Transcript: Track 31: Regency AU

Episode 31 posted April 22, 2022
Links to all fics mentioned can be found on the main episode post.

[Intro music]

Ellen: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Welcome to the 31st episode of Mixtape Book Club podcast. My name’s Ellen,

Mal: and my name is Mal.

Ellen: And maybe we should “say ladies and gentlefolk, welcome!” this week. So in each episode we take an in-depth look at a different trope or subgenre in Destiel fan fiction. And in this episode we’re gonna take a look at historical fics, which are set in the regency period in England

Mal: To discuss these fics with us we’d like to welcome author thatpeculiarone and moderator of the SPN Regency Big Bang, also known as Jess. Hey, Jess.

thatpeculiarone: Hi.

Ellen: Welcome. how are you?

thatpeculiarone: I’m good. How are you?

Ellen: Very good. Hooray, more Aussies today!

Mal: I’m outnumbered today! (laughing) [00:01:00] I’m gonna be the one with the distinctive voice for once.

Ellen: Yes! I mean, yeah, we probably don’t sound too much different, Jess. So, you know… sorry, everyone!

thatpeculiarone: Our voices may blend together

Mal: I don’t know, you sound different to me, but then I’m obviously very used to hearing Ellen by now. So yeah.

Ellen: Alright, so we’ll talk about the Regency Big bang in a moment. But the fics we’re gonna discuss today in depth are: An Assembly Such As This by Unforth, Rescue Me Tonight by superhoney and The Winchester Affair by andimeantittosting.

Mal: And as always, links to all of the fics that we’re gonna talk about are gonna be available in the episode post on mixtape book club.com, and they’ll be included in our collection on ao3.

So our first order of business today is that, I want to say a huge thank you to all of our listeners out there who have supported us so far on our [00:02:00] mixtape book club ko-fi server slash membership thingy that we’ve set up. We’ve been just overwhelmed by the number of lovely people that have wanted to come and support us.

So we do appreciate it, especially as we are going to continue ways to give you this content for free without any kind of ads or anything in it. So we do appreciate the people who decide to support us anyway, just out of the goodness of their hearts.

Ellen: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And if you’d like to be part of that and help us out with our hosting in costs it’s just ko-fi.com/mixtapebookclub

Mal: Yeah, so k o hyphen f i.com as well as the link will be in the blog and the Twitter post and such, like everything else.

Ellen: Yep. Absolutely no obligation. But we [00:03:00] do really appreciate people who have done so so far. Thank you. Yes. Okay, so we’re going for a historical theme today, and I know there’s been quite a few people who I’ve spoken to from time to time who don’t actually sort of know what Regency period is or what it means.

So I mean, you, if you’re listening to this, you’re probably already aware of regency dramas like Pride and Prejudice, for example, other Jane Austen books like Emma, who that have been made into films or TV series. So in particular it set… this period in English history was from… How to approach this without actually just reading out this thing that I’ve got here?

Let’s just read it out and see if I can make it interesting. So, in the early 19th century, King George III was unwell and he couldn’t rule, he wasn’t fit to rule. So his son Prince George took over as the regent. Prince Regent. So this, the regency [00:04:00] itself went from 1811 until the king died in 1820.

So during that time, all sorts of things were happening. There was the Napoleonic Wars, there was big upheavals in kind of social structures and whatever. So this was a time when the Lords and the sort of upper crust of society decided everything. But they didn’t have a lot to do because they didn’t work.

They just sort of, when the government was in session, the Lords went off to the Houses of Parliament, did their thing, and all the ladies just sort of sat around and did nothing. So they had their “season”, which was like a big party time for them in London and in other locations like Bath and, you know, so this is the time when they had all the balls, the parties and you know, less savory things like gambling and the gentlemen went off to their clubs and all that kind of thing.

So we’ve got like a really interesting kind of class system there. And of course there’s also all the servants and the you know, I don’t wanna say lesser, the lower class [00:05:00] people who had their own troubles and, you know, adventures, whatever to write about and read about.

So we’ve got lots of interesting stories to be told in this era. Oh, I forgot to mention also, I forgot to mention Bridgeton, maybe the most famous currently that there is on TV. So, all of this is set in that period.

Mal: I’m binging season two.

Ellen: Yes, me too. Actually, I’m not finished, so don’t tell me any spoilers.

Mal: Oh, no spoilers for you. Okay.

thatpeculiarone: I haven’t even started season two. So .

Ellen: So I mean, Jess, you are one of the moderators for the SPN Regency Big Bang, which is currently open for signups, by the way, until the 2nd of May.

thatpeculiarone: Yes!

Ellen: Not to put you on the spot here, but do you wanna tell us a bit more about that bang?

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, sure! So we’ve, so it’s been running for three years now and it was started by nickelkeep and then they recruited both you, Ellen, [00:06:00] and I, into be mods and it’s a really low key bang I would say. Like we don’t put a lot of pressure. On anyone. It’s more just about, you know, exploring the genre that is Regency aus and giving people just a stress free sort of bang to write and just, you know, write about the genre we all love.

So signups are currently open for authors and artists until May 2nd, and then artists have an additional month to sign up and yeah, it’s a lot of fun. So if people love to write Regency, I definitely suggest coming and joining us.

Mal: Yay. I’m already sign up. I think you’ve been stuck with me every year so far.

Ellen: Hooray! It’s also, it’s like an all-ships bang so everyone can. Any ship you like, but there’s plenty of fics [00:07:00] there already from the first two years to, to read. If you wanna check them out. Obviously if being in all ships bang, make sure you check tags and whatever to make sure you’re not getting into something that you’re not into, but otherwise, yeah, some brilliant stories already have come out of this. So looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with this year.

thatpeculiarone: Yes. We have a very talented pool of authors and artists. Very lucky.

Mal: Gosh. Yeah. I’m sure we’ll run across some of those things today actually. I think some of the ones that we’ll talk about are probably gonna be coming from that pool at some point.

Ellen: I’ve loved this genre for such a long time. I my mom is like a big fan of Pride and Prejudice, like the BBC version, the TV show, . So, so we like regularly rewatch that.

Mal: Yeah. That’s where it came from for me as well. Yeah. The whole, yes.

Ellen: And it’s always fun trying to writing it as one thing, like once you get into the kind of flow of writing this particular kind style of dialogue and everything, it gets [00:08:00] easier as you go on kind of thing, but even reading it can take a little while to sort of get your mind in the right parlance.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. I find it much easier to read it. Like I enjoy reading it. I’ve started to sort of pick up on different terms and the language, but writing it’s a whole nother story, so I haven’t approached that yet.

Ellen: Yep. You should. It’s so much fun.

thatpeculiarone: I know you’re trying to persuade me to do it!

Mal:, it’s funny, I find that it almost flows easier for me because there are all those like specific terms and it’s almost like a, I don’t know, it is kind of almost like its own language sometimes, but I almost find that helps it flow easily.

Because you almost know what you’re expected to say next. So I don’t know. It’s…

Ellen: yeah, once you switch your brain into that mode,

Mal: Yeah, ‘cause I’ve been obsessed for many years cuz my, yeah, my mum passed her Pride and Prejudice and. The Darcy obsession onto me when I was [00:09:00] young again.

Ellen: Yes, Thank you, Mum.

Mal: The BBC version, the same. So that thing is six hours long. The number of times I’ve watched it is shocking, really.

Ellen: Yes. And of course the film version with Kiera Knightly and that’s also is also really gorgeous. So worth watching.

Mal: And I’ve loved all kinds of different Pride and Prejudice adaptations as well. Even though it’s not Regency, I kind of kept that love for the story all my life. So even when I wasn’t specifically reading that, I found that I was still drawn to that kind of story, which then drew me back to it after a while. The Lizzy Bennett Diaries is a really good one, which is like a modern adaptation, which is like a web series, which is pretty good. But It kind of drew me back into it. I don’t know how long ago that was now. Probably more years than my care to count, ‘cause it feels like it was only a couple of years ago, but it was probably…

Ellen: it was quite a while ago [00:10:00] now though. It’s probably like…

Mal: 10 years? I don’t know.

Ellen: 15 years?

Mal: Oh, does it have to be that long? No. Maybe 10. I don’t know.

Ellen: I’m trying to think where I was when I was watching it. Anyway, nevermind. That’s worth looking up and watching if you…

Mal: Yeah, it’s really good actually. So that’s a modern for somebody who maybe is a bit scared of the language but is interested to find out what the story is about I think the Lizzy Bennett Diaries is a really good entry point to this kind of stuff. Yeah. So yeah, I’ll definitely throw a link to that in the blog post. But when that started airing, it kind of… Airing, is that the right word for YouTube? I don’t know, but when that started becoming a thing it drew me back into this whole world. And that’s the point where I started binging stuff beyond just Jane Austen things. And it just got worse from there onwards, really.

Ellen: Yes. But we should probably talk about some actual you know, Destiel fic here, you think?

Mal: [00:11:00] Yeah. Might be good.

Ellen: What should we start with?

Mal: oh, do we wanna start with the big one and move down or should we save the big one for the end? What do you feel like?

Ellen: Oh, we can start with the big one. Why not?

An Assembly Such As This

Mal: Yeah, the chunky one. All right. All right. So the first fic that we will discuss is An Assembly Such As This by Unforth, and Unforth is a very prolific, supernatural author. I think when I checked their profile for this particular Vic, they have over 200 Supernatural fics now. 213 as of today. So, so would assume that probably most people listening have heard of them. If not, here’s a good start. So An Assembly Such As This, and here is the summary:

Dean Winchester has built the life expected of him, marrying Charlotte Bradbury, raising a family, maintaining his estate, spending winters in ton. However, their life together is built on a shared lie – they are best friends, united to protect the secret of their true desires. Charlie has found a companion who shares her preferences, but Dean is lonely for a want of partner. That is, until he learns of Ms. Naomi’s exclusive, monthly, male-only parties, and manages to secure himself an invitation…

Now there is a warning in the summary for this. You should definitely read the text ‘cause there is some non-con tagged in this, but there is a kind of explanation as to what that actually relates to, both within the summary and the ortho notes. ‘Cause it’s not necessarily sexual, it’s def… well it’s sexual in overtone, but it’s like fully clothed. But definitely read that explanation and make sure that you’re comfortable reading it before you do so. And this Vic is a glorious 151,000 words, so it was a nice little chunk for me. I did read it in two parts, it took me a while to get back to it, so I ended up, when I got back to it, I just binged the first half again[00:13:00]

So I ended up reading the whole thing in one day, but…

Ellen: oh my god,

Mal: I love it when I get to do that though, like a nice chunky fic and I just get to binge it all in one day. It’s great.

