takalotti

Reader Discussion: How (thanks to Gabriel) Dean and Castiel (accidentally) raised each other (and Sam). @Wayward Son @trxr4kids (and anyone else who wants to join in of course!) Generally speaking: It's a good fic :) Characters are in character, it does a good job being canon adjacent, and it's also funny/fun at times. I especially like Cas' accidental dry humor which eventually morphs into not-so-accidental dry sarcasm later. I like the idea of "Would the boys still make some of the same decisions if they had a bit more intel about what was coming?" Sometimes yes, sometimes no. More specifics: I remember trying to read this one in the past and having a hard time getting past the first chapter. It's very "out there" and I was hesitant to keep going. I think what threw me the most was how different "young" Gabriel (understandably) was. I eventually read it, and the rest of the fic is much more standard, though still with a hint of that dreamlike quality of the first chapter, but it was long enough ago that I didn't remember a lot going into this time. I think Chapter 15: Rock Opera is my least favorite chapter. It's just a little too wacky and weird, though of course it makes sense that it would be. You'd think it would be my favorite considering certain romantic developments, but I like the romantic developments in Chapter 11 better actually. Chapter 18 is my next least favorite, but that's just because I'm not much of a Sabriel fan and there isn't much plot movement I don't think. Chapter 16: The First Last Year is my favorite. Especially "April" which actually makes me tear up. I love that the difference of knowing that The conclusion was interesting. I have a hard time buying that because then I get all mixed up about whether or not that's still consistent with canon (What does it really mean to be a righteous man and how does he qualify? What does it mean that only the righteous man who broke the first seal can "end it"? Is it contradictory for him to be both of those things?). You mean the angel of Casday ;) Sidenote: Thank Chuck previouslyTV restores our drafts! I had written most of this, went to a different tab, and when I tried to click back to this tab I accidentally closed it instead. Whew! Crisis averted!

Sounds good to me! And of course anyone who wants to join in by then is welcome to. Do we just post our thoughts whenever we’re done, even if it’s a day later? Or wait until closer to the 25th? And our thoughts should be spoiler tagged, right? I'm an overthinker!

Well, I’m game. I’m also reading LotR "with" a friend, so I think having a week even for shorter fics would be good. I’m also not interested in Wincest. I'm ambivalent to RPF. I'm cool with ones that aren’t centered around a relationship, but fair warning: All the recs I’ll be making are Destiel romances, but I’ll make sure to leave out the ones that are more porn than plot ? WS, did you pick one of the recs? Maybe we could start with that (even though I know we just said we'd start with smaller ones)?

Would this reading group start with smaller fics rather than epic ones to keep things moving?

Disclaimers: Well, I’m a Destiel fan, so all the fanfic I have to recommend is that pairing. And I pretty much only read smut because I’m a dirty bird ? But the good news is that most of the ones I’ve read that are 100k+ like you requested are mostly plot (though often romantic plot) rather than all about the smut. Here goes! There is of course the ever famous Twist and Shout which is just shy of the 100k mark. If you haven’t heard of it, be warned that it is heartbreaking at times. I didn’t go through a whole box of tissues, but I used countless tissues. Painted Angels Kiss the Baker, but I’m pretty sure you have to have an AO3 account to read this one Satin and Sawdust Hunting for Faith You Can Keep Holding On, not an AU but still worth the rec.

Any particular pairing preferences or dislikes?

✌️?!

Because it’s fun to be silly ?

Well, she was listing erogenous zones. Doesn’t necessarily correlate to bases, 1 to 1. But I agree it wasn’t on Monica's list of 7. P.S. Your quote of my text made me notice that somehow I mistyped "wouldn’t" when I meant WOULD.

