Snowflake Challenge #3

[majorr]

Challenge #3

Create a wish list of fandom things (podfic, graphics, playlists, canon recs translations, research help, vids, sky's the limit!) that you'd like to receive.

Fic Recs: Supernatural Gen! I feel myself headed for a rewatch of season one, and I know I'm going to be in the mood to read once I get into that space. Monster fic, angst fic, humor, the Winchesters getting into any kind of canon-typical trouble. I love both long and short fic, case fic, action/adventure, horror. Anything that vibes with the earlier seasons or takes place later in the series is both fun.

Book Recs: Thriller novels written by women. I have a few on my TBR, but I want more! Author recs in general if they've written a bunch worth checking out are also welcome.

Icons: I am back in a deep hole of Vampire Diaries feels. I am always on the hunt for more TVD icons. I have a lot in my stash, lol. Some characters I have less of: Matt (I've found so few!), Tyler, Jeremy; Combos: Jeremy/Tyler, Stefan/Caroline, Damon/Elena, Bonnie & Caroline & Elena (I love this trio, plus any of the girls & Matt), Damon & Liz. Also, I always love icons with quotes!

Pictures: I like chubby animals and can always use a laugh! Hippos, marmots, seals, anything really. It's a fast way to a huge smile. :D

Comments

[muccamukk]

I can't seem to find this on AO3, but do check out
Revelations by marinarulsalka
AU. Veteran FBI agent Victor Henriksen isn't at all happy when a rookie ATF agent horns in on his investigation of a possible serial arsonist. Still, Agent Winchester's forensics expertise does come in useful. But as the clues and the bodies pile up, Victor begins to suspect that his new partner knows more than he's telling about the case.

It's an AU, but it's an AU where the universe remains the same, and canon is very much there.

(Unfortunately, a lot of my SPN Gen recs were made via the LJ memory function, which worked great until I deleted my LJ.)

[wearing_tearing]

For Thriller novels:
The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz - it's sapphic closed-circle thriller and totally bonkers.
Kelly Armstrong's Rockton series - my favorite works from her; each book has a new case and also a new twist re the overall series arc.
And I haven't read her works yet, but I've heard wonderful things about Wanda M. Moriss writing!

[queenslayerbee]

My favourite SPN fic/series got deleted from the site alongside its author (Bela-centric AU where she was the Righteous Woman from the prophecy), woe is me. But when the show hit me hard in 2021-2022 lol, a long one I enjoyed was "Lamb to the Slaughter", written by a tumblr mutual:


"What if the pearl that brought John back in 14x13 wasn't a wishing pearl? What if it was an exchange pearl? One that gave John back, but in return took away Sam and Dean's memories of someone they love: Castiel. When the boys see Castiel in the Bunker they don't see him as their friend and ally, but as a stranger, or worse, an enemy sent to spy on them. Can Mary convince them that Castiel really is who he says he is? Or is she already too late?"

Recommended if you're in the mood for hurt/comfort and body horror lol.

[majorr]

hahaha No problem. This looks great, thanks! Bookmarked and excited to check it out. :D

[majorr]

Ahhh, I love closed-circle thrillers! I would be the first person dead. No way could I write a novel under that pressure. lmao Definitely going on the TBR pile, and Rockton is giving me Haven vibes. I'm excited to check all these out, thank you!

[majorr]

The only thing more fun than that premise (poor Cas!!) is seeing that it's 85K. Yessssss. Sinking into a good longfic is the best. I am always down for hurt/comfort or emotional hurt/comfort, and as for body horror, lol. I'm currently reading a super long TVD fic and had to close my Kindle last night to text about the body horror going on before I could continue. With breaks and the occasional flailing, I can do body horror too! hahahaha

Marked for later, thank you!

[musyc]

SPN Gen recs!

Affliction by tolakasa - https://archiveofourown.org/works/2581991/chapters/5747024
Cross Creek by zoemathemata - https://archiveofourown.org/works/154853
Hail Mary by galaxysoup - https://archiveofourown.org/works/1023413/chapters/2036435
Night of the Chupacabra by leonidaslion - https://archiveofourown.org/works/152706/chapters/219097
The Tomato Plant Doesn't Grow Mangos by harrigan - https://archiveofourown.org/works/215742
None of Your Beeswax by TozaBoma - https://archiveofourown.org/works/218446/chapters/328544

And I'm currently reading Forgotten by NorthernSparrow which is a delight so far, so it's a tentative rec unless things go majorly sideways XD https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167055

[majorr]

These all look so good! I'm excited to dig into these. Thank you so much! :D

Wish Granted!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here are your chubby animals:

24 Chubby Animals That Are Aiming Straight at Your Heart

The 50 Fattest Animals in Internet History

Chonky Animals
This one requires scrolling with an arrow.

