Fic Rec-age Post of Doooom
First of all, muchas gracias to the lovely and talented
qzxy for pointing out many of these fics to me -- I've been puttering around her del.icio.us page for a few months there and it's a gold mine. Let's do this by topic, shall we? You'll find a lot of repeat authors -- I've got a handful of people that I know I can rely on for a) good plotting, b) good characterization and c) beautiful prose... and I'm nothing if but loyal. So you'll probably see quite a few stories from
minkmix , big-pink, kroki-refur,
leonidaslion and
ignipes . Pick a fic from any one of those authors and you can't go wrong.
Humor
For Your Convenience -- Dean v. Automated GPS System in a hybrid. There can only be one winner.
Unagi -- The boys break into an aquarium... I wouldn't suggest drinking any liquids while reading this one.
Nasty, Big, Pointy Teeth -- "You and your dynamite. You can't have both, Sam. You should know that. You can love dynamite, or you can love bunnies, but you can't love both dynamite and bunnies."
High Minded -- Dean gets high off shrooms. Hilarious doesn't even begin to describe it.
Stroke Me -- MIni golf outing gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place -- Better known as the 'Evil Hand' fic. It was supposed to be a two-parter, but she never really finished it. Fantastically funny as it is.
Good Girls Wear Hose -- Crossdressing. Dean. Incubus. I nearly died I was laughing so hard.
Heedless of the Boy -- Sam and Dean have to share a bed. If you have a sibling, you'll probably guess how this goes.
Whumpage
[Okay, quick disclaimer. I like hurt/comfort fic ALOT, but for some reason, in this fandom, the comfort part of the equation always feels a bit dissatisfying... too schmoopy, perhaps? I used to like K. Hanna Krossey's fics when I first discovered the fandom, but I've come to the conclusion that her boys are too emotionally open and, well, not dysfunctional enough for my taste. So I've found whump-oriented fics to be more up my alley.]
Removed -- Dean gets abducted by a rogue band of hunters who make Gordon look completely and totally sane. Vividly painful. There's also a sequel -- Indoctrination -- which I think I almost like even more than the original because Dean gets brainwashed the peril quotient gets quadrupled.
Methodology -- Gordon gets a hold of Sam; I think Sam spends 80% of the story strapped to a chair and lo, it is awesome.
Thirteen -- I generally do not like Outside POV, but in this case, the story is told through the POV of Dean's torturer, an immortal creature that wants his souuuuul. Oh, and there's Knife!Porn. Loads. And the Sam POV, 'Half-Past.'
Tricking -- Sam, buried alive. Sorta.
Tripwire -- I think the prompt for this one started out as a Dean/Duct Tape pairing, but it turned into oh so much more, playing off a curse that Dean finds in his Dad's storage locker.
Cartography in Empty Spaces -- So, Sam thinks Dean's dead. Except he's not, because Lenore (of 'Bloodlust') drops him on the doorstep on Christmas Day. It hurts so bad because Dean's just so... not Dean. He's been destroyed and Sam's so friggin' patient with bringing him back out of his shell and it's killer. There's a sequel that's from Dean's POV -- The Edge of the Known World, along with a tag -- Changes in Latitude -- and a prequel -- Go Down Blood Red Roses -- to be read in that order.
A Good Man is Hard to Find -- This is probably one of the best pieces of fiction I've read recently, be it fanmade or professionally written. I'll tell you now -- Dean gets hooked on heroin. I know, right? Not clicking the link. Wrong. It is so fantastically set up, so consistent with Dean's characterization -- and Sam's -- that you just have to go with it. Because the ending is dynamite and everything... everything fits together and oh my lord, the boys are just so fucked up. If you read one thing from this list, let it be this one.
Dangerous Games -- Sam and Dean are targeted by a serial killer. Creepy, unnerving and the ending is bloody fantastic in more ways than one.
Untitled -- Sam brings Dean back after he's pronounced brain dead... Dean ain't too thrilled. It's sort of an echo of what was probably going on in Dean's head after In My Time of Dying, playing upon the idea that Dean shouldn't have come back.
