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mrcowboydeanwinchester · 12 days

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🧡 The Past and Pending 🐎

jo & young claire fic - 4.7k - rating: G - canon compliant - read on ao3

Jo watches the family hold hands over her shitty bar food and close their eyes in grace, in prayer. Even when they’re all hungry they take the moment to thank their god for their meal. Claire looks like a little blonde angel as she mouths along to her father’s amen. Jo supposes she once looked like that, too.

16th May, 2004. Nine years to the day since Jo's father's death, she is nineteen and working her usual shift in the Roadhouse bar. The Novak family stop by during a summer storm as they travel through the state, and Jo has the chance to bond with a seven year old Claire over horses, their love for their fathers, and leather jackets.

written for my 2024 jo's joyous birthday celebrations!! prompts were orange, horse girl, and leather jacket, which were fun to weave in. enjoy <3

read below the cut!

16th May 2004.

It’s been a slow day at the Roadhouse, the tepid May heat turning beers warm but the bouts of summer rain keeping Jo from her usual restless walks outside. The bar is gloomy and a little stifling and it’s nine years to the day since the death of her father.

By the evening Jo is working the bar, in view of the entrance. Every time the door scrapes open and the creaky floorboard goes, she is hit with one of two alternating images. The first is her father, home from his hunt, leather jacket fitted on his solid body with a smile on his face. His arms are spread wide waiting for her hug. Each time it is not him, she is forced to remember how his leather jacket is hanging emptily from a hook behind the bar and that every time she pictures his face she gets it a little more wrong.

The second image is of Uncle Bobby, hunched and sad, his grief silhouetted in the doorway light as he brings the sorry news. Her dad’s leather jacket in his hands, all that was left of him. What news does he bring this time? How many dead? The first image fills her with sorrow, the second with fear, both memories rising to the surface on the anniversary like crumbs in beer.

Jo mindlessly wipes down the bar, any tears that land on the countertop instantly disappearing beneath the cloth. It’s just one of those days. Ellen is in the back, unpacking the delivery that came in the morning, also quieter than usual. At least they’re not screaming at each other. That’s something.

The front door scrapes the floor as it swings open and Jo is called back to the present. She brushes her eyes once with the back of her hand, the one holding the rag, as if she’s only wiping sweat from her forehead. When she turns to face the new customers Jo knows no one will be able to tell she was crying. She’s good at things like that.

“Heya, what can I get for you?” she calls over the bar, and then instantly sighs as she sees the newcomers. Neither of the images in her head have materialized, but a third, more frustrating one has: civilians.

A man and a woman, married, but still fairly young, hover uncertainly in the doorway. The wife’s hair is that uninteresting midway between blonde and brunette, cut sensibly to her shoulders but clearly styled. The husband’s hair is much darker and would probably curl if not for his serious and slick side parting. The first thing Jo notices about them is their hair because this is the most immediately interesting thing about them; other than that, they look incredibly boring. Normal.

Then, from behind the man’s legs, peers a young girl. A child with a sweet tangerine gingham dress and curious eyes, maybe seven or so. Jo watches the girl take in the Roadhouse, with its burly, surly hunters hunched uninvitingly over tables marked with the questionable stains from fights and alcohol which make every surface slightly sticky.

The husband is shaking his head, gesturing round at the bar with a displeased hand. “We should go,” Jo catches him saying, “this isn’t our kind of establishment.”

Jo is too used to this happening to be offended. Besides, she always thinks why cater to civilians anyway, when they’re a hunter bar first and foremost?

But the wife stands her ground. “She needs to eat, Jimmy. We all need a break, we’ve been driving for so long. And the sooner we get home, the sooner we outrun that storm.”

Jimmy sighs, then nods. The trio shuffle awkwardly towards the bar, the child nervous at her father’s heels. She’s very blonde, as blonde as Jo.

“I know we look like it, but we don’t bite,” Jo says, mainly to the girl. She earns the trace of a smile for her troubles.

Jimmy has the decency to look a little regretful. “I’m sorry, it’s been a… long drive. We haven’t had to travel quite this far before.”

“Well, that’s what the Roadhouse is here for. What can I get you?”

The options are limited, so it doesn’t take long for the family to decide on burgers, fries, and juices all round. Jo manages to keep her face straight at the drinks order. Most of the Roadhouse clientele would drink the rainwater outside rather than order fruit juice. If it wasn’t obvious enough already, the glimmer of evening light making its way through the window catches on the cross pendant visible through the open top button of Jimmy’s collar, and confirms the family’s faith.

They go and find a table, choosing one by the window, to sit and drink their juices at. Jo sets about sorting the rest of their order, pottering about between the kitchen and the bar to serve it all up.

She’s halfway through plating the fries when movement catches the corner of her eye and she spins to see the young girl clambering up one of the high stools at the bar, the seat teetering a little under her weight.

“Hey,” Jo says, maybe a little meanly. Mostly caught by surprise. “What are you doing?”

The girl’s face falls into a round, guilty oh as she finally settles, kneeling, on the seat. “I just wanted to see what was behind.”

Jo nods, calming now that her initial panic at the girl’s movement has subsided. “That’s fine, just make sure you’re careful up there, alright? It’s a tall seat and you’re a—a small little body.”

“One day I’m going to be bigger and every seat in my house is going to be a tall seat,” the girl decides with a jut of her chin.

The comment hits Jo at such an angle it cracks her, and she barks out a laugh. “Sounds like a plan, kiddo. What’s your name?”

“Claire,” she answers. Then, with the precision of a child who has had politeness strongly instilled in her, asks, “and what’s yours?”

“Jo.”

“I thought that was a boy’s name.”

“It is,” Jo says. She gets a familiar burst of pride with it, but it feels awkwardly shallow with Claire looking up at her, so she follows with, “but it’s a girl’s name too. My full name is Joanna-Beth.”

Claire breathes a little woah . “That’s such a pretty name.”

“Huh. Um, thanks,” Jo manages. She’s never liked it, the way her mom only uses it in anger, the way her dad never used it. Joanna-Beth is someone else. Joanna-Beth is a bad daughter. Claire, though, doesn’t know any of that.

As Jo’s cheeks tinge pink, Claire’s mom comes hastening over, ready to lift Claire down from the bar stool and back to the table.

“Is she distracting you? I’m so sorry. Claire, love, come on—”

“No, it’s fine, really,” Jo placates earnestly. “I really don’t mind it. I was enjoying our chat.”

Claire beams at her. “So was I, mommy.”

Claire’s mom looks between the two of them—Jo wonders what goes on in her head as she does, two such naive-looking girls set against the backdrop of the Roadhouse—and then nods. “Well, you just give me or Jimmy a shout if you need a hand.”

“Thanks. I’m not great with kids, so I might need to,” Jo answers with a smile. It’s the truth; she’s never had much practice.

The woman raises a doubtful eyebrow. “Well, you seem to be doing a good job so far.”

Jo nods, unsure what to do with the praise.

“I’m Amelia, if you need me,” supplies Amelia instead.

“I’m Jo.”

“It’s short for Joanna-Beth,” Claire pipes up, the awe still palpable in her voice.

Amelia laughs, nodding, and runs a hand through Claire’s sleek pigtails. “Pretty name,” she tells Jo, before heading back to her husband at the table.

It’s the complement of the hour, it seems. Jo nods again, head bobbing unassuredly like one of the lame figures in Ash’s room, as she gets back to plating up the meals under Claire’s careful surveillance.

