Roundtable #2: Monsters and Mapwork

[hoodietime.livejournal.com]

Our second themed roundtable discussion! :) As part of our on-going themed challenge this month, which highlights case!works, let's talk shop. Whether you're an artist, or a reader, a vidder, or a writer, or any and all of the above, to have a case!work, you need a case. So let's talk monsters. :D

WITH RESPECT TO THEIR H/C POTENTIAL…

• Favorite monsters we've seen in canon so far?
  
• Monsters you think would make a
  
• Is there anything we've seen in canon that didn't end up fully capitalizing on its potential for an H/C scenario? (The answer is yes. WE KNOW NO BOUNDS and, well, TV does. :P)

Another that came up during last week's discussion about what makes/breaks an H/C case!work was setting. Setting is essential!

• What are some places--specific or general--you think would make for a great case?
  
• And especially, a great H/C case?
  
• Do you live somewhere/have you been somewhere you think would make for a great case? Tell us about it! (And no!! It definitely doesn't have to be in the US!)

From the open ocean to a dangerous stretch of open road to OUTER SPACE, where do you want to set your piece? Or where would you love to see a piece set? Zany options plus the things you think are tried-and-true--let us hear 'em! Maybe you'll get inspired. :)

Recs and self-recs welcome, too, if you've got a monster/setting that you want to showcase! Or Polls for science? Inspirational gifs? Need help developing an idea you have, or remembering a minute monster/setting detail from canon? All is welcome here~

The comments and conversations that make up this roundtable aren't meant to be prescriptive guidelines, but an open invitation to talk about what really tickles YOU. And who knows? Maybe you'll find your H/C case!work soulmate in the comments!

Happy threading. ;D


Dean H/C Case!Works Month!
(12 January - 28 February)

[play] [prompt]

➽ This post was compiled by kalliel and is posted under this account for organizational purposes.

Comments

[kalliel]

ANY MONSTER THAT INVOLVES POISON.

ANY SETTING THAT INVOLVES THE OCEAN AND/OR ANY BODY OF WATER OF SOME DEPTH.

ANYTHING THAT INVOLVES BOTH A POISON MONSTER AND THE OCEAN.

[kalliel]

And, to add something more constructive, here's that poisoning porcupine fic I was talking about last week:

Weryl by mad_server

Tags: S2ish, poisoning, fever, delirium, pain, worried!Sam

And as an added bonus, here's a really awesome "body of water of some depth" case!fic I love, too!

In the Wells of Silence by glorious_spoon

Tags: S8ish, drowning/near-drowning, mutism, curse/spell

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

I adore ocean/body of water settings! There aren't enough of them out there. (The first one that springs to mind is They Then Ate the Sailors (http://archiveofourown.org/works/918074). Pre-series Wincest, with drownings! Though contains some mistreatment of a female character.)

There is no escape from the water, nowhere you can swim to in order to avoid whatever's lurking in the blackness. You're not sure if it's just your imagination running into overddrive or if there is something wrapping itself around your ankle.

Getting pulled under and completely disappearing? Woooh, those are the best.

(I also generally like near-drowning hurt/comfort. Or being taken by something but that not being the end. Like, reminiscent of the Dead in the Water ep, except Dean never resurfaces. But he's not dead either.)

[kalliel]

If SPN ever does anything water-based (ghost ships in the distance, vampirate ships still moored at the docks, and a lake you only jump in once do not count! <--though I did enjoy that lake a lot) I can die happy, I'm pretty sure. But if fandom does it, I can die happy many times over. XD

I JUST.

I love that feeling when you're caught in a swell, and you can hardly tell which way is up, and it's cold as hell, and you realize, with the water giving you a very sound thrashing, that you're not sure if you're going to be able to come up before you need to breathe or not.

Er, well. I don't love that feeling at all. XD But I love things that recreate that moment, and am very intrigued by it.

Or like, when you can feel a tide pulling at you, and you know exactly how tired you are, and you're just like, well, this isn't good. I need alllll the fics like this!

Guh, yes. drowning/near-drowning. <3333 ALL THE WATER. If the Winchesters spent less time in landlocked states, I'd be utterly thrilled. Or again, if fandom went there with them more often, SUPER THRILLED.

I shall have to think of like, an entire series of different reasons the Winchesters should coast up the coast.

I WISH THAT DEAN COULD GO WITH CROWLEY AND LOOK FOR THE FIRST BLADE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN. :((( OR SAM AND DEAN GO FIND SOMETHING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN. I DON'T CARE WHAT IT IS.