I am incapable of believing that the boys were in Lebanon, heard Jody's tip about Jack being in Bismarck, got packed up, drove 10 hours to Bismarck, spent whatever amount of time investigating, determined Kaia was in Mankato*, drove 7 hours to Mankato, found Jack, drove around aimlessly with Jack looking for Kaia, got the hostage message via angel radio, drove to Kaia, saved Kaia, decided to drive to the Wind Caves together, and got 3 hours into their drive before the Angels showed up, without ever talking to Cas, leaving a message, or texting him "We have a lead on Jack in Bismarck," "We think he’s in Mankato now," "We found him!" After how long all three of them had been looking for Jack, and with all that downtime in the car, I find it literally unbelievable. Give me a scene where Asmodeus curses Crowley for picking a Hell on Earth location with such terrible reception that’s he doesn’t get his messages for 2 days, THEN I’ll accept that Asmodeus could have been behind the times. *I didn’t notice anything in the episode that indicated the rehab facility was in Mankato, but one of the Supernatural Wikis lists it as one of the locations for the episode. Normally I would take that with a grain of salt, but it makes a LOT more sense for the 4 of them to end up "outside Souix Falls on route 14" if they were driving from Mankato to the Wind Caves rather than from Bismarck to the Wind Caves. That made it a reasonable location to me. Well, I’d never heard the term "Fifth Base" before either, but once Rowena said it in the episode I was like "Yup, that would be a fitting term for it." So I’m betting you’ve heard of fifth base without that terminology ?

Ah, gotcha. I mean I still don’t see it that way ("Oh yes, you’re so sheltered ?" I’d agree would be sarcastic, but her line and delivery was mocking condescension to me) but now I get where you’re seeing it from.

LOL! Okay, I agree that his squirming could go either way. But why that look at Sam after Rowena calls him a poor, sheltered boy? Like, just a confused "Yup, that's me so I still have no idea what she’s talking about. Hmm, what could it be, what could it be..." would have been more in line with Dean trying to deny he’s wild in the sack. His alarmed look would make more sense if instead of calling him sheltered, Rowena had said "Hah, you’re not fooling anyone, cowboy." Then that look would mean, "Sam, don't listen to her, I don’t know what it is!" which I would easily agree was just a cover. Sure, he'll try anything once, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he HAS... yet ? To anyone going to a convention in the future: PLEASE ASK JENSEN TO CLARIFY!!!

