Transcript: Track 46: Trueform Castiel

Links to all fics mentioned can be found on the main episode post.

Jump to:

• I Carry Your Heart With Me by aishitara
• So Says The Sword by komodobits
• A Constellation of Wishes by Destina
• every light he cannot see by intothesilentland
• Other recommendations

[Intro music]

Ellen: [00:00:00] Hi everyone, welcome to the 46th episode of Mixtape Book Club Podcast. My name’s Ellen.

MalMuses: And my name is Mal.

Ellen: In each episode, we take an in depth look at a different trope or subgenre in the huge variety of Destiel fanfiction. And in this episode, we’re going to discuss fics featuring Castiel in his true form.

MalMuses: And joining us to discuss their fic, [00:01:00] I Carry Your Heart With Me is Nessa. Nessa, would you like to introduce yourself and explain how people may recognize you?

Nessa: Hi, I’m Nessa.

Ellen: Welcome!

Nessa: Most folks… Thank you so much. Thank you guys so much for having me. I, I’ve already squealed at you about this, like on the discord, but like, I’m just so, I’m so like honored that you included me in this particular roundup of like excellent fiction.

MalMuses: Awww

Nessa: I just, you know, like I just.. Imposter syndrome is real!

MalMuses: You say that like I’ve not, Oh no, you say that like I’ve not fangirled so hideously over some of your fics on this podcast.

Nessa: I know, I know, and like that’s like, it’s just like so wild to me. I feel, I just, I feel very I’m very pleased. Thank you so much. Truly.

Ellen: Anytime.

Nessa: But yes most folks in the fandom would know me as “aishitara”, which is my, you know, my pen name. [00:02:00] Some folks call me Aishi, some folks call me Tara. But I go by Nessa, I go by they/them pronouns. I was, do you want me to tell the story about the name?

MalMuses: Yeah, sure! I’m always curious about what people come up with like online names or ao3s or whatever it might be.

Nessa: So, yeah, like some of them you’re like, oh, okay, I get it. And others are like, where did, where did that one come from? And this is like, just so random cause it’s like a piece of like Japanese grammar.

So I… 20 years ago I lived in Japan actually. And I was studying Japanese language. I was a huge, huge anime nerd. I consumed so much anime in college. And one of my favorite, [00:03:00] one of my favorite animes was called Rurouni Kenshin and the, I think the, I think the song that the, that this lyric came from was like the opening of like the third season of the show, which I actually never watched.

And It was just like this really, like, powerful song that I was obsessed with. Like, I learned all the words, I learned the translation, like, all this stuff. And aishitara is like a conjugation of the verb to love, and it means if you love in that particular configuration. But the, the lyric that it comes from is “Dore dake kimi o aishitara kono omoi todoku nodarou?”

Which means like, if you love someone, then that feeling will reach them, right?

Ellen: Oh, it’s such a lovely sentiment.

MalMuses: [00:04:00] It’s a lovely sentiment. And it feels like quite a Castiel sentiment.

Nessa: Yes. Right? Like it’s, it’s, it’s, when I, when I came to this fandom. I. I didn’t like know how, how much that was going to be like a thing, you know?

Yeah, it’s perfect. It is perfect for these two. Yeah, I, I love them and I think about them way too much.

MalMuses: Don’t we all?

Ellen: Yeah. The brain rot is real.

Nessa: The brain rot is real. (laughs)

Ellen: Well, we’ve, we’ve spoken about your we’ve spoken about another of your like, today we’re going to discuss, I Carry Your Heart With Me,

one of your fics, but we’ve also, we’ve spoken about your fic, Dragon in the Cup before in our Creature Cas episode. So that, I think that was like episode 20 or something? [00:05:00] Long ago now in the mists of time.

Nessa: Yes! Twenty episodes ago, at least!

Ellen: I know, God, That’s a long time ago. Anyway, but we, yeah, we, we both raved about that fic quite a lot.

Nessa: Thank you.

Ellen: No, thank you for that. That’s one of my favorites. I love it.

Nessa: I that’s a really special one.

MalMuses: I’ve read it multiple times since then as well. And you have another one that I really like as well, which is a much shorter one, and it’s just the one that you wrote with Cas, kind of more contemplative a little bit about Cas with Dean’s sorry, Dean with Cas’s ashes in the car.

Not sure what it’s called, but that one.

Nessa: Oh my gosh. Yay. What is Grief if Not Love Persevering? Oh my gosh. Thank you. I, I love that one so much and it doesn’t get a lot of traffic because it’s sad. You know what I’m saying?

Ellen: Yeah.

Nessa: [00:06:00] But it’s, that one’s really, that one’s really personal to me.

I’ve had, had some battles with grief in my life. And like the idea of like laying things to rest is like really important to me. So I like that, like some script somewhere included that for Cas, who never got that kind of love on screen. Like, that’s like so heartbreaking to me, so like thank you. That one is beloved.

MalMuses: That was really beautifully. And yes, it is sad, but it’s a sad, it’s not as much as it is sad. It’s just a sad topic, I suppose. But it’s. It’s beautifully done, so, and every now and again you just need to read something a little bit sad. Is that just me? I don’t know.

Nessa: No, I absolutely am like, which, I’ll go through my bookmarks and I’m like, which one’s gonna hurt me the most?

Like, what thing have I read in the past that is going to hurt me the most? [00:07:00] And I I know we’re gonna talk about it at some point today, but So Says the Sword is definitely one of the ones that like, fucking hurts.

MalMuses: Beautifully painful. Oh, yes. Yes.

Nessa: I, I’m gonna, so that is for like a trucker? Is that, is that all right?

Ellen: Oh yeah.

MalMuses: Absolutely.

Ellen: We’ve got a, we’ve got a, like an explicit marking on there for a reason, so yeah, we’re good.

Nessa: I, I just, it’s, I don’t, there’s no filter.

Ellen: No problem at all. So, okay, so we’ll just go through the other stuff that we’re going to talk about. So we’re going to, we’ve got, I Carry Your Heart With Me, but we’ve also got three other fics that we’re going to discuss.

So Says the Sword by komodobits. We’ve got every light he cannot see by intothesilentland. And we have A Constellation of Wishes by Destina.

Nessa: They were all so good.

Ellen: They were.

MalMuses: As soon, as soon as we said we were going to do true form, I, I [00:08:00] threw so many links. We have a spreadsheet, a planning spreadsheet, you know, to try and keep us a little bit organized on these episodes.

And I dumped so many links on poor Ellen.

Ellen: We have a lot, a lot, and I feel terrible that I haven’t read more of them already because I was looking at them going, my God, I didn’t know there were this many trueform fics!

MalMuses: This is a very, you know, very favorite and beloved trope of mine right up there with Creature Cas, which really is just kind of a further exploration of this.

I’ve had my whole, like, huge rants about Cas and his otherness and how it’s represented on screen and all this other kind of stuff many times on this podcast. So I’m going to try and kind of pull that back a little bit today because I feel like people already know.

Nessa: Why? (laughs)

MalMuses: People already know my thoughts.

Ellen: You don’t need to pull back! When have you ever pulled back before?

Nessa: Don’t do that! What? What for?

MalMuses: Here’s the question. Do either of you want to get a word in edgeways, in this podcast episode? (more laughing)

Ellen: It’s fine.

MalMuses: Yeah. So what I will say is the links to all of the books that we’re talking about are going to be available in the [00:09:00] episode post on mixtapebookclub.com, and I will try to include them in our collection on AO3.

As we’re all here, I do want to quickly mention something to listeners about the collection. Which is, there are a lot of fics that aren’t in it, just because obviously a lot of authors, you know, don’t, don’t want to have their fics collected particularly don’t want to have them collected by unknown, kind of strange collections that they don’t know who is controlling them, or anything like that.

And so any authors who have fics that we have features who would like me to re add them to the collection, because a lot of people have kind of a blanket no on collections, but I did have someone messaged me a while back to say that they usually don’t want to be in collections, but they’re happy to be in this collection as they know who is behind it.

And I, and I added them, it was fine. So if there’s anybody else out there who is in that situation, feel free to DM me and I can add your fic to the podcast collection so that it can be found. Yeah, there we go. Great. Yay.

Ellen: [00:10:00] Awesome. All right. And before we get started talking about this stuff, Again, I know we’re already like 10 minutes in and we haven’t got the intro yet.

We, we need to say thank you to all of our Ko-fi subscribers and we really appreciate your support. And if anyone else would like to support us through Ko-fi, you can then do that. Join our discord server where we decide what topics we’re going to talk about and, and we ask for links to be included.

Although this time we, we did get some for this time as well, and they’ll be added to the spreadsheet too, but we, we already had so many. We were like, Oh my God,

Nessa: I finally can see the spreadsheet. Like I couldn’t see it on my phone, but I can see it on my laptop. And I’m like, Oh my goodness. There’s so many that I haven’t read, you guys!

Ellen: It’s going to be a long blog post.

Nessa: This is a treasure trove. Thank you.

MalMuses: I added like a little column on the end to help myself, which is, you know, Mel has read slash re read just so I can kind of see. And I didn’t even bother to fill out with this one [00:11:00] because I have read every single one of these.

Nessa: I’m sorry, Fleeceframe has written a non binary Cas? Creature Cas thing? I’m, I’m undone at the thought. That’s, oh my god. I’m gonna die.

MalMuses: There are some amazing fics here. And there is actually a lot more than this that I have as well, but I did end up sort of separating them out to, weed out a few that are technically more creature Cas, like they’re a little more AU than they are on Trueform.

So most of the ones we looked at are in some way canon. And then maybe at some point in the future we can look at more AU expressions of Trueform, because there’s plenty more where these came from.

Nessa: Oh my god, for real. That’s amazing.

Ellen: So, so being in the, like, trying to stick mainly in the canon verse we don’t get in the show itself, we don’t really, they don’t really explore true forms, like visually we don’t see anything like that. Like the most, the most we [00:12:00] see of angels in their true form is like a wispy white smoke, you know.

Nessa: Yeah. And the wings, like.

MalMuses: Haven’t quite got the budget for that.

Ellen: And we don’t even really see the wings. We just see.

Nessa: Yeah, shadows,

Ellen: or the ashes, or whatever.

Nessa: I love, I love Raphael’s lightning wings, you know.

Ellen: Oh, I forgot about those. They’re very cool.

Nessa: That’s very cool.

Ellen: They do talk about, I think at one point, Zachariah talks about four faces and six wings and blah blah. But, we never see anything like that. And Cas does say that his true form is the size of the Chrysler Building.

A bit of dick waving there from the angel. I don’t know. We don’t see, I mean, we know that if humans look at true forms, they get their eyes burned out, for example. So I don’t know. We don’t get a lot of detail, but biblically or at least in Bible fan fiction you get a lot of descriptions of burning wheels and you know, all the things that the [00:13:00]eyes, yeah, the things that people have, have drawn on for their fics.

So there’s such a huge variety of different ways that true forms have been described in these fics, but almost all of them involve wings and eyes

Nessa: And feathers in some form

Ellen: and feathers.

MalMuses: I think it would be kind of completely untoward if I did not mention as well as we’re doing Trueform Cast that we are very, very lucky in this fandom to have an entire series of Trueform Cas comics by LizLee as well.

We have to mention those. They are fantastic.

Nessa: We do. I have them up. I have that up. I’ve got all my fan arts that I want to share are like, the links are ready.

Ellen: Well, send them to me and I’ll add them to the post as well because we have so many beautiful true form artworks as well around the place.

