Season Pre(ten)d” collection, because y’all been tearing it up. Some of the most agonizingly gorgeous s9 codas’ writers, however, have gone darkside/AU/wildly divergent, presumably because there’s almost nothing left to fix: so instead you get new fic like apocalypse-patisserie & robotmango's magnificently soothing Pie Without Plot.)

1. “the worst of me,” casfallsinlove

“You’re not my mission,” Cas mutters softly. “You’re my best friend.” Fuck. “Yeah, well, friends don’t break promises.” To his surprise, Cas laughs. “Dean, if you think I’m capable of killing you then you clearly haven’t been paying much attention these last few years.”

Right? RIGHT?!? I MEAN CAN I GET AN AMEN HERE. Real talk, followed by fluff like you didn’t know you needed until that moment when Cas pulls a sheet set out of a bag and starts making the bed. In a lighthouse. Oh hell to the yes. Who are you, casfallsinlove, and why are you not in LA kicking writers around like footballs?

•

2. “Canticle,” Amelia_Clark ( silibrumportes)

While you’re at it you should read every flipping thing by Amelia because she takes the top of my head off on the regular, &/or blasts a giant shotgun hole of woozy glorious joy through my chest, and if you’re in this fandom you’ll know those are really really good things (I’m still not over her frikkity-frakking Christmas armistice ficlet SWEET FANCY MOSES). So many of these codas end with Cas following Dean back to his room after the brotastic shoulder-clap, followed by some h/c Dean-as-little-spoon action; but this one is so well-written, and it, uh, yeah. You will read this one. Yes.

"Dean," Cas says back, or at least that’s the sound he makes. Dean’s pretty sure what he’s really saying, and he hates how much he wants to hear it, how much he can’t bring himself to ask. "Dean, you gave me the Blade." "Yeah," says Dean. He doesn’t say because you’ll need to kill me with it, someday soon, before you die. They never say these things; Dean doesn’t know whether it would change anything if they did. "Dean," Cas says again, "please," and he raises his hand to brush so gently over the cuts on Dean’s face. He doesn’t heal them—not enough mojo to spare—but there’s still a jolt to his touch, a white light sparking between them.

•

3. “coup de foudre,” mishcollin

The author bills this one as a Valentine’s fic but I’m treating it like a coda because that makes me feel better. Actually just that this exists makes me feel better. Established not-quite-relationship-what-is-this-thing-we’re-doing-but-not-talking-about. Fluff like soft sterilized gauze applied to a wound. So good.

Dean realizes, way too late, that he never should’ve started this with Cas, who’s probably the only creature on earth with a stronger willpower than Dean’s, and probably the only creature on earth who can break Dean’s libido within a matter of seconds. When Sam looks away again, Dean makes a face at Cas and mouths, fiercely, Cut it out, to which Cas mouths back, eyebrows raised, You started this, which. Yeah. "So what do you think?" Sam asks, after a couple more minutes of white noise. "Worth checking out?" "Yeah, definitely," Dean says without knowing what he’s agreeing to, and that’s how it starts.

•

4. “Swimming,” frozen_delight

Engrossing character sketch of everyone’s favorite not-so-righteous-lately Righteous Man, via unexpectedly affecting water metaphors. Author’s tagged it “pre-slash” but even if you don’t ship it, there’s lovely evocative ragged haunted descriptioning.

The lake is shallow enough that Dean can see right to the sandy bottom. The surrounding pine trees are reflected on the surface, affording shade and peace. Calmly, Dean does the crawl from one side of the lake to the other, thinking of nothing but his limbs moving in the water. He’s counting his strokes, one, two, three, four, five, when a movement to his right catches his attention. It’s Cas. “What are you doing here?” Dean asks….It’s been a while since Cas has visited one of his dreams.

•

5. “At the Edge of a Blade,” relucant

Horrifying and totally show-like, in that you can absolutely picture this scene unfurling in pure Ladouceur verisimilitude. Only, you know, way better writing. Cough. For, as relucant notes, SPN doesn’t let us have nice things.

"Dean," he says. "Look at me." Reluctantly Dean drags his eyes to Castiel’s face. There are tears pooling in the shimmering blue, but a small smile curls on his lips. "I’ve made peace with how my story ends. I’m old, Dean. I’m very old. I’ve watched unimaginable beauty and unspeakable tragedy for millennia, without understanding what it meant. And you changed that." "Cas, don’t," Dean chokes, turning his head away, and Cas is silent for a moment. "My grace is fading, Dean," he finally says. "I don’t have long left."

