SPN_J2_XMAS 2010

[facetofcathy]

This is everything I bookmarked from the spn_j2_xmas fest for 2010.

• /// here is the deepest secret nobody knows /// - Vid: Conquering America

Vid to Tracy Chapman's America. "The ghost of Columbus haunts this land."

I feel very conflicted about this vid, and I think I'm supposed to? That's one of the things I feel most conflicted about. Trying to discern intent! That old trap!

Visually this is a very good Ballad of the Epic Love of Sam and Dean and Their Heroic Journey Together and Apart. Which is cool, don't get me wrong, that is what the show is about.

But that song, boy howdy, that song. That song is the Ballad of White Male Privilege and How it Still Has its Boot on Our Necks. And that scene with Ricardo Montalban Lucifer!Sam with his foot on Dean's neck is in there.

But, but, this song can't be repurposed to be about the ways Sam and Dean are manipulated but still they triumph? That kind of makes me queasy. It has to be--I get to say it is, I'm in charge here, reader response, hip hip--about the unseen collateral damage of a holy war like the one Sam and Dean are pawns in.

Fandom:SPN SPN_J2_Xmas vid

Fandom: SPN_RPF (mostly J2)

• scintilla10 | Spn RPF fic: The Mysterious Incident of the Princesses in the Night-time

Take the 12 Dancing Princesses, add a dash of Sherlock (and/or Sherlock Holmes) and pay some attention to the fairy tale origins of reality shows and you get this story of Jensen on a quest to break a curse even though he, very politely, turned down the offer of a Princess in reward.

Lovely snappy tone and the best smack down of Mr. Padalecki's pink shirt habit ever committed to fic.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• This is me... - Fic: A New Beginning: J2: NC-17

ETA Jan 16, this journal is now deleted. I personally find the idea that you would write for a gift exchange, post and then delete your journal to file off the serial numbers of another story a few weeks later rather tacky. And yet, people quack at Yuletide for their no delete policy. I don't get it.

This is an author (avon_09) who has a particular style and if it's not your thing, it's not your thing. I usually like her fic, not love it, and I read it because she dares to write unhappy endings. The tone pushes the melodrama a bit, but not quite too much for me, and there are always Britishisms to some degree.

I liked this story for the asshole Jensen. He is naturally covering up for his problems with his behaviour in a very simplistic way, and the power dynamics of Jared working for the people who are all pro Jensen is glossed over. But I just like a change from the bog standard they love each other because fandom says so stories.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• Urban Sprawl - keysmash - Supernatural RPF [Archive of Our Own]

Well written and engrossing for all the setting is the most prosaic possible. But the motivation all three have for every sexual encounter is he/she is hot, and I find that very unfulfilling. It's not that it's not potentially realistic, and this is not the intensely objectifying fic that is more about the author's infatuation with the characters' physical form than a story, but I don't actually care that they're "hot". Matter of my response being too tepid to rate it higher, not the story being tepid.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Jared/Jensen Danneel/Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• ouroborous - Fic: "All through the town" [J2]

Cute premise (they ride the bus together) with a surprisingly not too sweet execution.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• paragraph: Daisy Bell

Cute sci-fi story where Jensen is a tiny bit anti-social, and Jared is the AI that runs his ship.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• bumblee_fic: Fic: The Night Before Christmas

Jensen has a wacky and slightly intrusive family who all have a lot of free time at Christmas, and Jared runs a bakery. The snappy almost crackfic tone works most of the time and I enjoyed the read.

Fandom:SPN Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• neros_violin: The Best Thing I Ever Ate, Part 1

Food porn as the motif that links scenes from a life-long relationship. I actually like all of them except the actually porny one, but that's a matter of taste.

The relationship story is enjoyable, with almost but not quite too much misunderstanding that could have been solved much sooner.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. - J2 AU Fic: Egg My Nog (1/1) PG-13

The bitchy Jensen bartender persona makes this story. And the Mark Sheppard cameo. Memo to fandom, J2 needs more Mark Sheppard. Funny and wry enough to balance the very well worn plot.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• Kellifer_fic - "but a wolf to those he does not know"

Not very werewolfy--more about the bureaucracy of how the Others interact with each other and with humans, but actually more engrossing for that.

