Transcript: Track 49: Dragon Castiel
Links to all fics mentioned can be found on the main episode post.
Jump to:
- The Ddraig by hit_the_books
- Dragon Hunt by peanutbutterjelly_pie
- The Mysterious Tail of the Dragon’s Curse by adaille and Alessariel
- Belonging To by Hans_On
- Other recommendations
[Intro music]
Ellen: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Welcome to the 49th episode, the 49th! Episode of Mixtape Book Club. Uh, my name’s Ellen.
Mal: 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 fan fiction. And we are still going strong 49 episodes later because people are still reading and still writing Destiel [00:01:00] hooray! Even though the show’s been over for five years.
Mal: Oh, five years. Oh.
Ellen: Um, but in this episode we are going to discuss fics in which Castiel is a dragon
Mal: and joining us to discuss her Castiel is a dragon fic. Um, The Ddraig, is author, hit_the_books, also known as Milli. Hey Milli.
Milli: Hello.
Ellen: Hi. How are you today?
Milli: It’s nice to be invited on. I’m, I’m pretty good. Just tap getting into that chill ’cause we’re recording on a Friday. Getting into the chill of the weekend.
Ellen: Yay. Friday!
Mal: Yeah, it’s Fandom Friday.
Milli: Oh yeah.
Ellen: Uh, all right. So as well as The Ddraig, I dunno if I’m saying that correctly because I don’t speak Welsh,
Milli: Don’t ask me either. Because the, it’s Welsh and I can barely, uh, pronounce stuff in Cornish, which is, um, similar to Welsh and it’s actually more from where I’m from.
Ellen: Right. Okay. That’s all right. We’ll just call it The Ddraig and hope that we’re somewhere close [00:02:00] to the,
Milli: if there are any Welsh speakers,
Mal: if anyone out there,
Milli: I apologize,
Ellen: let us know how.
Mal: Please message us and correct us.
Milli: Yeah. It’s a fairly Celt stealing your language, uh, accidentally, uh, because it sounded better than, I can’t remember what it was in Cornish, uh, Kernewek as a slight, yeah, no, it doesn’t sound as cool as the Ddraig, so that’s why I went for it.
Ellen: I mean, it’s a time honored thing to um, use cool words in other languages for stuff.
Milli: Yeah. Yeah.
Ellen: Um, alright. So as well as am Milli’s fic, we are going to also discuss today, um, Dragon Hunt by peanutbutterjelly_pie, the Mysterious Tail of the Dragon’s Curse by adaille and Alessariel. I’m sorry, I haven’t said these words out aloud before and I dunno how they’re supposed to be pronounced. And Belonging To by hans_on.
Mal: It always sounds strange when you have to try and say people’s like, fandom [00:03:00] names out loud. It’s, it feels like you’re doing something wrong sometimes it’s like, oh
Ellen: yeah.
Mal: Are we allowed to say that out loud these days? I think we are, I think we’re allowed to say that out loud a lot more, but like ago, years ago, it was, was just not a done thing.
Ellen: Yes.
Mal: All right. So links to all of those folks that we are talking about today, that will be available in the episode post on mixtapebookclub.com, and also included in our collection on ao3 if the authors give permission for them to be included.
Milli: I’ve just gotta remember, I’ve just gotta remember to look at my notifications for collection additions.
Mal: Yeah. I always forget to look at mine.
Milli: Yeah. I’ve, I’ve got that setting on my fics whereby people have to request rather than automatically add.
Mal: Mm-hmm.
Milli: Because of the, the various ways of how ao3 works and how people’s fics can be disappeared.
Mal: Yeah. Which I don’t, I don’t know if that’s still still a thing, but I know at one time that was kind of a like a big thing everyone was talking about on the fandom social medias and everyone was kind of locking down their collection ability. And I don’t know if that’s still a thing, but even so, I’ve still got [00:04:00] mine set to request.
Ellen: The other thing I need to do, which I keep forgetting to check out how to do, is actually lock all my fics. Because you know how you can, you know, everyone’s been locking them to so that AI bots can’t get ’em.
Milli: Yeah.
Mal: Mm-hmm.
Ellen: And every time I’ve remembered to go and check how to do it, I haven’t been able to work out how to do it or I have to do it with each individual fic. And I’ve got, I look at the list of fics that I have and I’m like, Hmm.
Milli: It’s not that hard. You have to be a collection.
Yeah. Obviously I haven’t tried very much. You have to be, you have to be in your fics and everything. And there’s like an edit all option available.
Ellen: Oh, is there? Oh,
Milli: you can actually apply it to everything in one go, and stuff to do with comment, um, abilities as well if you want to set comments to approve or whatever. But if you lock all fics, you obviously get rid of guest comments to begin with anyway. So, yeah.
Ellen: Oh, okay. Okay. I’ll have another look at it. Thank you. Yeah. Bit of, um, troubleshooting there right at the start.
Okay. Cool. [00:05:00] Uh, all right, before we start talking about these fics, we have to say big thank you to all of our ko-fi subscribers. Thank you for sticking with us all this time. And, um, if you would also like to support us and help us with our hosting costs and so on, uh, you can go to ko-fi.com/mixtapebookclub and join in.
And you get to come in our Discord server, which is a bit quiet at the moment, but that’s okay. We haven’t been posting much, but you know, it, people there help us to find fics and, um, decide what we’re gonna talk about in future episodes. So thank you.
Mal: Thank you. We love you.
Ellen: We love you. Okay. Dragon Cas fics. That’s, this is great. Like we’ve got a combination here of pure fantasy fics that have dragons in obviously like, and then we also have just like pure kind of monster fucking, um, let’s just make Dean like have sex with a dragon.
Mal: Mm-hmm.
Milli: Yeah. So [00:06:00] Sounds about right.
Mal: He wouldn’t be, yeah, he wouldn’t be Dean if he didn’t, so, yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. I mean, why not? Um, and I mean we always, always sort of seem to put Cas because he’s an angel to start with. He’s, we other make him an another type of creature, so why not a dragon? Right?
Mal: Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a lot to be said personality wise about Cas and a dragon, I think. Which several of the fics that we have read lean into really nicely.
I think so, yes. Or how I would picture a dragon’s personality to be, I guess, I dunno. As they don’t exist, questionable, but how, how I would picture a personality to be just seems to fit Cas really, really well.
Ellen: Yeah.
Mal: Have seen the occasional fic where Dean is a dragon, but really much less common because of the whole otherness of Cas thing, which I have ranted about an embarrassing amount on this podcast before.
But, um, love me some other Cas. Thanks.
Ellen: Yeah, well I was [00:07:00] just looking at the, um, dragon Cas tag on ao3 and there’s, I mean, there might be a, a couple of different sort of versions of this tag, but the, the one I just clicked on out of the Mysterious Curse one has only got 183 works in it.
So I feel like there’s not enough of Dragon Cas fics and we need more of them. So if you feel, if you feel inspired by any of the fics we talk about today, please do write some more of them.
Mal: Yes. I am personally more than happy to come and revisit and, uh, read any dragon Cas fics that people send my way.
The Ddraig
Mal: Alright, shall we dig into the first fic?
Ellen: Let’s do that. Shall we start with Milli’s fic? Is that okay with you, Milli, or do we uh,
Milli: that’s fine.
Ellen: Awesome. So, um, all right, we’ll start with The Ddraig. Hopefully that is somewhere close to correctly Welsh pronunciation, um, by hit_the_books published for DCBB [00:08:00] 2020.
So six years ago?
Milli: Yeah, near enough.
Ellen: Uh, it’s 47,000 words long, and it is explicit and it has, because it’s DCBB, it has some beautiful art in it
Milli: by flux,
Ellen: um, which is by flux. Yeah. Um, would you mind reading us the summary, Milli?
Milli: Sure thing.
Dean Winchester former firefighter, works in a coffee shop and lives with his brother Sam. He has two failed relationships under his belt, has seen some shit and has a secret that only one other person knows about. When Sam starts looking to get serious with his girlfriend, Eileen, Dean needs to find a new place to live. Enter Castiel Novak and the Ddraig, a former hotel. Cas is looking for a housemate who will live rent free if they can help out with his insane toenails.
Dean can’t quite believe the offer, but agrees to move in with Cas. Impossible toenails and all. However, both Dean and Cas soon [00:09:00] learn that neither is all that they seem.
Mal: I managed not to laugh while you read the summary, and I’m proud of myself actually.
Milli: It’s a fic that borders on crack as a premise, and that is due to the source, the source material, uh, behind it, which is,
Ellen: oh,
Milli: um, a Zillow add, uh, from, I don’t know. I mean, it was my friend, uh, Dancing Muffin, uh, reposted it on Twitter back when Twitter was Twitter,
Ellen: yeah.
Milli: Um, in, uh, January of 2020 before the madness struck.
Ellen: Yeah.
Milli: And, um, it, it’s an ad, so it’s an ad for a place in LA, okay? On Zillow.
Mal: Oh wow.