Ellen: Now this one actually didn’t feel like it was, that it was a really long story. Like it flowed so… like I, you feel like you need to devour it cause you, you need to find out what’s happening. What’s gonna happen.

Mal: Yes. Because there is quite a lot of sort of plot stuff happening in this one. Plot and pining. Yes. My favorite.

Ellen: Does it say, yeah, it does say in the summary, so at the beginning, Dean and Charlie are actually married. They’re like settled as a couple and everything and but Dean sort of, Charlie has…

Mal: so Charlie has Joe as her live-in kind of a friend, somebody of a slightly lower status who Charlie can kind of take pity on.

Women were kind of allowed and kind of almost expected to kind of have [00:14:00] companions around them in those days because, as much as it sounds insane to us now they were basically not given as much attention back in the days. And they were expected to entertain themselves up until a certain point.

So it actually wasn’t at all strange for them to kind of keep female companions around to just have company really while their husband’s ignored them. , which is great. Yeah.

thatpeculiarone: Lovely!

Mal: Definitely great for people like Charlie. So, so yeah, so they have Jo living with them, obviously Dean is fully aware of this.

It’s a completely consensual arrangement which is a trope that turns up quite often in this kind of fan fiction, whether it’s established already at the beginning of the fic or something that is used as a solution later on. It’s a really common trope, I think because it’s, yeah.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. Charlie and Dean. That’s a very common trope I’ve read through a lot of Regency and this one was a little different I [00:15:00] found because they were like married, but then they also had kids, which I hadn’t seen a lot in other Regency fics. Like usually see them build up to having a sort of arranged marriage of convenience. But no, I haven’t actually seen them have kids. So it made it a bit more unique. For me, this one

Mal: Yeah. I like how the point was made that they sorted out the kids thing and then just never touched each other again. (laughing) which I thought was quite funny.

Ellen: At some point they both had to grit their teeth and get on with it but after the two children were produced, that was it. Bless. It’s a difficult time ‘cause I guess, you know, a lot of these fics, there’s either people sort of seem to go two ways with it. They’re either they actually include, like a period-typical homophobia type situation where the guys do need to hide and be secretive and all that kind of thing. Or they just have it where, you know, same sex couples are totally fine and it, you know, they just totally handwave that entire marriage equality [00:16:00] problem.

Mal: Yeah. Depends what you’re looking for. I feel like I enjoy both kinds, depending on what I’m looking for on any given day.

Ellen: Yeah, definitely. ‘Cause obviously back then to be discovered as, you know, having homosexual relations is punishable by death or I think at least severely punished, if not death penalty.

Mal: So, yeah, I’m sure it depended on how much money you had, how severe the punishment would be.

Ellen: Yeah. And people went to all sorts of lengths to hide what they, you know, there were places where men could go at least, and you know, either dress as women or, you know, actual…

Mal: Yeah. It’s actually all very fascinating when you start kind of digging into it. Like if you ever write a story like this, it’s really interesting I find to kind of dig into it because obviously these were real people, like that were doing this. And the ways that they found to still live their lives, I just found very fascinating. Obviously, it’s kind of [00:17:00] sad and horrific that they ever had to, but I love the fact that people are always going to find a way, and I love that they did and they did it, like in some ways they did it with so much class and style. I’m like, okay. All right. Yeah. I like it when I’m personally myself when I’m writing things like this. I don’t know. I know. Written it this way, Ellen and I don’t know what your preference is, but I like to kind of write it more on the realism side just because I kind of, I dunno. I think in my head I kind of like to sort of honor the fact that real people did go through that, so I sort of… but I can kind of see myself writing it the other way sometimes as well just because, you know, sometimes we need it, especially with maybe a shorter story where you just kinda want to focus on the Dean and Cas aspect and the fluff rather than the historic aspect.

Ellen: Yeah. It kind of adds an extra layer of angst, doesn’t it to have them not be allowed to do what they want to do. [00:18:00]

Mal: Yeah, definitely provides a layer of angst in this story. significant part of the angst in this story is because of that. So, so how spoilery are we going on this one?

Ellen: We may as well go all the way with the spoilers.

Sam Winchester: Whoa whoa, whoa. Spoilers.

Mal: Spoiler alert. They’re gay!

Ellen: Really? Oh my God! (laughing)

Mal: Sorry. Had you not finished it yet? No.

Ellen: all right. So I’m just trying to remember how Cas actually comes into this thing. ,

thatpeculiarone: well, from memory. So…

Mal: I was gonna say in Dean’s butt, but

Ellen: that’s much later. (laughing)

Mal: No. So actually start off with them meeting at Ms Naomi’s exclusive monthly male-only parties. You get some pretty nice smut right at the beginning of this fic, like you get it out the gate.

thatpeculiarone: Just jumps [00:19:00] right in. Yep.

Mal: Yeah. Which is great ‘cause a lot of the time in Regency fics you are gonna be waiting.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s right. It’s all about the pine.

thatpeculiarone: There’s the whole courting and the looks…

Mal: oh god these fics edge, the reader. You’ll be like a hundred thousand words in and you’ll honestly be on the edge of your seat. Like they touched hands. You go a little bit regency yourself by the time you’ve almost like 500,000 words of it.

Ellen: An ankle. Oh my God!

Mal: Swoon!

Ellen: But no, this one definitely brings the smut like all the way through. There is plenty of that.

Mal: Oh Yes. And unforth writes wonderful smut. So you know that they deliver in this one. And it’s especially fascinating because of the nature of these parties and how like secretive they are, they’re kind of done as a masquerade with like masks so that the identities of the participants in the parties are [00:20:00] protected. ‘Cause obviously it would be disastrous for somebody’s identity to get out. So that kind of plays into the smut a little bit and that they can’t actually see who they are, but they kind of work with it and get around it anyway, which is quite sweet.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. I love a good secret identity sort of fic. So that was a really interesting build in their relationship, like having that sort of part as the first part where they sort of build up this like sort of love for each other, but they have no idea who the other is. And then it’s like the sort of other side of it when they kind of do discover who the other is.

Mal: Yeah. So almost even though they don’t meet, knowing who each other is. Trying to phrase this right. So it, it’s almost like that feeling you get in like the two person love triangle kind of aspect, but they don’t meet face to face [00:21:00] in the other aspect until much, much later in the fic, in this one.

So you don’t have, yeah. So you don’t have a lot of that, but it’s similar to that. Yeah.

Ellen: They don’t meet in person.

Mal: Is it a nice kind of tease for the reader actually, because there’s a quite a few chapters where you’re kind of hearing about Cas in the background and it’s like they’re kind of missing each other. It’s just goddammit just do it. I just go to the place

Ellen: And it’s interesting, because in a real book this, that wouldn’t be, that would be such a, like a, something that you wouldn’t really take into account. You’d be like, oh, they’re just talking about her cousin or whatever. But because this is actual supernatural fanfic and they refer to him as James and you are like, “Oh that’s Cas! Oh my god!” It makes it just an extra kind of level of exciting. Yeah.

Mal: Yeah. Because if it was an original story, you wouldn’t already have that connotation attached to James. So you wouldn’t know.

Ellen: Yeah. You wouldn’t know that it was gonna be, you wouldn’t pick up on it until later when they actually met.

Mal: It’s useful having Cas have so many different names. Sometimes [00:22:00]

Ellen: Yes. and then there’s this lovely kind of letter… now I’ve forgotten the word for it.

Mal (whispers): Epistolary!

Ellen: Yes! Thank you. Thank you. It’s too long a word for my brain to work out today. In between, so they can only come to these soiree things once a month during the season and in between Dean starts writing letters to Castiel who… obviously he can’t send them anywhere because he doesn’t know who he is, so he just sort of puts them in his pocket until they meet again, and then he hands them over and then so they start having this little further sort of conversation I guess in their letters.

And then some of them turn a bit kind of raunchy towards the middle as well. So yeah, that’s a nice little, there’s so much pining, like he is totally gone on this guy right from the start and it’s… Yeah.

Mal: The pining and the angst.

Ellen: Yep. Yeah. And by the time they actually do meet each other in person, it’s just so [00:23:00] angsty like you’re just like, come on guys, get this together.

Mal: Yep. It’s kind of one or two chapters. I think. Maybe it’s just one chapter. I dunno. I read it all than one go, so it’s kind of hard for me to work out where the chapters ended. But yeah, there’s probably one or two chapters I think of some hardcore miscommunication kind of going on when they kind of meet each other properly. Which is frustrating Without completely spoiling everything. Cas basically walks in on something, he interprets one way that’s completely a different way and it’s just, oh, as a reader, it’s, yeah. I was very glad I did read it in one go. ‘Cause I’m not sure if this was posted as a… oh, hang on. Let me see. There are different dates here. No, I think what happened was it was posted chapter by chapter, but it was like a chapter a day. or a chapter. Yeah.

Ellen: A day! I think it sort of looked like they were posting it as they were writing it as well. I’m like, how can you write this much in just like a week or two weeks? Like it’s amazing. [00:24:00] If they did actually write it and then post it that day. That’s incredible.

Mal: Well, that you mentioned it, I’m pretty sure that I remember one of the author’s notes saying something about that they were working at a rate of about a chapter a day, so Yep.

thatpeculiarone: gosh, I can’t imagine.

Ellen: No. Very impressive. And for it to turn out so beautifully as well.

Mal: Yeah. That’s the part that gets me. I mean, I could probably sit down and write 150 (thousand) words in a week or two, but believe me, it would not read like this. (laughing) That would be the one that I would give to Ellen to read for me. And she would just send it back and be like, “try again.”

Ellen: Oh, come on. I’d never do that. (laughing)

Mal: If I’d written 150 K in a week, you would

Ellen: Well, I’m just wondering if maybe we should spoiler the non-con bit just so people can know what they’re in for, but

Mal: yeah, I guess we could, and we can just say, you know, skip [00:25:00] forward until, you know, skip forward 30 seconds.

Ellen: Yeah. A couple of minutes.

