midnight television

i. COMMUNITY! Tonight's was so delightful! It took me a little while to ease into it and start laughing, because I sandwiched it in between two Supernatural episodes and there was some cognitive dissonance, but by halfway through I was laughing uncontrollably. (I also spent a good deal of episode going "ABED YOU HAVE TO SAVE THE TIMELINE," because I was understandably in all-or-nothing save-the-universe mindset, but that just added to the funny.) That was definitely the best of this new season, and probably in my top ten Community episodes period.

ii. Supernatural! I AM FUCKING CAUGHT UP. When I am awake and coherent I will probably make a request-for-fic-recs post; I suspect I will want some meta too, in that I want both clever arguments about ways the show is smart and frothing rage about the billion things the show does facepalmingly wrong. In the meantime, um, I -- am really surprised that I got through it! I genuinely wasn't expecting the things I liked to outweigh the things that made me angry, but the magic about doing it all in a go, and the magic of having had plenty of warning, meant that I really enjoyed it.

Actually, I think my dual reaction to the show can be encapsulated in the two times it made me tear up: once in Abandon All Hope, over Jo and Ellen, from SHEER RAGE; once in Swan Song, over Sam's flashbacks and his taking control back from Lucifer, from YAY ~FEELINGS~. I know the story of two white dudes saving the world and being sad about dead women is stupid and overdone and fuck off, where is my Jo and Ellen show already, but that didn't keep me from having faceclutchy feelings about Sam and Dean. (And about Castiel and Bobby and Ruby and Gabriel and Anna and Crowley and and and.) I guess the take-home message here is that, much like many of the other things I love, I will just be like "WOW you are intensely problematic! Now LET ME LOVE YOU."

Also, because this dam of feelings is screaming for fic, I -- well, first of all I will have to figure out if writing Dean Winchester from the inside is an exercise in futility and fuck words like 'futility' anyway. But once I have done that, the point is that I am hilariously bad at giving canon the finger, so I think I might compromise and fork an AU off the beginning of season seven, so I can, y'know, still have Cas around and not worry about this Leviathan nonsense.

...I realize the next episode airs tomorrow. I am staying the hell away from the bulk of fandom, because I have sat on the sidelines with popcorn for years and I'm not about to stop that now.

team free will, and hopefully other stories

Now that I am caught up the show, it is time to bask in the fic! But the thing about Supernatural fandom is that it is prolific; I'm having to really fine-tune tag queries on the AO3, I have no idea where to even start on LJ, and, well, delicious isn't really a font of helpfulness these days. Therefore, this is officially a shameless plea for Supernatural fic recs post!

Obviously if you know anything off the top of your head that must be read, by all means rec it! But I figure talking about the sort of things I'm looking for might be helpful. So:

+ Sam/Dean. Hit me with all the fic about them being psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent on each other. I honestly don't care when it takes place, how compliant with all of canon it is (although I don't think I want anything from before the end of second season, unless it's a specific episode tag and un-Jossed), whether or not they're allowed to have nice things, any of it. All I really need here is well-written epic codependency.

+ Dean/Cas! I ... am honestly not sure what I want from my Dean/Cas, so hit me with your favorites. My only hard rule is that the narrative also likes Sam. (Not, necessarily, is nice to him, because when is any narrative nice to Sam; I just don't want to read anything that hates him.) I suspect I would also be especially easy for anything that explores Dean and Castiel's weird twisty power dynamics, but really I'm up for anything.

+ FIC ABOUT LADIES. Give me all your fixes and reclamations of Jo and Ellen! All the subversive things you can think of about Mary or Ruby or Bela or Anna or, hell, Lisa or Cassie or Madison or I don't even care, LADIES. Ladies saving the world and giving the refrigerator the finger and not having their narratives end with those boys.

+ Angels! I would love anything that messes about with the mythology; I would happily take Good Omens or American Gods or Murder Mysteries crossovers. (Or even crossovers with things Neil Gaiman hasn't touched, as presumably those must exist too.) I would love more with Anna; I am fairly sure I need fic about Gabriel like air, oh my god Gabriel. I don't care about demons quite as much, but give me good Crowley and I am so there. None of this has to be gen, either; even though I do have specific Sam/Dean and Dean/Cas wishes, I'm basically there for any ship done well.

+ TEAM FREE WILL. Membership not limited to Sam, Dean, Cas, and I guess Bobby, either; I would love fic written mid-season that wildly theorizes, or AUs about what could have happened, all that good stuff. Other favorites for Team Free Will are Jo, Ellen, Gabriel, Anna, and Crowley. God, wouldn't have a season about all of their world-saving adventures have been great? Anyway! Maybe there will be fic that provides at least some elements of that.

+ And this is not fic, but if you know of any particularly tasty meta on any aspect of the show, I am so there.

Hopefully the above narrows it down some, and I didn't actually just say "Give me every well-written fic this fandom has ever written," buuut it is entirely possible that I did. In any case, all recs greatly appreciated, and I might even come back and leave you excited flaily comments about the fics in question. Have at it!