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

If they could have done a case on a ghost ship, that would've been swell. Dean holding on to dear life to the mast, but it's not only the storm that makes that a difficult task. There's a headless Captain that is hell-bent on taking Dean down by the same fate. (Or, alternatively, Dean falls over and is taken by sirens.)

Oh gosh, that just made me want to have Dean caught in a well. There's no help coming, and his fingers are raw and bloody from trying to climb up the slippery walls. Then it starts raining.

There is definitely something very appealing about that sensation! Er, in fic. I wish more fics would explore the concept.

Bone-weary and on the brink of giving up, yes please! The waves washing over you, trying to draw you in, draw you under. Ugh.

There needs to be a re-telling of the canon where they travel the country via boat. (Though now I kinda want seasick!Dean, with Sam or Cas caring for him. Or your ship of choice.)

I haven't watched 9.11 yet. But the visual made me think of Merlin's Lady of the Lake. ....And now I'm kinda itching for that.

[kalliel]

Mmmmmm, now I want well!fic! *_____*



I'll go ahead and take myself up on the self-rec thing and say that I wrote a fic that takes place both on the coast and underwater and involves quite a bit of drowning. And rain! XD And all of my favorite things. So if any of y'all have similar tastes, you might be interested in it, too.

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

Adding this to my reading list! And it's pre-series fic too! It just has all the things I like in it. :D

[kalliel]

ANYTHING INVOLVING POISONING OR THE OCEAN IS ALWAYS A PROMPT. :DDD

[kalliel]

ALWAYS, SQUARED!

[kalliel]

And having visited one this past summer, I think lava tubes would also be a really cool setting for something. Total darkness, close quarters, god knows what lurking deep inside...

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that looks kind of awesome. Where did you visit them, if you don't mind me asking?

[kalliel]

IT WAS SUPER AWESOME. One of the highlights of my summer. XD Oregon is a great state for driving in the middle of nowhere and then randomly ending up places like this: Newberry National Monument

Who knew???

[boysinperil.livejournal.com]

I love my state.

[kalliel]

I LOVE YOUR STATE, TOO.

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

Oh, that looks great. Those kind of weird-awe-inspiring landscape features where you feel like you could be on another planet always give me the shivers.

[geckoholic]

I'm a killer for urban settings. There's something to be said about suburban and rural settings too, of course, but I think we get a lot more of that on the show than big city vibes, and I kinda love the idea of idea of the guys hunting under the shroud of don't-know-don't-care and anonymity in a urban environment. IDK. I just really like it. XD

[kalliel]

Yesssss. I'm totally a rural kind of person, but there is just something really gorgeous about cityscape and the urban grunge fantasy thing--plus, building/architecture kink. Guuuughagh <333 And I love the idea of exactly what you said, the cloak of urban anonymity, but also perhaps the added issues of having to conceal weird shit going down when you're in a densely populate area and not the middle of some dense forest.

Like, how do you carry all your hunting gear around, what with the shovels and huge amounts of gasoline and salt and stuff? Where do you dumb the bodies? Avoid police action? Avoid running into all the other skeevy shit that is probably happening in the same dank areas as your hunt is? WHAT IF YOU'RE INJURED...

The list goes on! So yes yes, A+ urban settings.

[geckoholic]

As for monsters, I have a soft spot for anything that involves altering minds and evoking visions. Not being able to trust what your own head shows you, yes good, MORE OF THAT.

[kalliel]

Mmmmmm you know I'm in for altered states of any kind. And especially mistrust of your own perceptions, given how crucial they generally are to any sort of hunting. (And you know, just being. But especially hunting, when that's really all you've got in your bag of tricks as it is.)

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

I liked the changelings episode, but I also felt like... well, if you've got protagonists who are all about family, it's a shame not to take the opportunity fairylore gives for some am-I-really-who-I-think-I-am headfuckery. ;)

Also, a bit of Lovecraft never goes amiss. That's one thing I'd love the show to do more with, but it's pretty incompatible with angels-and-demons mythology, so I guess it's unlikely.

[kalliel]

I did love the changelings episode very much! Though less for how the changelings were handled than for Lisa, I suppose. I totally agree with you--there's so much more to be fruitfully considered with them. mmmm wondrous prospect!

I'm not super familiar with Lovecraft, though I like the idea of all these tentacles. I can't even remember the import of the Lovecraft cameo in that one episode in that one season (lol, I REALLY can't remember, apparently!)--end of S6? But I feel like that would be a wonderful way to kind of get more into that, were anyone so inclined.