Mal: Don’t wanna, yeah. If you don’t wanna be spoiled on that part.

Ellen: Yeah. Okay, well, so there is a section, well, a sort of a plot line in this where Michael is one of the guests at the club and… who knows Dean’s real identity and is trying to blackmail him basically, and force himself on Dean. So there is a very kind of non-con sexual undertone to the whole thing.

And it is quite, it’s quite distressing to read. I found, I was like, oh my God, this is really happening, but then it doesn’t last very long and Unforth does warn quite explicitly in the chapter exactly where this is in the chapter so if you don’t want to read it, you don’t have to, you can skip over it and it doesn’t you know, you don’t miss anything.

Mal: Yeah, I think they actually summarize everything that was missed at the beginning of the next chapter as well, so that if you do want to skip it, you can just kind of catch up on what you missed otherwise in the previous chapter [00:26:00] before you carry on. But if it’s… if people are concerned in terms of actual physical sexual rape, then no, that does not occur. However, there are definitely other non-con elements, so yeah.

thatpeculiarone: And it, it does have a lasting effect on Dean’s character like PTSD and stuff like that. So, yeah.

Mal: Yeah, I did find that the fact was very like accurately tagged. So , yes.

Ellen: Yep. And that leads directly into the most angsty kind of section where there is the misunderstanding and the, you know, separation. But yeah, it does have a happy ending. Everything’s okay in the end. So

Mal: yeah. I thought it had quite, quite a lovely ending, actually there was one moment at the ending where I was about to throw my phone across the room, , that I was like “no, no, it’s okay.” So yes, there is a happy ending.

Ellen: What happened? I don’t remember.[00:27:00]

Mal: There was just, yeah, there was one part where I think it’s like a letter or something. I can’t quite remember what it was now. Where unforth fakes you out for a second. I was like, wait a minute. But no . But no, there was a happy, a very happy ending.

Ellen: The language in this one is really beautiful. Done a great job of kind of, it feels like a Regency book. Like it was written in the style of kind of Pride and Prejudice. Very nice language.

Mal:. Yes. So I guess one thing to discuss is kind of with Regency Aus, you kind of have a range of language in terms of, some people go for quite accurate regency era, very like Austen, like language and have the characters speak that way, which is more kind of like price and prejudice, Jane Austen kind of language, whereas other people go for that kind of setting. But they do somewhat [00:28:00] modernize the language. Like they’ll still use like the right terms and have like certain phrases, but they do modernize the language a little bit.

Which is more sort of Bridgerton-like, really? That’s kind of what they did. And I think we’ve got a few different fics today where we can kind of see a range of that. But this felt quite kind of more kind of on the Austen end of the scale to me. like this was quite, yeah, this was like flowed quite nicely. It was quite good I thought.

thatpeculiarone: you find with the supernatural fics that a lot of them, not like a lot of them, but there is a fair amount. I found that there’s a lot of time travel involved. Oh yeah. So they’ll go back to the Regency era. So it’s not as much of the language because the characters are still very modern. They’re still like in this current century, but they’ve just time traveled back. So you have the elements of Regency there, but it’s not so much the language because you know, they just talk like we do. So yeah.

Mal: Yeah. I enjoy both, but there’s definitely [00:29:00] like a range out there to be had.

Ellen: yeah, it was always fun with doing the research with… the research is like 90% of the fun, I think. But didn’t we discover in the first one that we wrote together, Mal, that that we were trying to work out if it would be okay for Cas to say “Hello Dean”, And we worked out that hello was like a word that was invented for use with a telephone, which wasn’t invented for another 50 years or something.

Mal:. Many years after. Yeah. You technically couldn’t say it, which was just, slightly gutting, really!

Ellen: but we I think at that point we were like, eh, just put it in anyway.

Mal: Oh, well, just put it in. It’s fine. I mean,

Ellen: the point is this is the thing that has come up with the new Bridgerton series, is that a lot of people complaining about things that are anachronistic or whatever, that the costuming isn’t quite right, or, you know, the language is weird or whatever. But I think as long as like you’re, if you are enjoying the story, who cares? Does it really have to…

Mal: Yeah. and I think this [00:30:00] is a really good point to make about Regency and historical fics in general because you know, you’re always gonna get that, you know, that one person who goes into reading this kind of story and they want it to be absolutely historically accurate. Because I know I’ve had people say to me before, that has put them off attempting to write this kind of thing because they know they’re not gonna get every detail perfect. They’re not gonna get every part of the setting right. Or the costuming right. Or they’re gonna have some kind of phrasing wrong and somebody’s gonna call them out on it and…

The thing is, even a lot of the books that you read, like out there, kind of, I’ve been reading this stuff long enough now that I can pick up a book, an original story written out there and published in a bookstore and tell you four or five anachronisms in every single one I pick up. And it’s fine. It’s fiction. It’s not real. It’s [00:31:00] fiction and people are here to have fun. Really. They’re here to enjoy it. Mostly as a romance, not as a historical nonfiction treaty on anything. So, you know, just relax. It’s okay. Write the thing anyway. It’s just fine. Please write the thing. I wanna read it.

Ellen: Yeah, we do say that in the bang sort of guidelines, you know, if something if something doesn’t quite fit with the, with what you want in your story, then go ahead and change it. It’s fine as long as it’s the story is working for you then go ahead. As long as it looks like it’s Regency, don’t care about the details that much.

Mal: Yeah. I mean, I’m somebody who generally like I, just like you said earlier I love the research part. I will get lost in giant research holes and be sending Ellen random links to stuff like God knows what time in the morning, like “we should include this!”

And then we have like entire new scenes that we add in just because we decide we want to [00:32:00] include this random thing that we found. And it’s fun!

Ellen: Having said all that, if you do find a detail that is great, I would a hundred percent put that in something . Exactly. Like when you found that thing about like dildos being advertised as being for like nuns and school marms or something.

Mal: yeah. What was it like nuns and celibates or something. And I was like, well that’s going in. (laughing)

Ellen: I dunno. But it was great. I was like, well, guess we are putting that in.

Mal: Yeah. So I will always attempt to make something as historically accurate as I can. But then I will use whatever license I want to make that story work and make it feel enjoyable to read, because nobody wants to feel like they’re reading a textbook, or at least I don’t like…That’s,  that is not what I’m here for. . So yeah I enjoy the research part, but [00:33:00] you can take it too far.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. I think, and I think you’ll find for the most part, that like readers such as I, that don’t really know as much about the Regency, like we don’t know much about the historical elements. We don’t notice it. Like when we read it, we can see the sort of language and all this, but we wouldn’t notice the inaccuracies. So you’ll still have a wide population of readers that will enjoy it, who don’t, who won’t be able to pick up inaccuracies. They just enjoy the work of fiction. So, you know, going into it, writing it, sure. There might be some who are like, oh, I don’t, you know, I. I think it should be more accurate. But…

Mal: that’s comforting cuz I know, like when I post it I’m like, well I know that’s not right. Everybody’s gonna know the whole fic’s gonna be just terrible.

thatpeculiarone: Whereas I’m reading it like, wow, this is really good!

Mal: I dunno. And then you get that one person who always has to post and be like, they have to bring out the, “well actually” every time. Yeah. And I always just wanna respond with, well actually you [00:34:00] could read something else.

thatpeculiarone: Yes, it’s true. It’s just, it doesn’t need to be accurate.

Like any sort of work of fiction doesn’t need to be like you think if I’m writing about Cas and Dean being doctors, that I’m not gonna know all the medical research and all the medical terms accurately. Probably not. Like I’ll do my best to research, but I will get things wrong. Like it just happens. So it’s, yeah, it’s.

Hard to say oh, that’s inaccurate. Well, it’s fiction. It doesn’t need to be accurate.

Ellen: Yes. People can’t help themselves.

Mal: And people that you know, people that I know, obviously they have ways of saying things to me that are polite and they, and if I hand a fic to them and there’s something in it that’s wrong, then obviously they’re gonna come in and say to me like, Mal, this is an issue. It’s gonna happen. That’s fine. But I always say that by the time something is on ao3 as far as I’m concerned, like it’s done, [00:35:00] I’m probably already in the middle of three other fics by that point. I’m done.

Ellen: Having gone off on that tangent, I will say that has no bearing on unforth’s fic. Like I didn’t find anything in there that was particularly anachronistic. (laughing) No, this is, the story is beautifully constructed and nothing like, you know, threw me out of it or anything. It was great. It was beautiful. So, sorry for that random tangent in the middle.

Mal: There was wearing jeans here, there are no like random like trucks going down the street like this is… Okay. This is great.

Ellen: No one’s wearing wrist watch.

Mal: No. Oh, talking of wrist watch. Okay. It wasn’t a wrist watch, it was a necklace. However, I really liked the detail in this. So at one point in this story Dean buys a necklace for Castiel. And which I loved, ‘cause first of all, fuck gender norm. Give somebody whatever fucking gift they want.[00:36:00]

Yeah, I love it. I love the fact that he even back in the day, just went and bought this necklace because the stone on it made him think of Cas. So he immediately went and gave it to him.

Ellen: Such a sap in this one. so romantic,

Mal: Yeah, but I’ve never had a piece of jewelry cause me so much angst, it’s just no.

Ellen: Oh yeah. Big Love, Actually vibes in that section. I was like, oh my heart.

Mal: Yeah, it was, but yeah, it was painful.

Ellen: No spoilers, but, yeah.

Mal: Yeah. It was painful, but it’s all good in the end. a happy ending as we’ve said, A happy ending for everybody, actually. Even though at one point it didn’t look like, it looked like perhaps somebody wasn’t gonna have a happy ending, but it all turned out wonderfully. Good job Unforth.

Ellen: Yes. And there was lovely kind of ensemble cast to this one too. A lot of people in both of their lives, good and bad, I guess. There were like a collection of bad guys [00:37:00] in this one as well.

Mal: Yes. Yeah, I really enjoyed Gabriel in this story because I found that he was really well written to be not unlikable, yet at the same time always acting in his own interest. Which I found, at least for a good part of canon, not for all of it, but for a good part of canon, I found that was actually a really accurate, good kind of representation of him. I thought that was really good. So

Ellen: yeah, he’s not always on their side

Mal: and so, but they managed to do it without making him unlikable in the slightest. Like he was still very likable, but selfish at the end of the day, so. So, yeah. Good job. Good job. I think I’ve said that three times now, but yeah, I enjoyed it.