Nessa: Yeah. It’s such a, it’s such a talented fandom.

Like we’re really, we’re really spoiled in terms of content as a fandom, [00:14:00] I think, and as a ship, but yeah, I love the true form Cas stuff because I feel like it’s one of those things in the show, kind of like the empty where they gave us just enough bare bones scaffolding to build really wild shit on top of, you know like some, some, some of the, you know, like, I feel like that I’ve written some very basic true form Cas stuff.

And we can you know, talk about that. But like, the complexity of some of the expressions of, of the true form angels in these different fics is like incredible. And it really is limitless. It’s like, it’s only limited by the imagination of the fic authors. And like, we have these wild imaginations.

MalMuses: I love seeing what different fic authors come up with and [00:15:00] even variation, you know, between, you know, an author can write more than one true form and just decide to go with something different every time. Wonderful. I love that.

Nessa: Yes. It’s bananas. And like, it’s yeah, beautiful, really beautiful. I’m a, I, I really love the “more cake” approach to, to fic, and,

MalMuses: the only thing that they always all have in common, as they should, is that whatever Cas looks like, Dean’s into it.

Nessa: Yes. Yes.

Ellen: That’s true.

Nessa: Dean’s like, Dean’s into it, but he’s like, am I into it? I guess I better be into it. Well, I’m into it now, whether I thought I was into it or not.

MalMuses: Yeah, it’s like, it’s like that meme that you mentioned earlier where he’s like, “Oh, new kink, scroll on past, wait a second, scroll back.”

Nessa: Yeah. No, he Dean is definitely into it always.

Like, from minute one, you guys, like, I think of like, when the friend of mine who got me into the fandom was like, [00:16:00] you’re gonna fall in love with this pairing, like, right away. I was like, “no, no one will replace my then OTP” who were characters from an anime that shall not be named. And of course I watched “Lazarus Rising” and I, I was wrong and there’s no room for any other anything anymore.

Like the way we were wrong, we were, I was, I just, I was wrong. The way they look at each other right from the get go is like, are you, are you fucking kidding me? Anyway…

I Carry Your Heart With Me [00:16:40]

Ellen: No, you’re right. Okay. So we’re going to start with. I Carry Your Heart with me by aishitara. Did I say that right? I’m not, I can’t, I don’t, I don’t speak Japanese very well.

Nessa: Yes. Yes that’s good.

Ellen: Okay. This was published for the DCBB in 2021. It’s 27, 000 words and it’s explicit. [00:17:00] It’s got some beautiful art in it by verobatto.

Nessa: Ah Vero! I had so much fun working with her,

Ellen: Do you want to read the summary for us?

Nessa: Sure Okay. I’m not gonna do voices or anything cause that would be weird.

“Dreamin’ about anything good?” Dean asks instead of letting those other words out, because if he admits it out loud right now he might spontaneously combust.

“Yes.” Castiel gives him a sidelong glance. The corner of his mouth is tilted in a smug smile. “Something very good.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean’s fingers are tingling. Are his fingers supposed to be tingling?

“Yes,” Cas says again. His smile turns endearingly shy as he adds: “It seems I can’t stop thinking about kissing you, even when I’m asleep.”

Ellen: Awwww.

MalMuses: (sighs happily)

Nessa: Yay!

Ahhhh. Okay, so this is [00:18:00] canon verse post… You know, post canon, I guess, post the ending. But with a detour in the middle of 1520. Yes. This is, this has to be like pure catharsis for you, right? It is reading it, I have to say.

Nessa: Definitely, yes. I, so, yeah. I have to say, like, my catharsis is definitely not done, like, because I keep, I keep coming back to it, right?

Again, the brain rot. But yeah, this one, I just, it came from, like, wanting them to have, like, a real ending, and it, you know, like, it just, I, I kept thinking, like, what, what were some of the things, like, in the quote unquote, in the way of them having, you know, a chance at like a, a real relationship or a healthy relationship and, [00:19:00] I mean like I’m not a, an expert on those things, but like that’s just kind of where the, where it came from.

Like I just couldn’t imagine a world where like Dean didn’t go after Cas in the MD or Cas didn’t save Dean from dying the way that he did. Like it’s just not possible, it’s just like, I hate it. Thanks, I hate it. And so yeah, in a lot of ways it was like, it was four years ago, you guys, and like, it’s still like,

MalMuses: Oh my gosh, it was four years ago, wasn’t it?

Nessa: Four years ago, and it’s like, still so raw.

Ellen: Yeah, it hurts.

Nessa: Yeah. And so like a lot of, a lot of the stuff that I write is definitely me just like reprocessing it.

Ellen: Fair. I mean, we will be talking, [00:20:00] I think we should say upfront that we’re probably going to be talking about spoilers. So, like, maybe we can try to avoid them a little bit, and then we can give a warning when we’re actually later on when we’re gonna do it, but I mean, straight up, we can say that this starts with the rebar scene, so, like, the barn and, like, I, I was just reading it going, this is what should have happened, like, why did this not happen?

Like, Cas just turns up and saves Dean, and then yells at him for being an idiot.

MalMuses: He’s a little pissed about it, you know.

Nessa: They just, they get mad at each other so easily. And I’m like, I’m such a conflict avoidant human. So like, I run a lot of the… I run a lot of the arguments that I write by other people because I’m like, does this sound like people actually arguing with each other?

Or am I just like delusional? I don’t know.

MalMuses: No, I loved it because Cas basically just flaps in and starts repeating some of the dumb shit that Dean was saying back to him. [00:21:00] Like he just cannot believe that that is what he heard coming out of Dean’s mouth. Yeah. He’s like, “It was supposed to end like this?”

Like, no, nuh uh.

Nessa: no way sir.

MalMuses: Yeah, and like, Dean’s trying to interrupt him and Cas is just like no, uh uh.

Nessa: You hush. I will deal with you later.

MalMuses: This is not happening.

Ellen: And then like soon after once they eventually once they get back to the bunker or whatever, and then Dean like yells at Cas for like, you know, sacrificing himself and being alive and just, and not coming back again when he was back in heaven or whatever. He’s just like, you did what?

MalMuses: Cas is suddenly just like, suddenly shifty, like, oh, well, yeah, about that.

Nessa: The thing with his fingers, right? Making the “uwu” face. Like, please don’t be mad at me, honey. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Ellen: Yes. I just cheered through like the first few, through, you know, the chapters. It’s like, this is exactly it.

MalMuses: [00:22:00] It’s what we needed to see.

Nessa: Oh, that makes me so happy. Yeah, I definitely when they, when they’re like, yeah, write for yourself, I definitely am like, what is the thing that’s going to make me have like the biggest like hug feeling, you know because I feel like that’s a thing that really really really good fics do is like they make you feel like seen

Ellen: yeah

Nessa: and like people have obviously their own ways of communicating that information through humor and angst and you know, really dark stuff and things that are a mix of the two and I just, yeah, like, I want to write soft things because I want to read soft things. So.

MalMuses: Yeah, and this fic ultimately is a very soft fic, I would say, [00:23:00] even though it’s even though there’s, there’s some necessary argument at the beginning, like they, they have things that have to be sorted out before they can get to the softness and they, they do sort those out and get somewhat waylaid by a witch, as often happens.

Nessa: You know, it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be somebody.

MalMuses: Yeah. And I mean, ultimately, as it tends to in fic, ultimately it does help them out. But I absolutely loved the way that you did it in this one where we kind of get glimpses of bits of Cas’s true form. But because we’re kind of seeing it through Dean, we’re seeing it in like the normal earthly plane.

We’re just kind of getting like bits that Cas can’t quite control to the point where he’s like a little bit embarrassed and Like what what’s going on here? You shouldn’t be seeing that. Whoops.

Nessa: [00:24:00] Like angelic puberty. Poor Cas.

Yeah, I so I will admit that this, this version of Cas is kind of this amalgamation of fan art that I’ve seen that I loved and other fics that weren’t even necessarily like canonverse, but had some kind of creature expression for Cas and like a combination of like those images in my head. And like, I was like, well, what if he just had all of those things?

Like all of these components of different versions of him that I am attracted to for whatever reason or another what if he had all of them all at once and or, or had to rotate through them? [00:25:00] And so that’s kind of where, you know, I, I like, I’ll shout out, Ltleflrt’s Addicted to You. The spots, the eyes on his skin is like totally a nod to, to that version of True Form Cas, which is a, a very au version. But one that I really enjoy.

MalMuses: that was actually one of my favorites that you did in this, I think, where he’s looking relatively normal, I mean, wings, but, but just, you know, casual kind of glowy eyeballs.

Nessa: Eyeballs, that like obviously, you know, are all staring at Dean all the time, right? Like. Yes.

Whether or not Dean realizes it, they’re all they’re all eyeballing him. No, no pun intended. Um, and I loved the way Vero illustrated that version of Cas with [00:26:00] like the little glowy eyes that were kind of like also popping off of his arms and like the way that the feathers have like each individual…

I was so in love with the art for this, you guys. Like, she did so many pieces that she didn’t have to do. We had a great time working on this together.

MalMuses: Like scene breaks too, which I don’t know why, but I always absolutely love that in fic, where we get like the little, the little details. I don’t know what it is. It pleases something in me.

Nessa: Yeah, it’s like, it’s like an illustrated illuminated text, right?

And like, I love the idea of illuminated text. I’m like a huge medieval history nerd. So,

MalMuses: yeah, so beautiful. And this is our digital version.

Nessa: Yes, right? And like, she was so great about it. I was just like, you know, would you do it? Would you be interested? Do you have time? Like, obviously, like, you know, we were very I think very respectful of one another’s time.

[00:27:00] And like, she really just busted her butt and was like, here’s all of this art and all of these, these lovely things. I mean, it was the same when I did it with, with Leaf the year after, like, I haven’t had a bad experience with the DCBB.

Ellen: That’s great.

MalMuses: We are incredibly lucky to have so many wonderful, talented, and also just lovely people in the art space in this fandom.

Like their talent cannot be questioned, but they’re also just genuinely lovely people. And and that’s one part you mentioned Leaf. Leaf is absolutely wonderful as well.

Ellen: And we’ve got like, Sam plays quite a big role in this because, well, obviously because they’re in the bunker and Sam’s trying to help find you know, a cure for what Cas is becoming unmoored from his vessel. And I think, I can’t remember if he actually walks in on them doing anything, but there’s a few points in the pic where, where Dean’s worried that Sam’s going to walk in on them. [00:28:00] Because they are sort of getting it on in the bunker, but, or at least Sam’s smug about the fact that they’re finally together after all this time. I just love the way that Sam acted in this one.

Nessa: Thank you.

MalMuses: Just finding a pile of their clothes. After Dean vehemently denies that he is sleeping with Cas, or at least having sex with Cas Then Sam just, Sam just like stumbles across all these clothes strewn across the, and he’s just like, yeah, sure.

Ellen: Yeah, they’re boning.

Nessa: I’m never going to live this down, am I? Oh, no. Yeah, I, I, I have such mixed feelings about writing Sam. I, you know, no shade. I have… Jared makes liking Sam hard. So writing him has become more difficult, which is unfortunate because I love doing the sibling dynamic. [00:29:00] I have two younger siblings and I miss, like, the early seasons, like, shenanigans. You know?

MalMuses: I absolutely love writing Sam. I actually sometimes struggle to write this deal without Sam, because to me, Dean is not who he is without Sam. Yeah, no, it’s true. It’s a whole, it’s a whole thing. Yes.

