As part of destielfanfic’s anniversary celebration, here is an author spotlight by littlehollyleaf! Some of her fics we’ve reviewed:
From The Ashes
Imitating Life
You can find her fic master list here on livejournal. Other places to find the author: [tumblr].
Behind the cut:
About
Destiel Fanfic Highlights
Aurora Borealis
Contrapasso
Come Down Off Your Throne
In The Blood
We All Fall Down (Ashes to Ashes)
Self-Written Fanfic Highlights
This Mortal Coil
Imitating Life
Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes
I Will Fear
Without further ado (and in her own words)…
About:
So, well, hi and all that! I’m Holly aka littlehollyleaf and to get the preliminaries out of the way – I’m a 28 year old Bookseller and English Lit graduate. Good, now that’s over – on to Dean/Cas, which is what we’re all here for, isn’t it? :)
How I got into Dean/Cas
Dean/Cas and I have rather inauspicious beginnings, I have to say. The way I initially viewed the pairing was radically different to my thoughts and feelings about it now, and I didn’t instantly fall in love with the idea, it was a long, slow build. Much like Dean and Cas’ relationship itself :)
I first experienced Dean/Cas as a pairing part way into S04 when a friend I knew from Smallville fandom (this is the lovely Hils) linked me to some fic she’d found. I was only a very casual SPN viewer at that point, having blitzed through S01-3 over summer just in time to start tuning in to S04 when it was airing, while Hils had already fully embraced the SPN fandom (she’d been in it and the SV fandom simultaneously I believe) and I think she was trying to encourage me to do the same :)
I read the fic and didn’t hate it and had a fair bit of free time in those days (oh how I miss those days!), so I decided to look up the pairing myself after, just out of curiosity. Tbh, SV and I were going through something of a ‘bad break up’ back then, and I was looking for another show/fandom to ‘rebound’ into, with SPN as the top contender.
The fic in question eventually became the first part of strangenessandcharm’s ‘Melting Point’ series, fyi, which got a lot of (fairly justifiable) wank at the time for being non-con without appropriate warnings, at least when it was first posted. Back then, however, since I was only a casual viewer and not in the fandom, I missed all the wanking completely. Plus I was actually viewing Cas as an antagonist, even assuming he was going to ultimately become a villain (albeit a complex one) during my first few forays into Dean/Cas fic, so I felt his non-con treatment of Dean in strangeandcharm’s story was fairly appropriate to his character and it was in fact the idea of an angel being evil and manipulative towards Dean that I was initially interested in.
Yup. That’s right. At the start of S04 what I liked most about Cas was that he was a BAD GUY and I wanted him to fuck Dean up. True facts.
It wasn’t until The Monster at the End of This Book, when Cas sneakily offers Dean his loophole way to help Sam against Lilith, that my interpretation did a complete U-turn and Cas became a genuine ally in my eyes. Which, of course, easily morphed into something more with Dean when it came to fic and fandom fantasy. ;) That episode lead us into a hiatus, and since I was freshly taken with this idea that Cas might be a good guy and thus had potential to be a real, fulfilling love interest for Dean, I immediately starting working on This Mortal Coil, as a way of exploring this new idea.
From that point on I was very invested and my love of Dean and Cas’ relationship and the idea of them taking it into romance (and of them having sex – let’s be real here and admit that a big initial draw of the pairing for me was ‘DAMN but they are hot together’) only intensified as their interaction and emotional connection in canon developed.
BUT, you need to understand that throughout all that, throughout reading fic and finding slashy elements in the canon and even through writing Dean/Cas stuff, I never, not once, believed there was anything to the ship in the canon itself. Through S04-5 shipping Dean/Cas for me was about taking stuff that happened in the show and, uh, redefining it through a Dean/Cas filter. There was the Dean/Cas fantasy version of the show, then there was the show itself in which Dean and Cas were friends and nothing more.
