#Sam found the online Wincest freaks

[walkininawincestwonderland]

As an Wincest shipper YES—

except for my sister—

bar the smut. I’ll let her read the cannibalism, I’ll let her read the uncomfortably intimate shower scene but she is NOT seeing my smut!

reblog if you're a writer but would rather drink straight cyanide than show any of your family members your work

[samwhump]

happy wincest wednesday to you!!! my question of the week is: when and how did you start shipping wincest? do you remember a specific moment where you went "oh my god, they're actually fucking*???"

*or a suitable equivalent

(@incesthemes)

oh, man, this is gonna expose me for being (1) old and (2) demented from an early age, but. I started watching Supernatural in 2007 - I was 13, and the first episode I watched live was AHBL Part 1. lmfao. I vividly, vividly remember my mom coming in to the living room where on the TV screen, Dean was cradling his baby brother's body and screaming "SAM!!!!!!" into the air, and sprawled on the couch in front of the TV screen, I was crying and snotting everywhere. hahahaha.

anyway, I had already been rolling around online fandom-space for a few years by then, so I knew exactly where to look for what I wanted. I ran to the computer, pulled up FFN and LJ, and immediately started looking for The Goods (TM)

I don't think I shipped it right away - I was looking for AHBL fix-it, more than anything, because I was obsessed with Sam, even then - but it can't have been more than a day later that I found the first fic labelled with wincest and had like, a moment of being like, "isn't incest...dirtybadwrong?" and then kinda shrugging and deciding, "well, I don't believe in Hell anyway, so it doesn't matter if I break the rules," and clicking anyway. and that was that. little freak Liv. who'd have thunk it. (probably everyone who has held more than one conversation with me ever)

[jensenscomedyelbows]

SPN FIC REC FEST #2

kinks/whump

*disclaimer: all Wincest unless otherwise specified*

*assume all recs are rated EXPLICIT*

*and that all participants give AND receive*

(I’m aware this outs me as having a one-track mind that rhymes with Skinfest. I’m okay with that.)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1450051

BRAND SPANKING NEW by lazy_daze and mickeym

Kink: Spanking, Preseries. Teenagers. Dean gets angry and spanks Sam…who likes it.

https://andreth47.livejournal.com/33899.html

THOSE DAMN PINK PANTIES by andreth47

Panty kink. Preseries. Teenagers. Poor Dean. He has to deal with Rhonda Hurley, blue balls, pink panties, and Sam

(this author passed away many years ago now, but LJ has her fic library in Memorial status)

ALL the Wincest andreth47 ever wrote in this journal is FIRE, and it’s all still online

https://destina.livejournal.com/363746.html

HIGHER LEARNING by destina

Kink: Threeway

Wincest with a lucky, lucky OFC

https://archiveofourown.org/works/44594722

SAM WINCHESTER’S POST-BREAKUP CARE PACKAGE COURTESY OF DEAN WINCHESTER by kestra_troi

Kink: Masturbation Size kink :D

As part of a healing process after a breakup (Eileen), Sam jerks off.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/179913

PLAUSIBLE DENIABLE by leonidaslion

Kink: Masturbation, voyeurism, exhibitionism Preseries. Dean finally has some alone time with his dick. Part of a very fucked up story known as the Suite Verse, which is for my fellow freaks out there who enjoy a little Dean sub action and a lot of dom boy!king Sam/end of the world BDSM action.

However, this particular chapter is for my Dean girls who enjoy him jerking off and possibly/probably getting caught. By Sam. There are probably at least a few of us :D

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8723434

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS by rue37 [archived by sinfuldesire_archivist]

Kink: Masturbation, voyeurism, exhibitionism

This was the very first fic I found when I finally decided to just google Sam and Dean fan fiction, having never in my life read any sort of fan fiction AND not knowing the terms “Wincest” or “slash.” 🥹 You could say it popped my Wincest cherry? I COULD NOT believe my luck. And it was on fanfiction dot net at that time. Season 1, post-Jessica. Sam gives in to temptation at long last. With olive oil. Guess who catches him in the act and won’t leave? Mentions of het, but no in-story het.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/809862

