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fromcenotaphy · 3 years

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fic rec list - for hbo spn vibes

So with all the hbo spn content I’ve been writing/reblogging I’ve gotten a couple of questions about fic recs (or fics I’ve written) that are evocative of the *sighs dreamily* hbo spn vibe. While I haven’t encountered anything that 100% screams hbo spn (or I assure you, I would be rereading it and weeping right now instead of posting this) — I have trawled through my ao3 bookmarks for fics that I think have the hbo spn aura (your mileage may obviously vary as to whether you agree) which we are all so desperately craving right now. Incomplete starter pack below!

Short and sweet:

Negative Space by Las - It’s not hbo spn without some PURGATORY FIC. This one is Dean/Cas but with a Benny POV! *gestures wildly* It’s about the pining.

Fata morgana by orange_crushed ( @robotmango on tumblr) - Dean/Cas, post-season 9. This fic is a GIFT. Bela POV? MoC Dean as the King of Hell? Endless midwestern Americana wasteland landscapes? Check check CHECK.

domingo en fuego by sahwen (@sahwen on tumblr) - Season 11 one-shot, Sam POV, delicious h/c, Sam in full I’m unclean headspace, Dean/Cas and Sam/Cas undertones.

Double by crowroad - Short and eerie and gorgeous. Max and Alicia the witch twins. No plot just VIBES.

gentle flesh by Askance - Sam-centric, features soulless!Sam. Soft and brutal and the ending hits you like a punch in the gut (mind the tags).

Made Manifest by schmerzerling (@schmerzerling on tumblr) - Dean/Cas, pre-slash, lead-up to season 4. This fic features trans Dean and the concept is just...gorgeously done.

A lot of the works by foolscapper (@foolscapper on tumblr), here’s just one:

The Epilogue in a Very Long Biography by foolscapper - Endverse, Sam-centric, post-apocalyptic landscapes, Lucifer trauma. Utterly gut-wrenching. Gen, part of a series of shorts that are all incredible.

The wrong game with the wrong chips by A_Diamond (@adiamond on tumblr) - Endverse fic, pining Endverse!Cas in full bitter glory. Ohhh this fic is dark and angsty and dirty and breaks my gd heart. (There’s no happy resolution, so don’t read if you want something cozy.)

flare gun by foolondahill17 ( @foolondahill17 on tumblr) - Pre-series. Teenage Dean being sixteen and fierce and afraid and heartbreaking. John Winchester’s A+ parenting (*sarcasm*).

Longer:

That Black Dog Ache by SaltyWords (@winchester-reload on tumblr) - Dean/Cas, Season 11 casefic, minor TFW vibes, a gorgeously hot sex scene. Motel rooms, seedy bars, Cas in a leather jacket, Dean being self-hating and drunk and bi and head-over-heels in love.

It’s Not Easy Being Dean by strangeandcharm - Dean/Cas, explicit, has some very dark elements (mind the tags). Alternate season 5 featuring angelic brainwashing, Cas as a prostitute, Zachariah as a huge dick as usual. VINTAGE destiel fic.

Above & Below by murron - TFW with a side of Dean/Cas. Set in season 6, features TFW (with soulless!Sam) descending into Hell to retrieve Sam’s soul. The vibes are immaculate.

How the Wild Things Start by foolscapper - Another foolscapper rec! (@omnishamblegreg reminded me that it exists and I’m so pleased.) Sam-centric, canon-divergent post-season 9. Sam gets kidnapped and forced to cage-fight monsters. Goes deep into some dark Sam headspaces. Heartbreaking and bloody and beautiful.

So Goes the Song by aeli_kindara - Pre-series, Lee/Dean. Lee’s POV makes Dean all the more desolate and gorgeous. This fic is wide-open roads, dingy back-alley Americana, pre-series Dean at his most defiant and delicate.

