FIC: The Chuck Writes Story - Afterword 5

[lettered]

Title: The Chuck Writes Story: Afterword 5
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: gen. Chuck, Becky
Rating: PG-13 for themes
Length: Total fic: 30,000. This part: 100
Summary: Fandom has a new god.
A/N: Please see notes here.
Previous parts: The Chuck Writes Story | Afterword | Afterword 2 | Afterword 3 | Afterword 4


6:15 pm Thursday, September 23, 2011
Afterword 5

---

REPENT, FOR CASTIEL LIVES AND SHALL SMITE YOU.

Fans claim that the mass murderer walking around in a trench-coat and killing, murdering and maiming people in the news is in fact the character Castiel from Supernatural.

LOL fandom, never change.

Comments

[stultiloquentia]

It wasn’t that Chuck cared, exactly. He’d never thought much one way or another about Jess; she was just the girlfriend Sam had to have, so she could die and kick-start Sam in the series. When people asked him, Chuck didn’t mention that it had come to him in a vision. What he said was, all the great stories started that way: girl dies. Inspires quest. It was archetypal; that’s what he told fans. Go watch Braveheart.

And yet, somehow, dean_lives’s comment hurt. It hurt, especially since it was the only one.

Besides, he wasn’t saying Jess was a slut. Just because he’d had her in a slutty nurse costume in the first book, and wrote this missing scene with one of Sam’s friends implying she was a slut, and then killed her off before you knew anything about her besides the fact that she wore skimpy clothes to bed and could make a mean cookie, didn’t make her a slut.

She could have depth. She could have character. He hadn’t written that, but so what? She could.

This is one of the most sublimely perfect skewerings I have ever read in my life.

Chuck was a huge success and could have 459—462—friends if he wanted. He totally could.

It's the "462" that makes it. I think I actually honked when I read this the first time.

It’s just that this whole LJ thing was sort of addictive and he couldn’t seem to stop refreshing his user page, and if they liked Carver Edlund so much, why wouldn’t they like his sock? Because if they didn’t . . . was it really the writing they loved, or was it the marketing, (the covers with their shirts ripped off, the models, the hair)—or was there actually some other Supernatural? Was there some amorphous, non-text, non-content driven Supernatural, a zeitgeist!Supernatural, some über Supernatural, a Supernatural that was his Supernatural and yet his no longer—now part of the collective mind, now part of the cultural maelström, or other words with umlauts, some Supernatural that belonged to the world and to the fans and no longer to the mind of the creator? A meta!SPN? Was it that Supernatural that they really loved—or was it Carver Edlund?

Oh, fuck, J, all the feelings. The way you make me all verklempt about fandom and how amazing and wonderful it is, and yes yes yes, and then you make me guffaw like a baboon, with the hair and the umlauts. All in the same paragraph. You are a very Joss-like writer, that way.

The trouble was, Sam, Dean, the rest of them, they didn’t feel like his own characters, at times. They were and they weren’t—how could something belong to him and not to him? Ask Schrödinger’s cat, or ask any fan; ask any idea or narrative or belief—was it yours? Did exist inside of you, but also outside of you?

Yeah. You did a superb job of cutting the bloat and keeping the greatness, in the final draft. This meta is delicious.

So Chuck clicked on blindfold_spn and spewed grapefruit juice and vodka on the keyboard.

I really love the way we hear all about his food. It's a deft, endearing, and surprisingly important way to ground him in the physical world throughout the story.

By golly gee whiz, I might even get to be canon one day!

Bwah! YESSS! I ♥ lettered!

In sum, you are barking mad and kind of a genius. I'm tickled as heck that I got to help a tiny bit and get a mention in the credits. Brb, have to go rec.

[lettered]

Thanks so much for all your help. I knew it was clunky; I'm just always so afraid people won't glom onto my MESSAGES and my MESSAGES are never so interesting as what actually comes out when I'm not directly thinking about them. It's interesting how that works. You really improved this fic so much.

This is one of the most sublimely perfect skewerings I have ever read in my life.

I kinda sorta wanted to do more of that. This show, more than almost any other show, makes me think about what the creators must be thinking. It's because 60% of the time it is so brilliant, and 20% of the time it's so appalling that I'm actually disgusted and want to turn it off. (the other 20% is just blah, in case you're wondering. Yes! Only 20%!) I just can't even imagine what the writers think this show is.

