My problem with Kushiel's Dart is that it's so damned overwrought. Everyone is so lovely and everything is so lush. It's like the entire universe is a Mary Sue, to abuse the term.

But I'm re-reading it anyway. It's also not as hot as I'd remembered, but I'm gonna give it time.

Still, HOOKERAUFIC. I loves me some of that. Someone should write.

eta: I don't know if I've ever seen It's A Wonderful Life all the way through.

Hmmm, fusion fics that might be interesting...

First one that pops to mind is 28 Days Later. With Dean as Jim and Cas as Selena. Although with the name Jim and the Cillian Murphy thing, ita might argue for the other way around.

Or maybe Red River, with John as Dunson and Dean as Garth.

Now I want a Supernatural Zombieland crossover damnit.

Now I want a Supernatural Zombieland crossover damnit.

That would be fun.

I enjoy crossovers, but most fusions and AUs leave me cold (the WWI story posted a while back being a notable exception). I think it's because I can't see the characters as separate from their world. I do like "what if X never happened" AUs, but those generally still have strong roots in the series' worldbuilding.

I have a notable AU weakness. Fusions, it really depends on the canon involved. Mostly I am feeling the exercise, and sometimes I enjoy it on top of that.

Your general garden variety AU? High school or rom com or whatever? LOVE IT. I mean, if you pay attention to canon notes of character and potential, that is. But do so inventively.

Dean does not always have to be a mechanic, for crying out loud. Remember how he was director of Sales & Marketing at Sandover Bridge & Iron? Not that I'd ever imagine he'd enjoy that in your AU, but it does indicate he has a lot of potential beyond manual labour. He was also an excellent PA. He wanted to be a fireman. Use your imagination.

Also, please put more BAMFy Cas in AUs, instead of so often making him the awkward guy who never seems to have much to his credit.

Oh, and Sam? Always a lawyer? Really?

Dean as a gym teacher would amuse me, though.

Sam would make a great teacher in an AU. But I could also see construction, just because I like the visual. I think the whole "going to Stanford" thing probably pigeonholes him, but Sam is smart no matter what -- when he was tending bar, he was still doing the Times crossword, so I can see him working something blue collar and saving money for school, or simply content with his reading/interests and liking the simple routine of manual work.

Dean as a doctor in an AU is HOT.

Yeah, I'm really peeved at the usage (or misusage) of Cas in many a fic, and many an AU. He should be the mysterious BAMF stranger who manages to outbadass Dean. Or at least hold his own. Awkward and weird, how'd did that translate into shy nervous wimp? It's like everyone's stuck on his reaction from "Free to Be You and Me" at the prospect of going to the brothel.

And why does his relationship with Heaven get translated into "his family are zealous fanatics and he's the black sheep made to feel guilty and shameful?

Is this like trees getting mulched too high? No real education with the source material and just insight into the shitty job other people are doing?

his family are zealous fanatics and he's the black sheep made to feel guilty and shameful?

Oh god, this. I've seen it interestingly handled a couple times, but I'd much rather gloss over the angel name at this point and just move on.

But people seem to fetishise one angle of him fairly often anyway. It just seems that AU lets people throw away that pesky other stuff and just make him the guy that needs to be socially rescued by dynamic Dean.

God, Amy, I now have the visuals of construction worker!Sam, thank you very much. And I mean that with both gratitude and cursing. I'd love to read that.

I liked that in Janie Tangerine's BB AU she had Dean be a late night DJ. I thought that was a very interesting use of canon personality traits that I'd never seen before.

I liked that in Janie Tangerine's BB AU she had Dean be a late night DJ. I thought that was a very interesting use of canon personality traits that I'd never seen before.

I'd like to read that one, I think. That's an interesting conceit, and what a way to get to write lots of good dialogue.

I think if I wrote an AU, I would probably want to do something where Dean wants Sam back in his life, for whatever reason, so rewriting the pilot, sort of. Give them some other sort of quest, and then bring in Cas to help in some way (and let Dean fall in love with him, or vice versa).

I think Castiel's most important character traits aren't usually addressed, but his *tics* are. Which are mostly a product of Castiel-as-angel(outsider on earth). In heaven, I don't imagine Cas is awkward or nervous or unsure at all.

What's important about him (to me) is his fidelity and his seriousness of purpose, no matter how or where you apply it.

I like Dean in an AU where he's still saving people. I'm especially partial to cop/fed AU's, because that's where the violence and whump lies. But, fireman, paramedic, doctor, nurse, defense attorney. Bonus if he's a private detective, because that blurs the line of lawfulness, the shit that cops don't handle.

I guess I don't mind so much the Sam/lawyer bit, because I am just sick to death of the junkie!Sam with his horrible girlfriend Ruby.

Dean as the ex-con and Cas as the mute and Sam as the lawyer? Excellent.

Dean as the con and Cas as the Russian mobster? Guilty pleasure, and now an inaccessible lj, it seems.

I think there was one where they actually had Sam being a member of Dean's on the police force. I think it's a WIP, though.