The Exception

[noiproksa]

Title: The Exception (1/2)
Author: Noiproksa
Pairings: Dean&Cas (intended as gen, but can be read as preslash), Cas&Sam
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Dean says ‘yes’ to Cas.
No real spoilers for season 14, but inspired by 14x03 and my need for a Dean & Cas hug.
Word Count: 3200

I'm still relatively new to the fandom and trying to find out where all the cool kids are hanging out. Not livejournal, apparently, not AO3 (at least not in a feedback friendly way) and I'm not sure about tumblr. So I landed here, but not sure if anyone is still on here either. If you know where I could go, I'm open to suggestions. Is there even a fandom space where people are still talking to each other? Maybe it's just too hard for a newcomer to get a foot in the door in a fandom so huge?

Read it on AO3

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

I think that feedback issues have become a problem everywhere, regardless of location. For example, I have a Pillowfort account and people have been trying it out largely for the option of having more of a comment culture and actually being able to meet people.

However while there has indeed been more discussion and a fair amount of dialogue I've noticed that for the fic that has been posted there's been next to no comments. Fan art tends to get a lot of likes but also little talk.

One plus to AO3 is that you can tell whether or not people are even seeing your work -- for example my latest meta hasn't had a comment or kudos there yet but I've noticed that very few people have even seen the post so that makes a lot of sense.

The other plus there is that stuff never really gets "old" -- I have works there which continue to get interaction after years. Places like LJ and DW are very time oriented so that people literally can't scroll back in their feed past 500 entries. And on Tumblr if it doesn't take off within a day or two with people reblogging, a post often gets just as undiscovered.

If there is a place out there which is comment heaven I expect word will get around pretty quick because it's a constant topic of discussion!

[noiproksa]

I didn't really mean a "place which is comment heaven" - I agree with you there, lack of comments on fics is a problem today more so than ever, for most of us. I actually googled a bit about that and of course, I found a lot of posts by demotivated writers.

But I think Supernatural specifically is very difficult to get into. For example last year I was in a fandom that didn't even really exist it was so small. And I got the same reaction if not more than I do now in Supernatural fandom.

I just really feel like I haven't found the right place yet. A fandom that huge - there just *has* to be a place where a bit more goes on, right? Because looking around tumblr, all I see is lots and lots of notes for someone who is "popular" (and hardly any notes for someone who isn't) - but those notes are likes and maybe reblogs, but no discussion.

Also, I realize that I have the additional problem of writing gen and not smut, but still, I think it's only natural to compare yourself to others and there are quite a lot of people who do get feedback on AO3. And I refuse to believe that the only reason is that it's fics with an explicit rating. I mean, with AO3, your fic will already be on page 6 or something after 1 day, so who will find it there? I think you have to know from where to link to it.

I'm starting to think, maybe I'm just way too late to the party and there is no chance getting into such a big fandom anymore because I've been posting oneshots and such for 1 1/2 months now and no improvement (since the first time you post something in a new fandom, you won't get a lot of feedback anyway). I know that what matters aren't the comments per se but the comment-to-hit ratio, but even that leaves a lot to be desired.

I've never heard of Pillowfort before, but I might check it out. It's not just feedback on fics I miss, I also miss just talking to people about fandom. Is there a supernatural community on Pillowfort? Do they talk about episodes? What's the difference to tumblr?
Is Supernatural your main fandom? Are there any communities that you can recommend that aren't dead?

[fufaraw]

I think LJ is still a good place to start--and SPN is a difficult fandom to find community in *now*. Most communities are built around people who've known each other for a while. Factions make it more difficult--people tend to gravitate to fans who experience the fandom the way they do, and to avoid fandom experiences they don't share. Destiel fans are very much vs. Wincest fans, and I think gen fans who lean either of those two directions tend to hang out on the fringes of those two different fandom experiences.

I'd recommend the SPN newsletter--which posts both on LJ and on DW. Through that you can discover LJ comms which post only gen fics and meta, and possibly find community that way.

