Bring Back that Loving Feeling

[lunabee34]

So, I've been thinking about something lately. It's an amalgamation of reading SPN Big Bang and looking back through the first recs I made in the SPN fandom.

I want to write a season one or two SPN fic. You know what I'm talking about. Something gritty and uncertain, saving people hunting things the family business, two boys in a car, some goddamn hope on the horizon. Something causeways or traveller or mikhale (who else wants it to be Joel? LOL) might have written in the wayback. And I don't think I can do it.

I've been trying to pin down why and I think it's because I know what happens next. That's never been a problem for me before. I had no problem writing Basement Fic in BtVS even though I'd seen the whole series and ariadne83 and I are rocking Our Own Private Bang even though SG-1 and SGA are both over and there's no surprises left there. But for some reason, I cannot get out of the emotional headspace of season four--or really, to be more accurate, the moment that Dean made the deal with the crossroads demon. That seems the irrevocable moment for me, the invisible line I'm having trouble crossing.

I want to write this thing that is bereft of the apocalypse, where Dean's soul is stuck in his chest safe and sound, and the worst things we've got to worry about are: Where's Dad and what does the YED want? But I feel like I can't shed the unremitting loss and sorrow of the subsequent three seasons, like it's going to bleed over somehow into anything I try to write. Does that make sense? (It's like how I won't get the subtext in a show at all (*cough* McShep *cough*) for three seasons and then suddenly when I do see it, I can't help but see it from episode one on, even if it wasn't there in the least for me on the first go round.)

Does anybody else have this problem? What do you do? How do you fix it? Are there any concrete writing strategies you use?

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I just started working on a story where, after War Stories, Mal and Zoe really *do* sleep together, and Wash is so upset that he packs his bags and leaves, so it's the new pilot (or, as River insists on calling him, "Fred Shirt") who dies.

I was going to say that post-Serenity, it's really hard to write happy, fluffy, W/Z except that, and my actual answer to your question, is that, when you think of it, everybody is going to die sooner or later, and we all KNOW that, so it's just icing on the cake that Dean is going to be in Hell temporarily a little sooner than he expected to get there permanently.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

or, as River insists on calling him, "Fred Shirt"

Best. Line. Ever.

I was going to say that post-Serenity, it's really hard to write happy, fluffy, W/Z except that, and my actual answer to your question, is that, when you think of it, everybody is going to die sooner or later, and we all KNOW that, so it's just icing on the cake that Dean is going to be in Hell temporarily a little sooner than he expected to get there permanently.

*nods nods*

Absolutely and intellectually I get that and it's never bothered me when writing fanfic before; pretty much all my original fandoms were closed once I got there and it made no matter. But for some reason, it's like I can't get my emotional headspace in the right order for a fic from that season.