Open Your Eyes -- I don't typically enjoy pre-series stuff, but this one has whump, Bobby, and (in my opinion) a fabulously written John.
When You Put Your Arms Around Me -- Sam-Whumpage in prose. A witch's curse makes sam allergic to Dean.
Ramble On -- More h/c than whumpage, particularly as the story goes on. The first couple chapters are fantastic, though, as the boys get attacked by wendigos in the wilderness, are incapacitated and need to make it back to civilization. Soon.
Cold November Rain -- "A river, hypothermia, and abuse of Guns n' Roses lyics" pretty much covers it. No, I don't have a thing for hypothermia fics. Shut up.
Amnesia!Fic
I've read a whopping two amnesia fics I actually liked, which is a pity. The first is Consequences, which deals with a hunt gone wrong and the... consequences. Heh. The other is Lethe, wherein Sam has to keep wiping Dean's memory to save him from himself in the aftermath of John's death. Of the two, 'Lethe' is probably better.
Tags I think I've read more I've enjoyed, but I can't seem to track them down at the moment.
Born Under a Bad Sign coda and Tag to the Coda -- "'You know, if you’re going to make a habit out of this kind of thing, I’m gonna have to invest in some Kevlar.' Dean winced as he stripped off his shirt, peeling it away from his shoulder.
Ripping Out All Our Epilogues -- tag to Nightshifter and sure rips out something. It gets a five-Kleenex rating.
DNR -- John POV from In My Time of Dying, wherein he decides his own fate.
Door Number Two -- More of an AU than a tag, but it deals with the question of what would have happened if Dean didn't wake up from the Djinn's dream. Kleenex alert.
Bleach -- an alterna-ending to All Hell, Part I and... dude. It hurts.
Bottleneck -- a Sam POV follow-up to All Hell, Part II, contemplating that whole, 'Came back wrong' thing.
Mice and Men -- AAAAANNNGST. In spades.
Long, Plotty Fics
Red -- I feel like I've already rec-ced this thing up the wazzoo, but in case anyone hasn't read it yet... go. Read. Now. When I first read it, I thought the first few chapters were a little slow, but plow through it. It's necessary and the payoff is ngggggh. Basically, it's a perversion of Little Red Riding Hood. Keep your hands away from your face because your nails will be gone by the end.
Dazzleland -- In my opinion, the climax isn't quite as good as 'Red,' but its portrayal of How Sam Leaves is canon for me. Sam. Dean. Season 2. Niagra Falls. Sam has a Thing for an old teacher. Dean fends off deadly memories.
Fire in the Hole -- Quite possibly my favorite fic EVER. It's a little difficult to read because the present day timeline moves forward and the flashbacks move backwards... starting at the end and moving back to the beginning as the story progresses. Plus, it takes place in Carson City. Which is where I frequently go riding. Ghosts of miners, a trickster, emotionally (and physically) destroyed Dean, a rapidly unravelling John and, sadly, no Sam. But his presence is there and lemmypie has a couple of tags ( Incommunicado) that show what he's doing while the rest of the story is going down (it takes place while he's away at Stanford).
Martyr's Fall -- I'm pretty sure this is not only the longest fic I've ever read, but it's also one of the darkest. And possibly one of the best. The scope is large -- we're talking Apocalypse and the Second Coming-scale. And there's a heavy demon/angel dichotomy (in a Christian demonology context). I almost didn't pick it up because I thought, "No way can the author pull this off." Uh... wrong. This fic is also why Kripke's conception of Hell makes me laugh. This is HELL done right. It's actually two fics, with Avatar Rising as the sequel to 'Martyr's Fall,' but to me, they're one fic. You have to read both, because you have to get to the end of Avatar Rising for THE most amazing ending I've ever read. It's a rollercoaster, to say the least. But I'm serious about the dark-factor. Excruciating torture, both physically and emotionally. Not exactly a happy story. Very much worth it, though. [I think I read the entire thing in one very loooong night. I just couldn't put it down.]