I saw your post about doing recaps for Glee--I can't really do recaps for this show, not for the same reasons. In fact I'm not sure I can do recaps for the things I love; I just have way too many feelings. I'm sure you've seen my posts when an new chapter of CP goes up--it's just abject flailing. But after the first new ep for SPN I actually wrote a fic about the writers writing it. Half of the writers were silly and the other half were awesome; which just explained everything for me. Now after each ep I write one of those in my head (haven't had time to jot the rest down!) and I feel so much more settled. Um. This is a big long tangent, sorry.

The way you make me all verklempt about fandom

lol German. It is so perfect for abstractions. I'm glad it made you feel this way! I was just so afraid fandom would come off looking bad, like I hated it or something.


Yeah. You did a superb job of cutting the bloat and keeping the greatness, in the final draft.

Glad to hear you say that!

I ♥ lettered!

I don't always flesh her out that well but sometimes she's okay. *snorts*

you are barking mad and kind of a genius.

Wow, thanks!

I got to help a tiny bit

I take issues with "tiny"!

[sophia_sol]

saldkfhdsj I can't even, this is awesome in all the ways. I'm not really into SPN but I know enough to be able to follow this, and all the clever and true and hilarious and thoughtful things you say with this fic are just -- awesome. Your depiction of fandom is a thing of beauty, and I love the complicated lines between reality and fantasty.

[lettered]

Thanks! So much! I'm glad you liked it, even though you're not that in to SPN. The fandom is more fandom than SPN, imo, but it couldn't really be done without the brilliance that is Chuck.

[melannen]

Oh, wow. This is possibly the SPN fic to end all SPN fic, and I will be thinking about it for days. I am wondering how much it added to the experience that I stopped watching SPN canon around the same time that Edlund stopped being published, so everything I know about the CW opus comes from fanon. :D

(also I am coming out of my usual lurkerdom to say this, because now I remember what happened when chuck_writes didn't get enough feedback, and I somehow have become convinced that if you don't leave feedback for goodfic you could be helping to bring on the end of the world. Srsly. Lucifer is looking over my shoulder. *shudders*)

ps: Also Misha Collins is just fanon, right? Because he couldn't possibly be from the real world.

[lettered]

First, if you haven't, you should watch The French Mistake from season 6. Even if you stopped watching SPN because you hated it, or something. If you want to know whether Misha Collins is real . . . he isn't. He really isn't. He's an invention; watch the ep. It has Misha Collins in it--by which I mean Misha Collins, the character. YES THAT SHOW WENT THERE.

Thanks so much, for the coming out of lurkerdom and everything. You just never know when you could be talking to someone who will write the apocalypse into existence, so yeah. But seriously, thanks.

P.S. I actually don't know much about Misha Collins. I try to find out as little as possible, so that the random bizarre things I hear can all be true. Because if he was real, they couldn't be true.

[staranise]

Oh my god. This was one hell of a ride. The original story was, you know, whee fun but it also punched the bottom out of my stomach, like, oh shit, and then you kept building it up and spinning it out in the afterwords, and then it just all... coalesced into a gigantic explosion of transcendent myth.

Fucking myth. Which is possibly the highest praise I know how to offer.

[lettered]

Oh, wow. Thanks. That's high praise indeed.

I'm actually glad you said that about the afterwords. While they felt necessary, they were actually a lot harder to write and I was pretty unsure about them. So, thanks.

[ellen_fremedon]

Here via melannen, and I don't even watch SPN! I only know about the SPN fandom through osmosis (though reading this, I was kind of shocked at how much I have picked up through osmosis.)

And this is brilliant. This is the kind of eating-its-own-tail mythic meta I will be unpacking in my head for days. Bravo.

[lettered]

I actually just got in to SPN fandom, and haven't made much headway with it. (I'm am at the "oooh! Maybe (s)he should join comms!" part of the fic.) But I know a lot about fandom, and while SPN has a reputation, my suspicion is that it doesn't really pack more crazy than many fandoms. But it's true that osmosis has taught me muchly!

Thanks so much; I'm glad you liked this.

[amalnahurriyeh]

True story: I started reading this, and had to pause to put my son to bed. I spent the entirety of his bedtime worried about how the collective-unconscious of the fanwriters documenting the apocalypse was going to fair. It was that engrossing.

I love the subtle tone of horror in this, and the jarring way "your" voice intervenes into the conversation. It's really gorgeously done.

I'm not someone who knows SPN at all, but, damn. This was amazing.

[lettered]

HEE. Well, I think the collective-unconscious turned out okay. :o)

I'm glad you liked this. It's really as much about fandom or more than it is about SPN. Then again, imo, SPN is half about fandom anyway.

[cofax7]

LOL fandom, never change.

I DIE.

