wersoverytired

[wersoverytired]

Unfurl in the Wind chapters 8+9 [Supernatural fanfic: Sam with DID]

Title: Unfurl in the Wind (WIP) 8+9/? Genre: Gen, AU Summary: Sam has managed to fly under most people's radar with this for many years, but not anymore. Not since Dean unexpectedly went missing. He's been struggling more than usual, and he finds himself in a psychiatric ward, facing a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder that he’s long avoided. Spoilers: AU, so no specific season Warnings: Some self-injury, as well as suicidal ideation ◆ Psych ward / hospital life and routines ◆ Present results of past trauma

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

[wersoverytired]

Unfurl in the Wind: A Supernatural fanfic // Sam with DID

So, I’m posting everything I’ve been working on but haven’t yet completed, because my health issues are getting worse.

This is a WIP that I’ve been working on for about a year, and hope to get to finish. _____________________________________________

Summary: Sam has managed to fly under most people's radar with this for many years, but not anymore. Not since Dean unexpectedly went missing. He's been struggling more than usual, and he finds himself in a psychiatric ward, facing a life-changing diagnosis that he’s long avoided.

If you live with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) or OSDD, please make extra sure you read the trigger warnings.

Genre: Gen, AU (so no specific season).

on AO3

[wersoverytired]

Beneath Our Brave and Trusting Feet // A Supernatural series finale fanfic (spoilers)

I actually forgot that I had posted this to my AO3 fanfic account. So:

Summary: A short one-shot about the price of keeping the promise given in the barn. That's as vague as I can make it.

SPOILERS: All of them, especially for the series finale.

Most definitely more hurt than comfort in this one. Sorry. I just don't have it in me. More in the end note available on the AO3 version. I will say, though, that this isn't written with either a pro or con attitude as far as how the Winchesters' narrative ended. I’m still... all over the place about it.

_____________________________________________

She's grown accustomed to keeping her hand on Sam when they sleep. She doesn't remember ever deciding to, not really; it just happened. Probably around the tenth time she woke up to find him sitting up, back rigid and eyes wide and wet in the dark. His hand pressed to his chest, he seemed so terrified, so small, somehow. He only ever looks that small at night, when he wakes up like this.

Dean, wait, he said that first time, or at least she's almost sure that's what he said -- it was too dark to tell. She remembers taking his chin and turning his head to look into his eyes, watch his lips.

"Sam," she said, and he blinked at his name like he wasn't sure whose it was. "Sam, you okay? You were dreaming."

She says that often, now, but she doesn't ever say it's just a dream or it’s not real. She said that once, and watched his face crumple, and she knew not to do that again. Stumbling back into a world where Dean is still dead is hard enough on Sam without her pulling him there. But she also can’t stand the thought of him waking up to that realization alone.

And so she sleeps with her hand on his chest. Almost always, even when they're fighting, which isn't often; and especially when they're drunk.

In the morning Sam is usually curled around her, face buried in her hair; sometimes he's awake and staring at the ceiling, brow furrowed. But he always smiles as he signs morning, his eyes warm and relieved for a second or two; you're here. And she believes that smile. The Sam that she wakes up to in the morning has made his peace with staying, isn't planning his own demise, counting down to it. Not anymore, at least.

Morning Sam, afternoon Sam, sitting-on-the-porch with her and stealing-her-beer Sam, smiles almost like he did back in the world in which they met. The one that had Dean. She can't ask for more, and she doesn't feel the need to; she has her own scars to carry, ones that she’s only now starting to face. To talk to Sam about. Her own nightmares, running in those woods feeling the hellhound’s hot breath on her neck screaming, screaming, her mouth filling with blood and something else worse as razor-sharp claws do the eviscerating, panicked arms that must be hers flailing and fingers sinking into matted fur no use no use. The nausea and chills of blood loss the pain the fading away the dead trees the sky. 

Still, most days, she smiles back. And like Sam, she means it, too.

They're doing okay. Considering.