“You’ve got horses on your butt,” Claire says after ten full seconds of silence.

“What? Oh,” Jo laughs, turning in vain to glance at the horses embroidered over the back pockets of her jeans. She found them in the thrift store in town. They weren’t cheap, the horses stitched in mid-gallop over the pockets boosting the price considerably. But it’d felt wrong to leave the horses trapped in the sterile light of the thrift store. They deserve some warm lighting, Jo’d thought, where they can complete their run for freedom when no one is looking. The jeans are just a tad too small, so the plushy middle of her stomach bulges over them slightly, but she tries not to mind it. Anything for the horses.

“Do you like them?” she asks, wiggling her butt a little, much to Claire’s delight.

Jo normally keeps her movements minimal, behind the bar, knowing how hunters’ eyes glue grossly to all the places she’d least like them look. She often feels like somewhat of a dancing monkey because of it, but here it’s an innocent movement with no repercussions other than Claire’s laughter.

“They’re so fun. I wish my dress had horses on like yours,” Claire says with a plaintive sigh which sounds amusingly beyond her years.

“You like horses?”

Claire nods eagerly. “For my next birthday mommy says I can have a riding lesson.”

“Woah! That’s so cool!” Jo says, and she’s genuinely quite excited at the idea. “I’m jealous, I wish I could ride. Then I could saddle up and go wherever I wanted all by myself.” California, she’d decided sometime long ago. Or maybe Arizona. Just somewhere west of this wasteland.

“I’ll come back and teach you once I know,” Claire answers, so earnestly Jo knows she fully believes it.

Somehow, she can see it: Claire with her little arms crossed staring up at Jo perched precariously on a horse, calling instructions up to her. “I’d like that,” she says with a grin. “Where will you ride to, once you can ride absolutely anywhere?”

Claire considers the question deeply, the cogs whirring away visibly behind her eyes. “Well, I’d have to teach daddy and mommy how to ride too. I don’t want to go anywhere without them. But then I don’t mind.”

Jo hums. It’s a cute image, the three of them as one family riding off into the sunset. Not lost, because they’re together. It feels distant, familiar in the way the memories of a dream are; foreign. Whenever she has those fantasies of riding away now, she’s alone. She supposes that wasn’t always the case.

“That sounds real lovely,” she finally gets out, staring down at the burger she has started stacking. She hadn’t really realized she was doing it, just running on automatic. Thinking of her father and running on automatic, the story of her life since she lost what Claire still has.

But Claire’s concentration has dwindled and she wriggles in her seat. “Are you going to be done soon? I’m starving .”

“Hey, you’re the one distracting me!” Jo rebuts, shaking her head clear with an exaggerated sigh for Claire’s benefit. “But tell you what, I have an idea to help you grow bigger so you can always sit on the tall seats.”

“What?” Claire asks, perking back up with excitement.

Jo hunkers down to Claire’s level on the bar, resting her chin on her arms so they’re completely eye to eye. “If you help me carry the food to your table it’ll be like lifting weights and then you’ll get big and strong,” she says, voice low like she’s letting Claire in on a secret.

“You mean it’s ready?”

Jo pulls away with a roll of her eyes and fishes the basket of burger and fries from the countertop to present them on the bar. Impatiently, Claire reaches out to grab one, but Jo bats gently her hands away.

“Hey, kiddo, gotta get down from the seat first.”

“I can do it myself!” Claire protests.

But still, she doesn’t struggle as Jo comes around from behind the bar and helps lift her to the floor, Claire steadying herself against Jo’s arms. Once her feet have touched the floor, she prods at Jo’s toned tricep again with a podgy finger.

“Your arm isn’t soft,” she points out, rather frankly.

Jo gives her arm a squeeze in the same place Claire just did, to feel for herself. She always thinks she is too soft, too willowy; china doll in a bull farm. So although she trains as much as she can, shooting with her bow and arrow in the yard and sparring with the other hunters when they pass through, it never feels like enough. At least Claire thinks differently.

“It’s because it’s all muscles,” she explains. She give the smooth, plushy skin of Claire’s arm a gentle poke in return. “See, you just haven’t got any yet.”

Claire frowns as she squints down at the difference between them. “I didn’t think girls could have muscles.”

Sometimes Jo looks at herself in the mirror and wishes she’d never trained at all. That she looked like all the other girls her age. Even like Claire. Here she is, jealous of a seven year old, yet knowing that this world of comparison is what Claire will inevitably grow into. Distantly and regrettably, she reminds herself of her mother.

“All girls can have muscle if they want to, and train enough,” she says, trying to keep her words on an even keel. It feels important. But she attempts to imagine little Claire in her gingham dress with muscly arms and fails.

Claire giggles, gorgeously oblivious as she jabs at Jo’s arm again. “None of the girls at school or Sunday school are like you, Jo.”

Her throat gets a little dry. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Just a thing,” Claire notes absently, before taking the basket of greasy food from Jo’s distracted hand and sauntering over to her family with it clutched tightly in her fists. She hands it straight to her dad, who runs an affectionate hand over his daughter’s head.

“Thank you, sweetheart, this looks very lovely,” he says patiently, as she scrambles over him and onto her own seat. “Have you been kind to the nice lady?”

Jo doesn’t like that word but doesn’t have time to deal with that, recovering as she is from Claire’s rapid-fire insights. She follows the kid to the table and slides Amelia and Claire their portions, receiving grateful smiles from both Amelia and Jimmy.

“Thank you,” the family chorus, their voices naturally falling in a pleasant harmony.

Jo’s voice is lonely in comparison as she asks if she can get them more drinks. They turn down the offer and thank her again, Claire’s eyes glued to her food now that it’s properly in front of her. Slowly, Jo returns to her spot behind the bar, unabashedly gazing at the family from across the room.

She watches them hold hands over her shitty bar food and close their eyes in grace, in prayer. Even when they’re all hungry, when Claire has confessed dramatically to starvation, they take the moment to thank their god for their meal. Jo doesn’t think any food prepared by her hands is really worth it, but the prayer comes out in a low and sincere murmur from Jimmy’s mouth. Claire looks like a little blonde angel as she mouths along to her father’s amen . Jo supposes she once looked like that, too.

The next half hour passes with little incident, aside from a repeat round of whiskey for Shawn, Jake and Caleb in the far corner. Jo mainly watches Claire and her family eat their blessed dinner and chat, the flow easy between them. They don’t talk like most people in the Roadhouse do. They sound posher, somehow, their sentences free from apostrophes and curses. Jimmy eats his burger with a knife and fork.

Another shower of summer rain falls, the noise heavy on the Roadhouse roof. Jo expects it to pass, but instead the weather settles like that, a consistent rumble over the bar. The storm she heard Amelia mention earlier must have caught up with them, despite their desire to outrun it.

Jimmy and Amela must notice this too. They peer out of the window by their table into the ever-murkier evening, resignation growing on their faces.

“We need to make a move,” Jimmy says. “Get ahead of this before we get stuck.”

As if to emphasize the point, a crack of thunder echoes out around the Roadhouse. The sound travels potently over the flat Nebraska plains and the din of the first clap gives even the hunters in the corner a start. Claire lets out a small yelp and buries herself into her father’s side.

“It’s just thunder, sweetie,” Jimmy pacifies.

Claire mumbles something into his middle in return, but Jo can’t make it out.

