one of the many things that piss me off in citizen fang is the implication that dean chose benny over sam and that's not even remotely what happened. dean deciding to trust his friend isn't choosing benny over sam. he gave his friend the benefit of the doubt instead of automatically siding with someone who holds nothing but vitriol for said friend.
sam is not automatically owed dean's trust, especially during a time when dean feels betrayed by him.
Back on my bullshit!! Not a news story this time cause I still haven't written enough.... but I have written more of the actual chapters and thought I'd give y'all more Dean and Cassie crumbs :)
"Why journalism?" he'd asked her once. "I mean, not that it's bad, but I don't think it pays that well. And you're - you're smart enough, you could be a doctor if you wanted. Really move out of Missouri permanently. Stay here in Ohio, but somewhere like Cincinnati, Cleveland, or farther than that. Whatever city you wanted."
"So could you," she'd said, touching his cheek gently, and Dean hadn't been able to do more than turn away. "But seriously, I mean….I could do any of those things, but it's not what I really care about. Ever since I was a kid, I guess I was good at noticing things. It's what my dad always said, that I could see things that weren't there. I don't think that's true, though," she adds with a fond smile. Dean's never met her dad - he'd be terrified to do so - but he can tell Cassie has a special relationship with him.
A normal relationship. He loves her and wants what's best for her, wants her to pick whatever path in life she wants.
Warring with the jealousy, he asked her - "What do you mean, it's not true?"
"Journalism is about looking at what's there," Cassie said, then she'd frowned. "No. That's just part of it. You think about what's not there, what you can't see, the questions that are sitting around unanswered. You keep that in your head. But to prove it, you go with what you can see. It's simple, ultimately, just about getting the truth out there in the best way. Let's say there are rumors that a company is abusing its employees. That's awful if true, but I can't just publish rumors. What I can do, is talk to the employees. See who's quit their job in the last year, look at the faces of the people who walk out of the building. Find the fiscal reports, if I can."
"I get it," Dean had said, and he had no way to tell her how much it resonated with him. That's his job, even though she doesn't know it, just a job that involves more talking, and less bloodshed. He's never liked trying to guess at what isn't there, reach into the dark out of paranoia, even though that's what his dad's been doing since he was four. Instead, he likes knowing what he can see, what the obvious threat is, what he can kill. Who he can save.
"Some people have a tendency to stress about it," Cassie says, "and journalism might not be for them, at the end of the day. It's hard. So I like to just - take a step back, and look at what I know. What can I see, right now, that's going to help somebody?"
Tag List: @notevenalittle @destielrotsmybrain @kinky-cas @beatsheetromanroy @bluebonnetblues @arcadianico let me know if you want to be added!
Dean stops his struggling for a moment, falling limp and still in his restraints as he stares up at the creature. He's truly awestricken, mouth dropping open as his gaze travels up the creature's massive body. Its lower half vaguely resembles the body of a bear, wide and stable, coated with thick white fur. Its feet are more avian, tri-toed and talon-tipped. Somewhere in the middle, its body takes on a more humanoid shape, or at least something vaguely apelike. It has a broad chest, white fur here tinged gray and blue, and long arms that terminate in five-fingered hands, each digit as big around as the tree Dean is bound to.
Creature Cas! Creature Cas! This is a big "hear me out" moment, isn't it?
rising like giants from the cold earth by @notevenalittle
He looks up higher, notes the elegant spread of wings at its back, not extended to their full span and still impossibly large, the feathered tips grazing the forest floor, rustling through ferns almost gently. At first glance, the wings look as white as the rest of the creature, but when it shifts in the greenish light of this strange world, he can see the light bounce off of them, iridescent and glittering, each feather like a fine silver blade.
Okay, so. This is DEFINITELY one of those moments.
They're familiar, somehow – not the eyes themselves, but the hue, and the quality of what's underneath. He's felt the weight of this gaze before, been considered by this being, though he has no idea when or how.
Gaze into the eyes of a giant creature and feel things.
The creature makes a sympathetic sound of pain, a low cooing grumble. Before he can dwell too much on how odd it is, that the creature is so attuned to his suffering, he feels a flare of something cold against his cheek, something he's felt countless times before, though never under such singular circumstances. Angelic grace, succorous and refreshing, pulsing gently into his body, mending the wounds ringing his wrists.
OH FAMILIAR GRACE
WHAT IF I DOVE INTO THE RAGING OCEAN.
He should be afraid, he thinks, should be quivering in fear. Instead, he feels a tender sort of wonder, looking upon this strange version of Castiel, the guileless glimmer of its blue gaze.
Dean, you really should be. And I should be, too, tbh.
Meanwhile, Cas seems thoroughly pleased with Dean, bringing up its other hand to stroke a reverent fingertip up Dean's arm, pausing on the cushion of his shoulder, then proceeding to rub the velveteen digit's pad against Dean's cheek. Dean can't help the way he presses into the touch, this incongruently cautious caress, like Cas is afraid of damaging him.