I discovered fandom on a Buffy thread on the old Salon Tabletalk forum, and then LJ. And while I do follow and participate in SPN fandom on Tumblr, I find it frustrating and fragmented and mostly unrewarding except for gifs, graphics, photos, and episode discussion--but it doesn't have the cohesiveness of communities and discussions formerly available--vestiges of which remain--on LJ. A lot of former LJ'ers use Twitter--I've never been able to understand *how*, however. Twitter is indecipherable to me, but you might find your fandom experience there. It's worth a shot, at least.

And I do know Pillowfort is attempting to foster community and discussion similar to the heyday of LJ, but I haven't actually experienced PF myself. I may, at some point.

My fandom right now is vestigal LJ, most of the writers, artists, and vidders on AO3 who I know from LJ, and also them and the folks and works they rec on Tumblr. I don't *have* a central fandom base, and I doubt I will, again. I gained fandom in long-form discussion, meta, and community. It's a tough act to follow. But it's fellow fans I made there that I still follow elsewhere, meeting new-to-me fans in new places.

I'm sorry I can't be of more specific help. Good luck!

[noiproksa]

Oh my, that sounds exhausting and as if it required a lot of time. Maybe I'll find a new fandom that hasn't been going on for 14 years before I finally join it. ;)
Anyway, thanks for the tipps. I'll see if I can muster up the energy to try and find my place within SPN fandom...

[yourlibrarian]

It's very likely true that it's harder to break into a long-running juggernaut fandom than a smaller or newer one. I was in SPN fandom early but dropped out after S7 and I'm afraid I have very little idea of what's going on in it now (although I returned to watching the show a few years ago.)

Being a gen fic writer actually used to be much easier in SPN than many other fandoms which have usually been ship fic focused. The early years had a lot of gen in it though this was mostly because it had such limited options for ships (it had an active RPS side for similar reasons).

One thing to do might be to find SPN fests that you can take part in. I know there used to be one called summergen for SPN but I don't know if it's still running. You can try browsing a few weeks of the SPN Newsletter to see what communities are still active. (Here on DW try fandom_calendar which is a good source for challenges and fests).

There are a number of SPN communities on Pillowfort (which is a fairly new site and still in beta) but only one has any real activity. (You can see it here.) I don't want to mislead you because while there's activity on the site it's still a limited number of people using it. The big difference there is that it blends the features of Tumblr and LJ making it easier to share visual content while also having comments and likes. There are reblogs but they work differently, making it easier for people to control their own content.

[noiproksa]

Thanks for the tips! I'm not sure if participating in fests is a good idea for me because I get stressed easily and that's why I don't usually participate in exchanges or Big Bangs or whatnot because I fear I wouldn't be able to finish something in time. But you are absolutely right about the fact that these fanworks usually get more attention, so maybe I should get over myself and try...

Summergen does sound amazing (and maybe even low-key enough for me not to stress), I just looked it up and it is still alive and kicking. Only just finished, though, so I'll have to wait quite a while. Not sure if I'll still be around in SPN fandom come May.

The fandom calendar was also very helpful advice. I thought things had migrated to tumblr and I thought it was very confusing finding out what was going on on there, but having everything in one place is very helpful.

Thank you for your help, much appreciated by an SPN fandom newbie! :)

[yourlibrarian]

Glad it was useful! Good luck, all fandoms need new blood :)

[butterflydreaming]

Chuck, you sound like me. Or I sound like you. I just dived right off a cliff into SPN -- thanks a lot Netflix -- and I find myself heavily invested and unsure where to go. I've been poking around Reddit, Tumblr, AO3, Discord, and here (of course).

[noiproksa]

:) Well, you can't help what you fall in love with (if I could, I'd go for a medium size fandom). Can't believe that it's been two months since I wrote that and nothing much has changed. I still *feel* new to SPN fandom, but strictly speaking I'm not a total newbie anymore. If you have any questions and my few months' experience can help, I'd be glad to give you some pointers, but as I said, I probably don't have many pointers to give. ;)

What I do nowadays is follow the Destiel and Castiel tag on tumblr, which means I know the relevant spoilers as to not be disappointed by episodes (for example if there is an episode ahead without Cas) and so that I know which episodes to look forward to (apparently, there'll be some sort of Destiel scene in 14x12).

