Home » Transcript: Track 5 : Fake Relationships

Transcript: Track 5 : Fake Relationships

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

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[Intro music]

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

MalMuses: And my name’s Mal.

Ellen: Each week we take a look at a different trope in the huge collection of Destiel fanfiction. And this week, this is, we’re recording this on the Sunday after Episode 18. So we haven’t seen Episode 19 yet, for instance, but if you want to hear about the fics that we’re going to talk about, we’re going to do them first, and then we’re going to bring you the spoilers at the end of this, of this episode.

So when you hear Sam say his little “spoiler warning” you can switch off and come back to it later if you want to. We’re going to talk about the events of 18. So, Spoiler Alert! But we’re also going to bring you some fics to escape the stresses [00:01:00] of, of this crazy week with some happy endings to make things better. And one of our favorite tropes for doing that is Fake Relationships.

MalMuses: This week we are very excited to introduce our guest and friend, followyourenergy.

Followyourenergy: Hello.

Ellen: Welcome!

Followyourenergy: Hi, I’m followyourenergy on AO3, but you can call me Mary here. It’s a lot easier, much less of a mouthful.

Ellen: Thank you.

MalMuses: Okay, so links to all of the fics that we’re talking about today are going to be available in this episode’s post on mixtapebookclub.com. We’re going to be talking about Mary’s story, Option C, and then two other Fake Relationship stories that we are very fond of.

Option C

Ellen: So the first fic we’re going to talk about today is Option C by followyourenergy. It was published in 2020, which, like, back at the start of this year before all the world went crazy. So it’s [00:02:00 ]63,000 words long and it is Explicit. And the  summary goes like this:

Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak thought that their senior year of college would be the best year of their lives, until they find out the apartment they’re renting has also been rented to someone else. Given three options, they choose option C, live together for the year and make it work.

When roommate Vaughn turns out to be a conceited jerk with very different political views and values, best friends Dean and Cas scheme to push him out by any means necessary. Those means become an elaborate game of Fake Relationship antics, which would be fine if Dean wasn’t secretly in love with Cas, and Cas hadn’t sworn off dating friends.

As the games escalate, will Dean be able to cope with the feelings that just won’t go away? And will Cas stick with his vow, or will his feelings force him to find another option?

Actually, this is really great timing to talk about this fic since their roommate is like a Trump supporter. [ Laughs ]

MalMuses: [00:03:00] Let’s dive right into that. Okay. 

Ellen: Today also happens to be the day [ Laughs ] when we found out about that.

MalMuses: This is really a momentous day to be recording any, anything, so. 

Ellen: It really is. Mary, I really love this fic. It’s great. It’s, it’s so, such a great sort of example of fake relationships in that obviously both Cas and Dean both have feelings for each other, but neither of them actually know. And then they’re thrown into this situation where they are forced to actually act on those feelings without breaking their own hearts.

Followyourenergy: Right. Right. Yes. And, and, you know, of course they have to do that without talking to each other specifically about what’s going on because that’s, how else do you work a fake relationship trope?

Ellen: Right.

MalMuses: And I mean, how else would they still be them? 

Followyourenergy: Well right. Exactly. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: So I guess we need to explain a little like, [00:04:00] I mean, the summary did a great job of explaining, but basically their, their roommate Vaughn just doesn’t want them there and is a real kind of asshole.

Followyourenergy: Well, I mean, I think that’s a good descriptor of Vaughn. So yeah. So they, they have both rented this apartment, but there was a mix-up. And so this, this guy Vaughn and somebody else also rented the apartment. And so, well, there, there, there’s no housing left around the campus, so they have to make it work or they decide to make it work. And, and so they tried to, but Vaughn is, as you said, an asshole. And he’s, and he has very different political leanings than Dean and Cas do.

And so, and Dean and Cas kind of have their own stuff? [00:05:00] As they always do. That sort of keeps them from being, being, being able to be together at, at first. And, but they do have a very close friendship. They are best friends and they have a mutual desire to get rid of their roommate. And so, as the summary says, by any means necessary, and so they decide that the means include essentially playing on his biases [ Laughs ] and, you know, pushing every button that, that they think he has.

Ellen: That’s right. He’s, I just love that it just gradually escalates more and more and you know, it gets a bit more, as it gets more and more explicit, you’re sort of, as we’re reading it, we end up sort of shouting at them like, get with the picture, like, come on, you just, just talk to each other, just tell him! But,

MalMuses: [00:06:00] Oh yeah, the fanfic yelling is strong with this one.

Ellen: Yeah, it really is. It really is. I mean, it’s like that in every fic with these guys but,

Followyourenergy: Yeah.

MalMuses: It’s especially wonderful here because they’re obviously both in some ways enjoying what they’re doing and where they’re going with this, but at the same time they both have that kind of feeling in the back of it where they, they know it’s not real and they keep kind of trying to remind themselves of that. Not very much enjoying doing so, but as, as a reader, it’s wonderful because you just sit there like, Guys, really? [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: Well, and as the reader too, you, you kind of know what their hangups are a little bit. And, and interestingly, they even sort of know what each other’s hangups are a little bit about it. And so they’re trying to be respectful and also because of their own hangups, they have a hard time sort of picturing that the other one could really be into them like that.

[00:07:00] And that it could work, that this, you know, that they won’t utterly screw up the relationship somehow. And, you know, it’s that classic sort of, I don’t want to lose him, I don’t want to lose the friendship, I don’t want to lose, you know, what we have, but I love him, you know?

Ellen: Yeah. Yes. And you’ve got quite a few sort of references to, I guess, college years life kind of thing, like,

Followyourenergy: Which was really hard because it’s been a while since I’ve been in college, my friend.

Ellen: [ Laughs ] I was going to say that are any of them based on real experiences? Like, yeah, I think I might’ve asked you this before, but,

MalMuses: Oh gosh, I hope not! [ Laughs ]

Ellen: No, I didn’t mean, [ Laughs ] no I meant the recipes and the like you know, being part of the, the society for, you know, being an educator or whatever, how would you describe that?

Followyourenergy: So I was a peer educator for Sexuality in college [00:08:00] and it was a really fun experience. And I did go, like Cas, Cas and Charlie are in this fic. So what that entailed was I basically, we would do little one hour programs at different dormitories around campus. And, and we would talk about different sexuality topics, you know, we might talk about the sexuality spectrum, or we might talk about safer sex, that was a popular one, STIs, things like that.

And so we, we would go all over the place and we had our bag of goodies, you know, that included models and things like that. And so one of the things that happens in, in this fic is that they try to gross him out, I guess, for lack of a better term that I can think of at the moment, by putting the penis model smack dab in the middle of their table which is something I actually did [00:09:00] to my, my roommate’s, my roommate’s boyfriend, because he annoyed me. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Excellent. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: And he was, sort of, yeah, he had a reaction,

MalMuses: Mm-hmm.

Followyourenergy: What is that? Why is it there? And I mean, you know, just that sputtering sort of thing and you’re like, what? It’s a penis model. What is your problem?

MalMuses: Yeah. I was going to say, if you don’t know what that is, then clearly he needs the peer education. Perfect segue. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Yes.

Followyourenergy: Luckily, I didn’t run into anybody who is homophobic like Vaughn is in, in this fic. So I was, I was very fortunate about that. But I did run into a lot of people who had a very difficult time talking about sexuality in you know, in a way that was respectful, I guess. 

MalMuses: Okay, so I was going to ask initially if Vaughn was based on anybody, [00:10:00] but I should probably avoid directly asking that one just in case Mary wants to, you know, maintain relationships with that person. If they ever hear about us. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: He’s not. He’s not. He’s totally made up though. I didn’t have anybody like that, so.

MalMuses: Because that’s the thing I think Vaughn is, while at the same time being sort of a stereotype of a person,

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm.

MalMuses: We’ve all known or heard of a Vaughn.

Ellen: Yeah.

Followyourenergy: Yeah.

MalMuses: And, and he is an asshole and, to coin a really unfortunate phrase, I’m here to compliment you on your asshole right now, Mary,

Followyourenergy: Thank you. [ Laughs ]

MalMuses: Because he’s very much the villain of the piece here and and you know, you, you do hate him as point, at points as you’re going through.

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm.

MalMuses: But what I thought was done really really well in this is that you give Vaughn reasons for being the way he is without ever giving him excuses for being the way he is.

