#jensen the naif is also not something i'd usually write

[zmediaoutlet]

abandoned(?) wip: the cult fic

Here's one that I really really really want to write because it was for a charity run and it is NOT the fault of the fic or the donator that I got hit with a depression meteor, nor indeed that somehow it was 'easier' to write a bunch of other fics instead of the charity fics that I still owe!! Ugh. The self is a real garbage pit sometimes. So hopefully let's call this one dormant and not abandoned, and so --

Big Idea: which isn't mine, bc charity fic as aforementioned, but -- Jared runs a cult and Jensen joins and there's lots of sexy sex. Pretty much. :) But because it's a cult fic, I really wanted to dive into that, which required plot [spits on floor], and it's really more now about like... lost youth getting wrapped up into a personality & lifestyle just for somewhere to belong. Like cult stories always go. It's an unusual fic for me in that I'd normally never do ageswap (even with J2 -- I prefer to keep them as is) and I don't actually have much interest in irl cults, but it's interesting as a stretch in that sense.

Why it was abandoned: because plot!!! Ugh. Plot is the worst, idk how people are like 'ooh I wanna get all involved in this murder mystery'. Yack. But if it's gonna have a plot it's got to work, and it also has to have a bunch of legible and interesting and not-quirky-stand-in characters -- like I want it to read like actual humans, not goofy nonsense a la the cult in Bad Times at the El Royale. So that requires some genuine thought and time put in and probably even a chart, and... #lazy writer noises. But I have some random scenes I think might be good already planned. Trouble would be if I could make Jared-the-cult-leader seem believable and not just like a doofy romance novel figure. My personal trouble with cults is that whenever someone's holding themselves up as a leader because of whatever mystical whatever I'm like, this motherfucker? Are y'all kidding? So I'll have to get over that instinct, lol.

Snippet:

"He renamed it when we came," Allie says, easy. She taps her thumb on the steering wheel, smiling. "He said Wildheart was more right, for what we were going to be." Jensen nods but he has no idea what that means. Whatever the name was before, the wild part at least is right. His grandpa had a farm, outside Dallas, and that was all neat rows, trimmed up hedges, smoothed-out roads with everything exactly in place. Jensen didn't mind it—driving it was easier, he thinks, as they're jolted by the Volkswagen rocking over yet another huge tree root—but it was… Well, it doesn't matter. He'll never see that farm again. He's about to ask another question when Allie turns, again, and the screen of oaks gives sudden way to—open air, a field. The sky opens up above them and Jensen leans forward, trying to see everything. They're on a dirt drive and there are—people, young, maybe his age or maybe Allie's, on the grounds on either side of the drive, working squared-off garden plots—tomatoes, in chickenwire cages. More that Jensen doesn't recognize as they roll past. A boy with red hair waves at the car and Allie waves back, grinning. "Good to be home," she says, to Jensen. Home, Jensen thinks, and chews his thumbnail, scanning the grounds. A medium-sized house, at the end of the lane, painted a faded yellow that needs redoing. On the west side of the house Allie pulls the Volkswagen up next to a purple Gremlin with messy handpainted yellow flowers on the rear hatch, a Cadillac with a rusted-out door and some kind of viney plant spilling out of the broken back window. "C'mon," Allie says, turning off the engine, so Jensen takes a deep breath and gets out of the car into the sunshine, holding his duffle up against his chest, looking around. No one's running up to bug them—the dozen people gardening are still gardening, down by the lane—and Allie flips her keys into her palm, comes around the hood of the car, touches his arm, soft. "Nothing be scared of, sweetie," she says, quiet even though it's just the two of them, and Jensen—believes her. He has to. He wouldn't have gotten into her car, otherwise.

#my writing #abandoned wips #jensen the naif is also not something i'd usually write #i like him cynical from the jump #maybe the thing here is to lean into him being cynical #but so lonely and frightened that the cult thing just... #drags him under #like the tide pulling sand from under your feet #hm that might help