Fandom:SPN_RPF SPN_J2_Xmas Jared/Jensen

• mistyzeo: [rps: au] this tricycle needs a third wheel (jared/jensen/danneel)

An unusual animal a poly dating story. AU with the gang all working in a diner. Fun and sexy and reasonably realistic. Good read.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Danneel/Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

• Zubenfic - The Mint Chocolate Chip Shake Guy (1/1) (J2 AU, R)

Highschool AU, but a fun one with a cute relationship between two boys nearing adulthood.

Really nails the politics of the mall part-time job. I like that all the opportunities for wacky misunderstandings, or angsty misunderstandings for that matter, are resolved by people actually talking to each other in believable ways.

I, er, didn't know clothing stores employed people as mannequins.

Fandom:SPN_RPF Jared/Jensen SPN_J2_Xmas

Fandom: SPN (mostly Dean/Sam)

• lotrabc: Fic: I'd Burn This City Down (To Show You the Light), Sam/Dean, Hard R

Amnesia fic set in season six. Good story of Dean trying to figure himself out and then trying to figure out what soulless!Sam was doing and if he is Sam or not. The story says there is some Sam there, just as there was some Dean there. I don't think canon agrees, but that's not a minus for me.

Fandom:SPN_RPF SPN_J2_Xmas Dean/Sam

• Blue Magnets - only for those who have given up (Supernatural - Sam/Dean)

Dean comes back from hell a little less okay than in canon. He's angry, which is a more realistic reaction than woobified. I liked this, especially how Sam justifies himself by measuring against Dean's dysfunction. I think a story that explored that point in depth would be really fascinating. Here the end game is hooking them up, which is cool, but I'd like that other story too.

Fandom:SPN Dean/Sam SPN_J2_Xmas

• poma Thaliae - Fic: Two Part Invention -- Sam/Dean -- PG-13

I enjoyed this. I liked the way Dean and Sam talk and don't talk and how they both get frustrated with themselves and each other. And then just amused and fond five seconds later. Them seem very real and grounded here.

Fandom:SPN Dean/Sam SPN_J2_Xmas

• mickeym: Cross Pollination, 1/1, NC-17, Sam/Dean

Sex pollen, or rather, sex bee stings. Standard version of the trope, light on angst, some good funny lines. Could use a little more lube.

Fandom:SPN Dean/Sam SPN_J2_Xmas

• akintay: Fic: I Can Dream the Rest Away

Sam given away as a baby and Dean finds out only when John is dead.

There's nothing revolutionary here, just a well-written execution of this trope. Could have used a little conflict over something other than sex. Some sort of family cultural differences making it difficult for two strangers spending so much time together.

Fandom:SPN Dean/Sam SPN_J2_Xmas

• faunaana | SPN Fic: Inexorable [spn_j2_xmas exchange]

So this is pretty much every fork in the road AU every thought up for SPN, and I usually find that sort of thing too meta-y, but this really has a relentless rollercoaster flow that bowls you over the way Sam is by HIM and his deal. Schmoopy ending as befits the context of the story.

Fandom:SPN Dean/Sam SPN_J2_Xmas

• She's Mulder - I'm Scully - Every Me and Every You, Dean/Sam, NC17 (1/2)

Okay, I know this might be hard to understand, but I am so disconnected from the Christian mythology of Demons and Angels (In my mind the things in SPN called that are parasitic beings mimicking Earth mythological creatures for their own ends.) that I didn't twig to the wings = angel, tail = devil thing right off. I know right?

Anyway, even as bodily transformation without symbolism, I'm not into wingfic, but the tail thing has always been a bit of a kink--oddly I don't really care for most tentacle fic. And, HOLY SHIT what a tail! I mean as soon as the tail was described you know where it's going to end up, but still, what a way to get there.

Funny and very sexy story without too much angst. Or Christmas schmoop.

Fandom:SPN Dean/Sam SPN_J2_Xmas

• queenklu: since feeling is first [NC17] Sam/Dean

Re-souled Sam is cracking apart, or maybe back together and Dean is, duh, the glue. This is almost kink fic, but the dynamics are mostly not really sexual. It says something that Dean and Sam could be fucking but keeping the power dynamics in the rest of their lives. Which in this fic involve home reno and waiting for the other guy to leave.

I love the tone of this, and the messed up head space they're both in. Angsty and still IC funny.

Fandom:SPN Dean/Sam SPN_J2_Xmas