Milli: Um, it was, uh, oh,
Mal: I just saw it.
Milli: Yeah. Yeah.
Mal: Wow. Okay.
Milli: Uh, for somewhere from somewhere in la uh, for an apartment and it says
“Hello, I am looking for a roommate to [00:10:00] live in my house with me. Yes, the rent is free in terms of monetary payment. That’s because I will be seeking another form of payment with you. See, my toenails have reached such an extraordinary length that is physically impossible for me to walk now. This is where you come in. I need you, the applicant to trim my toenails for me.
And I know what you’re thinking. Oh, that’s not bad, but I assure you it is bad. Just starting, just using standard nail clippers on these babies will not suff. You all need to use scissors, maybe even garden shares on them. Adequately doing so will equate to three months worth of rent. After which my toenails would’ve grown back to their current length, and you can trim them again for another three months of rent. They’re going to keep growing. There’s nothing I can do to stop it anymore. I’ve accepted defeat.”
And I pretty much copied that word for word.
Ellen: Oh my God.
Milli: As the ad in the fic.
Ellen: I didn’t realize in that’s a real thing. Oh my God.
Milli: Yeah.
Ellen: Insane.
Mal: Wow.
Milli: So I mean like there are weirder perhaps sources of inspiration, I’m not sure, but um, this fic is [00:11:00] essentially accidental crack purely because of what it is based on. Um,
Ellen: yes.
Mal: Yeah. In all of my group chats, we’re always saying how like you can fandom anything, right? Like if you try hard enough one way or another, you can fandom anything. And this is absolute proof of that. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. Yes. And I have to, I went in, into this story without, uh, reading any of the tags or anything, so I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was there was, there was toenails involved. And, um,
Mal: you were just going in like, is this a foot thing? Like what’s the
Ellen: Yeah, I had, I had no idea. I was like, there’s, how is this related to dragons?
Milli: It, it was never intended to be like a fe a foot fetish thing. But like, I’ve obviously made sure that in the tags, because some people just don’t wanna read about people doing things with feet.
I was just like, right. So we’ve got cutting toenails, toenails, cuttings, toenails with, with working tools, you know, like in the tags, you know? Um, do I warn anyone in the notes? I’m just trying to think a minute. [00:12:00] Um,
Mal: never have toenails been tagged so many times
Milli: I won’t. But it’s just like, it’s just like you have to be prepared for feet and, and, and that’s kind of, and, and it being a critical part of the story.
Ellen: Yeah. I think there’s basically one whole chapter that’s dedicated to just like Dean giving Cas basically
Mal: tackling the feet.
Ellen: A pedicure.
Milli: I mean, I mean, to be, to be fair, like the ’cause I, I didn’t obviously look for, I, I didn’t look, need to look for imagery of what the toenails might actually look like to the extent that they would be a problem.
Because I remember seeing years ago as a kid, an image of, um, uh, a, devoutly religious person from India who’d like not had their nails cut in decades, perhaps even never since being a child.
Ellen: Yeah. I think I remember seeing something similar
Milli: an elderly religious gentleman, and, and like, it wasn’t his, it wasn’t his feet, but it was his hands and Yeah, like they were crazy long.
And that was the kind of thing like, [00:13:00] you know, longer than a dining table, like that was the kind of thing I was imagining, basically.
Ellen: Oh my goodness. Yeah. So if, I mean, like you could still read this fic if you, if you don’t like to read the feet part, like the toenail part. You can kind of skip that chapter, I guess.
Milli: Yeah.
Ellen: And it, and it won’t, like, please still give the, this fic a go because it is gorgeous. Like even the, um, the nail part is also, is quite funny because he does actually end up having to use like bolt cutters or something on it, on his toenails.
Milli: Yeah. Bolt cutters, a dremel’s involved at one point.
Ellen: Yeah.
Milli: You know?
Ellen: Yeah. So the most extreme
Mal: half of Bobby’s workshop
Ellen: pedicure. Yeah. Yeah. But yes, the, everything else in the fic would, because I wasn’t, didn’t know what to expect. I was just delighted that every turn it was like, oh, there’s a ghost involved? Oh, look, there’s like, Sam’s gonna find out and like faint. Like it was just. It was delightful. I loved it.
Milli: Charlie, being a massive conspirator with, [00:14:00] um, Dean, it’s like a, a trope that I like and was one that I used heavily for the sake of effect. Yes. Just ’cause of like, you know, that representation of the relationship in the series is something that, um, myself, like a lot of people actually quite adore. Um,
Ellen: absolutely. We love Charlie.
Mal: Yes. We are big Charlie fans. I also love the, uh, Dungeons and Dragons representation in this fic, especially, uh, 3.5.
Ellen: Yes.
Milli: Yeah. Based on real life experience. Personally, we play fifth now.
Mal: Mm-hmm. We, we skipped fourth entirely.
Milli: Yeah. Yeah. Like any sane person should have if they had, or if they were already playing D and D. It’s fine if you’re getting into it newly, but No, not if you were. If you were at least a three, 3.5 that
Mal: Yep.
Milli: And do it.
Mal: We, we don’t talk about four, but, but yeah. I, I love it when we get to see Dean’s nerdiness in fics like that, and it’s just embraced as part of him. It’s not like a kind of like shameful thing or a joking thing.
It’s just [00:15:00] part of who Dean is and he has wonderful friends around him that support him and play these games with him. So one that’s probably a trope we need to put on the list. Let’s do Dungeons and Dragons related fics one day or fics with D & D in them. Yeah.
Ellen: Yes. Mm-hmm. Or just generally, um, nerdy Dean in general would be a great one.
Mal: Yeah.
Milli: I think, I think technically one of my early Destiel fics that I wrote was a Moondoor, um, one basically like, um, them going off to play Moondoor. Yeah. Bit of LARP.
Ellen: I’ve got one with a, with a online like a MMO Moondoor. Yeah.
Mal: Oh, I love that fic. It’s so good. It’s one of my favorites.
Ellen: Thank you. It’s one of, it was one of my favorites too, but Yes.
Um, yeah, he’s a big nerd, and that, I, I think the details in what you, how you describe like the D & D and everything really actually show that, like as [00:16:00] I was reading it, I was thinking, oh, this is someone who actually plays this and, and has had this, this, this is coming from a real life game that she’s been playing.
Milli: There’s a lot of real life in the fic. Um, if you consider, obviously when it was written, so it was for, I was written it during like, not so in the uk, so we had a lot of lockdowns, um,
Ellen: right. Yeah.
Milli: And a lot of what features in the fic is me missing stuff. Like the coffee shop that Dean works at is like my favorite local independent coffee shop, basically.
Mal: Right.
Milli: Um, which was still work, like open to an extent, during stuff. They basically, um, changed like the front of the shop so they could open up like a little window and they could serve stuff to people on the street and they would, and they started doing like home deliveries of like these amazing cakes and things that they’d do and like, along with like beans or ground coffee.
So you could be like, can I like order my favorite coffee and my favorite cake and uh oh [00:17:00]
Ellen: so good.
Milli: And they’d drop it off if you live locally.
Ellen: What a time that was.
Mal: Gosh. What a time. Yeah.
Ellen: You’re taking me back.
Mal: But you know what, some, some good fic came out of that time.
Ellen: Yeah. And a lot of specific types of fic where people were. I don’t know. It’s either,
Mal: oh yeah, quarantine fics,
Ellen: quarantine, fics.
Mal: That was a thing.
Ellen: Or either people leaned into that quarantine stuff or they just, like, I have elected to ignore that this is even happening and we’re just go about things as, as they were, you know, in fics.
Mal: Both very valid. Yeah.
Milli: I apologize to everyone for the work in progress quarantine fic that I only ever wrote. I think one chapter of that’s in my set of works.
Ellen: Oh, no. Yeah.
Milli: Sorry guys, I wrote the first chapter.
Mal: Oh, we’ve all got, we’ve all got at least one
Milli: and, and then things got worse, so just,
Ellen: yeah. I don’t wanna write about this anymore.
Mal: Yeah. Well back to The Ddraig,
Ellen: Should probably explain more about this fic. Yeah, [00:18:00]
Milli: yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry.
Ellen: No, no. We can get derailed. No problem.
Milli: So yeah, so obviously we’ve got, we’ve got that summary there that we, that I read out. But basically Dean’s, you know, Dean’s a former firefighter. He is traumatized by what he’s experienced. He’s also, um, not completely normal himself. Um, he’s, uh, a medium, he’s never really explored his powers. He’s just kind of been accidentally inflicted with ghostly goings on previously.
Ellen: Yeah, that’s so good. That little scene where he gets, he goes to check out an apartment and it’s, it’s haunted basically, and he can feel something weird happening here and that, that’s really clever. I liked that.
