Transcript: Track 37: Bonus Recs
Episode 37 posted January 28, 2023
Links to all fics mentioned can be found on the main episode post.
[Intro music]
Ellen: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Welcome to the 37th episode of Mixtape Book Club podcast. My name’s Ellen
Mal: and my name is Mal.
Ellen: In each episode we take an in-depth look at a different trope or subgenre in the huge variety of fan fiction dedicated to Destiel, and… it’s been a while. We are back. We’re gonna get back into this. So, you know, bear with us while we try and remember how we do podcasting.
Mal: Yeah. I suppose the first question will be, where have we been? Which I guess I should hold my hands in the air and say that it is mostly my fault that we have been on a little kind of unplanned break. It turned into a break, but it definitely wasn’t planned as one at the beginning. For anybody listening who is not already aware, I had some [00:01:00] health issues last year, which ended up with a large tumor that I nicknamed Donald being found and obviously the treatment and everything for that was quite exhausting and definitely kept me from being a part of fandom as much as I would like to for a good long chunk of time there.
But I’m now well on the road to feeling better and very much looking forward to talking about some Destiel fics again.
Ellen: Awesome. And I think I’m probably not alone in speaking for the whole of the listener base when I say that I’m really glad to hear that you’re feeling a lot better and you know, you can take as much time as you needed, but I’m really glad that you’re starting to get your energy back.
Mal: It’s, it’s nice to be chatting about fic and fandom and just be back in it again. I did really miss it. It’s actually a very significant part of my life. It’s like a large [00:02:00] part of my life and takes up a lot of my thought process. So, although I’m very lucky and I had a lot of lovely friends that kept in touch with me and, you know, sent messages and cards and all kinds of things to update me, like it was still in a way a very lonely, like six months or more really. Just not being constantly surrounded by fandom as much. So yeah, definitely made me appreciate everything and everybody, even more.
Ellen: Okay. Well since it has been quite a few, months, like unintentionally, quite a few months in the end, but I mean we’ve, I’ve still been reading quite a few fic and I know that you have as well, right? So we’ve got some things we can talk about.
Mal: definitely. Yeah. I’ve definitely got some recommendations for people. Mm-hmm.
Ellen: first before we start jumping into fic, gotta say a really big thank you to everyone who has still been continued to support us on ko-fi, on our ko-fi.com [00:03:00] subscription and in our Discord server.
Thank you so much everyone for sticking with us for this time.
Mal: Incredibly kind of all of you, and thank you so much. Definitely feeling, feeling the love from the people who still wanted to support us. So
Ellen: thank you. And if you also would like to support us or get into our Discord server, you can go to ko-fi.com/mixtapebookclub.
All right, let’s talk about fic.
Mal: Okay. How about start with the one that I am reading right now. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s already really good and I know I’m gonna be very happy with it. This is called Don’t Say Gay in Russia by ValandraWrites. This was one of the 2022 DCBBs. Yep.
So this is a Russian Cas high school AU where Cas is an exchange student, and the description’s quite [00:04:00] long, so bear with me a moment. “Foreign exchange student Castiel Krushnic arrived in America looking for a clean slate for his senior year, but his host family didn’t even remember he was coming.”
So the Winchesters or Dean is very unimpressed to discover that John signed them up as a host family and never told him or Sam that this was happening. So they get Cas who is very grumpy and doesn’t talk a lot. And that the main thing is that he only ever learned the party line in Russia, which is that you, you don’t say gay in Russia.
So there’s a lot of kind of discovery, I guess is a good word for it, but it’s written in such a way that while there are a lot of kind of heavy topics in here and that there’s a hurt comfort tag and all that kind of stuff I don’t know, it’s written in such a way that it’s quite heartwarming, I guess, ‘cause you know, there’s, or at least I assume, I hope there’s a happy ending coming (laughs)
So it is tagged happy ending. And I trust this [00:05:00] writer so . But yeah, there’s, there’s definitely some depictions of homophobia in here. So that’s a warning for anybody. And they look at some cultural differences and stuff. It’s a lot of fun. And Cas has tattoos. Tattooed Cas tag right there.
Ellen: Sounds amazing.
Mal: Yeah. It’s all the things I love in one fic. So very pleased with this one. And it’s a decent kind of chunky fic to sink your teeth into as well. It’s about 78,000 words. So, and I think this is the first of this year’s DCBBs that I’ve gotten around to reading other than any that we might have covered on the podcast already, but I don’t think we have, ‘cause this is the 2022, like most recent crop from the fall just gone.
Ellen: Yeah. They would’ve only just started posting like around when we last recorded. So,
Mal: yeah. So I think this is, I’ve just got to the point in my marked-for-later fic where I’m just starting to hit these, the DCBBs. So, yeah, so [00:06:00] this was a great one to start with.
So yeah. Awesome. Thank you. ValandraWrites, everything I love in one fic.
Ellen: Speaking of Russian Cas… I know we only just did an episode on Russian Cas, but since then I’ve actually read like a few more Russian Cas fics accidentally. Like, not, not like intentionally seeking them out or anything, but just, they just happened to have been.
So I’ll just mention a couple of them. Let me just…
Mal: I actually have another Russian Cas fic on my little list of recommendations as well. So there must be a few of them.
Ellen: This is gonna be like a follow up episode of our pretty much. Okay, so the, there’s, there’s a few different, there’s a fic and then a couple of timestamps for this one.
So it’s called Tem Semya and it’s by mydestielbabies_67. Who happens to be one of my Aussie con-going friends who has written this. It’s quite long. I think it’s sort of like 86,000 words, but it’s basically, it’s a crime [00:07:00] family thing, like it’s established relationship. And they’re Brava kind of mob situation.
It’s like murder husbands basically. There’s a lot of really graphic violence in it, but there’s also this really beautiful, like, the love story because they’ll do anything for each other because they’re you know, the bosses of this crime family basically. And yeah, it’s just really, it’s an interesting combination of like really violent mob stuff, and then, and then this really loving family dynamic to it.
So recommend that one, that’s Tem Semya. And then the other one I was gonna mention with Russian Cas, which I have had on my list for ages, but hadn’t got around to it. Mostly because I didn’t know anything about hockey, so I thought I didn’t want to read it and how wrong I was. This is For All You Young Hockey Players Out There, Pay Attention by thursdaysfallenangel, also known on Twitter as joluriang, I’m gonna say.