DINNER AND A MOVIE by morgana

Kink: Masturbation, voyeurism, exhibitionism

They jerk off together to porn sometimes in their skanky motel rooms, so what?

https://bewaretheides15.livejournal.com/11663.html

THUS IT IS PROVEN by bewaretheides15

Size kink. They call Sam “Trigger” at school after someone saw him naked in PE class showers. Trigger was the name of Roy Rogers’ famous horse back in the day. Dean CANNOT let go of this fascinating fact. *fic not moved to AO3*

https://britomart-is.livejournal.com/64706.html

THE AIR MOVES TO FILL THE SPACES WHERE MY BODY HAS BEEN by britomart_is

and

https://britomart-is.livejournal.com/90995.html

THE FRIGHTENED INCH BETWEEN OUR SKINS by britomart_is

Kink: Voyeurism, exhibitionism. Classic fics, around 6K words each, from 2008 that more people should read. Unspecified time period, but Dean is at least 21. Multiple OFCs…until there aren’t. Another one that we’re fortunate to still have access to in 2024.

https://archiveofourown.org/series/6437

THE PTHONUS VERSE by leonidaslion

45K words. Kink: BDSM. Let me take you to a gay bar, gay bar 🎵 Sam and Dean go undercover in a leather bar. In eyeliner and sequins and tight leather pants. Sam finds his inner dom, Dean his inner sub, and then they also take turns hurting each other. Mildly, I think? It’s been a looong time since I’ve read this one, so I’m hazy on details, but maybe some knife play? It’s fantastic if that’s your jam, and it’s usually isn’t mine. Like, at all. But this one is a masterpiece.

[autisticandroids]

"Emotional in*est"- Do you even hear yourself? There's no such thing as emotional in*est. Just say you're a win*est shipper and go. I hate how freaks like you always try to grasp at straws to seem all "intellectual", when you're nothing but a freak who faps to things like ped*philia, best*ality and in*est. THAT'S why Jensen hates shippers. You don't want to see a positive queer relationship, you just want to read about Jensen getting fu*ked no matter who or WHAT it is. You're disgusting

now, i want to be clear, i received this ask at 2:46 am, about an hour after posting this answer. i want you to read that linked post. it’s a discussion of familial abuse. specifically, anon was talking about how upsetting they found the nature of trauma in supernatural - how none of the characters ever break the cycle. they mention how i had talked about sam and dean as a potentially emotionally incestuous relationship as something they found relatable to their own situation of familial abuse. i responded by agreeing that it’s upsetting that supernatural did that, and trying to comfort them a bit.

this anon saw that, and immediately not only accused me of incest fetishism, but sent similar anons to my mutuals.

@steveyockey messaged me this anon that he received, seemingly at about the same time i did. it’s clearly the same person. now, i love ziz, but we don’t have a significant public relationship. we don’t, say, talk about each other in posts or tags. i think i’ve mentioned her once. i reblog a lot of his posts and he reblogs a few of mine, but i have many other much more obvious public relationships, some of them with other BNFs like ziz. i expect that as they start to wake up, they too will notice that they’ve received anons like this.

all of this over explicitly talking about the familial abuse dynamics legible in supernatural, a show whose perhaps most persistent theme is toxic and abusive family dynamics.

the obsessive moral panic over the existence of wincest is fascinating to me, especially coming from destiel shippers. i’ve discussed in the past how i personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with people shipping wincest, as long as they do it far away from me, because i find incest gross and don’t want to hear about it. 

sam and dean have a dynamic in the text of the show that you could reasonably read as emotionally incestuous - they fill the role traditionally filled by a romantic partner. this is emphasized by the fact that when sam tries to escape dean, which he does with some regularity until season eight, which is when he just gives up, he always immediately finds a romantic partner, and is then eventually dragged away from her by dean. sam knows, on some level, that in order to escape dean, which he wants to do, he needs to replace dean in his life with someone else, in order to make it more difficult for dean to reclaim that role by force. 