Milli: The, the apartments, uh, de decor was inspired by, uh, the Overlook Hotel. There are obviously several Shining references through the novel ’cause of the hotel being what it is. Yeah. [00:19:00] Um, the Art Deco style, and also because there’s kind of like, you know, bit of weird stuff going on. Not quite the same. And I’ve also, I dunno, it was just a kind of a Jack Nicholson kind of vibe as well. ’cause I’ve got like at least One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest reference as well thinking of the film and not the book.
Um, but I think, I think when I wrote it, I’d like recently finished rereading The Shining and then also read the, um, I can’t remember if that at that point Dr. Sleep had been published or not. And I read it between then and now. Um, ’cause I read it before seeing the film. But, um, yeah, it’s, it’s kind of like I was kind of playing on that.
And, and to be fair, like for the style of the hotel, um, it reflects some local architecture, shall we say, that I’ve got in my local area.
Ellen: Oh, fantastic. Yeah.
Milli: Um, still, um, and also kind of like I’ve been thinking back to obviously ’cause [00:20:00] yeah, the um, the original tweet was about apartment in Los Angeles and thinking on that also drew me towards stuff to do with, um, LA Noir, the video game. It came out.
Mal: Yes. Love that.
Milli: Sometime ago. Yeah.
Mal: Yeah. Controversial. That’s a while back now. Yeah.
Milli: Yeah. Con controversial on its release, uh, because mm-hmm. The King Bondi put its people through some serious crunch. The game is very buggy, um, but incredibly interesting for what it did try to do. But obviously ’cause of when it’s set in, was it just, just about post-war kind of LA. Well and it’s set through a couple of decades, but there’s a lot of post-war stuff, but there’s a lot of art deco architecture ’cause it’s LA um,
Ellen: right.
Milli: And uh, yeah, it was kind of like basically art deco. Art deco was gonna end up featuring heavily due to these influences. And that’s why I went to great pains, uh, describing the Ddraig like I did. Um, [00:21:00] ’cause I really liked, imagine
Mal: it worked really well
Milli: and I think there was any hotels quite as nice, um, as what I’ve described in the fic.
Um, and I had to help flux find some appropriate imagery to kind of show them what I meant because they really wanted to draw something like that was kind of like inspired around the architecture. Hence why I got the, we got the really nice kind of cover image. Like a
Mal: Yeah. That’s really cool. I love that image. It’s, yeah, very cool. I like to think that if you ever printed this fic out, that would be the cover for you because it’s
Milli: mm-hmm.
Mal: It’s just gorgeous. So good.
Ellen: Yeah. I also got a, some, um, Beauty and the Beast kind of vibes from like, I, I dunno if that there was intentional at all, but just because there were certain areas where he couldn’t go and, you know, the, the house was so big and he,
Milli: I mean,
Ellen: explored, it’s, yeah,
Milli: it’s accidental that there might be, however, technically speaking, [00:22:00] Beauty and the Beast is one of my formative cinema experiences. ’cause the first film I went to see as a kid on its release. Yeah. That’s how old I’m,
Mal: it’s probably in there somewhere. Yep.
Milli: Yeah. And um, and I fell asleep during it. So who, goodness knows what, um, young me dreamed about
Ellen: Oh, it all went into your subconscious.
Milli: Um,
Ellen: yeah.
Milli: Yeah, I mean we’ve, we’ve, we’ve got, you know, we’ve got a monster trapped in a building. He can’t go anywhere. Um, you know, like what, what you gonna do? Accidentally Beauty and the Beast apparently. So,
Ellen: yeah, well there’s a library and there’s, you know, it’s very reminiscent, but that’s fine because I love that, uh, there are quite a few fics around that actually have that, this kind of a thing like a monster trapped in a house with, you know, that Dean has to go and discover. Um, and I love every one of them.
Mal: Yeah, it’s a very specific trope, but a very enjoyable one. And I really like the way it’s done in this one, partly because of the hotel, [00:23:00] because with all of the thought and the art as well, everything that you put into the hotel, it almost feels like the hotel is itself, is a character in this fic. And I love that. Like the, the hotel has a personality and I love it.
Milli: Yeah. So, I mean, I’m assuming everyone kind of caught on the, the, the trove, the treasure, the dragons hoard was the hotel and its content. I really hope people realize that it wasn’t that he had tons of gold lying around everywhere, it’s what he collected.
Mal: Yeah. I mean, I thought, I thought that was pretty clear. Like that was the, like, he obviously loves this, this hotel like collects this, everything within this hotel. It’s his, it’s his space, his safe space. I also honestly wanted his bathtub so badly.
Milli: Oh yeah. Now I haven’t, I haven’t been in many expensive hotels, but I have been in a couple of expensive houses [00:24:00] over the years, um, with ridiculous bathtubs. And I have seen though not experienced, um, bathtubs of those kind of magnitude. Um. And, uh, yeah, they’re, they’re quite intimidating. ’cause you’re kind of like, do you start swimming laps or do you relax? Like, which is it?
Ellen: Oh my God.
Mal: Which is it? Yeah. No, I love it. I would love to be in one of those, probably not to get my toenails soaked, but just in, in general I would love it.
Milli: But, um, yeah, it was, it, it basically, you’ve got Dean obviously, like he’s trying to get his life back together. He’s had failed relationships. Um, he’s ex, like, he’s left firefighting because he finally, you know, went through, um, an experience on the job that was just too traumatic. You know, lost coworkers, couldn’t save the people involved, you know, proper feeling and trauma.
And obviously during the course of the fair, he’s, yeah, he’s going through therapy still. It’s,
Mal: mm-hmm.
Milli: Not like it’s [00:25:00] over. He’s trying to live his life and obviously he’s completely removed himself from firefighting as a job. You know, he’s, he’s moving to work in a coffee shop, just a normal, low stress jobs, long as it’s not like a Lamaze class apparently coming out from across the street afterwards on the Wednesday morning or something.
Um, and you know, we obviously we stick with Dean through the like, like Dean’s a medium, sure. But he’s not, as we were sort of saying, he’s not the “other”, um, Cas is, um, he is our view into the world. And obviously we are thinking like, okay, Dean’s a bit abnormal. I mean, we, we just think it’s gonna be a Ghost fic if we haven’t read the tags.
Ellen: Yeah.
Milli: Um, and it turns out, you know, you’ve got like Dean, uh, Dean finding out that Cas is a dragon about, I think he’s about halfway through the fic.
Ellen: Yeah. You don’t [00:26:00] see him change into a dragon. Yeah. For a while.
Milli: Yeah.
Mal: Yeah. And by the end of the fic there are kinda a, a good, a good handful of people that are aware that Cas is a dragon. But
Ellen: yes,
Mal: out of everybody, I think Dean’s reaction was the most dramatic out of everybody.
Ellen: I just love that. Um, Sam just freaked out like quite a lot. But then when Eileen came, she was like, “okay, cool. What are we doing now?”
Mal: Sure.
Ellen: She was totally cool about it, but yeah, they do. I do love how they and Charlie’s involved as well. They all work together to try and find a way to break the curse and, you know, fics their problems, I guess.
Milli: Yeah. Bring, bring Jack back. He features well. ’cause like I did, I do like the concept of like Team Free Will 2.0. Um, yeah, I do like Jack as a character, um, and him having the opportunity to live a normal life, which obviously is like a theme that is explored in the TV series a bit.
[00:27:00] Um, but obviously fic gives us a much better opportunity to explore that than what happened on the show.
Mal: Yeah.
Milli: And just kind of like, yeah, he was done dirty. You know, let’s give him a chance. Mm-hmm.
Ellen: Um, I don’t,
Milli: I don’t think I could have written something which had a sad ending ending, uh, for this particular prompt. It was too cracky to allow for a sound ending, quite frankly. Um,
Ellen: oh, you’re right.
Milli: Everyone. Yeah, everyone needed to have their, have their day. So case study was worried before reading it if they haven’t read it. Um, and they don’t mind being too spoilers. It’s a happy ending, thank goodness.
Ellen: It is a very happy ending.
Mal: It. Yeah, it’s a happy ending for all. And they do beat the toenails, albeit somewhat temporarily.
Milli: So there’s a lot of, but if you think about it, there’s a lot of fainting in this fic. There’s a lot of fainting, I think just about everyone other than Eileen faint,
Mal: Eileen’s just too sensible for that.
Ellen: If you, if you discovered that you are the guy that you had moved in with, turned out [00:28:00] to be a dragon, you’d probably faint too, right? I don’t know. Yeah. Seems like a good reaction.
Mal: Well, I don’t know, did we, I’m, I was trying to work out if we told everybody that this was 47,000 words, but this is one of those fics that when I started reading it, it was a binge it in one go kind of deal for me.
Like there are certain fics you can’t put down and I couldn’t put this one down ’cause I genuinely felt like I never quite knew what was gonna happen next. And I love that. Yes, I love that kind of like twisty, turny, like, you know, like, oh, it’s kind of like a coffee shop au, but he used to be a firefighter.