It wasn’t until some time during S06, though I wouldn’t pinpoint when, that I started to think – wait a minute, I think maybe Misha is genuinely putting some romantic undertones in his performance (something The Man Who Would Be King pretty much cemented in my mind). Making S06 a turning point for me in which the evidence in canon for romantic subtext between Dean and Cas became ‘real’ evidence, as in the kind I would feel comfortable bringing up in academic essays, taking Dean/Cas from ‘a personal fantasy without much canon evidence/validity’ to ‘a valid interpretation of the show with canon evidence.’ But, the trouble was the canon evidence as I read it only really pointed to a one sided romance on Cas’ side. Which… tbh wasn’t that satisfying for me. I didn’t want an unequal, pining, unrequited love between them, I felt Cas deserved better than that, and as a consequence I spent much of S06 kind of wishing they would tone down Cas’ apparent devotion to Dean since it didn’t seem to be being returned.
Then we got S07 and Dean’s glorious angsty break down (still one of the saving graces of the season for me :p), which was at least in part because of the loss of Cas, and BOOM! I suddenly had canon evidence of strong, easily interpreted as romantic, feelings on both sides of my pairing :)
Then S08 waltzed along and was, imo, from a Dean/Cas POV, just PERFECT because it was full of clear and deliberate romantic subtext between them, making my ship, for the first time, real in a way it had never quite been for me. And now here I am actually hoping and seeing possibilities for Dean and Cas actually getting together in the show, because I now honestly believe it would make sense for the narrative, and it’s just amazing!
What is special about the pairing?
They’ve been making it up as they go. ;)
See, there are plenty of deliberate fictional romances, with both parties consciously put together and led along a merry stepping stone journey of romance to their final moment of ‘getting together,’ and from there, occasionally, into the struggle of ‘staying together.’ And while there’s nothing wrong with those romances, not at all, for me they’ve never quite… resonated. Because in a conscious romance, no matter how well crafted the romantic journey may be, there’s often been something about the falling in love part that has felt pre-destined. Because in a conscious romance a ‘getting together’ endgame (or sometimes a tragic ‘being denied from getting together’ endgame) will be what the writing is deliberately working towards, with actions and choices and dialogue carefully crafted to lead the characters there. All of which tends to make me feel like I’m being told to believe that the interaction between the two characters is evidence of them falling in love, as opposed to seeing and feeling the characters fall in love for myself.
Dean and Cas, on the other hand, fell in love without being told to.
Their interactions had no endgame. The writers weren’t leading their relationship anywhere. And as a consequence they were able to grow closer, able to show increasing levels of fondness towards each other, able to influence each other’s characters (for better and worse) without it feeling like there were specific assumptions I was supposed to be making about those things.
I was free to just watch and interpret Dean and Cas’ relationship for how it looked, without having to worry about or take into consideration how the writers wanted it to look. And since the writers didn’t really want it to look like anything specific, the relationship itself was allowed to unfurl, as opposed to it being trained to grow a certain way.
Because of all this Dean/Cas has developed in a way that feels emotionally real to me, in a way that, quite frankly, no other fictional romance I’ve encountered has.
I’ve read and watched a lot of love stories, but it’s only with Dean and Cas that I feel like I’ve really witnessed two people fall in love.
That’s what’s special about Dean/Cas for me.
Destiel Fanfic Highlights:
I can barely choose a favourite colour, so choosing a favourite fic, or even a selection of favourite fics, is really impossible for me! There’s certainly no single fic that has had a more profound influence on me than any other. My Dean/Cas shipping experience has been just a wonderful web of hundreds of great fics!
Here are a few choice ones that, for whatever reason, are forefront in my mind at the moment though. The theme for all of them is ANGST :p
Aurora Borealis [T, 26,500 word count]
The prompt was, “SPN/The Last Unicorn: Cas as the Unicorn (tho ‘angel’ would actually work in this instance) and Dean as Prince Lir. Sam would make a pretty good Schmendrick imo, but still be Dean’s brother, but left home instead of feeding into the insanity of their deranged father. John could be Haggard, or even the YED could be a stepdad who murdered their parents or something equally as sinister. And now he’s collecting unicorns (or angels, if the author chooses) and Castiel is the last, who Dean falls head over heels for when Cas is turned human.”