Ellen: No, it’s a great fic. Yeah. I don’t wanna talk about the the sort of details without being spoilery.

Mal: Yeah, like the [00:38:00] actual sort of plot part is quite slippery, so yeah.

Okay. Lots of good, smut in this one though. Go. Go read.

Ellen: There is some delicious smut, and smut that is delicious while also not revealing their faces, which is interesting kind of concept.

Mal: Yeah, I love that. I did. Yeah. Yeah, it was, and it was both. It was both hot and sweet. Like the idea of like them kind of giving head while under a cape type thing was somehow very hot, but then also at the same time, like having to keep their eyes closed. Just a kiss was also very sweet.

Ellen: yeah, they protected each other.

Mal: A full range. A full range. .

Rescue Me Tonight

Ellen: All right. Shall we go on to Rescue Me Tonight?

Mal: Yeah, let’s do it.

Ellen: Okay. So Rescue Me Tonight is by superhoney.

It was published in 2017. It’s [00:39:00] 40,000 words long, and it’s also explicit. All of these fics today are. And the summary goes like this.

In order to secure his chance at a better life, he’ll have to ruin the best man he’s ever known.

When Dean first hears the proposal, he fears it’s a joke: he’ll be paid to seduce one of the most well-respected bachelors in London, Lord Castiel Milton, and then break his heart. But Lord Castiel’s enemies are ruthless men, and they’ll stop at nothing to see him humbled, including hiring Dean to play the role of a lifetime. Transforming himself from a lowly prostitute to a well-bred country lord won’t be easy, but if all goes according to plan, Dean will finally be free from the life he despises.

He never expected to fall in love along the way.

It’s a great summary.

Mal: I’ll let you to talk about this one just ‘cause I’ve no joke, read this about, I’m gonna say easily 20 times, [00:40:00] so. so I’m just gonna let you two talk about this and

Ellen: Alright, we’ll chat, and then you can gush about it afterwards. Well I loved this one.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, I loved it too. I loved that they had just such a chemistry between them right away. Despite the angst of it all, ‘cause you know, Dean’s sort of hiding who he is. They were just so sweet and lovely together from the very beginning. So I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

Ellen: No way. It doesn’t take him long to fall for Cas, does it?

thatpeculiarone: No, it does not. I relate, but (laughs)

Ellen: absolutely. Yeah. I guess we should say that. So at the beginning, yeah, Dean’s a prostitute. I’m trying to think how he came into that. I think he used to, he, him and Sam ended up orphans, and then Sam sort of disappeared one day and he never worked out where Sam had gone.

So then he had to go into, you know, prostitution to make a living, I guess. So then Zachariah and Uriel, and someone else, [00:41:00] I’m trying to think. No, I think it was just them. They, yeah. Yeah. Zachariah’s trying to get back at Cas trying to bring, you know, ruin him basically for something else that happened in the past.

So they hire Dean to become to kind of pretend to be a Lord and, as the summary says, fall in love with Cas… make Cas fall in love with him, even, and then break his heart. So there’s no I don’t think there’s any of the actual prostitution part shown in the fic and maybe in the first chapter it kind of fades to black or whatever, but there’s no Dean with other people, ‘cause I know some people don’t like reading about that.

Yeah. But then, yeah, then he become, he like dresses up and becomes his Lord persona, and goes and meets Cas and it’s really lovely. They go to all sorts of little balls and events together and get to know each other and they have Charlie with them as a chaperone. So this is one of the ones where marriage equality is fine. There’s no hiding. Which makes it [00:42:00] an interesting twist because it means that then as an unmarried young man, Cas can’t be seen, with (Dean) in public, he has to have a chaperone, which is where Charlie comes in, . So,

thatpeculiarone: I know, I thought that was so cute. Even though same sex relationships like weren’t to very it was really good to have that chaperone, and it’s Charlie, they kind of as a little, the three of them going out and around and

Ellen: Yeah. To the museum and to the park.

thatpeculiarone: To the park.

Ellen: Really lovely. And then obviously that makes him more complicated for Dean to know that he’s gonna break Charlie’s heart as well as Cas in the end, because they’re all really good friends.

So, yeah. Can’t really explain much more about the plot without spoiling the whole thing. All right, Mal, let us have it (laughs)

Mal: I don’t, like you said, I don’t necessarily want to spoil [00:43:00] the plot of this one. for everybody. ‘Cause it is constructed, obviously around a specific plot. It’s not an overly complicated plot by any means. I don’t necessarily want to spoil it for any, everybody. So I’m trying to work out like, what can I say that’s not gonna spoil everything… I love…

Ellen: Actually, this… sorry, go on.

Mal: No carry on. Carry on.

Ellen: No, I was gonna say this one does have a lot of the tropey elements that, that go into this kind of fic. Like it’s got a walk in the rain where they end up wet and you know, yeah, it’s got the dancing at the ball where they’re making eyes at each other, all that kind of good stuff that you like to read about. It’s all here.

Mal: Yeah. It is very tropey. I think that’s one of the reasons why I enjoy it so much. This is one of those kind of like comfort reads for me because I’ve read it enough that the angsty parts are no longer remotely angsty for me, because obviously I know exactly what happens and how long it’s gonna take them to sort this little blip out. So it’s very much just a [00:44:00] comfort read forme. So I just get to bask in the joyous tropiness of this. So, yeah, and

thatpeculiarone: I found that, you know, it is obviously a bit angsty considering, you know, the plot and that, but I found that it could have been way more angstier than it was. So I kind of enjoyed that ‘cause I mean, I like angst, but I’m not like, you know, obsessed with angst. So I kind of like that it wasn’t as angsty as it could have been in that sense.

Mal: Yeah. Yes, they, the characters could have reacted to the events in the story very differently to the way that they did. And I’m glad that superhoney chose to have them do it in the way that they did. ‘Cause it just made it just a much more kind of, I dunno. It’s a heartwarming story? which is kind of a weird yeah. It’s kind of a weird thing to say given the plot, but it is actually,

thatpeculiarone: it is, it’s really heartwarming. Yeah.

Ellen: Yep. And I love that this is not getting too spoilery, but Charlie just sees through the whole thing, like she knows something’s up from quite early on, I think. And it’s, [00:45:00] and she forces Dean to like, confess, like in the, you know, she makes him do it, which I love.

Mal: Yes. And I love Dean’s confession in this the way… just the wording and the way that he confesses to Cas. Obviously he assumes that once he confesses to Cas, everything is gonna fall apart. So he kind of just puts it all out there really. So that’s… which is very nice to read because obviously we don’t get to see Dean do that a lot. So, so

thatpeculiarone: Open communication? That’s not a thing. (laughs)

Ellen: Yeah, he’s not very good at his words, is he?

Mal: No, he’s not. And even in this, he only uses them ‘cause he’s backed into a corner really, and just kind of thinks that this is his only opportunity to do so and that he’s got absolutely nothing left to lose at that point. [00:46:00] Which I’m not suggesting it’s a good thing that happens to Dean, kind of works for my purposes as a reader. So…Yeah. I enjoyed it.

So I really liked the society parts of this, like when they… because of the way that it’s written with same sex relationships being okay in this fic, but them still having that same standard like it, it wouldn’t be okay for Dean and Cas to be alone as they’re both known to like men.

So therefore Charlie has to be there and that kind of thing. I just, I love that because you have this, the same kind of tension at the balls and when they’re in carriages and things like that, that you would have if you were reading those classics like Pride and Prejudice and stuff. And you have the exact same tension with Dean and Cas when they’re like on a balcony together and they know that they shouldn’t be there and it’s so scandalous ‘cause someone might see them.

Ellen: Yeah. Makes it, I guess it must have made it easier in [00:47:00] some ways for gentlemen back then to get some time together ‘cause they were allowed to. It wasn’t too scandalized for them to be together. In reality,

Mal: and I think for the women, I’m sure they could get away with a lot. Especially as they were just,

Ellen: well, even more so for them, ‘cause it was totally fine for them to share a bed or whatever, you know?

Mal: Yeah. Because there were, there was a whole train of thought at the time where a lot of people just didn’t believe that was even possible for women. They just didn’t think that was a thing. So they were like, oh, that, that’d be fine. Good friends. Such good friends. Yes.

Ellen: How lovely that they’ve lived together for 20 years and…

Mal: Yes. Anyway, spent their entire lives together. ,

Ellen: oh, best friends. Forever.

Mal: Honestly, that, that’s one historical trope that I just, can you really call it a trope? I don’t think so. It’s more of [00:48:00] a sad fact of life, but Yeah it’s one, one that I’m here for: best friends forever. Yeah. I don’t wanna spell all this for everybody, but definitely read this one, please, everybody.

Ellen: Well, I was gonna say, tell me about the series, like there’s a lot more of this, right? I only read the first one. I’m just finding out there’s more.

Mal: Yes. You get all kinds of goodies. If you read the series, you get to go to Paris, you get to meet Balthazar, you get all kinds of goodies if you read the entire series.

thatpeculiarone: And I feel like a lot of the things kind of left unsaid from the first story are definitely followed up in the second part of it. So like the sequel, there was a lot of kind of loose ends that needed to be tied up. So yeah, it’s really cute. Like the series as a whole is just so adorable. I love it.

Mal: Yeah, it’s, it is very sweet. It’s not like a heavy series at all necessarily, but there are definitely some things that I think if weren’t addressed, like it wouldn’t make any sense to me. I [00:49:00] think if Dean and Cas starting their relationship the way they did if they just miraculously carried on without any kind of issues.

And they don’t necessarily really have any issues, but there definitely are discussions and things that, that need to happen, which do happen later on in the series, which is great. So, yeah.

Ellen: Excellent. Well, I know what my reading’s lined up now.

Mal: Gotta do it.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. I feel like I’ve gotta give this a reread even though I just basically read it.

Mal: Yeah, go do it. actually read the entire series, Ellen, and tell superhoney we sent you .

Ellen: Okay.

Mal: No, this is a really good one that I would advise for kind of people who maybe aren’t confident with trying Regency fics to start with because it’s not, it’s one of those that’s not super heavy on all the historical stuff. It’s definitely [00:50:00] there. It’s got a really kind of, nice solid historical feeling setting.