Oh wait, there’s toenails. Oh wait, there’s a ghost. Like all these kind. But it all works together. It’s not just like, oh, you know, throwing tropes at the wall and trying to see what sticks. It really feels, I think because of the way certain things were kind of foreshadowed going through and like Dean being a medium and certain things happening in the hotel, it was kinda like foreshadowed going through.
It didn’t feel like things were coming out of nowhere. It just kept me guessing until the very last minute on most things. And I love that. So [00:29:00] I could not put this down. And I had to binge the entire 47 and a half thousand words in one go. It was very early in the morning by the time I finished reading this.
Milli: That’s, that’s nice to hear. That is nice to hear. Um, like it, it could have been, uh, like longer, but I had a deadline to reach ’cause it was for Dean Cas Big Bang, so.
Mal: Mm-hmm.
Milli: Like there were some things that, I can’t remember what, but there were a few like, you know, indulgent taps where I was like, no, I’m just gonna leave those on the cutting room before, so to speak.
Um, I’m not working on those. Um, just like you get a, a holistic plot together that actually felt satisfying by the time of its conclusion. Um, and met their deadlines, but it’s not, it was,
Ellen: yeah. Bangs are good for that, aren’t they?
Milli: Yeah. I’ve been trying to write, I get an idea finished for DCBB for years. Um. Basically, um, like I’d sign up [00:30:00] and I’d work on something, but I’d never meet like the minimum word count, which is I think 20,000 words.
Ellen: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Milli: Um, at least it is these days. Um, and basically it, it just, it took a while to finally get to an idea that I was like, right, I can do this. Um, and I’m so glad that I saw that past by Muffin because I was just like, this is perfect for something weird and it spiralled from there.
Ellen: Yeah. What a fantastic prompt.
Mal: I love a bit of weird in fics ’cause it’s so memorable. Like this is just one of those fics where I’m always gonna remember Oh, you remember that one with, with like the hotel and the toenails? Yeah. Like, you’re gonna remember it.
Ellen: I dunno if you wanna be remembered for toenails, but,
Milli: uh, it’s, that’s, that’s the worst things to be remembered for. That’s fine.
Mal: Yeah. And like we’ve said, it’s, it’s cracky toenails. It’s not necessarily like a foot thing. So I mean, it could be, it could be Dean and Cas can do what they want. I’m not judging, [00:31:00] but
Milli: Yeah.
Mal: You know.
Milli: Yeah, I’m not, I’m not.
Mal: It’s very cracky.
Milli: I’m not, I’m not Quentin Tarantino or I think Hideo Kojima is a bit infamous for focusing sometimes on feet a bit too much. Um, so, uh, yeah, uh, def definitely. But if this is the only fic, I think where, like I’ve written where like feet are a massive feature. I can’t remember anyone, gives anyone, anyone foot massages in any of my other fics.
Pretty sure they don’t. O other places get massaged as it were. Um, but I don’t think anyone’s
Ellen: Yes, indeed,
Mal: yes. Plenty of massage options. We don’t, we don’t need to get as far as the feet, we get way laid before we get that far.
Milli: Yeah.
Mal: Okay. Well, thank you so much for talking to us about The Ddraig at this. What this like, as soon as I finished reading it, I was like, I, I need to know about the thought process.
I need to know how we got here. And so I’m so glad that you were happy to tell us all the background on how you got here.
Milli: Yeah, I wanna point out that [00:32:00] the title is like, is like classic, like if you know the language, it’s not a surprise as much. Um, I have a feeling that the pool of like fluent Welsh speakers reading Destiel fanfic is small.
Um, so there weren’t that many people that were gonna be surprised. But, you know, it’s like, like, um, I was it like, uh, the name, uh, Vilkas for the head of the Companions in the video game Skyrim mm-hmm.
Ellen: Right.
Milli: Is, uh, Lithuanian for Wolf and I dunno how many people have played this. Oh God. Is it like, let me think about this. 2011. So yeah, like really old game now. Um,
Ellen: oh, we have, Mal and I have, we
Mal: can’t be, yeah, we can’t be calling that old. We just can’t.
Milli: But, um, let’s just say that if you, if you know that, and then you start playing like the Companions quest line and Skyrim and you’re like, oh. So I’m assuming, unless, I dunno what they did, but if, if [00:33:00] there was indeed even a Lithuanian translation, but I don’t think anyone from Lit who speaks Lithuanian would’ve been surprised at the turn of events.
Mal: Yeah.
Ellen: Well I mean it, the way people discover different fixes is varied, but I feel like if you got to the be, even after reading the title, if you got to the tags or even the title image, um, then you would have a fair idea that there were dragons involved. So, yeah.
Mal: Well, there are dedicated tag avoiders out there for sure who, uh,
Ellen: there are, I mean, I don’t, I often don’t read the tags just ’cause I like to be surprised.
Mal: Yeah. I don’t have a lot of things that like, I won’t read like, personally, so like, I’m not reading them from a sense of like, there are things I need to avoid necessarily. Um,
Milli: I, I’ve read, I’ve read tags if obviously archive warnings start getting involved like MCD or um
Mal: mm-hmm.
Milli: Uh, Creator chose not to use warnings. ’cause it’s like, okay, okay, well what’s the tags like? [00:34:00] And, and then I went, have a peak. Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Yeah.
Mal: Yeah. I do read the tags if I notice that they’re like in depth, if I notice that there’s like a, you know, like a “dead of don’t eat” sort of thing, I’m like, okay, this, at this point I need to know what I’m getting into.
Um. Otherwise, no, just, just surprise me. I’m just lazy. I’m just, I’m just gonna scroll down. I’m like, I wanna get into it like I’m already here. Time’s a-ticking.
Ellen: The, the summary sounds great. Um, I don’t really need to know the details.
Mal: Yeah, just keep reading.
Ellen: I’m,
Mal: I’m in. Let’s go.
Ellen: Yeah.
Mal: So, alright, well, shall we get into Dragon Hunt next?
Ellen: Well, before we move along, um, can we just mention, do you wanna mention the Dystopian Bang? Like I, you’ve got like a varied other, like it’s, I know you said you’d been a while since you’d written any Destiel, but you’ve, you’ve been writing other fandoms as well?
Milli: Here and here and there. I’m not going into the reasons why, for your listeners, but, uh, there are very good reasons why I have not been writing [00:35:00] tons of, uh, fanfic, uh, for the last three years. Um, I have other commitments now that make it very difficult. I’ve also had to deal with, um, some work life stress that ate into my creative brain.
And it’s only this year, for instance, I’ve actually written some original fiction for the first time in years as well. Um, and been able to blog with my in real life identity. Um, so it is like the stuff’s coming back. Like, you know, I’ve got Evernote, I keep notes about stuff I’m working on, but over the years, um, I still, I’m still one of the mods and we haven’t done it for a few years.
That’s ’cause we need the time and the, the brains available to do it. But with Enoliel slash um, hermit, uh, I’ve run the SPN Dystopia bang, which is originally started by a_diamond. Um, and I’ve also took over years ago and we haven’t run it for a while, but that’s ’cause the last time we ran it, there had been hardly any submissions.
Um, the team Free Will Big [00:36:00] Bang, uh, with Majestic Duck. And I also, uh, moderate. Um. Like a sheriff, it feels like sometimes, r/fandomnatural over on Reddit. Um, we are the only ship neutral subreddit, uh, on Reddit where you can talk about any ship. The only thing you, you can’t post about stuff that basically breaks Reddit’s, uh, content rules basically. Um,
Ellen: right.
Milli: So yeah.
Ellen: Fantastic.
Milli: I’ll say, but I’ve been heavily involved in, um, Hannigram stuff as well from Hannibal Fandom. Um, and last year and I was like, I’m not sure how many, if your listeners or yourselves have watched the um, uh, Daredevil Born Again series that came out last year, but I was just heavily inspired by it by it and had to write a short coda.
Just a short coda. ’cause I was like, this is this one episode just completely [00:37:00] like. Made my brain go, oh, and to be fair, I’d probably end up writing more Supernatural fanfic again, if I’ve rewatched the show, it’s like, it tends to be stuff that I’m watching or playing where I might start thinking about, oh, could I write that?
Um, and for those waiting for my longest, um, Hannigram work in progress that hasn’t updated in several years, it’s not that there isn’t any ideas and stuff written, I just haven’t had the time to finish the bit that I have written
Ellen: Oh yeah, I know those for you.
Mal: That’s very, yeah, very familiar. Very familiar. So
Ellen: yeah.
Mal: Also Love Hannigram. So I’ll have to check that one out.
Ellen: Shall we move along to the next one?
Milli: Oh, please,
Mal: yeah. Shall we go on a Dragon Hunt?
Ellen: Let’s do that.
Dragon Hunt
Mal: Alright, so the next fic we’re going to talk about is by peanutbutterjelly_pie. Um, I. Also known as, I think as Aleakim. I’m [00:38:00] not sure how you pronounce that either.