“You guys finishing up?” she asks, walking over and clearing the baskets. “I’d head out before it gets worse.”

“Yes, we’d like to,” Amelia agrees, “but someone here is a little bit scared of the thunder.”

“I’m not scared,” Claire grouches, lifting a protesting head from her dad’s chest. Jo knows a liar when she sees one, knows it as she knows herself. “I just don’t want to get wet.”

Jo choses bravado and Claire choses nonchalance, but it looks like they both bury their fear. She remembers the performances she used to put on for her father to show she was capable enough to keep up with him, how loved it made her feel when he believed in her. An idea, easily shattered, starts growing in her mind, and she surges forward with it before it can break.

“So we gotta get you out to the car without getting wet, hmm?” Jo poses quizzically. Claire looks at her suspiciously, but nods along. “I have an idea,” Jo draws out, hands on hips. “We’ll have to go behind the bar to make it work…”

Claire leaps up from her seat, curiosity winning out over anything else. Jo hasn’t even got to ask Amelia and Jimmy’s permission, their looks of gratitude are already enough. They start gathering their jackets as Jo leads Claire around, to the tantalizing world behind the bar.

“Cool,” Claire whispers. It’s the closest thing to slang she’s said all day.

Jo smiles despite herself, then readies to go through with her idea. She’s sharing the one thing of her father’s which is truly hers. If it were anyone but Claire, she wouldn’t be doing it, but something about Claire makes it feel different—makes sharing feel more like a gift which grows rather than diminishes.

“This,” Jo says, gently lifting the supple material from where it hangs dutifully on its hook, “is my daddy’s leather jacket.”

She takes a deep breath and kneels beside Claire, offering the leather up to her for her little hands to touch. Despite the warmth of the day, the leather is still cool, and Claire’s smile grows as she slides her chestnut-sized palms along the smooth material.

The leather is brown and worn, but still in pretty pristine condition for a jacket now going on thirty years old. Jo doubts Claire even notices the small set of hand stitches around the collar from when she stupidly tore it and needed to fix it up. It had taken her a whole afternoon tucked away in her bedroom to stitch it back together, but she’d played her dad’s vinyls the whole while and the time had spun away quickly. Even her mom was impressed by Jo’s handiwork, in the end. This jacket is the one thing of her dad that Ellen lets Jo keep, and Jo keeps it well.

Claire’s blue eyes are wide and wondrous in her head. “It’s very nice,” she says shyly.

Jo smiles. “I know. And it’s really special to me, because my daddy isn’t around any more, so we’re going to take good care of it together.”

“Why isn’t your daddy around?” Claire asks, her forehead wrinkling with the question. She’s a kid clearly trained in courtesy, but the constant frankness to her questions give her a harder edge. If the questions didn’t sting so much, Jo would love it about her. Claire continues, “my daddy loves me so much I think he’ll be around forever.”

“Well,” Jo says carefully, slowly, stringing her words along the tightrope of her taut throat. “Sometimes it’s not a choice. My daddy died nine years ago.” She swallows the ‘today’ she could add onto the end of that sentence, feeling that detail might be a little too much for both of them in this conversation. “Here’s something I find very important to remember: just because someone leaves, doesn’t mean they stop loving you. And it doesn’t mean you stop loving them.”

Claire looks as if she might start chuckling, but then catches onto the sincerity in Jo’s tone. Her mouth falls open slightly and her plump fingers squeeze tighter at the leather jacket. “I don’t want my daddy to leave me.”

“I bet he won’t,” Jo says, placing her hands over Claire’s. They’re so small beneath her own. Warm too, like holding a little heart between her hands.

Jo looks up at Claire, at her sandy blonde hair tied neatly into pigtails and the pretty orange gingham of her summer dress. Seven years old and so sure her daddy will never leave her. It is only the crystal blue of Claire’s irises that differ from the umber of her own, but even then, Jo supposes that they both have their father’s eyes.

“I think we’ve got the best daddys in the world,” Jo whispers. “They love us all the time. When they’re out at the shops, when they’re away with work, when they’re up in heaven. They love us right now.”

She swallows, hard, blinking away the tears that are refracting rainbows in her eyes. There’s a burning in her throat but she’s glad she managed to say those words, to finally get them out into the precious ears of a young girl. She smiles. Her vision is still slightly watery but clearing when she realizes Claire is giggling, a sweet blush on her cheeks. Her laughter is light and bubbly, like a stream tumbling over rocks in the sun. Like if Jo bathed in it, she would feel clean.

“Come on, we can use my daddy’s leather jacket as an umbrella to run out to the car,” she says, the idea finally coming to fruition as she stands back up again and dusts the Roadhouse floor muck from her knees. “I’ll hold it over your head so you don’t get wet.”

Claire rolls her eyes, something Jo wasn’t sure seven year olds knew enough to do, but apparently so. “But then you’re going to get wet!”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m big and strong! I can take some rain.” Jo makes a performance of flexing her arms, the odd proportions of her wide-muscled shoulders and lean frame suddenly a cause for celebration rather than insecurity when looked at through Claire’s eyes.

“Hmm.” Claire ponders hard at Jo’s words, those cogs visibly turning again in her brain. “Okay. But you’ll have to be fast to keep up with me!”

The kid makes a dash for the door and is surprisingly speedy on her little legs, her gingham dress swishing behind her. Jo starts after her, pitching both arms upwards so the jacket hangs from them like a tent over Claire’s head. They dash out the front door and into the delicious rain, giggling all the way until it turns into full belly laughter. The lights of the car flash when Jimmy unlocks it, and Claire kicks up water as she runs to fling open the backseat door. Jo’s jeans are splattered with it, but the rain is coming down in sheets so her whole body is soon soaked through anyway.

Another roar of thunder booms across the open space but Claire doesn’t even notice, too busy sheltering under Jo’s jacket as she scrambles up into the car. Jo slides the leather jacket on to free up her hands and help Claire wriggle into the backseat. The girl is a step ahead of her, and clicks her seatbelt into place with a smug little grin at Jo.

“See, I am faster than you!”

Jo laughs, feeling rainwater pool in the corners of her mouth as she does so. “Okay, you win. But I did help keep you safe from all the horrible rain and thunder.”

“Yes, you did,” Claire concedes graciously. She clearly has a self-righteous streak. Smiling, she opens her arms wide for Jo to hug her, but Jo backs away.

“I’m very wet still, I don’t want to make you damp after all this.”

“Oh, okay,” Claire says, looking crestfallen. “But I want to hug you anyway.”

Jo pauses. “You sure?”

“Of course!” Claire says, the words come on, silly, evident in her tone.

Jo grins, and wraps her drenched, leathery arms around Claire. Squeezes her tight. With her face buried in Claire’s hair, she inhales the strong and familiar scent of strawberry shampoo, the kind she used to use when she was small. She’s got a young girl’s warm body in her arms, and the scent of her dad’s leather and her childhood shampoo mix in the May evening air.

“I want to be just like you when I grow up,” Claire’s voice whispers in her ear.

Jo wants to sob, but doesn’t. She instead gives Claire one last, big, humongous squeeze and untangles herself, her arms leaving damp patches across Claire’s dress. Claire doesn’t seem to mind, she’s only seven.

