newsletter # 24 (Jan 2013)

[harrigan.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the spn_littlebro newsletter #24 for January 2013!





It's 2013! The Mayans thought this day would never come, but maybe those Winchester brothers had a hand in averting another apocalypse while we weren't looking. So - that means more time to wallow in hurt!Sam and hurt!Jared, right?

It's also a good time to resolve to make more recs! We are very thankful for the fic (and other media) recs everyone has been making to the theme posts... and would love to have some fresh voices here on the spn_littlebro newsletter too. So...

☆ If you'd consider being a guest reccer for any upcoming issue of our monthly newsletter, please PM ash48 (or comment here)! ☆

Fevered Ramblings:

Here's a handful of things your spn_littlebro team is raving about right now. (And if you like these as much as we do, be sure to comment to the person who created it!)

Who's Hurting Sam or Jared Lately?

• cherry916 is happy to point out a new work by an SPN gen writer that h/c fans many consider the queen of episode tags: K-Hanna-Korossy. This 5K story is called Will You Still Need Me When I'm Six-Feet-Four (snerk!) and is summarized thus: Sam's disappeared again, but this time it's not by choice. cherry916 says, "This is another fabulous tag by her for My Bloody Valentine. She has such a great way of getting to the characters and the roots of their problems all the while still keeping the H/C we love."


• ash48 has a couple J2AU recs to start off the new year. First up, the 14K Beautiful Things Can Come From the Dark by alienat. Summary: After Jensen kills the Alpha of another pack, he makes a discovery that will change his life and the lives of people very dear to him forever. It mentions past abuse; check the warnings. ash48 says, "I thoroughly enjoyed this love story. It features some lovely hurt!Jared with some careful and caring Jensen. Their relationship has a slow progression which creates great tension."


• In December, we rec'd the Christmas Tree 'Verse by anniespinkhouse but it might have gotten lost in all the seasonal goodies available, so ash48 would like to single it out again, with all its timestamps. Summary: A strange lone werewolf finds its way to the home of the Wolf-Pass Pack but how can Alpha!Jensen save a starving and dangerous Were who wants nothing to do with his own kind? Jared finds salvation by the light of a Christmas Tree. She says, "I spent a couple of hours getting completely lost in this tale. It tells the story of Jared escaping an abusive pack and finding a new life and love with his new found Alpha, Jensen. I never thought I'd get caught up in a mpreg story but I got sucked right in!"


• harrigan usually tries not to repeat a rec that other communities have been featuring, but this one is so unique it deserves all the attention it can get. Riot Gear by Elaine Penny was first posted on spnkink_meme (where it is complete here, but is now being uploaded comment-fic-sized-chapter by chapter at AO3.) Summary: Sam's first thought after Dean and Cas, after Kevin and Crowley and a room full of slime had become a memory embedded in his mind like shrapnel, didn't come until he was three states away staring out of the Impala's cracked windshield. 'This is all I have left then.' It's Sam/Dean season 8 AU, that offers a brilliant, gut-wrenching reason why Sam didn't look for Dean, why he was almost shattered by grief. Note the tags on the story.


• Another fic exploring season 8 dynamics gets a rec this month too: Settle Out and Fade Away by geckoholic: 10K of SPN gen written for the 2012 spn_reversebang for the haunting art by gnatkip. Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same and Sam isn't entirely sure which he prefers when a case pulls him and Dean to Providence, Rhode Island, where something kills bereaved family members and he finds that certain things aren't buried as deep as he thought. harrigan says "I didn't know how much I needed something like this until she delivered it! Beautifully! I don't really want fix-it fics, or fics that unravel the mystery for now and might end up AU later. What I loved about this was just the painfully real insight into characters I care so much about. Completely canon-compliant and with a fascinating and creepy MOTW, it felt very much like an episode! (Only with more of the grief and nightmares we've been longing for.")


• Hopefully, writers interested in hurt!Sam or hurt!Jared are signing up for the 2103 spn_j2_bigbang here (by Feb 1st) and like-minded artists here (by May)!

