This fic has everything…

MoC Dean!
Angsty Sam
Sam thinking about Dean murdering him!
A fix-it for that ridiculous Halloween story!

Go read it…
subject and object

What's this, you're asking... season 16? Well, some folks have formed a group called Frontierland Productions and plotted out a 16th season of Supernatural, taking place in the years (yes, YEARS) between 15.19 and 15.20. When I read the most recent episode, "Take the Long Way Home," I expressed my love and writer ameliacareful suggested I recap it like a filmed episode. And then quickreaver basically double-dog-dared me, so here it is. A retelling of someone's fic. Will anybody care? Let's find out! But go read the fic first. Seriously, it's amazing.

And remember, any snark is written with the utmost love and respect...

THEN: Chuck. Jack. Sam and Dean are the subjects of a podcast. They went to Vegas and killed a minotaur. Same shit, different day, right?

NOW: We see the Winchesters in the Impala, staking out an apartment complex. Apparently they're waiting for a witch who is magicking up a career as a fashion designer, despite a lack of talent so appalling that even Sam Winchester recognizes it. I wonder what Tofer the witch would think about Sam's orange jacket? (I'm quite sure Tim Gunn would be disappointed, but kind.) Two women are dead, but (spoiler alert) we never find out if Tofer is killing his competition, or if his ugly-ass clothes are killing his models.

A cute little purple car shows up and the guys follow Tofer inside, using the building keys they stole earlier. Oh, wait, this guy's full name is Christopher Listofler? That's. Um. Unfortunate. Okay. Moving on. The door opens on its own before they have a chance to break in. Tofer is sitting there in his living room with a lit candle, for that nice witchy ambience. {Sidebar: I need to point out how pleased I am that Sam changed his hair a little bit after 15.19 and has long, face-framing bangs again, kind of like the back half of season 8. And no evidence of hairspray. I approve.}

Tofer immediately pegs them as Not FBI, but Sam, for some reason, is mesmerized by whatever is draped over a clothes dummy in the corner. He can't seem to look away from it. Dean is also distracted by it, but not to the same extent. Tofer gets out a spell that makes Sam hit the floor, so naturally Dean shoots him in the head. The candle sputters out but the room is brightly lit by a brilliant glowing cloud swirling near the ceiling.

Sam's eyes are open but he looks dazed and unfocused. Dean goes into full-on panic mode (nice!) and checks for a pulse. Sam suddenly comes back online with a gasp. Dean is still panicky, buzzing around Sam asking if he's okay and telling him not to move. Sam calmly touches his chest, gazes up at the glowy cloud swirling above him, and says "I think that's my soul."

Duh duh duh!!! Soulless Sam is in the house!

Title card!

{Sidebar: I also have to say I appreciate that season 16's title card is just shirtless Sam with wet hair, lying on his bed with his hands behind his head, staring sadly through the blades of his ceiling fan. It's a bold choice and I respect that.}

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Yesterday was a crappy day. I was sick as a dog, sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, and if you happen to follow me on Tumblr you know I was watching some pretty decent SPN reruns on TNT so it wasn't all bad, but it was still pretty bad. But then I saw that amberdreams had secretly filled a prompt I left on quicky_bang and suddenly everything was wonderful. Look at it! Isn't it awesome? What a wonderful surprise this was. \o/

I'm late to this, as I'm late to everything.


If you read LJ on your phone, your year-in-review graphic doesn't have the cheerful holiday goat, even if you're viewing it in a browser and not through the app. Thanks, LJ.

106 posts doesn't seem like very many, especially when you consider that approximately half of them must be episode recap/reviews and polls. I posted a couple of metas and 11 fics in 2017, although one was unfinished and another was actually posted to Tumblr before 2017, so that's really only ten written in 2017. And four of those were short episode codas (in fact, one was a single sentence). I guess my biggest accomplishment, if you can call it that, was that I finally participated in Summergen (which turned out to be a lot of fun and I will hopefully do it again this year). The rest of my posts were mostly nonsensical whining.