Nessa: It’s true. It’s always in really, yeah. I even like I just did one, I just did one the PB exchange and like Sam wasn’t like in it, but he was in it.

Like, he had to be in it.

MalMuses: Even when he’s not there, he’s there.

Nessa: Yeah, he has to be. It’s true. You’re absolutely right. I, you know, I’ve, I’ve gotten over that mostly, I think. But, like, I do, I do love writing them. being idiot siblings together and I just feel like, you know, Sam has eyeballs. He’s a human being with great intellect [00:30:00] and he has eyeballs and he sees what’s going on.

And you know, he thinks his brother’s a fucking idiot because he doesn’t see what’s going on. And so when they finally get together, I think he would be very smug about it. He’d be like, “I knew before you did. Nyeeeh!”

MalMuses: And we do get a little bit, a little bit of kind of on the side Saileen in this as well, which I do love me some Eileen. So it’s just a, just a little dose, but I love knowing that that’s going on there in the background.

Ellen: That’s another thing that never happened in the show though that needed to happen in post-canon.

MalMuses: Why did that never happen in the show? That makes no sense! Sorry.

Nessa: No. It definitely makes no sense. What is this blurry wife nonsense?

MalMuses: Or they just deliberately took the time to blur someone out rather than just letting the person that it should have been…

Ellen: Rather than letting us know that it was her.

MalMuses: Yes! So stupid.

Nessa: It was like an… that entire episode, I have, I have some very strong opinions that I, I’ll refrain.

MalMuses: [00:31:00] I have yet to meet anyone in this fandom who doesn’t have very strong opinions one way or another about that episode, so. It’s true.

Nessa: So much of it felt like a slap in the face, you guys oof. Oof. Yeah Saline Forever. But also, like, Sandwich, I’m, I’m here for it, I’m here for the polycule, like.

MalMuses: Yes, I’m very fond of that one.

Nessa: Like, it’s, you know. That’s like the, I, I spend so much time thinking about. You know, Dean and Cas, and then I, I’m like, oh, but Sam also had like these other, like, towards the end, other things that, you know, would have been interesting. I’m so sad that we didn’t get, like, witch Sam. Witch Sam Would have been amazing.

MalMuses: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the show, since he gave up the demon blood, but was still kind of dabbling, doing things as they needed it, it almost felt like [00:32:00] an inevitability that at some point we were gonna get kind of, you know, More serious like witch Sam content, but then

Nessa: No, they just dropped it.

They just dropped it like it was hot. I like I can’t remember who… I think it might be The Biggest Room in the House. Is that it? Biggaybenny?

MalMuses: oh, yeah,

Nessa: Where like Dean realizes that like because Chuck kept like rewriting him Like he would forget skills that he had like would just disappear and he’s like, you know He’s like, “oh I think he like wrote the gay out of me” essentially and Sam is like, you know, they’re like whatever happened to Sam’s demon powers they just like vanished one day out of nowhere like this idea that Chuck was editing those things out because they no longer serve the narrative and I was like, oh that’s so lazy, but okay (laughs)

MalMuses: [00:33:00] Interesting, yeah I’ve read a few different fics where they kind of hint at that where they’re just like, you know when they find out more about The overarching big story and Chuck’s whole deal, they’re just like, you know what, this really does explain a lot.

Ellen: Yeah. I mean, they can use it to explain whatever they want, really. It’s just a stroke of genius, to be honest, by the writers. They’re like, now we have an excuse for any stupid thing that happens in this story. It’s just Chuck’s fault.

Nessa: It’s Chuck’s fault. Yeah.

MalMuses: Bad writing. Bad writing. In canon. Like, character bad writing, not external bad writing.

Ellen: It’s the ultimate meta plot.

There was one point in this where I sort of, you know, you know those moments in fic when you read sometimes and you have to like just put it down and go “Oh my God” and that was when Dean realizes, like, he sees Cas’s true form for the first time after the, after The hex or whatever the curse. And he realizes that he [00:34:00] recognizes this because this is what Cas looked like when he pulled him out of hell.

I was just like, “Oh, of course it is!” I love that! So good.

MalMuses: Yeah. I love that. One thing I think we have to mention, which I’m surprised at myself for not mentioning yet, is that we get a little, little dose of like poetry loving Dean, reader Dean. My whole Dean is, Dean is super smart. Just let him be smart soapbox here.

You had him reciting poetry to Cas!

Nessa: I did, I did.

MalMuses: Thinking that Cas was dead and couldn’t really hear it, but nonetheless, he did it. And that, oh my gosh, thank you. The, the Neruda, the Cummings, all of it. I was just like, yes, give me more, feed me.

Nessa: And This, Your Living Kiss is probably one of my favorite [00:35:00] smart Dean, poetry Dean AUs of all time ever. And man, do I love when he’s he is so smart. It drives like, and I’ve been doing a rewatch with some folks and, and in the, in the, especially in the early seasons, Sam is like so mean to Dean about his intelligence. And it’s like, kind of like. That’s not nice. Why are you putting up with this, honey?

Like, what?

Ellen: Yeah, he just takes it, doesn’t he?

Nessa: He just, he does. He just takes it. Oh god, it’s like, it’s so heartbreaking.

MalMuses: You get the impression that he’s heard that all of his life, probably not just from Sam, but you know, from, from everybody else as well. Everybody. And it’s, yeah. And it’s, and it’s not true.

And we know it’s not true. And I do sometimes think at that point in canon, Sam may not necessarily realize that it’s not true. [00:36:00] Like he, he knows that Dean has certain skills. I don’t think he thinks Dean is an idiot, but he hasn’t seen Dean or been around, you Dean as an adult. Yeah, that much actually. So I think his respect for Dean’s intelligence does grow as the seasons go on.

Nessa: Yes Agreed. Yeah, they do they drop a lot. I mean like and I think a lot of it was like moving with the times whatever leaving certain jokes behind whatever but they definitely grow in that way, which is, again, what makes the finale so aggravating. The growth, you guys! There was so much growth.\

MalMuses: What growth! We don’t do growth here!

Ellen: Apparently not.

Nessa: But No, but I, I, When I first got into the fandom, I was reading a lot of AUs because I, I was watching the show in order, and I hadn’t gotten to Cas yet, and I didn’t want to spoil any of the actual canon stuff that happened, so I was just reading all this.

[00:37:00] That’s how I found out about A/B/O, like, whatever. Yeah. It was early in my, it was early in my Destielification, so like, it’s like baked in to my experience of the fandom. I’m a huge A/B/O nut, but that’s neither here nor there.

MalMuses: A/B/O nut. Sorry. (laughs)

Nessa: But one of the, one of the first series I read was, was Cas rescuing Dean from hell. And it was such, it was on LiveJournal. So like, it was like one of the, it was a very old fic. And it was just so fantastical. The hellscape that this person imagined for them to navigate and escape from. And it had like a really cool true form Cas thing going on, but like, it wasn’t anything like any of the stuff that we’ve got to talk about tonight.

[00:38:00] Like it was very different. So I feel like I was like infected with it early, you know,

MalMuses: Part of me is a little sad as to all of the, the fics lost to time in terms of like live journal and that kind of stuff where they really just don’t have. good access to them anymore. Some of them are still out there.

Some people moved them over to AO3. Some people didn’t and they’re just kind of lost to the mists of time, which is incredibly sad.

Nessa: It is. It’s really like, ugh.

MalMuses: Don’t, don’t undervalue AO3 people.

Nessa: For real!

MalMuses: the fact that it’s an archive and will always be there is really priceless.

Nessa: It’s so important. I, every time, you know, something happens to the archive, I have a meltdown, like, oh no, like it’s the one good thing left in the universe, guys.

MalMuses: What am I supposed to do now?

Nessa: Yeah. [00:39:00] No, it makes me sad that, like, we didn’t ever get to see Dean’s rescue from hell. And, like, I’m, I’m, ah, one day you guys maybe will get to see it. Him rescuing Cas from the Empty, wouldn’t that be such a nice full circle moment? Like, I want the parallel so bad.

I want it so bad. Which is why I keep writing it.

MalMuses: Right there. Like, all those beautiful parallels and full circle moments were all right there for the taking and they just went, nah. Nah, we don’t need that. Rusty nail.

Nessa: It’s garbage.

MalMuses: Rusty garbage,

Nessa: I mean, yes. Again, no shade, like, I know that people…

MalMuses: No, full shade!

Nessa: (laughs) The narrative promise was not kept, okay!

MalMuses: yes, I know there are people out there who are satisfied with the finale, and I am happy for you. I’m happy for you. I am just sad and angry for me.

For

Nessa: me, and yes, for the rest of us. So Yeah.

MalMuses: [00:40:00] Okay. I guess we had better move on to, what should we move on to? So many good choices.

Ellen: Yes. Well, make sure if you haven’t read I Carry Your Heart With Me, go and give it a read because it’s a beautiful and very you will be cheering along with the rest of us at what happens in the beginning.

MalMuses: It is soft and warm and wonderful. It’s, it’s a, it’s a hug of a fic. Once you get past the initial, they got some shit to sort out stage. Yeah.

Nessa: I had to throw in some angst. I just, you know, it’s part of their brand at this point, really. They have to misunderstand each other at least a little.

So Says the Sword (40:40)

MalMuses: Well, talking of angst, shall we do komodobits next?

Nessa: Oh my god you guys..

Ellen: All right.

MalMuses: I am so excited about this. I have wanted to, like, feature this fic on the podcast for, oh, for so very long. Cause this is one of my favorite fics, but, [00:41:00] We tend to try not to just shoehorn things in because we want to talk about them. Like we try to have a specific trope that we stick to and get like a range of fics.

Okay. But this I think was one of the very first fics I read in the fandom. And it’s still to this day, just as fantastic as the first time I read it. So (clears throat) shall we? All right. So it’s just over 85, 000 words. It was a DCBB back in 2017. So there is some beautiful art with this as well. And the summary, oh, I will say this is explicit as well. It’s quite explicit in parts.

The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’

Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. [00:42:00] However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected.

Ellen: Yeah. So if you aren’t aware, I mean, I’m sure everyone in the fandom is, but komodobits is of Ninety One Whiskey fame which I haven’t actually read, but after rereading this, I

Nessa: No I haven’t either.

MalMuses: No, I’m not a war fic person.

Ellen: No, I don’t usually like war fics either or, or war shows or anything, but I just love their writing so much.

It’s so beautiful. And I just, now, now I feel like maybe I’ll have to actually force myself to give it a try. So this is like, it’s, it’s canon verse, but alternative, like, it’s like, how are we going to talk about this without spoiling?

MalMuses: [00:43:00] Full spoilers, I feel like we need to talk about the ending a little bit because the way that this fic works is one of my favorite things about it.

In that it could literally be canon because it conflicts with nothing that we actually see.

Ellen: Yeah. So in, so we’ll just say at the, at this point, if you haven’t read it yet, go and read it. Skip forward to the next one

MalMuses: Press pause. Come back.

Ellen: If, if you go to the the post it notes. Like on mixtapebookclub.

com, I usually put timestamps in, in where, where each fic is in the podcast. So you can skip forward to the next one or come back to it later once you’ve read the fic, but we’re going to talk about some spoilers. So here’s your warning.

[00:44:00] Okay. So this is a, yeah, officially, I guess, canonverse because it gets sort of slotted in before we get to Cas pulling Dean out of hell.

MalMuses: So this is, this is, this feels like one of Chuck’s earlier drafts, essentially. Something that, that happened and then got essentially kind of re, rewrote.

Ellen: So I mean, this was written in 2017, so that’s before we knew about Chuck. Right?