Aurora Borealis by unoshot: I’m not really that partial to AUs on the whole. I read a LOT early on because I was just so desperate to get my fix of all the Dean/Cas I could find at first. :p But none of the AUs I’ve read have ever left much of an impression on me (not because they’ve been badly written necessarily, on the contrary many AUs I’ve read have been stunningly written, but just because reading about SPN characters not being their SPN selves doesn’t do much for me I’ve come to realise). Which is why this fic wins all the awards for not only being the only AU that has truly got to me, captivating both my imagination and my emotions, but also for being the fic I’ve probably re-read the most.
If you are a Last Unicorn fan you are going to love this, guaranteed. The writing style pays homage to the original text beautifully and the story is as hauntingly beautiful as the The Last Unicorn itself. The changes made to the story in order to blend the concept of The Last Unicorn with the characters from SPN are masterful (although I might have chosen Ruby and not Meg for the witch myself) and, yes, it’s as angst ridden and painful as The Last Unicorn is too. Some of the characterisation wavers a little in favour of The Last Unicorn characters I think, especially Anna, who reads rather more like Molly to me than her SPN namesake, but hey, poetic license!
Contrapasso [NC-17, 60,000 word count]
There’s a town in Wisconsin that doesn’t exist.
With no way in without human help, Castiel, seeking out a group of missing angels, asks for Dean’s assistance. He finds Sam with his brother, alive and well and free from Lucifer, with no explanation and no memory of how he got out of Hell.
Inside the town that doesn’t exist, there is murder and madness and a creeping cold that leave Dean, Cas and Sam fighting for their lives and for each other. As the town shifts and changes around them, descending into anarchy, the three of them find it increasingly difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not.
Contrapasso by takadainmate: Probably the least angsty of all my choices. This is an alternative beginning to S06, so also an AU now, but it’s a canon!AU in that everything up to the end of S05 remains true to the show (Canon!Aus are different – I love those. The characters are still true to their SPN selves, you see. :p). At certain points during S06 I know I was wishing things had been a little more like they were in this fic. Plus, I really love takadainmate’s style, it’s very evocative, you don’t just feel the character’s emotions you get a strong feel for their surroundings, the taste and smell, and in this case the horror, of where they are and what they’re doing. I won’t say too much about the plot, because it’s all about the mystery! But it’s got a bit of everything – Dean/Cas, Team Free Will, h/c and a really really spooky, captivating story.
Come Down Off Your Throne [M, 27,000 word count]
Three years since they’ve defeated Lucifer and to Dean it’s still just the day Cas died. So this year’s anniversary of their big glorious victory finds him in southern Utah all by himself, checking out a couple of unexplained deaths he would never consider hunt-worthy under normal circumstances. That is until he wakes up one night and right there, in the middle of his room, is Cas.
Come Down Off Your Throne by fairywearsbootz: I’ve only read this once, but it left a really REALLY strong impression and I’ve thought about it many many times since (perhaps reccing it will give me the courage to re-read). Another canon!AU, this imagines a very different ending to S05 (it was written, or at least conceived of, around mid-way into the season I believe, so canon from perhaps half of S05 onwards is discounted). Sam and Dean and Bobby all make it through the apocalypse safe, but Cas…
Unlike the above two this is not an ensemble piece, although Sam and Bobby do make appearances. It is instead almost claustrophobic in its focus on Dean and Cas, which fits the atmosphere of the plot perfectly. The end made me weepy. Gut-wrenchingly painful. But amazing.