“I was just like you when I was small,” Jo manages to reply. She doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing anymore, or if it’s just—as Claire said—a thing. Some small part of her feels like she’s damning Claire as she says this, to a life like her’s. But then again—maybe it’s just a thing, and her life is neutral. There does not have to be a curse to pass on. She smiles. “It’s been really nice to meet you, Claire.”

“And it was nice to meet you too, Jo!”

They do a final high-five (Claire’s hands only spanning Jo’s palm) before Jo steps back into the rain proper, closing the car door in front of her with a wet thunk.

The driver’s door opens and shuts beside her, Jimmy having climbed behind the wheel. Amelia’s footsteps splash around to the far side of the concrete and then the whole family is sheltered in the car, safely stowed together behind the windows.

In the low lighting of the Roadhouse sign, for a moment Jo looks into Claire’s window and only sees herself, rain pouring down her face and shoulders wide enough to fill her father’s jacket. Then the driver’s window rolls down and Jo steps to meet it.

“Thank you,” Jimmy says. He has dark hair and a face she will meet again. “You were very good with her. Your parents should be proud.”

Jo goes to shake her head but then allows herself the nod, to tentatively agree. Her wet hair is plastered to her scalp, but the rain isn’t cold; it’s just right.

“Have a safe journey,” she calls. Then repeats herself as the man revs the engine so Claire, winding the window down too, can still hear her. “Have a safe journey!”

To where, Jo realizes she isn’t quite sure.

Both her and Claire wave like wild things as the car turns back out onto the road, Jo chasing the car for a few meters, to Claire’s growing grin. As the car pulls away Claire’s blonde pigtails are the last thing Jo can make out of her.

She stands there, in the parking lot outside the Roadhouse where the dust is being beaten into the road by the summer rain. The taillights of the car rumble out of view and Jo still stands, waving, unsure if she’s just met the past or future, until her mother comes and beckons her inside.

#i started writing this yesterday and so it's slightly rough BUT i stand by it all !!#this concept is so precious to me. my author's notes on ao3 go into that with more detail #this most defintely exists in the same universe as jo daily btw <3 fun to write her a little younger than i have before!#and write jo interacting with children... my heart #anyway i hope you enjoy reading another roadhouse jo fic from your roadhouse jo girlie #jo harvelle #claire novak #jimmy novak #jo & claire #spn fic #spn women #josjoyousbday #ola writes

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therantsofawriterrr · 7 months

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If i had a nickel every time I read a fanfic about two characters i didn't think were queer but then search up fanfics abt them, see the screen, go "tf they're queer? Damn cool," then read the most angsty, heartwrenching but heartwarming ff on ao3 and start shipping them fiercely, i'd have two nickels but it's weird that it's happened twice because i literally looked at two people last year and just went, "damn they're gay af"

#a03 #aziraphale #vandieter #i saw army of dead yesterday and i needed to see dieter alive and found this ship #i proceeded to read a time loop fic and OMG THEY DID NOT DISAPPOINT #idt i shipped destiel before actually reading some fics on a03 #destiel #i haven't even watched spn fully #frankly idk if i have the patience coz i literally got 0 time lmao #anyways I'll end the tags with this #I'm becoming an a03 girly ahahahahha

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restlesshush · 2 years

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Feeling compelled to make a more rampantly bitter jackgirl version of this post. Because like, the character stuff re fixing Dean and Jack’s relationship (which is what I talk about there) is one thing – how a resolution that hinges of Jack just automatically forgiving Dean doesn’t fix anything, given that while Jack doesn’t understand the wrong done to him (which he doesn’t, and which his instant forgiveness would be indicative of), any forgiveness from him is meaningless. But like, the fact that it doesn’t work as a resolution on a character level is only part of the issue there. There’s actually a lot more wrong with it than that.

Fundamentally what the Jack-instant-forgiveness trope does – along with its offshoot, where it’s directly specified that the things Jack experienced haven’t affected him – is remove Jack and his interiority from the equation. His personhood isn’t relevant to the story – the only function he serves is as a little absolution tickbox at the end. Whereas the thing is, in terms of approaching a narrative like that in general, separately from the specific character dynamics at play here, the actual problem being dealt with is “how do we respond to the fact that X character has been mistreated?” so it should be fairly clear that the situation can’t be satisfyingly resolved without at least acknowledging the feelings of the injured party. When it comes to Jack stuff being handled in fic, though, this is very much the reverse of how it generally seems to get treated – Dean (and maybe also Cas) gets to work through a bunch of complex emotions, and then Jack’s end of it is just… immediate, all-encompassing forgiveness, that doesn’t even need to be earned. And this is more or less understandable from the point of view of fic authors caring about Dean (and Cas) much more than Jack, and it is fine to be focussing on someone else’s point of view rather than Jack’s, but Jack’s point of view does absolutely need to be taken into account too. The situation is about the harm done to him (in theory, him being hurt is the reason there’s anything to work through here in the first place!) so there’s something very very discomfiting about watching the hurt done to Jack be used as a means of character exploration for everyone But Him – it leaves the really uncomfortable implication that his feelings about what happened to him are somehow the ones least worthy of looking at.

Obviously I also talk a lot about how (if you assume he has an emotional throughline, which feels like quite a basic courtesy) Jack is definitely deeply affected by everything he’s gone through in canon, including to the point of trying to kill himself repeatedly, and from this point of view it’s especially jarring to see his feelings quite so overlooked. But even if it wasn’t that extreme, dealing with the fallout of hurt done to Anybody and caring about it on various levels (eg in this case, generally Dean guilt; the effect on cas and dean’s relationship specifically; etc) but not on the level of The Effect It Had On The Person, is incredibly bizarre. But even more than it just being odd – to do that you really have to not be thinking about the personhood of the person who’s been hurt, which is really disturbing to see in the context, of specifically 1) a neurodivergent character, and 2) someone who has suffered repeated cruelty from someone in a position of authority over them.

And then to move away from the optics of it, it is just bad from a storytelling perspective as well. I do understand the impulse to just have Jack forgive Dean, given Dean and Jack stuff is such a lot to work through if taken seriously but like, it’s really not a satisfying conclusion to have a character grapple with the pain they’ve caused to someone else and then have the resolution just be “oh it’s fine!! They absolved you!!” Obviously it does Jack a massive disservice to reduce him narratively to someone who goes from being an angst-facilitating passive recipient of mistreatment to a effectively forgiveness mechanism, rather than getting to have any meaningful role in the tackling of What’s Happened To Him, but also, it’s very much a shortcut to avoid fully facing the implications of what you’re dealing with. Like, if you want to have Dean work through the guilt of having hurt a person (which is what happened here!), then deciding “no, actually, the person wasn’t hurt” does nothing but weaken the much more interesting story available to you. You move Dean’s very grounded and juicy guilt into quite an abstract space, which is robbing you of some interesting character work. Fundamentally, if all you care about is telling a good story as opposed to anything else, claiming that Dean’s actions didn’t have an affect on Jack and/or having Jack just automatically forgive Dean is just lazy and uninteresting writing, which is a pretty solid reason in itself not to do it.

To reiterate, I do understand why Jack tends not to be prioritised here, given people are generally more interested in Dean and Cas as characters, and given how underwritten Jack is, etc, but it’s still true that you absolutely do have to take Jack’s feelings into account in order to resolve things well here, and that people frequently rather flagrantly don’t. At its core, the situation only exists to be tackled because of Jack – his feelings are absolutely central to finding a satisfactory resolution to it. Deciding he doesn’t really have any might be a neat little short cut, but the result will be weaker as a story than it would be otherwise, it’s not going to work satisfactorily on a character level, and also, crucially, the whole thing is just a little disturbing and pretty insulting re how Jack as a character is viewed – which is in theory not what you want to be doing with a piece of writing that is ostensibly trying to address Jack stuff.

