Comments | rokhal: SPN fic: Stop Hitting Yourself 3/3

rokhal

SPN fic: Stop Hitting Yourself 3/3

May 05, 2012 17:50

Title: Stop Hitting Yourself
Chapter: 3/3, The Hunt At The Mine
Characters: John, Dean, and Sammy Winchester; Sam Grisham
Pairing: none
Rating: T
Length: 20k
Warnings: Shamelessly ripping off Sam Raimi movies, bad taste
Disclaimer: Fanfic! It's a fanfic!

( Saturday, they headed north at dawn to plant the hex bags around the perimeter of the mine in Wyoming... )

spn-dean, spn-au, spn-sam, spn-john, pg-13, spn-preseries, spn-casefic, fic-stop hitting yourself, fanfic-spn, spn-gen

Comments 38

amberdreams July 21 2012, 17:55:46 UTC

Powerful stuff! Future Sam was quite terrifying, seen from young Sam's POV which made this whole story that much sadder - seeing how Grisham tried in vain to get his message through.
Great idea, well executed, loved it.

rokhal July 22 2012, 16:59:58 UTC

Thanks! Sam in the later seasons is seriously cold and intimidating to his enemies, and here he's seeing Sammy as an extension of himself -- his own worst enemy, and something subhuman that has no rights against him. I'm really glad you enjoyed this, and thanks for commenting!

heartlessbytchh July 22 2012, 01:40:10 UTC

I enjoyed reading this very much. And Grisham was creepy. You had some great action and I loved the scene between the boys where Dean's telling Sammy he's going to do his laundry while he's hurt.

rokhal July 24 2012, 02:09:05 UTC

Thanks so much! Action scenes are fun to imagine, but it's really hard to know if any of the tension translates onto the page. And I'm glad you liked the hand signals.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the great comments.

catsintheattic July 31 2012, 18:24:53 UTC

I was pulled in from the start and couldn't stop reading. The tempo, the case, the meta on war and duty from Sammy, the heaps of anger and pressure coming from Sam Grisham, John's determined protectiveness, the brotherly teasing (so delightfully realistic) between Dean (beautiful characterisation) and Sam, and the huge overall sense of urgency and threat - it all made for an utterly captivating and fast-paced story.

And the ending - guh! Knowing what future awaits Sam, knowing that his trip to the past probably didn't change a thing (ah - the fun of time travel fic!) - it made me feel for poor, driven, desperate and angry Sam Grisham.

I really would like to know how Sam came to travel the past and what happened to Dean in his time.

rokhal August 7 2012, 04:54:12 UTC

Thanks so much! Sorry for not replying for a week.

It's so great to hear that the rest of the players did their part here; it's easy to get too focused when there's a theme. Sam's meta on war and duty was inspired by a middle-school discussion given a few years to percolate.

As for the end, there's still plenty of time left. Grisham might have time to learn something, and he, Sammy, and John have plenty of opportunity to trip over each-other and piss each-other off in their race to save their family from its diabolical curse. (Or so I like to tell myself.)

The closest thing I figure for what happened to bring Grisham here is that in Season 5, Dean said yes to Michael or something similarly catastrophic happened to him. As a last-ditch back-up plan, Castiel summoned all his remaining strength to fling Sam as far into the past as possible, likely destroying himself in the process. Sam fell significantly short of their target in 1983.

Thank-you so much for your kind review.

alyndra October 5 2014, 00:55:18 UTC

I just read this awesome story, and loved how on-the-nail every characterization in it was, and then I got to your final comment here and it hit me-- what if John's disappearing act in the pilot was because he finally figured out that Grisham was Sam-from-the-future?

Holy crap, I kind of really want to see him tracking down Grisham now with that in mind.

Anyway, thank you for writing such a absolutely compelling piece!

amberdreams August 23 2017, 22:06:35 UTC

I can't remember how I found this, but I wish I'd read it earlier! Better late than never. It's really powerful and such a great idea to have a Season 5 version of Sam visit himself in the past - a later version of Sam would be more compassionate to his teenage self, but not Season 4/5/6 Sam. All that rage was so scary and his self loathing directed at the Sam who made the 'wrong' choices was genius.

I'll definitely be bookmarking this for a re-read!

rokhal August 24 2017, 05:45:08 UTC

You commented on it in 2012, lol. Glad you enjoyed it a second time!

I love this trope, this time travel/alternate universe/split yourself into good twin and evil twin trope, and I have never not enjoyed a fic that used it. Any character who's had any kind of arc, or self-loathing, or deliberate changes in lifestyle or philosophy, does well with this treatment.

And Sam is scary! Padalecki got way into weight lifting around seasons 5 and 6, and Sam is smart, he's judgmental, he's emotional, and he's always angry. He just worries about keeping up appearances more than Dean. Least, as far as I know, which is Season 9.

Thanks for reading!

amberdreams August 24 2017, 08:01:08 UTC

Oh lord, I usually double check to see if I read things before because my memory (as demonstrated!) is so rubbish. DOH! But hey, it's good to know good writing doesn't get any less good second time around...

I was just downloading your fics from AO3 for posterity, but it's nice to know you are still around on here too, even if you aren't posting any more. Hope life is treating you well!