In The Blood [NC-17, 75,500 word count]
With the King of Hell dead, Samuel Campbell’s grief drives him to what seems like the only course of action left to redeem his daughter: a crossroads deal. When the demon who answers Campbell’s summons tells him the blood of a very specific angel can open the gates of Purgatory, the Winchesters are drawn into a desperate search in which shifting allegiances and hidden agendas threaten all they hold dear…
In The Blood by zatnikatel & nightrider101: An alternative end to S06. As dark and angsty as the season itself became, in fact more (beware of warnings on this one – there’s torture and non-con, although imo nothing overly explicit), but it’s much more sympathetic towards Cas than S06 itself, arguably, was by the end, which I appreciated greatly at the time. Cas still takes on the Purgatory souls, but under much different circumstances, and the aftermath leaves him fallen, leading into a fallen!Cas scenario that plays out as what has been one of the most memorable and satisfying of it’s kind for me (I’m picky with my canon fallen!Cas stories because fallen!Cas is one of my favourite things in the world!). I found Cas’ character development through his falling just stunning in this one, and Dean and Cas’ coming together through all the drama is just the right amount of struggle for the payoff to be epic :)
We All Fall Down (Ashes to Ashes) [T, 16,000 word count]
In the days after the Apocalypse, angels fall by the dozens. No one notices. In the wake Lucifer’s time on earth, a few falling stars aren’t exactly news. But nearly ten years later, something is slowly wiping these newly human angels from existence. A reluctant Dean Winchester finds himself drawn forcibly back into the hunting world—a fallen angel of his own by his side.
We All Fall Down (Ashes Ashes) by trolllogicfics: Something completely different! This is not Dean/Cas really – it’s gen and it involves Cas falling after S05 and being reborn as a child. Most of the action takes place 10 years after a slightly altered Swan Song where Sam never got out of the Cage. I’m including it here because it surprised the hell out of me just how much I enjoyed this story, so I figure maybe it can do the same for other Dean/Cas fans too :)
I confess, I only glanced over it initially because it has art that is quite gorgeous, and was shocked to find myself completely sucked in! The relationship between Dean and kid!Cas is just lovely and also, for me, satisfyingly bittersweet, as Dean struggles to let go of the adult friend Cas had become during the apocalypse and accept the new child he finds in his friend’s place. There’s also a few interesting cameos by various minor characters, such as Claire Novak, which I enjoyed a lot, because it’s always cool to see fic writers expanding on characters the show gives us only glimpses of. (Plus, it’s a little prophetic for the S08 finale in that it speculates a mass angel falling, which is kinda cool, right?)
Self-Written Fanfic Highlights:
This Mortal Coil [T, 130,000 word count]
Castiel starts taking his doubts a step too far for Zachariah and is forced to fall to avoid being set upon by the Angel of Death. His ensuing time as a mortal leads to some troubling discoveries about Azazel and brings Castiel ever closer to the Winchesters. One in particular…
My first ever SPN fic, started during the hiatus after The Monster at the End of This Book (although not actually finished until part way into S05, despite the fact I had it ALL plotted out within the first few days of the episode airing – I posted it bit by bit as a WIP, posting each chapter as I finished, and I was SLOW. I decided very quickly after that never to write/post fic like that again, too much pressure!). It’s got stuff I’ll cringe over in now, I’m sure. Like, lots of rookie writer mistakes. My understanding of Dean was also very patchy back then. And I know I re-read it a while ago and wasn’t very happy with the writing style either. :p
But I include this here to show just how important fallen!Cas has been to me from the start – seriously, my first fic and the whole plot revolves around him falling, it was where my mind went to immediately on deciding to invest both in Castiel as a character and Dean/Cas as a ship, and I’ve never really shaken that desire for Cas to fall. I have since imagined and appreciated plenty of ways for Dean and Cas to be romantically/sexually involved with Cas staying a full angel, but despite that my mind just always defaults back to imagining ways for Cas to fall and how a Dean/Cas plot might weave into that. It’s almost as if Cas falling has been something of a requirement of my subconscious for Dean and Cas getting together, idk! Certainly I’ve always felt that Castiel in himself, regardless of Dean, needed to fall (though not necessarily forever) in order for him to truly progress/develop as a character/person – but that’s a whole other meta and an ongoing debate in fandom, so I won’t get into it here!