[00:08:00] So this one is… basically what happens is, Dean and Sam and a bunch of people like Benny and, you know, a few, lots of other characters are in an ice hockey team. And one of their players gets traded out of the team. And the person who comes in to replace them is Cas who has been recruited from the Ice Hockey League in Russia.
So he, he speaks English well and everything. There’s no actual Russian language stuff in this which a lot of the Russian fic tend to have. But he’s very, he’s very, like, “hockey is all there is, we are not friends. None of you are friends. We’re just gonna play hockey and that’s it.”
And he’s really sort of abrupt with everyone and, and Dean really hates him. So there’s like this, like real enemies to lovers with this one. And it is like a, it’s quite a slow burn. It’s long, it’s like 146,000 words. And if you are… also because of the nature of [00:09:00] professional sport in, in men’s professional sport especially, it’s taken a really long time for anyone to even mention anything about being gay or any, or, you know, it’s just not done.
I think she explains by the end there, there’s like starting to be some players who might have come out, but you know, it’s very… I dunno if it’s like, real homophobia, but it’s like, that locker room kind of joking and talking and everything is suppressed and, you know, just not… and so if it, if you are one of those people who don’t like when Dean insists, continues to insist that he is not gay even when he’s like, obviously having thoughts about it then maybe, maybe this one might not, might not be for you, but it is really, it’s well written and it’s enjoyable in that they do eventually get together and it’s really nice when they do.
And it’s great, great sort of, you know, smut eventually when it happens, it’s great. So [00:10:00] yeah, I don’t know. It’s like I didn’t know anything about ice hockey because like, obviously I live in a place where people don’t play ice hockey…
Mal: People don’t do that there!
Ellen: We, we don’t have, we don’t have the cold… I think we do, we do have an ice hockey league maybe? But I, I don’t, I, I am not at all aware of it. But now after seeing this, I’m like, oh, this is like kind of cool. I mean, it’s probably, I know it’s a very fast paced sport and they do have a lot of fights and stuff, so maybe it might be good to watch, but yeah, I don’t know. It’s not on TV here, so I haven’t seen it.
So yeah. Despite that the fic was a great one to read, so I recommend it. Recommend that one.
Mal: Excellent. Good recommendation. I have one final Russian Cas mention. Yep. So in my head, I, I didn’t have this only filed as a Russian Cas fic it’s more Regency romance, but Russian [00:11:00] Cas is a very, very big feature in this.
So. This is called His Imperial Guardian by Briston, the lovely Briston.
Ellen: I love this one.
Mal: Yes. I really enjoyed this fic. I was lucky enough to get to beta parts of it, or possibly all of it. I can’t remember now. it’s been too long.
Ellen: It was a while ago.
Mal: Yes. So this is a Regency, as I said, where Dean will do anything to try and make life better for Sam.
Essentially, unfortunately, some of the things that he does end up turning around and biting him when he gets caught up with the wrong, the wrong man as it is. But he is rescued from that by our lovely Castiel, who is His Serenity, the Count Castiel Novak. He’s a Russian ambassador in St. James Court. I dunno what else to tell you without spoiling everything. [00:12:00] It is quite plotty. There’s, there’s some, some really good plotty stuff happening, but it’s also just incredibly hot. It’s a really nice balance of those two things. So if you want a little bit of Regency gentlemen getting very ruffled this is a really good one.
And then throw in a really nice Russian accent and some plot, and it’s just a great story, I think. And it’s all packed into about 40,000 words, so it’s one of those nice, kind of can sit down in an evening and just devour a nice, chunky, fic in one go.
Ellen: Yep. I love that one. I don’t, I think I’ve caught up with all the Regency ones from, from last year. Need to check the list again and make sure I have.
Mal: Yeah, there were some great ones here. I have one other recommendation that’s from that same bang from the 2022 Regency one, a much shorter fic, it’s 16,000 words. It’s called Forty Shillings on the Drum. I believe, here’s where I try and pronounce an author’s name and get it horrifically wrong again.
I think [00:13:00] it’s by seidenapfel, possibly. And this is one of those, I, I’m not sure what you would call this as a trope, but it’s like a long lost lovers reunited kind of trope where for a long time Cas and Dean have been separated and Cas actually believed that Dean died in the battle of Trafalgar, but he did not.
And when Dean is shot on the battlefield in Waterloo many years later he wakes up to find himself being looked after by a certain Navy commander that he hasn’t seen for a very long time. So it’s very sweet, it’s very lovely. And also very, very interesting. There’s a lot of great detail in this story, especially for one that’s so short and I really enjoyed it.
So yes. Throwing in one more Regency recommendation there.
Ellen: Awesome. All right.
Mal: I did two in a row there. So I will be quiet now.
Ellen: That’s alright. All good. I’m gonna go back a few steps and actually [00:14:00] rec another one by Briston because she’s writing, so they’re posting at the moment a WIP that is nearly finished. I think there’s only a couple of chapters left to be posted. Called First Response to Love and she’s written it with Whitster_Lizzy. And this is a completely hilarious… let me just open the link…
Mal: Is this the Uranus fic?
Ellen: Yes. This is the Uranus au. So basically what happens is Cas and Gabe.
And also Balthazar is in this, he’s fantastic. They work for a a radio, no, no, sorry, a TV station in the town of Uranus. And also Dean is a firefighter who is lives in Uranus as well. And they meet each other because Cas’s cat gets stuck up a tree and Dean comes to rescue it thinking it’s a kid because Dean, because Cas is so upset when he rings up [00:15:00] to, to like, you know, call the fire brigade.
And Dean is also the model for Mr. July in this calendar, in one of those firefighter calendars. And so unwittingly they are both like big fans of each other. Like Dean watches Cas on the TV all the time, and then, and Cas has the calendar and like, really thinks Dean is all right. So anyway, they have, it’s, it’s a really complicated story so I can’t really explain it, but it is so funny and every joke that can be made about Uranus is in it, and it’s brilliant.
So just, I think it’s, I’m pretty sure there’s only a couple of chapters left to be posted, so get on that. It’s worth it. Very funny.
Mal: Excellent. Okay. All of my recs so far have been either from DCBB or the Regency bang, so I’m going to switch it up and go for a [00:16:00] totally different bang now and a totally different vibe of fic.
So, I have been, or have read this twice ‘cause I enjoyed it so much. This is Build-a-Boyfriend Workshop by the lovely fullvoid on ao3. This was part of the dean cast horror fest. Bang. Yes. It has art by LamiaSage, really, really just beautiful art. This is amazing. Even if you aren’t into this kind of fic, just go and gaze at the art. It’s beautiful.