this stuff is all in the text of the show, with not that much interpretation. it’s a pretty solid depiction of cycles of familial trauma and abuse. john parentifies dean (which is a form of abuse related to covert incest), dean turns around and does covert incest to sam. 

when i’m analyzing supernatural seriously, one of the things that interests me the most is the theme of familial abuse. this interpretation inevitably comes up when i’m discussing that, because it’s an intensely plausible interpretation of the text. the fact that i immediately get accused of being an incest fetishist (and a pedophile and zoophile?) for mentioning it seems to indicate that there is, frankly, something wrong in the destiel fandom.

but frankly, i don’t like this defense of myself. it’s a little too “no, not me! you have the wrong witch!” for my tastes.

even if i were an incest fetishist, it is intensely creepy to me that not only did i get an angry message about it, other people did as well. the wave of purity politics that has overtaken fandom spaces is intensely unsettling to me, especially the anti-sex bent that it’s taken in recent years. 

when i was a teenager, there was still a very damaging purity culture in tumblr fandom, but it was around social justice - how do you be the least racist, least sexist, least transphobic, least homophobic, least ableist person, and so on. this culture was intensely damaging to me, psychologically, exacerbating already present obsessive compulsive and other anxious tendencies, but at least i agreed with the basic project: i do think it’s good for people to try to become less racist, less sexist, less homophobic, less transphobic, less ableist. i think that participating in a terrifying, abusive purity cult is a bad, damaging, and ineffective-in-the-long-term way to do that, but i think the intent is in the right place. 

however, because of certain changes in online culture, that kind of social justice has kind of become “cringe” and therefore fallen apart. like, it’s still present, but far less strong than it used to be. but the purity cult has remained, only now it’s explicitly only about sex. people will try and hunt down the most deviant expression of sexuality they can find, and put that on trial. it doesn’t matter what that sexuality is. i am frequently on record as saying that if wincest didn’t exist, destiel would be considered the irredeemably problematic ship of the supernatural fandom, and in fact i’m constantly surprised that i, personally, have never been cancelled for romanticizing abuse, something which i try not to do, but walk a pretty fine line on. but no one cares about the toxicity of destiel because rather than having a sensible barometer of reasonable behavior, everyone is simply fixated on finding and persecuting the most deviant option available. thus, since destiel is by comparison less deviant than wincest, it’s fine. 

but this culture doesn’t actually have anything to do with, like i said, a sensible barometer of reasonable behavior. it just goes for the most deviant option available. the same culture that comes for wincest shippers is the culture that comes for, i don’t know, people who ship the wrong she-ra ships. as you can probably tell, it’s been a while since i’ve been in a giant fandom full of youngsters. it’s not actually about the specific morality of shipping wincest, it’s about asking “who is it okay for me to hurt” and finding the most deviant people available for an answer. 

this is why they reached so hard to try and accuse me of being a wincest shipper. they wanted to bully someone, or perhaps they had a problem with me (though given that they don’t seem to have searched my blog, because if they had they would have found better ammunition, i suspect it’s the former), and so they accused me of shipping wincest - the worst possible accusation, an accusation that makes it okay to accuse me of anything and do whatever they like to me. 

like, you, The Girl (GN) Reading This, should be creeped out by this behavior. no matter what your opinion of wincest. even if you post “wincesties die” every day. because you will more than likely at some point in your life find yourself on the wrong end of this culture, for something which you consider totally innocuous. that, or perhaps you will be coerced into participating in some kind of bullying campaign, which is traumatizing in its own sense - even if you enjoy it at the time, it’s likely you will grow to regret it. hurting other people sucks.

i’m going to bed and i’m going to leave this as my last post until i wake up in like, four hours, so as many people can read it as possible. i would love for people to think about the kind of fan culture they’re participating in where not only me but people i interact with get sent these kinds of messages.