Followyourenergy: [00:11:00] Hmm. Thank you for that. Because you know, that was tricky. That was really tricky to write because I wasn’t sure, I didn’t want to give him excuses. There, there is no excuse. He knows better. But you know, yeah, he had stuff happen to him. And you know, but lots of people have the same sorts of situation that Vaughn does. And, and they aren’t horrible people, you know.

So, you know, some of, you know, it’s like that nature/nurture thing, kind of, you know, that, that people face in their development. And he, yeah, he, he just wasn’t a very nice person and he just didn’t come around and he just, he was, I, I purposely made him a bit narcissistic. 

So if you, you know, look at, you know, sort of the criteria for the Narcissistic Personality Disorder or whatever, [00:12:00] he, he fits the bill, you know, and so he, and, and so yes, there are reasons. There are things that happened that sort of colored his view, but ultimately he, he definitely was, was not kind. He did not grow and learn and build tolerance or acceptance or anything like that, that lots of other people are capable of doing.

MalMuses: Yeah. Everything that Vaughn did was a choice and a very bad choice. 

Followyourenergy: Yes. [ Laughs ] Very much so. And I did, you know, I did get a little, a little feedback about that, you know, I remember here, I, I don’t, I don’t get a lot of negative comments, but I did remember, I do remember someone kind of being like, Oh, you know, geez, you know, sometimes people are just assholes. [ Laughs ] I’m like, yeah, I know, I agree with you, you know,

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: But the thing is, if you question them, then they aren’t going to agree with that, [00:13:00] they are always going to think they have their reasons for being the way they are.

Followyourenergy: Oh, absolutely. And, and, you know, yeah, Vaughn absolutely 100 percent believes that he is in the right and you, and you won’t convince him otherwise.

MalMuses: So Dean and Cas try pretty hard.

Followyourenergy: Yeah. Well, no, they’re not trying to convince him otherwise. They’re just trying to kick him out. [ Laughs ]

MalMuses: True. Yeah. They’re just highlighting the worst parts of it. They’re just handing him,

Followyourenergy: Yeah. Exactly.

MalMuses: Handing him the method of his own execution right there.

Followyourenergy: There you go. Yeah. Exactly.

MalMuses: Well, we can ask about actually writing the fic for this one. Because for me, writing Fake Relationships is one of my absolute favorite things. Like they’re one of my favorite tropes for a reason. Because I love that whole setup, like being able to, it’s, it’s almost like next level Mutual Pining. 

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm.

Ellen: Yeah. Because they’re forced to actually face it.

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm.

MalMuses: It’s Mutual Pining with like, a forced resolution.

Followyourenergy: [00:14:00] [ Laughs ] Right.

MalMuses: So when you went into it, did you sit there and plan out kind of like the two sides of it? Like Dean’s going to do this and Cas is going to do this and then, something external will happen and then react to it like this, or were you more focused on kind of, the plot of it, and then working that in after, because I’m always kind of curious how people approach fanfic, because it’s usually so character-driven. So were you planning their relationship first, or were you mostly using the plot that you had going?

Followyourenergy: You know, you give me a lot of credit for planning this, [ Laughs ] and you know, I, I did actually outline it, which I don’t usually do, but I did outline it a bit of, Ok well, here’s what I know about them. You know, they’re best friends. You know, Cas has this in his background and that’s why he, you know, would be reluctant to get into a relationship with Dean. [00:15:00] Dean has this in his background, that’s why he’d be reluctant to get into a relationship with Cas or with people in general in the same with Cas.

So so I, I sort of have, I have had an idea of their characters and then I outlined, okay, so how exactly are they gonna, you know, step by step, what are, what are they going to be, the phases or the trials that they’re going to go through? Okay. Well, first they start by, you know, how they decorate the house and what they do with the house. And then they go into, you know, bringing around the, you know, ultra gay friends, you know, or whatever. And then they go into the, you know, and so it escalates and escalates.

You know, I, I mostly stuck with that. But not … completely. You know, because I know you guys will probably agree, you know, stories do what they want. The characters do what they want.

Ellen: Yep.

MalMuses: Oh yeah.

Followyourenergy: Right. And so before we know it, it’s, [00:16:00] it’s their story, and we’re just around along for the ride. And, you know, they’re, they’re making us write it the way they want it. You know, these characters want it.

And so that’s kind of, I don’t know if I’m answering your question exactly, but you know, that’s, that’s kind of the approach I took. I really love character-driven stuff and, and I really, it’s important for me that the characters are, are true first and, you know, because that tells me how they react to the plot that tells me everything, you know, about the plot and where the plot’s gonna go.

MalMuses: No, that actually does answer my question really well, actually, just because, one of the things that I noticed with Fake Relationships is that I was actually outlining that less than I would an ordinary fic. And I realized after a while, it’s because it’s such a character-driven trope that I’m being led through it by their own stupidity a lot of the time.

Followyourenergy: Right.

MalMuses: It doesn’t really matter what I want. They have an agenda. 

Ellen: Yes.

Followyourenergy: [00:17:00] Yeah, absolutely.

Ellen: Yeah. They kind of, guess they’re going to dictate when they’re ready to actually tell the truth, or I guess outside forces might act as well to make them force the truth out of them.

Followyourenergy: Right. And you have to, you have to sort of build up to, to that point. I mean, you have to create the crisis, you know, or whatever that, that makes them, you know, eventually, that tips the scales, I guess.

Ellen: Yeah. Yep.

Followyourenergy: You know, which is always like so delicious, isn’t it? It’s just so wonderful. 

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: And oh, what a crisis you went for without any spoilers, it’s actually one of my favorite points in the fic, where everything kind of comes to a disastrous head.

Followyourenergy: Yay! Disaster. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it was something and it was a lot of fun actually to just sort of write all that and see how they would all react to it. [00:18:00] And boy, they had that, that one part with the landlords and that was fun. That was, it felt like vindication.

Ellen: Yep.

MalMuses: One of the other things I actually really enjoyed in this fic as well was the language that you used throughout it. Like even when you’ve got all this tension going on and, and there’s so much drama going on in their lives, like they never failed to make me chuckle with the, the basically dumb college speak they very deliberately use with each other.

Followyourenergy: Yeah. 

Ellen: There’s some amazing bantering and jokes actually, like, very funny.

Followyourenergy: Aww, thank you. You know, I had to dig deep and actually consult people much younger than me because, [ Laughs ] because I’m not in college anymore. And you know, so that was, that was fun. It’s always tricky, I think, you know, this is not so much Fake Relationship and this is, this is more, you know, like age-driven and character-driven, but talk, [00:19:00] but you know, when, when you’re writing a fic that’s not in your comfort zone or in your knowledge base, you know, I mean, yes, I went to college and so I had some of that, but I’m not in college these days. And so how does that look different? And how do, how do people of that age speak differently now and that sort of thing.

And so there, even for sort of a light, you know, a little romp, like that’s not that light, I guess, but a little romp like this, you have to do your research. But it, but it was fun. It was fun research. And you know, they, they’re pretty playful with each other and I love writing that banter. And I loved some of the language that they used, the euphemisms they came up with and, and whatnot. They’re, they were just fun.

Ellen: Well, you had me convinced that they were college students, but it’s also been a while for me since I was there. So, 

Followyourenergy: Bless you, Ellen. Thank you. [ Laughs ] What do you both love about Fake Relationship? [00:20:00] I mean, you know, Mal did it really well in Russian to the Altar for example,

Ellen: Yes!

Followyourenergy: But you know, what, what do you both love about Fake Relationship? And if, if we want to talk about this question later, that’s fine. I know we have two other fics to, to look through too, but I’m, I’m always curious because that’s one of my favorite tropes too.

MalMuses: I think my favorite thing about it is that idea of kind of wish fulfillment and how they’re getting, getting what they want without being able to keep what they want. And I think I love the, the juxtaposition of being able to write that, being able to write them getting all the things that they want, but having all those feelings of not being able to keep it, or so they think.

Followyourenergy: Right. Yeah, yeah. It’s like a genie grants them that wish, but they cannot, or like Cinderella, you know,  can have it,

MalMuses: Yeah!

Followyourenergy: But they can’t keep it for so long.

MalMuses: Yeah, very much so.