And I hope everyone is so inclined. :D

[anactoria.livejournal.com]

I think it was that he'd managed to open a door into Purgatory or something? Which kind of fits the other-dimensions aspect of his work, but more generally it's all about the cold indifference of the cosmos and humanity's existence being a "jest or mistake," which is pretty difficult to fit into a framework of broadly Christian mythology.

That said, I'm definitely writing a 'Winchesters go to Innsmouth' fic sometime. That'd be one of the easier stories to work in, I think.

[kalliel]

Ohhhh right, that makes sense. But yeah, I can see how that would be really difficult to fit into a Judeo-Christian mythos. Unless, of course, it was in an alternate reality, and grappling with a world order that actually had nothing at all to do with Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, anything else they've been fending off for years was part of what they had to deal with...

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

I felt like the Djinns and Shapeshifters could've been utilised more? Imagine living and working alongside someone for years and not knowing that they're not the actual person.

On one hand, it could raise the issue of a Shapeshifter taking over someone's life, and that their intentions change until eventually the life they've taken over no longer feels like someone else's.

For example, Dean going back to Stanford to get Sam back. Where Dean blames the distance and awkwardness -- over hunts, between each other -- on the time they've spent apart and Sam being out of the game for so long. Eventually that passes soon enough and they grow close again. Except. How sometimes when Sam sometimes jokes or makes excuses, there's a tension there, and of how more often than not it has something to do with the weapons or cases they're handling. It runs through their lives like an undercurrent that Dean determinedly chalks up to Sam being one of the Special Kids (can Shapeshifers take on the person's attributes such as psychic visions?). Then after a year or so of living out of each other's pockets, it's revealed that Sam isn't his Sam.

Shapeshifter!Sam now genuinely cares greatly for Dean, and vice versa. So the inner struggle Dean has over that this is a monster he's been living with (and his world view of monsters shifting from a black and white "humanity is good versus monsters are bad" to a grey area), being deceived by the Shapeshifter!Sam for so long, not knowing it wasn't his real brother; how he could've been tricked for so long; how he failed as a brother, where the real Sam is in all of this.

With Djinns I feel like it doesn't really have to be a happy universe. If Dean is used to so many bad things happening in his life, and you want to keep him in there, unknowing, why not have it be a terrible universe? Where none of it is real. All the death and apocalypses and betrayals and etc., are all things Dean thinks he deserves. That if/when he gets out, he has to deal with the aftermath of having lived years through that. Not knowing what's real and what's not anymore, who to trust, dealing with PTSD and other mental health issues.


As for settings, I love the darkness. Either in the sense of the physical oppressive feel of the darkness, while being helpless, or feeling helpless because of a loss of vision (or diminished in some capacity). When you don't really know what you're facing and your mind becomes your worst enemy. (I liked the way the fic Blindfold (http://fleshflutter.livejournal.com/148240.html?style=mine) handled this.)

[kalliel]

First off, this comment is AMAZING and inspirational and you are awesome. :D

And yesssssss, I'm so down for all of these ideas. And I love how the idea of a shapeshifter!Sam does sort of dovetail with the various paths Sam's encountered in canon, from being a Psychic Kid to being on demon blood, to being soulless, to having an angel in him... So even a story that didn't have any of that, because it was set in that S1/2 period, would still have this sort of foreboding undercurrent because of those kinds of insinuations for canon. I can totally see this being ten kinds of crazy, all of which are awesome.

And as Dean's said, every culture has a shapeshifter lore--THERE IS JUST SO MUCH POTENTIAL. unf!

And YES darkness. YES YES YES. I haven't read that fic, but it sounds tremendous--thanks so much for the link! I have a very serious love of that kind of thing, too.

There's this museum of modern art in the city I used to live in, and one of the exhibits was just this soundproofed room in complete darkness. No sound, no light. And you're supposed to just go in and experience that sensory deprivation. I never had the chance to go, but a friend told me it was the trippiest, scariest thing of all time.

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you! :D

I really enjoy stories where it's like they've only peeled back the canon a little bit, to dig at what's underneath. Or skew them in such a way that it still make sense. (Almost like having a Fridge Brilliance/Horror moment in fic-format.)

Could you imagine a fic that's narrating Sam and Dean's adventures -- only it turns out it's their Shapeshifters, and their memory's been altered? How they would deal with the fallout of discovering that they aren't really Sam or Dean?

Oh wow! That sounds sufficiently terrifying! But intriguing at the same time. :D

Some of my favourite case fics are when they don't know what's coming for them. They're out there, in the darkness, in an enclosed space, night time at Disneyland (heh), thinking they have the upper hand. It's just the added combination of not being able to trust what you see and getting attacked by something you weren't prepared for.