The interesting thing about this is, I've seen the stats for people on my flist who have a lot more posts and a lot more interaction from readers. And yet, my ranking of overall LJ users is pretty high (75 as of today). Since that ranking can't be based on my prodigious posting schedule (heh) or my large number of likes and comments (an average of a little over 17 per post, which is mostly from people who have entire conversations in my comments that don't involve me at all, not that I'm complaining because I actually love that y'all do that), so it's got to be based on hits. As in, maybe I get a lot of visitors (I do hit the top 25 posts occasionally) who just aren't commenting. So. Say hi, guys!

Anyway. My favorite things about 2017 were works that were done for me, not by me.

First, the incredibly talented crowroad3 posted all your lovers, a gorgeous little Trials!Sam fic, on my birthday. I said it then and I'll say it again: I'm simply not worthy.

Second, if you're like me, you have a silly fantasy that one day a talented, respected, dare I say beloved artist will read one of your works and say "I want to art that." And it happened to me, when quickreaver created this masterpiece to accompany my OhSam prompt fill. Literally a dream come true, guys.

Finally, tifaching got my spn_summergen prompt and turned it into Message in a Bottle, which is nothing I ever would have come up with, and I guess that's the best part of Summergen, isn't it? Someone taking your wee little seedling and nurturing it into a beautiful flower that you didn't even know existed?

So, that was my LJ year. Real life? Eh. There were upheavals of various kinds, medical dramas both human and canine, setbacks and triumphs. As always, I found myself ending the year pretty much in the same position I was in when it began - broke, exhausted, and frustrated at my inability to find a nice comfortable pair of black over-the-knee boots. Such is life.

How about some resolutions for 2018?

1. Finish those two fics that I've been poking at for a year - you know, the ones where you ignore the huge chunks of plot still to be written, and keep rewriting and refining the non-plot bits that you've already done?
2. Post more recs. Every time I love something, I should share it with you guys.
3. Continue to fight for my right to party.
4. Follow/friend more people. I have a bad habit of thinking I follow someone just because I read a lot of comments from them on my recaps or polls. Luckily, LJ is doing this thing now where they send me "things you missed," and I usually see that email and think "how did I miss this post?" and then realize it's because I haven't friended that person. So I'm gonna fix that.
5. Like more. Comment more. I'm bad at this, because I do almost all of my LJing on my phone, but I just need to get over it.
6. Endeavor to persevere.
7. Whine a little less. (Maybe. That's a hard one.)
8. Find those damn boots.

Let's have a great year!

Friends, Kansans (for surely we are all honorary Kansans today), fandom, lend me your ears. This is a particularly auspicious day. This year, November 2, the day that made the Winchesters what they are, is on a Thursday. I'm wearing plaid again for the occasion, some kind of brushed fabric as soft and warm as a hug from Sam Winchester (and oh, what a hug that would be, and though statistically there's a good chance it would be the last hug you ever received, especially if you were a woman in season 12, well, what a way to go, right?). But I digress. I come to bury Sam Winchester, not to praise him. Although... can't we do both?

Yes, yes we can.




Please stop by the ohsam November 2017 Comment Meme and leave a prompt, or fill a prompt, or do both. Let's both praise and bury our precious little Sammy. (Well, not actually bury. Let's just rough him up a bit.)

See you there!