Ellen: [00:21:00] I think mine’s favorite thing about it is the same reason, but it’s sort of like, what I really like is when, like, this is not just for, for Fake Relationships, but when a character thinks they’re, they’ve, they’ve got something and then it either turns out they don’t have it or they think they see something and they think, Oh, I don’t, I don’t, that person doesn’t like me or whatever, that little angsty kind of feeling is so delicious. I’m a horrible person for saying this, [ Laughs ] but I really, I love that.

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm.

Ellen: And I think we get a bit of that in, in here where, I’m not sure if it’s so much in here because they’re both so focused on each other that they don’t have that kind of jealous feelings coming into it at all, but, or much anyway. Although I guess there is a little bit with, some of their friends,

Followyourenergy: [00:22:00] Yeah, there’s a, there’s a couple of, there’s a couple of points of, of quick, quick jealousy, I guess, you know, there’s, there’s one at a party where one of them thinks the other is sleeping with somebody at the party because they were told that, and pretty quickly, and the other one is, you know, when they actually try to set up, set up a scene and the scene goes sideways because one of their friends, you know, says something and they, they, they go from fake to real. They, you know, they end up having to fight about it.

Ellen: Oh! That’s the best part of it. Definitely. [ Laughs ] When all of a sudden everything becomes real and then they’re actually really having a fight or whatever. And it’s like, wait a second, wait, what’s going on? Suddenly everything’s real.

Followyourenergy: Right.

Ellen: So good.

Professional Couple Only

MalMuses: So for fic number two, we are going to talk about Professional Couple Only by saltyfeathers on AO3. [00:23:00] This is a slightly older fic. It was published back in 2015. It’s 37,000 words and it is Mature. As usual, I will say that I feel like the definitions of Mature and Explicit have changed over time. So, but just bear that in mind if you’re reading this fic or any other fic that’s, that’s not Gen, basically.

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: And the summary for this fic is very short and simple:

There’s a haunted apartment building in Vermont. And the ad says, Professional Couple Only. Dean and Cas rise to the occasion.

So this  is a canon case fic. Which has that delicious Fake Relationship built into it. So there’s also a lot of Sam in this fic. A lot of Sam Saves the Day. A lot of longsuffering Sam. And a pretty good, kind of, case to kind of dig your teeth into as well while they’re sorting out their disastrous selves. [ Laughs ]

[00:24:00] So this is, this is one of my favorite fics, I’ve read this multiple times. Like I said, it has been around for quite a few years now. So what did everybody else think of it?

Ellen: Oh yeah. I, I’d forgotten how much I love this fic. I read it a while ago and then I reread it for this episode and oh my God, it’s so good. It’s just really good. ‘Cause it’s, it’s human Cas, like Season Nine kind of, but obviously some kind of Alternate Canon where he didn’t get kicked out of the Bunker or didn’t like, regain grace for whatever reason. So he is, he’s human. Although he has some kind of superhuman perks, I guess he’s still, he’s still strong and he’s still, some things he can do.

MalMuses: I don’t think they do like a big explanation necessarily in the story.

Ellen: No they don’t.

MalMuses: It does say, it says post Season 10. So,

Ellen: Oh, post Season 10. Okay.

MalMuses: Yeah. See, we can kind of get the idea of some of the stuff that happened there and how they did things differently. [00:25:00] But it very much, you know, feels like it would fit into canon almost anywhere where we can reasonably have a human Cas. Divergent from that point.

Ellen: Yep.

Followyourenergy: I love Canon-based relationship fics, I have to say. You know, because it’s, it really sort of gives the, it gives us, you know, the, the Destiel fans kind of something we really want in, in that world, you know, something that we would always long for, you know, you, you look for those, you know, little, you see those little pieces and you grab onto those pieces that you see, you know, in, in canon, but, you know, and then again, one of the, one of the beautiful things about Fake Relationship is that it forces them to, to be in a situation where they can express real feelings that they wouldn’t otherwise express. And so in canon, I think that’s particularly yummy.

MalMuses: Oh, yeah. And in canon, they both need a little help with that. So, forcing them to be able to express themselves, I mean, [00:26:00] it’s wonderful for us. It’s probably a relief for everybody around them. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: Yeah. Yeah. You know, to, to that point, one of the things that I really liked about this story, and I had, I went back and reread it also, I’d read it quite some time ago and, and really enjoy this story.

But, there was bickering from the first chapter and Sam was just a little shit. You know, like, fake date Cas. And Dean’s like, no. You know, and I, I really enjoy that, you know, that, that angle that a lot of writers take of, of, you know, Sam, Sam’s in the know, Sam knows, and Sam’s going to be, you know, he’s going to be a little brother about it and he’s going to poke. That was fun.

Ellen: So much teasing.

MalMuses: Yeah, we really need to do an episode focused on Shipper Sam one of these days.

Ellen: Yes.

MalMuses: [00:27:00] I think we have to. But this fic actually features one of my absolute favorite Sam tropes, which, I’ve never worked out if there’s a specific tag for, but it does turn up in quite a lot of canon case fics, which is where Cas and Dean are very busy dealing with their own baggage, and meanwhile, in the background, poor Sam is like doing acrobatics to get this case fixed. Basically, Sam saves everything. [ Laughs ] 

Ellen: He does, doesn’t he?

Followyourenergy: Oh, thanks a lot guys!

Ellen: And he shouts at them about it too, doesn’t he?

MalMuses: Yeah. Like they really lean into that in this one.

Ellen: Yes. I love, actually I love Sam in this one in general because he’s, he’s not, he doesn’t always play like a huge role in a lot of fics, even canon ones, and I think he’s very prominent in this one, especially at inopportune moments, like I think he, he interrupts,

MalMuses: [00:28:00] Interrupting moose,

Ellen: Several kind of moments.

MalMuses: Yup.

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: I think we’re all big Sam fans around here especially when he can be used as well as he is in this story.

Ellen: I don’t know if there’s any actual, like, one of my favorite tags is Sam Needs Brain Bleach. I don’t think there are any moments where he actually walks in on them, but there’s a few moments where it must be close. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: I remember, yeah, they were, he, I don’t think he walks in on them, but he does, you know, they’re, I remember them bickering, you know, they’re both stuck to a wall. .

MalMuses: Yeah. And then they can’t stop bickering. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: Right. Sam’s trying to like, Hey, I’m trying to do this work here and you’re not helping, you know.

Ellen: It’s like pretty much at crack levels of hilarious in that part, actually. It like sometimes I think that it, writers take the crack a bit far sometimes, but it’s actually a lot like a real episode. Like they do that kind of crap in the real show sometimes. Yeah.

Followyourenergy: Yes. 

Ellen: Very funny.

MalMuses: Yup. 

Ellen: [00:29:00] The other thing that, I really love about this, that’s one of my favorite things, especially in Canon fic is that Dean is extremely flustered the whole time. Like, he’s full-on panicking that,  that he’s forced to be in this relationship with someone who he really likes.

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm. I love,

Ellen: Yeah. Sorry, go on.

Followyourenergy: Oh, I was just going to say, I love flustered Dean. I was just agreeing with you.

Ellen: Yes. He’s my favorite. I love to write him flustered.

MalMuses: Yeah, I really, I really love writing him flustered as well. I think it’s because we’ve, we can compare it to how kind of like sexually confident he could be, but yet, as soon as you put some feelings in there, he is done. Like he just, he can’t cope anymore.

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: And I really, really like that, so.

Ellen: Even in canon, it’s like with women, he’s really smooth and, and sure of himself. But as soon as there’s a guy involved, he’s just a bit, [00:30:00] like several times he has been shown to possibly be flustered by guys in general, so that’s when he’s sort of unsure. So I just think it’s a perfect, it’s a great reflection on that. 

MalMuses: Yep, and I love that kind of flustered, flustered way of doing it because there’s, there’s a way to interpret it as, oh, he doesn’t care about this or this isn’t for him. It’s more a case of, Oh no, it’s here. What do I do now? [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Yes, [ Laughs ] and I, I think you’re right actually with the, on a separate note, the, the fact that this is rated as Mature, but I, they do actually get up to some stuff. Like, I don’t remember if there are any actual body parts mentioned, but,

MalMuses: I feel like there may be. But like I said, those, I feel like those kind of ratings have just changed over time. And what we expect for the kind of different ones have changed over time. But there is another very tiny trope in this that you don’t see used as often, but cracks me up every time, which is the mention of the frantic run to the drugstore for lube in the middle of things. [ Laugh ]

Ellen: [00:31:00] [ Laughs ] Like surprise, sex! Oh, we don’t have any stuff.