i don’t know, i feel like this *checks notes* fifteen hundred word essay i’ve written is a touch pearl-clutchy. anon hate is something normal on the internet. i get it about once a week, and normally i respond with jokes. some people are just assholes. i’m unusually sensitive about this kind of thing because like i said, i’ve had some formatively bad experiences with social justice purity politics. i also put a lot of value on having my cards on the table - if someone is going to get mad at me for saying “i don’t think wincesties should die” i would like them to get mad now, and not wait until i trip over a landmine. so those things were definitely part of the reason i wanted to write this.

but in this case, this person who decided to be an asshole was also sending messages about me to other people i know, which is creepy in and of itself, but also: i don’t necessarily trust the people i know in this fandom not to decide to shun me on the strength of an anonymous accusation of wincest shipping. that’s how strong the purity culture is in this fandom in specific. and i personally find that incredibly distasteful. like, you’re gay people aren’t you? you’re aware that mainstream society will always consider you sexual deviants no matter how respectable you are? yes? like this person wants to intentionally destroy my social connections and reputation. which is much more threatening than just saying nasty shit to me on anon.

[nileqt87]

Despair For Castiel: A Review

From a series of posts before and after watching:

Before:

As far as I'm concerned, I'm now imagining the Empty having to deal with Gabriel and Balthazar redecorating the Empty into the angel/demon afterlife (probably with a lot of wacky alternate realities and bad porno) with all the free will angels and redemptive demons invited, Cas finding Meg and eventually Jack again for his true happy ending that he can have and Crowley probably trying to install himself as king again. Then when Rowena finally exits as Queen of Hell, she'll join and Crowley will annoyed, but Gabriel will be happy to see her again. LOL.

Megstielers also got robbed hard with all that setup of Cas still pining for Meg for YEARS, the Empty using her image (not Dean!) to taunt him (the Empty clearly saw Meg in Cas' head when it could have taken the form of anyone, including Cas like last time) and a whole dropped plot thread that Cas made a deal with Ruby to break a demon out of the Empty, which only makes sense with the one and only demon he'd actually want to let out of the Empty. That's dangling one 'ship a whole bunch of carrots (like every single Clarence reference for a decade) to rip the rug out from under them.

I suppose I should've seen it coming when the previously on segment for 15x13 was a Pizza Man and the Babysitter retrospective that shoved Cas out of the Pizza Man role beside Babysitter Nurse Meg to shove Dean into Megstiel's sexy times meme. I guess it turned Cas into just Dean's Baby in a Trench Coat (which was an insult about being useless to Dean's cause without powers, which suggests Cas has no worth to him otherwise), since he got infantilized with the removal of the Pizza Man originally being him.

I still haven't watched the episode. The Tumblr crap is that off-putting.

What should've been an epic moment in Cas' story is now tainted by his love of humanity, found family and free will (his real love story is with all of humanity and finding belonging, in spite of always being on the outside looking in on a life he can't have because he's not human) being reduced to horny girls who just want fetish smut with Dean and don't give a fig about canon Cas outside of a toxic, abusive crack!ship. It's always so immature and vapid!

It was immediately clear when I joined the fandom that shockingly few gave a crap about any character but Dean, even refusing to see what he's become in later seasons. Also numerous examples where they admit having not seen the show in a decade or only knowing the show via manipulative .gif sets. Cas and Sam (if they remember him at all) are just props or prizes to be won. They ignore context of familial/platonic relationships. Canon love interests aren't good enough because they're not the big prize of being a main. I also note the deluge of Wincest girls who hate Cas for existing (he's in their way) in the anti-Destiel tag.

I can't say the .gifs are making me want to watch, even though the dialog is vague enough to still fit Cas' actual character for the general audience who isn't glued to social media.

As for Dean's non-reaction, I had similar problems with Jensen's constipated acting back in 15x03 when Cas finally walked away while Dean looked like he couldn't care less, which the writers coincidentally praised Jensen for (holy crap that interview was up his backside) and completely ignored Misha actually giving a good performance in a scene that actually meant something long coming for Cas. I certainly can't say the same about the quality of this scene, which just looks forced on both ends.

I hope I like the episode more than the sounds of it, but my hopes aren't high. This is not how I wanted Cas' final moments on the show to be.