When the first, harsh gasps come late at night, Sam’s muscles tensing under her palm, she knows better than to pull away. She always keeps her hand pressed flat against his chest, a small dam against the roar of an ocean that's cold and deep enough to house every horror Chuck ever created. She thinks grief has got to be one of the worst of them, a monster that Sam can't study, can't wrestle down to the ground or shoot or burn, can't bargain away. Dean, wait—

She never asks him what it is that he wanted to tell his brother. She doesn't think it's words that he's desperate for, anyway; maybe just more time, because more than anything it was time that he and Dean were robbed of in that barn. 

Sam only spoke of that day once, right after. Dean slipping through his fingers, Dean crying because he didn't want to go, Dean hanging on to the promise that it's okay, you're not leaving your post, this is not your fault you took care of me I'm good I'm good.

She didn't know Dean as well as she does Sam, but she knew him enough that she can't imagine him dying without feeling guilty, without feeling like he's abandoning the brother he's been snatched away from. Taking care of Sam has been seared into his DNA by that house fire and by John, by the life John made for them after. Sometimes she watches Sam make the bed, face tight and worried, and she thinks of the boy he must have been. Insisting on making a bed that was always borrowed, in motels, in temporary houses. Sam told her once that he had to, the bed was like my room, it's the only thing that was sort of mine, you know? 

Dean was his, too, but Dean doesn't get to sit with them on the porch, share a beer, get a new hobby that isn't cleaning the weapons or working on his car. The Impala lives in the garage now, and it's covered with a sheet that Sam rarely lifts anymore. Whenever he does, he's haunted for days after, wandering around the house and bumping into the furniture, his face empty and his eyes dead. Those are the times when she knows he is counting down the days, when it’s she and the rest of the world that are his ghosts, the pain of Dean's finite absence making everything else fade into the background. 

She doesn't fight the way it makes her feel; doesn't deny that she hates it. It hurts, watching Sam wish he could go. But Dean is a wound that will bleed for the rest of time, and she is well aware of how that can mute everything, some days. Erase anything that isn't the sheer agony, a rusty nail driven too deep into your core to ever dig out. You live around it. You try.

It's around 2 AM now, and she can feel Sam's muscles tighten under her palm, his heart pounding. Maybe that's what woke her up. Probably. She turns to look at his face, and there it is, all that torment that he tries so hard to spare her despite her promise that he doesn't ever need to. He's crying in his sleep, again; his mouth has dropped open in the kind of numb shock that tells her he can't take in what he's seeing under those closed eyelids. That he's watching his world end. 

She takes a breath, presses down. "Sam."

He flinches, hands flying to his chest and finding hers, his eyes opening to reveal that terror that never fails to make her heart clench. The only thing that's worse is the misery when he realizes that it's already over, that Dean is gone, has been gone. Will remain gone. She fights the urge to close her eyes when she sees it coming.

Sam doesn't say Dean's name this time, not that he needs to. He says hers. "Eileen, I can't, I can't - - "

She cups the back of his head and pulls him in for a hug, feels warm tears soak into her T-shirt like blood as Sam breathes hard against her shoulder. She does close her eyes, now.

"I know."

*

[wersoverytired]

Watching the Supernatural finale hours after almost dying is, well. Different.

I cannot stress this enough: MAJOR triggers for frank discussion of a recent suicide attempt (no, not because SPN ended). Steer clear if this might hit too close to home. I'm no longer at risk, this happened a while ago and is over, and my care manager is aware.

Right, and spoilers for the series finale.

_____ _____ _____

I'm old enough to have been a fan of SPN since 2005. And considering the fact that childhood abuse had me suicidal at around age 12, probably earlier, it's safe to say that I have never watched the show without that constant battle going on in the background, unrelated.

When Dean said he was tired, that he was done, I got it. When Sam asked in that abandoned chapel what the upside was to him being alive, or when he confided in his brother in a hotel hallway that he had always felt unclean somehow, I could relate. There was more to the show than that, of course -- the love, the loyalty, the humor -- but the struggle was another point of connection.