Cirque de Céline -- Not one of big-pink's better known stories, but I loved it. Céline Dion (I'm not even kidding), circus freaks, tricksters, old, contortionist sex (which -- damn) and a buffalo god. Gore, humor, swearing, brotherly angst, and whump. Definitely my kind of fic.
But for the Grace -- Dean ends up in an 'alternate universe' (not really... but you have to read it) where he was the one who died in the fire and Sammy basically got fucked over by John and is a boozing, philandering, dark hunter. All, however, is not as it seems. A bit of a mindbender, but I really liked her take on Sam.
In the Company of Demons -- I hesitate to rec this as enthusiastically as some of the others. It's great for at least two parts. Stele3 has an incredible ability not to waste a single word, and I think she gets both boys. Dean's actions, on their own, are perfectly understandable. Sam's actions, on their own, work for me as well. But put them together and... I'm not so sure. BUT, there's some good smut in there, so... yeah. I'd like to know what y'all think too; it could just be me, because I've seen it rec-ced all over the place.
Shotgun's Secret Stash (a.k.a. I Can't Believe I Read These, But They're Gooood.)
Immutable Law -- This one's got the kitchen sink. Smut, genderswap, Girl!Sam, graphic het AND Wincest, dubious consent and ANGST. And there's a creature in there that's pretty damn cool. And it's just plain hawt. If you're gonna read a fucked-up fic, this one's it.
Isochronism --
minkmix 's version of genderswap. With the sequel and the sequel to the sequel.
Shift -- Dean/Shapeshifter. Non-con. Nggggh.
Birds on a Wire -- yes, it's wincest. But it's one of the few that actually *works* for me. Sam and Dean get pushed so far, and they're both so lost and fucked up and things are spinning out of control and... it happens. And it's not glorified, it's not true wuv, it's not tender. It's wrong and they both know it.
And in case you didn't get it when I rec'ced it elsewhere -- Spider Bites on All Your Lovers -- Dean/Crossroads Demon, in five scenes, each with a different meatsuit/kink. Hot doesn't even begin to describe it (especially no. 3 -- *sweats*). I love the opening lines: "Her word is her bond and her kiss is her mark: so it's no trouble, tracking Dean Winchester down. She can hear the rush of the blood in his veins from miles away, and the clamor and shriek of memories in his head she could probably hear even in Hell. She wouldn't be the only one."
Blood and Bones -- Okay, this one isn't porn or anything, but it's dark. Like, REALLY dark. Dean's a serial killer. And Henricksen's his latest mark. (Say it with me -- NOOOO!) If you want something dark, but not DARK, like this one, try Zugzwang [YED possesses Dean.]
Miscellaneous
Laid -- Drinking, sex, drinking, more drinking, bar fight and sibling rivalry. Sorta. Happy biiirthday to Saaaaam...
Verbal -- Dean's cursed. He won't shut up. Sam's about ready to kill him. Fairy tale ending... in Carson City. Again. Hence my love.
The Silver and the Glass -- Deal Angst. Sam starts to get allergic to the tools of their trade, but maybe it's an answer.
The Measure of a Man -- Artsy, prosaic... beautiful language. It took me a few reads to figure out exactly what was going on.
Last Man Standing -- Post-Apocaylpse. Dean, Bobby and Ellen pick up the pieces (Sam is conspicuously missing -- uh oh.)
A Time to Every Purpose -- A musing on scars. Again, beautifully written.
Love in the Afternoon -- A parody of bad fanfic. Hilarious.
Snatched -- Shameless self-pimp. Sam and Dean battle pod people -- yes, pod people in Nevada. I was actually somewhat happy with the way it turned out, as opposed to the only other piece of fiction I've posted -- Pacta Sunt Servanda -- which was a) rushed, b) present tense, c) death!fic and d) not something it turned out I wanted to write. It was something I wanted to read. I've discovered there's a difference. But 'Snatched' is better.
