InsaneJournal

Fic reviews: Supernatural
One Big Bang and a couple others. All recs! Amazing.

As I Descend the Stair by busaikko 4/5 Recommended
5900 words. Life, as it flashes before the eyes: "I don't know how to be what anybody expects --" and Sam's hand draws a sharp head-to-toe line -- "but I was halfway to figuring out how to be me."

This follows a similar pattern to a lot of the ftm!Dean fics out there, only this time the surprise when Sam and Dean are reunited at the beginning of season one is that Sam is mtf. I really liked this a lot, especially the fact that Jess was mtf, too (and the changes that makes in the djinn verse are perfect). The final scene is probably my favorite. N'awww, Sammy.

Dead Soldiers: An Oral History of the End Times by fryadvocate 5/5 Recommended
43,400 words. Although much has been written about the sociological and theological importance of the "End Times War", there has been much less written about the individuals directly involved. Using interviews with primary sources, this paper seeks to examine how Dean and Sam Winchester, two criminals with a history of violence and petty theft, became commonly known as a prophet of the Lord and the Anti-Christ.

I was pretty sure this would be good, both from the summary and because the story she wrote for Big Bang two years ago was one of my favorites. (Even though I'd only watched part of season one at the time and was kind of confused about some things.)

World War Z is the only "oral history" I've ever read, so this immediately put me in mind of that (though she said in comments that she hasn't read it). I was also reminded of cesperanza's SGA epic, Written by the Victors, though much better written, and without the weird tacked-on romance that WbtV has.

When I first started reading this, I thought it was going to be an outsider retelling of canon, but it's pretty much an AU of season four, with everything after Dean's resurrection different. There's a lot of stuff I'm really curious about here, but we never get any explanation because of the outsider POV. (Most people in comments were curious about what happened to Sam and Dean, but my biggest question is what was up with Dean's powers?) It doesn't feel unsatisfying, though, because the fun of the story is the interviews and seeing Sam and Dean and everything through everyone else's eyes.

Accidents Will Happen by holli 4/5 Recommended
6400 words. Some Goth teenagers accidentally resurrect John Winchester. No, seriously.

This sucked me in right from the opening paragraph. I love the narrator's voice: So okay. This totally wasn't my fault: blame Noreen. Or Allie, who got the books from her uncle, or Steph, who said, hey, we're the only four Wiccans in the tri-county area, we should celebrate the equinox together. Actually, I am blaming Noreen-- she's the one who got way, way too into the whole celebrate-the-equinox thing, and wrote the ritual, and got a pentagram permanently scorched into my basement floor.

This is a hilarious fic, well-written, a great outsider POV, and actually has a better reason behind the accidental summoning than I was expecting. Overall it's just a really fun read.