This fic is very well tagged. Like there shouldn’t be anything in here that’s a surprise, but just make sure that you check out the tags if you want to see this one, because it, you know, it’s a horror fest fic. So it is going to be a horror story. This one, murder husbands, body horror, corpse desecration, limb harvesting, like it’s all fully in here.
Ellen: Oh wow.
Mal: But when I tell you that with all of those things in it, it is still [00:17:00] one of the sweetest, loveliest things I have read in a long time while also being incredibly creepy. So this is a story where Dean is, you know, depressed, single. He works for a company that, well, he is a software engineer for a dating app, an LGBTQ+ dating app.
So he gets an assignment to create an AI for the app that people can communicate with this to, to practice, to make sure that people think they’re getting a lot of hits on this app, basically. So he needs to create a really, really good AI that can convince people of this. And so he starts creating this AI named Castiel. The problem being that Dean himself falls in love with the AI Oh no and the main problem about the AI is that he is missing the all important squishy bits, that Dean would love to have and to hold. So he and Castiel come up with a plan to fix that. I will leave it at [00:18:00] that. It’s, it’s difficult to explain how wonderful this is. But there is a wonderful tag that will do it for me on here, which is just “soft, like toxic slime”.
Ellen: (laughs) Okay. Interesting.
Mal: I really do recommend it. Like, it sounds like, it’s one of those things I think people will either love it or hate it, ‘cause you either enjoy horror stuff or you don’t. And fullvoid writes wonderful horror. So there is that aspect of it and it’s, it’s done really well, written really well.
And, you know, it is graphic, it’s not, you know, just pushed, pushed through without any details, but the relationship between the two of them balances it out so wonderfully. Okay, great. I’m done.
Ellen: Okay. All right. Next on my list, I’m gonna do a full, like 180 away from that. And mention I Love New York by our girl, followyourenergy. [00:19:00] She has written this beautiful… where do I start with this? Okay, so Dean is, we’re supposed to go on this trip to New York with Sam. This is, this is an AU it’s not, it’s not canon. I’m trying to remember if it was, it’s like before Sam goes to college or something, but something happens and, and Sam’s not able to go.
He gets sick or something happens and Dean ends up going on his own. And then while he’s there he, he runs into basically Cas, who’s also in New York on his own. And they strike up a friendship and go and have dinner together. And then they just keep going to have dinner together while they’re on their holiday and they go to all these different places in New York and try all this beautiful sounding food. So this fic will make you very hungry. It’ll also make you want to go to New York. I mean, I have been to New York City many years ago and I don’t remember having any delicious food like this there. So now I wanna go back there just to [00:20:00] try all of the food.
Mal: Followyourenergy has a habit of doing that in fix, of making me very hungry and making me want to visit places.
Ellen: Yes. Well, it, there’s also a very lovely story you know, a love story in there as well of Dean coming to terms with the fact that he, he is allowed to, you know, be gay and come out because I think back home, his dad, you know, he, he’s worried about what his dad would think and all that kind of thing.
So yeah, it’s beautiful. Go read it.
Mal: Well, I have a very short one that I can rec just under 7,000 words, so truly a one shot. And this is again, just completely different from anything else that we’ve just talked about. This is by Saltnhalo. Yeah. And it is a Stardew Valley AU.
Ellen: Oh my God.
Mal: It’s called Sioux Valley. Dean receives the deed to his Uncle Bobby’s farm. It’s a bit of a lifeline for him. So he goes to, to the farm, starts living there, and then he meets Castiel, who is the son [00:21:00] of the local general store owner. And that’s when his second chance at life truly begins, as she says in the summary it’s, it’s, it’s lovely.
It’s mostly fluffy strangers to lovers. It, it’s gonna have a lot of little nods in it to anybody who has played the game, obviously, but it is completely readable, just a standalone by itself, even if you haven’t. It does have a little bit of a hurt, comfort kind of light angst tag for Dean’s past, not necessarily for anything current.
But it’s, it’s just lovely. It’s like one of those like sweet fix that just kinda leaves you smiling at the end. So
Ellen: I love a, a video game AU.
Mal: me too. Big fans of those.
Ellen: Okay. So I have two, I have two canon fics left on my list. Okay. So the first one is a lot longer. It’s 127,000.
This one’s called Revisions and it’s by Zeppazariel. And this one is, [00:22:00] is one of those things where it’s gonna break your heart over and over again. But it has a happy ending eventually. So it’s like desperately sad, but then at the end it’s happy. So this is, it’s canon. It’s like a complete rewrite from season four to season 15, of key Destiel scenes and, and episodes, right?
So this is Dean and Cas basically find their way together in every scene, but then Chuck says, “no, I don’t like that,” and throws it out. So this is just them getting together over and over again, and, and Chuck getting more and more frustrated with them until, you know, the very end. It’s, it’s just beautiful.
It’s really beautifully written. It just, it makes you realize how much Destiel there is in the show, even if they never actually, it wasn’t actual text. And [00:23:00] yeah, if you like your canon rewrites, then definitely give this one a go. It’s really, it’s great. If, if you don’t mind like heavy, heavy angst, which is made up for in the end.
Mal: It sounds delicious.
Ellen: It is quite delicious. Yes. the, the, the worst part about this, I mean, there’s no, there’s no worst part, it’s great, but the worst thing was that because it’s quite long and it’s, it just makes you so sad as you’re reading it. I just wanted to get to the end because to make sure that it was gonna be okay.
So I just sat down and read this like almost all in one go because I couldn’t stop. I was like, “oh, I need to know what’s gonna happen!” And so yeah, if you, if you weren’t already like, extremely pissed off with Chuck for ruining everything, yeah, this’ll do it for you.
And the other one, the other one that I’ve just, I just finished reading it this morning actually is called Until the End, and After by Philyra912.
I hope I’ve [00:24:00] pronounced that somewhere close to correctly. This is a fix it and, and like a post canon fix it. I think they do do the, the, the vamp hunt thing, and he doesn’t die on the, on the rebar. He like, it just grazes him or something and he doesn’t die.
And then they have this like wake up call moment where they’re like, I don’t think we need to do this anymore. And then Jack appears and just goes, okay, all the monsters are gone now. like, it sounds like a weird kind of retcon, but it works. And then, and then he brings Cas back, and then it takes Dean a little while to kind of work up the courage to actually do anything about getting together with Cas.