•

BONUS: “all that you need is in your soul,” xylodemon.

i keep reading tentacles as testicles and idk which is funnier and/or truer

OMG HOW ARE YOU I MISS YOU [fierce clinging hugs] <333

9 questions with relucant

This week: @relucant talks fixing canon; making peoples’ days, and teaching grammar through Destiel.

ASS: What do you most enjoy about writing fanfiction?

relucant: The way it can make the world a little brighter and more fun, one story at a time. There is probably nothing that makes me more genuinely happy than when I get a message that reading something I wrote made someone’s day a little bit better. And the shared enthusiasm within the world of fanfic, generally being very inclusive and supportive of each other. Also the combined efforts to fix the shit canon certain (cough cough) show writers dump on us.

What aspects of writing do you find difficult when you write fanfiction?

The writing part. :P Abstractly, plot in general. I think I’m decent at words and pretty good at one-shots, but actually crafting a story is something that is very, very difficult to me. Characterization -- especially in canonverse -- is hit or miss. Usually I feel like I have a decent grasp on a character’s voice and personality, but I know that that’s wholly based on my own perception of that character, which isn’t universal, and that can be hard to muddle through.

Have you ever received hateful comments on your fic and how do you deal with it?

I actually haven’t -- knock on wood! The worst I’ve ever got was some people being unhappy when I added Sabriel into a story a few chapters in. It was one of my first stories and I was even more sensitive than I am now, and I ended up abandoning it shortly after, which is a bummer, but even those were just kinda rude, not hateful. I have been very, very lucky so far to have just seriously awesome readers.

Conversely: what’s been some of your favorite feedback on your fanfic?

Like I said above, the absolute favorite feedback I ever get is someone saying that I made their day suck a little less; it makes me feel like I’m actually contributing something of value to the world. Second favorite is probably when someone says they reread my grammar porn to study for a class. :D And it always pleases me when someone comments on some filthy, dirty porn with something like, “This was actually… really well-written.”

How do you handle writer’s block?

I whine about how much I’m not writing on Tumblr -- i.e. I don’t handle it, usually. But sometimes I use one of those programs that locks you out of everything else until you’ve written x number of words, or for y number of minutes. I don’t love those, personally, but it can be useful to just get words on the page and get over a really stalled bit occasionally.

Which Supernatural fanfic of yours are you most proud of and why?

I’d probably have to say Grammar Games as a series, because for one, I think the idea of writing a grammar textbook as Destiel porn is a fairly original idea in the world of fanfic, and for two because it’s apparently actually decent at explaining some grammatical concepts that our school systems often don’t bother to explain!

What/who has had the biggest influence on your writing?

Author-wise, Neil Gaiman, probably -- both because I love his writing, and I love reading his blogs about writing and how hard it can be even for him (and I can open my beat-up journal and the page where he autographed “CAT! WRITE! Love Neil Gaiman” and feel slightly inspired). People-wise (well, also authors, but), probably my ECKC girls, even though we’ve mostly drifted and I think a lot have left the SPN fandom by now, but having a group of friends struggling with the same writing issues as me, flailing and arguing and supporting and debating, helped build my confidence. And, of course, the mutual enabling of Team Dean’s Red Ass. :)

Also my sophomore/junior college poetry professors. When I met the latter, she was like, “Oh, you’re Cat? Professor such-and-such told me about you, that you’re very talented.” That in itself gave me enough courage to keep writing shitty poetry, until I wrote a little bit less shitty poetry, and eventually enough courage to try fanfiction.

What are you currently working on?

Oh god, lol. I have a ridiculous number of nominally-begun things based on my ridiculous life as a vagabond, but in terms of things I’m actively working on -- or supposedly actively -- the story about Dean asking Cas about butt stuff and discovering exactly how much he likes it is the most likely to be finished. I also really want to write the glassblower AU that’s in my head, based on a workshop in Venice, but that’ll be a longfic, which, well, not my forte (ed: the first chapter is up!). And an original fic that’s so close to done but I haven’t added to in a year. And -- and -- and...

If you could give one piece of advice to a new and/or struggling writer, what would it be?

It’s the most cliche advice ever, but also the truest -- to just keep fucking writing. Write badly, write absolute shit, but write. I suck at following this advice, but it makes it no less true. And talk to writers! I’m not a particularly big-name fanwriter, I don’t think, but most of us, well-known or no, are so thrilled to get any sort of message of like “Hey, I like your writing!” and happy to give their personal perspective. That in itself can be encouraging, when you realize writers you admire, and despair of ever being as good/popular/prolific as, struggle with the exact same shit.