When I first saw the art, I thought it was Dean in drag. Which, given part of the story, wasn't farfetched.

That's one point of the story that I'm hung up on, due to the vagueries.

So Dean got involved in a freak show that involved sex acts. Was he forced to sodomize other performers, or was he the one sodomized. It's hard to tell at the end (and I totally didn't get the Hershey reference until someone asked a question about it in the author's notes) and I'm not sure if it matters which.

But, my god did I hate Ruby to a violent death and was sad that that didn't actually happen.

But otherwise I was delighted at the fresh take on the way bits of canon were mapped into this 'verse. A little shaken, a little stirred. And I amazingly didn't hate Gabriel.

I found the story lacking in emotion (except for hatred--when she went season 4, she went very season 4--I'm picky about my season 4, and this wasn't it). It was a nice time spent in Dean's head, but Dean lacks so much perspective, and she didn't really cast all that much light...If you're going to be that deeply in someone's PoV, there has to still be some way to translate for Deanish, but I felt like she just left out the things that Dean didn't get. And then, was totally vague about things Dean did know.

I don't feel curious about that, all told. I just feel manipulated. The clues she left were too opaque for me.

I guess that first picture could be Dean in drag, having read the story, but that's not even good. The face is mannish, but those aren't the same person's arms on both sides of that poster.

All in all the entire package wasn't my thing.

Oh, and about the way Dean save Sam--you can kill a *liger* with knives described as small as those? I wasn't feeling that either.

Castiel season 4 is ridic hot.

Season 5 he got goofy and Misha also started nesting or something. I'm always taken aback and left breathless when I see him in a season 4 ep.

Misha nesting? I'm not sure what that means.

I did think that the liger death was too easy. Like, how deeply did those throwing knives penetrate. Then I had images of Bobby digging around to retrieve them, which was extra ooky.

The D/C aspect definitely took a long time coming. And I don't know if that's me wanting a fic to be all about a pairing once promised it in the header, and if that's unfair. Does the story stand on it's own, with a dash of romance at the end? Is it unbalanced? (I certainly felt that the Cas aspect was terribly light).

Misha nesting

I don't know either! Um, Misha getting comfy with married life and ready for a family (i.e. Misha's metabolism hitting adulthood and slowing the fuck down, I'm trying to be polite about weight gain. And not in the "he got fat!" sense, but the "he's settled and living a normal happy life without the stress of agents telling him he needs to look gaunt to get roles" way.

I feel bad. But. Hot. Season 4. Misha.

It wasn't much of a D/C story, so if it's touted as that I think it fails. If it's a story that also has D/C, then I think it achieves that unremarkably. But there's little reward in the relationship part of it--it's not a particularly interesting lead up, some of the reveals are kind of weird and random, and the final resolution of it felt anti-climactic to me.

Um, Misha getting comfy with married life and ready for a family (i.e. Misha's metabolism hitting adulthood and slowing the fuck down, I'm trying to be polite about weight gain. And not in the "he got fat!" sense, but the "he's settled and living a normal happy life without the stress of agents telling him he needs to look gaunt to get roles" way.

I don't know if you gain much weight when you marry your high school sweetheart. I'd imagine they had all the kinks worked out of that long before he got the role.

I don't ever think of him as other than the slimmest guy on the show (until Garth or Kevin show up), so I'm not really sure what you're responding to.

Do agents go around telling their male clients they need to be gaunt? Was he supposed to have been unhappy or abnormal in season 4?

I'm a little bummed to read your reactions to that fic, ita ! and Julie. The premise sounded intriguing to me, but not after some of what I saw in whitefont.

The art for that story appealed to me at first glance (and there are parts of it I like), but some parts seemed off. It looked like an experimentation in style that didn't quite get to where the artist was hoping.

In related news, I'm starting to panic slightly - I'm participating as an artist in the BB (what have I done? what have I done?), and my deadline is imminent. I'm happy with the base images, but my ability with font choice/placement sucks.

He was definitely a lot gaunter in season 4 than in 5 or 6 or 7. And I do recall Joss making Fillion lose weight for the role of Reynolds (and making Staite gain weight).