MalMuses: Yeah. So there’s no mention of Chuck in there, or at least we may have had Prophet Chuck then.

Nessa: We definitely had Prophet Chuck at that point, hang on a sec.

MalMuses: But there is no mention of Chuck per se in this fic. No. Just, just God in general. But there’s already the concept in this that God is not necessarily great. So.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. So it could have been known that Chuck was God, but like we didn’t know that he was actually….

MalMuses: But there is no mention of him in this specific fic, I did just, did just check, so.

Nessa: [00:45:00] I think actually by the time, because I think they reveal that Chuck is God in season 11, right? At the end of…

MalMuses: Yeah, so it might have been, yeah, maybe.

Nessa: Call me Shurley. Don’t call me Shurley. I’m pretty sure, I’m pretty sure that,

Ellen: It’s been a long time since I’ve watched this.

Nessa: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s in season 11, which was in 2015. So. So, yes, in theory, we

MalMuses: did know about that, yes, but this specific fic handles that by not mentioning Chuck at all. Because honestly, he’s not that relevant to this, like, God himself doesn’t get a lot of say in what’s going on here.

Ellen: No, absolutely not. Cas is pretty much driving the entire thing.

MalMuses: Yeah, pretty much.

Nessa: The Cas voice in this is so strong. Like, it’s like author goals, guys.

MalMuses: This fic is almost exclusively Cas POV, not entirely. We do, we do get a little kind of dip into what Dean is doing as well, but there’s a lot of Cas POV in this fic.

And yeah, it’s so, so well done. [00:46:00] We’re, we’re going into full spoiler territory on me anyway, so that’s fine.

Nessa: I think we have to. Like there’s, there’s one. How do you talk about it without talking about it?

MalMuses: So quick overview then is that yes, Cas is guarding Dean in what we see as the green room briefly in the show.

And we see it a couple of times, but the idea is that, you know, the green room doesn’t exist air quotes. It’s kind of outside of space and time as we know it. It’s not in this plane. And it can be changed, manipulated, made to look like whatever. And they dump Dean there to wait for the apocalypse, essentially.

Ellen: Yeah, they tell him that Sam has already said yes. And they’re just waiting for the fight to happen.

MalMuses: Yes. And at the beginning of the fic, at least as the reader, it’s not immediately clear whether they are telling the truth. And this is an AU where You know, Sam has said yes already, or that they are just lying to manipulate Dean.

[00:47:00] I think most of us knowing the way that angels and God and heaven work in the supernatural universe immediately suspect that he’s probably being lied to, but It is written in such a way where you could definitely believe that You know, they are, at least on that point, being kind of truthful with Dean to start with.

But I think one of the most powerful things about this fic that I love so much is because you are seeing this from Cas POV. We as readers and viewers of the show know that, you know, Naomi kind of messes around with his little angel brain now and again. So it’s kind of something that we are aware of, but we don’t see it happening initially.

We don’t see it happening, but we kind of, or at least, Any fic I go into from this kind of era of canon, I’m kind of on tenterhooks waiting for something like that to happen. Especially if you know from the description or whatever that Naomi is a part of it. You’re like, all right, when’s that bitch turning up?

What’s she gonna do?

Nessa: [00:48:00] She’s gonna do something awful, like always.

MalMuses: Yes, and we don’t see that happen, but we then see There’s like a couple of scenes where there’s just like a lit like one line that just seems off. And you’re like, okay, so it could just be that the author forgot they said that before or whatever.

It doesn’t matter. That’s fine. And you move on and then it happens again and you’re just like, oh no, something’s really wrong here.

Ellen: And Dean realizes, Dean realizes that something’s wrong, but you’re seeing it from Cas’s point of view. So, and Cas doesn’t understand why Dean thinks something’s wrong. It’s just so well done. So well done.

MalMuses: Yes. I think the one that always gets me and like breaks my heart, the first one that really smacks me in the face, is that there’s just a single throwaway line where Cas wonders where Dean learned Italian. And it breaks me because I’m like, it was you, you taught him, oh my god, noooo.

Yes. I have so much brain rot about this fic, I’m sorry. Please, share some opinions.

Ellen: [00:49:00] No. I wrote down some lines that I really loved in, like one of the ones near the beginning because at the beginning Cas started learning a little bit about Dean. Like he, they barely talk to each other to start with, but then eventually they do.

And Dean’s really depressed about the whole thing. He’s like not feeling like he’s worth any of it. And, and Cas just, It’s like, the line is, “Castiel was expecting someone different, someone righteous, someone worth saving.” Like, oh god, that hit me right in the feels. Because it’s a direct reflection of what actually happened in canon, right?

Yeah, yeah. Like, you don’t think you’re worth saving. Just really great.

Nessa: Many, many good parallels. And again, without like presenting things that we have reason to doubt in canon, because we never saw any of this. It could have, it could have happened. Yes, it’s so delicious.

MalMuses: [00:50:00] Komodobits is very good as well at, I believe there’s probably a, like a literary term for what this is, but I don’t know what it is. So where they will use quotes or items within the text so something that Dean is reading or that Cas is reading as Dean starts to kind of, you know conjure up books and Cas starts reading them and they will kind of use quotes from those books to essentially lampshade emotions that aren’t being talked about in the actual scene.

And they use like one of my favorite Ray Bradbury quotes from one of my favorite Ray Bradbury books, The Foghorn to basically just, just having Cas and Dean in this situation and then having this quote, which is “That’s life for you. Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home, always loving someone, always loving something more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is. [00:51:00] So it can’t hurt you anymore.” And it’s just in the context of this fic, it’s beautiful and heartbreaking and I’m mad about it and I love it. (laughs)

Nessa: It makes me want to scream. Like I, I literally took two years. In between the last two chapters, like

MalMuses: it really doesn’t feel like it’s going well does it?

Nessa: I finished it last week specifically so that I could talk about it with you guys. I’m like,

Ellen: Oh, I’m sorry!

Nessa: no, it’s okay. I need, you know, I needed to close the door on this one. You like I knew it was going to end ambiguously surprise. It ends ambiguously. And I, I needed, I. I legitimately needed that distance between the last two chapters to be able to read it and not, like, feel the full emotional impact of it, because I just remember getting so worked up by this fic.

MalMuses: [00:52:00] It’s a real hard hitter, especially those last few chapters where you, yeah, you can kind of see writing on the wall.

Ellen: Yeah. And I think it was worse. Like, I think the first time I read this, it was before the finale, like before the end of the show and we still had hope, you know?

Nessa: Yeah.

Ellen: Like now I, I read the ending the way it is.

And I was just in tears because I was like, this never, they never got to realize, you know, cause it’s like, when you go back. I’m going to find you, we’re going to love each other, you know, ugh.

Nessa: It just means they have to go back and do it again. That’s what it means. I, and I, and I think that that’s the point of this fic.

Is like, you get to that, that stage where Dean’s clawing up out of, out of his grave again. Or for the first time. And, like, you get the sense that, okay, we know it’s not going to go right this time either. But, we’re just going to hit reset. and try again. [00:53:00] I like, I don’t know. I, I like, I, I just really like this, this, this one feels like such a master’s thesis on the angelic realm, you know the world building in this is, is so spectacular and thorough.

You know, like it, it really is, it’s so incredibly detailed. And mind bending really, really fun science fiction stuff going on in this story.

MalMuses: Oh, for sure. And this was written 2017 or may have been written slightly before that. It was released for DCBB in 2017. So it was obviously long before that last season where we really got confirmation of Chuck’s multiverse and all those other things.

But this really feels like, to me, like it could have been one of Chuck’s failed worlds where he was trying to get Dean and Cas to do a certain thing. And they went off and did their own thing.

Ellen: [00:54:00] We should probably talk about the true form parts in this. They do. I think this, correct me if this is one of the other fics, cause I read this one first, so it’s all a little confused. The, he, they mentioned that the other angels have different true forms. Is that right? Like they’re all a little different.

Like Cas is the one with the spinning rings and white. Sort of hot center kind of thing. Yes. Can the others are different?

MalMuses: And then Michael has swords. Michael has like blades. That’s right, yeah. Which makes a lot of sense because he has the sword of Michael, which is, is Dean, obviously. But he has actual swords just spinning around casually.

You know?

Ellen: As you do.Ah, I loved the big, like, so basically they for whatever reason, they step out of the green room plane and Dean beholds Cas in his true form. [00:55:00] And just that whole, like Dean just being awestruck and Cas is like protecting him inside his rings and stuff. It was just so epic.

That whole kind of battle scene.

Nessa: Yeah, Dean’s into it. Dean’s super into it.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. But obviously we don’t get, This is all Cas point of view too, so all we see is, like, Dean being overwhelmed by the whole thing, and it’s just, ah, so good.

Nessa: It is just delicious, and like, the part where, like Michael, right? That like, that like, tears Casiel apart, essentially, like, that whole sequence is just like, I don’t have a body like that, but I could feel it, like, it’s so

Ellen: Yeah, yeah, they [00:52:00] really put them through it in the last couple of chapters there. Yeah. Oof.

Nessa: It’s like, brutal. It’s brutal. And like, which makes me nervous about Ninety One Whiskey. [00:56:00] I’m like, I don’t know if I can handle it. Like, this is, this is so, like,

MalMuses: Oh yeah, the writing is beautiful, but brutal all the time. Yeah, yeah.

And it’s, it’s wonderfully done.

Nessa: Yes. I, yes. Favorite. This is no way of suggestion that people shouldn’t read it. This is fantastic. You definitely should.

MalMuses: Just be prepared for what you’re going to encounter.

Nessa: Got some real emotional impact for sure.

MalMuses: I love that in this fic, one of my kind of favorite little kind of paragraphs in this is, you know, Dean has a variety of reactions across fics when he sees Cas.

I mean, it’s, it’s usually positive, but initially he’s kind of awestruck or reacts in different ways or everything else, and this one, even though he’s been kind of very stoic almost up to this point where he, you know, doesn’t trust Cas and Cas agrees he shouldn’t trust him, so that’s fine. [00:57:00] And they have a kind of very antagonistic relationship almost to start with.

But in this he’s so like blown away when he sees Cas for the first time that he just immediately without any hesitation or Deanishness just immediately tells him that he was beautiful. And it’s I don’t know why, and it’s because we see it from Cas POV. The way it’s written is that the author deliberately makes the choice to not use Dean’s name in that section.

And instead they just say, “the Michael sword says, God, you were beautiful.” And I’m just like, Oh, I love it. I love it so much. Yes.

Nessa: I’m literally looking at that part right now, oh!

MalMuses: I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m fine.

Ellen: I feel like all we’ve done is just flailed about this fic, but honestly. But do go and read it, please.

Nessa: It’s worth the flailing.

MalMuses: And I love I actually really like that we get to see a lot of Michael’s true form in this as well. [00:58:00] And a little bit of the other angels as well. Like things are kind of mentioned where we kind of get an idea that they’re all sort of unique but have certain traits in common and that kind of thing.

But I think it’s the only fic that I can recall where we see much of Michael’s true form. Right. Which, which makes sense in, in the context of, you know, they’re trying to cram that into Dean and, you know, they’ve got, there’s a reason why we’re seeing it. But I really, really like it and I kind, I don’t know why, it really suits him somehow, like the, the personality of him and how he was God’s sword and until we saw him like right at the end of season 15 getting kind of broken down a bit, we didn’t, know much else of him up until that point.

He’s wonderfully well done. Loved it.

Nessa: And I just like the title too. Yes. It’s got a great title. I feel like titles are hard. And this is a great title.

