brightly_lit | Entries tagged with angels

Title: Consequences
Author:

brightly_lit
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,200
Characters: Sam, Dean, Cas, OCs
Genre: gen, humor, kids, fluff, bunker
Summary: Soulless Sam got around quite a bit, and never faced a consequence ... until now.

I think we can all use something to make us smile this week ....

( Read more... )

Title: Junkdrive
Author:

brightly_lit
World:

tricycleman
Rating: PG
Characters: Dieter, Angel Man, Sarah
Genre and Warnings: gen, depression, self-destructive tendencies, self-modification (mental modification), horrific concepts
Word Count: ~1,400
Summary: Dieter has never considered himself fully functional, never not been depressed or anxious, never been happy. He's never been how he wants to be, felt how he wants to feel. Fortunately, in New Detroit, there just might be a way to fix that.

This story references events in this (quite short) story, even if it's not a direct sequel.

It probably comes as no surprise to anyone that I am INCREDIBLY FREAKIN' EXCITED ABOUT THIS CHALLENGE. It started yesterday and runs through next week--check out the awesome stories (and soon, art!, not to mention the glorious photos

blackrabbit42 took and posted to promote the challenge) over at

tricycleman!

Obviously the brain stem and the cerebrum were right out. So were the hippocampus and everything that had “thalamus” in it. It all came down to the amygdala. Of course.

The amygdala took up a shocking amount of the code of the human brain, for being such a small physical presence within it. Worse, much of it was either the beginning or end of some if/then statement, which originated or terminated in some other part of the brain.

On the plus side, from a programmer’s point of view, the vast majority of it was meaningless, lines of code floating there with no evident purpose, like descriptors or notes to oneself a programmer might leave so he didn’t lose his place or so he remembered what a particular bit of code was for, or the beginning of a process that went nowhere and wasn’t worth hunting down and deleting, because it didn’t adversely impact the way the program ran. In other words, useless.
( Read more... )

Title: Aimless and Feckless
Author:

brightly_lit
World:

tricycleman
Rating: PG
Characters: Antoine, Frank, Angel Man, minor characters
Genre and Warnings: gen, some angst, some humor, teens on their own, self-destructive tendencies, grief, light violence
Word Count: ~3,600
Summary: Antoine and Frank were just elementary schoolers when the Cataclysm hit. Now teenagers, they have free run of downtown Detroit, but losing everything they knew and everyone they loved has taken a toll. Frank blames Angel Man.

( Read more... )

Title: Demons
Author:

brightly_lit
Rating: PG
Genre: gen, angst, military, addiction, metafic
Characters: Sam, Dean
Word Count: ~1,400
Summary: Captain Sam Wesson and Sergeant Dean Smith have been fighting this war together for a decade ... but will their demons get them first?

Not a feel-good fic.

( Read more... )

So, I'm going to bring up a topic that may be fairly controversial, but that has niggled at me since it was introduced in episode 9.01. This may surprise those among you who know me as a Sam!girl (or who took my last meta to mean I'm always in Sam's camp), but I've always been bi-bro, and in this case, I feel compelled to defend Dean ... and judging from the comments I've seen around fandom, am I the only one on his side in this?

I see that many people are, perhaps rightly, declaring that the events of S9 are entirely Dean's fault. Given that the Brothers Winchester have always had the unique knack of finding ways to blame themselves for things they have only tangential connections to, this is pleasant in a way, so that at least this time we're dealing with direct consequences of direct actions rather than mere Winchester guilt and bad self-esteem.

However ... what else was Dean to do? Up against the wall in 9.01, with time running out, he made the one and only choice available to him to save Sam's life. He prayed first to Cas, then to all angels, with the at-the-time reasonable-seeming assumption that at least a FEW of them would have positive intentions toward him and his brother. When Ezekiel was the only responder who seemed even remotely friendly, Dean questioned him closely to try to divine his motives, vetted him through Cas, and still harbored reservations until there was literally no other way to save Sam's life. Thereafter, Zeke had the upper hand and pulled Dean's strings harder by the week, until the disaster we all (plus Dean) knew was surely coming for him arrived and left Dean on the bunker floor whispering Kevin's name.