But they move out of the bunker and it’s just like this domestic kind of fluff. The whole, the, the whole rest of the, of the fic is yeah, this beautiful domestic fluff. So it’s 28,000 words. And it’s just, oh, and [00:25:00] when they eventually do get together, which is, is not a spoiler, it’s right there in the tags.
Some really beautifully written and extremely hot smut as well. So just everything you need,
Mal: I’m gonna have to read that one.
Ellen: Everything you need in a fixit, it’s there. Highly recommended.
Mal: I am a sucker for a, they eventually move out of the bunker fic. So yeah, I love Bunker fic as well though. So kind of 50/50 on that I guess. I love both, but I do really enjoy reading where they move out of the bunker and find some kind of house or farm or B and B, or… there’s like a million versions out there. And I love all of them.
Ellen: Yes. Yeah, well definitely give this one a go. It’s a nice bite size chunk.
Mal: I have a couple of canon recs. One relatively short, and then two that are more kind of one shot length really. The first one is called, It’s My Turn to Be Watching Over You by Desirae. [00:26:00] The lovely Desi. So this one is set when Cas comes back from the Empty and they finally get to kind of put their feelings into words.
But they also have to rescue Dean’s mother. So this is from… my brain has completely died as to what season that was. 13?
Ellen: 13, yeah. Yeah. She’s in the other world?
Mal: Wow. It’s like, which one is that? Yeah, so we, you can just pretend that the entire, yeah, you can pretend that the entire ending, the last like 14, 15, none of that happened. Read this instead.
Okay. So this one is lovely angst and fluff and smut and, and love confessions. I would say it’s like the classic Desirae canon fic honestly, where they do eventually get to use their words, but we have some lovely Dean moments. in here. Yeah. This particular fic I really enjoyed because I love this whole like, widower arc era of SPN.
So this one I was really eager to [00:27:00] read and I was very happy when this one was posted. And it’s just under 19,000 words, so it’s a really nice like, I dunno, like a good mouthful of fic. Like it’s not too short. But it’s not gonna take you like multiple sessions. It’s just nice. Perfect.
So that is my canon Rec number one. The other two, like I said, much shorter. The first one is called Angel by cmorgana. This is a… it was recently ish, like towards the end of 2022, I think posted. But it’s set in season six. And this is your classic “John Winchester A+ parenting”, Dean has a bit of a crisis, first time virgin Cas, angel, story. Oh it’s, it’s 11,000 words. It’s, they’ve got some kind of like little chick flick moments in it also, which is quite nice. There is some, some internalized [00:28:00] homophobia dealt with at the beginning, which I think is very common in a lot of these kind of like slightly earlier season Destiel fics where there was a lot more kind of John influence in the show still, I think at that point.
But this one, this one I really, really enjoyed. It was, it was nicely written. It was really well paced and I love these kind of like, Cas being awkward in a vessel for the first time, working out how all this works, kind of stories. Every now and again, a nice bite of one of those, it’s good, and this one was a nice new addition to that particular area of the fanfic canon.
And then my last little canon rec is very short. This is 1500 words and it was actually a Thanksgiving story. But it’s canon, it’s The Right Kind of Family by giantteenwolforgy, great name. (laughs) And this is another very, very specific trope that I absolutely love, and the trope is Dean, [00:29:00] going slightly crazy trying to cook and making everything absolutely perfect for special events in the bunker.
Ellen: Yes, that’s very specific.
Mal: It’s very specific, but I think everybody knows. And that, that’s all it is, is his established relationship. But Cas has never seen this side of Dean before. There’s, there’s great, there’s, there’s a lot of humor and domestic fluff and Dean yelling at Sam to dice the celery correctly and all that kind of stuff.
It’s, it’s a lot of fun. It sounds a very quick read of 1500 words.
Ellen: It sounds lovely!
Mal: Yeah. So it feels very realistic, honestly.
I have a very quick rec for a lovely fic by an author that you might have heard of. Her name is EllenofOz.
Ellen: Oh no.
Mal: This is, this is a timestamp to an existing series, which I know a lot of other people loved as well.
So I wanted to give this one a shout out because [00:30:00] I really enjoyed this latest installment. And this is Baby Whispering 301: All is calm. All is bright. So you released this as like a little lovely piece of Christmas fluff. And it is, it is fluff. There, there’s some, there’s some tense moments at the beginning, but it is just fluff.
It’s lovely. Baby Claire. Established relationship with Cas and Dean, ‘cause this is a timestamp later down the series. But if you have never read the baby whispering series, then go and start with Baby Whispering 101 instead, which was just absolutely wonderful. I loved that story. And I’ve been hooked on this whole series ever since
Ellen: Oh, thank you.
Mal: You’re welcome. They’re all, I really like this one.
Ellen: They’re all pretty short, all of them.
Mal: So yeah. This one is, you clocked in just under 3000 words, so nice bite sized pieces of wonderful Professor Cas, student Dean AU… no, other way round. Other way round. [00:31:00] Cas is the student.
Ellen: Yes. Cas is the student. Dean is the professor.
Mal: Claire is the baby.
Ellen: Yes. Every now and again I, I get someone saying, “oh, when are you gonna write more of that Baby one?” and I’m like, “oh, eventually… got some of it kicking around in my head…” and then Christmas was coming up and I’m like, I should write some Christmas fluff. So that’s how that came about.
Mal: It’s never too much Christmas fluff. I read Christmas fluff in like July. I’ll read it any time of year, so… Yeah, it’s like the, the Thanksgiving one I just mentioned. I’m pretty sure I didn’t read that at Thanksgiving either. It was just, it was just there, so I read it.
Well, I have two other fics that I’ve read, which are kind of older, classic reads of mine. I’ve read these quite a few times. And I decided to revisit them recently. And I’m not a hundred percent sure if I’ve ever mentioned these on the podcast before or not. Like I really can’t remember.[00:32:00]
Maybe I did. Who knows? Hopefully someone can tell me. So the first one is by Ozonecologne and it is The Laundromat Verse. So this is actually it’s 40 chapters and some of them can sort of be read almost as kind of standalone moments or one shots, but it does build overall into a cohesive story.
So this one is Dean running a laundromat, and Cas is a punk kid who comes in with his punk friends and family for all of their clothing repair needs . Oh, it’s, it’s difficult to explain this fic without kind of spoiling a lot of the details that make it really special, but everything from clothing to just the feel of the kind of punk family they have and Dean’s kind of slow acceptance into it, even though he’s very different from them[00:33:00] is lovely.