MalMuses: And it’s one of those titles that keeps kind of cropping up a little bit all the way through. [00:59:00] And it’s, it’s so Cas, like the way you know, he still thinks of Dean, like at the beginning, he thinks of Dean as “The Sword” in an almost derogatory way because that’s all he is.

He is the sword for Michael and that, and then it becomes more and more like awe throughout it until he gets to the end and then he, he realizes, no, Dean is the sword and that is amazing. Like, it’s. Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah, I’d forgotten actually on before rereading that Cas actually goes and finds like Bobby and Sam and, you know, in the outside, in the, in the real world, I guess.

And I love that section with them separately. Like I, it’s different to the, the time when he spends with Dean, but yeah, he’s just so broken, but wants to try and make things right. And yeah.

MalMuses: Yeah, I love the exchange that Cas has with Sam about Dean, where Sam is kind of [01:00:00] angry that Dean believed he could have said yes, and eventually Cas points out, because obviously Cas has spent so much time with Dean and has actually seen a lot of kind of Dean’s memories with Sam and Dean’s memories.

You know, what kind of where their relationship came from and Cas kind of points out to him pretty bluntly, like, no, Dean didn’t know that about you because Dean in that way, didn’t know you that well. Like, cause, cause Sam never let him, you know, it’s, they’re both kind of to blame, but the fact that it becomes obvious to Cas that like, no, that, that Dean didn’t know that you wouldn’t have said yes, because how was he to know that he doesn’t know you like that?

Because they don’t talk, damn it. These two brothers are just as bad as Dean and Cas, in some instances.

Ellen: No one talks to each other in this show. And when they do, it’s like extremely highly emotionally charged, so they don’t actually say what they, they don’t work anything out when they talk to each other.

[01:01:00] They just sort of, you know. Say the things to each other and get upset about it, you know? Ugh, anyway. I’m just shaking my head.

MalMuses: I really did like Bobby and Ellen and Jo in this fic as well. We don’t get a lot of them. It’s kind of a short section of a fic, but they’re written so well that you really get a feel for this dynamic that they’ve got going on and their little hunter’s cabin and everything else and I like it.

I love me some Bobby in fic. I do. Yeah.

Ellen: Oh, anything else about this?

MalMuses: There’s so much about this book. There really is. I’m sorry. This is one of those ones where you’re going to be editing it and you’re just gonna be like, Oh God, Mal, shut up. Let’s move on. But it’s so good. Just please read it and then scream at me about it. Okay. Thank you.

A Constellation of Wishes [01:02:00]

Ellen: I will happily scream as well. [01:02:00] Okay. Shall we go on? So we go, go for one of the shorties that we’ve got on our list here. A Constellation of Wishes by Destina was published in 2022. It’s 8, 500 words ish, and it is explicit. So this is another actual post canon where like, 15.20 actually happened.

So the summary is very short. It just says

Dean builds a little house in Heaven, because it’s easier than saying what he feels. And then he invites Cas to come home.

I enjoyed this one because it’s feels so, the whole fic felt kind of peaceful. I don’t know, like I didn’t really get the peaceful vibe from the finale in general, but this, this actually turns it into like a…

like Dean finds like the lake with the, you know, the little dock where he fishes or whatever and decides that he’s going to build a house there. [01:03:00] And rather than actually just wish a house into being like, apparently people can do now in heaven, he actually decides to build it. So I don’t know.

MalMuses: Which is very Dean to me.

Like it, it, it felt so Dean, especially in terms of, you know, at least partly, he’s building this as a home, not just for himself, but for Cas. And that idea that Dean can’t say, that’s just, that’s not his love language. He has to show, he has to, you know, he can fix things. He can’t, you know, talk about them.

So he literally builds an entire house just to get out of saying three little words. (laughs)

Ellen: It’s so Dean. He knows Cas is there. He knows Cas is in heaven, but he, I mean, obviously Cas hasn’t come to him either, but he hasn’t, you know, prayed to Cas or whatever. He just builds him a house instead.

MalMuses: Yeah, as you do,

Nessa: [01:04:00] Cas is a big baby, and he’s hiding too, like

MalMuses: You get the, you get the impression that Cas was more giving Dean space and just kind of waiting for him to be ready to work through it.

Ellen: Yeah well he already said his piece.

MalMuses: That’s true. Exactly. Exactly. He was, he was waiting for Dean to get there. I love the fact that when Dean is done with the main construction of the house and he starts, you know, filling the house and furnishing it and putting it together you start getting little touches of Cas in there.

So you, you realize that Cas really is paying attention to this process to the point where, like, he puts some art up on the walls and Cas changes it. He’s just like, man, this art sucks. Let’s get something else to do. I love like the

Nessa: accumulating mass of pillows on the bed. There’s just like, every time he goes into the bedroom, there’s more pillows in different shades of blue and purple and green, and I’m like, I’m, I’m here for it. Like, this is very cozy.

Ellen: He’s building his nest.

Nessa: Yes, exactly. [01:05:00] So cute. Oh my God. And then like, When he finally shows up and Dean’s like, no, no, I want you to just be you and Cas is like, okay, buddy And like kind of like fritzes out for a second and Dean’s like, “oh, oh, that’s a lot. like we’re gonna have to take this in baby steps,” and I just like, I love that so much.

Yep. It’s a wonderful comic relief. Not that it needed relief, but. About like the

MalMuses: different reactions and fics that Dean has when he, you know, sees him for the first time. And this actually is one of my favorites, where he’s just really like, oh, that’s, that’s great. But it’s kind of a lot. Like, can we, can we take a minute?

Love it.

Ellen: And after that, they don’t waste, like it’s only a short fic anyway, but they, they don’t spend time talking at all. They just immediately get on with the business, you know, like, yeah, in the christening of their new house.

MalMuses: Yeah. Cas has done his [01:06:00] waiting.

Nessa: It’s true. Glaciers move faster than Dean Winchester.

MalMuses: He’s even prepared the bed. So yes.

Ellen: I liked the touch that you know, he hadn’t really invited many people to help him out with stuff, but he does get help from Henry, like Grandpa Henry to do his little wards around the house.

MalMuses: Yeah, it’s like, under, underutilized character in general, I think. I really liked Henry, even though we only got like a small amount of him.

But I think they,

Ellen: Yeah it’s only one episode, right?

Nessa: Two.

MalMuses: they had a lot in common, kind of, really. Yeah, with the whole expectations from fathers and things like that. I feel like they could have bonded a lot if they’d been given a chance.

Nessa: I love, I love a good, like, what a fic. utilizes Henry and like, like this was beautiful, perfect, perfect use of Henry Winchester.

The relationship he’s got with Dean in [01:07:00] Satin and Sawdust is great. Like, I, you know, there are so few fics where like they have a relationship, but when they do, I’m just like, it makes me feel so warm and cozy inside. And I, I don’t know if either of you watched The Winchesters, but like we got a little bit more of Henry Winchester right in that in that universe, which I really enjoyed.

MalMuses: Yeah, I really liked that too.

Nessa: Yeah, yeah. Like we didn’t get enough of Henry, but they, they’re sweet in this together.

MalMuses: And this, this is another one of those fics that’s kind of, you know, low angst. It’s, it’s a big hug.

Nessa: Yeah. So soft. So delightfully soft.

MalMuses: Which is kind of a big contrast to the other shorty that we have.

Nessa: The other one’s like, oof.

Every Light He Cannot See [1:07:50]

MalMuses: Yes, so I think this might have been the first one I suggested to Ellen that we do, [01:08:00] because I absolutely love this fic. So this is Every Light He Cannot See by intothesilentland. Intothesilentland has written a bunch of wonderful, dusty old fanfic. I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about, here and there, about some of that fic before.

But, this is for me, at least, the peak intothesilentland, absolute favorite fic that they have done. This is a little twist in that it’s a true form Purgatory fic. So it’s still canon, but it’s based during the Purgatory times. It’s eight and a half thousand words ish thereabouts, and it was published in 2021.

And the summary goes like this.

Here in Purgatory, Castiel cannot keep his true form tethered to his vessel. He’s a beacon of light for monsters to flock toward, he’s a danger to those around him—especially Dean—and with each passing day, he has less and less hope of making it through a gateway back to earth, a gateway designed for humans.

But if he can take Dean safely there, [01:09:00] he will—all the while hiding his true form from a human he knows will be disgusted by it.

After all, Castiel has always been willing to bleed for Dean.

And he bleeds,

and he bleeds,

and he bleeds.

Nessa: Mm, so fluffy. (laughs)

Ellen: I love Purgatory fics. I realized that the reason I didn’t read this when it was new is because I was writing a Purgatory fic at the time, and I avoided reading Purgatory fics on purpose because I didn’t want to accidentally steal stuff from them, you know, when I was writing it.

So, now I’m glad I finally got around to this one because it’s so beautiful. The prose is just gorgeous.

MalMuses: It is incredibly gorgeous in that very, like, grimy, grungy, dirty, Purgatory way. Yeah.

Nessa: [01:010:00] And like, it’s poetic, like, the way that like, they play with formatting and repetition and like, there was just like a lot of like, I don’t know, you were talking the prose is beautiful, but like there’s a poetry to it as well and it’s, it was such a lovely, such a lovely piece.

MalMuses: Yep. And this is another one where we’re getting it from Cas’s point of view.

Nessa: Yes, which always.

MalMuses: Always, yeah, kicks me that one. But I think especially because, you know, this one is bittersweet because it’s, it’s canon and we, we know how this ends.

Nessa: Yes, yes.

MalMuses: And at no point does the author like dangle anything in front of you like, Oh, this is going to be a, a fix it. This is going to be

Ellen: No, it fits perfectly into the canon events.

Nessa: Yes. And yet I found myself hoping, like I knew it was going to end the way it ends. [01:11:00] But like, I found myself hoping, I was like, Oh, come on, man, like, no, maybe this time they’re going to get out. Like, you know, it was, I, I, like, I found like myself very in it I guess like sucked into it.

Ellen: I mean, the, the premise is that Cas can’t stay anchored to his Jimmy form, I guess. So he starts kind of accidentally coming out of, like, with his true form around the place. And I thought that was such a great sort of way of explaining, like, the way he is in Purgatory, because he seems like almost, like, he’s not all there a lot of the time, like, in the show.

Like, you’re thinking, why are you not more badass, like your usual self, but they, they explain it as being, you know, he’s down, he’s low power or whatever, while he’s there. But this, this explanation makes a lot of sense.

MalMuses: Yes. Yeah. It really, really works. This, this explanation. So

Nessa: [01:12:00] I like it a lot. And like, just so I love like the idea of like, Dean, Climbing all over Cas.

Like he’s a playground, like, he’s like, “Oh, well, what happens if I stand over here and if I stick my hands in here, what it is like, you know, and this is fuzzy and that’s not, and these are feathers.”

MalMuses: We get that like childlike curiosity that Dean can have sometimes like what’s the name of that episode where they go to like comic book store type place, and Dean is just like, gleeful about some of the like, horror movie stuff there. And that’s, that’s like the aspect of Dean that we’re getting when he’s literally clambering all over Cas.

Nessa: Like, just so cute. I, and like, I love, I love like, the tall and the small you know, and they do such a great job of the tall and the small in this one.

MalMuses: Yeah, it’s so good. I love that they, in, in that whole section where he’s like clambering over him, [01:13:00] we get like the actual physical representation of the, the crack in the chassis as well.

Ellen: Yes, what a great idea. That

MalMuses: it’s like an actual physical thing.

