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.

Play All Night Long. I liked her ideas more than her execution (you can tell she's not a native English speaker), but it was fairly charming.

Though, if I remember clearly, her Gabriel was a bit WTF.

That's a very good point about Cas's tics. I mean, Castiel not getting references shouldn't be translated to his human AU--the point isn't that he's a nerd with no place, he's just really not concerned with humanity's trappings. In his milieu, he's the man. A man. You know what I mean.

cinammon roll:

I am just sick to death of the junkie!Sam with his horrible girlfriend Ruby.

Luckily I haven't been exposed to too many of those. In fact, the only one I can think of, they're recovered addicts, and it's quite HEA for the both of them.

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

That was HOT.

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

Dammit, I never saw that one.

There's a WIP where the Winchesters are a mob family and we're not entirely sure about what happened with Cas's background and I'm so frustrated. I need more. I love the Winchester mafia. John as mob boss? LOVE. Sam's still a lawyer, but there's a point to it.

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

That's ringing some bells, and I can't think of the end of it. Was Cas FBI? That characterisation of him totally worked for me.

Wow, that's some gorgeous art for that BB. Not enough of it, though.

Dammit, I never saw that one.

I'm pretty sure it was mishasmuse, and it might just be friendslocked (wait, no, I think she purged her lj), i haven't gotten around to checking. Or maybe it was by rusalki or whomever it was that wrote the "To Love a Rose" depression-era baseball fic. I know they both wrote con/prison fics. But one of them was a tatted Cas being a scary motherfucker.

That's ringing some bells, and I can't think of the end of it. Was Cas FBI? That characterisation of him totally worked for me.

I think Dean was a PI being investigated by Detective Castiel, something about black and white and grey in the title. But I could be wrong. There was another WIP about Dean the cop and Cas the fed investigating some suped up drug. I think that's the one.

The con fic that's still available is here [link] It is ru_salki99. There is non-explicit non-con, and it doesn't end on the happiest note. More of an unfinished realistic note.

There was another WIP about Dean the cop and Cas the fed investigating some suped up drug. I think that's the one.

That's the one I was thinking of. I thought they did interesting things with the canon notes to make the demon storyline into drugs, as far as it had gone.

I am tickled by the idea of Castiel being Russian. I will have to give that fic a look.

I just reread the end of the Janie Tangerine fic. I had forgotten it was the one where she seems to have sat up and gone "Castiel! BAMF!" almost literally. Strange moment.

For the record, I would like to state that there's a world of difference betwee whump and torture. I'm not opposed to either one, but there is a difference.