If he had known what would happen in the end, would Dean even have made a different choice? He probably would have warned Kevin. He would have told Cas. He would surely have tried to find a way to tell Sam (if that would even have helped, since Zeke could apparently simply erase the memories). But would he still have let Zeke into Sam?

I think he would have, since it was his one and only option for saving Sam's life. I think he would have engaged in as much damage control as possible, even trapped Zeke in holy fire, but Dean fights and fights to go on living, doing whatever it takes, and for Dean, that means Sam has to be alive, too, because Dean would far rather die than see Sam die.
( Read more... )

Despite some very annoying technical difficulties watching it on the CW site (in which it suddenly stopped playing and started the previous week's episode--not once, not twice, but FOUR TIMES--note that you have to sit through every commercial break again if you try to fast forward ... CW!! *shakes fist*)(oh, and also including old-school webcam-quality video during the fight scene, so I'm still not 100% sure what happened--did Dean slide Cas the angel blade he used to kill Ephraim?), last night's episode sat very well ... better than any other episode this season and most of S8, which often seems to have a caustic quality. I could write an entire meta on the whys, but so often these days, it has a bit of a sweeps-week feel: color! action! violence! sex! blood! *You're not bored are you? YOU LIKE THIS DON'T YOU?? IT'S GOOD, RIGHT???* A far cry from the SPN of yore, where the most emotionally intense scenes happened during the quietest, most private conversations, in the car late at night in the rain, or in a remote hotel room.

This was kind of a quiet episode, mostly about Cas trying to build a new life, Dean's worry and guilt, and their relationship. (Plus, BWAHA, the best Destiel "Some time later ..." moment yet, as Dean takes Cas away in his car after Nora's aborted date, presumably no later than 10 p.m., returning him to work in broad daylight the next morning ... awww. Or should I say, boom chicka bow bow.) New writer (kudos to you, dude! good start!) who brought a different feel, and just seemed to enjoy delving into the characters and their relationships. It was sweet.
( delights and disappointments )

I DID get to see 9.02 on bigger-than-a-small-screen t.v.--and in HD, no less! Which actually kinda somehow made it less good, I felt ... like you could see every line in the stage makeup, every seam in the set construction. The one good thing about this was getting to see every little detail of Dean's suppressed emotion pass across his face. A character who can't express his true feelings must be one of the hardest to play, but it's ALL THERE. That was beautiful. And Sam/Zeke's freaky, effed-up wings, and the hilarious lines ("He's the junk in my trunk!"), and Dean and Abaddon's flirty-dangerous exchange (overpowered-by-a-woman!Dean, droool ...).

Manhandling_zpsacdb09db

But ... to be frank, I was kind of bored with most of the episode. I seem to be ~~in the minority~~ the only SPN fan in fandom who isn't apeshit about Abaddon. She pretty much seems like all the other demons to me, so her whole part was just more demony crap we've been over a million times. I felt like the episode really picked up near the end. Happy Sam! Happy! I was surprised to see all the different interpretations around here of that moment. To me it said simply: That Dean, and only Dean, knows that the only way Sam can be happy is if he isn't exactly Sam. :-( ARRRGHHH, THE FEELS!!

Okay, just one more:

Fight-or-make-out_zps497b7fe1

Title: Three Faces of Sam
Author:

brightly_lit
Fandoms: Supernatural, House
Rating: PG -- no language, but Sam's memories of hell, and House's interpretation of them, range into dark territory
Genre: gen, outsider POV (House's POV of the Winchesters), h/c, House casefic, meta
Characters: House, soulless!Sam, hallucinating!Sam, amnesia!Sam, Dean, Cameron, Foreman, Chase
Word Count: ~9,500
Spoilers: None for House, up through part of 7.01 for Supernatural
Warnings: No on-page violence or torture, but mentions of torture and any/all kinds of abuse
Summary: Sam wakes up with amnesia after Cas takes down his mental wall, so he goes to a local hospital clinic for help where he gets treated by Dr. Gregory House, who gives him a new diagnosis: multiple personality disorder.

"Damnit, if he’d killed another patient ... he always knew one day someone would drop dead just from what came out of his mouth."