Ellen: And it allows his, his like, his light, his heart to spill out, which is just Cas!

MalMuses: Yeah. It’s beautiful.

Ellen: So good.

MalMuses: I think one of the most heartbreaking things about this fic though is that we get to see how Cas feels about himself. Because we, we see. You know, a lot of fics and even a lot of times in canon, people being kind of in awe of angels and thinking that they’re these fantastical, terrifying beings and that, you know, Dean would fear him or be in awe of him one or the other, that it’s this kind of like holy, heavenly, amazing thing.

And yet in this, you know, As it kind of breaks down, and Cas is thinking about himself and how Dean is going to see him, he, there’s one of those wonderfully, like, formatted sections where he thinks of himself, and his description of himself is that he is beast like and brutish and broken. [01:14:00] And that’s just completely the opposite, I think, of how we think of angels most of the time.

It’s a little bit sad, and then he starts crying, like streams and almost drowning.

Ellen: Yeah. And then Dean’s like dude, there’s like, I’m going to drown here. And he looks down and there’s like water everywhere or whatever grace everywhere.

MalMuses: I love that. It gave me like almost like Alice in Wonderland vibes.

Nessa: Yes. Alice in Wonderland vibes big time! Yes. So good!

Ellen: I had another moment in this where I had to put it down and look at, look at the wall and just go, holy shit. Where they mentioned that Dean he all the time that he was trying to avoid Dean and Dean had been falling to his knees by trees to pray. When he should be guarding himself. I’m like, oh, the prayer in “The Trap” when he falls to his knees.

He was just doing what he did back in Purgatory the other time.

Nessa: [01:15:00] That we never got to see, right? Wow! And that’s the one they let us see, guys. Jensen acting his ass off.

MalMuses: Yeah, he, he was really eyeballing that daytime Oscar that day. He was like, yes, now.

Nessa: Now is my time. God, like truly one of my, like, I have like, you know, there’s like a Rolodex of like iconic, like film things in my brain. T Rex escaping from its paddock in Jurassic Park is like the first one that was ever burned in, you know?

And like, I feel like that whole scene, I’ve watched it so many times. And just like the, The, the face journey. I know we say the face journey on Tumblr all the time. But like the, the micro expressions that, that, that he’s both capable of and that the editors are capable of capturing and ordering in like the right ways, it’s just like beautiful.

[01:16:00] Like it really is lovely, lovely TV. And like,

MalMuses: yeah. Oh, old Jackles making those face choices on his face journey. (laughs)

Nessa: Oh God. So yeah, the, the opening prayers in this, in this story, before we get to like, see Cas in his, you know, I mean he sort of see Dean going from. this sort of friendly, like, “Oh, hey man, hope you’re around. I’m trying to find you” to, “I’m going to fucking kill you. Where the, why are you not answering me?” And like the increasing, like desperation and then like to go from those kinds of things too. “The Trap.” Oh, who wrote that episode? They should go to jail.

MalMuses: [01:17:00] Writer jail for you.

Nessa: Yes. But, but good jail, right?

Ellen: Was that a Bobo one?

Nessa: I think it might be Bobo.

Ellen: Oh god, I’m gonna have to look it up. It feels like Bobo.

Nessa: It’s don’t know. No. Or it’s Robbie. I think it’s Bobo. Correct.

MalMuses: Let me check in here.

Ellen: Yeah, we better get it right, I guess. We don’t wanna give props to the wrong…

Nessa: Or they’ll come for us on the Tweeter. (laughs)

MalMuses: On the tweeter! They sure will. I had a feeling, it’s a Bobo and Jeremy Adams episode, and I’m sorry, but Jeremy Adams to me is one of the most underrated Supernatural TV writers.

One of my favorites, but doesn’t, I don’t know, doesn’t get as much love as… You know, obviously we all love Bobo for reasons, but Jeremy Adams, also fantastic. Love him.

Ellen: [01:18:00] Anything else to say about Pur-gay-tory before we go on to some other things?

MalMuses: Oh gosh.

Ellen: I loved Benny, Benny was in this one.

Nessa: Yes. For a second. Yeah, he was.

Ellen: Briefly. Third-wheeling it.

Nessa: third wheeling it. (laughs) I mean, it’s true. But, but yes, used to great effect. Like, I, I love that, like, the moment that Cas is like, “Oh, okay, I guess I have to accept that you’re here.” Is like, That same moment in the show where like, that’s how Benny like solidifies his relationship to Dean is by saving Cas’s life. You know? I thought that was really interesting to, to sort of get that moment from Cas’s perspective.

MalMuses: Yeah. Get the, the important moment.

Nessa: Yeah. Yeah, I

MalMuses: do love, I do love Benny and you can’t have Purgatory without Benny, but.

[01:19:00] I love that there was very much that third wheel feeling in this, cause we were so focused on Dean and Cas. You can just kind of imagine Benny sat back in like their little base by himself, twiddling his thumbs by the fire. Like, well, guess they’re gone again.

Nessa: I have been that third wheel. It’s it’s no fun.

MalMuses: Benny’s got a lot of patience.

Nessa: Yes. Yes he does. That was so good.

MalMuses: Yeah, but this is, this is a feeling, not just a fic when you read this. Like it’s, you know, all encompassing and I would love everybody to read this fic. Please, for me. It’s only eight and a half thousand words. You can do it.

Ellen: Thank you for suggesting this one. I loved it. Yeah, very good.

MalMuses: Yeah.

Nessa: I didn’t know about this one either and it was just a delight.

MalMuses: This is, this is

I have obviously really love True Form Fics. I’ve got a whole list of them. Quick plug for the blog. Go find them there. [01:20:00] But this, I think if I had, if I had to narrow it down, this is genuinely one of my absolute favorite True Form fics. So, all right.

Other Recommendations

Ellen: All right. Now you’ve said that you’ve got a huge list, but tell us about some other ones.

MalMuses: I’m going to let Nessa talk about that one, I was going to say, I’ll just jump in to squee on occasion.

Nessa: Wow. So Wavelength-gasm is by Mumble_bee. It was published in 2021. 11, 000 words, 11, 000 words and change. And it’s a For those of you who are not into the dubious consent it implies, this is a fuck or die sex curse situation.

Ellen: Yeah.

Nessa: Heed the tags, friends. Heed the tags, but also, like, the tags are not sufficient to describe how truly fucking weird this story is. But in the best way. [01:21:00] Like, it’s, it’s it’s a real special it’s spicy, it’s definitely spicy. Again, fuck or die. And basically the premise is Cas gets hit with a, a hex that curses him and he has like this little nebulous black void inside him that’s like sucking him up like a little black hole.

And so his body, his vessel starts like fritzing out and like his head starts turning around like the exorcist and he starts like burping bubbles and like speaking in tongues and Cas is, and, and, and Dean is like, what? The fuck is going on? And Cas just keeps

MalMuses: He moos like a cow at one point.

Nessa: [01:22:00] He moos like a cow, and he throws up black tar.

Like, it’s just like, really kind of gross. And like, Dean is like panicking and Cas just keeps asking him for help. He’s like, just “help me. I need your help. I’m malfunctioning. I need your help.”

Ellen: And Sam, once they work out what it is, like the curse, Sam just bounces. He’s just like, I’m out. (laughs)

Nessa: He just disappears. Oh my god, with like the rapidity.

Oh god. And So eventually Dean figures out that, he can’t help Cas from this plane of existence. And he has to like tip into this alternate plane where the rest of Cas’s celestial body resides. And Cas’s celestial body is like an Escher painting come to life. You’ve got the spinning rings and the bursting eyes and [01:23:00] the tons of feathers and wings going in every which direction and bubbles appearing and splitting into other bubbles and blinking at Dean and like, all of these like wild things.

There’s waterfalls, the fire, like, it’s just all these crazy things going on. And Dean’s like, his poor tiny little brain. And I don’t know if either of you ever played Arkham Horror. the board game. It’s like, it’s a Call of Cthulhu thing. And like, as you, you play like people who are in a town where all these portals are opening up to like eldritch dimensions and eldritch creatures are coming through.

And as you see more and more of them, you start to lose more and more of your sanity.

MalMuses: Sounds like a fairly, fairly common trope in the Lovecraft world.

Nessa: It’s a, it’s a wild game, but anyway, that’s kind of like, I feel like that’s what Dean like has this journey of like, he’s like, [01:24:00] Oh, all of this stuff is happening and am I going insane?

What is this? And like, trying to understand, like, what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling, what Cas needs him to do. All the while being naked and like, it’s just like

Ellen: Floating through walls.

Nessa: Floating through walls. On the roof, especially. On the roof of the barn that he’s in, because of course they’re in a barn.

Like,

MalMuses: I love the fact that Dean has these stray thoughts now and again about what the hell he must look like from outside, because he’s just wandering around this barn naked, like bashing into beams and things because he can’t walk through them in the physical world, but he’s trying to walk through them in this, this other plane.

So he’s just like pinballing around this barn.

Nessa: It’s just such a, like, I, oh, like on a little conveyor belt going all through the air in figure eights. [01:25:00] And like, I just imagine the, the one where he’s like upside down by the window.

MalMuses: Yeah. I want to know what it looked like from outside to Sam because Sam’s just hearing all these like crashing noises and there’s like flashing and he was just like, man, they must really be going at it.

Ellen: Yeah. And then he comes back in and Dean’s like upside down naked in the rafters. Like, “what are you doing up there?” You know? I mean, absolutely no. Like, I’m not accusing the author of anything, but this absolutely sounds like someone took some LSD and then wrote down all the things that they were thinking.

Like, I don’t know, it, it’s amazing though, like. The actual way that they’ve managed to describe something that is indescribably strange. Really good fun.

Nessa: Really good fun.

MalMuses: As you can tell from our reaction to it, this is so funny to read. Like it’s such a completely different take on most true form fics, which are either very serious or very sexy.

[01:26:00] Like they’re going for one or the other. This is just, it’s just It’s friggin hilarious. And yet still also serious and sexy.

Ellen: It’s pretty much crack.

MalMuses: Exactly.

Nessa: Yeah, it is. I was gonna say, this is probably as close to a crack fic as we get in this fandom.

MalMuses: Oh, I don’t know. We’ve got some.

Nessa: I know. We do have some. I know. They shall not be.

I know. No, I know. I shouldn’t have said that. I know better. (laughs)

Ellen: We’ve got a whole episode dedicated to that.

Nessa: I know. Oh, yeah.

MalMuses: Some, some really serious crack fic. But this, at least for this trope, this is probably as cracky as it gets.

Nessa: And treated seriously, but like, treated seriously, but still funny.

Like, it’s, it’s, it’s so nice. And like, I just, again, this, this trope where we explore the, the sort of different ways that Cas might show up and like this one is really, is really wild. It’s definitely the, yes. Scrolls past the kink. Scrolls back up to be sure.

MalMuses: [01:27:00] Back up, like, oh, okay

Nessa: This one is like, you kind of gotta be prepared for some weird shit.

MalMuses: And you have those moments where you’re like, in your head, like, okay, am I picturing this right? Let me reread this, because it’s it’s all described clearly, but it’s such fantastical things that you’re just like, wait a minute, so he’s got this part and this part, so what’s this part doing when this part’s doing this?

And yeah,

Nessa: it’s very complicated,

MalMuses: and then, and then the, just a Dean floats through your brain with like a constant boner the entire time. Where you’re just like, oh, there we go. (laughs)

Nessa: But then it gets like, kind of gory too, like I feel like there should also be warnings for like canon typical gore, like when he finally like, breaks the curse.

