Transcript: Track 45: Reunions

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

Jump to:

• Willow by thatpeculiarone
• The Seraph and the Frog by goldenraeofsun
• Closing Time by Casloveshisfreckles
• Other recommendations

[Intro music]

Ellen: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Welcome to the 45th 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 sub genre in the huge variety of Destiel fanfiction. And in this episode, we’re going to discuss fics where Dean and Cas are reunited.

MalMuses: [00:01:00] And joining us to discuss her fic this time, “Willow”, is author thatpeculiarone, also known as Jess. Hi Jess!

thatpeculiarone: Hi!

Ellen: Welcome back! 

MalMuses: Yeah! Good to have you back.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, it’s great to be back.

MalMuses: So we had to get you back for this trope. I feel like this is, this is a key trope. I always think of you when I think of these kind of fics.

Ellen: So, so the other fics as well as Willow, the other fics we’re going to discuss today in particular are The Seraph and the Frog by goldenraeofsun and Closing Time by Casloveshisfreckles.

And we have lots of other recommendations coming as well today.

MalMuses: And as always, links to all of these fics are going to be available in the episode post on mixtapebookclub.com, included in our collection on AO3, and they’ll be out there on all our social media.

Ellen: Okay, so before we get stuck into these fics, we just have to say a big thank you to all our Ko fi subscribers.

We really appreciate your support a whole lot. [00:02:00] And our subscribers have helped us before this episode in coming up with a great big list of other reunion fics. To share with you guys. So go to mixtapebookclub.com as, as Mal just mentioned and check out that big list at the end, or we’re going to talk about some of them anyway, you know, recommendations.

So if you would like to join our discord server and help us decide which topics to talk about and recommend us your favorite fics in each trope. You just need to go to ko-fi.com/mixtapebookclub, and you can support us that way too. Okay, so reunions, there’s sort of, I guess we can split this into AUs and like Canonverse, because in canon we have quite a few episodes, you know parts of seasons where they, where Dean and Cas do get separated and then have a big reunion, right?

MalMuses: [00:03:00] Yeah, we have fully canon reunions and then ones that, that go off somewhere completely different than take. The show in a different direction. So, yeah.

Ellen: And then we’ve also got a whole different kettle of reunion AUs as well. So we’ve got a bit of a combination of these in our main fics today.

MalMuses: I just think it’s one of those tropes that like people enjoy reading for like, from like a healing perspective sometimes, because they do get kind of split up a lot on the show.

Like there were several different periods throughout the show. the 15 seasons where they have like little breakups essentially, or they are forced apart or one of them dies and then comes back. And so I feel like a lot, when people write them, they just want to heal their hearts and write them coming back together.

So I totally get why this is such a common trope that you see.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. I think like you said, Supernatural definitely does a lot of them. [00:04:00] So, It sort of became a very popular trope within the fandom. I mean, I’ve personally liked them for years, and I don’t know why. I liked them before I even got into Supernatural, but I think, like, Supernatural definitely made me like them a whole lot more, because, like you said, they’re in the show.

So, it’s fics of the same reunion done different ways. So, it makes it, yeah.

MalMuses: Yeah. And that there’s definitely like, a strong chunk of fics that are written as reunion fics, like the main thing about it is this reunion. But I also think it can be one of those, like, stealth tropes, where we’re so used to them kind of like, knowing each other and being torn apart, or breaking up, whatever, and coming back together.

I found it difficult to think of fics with this trope to start with. Because so many of them do have it kind of worked in, but it might not be the main thing, or there might be a lot of other things going on. Beside that, there were actually probably a lot of fics that we won’t talk about today, which have this trope in, but they’re probably [00:05:00] more significantly something else.

Yeah. Okay. But I think we got some good ones.

Ellen: I think it also, one thing that’s really cool about this trope in particular is that often when they are reunited, there’s, there’s quite a bit of angst sometimes, not always. But then they always seem to have that kind of you know, that “Oh” moment that we love so much.

They often have the realization of the other one’s feelings when they’re reunited. So it makes for a really like a rollercoaster of emotions, you know?

MalMuses: Yeah, definitely. And there’s like different grades of “Oh” moment with these kind of fics. That’s just like the, Oh, I still like him or, Oh, I see him very differently than I used to.

Or occasionally the, Oh, I’m a dumbass.

Ellen: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, that’s every, that’s gotta be everything. Yeah.

Willow [00:06:00]

MalMuses: All right. [00:06:00] Well, should we start off with a really good one? Shall we start off with Jess’s fic? Yay.

Ellen: Sure. So Willow, by thatpeculiarone you published this for DCBB last year, 2023? Yes.

That’s right. Yes. So it’s got some lovely art in it. How do you pronounce this artist’s name? Do you actually know that?

thatpeculiarone: I think it’s just Honey Bunny. It’s just Honey Bunny.

Ellen: Okay, cool. Because I remember trying to say it before, I think we mentioned it in the last episode or a couple of episodes ago, and I was like, “seven… honey..?” like it’s got sevens in it and extra letters.

So anyway apologies to Honey Bunny for messing that up, but it, yeah, the artwork is so beautiful.

thatpeculiarone: It is. It is. I honestly, like, died when she first showed me all the art, like, I felt very lucky, I was like, oh my goodness, this is from my fic?

Ellen: [00:07:00] Yeah. And there’s lots, there’s not just like one or two pieces, there’s like quite a few, right?

thatpeculiarone: I know, yeah, there is a few, and like, she was like, yeah, I’ll do like chapter headings, and I’ll do like little dividers, and I was like, oh my gosh, I’m getting so spoiled.

Ellen: it’s lovely.

MalMuses: A little extra pieces of art like that as well, because like, everyone loves. a nice gorgeous piece of art of Dean and Cas or one of the characters.

But there’s something about like just the little tiny tidbits that just elevates the fic reading experience. I don’t know what it is, but I love those little extra bits. So.

Ellen: Yeah. Okay. So this one’s 71, 000 words and it is rated M. Jess, would you be willing to read us the summary?

thatpeculiarone: Yep.

Castiel Novak had known Dean Winchester his entire life. Growing up together, the two friends’ worlds revolved around one another, each of them looking forward to their annual summer get togethers at the Winchester’s Farm and Winery located in the rolling hills of Napa, California. However, it only takes one night for 17 years of friendship to all come crashing down.

[00:08:00] When Castiel confesses his feelings for Dean, his friend’s rancorous reaction sends him packing. Castiel leaves and stays away for 10 years. When Dean’s father John feels ill. Castiel begrudgingly visits the farm again for the first time in a decade.

Castiel is nervous to relive that night. He is nervous to be back at the place that holds so many memories. He is nervous to see Dean for the first time in so long. While he grapples with his anger and hurt, he also has to grapple with the fact that the feelings he holds for Dean may still be there after all this time.

Ellen: Oh my goodness.

MalMuses: Yay! Good job.

thatpeculiarone: I’m like, I can read these words, but when I read them aloud, I’m like, how do I pronounce these words? It’s just, but in my head, I know how they sound.

MalMuses: Yeah. Someone told me to edit fic that way, and it’s terrible. Sorry, do continue! [00:09:00] Going off on tangents already. This is boding well. Do continue.

Ellen: Tangents are fine. What inspired you to write this fic, like a reunion fic like this?

thatpeculiarone: I think I had the idea several years ago and I think it kind of started because basically a lot of the inspiration I got for the winery in that is actually from my childhood because my aunt and uncle own a winery, which is about like three hours away from where I live.

And growing up, I used to go there like pretty much every holidays cause I have cousins my age. And spent a lot of my holidays like literally running through the vineyards on the like farm things. So a lot of like the inspiration I’ve taken from it came from what I experienced. So I think I had like a dream about it one night and it kind of spurred that idea of them being childhood friends.

[00:10:00] And I’ve, I love Reunion Fics, I’ve written so many, so I think it just kind of started there. Yeah. And I was originally going to write it for Pine Fest, because obviously there’s a lot of pining. And then I think I had the outline and then I just left it and started last year. I just got inspired to write it again.

And yeah, kind of like over the course of a few months, wrote the entire thing. I was like very inspired. So yeah, that’s sort of where it started.

MalMuses: Yeah. I really liked that this was a winery because we, we see a fair number of fics where Dean has a brewery because obviously Jensen has a brewery. It’s fair enough.

But I think this is the first time I’ve seen it be a winery, so that’s pretty cool. We have, yeah, we have another brewery ic, which will be mentioning later, and then a, another one I was gonna mention. Oh my gosh, what was it? I reread it at the end of day. [00:11:00] It’s not wine or brewing, but it gave me the same vibes.

Oh, maple syrup. Maple syrup. Oh, maple syrup. AU Canada. Oh. We’ll get to that. We’ll get to that. But I actually love fics like this where Dean either works in a family of business owners or becomes a business owner himself, because I don’t know, that’s something weirdly I would have kind of loved to see in the show is eventually Dean to do something beyond hunting.

If we had ever got to that point, I doubt we would have done. But it’s like a little, like a little dream for me that there was life after for him. We’re gonna ignore what actually happened to Dean because I refuse to, I refuse that, but

Ellen: That didn’t happen

thatpeculiarone: Yeah,

MalMuses: that didn’t happen, but he deserved something after hunting.

thatpeculiarone: Oh, no, I agree.

That’s why I’ve never watched the finale and I will not watch the finale till I die. For that very reason.

MalMuses: I love your boundaries. I respect and love your boundaries, definitely. [00:12:00] I couldn’t do it, even though, even if I hadn’t seen it when it aired, I would have been forced to put myself through it. So honestly, you’re a better person than me, you could tell.

thatpeculiarone: I think the trauma of like working that day, you know, being Australian and seeing the amount of people like flooding my messages was enough for me to like not want to watch it. Cause it was. I was like, Oh, I did not expect that.

Ellen: So no, honestly, it’s a, it’s a good choice.

MalMuses: Yeah. I watched the whole world fall apart before you got to an opportunity to watch it.

I haven’t thought about that before, but the time difference, damn.

Ellen: Yeah. I, I managed to watch it live cause I was at home that day. So I like found some, someone who was streaming it and just went and watched it and then wished I hadn’t. Because, I was like, well, fuck.

MalMuses: I’m trying to remember it. I feel like I watched it.

