Supernatural rec set

[noracharles]

kabal42 asked for good, plotty fics without major spoilers beyond season 4. He has no gen or ship preferences.

Please feel free to add recs of fics or of reccers/rec lists in the comments.

Astolat's fic got me into Sam/Dean, when before that I had only read gen and Dean/Castiel, and all of it is good.

A wonderful, long, plotty fic is Old Country, a clever crossover with Harry Potter. I like the way the HP setting is so vivid, I like the outsider point of view on the world of British witches and wizards, and I like the characterization of Dean. Unfortunately the shippy ending is a bit pasted on. Astolat has conveniently dated her fics, so it's easy to avoid spoilers.

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RivkaT is another author I had read in previous fandoms, whose fic drew me further into Supernatural. All her fic is good, but it can also be disturbing and upsetting, so read the meta info carefully.

I'll mention two great long, plotty fics she's written:

Hating the Weather is beautiful and engaging, but it is also very angsty, and is more a thinky fic than an escapist fic. Dee (Dean) is trans, but this is mainly used to highlight gender dynamics and sexism, so, you know. I liked it very much, but it might not be for everyone.

Captured by the Game is fun and kinky. This is the sort of fic I was thinking of when we had that LOL RAPE YAY :D conversation at blnchflr's place, remember? And it has evil demonic, kinky Sam, a trope I really miss from earlier SPN fandom. Escapist and suspenseful.

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Kellifer_fic doesn't write particularly long fic, but it's very plotty, and like those little foam pellet you throw in the bath, which turn into sharks and dinosaurs, their fic expands in your mind. Their fic is also all good.

Snuffleupagus is gen, and wee!chesters (that means fic about Sam and Dean as kids), and that's really all I think I ought to say about it. The author's summary is "Sometimes imaginary friends... aren't."

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Pretty Tiger by anne_higgins made me really happy. I don't know if you like pretty, woobie uke fic, but if you do, this is concentrated yumminess, and it's amusing and well done how the author fills an entire bingo card's worth of tropes. I'm unsure how much familiarity with SPN fandom traditions is required to fully appreciate the elegance of it, but maybe it can be one of those fics you read for the first time twice, because you will have a different perspective on it when you come back to it after reading more widely.

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Two Criminal Minds cross-over fics! Everything I know about CM I learned from these fics, so I can say with confidence you don't need to have watched the show to enjoy these.

Eat it Twilight by liliaeth is a fascinating outsider POV on Supernatural, and it's funny too. It's gen.

The Time Has Come to be Gone by jujuberry136 is not as well written, but it's funny as well, and there's action! Also gen.

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A Discworld crossover: A Grand Sneer by moragmacpherson. Perhaps this is more of an outside POV on Discworld than on Supernatural, and Sam isn't in it very much, but it's a lot of fun, and has some delicious Dean/authority figure UST. It is gen, and knowledge of Discworld is definitely required.

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I find Mummyluvr's cracky take on Dean both funny, angsty and hot, and their ideas appeal to my imagination. This is a medium lenght fic, not a long one, but it'll give you a good idea of their style. I don't know if all their fic is good, but I have read and enjoyed several.

Good Boy is Dean/Castiel, with delightfully powerful and manipulative Cas (I prefer bamfy Cas to woobie Cas).

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Ghosts, Spies and Campfire Lies by caffeinekitty is a funny gen casefic, and a cross-over with Chuck. You need to know a bit about at least the first season of Chuck to fully appreciate the clever characterization. The characterization of Dean doesn't actually appeal to me that much in this fic - it's not OOC, just not my preferred facets of his personality - but it's a minor thing. Gen.

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The incestuous courtship of the antichrist's bride by fleshflutter is one of those love it or hate it fics, I think. If you like this fic, go ahead and read everything they have written, it's all somewhere between pretty good and really excellent.

This fic speaks to the evil Sam sub genre I mentioned above with RivkaT's fic, and the humor may depend too strongly on your familiarity with the tropes and fanon, I'm not sure. Because it is so meta, it may seem either OOC or a hilarious and a bit extreme reading of Dean - I lean to the hilarious side. It may be useful to read as a crash course in the sub genre.

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January Girl by parenthetical is a gen (or gennish het) cross-over with Harry Potter. Dean meets Luna, and there's action and a great description of a friendship being built.

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Supernatural fandom is very active on delicious, so I recommend searching through the supernatural and spn tags.

The spn_j2_bigbang big bang is also a treasure trove of long fics, but check the reviews on delicious, they're a mixed bag.

amothea is a multi fandom reccer who specializes in long fic, and has lots of Supernatural recs. The fics are nicely categorized by fandom, but they don't explain why they liked them, so I don't find them very useful. Others seem to find them very useful, though.

thefourthvine is a multi fandom reccer who specializes in very detailed and funny recs. I don't always share her taste, but I'm never in doubt about why she recced something, and the recs themselves are worth reading even if you don't read the fics. Her recs are tagged by fandom, but not so easy to navigate.

