Julie, you are totally in my head today. I had to skip most of the genderfuck D/C stories. I fully believe that someone could do something subversive and challenging with it, but not the ones I tried. I'll wait for recs.

I've read one where Deanna gets pregnant and has an abortion (not a D/C story) that was interesting and did a good mapping to female, but mostly it's WHY????

Which is also how I feel about giving Sam and Dean a sister. DNW.

The kidverses didn't do as much for me as I'd hoped, but I'm going to try them again.

Mapping their characters onto girls, if they had grown up that way, is an interesting exercise for me, because (as I think Plei pointed out to me) a lot of things other than the obvious might have changed if Dean had been a girl, for instance.

But for the most part it's just intellectual for me. I want to read about the people I *know* not other versions of them.

Oh, and ita's comment reminds me why I run screaming from Wincest if one of them is a girl. Once there's the threat of pregnancy, not to mention the perceived power imbalance (and I say perceived, because I do know Sam will always be younger), I can't even look at it.

I really don't get the gender bending. That's definitely not my kink. I've tried a few and they do NOTHING for me.

I have liked some kidverse stuff okay - it comes down to how well the writer handles it.

Slavefic is not for me.

The gender switching should be more interesting than it's turned out to be. Maybe the good writers are doing Wincest, or something. The abortion fic I'm thinking of had them both female, and they were both pretty cool and mapped well.

Even outside of Wincest I'm fairly uncomfortable with just one of them being female. Not sure why.

Chick!Cas just doesn't interest me.

And something that bothers me quite irrationally--gay Dean. He needs to be bi. It's a thing. Even in AUs I don't like it much. Not sure why.

I can't make either one of them strictly gay because ... they're not. I don't know if it's the writer in me working with the source material or what, but they're clearly both into women on the show, so.

I guess AU is different, but we know how I feel about those, so.

Just finished a House cross-over, kinda hurty because it contains elements of pre-endverse, but I liked it [link]

I've also discovered that I don't gravitate toward short fics. I want long fics. Not necessarily epic, but multi-chaptered that I can get lost in. If it's good, but only 400 words long, it doesn't last. I'll just want more. There's a lot on swing-set that I haven't read just because it's short.

And Dean? Was in love with Cassie. Now, sure, he might love Cas more or better or whatever, but he thought he was in love with Cassie. I hate fics that ignore he ever thought he'd made a connection to another person.

No, they weren't friends or comrades, but that doesn't mean it wasn't valid.

When AUs make them gay, I think it's too much change, unless the point of the story is that they're gay, and it's what the alternative is hinging on.

Cas can be gay in AUs, though. That's just fine.

kinda hurty

Dude, it's haruslex. She's mean.

eta:

There's a lot on swing-set that I haven't read just because it's short.

Ha! Me too. I think it's because she presented the word count, because usually I don't care. But for AU, I want worldbuilding, and to get really lost.

Mapping their characters onto girls, if they had grown up that way, is an interesting exercise for me, because (as I think Plei pointed out to me) a lot of things other than the obvious might have changed if Dean had been a girl, for instance.

Heh! And you answered for me! I tried (outside the Scooby Doo crossover femslash one) to write always-a-girl AU Dean for Anne once, and it just was so freaking bleak that it kept sending me fetal.

Like, bleaker than I can physically do flavor of bleak. I'm feeling a little oogy in the pit of my gut just thinking about it.

She really is. It's either pain or crack, I haven't found an in-between yet on her journal.

In trying to overcome my disdain of short fics, I offer you [link] "An Angel to Drive Over Me". Dean/Cas role reversals amuse me.