The point is OMG now S09 is giving me the fallen!Cas plot I’ve been longing for since S04 and I am excite! (it only took the show 5 years…) There is, in fact, a part of this fic I’m really hoping for a variation of in S09. Because after I had Cas fall and be taken care of by Sam and Dean (and have a few nightmares, omg I want Cas to have nightmares! …*ahem*), I felt he needed to head out into the world alone for a bit (as a kind of ‘coming of age’ or ‘rite of passage’ type of thing), so a reluctant but supportive Dean packs him a survival pack of weapons and fake IDs and sends him off with a promise to call if he gets into trouble. I think such a scene could fit nicely into S09’s set-up, so, here’s hoping I guess!
Incidentally, this fic is also probably the happiest I’ve ever written. I hadn’t found my Angst Queen crown at this point!
Imitating Life [NC-17, 60,000 word count]
Set in The French Mistake universe. To safeguard the angelic weapons he stole from Heaven, Balthazar has entrusted the keys to their hiding place to Sam and Dean and sent them into an alternative dimension. Unfortunately, Heavenly hitman Virgil followed them through and managed to swipe the keys during the ensuing confrontation. Now, the brothers need to find Virgil stat or their world is headed for a meltdown when he hands the keys over to Raphael who plans to use the weapons to re-start Armageddon. The problem is - how? Because if tracking down Virgil isn’t hard enough they also have to keep up the pretence of being a couple of crappy TV stars, investigate the mysterious arrival of one Richard Speight Jr. and deal with a clingy Castiel-lookalike who can’t seem to stop fawning over Dean.
It’s a no brainer including this one, since this has been my most successful fic to date and I’m pretty sure I’m never going to do better.
If this becomes the fic I’m most known for, though, I could do worse. I put a lot of effort into this one and it’s probably the fic I’m most proud of. :) I’m especially happy with the way I managed to balance the crushing angst with some elements of happiness. Heh.
Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes [NC-17, 6,200 word count]
5.14 coda. Dean feels empty. Cas has some left over cravings he’s been keeping quiet about.
Including this because it was an unusual one for me in that it’s the only fic I’ve ever started writing without a plan. The first scene – Dean sleeping at Sam’s side in the panic room and being woken by Cas – came to me in a flash immediately after the end of My Bloody Valentine, but I had no idea at all where to go from there. Usually, when single scenes/moments come to me I hold them in my mind and wait a few days at least to see if my imagination can weave a longer plot around them, but this time I decided just to write down that one scene and see what happened. I actually don’t remember why… probably it’s as simple as me really loving My Bloody Valentine and wanting to write something related to it as quickly as possible. I do remember getting stuck at one point with Dean and Cas in the bedroom and being on the verge of scrapping the whole thing because it seemed to be going nowhere, but deciding to push on because by that point I had enough words on the page that it felt like a waste to erase them. What happened was that it became a kind of sex pollen fic… go figure. :p It turned out okay, I think? Although sex is not really my forte…
I Will Fear [M, 3,700 word count]
Set during 7.14. When something of Dean’s accidentally slips into Howard’s fire in Plucky’s basement he finds himself face-to-face with his own fear. And it’s certainly not clowns.
Comedy isn’t my favourite, not by a long shot, and as such SPN’s comedy focused episodes don’t really do much for me. Fortunately, SPN manages to blend it’s comedy with tragedy really damn well a lot of the time, so the funny stuff is often simultaneously tragic and thus I am satisfied (for example Cas in Hunteri Heroici, whose antics appear to be ‘fish out of water’ comic relief, but are actually inspired by Cas’ depression and desperate attempt to avoid dealing with his guilt).
Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie, however, was pretty much all comedy, and as a consequence I didn’t enjoy it all that much (except for the final scene between the brothers – aw!). So I wrote this fic to both Dean/Cas and angst it up a bit. Not many people seemed to approve (I can’t imagine why :p), but I remember feeling a particularly strong sense of enjoyment and satisfaction writing this one (part of which probably also has to do with the fact that mentions of Cas, and Dean’s feelings about Cas, had been so sparse in the show itself at that point so writing a fic all about both was pretty cathartic - oh season 7, how you tested me…).