#i read a bad fic yesterday #jack kline #spn meta #spn #worded thoughts #suicide mention

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trenchcoatimpala · 10 months

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I haven’t been in the SPN mood for months but just when I thought I was out I got yoinked back in.

#like im back to reading fics #im back to writing (kinda)#i actually watched an ep of the show today (i haven't done that in months)#i gotta soak it up while it lasts cuz pretty soon i'll phase out again #Yesterday I didn’t want to look at anything relating to SPN today all I want to look at is SPN things.

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heytheredeann · 1 year

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Whumptober, Day 24 - “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Tags: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Post-Canon, Sci-Fi Elements, Immortal Napoleon Solo, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Napoleon Solo, Napoleon Solo Whump, gen or pre-slash or pre-ot3, Drowning

Notes: This scenario was inspired by what happened to Quynh in the movie The Old Guard, which tbh haunts me to this day because what the fuck This is also part of a series of stand-alone fics exploring the same general premise in different ways, because it has a lot of potential for whump. You don't need to read the others to follow this, though I'd say that the first fic in the series might have the most in-depth explanation of Napoleon's situation. Also, as always in this series, the CNTUAW is just because I'm not sure if I should tag MCD, none of the other major warnings apply. Enjoy!

There’s always a few seconds when he doesn’t remember, when he’s only cold and confused and he tries to breathe in, only to find out that he can’t. That he is underwater, that he can’t move.

The panic always sets in even before his conscious mind catches up, remembering what happened, that he was thrown at the bottom of a lake and he is bound and he can never stay conscious long enough to get free, he just keeps drowning and waking up and drowning and waking up and—

No, please, I don’t—I can’t do this anymore, he keeps thinking as he goes, but there’s no way out, not until whoever or whatever decided to make him this way will finally decide to stop and let him go.

He doesn’t immediately realize that something is different, this time. He doesn’t realize that he’s moving, because the only thing that he can register is that there’s water and he can’t breathe—there’s something wrapped tightly around his chest, so he doesn’t immediately realize that his arms and legs are free, that he can swim, that he’s moving up—he starts trashing without thinking, too numb to be coordinated and yet still desperately wanting to get to the surface, now that for the first time in what feels like years he might have a chance to get out.

The hold around his chest goes slack, and for a second he finds himself sliding down, panicking once again as his lungs burn from the lack of oxygen. There’s someone, sliding up from behind him and looking down as he falls, and while Napoleon can’t for the life of him recognize them in the blur of water, much less venture a guess, he somehow manages to take a hold of them, desperately hoping that they will hear his silent prayers and take him out—

They grab him once again, quickly swimming up and up and up, until the surface seems so close, the light is right there and somehow the only thing that he can think about is that he’s going to pass out now and find himself at the bottom of the lake again, bound and just dying and dying and—

When they break through, he chokes on the first mouthful of air, coughing and panicking when it makes his chest hurt and his lungs burn, but he can’t stop, and the only thing that’s keeping him afloat is the arm wrapped around his chest. He can’t see much of anything, between the water falling down from his air and the tears filling his eyes as he keeps coughing, and he isn’t sure why he still can’t breathe, he’s out now, there’s air, he should be fine—

There’s a voice calling for him, slowly rising above the ringing in his ears until he turns blindly and somehow manages to make out Illya as he takes off his mask and draws him back to his chest.

[More on Ao3]

#whumptober2022 #no.24 i don't want to do this anymore #napollya #tmfu fic #napoleon x gaby #the man from uncle #illya x napoleon x gaby #napoleon x illya #tmfu #not spn #my fanfic #this COULD have been posted yesterday on the right day #but i got distracted reading other people's fics and eventually didn't feel like giving another re-read looool

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glimbowrights · 2 years

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THIS IS NOT A DRILL, KOMODOBITS POSTED OFMD FIC, I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

#i was JUST thinking about them yesterday oh my fucking god #i have their ao3 emails on just in case they post something 91w or spn related but was just thinking about how funny it would be #if they suddenly started posting ofmd fic #AND IT HAPPENED AHDHSHHS I JUST GOT THE EMAIL #okay I’m ready to read the first chapte and lose my fucking mind

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jasmines-library · 4 months

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Hey. Could you please do a Winchester!sister reader fic like the mystery spot episode where Dean dies over and over but can you have the reader be the one who dies over and over again while the boys watch

Groundhog Day

Note: Once again apologising for my lateness but here we are! I actually also wrote this yesterday but I thought it was only fitting to release this on a Tuesday.

warnings: death *and lots of it, It's mystery spot*, grief kinda, time loops, swearing.

Word count: 3.5k

⛤ SPN MASTERLIST ⛤

‘Heat of the moment-’

Sam sat up abruptly, awoken by the sudden racket that filled the room. After sitting up groggily and allowing his eyes to adjust to the light he glanced at the clock, hardly noting the time before he turned to his brother who was surprisingly already up and raring to go, having made his bed which he was now perching on as he laced together his boots. He felt the blankets shift around him as you tried to bury yourself into the mattress, bringing the covers over your head to try and block out some of the noise and fall back to sleep.

“Rise and shine, Sammy.”

“Dude.” Sam blinked, swiping his hair from his eyes. “Asia?”

“Come on. You love this song and you know it.”

Sam rolled his eyes and nodded. “Yeah, and if i hear it again, I’m going to kill myself.”

“Be quiet.” You murmured from behind the sheets, squeezing your eyes shut and rolling over. You knew it wasn’t going to happen but you were trying to cling onto the idea of getting more than 4 hours of sleep for once.

Dean took a break from trying his shoes to reach over and turn the dial on the radio. The song blasted louder from the speakers. He raised his voice with a grin “What? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.”

Sam let out a light chuckle, still bleary with sleep as you sighed and sat up. Dean was still grinning at you before he began to mouth along to the words of the song. You shook your head at him before hauling yourself up and making your way to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

Dean had decided that he was going to be annoying today. You weren’t sure if it was because he didn’t want to go on the hunt and he was trying to delay it or something or if it was simply because he was being Dean. You decided on the latter because his keenness to be up and ready this morning was unusual. It started with the gurgling when he was brushing his teeth. Then, just as the three of you were about to leave, despite being up before either of you he had forgotten his pistol leaving you and your other brother standing impatiently by the door while he rooted around the motel room for it. He was irritating in the car too and you were itching to jump out of the Impala, praying for the day to end.

The diner was hardly busy when Dean pulled into the driveway. There were only a few cars belonging to passers by occupying the spaces. After securing your pistol in the pocket of your jacket the three of you headed inside. You decided to stick close to Sam; you had an odd feeling about this hunt and weren’t entirely sure what it was but something just wasn’t sitting right with you. Your brothers entered one of the booths and you slid down beside Dean who let out a content sigh as he scanned the menu.

“Hey, tuesday. Pig in a poke.” he read, gesturing to the sign.

“Do you even know what that is?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

The eldest brother opened his mouth to answer only to fall short of his words. Sam gave him a smug look and then pair fell into some sort of childish bickering that you weren’t really paying attention to. You were too busy scanning every inch of the room still unable to shake that uneasy feeling from your mind. Something just wasn’t right. Everything seems so…perfect. It made your skin crawl and you bit your lip.