As both the show and I grew long in the tooth, and my life circumstances were progressive getting worse (as they sometimes do when you carry untreated trauma), I used SPN and the fandom as a comfort. And increasingly, living to see how the Winchester story ends became one of those grappling hooks you latch on to when you look for reasons to keep going just a little longer.

Naturally, that didn't (and couldn't) arm me against the waves of acute, hope-obliterating, soul-sucking despair that can routinely crash on your head when you're dealing with poverty, chronic physical illness and disability -- and in a harsh country, too -- as well as being severely post traumatic and dissociative. Saving me was never the show's job, nor should it have been. I used it as much as I could, though.

The more I felt like I had to die, the more I tried. Dying hardly ever comes naturally, not even when you feel like there's no other way. Painfully isolated and increasingly bedridden, I watched convention panels and smiled so hard my face hurt. Other times I cried. And I made online friends, often through the fandom, who made life less empty. Who loved and laughed and cried with me from afar. It's hard to overstate the effect that can have when you're trapped in a body that's pretty much your cage, with a mind that's wounded and struggling.

I kept fighting. But I also kept finding myself, over and over again, faced with the reality that most people who are deeply traumatized, certainly those who are also severely dissociative, get to know early on: the world excels at letting many of us know that there's no place for us. Fighting hard to survive with about 10% of what I need to live, I sometimes find it hard not to listen to that toxic message that many survivors and disabled folks hear and feel coming at them over and over: you're too broken to justify the cost and effort of keeping you alive.

It's been an especially hard couple of years in that sense. And as the finale was months, then weeks, then days away, I kept telling myself to wait. Wait for that. Decide later. "Deciding later" is a survival technique I've been using for decades now whenever I get actively suicidal. It's not a bad one.

So that very last Thursday evening (or very late night, where I live) came around. And it so happens that I was at the very end of my rope. Again, for unrelated reasons to the show ending, obviously. And I couldn't go on.

The finale was hours away, and off I went on that same journey. Wait. Wait just long enough to see how it ends. It's been 15 years. You've survived so far, and that bit of closure, at least, is within reach. Just fucking wait to watch that last episode; see how they go before you do. Let that be the one last kind thing you do for yourself.

I kept telling myself that even as I numbly went through my final checklist.

I know it hurts so much. I know this damn body is tortured beyond what you can stand, I know we've been told it's about to get even worse. And hours more of this seem like an eternity. Watching anything seems impossible. I know the PTSD is intolerable, I know you can't sleep, you live in constant fear and rage and exhaustion; I know you're alone in this.

I know you live in a place that has made its peace with people like you dying of Covid, and finds it a small price to pay for refusing to wear masks. I know how that makes you feel, to be told that your life is worth that little because you're disabled. I know 9 months of what amounts to house arrest, while living alone, have made everything so much worse. I know you just want to go.

But wait to watch how it ends. And decide later. You can go later. You can.

And I almost made it. I mean, I'm obviously still here, so I eventually survived. But I tried not to. I couldn't wait.

Sometimes, when you get to the lowest low point, when you are in all-encompassing agony, when your circumstances leave no room for hope even though you desperately want to live -- and I do, I so want to live -- no show, no fandom, no unfinished story can keep you from taking that step over the edge. Many times it can, but there are places where nothing has any meaning. Thursday night became one of those. Watching the finale was a faded notion in the background of all that agony, and then it was nothing at all.

I only managed to write one goodbye letter. Hard to be as organized as you imagined you would be, hard not to leave unforgivable loose ends. I have no memory of what the letter said, and I can't look at it, not yet. It's tucked away now, just out of view.

And then I went about doing the only thing that I felt could be done.

I didn't get to go away. Both because I couldn't stand the torment of the only method I had handy, though I sure gave it my best efforts -- two more minutes would have sealed the deal -- and because I was fucking afraid to die. All the way through, until I gave up and stopped what I was doing.