[00:13:00] I definitely streamed it. I watched it with friends. Did I watch it on Discord with you? I don’t know. I was watching it with people.

Ellen: Maybe, yeah.

thatpeculiarone: I think you guys did. And I just couldn’t because I was at work. Because like, when Season 15 first came out, Like the year before I was in uni and it was like obviously pre covid, so it was just different times.

So being at uni, I was able to watch most of them live because I didn’t work. I mean, I didn’t go to uni on Fridays ’cause it was like Thursday night, so it was Friday morning for us, but yeah. Yeah. Obviously they delayed it. So a year later I was like having a job then. So it was very different.

MalMuses: Mm-Hmm. Jobs and living interfering with fandom life.

Ellen: Yeah. How dare capitalism. Anywho, more tangents. [laughs]

MalMuses: Yeah, to return back to the fic, I loved that this was set in a winery because I enjoy wineries. I’ve been to a few. [00:14:00] I’ve spent a few, you know, Sunday afternoons sitting outside them sipping, but I don’t know a lot about them. So actually reading this, it kind of, I don’t know, it was really nice.

I enjoyed it. I learned a few little things here and there.  

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. A lot of my knowledge of them came from the background. Like I, you know, and especially when growing up my aunt and uncle, cause like they pretty much started the business around the time I was born. So it took them a long time to get it to like where it is now.

But growing up, it was mostly just the vineyards and they would make all the wine, but they didn’t have like a cellar door or anything that people could visit and like go and actually sit and have wine. So a lot of it was just like the manufacturing of the wine, the sort of background, like they have the huge warehouse shed which I saw a lot of.

So it was cool to just know more of the background stuff about it, which is why like a lot of the things about, [00:15:00] you know, the actual business and like, people visiting that isn’t as major in the story. Especially because it wasn’t really that important to the story, but also because I’m like, that wasn’t as much of what I knew about it growing up.

Ellen: Oh, it’s also interesting with having a winery in that Dean has a certain kind of relationship with alcohol in this story. And he doesn’t actually drink any of the wine anymore. Yeah. Because of events that happened. I don’t want to spoil it for people, but yeah.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. Cause I find a lot of the time with reunion and I’ve even written these reunion fics where there’s like a lot of flashbacks.

And one of the fics we get to today literally has flashbacks, which I still do enjoy reading, but for me, I don’t enjoy them, writing them as much, even though I have done before. So I kind of liked in the sense like, throughout the story, weaving parts of their past and things like that more into conversation.

[00:16:00] And it also helps with them having reunited and trying to like, build a relationship again. I thought it was more interesting to like, get them to relive stuff more conversationally. Like the only time you see the past is obviously like we said in the first chapter. So that’s sort of what I enjoyed getting to try to experiment with when I wrote it.

MalMuses: Yeah, I really liked it doing this way, actually, because you read that first chapter and you’re instantly just like, oof, okay, worst, worst is over, maybe? Like, I’ve kind of got through the, like, the rough part. Now I know how it went down and I just have to help them pick up the pieces and maybe work out, because I think even in that first chapter, it’s clear that there’s more going on there than is being spoken about, though we don’t really know what that is at the time.

And it takes us a little while in the fic, I think, to piece together exactly why what happened happened. [00:17:00] Which, you know, this is, this is a John Winchester hate zone today. I’m sorry.

thatpeculiarone: It very much is. Yes.

MalMuses: And in that first chapter, is it technically a prologue, right?

thatpeculiarone: Oh yeah, prologue.

MalMuses: Yeah, so chapter one, but the prologue there’s still, you managed to write it in such a way that as readers knowing these characters already, you can kind of not really take Dean at face value.

Like we immediately know there’s something, even if we’re not being told what it is, at that point, there’s, there’s something happening. There’s no reason why this would be happening if there was not some other motivator for it. And. That just made me immediately curious to dig into the rest of the fic, like, nope, I gotta know now.

I gotta know how this went down because this was not it. Well, it was, but there was more to it.

Ellen: It does help to tell you know, tell past events through dialogue because the whole thing is in Cas’s point of view, so we, we can tell that Dean is, [00:18:00] you know, willing to reunite and get things back on track with their friendship, but until he actually tells Cas about it, we don’t know for sure.

So that works really well, I thought.

MalMuses: Which means we have to wait for Dean Winchester, of all people, to use his words before we can understand what happened. [laughs]

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. And I feel like some people would probably think, cause like a lot of the time you do find with angsty reunion fics. Because not all reunion fics are angsty, as we know with like a lot of the Supernatural canon ones.

But with angsty ones, they tend to, there tends to be a lot more turmoil when they first reunite, when it’s like they’ve left on bad terms. And like, not like spoiling anything, but it doesn’t take them as long as some other fics would for them to start to be friendly again. So I know some people probably be like, well, you know, probably have thoughts about, oh, it wasn’t angsty enough.

[00:19:00] There wasn’t enough like angst there. And, you know, Cas kind of forgave him too easily or whichever. But I think it’s also like, firstly, we, you know, Cas kind of, when he meets Dean again, realizes in his own way that some, you know, something wasn’t right, because like, Dean’s completely different to how he was in the prologue.

But, also being the fact that it’s been ten years, and when it happened, they were like 17, 18 years old. Like, I’m not the same person I was 10 years ago and it’s a pretty long time to hold a grudge.

Ellen: Yeah, 10 years is a long time. Yeah, it’s a long time to…

thatpeculiarone: yeah.

MalMuses: And I, I think you did a good job as well because we are in Cas POV for this fic, which it’s a little bit unusual.

We do see some entirely Cas POV fics, but not that many. And I really enjoy Cas POV fics. So, but because we were in his POV, we also did a really good job of showing us that Yeah. [00:20:00] It felt like Cas was forgiving Dean for himself, for Cas. Like it wasn’t necessarily about Dean, quite clearly it was.

Dean’s still hot, that’s still an issue. But he, it felt like, because we, we see little snippets of Cas talking about it with friends, with like, you can see that he’s been in therapy and talking about it that way. And it feels like he forgives Dean, not really for Dean, but for himself. And that made it much easier for me to read.

I was just like, yeah, you go, Cas, you do this. You deserve it.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, definitely.

Ellen: I thought you did a great job of you know, gradually kind of working them back towards each other. And they were still like, Dean was quite hot and cold for a while. Like Cas was very, was confused because, you know, he was trying to be like…Dean was trying to be friendly and Cas was like, I’m not.

I’m not dealing with this. [00:21:00] Like, I don’t want to deal with this. And then Dean would get upset and be cold. And then, you know, it was, it, I just thought it was a great the way you did that it took them a while to warm up to each other again, you know?

MalMuses: Yeah. And that felt good to me. It felt good to me communication wise, because I feel like a lot of the time in a use, they communicate as a general rule better in a use than they do in most canon fics, because there’s, there’s only, there’s only so much miscommunication we can sandwich into canon fics that we, we do try, and we manage a lot because the show gives it to us. But, in this one, I liked that it wasn’t easy, clear communication from the beginning. Even though they’re both trying, they’re also both imperfect people.

And I, I like that because it made them just feel much more in character to me than if they’d, you know, had a nice little chat about it at the beginning and everything was great and they never backslid on anything or got angry or frustrated or anything. It was, it’s just makes them feel a lot more in character to me.

thatpeculiarone: [00:22:00] Yeah. And like, like, cause one of the big things I wanted to do and when I was planning it originally, so years ago, and I still remember, like I had, the beginning, as we all do when we plan our fics, we have the beginning and the end, and then the middle is always the hardest part. So when I was trying to plan it, I was like, I need them to have time to be friends again, because it’s not going to be, especially with the way they left things off.

I can’t have them just be like, yeah, we’re friends. And all of a sudden we’re in a relationship again. Because they needed like all that buildup to get to that point. So if that was the hardest part of being like, how do I, you know, go about this and, you know, making them friends again without it just being like, boring, they did this, they did that, or just like random dialogue.

So that took a little bit more to plan, but it was just important for me that they built that trust again. And then

Ellen: yeah,

thatpeculiarone: yeah. So that they could communicate and you could slowly find out more things [00:23:00] about Dean as it went on.

MalMuses: Yeah, I think he did a really good job with it because we see a lot of Dean’s little love languages in this fic, like him getting up and making Cas coffee every morning, even when things aren’t so great and that kind of stuff, like his, those little Dean Winchester talking without talking moments and you did a good job kind of sprinkling those throughout this.

So it did feel like they were building that friendship again, as opposed to just deciding to be friends and not fixing anything.

Ellen: So cute. All those little things that Dean does. I love it.

MalMuses: Yeah. I would like a Dean Winchester to bring me my coffee in the morning, please.

Ellen: Oh, yes, please.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, yeah, that’d be great.

And this week was harder because being, being Australian, a lot of this, a lot of this was, having to like learn, like research different terms and like research the location and things like that, [00:24:00] because not American. And you know, growing up on a lot of American media, I feel like I do a lot of a good job of knowing certain things and like things that aren’t that are just Australian slang compared to American, but there was a big blunder on my part.

So and it’s, it’s still really funny to me is like in the prologue, obviously, since it’s the first chapter, when the whole situation goes down, Castiel’s parents come out to talk to him and they’re wearing bathrobes. And Ellen would know what we call bathrobes in Australia. We call them dressing gowns, and I wrote this into the fic and followyourenergy, agreed to beta my fic and just the comments she was leaving.

Like, “do you mean bathrobes?” And I was like, “yes, I mean bathrobes.” [00:25:00] Like how she deduced that from dressing gowns, which is very much an Australian term still makes me laugh to this day. Cause I was like, how did I blunder that one? Like everything else I got, but that was the one where I was like, yeah, I should have thought that through.

That’s just, it’s come so naturally to me. So that’s always like funny when I read the prologue again and I see bathrobe, I always have a giggle. Cause I was like,

Ellen: Surely that must be a British term.

MalMuses: It is. It is. We use it as well. I think we, I mean, kind of interchangeably, like, I feel like most people would be familiar with both, but I think dressing gown is more British, but yeah, just Cas’s parents swanning out of the house in the middle of the night in their gowns. [laughs]

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. I think that’s why she was so confused, she was like, what?

Ellen: What do you mean he’s wearing a gown? That’s so funny.