THEN: They FINALLY showed Cas being held prisoner. However, STILL no reference to Asmodeus faking his voice, yet having the boys reference calls with Cas in the episode. Thank goodness I’m not a casual viewer. NOW: Dale's goofy expressions made me think of Jim Carrey. That's neither an insult nor compliment, just an observation. D: We should probably loop Cas in at some point? S: We'll fill him in when he calls. He checks in every day. Wait, Casmodeus has been checking in "every day"? Since when? This whole time that Cas has been prisoner, or just sorta recently? Because if he’s been checking in "every day" this whole time, then it makes even LESS sense that S&D didn’t update Casmodeus with finding Jack during the events in The Bad Place (if they had, Asmodeus would have shown up, so we know they didn’t), or with losing Jack to another universe from Breakdown to the present (which is an educated guess since Asmodeus didn’t mention Jack being in another universe in this episode). Either they’re talking and accidentally feeding info to the enemy, or they’re not talking and should be worried about where Cas is. You can’t have it both ways, SHOW! Did we know that Lucifer knew about Cas eating angel grace in the past? How did he hear about that? Oh wait, is it because Lucifer possessed Cas, so he knows all of Cas' memories up to that point in time? I don’t know why I care. I didn’t think Cas was smirking about having fun taunting Lucifer. The first smirk came right after... L: Okay, well, if somebody would be a pal and let me eat a little of his grace, I would have enough strength to get out of here and butcher that SONUVABITCH! C: Well, that’s a nice, horrifying plan. ... L: There is no 'I' in 'team', Castiel. I want you to remember that. C: <smirk> I assumed he was smirking at the irony of the most narcissistic, only cares about 'I', throws the 'team' under the bus if it doesn’t serve him, entity ever known saying such a thing. The second smirk was after Lucifer talked a big talk about Asmodeus being his weakest creation, and then got called out for not being able to defeat Asmodeus and could only retort "Shut up." To me that was mostly just having the satisfaction of successfully calling bullshit on the universe's biggest bullshitter, not really enjoying some taunting, but it’s a fine line, I admit. When Sam said "Do you remember Becky, in Vegas, the love spell?" was Dean's "No" a literal answer to the question meaning "No, I don’t remember this" or did he mean "No, that’s not what’s happening here because THIS is true love"? It’s not important; just idly wondering if the spell affects memory. S: Okay, I think Jamie must be a witch or a demon. D: Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. S: What? D: Be nice. 'Cause she's GOT a sister ? Me: ? That was a great delivery. Disclaimer: The answer cannot be plotonium... Can someone explain to me why bad guys, who are about to kill a good guy, stop mid wind-up just because another good guy appears in the vicinity? I’d understand if it was law enforcement and the bad guy doesn’t want to get caught. MAYbe even a random pedestrian since they could be a witness even if the bad guy can run away. But when it's another good guy who can clearly see what bad thing the bad guy was about to do to fellow good guy yet isn’t close enough to stop the bad guy, then the bad guy should finish swinging the sledgehammer or pulling the trigger or whatever. The good guy is going to be concerned about the hurt good guy and bad guy can get away! Demon Dipper said Asmodeus has big plans for Cas. Huh? Last we heard Asmodeus was only keeping Cas (as opposed to just killing him) in case the Winchesters got out of line. Didn’t seem like he’d have any actual use for Cas. Oh well, whatever. Lucifer: When he decides to do something, he does it. Doesn’t matter what the cost or who has to die, it is gonna happen 'cause that’s just the way he rolls. Does he not see the hypocrisy/irony in his statement? Like how does he think that’s an argument, or really any kind of point, worth making to someone like Cas who knows how Lucifer ticks? Regarding whether or not it makes sense for Rowena to be upset about Crowley dying: I know that she bargained with Sam to have him kill Crowley. But has she ever directly tried to kill Crowley? I honestly can’t remember. But if not, then MAYbe bargaining for Sam to kill Crowley was really 'There’s no way Sam can take Crowley, so really this is me trying to get Sam killed.'