Yeah. But super honey’s also kind of made sure that they’re not beating you over the head with it, I think in their notes, they actually say something like yeah, I did some interesting research for this then threw most of it out the window language I relate to a lot. So yeah, loosely historical. So they’ve not gone down to every little detail. You’re not gonna get the language that’s kind of so heavy that you have to translate what they’re actually saying. It’s kind of a really good comfortable entry point where you get that lovely historical feeling without having to plow through a ton of it. So.

Ellen: Well, I love this first one, so I’m definitely gonna go and check out the rest now.

Mal: Yeah. And it’s really hot too. Like, gotta mention that . Everybody loves the trope of the character that has been a prostitute or an escort or something like that. But then experiences, real pleasure. [00:51:00] Everybody has to enjoy that. Right? Yes. So

Ellen: never had mind blowing sex with anyone except for this one guy.

Mal: Yeah, I exactly. I guess he’s so like sweet in this.

thatpeculiarone: Oh, he’s just such a lovely character in this one.

Mal: Yes. He’s a good guy. Like he’s so genteel and proper how he should be and like, so concerned about even after he knows who Dean is, he’s still very concerned about like Dean’s reputation and making sure that Dean is looked after how he should be. And it’s just very, it’s very lovely. Give Dean what he deserves. Yep.

Ellen: Please. Someone’s got to

Mal: right? All right, I will stop talking about this fic now. But, please go read it. ,

Ellen: you can talk about this bit more if you want. There’s not much more to say though without just spoiling the whole thing.

Mal: Yeah, not spoiling everything cuz it is only 40,000 [00:52:00] words and that’s it. I don’t wanna just spoil the whole plot of it. So

Ellen: it definitely is a very feel good. You come out of it feeling like everything’s been resolved and you are warm and happy.

Mal: It’s got tropes and romance and dancing and rimming. So go!

Ellen: That’s the tagline for this episode. (laughs) All right. The Winchester Affair.

The Winchester Affair

Mal: Yay! I’m just gonna be enthusiastic about every fic in this episode. I’m sorry.

Ellen: Absolutely. Jess, would you be willing to read the thing for this one or would you, have you got it there?

thatpeculiarone: yeah. All right. So The Winchester Affair by andimeantittosting was published for the Harlequin Challenge 2019.

It’s 34,000 words, and it is explicit.

Castiel Shurley has emerged from self-imposed exile to help see his sister safely wed. But when Hael discovers a priceless diamond brooch at the LaCroix ball, a villain finds the opening he needs, and Castiel finds himself in a nightmare.

Blackmailed by the odious Zachariah Adler, he is given one mission: to spy upon Dean, the handsome Marquess of Winchester, or see his entire family ruined. As he’s running out of time, Castiel has to make a choice—save his family, or risk it all to protect the man he has loved in secret since childhood.

Mal: Eee! (laughs)

Ellen: I read this one a while ago and I was so happy to get to read it again ‘cause I’d forgotten how much I love it. It’s such a great story.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, it’s such a great story.

Mal: I’m horrifically biased. I did help beta this fic, so I should say that up front, so I’m horrifically biased on this one. I think it’s great.

No it’s really good. I do love Zachariah as a villain. He’s the perfect villain to me cuz he’s [00:54:00] just so odious in every way.

Ellen: Yeah, he’s smarmy. He’s good to hate.

Mal: love the actor. The actor is great. Like he did such a great job of just making him entirely repugnant, like there’s nothing redeemable.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. I’m trying to remember if I’ve seen him as a good guy in any supernatural fic whatsoever. And I’m like, I don’t think I have.

Mal: Nope. It’s like as soon as he enters a fic, you’re like, uh oh.

Ellen: I’ve seen him as I think Cas’s dad one time, and he wasn’t entirely horrible, but…

Mal: Not entirely horrible. (laughs)

Ellen: mostly, you know, generally yeah. You do see him and you go, oh no, here’s that guy. . Yep. But yeah, he blackmails Dean?

No, he’s, he blackmails Cas into trying to bring Dean and his family down. While they’ve known each other their whole lives and their besties and they used to, oh, used to, correct me if I’m wrong here, [00:55:00] they used to be a thing like when they were at university, they actually used to sleep together.

Right?

Mal: They were definitely, yes. ‘Cause there is a recognized Regency trope that it was kind of accepted for younger men to maybe kind of fool around a bit before they went out into the world.

Ellen: And women too, I think.

Mal: Yeah, before they kind of left college and that kind of thing. But it was always seen as something you grew out of and didn’t talk about.

And obviously Cas assumes that Dean viewed it that way.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. But I enjoyed that because they knew each other from childhood, just from the moment they were really casual with each other. Like they had that familiarity. Like it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t like established relationship. ‘Cause obviously you’ve still got that romantic part that was sort of built up.

But I liked how they had that sort of familiarity from the beginning of the story. It was like really nice.

Ellen: Yeah. it was almost [00:56:00] like a lovers to friends to lovers, thing. Without having an actual breakup in the middle.

Mal: Yeah. Kind of wanted to like smack Cas’s his head against a wall for part of the fic. But, it was funny.

Ellen: Yeah, well he was like, Dean was being so earnest the whole time. Like you. You know, it was really obvious that he wanted to get back together with Cas. Like he was keen and Cas was just like, “Oh, he doesn’t think about me in that way.” It’s like dude, come on.

thatpeculiarone: Open your eyes!

Mal: Yeah. Oh, Cas.

Yeah. As far as I remember, even when they are sleeping together again, CAS still thinks that. That’s right.

thatpeculiarone: He does. Yeah.

Mal: It’s like Cas, let’s take a minute here, dude.

Ellen: Yeah. There is a lot of like extremely exquisite pining in this. On both sides. Even though it’s, I think entirely from Cas’s point of view. You can [00:57:00] really feel it from Dean as well.

Mal: Yes. Something that the author that andimeantittosting is really good at, in all of her fics, whether they’re modern ones or regency ones, ‘cause she’s got like a bunch of regency ones, which I will a hundred percent babble about a bunch more of them later, but she’s really good at the pining and it comes through in this one. I really liked the kind of like plot, like mystery kind of aspect going on with this one as well. But like to have the pining like wrapped into it, so well just my lifeblood, I love a good pine.

thatpeculiarone: Yes. And I really enjoyed Mary’s character in this, just like that sort of loving figure towards Cas. I really liked that.

Mal: It was really sweet. Yeah. That she just viewed Cas as part of her family and Even tried to kind of, you know, stand up for Dean.

Ellen: and gave him a bit of a slap around the head at one point, I think. Like, “what’re you doing here?”

Mal: Tried to, [00:58:00] she tried to do a bit of a like 17 hundreds wingman effort for a little bit there. And Cas just didn’t really get it.

Oh. Oh, Cas.

Ellen: Having said that, it is it’s lovely .

Mal: It is. It is lovely.

Ellen: This has got like all of the tropey things in it too. It’s got parties and you know, visiting each other and there’s even they go to the boxing, they do some boxing at one point or you know, there’s all sorts of different things.

Mal: Yes. I think the author just kind of went down a list of what are all these lovely regency tropes that I want to drive people crazy with? I’ll just check ’em all off . Great. And they do have a lovely happy ending. I think the ending of this particular fic is one of my favorites out of almost any historical fic. There’s just something about the setting and the way that it wrapped up the final scene was just so lovely to me. Made me [00:59:00] happy. Yeah.

thatpeculiarone: I really liked the ending as well.

Mal: Sucker for a happy ending. Torture ’em first. I love that. But give them that,

thatpeculiarone: give them the happy ending at the end.

Mal: Exactly. Tear them to pieces, but then just put ’em back together again.

thatpeculiarone: Yep. Like in the fics we’ve talked about today, like how they, all the endings are all happy, but they have those different elements in terms of how they’ve made the society, you know, whether it’s like same sex relationships are accepted or not, and I like how they’re all very different in terms of how they’ve ended up together in the end. I think that’s like really interesting.

Mal: Yeah. ‘Cause there’s different ways you can go about it and all of these folks tackle it in different ways, which is fun.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, I’ll try to say that without giving away

Mal: Yeah, try not to say specifically what happens, but Yeah. All different. So I liked I like… sorry. Continue.

Ellen: I was gonna say Hael I quite liked Hael’s character, like I know in the [01:00:00] show she’s only in it for half an episode or something, but that Sting has given her a sort of shrewd kind of character in she knows what’s going on the whole time and she kind of knows what she wants in the end too, like she’s accepting that, you know, shit’s going down, but this is the way out of it. And, you know, she’s good. I guess in the show. She does that a bit too. She knows exactly what she wants in the show and she’s trying to get Cas to you know, fix heaven or whatever.

Mal: But yeah, like she said, she’s practical in this, but she’s also like likable, like she’s, yeah. But she’s a likable character as well and she obviously kind of values her family and you know, she comes across as a very kind of likable person.

Ellen: It’s almost like an original character kind of thing when you like taking someone who’s got very small role in the actual show and given her a whole story.

Mal: Yeah. I always find it interesting when authors, you know, choose those more minor characters for their fics [01:01:00] because they do obviously have that much more leeway with them. So it’s really interesting to see what they do with them. But yeah, she was great in this.

One of the things that is interesting about this one, and I think all Regency fics in general is obviously you can, you’ve got different stations in the Regency times. So you can either have them both be kind of upper class board who, or whatever or you can have one of them be. higher than the other in status or both of them be lower.

You don’t see a lot of fics where they’re both lower. ‘Cause I think playing with that dynamic is kind of part of the, like one of the biggest main tropes for Regency fics in general. So you don’t see a lot of fics where they’re both kind of lower status.

But this one is interesting ‘cause I haven’t found a ton where it’s that Dean is the higher status person and Cas is lower. ‘Cause in this one he [01:02:00] is, I don’t wanna say impoverished, but he is somewhat lower than Dean in status due to events. Yeah, no spoilers. So, which is interesting cause a lot of the time they do it the other way around, which I’m assuming, or at least the way I would do it. So I’m assuming that this is probably other people’s thought process as well, is that they’re probably using that as a mirror for kind of Cas being from heaven and being, you know, above, in theory, above dean and Dean’s background, being generally not that great. So they kind of mirror that in the fic as well. So it was really interesting in this one that they decided to have Dean come from this much more privileged background, which you do see in some regency fics.