MalMuses: I think some of them would look very fetching in a gown, you never know.

Ellen: [00:26:00] We do have quite a fair bit of angst towards the end because spoiler, I think this one’s allowed because it’s in the tags. John does die, which may not be sad for some people. But everyone else in the fic is very sad and there is quite a large group of characters there at the time. Like we’ve got not just Cas and you know, Sam, but there’s also, you know, Cas’s mom and dad.

I think Chuck and Becky, right? That’s his mom and dad? And then we have, we’ve got Jess in this one. We have, you know, Ellen and Bobby and Jo are there. Like there’s a lot of people, and Ash as well. So they, they have all been coming to the winery for years and years to have their summer holidays together, which is amazing.

Like I would love to do that every year with different, with certain families. That’d be great. [00:27:00] But anyway they’re all going through their grief during this time and, you know, obviously, especially Dean and Sam so there is, you know, a heavy kind of angsty part towards the end, but, you know, they, there is a happy ending at the end, they, Dean and Cas kind of get through all that and come together, which is really lovely.

MalMuses: Just gonna say, you do let us see them happy for a little bit at the end, we do, we do get, like, a little additional bit of happiness that we see, which is, I very much appreciate that. Especially when you’ve had like a long angsty fic and you’re like, yes, they’ve worked it out great. And then it ends and you’re like, but can I just get like one scene, just one scene of happiness?

thatpeculiarone: I know I’m like, I’m the exact same. I was like, I didn’t want to write too much longer after that. Like once it kind of. But I was like, there has to be this little happy bit, like you have to see what comes after because I’m the same. If a fic leaves without seeing what comes after, I get so annoyed because I’m like, [00:28:00] I want to see that.

I want to see them be happy. And I definitely have the desire to write more in this world of like them two in like happier moments, but it just hasn’t come to me yet. But I think that will definitely be a plan for the future because I don’t think I’m done with it yet. But

MalMuses: yeah. This feels like a really.

Like a huge world that you created with the winery and all these other characters, because like Ellen said, you did have like a, quite a large cast of characters. So juggling that when you were writing must have been kind of a challenge as well. But it’s great because you are focused with that Cas POV you’re really focused on Cas and Dean, but you always get the sense that there’s so much else going on in this world with all the other characters and the things they’ve been through and all the memories they have together and then coming back to this winery. So, I personally would love to see, like, how those summers at the winery change now that John is gone.

[00:29:00] If that makes any sense, like, going, going forward in the future, like, and I can sit and imagine that from this fic. So, did a really good job with giving you an image of what will happen beyond even if we didn’t get to see it.

Ellen: I was just thinking you can write like a, a, a Christmas timestamp and then I’m like, Oh, wait a minute. That’s not summer. That’s just summer for me. For you.

thatpeculiarone: I know, I know, right?

MalMuses: That would be another Australian mistake that might confuse a few people.

Ellen: Yeah, that might be a bit confusing for people.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, they’re just playing, they’re just playing cricket, you know, cricket. Having some prawns. That’s how, that’s how Aussie Christmas summer Christmases.

Ellen: going for a swim.

MalMuses: Yeah, someone do it. ’cause we’ve got Dean Winchester baseball fics, we’ve got Dean Winchester football fics, hockey fics.

Ellen: There is one. There is definitely one.

MalMuses: There’s a cricket fic. Oh my gosh. Someone find me that and send it to me immediately,

Ellen: No, no, I don’t think it involves cricket, but there is definitely a fic that I read that was a Christmas one with.

[00:30:00] I’m pretty sure it was a Destiel fic. Or at least Dean and Sam and Cas were involved anyway. And they had Christmas in Australia or something like in Australia. So they had an Australian Christmas. It was like, Oh, I wish I could remember who wrote it. It was like a, a couple, at least a couple of years ago.

I’ll have to hunt around, see if I can find that again. We did and it would, because it was, it was weird because it was just so out of left field that I was like, I don’t know if I love this or like, I hate it or . I mean it was great for the, the getting the ambience of like summer Christmas in it.

But yeah, I don’t know.

MalMuses: I love that there is a fic about everything. Or set everywhere.

Ellen: The great thing about having over 100,000 fics about this pairing is that you get something of everything.

MalMuses: Yeah, but if anyone out there knows a Cricket fic, please, dump it my DMs. I need to find it. [laughs]

thatpeculiarone: That’d be so interesting.

Ellen: Well, I mean, they’re trying to get Cricket more and more into the U. S., so I don’t know.

MalMuses: [00:31:00] I ran away from England. I left cricket behind.

thatpeculiarone: I mean, cause yeah, like I say that I hate cricket, like it’s, it may, you know, it doesn’t make me feel like a true Australian, but I do hate it. More because I don’t understand it. And like growing up, my dad loved cricket and every time he put it on, I’d be like, can you explain the rules to me?

And he’d just ignore me. So I’ve never gone, I’ve gone my whole time, not knowing the rules of cricket. So like, for example, Australian football, which is different, I grew up knowing the rules of that so it made it easier to watch so I could actually understand what was going on. But cricket, still to this day, cannot tell you what’s happening.

[00:32:00] Just that thing, hitting a ball, that’s it.

Ellen: The thing is that a lot of it goes, is like, goes for five days at a time, so not a lot happens ever. Unless you’re playing a one-dayer, which can be a lot more frantic. So I don’t know, but I find cricket like this is, I’m just going on this massive tangent now.

I find it really good for writing because it’s really good. Like background noise. Like it’s just

MalMuses: kind of what I enjoy about it as well. Like I don’t. Like, I know very little about cricket. I have been around a lot of cricket as a child, but I don’t know a lot about it. But it’s kind of the same as with baseball in the US for me.

Like, I don’t necessarily want to watch the game, but I kind of like listening to it. Like, I don’t know, something about the sound of, like, the balls and the cheering and everything else. And I can be doing my own thing and reading and writing or having a glass of wine or whatever. It’s good background noise.

Ellen: It is, and it’s on, like, all day in the summer here, so, I mean, I have one person in my house who likes to watch it, it’s not me, but I will happily sit in the room and do something else with it on.

MalMuses: [00:33:00] Yeah, it’s good background noise. I’m sorry. We just went on this huge tangent and devolved an entire sporting industry to background noise. But…

Ellen: yeah, sorry. Sorry actual cricket fans. This fic, this fic has nothing to do with cricket.

MalMuses: Nope, nope it really doesn’t [laughs]

thatpeculiarone: You can tell where our brains are right now.

Ellen: Yeah. Cricket’s not even on at the moment. It’s winter. What was I going to say? Okay. So in this fic, you have a playlist. There is an awesome playlist and also you have little sort of what do you call them?

Like the Spotify preview thingies in each chapter.

MalMuses: Yes. I’m going to need to call on you the next time I post something that’s musical inspired because I never get that to work. So.

Ellen: Yeah, how did you do that?

thatpeculiarone: It’s honestly, it’s like you just go into Spotify and then they have like, like a share thing and it’s like the [00:34:00] html code thing and then you just put it into

Ellen: You just stick it in your…

thatpeculiarone:  There was other stuff that was more challenging.

Yeah, you just stick it in your chapter.

MalMuses: Yeah, I hope whoever designed that feature for sharing in that way at Spotify realises that fanfic is probably one of the primary uses for that.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, I, I, I like to think like my headcanon is that they you know, they’re a fan fiction person as well. And we’re, you know what, I’m just going to create this for no reason whatsoever. It made our lives a lot easier.

MalMuses: Well, we appreciate it. Thank you mysterious fanfic fan at Spotify. Yes.

thatpeculiarone: No, there’s a lot of my favorite songs on there. That just, I felt inspired by when writing, like I had the playlist. Not like, it wasn’t just those songs, I had other songs in there as well, but like, those songs were pretty much on repeat as I wrote the entirety of this fic. [00:35:00] So it made a lot of sense to have them based on the chapter and most of the songs have some sort of relation to what’s happening in the chapter, just very briefly.

Yeah, so, no, it was a lot of fun putting those in and then, yeah, the hardest thing was creating the little playlist thing to put it in the epilogue, which shows all the songs that were in the fic that took me a lot to, like, there was a thing, a thing that told me how to do it, but having to put it into the actual, like, I think it was like the starting chapter notes or whatever, that took me a while.

MalMuses: Well, I appreciate it very much.

Ellen: I love adventures in formatting.

MalMuses: Yeah, that’s why I don’t download fics onto my Kindle. I know a lot of people do that, and I feel like I’d enjoy reading that way. But don’t you also miss out on these kind of little things when you do that?

Ellen: [00:36:00] I think it depends whether your Kindle is, you know, can get on the internet. Like, you know how some of them don’t? Like, you just have to download stuff and you can’t use the internet on it?

MalMuses: Yeah. I just always end up reading live on, like, on the website and the only real times I don’t do that as if I’m going off the coast here where I live, where there’s literally no data, like you’re in just a pit of nothingness as soon as you head off the coast.

So I will download things or if I’m going to be on an airplane, but even then I have a tendency to just open the fic before I go anywhere and just leave it open, like open the entire fic in one page and then just I just scroll through it and do it that way. So lazy. So lazy. But it works for me.

Ellen: If I don’t open it on my phone, I won’t leave a comment. So that’s why I prefer reading on my phone. So I can leave kudos and comments. Otherwise if I read it somewhere else, I just never come back to it.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, I’m the same.

MalMuses: [00:37:00] And I think sometimes that’s the culprits for so many fics ending up on Goodreads, even though the authors don’t want them there, because I think it kind of prompts you at the end of when you read something on a Kindle from my vague recollection. That if you’re online,

Ellen: Oh, it does, yeah. To leave a rating, yeah.

MalMuses: Yeah, and that probably ends up with a lot of people being prompted to do that and just not, not thinking about it, not being malicious about it in the slightest, but just not thinking about it and ending up with those fics on Goodreads when as a rule, though not, you know, some authors might be quite happy for it, but as a rule, people don’t want their fanfics on Goodreads.

So, PSA, listeners, please don’t put fanfic on Goodreads. So, yes. Okay. All right. We went off on a lot of tangents during that one, but great pictures. Loved it.

thatpeculiarone: Thanks.

MalMuses: Yes, definitely. Do check the tags if you’re out there, because even though some of the things that I mentioned are [00:38:00] not super graphic or anything.

