Archive of Our Own

Screen name, preferred name, and pronouns?

Wiptanis (or tanis-in-a-trenchcoat) as screen name, Tanis as preferred name, she/her pronouns.

What got you into fic writing and the fandom?

Oh, this is going to be a cliché, but I've been writing since I was a kid. Tiny things like stories about animals that left their zoo to spend their holidays at other zoos, you know. Then, when I got older, I started "copying" stories I liked, mostly from movies, but with my own characters. I must still have a floppy disk somewhere with a couple of chapters I wrote "inspired" by the Underworld vampire saga. I also remember a bunch of attempts at epic fantasy when the Lord of the Rings movies came out, so you can imagine how they turned out, considering I was 11 or 12 years old trying to write the next big fantasy trilogy that would change the world.

But hey, they were the foundations that got me here, so thanks, 12-year-old cringey me.

I didn't know what fanfiction was until I finally got decent internet at home —you know, with a separate modem from the phone line— and I think that was around 2005? I immediately started joining forums and role-playing chat rooms, especially Harry Potter ones (back when we didn't know much about everything yet), and that's when I really started writing fanfiction. I remember two in particular (which I never finished; I posted them in the threads of those forums, I didn't know about specific sites like FF.net or similar ones yet), one with a Gary Stu and the other with a Mary Sue protagonist. It was what everyone was doing; I tried both approaches, still in that stage of: I'm not playing with dolls, I want to live those amazing stories by stepping right into them.

Later on, when I entered my anime-manga phase, I did leave behind OCs and self-inserts and started playing with the characters that came in the box for real. I discovered fanfiction websites, starting directly on FF.net, and experienced the last purge of lemon and lime that gave birth to Ao3. Let's just say it was a very long journey, passing through many fandoms (Hetalia was my big one) until I arrived at Supernatural, my current obsession, one I hope I'll never escape.

How did I get into the fandom? Well, I'd never actually watched the show during its original run. I knew it existed, and I have friends who followed it from the very beginning, but I didn't have the means to watch it, so everything I knew (especially about Destiel) was from osmosis and things my friends told me.

And then it happened.

Christmas 2024.

Tired of current shows with few episodes and years between seasons, I started watching older ones that I hadn't had the chance to watch before. I started with House (I liked it), then I watched Buffy (I really liked it), and finally, Supernatural.

I watched all 15 seasons in 52 days, taking advantage of part of my Christmas vacation.

And, wow, oh boy.

I liked it a lot.

So much so that I abandoned the Jayvik fic I was writing at the time to start my first Destiel fic, trying to fill in the gaps in season 12 that felt lacking substance. It's still there on AO3, poor thing, a work in progress on hiatus waiting for me to restructure it someday.

But! Another but.

What truly introduced me to the fandom and led me to meet so many wonderful people and get to this interview today was Tumblr and a random post in my feed about the DCBB 2025. The concept of Bangs caught my attention; I didn't know those events existed, and I thought, "Hey, I want to try it. I want to see if I can finish a fic" (I have tons of unfinished fics from almost every major fandom I've been involved with, sorry, old subscribers).

And I did it.

I did it.

I finished the fic for the DCBB 2025 (A cave full of shadows), posted it, loved participating in a Bang, and since then I haven't stopped signing up for every Bang that's caught my eye.

And here I am!

Do you have a specific writing process? If so, what does it look like?

Depending on the location, I have two processes:

The quick one, the "here I go, I catch, I kill" kind: I'm at work, or traveling by train or subway, I really don't have much time to really think about plot holes or whatever, so I write on my phone without music, without thinking, I just blurt out whatever comes to mind and fix it later. It's usually effective for me because I'm tricking my brain into thinking: I don't want to work, so I'm "procrastinating" from my job by writing fanfiction.

When I write at home, with my tablet, keyboard, and desk, it's more "difficult." My brain is lazy. I like having the whole day ahead of me so I can sit down and write calmly. I usually have water or cold coke on hand, especially in this hot weather. I don't like to eat while I write because my hands get sticky, so if I get hungry, I stop writing, I eat, and while I'm at it, I watch an episode of a show, or a movie, and then I continue writing.

I usually write either in silence, with noise-canceling headphones on, or while listening to my favorite ASMR writing video, which I can share if anyone's interested. That video never fails me. If I feel tired, blocked, or unmotivated, I put it on, and the sounds carry me along until I really need a break.

It's important to rest from time to time, stretch your legs, and massage your fingers and wrists, especially. And if you feel nervous or tense, stop. It's okay to write a lot of words and then work them out, but there's no point in pushing yourself to the end where you then go days without writing because you need a longer break.

Name of the fic?

A crack in everything (that's how the light gets in) 

Why that name, and was it hard to come up with? 

It wasn't hard at all!