Fear of dying when you're your own executioner is an odd thing. Your body wants out of this plan you've made for you both. It responds like you'd expect when someone's life in under threat. It makes you have to run to the bathroom over and over, it makes your heart hammer in your chest and your ears ring.

There was no crying. Not at that point. I don't think there was crying when I gave up and accepted that I was staying alive, either. But I can't remember.

I don't know what I did during the few hours after that. The physical consequences of what I did were gone within half an hour or so -- being so ill, I knew not to try something that would land me in the ER during COVID, should I not complete the plan. I'd also be on my own there, and most likely dissociated to such a degree that I wouldn't be able to move or speak. That's not something I ever wanted to experience again, and a fucking horrible starting point if I survived.

Anyway, I was okay physically soon enough, which is not how it usually goes. I just remember being fuzzy and distant and alone. There was no one to call, and I also thought about how it would feel to get a call like that. I considered a crisis hotline, but didn't have the energy to explain my messy, complicated circumstances. I probably just lay there.

A few hours later, I was present enough to watch the finale. Still don't know how. Dissociation has it occasional advantages, one of which is being disconnected from certain things when it's all too much. And so I watched the final episode in bed, with the aftermath of that suicide attempt still all around me.

I watched Dean die the way he did. I watched Sam die. I watched them both being given the pained, tearful reassurance that it was okay to go. Watched them being held, watched those two strong, kindhearted, emotional, loyal men crying as they breathed their last. Dean's death, especially, broke my heart. He so clearly did not want to die. Was afraid, more than ever before.

I did cry then. I sobbed. I could cry for them. Hell, I could cry for that dog, wandering with Sam through the empty halls of the bunker. I cried as that dog looked up, with all that trust and love, at the only human he had left. I cried for Sam, sitting drained and aching in the dark library. Saying "I know, me too" on the unmade bed in Dean's cold, empty room.

Before that, back in the barn, I watched Dean not want to go. Sam begging him not to go, then forcing himself to tell his older brother what he needed, what he begged to hear. That he wasn't abandoning the one person he had spent his life looking out for. That Sam would survive him going, now that he had to go.

I never saved the world, and there's nothing heroic about me. But so much of what went on around those characters' deaths echoed what I had felt hours earlier, what I still was feeling. It gave me a safe way to cry for that, too.

I will always be grateful to the show for that small mercy. And grateful to Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, whom I've never met and never will, and have given such phenomenal performances here that they reached through all that distance, to unknowingly touch an ache that I could not cry for. They'll never know that. I imagine there are so many people like me who feel the same gratefulness, too, for their own similar moments of human connection.

The show is over now, and I try not to be sad about that, and I'm sure I will be. It would be sadder if I didn't feel a loss. Meanwhile, life doesn't stall just because you tried to stop your own. It's around two weeks later now, bright and loud outside my window in a world that's not safe for me to go out in, and I am lying in bed in a half-lit room trying to manage my pain. I didn't die. I'm still here.

I can't pretend I'm glad that I am, but I also know that I'm not ready to go yet. I'm just not. I have no good reason for that; sometimes you're just too afraid to die. And so I can't see myself trying to go away again any time soon. My health might take care of that for me anyway, but otherwise, looks like I'm stuck on this ride.

I'm very grateful that I've had SPN and its people for so long through this battle, to give me and the rest of the fandom so much more than meets the eye. And I'm grateful for that last, good cry, too.

Well, not the last cry, for sure. There's always rewatch #475783. 

[wersoverytired]

When you’re on your 14785th Supernatural rewatch because screw reality and Netflix is like ____________________________________

[wersoverytired]

Here's the thing: I honestly don't expect to survive the pandemic. I'm at high health risk if I contract coronavirus, and live in an already-collapsing country (not the States ot the UK) whose leadership and citizens have, de facto if not officially, made their peace with wiping out the immunocompromised and the elderly; it's increasingly perceived here as an okay price to pay for a return to "normalcy". There's always been a very Darwinian social approach here towards the chronically ill and disabled, and now more than ever. We're in the way.