Revivere by aeli_kindara - WITCH SAM WITCH SAM WITCH SAM. Season 15, Sam/Rowena, side of Dean/Cas, pagan vibes, Sam growing more powerful by the day and thriving.

carry on by foolondahill17 ( @foolondahill17 on tumblr) - Post-series curtainfic (canon-divergent from about halfway through s15). Dean/Cas and Sam/Eileen--dives deeply into Dean’s trauma and PTSD. Not really an hbo series vibe so much as an hbo post-series vibe. This author writes some of my favorite renderings of Dean’s trauma/PTSD/mental headspace.

A lot of the works by komodobits (@cuddlebabies on tumblr) and Askance:

So Says the Sword by komodobits - Dean/Cas, canon-divergent season 4/5. Cas is tasked with guarding the Michael Sword in a pocket Heaven dimension. Angsty and eerie and beautiful. TRUE FORM CASTIEL.

A Complete Kingdom by komodobits and Every Part of the Animal by komodobits and Askance - Dean/Cas, incredibly good, incredibly immersive, incredible ambience, and also incredibly dark. I don’t want to spoil them but please mind the tags and don’t read if you’re only looking for something happy.

Fics by me: (is it poor taste to rec my own work? blame it on sleep deprivation if so. Find me on ao3 as cenotaphy)

Wield the Knife - Dean/Cas, body horror. TFW casefic with Dean having to hurt Cas in order to save him.

Purify - Season 4, Sam detoxing in the panic room. The very first spn fic I wrote. *cue Paul Rudd look at us, who would’ve thought? not me meme*

Ite, Missa Est - Short Cas POV one-shot, post-season 11. Castiel standing alone in the Mojave Desert yelling at the sky—if that’s not hbo spn I don’t know what is.

exordium - Post season 12 finale. (I wrote this as a fix-it before season 13 started). Jack meets the Winchesters. Jack POV, utterly alien and saturated in synesthesia.

This is of course super subjective and is by no means a complete list—if anyone wants to rec additional works that fit with the hbo vibe, I would love to read more/see more added on!

I will also be continuing to post short imaginings under the hbo spn tag until my frail human fingers or frailer human soul simply give out under the strain of this incalculably chaotic month of november.

#spn #hbo spn #cenotaphy posts #fic recs #fanfiction #my writing #hbo spn fanfic #hbo sam #hbo dean #hbo castiel #fanfic #fanfiction rec list #hbo fanfic rec list #not all of these are necessarily GRITTY per se #but it's about the headspaces or the trauma or the desolation or the otherness too #the ambience #*gestures expansively* it's about the V I B E S #anyway i worked all afternoon on this you guys T_T #i live to serve the hbo spn tag now

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gastlyash · 4 years

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Impure-a Daniel “redemption” arc au

in which Daniel comes back from Antarctica needing to be re-purified, but he gets kicked out of his cult, and hilarity ensues

gonna work on a twins au next b/c my brain has been in Camp Camp mode

info on the au under the cut

(TW for some violence/gore under the cut)

this is about to be a big ol infodump

how the au starts/backstory:

Daniel, after being stranded in Antarctica for a while, finally realizes that it wasn’t really Xemüg that told him to go there (he still made a temple for him lmao). So, he manages to find a way back (probably a team of researchers that find him) and he focuses on getting re-purified first, deciding to exact revenge on Camp Campbell and the Wood Scouts afterwards.

Since purification bleaches clothes white, his clothes are back to their original colors when he returns.

Once he gets to the compound/purification chamber, he’s stopped by Jen. She informs him that it’s her cult now. After Daniel left, she told the cult that he betrayed them and was struck down by Xemüg himself. If he shows up now, they’ll kill him for being an imposter, a test of faith sent by Xemüg.

Due to his mind not being in a fully purified state, he basically blows up at her (he’s still brainwashed/VERY loyal to Xemüg, he’s just more prone to fits of rage now and he’s not as in control of his emotions as before). Jen decides to subdue him by attacking. She once again asserts that it’s her cult now before some members of the cult finally see what’s going on. Daniel escapes, heavily wounded.