We, we always get it wrong. It’s fine. Um, but peanut butter Jelly Pie wrote Dragon Hunt, which is 171,882 words. This is a chunky boy of a fic. Um, yes, it’s started to be published in 2020 and completed in 2022. So this was a, um, like a wip that posted over time, like chapter by chapter.
Ellen: Mm-hmm.
Mal: Um, and the summary goes like so.
What is a former night fallen from grace supposed to do when one day after almost a decade of scouring the outskirts of the kingdom for his missing brother, he finds himself confronted with a powerful, terrifying, and also ridiculously weird dragon.
Yes, exactly. Team up with the guy and scam oblivious people out of their money. Easy as that. Right? Uh, in which Dean ends up stumbling upon a strange blue-eyed dragon and before he even knows what’s happening, he’s in way too deep to get out again.
So I adored this fic.
Ellen: So great.
Mal: This is, yes, [00:39:00] this is one of those very, very plot heavy, epic fics. You have a lot of things going on in this one. Um, and all through it, just the delightful thread that ties it all together is just how ridiculously weird Cas is. I love it.
Ellen: Yeah. And how, uh, how like charmed Dean is by everything that happens. Like he
Mal: mm-hmm.
Ellen: He’s at one stage sort of like, you know, things happen and Cas reacts in weird ways and Dean’s just like, what is this guy doing? And, you know, he’s just loves him. So
Mal: Yeah. Just kind of takes it in stride. He’s just like, oh, well.
Ellen: Yeah. As per the, the beginning notes, this is based on the movie Dragon Heart, which was from 1996. I don’t think I’ve watched this movie. I should have.
Milli: I have, and I have watched it and there is still a VHS copy of it on my parents’ shelf at their house.
Ellen: Oh, wow. In
Mal: vintage. [00:40:00]
Ellen: So this is like a Dennis Quaid, Sean Connery. Yeah, it’s got David Thewlis in it when he was a, a youngin. Um, yeah. Or younger. And, and do you remember, is this, is the fic like very similar to the movie at all? It’s just the premise?
Milli: It’s such a long time. I mean, it’s,
Ellen: yeah. Okay.
Milli: 30-year-old film at this point. It’s a long time ago for me. Um,
Ellen: yeah,
Milli: it’s, it certainly, um, bears a resemblance, but equally I think they, um, uh, peanutbutterjelly_pie leaned heavily into kind of, obviously some of the lore from Supernatural to obviously kind of bring it into our fandom.
Ellen: Yeah,
Mal: yeah. Definitely took, uh, certain things from Dragon Heart and kept them kind of quite true to the movie, but then really did make it their own thing. And they do, they do mention the note like, you do not need to have read the movie or have and… read the movie. Goodness, um, watched the movie or have any, [00:41:00] uh, familiarity with it at all to be able to enjoy this fic.
Like it really is completely its own thing. Um, and they really did, like, like you said, kind of lean into the, the, the supernatural ness. Like take a lot of law from Supernatural, turn it on its head, make it, its something. Um, and I’d love it when folks do that. I love it when we can kind of borrow things and you’re reading something and it’s completely different universe, but you’re like, oh yes, but then this character and this and this and it, oh, it’s, it’s juicy. I love it.
Ellen: Yeah.
Mal: I love getting my teeth into some good lore. And there is a lot in this fic like this is a, like I said, a plot heavy, lore heavy kind of fic, but it’s just carried so well by, I think the tension between Dean and Cas the whole way through. Yes, because this is very much a slow burn. They do not get their heads out of their asses until maybe the last 20% of the fic possibly. Um,
Ellen: yeah, they do take a while. There’s a lot of dramatic, uh, like. The beginning is mostly them just teaming up and scamming people out of their [00:42:00] money.
Mal: Yes. Which is a delightful and very Winchester concept.
Ellen: It’s, it’s great. Like, yes. It’s like hustling basically. So Cas will turn into a dragon and pretend to attack the village, and then Dean will pretend to kill him and take the money and then go and meet up with him afterwards.
Milli: Yeah. But they’re very thoughtful about the, don’t forget, like they, like ca only torches, like those who think he either deserves it or can afford it, which, yeah. You know, he’s very thoughtful about this terrorizing, like, don’t, he seems to notice that, or like, I think it’s at one part later in the fic, it describes how he like hid some cows rather than eating them,
Mal: um, yeah. Relocated them to another meadow.
Milli: Yeah.
Mal: I love that. I love that so much. And I, I love that there’s a kind of a running joke slash theme throughout this where every time someone says something about, you know, dragons eating people, Cas is always just kind of just eyerolling. Like, why, why? Like, you’re so boney. Why would I want to do that?
Ellen: Yeah. People taste bad. I don’t eat them. [00:43:00] Yeah. And also the, the other thing I love like is all, obviously they brought a lot of lore in, but they also bring the characters in and they just feel like they’ve just stepped out of. The, the, the show basically like Bobby lives in his house at like, he’s Okay.
I, I don’t know how much to explain about the background of the story, but Bobby does not live in the Kingdom anymore. He’s sort of in the forest somewhere because they’ve all been sort of cast out.
Milli: He’s, he’s in his, like his own little estate.
Ellen: Yeah. And, um, but he sees right through Cas immediately and like, is like, what is going on with this guy? And Dean’s like, oh, he is just a friend of mine. And, and Bobby’s like, right. Just a friend of yours.
Mal: Sure.
Ellen: So, and he finds out pretty quick what was going on.
Mal: Yep. And I love that he was so methodical about how he found out. So. It was very Bobby. It was very Bobby. I did enjoy that last,
Milli: yeah, tried the silver, tried the iron, tried the heavy water [00:44:00] like list, like at one point it just kind of lists off everything. Lists off everything that he’s tried
Mal: working down the list. I also silk. Absolutely love Charlie in this fic. Oh my gosh. Charlie, I think was one of my favorite characters in this. I, I love her in any fic, but the way she was in this one, she’s basically a, um, kind of an inventor, I guess, uh, is the closest thing you, you would call her, but she is a maybe warward woman maybe,
Milli: if we wanna keep what we wanna keep with, keep with the, uh, fantasy theme. She’s an artificer, technically.
Mal: There we go. Technic. Yes.
Ellen: Right, right.
Milli: Yes.
Mal: Yes. And, uh, definitely a, a woman who does not do what society expects of her. Um, and is quite shameless about it, honestly. And it’s so very Charlie and wonderful. Like even just, just taking the core of her personality from the show and dumping it right into this fantasy world. It felt so Charlie. It was wonderful.
Ellen: Yeah.
Milli: But but also like, like in the show, like they obviously they end [00:45:00] up rescuing her, but then like she doesn’t wanna step back after she learns what’s going on. Like she wants to be their friend and be in the thick of it.
Ellen: Yeah. They’re like, oh, we’ll take you back to town. She’s like, no, I am staying with you now. You guys need help.
Mal: Yep.
Ellen: Yeah.
Mal: Yeah. Like the second she gets rescued, it’s just like, all right, what are we doing now? What are we doing next? What’s the plan? Blah, blah. And, um,
Ellen: yep.
Mal: Love that energy. I love for her. I also really enjoyed Dean’s relationship with Lisa in this fic.
Because I do think, you know, Lisa’s a character that can get kind of sidelined in fics a lot. Some people love her, some people hate her. I think this, she was handled really well in this one, and that she felt like a real person, not just like a byproduct of Dean, if that makes sense. Um, and she was making her own choices and doing her own things.
And then there’s, I, I won’t give spoilers to like the very end, but I kind of, I kind of like where Lisa ended up in this one.
Ellen: Yeah.
Mal: So,
Ellen: yeah, [00:46:00] she’s not just a a, she’s not just a wallpaper, I guess. She’s gets involved and, um, yes. So gets her own happy ending.
Mal: And I, I love the idea that, um, Dean can love her in a different way than he can love his dragon, for example. So,
Ellen: yeah. Yeah. This was another fic where I didn’t know what was coming next, and every turn was delightful. Like, because the, because it’s so long and like the summary doesn’t really give anything away other than the, the gambit, like with the, you know, fleecing people outta their money. Um, we then go on to discover, you know, uh, other dragons and, you know, the, the curses and the, you know, d there’s so many different aspects to this story that just gradually get revealed as we go in.
So don’t wanna give away too many plot spoilers because discovering each of these is delightful on its own, you know? But yeah, definitely worth a read if you’re a fan of like fantasy and Supernatural [00:47:00] lore in a fantasy setting.
Mal: Also a great read if you’re just a big fan of Cas being naked. ’cause he’s naked a lot.
Ellen: Oh, he, he is naked a lot.
Mal: Like every chapter, I’m pretty sure at some point,
Milli: Clothes are mentioned, clothes are mentioned a lot, or the lack of them.
Mal: Yes.
Milli: A, a huge amount. Um,
Ellen: because he doesn’t understand why he needs to put clothes on, he’s like, why? I guess I’ll manifest some clothes.
Milli: It’s it’s certainly Cas covered in bees on the hood of the Impala kind of energy basically.