Can't say that I'm not heartbroken over knowing that I fought so hard, for so long, to survive my trauma and all this pain just to be snuffed out by many, many abled people's refusal to wear a mask for a few months. But there it is.

I'm going to try and finish the new fic I was working on before this all started. It's very hard to do when you're alone and bedridden AND being threatened with losing your housing situation during a pandemic, and I am struggling daily to find reasons to keep living. I don't think my writing, in the few lucid moments I do have, is at its best. But I can try. I'd like to post the fic before this sh*it catches up with me.

I'm in no state to return to Away from These Shores at the moment, though if by some miracle I do outlive this pandemic and my declining mental health, I'd like to give that WIP an ending.

Hope the very few people who end up here are surviving this nightmare, and thank you to everyone who has read my fics. It meant a lot.

AKF.

[wersoverytired]

(Possible triggers: talk of past depression & anxiety, sucidality, breaking points).

I remember when Jared Padalecki made the FB video this is taken from, a few years ago. I think he was still very much fighting his depression, and quite openly and bravely, too. Pretty sure he had just lost a friend then, and he was asking people to keep fighting and promising that he'd keep fighting, too. Which is why I'm posting this today, to have this in my feed.

He seems much better in recent years, and though you can't really know -- and for so many of us it's a life-long battle (because depression and anxiety are sneaky f*cks) -- I was relieved and touched to hear him say in one convention panel, "I'm not tortured anymore."

I've seen enough people in anguish over the years of my own hard battle (C-PTSD and all of its many, usual companions, in my case), to recognize that look in the eyes. Doesn't take much to tell a certain, raw form of pain even when it's wrapped in all the layers a suffering human can muster. And I wasn't quite as shocked as everyone else when this bouncy, dorky, happy-seeming man broke back in the summer of 2015. I WAS worried and a little heartbroken for him, though. I remember how it felt to read his tweet begging people to write to him and tell him how SPN has helped them. I remember thinking it felt like he was saying, was afraid to say, was trying not to say, "give me reasons to stay alive just a little longer."

I figured I was projecting, and I may well have been. But about a couple years later I got to read Jared's own account of that day, that week. That summer. I got to read about how desperate he had been. About the time he spent on a bench in a park in Switzerland, alone the way you somehow always are at these junctures, crying until he couldn't cry anymore and considering ending his life.

About how he got up and made his way back to his hotel, stumbling and falling over and over again because he was so distraught and exhausted that his knees buckled. About how he was alone (I think) on the flight home to Austin when he sent out that tweet. About how he spent that flight frantically writing AKF all over his arms with a pen, to keep himself grounded.

And it all feels familiar, that hollow, gnawing feeling of sickness that leaves you both dead inside and in insufferable pain. That drains the world of color and meaning and steals every last bit of life's beauty and purpose. That need to hold on at all costs, and that part of your brain that tells you to let go. That it would make sense to let go. The part that made that beloved, beautiful, successful man tell a friend on the phone that day in the park, "they'd be better off without me."

I haven't beaten my demons and I don't think I ever will, not in the circumstances I have to live through. But I keep doing my best, even if every summer is my summer of 2015. Every once in a while I come across something that reminds me of Jared's honest, heartbreaking words, and I think of that lonely man in the park and about my own loneliness on another bench, years before that and half a world away, when I stopped to reconsider on my way to end my own life. I obviously didn't end up doing what I had planned. I reached out, and the help I got sucked, because life is complicated and messed up and you don't always get what you need. But it did keep me alive to fight another day.

I'll just keep fighting. And I hope you do that too, if you can.

