ratcreature | about Supernatural fanfic...

I'm not feeling particularly fannish about Supernatural, but I have watched most episodes, thus while I was bored I looked around for Supernatural fanfic to read. I was mostly interested in gen, and while of course I knew that there's Sam/Dean slash I was actually surprised how common it is, from my first impressions even more widespread than gen (though I could be wrong about that). And I just don't get it. Personally I just have a hard time seeing Sam/Dean slash.

It's not that I'm particularly squicked by sibling incest, but the story has to somehow work harder to make that kind of thing work than other pairings. Not only because it has to make me buy that they would act on a sexual attraction despite incest taboos, that is similar in a way to other "relationship obstacles" in romance stories, but because it has to make me buy that there would be attraction in the first place. With most pairings I can buy that the author simply has a character feel attraction, inappropriate or not, and then the story goes from there, but for me (and I suspect most people) thinking about close family members with whom you grew up with, like your own siblings or parents and sex together is, well, sort of icky. Not just incestuous sex, but even the fact that your sibling or parent has sex with anyone, that's the kind of thing you don't want to contemplate in much detail. At least I don't, and I suspect I'm not alone in that.

I tried reading a couple of Sam/Dean stories, but they seemed to be much like regular slash in the way that it assumes that the reader buys the possibility for attraction between the guys in the first place. I don't quite get what makes this plausible for Sam/Dean shippers just from watching the series, and yet it seems very common. Which leaves me puzzled. I looked whether there was an essay on this pairing at

ship_manifesto to provide me with some insight, but there doesn't seem to be one yet. So does anyone know of any Supernatural meta that would explain to me where the Sam/Dean shippers are coming from?

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And when was the last time you saw a gen-dominated fandom?

Very true. *sigh* Which is kind of sad, considering how much I like gen. I'll read gen in all of my fandoms, and even prefer it to shipping in most (or would if there was enough gen writing). I think despite years in fandom it still hasn't sunk in fully how deeply pairing dominated fandom sometimes is.

OTOH, I think a lot of the time the emotional punch of gen stories in many genres isn't all that different from slash ones. I mean, I can't count the times when I couldn't quite remember whether a TS story was gen or slash (and I don't just this peculiar kind of "gen" TS story where they do "bonding" ritual stuff and such *g*), for example for h/c I've never seen that much difference. It's true that there's no real shipping alternative to the Wincest, but I don't know, considering that incest is harder to pull off without the characters becoming OOC, I had somehow expected gen with just a close, intense sibling relationship to be the main thing not incest stories (though I admit I haven't done any true statistical sampling, it may be my browsing is just skewed). True, in a fandom like TS there's maybe three times as many slash as gen judging from the main archives' sizes, but that slash relationship has no hurdles like age or family relation, and there's still plenty of gen.

BTW, I adore your icon. *g*

I actually always perceived Supernatural to be a fandom with a rather large Gen portion, as well as a fandom where the shipper stories can be rather plot heavy compared to some of the other fandoms I hang out in. Mostly because I think the "Monster of The Weak" stucture kind of lends itself to be copied, just get yourself a book on paranormal phenomenons and write about the brothers encountering to some of them. Plot heavy Gen or even Plot heavy shipper stuff is much harder to write for shows that have a more soap like or seasonal arc type structure.

Do you have recs for good, plotty MOTW Supernatural stories?

Honestly, no :)

I don't really read too much in the fandom, and if I do, it's probably more likely to be short porny pieces. I'm just not that attached I guess.

It's just what I gathered from the lenght of the fic, the descriptions and some recs that I got. Plus there seem to be plenty of places where Wincest isn't welcome that seems to be active enough by themselves.

Maybe somebody who is more in the fandom could help you out. :)

Unfortunately, I've seen very few MOTW-type stories in the fandom -- and I've been aggressively looking, too. Most of the ones I have seen have been on ff.net. Most of the gen fics I've read have been relatively short and more character than plot-driven. Can't say much about the length or subject matter of the Wincest fics, since I avoid them.

