Six of One

You may be looking for The Prisoner fan club: Six of One: The Prisoner Appreciation Society.

Fanfiction
Title:	Six of One
Author(s):	Vehemently
Date(s):	March 18, 2007
Length:	Wordcount: 62,900
Genre(s):
Fandom(s):
Relationship(s):	Sam Winchester & Dean Winchester
External Links:	Six of One A03
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Six of One is a Supernatural fic by Vehemently.

Reactions and Reviews

2007

I've just finishing reading one of those stories, though, one of those stories that is So Damn Good that you can't really chase it with anything, and preceeding it doesn't do justice to other stories and things... So I'll top off the list of stories to rec besides this one and get back to you later this week with that.

Today, though, I wish to impress upon you the awesomeness that is vee_fic's Six of One.

I will do it by saying this: This story is possibly the best piece of fanfiction I've ever read. (And you know, you KNOW that I am a huge fan of the stories y'all write.) It's Supernatural, and I can say as a recent convert that you'd need to be up on the current story arc regarding Sam and the Yellow-Eyed Demon, because otherwise so much of the wonderful subtlety of this story might get lost in trying to get the backstory as well as the current story straight in your head.

Might be worth it, though.

So this is a long piece, eight parts all posted, and worth the time it takes to read. The first two parts are wonderfully dense with mystery and confusion, and as the plot unfolds and the threads untangle this wonderful two POV story, with deft use of time and flashback, organises itself into a really brilliant story of angst and action and magic and blurred lines and being stronger together than apart. The canon characters are amazingly written, even with layers of mystery overlaid, so it is clear what is motivating them throughout just from the characters and voices. Jo was a fantastic presence (heck, so was Meg) and strength, and the original characters were many, varied and several of them were totally people I would really like to meet someday. And there was an oracle, actually, whom I totally never want to meet but had me nearly pressing my nose to the screen I was so riveted.

This is a gen novella, and though I'm really too close to it and wrapped up in sorting out how various threads were woven in and when, I really would like to get everyone on my flist to read this. I wish it wasn't outside the fandom we (probably) all have in common. If you like, I can put together a list of episodes I watched to get caught up, which is always a nice way to go, to see the highlights. Or you could give it a shot and let me know whether it's too much information if you're not familiar with canon. I could sum up the salient points over email too. Dunno people, but this is really a very, very good story.

I'm going to link it again just as a bookend: Six of One by [livejournal.com profile] vee_fic. Sam and Dean, gen, R rated for het, scariness, language and such. 60,000 some words, none of them wasted. Supernatural, spoilers through 2x14, Born Under a Bad Sign, I think. Highly recommended.

My plans for this morning got derailed when vee_fic posted her thoroughly absorbing Supernatural novel Six of One (damn her!), which I read in one sitting unless you're counting coffee breaks (and I personally think coffee time should get built in). It has a good Sam voice and a terrific Dean voice and a smart plot and a nice set of original characters, exactly what the plot needs plus enough more to be people, and it does things I thought I disliked in Supernatural fic and makes me love them, because it has everything that I love best about the series: the unbreakable love between the brothers and how that's not something special in the show, it's just families writ large; the desolation of life on the road and the small comforts of daily life and the whole beat-up dusty aesthetic, half attitude and half practicality. Vee is especially good and especially subtle at showing how the Winchesters' family dynamic affects their interactions with everyone else, how Dean is always comfortable with being the big brother and always terrified by loss, how Sam is always comforted by being taken care of and is as ferocious in defense of his family as Dean is, when driven to the wall... the correctives Vee offers to Supernatural's problematic treatment of women and minorities, not to mention giving a much more realistic and earthy look at living poor than the show tends to offer. My favorites of the original characters are probably Melvin (so practical and precise) and Shaniece (so, so kind), although I have a soft spot for the women's magic of the Sluice Gate Monster. And I love the Buffy-ness of the ending: how it takes a collective effort instead of just individual heroism to overcome the demon; how it takes the determination to live as well as enough devotion to die for what you love; how at the very end it comes down to family, after all.