And in this one, Cas is the punk, but he’s the big softie. And dean’s the one with the anger problem really the, the laundromat man who gets a little feisty sometimes. How else to explain this? Cas wears a kilt. Gotta put that out there. Oh, that’s pretty nice. There are things, there are fluffy things, there’s, there’s weirdness, there’s things with soap bubbles and malfunctioning laundry machines, it’s just very addictive to read altogether.
All of these one shots come in at just under 50,000 words, so it’s a really nice story to sink into and just get lost in this AU that starts off so simply, and then you end up finding out a lot more about the background of these characters. And there are other entries in this verse as well, which I think tell the story more from kind of Cas’s point of view, some more about Cas.
But the one that I’m currently reccing is the first full story just called The Laundromat Verse. Right.
Ellen: I’ve definitely heard of it. I think you [00:34:00] might have mentioned it before, but I, I don’t think I’ve read that one yet, so I’ll have to give it a read.
Mal: Yeah, I, I definitely recommend it’s one of those fix that I almost feel like is a hard sell without just telling you everything that happens.
Yeah. Because everyone like, but why would I wanna read about Dean in a laundromat? Because it’s really good and you should. Okay?
Ellen: Okay. We’ll have to take your word for it.
Mal: And it just has really good characters in it, from Cas to Besa, Gabriel Meg, like this. Really good characters in this. Cool. So,
Ellen: At this point I have to give a shout out because us saying like, don’t, don’t worry about any of the detail, just go and read it.
Has actually, like we’ve, we’ve spawned like a whole bunch of people to go on and read a bunch of things. Like it’s, I’m gonna shout out specifically Alice, who is Purpleskwid in our…she’s another fellow Aussie who’s in our podcast server Her favourite fic is Dean Winchester Beat Sheet[00:35:00] by saltyfeathers? Like she’s always rereading it, and always trying to get everyone else to read it,
And it was us who started, who spoke about it in one of our episodes, who, who got them on that path in the first place. And I’m like, oh my God, I feel so honored to have spawned such a thing!
Mal: You’re welcome!
Ellen: Now it’s just a thing. And now I have to go back and reread that fic again because I remember how much I loved it. And all it was was just like a once a one liner kind of, “oh, by the way, you should go and read this fic.” You know, Ah, yeah. Felt so chuffed. This is why we do this, isn’t it? So we can…
Mal: It is, it is why we do this.
Ellen: Okay, so I’m gonna go back to Christmas again. There was, in December, there was a a little prompt list, you know, like in “Suptober” where there’s like a, a list of prompts for each day. Yes. This one was a, a Christmas one. in December [00:36:00] and bexgowen, who actually happens to be another person in our Australian server.
A shout out to the Aussies today, actually. It’s Australia Day, today. So
Mal: There you go. They deserve the shout out.
Ellen: So we all, the Aussies deserve the shoutout even though like, you know, we’re not really celebrating Australia Day, ‘cause they really need to change the date. But anyway, I’m not going into the political stuff.
Mal: let’s not go into the political stuff. We’ll leave that be.
Ellen: but anyway, Bex has written this series of prompts. So she wrote one for every day of December: 31 chapters. I’m just, I, my mind was blown that she was like posting one of these every day for the whole of December. And the prompt list only came out like maybe mid-November or something.
And she’s strung them together into this amazing plot. So basically, it’s called The Advent Calendar. It’s like this advent calendar appears in the bunker. This is post canon. It is it’s set after like [00:37:00] 15.19 kind of thing.
Like they’ve defeated Chuck, but the finale didn’t happen. This advent calendar appears, and each day, a new window opens in the Advent calendar, obviously as, as advent calendars do, but no one, no one in the bunker, admits to actually opening the door. They just happen. It just opens. And, and what has happened here is there’s a bunch of hunters who’ve come to live in the bunker with them because they’re, they’ve created like this hunter network type thing.
So there’s a load of people around all the time. So you know, when they start celebrating Christmas and getting into the, like the tree decorating and all the, the cooking and stuff that goes with Christmas. So there’s all these people coming to help and Jack appears and stuff like, you know, it’s just beautifully fluffy, little bit of angst in there because Dean’s obviously really missing Cas and he wants Cas to come back. Spoiler in the end, Cas does end up coming back and it’s just really lovely. So I you don’t have, it doesn’t have to be Christmas to read Christmas fic, right? Just go and read it now.
You totally can. And [00:38:00] altogether I think it is, you know, 62,000 words you know, each, each day was, you know, fairly short in 31 chapters add up to 60,000 words. So yeah, go check it out. I loved it. I was so impressed that she managed to pull off 31 days straight of posting and have the fic be so fantastic. Great stuff.
Mal: Yeah. That is very impressive. Good job, Bex. Good job.
I’ve only got two others open here. One of which I’m pretty sure we have. I’m, I’m not sure if we featured it or not. Hopefully you can tell me. This is Hot Water by Chiyume, I believe is…
Ellen: I remember this one. Yeah.
Mal: Yes.
Ellen: I don’t think we’ve featured this one. Oh, we’ve mentioned it for sure, but I dunno if we’ve featured it.
Mal: Okay. So this is a very smutty fic. This is Dean and Cas… although it does kind of turn into [00:39:00] something quite heavy plotty later. But initially it begins with Dean and Cas having very hot, anonymous shower sex, but in like separate stalls.
So it’s shower masturbation, mutual, but, but separate. Separate. They can’t see each other, is what I’m trying to say. But they’re definitely both going at it. And then eventually obviously they meet, but they each think that they don’t know that the other knows.
Ellen: Yeah, I get you, It’s a secret.
Mal: You know what I mean? They haven’t seen each other’s face. Yes, exactly. It’s very hot. But the plot itself is actually really interesting and kind of sneaks up on you a little bit. Like you, you think it’s gonna be just full on just a smut fic from beginning to end, and they’ll get together and it’ll be great.
But there’s a lot more to it than that. There’s also some really great side characters. You’ve got a really good Gabriel in this one who kind of [00:40:00] helps them get together pretty much. Then there is Sam also, and there’s even a little bit of Charlie that’s really good in this one. So definitely recommend this.
I always have fun every time I read this fic, like every time I go back to it, it feels fresh, even though I’ve read it a bunch of times by now. It is a long one. It’s 151,000 words. Probably only half of it is smut.