I fell out of SPN when Ellen & Jo died, but this? This is fan-fucking-tastic. All the meta, all the arguments, all the justifications. The little betrayals that become big ones, and the weird alliances, and even the bizarre way men ficwriters get more status than women ficwriters...

Plus, it's just perfectly done, all the voices and formatting and oh dear lord Becky is perfect, and perfectly awful. ::shudders::

Also: I felt SO AWFUL for Watsonian. Who didn't deserve any of that, and shouldn't be blamed for being a sensible person unprepared for the world/her friend to go bugfuck crazy on her.

This is brilliant.

[lettered]

Aw, Ellen! Jo! (Sometimes I imagine the creators of SPN sitting around, talking about how they need to kill off all the women. Sera Gamble or sundry sit in a corner clutching their brows, saying, "no. No!" And the rest of the writers jump on chairs and say things like, "Kill the women! Kill the women! Rape murder pillage kill eat the babies! Veins in my teeth!" . . . I have a vivid imagination?)

even the bizarre way men ficwriters get more status than women ficwriters...

I kinda wanted to go into this, but there are kind of a lot of guys in this. CW, Demian, Barnes, and lord_kripke is a lot of guys to be writing fanfic in one fandom, which kind of changes the guy-fanfic-writer status thing; I assume they get it because they're less common? So I didn't know what to do with it.

I felt SO AWFUL for Watsonian.

Yeah. Me too. And while the universe of this fic is undergoing apocalypse, I think there are watsonians in every wank, and it always makes me feel so bad. The shitstorm happens all around them and they find themselves in the middle, and it pretty much ends up with whatever you say, you look like a jerk.

[unjapanologist]

Here via cofax7. I actually finished reading this a few hours ago, but wanted to step away for a bit first because my brain kept trying to convince me that maybe this was all real even though the title says it's fic, and I should check all those LJs and such just to make sure. And I only know SPN fandom from F_W.

Well played, well played. *recs on pinboard*

[lettered]

Hey, thanks. I did have surreal feelings while writing this. Though if you check some of those ljs . . . I'm just sayin'. It was way too much work to make links for the whole fic, though.

[hesychasm]

Fantastic work! I echo cofax above in having bailed on the show after Jo and Ellen died, and finding Becky and watsonian to be the stand-out characters for me in this.

This whole thing was such a great insider text for fans who've been around. And I love how you've braided a whole other meta thread into what the show was doing with SPN being real, and the fandom question of how to deal with real events in fanfic. The anon who kept saying stuff like "Fans are God" in the afterwords was the perfect punchline.

And can I just say: those epic, overwrought, repetitive LJ posts from dean_lives and lord_kripke et al commenting on the various wanks...HILARIOUS and perfect as well. I think we've all read posts like that and the send-up of the style was beautiful.

[lettered]

Thanks!

The anon who kept saying stuff like "Fans are God" in the afterwords was the perfect punchline.

That anon seems like they're always around!

those epic, overwrought, repetitive LJ posts from dean_lives and lord_kripke et al commenting on the various wanks

haha. Sometimes they're so good, and say very meaningful things. And yet everyone's doing it when a wank happens, and sometimes I just look around and . . . keep my mouth shut.

[moonbeamsfanfic.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. God. My mind is blown, I can't even... I'll need to reread and think about this one a lot, whoa. It was amazing and awesome and deep beyond ken, yes, but the multidimensional meta! There's layers, so many layers!

Holy bejezus, I actually had trouble telling when the fic had finally come to an end because it took me a few moments to realise the comments in this section weren't actually part of the meta. That's how mind-bendingly awesome this whole thing is... I couldn't recognize reality anymore!

I need to bookmark this, but I have no idea how. I wonder if Pinboard will let me use the "genre:metafic" tag over and over again? Because once is just not enough to describe the incredible levels of meta of meta of meta that this masterpiece involves. Goddamn, this fic blows me away!

Tl;dr, in conclusion: OMG, this is amazing. You are amazing. Fandom is amazing. My mind is blown, I need time to parse this but I don't care because it is all so amazing, oh wow. ♥'s forever!!!

[lettered]

I actually had trouble telling when the fic had finally come to an end because it took me a few moments to realise the comments in this section weren't actually part of the meta.

I should probably have more spaces after the last line, actually.

I couldn't recognize reality anymore!

I did have a bit of that sam trouble whilst writing.

Thanks so much. I'm really glad you liked this and that you feel this way about it. It was a trip to write.

[minim_calibre]

Your brain is twisty, turny, and made of awesomesauce. This nailed, well, everything.

[lettered]

HEE. Well, thanks. I've always wanted to nail everything, really.