Well, okay. This is making me feel really weirdly tender.
All he gets in response is a long clicking warble, melodic and mournful. Even without words, Dean's pretty sure he understands what it means. Cas can absolutely get him there – but it's loath to see him go.
"Come on, you just met me," Dean laughs, something kicking hard in his chest when he sees the way Cas's eyes soften at the sentiment. "Not a lotta folks prayin' in this world, s'that it?"
Yeah, why does this goodbye so HORRIBLE, author. WHY. Oh, I loved how you brought Cas's shielding hand in with the girls at the end. Aawwwww.
rising like giants from the cold earth by @notevenalittle
Version without the text bcs i couldn't decide 👇 and yapping
Imagine how traumatizing that must have been for that poor girl, your father just turns him back at you "I am not your father" and he just leaves to never come back
We got some nice scenes with Cas and Claire interacting but I wish it was more explored, their relationship is so messed up
Cas destroyed a innocent kid's life over something he doesn't even believe anymore
And Claire obviously doesn't hate the guy in further seasons but maintaining a normal friendship with a creature that's your dead father's doppelganger is not an easy task I assume
Unpopular (?) opinion, but I don't see any issue with sorting by comments/kudos/etc. when looking for a fic to read, or checking word count (it's rare for fics w/less than 1000 words/chapter to be well-written). I'm a picky reader: I never post hate/critique/etc. in comments, but I don't feel obligated to "give fics a chance" by sorting in a "neutral" way (updated date? alphabetically?) Tags/summary are king, but comment/kudos sorting is efficient.
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The issue is that it doesn't achieve the objective.
Or do you like poorly-written A/B/O with the correct trope tags and an author with a very active twitter account?
Less humorously, anon, I think you're missing a lot of what makes something have a high kudos count.
I'm assuming you're into something big and popular or you wouldn't suffer from this silly delusion in the first place. Now, granted, if you want to read some Destiel, you're going to have to filter somehow because there's just so much. Looking at the third or fourth page of most kudosed (not the first two) could be a solid place to begin finding some standard fare from the fandom's height.
What you're missing is that in something that's even medium popular but not the biggest juggernaut of all time, a lot of the high kudos counts come from crossovers or from BNFs hailing from a bigger fandom.
Archive-locked works generally have way lower kudos counts. Reasons for archive locking vary, but it's common for people to do it because they're old as dirt and think context collapse is bad. These people often also have a lot of writing experience. Others may do it because of harassment, and a decent chunk of that is driven by jealousy... which doesn't mean they're a good writer, but it doesn't not mean that either. (The harassment angle is the only part of this that's perhaps an ethical issue. I don't care about "Wah, wah, try non-BNFs' fics because they deserve things!") Some people also lock all their hottest and most fun shit.
One of the biggest drivers of traffic in general, not just kudos, is bothering to advertise. In my experience, a lot of the better writers don't care about that or aren't good at it. The sorts of people who post a lot of barely cleaned up twitter threadfic and social media AUs where everyone's a 20-year-old American are fantastic at it. (Okay, I admit I've read tons of this stuff in BTS fandom, so I can't judge, but it's still a reason I don't think kudos show what people imagine they show.) Same deal with authors who are highly social in a fandom. They comment on everyone else's work, so they get kudos and comments in turn. And yes, that's wonderful and it's not a problem if they're rewarded for that behavior, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're good writers.
And finally, probably the biggest driver of kudos is just getting there first. If you want to know the prevailing fanon in 2015 that has shaped the fandom subsequently, yeah, sort by kudos. But if you want something that scratches the itch the most recent installment of canon gave you, maybe don't.
This method is not efficient unless you have low standards and just want to click on something vaguely acceptable as quickly as possible. It does save you the time of doing a more in-depth search.
The only reason I "give fics a chance" is because I'm in small fandoms and I've run out of things that don't look terrible. That isn't why I routinely tell people to stop sorting by kudos.
There's also the blandness factor. Years ago, I remember OK Cupid doing an analysis that basically boiled down to "It's bad to be an 8." Statistically, a bunch of people had the highest average scores, but no one was interested. The people who actually set other users on fire were always rated a two out of ten by most users, but to the right people, they were a fifteen.
Yes, if I'm looking for some bog standard hurt/comfort to click on, a conventionally attractive 8 will do just fine.
But if you were actually picky, you wouldn't be settling.
(though Cas doesn’t sleep and prefers listening to his heartbeat and drawing the line of his jaw with his finger )
I just don’t know how I painted this
castiel has the distinct honor of requiring an inset image because i need to capture the majesty of his thick thighs AND the sparkle of his pretty eyes - so sad we only got one episode of emmanuel, i would have watched a full season of amnesiac cas content with dean just twitching off to the side
gracieabrams
amandla
