I really tried to make it through this fic, because it was the only thing I had to read at lunch. I made it through the bit where teen Cas worked out John was homophobic because of how he said "Hello boys" and the bit where Dean heard the silent tears fall on his jacket. I made it through a lot of really rote step by step descriptions of actions that have no bearing on anything, including plot and characterisation (they stopped watching Star Trek at episode four (Naked Time) to have dinner, and watched one more before Cas had to leave). (And I know guys who think they're straight tend not to practice kissing on each other--right? But she managed to rip away the cute facade we put on this trope when we demand it....so traumatic.)

I stopped stopped where she gave a glossary at the start of the chapter--noting what MIT stood for, and that BU stands for "Boston University (aka a university in Boston)".

At that point I started laughing out loud in the cafe. Since everyone else was watching the news, this was especially awkward.

Interesting six-part blog mapping the "love narrative" between Dean and Castiel from a professed non-shipper throughout season 8: [link]

Got nostalgic for Journeyman with Kevin McKidd (that started with a desire to see Ever Gjokaj do impersonations of Reed Diamond because I was rewatching The Avengers) and I picked the whump episode where he gets shot, and who's there but a wee Colin Ford!

Oh, Colin. He's all big now. I resent him growing up.

I have read some of the worst fic recently--the one before with the silent tears was too long to be a social experiment, I think, but there was a shorter one that has to be sampled to be believed (I tuned out when the sex started, because Cas is feeling lust in his kneecaps, and I don't feel her idea of eros overlaps with mine.

My sister's up to 7x12, right now, I think. She's got notes on every episode from the start, and I think they need to be published under the moniker [edit: Ah] Where she goes back and makes notes on her live posting.

Usability-wise, this is awful wallpaper: [link] (in case they change it, direct link to image: [link] but in terms of good time nostalgia evoking, it's pretty stellar.

Can we string people up for character assassination? I'm fic-desperate right now, so I'm doing some things I know I shouldn't--the fic where Dean was in the same form as Castiel, a senior (can you really ever be both those things?) and Sam is a freshman with a drug addiction (okay, if you are good, this could work) who is selling his tight ass to Lucifer and has "mixed feelings" about it. Ruby as his drug dealer isn't without promise, but he's a fucking crack whore, who keeps it from his pointlessly rebellious big brother, and his father who stomps through the flower garden drunkenly killing all the roses.

I have ditched so many fics at the time where they paint John as a drunken lout while Mary is still alive (and is appropriately long-suffering and martyrish) and various other things that make me want to shake them and then forcefeed them my meta, but I just hit this paragraph, and I don't know if I can co on:

“Aw, Missouri you know I’d never abandon you for too long.” He replies as she shakes her head at him, and he straightens up, intending to turn and give Sam a shared ‘kill me’ look. It’s not that they don’t love Missouri, but she’s one of those fierce, opinionated women, who think they always have the superior knowledge of the situation in hand.

SERIOUSLY? This is how you AU the psychic? God, why am I so desperate? Why can't the advanced healing cage fighting fic and the kindergarten teacher/fire jumper fic be typical, not just a taunting sip of water in the desert?

It's like the only thing they remember about John is Dean calling him a deadbeat Dad. Not Dean saying he loved him, or Sam saying he forgave him. Just Jose Jack and...damn, who's the last member of the trio? and the deadbeat reference.

Like, I believe John drank, and I believe he may have hit the kids. I don't believe he was sleeping off his binges in the parking lots of bars, or abusing the boys (especially drunkenly). My bar isn't that high, I swear. Except John does love them more than anything not named Mary. Bobby was an important paternal figure introducing normalcy and displaying affection, but these AUs don't seem to admit that Sam and Dean hugged John when they found him again as well as argued, and don't tip their hat to anything Matt Cohen did or said.

I'd love to see people integrate Henry into John's backstory too. That would be different, at least in D/C AUs.

Right. Back off to torture myself while I wait for an alert about a good fic to hit my inbox...

eta: Shit, there's more:

Deanna is a meek, submissive counterpart to her husband’s accusatory stance on the situation – Dean hates that he is named after her for this reason, why can’t the damn woman stand up for herself?

So, they left the room during all the scenes where Deanna Campbell was actually onscreen? She may not have been a trained-from-birth hunter, but meek and submissive bear no relation to the woman I saw in that episode.

So far this author hates:

• John
• Missouri
• Samuel
• Deanna
• Christian
• Gwen
• Mark
• Garth
• Kate (if she's talking to John)

Also, there's British slang in the dialogue (AGAIN--is SPN the Plymouth Rock of another wave of colonisation?) and there's giddy Gabriel/Anna, but at least this time Dean's not the only illegible texter--Cas (an escort) and Anna (same, dating Gabriel, another escort) also use really childlike spelling.

And dig these gyrations--it's The Wedding Date, D/C. Dean is trying to prove to homophobic family he's gay (he is), so he hires Cas for a no sex date to Sam's wedding. Early on, they order pizza, which is delivered by Adam (I guess they're hinting at the affair), and at the bachelor party, Cas (who is all suave and A PROFESSIONAL SEX WORKER) sees Adam ping Chastity to the wall and sample her tonsils, so when he succumbs to Dean (he of the beautiful soul) and Dean asks where that kiss came from, Cas says he "learnt it from the pizza man."

It's a gloriously klunky wild goose chase, because all of those things need to be stuck together just to get one line from the script, but I'm sure since she's "fixed" the kiss, it was worth it.

Still, it brings out the worst in me as a reader--it's too long to be a "social experiment" (like the one where Cas felt arousal in his kneecaps--I firmly believe that's someone's psych homework), so I'm just punching myself in the head with how awkward and intermittently hateful a story this is.

How do you hate Missouri?!

She was mean to Dean?

No, I've actually read that. The spoon thing, and the goofy looking kid thing. The story has her lurching around pushing unpleasant fortune telling on people at the rehearsal dinner.