He manages to make it to Camp Campbell, tries lunging at David with his knife, but collapses from blood loss and exhaustion. He’s taken away in an ambulance.

About a week goes by after the shock of a nearly dead Daniel showing up at the camp when the Millers drive into camp...with Daniel in the back seat. Turns out that the judge decided to give Daniel a chance at redemption (which he doesn’t deserve in the slightest), and if he can’t be redeemed he’ll just be put away.

David, Gwen, and the campers are super against this, and even Daniel would much prefer to never see the camp again. But, it’s being enforced. The judge knows about Cameron’s redemption/community service and how it was fairly successful, so they just want to see if someone like Daniel could be redeemed.

aaand now just some more things about the au:

after being brought back to camp by the Millers, Daniel’s hair floof just stays down, and the rest of his hair is slightly disheveled (he could fix it if he wanted to, but he doesn’t)

his knife is confiscated, but he still manages to find it a few times (also breaks into the kitchen to get knives)

stays loyal to Xemüg, but after some time in the camp/some time to actually think, he begins to question his religion

while he’s more pissed/unhappy than anything, he still has his Purified Moments™ (gives speeches about Xemüg/tries sacrificing the kids/tries killing David, ect)

anything that could be used to poison kool-aid is locked up, so he can’t try that shit again

Max, Neil, and Nikki antagonize him the most, realizing that he can’t really do anything to them no matter how much they annoy him, and if he does, he’ll be taken away

David is taking no bs this time, but still tries helping him with the redemption (they have a sibling/brother relationship after a while and are actually twins b/c that’s just my overall headcanon for them no matter what)

Gwen knows that the sooner he gets redeemed, the sooner he can be out of the camp,,,so she uses her psychology skills to try and get into his head to hopefully speed the redemption up (he refuses to answer any questions about his past/what he’s done all together at first, but eventually opens up to her)

Daniel is just a lil shit, trying to purposefully get kicked out so he can be out of the camp sooner, but David is determined to redeem him (hates Daniel, but still believes that anyone can change/be redeemed)

he tried escaping camp a few times within the first week of being in the camp, but gets caught every time

his violin is the only thing that makes him genuinely happy, so when he needs to calm down he just goes off into the woods to play it in peace (Gwen confiscated it at the start of his time in camp originally, but returned it when she realized it could act as a coping mechanism for him)

after a month or so, the camp starts growing on him, and he begrudgingly helps the kids more

since he’s already over-dramatic and a pretty good actor (was able to pose as David for a day), he helps Preston with plays and Nerris with LARPing

who he started off antagonizing and purposefully annoying Gwen, but slowly forms a bond with her after she helps with his wounds a few times (he probably got stabbed by Nurf at some point), and also would get into some tv shows that she watches (definitely watches some trash tv with her and accidentally gets hooked)

in fact, Gwen suggests some coping mechanisms that don’t involve sacrificing anyone (”seriously dude, just take a fucking nap or something, maybe watch some Bob Ross”)

the Wood Scouts come over to Camp Campbell at some point, and they’re horrified to see Daniel again

Jen re-purified the cult to be loyal to her, and instead of their clothes being bleached white, they all have a pastel pink shade

Jen knew that Daniel would mess up like this eventually, so she just waited until he did

Jen’s a huge Xemüg follower like Daniel, but most of her takeover was just to be in control/to have power

aaand since this ship has been on my mind, Daniel develops a slight crush on Gwen after bonding with her, but it’s probably unrequited on Gwen’s end

aaand here’s Jen informing Daniel that she’s in charge now

#ash's art #camp camp #camp camp au #this was so much fun to draw and come up with tbh #i still have more ideas for this au that'll i'll draw another time #b/c right now i'm shifting into twins au mode

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