June 26th excerpt:
Jacob flinched. Thanks to the water that soaked his hair, many grains of salt clung to him and he frowned in confusion. “Dude, what the hell?!” blurted out of him before he could stop it. He tried again to tug an arm free so he could brush the salt away.
October 13th excerpt:
Sam turned in place, crossing his arms and arching an eyebrow to see Jacob just standing there with the salt. “Are you just gonna stand there and smell the daisies?” Sam asked testily. He mimed pouring salt in front of the door, shaking an invisible container in a line to demonstrate what he meant. “Salt in front of the door and windows, and do a line across the vent for good measure. We need to keep out what we can, considering how this case started.”
With a bit to put in before I unchain the queen of the salt flats to answer, remember that this is Oscar’s story more than Sam and Dean’s. He’s been waiting over a decade to tell his tale, and it was purposely edited to have his part after the bros. Those two parts were written in tandem by the two of us.
Taking one chapter to fill in the background isn’t asking a lot when it comes to character development, especially when two chapters post a week.
And now enjoy the unedited answer from neon:
Neon here, AKA the person who wrote the new, not-going-anywhere Oscar’s POV chapter of the story ( Deviantart | AO3 | Fanfiction ). Hi. Howareya.
There’s so many things to unravel here about this ask, and to be perfectly honest (and trim out some of my initial knee-jerk reaction to it), it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I understand that it may not have been intended to be as rude as it turned out to be, internet etc. tone and voice etc. etc. It’s wonderful that you’re so excited for the next chapter! But there are ways to word things in a respectful manner that doesn’t stomp all over someone’s hard work, and I urge you to remember this next time.
There is a difference between “not moving the immediate timeline forward” and “not going anywhere.” Stories don’t need to be all linear, and in fact literature might have died a very boring and unassuming death long ago had they all been restricted to that style. Catching the reader up on another side of an event is one of the older tricks in the book. So, my second bit of free advice is to find your chill and try to enjoy the ride.
Next up, this story is not in any rush to the finish line. It’s clearly a character driven piece. Never was promised to be anything else; the whole AU is more character driven. Just look at the original story; there was never a deadline for its (fantastically tragic, if I may brag on our storytelling for a moment) ending. It came when it was time.
So, as someone who is very proud of how far my character and the characters of my writing partner have come after years of waiting (in-story AND in real life), I have to say nope, nada, never, to this ask. If you’re not here for Oscar’s development alongside the others, then ….
Look. You hurt his feelings.
March 29th excerpt:
Switching back to Bowman, Sam grinned even brighter. “It could be worse. If we thought you had a ghost in you, you’d have Dean chasing you around with the salt and trying to chase it out. Or sneaking salt into your fruit, that way when you ate it the ghost would leave.”
The disgusted look on Bowman’s face, seen in a large scale like that, was absolutely priceless. The sprite straightened with his wings rigid as if he were actually offended by the very thought of ruining fruit like that. “You wouldn’t do something like that,” the sprite insisted, sounding as put off as he looked, and finally drew a laugh from Jacob.
“You say that,” he replied between chuckles, “but you have no idea.”
October 1st excerpt:
Oh crap, Oscar thought, practically holding his breath. If he heard correctly, they were going to come searching for people in the walls … did that human have them bringing people out that he could also capture? Oscar sidled along the nightstand and slipped behind it, hoping they’d go do their exploring of the room while he found his way to an exit and got the hell out of dodge.
He shouldn’t have come back to the room. Oscar’s curiosity had drawn him back like a moth to flame. He’d already wrapped up a handful of salt from one of the piles left by the human in a scrap of cloth. Salt was good for all kinds of things, and they’d just left it lying around like weirdos.
( Original post )
Good news! Sam and Dean are in all of my stories.
But seriously. We do what we do here for fun and enjoyment. Writing is a good way to relieve stress after a long day of work, and I have to tell you that writing any stories that are episode centric are incredibly stressful and will slow down my writing pace to a crawl.