? Only maybe, though. Haha, regarding Fifth Base. I can’t tell which of the "Dean knows what fifth base is" comments here are serious vs. joking. I think the way the scene played, Canon!Dean really didn't know what fifth base is (probably figured it out now, though). But I agree that Fanfic!Dean absolutely does ? My reading of the expressions in the scene... R: Tell me, did they get to fifth base? D: (squirming uneasily = She’s bluffing, right? Just messing with me. Do. Not. Let her see she got in my head.) There is no fifth base. R: Oh you poor, sheltered boy. D: (alarmed to Sam = Wait, is there really a fifth base? ~or~ Wait, what's fifth base? ~or~ Hey, I am NOT sheltered) S: (bitchface = Not the point right now!) D: (thoughtful = What have I been missing out on? Anyway, what is she saying now?) Cas can still burn out demons. Good to know. Where did Lucifer get the angel blade right after escaping his cell? It didn’t look like he got it off Dipper when he grabbed him through the bars. He didn’t seem to get close enough to take it while Cas was smiting Dipper, but maybe that’s what that little weight shift was right before Dipper dropped. But then why not take it off Dipper before opening the cell and use THAT to stab Dipper? Just because of Chekov's Little Stick? DEAN: They stole a book. BRENDA: A book? [Dean nods in confirmation. Brenda laughs] Honey, now I know you’re lying. I doubt they can even read. This had me scratching my head. The last time we saw Brenda, she was talking to the girls while one was walking around reading an open book. Wouldn’t it make more sense and serve the same purpose to say, "I DID see them with a book the other day. Just didn’t think they could actually READ." DEAN: If it helps, I don’t plan on being nice about it when I do find them. [Brenda perks up excitedly and runs a length of register tape off. She quickly writes down the girls’ location] BRENDA: You gonna be really mean? DEAN: Yeah. BRENDA: ‘Cause it’s about damn time someone was. [she hands Dean the address] Okay yes, that was fun and all. But what happens on Brenda's end after the boys leave town? Even assuming they disposed of the bodies and cleared the scene such that there would be no suspicion about something bad having gone down, they still disappeared. Not a big deal, people are allowed to leave town. But shouldn’t Brenda be wondering 'Huh, there was that guy who came in asking about the girls, said he wouldn’t be nice, would be really mean, and right after that the girls disappeared.' She just wanted Dean to not let them get away with their crap. She wasn’t rooting for them to be KILLED such that she’d just be cool with the coincidence. I don’t know if I’m reading too much into some expressions here, but I can’t help it. When Dean was calling out Sam for giving a page to Rowena, he seemed engaged (alert eyes) up to and when he said "Yeah, how 'bout honestly." But when Sam said he felt helpless and Dean asked "What do you mean?" he seemed to disengage (dead eyes). It almost seemed like 'I don’t wanna hear this but I’m obligated to ask.' Expressions aside, the whole conversation had the vibe of Dean dismissing Sam's helpless feelings regarding their current situation and just wanting to get back to doing their thing, skip to the end basically. More concern about Sam just getting out of dark place rather than helping him while he’s IN his dark place. And Sam seemed disappointed to find out he was actually wrong about Dean, because he didn’t really listen. I thought it was pretty clear what went down with Rowena at the end. She'd told the boys "Oh, years ago, the Grand Coven cast a binding spell limiting aspects of my magic." At the end her bindings were released from inside her (I don’t think that was grace of any kind) and then were broken. Expert Witch Level Achieved. Yes, she is a lying liar who lies, but if she was actually up to something else, why would the lie she told the boys to convince them to help her use the book include anything about bindings (which imply keeping her powers in check)? Yes, she tells Dean it's to protect herself, not make herself more powerful, but I’d think it would have made more sense for the lie to leave out anything about "bindings" and just be 'There’s a spell to protect me from an attack like that again.' Or fine, if the bindings story is part of her lie, then the reasoning she gives should tie to something the boys care about, like making her powerful enough to take on Lucifer (she hadn’t heard he was in another universe at that point in the conversation). So yeah, she mentions bindings and then we see bindings break. I don’t think the spell we saw was directly about immortality, immunity or protection at all.