After:

Well, I got up the stomach to watch it tonight. Thankfully, in context, it definitely got blown way out of proportion by what the Hellers turned it into (as usual). Yeah, even when watching while unfortunately not blind to the wackadoodle fandom discourse, it played out better on screen than the .gifs. And frankly, a whole lot less like creepy Care Bear stare nightmare fuel than the few choice screenshots kept showing (yikes). I still wish Sam and Jack had been there, because they're just as much part of what connected Cas to feeling like part of a family (even more so in the later years), but it's not the total monstrosity it was turned into online.

Average viewers who just take canon as is without trying to read into it what they want to be there instead, IMO, will safely interpret it platonically (even if coming after a particularly hellish few years in Dean's personality rot where the whole friendship was beginning to be questionable) more often than not because that's what the canon has said for a dozen years. Again, I repeat that Cas already told the Winchesters he loved them when he thought he was dying.

It's a crime to have Cas' perfect philia (brotherly), storge (parental) and agape-style (sacrificial and unconditional) loves being immaturely twisted into eros in a way that degrades the whole meaning of the character's journey. People telling each other they love one another when it's not sexual should never be mocked into being afraid to do so because of this insidious, willful misinterpretation. If only somebody had told Cas they love him instead of him always being the one with his heart on his sleeve!

This character went from being tortured into a robotic, emotionless, ancient, not-remotely-humanoid being who couldn't relate to the simplest of human needs to being someone deeply in love with humanity and wanting to find belonging amongst it despite knowing it would always end with him watching them all grow old and die after having families and such experiences angels are forbidden from having (another reason why Jack was so important to Cas' story).

The wording is valid for that philia/agape interpretation, given Cas definitely equated Dean (whom Cas watched sacrificing himself for Sam endlessly, including why he had to be raised from perdition in the first place) with a guide role in his learning to understand humanity and proudly-defiant free will before he could love it. It's valid enough to say that Cas wouldn't have broken his programming permanently without being challenged to question everything he'd ever believed and give up his entire angelic belonging. That much of it did begin with Cas just happening to be the angel who succeeded in the Hell rescue.

Obviously, it's also canon that Cas had a long history of not following orders and getting lobotomized by Naomi, but Cas actually understanding humanity and what free will means did happen only after this particular rebellion. I'm very glad at least that was in the speech, but of course, it's being hopelessly ignored.

I stand by my interpretation that what Cas can't have has always been the tragic version of The Little Mermaid where she turns into sea foam in the end. Cas has always looked in on what everyone else takes for granted from the outsider's perspective. There's a part of him that will always be left out, no matter how well he learns to fit in and how much those around him begin to treat him as a real person. Cas never really got to truly belong with humanity, no matter how much he loves and is loved by it. He's also not getting to stay where he wants to be. There's no Pinocchio ending for Cas that turns him into a real Winchester.

Sadly, Dean's constant othering of him and Jack like they're just more monsters to hunt only alienated them more. Jack was someone Cas could relate to as a supernatural being capable of human emotions, which might also have furthered his draw towards Meg. Sam was also someone Cas could relate to as freaks and abominations amongst their own kinds. Sam always had that same struggle, also with his own family. It goes a long way towards explaining why Sam was always so empathetic to Cas and Jack in a way that Dean couldn't be. All three kept conflicting with that black & white humans = good/other = bad mindset that sometimes creeps in with Dean. When Cas was Dean's "best friend" in the early days, he rationalized it by thinking of Cas as being "like" a human ("You used to be human, or at least like one.").

Yet it still remains true that Cas often found himself looking to Dean to teach him about humanity back when he didn't know enough about it to be inconspicuous amongst them. Dean gave him the crash course in both what humanity is willing to do for each other, but also its flaws and failings at the same time.

Perhaps the saddest scenes in the episode were actually Sam watching everyone poof in front of him. Sam has really been forced to watch a lot of death scenes this season all by himself (as with Rowena), but he looked the most broken by Eileen's. Cas is going to be hard on him, because I genuinely think Sam was far closer to him in the end. Sam was the one who actually was trying to reach out to Cas when Dean repeatedly kept him out of the loop. Sam being left out from the final words with Cas or even hearing first-hand about the deal with the Empty just furthers that tragedy. While Dean has been raging at everything in sight, Sam and Cas have both looked broken, sad and tired all season.