( Read more... )

Title: A Real Angel
Author:

brightly_lit
Rating: PG
Genre: gen, outsider POV
Characters: Cas, OFC
Word Count: ~500
Summary: Written for this beautiful prompt by

just_ruth for the Outsider POV comment fic meme over at the

spn_bigpretzel:

Some people come to Niagra Falls to begin new lives - some come to end the one they have.

She had everything planned for her exit; after all, who would even notice she was gone?

Then she saw the man in the gray trench coat staring at her. . .

Now with gorgeous art from the awesome and talented

alexisjane!

realangelart

( Read more... )

Title: Shards
Author:

brightly_lit
Crossover: Supernatural/Princess Tutu
Rating: PG for a teeny bit of iffy language
Genre: um ... literary crack!fic? Your guess is as good as mine. Also, teen!chesters, evil!sam, soulless!sam, angst, light romance, high school/boarding school, mystery, hurt/comfort, fairy tale, gen
Characters: Castiel/Princess Tutu-Duck, Sam/Mytho, Dean/Fakir, Ruby/Rue, Bobby/Mr. Cat, Gabriel/Pikae, Balthazar/Liliae, God-Chuck/Drosselmeyer
Word Count: ~10,600
Summary: Sam has lost his soul, and it's up to the angel Castiel to collect the shards and return them to him without letting anyone know what Cas really is ... but Sam's girlfriend Rueby and his brother Dean stand in Cas's way ....

A fairy-tale-esque retelling of how Sam's shattered soul/mind got put back together, based on the plot of Princess Tutu.

Notes:
There is absolutely nothing normal about this fic (just like there's nothing normal about Princess Tutu), but hey, death to normalcy!

And if a show named Princess Tutu sounds lame to you, give it a chance! It is actually awesome. Needless to say, since I am probably just about the only fan of both shows on the planet, readers will be people who like one of these shows who will give this fic a chance.

Princess Tutu and Supernatural are two of my favorite shows ever in the history of the world. Once I started noticing the similarities between the two shows in terms of plot, theme, and character, I couldn't resist writing this rather psychedelic fic. (Many thanks to

septembers_coda for helping me flesh out which characters and plotlines corresponded on each show.) Nonetheless, the differences have prevented me from having to include many, if any, spoilers for either show. Because both shows are so wonderful and similar, I have to recommend each to fans of the other, if Supernatural fans can tolerate ballet and Tutu fans can tolerate horror, weaponry, and lots and lots of dick jokes.

There's no particularly deep reason why Cas is a girl here. Castiel in angel form is genderless, and Princess Tutu/Duck is a girl, so it just made sense. It ended up working well for the story; plus, it's hilarious casting Gabriel and Balthazar as petty teenage girls. ;-)

Wanna try Tutu? Here you go: http://www.hulu.com/princess-tutu
Wanna try Supernatural? It's not hard to find. Maybe someone will even be kind enough to leave a link in the comments ....

( Once upon a time ... )

After five LONG entries in my Destiel series, I've built up a lot of thoughts I have on it and things I want to say, so that's what this entry is:

I just posted part 5 (!) of my Destiel romance series, which has now burgeoned to the length of a short novel, and I'm not out of ideas yet! It's not a popular series by any means, alas, but I just love it. I love the love between the characters--not just Dean and Cas, but the friendly and familial love between every character. Sometimes in my other stories, I delve into the great darkness that lies at the heart of part of the canon, but this series lingers a lot in that lightest, happiest part, especially between Sam and Dean. I love the idea of Sam and Dean finally getting to retire from hunting and live a happy, normal life. I love exploring how much Dean especially sucks at being normal, and his uncertainty whether he really wants to be. Cas has always been one of my favorite characters. Oddly enough, in my other fics, he often never appears at all or is cast in a fairly negative role (such as shifty!Cas from season 6); thus, my Destiel series is where I get to really delve into all his most delightful, humorous qualities.

In this fic particularly, but in this whole series, I get to explore the angel mythology and add my own ideas to it. I was, briefly, a religious studies major. Studying mysticism and religion has been a life-long fascination for me, which gets an outlet in this series. Writing this fic was especially satisfying, getting to address issues I had with the direction the show took with the angels as discussed in this post and write angels closer to the way I'd have liked to see them written, in my Michael character. I feel like it was kind of a cop-out on the part of the show's writers to make the angels (especially the first ones: Uriel and Zachariah, sometimes Raphael) such dicks. I really wanted to make Michael as much of a problem as he is on the show, but also sympathetic in his own way, where you could see where he was coming from, so that stuff was fun and satisfying to write.