[wersoverytired]

Jared in interview room: *Makes passionate speech to reporters, gets lost down rabbit hole of own heartfelt metaphor* Misha: *Comes to his rescue via ear-trolling* Jared: *Is a cat*

Source (Spoiler warning, he addresses the ending of SPN in this video, though vaguely): (x) Misha’s trolling starts around 2:35

[wersoverytired]

So I paused and this happened. Sam is all , THIS IS MY ROOM AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT DO I KNOW MY RIGHTS

Alternatively, he’s 100% committed to hitting the high note of a song I can’t as of now name but am sure Dean can’t believe he’s hearing

[wersoverytired]

Away from These Shores (13/?) Altered!Sam fic - dissociation, ptsd

Her hands are always cold; they feel like soft ice against his face, now, as she thumbs his eyes open. The sunlight streaming into the room through the spaces between the heavy curtains is too bright, and it takes him too long to wonder why she’s prying his eyes open to begin with.

“Sam!”

He realizes she’s been calling his name (shouting his name) for a while now. Becomes aware of a distant pain in his arm that’s also been there for a while. It’s Amelia’s other hand, gripping his bicep, panicked fingers digging into the muscle almost hard enough to bruise.

“Sam, wake up, wake up! Don’t do this, come on.” Now that she's forced his eyes open, he can see that her face is frantic, her usually-pale cheeks flushed, stained bright red. Adrenaline. He’s never seen her like this, so terrified. “Sam, please, you’re scaring me.”

Oh.

He needs to wake up.

*

So I managed to edit together what I've written over the last few months into another chapter.

Title: Away from These Shores (13/?)

Genre: Gen

Summary: A simple hunt leaves Sam in an altered state no one seems able to explain – at first. Pulling him out of it is not nearly as easy as it should be, especially since Dean is dealing with his own trauma(s).

Spoilers: The fic is standalone, but refers to the plot up to and including 8X01 here and there.

AO3

FF.net

[wersoverytired]

I’m clueless about how to reply on tumblr, so I’m reblogging the reblog just to say thank you for the kind words. I thought about how not everyone will be able to watch the video (whether for technical / physical issue or emotional) and I really wanted the story they shared to get out there and to be accessible to everyone.

J2′s story of what happened to Jared during the filming of 14x12 really got to me

[14x12, Prophet and Loss] . . . I’m watching the main J2 panel of NashCon 2019. There’s something so beautiful and typical of the show & fandom happening at around 45:50.

Easier to just watch, but I’ll write it anyway: turns out Jared was having what he called “the worst moment in his career” during the filming of that emotional confrontation and hug between the brothers by the Impala (at the end of the episode). He said he cried himself to sleep in shame and disappointment that night, after running off the set the second they were done .

Jensen is usually not as forthcoming with these sort of stories, but he was actually telling the story while Jared mainly listened (they exchanged glances like they decided right then and there to share it, which I love them for). I’ve been waiting to hear about that scene, because I could see something was strange about Jared’s body language when Sam takes another swing at Dean but ends up hugging him instead. It’s a beautifully done scene otherwise, but something there seemed very… unusual, to me.

Apparently, something did happen that night – Jared couldn’t for the life of him remember Sam’s lines, connect emotionally, or synchronize the action and the text the way he’s done all these years. Jensen was saying it was really painful for him to watch, because he had never seen Jared get stuck like that. He said it was bad enough that it felt somewhat like the time he visited Rob Benedict after his stroke, when he was unable to speak; he actually asked Jared if he’d taken something. Which he hadn’t. He tried to get him to tell him what was wrong, but Jared truly didn’t know what was going on.

That right there really got to me, because I KNOW what that’s like (there’s a number of things that can cause that, I have one of them). It’s awful, and leaves you extremely anxious and helpless. And this was happening in front of cameras and dozens of people. To a guy deathly afraid of letting people down.

Jared just listened to the story at this point. You could tell it was emotional for him to hear about it, and even more so when he joined in to tell his perspective; I felt like he was reliving it. It’s a little heartbreaking to watch.

Anyway, they say it was 1 AM or so, the crew was worried and pulling Jensen aside and asking what was going on with Jared. He had no answer for them. And they all supported Jared – which, granted, is the right thing to do, but it’s by no means a given on a TV set or any other work environment, certainly not that late into the day when people want to get home. Which Jared says he (in typical fashion) was painfully aware of, and panicking over. 💔

When Jared managed to perform, mainly (they think) because he was so frustrated that it finally connected with Sam’s emotions in the scene, Jensen said the hug was “more Jensen hugging Jared than Dean hugging Sam.”