THEN: Just because I’m keeping a running tally of this annoyance, this is the fourth THEN sequence where there’s been no mention of Cas being held captive or Asmodeus pretending to be him over the phone. Oh but that's okay because the boys don’t check in with Cas this episode and it TOTally makes sense that Dean and Sam wouldn't update Cas with "Hey! We found Jack, but then we lost him again. No idea why we didn’t call you when we found him except that if we did then your captor who we don’t know about would have shown up and that would have overloaded the episode of the tv show we're not on. But anyhoo, we accidentally got zapped to another universe for a couple days, and we’re pretty sure Jack got zapped to Apocolypse World with our mom. So now your captor who we don’t know about knows that there are other universes and that we’re trying to actively open rifts to one. Good talk." NOW: Is it odd that Donna's niece, who Donna thinks looks up to her enough to want to take a gap year like she did, has a "No guns" bumper sticker? Not necessarily, I guess. I just would have figured that she’d think "My aunt is a badass with a gun" and so not be anti-gun. I guess between that and the Think Globally, Act Locally bumper sticker, we were supposed to come away with "Oh look, she’s a hippy. Easy prey"? Think the card reader is broken on purpose so cashier boy can vet victims more easily? He was definitely realistically sleazy and creepy. Everyone inside was creepy, just the way they all turned to stare for so long. Wow. Donna spoke volumes with just the word "Oh." I think it says a lot about how well her character has been established that the actress' delivery of just "Oh" can tell you something is heartbreakingly wrong. WAS there really a family reunion in Sioux Falls a couple weeks ago? Or was that one of many cover stories that Donna tells Doug when she’s on a hunting trip and Dean was just generically covering for her and maintaining his lie? Or was it specifically referring to the previous episode which sure was a wild time for them all? I wouldn’t think it was the latter since they aired a week apart and there wasn’t anything else in the episode that indicated a time jump, plus Dean's expressions read more as 'Hope he can’t tell I’m lying through my teeth right now' than 'Man, you have no idea how wild it actually was.' I already posted some of this before, but in short, I didn’t have a problem with Sam being reluctant to help the Fed. He didn’t have any objection to showing up and helping Donna even though she already said it wasn’t their kind of case, until it was a question of working side by side with a Fed. I really think he’d have been fine working the case if it were just cops and not FBI, or somehow working around the Fed and feeding tips through Doug and Donna. I GUESS some of Sam's expressions at the end of the phone call in the bunker could be interpreted as "'Not our normal thing.' That’s our out, right? Whoa, 'On our way'? Ookay, not what I thought you’d say. Wait, I don’t think this is a good idea." But I think it could just as easily be read as "'Not our normal thing'? What can we really do when it’s not monsters? Oh, okay, I guess we'll give it a shot. Wait, we don’t know anything about tracking just bad people." I think what tips me to interpretation #2 is that he brought Dean into the call. If he really was against helping, wouldn’t he have gently told her there wasn’t anything they could do and not bounced it off Dean? He came into the kitchen and said "Hey, Donna, I’m here with Dean. I’m gonna put you on speaker. Uh, why don’t you tell him what you told me?" not "Uh, so what did you want to tell us?" So, I don’t know if I’m off base for thinking this way, or if the show even intended it, but it really seemed like Dean was trying too hard to be a trucker. It didn’t bother me at all; I just found it amusing. Like the way he talked on the CB radio seemed too heavy with the lingo and I was cringing in secondhand embarrassment. I get that he can’t get on there and say "Pardon me, I’m looking for some information on my missing cousin. Do any of you nice folks have any leads on the following description?" But I’d think that going too heavy on the lingo would raise a flag with real truckers, too. And then his outfit when he showed up at the meet up. No, nothing was WRONG with it, but he would have been fine in his usual flannel and jeans, yet he still felt the need to add the vest. I shouldn’t be surprised. We’ve already seen how much Dean likes to play dress up and overdo the role playing (most recently, Tombstone). Still makes me giggle, though. Is it weird that we could see Sam and the Fed from the interrogation room? When they brought the preacher in, he basically ignored the three people behind the window waving the bloody t-shirt around, implying it was a 1 way mirror, and they usually are 1-way. Plus, when inside the interrogation room facing the window, Donna is on the left, preacher is on the right, and in the window Fed is on the left with Sam on the right. But right after she says "Your call" the shot jumps to inside the observation room and everything is reversed. Preacher and the door he came through are on the right (when he was first brought in, the door was on the left and he was seated on the left up to this point), and Sam and the Fed have swapped sides from where they were a second ago. Did someone flip the shot (can that even be done accidentally in the digital era?), or am I looking at this wrong? Loved Dean's 'good job' nod to Doug (after Doug smacked Marlon and Donna finished her disapproving look to Dean). Doug's "I don’t think I’m okay" was so perfect. When Marlon came back to gloat and let Dean know that the Fed got Sam, like some of you I thought it was supposed to be a classic villain game (like in Spider-Man, when the Green Goblin wanted Spider-Man to choose between saving MJ or a tram full of people). That’s the only reason it could make sense for Marlon to bother coming back where he’s needed as an ingredient and to give Dean a heads up. If he had just stayed away, Dean wouldn’t know to chase after Sam, and they'd have a harder time fixing Doug. I don’t like dumb villains. Makes our heroes' win just limp. Every time the bad guys talked about only taking "people other people won’t miss" I was mentally shouting "Other people are missing Wendy right now, dumbass! Luis had a family! Your argument is invalid!" But yes, I know: Psychopath. Also, right after Fed goes on about how most monsters blend in and how his service keeps them from going batshit on the general public for food, the show then cuts to 3 monsters and at least 2 of them definitely do not blend in. Good thing getting shot didn’t make the Fed squeeze the trigger ? I do get that Dean didn’t have much choice, but why is this never a concern? Man, that break up with Doug felt forced, which made it completely obvious why the show made them break up. I totally get him not being all gung ho "I’ll be a hunter, too!" But once you know, you can’t go back to not knowing. So he doesn't want to go out and hunt them, fine. But breaking up with Donna doesn’t put him in any less danger from monster attacks. And he probably doesn’t want to wait at home for her, worrying while she’s out on a hunt. But breaking up with someone you love doesn’t change how much you'd worry about them going out on hunts. All it changes is how often it’s in your face, so really all breaking up does is allow you to go "lalalala" with your fingers in your ears. Sorry show, but I’m not going to simultaneously believe that Doug loves Donna AND that it’s cool that Donna is 'out of sight, out of mind' for him. So, like many already said, I was way more creeped out by the episode when I thought it was people (even though it wouldn’t really tie into anything supernatural). Once I knew it was monsters, creep factor disappeared for me. However, what wasn’t clear to me was if the Fed and leatherface were monsters who blended in like he described, or just psychos and the only monsters were the ones ordering the food. The latter would put me at half creep factor.

