lazyThese two are Harvelle centric, and both are far more than I ever could have hoped.
The Excellent Glass of the Body by
roque_clasique (Ellen, Jo; gen, spoilers 5x10)Ellen knows her daughter better than anyone and she can read Jo like an open book... In a way the boys are a lot like Jo, just three kids who miss the hell out of their fathers, and Jo is thinking, They’re doing what their Daddy did. She’s thinking, I could do that, too.Commentary: Ellen has never been more herself than in this fic. It stretches its narrative into domestic sceneries Supernatural itself often does not explore, but reality, fear, are lurking at the edges. I used to think that regardless of my love for the Harvelle ladies, I wouldn't find any of their fic interesting, because what would it possibly explore? This, is what. The final scene was pitch-perfect. It starts like this:
"It took a while for Jo to get pretty, but she grew up beautiful. She grew up brave. She grew up."I Am Oak, I Am Tree by
pdragon76 (Jo, Dean/Jo; spoilers 5x10)It’s not because hunting hums inside her like a call to arms. She leaves because it builds like a discomfort that demands to be appeased...Commentary: I'm a gen person. I will always be a gen person. I include "Jo/Dean" only because they do have sex, but if all SPN smut were written so tight and so stripped down, I'd read a lot more of it. That aside, this is Jo at her finest:
It all comes down to this: a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey.
"The gunrunners among her contacts outnumber her friends. The capillaries around the scar in her thigh blaze an angry spider’s tale, and it’s starting to look like that’s the kind of thing that doesn’t go away. She’s coming to terms with her dented vanity."The thing that sealed it for me, however, was the mindfuck at the end. The subtlety of the lead-in is masterful, and perhaps even more so than "The Excellent Glass of the Body," the ending is searingly poignant.