MalMuses: We are not prepared! 

Followyourenergy: But that won’t stop us. 

MalMuses: No. [ Laughs ] [ Unclear ] we get in this car, we are going. [ Laughs ] Yep. I love that there’s a mention of that, especially because, you know, they’ve got this entire Fake Relationship set up, like, guys, come on, you had all this time. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Well, they didn’t because they were too busy dealing with the lady upstairs and the, going to the,

MalMuses: Were, were they dealing with that though?

Ellen: Well, not very well, clearly. [ Laughs ] Yeah. Anyway, we don’t want to spoil anything in the fic, just read it and then you’ll understand.

MalMuses: Yeah. It’s definitely a great fic, one that I recommend heavily. If you are into Fake Relationships, [00:32:00] if you’re into case fics, if you’re into some genuinely funny moments within fic and if you, and if you like Sam, I feel like this is a must read if you’re a big Sam fan.

Ellen: Yeah.

Followyourenergy: They had a lot of almosts that I liked, you know, and that’s one of the fun things about Fake Relationship to their, you know, the, the points where they almost give into their feelings or they almost, you know, say something or, you know, it looks, you know, that, that gaze into each other’s eyes and, oh, you know, or they’re so close and then, you know, they get interrupted or something happens or, or one of them backs off because, oh my God, feelings or whatever, you know, and there were a lot of those in, in this one, I thought.

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: Yup.

Ellen: Someone, or someone says something to them and then they end up all blushy and kind of, I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe that.

MalMuses: Like, mutual flustered, like everybody’s flustered, they’re making it awkward for everybody at that point.

Ellen: Yes!

MalMuses: [00:33:00] I do love how kind of sassy Cas is in this as well, because obviously we’ve got different iterations of Cas that we can use from different points in the series, but I, I do enjoy it when you can have a more human Cas and he has that kind of much later season, like dry, sassy humor that he has going.

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm.

MalMuses: And I, I love that they very much embrace that in, in this because obviously he is human now and it’s kind of kind of slowly settling into that and how entertaining it is not only to hear Cas say these things, but to have Dean react to the fact that Cas bites back now. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Yeah.

Followyourenergy: And he kind of likes it.

MalMuses: Yeah, I think he does too. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: One of my, one of my favorite lines, and so if this is spoilery, you can cut it out, but Dean says, I still can’t believe you make me crawl out of my [00:34:00] own fucking grave. [ Laughs ] That has nothing to do with Fake Relationship, but I, I do find it really funny.

MalMuses: Yeah, I seem to remember that Cas’s response to that was quite amusing as well.

Ellen: We’ve all wondered that at some point after watching it. [ Laughs ] 

A Crash Course in Computer Safety

Okay, so moving on to the third fic in our list is called A Crash Course in Computer Safety and it’s by followthattardis. This one was only published last year in 2019, it’s 85,000 words long, so slightly longer than the other ones that we’ve spoken about, and this one is also Explicit.

And this one was a DCBB fic from last year, so it contains some artwork by PurgatoryJar. I feel like we talked about them last episode as well. 

MalMuses: Yes, because I think they did the art for Bring Up The Deep, actually,

Ellen: Yes!

MalMuses: [00:35:00] Just off the top of my head. I think they did.

Ellen: So there you go.

MalMuses: Obviously a very well known fan artist. But it’s genuinely adored and from the art in this fic, you can see why.

Ellen: Absolutely.

MalMuses: And this one is, yeah, it was a DCBB. So I feel like we should probably say DCBBs are posting right now. So go get your fic folks. There’s a lot.

Ellen: And I can’t, and so many, just as an aside, so many of them have already been posted, but they’re only halfway through? They’ve, like

MalMuses: I know. It’s delicious. So much food.

Ellen: I’ve only read like two or three of them. I feel terrible, I have to get on that. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: There’s so much great fic out there. It’s hard to, it’s hard to eat it all. It’s kind of like being at the table at Thanksgiving or something and you want, you want to eat everything and you just, yeah,

Ellen: Destiel Christmas!

MalMuses: It’s, it’s Dean Winchester at a buffet. That’s what that is, like you, you just want to keep them all on your plate and go for it.

Followyourenergy: Well, that’s, that’s a, that’s a vision, isn’t it?

MalMuses: [ Laughs ]

Ellen: [00:36:00] Only if there’s more than in a salad, I feel like I just wrote about that. Anyway.

MalMuses: That’s true. You did. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: So, okay, this fic, the summary goes:

On the day of his 29th birthday, Dean receives an email from his old nemesis, Michael Milton, the guy who got him kicked out of college and stole his girlfriend. The email contains encoded images with top secret CIA / NSA intelligence, and now their only copy is in Dean’s brain.

Both agencies send their best operatives, Castiel Novak and Victor Henriksen, respectively, to handle their accidental asset and protecting invaluable data in his head. To justify their sudden appearance in Dean’s life, they adopt covers. Victor as Dean’s new co-worker and neighbor, Cas as his new boyfriend.

Needless to say, Dean’s brother and his girlfriend are thrilled to see him in a relationship they believe to be real. Clearly there’s no way this could go wrong.

[00:37:00] So this is actually an AU of the TV show, Chuck, which I haven’t seen. Have you guys, do you guys know this show? 

MalMuses: Oh, yes. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Okay. I feel like Mal, you need to give us an explanation of what actually happened in the show.

MalMuses: [ Laughs ] I was a big fan of the show. When it came out, I watched every single episode. I loved it. And then I basically got SuperWhoLocked at the end and threw it out the window in rage. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: [ Laughs ] No.

MalMuses: So needless to say, when I saw what this fic was based on, I was immediately scanning the tags, like, I’m going to need y’all to fix this.

Ellen: [ Laughs ] They had a bad ending, the original show?

MalMuses: I don’t think everybody had, well, maybe it was just the circles I was traveling in. I didn’t personally know anybody that was happy with the way that they ended it?

Ellen: Okay.

MalMuses: But I imagine there must’ve been some people out there that liked the way that they ended it. 

And although this fic doesn’t specifically tag that they changed the ending, it is, it is an AU, so it’s, it’s reasonable to assume that they’re going to change some things in how it works. [00:38:00] But as I was reading through, like going chapter to chapter, and I could see the final chapter getting closer and closer, I was just like, Come on now! Don’t let me down! [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Oh, I can’t believe you actually read it without knowing.

MalMuses: I must admit the temptation was there to message either you or Mary, and be like, look, I just need you to skip to the end [ Laughs ] and read like the last few paragraphs for me.

Followyourenergy: Yeah. I loved this show too. I watched it every week also. I just fell in love with the character and it was really well done. And you know, the end I was like, ah, you know, I really would have picked a different ending there. But, but, but this story does deviate from that. And, and this was a really great story. They did a really great job with it. So.

MalMuses: Yeah, this is one of those AUs where the characters really fit like the roles that they were given. [00:39:00] So obviously, you know, you find AUs of movies and TV shows and books, and sometimes there’s a little bit of kind of wrangling that has to be done to fit the characters that we know into these, these slots. And I did wonder if this was going to be like that, just because I was like, well, how can we have a Dean that, you know, doesn’t, know anything about guns or, you know, it’s, is this kind of computer nerd and all the rest of it.

But actually I think they did it so well because reading him, reading just, just the minor kind of little details about how great he is, how he immediately thinks about how what he’s doing is going to affect other people. How he keeps on going, even though he is, definitely not a spoiler to say, at some points, basically terrified by all the things that are happening in his life but his reactions to it all are so very Dean that it never felt to me at all like there was any kind of, you know, trying to fit like a round peg into a square hole with this to get the characters to work right.

Ellen: [00:40:00] Yeah, I felt that was the same with, with Cas because you know, it’s, it fits the angel kind of format, I guess, because at the start he’s just like a robot. He’s just like doing whatever he has to do to get this job done and to protect Dean no matter the consequences. And as time goes on, he gradually opens up and starts doubting his orders I guess, 

MalMuses: Yeah, Dean very much teaches him how to be human here, doesn’t he?