From looking at the listings on sn_newsletter, it seems that right now there's a close to even split between the number of slash and gen stories being written (het is the big loser here). OTOH, the spn_gen community has 13 members, while sn_slash has 326.

Here are a few gen stories I've read and enjoyed:

Recoil (http://www.livejournal.com/users/dotfic/7606.html) by

dotfic. 9-year-old Sammy has a monster in his closet

They Say It's Wonderful (http://www.livejournal.com/users/trollprincess/895674.html?mode=reply) by

trollprincess. An AU, but it captures the feel of the show really well.

Grass Don't Grow (http://www.livejournal.com/community/supernaturalfic/37602.html) by

lithium_doll. An actual MOTW fic! Really fun, too.

Piggy (http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2692077/1/) by P.L. Wynter. Another MOTW fic, from ff.net. Could use an editor, but still a fun read.

There are others, but I don't have the links handy now.

Thank you for those recs!

Well this is tough, because the ones that come to mind immediately are incest-slashy. I still highly recommend

maygra's "False Comforts" series, (3 arcs total, but the first is the least incesty of the bunch). I've recc'd two other longer fics, but again-- both Wincest.

There's so much good SHORT gen stuff, including

witchofthedogs's Law of Diminishing Returns (http://www.livejournal.com/community/supernaturalfic/109022.html). She also is working on a Gen series, Not In My House (http://www.livejournal.com/community/supernaturalfic/34405.html) but it is not yet complete.

And then there's the standalone, Rattlesnake Smile (http://www.livejournal.com/users/jaguarcaine/532.html) which is (I think) written by one of the few male fans of the show. It has a really different style, and is just sharp as unforgiving knives. Highly recommend it.

I guess.. you gotta learn to love the Wincest, or short Gen pieces, or write your own if you want more Gen episodic Supernatural stuff. Sorry.

maygra's "False Comforts" series sure gets recced a lot. *g* I've started reading that one, though so far I've only read the first story which isn't incest yet. And I've actually read the gen stories you mention and liked those quite a lot.

Unfortunately since I don't write fanfic at all, I won't be the one to expand the Supernatural fanfic corpus with gen epics... But the show is young yet, I'm sure others will. :)

maygra's "False Comforts" series sure gets recced a lot.

She really is an incredible writer, far beyond the usual realm of fanfiction stuff. A Writer with a capital "W."

And I mentioned

dhvana's "Demon Country" series, which someone recc'd below as well.

The MOTW ones tend to be rather short standalones though. Also, in short Gen's I should have recommended

whipper's connected drabble series (there are several in supernatural_fic).

Uh...

Damn I suck at actually *finding* anything I've read.
*sigh*

Fic: Grass Don't Grow
http://www.livejournal.com/community/supernaturalfic/37602.html
(Gen)

Fic: The Monster Under the Bed
http://www.livejournal.com/community/sn_slash/34221.html
(pre-slashy, continues a somewhat 'romantic' unrequited slashyness thing through a series, but they do encounter other monsters, etc)

FIC: Factum Amoris
http://www.livejournal.com/users/scribblinlenore/215467.html
(*slash*)

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt
http://www.livejournal.com/users/lyra_wing/2626.html
Non-cest slash, a little one-sided pre-cest-slash

Dancing in the In-Between
http://www.livejournal.com/users/alethialia/155204.html
(gen)
&
A Stand-Up Man
http://www.livejournal.com/users/alethialia/158100.html
(gen, more snippets of stories, rather than an overarching plot)

OK, this one might be a little lighter in tone than you were seeking, but I wrote a 4-chapter Supernatural Genfic. It's called Back Road Adventure (http://www.livejournal.com/users/halfshellvenus/16310.html). Hope you enjoy it!

Also,

maygra just finished "Don't Pay the Ferryman," which I believe is Gen. I haven't made it through myself, yet-- I'm SO far behind on my fanfic reading.

Thanks for pointing me to your story, I'll check it out. I've already read "Don't Pay the Ferryman" and I enjoyed it a lot.

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