Apart from that, I'm mostly on ao3. And I link to my fics from comms on livejournal and dreamwidth, although I suspect that that's in vain. Livejournal is dead anyway and whenever I link to fics from dreamwidth a day after posting, nothing new comes in, so... not sure why I'm still doing it.

In a fandom this huge, you just have to get good at scrolling by things that don't interest you. For every fic that's interesting to me, I have to scroll by 100 I'm not interested in. Oh, and on tumblr, I block a lot. Sometimes, anti-destiel people post under the destiel tag, so those get blocked right away, of course. And any tags I'm not interested in (for me, that would be for example wincest) get blocked, too.

Are you up to date or do you still have episodes left to watch? I'm always up for talking about Dean & Cas or Team Free Will (the original version).

[butterflydreaming]

I'm caught up! It's wild, I started S2 &everything after just this November. I think I've also seen every con panel video on YouTube. There's a certain degree of internal screaming but I think I'm still processing this new thing.

At least I'm not new to fandom in general, and some of my other loves were the kind fraught with fic in quantity over quality. I'm taking a break from Tumblr for a bit. I was lucky to be active with a community on LJ when that was a thing; it would be a marvel to have that kind of thing again, but the world has changed in 15 years.

Hey, just this interaction has been awesome, thanks for replying. I need to go read your fic! :)

[noiproksa]

I only joined the tumblr side of fandom recently for the spn fandom when I noticed that there's not much going on on lj and dreamwidth, and I have to admit that I feel very old because I think livejournal days were so much better. My last fandom was largely on livejournal and there was just such a nice sense of community. (But "Everything was better in the good old days" is a thing old people say, so I'm trying to adapt.)

What do you think of season 14 so far? I dig the Cas storyline and am looking forward to when Dean finds out about the deal, but I'm a bit worried about how that will play out. They're not gonna kill Cas off for good, right?
Were you disappointed that "our" Dean was back so quickly at the beginning of the season? I know lots of fans were, complaining that TPTB resolve possessed storylines too quickly, but I was actually happy about that because I was worried that it would take too long to get Dean scenes, so it was a nice surprise for me. I hope it will be the same after the winter hiatus.

Oh, and thanks again for your lovely comment on my fic. <3

[butterflydreaming]

I feel guilty about how when Michael has him, because I so love Jensen in dress up clothes and seeing him play a character that has none of Dean's baggage. But I think about how the character is being raked over the coals again and I just... suffer with him. Like, I was so happy at the thought of the boys retiring, of Dean actually thinking about that. It's not good for ratings or the show but it's good for my heart.

Narrative pacing-wise, I suspected something like the way it played out, with Michael taking him back, because the Michael possession was so short and abruptly ended. I'm not feeling Michael's Monsters, though, so I hope that's also a narrative distraction. I prefer the Empty as a higher level threat; being able to look like anybody has some of the feel of demon possession from early seasons. That leaves a lot of opportunity for various actors, too.

With J2 both wanting fewer work days so they can have more time with their kids, I can see the compromise of not just shorter seasons, but also less screen time. It would make sense to shift focus to Cas (Misha lives just over the border) and Jack. They have awesome chemistry. I'm thinking about how TPTB would steer series for longevity, and continuing the family theme but giving new viewers a young beauty with mountains of charisma refreshes the show, while giving us more of Cas would make up for all these years where he's hardly around.

So, in world at this point, all members of TFW 2.0 are heading to the Empty when they die, right? I mean, Billie being Death hasn't changed how she feels about that. Or has it? She has higher clearance now and knows more about the Winchesters importance in the cosmic balance.

[noiproksa]

I was waiting for Michael to take him back, too, but I suspected that he was still hiding inside of Dean, so I like the "real" solution better. And yeah, I agree that the Empty is a better antagonist. I'm really looking forward to that storyline. I'm also still waiting for the whole "almost no angels left/ Heaven needs angels" storyline they hinted at at the end of last season. But I'm not sure if that was just one possible avenue they decided against in the end.