There are definitely some topics there that could be very upsetting for some people. So

thatpeculiarone: yeah. And I tried to if it was a chapter talking about something very triggering that’s in the main tags I will always put it, I always put it at the start of the chapter. And if it was like a very triggering topic, you can scroll down and at the bottom, it does give you a summary of it.

So you don’t have to sort of go through and do the whole reading of  what happened, but you don’t want to miss a chapter if it’s just like one particular topic that triggers you.

MalMuses: Yeah, I love that. That’s a really good method to do that. I think I’ve done that in several fics. It’s something I’ve tried to get into the habit of doing.

Ellen: Yeah.

The Seraph and the Frog [00:38:43]

Okay, so do you want, shall we go on to the froggy one? It’s a bit shorter, bit different.

thatpeculiarone: Let’s do it.

Ellen: Okay. The Seraph and the Frog by goldenraeofsun. Was published in 2021. It is [00:39:00] 12, 000 words, so it’s quite a lot shorter. And it’s only rated Teen. So this is a canonverse fic, although it is heavily diverging from canon from the end of season 12 where the, the episode where Jack is born and instead of Cas actually dying in this episode, he… the Winchesters never find him. And he is left with the baby, basically.

Jack is an actual baby. So I believe that when this was written in 2021, that was when, that was way after this, like that was around like season 14 kind of time, so it wasn’t that this was just written at the end of season 12 and Rae like, Imagined what might happen next because we knew that Kelly was having a baby, but… actually, you know, at the end of season 12, we did know that Jack wasn’t a baby.

Just thinking of that episode. [00:40:00] Anyway, long story short. this is tagged “Fairytale Elements” and it is, yeah, it’s got a magical frog. So let me just read the summary and then we can have a chat about it.

Armed with his growing stack of parenting books, Cas raises Jack in North Cove, Washington, alone. He hasn’t heard from Angels, Demons or Winchesters in six months. By all measures, Jack is a happy and healthy baby, if a little lonely. So when he befriends a frog who wanders in from the lake, Cas can hardly object.

MalMuses: This is such a cute story.

Ellen: It’s so cute.

thatpeculiarone: It is. I love this one. It’s like, it is like the complete opposite of like, angsty reunions.

Ellen: Even though Casie’s quite sad.

A lot of the time. Like lonely.

thatpeculiarone: He is. Mm.

MalMuses: But we know it’s going to be fixed, so we’re okay. [00:41:00] Yeah. I just love, this is one of those fics that could have been very cracky, like it could have been written that way to just be like a silly crack fic. But there’s nothing I love more than a really good, like crack treated, very seriously fic.

And, and this is that, like, it’s a, it’s done seriously. And it, it works very well within the universe that they’re in, because I feel like it’s not a spoiler. Like if you’re going into this, you know, Dean is the frog. Like it’s not, I don’t think it’s a spoiler at this point. Which, you know, could have been very silly.

And I probably still would have loved it, even if it was silly and written in that way, but I love that it wasn’t. It was treated seriously because this Supernatural universe that we have to work with, we could do things like that. And because we, we have them turned into dogs on the show and like all kinds of things happened in canon that make these fics so possible.

And I love that. I especially love this one because we know we’re reading a Destiel fic. [00:42:00] We know from the beginning that there’s going to be this frog. So as soon as the frog turns up, you’re just immediately like reading its behavior as Dean. So when it makes little noises or like glares or jumps a certain way.

Ellen: Yes.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. No, I love, I love that. Like you just know exactly that it’s Dean, which makes like all the mannerisms so much funnier. Like there’s like a line that. it’s like Cas frowns at it and it’s like the frog frowns back and just like just like little humanistic like mannerisms because you know it’s actually Dean like you just can tell from the moment you read it that it’s Dean so makes it so funny.

MalMuses: Yeah and you can get this clear impression that at certain points the frog is just exasperated with them just like oh geez okay [00:43:00] here we go off he goes because Dean being Dean he can’t just you know, stay in a tank or sit on a table. He has to, he’s like doing full on frog parkour at certain parts of this. [laughs]

Ellen: And he doesn’t want to eat beans or whatever he’s giving him. I think it’s beans, some kind of vegetable. And he’s just like, I’m not eating that.

MalMuses: Uh uh.

Ellen: They do a really great Cas voice, like his voice, it’s the way he tells the story, I guess, is just perfectly him. I thought it was great.

MalMuses: It was very in character, really well done. Yeah. I was just thinking about the beans and how I love the fact that when we get Dean back, like when he can speak and is human again, like he doesn’t let the beans go.

He’s just like, you can’t feed this to a baby. This is not okay. I’m

Ellen: I don’t think Jack ate them either, do they?

MalMuses: [00:44:00] I don’t think so. I mean, who can blame him?

Ellen: I also love that he named him Wart. Partly because I just watched, like, that animated Sword in the Stone a few weeks ago. So then it reminded me of that.

MalMuses: As a kid, like, so much. I watched that movie so many times. So yeah, as soon as they said Wart, that’s what I was thinking of as well.

Ellen: There’s not much more to say about this ficure, to be honest.

MalMuses: It’s a shorter one, so, you know, there’s only so much we can talk about without spoiling the whole thing.

But it’s a lovely, like, heartwarming read, but at the same time, they do actually communicate and kind of deal with a few things at the end, or they, you know, you get the feeling that they’re really headed in the right direction with communication, even though it’s still very in character. Like, Dean begrudgingly saying, I love you, Dean doing these things like that where, I don’t know, it feels very in character.

[00:45:00] But, it feels like they’re getting there. And because it is canon, and we’re still within that kind of era of the show where like, everybody wants to kill Jack, and we don’t know what’s happening with Jack and everything else. So, we know. We can very easily picture what might happen after this point, if Cas and Dean had, you know, got their shit together.

Ellen: Yes.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, I like that the angst was minimal, like there was definitely still that tension there, because obviously, which you sort of see from the Just the description of it that like Cas is just hiding away with Jack because he’s trying to protect Jack as like obviously as we know from season 12 that There was all that discussion about whether he was evil.

So yeah, I do like that it was like still had that little like undertones of it and I like how as soon as you know, we get into it and like Dean can communicate again, [00:46:00] actually talk I like how he’s very blasé in a way about it, but Cas is still like, doesn’t know what is happening, is just pissed off still, but Dean’s acting all like, nothing really happened, and trying to, you know, kind of go around the communication essentially.

MalMuses: Yes. Eventually, by the fic, it’s just like, yep, I like this baby.

This is a cute baby. It’s just a baby. We’re good. Cas is still pissed off. You know, you still have that, yes, let’s not forget you tried to shoot the baby. Like, can we, can we talk about this? No, I, I really did like that about this one. Cause it is kind of like a little slice out of the season where things could have gone quite differently and we get that alternate, you know, Season 13.

But I really, I really liked that about it. It was good. Nice little slice meant that it didn’t, we didn’t have to spend a lot of time getting anything set up ’cause it is just one of those little slices where if you’re reading this fic you know what happened beforehand.

Closing Time [00:47:00]

[00:47:00] Okay. So the final fit we’re gonna look at is Closing Time by Casloveshisfreckles which was published in 2017 for a DCBB.

So a little bit older now. Been around for a while though. I. I only discovered this one more recently. Because it’s a DCBB, it does have art by keylimedean. And it’s actually part of a series, so I, we, or at least I read the first one. I don’t know if any of the rest of you had time to read the rest as well, but there are four fics in this series.

Ellen: Yeah, the other, the other fics are mostly timestamps. Like they’re, they’re only short ones. So this is the main, the first one is the main fic, I think.

MalMuses: Okay. Well we’re we going to talk about the chunk, the main one at the beginning. So, the summary for Closing Time goes like this:

Dean Winchester’s college years felt like the greatest of his life. School came easy, he was starting first baseman for the KU Jayhawks, and he was in love with the smartest, nerdiest, hottest guy in school, who also happened to be his roommate. They were the definition of relationship goals. [00:48:00] Until they weren’t. Until Cas left.

If you asked Castiel Novak why he was back in Lawrence after 10 years, he’d tell you it was because of a great job opportunity. If you knew Castiel, you’d know it was because of Dean Winchester. But Dean had moved on, successfully running his bar, brewing his own beer, tattooed, and still the most gorgeous man Castiel had ever laid eyes on. Oh, and he was taken. Dean wants to, but forgiving Cas isn’t easy, and finding their way back to each other after all this time is like searching for a hand in the dark. Sometimes 10 years is 10 years too late.

Okay. So, yes, I guess first one with this is, yes, Dean is with someone else in this fic. There’s no, I will say there’s no like actual cheating that happens if that’s something anyone is concerned about after reading the summary. Maybe emotionally possibly?

Ellen: but we feel all right about it because Aaron’s a bit of an arsehole about the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, maybe with good reason because…

MalMuses: [00:49:00] Yeah, I did feel kind of sorry for him, honestly, like, he clearly isn’t dealing with it well and kind of feels a little bit like he deserves some of it when from the snippets we see of his behavior.

But I did feel a little sorry for him, especially the thing with the beer and the beer names.

Ellen: For the names, yeah. Yes.

thatpeculiarone: Yes.

Ellen: Yeah, Dean obviously hadn’t told him much about any of what went on with Cas, so he was a bit blindsided by the whole thing.

thatpeculiarone: And you can’t like blame him, but at the same time you can tell they’re just not a good match since like Aaron doesn’t know much about Dean in comparison to Cas.

But at the same time, obviously a lot of Dean’s history with Cas is why he’s so aloof. So he, you know, isn’t communicating in his relationship with Aaron. So you can tell that that’s probably why he doesn’t really know Dean the way that Cas does. Yeah. But yeah, you’re pretty much from the get go obviously going to root for Cas and Dean yeah.

[00:50:00] And yeah, I think that the author does a good job of making us dislike Aaron and realizing that maybe them breaking up isn’t a bad thing.

MalMuses: I think they’ve managed to make it so that Cas isn’t the bad guy necessarily. I mean, Cas arriving clearly spurs on the end of Dean and Aaron’s relationship, but you can very much see that that was a relationship that had to end regardless of whether Cas came back or not.