I thought that in the past (the episode where Cas sprung Claire from juvie by pretending to be her dad?) they had bonded enough, establishing a relationship beyond the fact that he's wearing her father's body or body facsimile, that should Claire need help she’d reach out to him. And I’d think "Sam and Dean are trapped in an alternate universe, Patience is getting a vision that I’ll die if I get involved, but I still think it’s really important to save them" would be a time that’s she'd pull out all the stops and ask Cas for help. I’m not talking about calling Cas to catch up or ask for help on a werewolf milk run. I don’t like it when characters don’t do what I think would be natural to them just because it won’t fit in the episode.

THEN: This is the third THEN sequence where there’s been no mention of Cas being held captive. I don’t mind so much for this episode since no one references calling Cas. Except that shouldn’t Claire or Jody have called him? I know we never explicitly saw the boys tell either of them that Cas was back, but we also didn’t explicitly see the boys tell either of them that Cas died (though it seemed like Jody was up to speed based on her heartfelt hug in Patience). Again, it feels like the show is trying to have it both ways. If they didn’t tell Claire that Cas died, then she should think he’s alive and try to call him for help. If they did tell Claire that Cas died, then why wouldn’t they also update her when he came back? NOW: Mr. Werewolf: Knock knock. Amanda: Who’s there? Mr. W: Rarr! Claire: (knock knock) Mr. W: Who's there? Me: ? What can I say? Sometimes I’m easy ??‍♀️ Sometimes. Rest of the episode? Not so much. I disagree that Alex "suddenly" had a job at the hospital, making it forced set-up. There had already been little snippets about her going to nursing school in the past. Made sense to me. That didn’t occur to me, but it makes sense. On my own I would have just guessed that what Claire said (how part of her wanted to sit back and let Jody handle things, but another part felt she owed S&D for saving her in the past) made Kaia feel like she owed S&D too (even though originally she said they don’t really get credit for saving her from the angel kidnapping since she only got kidnapped because of them in the first place) and that was why she was more willing to go to the Bad Place despite her fears. When Claire said "Patience, give me your keys. Jody's not picking up the phone" I was certain she was lying. As far as Claire's scenes went, they went straight from Claire's heart to heart with Kaia where Kaia says "If you go, I’ll go with you. Maybe together we can save [Sam and Dean]" to Claire asking for the keys. Really seemed like she didn’t call at all and just wanted to make up a reason to get to carry out the plan she just made with Kaia. So I was pissed that she was bringing Patience and Alex closer to danger under false pretenses. But based on how Jody didn’t argue when Claire said she didn’t pick up, I’m guessing she actually did call? Patience&Alex: (Push cabinet down the stairs) Me: Gravity, thou art a heartless bitch. The stupidest part about the four of them stopping right before the rift was that NOTHING HAPPENED that would even remotely make them stop. Like if there had been a big roar and stomp and it was a reflexive "Oh shit, is the thing right behind me?" I could MAYbe handle it. But literally nothing happened. It was all so Kaia could see Darth Dickwad wind up with the lance so she could take a lance for Claire. Do you think the writers earn t-shirts that say "Plot gotta plot, yo" or "Danger: Plotonium hazard" when they do stuff like this? Also, that was some fantastic first aid Claire administered. Don’t move any closer to the victim and just hold hands. I know that was a really big blade and she likely wouldn’t be able to stop Kaia from dying, but it just doesn’t seem like Claire to give up before it’s over. I don’t know why, but Jody running up to the cabinet and shooting over it just looked really awkward to me. All her other action stuff was fine. Is Patience gonna have issues with doubting herself now since her vision did come true, but she misunderstood what it really meant? D: You tell her "thank you" from us. Me: "Oh, and that Cas died. And then he came back. We haven’t seen him for a while because he was out looking for Jack, who we found but we didn’t feel like telling Cas about it even though we still touch base by phone. One thing you WON'T need to tell her is that this all makes sense because anyone can see that it does." I’m surprised Claire's VO didn’t end with "Whatever it takes." Regarding the comments about John's journal vs. Claire's journal: I think the reason Claire's can come across as a teenager diary to some might be because the ONLY part we got to hear/see was the diary-like portion. She was also writing in it when she dropped off Amanda, but we don’t know if she was only writing the facts about the conclusion of her case, or only about how she felt rescuing a young girl, or a mix. So yeah, I didn’t enjoy the episode. But if Wayward Sisters gets picked up, I’ll still probably give it a chance.

I mistyped. It’s fanfiction.net. I corrected my original post. I’m only familiar with the Gilmore Girls corner of ff.net. Not sure what the Supernatural activity is over there so you could very well be right. AO3 is pretty active as far SPN goes. I really only read one pairing and there’s new stuff all the time for it.

You should try out Fanfiction.net There's also Archive Of Our Own, but there's a waitlist to get an invitation. May as well sign up for an invitation and then start posting there when you get it.