It’s like, whoa, this is gnarly. I don’t know. But also like, oh, I could go off onto a tangent about [01:28:00] body horror that I won’t because, yeah but, but titillating, titillating is all I’ll say. Really, really.

MalMuses: Yes, I love a fic that can make me cringe a little bit.

Nessa: Yes.

MalMuses: And going into one of my, going into one of my next recommendations, a person who’s very good at making me cringe a little bit is my lovely Duckyboos.

Nessa: Oh, yes. Oh, my God. Yeah.

MalMuses: Yes. Let me, yes. So if someone wants a very short dip into some true form, so this is literally a thousand words, little ficlet, 1100s.

And it is Walk With Me In Hell by Duckyboos. And it’s a thick about the day that Cas turns up in hell, essentially. Duckyboos has a talent with words for creating really quite gory images sometimes with very few well chosen words. That they tend not to be an overly effusive writer, they’re more [01:29:00] like, they will pick the exact word that will make you squirm in your seat.

And this is, this is a good example of that. It’s, it’s very short and to the point and takes you through a few kind of key, key scenes as Dean and Cas are meeting in hell, essentially. And how Dean can’t really see him because he’s not existing in the same way that Dean is and it’s, it’s a short and I think sweet one, but people will probably disagree with the, the sweetness and all that, with the torture and all that.

So yes, Walk With Me In Hell by Ducky Boos, 1100 words. And this is like from 2020, I think it’s relatively new ish, but we don’t have a ton of hell fics in this fandom, or at least not as many as I think we should. By rights. So, yes. Please, go read this one. And I promise I’ll wreck a more cheerful one when we get back round to me again.

Nessa: [01:30:00] Yeah, we definitely could use more hell fics. More. And like, I think, I feel like there were a lot of them in the beginning. that, that have been lost to the sands of time.

MalMuses: Yes, I remember reading a lot on LiveJournal. Yes. Fewer of them made it to ao3, I think, sadly.

Nessa: Yes. They did not the transfer did not.

MalMuses: Do you have any, Ellen, before I just, you know, rattle off a million more?

Ellen: The Law of Equivalent Exchange is by awed_frog. It’s, it’s canon verse, but it’s like pre canon. I think, I feel like we’ve talked about this before on the podcast. I’m not sure if we actually did it as a main canon fic, or if we just mentioned, if I, you know, recommended it, but it’s basically it’s Castiel meeting Dean and Sam over reincarnations, like through history at the beginning, until they get up to the part where it’s current.

[01:31:00] So, and after that, it’s more sort of canon adjacent, I think. It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I’m pretty sure that the true form part of this is the sections, like the scenes in the beginning where he’s meeting you know, princes of, Babylonia or whatever you, Babylon you know, old, old school.

I can’t remember exactly what it involves, but yeah, he, he does meet, like, I just love the, the way that this fic is structured, like with meeting them time and time again, and then the way that the angels are trying to influence Dean’s kind of development as he’s reincarnating over and over. And Sam, obviously, because they want Sam to come as well.

And yeah, so. So even like in the first chapter, he appears to someone with his wings and his eyes and stuff and says, be not afraid, you know, so yeah, it’s got a tag for true form, I think.

MalMuses: Okay. It’s been a very long time since I’ve read that one. So, cause I think it’s in my head. [01:32:00] It’s a similar age to So Says The Sword and it’s a little older.

Ellen: It’s a little older. It’s 2015. Yeah.

MalMuses: Yeah, probably about time I gave that one a reread, I think, yeah. I think,

Ellen: I think this one is one of the first fics that I read in the fandom. And it made an impression. I have re read it a couple of times since, but not for a little while. Yeah. Nessa, did you have another one?

Before we, before Mel dumps all of hers on us, I feel like she’s got a few. I,

Nessa: I mean, there was Full of Grace, which is just like straight up, straight up porn. It’s not even it’s just, there’s no excuse for it. It is pwp all the way through.

MalMuses: We don’t need an excuse.

Nessa: We don’t need any excuses. Consentacles. Another, another really weird one. I like the weird ones, you guys.

Ellen: It’s fine. That’s valid.

Nessa: Yeah, no, no, I know. [01:33:00] I just But yeah, another just like really strange one. It’s like kind of like, Almost like gross. Like in, in, it’s, it’s weird. It’s weird. But it’s like, you know, Cas, Dean looking for Cas in heaven. And finally. Being like, “yeah, I actually do love you. And it’s taken me this long to like, come to terms with it because I’m a knucklehead.” Basically and, and then glorious, glorious true form sex. But, like, really, that’s the whole fic, that’s the, that’s the whole thing in

MalMuses: I have read this one. This is the one, this is gonna sound bizarre out of context.

This is the one where Cas, at one point, is basically like a forest and he drives into him, right?

Nessa: Yes. Yes. You’re correct.

MalMuses: Okay, good.

Ellen: Wow, okay. (laughs)

Nessa: It’s Full of Grace, by ilovehowyouletmefall. There we go. And it’s [01:34:00] Yeah, this is another one where Cas’s true form is like really unusual. He is like a forest of trees of like white light trees.

And like the roots of the trees are tentacles and they get very busy with naked Dean. But he’s got the spinny rings that are on fire too.

MalMuses: A little bit of everything.

Nessa: A little bit of everything. It’s not like, oh, that was the thing in Wavelengthgasm that I forgot about, where it’s like everything is the feathers.

Yes. And Cas just like, keeps like, Piling Dean and feathers. Oh my God. So silly. Anyway.

MalMuses: Earlier on when you said that the, the weird ones, and it sounded like you were having an epiphany and it reminded me immediately of wavelengthgasm again, where Dean’s like, “I’m having an epiphany” and Cas is just there, like, “could you do it a little faster?” (laughs)

Nessa: [01:35:00] But yeah, no, it’s just this, this lovely thing where like, I love, I love, like, the true form things where, like, they get freaky and Cas, like, Dean essentially, like, experiences himself from Cas’s perspective. And it’s like, Ooh,

MalMuses: like a little feedback loop kind of thing going on.

Nessa: Yeah, or like when he just, like, when he, like, really, like, is made to understand hand waving magically like how, how absolutely insane Castiel is about him. and I feel like this is a really good one for that. Like they just, they mesh in this one in a way that is like really lovely and, and scratches that itch for me in particular. And it’s, and it’s got a sounding thing, which I know is not for everybody, [01:36:00] but like, I love when it pops up in, in sexy fic.

It’s one of those things that I’m like, I need more of it. Give it to me. So

MalMuses: it’s, it’s good. I enjoy that too. So you are not alone.

Nessa: Yay. I mean, like, you know, I’m, I’m very like, you know, kink tomato forever, but. Yeah, no, I, this one is, is very, very spicy and special. Like,

MalMuses: I have to give this one a re read. It’s been a long time. I, I remember the forest thing very clearly, but

Nessa: It’s kind of hard to forget, like… it’s like he’s a tree!

Ellen: I’m going to have to read it just to find out about what you’re talking about.

MalMuses: Okay. Well, I have another couple I can recommend and I’ll do like one shorter and one longer to try and cater to all tastes as we do.

So the shorter one I’m gonna recommend [01:37:00] The Greatest of These by DoctorProfessorSong who is wonderful and has been on this podcast. So this one’s 9, 600 words ish, and it was published in 2021. I actually thought it was newer than that, but time is timey wimey. This is a story about… Jack pulls Cas from the empty, but he can’t… like his vessel was too damaged, he can’t reconstruct his vessel, so he essentially dumps Cas in the bunker with Dean, without a body.

And, but Dean can feel Cas. Cas, and also gets a sense of him in terms of like colors and feelings and just like flashes of feeling. And to start with, there’s definitely a question where Sam thinks that maybe he’s nuts. And maybe this is a trap and like pulls Dean aside and is like, dude, what the hell?

Like, why? And Dean is trying to explain to him like, [01:38:00] no, he knows that this is Cas. Like this is Cas. Like he knows what Cas feels like. And this is Cas. And Sam’s kind of side eyeing a little bit, like, Okay, alright, like, I’ll go with it, but There’s clearly a big, big but there for Sam. And then Jack poofs away to go and work on getting Cas a body, and they have to kind of, I would say they learn to coexist, but it’s very warm and fuzzy, there’s not really much of a adjustment period.

Dean’s just like, “Yay, I got my angel back, woo!” And then they don’t talk about it awkwardly for a while.

Nessa: Of course. Why would they? That would make sense. (laughs)

MalMuses: And I, I love the way that Cas’s emotions are described in this because Dean can feel Cas’s emotions because he’s completely untethered and not in, like, in a vessel.

So his emotions are basically kind of, flying around in the space like the colors and lights and he Dean will feel like Something that’s kind of like little bubbles in his chest when [01:39:00] Cas is happy and like all this kind of stuff. Like it’s it’s just really like fun and beautifully done Hmm, so

Ellen: sounds lovely.

MalMuses: That’s a short one. Yeah, it’s it’s yeah, it’s lovely. It’s a great fic.

And then I have another fic which is very very different. So this one is much longer It is a hundred and forty three thousand words, ish. And it is an empty house is not a home by sidewinder. This is just the concept of this fic.

Like, please read it for the concept. I love it. This fic is set when Dean was basically taken over by AU!Michael back during season 13 at the end of season 13 going into 14.

Nessa: Okay.

MalMuses: And it’s set during that period. And essentially the, the entire plot of this fic comes from the fact that Cas can only… Cas can think of like one person who might be powerful enough to overpower Michael.

And that is himself back when he was Godstiel. So some timey wimey things [01:40:00] and tries to pull himself from. Pull himself back from the past I guess into the future to try and try and sort this out There’s time traveling. There’s a lot of violence. It’s very like Kind of case ficky feeling in parts that you know, they are trying to work through that this problem and get Dean back and And you get to see a lot of obviously Cas’s like, desperation and feelings in this, and you get 140,000 of just beautiful plotty stuff and some true form and those lovely kind of grace powered orgasms type things that we were talking about earlier.

Nessa: Gotta have them, gotta have them.

MalMuses: It’s really good. It’s a really fun fic. It’s one of those fics But because, you know, it is kind of quite plot heavy really it just pulls you in and you don’t realize how long it is until it’s like four in the morning.

Nessa: Yes. I’m so here for it.

MalMuses: [01:41:00] And this is one of those fics that I love, which is tagged first time and quite a few times after that.

Excellent. So definitely, but yeah, that’s an empty house is not a home by sidewinder.

Nessa: I have thrown it on my mark for later. I. I was doing so well knocking things off of that list and they’ve all just, I’ve just added them back on.

Ellen: Sorry. Not sorry.

Nessa: No, no worries. Not sorry. Don’t be sorry. This is more, again, more cake. We, we feast at a, at a very bountiful table.

MalMuses: We are fanfic bakers. We just produce more and more cake for everybody.

Nessa: It’s true. And my goodness, I, I do love cake. So.

Ellen: All right. Any other recommendations or shall we?

MalMuses: [01:42:00] I’ll, I’ll just let people go through the list. I’ll just, I have a lot of recommendations. There will be a large list on the website.

Ellen: Yeah. She’s not kidding. There is a huge list.

MalMuses: Yeah. And I’m pretty sure I’ve read all of them. Like, yeah.

Ellen: So Nessa, have you got anything you’re working on at the moment that you’d like to share or you recently published a, a PB fic, right?

Like a exchange fic?

Nessa: I did. I recently did a short little thing for nickel

Ellen: oh! Hi nickel!