So they, they managed to not make Cas feel like the bad guy in this, which I appreciated. So,

thatpeculiarone: yeah, and I, I do, one thing I like about this is I, a lot of the angsty reunion fics I’ve either written myself or read, Dean is usually the one who’s causing the like, turmoil. Like, he’s usually fucked up somehow for lack of better terms.

[00:51:00] So I did find this one interesting that not only was it in Cas’s point of view, but we also, like, well, more in Cas’s point of view, we also see that It was technically Cas who was the one that left. And while we obviously learned the reasons behind that and everything going through it was interesting to me that Cas was the sort of

MalMuses: Cas was the problem.

thatpeculiarone: antagonist. Yeah. Like in, in the starting bit. He was the problem, which you don’t always see, it’s usually always Dean who does something impulsive. You know, in relation to canon does something impulsive, says something, and you know, doesn’t really think it through and then it causes a lot of turmoil.

So it was, I did like that, this one, it did show Cas and that was yeah, that was really interesting to me.

Ellen: Yeah,

MalMuses: I like that. And I liked the way that Cas, [00:52:00] I guess because we did get to kind of be in his head a little bit more and you were sympathetic to him, but also Cas is very clear about what he wants.

I mean, he’s, he’s not out to hurt anybody to get it like he doesn’t go out there to like break up Dean and Aaron once he realizes they’re together or anything but he’s pretty clear about what he wants at all points. There’s nothing like underhanded about Cas in this He’s just like “Hi. I’m here. Clearly you’re with someone else. We can be friends.” But at no point is it Indicated that he’s like, I don’t want to, he’s like, no, I’m, I’m here. I’m here if you want it.

Ellen: Well, he nearly just leaves right away after he, after he gets there and meets Aaron, he nearly just leaves again. But I think Sam convinces him to hang around.

Maybe, I don’t know.

MalMuses: Little dose of like, slightly meddling Sam in this. Yeah,

Ellen: yeah, yeah.

thatpeculiarone: [00:53:00] Yeah, I did enjoy that. I do like how Sam sort of sees him before that and convinces him to stay. And when, Cas does see Dean again and Sam’s there, Sam’s just like such a horrible actor, which is like pretty on par.

Yeah. Just comes in like, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in so long.” And Dean just like sees through the bullshit straight away and is so mad that he didn’t tell him. But yeah, did find that pretty funny.

MalMuses: Things that settled immediately, even before we met him much, my opinions on Aaron in this fic, because of the way Sam acted when Cas came back.

Almost like, “Yes, okay. We’re still mad. We still have to talk about a lot of things. However, I’m so relieved. Please stay.” Because you still get the idea that Sam, in general, is a pretty good person. And if Aaron was a great person and was great with Dean, he probably would have come down more on the side of, Hey, you need to leave and not mess this up.

So.

Ellen: [00:54:00] Yeah, interestingly, in this one we do get flashbacks to the past, so it’s sort of intercut with the present, what’s happening in the present, so, but we get Dean’s point of view in the past, and the present stuff is all from Cas’s point of view, so we, we never really know what’s happening in either time for the other person, like that, that doesn’t really make sense.

Hang on. Yes, it kind of does to me anyway. Do you know what I mean? Like, there’s still like that we’re not really sure what’s happening with each of them because we only get one side, both in the past and in the present.

MalMuses: We kind of know some of the things that happened. Like we know, obviously there was this breakup.

We kind of know a little bit what happened, but when we’re watching the flashbacks and they’re going through it, and you know that you’re creeping towards it, you’re just like, Oh, I’m so on edge, like, please.

Ellen: [00:55:00] And they, the other thing I really loved in this one was that they communicate… Basically, the way they use their words is by playing music for each other. At the at the bar. At the open mic night?

thatpeculiarone: Yes, I was going to bring that up.

Ellen: Which is really sweet.

MalMuses: Yeah, I love that. Music is their love language. One of the tags and it’s definitely just done really well.

And it’s just the kind of thing I can think of thing like Dean doing, because it’s a great way, like he would think he was communicating directly by his standards. That’s very direct communication.

Ellen: No, it’s great. And they, they used to play music together when they were a couple, like back in the day.

So it’s only natural for them to now have music as their communication method, which is very, very sweet.

MalMuses: [00:56:00] Yes. And we do have a very tattooed Dean in this fic, which, which I love. I love a tattooed Dean. I love a tattooed Cas as well, but you know, some of the tattoos in this fic have meaning. So. Again, I feel a little bit sorry for Aaron, but he’d be easier to feel sorry for if he was nicer.

Yes. It’s very interesting the way I think that Casloveshisfreckles decided to deal with this. It’s like, that he has been living with the ghost of Cas this entire time, but he never realized. Like, he never put any of it together or worked out even after he meets Cas, he doesn’t realize that they used to be together until like halfway through the fic.

Which, again, Aaron’s clearly not paying attention to very much. But, but

Ellen: you definitely get like, even though, yeah. A lot of clues,

MalMuses: and you definitely get the impression, not even just for Dean, but for like their entire [00:57:00] friend group and family that Cas was very much a part of, that like there has been this Cas-shaped hole for a long time, and I was like, how did you never, like did it never occur to you to ask?

I don’t know.

thatpeculiarone: And I like how it, yeah, and like a way Cas is like oblivious himself too. It’s very much like the trope that everyone else sees it, but them, because like, as much as he obviously still loves Dean and wants Dean back, he’s, you know, very much in that Dean’s taken, Dean wants to be with Aaron, like, he realizes as he goes on, but yeah, I like how he’s like very much in that mindset from the beginning and everyone’s like, “no. You two need to get back together, like, come on.”

Ellen: Yeah, there’s a pretty big cast of characters in this one too, isn’t there? All of the usual ones. We’ve also got Charlie and Benny and Garth and Balthazar and…

MalMuses: [00:58:00] I love Balthazar in this fic. He was great. He’s one of my favorite characters that we don’t see very often anyway. But he was particularly good in this fic, so.

Ellen: Yes. He’s the friend back in New York, right? And he comes to visit.

MalMuses: Yes. Yeah. Causes chaos, and…

Ellen: Okay. Yes. Yes. I agree. Yep.

MalMuses: Even like a hint of maybe he could end up with someone else in this fic, which would be hilarious. I won’t spoil, but there’s like a little. A little sprinkling at the end there.

So,

Ellen: yeah. Yeah, the three other fics in this ‘verse are timestamps, so they’re no, sorry, yeah, three timestamps. One is actually for Christmas and one’s for Valentine’s Day and the other one is just a little domestic fluffy thing. So if you, if you get to the end of this main fic, you’ll see. And you need more of these guys, then go and read the fluff afterwards, because they are very sweet.

[00:59:00] But yeah, I think holiday timestamps aren’t always for everybody, but, you know, they’re cute, so it’s worth it.

MalMuses: I love a good holiday timestamp. So, definitely planning on going and reading that one.

Ellen: Yep.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, I do, I do like this universe, and I do like that the angst wasn’t too long. You know, I, I don’t mind when a fic has angst for too long, like a little bit, but I don’t like it being majority of the fic or even half the fic really, because you know, you do want them to make up and you want to be able to read, like, the more joyful moments.

So I do like while, like, the first bit was quite angsty, it is resolved not, like, super quickly, but fairly quickly as it progresses.

MalMuses: Yeah, I really like the fact in this one that as they’re resolving things and they’re not necessarily together yet, Aaron is still in the [01:00:00] picture, but again, just like with Willow, we get to see them rebuilding a friendship, as well as not just the relationship things, like, yes, okay, great, he’s very hot, I am attracted to this person, whatever, but they also have this, like, very deep connection to each other, that even if they weren’t together would still be there.

So, and I like it when, when fics, when fics give me that as well. I do recall really, really liking the, like the, what we get to see of the rest of the group, the family, the people who are clearly rooting for Cas and Dean. I love, I love my side characters. I love a good Sam ships it trope every now and again.

And I also love that this is one of the fics where Ellen and Bobby raised Sam and Dean. And I love that. I love, I love a good Bobby moment. Like I’m really on the John Winchester hate train today. [01:01:00] I was like, no, get him out of here. Don’t want it. Give me Bobby instead.

Ellen: Well, I mean, it does mean that they’ve, that Dean and Sam have got a, had a much more healthy upbringing.

So they’re kind of more realized people, you know, by the time we get to this point.

MalMuses: Like in a fanfic, changing just that one detail of how, who raised them and changing it to Bobby, like immediately in your head it gives the characters so much more freedom. Like, if Dean talks about his feelings, maybe he’ll only take half the fic, not the entire fic.

If he was raised by Bobby instead of, instead of John, you know.

Ellen: Yeah, no, really lovely fic, but so much pining for a while. Yes.

MalMuses: Some juicy pine, for sure in this one. This was. Oh, this was a DCBB. I was going to say this was a bang fic. Was it a Pinefest? No, it wasn’t. It was a DCBB.

Ellen: It would have made a great Pinefest.

MalMuses: Love a good pine.

Other Recs

[01:02:00] All right. Does, does anyone have any other reunion fics that they would like to talk about? I have several, so.

Ellen: Oh my goodness. I think we’ve all got a few now. For this one. Well, Jess, would you like to recommend one first and then we’ll,

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, so there’s, I mean, I’ve read so many because it’s one of my favorite tropes.

So I could go on forever about a billion fics, but there is definitely two that like are very noteworthy to me. The first is Angel Cookies by Noxsoulmate. This one is one of my all time favorite fics. Since I found it. Just for me personally, because it like has every single trope that I like.

So they put it all on one fic for me, just for me. But yeah, it’s about it is about how Castiel’s actually returning after, I believe it being it’s 12 years. So it’s actually a bit longer. [01:03:00] And he’s grown up around Dean, but Dean was about seven years older than him. So there is a lot of the sort of having to navigate that sort of difference when, you know, cause Dean was friends with his older brother.

So there was about like, there’s about seven years, I believe, different age difference between them. So there’s a bit of navigating that. But Cas is always like pretty much had a crush on Dean. A big situation happens. Castiel very much embarrasses himself and kind of gets rejected by Dean, which causes him to leave.

And that’s why he hasn’t returned for so long. But he returns because of a situation happening at home. It’s like the winter holidays, very like Christmas-y, that sort of time. And yeah, I really like this fic. It’s also a parent Dean fic, so Dean’s a single parent. [01:04:00] So I also enjoyed that sort of element, Cas gets to know Dean’s child quite well so it’s very much like that family, like, found family sort of trope in that sense.

