I can't think of a big tear-jerker fic in bandom, but that's probably more a reflection of my reading habits than anything else.

There was that depressing Cobra Starship hookerfic, but that was more gloomy than tear-jerking.

The "got popular enough to become a cliche" one in Sherlock is Alone on the Water.

Julie, can you put the Twist And Shout plot in spoilerfont?

There was that depressing Cobra Starship hookerfic, but that was more gloomy than tear-jerking.

Well sure, and some of the zombie apocalypse fics end with everyone dead, but I don't count those as tear-jerking, either. Much like the serial killer/cannibalism fic; disturbing, but not a trigger for weeping.

There is a Pete/Patrick mpreg fic by longtime_lurker that made me cry and cry, but it was ultimately happy. There is also a fic by sunset_mog where Spencer leaves the band because of Brendan, moves to Seattle, works in a office and is super-depressed.

Connie, is that the one where most of the "action" is Rodney teaching university after he comes home from Atlantis? I liked that one a lot, and it certainly wasn't happy but I'd call it more elegaic than tearjerking.

That's the one, chris, but I wept my way all through it.

For a moment there I thought I'd posted something that should have been spoiler-fonted.

It's not so much the summary that made me weep and wail, but just that it made me remember how painful Twist and Shout was/is:

What begins as a transforming love between Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak in the summer of 1965 quickly derails into something far more tumultuous when Dean is drafted in the Vietnam War. Though the two both voice their relationship is one where saying goodbye is never a real truth, their story becomes fraught with the tragedy of circumstance. In an era where homosexuality was especially vulnerable, Twist and Shout is the story of the love transcending time, returning over and over in its many forms, as faithful as the sea.

I'm curious about the story itself, Julie, beyond the summary. What is the shipwide sadface caused by?

Okay, so my really hazy summary would be: Dean and Cas meet, fall in love, life is hunky dory for the most part. Dean gets enlisted/volunteers for Vietnam. I don't know if they break up over this or if that comes later. Dean faces lots of homophobia in the military. When Dean comes back, he's kinda fucked up and broken, and it puts a strain on their relationship.Cas can't fix him, Dean doesn't want him to share his burden of horrors. They love each other desperately but things are strained, and I think Dean makes the choice to leave Castiel for his own good or something, completely cuts off contact. Years later, Dean is contacted to be informed that Cas is dying. Cas had apparently gotten involved with Balthazar, who might have been his gateway into partying hard. They break up, because Cas was never over Dean, and was fucked up by Dean leaving him, and Cas' partying gets too much for even Bal (I think) and Bal knows he'll never measure up to Dean. So, now we're in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, and when Dean finally decides to see Cas, he's skin and bones and on his death bed. Cas' memory is going, they relive memories, Dean stays with him until he dies. And I think the dying took a long time.

It was not a happy fic. Not my beautiful cake. It made me cry a lot, but I didn't enjoy it. It made me miserable and angry.