So in the recent episode 13.15: A Most Holy Man, Dean mentions that Cas is in Syria searching for one of the ingredients needed for opening a rift. Since our understanding of the current state of the Angels is that they can’t teleport, some of us commented on how he got there. Which lead me to some of the following musings. I assumed the boys just set him up with fake IDs and bought him a ticket with a stolen credit card. In which case we could get... Overly-blunt!Cas pointing out the silliness/futility of some of the TSA rules like taking your shoes off at security. In-awe!Cas during take off, marveling at mankind's ability to figure out flight, perhaps with some odd comments like "Imagine what you could do if you ever figured out how to access the ethereal plane." Haha, pun unintended! Overly-blunt!Cas pointing out the silliness/futility of some of the "in case of emergency" instructions. Grumpy!Cas grousing on the plane about any rule that seems silly from his perspective. Katy M wondered if angels could still make themselves invisible, in which case he could just walk on a plane undetected. Which lead me to thinking about... Would the scenes play out that it wasn’t obvious at first that Cas was invisible? Maybe someone bumps him and looks back, and we assume the person is annoyed at the bump but really they’re confused at what they could have bumped into. Or he walks right past the person checking IDs and boarding passes without making a big show of it. Maybe Cas would have trouble walking around security (too many people exiting the terminal, so he can’t go "upstream" without bumping into a lot of people, too much congestion on the TSA side of the security checkpoint) so he has to time his movements to pass through the metal detectors between people. Do angel blades set off metal detectors? Would security think the one machine was on the fritz and shut it down, making all the passengers in line groan at the slow down? Or would security think it was a delayed beep for the previous person and they’d have to get taken aside for a secondary search? What if he picked a flight that was fully booked such that he didn’t have a seat? Just the oddness of a man just standing around, perhaps even right by the cockpit door, while everyone else is seated and the flight attendants bustle around him. And then breezing through customs, perhaps with a drug enforcement dog barking at him, confusing the handlers. ETA: Oooh, and in either case, we could have Wistful!Cas since this is the first time he's "flown" in a while.

I’m confused by this description. They aren’t close to collecting everything they need. At the start of the episode they had 0 of the 4 items they needed. The blood of a most holy man wasn’t the ONE missing ingredient; it was the first one they got. To be clear, I’m not "blaming" Diane for this, but wherever it was copied from. I never got the impression that Dean didn't know the word chicanery. I think he just found it amusing that the guy used such a high-falutin word, when he's really just a criminal. That was my take anyway. Can angels still become invisible? I see no reason why not. In which case, Cas could board a plane without a passport or ticket. I agree with CompanionEnvy that the way it played, Dean didn’t know the word 'chicanery.' When Greenstreet asked them "Since you had the nerve to come in here under false pretences, I assume you won’t be above a little bit of chicanery. Hmm?" Dean's expression when he looked at Sam definitely said to me 'I don’t know what that means so I can’t answer. You gotta take this one.' And then later when Dean said "Now you’re above a little, uh, chicanery?" I absolutely read his expression during the delivery as a proud 'Check me out! I learned a new word and now I’m using it.' Now, should he have known it before? I don’t know. Should he have been able to figure out based on context that it basically meant tomfoolery? Probably. But I’m okay with Dean not wanting to assume the meaning and possibly giving the wrong answer. I'm okay with him deferring to his brother. Plus no one actually ended up defining it for him before he used it correctly with Sam. So he probably had an idea what it meant when Greenstreet said it, and then Sam’s answer confirmed he was correct, so then he knew what it meant and how to use it. All that said, I don’t think the way I saw it played meant that Dean was an idiot/buffoon/dummy. I had the same question about Cas getting to Syria. I assumed they just gave him fake IDs, used a stolen credit card and bought him a ticket, but I like Katy's idea too. I kinda wish we could have seen that either way - Cas in a new setting usually has good humor to go with it.

Found another one!

I only came across this one now, so it hasn't been posted here recently as far as I can tell...

Brought over from another thread since I wasn’t going to be on topic. Sorry to hear that, catrox ? I hope you know that the joke I meant to make was that we aren't "allowed" to post in an episode thread until you bless it with your gifs, not that you were remiss by not posting your gifs. Hope you feel better!

Waaaaaaaait a minute! We've had a SERious break in protocol! None of these posts should have been made. Catrox didn’t post her Thursday gifs! Can we get a mod to clean up this thread? ?

Yes, good points. To be clear, *I* don’t think Dean and Sam would actually be responsible for Jack going dark even in the scenarios I made up. It’s just that based on how they had Jack say "I asked myself, what would Sam and Dean do?" in this episode, I’m getting the sense that TPTB are having Jack put them on a pedestal such that he’ll be dissolutioned later. But even if this does happen, I have no worries that his pendulum will swing back to a more moderate position, seeing the boys as good even with their flaws and mistakes.