Yeah, I do really enjoy this fic, it definitely has a lot of angst at the start, a lot of it more on Cas’s end, he, you know, is really upset and Dean’s upset because he’s trying to reconnect but Cas keeps sort of like, blocking him out. But yeah, no, this one’s one of my favourite fics. I just really enjoy reading it.

And I think it definitely has like, a good amount of angst, but then also a good amount of them re communicating and getting to know each other again. Yeah. And they have some really, they’ve got another fic, which is literally the whole fic, but in Dean’s point of view, which is super interesting. As well as some cute little timestamps.

So, yeah, I like, I like that, that they did that. So, you get to read basically both perspectives at different times. [01:05:00] And it’s really interesting to see Dean’s take on it all. But yeah, it’s like a big reunion fic that is definitely the main plot of this story.

Ellen: Yeah, I just reread this part of this one too.

I didn’t get all the way through it in in time. But yeah, I actually started reading Lumberjack Cookies first. But I, I found that it, maybe I didn’t make it far enough in, but it, I kept thinking, I don’t remember what, what happened up to here in the original story. So I actually went back to Angel Cookies and started reading that instead.

Maybe it’s just cause I liked the Cas point of view better, but I don’t know. But yeah, it’s interesting. It’s interesting having two fics from each point of view. Yeah, like it’s ambitious.

thatpeculiarone: No, and like, it definitely took the author a lot longer. Like, I remember Lumberjack Cookies for a while was like a work in progress and I’m pretty sure, [01:06:00] cause like, I obviously like subscribed to it and it took, it took years for it to be completed, but like very much worth it in the end.

But yeah, I do enjoy reading Angel Cookies and then going and then reading Lumberjack Cookies straight after. Because then I kind of know what’s happened in Angel Cookies. And I mean, at this point, I’ve read Angel Cookies so many times, I could probably tell you the entire plot. Just off the top of my head.

But like, yeah, I like reading it and seeing what’s just happened and then going in. Yeah. I, you know, it’s not, it’s definitely not a fic for everyone. I think there’s definitely some certain tropes and things that people wouldn’t enjoy. But for me, I really love I love like Parent Dean or Cas fics. I really enjoy those.

And so that with the pining and reunion and all of that just makes it like one of my favorite fics.

MalMuses: [01:07:00] Well, this is one that I’ve not read. It was just one of those ones where. Some of the tropes probably weren’t necessarily for me, but I do love Noxsoulmate fics in general. I’ve read quite a few things by them.

So just, it’s been lurking on my mark for later for a really long time. I’m like, no, one day I’m going to do it. Cause you know, sometimes even if it’s not a trope, you gravitate toward, if it’s a writer you trust, you sometimes just read it anyway. You’re like, no, I know they’re, I know they’re going to fix me.

It’ll be okay. Yeah, so I haven’t read it yet, but like kudos to DocSoulmate for juggling the project of doing like the two fics, like going back, because there are several times where I’ve thought about doing that for fics and then just the idea is overwhelming. I’m like, no, I couldn’t. No, I never end up doing it, going back and writing like the other POV or anything, so good for you.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, that is a big…Yeah. I could not imagine trying to do that for Willow. That would be so I could not do that. It’s, it’s such a big task. [01:08:00] And I think one of the like, little things I like about this, like if you’re a Gilmore Girls fan, it’s set in the town from Gilmore Girls and it has side characters that are literally from it.

So, obviously the funny thing is when I first read this, I hadn’t watched Gilmore Girls. Like, it was on my, like, one of the things I wanted to watch. And then, so, I was still able to read it and it was fine even though I didn’t know the characters. But then, watching Gilmore Girls and going back and reading it, I was like, oh, it’s like, nice.

It makes, like, a lot of more the inside references. But it’s still very much readable if you haven’t watched Gilmore Girls.

MalMuses: Yeah, I’m one of those people who has never watched Gilmore Girls and honestly doesn’t really have any interest in watching Gilmore Girls, which some people, some people get really upset about.

Ellen: I tried to watch it one time and then I got to the bit in the first episode, probably, where Jared Padalecki says, “I’m Dean.” And I just went, nah, can’t do it.

MalMuses: Broken brain. Can’t do it.

thatpeculiarone: [01:09:00] Yeah. Yeah. These are really funny parts. Of it is the constantly confusing Sam with Dean, calling Sam Dean. So that was a big reference to that, which was pretty funny.

Ellen: Oh, I, I didn’t pick up on that. That’s so funny.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, that’s why.

Ellen: I realized that they were calling, they were calling both of them Dean, but that, that’s very funny. Okay.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. See, yeah. When I first, when I first read it, I’d have had no clue that wouldn’t have, that would have gone over my head. I would just be like, Oh, that’s funny.

They’re just mixing up. I mean, I, you know. My mum does that with me and my sister all the time, calls each other the different, the other names. So you’d think it’s just something like that, but yeah, I did like that little reference. That’s pretty funny.

Ellen: That makes a lot more sense now.

MalMuses: Yeah. I like that that’s in there.

thatpeculiarone: Okay. Yeah. And the other one I wanted to talk about, because it is a very big one in, not only reunion, [01:10:00] but in the Supernatural fandom, it’s very popular. And that’s To Build A Home by intothesilentland. This one is a very, very, very long fic. And it has a lot of triggering tropes.

It’s good. I enjoyed it immensely, but I definitely had a cry reading it, and I’m not a big crier when it comes to reading fics. So. there was a big topics of grief and in comparison to Willow where obviously you can see like Dean’s grieving in that but because it’s Castiel’s point of view and Castiel isn’t that sad I think for me at least even writing it and reading it makes it easier for me but the character that dies which is pretty much in the first chapter you find out in this fic is very important to Dean and Cas and it’s a very important character.

So there was definitely moments that I was crying for them because it’s just like, it hits you very hard. [01:11:00] So it’s definitely a proceed with caution sort of fic, but it is very good. Very angsty, but does the reunion trope very well. And you definitely get to see both Dean and Cas’s point of views.

It starts with Dean’s, and I feel like a lot of it is in Dean’s point of view, but you see Cas’s point of view as well. And they kind of unravel the events that happened that caused them to split apart together. And you do get to see a lot of their journey together when they’re back together and happy.

But that’s why it’s so long. But. It, yeah, it’s a very long fic, so it’s one of those that if you do want to read it, it may take you a while to.

Ellen: Yep. That one’s been on my list for a while, but it, yeah, it’s so long. I just I look at it and go, okay, I can’t start this yet. It’s too long. Yeah.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. And it’s one you gotta definitely sit down and kind of invest into.

[01:12:00] It has a lot of flashbacks as well, like one chapter’s present, next chapter’s flashback, which is tends to be a very usual format for reunion fics. And yeah, so that has a lot of that. You see certain scenes from both point of views at different points, but yeah. And I think like the writer definitely is very creative.

There’s a lot of like songs and poems and that, that were written by them. So I think they’re and they were really good. So that definitely has an element to it. They’re both very creative the characters and yeah, it definitely has some really amazing scenes that I definitely go back and reread a lot, but I do find it hard to reread the entire fic because it is so long.

So sometimes I just have that urge to read certain parts of it again. But yeah, no, it’s, it’s a really good fic, so I can see why it definitely blew up within [01:13:00] the DeanCas fandom. I’ve definitely seen a fair few people talk about it, and yeah, it is a very big reunion fic, which is why I definitely felt I had to mention it, because I did enjoy reading it and I do enjoy reading rereading the part when they reunite and that sort of angst every now and then, because, you know, sometimes I do need to read a bit of the angsty part and then heal.

MalMuses: And sometimes you like to hurt yourself a little bit.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. Yeah. And then I read, and then I go on to read the part where they, it’s all healed. I’m like, okay, it’s all good. I can move on now.

MalMuses: Okay. Well, that’s a really big chunky one. So how about I rec a couple of tiny little ones for our shorty, one shot readers. First one I’m going to recommend is Time Makes You Bolder by Pantheon_of_discord. I love this fic and I’ve read it many times. Because it’s just over 5,000 words, so it’s just a nice little, little taster, little chunk that you can read.

[01:14:00] This is canon. And it’s a very specific point in canon. If I say the season 13 payphone scene, almost everybody knows what that one is. And it’s just without diverging too much from canon, just changes how that worked and how Dean reacts to that. Obviously it’s a big Destiel moment in the fandom in general and in the show when that, when that happens, but this takes it that little bit further and gives us what we could have, should have been given.

Yes. And it’s, it’s really nicely written and I like that it’s from Cas’s POV and it talks about, you know, he’s, he’s just come back from the dead. He’s, you know, realizing that he has slightly different clothes that like Jack gave him new clothes essentially. And so he’s contemplating the difference in the trench coats, which I did, I did like that little nod.

[01:15:00] And him finding quarters to be able to make that phone call to Dean. And then obviously we, from Cas’s point of view, get to see Dean’s angst over that reunion. And how difficult that particular one was for him is obviously they really thought he was dead that time. And it’s, it’s lovely.

But in this one, Dean does say something does, it is very clear that they make this work and obviously Jack brings him back and Jack, without spoiling the fic, it’s difficult because it’s so short, but Jack definitely explains his motivations for bringing Cas back in such a way that it suddenly becomes very clear to Cas what’s really going on here.

So, it’s very nice. It’s lovely. It’s, it’s only angsty in terms of you’re seeing Dean’s grief. [01:16:00] Otherwise, it’s, it’s lovely and fluffy and they get to be together. It’s wonderful. But it is a much shorter one. So that’s Pantheon_of_discord, Time Makes You Bolder. And then my other shorty, which is a completely different, could not be more different than that one.

It’s an AU and it’s called Naked and Covered in Bees by one of my all time favorite authors, Superhoney.

Ellen: Yes, I read this one too. It’s adorable.

MalMuses: I love it. Dean and Cas that were very close in college and then drifted apart when Cas moved away to New York after they graduated. And then Dean sees an Instagram post of Cas naked and covered in bees.

