Hi Lizzy, I'm new to the SPN fandom and saw a bunch of bibros making fun of meta writers. As a lowkey Destiel shipper it still pissed me off. I'm wondering- who are your fav meta writers to read?

Pfft, it’s practically a badge of honour that THEY are pissed off by the meta. Interpretation worries them because as soon as you get into the what they’d see as hippie dippy “all readings are valid uwu” part of literary theory, you’ve made an attempt to level the playing field with them and they don’t wanna be on it with us, they want to have the one sacred and true reading of the show to which all roads lead etc etc. Actually buying into the idea you can interpret the show and come up with multiple readings or that the text would DARE support another version (even the interpretation that Sam and Dean aren’t soulmates or something ship-free that gets in the way indirectly - or an argument they are soulmates but that’s basically just the show’s way of conveying Heaven is somehow worse than Hell for them :P) immediately is a threat to the idea of a cast iron version of the show that’s the one they latched onto. 

Strange world where “reading into things” is an insult instead of a sign of healthy curiosity and a desire to learn and understand. And I see people who literally mind their own corner or would agree in spirit with their interpretation as long as you CALL it that and leave others be to have a different one, get dogpiled by them for daring to treat the show as a flexible and multi-layered, analyse-able thing…

Ah well. 

Kinda missing out on the yearly punch up in the parking lot round the back of the fandom right now, tbh, since I’ve been AWOL with hanging around with family and friends stuff. Kinda not missing it. :P Welcome to the fandom, it can get pretty messy, and some of us here just wanna watch the show and ask silly questions to everyone about how many burgers Dean’s eaten on screen recently or whatever important character analysis nonsense is bothering us today.

To which end! :D 

No matter how long you have followed me, even if it’s like a day or 2, you must have noticed my queue endlessly spitting out @mittensmorgul‘s full-show rewatch along with the TNT loop, all out of order and a week late because that’s how I roll. Mittens is a great meta writer to read because everything she writes is fun and the kind of hectic idea hopping my brain glues with..

Everything @awed-frog writes is similarly enjoyable to read in that style but longer and more poetic and dark, and very insightful. (You might be able to tell I’m mentioning the meta writers I reblogged stuff from today while waiting for my long term memory to contribute anything)… Linking their ask tag for starters because idk how to find other long meta at short notice :P

Actually while I’m thinking about rewatches, I’ve always enjoyed @dustydreamsanddirtyscars‘s dramatic, purple prose essay approach to meta and flawless blog presentation… Sadly Jenny’s not enjoying season 12 very much with the change in style from the weird dark symbolism of Carver era, to the sort of fractals upon fractals of weird little emotional references and do-overs this year when Dabb gets to do his thing on a whole season, but if you want Carver era weird dark symbolism, I’ve been really enjoying where she has been lurking in Carver era, meta-ing her way through it. 

(I just generally dig reading re-watches, especially because all that hindsight is paying off so much now because for Dabb era if we’re going to meta it we NEED hindsight and reminders and the TNT loop playing in the background showing us just how layered and self-referential the show has become (and what it’s doing differently, and how much the characters have grown and changed, which, I think, is the point now) - anyway if you’re doing a rewatch, I LOVE to read posts about old episodes, especially the weird old MotW and really early seasons stuff no one seems to talk about much any more)

There’s a LOT of great meta writers out there and after every episode I try to find and reblog the long reaction notes, if they’re done it, from @dorkilysoulless @grey2510 @kayanem @bluestar86 (and awed frog again). @charlie-minion has been busy this season with other stuff as far as I know with a few more infrequent visits, but I know she has a page with every meta she wrote on it and generally wrote a great post per episode for a good chunk of the time I was in fandom, and still drops by fairly regularly despite a smaller presence. @thevioletcaptain also is great and has an episode reaction for most episodes (though again has been busy with IRL stuff for a few weeks/months/I have no concept of time but she hasn’t posted anything for the recent episodes as far as I’ve seen >.>) and also a page with her meta on it that when I was brand new to the fandom I had permanently open in another tab to cross-reference while I re-watched the show :P

(A lot of my favourite meta writers I imprinted on like a duckling when I was new and remember them really well but of course I love all the new people around here but my actual useful visual memories are all the fandom circa season 9 and not all around any more much, because my brain has been stewing in migraines and fatigue since, like, the middle of season 10, and my new approach is to wearily trudge through my dash barely checking who wrote what unless I have to deal with minuscule fonts on a read more, so I’m afraid my memory of active bloggers is totally rubbish and it’s best just to look at my awesome meta tag and see who I’ve been reblogging a lot lately and some really grevious oversights in people I will smack my head for not mentioning if you bring it up, but your question was phrased in such a way I went straight for who do I ENJOY reading not quick gimme a useful list with no explanation thing :P So uh, sorry if this is 100x longer than you expected :D)