And I kept saying, "Dude!"

[debetesse]

because I didn't immediately try to make all the handles characters from the show, and then many of them were, and I was all flaily-hands. Literally flaily-hands.

I adore the meta- and the commentary and the whole thing.

Re: And I kept saying, "Dude!"

[lettered]

Thanks!

Yeah, I didn't even get to the French Mistake, where in lord_kripke, bobby_sing_it, parks_the_car and gamble_it_away are suddenly characters in the fic that is the world.

Or something.

This show is fucked up.

[potted_music]

OMG, this fic is utterly mind-blowing. I liked how masterfully the meta and fandom historiography is intertwined with the plot that fills in the gaps in canon, and it is the most realistic depiction of fandom I've seen in fics so far. Also, the commentary on authorship & the power of storytelling in anon threads in the second part of the story were heart-warming & funny in equal measure <3 Thank you so much for writing this fic!

[lettered]

Thanks! I'm really glad you found it realistic. Once I got to writing comment sections I actually couldn't stop!

[leni]

Oh wow.

You always blow me away with your work, dear. But this? This will transcend. You know that, right?

I loved the slow descent into online chaos in the main part, and then the crazy real-is-not-real, and Cass vs. Cas of the afterwards. You have a sense of humor that works, even with the biting.

[lettered]

Thanks!

Um. Well, I'm not sure what it will transcend. But it sorta transcended me all up for a while there, so I'm glad it worked for you :o)

The Cas/Cass thing was last minute! I'd had the idea in the beginning but I totally forgot about it. I knew I had to include it. Thanks again.

[sarkka]

What ? Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattt ??



=)

[lettered]

I don't know!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, it's turtles all the way down.

Seriously, the show layered the meta so very much, and then here you come along and add another layer to it. (Was it only one layer? Or more? I've lost count. My brain is leaking.) All we need is for a real wank to happen because of this fic . . . .

I think my favorite bit was the fandom secrets screencap. "I mean he's fucking real and we're all going to fucking die. Soon." I'm just such a sucker for stories taking the time to look at what it's like to be the people who aren't at the center of it, the ones who exist on the edges and have to deal with the aftermath of the plot. Like the bits in Buffy where it comes out that yeah, everybody in Sunnydale DOES actually know about the vampires and demons and whatnot; they just pretend things are normal because otherwise they're going to go permanently insane. So applying real-world fandom behaviors to the in-story fandom is just brilliant.

Thanks!

[lettered]

Thanks! I actually added the screencap, because I'd linked the image, but wasn't sure anyone would try the link (most of them really are fake. But not all of them...), and realized it just didn't have the same effect if you couldn't see it.

And yeah, it was kinda hard to remember that people who believed SPN was real were actually people who suddenly had to believe in demons and all kinds of shit. It wouldn't've been a happy realization; it would've been fucking scary.

Agree about Sunnydale, though it felt a bit pastede on, yay. I wish they'd gone into that sooner.

Thanks so much for this comment. I'm really glad you liked this fic.

[innocentsmith]

This is amazing and hilarious and thinky and great. It's all of the things that I love so much about the meta episodes of SPN, but without the glibness and the overpowering sense of "by the way, we hate you. yes, you, lady who watches the show, we're talking to you. about how creepy you are. lol." I tend to get from canon. Because the fans here feel like real fans and real people, with lives of their own and really believable fear at having their worlds overturned towards the end. watsonian is a great character, and Chuck here is so simultaneously a dead-on parody and an identifiable person encountering fandom.

It's just fabulous. And I know I'm going to be coming back to it for rereads.

[welfycat]

Wow, this is absolutely incredible! I've never seen anything that's so accurately captured the essence of what it means to be in fandom before. From the wank, to the "why does my friend (who I've never actually met but I deeply care about) have more reviews than I do?", and the odd little reviews you get that you have no idea how to respond to, to the creating is living and life and everything. This felt so real! And I love that it was Demian and Barnes!!!

This is beautiful and meta and wonderful. Amazing!

[cellia]

Wow. This was amazing and meta and fandom commentary and rpf-ness all mushed together and also interwoven beautifully.

[selarne]

I just re-read the Msscribe Story and was reminded of how much I love your story. The tone of the write-up is perfect and all of the wank and sockpuppets and emails and this is some seriously great meta fic.

I'm terrible at comments and ending them. But I really do love this story.

[daniomalley]

I love this fic so much, everything about it just works so well.

[blindswandive]

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Such a perfect, punchy ending to a fantastic fic. Thank you so much for writing and sharing this. It was really beautiful and well crafted. Rock on, you. <3