Ellen: Yeah, it reflects, it reflects the actual show canon kind of thing. So yeah, I guess at the start there, it’s almost Enemies to Lovers. Like it’s sort of, ‘cause it’s literally Enemies to Lovers because Dean thinks they’re trying to kill him at the start, I think, doesn’t he?

MalMuses: Yeah. [00:41:00] Enemy to Lovers with a lot of us thrown in, like this very attractive man is trying to kill me.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s right!

Followyourenergy: At first, and you know, this, this was a fun and interesting, you know, it’s interesting that the, all three of the fics that you chose are a little different in how they approached that Fake Relationship.

So you know, Professional Couple Only, they’re canon and they, you know, sort of already have these really deep hidden feelings or whatever. And, and how they, they have to do it for a case, you know, and Option C is, you know, they’re already friends and, you know, but they have to and, and, they already love each other, but it’s different, you know, cause it’s an AU and they’re, they’re doing it for some other purpose. And, and this one, they’re also doing it for another purpose, but only one of them knows that at the very beginning. The other one thinks, Hey, he’s into me, you know, and finds out in a very unsettling way that that, that it was fake or, you know, and so it’s it’s interesting the, the approach that, [00:42:00] that happened there and how different it is than, than the others that you chose for today.

Ellen: Yeah, we did a good job there. High five!

MalMuses: Yeah! Way to go us. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: So actually, I wanted to know then is this, how close is it to the actual show? Like one of the characters still gets all the, you know, information in their brain, obviously, that’s the main part of the story, but do they, do they still go and find, like, does, does the main character flash on, on people they see or, you know, extract information?

MalMuses: Yes, I would say that a lot of that kind of stuff is actually very accurate. A lot of the events that happen in this story. So for example, the character of Michael in the story, that’s all pretty much exactly how it happened in the TV show. How to toe, toe the line of spoilers here … There’s a part where they travel back to Dean’s previous college, and things like that. And that’s all, all stuff that was taken directly from the show. [00:43:00] And then completely, obviously rewritten and made to fit these characters. But it, it really maintained the feel of the show when I was reading it, to me. But put my favorite characters, all in there, so.

Ellen: Yay!

Followyourenergy: Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was a really nice thing. It was interesting because in, in this one, you know, like in the show, you know, they had to, you know, the, the relationship had to be fake, not just between the two of them, but they had, they had to be fake in front of everybody, you know, so, so nobody really, except each other and, you know, their partner, their Henrickson, you know, could know that they weren’t anything other than this, you know, wonderfully happy couple or whatever.

And so, it was interesting to, to kind of see how, how family reacted to that, you know, family and friends.

Ellen: Yeah, it was heartbreaking.

Followyourenergy: [00:44:00] So Sam and Sarah and, you know, Charlie and all of that. So.

MalMuses: Yeah, it was a little heartbreaking how happy Sam was.

Followyourenergy: Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah.

Followyourenergy: Poor guy.

MalMuses: I think one thing that we should definitely point out about this fic to anybody who’s thinking about reading it, I think the way that it’s written, you 100 % do not need to be familiar with Chuck in any way to enjoy that fic.

Ellen: No, that’s right. I, I didn’t, I haven’t a clue, but I understood everything that was happening, so yeah, it was good.

MalMuses: Yeah. Everything is explained really well without there being any kind of like info dumping which I think is, is because we are learning along with Dean here. It’s, it’s Dean’s point of view and at least for the first kind of chapter or two, he doesn’t really know what’s going on.

So we, we learn along with him, which really kind of adds to the tension of the fic, especially during the point you mentioned earlier where he believes that, you know, that this is, this is real and things are going great, but obviously because this is a fic and we’re [00:45:00] still like in the first chapter as a reader, we know that something is going to go catastrophically wrong.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. So I guess that we should mention that this is completely from Dean’s point of view so that, that does keep the secret kind of thing, that keeps the tension high because we don’t know any more than he does. Yeah. Whereas the other two fics that we talked about have alternating point of, points of view? Actually, Professional Couple Only might be only from Dean’s point of view.

Followyourenergy: I think it’s only from Dean’s point of view.

MalMuses: Yeah.

Ellen: Okay. Forget I said that. Okay. [ Laughs ] But, but it does, keeping it just in one head is like a great way to kind of, especially if it’s someone who doesn’t know what’s going on, it, it’s a good way to show rather than tell, I guess, because you’re, you just will learn about things as that, that character learns about them.

MalMuses: Yeah, which I think is why it was such a good choice to do this entirely in Dean’s point of view, though, if people are curious about Cas’s point of view, the author did actually write the first chapter through Cas’s eyes as like a sequel to this. 

Ellen: [00:46:00] Oh, I was going to read that and I forgot. Okay, I’ll have to go back and read that one too.

MalMuses: Yeah, so you can kind of see what, what Cas was thinking all that time.

Followyourenergy: I thought that, Mal you can speak to this too, but I thought that Henrickson, you know Vic Henriksen was a good choice for his, his counterpart in Chuck, John Casey. I thought he was a really good choice.

MalMuses: Yeah, no, I agree. When I first started reading, I’m not super familiar with Henriksen as a character in fic, because we, we don’t see him used a ton. He’s kind of there in the background sometimes.

Followyourenergy: Yep.

MalMuses: And so I was like, Oh, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him used as much as he is. But as soon as they started writing him, in my head I was like, Oh no, this is, this is perfect. This fits. I see why they did this. ‘Cause John Casey was actually one of my favorite characters in the season. I loved him. He was great. So. [00:47:00] But then I always like, I always like the grumpy ones, apparently. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Speaking of secondary characters, you know how last week we were talking about that, the fic that had Kevin’s mom in it?

MalMuses: Mm-hmm.

Ellen: She is great in this one as well. She’s, hilarious.

MalMuses: Yes.

Ellen: She rides in on a motorbike and she’s like, kicking ass, 

MalMuses: Like I will rescue my son. Yeah. She is.

Ellen: Yeah, she’s very good in this one too.

MalMuses: We love a bad ass Mama Tran. Yep.

Followyourenergy: Yes. Yes, we do. One of the other things I really liked about this, it was, it was a little different than the other two is that the relationship sort of slowly developed over time versus the other two where,

Ellen: It was quite a slow burn.

Followyourenergy: You know, they had that relationship kind of, you know, but before this, you know, they, they had been complete strangers until, you know, Cas walked into, his, Dean’s store. [00:48:00] It was nice to see that different track of you know, how Fake Relationship can be taken. You know, it’s, it’s unusual to have a Fake Relationship start when people are strangers.

MalMuses: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I like that. Yeah. This is a falling-in-love fake relationship as opposed to we-are-already-in-love fake relationship.

Ellen: Yeah.

Followyourenergy: Yeah. Yes. You said that so much better than me, thanks.

MalMuses: Only because I listened to you first. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: You’re very concise.

MalMuses: Well, on the subject of side characters that we really liked in this one, one of my favorites was obviously the choice to use Charlie for Dean’s best friend and colleague here. Because working from the show, that’s actually such a perfect fit for this, like, snarky, funny nerd that at the same time doesn’t really take any of Dean’s shit. [ Laughs ]

[00:49:00] And one of the favorite things about this entire fic for me was actually seeing Dean have to work in that like customer service environment. Just because, tiny real life spoiler here, but it’s fine, it’s fic, I don’t mind. The job that Dean does in this is essentially quite a few years back, what my husband used to do.

Ellen: Okay.

MalMuses: So actually, actually reading through this, there were so many little things that happened and I remember like, Oh yeah, yeah, that happens. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: So you think maybe this author might’ve like followthattardis may have, sometimes worked in a, some kind of tech support role?

MalMuses: Maybe, or they, they really did their research on the show and picked out that like the entire kind of feel of how that is from that and put it in the fic very well. Because it definitely, there were points where I was just shaking my head like, yep, yep, that’s, that’s a thing that happens sometimes. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: And I [00:50:00] loved how just, just done Dean was with it all really, how it just kind of like washes over him. And he’s just like, well, this again. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: We’re back on our bullshit. Let’s go.