The audience in the panel couldn’t contain themselves, and started telling Jared how much he is loved, and how good the performance was, and shouted AKF (to which I think he responded “I did.”). And there was a lot of that checking-in-touch thing those guys do whenever one of them is sharing something difficult on stage. And looking the other way as they did so (see pic) because, you know, heteronormatively-raised men and displays of emotion. It was beautiful in its own heartbreaking way.

I loved that outpouring of support and how touched Jared clearly was. I love that he and Jensen decided to share that, the fact that they felt it was safe. I’m so damn emotional kay bye.

*Screen grabs: from the video by Gayled_it on youtube (x)

[wersoverytired]

J2′s story of what happened to Jared during the filming of 14x12 really got to me

[14x12, Prophet and Loss] . . . I'm watching the main J2 panel of NashCon 2019. There's something so beautiful and typical of the show & fandom happening at around 45:50.

Easier to just watch, but I'll write it anyway: turns out Jared was having what he called "the worst moment in his career" during the filming of that emotional confrontation and hug between the brothers by the Impala (at the end of the episode). He said he cried himself to sleep in shame and disappointment that night, after running off the set the second they were done .

Jensen is usually not as forthcoming with these sort of stories, but he was actually telling the story while Jared mainly listened (they exchanged glances like they decided right then and there to share it, which I love them for). I've been waiting to hear about that scene, because I could see something was strange about Jared's body language when Sam takes another swing at Dean but ends up hugging him instead. It's a beautifully done scene otherwise, but something there seemed very... unusual, to me.

Apparently, something did happen that night -- Jared couldn't for the life of him remember Sam's lines, connect emotionally, or synchronize the action and the text the way he’s done all these years. Jensen was saying it was really painful for him to watch, because he had never seen Jared get stuck like that. He said it was bad enough that it felt somewhat like the time he visited Rob Benedict after his stroke, when he was unable to speak; he actually asked Jared if he'd taken something. Which he hadn't. He tried to get him to tell him what was wrong, but Jared truly didn't know what was going on.

That right there really got to me, because I KNOW what that's like (there's a number of things that can cause that, I have one of them). It’s awful, and leaves you extremely anxious and helpless. And this was happening in front of cameras and dozens of people. To a guy deathly afraid of letting people down.

Jared just listened to the story at this point. You could tell it was emotional for him to hear about it, and even more so when he joined in to tell his perspective; I felt like he was reliving it. It's a little heartbreaking to watch.

Anyway, they say it was 1 AM or so, the crew was worried and pulling Jensen aside and asking what was going on with Jared. He had no answer for them. And they all supported Jared -- which, granted, is the right thing to do, but it's by no means a given on a TV set or any other work environment, certainly not that late into the day when people want to get home. Which Jared says he (in typical fashion) was painfully aware of, and panicking over. 💔

When Jared managed to perform, mainly (they think) because he was so frustrated that it finally connected with Sam's emotions in the scene, Jensen said the hug was "more Jensen hugging Jared than Dean hugging Sam."

The audience in the panel couldn't contain themselves, and started telling Jared how much he is loved, and how good the performance was, and shouted AKF (to which I think he responded "I did."). And there was a lot of that checking-in-touch thing those guys do whenever one of them is sharing something difficult on stage. And looking the other way as they did so (see pic) because, you know, heteronormatively-raised men and displays of emotion. It was beautiful in its own heartbreaking way.

I loved that outpouring of support and how touched Jared clearly was. I love that he and Jensen decided to share that, the fact that they felt it was safe. I'm so damn emotional kay bye.