And here is my go-to for the "animals make me laugh" category: the meeping otters.

Re: Wish Granted!

[majorr]

The cloud cat and the squirrels are sending me! I've never seen squirrels that round before. Lmao Thank you. These are hysterical. 😂

[glassesofjustice]

I LOVE Rachel Howzell Hall's work, especially her Lou Norton series. I haven't been able to keep up with the pace of her output, but I look forward to getting to some of her newer books.

[majorr]

I'm starting to scroll through her work, and I can already tell my Want to Read shelf on Goodreads is going to get more packed as I go. lol Thank you for introducing me to her!

Re: Wish Granted!

[ysabetwordsmith]

For extra fun:

Squirrels are roundest when they are in winter coats, are pregnant, and are relaxed so they sit in a ball. This time of year you can observe many round squirrels outside, in a park or if you have a platform feeder. The latter will also get you many round birds, as cardinals and doves like those and will puff up into little balls. I enjoy watching mine. On a frigid day, the doves look like gray basketballs.

[tarlanx]

I haven't watched The Vampire Diaries in a long time and liked both Jeremy and Tyler :) I hope you like these icons :)

  

  
 

Re: Wish Granted!

[majorr]

I was just laughing at three doves sitting side by side on a branch outside the window the other afternoon. They really did look like three little feathery snowballs. Hahaha

[majorr]

OMG! 😍 😍 These are so great! My favorite is the third one of Tyler. He looks so good there, and I’m getting absolutely bulldozed by Jyler feels right now. It’s only noon, and you’ve already made my whole day with all of these. This was such an awesome surprise. Thank you so much!!

[tarlanx]

You are most welcome!

Re: Wish Granted!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, there's a tree where mine like to congregate. It's on the south side of the house and near a fly-through birdfeeder. Sometimes I look out and there's a whole row of little pompoms huddled together. :D

They also like the Midwinter Grove which is full of evergreens.

The sparrows have a favorite bush that is across the lawn from the hopper birdfeeder. I'll look out and see 20 of them scattered around it like buff-colored fruit.

Re: Wish Granted!

[majorr]

That's so sweet. :)

[tsuki_no_bara]

i have... a lot of spn links and all of them are old. some of these are on lj, some are on ao3, i think only one is on dw. in no particular order and mostly pretty short:

stick shifts and safety belts by silverkit
One of the most important things is Dean’s world goes through a startling transformation.
and the impala tells jo she remembers that jo had very clean shoes.

hell (and binky) follows with him by pdragon76
If you’re gonna balls it up, go large.
a spn/discworld crossover. funny and weird.

silence and the taste of burnt sienna by taillypo
They're not lost. They know where they are.
sam and dean and a creepy-ass covered bridge. s1, set between provenance and dead man's blood.

frost by zionsstarfish
for the spn_north challenge: Nunavut
sam and dean go to canada to investigate some missing kids. set i think sometime in s2 - there are references to in my time of dying. it's ultimately about siblings so it's sad and angsty and lightly wincesty at the end. (apologies if that's not your thing.)

on a steel horse by apocalypsos
This story doesn't end the way you think it does.
recced elsewhere because it's seriously one of the best post-devil's trap fics i ever read.

but i never could sharpen no blade, quite the way he say by halfhardtorock
Sam listened too. “Do you think she’ll make it-”
Dean rolled his eyes. “This car will make the apocalypse.”
dean drives sam to stanford. a little funny, a little angsty.

celestial navigation by soraismus
You already know how this will end.
post-s1 - dean's dead, dad's dead, it's just sam and dad's journal, kind of looking for dean. it's so sad but i really liked it.

qanat by ignipes
Skin and flesh and bone and memories -- this is what a man is made of.
post-skin mixed with some pre-series vignettes. dean needs to know how sam knew the skinwalker wasn't him.

memento mori by halfshellvenus
John makes a long overdue pilgrimage to The Wall.
(the vietnam memorial in dc.) i don't know how you feel about john, but if you're down for some pre-series contemplation and closure, this is a really good fic.