So and it goes from there, but the, the, the naked and covered in bees theme does kind of keep coming back in the fic, which is fun. So it’s cute. It’s fun. It’s 6, 000 words, 6, 084 words. Exactly. [01:17:00] So it’s a fun. little read that’s very sweet, and you do get kind of a decent taste of like their pining in this, or specifically Dean’s pining as it’s from his point of view.

But they kind of, they sort themselves out pretty quickly once they do actually reunite in this one.

Ellen: So one of the ones that, I know that you guys have both read this one, but not recently. So, but I did read it recently. This is called Forget-Me-Not Blues by noangelsinthegarrison. It is 68, 000 words, so it’s a decent ish chunk. This one is an AU I think this is like a, a fairly big fic in the, in the fandom in general, for some reason, it’s in a lot of collections.

Like, you know how some fics just have like a million collections under their title. [01:15:00] And one of the, I noticed one of the collections it was in was “fanfics so good they deserve a podcast episode”. [01:18:00] I was like, “Oh, that’s fitting” but then we didn’t end up doing it as our main one this episode anyway. Anyway. So. The, this one is 10 years have passed since Dean and Cas finished school and Cas moved away.

But now Sam and Jess are getting married and Cas is actually friends with, like, really good friends with Jess. And so they, Cas returns to Lawrence, I guess. I’m not sure, maybe, I’m not sure where exactly that, I think, I think they’re in Kansas. Oh, maybe…Are they in California? Oh God. I’ve forgotten. Hang on. Let me look it up because it’s important.

Like I’m pretty sure they are. Okay. I’m just going to say they are. And if I’m wrong, then too bad. So Cas has returned to California for the wedding preparations because he is Jess’s maid of honor. And. You know, [01:16:00] Dean is going to be Sam’s, so, and they haven’t seen each other in 10 years and they don’t know that the other one is part of the wedding party.

So they are quite surprised when they sort of meet up and see each other again. Oh, I think Cas does know that Dean will be around obviously because it’s Sam’s wedding, but he is not in looking forward to seeing Dean because when they were at high school together, Dean was part of the football team and Cas was like a nerdy guy with glasses and they sort of had a tentative kind of friendship a little bit but then the boys in the football team pushed Dean into bullying Cas so Cas was always like, had a big crush on Dean, but was always really confused because Dean was treating him so badly.

So, and at one point, like you, I think you find out really early on, like maybe even in the first chapter that [01:20:00] Dean had actually invited Cas to prom in the end, and Cas thought that he was joking and slapped him and that was it. That was the end of that. So then when they meet up again, they’re both like, you know, antagonistic towards each other.

They don’t want to be together, but they’re forced to be together through like dancing lessons and like getting their tuxes fitted for the wedding, all these different things that make them realize that they still have the feelings and that, you know, the feelings can be acted upon. And by the time of the actual wedding, they get back together.

And it’s really sweet. So I’ve just told you the entire plot of the story, but it’s worth the read because I loved it.

MalMuses: I’ll have to give this one a reread because I think I definitely did read this one like a long time ago. Cause I think this is like an early, this is like a 2014 Fic. Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: I might have to give that one a reread because I don’t remember anything about it.

It’s one of those ones where I get, it [01:21:00] was so long ago, I remember liking it, but that’s about it.

Ellen: Yeah, that was how I was with Closing Time. Yeah, because I think I read Closing Time when it was new, like back in my early fanfic reading days. And I didn’t remember hardly anything about it. All I remembered was there was music involved and that it was a little angsty, but it turned out to be quite fluffy in the end.

Like there wasn’t hardly any angst in that one at all. It was great. I remembered that I loved it, but I couldn’t remember much else.

thatpeculiarone: No, I think I read this one quite early on. I think it’s in the midst of one of the, like, in my bookmarks. And yeah, I think I’ve read it, I would have read it within the, like, the last six to eight months, I believe.

There was like a time last year when I went through and did. like towards the end of last year and went through my bookmarks and did some rereads because I was, didn’t have anything new. So I was trying to find some stuff to read.

Ellen: Oh that’s a great idea.

thatpeculiarone: [01:22:00] Yeah. I do that when I’m like, I don’t have anything to read. I mean, I’ve gotten some ideas today, so that’s great.

But yeah, I like to go through, I’m like, what, what, what in my bookmarks have I not read in a while? This one. That’s why I’ve reread a fics a few times because I kind of end up going back to them. But yeah, no, I do remember enjoying this one and it was, like, different in the sense that, like, they weren’t even really friends, in a sense, before they Like a lot of the ones I read, they’ve either had a relationship or been really good friends and something’s happened.

So I found this one interesting in that they reunited, but it was, like, a lot tenser because they had some, like, turmoil in high school, but they weren’t exactly friends.

Ellen: Yeah. And it’s, it’s also funny because during this one, Sam and Jess and, and all of their bridesmaids and other people who were involved in the wedding know what’s happening.

[01:23:00] And like, you know, they can see that there’s something going on with Cas and Dean and they are not willing to admit it. And it’s just, it’s gorgeous. I love it. Anyway, that one is. That was Forget-Me-Not Blues by noangelsinthegarrison. I do have another couple, but Mal, have you got any more that you wanted to add?

MalMuses: Well, I was just thinking because we’re talking about rereading this fic and there was a fic that specifically reading Willow reminded me of and made me want to reread, which was Stuck on You by andimeantittosting. This fic is a few years old now too. It was a DCBB back in 2020, which I actually beta read back then.

So this is one that I’d read and I’ve read multiple times. I just hadn’t read it recently at all. But some of the themes in Willow reminded me of this fic in that [01:24:00] Dean and Cas were friends as children and used to hang out at this lake together. It’s an, it’s an AU Canada fic, which there’s a whole subset of supernatural AU Canada fics, which I just adore.

I love it. Why not? Let’s do it. But they used to spend their summers together in cottage country at this lake and their families were friends. And then at some point there was a disagreement between, not between Dean and Cas, but between other family members, which means that Cas suddenly stopped coming back to the lake for like 10 years or however, however long it was.

And they’ve been apart, been to college, and then Cas is offered the opportunity to buy Cain’s beekeeping business from him at the lake. So he returns. And this is a really great and often quite funny miscommunication in this because Dean. is thinking that he’s flirting with Cas, but not doing a very good job of it.

[01:25:00] And Cas is assuming that Dean is straight, and therefore thinking that when he’s flirting he’s being an asshole. So, it’s, they do work it out, it’s not angsty necessarily at all, it’s more, like, humorous than anything. But I really do enjoy the miscommunication in this fic. Lots of things that can be, you know, like, taken more than one way if you read them in a certain way.

And you can kind of see where Dean’s coming from, but you can also see where Cas is coming from. So it’s, it’s a good read. I like it. And it’s 26,000 words, so it’s not too, too chunky. It’s a nice little thing to read. So that’s Stuck on You by andimeantittosting.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, I haven’t, I haven’t read that one, but it’s been sitting, like, chapter two has been sitting open in my tabs for so long, like I read the first chapter and I’m like, been wanting to read the rest, but life’s been getting in the way of me reading anything at this point.

So yeah, that’s definitely on my, yeah, it’s like high on my reading list.

MalMuses: [01:26:00] It’s a really good fic, I loved it. So you had more for us, Ellen.

Ellen: I do! for some reason, this time I’ve read a whole bunch and I’m willing to share. But you did remind me, I haven’t reread this one recently, but you, I know for something, for some reason, what the fic you just mentioned reminded me of this one.

It’s called Night Swimming by CBFirestarter, which was also a DCBB a few years ago. I don’t know what it is about DCBB that makes everyone want to write reunion fics, but apparently that’s what you do with the DCBB. This was a Dean is a lifeguard. at like a lake. And he had, and Cas had, and Dean had spent, well, Dean lived nearby and spent a lot of summers being a lifeguard, but Cas spent a summer at the lake some years ago, like I think it’s, it’s only, [01:27:00] it’s only three years ago in this case, but they’d had a relationship and then at the end of that, he’d had to leave.

So now he’s come back and I think Dean had left as well, but he’s also come back and they sort of get a second chance and try to work out, work through their differences and, and get back together again. And it’s really sweet. As you will expect from CBFirestarter, this one’s like 34,000 words.

So a nice, like one or two days worth of getting through that one, or one night if you’re up for that it’s it is explicit as well. But yeah, really sweet.

And the other one that I read actually is a brand new fic that has only just come out in the last few weeks because it’s part of the DeanCas Wild West Fest 2024.

[01:28:00] We were just talking about this last time and we had Mallory on, we were talking about cowboys. But then when I was looking through the list of the fics in this particular bang, I saw this one. And so this one’s called A. fragilis and it’s by spirithorse. This is, it’s not, I guess it’s not really a reunion fic, although it is tagged as reunion, but it is a reincarnation fic.

So they were, they were together as dinosaurs in like the Cretaceous, whatever, they were allosaurs. And then they obviously, it, this is also told through like the past and the present being you know, both in the same chapter kind of thing. So, you know, something’s going to happen to these dinosaurs eventually, because like the present, I guess, is actually 1879, which is in the wild west.

[01:29:00] There was a bunch of archeologists that were from opposing universities. So some of them from Yale and some were from somewhere else and they were digging up fossils and basically trying to steal them off each other to get the credit for the find. And so there, there was this thing called the Bone Wars, which was a real thing that happened apparently where they would like you know, jump each other while they were transporting bones back to the university and steal them and like claim that they, and, and they dug up a bunch of bones, this site and then

MalMuses: So much drama in archaeology, I love it.

Ellen: And then in order to, this is in the wild west too, like, so there’s, you know, 10 gallon hats and stuff. I don’t know. It’s just, it’s great. Like the historical kind of aspect. I know absolutely nothing, as we established in the last episode, absolutely nothing about the Wild West, but I love the feel of it.

Like they’re on this, Dean and Cas meet on like this train, like he’s trying to, Cas is trying to take these bones, [01:30:00] which are the bones of his past self, I guess. It sounds absolutely bonkers when you try to describe it, but and they, you know, hit it off and it’s just, it’s nuts, but yeah, it’s worth a read just because it’s so, it’s such an interesting concept. Like…

MalMuses: I absolutely love that. I’m going to run away from this podcast to go read that. That sounds amazing.

Ellen: It’s a good, it really is good. I haven’t, I haven’t put it on the list yet, but I will in a minute.