MalMuses: Pretty much. And, and the juxtaposition as well of him being like up all night doing spy antics and then going to work and dealing with old ladies who can’t work out how to unmute their phones. Like, [ Laughs ] I just, like those two things were just great to me. Like you can just imagine him like almost asleep on his feet, just like, yep, okay, please leave my desk now. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: Well, it’s interesting too, because Cas, Cas’s cover, when he’s watching over Dean is, he’s, he’s working at an ice cream store. And so, you know, he’s like the, you know, badass CIA, you know, officer who, who is scooping ice cream and I can just imagine him in some, you know, funny looking outfit or whatever.

Ellen: Yes!

Followyourenergy: [00:51:00] Right. Or whatever, and he’s scooping ice cream and, and how, you know, when, when you know that this man has, you know, broken people’s necks and whatever, it’s just, talk about juxtaposition, right? It’s weird, very strange, but it also sort of nicely plays off of that Who is he really? Who is he? You know, and, and we, and we hear about that a little bit later because Dean is so curious about, you know, like, Who are you really? Tell me something real about you, you know? And which, you know, I think we see a lot of in, in fics and even in canon, you know, like, tell me who you are underneath all of this. You know, if we didn’t have all this BS happening in the world, who, who would you be, really? Who do you wanna be?

MalMuses: Yeah, I think that’s a really beautiful kind of canon mirror here as well, where part of the issue that Cas has in this fic is he’s, he’s been this [00:52:00] spy for such a long time, for all of his life, moving from place to place and shedding different identities and different things that he maybe doesn’t really know who he is.

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm.

MalMuses: And it kind of takes him meeting Dean to work out who he is and kind of find who he is again. And I think there’s definitely some kind of mirrors there to canon Cas and the fact that, you know, until he came to earth in this particular vessel and jumped into Jimmy and got in on the Supernatural story, he was just what he was told to be.

Followyourenergy: Yes.

Ellen: Yeah.

Followyourenergy: Yeah. Absolutely.

Ellen: Now he’s his own person.

MalMuses: His own angel. Yay! Woohoo!

Ellen: Yay! So I guess we have made this story sound like it’s quite fluffy with like ice cream shops and tech support,

MalMuses: Oh, true.

Ellen: But in fact there’s quite a lot of action. They are, they are spies. They do, you know, shoot guns and stuff. [00:53:00] So, you know, it’s not just all fluffy fake relationship stuff. There is quite a lot of quite exciting action in this one.

MalMuses: Yeah, and they don’t shy away from that at all. And it’s not  confusing at all the way it’s written. I found like sometimes, you know, with action scenes, it’s hard to keep track of where everybody’s limbs are going and who’s shooting who and what’s happening.

Just cause you’ve got such a lot going on and we don’t have the advantage of television where we can just,

Ellen: Yeah, some kind of visual, yeah.

MalMuses: Pause and look around all the characters whenever we need. But this fic was, was always very clear during the action scenes, exactly what’s going on and, I appreciate that when I’m reading that kind of things. I love reading like that kind of like heavy plot, lots of action, everything’s going on high paced kind of fic.

Ellen: Yep. Keeps you reading.

MalMuses: Yeah, it’s really gripping. I think we both, I think we both said that to each other like very early on when we were saying I’m gonna start reading this one, and you said something about being gripped by it.

Ellen: Yeah, I started reading it I think one night and [00:54:00] I was still up at like, I don’t know, a ridiculous time of night because I couldn’t stop reading. I just had to keep finding out what was happening.

MalMuses: Yeah, I started reading this fic and then spoiler, 15.18 happened and disrupted my life for like a few days. And I really enjoyed it. And I, if like, if that hadn’t happened, there was no way that I wouldn’t have like immediately just read this fic. But as soon as I went back to it, I binged this whole thing in one go.

Ellen: Yep.

MalMuses: Which obviously, it’s 85,000 words, so that’s a decent meal right there.

Followyourenergy: Uh-huh.

MalMuses: But yeah, I just sat there and binged this whole thing because not just the relationship was gripping, but actually the story itself. Like I wanted to know how everything was going to resolve.

Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. Once you get to a certain point in it, there’s no stopping, like, you have to just know what’s going to happen. It keeps you guessing right up to the end. 

Other recommendations

So very well done.  Okay, so we’ve got a few more Fake Relationship fics that we can recommend.

[00:55:00] It’s quite a popular trope so there’s plenty of them out there, but we’ve got a few here that we’ll recommend to you guys and see if there’s something that you haven’t read that you’d like to have a go at. The first one on the list is It’s perhaps like a fan favorite kind of story and it’s, that’s called In A Mirror Darkly and it’s by anyrei and MuggleRock. It’s quite a long fic, it’s nearly 200,000 words but it’s, and also very dark themes like, so it has warnings for Extreme Violence and Non-Con elements. So make sure you read the tags. I feel like this also has like a “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag on it. So, you know, go into it sort of knowing what you’re getting into. Like there’s a lot of tags on this fic.

But having said that, it’s, it’s Canonverse where, where Dean and Cas have to pose as like a, [00:56:00] almost a slave / master relationship. So it’s, it’s a slightly different kind of Fake Relationship in that it’s a lot darker and they go into, into Limbo where it’s, there’s a lot of demons and angels are quite different in this fic than, than it is in canon.

So it’s, it’s got some awesome kind of smut but yeah, definitely a lot darker than a lot of the other stuff we’ve talked about so far.

MalMuses: But definitely a fan favorite, that one, I think.

Ellen: Mm-hmm.

MalMuses: Another fic from this particular trope, which I’m very fond of, is called First Gentleman Wanted by youaresunlight. This was a DCBB back in 2016. It’s about 31,000 words, and this is a political AU, which, don’t run away, it’s not dull in the slightest. [00:57:00] It’s very, very interesting. Basically, Castiel is becoming President of the United States, and one of the things that his opponents like to say about him is, you know, they think he’s not a family man because he’s not in a relationship. So his team sets out to find a picture perfect boyfriend, and they find Dean Winchester. Unfortunately, Dean and Cas already have a lot of history between them in this fic. But they do agree to embark on this fake relationship and it’s very interesting to see how it all turns out. 

Ellen: Mm-hmm. How about you, Mary? Did you want to suggest one too?

Followyourenergy: You know, one of the ones that I really liked was The Cost of a Thing by quiettewandering, and it is, it is canon, it’s Canon divergent, I guess after a bit there, but Cas [00:58:00] becomes human, and then he, he ends up leaving the bunker, and then they have to come back together to work a case, and they, they have to be a couple.

And they, they really sort of explore in this one sort of the pain of becoming human, the pain of his leaving, Dean’s guilt and you know, loneliness and a lot of, you know, kind of heavy emotional stuff. And it was really beautiful, a lot, a lot put into that 74,000 words while they’re working a case. You know, so, so there’s a lot in that. And I think it’s, it’s well loved, I know it has, it has really high kudos count. But it’s, for good reason. It’s, it’s a really beautiful story.

Ellen: We’ll put a list of all of these fics that we’ve talked about on the blog post that you can, you can find on mixtapebookclub.com. But, for now, shall we do some spoilery talk?

MalMuses: Yay!

Ellen: [ Laughs ] So,

MalMuses: [00:59:00] I feel like I’ve been biting my tongue the entire time we’ve been recording.

Followyourenergy: [ Laughs ]

Ellen: If you haven’t watched up to episode 18, then you might like to turn off now and come back another time. Because we are going to talk about what happened.

Sam Winchester: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Spoilers!

Ellen: Let’s talk about Episode 18, “Despair”. [ Laughs ]

MalMuses: So I’m just thinking how funny it is that we decided to do Fake Relationships on the one week when we had a not fake relationship.

Ellen: It’s so poetic justice.

MalMuses: Yep. We deserve this. We tulpa-ed this into existence, maybe. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: How are you feeling?

MalMuses: Despair is one of them. 

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: But not as much as I thought. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: [01:00:00] You know, I’m actually feeling like just, yeah, it’s a lot! A lot of emotions going on. Despair is, is not really one of them for me though.

MalMuses: I think I thought going into it that it was going to be solid despair. But the way that they did it gave me hope, even though it still ended up pretty much how I thought it was going to end up, like the way that they did it turned that, that despair into hope.

Followyourenergy: Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah.

Followyourenergy: For sure.

Ellen: So I guess we should say that if you haven’t seen it and you’re wondering what we’re talking about, it is definitely that Destiel went canon under a, that we were not expecting. I never thought that in a million years, thought they were actually going to go there, but then, I was watching it with like my hands over my mouth just going, *Gasp* they’re gonna do it! Oh my god!