[kalliel]

YOU'RE GIVING ME SHIVERS OF ECSTASY WITH ALL THESE IDEAS, I HOPE YOU KNOW. XD

Some of my favourite case fics are when they don't know what's coming for them. They're out there, in the darkness, in an enclosed space, night time at Disneyland (heh), thinking they have the upper hand. It's just the added combination of not being able to trust what you see and getting attacked by something you weren't prepared for.

Yes yes yessssssssss, so much. Oh man. *___*

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

Cackles, I hope it inspires some fic! :D :D

[tifaching.livejournal.com]

I just read 'Blindfold' and oh, very creepy. Also, your musing on Djinn and Shifters. Very intriguing.

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

Yes, what a good. :D (And thank you!)

[tifaching.livejournal.com]

I was just noodling around with my picture prompt for the 1000 word exactly fic comm and it's in Portland Ore. So I looked up haunted places in Portland and found the Shanghai tunnels. Haunted by the ghosts of all the poor men and women shanghaied out of the bars and brothels of Portland to be slave labor on the sailing ships or forced into prostitution. I don't know if I'm going to work them into this fic but I've got ideas for shanghaied Dean...

[kalliel]

Oooooooooh. @____@ Color me intrigued! And lol, I love how all of the specific location stuff in this post so far is in Oregon.

BEST SUPERNATURAL STATE EVER, CLEARLY. (I mean, Oregon IS pretty awesome across the board...so why not??)

That sounds tantalizing and amaaazing, bb~

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is such a great setting. :D

[boysinperil.livejournal.com]

Oh god if you want background ASK ME ASK ME.

[tifaching.livejournal.com]

When the time comes, I definitely will! Thank you!

[geckoholic]

Man, that's a good one. /nods

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

A place where I'd love for a fic to be set would be the Winchester Mystery House. (Or any sort of weird-freaky mansion that doesn't make sense.)

[kalliel]

I can attest to the actual, honest-to-god supernaturalness of the Winchester Mysery House!! The number of times I've accidentally ended up there while attempting to navigate the South Bay is eerie.

It's got some kind of like, orbital magnetism. All the freeway exits end up there.

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

I once had a dream of that place before I even knew it existed. I'm not sure if I was ever in the area if I'd be inclined to visit.

(Oh that reminds me of another setting I like! Where you can go to the end of the road, but that's as far as you will get before you wind up in the place where you started. The sensation of being trapped but the appearance of freedom. Ungh.)

[kalliel]

Even more evidence of its true supernaturalness! Despite the number of times I've been to their stupid parking lot, I've never actually been inside... It's a lot more expensive than their parking lot. XD Someday, though! If only for the sake of SPN.

The sensation of being trapped but the appearance of freedom.

UH, YOU ARE MY FAVORITE.

Also, I just read that fleshflutter fic, and my godddd kinks I didn't truly realize the power they have over me. I especially loved the last half. Thanks so much for the rec!

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

The things we all do for fandom (or will do for fandom -- in a roundabout homage-y sort of way).

:D

(The only fics I've seen vaguely incorporate that concept is Welcome to Oz (bauble.livejournal.com/10922.html),

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The things we all do for fandom (or will do for fandom -- in a roundabout homage-y sort of way).

:D

(The only fics I've seen vaguely incorporate that concept is <a href="bauble.livejournal.com/10922.html">Welcome to Oz</a>, <a href"http://archiveofourown.org/works/364050">There's Only One Sure Thing That I Know</a>, and some random time loop Wincest fic I can't remember the title of. Now I <i>know</i> there has to be more than 3 fics out there.)

Yay, glad you liked it. :)

[kalliel]

One of my past!fandoms was really really big on prison!fic. (I'm not sure why, since I'm not entirely sure the main characters were ever in prison in canon? But hey, who's complaining.) I actually really miss that. XD

Because come on. Prison would be on the Winchesters like butter on bread for so very many reasons. And I could never say no to more Henricksen.

[caithream.livejournal.com]

While not technically a monster, I'm still so distraught that within the whole angels storyline, vessel!Dean was not entirely capitalized upon. SIGH FOR YEARS.

[kalliel]

Vessel!Dean <333333333 I'll admit, I was a lot more into this trope during S5 than I am now, but at the end of the day... VESSEL!DEAN. <33333

[philomathical.livejournal.com]

Wow, yes. (Just, ugh. Dean being distraught about the choice he's made, and what drove him to become a vessel in the first place.)

[boysinperil.livejournal.com]

I really like small-town dynamics, and I think they lend themselves well to casefic. And I love poison-monsters, too, and anything that makes hallucinations.

[kalliel]

You and I are of the same mind. :DD