Crap... I read a lot of fanfic. This is scary.
qzxy for pointing out many of these fics to me -- I've been puttering around her del.icio.us page for a few months there and it's a gold mine. Let's do this by topic, shall we? You'll find a lot of repeat authors -- I've got a handful of people that I know I can rely on for a) good plotting, b) good characterization and c) beautiful prose... and I'm nothing if but loyal. So you'll probably see quite a few stories from
minkmix , big-pink, kroki-refur,
leonidaslion and
ignipes . Pick a fic from any one of those authors and you can't go wrong.
Humor
For Your Convenience -- Dean v. Automated GPS System in a hybrid. There can only be one winner.
Unagi -- The boys break into an aquarium... I wouldn't suggest drinking any liquids while reading this one.
Nasty, Big, Pointy Teeth -- "You and your dynamite. You can't have both, Sam. You should know that. You can love dynamite, or you can love bunnies, but you can't love both dynamite and bunnies."
High Minded -- Dean gets high off shrooms. Hilarious doesn't even begin to describe it.
Stroke Me -- MIni golf outing gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place -- Better known as the 'Evil Hand' fic. It was supposed to be a two-parter, but she never really finished it. Fantastically funny as it is.
Good Girls Wear Hose -- Crossdressing. Dean. Incubus. I nearly died I was laughing so hard.
Heedless of the Boy -- Sam and Dean have to share a bed. If you have a sibling, you'll probably guess how this goes.
Whumpage
[Okay, quick disclaimer. I like hurt/comfort fic ALOT, but for some reason, in this fandom, the comfort part of the equation always feels a bit dissatisfying... too schmoopy, perhaps? I used to like K. Hanna Krossey's fics when I first discovered the fandom, but I've come to the conclusion that her boys are too emotionally open and, well, not dysfunctional enough for my taste. So I've found whump-oriented fics to be more up my alley.]
Removed -- Dean gets abducted by a rogue band of hunters who make Gordon look completely and totally sane. Vividly painful. There's also a sequel -- Indoctrination -- which I think I almost like even more than the original because Dean gets brainwashed the peril quotient gets quadrupled.
Methodology -- Gordon gets a hold of Sam; I think Sam spends 80% of the story strapped to a chair and lo, it is awesome.
Thirteen -- I generally do not like Outside POV, but in this case, the story is told through the POV of Dean's torturer, an immortal creature that wants his souuuuul. Oh, and there's Knife!Porn. Loads. And the Sam POV, 'Half-Past.'
Tricking -- Sam, buried alive. Sorta.
Tripwire -- I think the prompt for this one started out as a Dean/Duct Tape pairing, but it turned into oh so much more, playing off a curse that Dean finds in his Dad's storage locker.
Cartography in Empty Spaces -- So, Sam thinks Dean's dead. Except he's not, because Lenore (of 'Bloodlust') drops him on the doorstep on Christmas Day. It hurts so bad because Dean's just so... not Dean. He's been destroyed and Sam's so friggin' patient with bringing him back out of his shell and it's killer. There's a sequel that's from Dean's POV -- The Edge of the Known World, along with a tag -- Changes in Latitude -- and a prequel -- Go Down Blood Red Roses -- to be read in that order.
A Good Man is Hard to Find -- This is probably one of the best pieces of fiction I've read recently, be it fanmade or professionally written. I'll tell you now -- Dean gets hooked on heroin. I know, right? Not clicking the link. Wrong. It is so fantastically set up, so consistent with Dean's characterization -- and Sam's -- that you just have to go with it. Because the ending is dynamite and everything... everything fits together and oh my lord, the boys are just so fucked up. If you read one thing from this list, let it be this one.
Dangerous Games -- Sam and Dean are targeted by a serial killer. Creepy, unnerving and the ending is bloody fantastic in more ways than one.
Untitled -- Sam brings Dean back after he's pronounced brain dead... Dean ain't too thrilled. It's sort of an echo of what was probably going on in Dean's head after In My Time of Dying, playing upon the idea that Dean shouldn't have come back.