“Hey.” Sam nudged you under the table with his knee, he had noted the way that you had gone silent and that you were fiddling with your hands restlessly. He knew almost straight away that something was up. You twisted to face him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. yeah.” You muttered. “Sorry.”

You nearly let out a sigh of relief when the waitress came over and distracted your brother's attention away from you. You hated the way that they stared when they were concerned about you. The three of you rattled off your orders before Dean leaned back in the chair, stretching his arm back behind you to lounge about as you all discussed the plan, only interrupted once by the waitress bringing your food and accidentally spilling a bottle of hot sauce which tumbled to the floor and smashed into tiny pieces.

The rest of the day passed by quickly after that.

You did not like the look of the so-called ‘mystery spot’. It was all overly commercialised, filled to the brim with strange and amusing objects that stuck out at odd angles or were glued to the ceiling. The darkness of the room mixed with the obscurity of the place made it come across as quite disorientating. You supposed that was the point. Your strange feeling from this morning was still lingering. You and Dean moved around with flashlights as Sam waved around the EMF. But it was silent.

“Find anything?” You asked.

Sam shook his head.

“Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?” Dean said rather loudly. He was still set on the idea that this hunt was a complete waste of time and had decided to make it everyone else's problem.

“Uh… yeah.” Sam shrugged until you gave him a look and he dropped his shoulders. “No.”

It wasn’t long after you set off to explore again that Dean’s gun was being cocked. Somehow someone had managed to catch you off guard, causing the three of you to whip around alarmed when his shaky voice boomed through the room.

“What the hell are you doing here?!” He demanded. The man was small and scrawny and would normally be no match against Winchesters, but he was wielding a gun that he didn’t seem to know how to use and his unstable finger was hovering dangerously close to the trigger.

“Woah. We can explain.” Dean started, raising his gun in surrender and gesturing for the two of you to follow suit.

The man moved his weapon uncertainly. “You robbing me?”

“No.” You told him. “Nobody’s robbing you, calm down.”

Dean began to lower his gun, but this only wound the man up more.

“Don’t move!” He demanded. “Don’t!”

“I’m just putting the gun down.” Dean tried to reassure him, but the man was having none of it.

He raised his gun, but before he fired he spotted you moving out of the corner of his eye.

Sam, as worrying of a brother as ever, gestured with a tilt of his head for you to move toward him. He knew that you were perfectly capable of protecting yourself, but it made him feel ten times better to know that you were hidden behind his lumbering frame, especially given the recent circumstances that had resulted in so much loss between the three of you. Your movement however, combined with Dean’s haste to put down his gun startled the man and with a fast flick of his arm he had pulled the trigger.

No one had any time to think before your pained scream filled the room. It was quick and short as the bullet lodged itself within your chest and you collapsed to the ground, writhing with an agony so intense that it made white spots dance in your vision like little stars.

“Y/N!” Sam cried out, moving quickly to bridge the short distance to your side where you lay in pain on the cold ground. Sam slid an arm around your back as your other brother dropped to his knees next to you, hovering his hand over your chest where blood had already begun to pool through and seep into your shirt. He was frozen with terror unsure what to do at the sight of your pained expression or the way that your hands clutched feebly at the hem of Sammy’s jacket.

“Call 911.” Sam demanded, turning to face the man who stood there white as a sheet.

“I-I didn’t mean-”

“Now!” Dean yelled.

You whimpered at the yelling. It cuts through your already pounding head adding to the concoction of your agony. You couldn’t see straight, couldn’t hear properly, couldn’t feel anything besides the burning fire in your chest that spread through your lungs like a disease. Your head lolled back against Sam’s arm as you began to taste metallic copper in your mouth, slowly drowning on your own blood that had filled your lungs.

“No. No” Sam said as you writhed in his arms, glancing up bleary eyed at him. Dean pressed down firmly on the wound, and it hurt more than anything but you couldn’t bring yourself to even whine at the contact.

“Come on sweetheart.” Dean pleaded. “Not like this.”

You could see his lips moving but it sounded like he was underwater as your body began to grow numb and your vision slowly faded. You tried to blink away the spots that consumed your vision, but it was no use and your eyes ended up fluttering shut just as your ragged breaths slowed before stopping altogether until you lay morbid limp in your big brother's arms.

‘Heat of the moment-’

Sam sat up abruptly, awoken by the sudden racket that filled the room. After sitting up groggily and allowing his eyes to adjust to the light he glanced at the clock, hardly noting the time before he turned to his brother. He had been here before. He realised suddenly, but this time his older brother was not lacing his boots. Instead he was stood at the foot of the bed, staring at the space beside Sam. He felt the blankets shift around him as you tried to bury yourself into the mattress, bringing the covers over your head to try and block out some of the noise and fall back to sleep. Sam stared at you, startled. He could have sworn that just a moment ago you were-

“Rise and shine, Sammy.” Dean said, with much less enthusiasm as he had before. His little brother furrowed his brows.

“Dean…?”

“I know. Is it just me or are you getting a serious sense of deja-vu?”

He nodded in agreement.

The Winchesters shared a look. Man, something strange was happening and whatever it was, you clearly weren’t feeling the same thing they were.

The diner was exactly the same as it had been the last time the two brothers were here. You were still looking around with the same uncertainty as you were before and you even ordered the same thing as you did before and so did Dean. Tuesday’s special. Pig in a poke.

“It’s tuesday?” He said uncertainly to himself.

You stared at him blankly as if it was the most obvious thing in the world “Yeah.”

Sam eyed you strangely and you raised a brow.

“You okay?”

“Peachy.” He replied, leaning across the table. “Are you?”

Narrowing your eyes at the pair of boys you asked. “Okay. What’s going on with you two?”

“What?”

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“You don’t…you don’t remember any of this?” Sam asked you

“Remember what?”

“This. Today. Like it’s happened before.” Dean.

“You mean like Deja Vu?” You frowned.

“No like it’s really happened before.” Sam stressed. “If it feels like we’re living yesterday all over again.”

“Deja Vu.”

“No. Forget about that. Its-

The conversation was once again cut off by the waitress who was delivering the food. And once again she sent the hot sauce toppling. But this time, Sam caught it before it could hit the ground.

You gave him a charismatic grin. “Nice reflexes.”

The rest of the day did not pass by quickly after that.

Your brothers were trying to explain the situation to you, while theorising themselves. It was safe to say that at first you were completely lost, but were halfway to believing them when it happened.

The car came from nowhere, speeding around the corner. It collided harshly with your unsuspecting body sending you skidding across the asphalt. By the time your brothers had reached you, a trail of blood trickled down your face from the wounds that were opened as your skin ran across the floor. Dean nearly choked on the sight of your pained and bloodied face as he reached you but you were dead before he had even lifted you into his arms.

And then, there it was again. That wretched song, screaming from the radio.

‘Heat of the moment-’

Sam sat up abruptly, awoken by the sudden racket that filled the room and muttered one single phrase.

“Son of a bitch.”

The rest of the day did not pass by quickly after that. In fact, it never seemed to end.