You see, the little story behind the title goes hand in hand with the narrative format of the fic itself. Part of it is written in the format of the game Disco Elysium (which, if you haven't played it, I highly recommend). The title is a lyric taken directly from the song "Anthem" by Leonard Cohen, which is also included in the game, said by one of the characters. The song confronts political failure and the persistence of hope amid fracture, above all, cracks allow light to enter. These are themes very present in Spain during the 80s as well (the time and place that inspired the fic's setting), for historical reasons that would warrant another whole interview.

That particular quote seemed like a more than appropriate title, perfect for the story I wanted to write.

What sparked the idea for the fic, and how did that concept change throughout the process? 

This fic was born, above all, thanks to the art Onowey presented for DAURB 25-26. The prompt was very simple and left plenty of room to come up with whatever I wanted, since the only requirement was he later created for the angels' true forms) and that he and Dean had to meet in an office setting.

So, okay, I'd never written an office AU before, but the idea of ​​Cas being more creature than human, with clipped wings and a flaming tail, living in a human society that despises him while also being "privileged" among the other enslaved angels who also hate him, was a very appealing concept, and I jumped at the chance.

In general, almost everything I had planned from the beginning stayed in the final version. Most of the changes and adjustments I made were more technical and structural, like rearranging events, removing some scenes, and adding others to make everything flow more smoothly.

That kind of thing.

In all my fanfics, I write and refine an outline until I'm satisfied, and usually don't change anything until I notice a problem while writing (or the inevitable moment of thinking that everything I've written is crap) and have to rethink the order of some things. As for the overall plot, I usually stick to it.

The idea of ​​writing Cas's POV using the internal voice narrative format, like in Disco Elysium, comes entirely from the design itself, from knowing that angels are cosmic creatures with senses that go beyond those of humans. But it wasn't my idea alone; I have to thank one of my best friends (Suzu, I love you!), because after the claims, we were both in a coffee shop with our chocolate frappes and brainstorming ideas for this fic and some of her stories.

And she said to me: "Hey, why don't you write Castiel's POV like Harry’s POV in Disco Elysium?"

I said (probably): Jesus, that’s brilliant!

And that's how it happened.

The next day I had a more or less complete outline, although initially the voice format was only going to be for Cas. Dean was going to have his own third-person POV and nothing else. However, and this was a change that solved many of the writer's blocks I was experiencing midway through the process, I decided to include the deeper bond between Cas and Dean as a parallel, and that led me to include Dean also being able to talk to objects, to hear the voices of the universe, and to have a more active role in discovering the story's internal lore.

The idea of ​​including the Pale, something belonging to the game, came quickly (mine is different, of course). Not only were some humans going to be obstacles along the way, but the very fact of using angels as weapons in the past and then enslaving them is what leads to the appearance of "The Strange Fog that devours Reality and that doesn't seem to be able to be stopped as long as humans are trapped on the hamster wheel that is Capitalism and the corporations' obsession with growing indefinitely at the expense of people's blood."

A sociopolitical commentary, as you can see.

I was sure that Dean was going to be a handyman in the building where Cas worked as the only office angel in the country (and the world, really), and that led me to determine the level of poverty in which he must live to have a job like that. And that's where the idea of ​​setting the whole thing in 1980s Spain came from, a time when the country was still experiencing higher levels of economic poverty than the rest of Europe, and many people worked themselves to the bone and accepted anything so that their children (in this case, Sam, the younger brother) could go to university and have a better future. I didn't even include drug themes because it seemed too heavy and didn't fit with the overall plot.

One beautiful thing that happened throughout the writing process was precisely exchanging ideas with Onowey, ideas that fed both his art and my writing, resulting in the story that exists today. It was a titanic labor, the longest fanfic I've ever written (the voices take up a lot, A LOT, of space because they're talking all the time).

But oh, how fun it was to write, and how proud I am of the story.

What is your favorite part of the story you told? 

I definitely have two favorite parts:

The chapter about Dean's neighborhood fair, when he and Cas go together as a couple with Dean's group of friends, eating, getting drunk, and smoking weed until they're almost passed out. It was so much fun to write because I was describing the fairs in my own town, where I had so much fun as a kid, with all the rides, food stalls, and booths with raffles, shooting galleries, and rubber duck fishing. Writing it was on my mind almost from the very beginning, from thinking about plots and outlines; it absolutely had to exist, and any reader could almost taste the stuffed potatoes from afar!

The other is the final climax itself, when Cas, despite the mistreatment he's suffered at the hands of most humans, despite the contempt he's endured, and the possibility of complete mutilation, being imprisoned forever, and even being killed by the government, decides to break the rules and save Dean and, consequently, all the other humans he can because “Dean, you changed me and now I care about humans”. It's one of my favorite parts (it was also in my head from the very beginning of the first outline) because I wanted to write a clear parallel with the infamous 15x18 episode.

I confess that I love including all possible parallels to the show in my fanfics, whatever they may be. It's like taking different puzzle pieces and having them fit together perfectly, or even like going to a museum and copying a famous painting in your notebook even if yours is just a doodle.

It's so, so much fun, and they're usually my favorite parts.

Are there any Easter Eggs or little details you're really proud of?