But I find that in the ones where Dean has a privileged background, Cas usually does as well. So it’s interesting that they ended up with Dean being the higher up person. That sounds, that phrasing sounds odd, but [01:03:00] hopefully, you know what I mean.

Ellen: yeah. That research into the system of titles and landholders and all that stuff is so complicated.

Mal: It sounds simple at first glance, doesn’t it? That it’s oh, well the sons get everything and it goes down the line. But it’s actually a lot more complicated than that.

Ellen: Yeah. You’ve got, you know, you’ve got the Lords and the Dukes and the Marquesses and the, you know, all these different ones and they’re not always there’s no, no strict hierarchy, like some of them are are an equal footing or it’s to do with land and titles and Oh, it’s so complex. I think. I think when writing one of the ones I wrote for a regency bang, I just threw all that out in the end and I’m like, okay, this one’s a Lord, and that one is like Mr. Winchester or whatever. I’m like, I’m not gonna hurt my brain with any more of this. And try to avoid the actual hierarchical nature of it. But yeah.

Mal: Yep. I remember doing a ton of research into that to make one of the stories that we [01:04:00] wrote together, so that the one that we did for Pinefest this year to make that story work because it mattered like what people’s titles were in that story.

Like it actually, like it was an important part of the story, otherwise some elements of it wouldn’t have worked.

Ellen: Yeah, that’s right.

Mal: So, and like the re the research whole that I fell into, I was just like, okay, this is a lot more complicated than it sounds like at first glance. So I was like, okay. But yeah.

Ellen: Well, we do have, if you’re listening to this and you are worried about the research part of it, if you’re thinking of writing a fic our discord for our Regency Bang has like a whole channel, which with a bunch of links to different research that people have done and added in there, so there’s heaps of info there.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, that’s great.

Ellen: It’s a good start for looking stuff up.

Mal: Yeah. And in case it’s not already clear, I love talking about this shit, so just DM me.

Ellen: Yeah. Just to, I’ll happily talk about it.

Mal: I’ll talk your ear off about stuff for ages and you’ll just be like, oh [01:05:00] God, how do I shut her up?

Ellen: Just send her off down the rabbit hole.

Mal: I’ll be sending you random DMs about historical dildos at 3:00 AM (laughing)

Ellen: Okay. I don’t wanna say anything else about this ‘cause it’s gonna spoil the whole thing.

Mal: Yeah. This one has a very like integral mystery plot thing going on. Blackmail storyline. Again, very popular regency storyline. Not even just in Fanfic, just in like novels about this era in general. Just a big trope that you will find.

Ellen: Yes. Because there weren’t really… there was no police to speak of. No one’s gonna catch you if you’ve done something wrong, really. Like it’s just down to your like being ruined to like your status being, you know, the reputation, harsher consequences.

Mal: Yeah. So just need somebody to say the wrong thing.

Ellen: Yeah. Tricky time to live in, I’m sure.

Mal: [01:06:00] Yeah. Too much pressure for me. I say the wrong thing way too often. No

Ellen: Alright, so we’ve got some more fics to recommend I’m sure.

Mal: Yeah, I’ve got a whole list. So do you two want to go first and then fill in the gaps?

thatpeculiarone: I mean, the one I recommend is the one you guys wrote for Regency last year. (laughing)

Mal: no, you can’t do that. You can.

Ellen: Yeah, you can. I will happily talk about it. I loved writing that fic. It was my, it was like so much fun to write,

thatpeculiarone: I mean, two person love triangle. It was so good. I just enjoyed reading it and I just feel like it didn’t get as much attention as it deserved. Like I feel like more people should read it.

So read it. Yeah, no, I really like that one. [01:07:00] I just love, I mean, I love two person love triangle. It’s one of my favorite tropes to read, but like adding that into Regency and just like the whole dynamic, especially with you know, talking a bit about like class differences, talking about obviously that same sex relationships were taboo.

I really liked how it was just all delved into one. It was just, yeah, it was really good. So, definitely. So that’s A Novel Affair by you two, so. Yeah, thank you. Of my biggest recommendation

Mal: Oh, thanks .

Ellen: And the funniest part about that whole thing was that we did some research early on and we sort of decided kind of what it was gonna be like, and then we wrote like the entire thing in like a few weeks, before the deadline (laughing)

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. Yeah. I remember you two just oh, we’ve gotta write more of this. And you’re just like trying to get the last bit out of it.

Ellen: But it was like the more we wrote, the more we thought about and other things that could happen in it. And it was like, what if we did this? And what if that happened? And it was like “we’ve only got [01:08:00] four weeks left to write the thing!” Yeah. It was just…

Mal: but yeah, somehow we still kept adding things and just pushing towards that deadline. Like “we could, we can, we could fit in.

Ellen: We can do it, right? No worries. But yeah, somehow some, it all came together.

Mal: We started off with so much time.

thatpeculiarone: You always do .

Ellen: I feel like this is kind of how co-writing works in general though. Like when there’s deadlines involved, like you just kind of put it off and you can’t especially when you live on opposite sides of the world… we keep missing each other trying talk about things.

Mal: yeah, on the one hand it’s wonderful, because there’s no better feeling than having a story that you’re really into. And then waking up and finding that some magical fairy in the middle of the night has added more words to your story. there’s nothing better as a writer. But then the other part of that is that you tend to egg each other on a bit. So that’s how the story ends up getting longer and longer and longer. So, [01:09:00] but yeah, writing with Ellen is always amazing and I have no doubt that we will do it again, but we are planning on doing it again, so.

thatpeculiarone: Well, I’ll be excited for the next one. I always am.

Mal: Oh,

Ellen: the other part that was fun about that one was reading about all the books that we included in it. So that was a whole other, yeah, a whole other research project.

Mal: Yeah. I got to read books. It was getting a bit better at one point I got to read books to write fic about people talking about books, in fact,

Yeah, sometimes. Okay, now that awkwardness is over, I’m like bright pink. I’m really glad no one can see me right now. Okay, sorry. What would you like to recommend, Ellen?

Ellen: okay. Okay. So I am currently reading I’m not finished. I’ve only got a couple of chapters to go. I was trying to get it finished last night, I kind of had Covid a few weeks ago and I am no [01:10:00] longer able to stay up late at night, which is a problem. But anyway, you know, it’s a thing. It happens. Yeah.

The Dukes of Winchester by Jennyfly was written…

Mal: Oh, that one’s so good.

Ellen: Yeah, it was written for our, for Regency bang two years ago I think. And it’s, you know, 88,000 words, which is why it’s taking me a while to get through it, but I love it.

So this is Omegaverse. Which is unusual for you know, a historical, I guess in general, most of them tend to be, you know, non-a/b/o I guess. But we, I think this year in Regency Bang we have had a few people ask if they can write omegaverse, so I think we might be having a few more coming up, but anyway.

Mal: Oh, interesting.

Ellen: This one is about… oh, it’s a complicated story. So Sam and Dean are poor. They live in London and they, I guess Dean tinkers with things and builds little clockwork [01:11:00] things out of metal and it’s just, it’s so sweet. But anyway, he manages to get enough money together to send Sam to a school, and then they go, you know, work their way up to getting a scholarship in a university and Sam ends up meeting the princess.

So Sam is an alpha that he finds out that his true mate is Princess Jess. And so they end up getting married. So Dean is now as an omega is now thrust into this royalty kind of, place. He moves with Sam’s household to the Winchester estate. And Cas comes there as well as a, I don’t know, was he getting an advisor or something, like a tax man basically to write lists of everything that needs to be done.

So, So it takes them a little while, but they eventually work out that they are true mates as well. And, you know, all of the good Omegaverse stuff goes on. But the real, the thing that I love about this story, apart from the actual historical [01:12:00] stuff, which is beautiful, beautiful language, the details in the historical side of it are amazing.

But there’s also quite a big kind of ensemble cast story going on. It’s not just about Dean and Cas. It’s like everyone’s got their own little things happening. So, you know, the town nearby, Gabriel and Balthazar are investing in that and getting people to come and live there. And there’s like drama in London, in Glassblower Street with all these other people, like Patience and Missouri.

And, you know, there’s a lot of things going on with different characters and I love that, that all of that is brought in together. So looking forward to finishing the last few chapters of that. It’s great.

thatpeculiarone: It’s really a good fic I think I was one of the first ones I sort of read when we ran that and like it all the fics started coming out. I was really looking forward to that one when I had to, you know, make up the summaries for claims and things like that. I was like, oh, I really can’t wait to read this one when it’s published. So, yeah, it’s really good. And Jenny who writes it, oh, she’s just such a lovely human, so yes.

Mal: [01:13:00] Yeah, Jenny’s wonderful.

Ellen: So I feel terrible that it’s taken me so long to get to it ‘cause I’ve had all of these Regency bang fics on my list for so long, , I’m glad that I’ve been able to finally read some of them now. But definitely recommend that one. And when you look at the tag list, it does have graphic violence tag, but it’s got a bunch of other stuff tagged that makes it actually sound like it’s a really gritty story. Like it’s got all this war stuff in there. I just wanna say that the overall feeling of the fic is really warm and fluffy. And there is a little bit of angsty kind of things going on, but it’s not. Like the tags are a lot, but yeah, it is, it’s a lovely story.

Mal: and if you enjoyed that one, I do believe that Jenny has a very… I won’t say similar, but another historical story set that I think the 1920s so yeah, if you enjoyed that one, definitely check out the other one as well, which I’m going completely off the top of my head. I think that is the one called  [01:14:00] God’s Exiles. Let me check. Yes, I am right. So yeah, if you enjoyed that one, make sure you check out her other ones as well.

Right. Excellent. Okay, now what shall I pick off my list to recommend? Okay. We’ve recommended a bunch of chunky ones so far, so let’s pick something smaller maybe to start with. Oh, I dunno. I was gonna recommend that one though.

Ellen: Go on, just pick one.

Mal: All right. Well I will be recommending a bunch. I’ll be recommending a bunch. Yeah, go on. But just because I want to bring in some of my other favorite tags, I’m going to recommend a little thick a smaller. This one is 10,000 words. So it’s a good entry level. Entry level. It’s not quite a one shot ‘cause it is divided up into chapters, but it’s kind of one shot length.

This is Contentment in Meadows Green by Neonbat This fic is [01:15:00] lovely. This is one of the gay marriage is allowed kind of versions of Regency. And it also has a Russian Cas in it, which we all know. Yes, we all know I’m a sucker for that.