Nessa: Yeah. That’s just like a, you know, kind of jealous Cas College AU ish thing. That’s really just soft, more softness. I just today finished writing Three and a half. Thousand words of pure smut.

MalMuses: Fantastic. Glad To hear it.

Nessa: Castiel, the horndog of the Lord, came and visited me today, I guess. I was like, I’ve got some words for you. And I said, great, thanks. I’ll, I’ll take those.

Ellen: (laughs) I love how that, the, the concept of like, he, He came and possessed my body for a little while and I wrote down a bunch of words.

Nessa: Truly, that’s like, sometimes that’s what it feels like, I’m not gonna lie. Particularly, like, particularly when it’s

MalMuses: Oh, there’s like, there’s a crack fic in there somewhere.

Nessa: Yes, oh yes. But it’s a, it’s a Dean possessing Cas I mean, Cas possessing Dean, obviously thing that I’ve, I’m going to play around with and clean up so that might make its way onto AO3 soon.

MalMuses: [01:44:00] I do love a good bit of Cas possessing Dean. That’s something we’ve also done a specific episode on, and we, we did find a decent number of fics, but nowhere near as many as there should be, because it’s such a juicy concept to play with.

Nessa: I agree, it’s so juicy, and there are not enough of them, my gosh. Yes.

MalMuses: Looking forward to reading that.

Nessa: It was fun to write. So yes, it’ll, it’ll be hopefully very soon out in the world.

Ellen: Awesome.

Nessa: Thank you for asking.

Ellen: Yeah. Well, thank you for coming to talk to us about Trueform.

Nessa: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This was such a pleasure. I hope I didn’t squeal too much.

MalMuses: Thank you for putting up with me just like talking endlessly.

I get like this when it’s my favorite tropes, unfortunately.

Nessa: No, I feel you. I love it. It’s a good vibe.

Ellen: Before we sign off, we’ve gotta just shout out Katie, DustyLCanon. She is. She has Making It Up As We Go pod [01:45:00] fic podcast. I don’t know how you describe it. I guess pod fic cast? Where she does the you know, reads out like Destiel fic and it’s amazing.

And if you, I’m sure that everyone is listening to this has heard of her before. But she has managed to get permission from bendingsignpost to do Four Letter Word For Intercourse as a podfic although one of the conditions, I guess, was that it had to stay on ao3, so we actually, Mal and I guested on the podcast feed for Making It Up As We Go to have a little bit of a chat about the pod fic. And why? She can’t actually put it in her pod feed in her po, her podcast feed.

Oh my God, this is confusing my tongue. In podcast, podcast pod, podcast feed. So basically, yep. So you, you can listen to the files of, for each chapter as she posts it on ao3, You just can’t do it through Spotify [01:46:00] or through the actual podcast.

Nessa: You have to use the website?

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. But it’s. I think she’s posted maybe five or six chapters now and she’s doing more than one a week as she sort of finishes edit, editing them. And it’s amazing. It’s like reading the fic again for the first time. So good. So I know we’ve talked about Four Letter Word before in one of our episodes and I know there’s big love for it in the fandom in general.

So please go to Making It Up As We Go. And all like, she’s got the information on her you know, podcast feeds and stuff, but you’ll have to go to her ao3 as well. I think she’s DustyLCanon on AO3.

MalMuses: I think so?

Nessa: That sounds right to me.

Ellen: I probably should have looked that up before I said and yeah, just wanted to shout that out before we finished up.

MalMuses: And it’s genuinely so good. [01:47:00] Like Katie always does a really, really good job. And just has a really high standard for her podfics in general. But this one is especially impressive because anybody who knows anything about Four Letter Word, there’s a lot of like telephone conversations. And the way that she managed to do that and make it very clear that it’s a telephone conversation without ruining the listening experience is really good. And shout out to Katie for surviving doing the fic and I hope that your throat survived doing the sheer amount of dialogue that you had to do to get through that fic.

Nessa: For real.

Ellen: Okay. So she was talking about having to do the different voices, but she couldn’t drop into the different voices in the flow of the fic.

So she was recording the dialogue and then stitching it into the narration.

Nessa: Wow.

Ellen: I’m like, oh my god, that is so much work.

Nessa: That is a lot of work.

Ellen: And it just sounds so good. Yeah. Like the finished product sounds amazing, so yeah.

MalMuses: [01:48:00] Podfic-ing is, An underrated art, I think. So go and show, go and show Making Up As We Go some love for that because it’s a true labor of love, really.

Ellen: So all of the fics we talked about in this episode are going to be, as we’ve said multiple times already, maybe I should have left this bit out, we’re going to have a huge list of them on mixtapebookclub.com. If we’ve missed any, you can definitely get in touch with us to tell us your favorite true form fic, or, You know, just squeal with us about these fics that we loved.

You can do that on through all our social media, or you can email us contact (at) mixtapebookclub.com, or you can join us on discord in the Profound Bond discord server where Nessa is also, we found you there. There, or you can join our ko-fi and get come and join our discord server as well, what are we going to get up to next episode, Mal?

MalMuses: Next episode, we’re going to be discussing adaptations. [01:49:00] So anything that was a book, film, TV others that then got Destiel-ified. So, and I’ve got a few really fun ones in mind for this, so.

Ellen: Every like story that has like some kind of romantic plot can just be made into Destiel, right?

Nessa: Yes, it’s true.

MalMuses: Yeah, definitely.

Ellen: I mean, it happens.

Nessa: I do it with things that don’t have romantic subplots and I’m just like, but what if there was one?

Ellen: What if we added a romantic subplot?

Nessa: Yeah.

Ellen: What if one of them was an angel? What if?

MalMuses: Well, I should say that for, was it three or four years? I helped run an entire bang based on this concept of taking other things.

So we’ll be taking a lot, a lot of fics that were produced for that bang to put those into next week’s episode or next week’s, whenever we end up doing it.

Ellen: Sure. Next week. I don’t know about that.

MalMuses: Very excited. This week’s a little busy, but we’ll do it soon.

Ellen: All right. Yeah. Well, thank you everyone for listening today, and we will talk to you again soon.

MalMuses: [01:50:00] And as always, remember that the story isn’t over until we say it is.

Ellen: Bye!

Nessa: Bye!

[outro music]

Ellen: [01:51:00] I need to, I need to rewrite the end of the 9-1-1 podcast script, because it’s I keep forgetting what I’m supposed to say.

Nessa: I need to start listening to the 9-1-1 podcast. Like, y’all, that show is so delicious.

Ellen: It’s way better in… Season two I’m enjoying a lot more than the first season, but yeah,

Nessa: it’s is a very special, we’re not, I know we’re not here to talk about that, but season one is a very special thing.

Like, it exists. On its own, apart from the rest of the show, I think.

Ellen: And I feel like the rest of the show started at the beginning of season… It’s like when Cas came in in season four of Supernatural, it just changed completely.

Nessa: When Eddie shows up, you’re like, Oh, that’s what we were missing the whole time.

Okay, great. Boom. It’s, it’s incredible actually, how he galvanizes the ensemble [01:52:00] so immediately. And I do, I do love the first season cause it was like, Oh, here we are trying to find our legs. I love the relationship that Buck has with Abby. But man, yeah, the second season really packs a punch. Oh God. It’s so good.

Ellen: Well, I’m going to be up to episodes… I’m about to watch episode six, so I’m like. Barely getting into it yet, but no.

Nessa: Oh my goodness. I, I shotgunned, I shotgunned the whole series in like 10 days.

Ellen: Yeah, yeah, there’s been a lot of people who’ve been saying that they did that.

Nessa: And I just, I flew through it. I couldn’t, I couldn’t get through it fast enough.

And like, when it gets to the part that you’re watching it for, like, your brain is going to melt out of your ears. I just, it’s anyway.

Ellen: It’s going to take me a while if I’m only watching one episode a week, but yeah.

Nessa: Savor it. Savor it. It’s so good.

Ellen: Yeah. Yes. Yes. It’s been great.

MalMuses: [01:53:00] (I haven’t been) watching the 9-1-1 show, but desperately trying to resist, but I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna be able to hold out at this point.

Nessa: You gotta, you gotta, man.

MalMuses: I just, I absolutely have zero, like, less than zero interest in any kind of, like, procedural medical police, like absolutely nothing. Absolutely.

Ellen: Me neither.

Nessa: I agree. (laughs)

Ellen: The funny thing with it is, is that the a lot of the stuff that they do is just so ridiculous.

Nessa: It’s so ridiculous.

Ellen: Like listen, just listen to our podcast, and we just give them so much hell about all of it. It’s just like, that would not happen. Would that guy really be doing that? No. Why are we administering some drug in the, just, no, it’s just, it’s so stupid, but it’s great.

It’s really,

Nessa: It’s delightfully over the top.

MalMuses: yeah. Think that I really love that show because I wrote a fic once based on a prompt that somebody sent me and the prompt Was from that show [01:54:00] was literally like a scene from that show. I think

Nessa: of course

MalMuses: Or one of those shows I know there’s more than one. On one show whichever one And I thought that the like snippet that I saw was a great silly little like meet cute to do so I did that and because I did that everyone’s like oh She must love the show and I’m sitting there like, oh, I’m so sorry. I’ve never seen it

Nessa: I’ve literally never seen it

MalMuses: It was fun, so Actually, you can probably tell me what if it is from that show or from the other show that I know is I guess in the same universe? I don’t know how that works But

Nessa: There’s 9-1-1: Lone Star. Which just takes place in a different city, basically, with different characters.

Ellen: No, I think it’s, I think it’s the main show that, that that scene’s from. But it’s like, season four or five or something.

MalMuses: The one with the dude getting like, almost decapitated by a pipe or something, I think, because then… Yeah, like he walks into it? I can’t even remember myself now.

Nessa: Oh, Chim?

MalMuses: [01:55:00] Like it starts in a, it starts in a cafe, and they’re like, talking and like, ordering lunch or whatever, and he, then he ends up getting like, no,

Ellen: I know. It’s, it’s like a season that I haven’t watched yet. Yeah. So it’s not, nevermind. It’s not Chim and the rebar.

MalMuses: Okay. It’s not the rebar. Okay.

Ellen: We’ve, oh God. We’ve been through that already. Oh God. Yeah.

MalMuses: We got issues with the word rebar at this point. Mm, yeah.

Nessa: Oh yeah. It’s kind of traumatizing, right?

Ellen: Yeah. And the fact that he was fine, he’s completely fine, even like a couple of episodes after it happens, he’s back and he’s fine.

Nessa: Yes. It’s just like It’s so, it’s so absurd. It’s delightfully absurd.

Ellen: Yeah.

Nessa: Like You’re just like, this would never, like the opening of season three is going to make your head explode. It’s so dumb. And like, and yet you’re just like, give me more. It’s like popcorn. You can’t stop consuming it. All right. For real.

Ellen: Can’t wait. Anyway. Okay. Yes. Yeah, go [01:56:00] Mal, you don’t even have to listen to, you don’t have to watch it before you listen to the podcast. If you want, like, just, just don’t watch it and come and listen to us. Give it shit. Basically. Yeah.

MalMuses: I can do that, I can do that. That might actually, yeah, that would be better because I don’t have to watch any of the medical stuff, I can just listen to you guys tear it apart and it’d be wonderful.

Ellen: Yeah, I mean, that’s why we’re doing it.

Nessa: (laughing) It’s a good strategy, I like it.

(The “9-1-1 podcast” in question Ellen failed to mention by name is thatweewooshow.com)