Ellen: Probably (laughs) Yes. And do you remember that one being particularly hot as the name implies?
Mal: Very much. And then one more shorter rec. Just because I wreck this to everybody over and over again and I, I just, it’s one of those fics that I absolutely adore and I just cannot convince enough people to read . Yeah. Mostly because I think it’s it’s a Pon Farr AU and so people who are not familiar with the Star Trek universe kind of assume it’s not for them, I suppose, which is perfectly understandable.
But I maintain that you need [00:41:00] absolutely no prior knowledge of the Star Trek universe to enjoy this fic. But this is a story where Cas is a half-Vulcan, Dean is an engineer. How not to spoil anything when the fic’s less than 8,000 words long? They are on a planet. They’ve, they’ve been best friends for years.
They’re on a planet. And essentially to put it in like omegaverse terms for people, Cas goes into heat and Dean is the only one around who can help. It that there, there’s a lot of like consent, discussion and things within the fic. So if people are worried about that, then, you know, don’t worry.
It is tagged for mildly dubious consent, but there is a lot of discussion of that in the fic before anything happens. It’s, it’s just great. I love it. Not even necessarily for the smut aspect. It’s more how it’s dealt with afterwards. It’s incredibly sweet. And even though it’s short, it’s one of the fics that I always say has like the most lasting impact on me.
Like this is a fic where I dream of sequels of this fic. Unfortunately the [00:42:00] author has not written anything in many years. This fic is from 2012. So I don’t think I’ll ever be seeing any more of this, but I do write sequels to it in my head very frequently.
Ellen: I remember you reccing this one a few times already,
Mal: I know. I just, I’m just so desperate for people to read this fic so I can talk about it with them and tell them my dumb sequel ideas.
Ellen: Uhhuh. Well, I can’t remember if I’ve read it, so I’m gonna have to go and read it again now just, just to make sure that I actually have.
Mal: So what else have you been reading, if not Destiel, because you said you have some others.
Ellen: Yeah, man, I mean, I actually read a couple of real books. I read…
Mal: Whoa!
Ellen: Amazing, I know. I read the third and final book in the Carry On trilogy by Rainbow Rowell. I dunno, we haven’t really done a lot of like, real book recs before, but yeah. If you love fan fiction, which I guess if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably do.
[00:43:00] This is like, so Rainbow Rowell came out with a book called Fangirl I wanna say like eight years ago or something, now. It’s been a while for that one. And in that one it was about a girl who writes fanfic and the fanfic she was writing is, was basically it was like a Harry Potter. It was like Drarry, like Draco and Harry type thing.
But the character was, the main character was called Simon Snow. And they were going to a magical school and doing, it was a very Harry Potter-esque, but not actually Harry Potter. And so then, Rainbow Rowell actually wrote the final year of, of that fanfic and published it as a book called Carry On, and there are now three of them, there’s a trilogy.
And it’s got that, it’s got that fanfic feel. It’s got a lot of tropes. It’s like the, even the writing, her writing style is very, I don’t know, I don’t wanna say Fanficcy because that, that sounds vaguely derogatory, but it’s not. It’s great
Mal: [00:44:00] See, I think we just, yeah. We need to establish the precedent that that is a complimentary thing to say about someone’s writing.
Ellen: Yes, exactly.
Mal: Because so many hundreds of thousands of thousands of people read and love fanfic. So clearly it’s a good thing.
Ellen: Yes, right. I mean it I just, I love it. And it’s the, the final book was actually a lot darker than the others. I think it was a little bit more angsty, but Ooh. It does have a happy.
Everyone sort of gets there, you know, to a place where they’re, they’re happy. And it was still… I was a little bit worried going into it that because the, the first book, I don’t, I don’t think that she had intended it to be a trilogy. So the first book kind of wrapped up fairly well, I think, and then I wasn’t sure how they were there was gonna be more plot to go, you know, like, I mean, I know life obviously goes on after the, the happy ending, but, you know, is it good enough to be a, a trilogy ender, and it was great though.
It was really compelling and exciting and everything. So yeah, I enjoyed that.
Mal: Awesome. Shout [00:45:00] out to Rainbow Rowell for her Supernatural adjacent book titles. ,
Ellen: I know first one’s Carry On, the second one’s called Wayward Son, but the third one, I didn’t actually mention the ta, the title of the book approach should probably do that. The third one’s called, Any Way the Wind Blows. So it’s not quite Carry On My Wayward Son lyrics, but, you know, not quite.
Mal: But we’ll, forgive her for skipping the obvious third title that she should have used.
Ellen: Yes. Have you, you’ve been reading in some other fandoms, right?
Mal: Yes, I’ve been reading a actual books and other fandoms.
So where shall we, where shall we start? I will do a quick shout out to a story that I did read, which was another ship as we’re just doing a catch up episode today. This is an old Doctor Who fic, so anybody out there who, you know, you, you’ve gotta remember the old crazy Tumblr era, the SuperWhoLock era.
So this is an old one shot, actually a bit more than one shot. It’s almost 20,000 words. I’m [00:46:00] not sure where, where the cutoff for one shot is, but so this is from 2012. But I think it’s a fun one to mention because not only is it a fun Doctor slash Rose fic it’s written by our own bendingsignpost who writes a lot of wonderful supernatural fanfic and we have had on the podcast before.
I’m not sure how pleased he will be that I dug back through his, through his fic all the way to 2012 to find this Doctor Who stuff, but I really enjoyed it. So . Hopefully he’ll be, he’ll be happy about that.
Ellen: Is he just one of those annoying people who’s just always been really good at writing and there is no shit older stuff? It’s just all good?
Mal: This this is still good. Yeah. Like it’s still good. And it’s from 2012, so mm-hmm. It’s a kind of a, a straightforward fic in the sense that it’s, it’s an alien biology first time kind of Rose and 10 fic where the Doctor gets essentially infected by a [00:47:00] particular type of bug that is making him obsessed over something and that something happens to be Rose Tyler.
Not that he wasn’t already obsessed, but there’s a, there’s a lot of remarkable restraint in this. It’s, it’s a little different from the usual, kind of like we have like the fuck or die tropes and things like that. It’s, it’s a little different from that in how determined he is to not act on it or not even tell her about it.