Sam was getting angry now. No. That's not really the right word to describe it. He was frustrated. Tired. Scared. Dean was angry. And growing impatient. But both of them could not bear to live another tuesday. They couldn’t bear to see you fine one second and then dying the next. They had lived through at least a hundred tuesdays, had scanned every inch of the diner, the town, the mystery spot, they had followed the people from the diner and had even tried to keep you in the motel room but no matter how hard they tried they were forced to watch you die again.

The worst part was that you were clueless. Sam and Dean had to re-explain the ordeal to you everytime they woke up to that stupid song again, leaving you back at square one. They had lived through the day so many times that it had gotten to the point where they could both predict your sentences word for word and while it freaked you out, their patience was wearing thin.

Until finally, something changed. Dean had asked the woman he kept bumping into to see her flyer. They finally had a lead. So, the next time Tuesday morning rolled around, they felt hopeful as they filed off the information to you.

“When’d you get time to do all that research?” you asked through a mouthful of food.

Dean did not have the energy to answer, so he just stood, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go. We’re wasting time here.”

That was when Sam spotted it. The sticky, pink syrup sat in the dispenser next to the half eaten pancake. He frowned, stopping suddenly. When you noticed his absence you turned and asked him what was wrong.

Sam watched the man leave through the slats in the blinds. “That guy has maple syrup for the last 100 tuesdays, now all of a sudden he’s having strawberry?

“It’s a free country, Sammy. A man can’t choose his own syrup now? What have we become?”

“Not in this diner.” Sam shook his head. “Not today.”

“Nothing in this place ever changes. Ever. “ Dean told you. “Except us.”

The two brothers nearly lost their shit when they woke up again, but by the time they had suffered through the morning routine and had reached the diner they had come up with a plan.

There were no conversations during breakfast. The pair left you to ponder over your own thoughts after mentioning the idea of a time loop. Any of your questions went unanswered as they stared down the man, jumping into action when he rose, pushing the stool out with an ear splitting squeal and making his way to the parking lot.

Dean gripped the man firmly, forcing him against the fence by the scruff of his neck and silencing his protests. “We know who you are. Or should I say what?”

You watched very confused from the side.

“Oh my god-” the man begged, wide eyed. “Please don’t kill me!”

“Uh, Boys-”

“It took us a hell of a long time, but we got it.” Sam seethed.

“What?!”

“It’s your M.O that gave you away.” He continued. “Going after pompous jerks, giving them their just deserts. Your kind loves that, don’t they?”

“Yeah. Sure. Okay! Just put the stake down!” He pleaded, side eyeing the weapon that Sam pressed to his neck. Sam refused to move.

“Sammy, maybe you should-”

“No!” He yelled at you. The tone of his voice was so unexpected for Sam that you recoiled. “There’s only one creature powerful enough to do what you’re doing. Making reality out of nothing, sticking people in time loops- In fact, you’d pretty much have to be a god.”

“You’d have to be a trickster.” Dean spat.

“Misters…” The man pleaded shakily with tears in his eyes “My name is Ed Coleman. My wife’s name is Amelia- I’ve got two kids! For crying out loud I sell ad space!”

“Don’t lie to me! I know what you are!” Sam shouted into his face.

“We’ve killed one of your kind before.”

There was a heavy paused before the grey hair and wrinkles on the man before you morphed into the all familiar face of the trickster you and your brothers had run into not too long ago.

He smirked and your brothers’ faces dropped. “Actually, you didn’t.”

“Why are you doing this? Why her!?” Sam pressed, digging the stake into his neck.

“You’re kidding?” The trickster replied “You all tried to kill me last time. Why wouldn’t I do this? Why not make you three suffer.”

“So this is funny to you? Killing her over and over again?” Dean gritted his teeth.

“One- yes, it is fun. And two -this is so not about killing Y/N. This joke is on you two. I mean… come on. How great has it been to watch you to see her being torn apart again and again. Watching your sister die everyday. Forever.”

“You son of a bitch.”

The trickster smiled. “How long will it take you to realise you can’t save your sister, no matter what.”

“Oh yeah? We kill you, this ends now.” Sam growled.

“Woah. Okay, look. I was just playing around. You can’t take a joke, fine. You’re out of it. Tomorrow you’ll wake up and it’ll be wednesday. I swear.”

“You're lying. “

He shrugged. “If I am, you know where to find me.”

“But you better promise me, I’ll be back in time-”

Sam couldn’t contain the gasp that fell from his lips. “It’s wednesday!”

“Yeah…?” You said from across the room where you were rummaging though your bag. “Which usually comes after Tuesday. Turn that crap off, would you?” you asked him.

“No. Leave it on.” Dean interjected. He agreed with Sam. If he heard Asia one more time he was going to kill himself. “Isn’t that the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard?”

“...No. Jesus, how many Tuesdays did you guys have?”

“You don’t wanna know.” Dean sighed. “Wait..what do you remember.”

“I remember you two being pretty whacked out yesterday. And then i remember running into the trickster. S’bout it really.”

“Right. Whatever. Lets get out of here.” Sam said as he pulled on a shirt.

“What? No breakfast?” You asked, slightly upset that you were going to miss out on the diner food you had quite enjoyed yesterday.

“No breakfast.”

Sam and Dean were still inside when they heard it. The unmistakable pop of a gun being fired. You were outside loading the last of your things into Baby and-

Sam's heart sank.

“Y/N!” He cried, dropping what he was doing and racing down the stairs towards you.

The offender fled the moment the gunshot had sounded and your two brothers could see him rounding the corner, but their concern was on you, sprawled out across the floor in a pool of your own blood.

They shook you, crying out your name but you didn’t move. Your heart had stopped beating.

“No. This isn’t supposed to happen today.” Sam squeezed his eyes shut tight, only to nearly cry when he opened them again and you were still lying lifelessly in his brothers clutch. “We’re supposed to wake up.”

And then, he began to cry.

Part 2 may be coming…I’ll add it to my to do list

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applecrumbledore · 5 months

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addendum to yesterday's WIP talk-- I feel like I've baited people a bit, because I'm very much... closing down shop on spn content. those ARE wips, but I haven't worked on them in over a month.

I'll post the pine sweat hospital one this week because it's done, but I don't really have any intention of finishing the other two at this point in time. so I guess my options are to just wait indefinitely in case I feel like finishing either in the future, or I post unfinished WIPs on tumblr. not sure what people would prefer but let me know.

the waning interest in spn is nothing personal or negative, obviously! this is the longest I've ever written for any one fandom continuously. if you look at my AO3 I've written for over a dozen fandoms and only half of those have more than 1 fic. other than spn, the most has 4 fics, and I've written 23 for spn. I just think I'm finally out of ideas I want to explore with the boys. and, it's always been hard for me to write for something I'm not actively watching/reading, I lose their voices. which has already happened-- my last few fics have not been as good as the ones I made when I was in the THICK of it, and I'm not fishing for compliments, it's just objectively true. I'm not watching any more spn, and re-watching eps feels like homework.

I'm not closing this blog, I just don't know that I'll be around much or making anything new for spn. this feels dramatic to announce but I didn't want to slip away into the night, and also shouldn't have given false hope with WIPs. thank you all for the very kind words on my work over the past few years, it's meant a lot.

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kvothes · 6 months

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silliest thing about me is that i love making book covers for my fics. anyway read it here!

i posted the link yesterday but i wanted a pretty version as well, so. it’s rated M, it’s 13k, it’s about sensation and overstimulation and love i guess. first ever spn fic! let’s go!