Mal: Yes, very much. Yep. Alright, well we do have four fics that I wanted to talk about today, so I’m gonna move on and,
Ellen: yeah.
Mal: this is one of those very long fics.
Ellen: Say much more about the long one
Mal: Yeah.
Ellen: Without giving things away,
Mal: spoilers,
Ellen: but, so
Mal: yeah, I did love this one. Heavily recommend it. Um, and let’s move on [00:48:00] to, would you like to talk to us about The Mysterious Tale of the Dragon’s Curse?
The Mysterious Tail of the Dragon’s Curse
Ellen: Sure. Okay. So The Mysterious Tail, uh, T-A-I-L tale, um, of the Dragon’s Curse is by adaille and Alessariel. This was also published in 2020. I don’t know about what it is about Dragons in 2020, but apparently that’s when all the Dragon fics were published.
Mal: Yeah. Was there like something,
Ellen: there are others on our at the time, I dunno, I don’t remember there being any dragon pop culture
Milli: No.
Ellen: At the time. Maybe it was Game of Thrones era?
Milli: Only because, because, um, House of the Dragon hadn’t come out. But Game of Thrones, did it finish or was it still going?
Mal: I was gonna say that was before 2020. Right. So
Ellen: anyway, we’ve got
Mal: whatever it was, year of the dragon for sure.
Ellen: Apparently so. Um, and this is 21,000 words, so it’s a bit shorter than the others. Um, definitely [00:49:00] explicit.
Milli: Also explicit. Very explicit.
Ellen: This is super explicit. It’s, it’s it’s porn with plot.
Milli: Mm-hmm.
Ellen: Interestingly, this is written, this is, I don’t, I think we’ve talked about this before, but in the Profound Bond Discord, they have a, I dunno if they still have it, but they’ve got like a story time type kind of channel where people can basically write fic live and update it, as the day goes on kind of thing.
And, um, these two amazing authors have written this fic live in the PB discord. And then they say in, in the author note that they sort of have edited it into like this story. But basically I’m, I’m just so impressed by people who can do this, just throw out line after line into a, like, I think they’ve, we’ve talked, um, was it Nickelkeep or someone who we talked, we’ve talked to before about this? Who, who’s done it regular regularly?
Mal: Yeah. It was Nickel, I think. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And, uh, they said at the time that they, they had notes or they knew basically [00:50:00] where the story was gonna go, but they just like, you know, pump out these, this story, which is so impressive. Anyway, so this story was originally one of those.
And, um, so the summary says
Life as a cursed prince isn’t all bad. At least Castiel has plenty of fresh air, more freedom than he’s ever experienced at court, and he gets to see his childhood sweetheart, even if it’s always from afar. Life as a part-time dragon is really pretty tolerable until it isn’t.
A moment of carelessness brings disaster and misunderstandings, but it’s also a chance for reunion. It is a very not safe for work fairytale in which Castiel is a dragon, Dean hates potatoes and Father Zacharia a lot, And Castiel’s magically acquired body parts play a vital role.
And then it also goes on to say
it’s been three weeks, four days, and a little over six hours since Castiel last saw Dean. And it’s [00:51:00] been three years, four months, six days, and three hours since Castiel last saw Dean with human eyes.
That’s like the first couple of lines of the fic, I think.
Mal: Oh, it is. It is. Mm-hmm. Yes. This fic is just fun to me. Like, I love it from the whole concept of the dragon’s tail, which I’m sure we will discuss, um, yes to, to Dean’s, uh, dislike of potatoes, which can we call it a dislike? It’s more that he is just sick to death of potatoes.
Ellen: He’s sick of potatoes. Yeah. Too many potatoes in his town.
Mal: Yeah, it’s just fun. Um. We all know. I love a weird, fun fic but I really like the, the concept of this one. ’cause this is very much a, they knew each other as children. Something happened then they’re apart, have to kind of meet again as an adult. Um, which I believe is one of the definitions of kid fit. I know that some people use kid fit to mean [00:52:00] fic, where they knew each other as children and other people use it to mean fic where they have kids. Um, but
Milli: yes, they’re interchangeable.
Mal: Yeah. So this is one of the ones where they knew each other when they were younger. Um, and then they are parted. Um, which you assume for most of the fic is purely because, you know, Cas became a dragon and that was somewhat of a problem. Um, but there, there was perhaps a little bit more to it than that when you, when you dig into it, there, there was something else going on there. Yeah. So
Ellen: he wasn’t a dragon all the time, just some of the time.
Mal: No, it was,
Ellen: and then
Mal: curse, I believe. Yeah.
Ellen: I was trying to work out whether he was, okay. So it, it started out there was just a, a small periods of time, like a werewolf style where he just turned into a dragon and then turned back into his human form, you know, involuntarily.
And then by the time he catches up with Dean later, he’s turning into a dragon for longer and longer periods. Does that sound right?
Milli: Yeah, sounds about right. Yeah. [00:53:00] Um,
Mal: it’s also a curse that, um, I, I really kinda like the way that this was done. It was actually something that Chuck did. Uh, so when King Chuck, um, killed a, a dragon, the powerful dragon Asmodeus, um, the dragon cursed Chuck’s offspring.
So it’s kind of. You know, flashing back to the show a little bit where Chuck makes a mess, and yet Cas is the one who suffers. So
Ellen: Yes.
Mal: Yeah.
Ellen: The time honoured trope.
Mal: Yeah. So,
Ellen: yeah. And then of course as being a curse, there is like a cryptic kind of way of that this coast can be broken, uh, that no one really understands what it means, and it doesn’t become obvious until much later in the fic, what it means.
I mean, maybe, maybe when you read the words of the prophecy, talking about taking the one that loves you inside you or something, I, I couldn’t find the
Mal: actual wording,
shall I read the prophecy? I’ve got it here.
Ellen: Something. Okay.
Mal: Yeah. You who holds the, yeah. [00:54:00] “You who holds the dragon’s heart, accept all that he has to offer and take it deep inside of you for only your emptiness is quelled shall the dragon’s power become the power of the man.”
Ellen: And as soon as you read that you’re like,
Mal: I think that’s quite straightforward,
Milli: but no sages, no sages or anyone in the land could solve that. It was, what was needed was a good dicking. No one could solve that.
Mal: Nope. No one could work that one out.
Ellen: I mean, we, with our filthy fanfic brains knew immediately.
Mal: Yeah. I kind of love the idea that they, that maybe they did all work it out. They just didn’t really know how to break the news, so they were just like, oh no. Sorry, man.
Milli: How do you, how do you, how do you, how do you tell the king that his son needs to get laid by a guy or with a guy, or he needs to lay that guy deeply and thoroughly?
Mal: Yeah. At that point you’re like, no, I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut. I’ll end up kicked out of the kingdom. Like I’ll just, sorry. Can’t work it out.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah. Um, and bless em, Dean doesn’t, they’re [00:55:00] like, even after they have done the deed, they don’t realize what’s happened until much later. But, um.
Mal: Yes. It’s not Dean doing this deed for noble reasons, because they realize that it will break this curse. No, no. He wants to,
Ellen: he just, he’s
Milli: just hormones.
Ellen: He just wants, yeah. Yeah. It’s, and bless him, the first thing, like, okay, so basically what happens is, um, Dean is accused of bringing the dragon down on the town because Cas accidentally sets fire to some trees and they’re like, ah, he’s trying to burn the thing down.
And they decide that, or Zachariah, uh, like such a good, bad guy for this kind of thing, um, decides that Dean must be the sacrifice to the dragon to make up for this. So the dragon will leave them alone. But Dean immediately recognizes Cas, like as soon as he looks him in the eye, he’s like, oh, it’s you.
Which is, it’s so sweet, but, you know, he’s a dragon, so how did you work that out? But anyway, yes.
Mal: It’s a profound [00:56:00] bond!
Ellen: Of course. And then, um, naturally being Dean, he looks at the dragon and goes, oh, he’s naked. Oh, don’t look between his legs. I wonder if everything’s proportional. You know, it’s just his, his thought process is hilarious.
So they do get down to things quite quickly and yeah, it’s great. I enjoy this fic a lot,
Milli: but there’s happy endings all round, you know?
Ellen: Yeah.
Milli: Um,
Mal: of varying kinds,
Ellen: I mean, not before a little sort of, bit of misunderstanding before the end
Milli: mm-hmm.
Ellen: Where Dean then thinks that Cas is just gonna think he’s a freak and tries to leave. And, but thankfully Cas pins him down and they actually use their words before they, you know, ruin everything.
Milli: I mean, to be fair to Cas, prior to that point, he literally couldn’t use his words. Dean was the only one with words.
Ellen: Yeah.
Milli: There’s only so much Yes. No hard like head nods or the winks of the eye [00:57:00] one can do, um, to have a conversation of any real depth. It’s complicated doing that, but I I, I’m on Cas’s side,
Mal: they still manage to miscommunicate even when they can’t communicate, they have a special skill. So
Ellen: yeah.