Open Your Eyes -- I don't typically enjoy pre-series stuff, but this one has whump, Bobby, and (in my opinion) a fabulously written John.
When You Put Your Arms Around Me -- Sam-Whumpage in prose. A witch's curse makes sam allergic to Dean.
Ramble On -- More h/c than whumpage, particularly as the story goes on. The first couple chapters are fantastic, though, as the boys get attacked by wendigos in the wilderness, are incapacitated and need to make it back to civilization. Soon.
Cold November Rain -- "A river, hypothermia, and abuse of Guns n' Roses lyics" pretty much covers it. No, I don't have a thing for hypothermia fics. Shut up.
Amnesia!Fic
I've read a whopping two amnesia fics I actually liked, which is a pity. The first is Consequences, which deals with a hunt gone wrong and the... consequences. Heh. The other is Lethe, wherein Sam has to keep wiping Dean's memory to save him from himself in the aftermath of John's death. Of the two, 'Lethe' is probably better.
Tags I think I've read more I've enjoyed, but I can't seem to track them down at the moment.
Born Under a Bad Sign coda and Tag to the Coda -- "'You know, if you’re going to make a habit out of this kind of thing, I’m gonna have to invest in some Kevlar.' Dean winced as he stripped off his shirt, peeling it away from his shoulder.
Ripping Out All Our Epilogues -- tag to Nightshifter and sure rips out something. It gets a five-Kleenex rating.
DNR -- John POV from In My Time of Dying, wherein he decides his own fate.
Door Number Two -- More of an AU than a tag, but it deals with the question of what would have happened if Dean didn't wake up from the Djinn's dream. Kleenex alert.
Bleach -- an alterna-ending to All Hell, Part I and... dude. It hurts.
Bottleneck -- a Sam POV follow-up to All Hell, Part II, contemplating that whole, 'Came back wrong' thing.
Mice and Men -- AAAAANNNGST. In spades.
Long, Plotty Fics
Red -- I feel like I've already rec-ced this thing up the wazzoo, but in case anyone hasn't read it yet... go. Read. Now. When I first read it, I thought the first few chapters were a little slow, but plow through it. It's necessary and the payoff is ngggggh. Basically, it's a perversion of Little Red Riding Hood. Keep your hands away from your face because your nails will be gone by the end.
Dazzleland -- In my opinion, the climax isn't quite as good as 'Red,' but its portrayal of How Sam Leaves is canon for me. Sam. Dean. Season 2. Niagra Falls. Sam has a Thing for an old teacher. Dean fends off deadly memories.
Fire in the Hole -- Quite possibly my favorite fic EVER. It's a little difficult to read because the present day timeline moves forward and the flashbacks move backwards... starting at the end and moving back to the beginning as the story progresses. Plus, it takes place in Carson City. Which is where I frequently go riding. Ghosts of miners, a trickster, emotionally (and physically) destroyed Dean, a rapidly unravelling John and, sadly, no Sam. But his presence is there and lemmypie has a couple of tags ( Incommunicado) that show what he's doing while the rest of the story is going down (it takes place while he's away at Stanford).
Martyr's Fall -- I'm pretty sure this is not only the longest fic I've ever read, but it's also one of the darkest. And possibly one of the best. The scope is large -- we're talking Apocalypse and the Second Coming-scale. And there's a heavy demon/angel dichotomy (in a Christian demonology context). I almost didn't pick it up because I thought, "No way can the author pull this off." Uh... wrong. This fic is also why Kripke's conception of Hell makes me laugh. This is HELL done right. It's actually two fics, with Avatar Rising as the sequel to 'Martyr's Fall,' but to me, they're one fic. You have to read both, because you have to get to the end of Avatar Rising for THE most amazing ending I've ever read. It's a rollercoaster, to say the least. But I'm serious about the dark-factor. Excruciating torture, both physically and emotionally. Not exactly a happy story. Very much worth it, though. [I think I read the entire thing in one very loooong night. I just couldn't put it down.]