MalMuses: [ Laughs ] I think it’s fine, I like the array of different attitudes toward this that we’ve, we’ve had all this time. [01:01:00] Cause there are definitely people who, who, all the time, were 100% like, nope, they are going to textually go there. Be patient. There are, there were people who were like, we might get some kind of subtext. There are people who were like, no, they’re never going to do it. Give up. But I think we were just all unified in screaming for a few moments there.

Ellen: Yes!

MalMuses: Like no matter what your opinion was, we were all unified in one giant fandom scream at that point.

Ellen: I mean, I think we were sort of, I guess when we started doing this Podcast, the whole point was that the show was ending, so the fanfic would continue and we, whatever happened at the end would probably be very ambiguous and we would have to fix it. And now here we are, it’s kind of happened anyway.

MalMuses: Yeah! And I think it’s actually like a wonderful gift because now we get to write whatever we want and always – I would not say always have it be canon, there will still be a ton of AUs out there that we will love and enjoy because [01:02:00] we get to see it all over again in different circumstances.

Ellen: Yes!

MalMuses: But the validation feels good. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: It does.

Followyourenergy: Absolutely.

Ellen: I’ve actually really loved the, sort of the talk about how the writers had done such a brilliant job of, they’ve written themselves into the story as the villain, for one thing, and made it so that they’ve allowed the story to take its natural course, I guess, because they’ve been building up to this. Obviously they’ve been planning this for a while and kept it very quiet except, you know, we all could see the signs, I guess, over the last few seasons, but you know,

MalMuses: And they said we were crazy.

Ellen: Yes!

MalMuses: You can’t see me shaking my fist right now, but [ Laughs ]

Ellen: I mean, they could easily have just ignored it all and just gone for, you know, I don’t know what, but,

MalMuses: [01:03:00] Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of people who, who 100% thought that that’s what was going to happen, that they were, I hate the term queerbaiting just because it’s misused so often, but, like, there were a lot of people who that was their interpretation, and I’m not going to tell anybody that their interpretation is right or not right. But I think, I think we were all, no matter where we were coming from, very happily surprised by that moment.

Ellen: Yes.

MalMuses: Maybe not so much the moment after. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: After, yeah.

Ellen: It is now tempered by the fact that the ending of this episode was so sad on like, you know, they’re all in the darkest place they can possibly be right now, but we do have two episodes to go, and I know that when people are listening to this, they will have seen what’s happening in the next episode. So there’ll be some closure.

MalMuses: Yes, future people will have an advantage over us.

Ellen: Yes, we don’t know what’s coming. But there’s a lot of people who have a lot of hope for a number of reasons that this won’t be the last we’ll see of Cas, [01:04:00] so hopefully there’ll be a little more Destiel to come before the end.

Followyourenergy: Definitely hopeful for that, you know. What I really loved about it though and just that, what really made him happy, was to speak his truth. And we’ve seen that theme throughout, you know, that growth for, for all of them, you know, all of the characters, but particularly for Dean and Castiel and you know, just, I feel like, gosh, Castiel has arrived, you know, like he knows who he is. He, he, you know, he knows what makes him happy. He, He has spoken his truth and, you know, and that’s the most free will thing you can do, you know? Is speak your truth. And so now, and that’s why I have a lot of hope [01:05:00] because I feel like as a writer, you know, in, in this narrative that they’ve written for 15 years and that they’ve built up to, Dean has to speak his truth.

Ellen: Yep. And that truth is that he loves Cas. [ Laughs ]

Followyourenergy: Well that’s my hope!

MalMuses: We, we will accept no other substitutions, [ Laughs ] but no. But definitely a big standing ovation to Robert Behrens for the way that he handled that, because there were so many different ways they could have approached that, even if they’d decided that, yes, we’re going to do this Dean / Cas moment, we’re going to have this be what the empty deal was about the whole time, there are so many different ways they could have handled it. And I think he handled it so beautifully by giving us that moment, by giving us what we wanted, but actually in a way, not making Cas’s happiness about Dean.

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: It is about Dean, it’s, it’s linked to Dean in a very close way, obviously, but like Mary just said, it’s actually, it’s, it’s him speaking his truth that gives him his happiness.

Ellen: Yeah.

Followyourenergy: [01:06:00] Yes, absolutely. And that’s, you know, I, I just think it’s so important as, as they, as they move on and, you know, try to break out of this story and break into themselves and who they are, you know, that’s, what’s more important than speaking your truth and finding happiness in yourself and in the being, in the being who you are. And yeah, I think again, that’s going to come right back to Dean too. So.

Ellen: And I hope that, I mean, we’ve left, they’ve left this episode in a place where everybody’s gone and everyone has lost something like, like that. The scene where they were driving to get Eileen and she wasn’t there and the text messages, and it was just so heartbreaking. [01:07:00] And I really hope that, that we get her back, that Sam gets her back so that you know, he can have some closure too.

MalMuses: So I was in a, a chat with a friend at the time, I actually thought that I was going to end up watching this episode by myself because everybody in my house was elsewhere. I was like, okay, I guess I’m doing this one by myself. No problem. But luckily, one of my friends was available for me to like all caps at over Discord and when that, that moment with Eileen happened, I literally remember just being like, if they don’t finish that text message, I was just like, Oh my God. Actually the tension and the way they did that, like huge kudos on it, but I hate it. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: Yes. I’ve got to say that Rich did a great job on the, on the directing for this episode. There was a lot of, sort of, I guess, big tense scenes, like even the bit where at the end, where all the people are disappearing and everything was just so terrifying. They do a great job.

MalMuses: I never wanted to lose Charlie twice, y’all.

Ellen: No! That was so hard. And they were all so terrified. It was just,

MalMuses: [01:08:00] And Donna, the way that she said, Sam, and then like, my heart,

Ellen: I know!

MalMuses: Like a huge Donna lover. I just like the, the way that she played that for us, the way that she acted it  was so heartbreaking because you know that she knows what’s about to happen to her. She’s just seen it happen to everybody else and it’s so heartbreaking.

Ellen: Yep.

Followyourenergy: Yeah, it was really well done. Beautifully done.

Ellen: Well, this episode has already spawned like a whole bunch of codas. It’s only been a few days, but the writers have been on it as we do. And even though, like, Destiel is there, we’ve all added kind of, I guess, the funny thing is a lot of codas often involve like filling in a scene that might be Explicit or, you know, just adding a Destiel scene somewhere. Whereas this one, I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve read any that have been Explicit. They’ve all been like … Oh, actually, no, I have read one or two, [01:09:00] but they’ve all been more angst focused or, you know, making the ending happier.

MalMuses: Yeah.

Ellen: And not in a sexy way. Like just getting Cas back basically.

MalMuses: Yes. It was our hearts that needed fixing for this one. It was, it was our hearts that needed picking up off the floor.

Ellen: That’s right.

Followyourenergy: Mm-hmm.

Ellen: So interesting to see the way that people have gone with their codas for this one. So I am collecting a list of codas and I’ll be posting that on my Tumblr. So I’ll put a link in the notes somewhere. If you’re interested in reading codas for this episode, then I’ll hook you up.

MalMuses: Excellent. ‘Cause I know I will be binging them constantly at least until next week and far beyond, I’m sure.

Ellen: [01:10:00] There’s a lot of them. It’s going to take me a while to put it all together, but yeah. The ones I’ve read have been brilliant. So, yeah.

MalMuses: I think that’s amazing though, like how many different ways that fandom writers can come up with to fix one, just, just one event in the show that there are endless ways to change things and fix things and just, just tweak things to your own preferences. And that’s even just within canon fic. I mean, there’s a whole world beyond that, which I think is one of the reasons why the stories will never die. I think even if we got handed exactly what we wanted in the show, we’re never going to stop reinterpreting that.

Ellen: Yes. The story is not over until we say.

MalMuses: Love how you stuck that in there. [ Laughs ] You know what? I wanted to tweet that like as the show was happening and I was just sat there and my brain was in like such mushy pieces at the time, I like, couldn’t remember it. I’m like, there’s a thing, there’s a thing to say. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: [01:11:00] [ Laughs ] Yeah. Well, speaking of writers doing their thing, I did see a tweet, which was by Natalie Fisher, who’s like a writer for Hypeable. So she tweeted about, she said that canon divergent fics in the future kind of thing will be sort of branching off at Episode 14. If you want to keep Dean and Cas and then like the group team, Team Free Will. If you want to keep them hunting and mostly happy, then Episode 14 is kind of the branching point because after that is kind of when things started to get a little bit hairy with God and Amara and all that stuff.