Which obviously doesn’t end up happening that way in the end, but he’s determined not to use it to his advantage in any way or even mention it, which makes it a much more interesting story to read, I think. Yeah. Awesome. Anyway, yes. Slight delve into Doctor Who there just for a second, but it’s, it’s wonderful author bendingsignpost who needs the love on all of his fics. I think so.
Ellen: Yep. Yeah, I never really got into Doctor Who fic when I was deep in that fandom. But it was before I…I really only got into fanfic seriously with, with Supernatural. So, that was before those days… in [00:48:00] the olden days.
Mal: Yeah. I, I had lots of ships and fans lots of ships and fandoms before Destiel, and I had, you know, read and written fic before that, but nowhere near the intensity with, and I still maintain, it’s probably just ‘cause there’s so many more things I wanted to fix in Supernatural.
Ellen: yeah. Maybe they did us a favor in not, not making everything perfect.
Speaking of other fandoms I have, okay, so I’ve been listening to the Monster of the Week guys, their Merlin rewatch podcast. Which is called “Still his Kingdom Keeps”. Hilarious as always. And I… Merlin was like my intermediate fandom between like the Doctor Who days and the Supernatural days.
So I was like really into Merlin for a while there. For some reason I never really got into fic then either. I think it was just, when [00:49:00] I got into Supernatural, I, I discovered Tumblr and then that was all downhill from there. But anyway, Merlin,
Mal: it’s always downhill when you discover Tumblr.
Ellen: Yeah, just fell headfirst into it.
Mal: We love it. But it’s like going down a chute into trash.
Ellen: Yeah. But anyway so the, the thing was that Merlin was on Netflix and then in the middle of November they took it off Netflix. Maybe it was December, I don’t remember, but it was a little while ago. And so I was only in, in the middle of series three, so I just like binged all the way to the end in like, I don’t know, three days or something. because I wanted to make sure I’d re-watched it all before the guys had got up to it in the podcast and then I got to the end and I was like, I, I had to go and find some to fix it because I was like, there’s gotta be heaps of this out there, surely.
And there he is. A lot of the Merlin fic is, was written sort of pre 2013, kind of when the series actually finished airing, I believe it was around then. [00:50:00] So it’s a lot older. And so some of the, it’s, it’s got that thing where the ratings are weird. Like mature ratings will have like explicit sex scenes in them and stuff.
So yeah, just be aware that, read the tags and whatever, but the one that I loved, loved the most, and I binged all of this author’s fics after is called And Like The Cycle of the Year, We Begin Again. It’s by katherynefromphilly. So it’s beautiful, heartbreaking for a little while until they work things out.
And then after that it’s great. And there’s like several timestamps afterwards, so I recommend that one. Oh, it’s long. It’s like over 200,000 words that, and that’s just the first fic in that series. So, but it’s worth it. And the other, the other Merlin fic I was gonna quickly mention is called A Modern Manservant by Mamalazzer.
This one [00:51:00] is an AU so… I’ve probably mentioned this before, but when you first, when I first started getting into fanfic, I don’t know if you were like this as well, but you sort of read all the canon stuff and then you, you see the AUs and you’re like, why would I wanna read about these characters in a different universe? That’s just seems really strange. But then, then obviously you get into it and you love it. Right? because some AUs are brilliant.
Mal: Yeah, I think that’s a pretty common experience. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. So I, I sort of felt that a bit again with the, like Merlin and Arthur, because, you know, they’re a medieval thing. They’re, their world is so set.
It’s like they’re in Camelot. That’s it. But this fic is so good. It’s like a modern au where it’s based on Ugly Betty. So it’s a fashion magazine house. And Arthur is like the managing director or whatever, the editor since Uther has retired or whatever, and Merlin gets hired as his assistant.
And it’s just, it’s so funny. It’s just [00:52:00] really clever. They bring in all the characters that are back in different… either as models or like, you know, the marketing department or whatever. It’s just, it’s really, really, really clever the way they’ve pulled the canon stuff in. And I love it.
It’s like, it’s also quite long. It’s a hundred and a hundred something thousand words, but really worth a look because it’s hilarious. So yeah, I’ve read a whole lot of Merlin fic in the in the last couple of months, . And those two are definitely my favorites, I think.
Mal: I think, or I would like to think that the Monster of the Week podcast guys moving on to Merlin probably had to like, give like a little, little renaissance to some, some fics there that deserve the attention.
So,
Ellen: yeah, I hope so. They’re, they’re doing like, you know, all their little in-jokes and everything that they had for Supernatural, they sort of carried some over and then made up a whole new bunch for, for [00:53:00] Merlin. They’re very funny. Definitely worth a listen to their takes on Merlin itself. It’s great.
Mal: Okay. Well you mentioned a real, a real book. All of these are still real stories, but one that is not fanfic that you read. So I thought I might just do, I have read a lot of books, like… For, for quite a while there, reading was one of the only things that I had the energy to do because it literally didn’t involve lifting my head.
So physically speaking, it was actually one of the easiest things for me to do. So, I read quite a lot there for a while, so I might just do like a quick fire round of, I’m, I’m not gonna describe too much of the book, so I’ll maybe give like a sentence or two of them. Okay. Starting with most recent and like working backwards of ones I enjoyed.
So Neon Gods by Katie Robert first of all, massive red flag warning. This is a het story. I’m sorry, [00:54:00] but it is. It’s really good though. It’s a retelling of like a modern retelling of the myth of Hades and Persephone. It’s incredibly hot and it’s, it’s, it’s good.
The next one I want to shout out oh, I did reread the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas, because I needed to read the later one. So had to reread, you know, how it works. I’m pretty sure everybody knows about ACOTAR by now, so I’m not gonna spend too much time on that.
A kind of hidden favorite that I really enjoyed, but I don’t think a lot of people have read, though I think I did recommend it to you, . It was called The Darkness Outside Us.
Ellen: Oh, yeah, I read that one too.
Mal: Yeah, I really, really liked that one. It’s a gays in space. Essentially enemies to lovers. It’s got a, a lot of kind of twists to the plot, which really entertained me. And I also just really felt the, the enemies to lovers in this one. Like it worked for me. It, it hit right.
[00:55:00] The Witch King by H. E. Edgmon, this is a fairy realm, normal earth realm story where a… How should, how should I not give this away? A runaway from that realm has been living on earth and they are forcibly brought back. This one has a trans protagonist, which is very key to the story.
And it’s very interesting. I really like the, the magic and the way the magic realm works in the series. Yep.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir, I have to say this one as well. Again, this is one of those like really big series that I feel like a lot of people will have heard of. But if not, necromancers in space.