Mal: But they do matter. They do work it out at the end. They do work out their misunderstanding. ’cause as we said, there’s, there is a little something a little more complicated than just, oh no, he’s a dragon. ’cause clearly that doesn’t bother Dean that much. So
Ellen: No.
Mal: Um, but there was, there was something else going on there, which we, we won’t spoil. But I do love a good miscommunication trope when it’s. Handled really well in that like, believable way where you can see where both people would have got to where they got to and that they think they have spoken about it or they think that there’s nothing to speak about instead of just, will you please just talk to each other and sort this out in 10 seconds.
Um, yeah, and, and this is, this is done [00:58:00] really well on that front because neither of them realize there has been any miscommunication until, until it comes out. So, alright. This is a shorter one, so I don’t know. Yeah. I dunno how much we can really say about that one without just, you know, telling you the entirety of the fic um,
Ellen: yeah.
Mal: And there and there are pod fics for that, so.
Ellen: Alright, shall we move on then?
Belonging To
Mal: Yeah, let’s do it. This last one was so cute. So the final fic. Yep. The final flick we’re going to cover is Belonging To by Hans_On. Uh, this is a, a shorty, it’s 7,285 words. Um, it is teen and up, this one. It’s, uh, so it’s not kind of a, a porn with plot type little one.
It’s actually very cute and schmoopy. So he’s, the summary goes like this, Dean was, eh,
Dean was just your above average adventurer looking to dragon, looking for a dragon to s slave for its hoard of treasure. Now he’s not sure how to feel seeing the pint sized dragon [00:59:00] trying to drag its single shiny coin with it as it runs away from him.
Soon he finds himself visiting the dragon’s layer, giving it gifts as treasure instead of taking, people think he’s crazy for doing it, especially since dragons have, I can’t say this word. Good lord, proprietorial issues.
I hate it when
Ellen: that was a good effort.
Mal: You have a word that you can, that you can read, and yet you’ve never said it out loud before and you’re like, well, I’m about to find out if in my head I’ve been pronouncing it right. Um, um, so this is a story where Cas is a dragon, but he’s a tiny little.
Dragon. He, he’s not, you know, giant like
Ellen: he’s a baby.
Mal: The, the, the trope of, you know, the giant house size dragon. He is adorable in this story. He does get bigger. He does grow over time.
Ellen: Yeah. Like the, the, the visual of a baby dragon dragging a giant coin. He is just so cute. And obviously Dean is also charmed.
Milli: I think [01:00:00] I’ve s seen like a, there’s like a, a little comic image that gets memed a lot, which has got like a tiny dragon with a coin. And it does make me wonder if, um, Hans_On was, I wonder if this was inspired by that, because that, that pick is like pre 2023.
Ellen: Yeah.
Milli: It’s like something got shared on Tumblr or something like years ago.
Ellen: Yeah. Good chance.
Milli: It’s cute.
Ellen: Yeah. Super cute. And Dean does come back over time and bring him more and more treasure and obviously Cas loves this. I think this is one of the, I’m trying to remember if this is true in the fic that this is one where, um, Dean has been sort of following the courting process without actually realizing it. And
Milli: yes, it is accidentally married trope and I think technically speaking,
Ellen: I love it.
Milli: Dragon Heart has a bit of accidentally married as well, so that, I think that that brings us to about [01:01:00] two fics that are basically featuring accidentally married trope.
Ellen: Excellent.
Milli: Yes. Point that kind of,
Mal: they just seem to go together quite well because, you know, you, you assume dragons are gonna have customs entirely different to to ours and that’s definitely what happens in this one.
Dean has no clue that he’s essentially courting this, this dragon and bringing him his treasures. But, you know, he doesn’t, it’s not like he stops when he works it out, so it’s fine.
Ellen: Yeah. And
Mal: adorable.
Ellen: Cas isn’t like a dragon forever in this either. He does turn into a human towards the end. Uh, no spoilers, but you, I mean, it’s only short fics. You pretty much know what’s coming. Um, but yes, it’s adorable.
Mal: Very cute. Definitely a different kind of twist on the dragon aspect, so,
Ellen: yeah.
Other recommendations
Mal: So do we have some other dragon fics that we would like to recommend? I know I have a bunch. Um, uh, I’m gonna mention kind of quickfire, mention a couple that we have covered on [01:02:00] the podcast before, um, in case anybody wants to go back and kind of listen to those.
Um, so we did talk to sharkfish about trustworthy for such work, which is a very different kind of dragon. Um, and it’s a modern au. It’s, it’s quite a short bit, but it’s, it’s beautifully written. Um, like most of sharkfish’s work and we’ll, we will kind of pull you in. It’s about 7,000 words. Um, and it’s like I said, a very different take on Dragon, much more humanoid than the large big wings size of the house. Uh, and we did talk about that. I’m not sure what episode that was, but I’m sure by the time we post this we will have worked it out. So
Ellen: I’ll post some links to the previous episodes as well.
Mal: Yes, I think we also spoke to, did we speak to aishitara about Dragon in the Cup? I think possibly we did.
Um,
Ellen: we
Mal: we’ve definitely covered the fic on podcast I think.
Ellen: Yeah, we spoke about it, uh, a lot earlier. Um, yeah, we did. [01:03:00]
Mal: Yes. Uh, but that is an adorable, um, fic where Dean accidentally drops a dragon, say story where dragons are known in the world. Um, very, very rare, but they are sort of known. And again, they are quite tiny and they get bigger and Dean goes to make his coffee one morning and finds that one has adopted him and has essentially curled up in his coffee cup.
And then we go through once again with the accidental courting, mating kind of trope where they, he cares for the dragon and they get very close and uh, it does have a happy ending for everybody. It’s lovely. It’s a very cute, fic, I’ve read that one multiple times. It’s a bit of a comfort fic for me.
So, um, and then the third one that I think we may have mentioned, um, on the Fit before is possibly Little Blue Dragon by saltnhalo. Um, which that one, I want to say is kind of a medium size 23, 20 3000 words. Um, and this is a very fun fic ’cause it has Dean as [01:04:00] a blacksmith that makes like really cool little figures like, uh, dragon style figures. Um, and uh, obviously Castiel is a dragon who is very interested in that. So, um, it’s, it’s a really nice fic and it has, uh, some lovely art I think as well if I remember correctly. It’s been a little while since I’ve read this one. I’ve read it a couple of times, but um, also has some lovely art in it.
So I think those are the three we’ve already mentioned. Um, so if we want to mention a couple of other ones
Ellen: I will go with , so I read The Story of the Lost Prince, which is by Lindsay L. It’s a little longer, it’s like 82,000 words, but it’s, I, I mean literally kid fic. When it starts Dean is like a child and he loves to hear the story about this prince who got cursed and had to go and live out in the forest.
And, but then he, like he, that he’s on the road with his father, [01:05:00] um, and they get, um. Like bandits come and attack them, and then he ends up running and finding this place where this dragon lives as a child, and then later when he grows up and becomes the king, I think, I’m not sure if he’s the king yet, but he’s an adult at least, he goes back to try and find Cas. So it’s a little longer, but it’s really lovely. I, I enjoyed the, this one. Um, it’s explicit as well, obviously. So not obviously, but it is,
Mal: so it might not be.
Ellen: Yeah, I know we do have plenty of fics that aren’t explicit in the list, but Yeah,
Milli: I’ve, I’ve got, I’ve got one that’s I haven’t read for a very long time.
Mal: Ooh, great. Okay. Which one’s that?
Milli: Um, Shadow and Storm by zaphodsgirl. It’s, it is a mature rated fic. Uh, one night a mysterious visitor appears in young prince Dean’s bedroom, and he suddenly finds himself transported to an abandoned [01:06:00] replica of his home in an unknown land. He learns quickly of the borders are finite, and none may leave without incurring the wrath of the guardian, a dragon the people call Storm.
With no choice, Dean adapts to life as the others have, tending to the animals and working the land to survive. As he grows up the life he knew is the prince seems more and more distant until the new person arrives, that he remembers from his childhood, shaken by this arrival, Dean’s desire to escape returns anew and discovers more than he wanted to know about the shadow lands and its occupants, especially about the mysterious guardian of the castle, Castiel.
Ellen: Oh, that sounds so good.
Milli: I, I’ll make sure.
Mal: Yeah, that sounds really good.
Milli: Link in the chat that you guys can share with else.
Mal: Yes, yes. Please do. All right. Well that one sounds amazing. Um, I’m going to quickly rec Blue Scales by Ellenofoz, uh, which is just under 20,000 words. Um, it is a like a fantasy au full fantasy au with Castiel as a dragon, Dean, as a hunter, and also Sam as a hunter.
Um, and as far [01:07:00] as I remember is Sam a mage in this one? I think he is, or he has
Ellen: Yeah.
Mal: Some kind of magic. Yep. Um, the thing that I love about this one, this is, you know, very fantasy. They go out to hunt the dragon, the hunt goes wrong. There’s more to the dragon than meets the eye. Of course there is ’cause it’s Cas.
