Lol. I'm a mod over at deancastiel. I'm not a wincest fan, so the Dean/Castiel pairing was very attractive for me (up until then, I usually only read gen, het, and the incredibly RARE rare pair slash with bottom!Dean). There is a HUGE variety in Dean/Castiel, though there's frankly a lot of bad with the good, as you can expect with any pairing that becomes popular.
It's interesting to me as a mod to see the progression of themes in Dean/Castiel fic since the beginning of the comm. Initially, most fics featured Castiel rescuing or meeting Dean in hell, and then a lot of Castiel exploring the human condition (and a lot of innocent Castiel learning about sex from Dean for the first time). We have also developed our own tropes and cliches-- there's a huge niche for domestic and food related fic in the pairing, as well as (as you might expect) wing!fic. Sometimes there's a lot of religious themes as well.
Over time, after Castiel had more characterization in show, the fandom started branching out-- Castiel grew less innocent in characterization, dark!Castiel started being played with, and people started writing a number of exploratory vessel!fics (about Castiel's as-yet unnamed vessel) which of course became AU after The Rapture/ Jimmy. (Post-The Rapture, there's a lot of Jimmy fic as well... the fandom loves to play with the morality of Dean and Castiel in a relationship while Jimmy is present). Castiel started seducing Dean instead of the other way round, and so on.
Another common trope which has evolved over time as we got Anna was fallen!Castiel-- how Castiel might fall and become more human, Castiel being punished by heaven for his rebellion, etc.
There was a tendency to treat Sam during S4 as a possible evil!Sam in future!fic, now the trend is to write Sam as the sympathetic (or at least embarrassed) little brother to Dean and Castiel's relationship. There are Sam finds out and Bobby finds out fics. There's kid!fic where one or the other gets de-aged, and of course a lot of pwps with various kinks explored.
Episode 5.04 created other trends, we now have a tag for stories which take place in that au future or feature the future versions of the characters.
The comm has hosted two massive fic exchanges since the comm started along with a number of challenges, and those on the whole produced some really high quality fic.
I definitely prefer bottom!Dean stories, and I have favorites. I don't read everything that comes across the comm, there is simply too much VOLUME to do that. I can give you some recs if you like though :).
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It's interesting to me as a mod to see the progression of themes in Dean/Castiel fic since the beginning of the comm. Initially, most fics featured Castiel rescuing or meeting Dean in hell, and then a lot of Castiel exploring the human condition (and a lot of innocent Castiel learning about sex from Dean for the first time). We have also developed our own tropes and cliches-- there's a huge niche for domestic and food related fic in the pairing, as well as (as you might expect) wing!fic. Sometimes there's a lot of religious themes as well.
Over time, after Castiel had more characterization in show, the fandom started branching out-- Castiel grew less innocent in characterization, dark!Castiel started being played with, and people started writing a number of exploratory vessel!fics (about Castiel's as-yet unnamed vessel) which of course became AU after The Rapture/ Jimmy. (Post-The Rapture, there's a lot of Jimmy fic as well... the fandom loves to play with the morality of Dean and Castiel in a relationship while Jimmy is present). Castiel started seducing Dean instead of the other way round, and so on.
Another common trope which has evolved over time as we got Anna was fallen!Castiel-- how Castiel might fall and become more human, Castiel being punished by heaven for his rebellion, etc.
There was a tendency to treat Sam during S4 as a possible evil!Sam in future!fic, now the trend is to write Sam as the sympathetic (or at least embarrassed) little brother to Dean and Castiel's relationship. There are Sam finds out and Bobby finds out fics. There's kid!fic where one or the other gets de-aged, and of course a lot of pwps with various kinks explored.
Episode 5.04 created other trends, we now have a tag for stories which take place in that au future or feature the future versions of the characters.
The comm has hosted two massive fic exchanges since the comm started along with a number of challenges, and those on the whole produced some really high quality fic.
I definitely prefer bottom!Dean stories, and I have favorites. I don't read everything that comes across the comm, there is simply too much VOLUME to do that. I can give you some recs if you like though :).