So that will probably be like a kind of a watershed episode for people who want to actually just have a canon type fic where they’re just doing cases and living in the bunker and being mostly happy because it’s after, you know, Cas is back and you know, I guess they’re not fighting anymore. They’re happy-ish.

MalMuses: [01:12:00] Yeah. Mm-hmm. It’s definitely kind of a sweet spot that’s been handed to us there.

Ellen: We’ve got so much to thank the writers for, but there’s another one.

MalMuses: Honestly, still now, even a couple of seasons later, the thing that I want to thank the writers for the most is just validating everything that we’ve done essentially by making Chuck the villain and making the writer in control of all of this, because by doing that and creating all those alternate universes, while obviously it’s not, you know, canonizing fanfic, it gives us an endless world to play in and to feel like those characters can still be those characters.

Ellen: Yep. Absolutely.

Followyourenergy: I will say about coda writers, I, I, I don’t know how you’re all are even writing. I’m still, I’m, I’m still processing. I’m like, Dean, I’m still buffering here, you know?

Ellen: [ Laughs ] Yes.

MalMuses: [01:13:00] Yeah. I need somebody to make a GIF for me, please, of Dean’s face, but then put a little buffering symbol over it [ Laughs ] because that’s exactly what was happening there.

Followyourenergy: Exactly.

Ellen: Well, I’ve just been, Oh, cause I had to wait for like a long, like a day basically to watch the episode, I came to the party late anyway, so I’ve just been basically camping Twitter for like two or three days, just screaming at anybody who would listen about this. So today’s really been the first day when I’ve actually managed to sit down and put any words together. It’s been wild.

MalMuses: Yeah, I blurted out a few words, like immediately as the episode ended, which is kind of funny because this is the first season where I like promised myself that I would not do any codas because, just that I don’t necessarily enjoy like the time sensitiveness of them?

Ellen: Yeah.

MalMuses: Really good English. So, you know, I prefer to dig into whatever [01:14:00] other stories I have going on. So I promised myself I wouldn’t do that this season and I would just enjoy the show and enjoy other people’s codas. Which I have been doing. I broke that rule twice and both of them, it was a case where the second that the episode stopped airing, there were words that had to come out. The first, the first one being the, the whole alternate universe that was hinted at where Castiel took the Mark of Cain and the second one, obviously being this most recent episode where I had something big to fix.

Ellen: Yes. Which, by the way, I, I hope that that’s how it’s going to end up in the next couple of episodes. 

MalMuses: [ Laughs ] Well, I mean, don’t hold your breath, but that’s, that’s what I’m picturing now.

Ellen: Mm-hmm. Yep. I’ll be very disappointed if it isn’t.

Followyourenergy: I think this, this, this whole story that we’ve been watching unfold over 15 years, it’s, it’s going to be, you know, just wonderful to, you know, at, by the end of the book, you, [01:15:00] we’re going to kind of be able to then look back and see, okay, you know, you can, when you, when you know the ending, you can kind of put all the pieces in perspective, and I think it’s going to be a show that we’ll be able to talk about and write about for a long time.

Ellen: Absolutely.

MalMuses: I agree. I always told myself that as soon as the show finished ending, I’m going to start a complete rewatch. I’m probably just going to do like an episode a day for the next year, pretty much. That would work out to me, skip, skip a few holidays, maybe. And I, and I always planned to do that, even considered like maybe just like streaming it or something, who knows. But the main thing now is like, I’m going to see so much now looking back, even more, I think, than we saw before.

Like we were always looking, we always saw things. But I think now with the power of hindsight, we’ll be able to see even more things, and give even the things that we’re used to seeing so much more context and so much more feeling now.

Ellen: [01:16:00] Oh my god, so much, like, even just going back and looking at, like, I’ve got a lot of GIFs on my phone, it’s kind of embarrassing, but even just look, flicking through them and looking at the old stuff and going, like, just knowing that,

MalMuses: Yep.

Ellen: That Cas is definitely in love with Dean. It’s just mind blowing!

MalMuses: You are the GIF queen. Like for anybody who doesn’t personally know Ellen, the number of times I’ve literally messaged her, I’ve been like, I need this and within seconds [ Laughs ] she just, she comes back with it.

Ellen: And there are others who are a lot better organized with it than I am. I think some people on the Profound Bond server are like absolutely amazing with their GIF stuff that they’ve got going, but yeah.

MalMuses: It’s, it’s like a niche, but very important fandom skill, really. Like, GIF organizing is right up there. We need those people. [ Laughs ]

Ellen: [01:17:00] And the people who make the GIFs are absolutely legends. Thank you so much. So I guess I was going to say, what does this mean for, for writing fanfic in an age where our ship has just become canon? I mean, business as usual, really. To be honest, like, we’re still going to keep writing our own version of it.

MalMuses: Yeah, I think if anything, if anything, more options, because we can still do canon divergent from before this happened, if we have a particular thing that we’d like to see, or just an idea that we’d like to explore. AUs, I don’t think are going to change particularly.

Ellen: Yep.

MalMuses: But then we’ve also got this, this canon route that we can take it now. I think it just gives us more options, if anything.

Ellen: And we’ve got a beautiful speech that we can use if we want to use the canon words,

MalMuses: Yep, which numbers here, how many times have we watched that speech before since [ Unclear ]

Ellen: [01:18:00] I could only do it one extra time because it made me so sad.

MalMuses: *Gasp* Really? I’m surprised.

Ellen: My God. I hardly ever cry when I’m watching TV, but every time I’ve watched bits of that in the last few days, I’ve just been like, Oooooh,

MalMuses: Oh, I had to watch it, and I watched just that scene several times more, then my shipper husband came home and obviously demanded that we watch it again ‘cause he hadn’t seen it. It’s, I think I’m probably up to like 30 watches by now.

Ellen: Oh my God, wow! [ Laughs ] Well, I’ve watched a load of fanvids, like, a lot of people have made really gorgeous videos of not just that scene, but like, you know, multiple sort of moments throughout the whole series, so.

MalMuses: Yeah, there’s been some really, really beautiful ones out there. [01:19:00] I will put together a post of those at some point because I want to have them all in one place. So,

Ellen: If you feel like crying, go and watch a few of them.

MalMuses: Yeah. I mean, this fandom loves crying. Come on now. [ Laughs ] We’ve been crying for a decade. 

Ellen: That’s right. Well, I guess, you know, we’ve got two episodes left to go. In the, in the sort of spirit of continuing to write fanfiction, you know, separate and from the show and of the show, in our next episode, we are planning to talk about fics that, that are about the ending. Happy endings, alternative endings, I think you called them curtain fics, as well?

MalMuses: Yeah, curtain fic is a great way of doing it. So just give us that, that happy domestic time when all is said and done. 

Ellen: [01:20:00] So at that time, we’ll either be like, you know, we’ll be in two camps, we’ll either be really upset by what’s happened at the end, or we’ll be having parties in the streets and excited about what they’ve given us. By the sound of it, it’s going to rip our hearts out all over again, but you know,

MalMuses: Yep, I think no matter what happens, that will be true.

Ellen: Yep.

Followyourenergy: Yep.

Ellen: Godspeed. And we’re going to get through this. Just have your, have your shipping friends around you and we can hold each other up, right? 

MalMuses: Yeah. We’ve been holding each other up for years and we need each other more than ever right now.

Ellen: That’s right.

MalMuses: Was gonna say, it’s actually quite a sweet note to end on.

Ellen: It is, isn’t it? Well, on that note, we have to say a big thank you to followyourenergy, Mary, for coming today. Thanks for coming to talk to us.

Followyourenergy: Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Ellen: So if you, if you have any feedback for us, if you want to tell us whether you enjoyed the fics that we’ve talked about today, you can contact us. You can email us contact (at) mixtapebookclub.com, or you can find us on all of the different social medias at Mixtape Book Club. Thank you very much for [01:21:00] listening. And we’ll talk to you again soon.

MalMuses: And remember everybody, in fanfic and possibly even in canon too, the story is over when we say it is.

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