*Screen grabs: from the video by Gayled_it on youtube (x)

*I posted this on the Road So Fat podcast FB group, too, so hiya if you see this and feel like you’ve read it before :)

[wersoverytired]

Fanfic writing when you have dissociative amnesia

Going back to a fanfic in progress that you haven't been working on in, say, a few weeks — and finding entire pages that you have no recollection of writing, nor do you know how their plot will turn out as you read, is a bit disturbing. Maybe 20% feels vaguely familiar, but a lot of it is a surprise. A decade (or at least, a decade of awareness) in, I'm still not used to the amnesia part of DID. And I actually have a mild version.

✥ Still trying to write an outright DID/OSDD fic, but that sh*t is so, so delicate and it’s taking me forever.

[wersoverytired]

Like an Echo Down a Canyon (Supernatural 14x13 fic)

Title: Like an Echo Down a Canyon Characters: Sam, Castiel Genre: Gen Word count: Around 3,700 Summary: Episode 14X13, "Lebanon" (so big spoilers for that). The night that follows the *cough* events *cough* is hard on everyone in the bunker. Cas witnesses the way it goes for Sam. He expected trouble, but not this. As per usual, deals with: vulnerable!Sam, guilt, repercussions of early emotional trauma, emotional flashbacks -- which really are a thing, and boy do they suck -- but mixed here with a side of dissociation, and Castiel's weekly Understanding Psychologically Wounded Humans challenge. Probably more hurt than comfort in this h/c, really. Sorry.

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* I should note that writing about c-ptsd while staying true to the tone of a show that almost 100% sidesteps it isn’t easy, and if I had to describe my own horrific experience with it (and with DID), I would likely write it very differently. But this is a fanfic.

AO3 FF.net

[wersoverytired]

Away from These Shores [dissociative/altered!Sam], Supernatural fic, chapter 12

Title: Away from These Shores (12/?) Genre: Gen Summary: A simple hunt leaves Sam in an altered state no one seems able to explain – at first. Pulling him out of it is not nearly as easy as it should be, especially since Dean is dealing with his own trauma(s). Spoilers: The fic is standalone, but refers to the plot up to and including 8X01 here and there. Disclaimer: Supernatural, its characters, plot lines etc. belong to their awesome creators. I am merely suggesting fun new ways in which those beloved characters could suffer and/or be comforted. ____________

He’s not sure what’s happening. He knows his eyes are open, because he can see the room around him, can see Dean and hear Jane’s voice, though he can’t actively  look  at anything, can't quite listen. He’s just there. Where - - what’s going on? “Sam.” That’s Dean’s voice, Dean’s hand on his arm. Warm, solid. An anchor. “Sammy, talk to me. Hey.” Jane sounds sad as she says, somewhere behind him, “he can’t. It’s okay, it’ll come back -- I’ve seen this before. We just need to get him comfortable before I try to ground him; we can’t leave him sitting like this, anyway -- he might fall.” Oh. He’s pressed against the inner corner of a pull out sofa, this is a room. Whose room? “Yeah, I know.” His brother sounds grim. Snap out of it, you’re worrying him. He’s exhausted. Why can’t you just be okay why can’t you move say something say Dean I’m alright say anything. But he can’t. AO3, FF.net

[wersoverytired]

This. This look on Sam’s face when he truly understands he’s back and who brought him back. That it’s still happening. That right there is what I kept seeing when I wrote Bearing Gifts. Breaks my heart.

I also kept thinking about how his initial horror would have been the result of him assuming that he’s back in the Cage. I gave his quiet, desperate “no – ” a different meaning in the fic, but... yeah.

Man, this is still painful to watch.

[wersoverytired]

So, I wrote a missing scene one-shot about the most emotional part of the latest Supernatural episode, because man, that left me unhinged. There, that's the only non-spoilery summary I can provide. No idea about tumblr spoiler etiquette, tagging etc., so to be safe, I’ll only put a link here rather than the whole text.

Title: Bearing Gifts Genre: Gen, one-shot Word count: 1,517 Triggers/warnings: Topics explored in the episode (elaborating would be spoilery). Plus what some might consider suicidal ideation.    

Spoilers: Definitely don’t read before watching 13.21

AO3  |  FF.net