So yes, this is a story where Dean and Cas met when they were children and Dean, kind of… sees Cas I think, I believe it says in the summary, like across a ballroom, sought him out. And then obviously they meet again when they are older. It’s actually very sweet. Like it’s not, you know, there’s not a bunch of angst or any of that going on here.

Don’t really have a lot of space for it in 10,000 words I guess. But it’s lovely just the way that it’s written. It’s one of those kind of like just heartwarming, fics that once you read the end of it, you just feel like warm and happy, which I really enjoy. And I think for 10,000 words, it’s a great, nice little [01:16:00] way to dip into Regency.

So, and I always love neonbat’s fics, so…

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, I really liked that one.

Mal: Yeah. So there we go. A short one to balance out all of the massive ones that we’ve been recommending.

thatpeculiarone: There is another little one that was in the last round of the Regency Bang that I really enjoyed. It is established relationship, but it’s really cute.

It’s called rare as roses by scienceblues. And it’s involving how you know, Castiel’s rich, he owns his own land and Dean actually works for him as a gardener. And like they actually already have this established relationship. It’s obviously secret ‘cause it’s still that sort of rules of no same sex relationships and that, and it’s about how like Castiel’s family comes to visit and they’ve basically gotta kind of keep their relationship sort of secret in a sense, but it was just a really sweet fit ‘cause it’s only 13,000 [01:17:00] words. But I really liked that one. I just, yeah, it was like a really nice, heartwarming fic. And you know, I don’t read as many established relationships, but I thought that one was really sweet ‘cause it still had a bit of that sort of, that tension and build up and things like that.

Mal: Yeah, that one was on my list as well. I really enjoyed that one.  

Ellen: I’m gonna throw Mal back under the cushions and say Of Lords and Letters by MalMuses is one that I particularly like. So this is where Dean has been at war in the Napoleonic war. And God, now I’m doing it to myself because it’s been ages since I’ve read this. And, I don’t remember everything that happens. He writes Okay, so he exchanged letters with Cas who’s been looking after his property at home while he’s been away. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. Sorry, just trying to remember which one. Okay. So Cas has been,

Mal: I’m trying to remember now myself ‘cause it’s been [01:18:00] like two years since I wrote it or something like that.

So I’m like, what does happen in that story?

Ellen: So this one was written for the first Regency Big Bang. So it’s got some really lovely artwork in it that includes the kind of the letters that Dean’s been writing and whatever. So there’s a …I can’t say that word again.  there’s some letter writing (laughing) that goes on in the first part of the fic and then after a few chapters, they actually meet each other and it goes from there.

So, really lovely romantic letters first and then a romance in person later on.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, it’s really sweet fic I really like that one.

Mal: That one is quite mushy, I must admit. All right. Thank you. Thank you for keeping that quick.

Right. So I was going to talk about another of andimeantittosting’s fics. Now I, if just kind of off the top of my head, I [01:19:00] think she has, I wanna say four Regency fics? five, but I think one of them is aSam/Eileen centered fic? It’s not Destiel. So there may be Destiel in the background. I can’t remember quite off the top of my head.

But I think there are four other ones. But I am going to talk briefly about one of my favorites, which is Honor Undressed. It’s just over 15,000 words. And it’s a story where Cas and Dean used to be in the war together. So Dean was assigned as Cas’s, batman as, which I just, I loved that detail.

So he was kind of, almost like Cas’s right hand man when he was at war basically. Castiel is Lord Milton and after the war, he went back home and Dean followed him as his valet. So he has been working with Cas for a number of [01:20:00] years, I think by the time the story begins. And Dean and Cas are kind of known as the people you go to solve problems. ‘Cause Dean’s born in, was born in the gutters. He’s not ashamed to you know, get his hands dirty to get things fixed if needs be. So when people have problems that they need solved they go to Cas and miraculously their problems go away.

So in, in this particular story I think he’s Castiel’s cousin in this. I remember, I’m thinking off the top of my head. I didn’t, don’t actually have the fake opening, which is my own fault. But Gabriel and Balthazar have a little problem in this where they may be exposed. And so they turn to Cas for help. So there’s a kind of a plot element going on there. It’s obviously resolved fairly quickly cause the story is only 15,000 words.

But the problem is Dean has been in love with Cas ever since they were in the war together. Cas has been in love with Dean ever since they were [01:21:00] in the war together. But the issue is that even though in this fic they both become aware of that, Cas still refuses to be the Lord that takes advantage of his valet, so he won’t do anything about it, which adds like a little kind of twist to this one in that even though they’re both aware of it, Cas still takes that bit of extra persuading in this one.

Ellen: Damnit, Cas!

Mal: Damnit, Cas. Yeah. It’s so good though, like the pining, like somehow she managed to do it without it feeling angsty. Like it feels very piney, but it doesn’t feel angsty. Like you don’t really ever think that they’re not going to resolve it. You just want to see how they do it. So it’s really good. I love this one, so

thatpeculiarone: I haven’t read that, but that sounds really good. So I’ll definitely give it a read.

Mal: yeah, it is.

Ellen: go on, do another one. Oh, Jess, have you got another one?

thatpeculiarone: No. I’m just gonna let Mal talk.

Mal: Just let me [01:22:00] keep going. Okay. We’ll just put links to all of andimeantittosting’s fics in the blog post. Cause like I said though, she has got like four, I think Regency Fics, which I have here on my list to recommend. So we’ll just put all those in there. I’ve got another superhoney one on my list. The Bethrothal Bargain, which again talked about one of hers.

So I will stick that in the list as well. I do want to talk about one of the first Regency Fics I read in the fandom, I think other than some of superhoney’s. This is called Resisting Mister Milton by SergeantMom573. This is just over 30,000 words. So this is a story where Dean’s preferences have been found out by his grandfather Zachariah.

So as we said earlier, as soon as he’s in a fic, you know, bad things are gonna happen. So his preferences have been discovered [01:23:00] and he is basically put in a position where if he doesn’t marry Anna Milton, then his preferences will be exposed to the world, which as we all know in the Regency times, is gonna go very badly.

His main concern is that if that happens, something, it’s gonna put Sam in a bad position. ‘Cause Sam wants to go to read law at Cambridge and wants to be, to marry the person that he loves. He wants to be to marry Jess, and if he has to take Dean’s position as the first son instead, he won’t be able to do that.

So from Dean’s point of view, he doesn’t even really care about his own position. He just wants to protect Sam. So he goes off to the Milton Estates to go and stay with them and to marry Anna, who he has no particular affection for. I mean, she is not in any way presented as like unpleasant. Like he doesn’t dislike her or anything like that. She’s just very kind of passive. But she does have a [01:24:00] brother.

thatpeculiarone: wow, shocker! (laughing)

Mal: Right? See the summary actually says “however, there is a blue-eyed, breathtaking, beautiful problem that Dean had not taken into consideration when he agreed to the marriage. The merchant’s oldest son and heir Castiel Milton. A smoldering example of how enticing the devil can truly be.”

There is a fantastic boxing scene in this fic, which. It’s, the best part is it’s called Resisting Mister Milton for a reason. Cas is a little shit in this fic, It’s definitely a case of Cas attempting to resist sorry, Dean Attempting to resist Cas and Cas not making it easy for him in the slightest. It’s, yeah, it’s just really good fun. It does end up with a happy ending for everybody. So that’s, you know, putting that out there. It’s not kind of an angsty ending.

Nobody gets kind of screwed over in the end. And [01:25:00] it is just really good fun and you will very much enjoy that boxing scene if you read it. So please go and enjoy yourselves,

Ellen: like I’m in no way interested in boxing in modern day. In a period piece. Yes. Thank you. Sweaty men. Wrestling, punching each other. Yes, please.

Mal: Exactly. I’ll be interested in that boxing scene. The same way Dean was interested in it. So

Ellen: Okay, that one’s on my list. I’ve gotta put a plug in. One of my favorite Aussie authors is Allison Goodman and her series Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club is actually probably what drew me back into Regency in a serious way.

Because it’s like, it’s basically like Supernatural in Regency London. So Lady Helen is like this girl who discovers that she has to be part of this this society that basically, hunts monsters and it’s just like there’s demons involved and [01:26:00] it’s I think originally when the series came out, it was described as like Buffy, but in Regency London and yeah, it’s great. There’s three, it’s a trilogy and I think in America it was published as just The Dark Days Club, but it’s read it is so good. I love it. Anyway, that’s my random plug aside and I will put a link to that in there as well.

Mal: I’m going to mention one more, I think, which is a little bit shorter.

It’s 22,000 words. And this may have also been a regency bang fic, if I remember correctly. It’s called Love Letters Lost by, I’m gonna pronounce this wrong, but I think it’s by naoe, n a o e, maybe. So this is a story where Cas and Dean met when they were children, and they kind of had their kind of first kiss and first all explorations together.

But Cas had more money than Dean. I believe Dean was kind of quite [01:27:00] poor in this au, so Cas went off to London and went to school and had to take over his kind of family holdings. And Dean ended up actually leaving the country and going on like a kind of a voyage with a doctor. And learning how to be a doctor as kind of like a, almost like an unpaid apprentice.

So they haven’t seen each other for years and years and years and years until suddenly Dean turns up in London when they’re both adults and there’s a lot of miscommunication. They have to pick, pack a lot of miscommunication into 22,000 words. But again, it’s a very happy ending.

It’s lovely. I really enjoyed this one. One of the interesting thing about this is I think it’s one of the only ones on this list that’s actually a Teen rated fic. So it’s not, yeah, so it’s not explicit, even though you do kind of get like the idea that there was some kind of like minor action and possibly some like minor action when they were both underage, like exploring together there.

But [01:28:00] it was just a, it is a Teen rated fic. There’s nothing shown there, so, but yeah, it’s very sweet. You do… want to again yell at Cas a little bit, why do we always do this? (laughing)

Ellen: Is he always the oblivious one? I thought normally Dean was the one who couldn’t get his shit together.

Mal: Right? lesser in the regency area apparently.

But yes, but Dean does deserve a few yells in this one as well because he’s not communicating, he’s not being clear in the slightest. So you know what? They both need yelling at in this one.

Ellen: miscommunication. Woohoo.

Mal: Yeah. So I think I’ve probably, if I talked for long enough yet, cause I can keep going. But

Ellen: you’re welcome to do another one if you want. Go on.