thump by zionsstarfish
Sam, Dean, snow. Cracky goodness.
it's a haunted snowman and to be honest i thought it was more disturbing than cracky. feel free to form your own opinion. :D

the edge of the known world by ignipes
Dying is easy. The hard part is coming back to life.
this might be an unfair rec since it's a sequel (cartography in empty spaces is the first one). futurefic. dean has been missing for two years and when sam gets him back he remembers nothing. this is dean trying to deal with it. it's really sad and a little hopeful and i just really like it so i had to include it in the list.

the crying of lot 67 by dark_roast
futurefic. it's an entry for the impala from an auction catalogue in 2152 and it manages to pack in a lot of (imagined) history and folklore about the winchesters and their car.

dwellers in silence by dwarfankylosaur
post-s3, more or less. there's no summary so i'll just say it's about what happens when sam saves dean from his deal with the crossroads demon and weird shit happens. angsty weird more than cracky weird. ultimately really disturbing and really good.

cursed by curiosity by halfshellvenus
Dean is too impulsive for anyone's own good.
dean touches something he shouldn't and bad things happen to him. apparently set during s2. cracky and fun.

a bugle calls the cavalry by deirdre-c
Agent Henriksen finds himself some unexpected allies.
post-jus in bello and that's all i'm going to say.

it's not the years, it's the mileage by deirdre-c
Sam runs into a hunter on campus.
and you might be able to guess who. :D pre-series. i love this fic.

...i'm so sorry. this sent me down a nostalgia spiral and i couldn't stop.

[scytale]

I was going to recommend peaked/@shithouse for icons, but I see you have one by peaked already!

As for chubby animals, have you seen this seal from the Osaka Aquarium? They did a lot of YouTube videos for him after he was born! Here he is eating fish after he's grown up a bit (though I'd watch with sound off, since there's a lot of background noise).

[majorr]

So many fics! Shipfic for them is not my thing, but I’m saving everything else, including the John fic. I’m definitely down to read fic for him. I love how older canons lead back to LJ. It’s making me nostalgic for LJ comms! I think I’m most looking forward to checking out the haunted snowman one, both because haunted snowman and because I’m curious where I’ll fall on the disturbing or cracky line. I’m excited to get into these. Thank you for such a long list!

[majorr]

peaked makes such good icons! It would have been a great rec for me. hahahaha

THAT SEAL! How precious. Welp. Looks like I'll be watching seal videos today. Thank you for sharing this! Too adorable. 🥰

[peaked]

Have you read You by Caroline Kepnes? I watched the show's first season before reading the book, but the book is such a great thriller from a toxic man's perspective. (I feel it doesn't romanticise him, either.) I'm not usually a fan of first-person perspective, but this book uses it well imo. (Other books follow from this one that I haven't read, but I feel this one can be read as a standalone.)

When I inevitably get the TVD iconning bug again, I'll be sure to make some icons of those guys haha! (I think I've saved a lot of caps of Jeremy and Tyler and just haven't gotten around to them yet.) If you haven't checked them out yet, bungalows might have some icons of these guys.

[majorr]

I've heard really good things about it, but I haven't. I watched season one of the show and liked it and I enjoy first person POV, but I've held back from reading it because I don't know if I'd enjoy being in that dude's head for that long. He was a lot in the show (never watched past the first season), and I feel like he might make me crazy. lofl

Yay! I love your icons! Clearly, from the comments above. haha I'll try to keep an eye out for any future TVD batches. I don't think I've checked out bungalows specifically, but I also really like efficio's icons which I think I've found through fandom_icons before. And I see that there's Secret Circle icons over there too, which I'm in the middle of rewatching now. :D I'll be digging around there for sure. Thank you so much for the rec!

[peaked]

LOL that's very fair! If you enjoyed how messed up he was, I think you'd enjoy the book. It expands on a few scenes from the show as well!

djkfsl you're way too kind! Enjoy your TSC rewatch. That show was cancelled way too soon!

[majorr]

I’ll keep You on the list adjacent to my TBR that I occasionally eye from afar, wary but curious.

And it really was! My kingdom for a season two.

[tsuki_no_bara]

enjoy! i'd totally forgotten that frost was very lightly 'cesty at the end because i read so much gen and so little wincest but i included it because it's just really good. but if it's not your thing, no worries! no harm no foul, as they say. (and i could've totally whiffed it with memento mori - i mean, you could've been profoundly anti-john.) god knows there's enough other fics here. :D

and seriously, going through my recs was such a nostalgia trip. lj comms really were something, weren't they. back when they were big and there were a million of them.