MalMuses: please do put it on the list.

Ellen: It’s only, it’s 67, 000 words as well, so it’s not super duper long, but it’s a nice,

MalMuses: it’s a nice thick one. Thicker chunk. Well, I’m going to, I’m going to roll with it. You, you brought up dinosaurs. So now I’m going to have to talk about Cretaceous.

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: So there is a very new fic by tiamatv. Again, favorite author, lots of tia fics on this podcast. [01:31:00] Called Cretaceous, which is 29,000 words. Almost 30,000 almost got there.

Not quite. And it’s a Jurassic Park Fusion reunion. Thick. So, oh my gosh. This is a story where back in time, Dean is ex-military. And Cas is, you know, the, the science nerd. And they had a one night stand way back when, during the time, this is set in, I want to say the 90s, possibly. Yes, I think it’s in the late 90s, late 90s.

So there is like a little bit of internalized homophobia going on. It’s, it’s not a big point in the fic, but you can kind of get the feeling and it’s back during, like, the whole don’t ask, don’t tell era of the military in the U.S. Which obviously was an issue for Dean, but he did have this one night stand with Cas and definitely never forgot it.

[01:32:00] And then he takes this job. It’s, it’s that trope where Sam, you know, gets a really good lawyer job and Dean has to follow because Sam, Sam can’t go off by himself like that. It’s not the Winchester way. So Dean gets a job doing kind of engineering, almost like very science-y janitorial work for this island and when he gets there and obviously finally gets through like the NDA and everything he realizes that it’s dinosaurs and that they are bringing back dinosaurs and these crazy scientists have actually managed to make it work.

And I love it because Dean being Dean, you know, he refers to the velociraptors as like scary murder chickens and like stuff like that, like it’s, it’s a really good, just well written, quite funny fic in places. But there’s also a lot of tension between Dean and Cas where he’s trying to work out like, is Cas trying to pretend this never happened? [01:33:00] Are we recognizing each other? What’s going on here?

Because they can’t be necessarily as open as they would be nowadays about what happened before. But they do work it out and then, you know, there’s, there’s some drama with the island itself and you know, if you’ve seen the movie, you know, it doesn’t all work out that well at the end, but it’s not a necessarily like a one to one crossover with the movie or anything.

But it definitely takes a lot from it from like the, the island, the Jurassic park island itself. And the dinos, how it was done, like the, the sciency parts of it and stuff are very much kind of borrowed from that world. I just, I just loved it. Can’t recommend it enough. Genuinely can’t. It was such a fun read, but it’s only been out for a few weeks now.

I think it was published in May. So go and get on that. Cretaceous by tiamatv. So much fun.

Ellen: We are going to have to exchange dinosaur links immediately after this.

MalMuses: [01:34:00] Yes. Definitely.

Ellen: Okay.

MalMuses: You got any dinosaurs for us, Jess, or?

thatpeculiarone: No. I do have one more fic that came to mind, but not dinosaurs. And that’s Fire and the Flood by Desirae.

I haven’t read this one super recently, but I do remember loving it when I did read it. And it isn’t super long. It’s about 20, I think it’s like 27,000 words. So not super long, but yeah, I just really, I really liked Desirae’s fics and she does a really good job of doing flashbacks in her fics, especially with reunions.

And yeah, this one is very angsty at the beginning, but it is basically a lot of their reunion is about the fact that Castiel finds out the reason why they ended, like, Dean left him and why they became estranged. [01:35:00] And he’s unraveling the truth about that. So yeah, while it’s a bit angsty at the start, I do find this fic very cute from memory.

Yeah. And I just thought I would shout that one out because I think it’s a very, it’s just a nice little fic to read. Yeah.

Ellen: Whenever I hear that song, I think of that fic and her.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, same. I can’t, I can’t read the title of it without the song just like blaring in my head.

Ellen: Any more, Mal, from you?

MalMuses: Yes, I could actually rec another little one trying to, to balance out because we’ve got some chunky recs for this one, which I think is just kind of the nature of reunion fics.

Cause you’ve got to get that background in there, but here we go. It’s called Return to You by youaresunlight. And this is just adorable fluff, where Dean and Cas were childhood best friends [01:36:00] and then Cas moved away, and then they have like a chance encounter as adults. It’s only three thousand words, it doesn’t get really into it, but it’s very, very cute.

When they were little, they had Like hand knitted sweaters that Mary made them and like Dean’s had a fire truck on it and Cas had bees on his and you, you find out, I’ve got to like spoil this because it’s 3000 words. I can’t not spoil it. But you find that like Cas still has this little sweater, has Dean’s little fire truck sweater and kept it all this time.

And it’s so cute. It’s, it’s just endless fluff, just fluff with a few little kid kind of flashbacks. Yeah. They immediately kind of sort things out very quickly when they meet. If I remember correctly, I think Dean’s on like some kind of conference or something where he doesn’t necessarily live in the area that Cas is.

So when they see each other again for the first time, they essentially have like a little series of [01:37:00] not dates and like hang out every day that Dean is at this conference, and then when he goes to leave, obviously they have to have a conversation about do they actually want to be apart again? It’s very cute.

Very cute, very fluffy. There is some very, very beautiful art in it. So I think it was part of like a, a mini bang or an exchange or something like that. But there’s a really beautiful little art piece by Mary twist in it as well. So

thatpeculiarone: yeah, youaresunlight’s written a few really good reunion fics.

There’s like, First Gentleman Wanted, which is one where I’m pretty sure Cas is present.

MalMuses: I love that story. Yes, I love that one. of my, like, comfort reread fics.

thatpeculiarone: Yes, so that’s a good reunion one. And then there was also one, I don’t know the title of it off the top of my head, but it was one where they’re, I think they’re both astronauts?

And that one’s more, like, a more angsty [01:38:00] reunion. I can’t exactly remember what happens, but I do remember that that was also a reunion fic, so definitely some good ones from that author.

MalMuses: I saw that one linked somewhere. I have that one. I’m pretty sure I have, like, every space AU ever for Supernatural.

In my bookmarks somewhere. Oh my gosh, what was it called? I will find out and we will put it in the, in the, we’ll link it. So. Okay. just frantically scrolling through my bookmarks, like I know it’s here.

Ellen: Well keep doing that for a minute because I’m going to talk about your fic. So the major, probably we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the major kind of separation that we have in canon is after 15.18, where Cas is lost to the Empty.

So we do have a huge, of choice of fix it fics to choose from. And we do actually have a whole [01:39:00] episode dedicated to post canon fix it. It was, it was fairly early on because I think the podcast only just started like right before we got the last few episodes. And if you go back and listen to our really early episodes, you hear us being all hopeful for the ending and then being all sad for what came out of it.

But yep, we do have like a big list of actual a lot of them are reunions that happen after they rescue Cas from the Empty or Cas comes back via some other means. So one of the, I just had to quickly mention that Mal’s fic, Everything is Blue, is one of, was one of the first ones published after 15.18 aired.

And it’s only just less than 5, 000 words, and it’s lovely. And it’s lovely. So go, I won’t say anything more about it because I know she’s hiding under the desk at the moment. But go and read that one, and then go and find all the other fics and fics that we’ve already mentioned.

And go and find all the other fics and pics that we’ve already mentioned.

[01:40:00] because we would, we would dearly love for there to actually be a reunion at some point, but you know, when will that happen? We don’t know.

MalMuses: Yes. I, I had to read that one. That was one of those, like that, those, that thing was not about anybody else or anybody else reading it. That was me fixing myself. That

Ellen: was you having some therapy.

MalMuses: That is a therapy fic, but thank you for recommending it. Youaresunlight, the fic is called Stellar (Meet Me In Outer Space), by the way, the other one we were talking about. So yes, space reunion fic, really good. Haven’t read that one in a while. Cause it’s from 2015. It’s just under 16,000 words. So I’m going to be reading that one tonight as well.

Ellen: You have a long day ahead of you reading extra fics today.

All right, is there any more? last call?

MalMuses: [01:41:00] No, I think we’re probably good, but there are other ones that were discussed and skimmed and read and really went through a lot of thick for this episode. I feel like, so we will have all of those linked on the podcast website. And they’ll be in the collection, in AO3.

Our collection is reaching epic proportions, but definitely a good place to go if you want to read some good fic, put it that way.

Ellen: Yep. All right. Thank you very much, Jess, for joining us today. It was lovely to speak to you.

thatpeculiarone: Oh, it was really lovely being here.

Ellen: Are you working on anything in particular at the moment that you’d like to share with everyone?

thatpeculiarone: Not really.

Ellen: I know you’ve been very busy in real life.

thatpeculiarone: I know it life has been really busy and I’ve had a lot of. Sort of like working in progresses. [01:42:00] Like I’m pretty sure I have like five different Google Docs right now with different ideas where I’ve started writing it and then, yeah, just haven’t had the time and I don’t know, haven’t, my muse has escaped me at this point, but I’m hoping to get back into it.

I definitely have a small break from work coming up, so we’ll be able to hopefully use that to write some more.

MalMuses: Yeah. Recapture that muse. Make her your bitch. Do it. Yes.

Ellen: All right then. So yes, as Mal just said, we’ve, we’ll put all of the links and other things that we’ve discussed on mixedtapebookclub.com. And please do get in touch with us to tell us whether you’ve read these fics and enjoyed them, or if we’ve missed any reunion fics that you would like us to add to our list. You can do that via email contact (at) mixtapebookblub, or you can do it through our socials, or on our through Discord, we’re in our own Discord server and also Profound Bond Discord server.

MalMuses: [01:43:00] All right. So next episode, anybody who knows me or has had the unfortunate experience of hearing me screech about this before knows that I am very excited because the next episode we are going to be discussing true form Castiel fics. Yes.

Ellen: I am also extremely excited about this one.

MalMuses: So please, if you have any recs, if you think, it’s a challenge at this point, if you think you can find one I haven’t read, please do throw it at me, okay?

thatpeculiarone: It’s like a competition.

Ellen: There’s gotta be some out there. There’s over a hundred thousand. Come on, there must be heaps!

MalMuses: There has to be. There has to be. I’m really looking forward to finding a bunch that I haven’t read. So, love me some Trueform Cas.

Ellen: Alright so thank you everyone for listening today and we’ll talk to you again soon.

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

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