#reading comments and tags so far has been a goodman delight #pleasure pain #my stories #allow me to be fucking annoying about some tags #supernatural fic #spn fic #destiel #destiel fic

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curlytemple · 6 months

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tag 9 people you’d like to get to know better

i was tagged by @significationary who absolutely already knows everything about me but let’s go

1. 3 ships: beronica+jarchie forever, and Big Destiel which has taken over my brain despite the fact that i have not yet watched spn

2. first ever ship: if i’m being honest my first tumblr era ship was sterek but i wasn’t about to let anyone call me a perverted freak on the perverted freak website

3. last song: i’ve been listening to the store radio at work all day but the last song i chose to listen to was when i was driving home yesterday peacefully singing along to troye sivan’s angel baby thinking about destiel again and then a squirrel darted out from a pile of leaves and i accidentally took an innocent life for the first time. harrowing.

4. last movie: watched jennifer lawrence in NO HARD FEELINGS with my brother and it was actually not really what i expected from the trailer and has a very sweet ending.

5. currently reading: THE gomens demon therapy fic sequel ANGEL in therapy that hurts me so good. also my sister convinced me to read soccer lesbian booktok rec “cleat cute” and it’s pretty bad ❤️

6. currently watching: riverdale rewatch with ANNA. and i started pretty little liars (still mad nobody told me how much dyke drama this show has) also selling sunset is back!! i love evil real estate barbies.

7. currently consuming: water and spearmint vape. hush.

8. currently craving: sweet relief of death

i know anna tagged me because i have the soul of a prolific poster but i lack the constitution to get silly with you all. she said: make an effort 🔪

so hiiiii newer mutuals hello @anarcha-queer-horror @wellwaterhysteria @gay-archie @tallahasseemp3 @eastvillages

+ older mutuals i always love to see on my dash @nicolegendary @mightyoreo @dumbestdyke @wimbledon2008

#please ignore me if this is so so annoying #tag game

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freneticfloetry · 6 months

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20 Questions for Fic Writers

Will I ever get enough of these? No? Thanks to @liminalmemories21, @strandnreyes, @welcometololaland, and @reyesstrand for the tags!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

45. RIP to the lost works of my OG fandom, published on a ship board/archive that no longer exists. (I still have most of them, they just won’t be seeing the light of day. Like ever.)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

368,184. (Again, RIP to all those now-unpublished words — with them I’d be somewhere around 800k.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

LOL So glad this question is phrased the way it is. Right now, I’m only actively writing in 911 Lone Star fandom, though I have a WIP in Magicians fandom that I fully intend to finish. Historically, I’ve written in about 40 fandoms (36 on AO3), most with a single fic. Thanks, Yuletide!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Ashes and Flame (Every You and Every Me), The Hunger Games Trilogy (I get a kudos email for this one at least five times a week. How are people still finding and reading this little fic?)

Lost in Translation, The Losers

Deck the Halls with Daddy Issues, pre-film Avengers MCU

Big Girl Pants, New Girl

Shells of a Long-Ago Lifetime (Faces That Once Were Mine Mix), Supernatural

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

99.9% of the time, absolutely. Comments are my biggest motivation — the serotonin section fuels my muse. If people take the time to tell me they read and enjoyed a fic (especially if they tell me why), I like to at least thank them for that. There have been times when Real Life has been Happening A Lot and comments on the more popular stuff have gotten by me, and I feel weird about going back months after the fact to respond — that Hunger Games fic, for instance, has a couple pages of unanswered comments.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Posted, probably Of All Our Yesterdays. I am typically an Angst with a Happy Ending writer without fail, but the boys of the Black Dagger Brotherhood don’t do typical happy, and Phury is lowkey the angstiest of the bunch.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I’m actually gonna say scenes from an unfinished story, because I think Quentin Coldwater having this happy ending, the way this one happens, is the biggest fuck you to show canon and its creators that I could possibly craft.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I recently got my first hate comment! I posted about it, but I’ve also left it up in all its glory.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do now! Not that I haven’t in the past — I wrote several het scenes for my very first ship, and Quentin and Eliot had some delightful married kitchen sex we picked up right in the middle in What Baking Can Do — but I feel like Tarlos has really helped me unleash my inner smut writer. My smut from Carlos’ POV has a lot of feelings (LOL), but the stuff I’m writing from TK’s POV is a little sillier and dirtier and more fun. With feelings.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I do love me a good crossover. Outside of canons I’ve crossed that exist in the same universe (We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For, in Jessica Jones/Luke Cage fandom, plus And to All a Goodnight, for two Jennifer Crusie books), I once wrote tens of thousands of words of a ridiculously plot-heavy Roswell/Angel crossover that will forever hold a soft spot in my heart, a randomly cracky and super angsty Supernatural/Grey’s Anatomy, and a minor character-focused Supernatural/Sarah Connor Chronicles, Requiem, that I still sort of love a lot.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

That Hunger Games fic has been swiped a few times. Weird.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, the Hunger Games fic — it exists somewhere on the internet in Dutch. And that one, the SPN/TSCC crossover, and an old Dexter fic, Dinner and a Show, have been podficed.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! An old friend and I once cowrote ~25k of our idea of fluff, which was basically hijinks, smut, and torturing our leading man with a boom box and Billy Joel.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

For ships that I’ve written… Hmm. I think, before I wrote to build a home, I would’ve said it was a tossup between Tarlos, Queliot, Chlollie, and Jules/Robin from Troubleshooters, but now there’s just no contest. Weewoo Husbands for the win. For ships in general, Tarlos still tops the list, alongside the ones I mentioned, the OT3 (Eliot/Hardison/Parker), Arthur/Eames, Phedre/Joscelin from the Kushiel’s Legacy books, Frank/Karen from the Netflix Marvelverse, Aidan/Sally from Being Human US, and my MCU crack cube of Steve/Nat/Bucky/Sam.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

God, this is such a throwback, but it’s probably Adagio in B-Flat, the Sherlock music porn murder mystery I half wrote and got hopelessly blocked on.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I’d say, especially banter. And understanding characters, I guess? I’m good at making characters sound like themselves, whether they’re speaking or internalizing. And, I’m now proud to say, plot. That’s something I wouldn’t have dared to claim this time ten years ago.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Oof. Brevity. I have completely lost the ability to write short (and, by extension, to the point). I’m also the slowest writer in the world, thanks to my tendency to edit every sentence within an inch of its life.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

My Lone Star mutuals are laughing right now. Clearly I hate it. 😊 I’ve written three fics that feature Spanish, two sort of significantly, and all my old Firefly fics have some Mandarin in there somewhere.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

OG Roswell. So much OG Roswell. Michael/Liz, specifically, with a side of Kyle/Isabel.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It almost feels like cheating, since it’s my most recent fic (and the only one I’ve published so far in my current fandom), but I’m so stupidly proud of to build a home. Carlos is such a touchstone character for me that writing him was oddly therapeutic. And I think I’ve said this before, but writing the two of them together was like the evolution of the clarity I found writing Queliot, which was the first time I’d really explored a ship in fic where I loved both halves of the pairing even close to equally — it helped me unearth my Carlos and who he is in my heart, but it also helped me uncover the true depth of my love for TK.

No pressure tagging @orchidscript, @heartstringsduet, @never-blooms, @rmd-writes, @walkinginland, @paperstorm, @mixtapestar, @catanisspicy, and @alrightbuckaroo!

#fic meme #about meme

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