Cirque de Céline -- Not one of big-pink's better known stories, but I loved it. Céline Dion (I'm not even kidding), circus freaks, tricksters, old, contortionist sex (which -- damn) and a buffalo god. Gore, humor, swearing, brotherly angst, and whump. Definitely my kind of fic.
But for the Grace -- Dean ends up in an 'alternate universe' (not really... but you have to read it) where he was the one who died in the fire and Sammy basically got fucked over by John and is a boozing, philandering, dark hunter. All, however, is not as it seems. A bit of a mindbender, but I really liked her take on Sam.
In the Company of Demons -- I hesitate to rec this as enthusiastically as some of the others. It's great for at least two parts. Stele3 has an incredible ability not to waste a single word, and I think she gets both boys. Dean's actions, on their own, are perfectly understandable. Sam's actions, on their own, work for me as well. But put them together and... I'm not so sure. BUT, there's some good smut in there, so... yeah. I'd like to know what y'all think too; it could just be me, because I've seen it rec-ced all over the place.
Shotgun's Secret Stash (a.k.a. I Can't Believe I Read These, But They're Gooood.)
Immutable Law -- This one's got the kitchen sink. Smut, genderswap, Girl!Sam, graphic het AND Wincest, dubious consent and ANGST. And there's a creature in there that's pretty damn cool. And it's just plain hawt. If you're gonna read a fucked-up fic, this one's it.
Isochronism --
minkmix 's version of genderswap. With the sequel and the sequel to the sequel.
Shift -- Dean/Shapeshifter. Non-con. Nggggh.
Birds on a Wire -- yes, it's wincest. But it's one of the few that actually *works* for me. Sam and Dean get pushed so far, and they're both so lost and fucked up and things are spinning out of control and... it happens. And it's not glorified, it's not true wuv, it's not tender. It's wrong and they both know it.
And in case you didn't get it when I rec'ced it elsewhere -- Spider Bites on All Your Lovers -- Dean/Crossroads Demon, in five scenes, each with a different meatsuit/kink. Hot doesn't even begin to describe it (especially no. 3 -- *sweats*). I love the opening lines: "Her word is her bond and her kiss is her mark: so it's no trouble, tracking Dean Winchester down. She can hear the rush of the blood in his veins from miles away, and the clamor and shriek of memories in his head she could probably hear even in Hell. She wouldn't be the only one."
Blood and Bones -- Okay, this one isn't porn or anything, but it's dark. Like, REALLY dark. Dean's a serial killer. And Henricksen's his latest mark. (Say it with me -- NOOOO!) If you want something dark, but not DARK, like this one, try Zugzwang [YED possesses Dean.]
Miscellaneous
Laid -- Drinking, sex, drinking, more drinking, bar fight and sibling rivalry. Sorta. Happy biiirthday to Saaaaam...
Verbal -- Dean's cursed. He won't shut up. Sam's about ready to kill him. Fairy tale ending... in Carson City. Again. Hence my love.
The Silver and the Glass -- Deal Angst. Sam starts to get allergic to the tools of their trade, but maybe it's an answer.
The Measure of a Man -- Artsy, prosaic... beautiful language. It took me a few reads to figure out exactly what was going on.
Last Man Standing -- Post-Apocaylpse. Dean, Bobby and Ellen pick up the pieces (Sam is conspicuously missing -- uh oh.)
A Time to Every Purpose -- A musing on scars. Again, beautifully written.
Love in the Afternoon -- A parody of bad fanfic. Hilarious.
Snatched -- Shameless self-pimp. Sam and Dean battle pod people -- yes, pod people in Nevada. I was actually somewhat happy with the way it turned out, as opposed to the only other piece of fiction I've posted -- Pacta Sunt Servanda -- which was a) rushed, b) present tense, c) death!fic and d) not something it turned out I wanted to write. It was something I wanted to read. I've discovered there's a difference. But 'Snatched' is better.
Crap... I read a lot of fanfic. This is scary.