Featured Fic Recs:

• harrigan was hooked by the art in her featured choice this month, and then found the J2AU story was a perfect match. As I Lay Dying by namichan89 (aka n_nami on AO3) is just under 35K words, written for the 2012 spn_reversebang for the comic illustrations to die for by the always amazing smallworld_inc! Summary: Blessed and cursed with a gift that makes him see past events tied to the objects he touches, Jensen is a single man in his mid-thirties who is exposed to the worst side of humanity every day. He only sees murders, rapes and suicides everywhere he goes, every day, without being able to do anything about it. His coping mechanism is taking too many pills and drinking a lot of alcohol. Over the course of decades, it has torn him apart to the point of considering suicide on a daily basis. That is, until he has a very special vision of a young man being stabbed in the subway and said man turning towards him, begging Jensen to help him even though Jensen isn't even supposed to be there. Jensen knows he has to find him – with a little help from his friend Misha, an NYPD officer. Downloadable format is also available on AO3 here.


• cherry916 has picked out something lighthearted for your reading pleasure this month: Turn My Blue Heart to Red by bertee. Summary: Doctor!Jensen tries not to fall madly in love with accident-prone stripper!Jared. He is not particularly successful. Cherry says this 13K NC17 fic is "a rather humorous little story about how accident-prone Jared keeps winding up in the hospital under Doctor Jensen's care, leading him to suspect the worst."


• cherry916 has an SPN gen fic rec, too: Soulless Justice by moviegeek03. Summary: When Castiel calls, Dean leaves a very tense Bobby with Sam in hopes the two will talk things out. A hunter seeking revenge just might make Bobby put his anger aside… Set after 6x11. Hurt!Sam (gunshot, stabbing), Protective!Bobby, Dean, and Cas. cherry916 says "This is a great 13K story featuring some Sam and Bobby bonding moments as Bobby attempts to get over the soulless Sam issue, while it seems like the past is threatening to overwhelm Sam.

Other Media:

• art: All of us here are smitten by His Brother Was So Cold by Eiande. cherry916 says: "This is a really great drawing that could totally be used with any fanfiction about Sam being sick and Dean covering him up with a blanket."


• music videos: Holy crap! Broken Inside is getting raves from more than one mod here! This Sam character study is by DemonicLullabyMV2. ash48 says "This is a stunning, must watch video for all those who love Sam or for those who struggle to understand Sam. The vidder captures Sam's plight so perfectly. It helps us to understand exactly what Sam has been through. It does, to some extent, provide an insight into why Sam may not have looked for Dean after he went missing."


• music videos: TWO recs this month! The Noose by secretlytodream offers us a Sam Winchester as the Boy King character study. ash48 says it's "a beautifully structured and edited video showing Sam's journey to Boy King. His is such a sad story, but I'm always left marveling how much he has overcome."


• podfics: I think this is the first issue we don't have a podfic rec. So if you know anyone who likes to record fic, point them toward a worthy hurt!Sam or hurt!Jared fic whose author is willing!


• eBooks, etc.: harrigan has found a J2AU fic with hurt!Jared available in PDF format from the 2012 spn_j2_bigbang: To Feel You Underneath My Skin by fairygrrl45 and illos by ewlyn. Summary: The Marines have called one Jared Padalecki to Taipei Taiwan to be part of an infantry branch that fights the rebel factions and renegade militia of the People's Republic of China. His XTRA gene just means he's got one more reason to sign up, and he's prepared for anything. That is, until he meets Sergeant Jensen Ackles and everything goes to shit. They both have a lot to learn about what it means to be a part of The Few, The Proud, and The Brave, and what it means to be a bonded pair, fighting not just for their own lives, but each other's as well. Bonded, in this fic, means Jared's job is to protect Jensen at all costs, including undergoing a medical procedure that means "everything painful or uncomfortable gets transferred to him."


• eBooks, etc.: Note, too, As I Lay Dying, rec'd above.

What else?
cherry916 reports that "It seems delicious has broken itself again with a new redesign, which is a nightmare for those who simply save links for fanfiction! Meaning us! Thankfully they are considering feedback and have a feedback page with other very vocal users. The new design, while hideous, is also mixed with a lot of bugs and problems until they can sort things out. I would suggest using this link: http://previous.delicious.com/spn_littlebro for searching our delicious page until I can either figure out easier ways to use the new design or the delicious team changes things when it comes out of beta testing."

Comments

[geckoholic]

Ohh, thank you for the rec! \o/

[ash48.livejournal.com]

<3333

[slashgoddess.livejournal.com]

going through them right now~ thanks for the rec~ ;D