As I mentioned in the notes to the story, I stay as canon as I can, considering this is an alternate universe. I understand some people's aversion to AUs--I thought at first that I wouldn't like them, either, but once I read a few, I found I liked them--just as long as the characters remain the same; when they don't, I can't understand why they didn't just write something original, since they went ahead and made up a new character for their story. Castiel, for instance, as a human man, would make a fascinating character, but I've seen him so often portrayed in AUs as very human and nothing like his character on the show, usually just a little wiser than others.

( Here there be spoilers, so read the fic before you read the rest! )

Title: Wings
Author:

brightly_lit
Rating: R for language, violence and sex, more romantic than graphic
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Characters: Dean, Cas, Sam, Michael, Anna, Bobby, various hunters, one OC
Genre: Romance, angst, wing!kink, wing!fic, humor, action/adventure, h/c
Warnings: Death, violence, dom/sub
Word Count: 23,300

Summary: Dean and Sam closed the gates to heaven and hell to prevent the apocalypse, stranding Castiel in the world. The best thing to come out of that was the epic love that blossomed between Dean and Castiel. Now the gate to heaven is open again, the apocalypse is back on, and Dean is willing to do anything--anything--to save Cas from destruction at the hand of his brother Michael.

"He knew if he had it all to do over again, he’d just do the same thing, because he was Dean Winchester, and he couldn’t make another choice, for the same old reasons: love, and loyalty, and family."

Notes:

-I love all the hunters, so they're alive in this version.

-I'm a big fan of canon, so besides the hunters all being alive, I adhere to canon as much as I can in this series while still telling the tale. The characters are all their same old selves. Plus, even where I diverged from canon, I like to make it come back around as much as possible.

-This is part 5 in a series, quite possibly the final part, though I've said that before and I really love Dean and Cas's relationship in this series, so who knows. I've carefully written every story in the series so that it could stand on its own. With this story, I think I managed to include all the facts (which is getting harder after five stories' worth of growth and events), but the one thing I can't communicate by "throwing in an explainer" is why and how much they love each other. Thus, you might like to read at least one of the other installments in the series first:

Feathers
Human
Union
One

-Take deep breaths.

( Read more... )

I'm a writer, so I've always made up stories in my mind about every show I loved, came up with ideas for episodes I wished they would make but never did ... until Supernatural. I would imagine an episode, and then they would make it (which was, needless to say, fantastic). This went on until season 4, when the angels came in. Now, don't get me wrong, I thought the angels were a necessary element on the unrelentingly dark show where they encountered only evil. Goodness was a vital antidote. Too bad they made the angels evil, too!

I thought the creators of Supernatural really missed an opportunity there, to create a new kind of character. I'm not saying the angels shouldn't create tension and conflict for the sake of the story, but I think it's uncreative of them to assume the only way they could do that was to make the angels just like all the other bad guys on the show. I preferred (as most of us seem to have) Michael and Anna and Balthazar and Gabriel to Uriel and Zachariah, because they had their own reasons for doing things and they weren't just, as Dean would say, dicks. Still, though, to have even the better angels act exactly like (annoying, selfish) children was also rather a cop-out. Anna and Cas are the only angels who behave to some degree as we imagine angels would: compassionate, deep, wise. It's beautiful and entrancing. And yet, you can't say they don't contribute to the conflict and drama on the show.

In my own fiction, I avoid battles between good and evil for the most part. TV and movies have been hashing that over for long enough that I think we've seen pretty much everything there is to see there. Life creates enough conflict of its own without anyone having nefarious intent. Life is hard, people have conflicting goals and ideals and values. I would have loved to see them create a variety of unique, good (or, at least, truly believing they're good and righteous), compassionate, warm, lovable angel characters whose goals and beliefs created the conflict as they diverged from Sam and Dean's. (Maybe Sam and Dean are even wrong--that would be interesting, too.) Even the craziest hunters were better than the worst of the angels. Why bother to have angels on the show at all if they're just like demons?