I don't know if it would be presumptuous of me to say that the entire fic is one giant Easter Egg and that I’m proud of everything, because there are references to so many things in every chapter, both from the game Disco Elysium and to life in Spain in the 80s, that it's impossible for me to single one out without wanting to point them all out.

Many of the voice interactions, both Cas's and Dean's, are inspired by the game, especially Cas's final one when he decides to jump into the void and save the day. Objects speak to Cas, and with Dean later when he gains insight thanks to the bond he shares with Cas. That very bond with Cas, and the handprint, is also present.

The place where Dean and Sam live, the corralas, are a type of housing that still exists here today. They were generally tiny apartments or houses stacked on top of each other with a large central courtyard, and with communal bathrooms in the older ones. A friend of mine lived in one of those tenement buildings until recently, in fact, and I drew inspiration from her building and my grandmother's to describe where Dean, Sam, and their neighbors lived. The type of food and the smells of the city too. The atmosphere of the local bars, like Ellen's, with its cigarette vending machines, the bull heads hanging on the wall, the framed photographs of the local soccer team, and the food. All the food that appears in the story is typical Spanish, the kind we would serve to any regular but not a tourist.

And the tourists! There are some passages (the whole fic is a huge socio-political commentary, why would I lie at this point?) that mention the problem of tourism overcrowding city centers and spreading like a cancer.

The songs Dean listens to in the car or on the radio; Baby herself is a car model (the Seat Panda), which was very popular in Spain in the 80s. Bela Talbot's “profession” as a thief is related to the quinqui gang culture, widespread in the 70s, when groups of young men and women from poor families would rob tobacco shops, stores, and pharmacies, and steal cars for a living.

In the epilogue itself, I draw a parallel between what happens at the end (a building explodes due to the influence of Cas and the Pale Spot, which was devouring Reality, and the press invents that it was a terrorist attack to cover it up) with the tragedy that occurred in 2004 here in Madrid, when two trains exploded and the press invented that it was a national terrorist group, when it wasn't because, well... I'll leave it there because it would lead us into recent politics, which would also be enough for another interview.

So, as you can see, there are Easter Eggs everywhere, all the time. The fic is a giant egg filled with smaller eggs oozing chocolate like a fountain. If you're Spanish and a millennial or older, you'll spend the entire fic pointing at the screen like the DiCaprio meme.

What do you wish someone would ask you about the fic?

One of those questions would be: How does your Pale work as opposed to the game's Pale? (It's a fascinating topic).

Second: What is the complete color code to know the emotions that angels express with their nebulae? (Complex; the truth is that I was making it up as I went along, but I have a list now).

And I think I'd be really excited if someone came up to me and asked if they could write fanfiction based on mine. They'd have to ask permission from Onowey to use his angel designs, of course, but...

I'd also like someone to ask me if I'm going to write more smut using the voices format, and if I'm considering writing timestamps (yes), or a sequel or spin-off (maybe).

Additional comments?

I would like to sincerely thank Peachy for this interview, because I'm really a nobody in the fandom. I have only a few fics, and they're not well-known, and she came to me right away to ask if I wanted to do this when everything was all just starting out.

Furthermore, sharing this space and the Discord server with so many talented authors whom I admire greatly, and whose interviews you'll soon be able to hear/read, fills me with warmth. It means so much to me to have had the opportunity to open this little window onto one of my most beloved fics, for those of you who read it back in the day and left such wonderful comments that encouraged me to continue with the other fics I already had in progress.

For those of you who haven't read it but this interview has made you want to: I hope you enjoy it!

For those of you who read the fic and then wanted to play Disco Elysium: I'm sorry, the fic is much gentler than the game.

Anything else you want to plug? 

I'd like to mention another of my fics, which I wrote for the 2025/2026 Infinite Cakes bang, a very special one for me. I mean, in the end, all of one's fics are special and dear to their author, but since I've already written two other fics with Onowey (the infamous Jamstiel fic and another Eldritch Cas fic), I'd like to briefly highlight the other fic I have with a different artist, Hellion Cat.

From the River is a fic set in Victorian London, where (following one of the bang's prompts) I wanted to add a twist and write Cas as the human and Dean as the monster, the strange creature. drew inspiration from Corpse Bride, The Little Mermaid, and Romeo and Juliet, as well as Jules Verne. It's a fast burn, lust and love at first sight fic, but with a lot of 19th-century yearning, featuring varied monster fucking, explicit gore, daddy issues, suicidal thoughts, reverse parallels with the show, and it deals with finding love and affection in another being who feels as alone and lonely as you do.

The art Cat created for the fic is absolutely delightful and perfectly matches the tone I wanted to give the story, like a Jules Verne book with its engraved illustrations straight from the printing press. Suffice it to say, I have Monster Dean's designs as my tablet's wallpaper.

So, as its author, I highly recommend reading it and enjoying the accompanying art!

Links to author's Ao3 & Tumblr:

Ao3 (main and pseud) 

Tumblr (spn sideblog) 

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