Mal: Oh, it’s getting awkward now!

Ellen: All right, well we don’t have to? Go on. Do one more

Mal: About okay. [01:29:00] So I’m going to recommend one that I think is actually much more recent than most of the others. Nope. No much older than most of the others. What I meant to say,

So this one from back in 2016 it’s called Ink and Letters by… I love this name… whyamIdoingthisitswrongbutIloveit. Is the name of the author. So the summary for this one says “that in ancient times, spouses mourn would dye their clothing with black ink and remain unapproachable until their clothing had been washed white by constant wear, a romantic friend informs Castiel. Castiel Milton is determined to pledge himself to another marriage for love only. Unfortunately, his intended wears mourning clothes.

So basically, this is Cas kind of falling in love with Dean from a distance. But Dean is wearing black and so he can’t approach Dean.

He doesn’t realize that Dean is wearing black because a family friend like his family members had passed. It’s [01:30:00] not that he lost a spouse or anything like that, but Cas doesn’t realize that . But hope blooms when Dean receives a letter from a secret admirer. Yeah. So Cas can’t quite keep it to himself, but it’s lovely. It’s, there’s some lovely letter writing here. It’s not very long. It’s under 12,000 words. But we do love our epistolary in this and this one I have on my list particularly ‘cause it is another A/B/O story and there aren’t that many of those in Regency. So I wanted to kind of highlight just one or two.

Yeah. So yeah, this is another A/B/O story. It’s very enjoyable. I liked it.

Ellen: That one I added to the list. It sounded lovely, but it’s also rated G, which I found interesting. Not just from a period point of view, because a lot of these tend to be smut or at least rated explicit, but there are a few that are G rated and even rarer for omegaverse to be G. [01:31:00]

Mal: Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if it’s I think we’ve talked about this before, how I feel like ratings have changed a little bit in maybe the past five years, longer. I don’t know. A bit longer than that. Whereas I think now G tends to like… not all the time, but almost exclusively be used for fic that is either gen-fic or where really nothing much relationship based happens otherwise it tends to just be a Teen rating.

Whereas in this one, there’s definitely like relationship things happen, but obviously nothing remotely explicit or anything like that. But I just wonder if that’s one of those things where maybe if it was written now, it might be rated as a Teen fic. ‘Cause I think we find that a lot with the line between mature and explicit. I think like at some point in the past it seems like that line was [01:32:00] like somewhere slightly different than where it seems to be now. So it’s kind of hard to find that line sometimes. I know we’ve linked the envelope analogy before, so, but yeah. But yeah, there’s definitely no actual smut in it that I can recall.

So, Yeah, it’s been a little while since I read this one, I remember thinking that it was quite cute with the love letters and like secret admirer letters and not like wanting to approach somebody ‘cause you think it’s not done at the time, but not quite being able to keep your feelings for yourself.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, that sounds really sweet.

Mal: Yeah. Yeah, right. I really will be quiet now.

Ellen: That’s okay. So I guess that’s all the recommendations we’ve got for now. The SPN Regency Big Bang… you can find all the details about the bang and everything on our Tumblr. I’ll put a link to it in the notes and you can check [01:33:00] it out. And the signups are obviously still open until May 2, and longer for artists.

So come and join us. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.

thatpeculiarone: Yes, please come join us.

Ellen: Yeah. So Jess, what have you got on at the moment? Your, you’ve just published your pinefest, right? It was a few, couple weeks ago now, right?

thatpeculiarone: Yes. And it’s one of the longest, it is the longest fic I’ve ever written, so it was… So I’m like, glad I finally published it. I got it out of the way.

Ellen: It’s so good. I loved it.

thatpeculiarone: Oh, thank you. Yeah It’s a Teen rated one.

Mal: I’m excited. I’ve had that open in a tab since pretty much like the hour that you posted it. I’ve had it open, but because it is longer, I keep on saying to myself, oh, I need to wait for a weekend. And then all these one bang fics keep coming up and stuff.So one of these weekends.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah, it’s definitely different riding along. It is teen rated, it’s still, I think it’s still cute.

Ellen: It is, it’s so sweet. It’s like Parent Trap type thing, yeah

thatpeculiarone: I [01:34:00] got really inspired, like a parent trap sort of type, but not obviously, you know, they’re not, the girls aren’t twins or anything, but I just like them teaming up to get their dads together.

I thought that was really funny, .

Ellen:Yes, it is.

thatpeculiarone: And yeah, I liked like the sort of balance between having the perspective of Dean’s daughter but then also his perspective as well. I just wanted to balance that out. So you got still got a lot of like Dean and Cas in there. Yeah.

Ellen: Yeah. Really sweet.

thatpeculiarone: I’m just, yeah I’ve just joined the Media Big Bang, so I’m writing so like for that at the moment. That won’t be published for a while, so that’s gives me time.

Mal: Yeah. We’ve got quite a long a time scale for Media Big Bang. We’re very relaxed. So you’ve got kind of most of the year for that one,

Really. Which is really good. . Yeah.

Ellen: It’s like the good and bad side of signing up to bangs. It’s you think, oh, I’ve got all year to work on [01:35:00] this. And then, but that the deadline just like looms closer anyway. You’ve gotta actually work on it

Mal: Can be too relaxed sometimes.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah. Then it gets to that point and you’re like, oh, I’ve got 10 K left to write and I’ve got a week to do it. And you’re just like slamming down the keys for a whole week just trying to get words onto a page.

Ellen: You do Mal’s trick and write an entire DCBB story in a week.

Mal: I wouldn’t call that a trick so much as an incredibly poor life decision. Yeah. That’s what I tend to do with almost all of my DCBBs so far.

It’s not a good choice. Don’t write the entire thing the weekend before. Don’t do it. . .

Ellen: Okay. Didn’t mention before, but I will now that the name of your fic is a Five Step Guide, go and read that. It’s really sweet .

thatpeculiarone: Oh, thank you.

Ellen: That’s alright. And thank you very much for coming to talk to us today.

thatpeculiarone: Oh, it was my pleasure. Really enjoyed it.

Mal: Yeah, it was lovely to [01:36:00] get chat to you out loud for once.

thatpeculiarone: Yeah! Thank you for inviting me and allowing me to come join you guys.

Mal: Very welcome. Thank you for listening to me talk nonstop for nearly two hours about Regency fic!

thatpeculiarone: Oh, that’s fine to do it anytime,

Mal: Yeah, I will put links to all of my other recommendations of which there are still quite a few more. So I will make sure that the blog post has links to all of my other recommendations.

Ellen: So yes, all those links will be on our website, mixtapebookclub.com. And I know that we have said in the past that we are going to put transcripts on there of our episodes.

And there are some transcripts already on there, but I’ve been a little bit behind in getting them up there, but I am going to make an effort in the next few weeks to get a few more of those up there. So if you are someone who likes to read transcripts while you’re listening, they’ll be more coming.

It’s a weird thing to say because I think a [01:37:00] lot of people who want to read a transcript probably aren’t listening, but anyway (hello, transcript readers!)

Mal: Yeah, I think some people do just like to read them though,

Ellen: so Yeah. I mean, they read along while they’re listening or, you know

Mal: yeah, for some people it’s an accessibility thing, and for some people it’s just that’s a preference that they have.

But either way, that’s something that we like to attempt to provide as soon as we can.

Ellen: So yeah, they’re just… I’ve got a new little app that helps me do it, so should be hopefully a bit easier.

Mal: They can be labor intensive.

thatpeculiarone: I was like, not gonna be me, where I sat there and listened to you guys for five hours making one.

Ellen: You’re welcome to do that again if you want to! Yeah, it is a lot of work to actually transcribe them by hand, but that’s why I went looking for an app to do it.

Mal: Especially considering we have a lot of episodes. Like we talk a lot.

Ellen: but the app is hilarious. Like I, I shared that clip with it with in, in the chat, didn’t I?

There’s a few different clips where they just [01:38:00] have no idea what we’re saying. Like it’s just complete gibberish and I’m looking at it going, oh my God. And I had to listen to it a few times to work out what they’re, what it’s trying… I’m like, oh God. Anyway, still a bit of work to try to train the app because it’s all done with machine learning. So

Mal: There you go. There’s a perk to joining our ko-fi server. Our coffee server or whatever they call that thing, complete gibberish, from our transcription app. Just complete gibberish.

Ellen: It’s very funny. So, but anyway. Okay.

Mal: Probably still makes more sense than me some days.

Ellen: I don’t know. It’s pretty wild. I have, I’ll have to dig it out again and have a look. It’s very funny. So, if you wanna get in touch with us, you can tell us about a fic that you love or whatever you’d like to suggest to us for future episodes.

You can contact us under any of our social media accounts we’re mixtapebookclub on most of those, or you can email us: contact at mixtapebookclub.com. [01:39:00] Or you can either join the Profound Bond discord server and come chat with us in our channel there. Or you can sign up for our ko-fi subscription and jump into our discord server, which we have it attached to our ko-fi account. And you can chat with us about mixtape things there as well.

Mal: Yeah, chat about the fics behind the scenes a little bit. Yeah. All right. Well, next episode is very exciting. We are going to discuss Pirate AUs. We can’t be the only ones with pirates on the brain.

Ellen: everyone has pirates on the brain right now. Brilliant. Try very hard not to talk about Blackbeard and Stede. No. Okay. We, maybe we will talk about them a little bit.

Mal: We’ll allow a little . We’ll allow a little bit.

Ellen: We can’t help ourselves

Mal: An Our Flag Means Death-themed episide[01:40:00] in, in honor of.

Ellen: yeah. Why the hell not? I mean, the, pretty much the entire Supernatural fandom is now just moved over to the Our Flag Means Death fandom.

Mal: Let’s roll with it.

Ellen: Yeah, why not? All right. Thank you everyone for listening, and we’ll talk to you again soon.

Mal: And as always, remember the story isn’t over until we say it is.

[outro music]

Mal: The story isn’t over until we say it is. Oh, no. There was a little blip on my wiggly things. I think my awkward finger guns might have actually shown up on my…

Ellen: Oh, it actually made a noise this time! Woohoo!

Mal: I think it’s ‘cause I wasn’t thinking and I like clicked my fingers first? [01:41:00] Audible awkward finger guns today. Great. (laughing)