But the thing I love about this fake is just the banter the whole way through, just between Dean and Sam at the beginning. Like they, they’re fighting a dragon and they’re looking for like more of like the oriental snake type dragon. And they, it’s mentioned that they, they christen it like a “snagon” and then like all these other kinds of things, just like the banter between the two of them.
There’s some really great dean and Sam in this that I love. Um, and then. Later on between Cas and, uh, Dean as well, when we get these wonderful kind of Cas moments where he’s just exasperated and confused by the human of it all. Um, and, and I love it, especially ’cause they, they do meet as, uh, as enemies.
Um, they are trying to hunt the [01:08:00] dragon. It doesn’t quite go to plan as far as I remember. There’s a cave in or something like that? Or is it, is it that Cas causes the cave in? I can’t remember. But
Ellen: yeah, basically,
Mal: um, they, uh, they have to team up to get out of the cave, which they’re trapped in. And there’s that a moment I remember specifically where, um, Cas promises that he’s not gonna hurt Dean on the way out.
And they’re like, okay, we’re gonna, we’re gonna team up to get out. And then Cas like, stands on his sword and it’s just like, but you’re not carrying that. Like, I’m not stupid. Like, no. Um, so he actually like, takes Dean’s sword from him and won’t let him hold it. So just the, the banter between the two of them, it’s a great.
fic for just the dialogue is so enjoyable. Um, I really enjoyed it. So for me it was a really quick read. It’s one of those that does not feel 20,000 words ’cause you are just going back and forth with these characters. It’s great.
Ellen: Thanks.
Mal: You are welcome. Sorry, I’m just there and squirm through all of that.
Ellen: Well, the, the snagon thing was [01:09:00] because, uh, it’s a, it was a reverse bang. So I got the, the artwork first and it was a pinch it too. So it was on a really short timeline, which is apparently the only way I can write fic at the moment is if I have a, like a really close deadline that I have to get it done by. Um,
Mal: oh, those deadlines do help. Yep.
Ellen: Yeah. And the artist actually requested… the artist’s name in like, Tumblr name is j-k-t-e. Um, I’m not sure if there’s a way to pronounce that. That isn’t just reading out the letters. I’m so sorry. Um, but their beautiful artwork, um, um, like I, I didn’t wanna take on a pinch hit un unless I actually had a story fully formed in my brain that I could just write down, you know?
So, um, but when I saw the artwork that they created, I was like, oh yeah, the story’s there. So wrote it all down. And the artist actually requested that [01:10:00] one of the things that they requested was that, uh, they refer to the dragon, as a snagon. And because the way that the artwork looks, and it looks like he doesn’t have any legs.
Milli: Oh.
Ellen: But he, so he kind of looks like a, you know, eastern kind of dragon. But no, um, beautiful artwork and very inspiring to create that fics. So I’ll go back to reccing other people’s fics now. Um, so there is one called Treasure Acquired, which is by Toby the wise, which I guess is similar to, it’s only a shorty.
It’s like 3000 words. This is basically porn without plot. Similar to the, the belonging to fic where Dean sort of finds a dragon and a treasure hoard, and I think he becomes the dragon’s treasure.
Milli: Aw.
Ellen: Like Cas Cas claims him as his treasure. And there’s some fucking, I don’t think [01:11:00] it’s actual monster fucking, oh, it’s been too long since I read this one. I can’t remember the details.
Mal: I mean, knowing Toby, it could be, but I’m not sure if that one specifically is. So Toby has a huge array of,
Ellen: it’s very hot
Mal: of, uh, yeah. Has a huge array of very hot fics. So
Ellen: yeah, I recommend that one. It’s good. Okay. Any more?
Mal: I was gonna say, we do have a big long list, which as usual, we will include, um, on the blog along when we release the podcast. Um, and if anyone has any others to recommend, they can let us know. ’cause we do think there needs to be more dragon Cas fics, even though there’s like 180 something of them as a minimum, that there can always be more.
I’ve just recalled, I knew there was another short fic that I had read and loved where Dean, uh, sorry. Where Cas is a dragon and Dean is a blacksmith. I knew there was another one like that. And that is, it’s Iron and Ice by a diamond. [01:12:00] Um,
Ellen: right.
Milli: Yay.
Mal: Yes. So once again, Dean is a blacksmith making things that Cas takes an interest in. And, and Cas is not human. It’s, it’s very short. It’s 5,000 words. So anything I tell you is gonna spoil the entire fic, but it’s fantastic. It’s like a friends to lovers. Um, great little fic. So. Little treasure from a_diamond there.
Ellen: Awesome. Oh, there is one more that I wanted to mention. Sorry.
Mal: We, we could be here a while. We could just keep going.
Ellen: Yeah, no, no. This is another, so another fic that we previously discussed on the podcast, I don’t know if we did this as a, like a full featured fic or if we just mentioned it when followyourenergy was on the podcast with us. So Mary wrote one, wrote for, wrote one, which is called Sympathy for the Devil.
And it is where Dean goes to, um, he goes to the tower where the dragon lives to beg for money, basically like a, a favor. Um, and, but it turns out that [01:13:00] the dragon who lives in the tower is Cas. And long story short, they fall in love, but it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous fic.
Mal: Okay. I’ve got one more, and I promise this is my last one, but Okay.
Um, Hoarding Instincts by Valinde Valeria? Not sure. Not sure how we pronounce that one either. Um, I’m just gonna read you the summary of this one and you can, and the fact that it’s tagged “not crack, I swear” will immediately tell you why I enjoy this so much, um, in which Dean finds a homeless dragon at Starbucks and takes him home with him.
Ellen: Oh no,
Mal: that’s not, um, it does have some kind of A/B/O ish dynamics in it. Um, but it’s, it’s, it’s short and fun and I love it. Anything where it has to be tagged, not crack. I swear I immediately want to read.
Ellen: Yeah. Okay. Are we all done?
Mal: I think so. Shall we wrap up?
Ellen: [01:14:00] Okay. So before we wrap up, um, thank you so much Milli, for coming to talk to us about your fic and dragons in general.
Milli: You’re all very welcome.
Ellen: Is there anything else you are working on at the moment that you wanna give a plug to or.
Milli: Finding fi, finding time to write is, is hard. I did get myself a Mslexia diary to encourage myself to write a bit more this year, and it’s slowly happening, but it’s been original fiction so far.
But, um, my, my creative brain has been slowly healing, but the onslaught the last few years, um, and there’s some fic stuff creeping about ideas, lot of different fandoms involved. Um, so I know just, just keep an eye out on my, um, archive of our own profile, I suppose. Um, and also if you are, if you are a Reddit user and you are looking for somewhere that is generally a multi ship positive, you know, pro ship, um, [01:15:00] r/fandomnatural, which is, you know, Supernatural, but with fandom, you know, kind of bunged in there, um, instead, um, is the place to come.
Um. There, there are other subreddits, but if you’re looking for somewhere that’s like ship neutral and just happy to have all the ships, we are the place to be. We’re not, we’re not super busy. Um, and you’re less likely to get shouted down if you come to us to talk about, you know, Destiel or Dean Cas than if you wander onto r/supernatural, though, I should point out there is a dedicated r/destiel subreddit as well.
Mal: Well, I hope everyone goes to check out your stories. I know you have quite a few different fandoms up there as well as multiple different Supernatural ships for people to check out.
Milli: Yeah, I I, I, I ask that if people are offended by certain ships ’cause I’m a multi shipper, like please do use the filters available to you on ao3.
Mal: Yes, we are very pro should be people controlling Yeah. People control their own experience. So yes, no. Always, we always [01:16:00] been,
Ellen: we have been fantastic tools available to us. Yes,
Mal: yes. Control your own experiences, people.
Ellen: Awesome. Well thank you. Thank you for coming just to chat with us. You can like tell us what you thought about these fics if you read them.
You can get in touch with us, uh, on multiple ways. You can find us on social media. Uh, we are mixtapebookclub on most in most places. Um, you can come into the, you can join the profound Bond Discord server. We have a link I think on, in our website for that. But we’ve also got our own Discord server where we can, um, where our ko-fi people, uh, can hang out and help us with recommending fics and all sorts of things.
Mal, our next episode is our 50th episode, uh, and we’ve got some,
Mal: I
Ellen: can’t
Mal: believe it’s been 50.
Ellen: I know it’s like been what, by five, six years or something at this point?
Mal: It
Ellen: so have, we’ve done All right.
Mal: It feels like it’s been forever, but yeah, it’s 50 50 [01:17:00] episodes, so we will have
Ellen: amazing,
Mal: something special, something special coming. So
Ellen: yes, uh, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Thank you so much everyone for listening, and we will talk to you again soon.
Mal: And as always, remember that the story isn’t over until we say it is.
Ellen: Bye. Thanks, Milli.
Mal: Bye
Milli: bye. [01:18:00]