I’m already having issues with writer’s block, that wouldn’t help me (or you, if you want to read my stories).
Now, as stated before, Brothers Apart is and will remain solely about the brothers. That does not mean that we will not have other characters appearing. Jacob and Bowman will be in the series again, in one of the stories we’ve built up the most anticipation for! We can’t wait to start writing it! Other characters will appear as well, including some of my other babies, like Elenia, Noonia, Barry and Xander.
Even Supernatural has recurring characters that are invited back onto the show.
For a bit of extra information, Celeste has always been a part of Brothers Apart from the beginning. She’s in the first story, and she will be in the last one. She is their Big Bad, the monster that keeps coming back. Will she live forever? Only the future will tell. But just keep in mind – I love and adore Supernatural, but I am not a writer for the show. You will always have my characters and neon’s characters appearing in the stories, and who knows. There might even be others that show up in the future.
BA has taken on a life of its own and no longer follows either an adapted canon storyline or a sprite divergence (aside from them appearing in a few monster-of-the-week style cases, do expect to see both versions of sprites back down the line).
Writing is an art and putting shackles on it that say you can only write this story this way is the absolute best way to end up with no story.
I’m more likely to boil the potatoes in tears, tbh. Mashed potatoes are my fave, even compared to french fries. Mmm. But yes. I am much more angst when I get salty compared to Neon, which is why I aim to be mellow and avoid controversy, arguments or fights. I get more worked up than she does.
( I’m glad you added in the part that you enjoyed the stories with the other characters because otherwise, I am salt on this entire topic after the times it’s been asked )
Okay, so. On Brothers Apart, as I’ve said in the past, I don’t plan on ever dropping the storyline. I have plans for several more stories, including the main arch with the witch, a few other stories with neon, my characters Barry and Xander along with Walt, Bree and the burrow. However, once again, I don’t have enough material or drive to keep up with a post a week for BA. So, I’ll be putting it in the poll just like the others to let everyone vote the story in if they want to read it.
I had a falling out with my editor last year because of Brothers Apart. Not only did they want to tell me what to write, it was a constant litany of “Did you finish a chapter? Can I read it? Are you done yet?” and I can tell you that is the worst way to approach any writer, and that’s a major reason that it’s taking me so long to write anymore. It caused writer’s block for months and I even had to shred an entire story when they wanted to run it. Anyone who brings this up, I’m gonna say now that you’ll probably get only salt for answers because I am not over it and I keep getting reminded, and it’s not helping things.
Another thing is, some of the AUs we wrote are done from prompts from our followers, like Brothers Lost and Brothers Asunder. We’re really hoping everyone likes what we’ve come up with!
So, you’ll see more BA, and hopefully plenty of it, but I need a break. I can’t post more than one story at a time because I have trouble keeping track of more than one and it was majorly confusing when I was posting Lich and Salt Lines at the same time.
Also!! Just because there are other characters in the story doesn’t mean my characters will be any different… It’s a nice change of pace to switch things up on them, and I personally love it. Neon is an amazing writer, and without her I probably wouldn’t be writing BA by now after the shit I went through, so you all might want to thank her.
( If I’ve been saltier in my answers than normal this month, I don’t mean it on purpose. For the last three days this week I’ve watched the temperature gauge on my car rise too high, and go to just the edge of overheating, and no matter what we do it looks like I’m gonna need a new car and I don’t have the cash for that. Plus work is extra stressful. Yaay. )
February 8th excerpt:
Sam got on Jacob’s hand, planting his boots so he wouldn’t lose balance when it started moving. He gestured for the teen to lift it up. “We won’t let you down. Oh, and Dean?” He pulled out the rest of his salt, tossing the pouch to his older brother. “Just in case.”
Dean gave a jaunty salute with the salt, his trademark smirk in place.
Brothers Apart 