Title: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
Genre: Gen, angst
Length: About 3100 words
Rating: Light R or hard PG
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester
Spoilers: Mentions events that happened at the end of S12
Warnings: Language and a little bit of violent imagery
Author's Notes: My first attempt at Summergen! When I saw that my recipient was crowroad3, I was both overjoyed (because I'm such a huge fan) and horrified (because what could I write that would be worthy?) Thank you, my friend, for the fabulous prompts, and for being such an inspiration in general. Thanks also to the spn_summergen mods for running this challenge, which I know takes much time and dedication and blood and sweat and tears, and to every other participant, for providing so much awesome gen fic and art that I still haven't quite worked my way completely through, and thanks also to my darling speedy beta, manzanita_crow.
Synopsis: Something bad happens when you break a blood oath with a reaper. Sam and Dean have to fix it.


~~~

They leave the Impala at the Timber Lake Trailhead. Dean slams the trunk closed, shoulders his pack, and raises his eyebrows at Sam, as if to ask you sure about this? Sam shrugs. He's as sure as he'll ever be. It's not like there's anyone they can ask. Not like he has one of the most powerful witches in existence on speed dial any more. Not like there's any real way of knowing if this is going to work, if the weeks of sweat and blood prepping for this are actually going to pay off.

He unfolds the map and lays it across the trunk. "If we head straight east, we'll pick up Route 34 at Farview Curve, and we'll miss all this." Sam runs a finger along the switchback twists and hairpin turns of a section of Route 34. "Or we can go northeast, between these two creeks. It will take a little longer, since we'll have to backtrack some once we get to the road, but we won't have to cross a creek without a bridge."

Dean squints up at the cold morning sky, down at the frozen ground. Scuffs at the hard crust of snow with his boot. "Creek's probably frozen, don't you think?"

"Yeah. Okay. East it is." Sam folds the map and keeps his face neutral. Doesn't want to reveal how relieved he is that Dean actually... spoke. Contributed. Acted like he gives a shit, about this job or literally anything else. He threads his arms through the straps of his own pack, checks his compass, and starts down the slope away from the trailhead.

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And now, let me put in a plug for the story that was written for my own prompt. After S10 ended with Dean killing Death, I got a plot bunny where Dean actually killed Sam, and Death put him away in the promised mysterious safe place, and then stuff happened. But I didn't know what to do with it, so I put it away and eventually submitted it as a Summergen prompt. tifaching ran with it and took it to some unexpected places and I don't want to give away any details, because I want you to experience the lovely way it unfolds. But I do want you to read it, because it's awesome! Please check out Message in a Bottle and show some love!

I was so proud of myself for being absolutely, completely unspoiled for this week's episode of Supernatural. Usually by the time Thursday rolls around I've seen some little tidbit, such as a promotional still or the title of the episode, since Tumblr is like crack and no matter how often I try to drop it, I have to go back for one more little taste. But this week? Nada. And then at SPN o'clock I noticed my DVR wasn't recording anything (I always wait to watch until the show's been on for at least 15 minutes so I can skip the commercials) so I pulled up the guide and... oh. Rerun. That explains a lot.

The silver lining is that the time I would have spent writing a recap was spent filling a prompt for this year's ohsam Celebrating Sam event. And even though it's a hurt!Sam story, it's trying to turn into Dean's POV, as they always do. I don't know how to stop it. I might have to write both versions. Anyway. If you haven't combed through the list of prompts for inspiration, please go take a look. This is a wonderful, wonderful thing.



Also, since all the cool kids are doing it, I thought I'd post my LJ 18th anniversary stats. Except, since I use my phone, and it looked wonky when I tried to get a screencap in landscape mode, you get portrait mode. I was shocked to find that I have a little Top 100 banner. I'm sure GRRM is nervous about his #1 position, with me somewhere in the 90s breathing down his neck.


This is the kind of high-quality content that put me in the Top 100, folks.

It's ironic that LJ is making a big deal about their anniversary just as so many people are jumping ship. Like many of you, I'm crossposting to Dreamwidth. I hope, like me, that many of you are crossposting and not leaving LJ altogether. I don't want our community here to fall apart. I don't want to have to stop posting polls (I can't post them on Dreamwidth). It all makes me sad.

I'm going to go do terrible things to Sam Winchester now. That always makes me feel better. (Good lord. I am really messed up.)

Click on the banner and come play!!

And "hurt" is both a verb and an adjective here, because you can either read about hurt Sam, or you can hurt him yourself using one or more of many fantastic prompts for inspiration. Go check it out!

There's some great 11.02 fic and meta out there, and more coming, I hope! I expressed a wish specifically for codas/tags showing the boys getting back together, and so far the universe has given me these. And they are stupendous.

Callback by chrissie0707 on Fanfiction.net.

Lament for Death by crowroad3 on AO3.

Closer to Fine by safiyabat

I'm sure there are more out there, so please pimp yourself or somebody else in the comments!

And I also wrote one of my own... spoilers for 11.02, obviously.

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