Comments

[kabal42]

Yay! Thank you! I've now got a few tabs open and some loaded fic from AO3. I'm looking forward to reading :-D

[noracharles]

I hope you enjoy, and I look forward to learning how far our tastes overlap :-)

[kabal42]

Well, so far I did fall in love with Old Country (which started the search for fic) and so far I've also read (these latter ones today) Snuffleupagus (which surprised me and was quite "oh!" in a good way) and Good Boy (which I also liked). I'm looking forward to Captured by the Game and to Eat it, Twilight but holding out on the latter till I've seen S5, which is the season I'm about to start. I think next up will be January Girl.

[noracharles]

Ooh, cool! I'm glad you've liked those so far, and I hope you'll love January Girl as much as I did - that fic has not received the appreciation it deserves.

[kabal42]

Ok, I got sucked into The incestuous courtship of the antichrist's bride instead and laughed my arse off :-D I seem to like funny - I sometimes do in HP as well, depending on how it's done. Outright crack, rarely, but funny, witty and well-done I love and this was all of it. Woop :-D

January Girl today, then. (And I might keep on doing reactions here, unless that's really annoying/boring?)

[noracharles]

No, please do! Yay, I'm so happy you laughed at fleshflutter's fic :-D

[kabal42]

Well in that case! :-D
I finished January Girl as well and really liked it. So well written. I was really impressed with the Luna characterization and the way the similarities between her and Dean are subtly highlighted. I told the author as well, but I think I was far less eloquent about it...

[noracharles]

I am ridiculously happy you gave the author feedback ♥
I have a real soft spot for that fic, and it was the first fic I commented on on the AO3.

Your comment was good, and something any author would be very glad to receive, I think!

Pretty soon you'll have read all my recs, oh no. I've tried reading a few Supernatural fics these last few days, but haven't managed to find one I could even finish. Part of that is not having very much time to read, of course, so I'm rather picky at the moment.

[blnchflr]

My SPN recs - the ones I've gotten around to coding, anyways: http://skuf.popullus.net/recs/spn.html.

I think all are pre-S3, so they're likely different and old-skool compared to the current stuff.

I don't think our tastes in fics are that similar, but you can give the !-marked ones a go and see if they do it for you. (What, only three of those? Hmm).

If you read nothing else, I think a person should not not read Somatic.

From my to-rec folder, I also feel a need to rec Astolat's Leader of the Pack: http://intimations.org/fanfic/supernatural/Leader%20of%20the%20Pack.html (Sam/Dean, adult), though for all I know it's not the fic it was post-S2, *hands*.

[noracharles]

Thank you for the recs! I've reread Leader of the Pack not so long ago, it's still very good :-)

Thank you very much for your wonderful hospitality and delicious food ♥

[blnchflr]

You're welcome; thanks for being game about the ostrich meat! (I'm just waiting for an opportunity to serve it for someone else, it was so interesting).

[blnchflr]

I'm intrigued by there being only one of my favourite SPN fics on your list (Old Country), and that I don't even know the others!

ETA: I love amalthia's (amothea) recs, because we share very similar tastes in fic. Or used to, anyways; sadly they seemed to have diverged /o\

[noracharles]

Amalthea's journal is back! It was gone when I wanted to link to it.

How have your tastes diverged?

[blnchflr]

I just got mightily choosier, I think, rather than differing tastes as such?

"'You can track me if I take the Nerd Herder.'" John Casey muttered in a mocking nasal voice, watching the campground entrance with binoculars from a spot down the road. "'You don't need to follow me and Ellie when we leave town. Just one weekend, I want privacy and family time and a pony. Wah, wah, wah.' The man's an idiot. No sense of self-preservation."
Oh, just what I didn't know I always wanted to read. Actually you can leave out the SPN stuff, just give me Chuck and Ellie camping with Casey and Sarah spying on them, and Casey commenting on everything :oD

ETA:
Chuck laughed. "Oh, oh, ho, no, no they're not police or anything like that at all! No! Ha ha! Isn't that ridiculous Ellie? Sarah and Casey, cops."
Lol, I can hear Chuck saying that!

ETA2:
Huh, now I'm wondering if I've already read this. Do they end up underground at some point? If so, I have. I wonder if maybe I read it before I knew Chuck, hmm.

[noracharles]

I think maybe they do? Isn't it great, rereading it after knowing Chuck. Chuck and Ellie camping with Casey and Sarah spying on them! :-D

[blnchflr]

Doh, not only had I read it before (knew for sure by "Fulcrum would have brought tents"), but I stayed up till too late - again - reading it, *headdesk*.