Ellen: Oh wow.
Mal: It’s one of those things that sounds so dumb, and yet as soon as you start reading it, you’re completely gripped and you spend the entire series trying to work out what’s going on. But you can’t, you can’t stop. . . It’s so good. It’s so good. Don’t really know what else to say [00:56:00] about that one.
There’s just no explaining it without sitting here for hours. So please just go and read the Locked Tomb series specifically Gideon the Ninth is the first one.
Ellen: Oh, okay. Sounds really interesting. I’ll have to look it up.
Mal: Yep. It, it really is. It really is. It reads like a, kinda like a fantasy novel in the way that the world is built and everything like that, but the characters are just fantastic.
They are delightfully foul and fun and don’t wanna be doing what the universe is forcing them to do. And it’s just, it’s really good fun. I like it. Yeah. All right. I will stop recommending things now. I will say I read a lot of TJ Klune books. I read the Studio C Series by Toby Wise, which I really liked.
I read so many other things. I’m gonna stop now. But yeah, I reread all the Heartstopper as well, which, oh yeah, I do at least like once a year I feel like. Yes. And now I’m back into fan pick again. [00:57:00] Yay. Not that I was ever not into Fanfic, even during that time. Yeah. Well, we, nothing replaces it. No.
Ellen: I’ve been trying very hard to actually write some things in the last couple of months too. But, you know, that’s always a bit of a up and down thing anyway.
Mal: Yes. The making of the words is hard.
Ellen: Sometimes it is.
Mal: Especially, yeah, especially hard. No, I would say it’s, it’s been hard for me the past, like year, but I, it’s been hard for a lot of people.
I think just, yeah, the past couple of years have been rough and I feel like they’ve really been hitting everybody in the last six months or so. Like, people just need, need the universe to chill out for a bit and give us some, some time.
Ellen: I mean, to make, to, to make a story, like to be creative, you need energy, you need spare energy, and a lot of people seem to be a bit low on that lately. Me included. But we get there. , I’ve got some things coming soon I think. I hope so. We’ll see how we go.
Mal: Well [00:58:00] I have a lot of things coming up to post very shortly. I’m getting to the point now where I’m really hoping to get to them in like the next few weeks.
So like I have chapters for existing WIPs from like my pirate story to Hold On Holy Ghost to the rest of Spinning Yarns needs to be posted cuz it’s just chilling in my Google Drive right now. Yeah. I have a whole other fic to start posting. I have a couple of one shots to post as well.
There’s a superhero one, there’s a Robot AI magic there. There’s a lot. There’s a lot to post, so people are gonna be absolutely sick of me and I anticipate losing subscribers rapidly once I start just throwing all this stuff out.
Ellen: I’m so glad to hear that. It’s gonna be great. I can’t wait. Awesome.
Anything, any other things you wanna… I think we’ve, we’ve recced like a whole lot there and everyone’s gonna be like, no, slow down. I can’t open that many tabs at once.
Mal: [00:59:00] You can, that’s the secret. The tabs are endless. and they just keep going.
Ellen: just keep opening them, you’ll get to them eventually!
Mal: Just embrace the chaos. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t worry about bookmarking things. Just embrace the chaos. Open a million tabs and then just pick one on any given day.
Ellen: Yep. That’s pretty much how I do it, to be honest.
Mal: The chaos technique.
Ellen: Oh, I am totally chaotic with that. It’s like chaotic evil.
Mal: I think it’s very interesting, like different types of people, how they organize their fic reading. Because there are people who have like spreadsheets who do it like super organized. And I do all that. I do have spreadsheets, I have everything on divided up onto like marked for later and different like bookmarks and private bookmarks, things like that. But when it comes to actually sitting down to read, I still just open my phone and pick a random tab and start there.
So I dunno what the point of me doing all that other stuff is. But I do it anyway.
Ellen: Yeah, that’s a lot of work for using the chaos technique. I only use the spreadsheets for, for podcast [01:00:00] fics. The stuff’s just like all just sitting there, so.
Mal: So you are just embracing the chaos. I’m in denial about it. I think.
Ellen: well I’ve tried, I’ve tried to like catalog stuff before and I always get started and then it takes too long and I get fed up with it and then I just go, eh, I’m just going back to the tab technique.
Mal: You just go, oh, this looks good. You suddenly remember, oh yeah, so and so said this was good. And you start reading.
Ellen: Yeah, or you get to think the point where you start reading it and then you go. I feel like I’ve read this before, and then you go down to the kudos and you’ve already left kudos and you’re like, oh, I have read this before
But yeah, I’ve done that a bit lately, but, but it’s always worth rereading a fic that you enjoyed previously.
Mal: All right, well that was a lot of recs for one episode, plus some, some bonus info about other ships and even printed books, so yeah.
Ellen: Well, I’ll try. Do my best to list them all in the [01:01:00] post.
You can also find now on the website, mixtapebookclub.com. I’ve also been trying to catch up with our all the transcripts from our episodes. We already had like quite a few there, but there’s a few more now. I’m working my way through the episodes to try and get ’em up there and I’m trying to also make them a little bit more easier to navigate, too.
So if you are looking for a particular figure, you should be you know, figure that we’ve mentioned and discussed. You should be able to. jump to that part of the transcript. I’m still kind of working on that, but I’m trying to make them a bit more user friendly than just like a, a big load of text.
So yeah, check it out if you’re if you would like to read the transcript.
Mal: Very nice. It’s nice to have the podcast accessible for more people, so I’m glad that we can do that. And I think next episode we will be back to our usual programming, essentially. Yes. And I think we said that the next episode we are going to be discussing musicians, so fics where Dean or Cas are some kind of [01:02:00] musician and there’s, there’s a lot of variety out there, so I’m looking forward to that one.
Ellen: Yeah, should be great. Yeah, we’ve got a few listed already, but if you have any that you’d like to recommend for us, then let us know. You can get in touch with us on social media or under mixtapebookclub on Twitter, Tumblr, et cetera. Or you can email us contact mixtape book club.com or you can find us on Discord in our ko-fi server or in Profound Bond discord server.
We’re also in there. You can find links to all of that on our website as well. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll talk to you again soon.
Mal: And as always, remember that the story isn’t over until we say it is.
[outro music]
[01:07:00] Ellen: Yay!
Mal: And that goes for the podcast too, apparently. Also not over until we say it is.
Ellen: That’s right!