[laufeymoar]

A reminder to the blogger [me]:

Ok, I should have done this as soon as the con was finished, but I didn’t think of it until now so whatever. This is just for me to get my thoughts together and remember what happened at this goddamn convention even when I am old and wrinkly and dying of some disease. Anyway, memories and impressions of SFCon 2017, wherein I speak to JPad’s sister (shoutout to all artists everywhere, Megan) and Rachel Miner, Jeffrey Dean Morgan harps on about Wincest for a bizarrely long time, and ‘meeting’ Jared turns out to be everything I could have hoped for.

Friday:

Melanie and I get there as soon as my class is done. We eat weird af avocado sushi and don’t have time to do anything else because we’re already like hours late lol. I did my best to look a little bit like Ruby, even though my hair was pulled back. SO. I don’t really remember the order any of this shit happened in, but I believe the first people we saw on stage were Richard Speight Jr. and Rob Benedict with Louden Swain, and I had my first freak out of the weekend by screaming ‘GABRIEL’ like a goddamn idiot and nearly falling apart right then and there. This was when Melanie would step in and remind me to behave like a normal human being, and I appreciated that. (Also, note: we sat in the front generally during the weekend, but Friday had the BEST seats because the Gold Member people weren’t there yet so we were RIGHT IN FRONT OF FUCKING GABRIEL BYE)

Anyway, next was the guy who played Adam. He was fucking HILARIOUS. I got to ask him a question, but before that I think someone asked him whether he prefers Sam or Dean as an ally or something like that, and I breathlessly whisper SAM and then cover my mouth, but the damage was done, the guy who played Adam fucking teased me (good-naturedly, of course, literally no one at this convention had a mean bone in their body) and I briefly reassessed what an appropriate level of ‘chill’ was. Anyway, I ask him if he’s heard of the theory that Adam is actually safe in heaven because Castiel blew his vessel to bits before Lucifer killed him (thereby killing Adam but not Michael). Jake (I think that’s the actor’s name?) thought about it a bit, I think ultimately decided he’d prefer hell? 

Also, to the girl who pointed out that Death confirmed that Sam and Adam’s souls were both in the cage...well played, sister, but in my defense I have for some reason been rewatching the first three seasons on repeat and not moving on, so my memory of season 5-6 is VERY BLURRY. 

Anyway, then it’s David Hayden Jones. Melanie and I had, up to this point, been playing the personality alignment game - I think Jake was Chaotic Good? Well, David Hayden Jones was TRUE GOOD. HE IS THE PUREST MAN I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. He was FUNNY af and reeeeeally good at improv (confirmed by Melanie, a living breathing person that has experience in theater), and he remembered like fucking everyone he had spoken with online by NAME and chatted with them a little bit even though this is discouraged by Creation (but not enforced), and was just an overall great person. The ONLY Destiel question (dear god why) of the weekend was directed at him, and he handled it brilliantly (”Ketch would think of a ‘ship’ as something that floats on water...”). 

Anyway, after that, I decide to get something signed by fucking Gabriel because what do I need $35 for? Food? HA! I prove to everyone that I am a mess because I bought a ticket and lost it, this is no fucking exaggeration FS you idiot, TEN SECONDS after buying it. TEN. The subsequent ten minutes were spent trying to find it and charming the lady that had just sold it to me to give me another one for free. I managed to do the latter, but I also found the ticket before things got critical so ALL WAS WELL. 

This led to an amazing interaction with one of the Creation volunteers (take a shot for Vera everybody) who, and keep in mind she had been talking to Melanie and I for roughly ten minutes here, proclaims with all the confidence in the world that I am the ‘Jared’ and Melanie is the ‘Jensen’ of our relationship. This is because I’m scatterbrained and get lost and get LOUD, and Melanie is a planner who gets up on time and looks out for me even though I’m a grown-ass adult. Melanie and I are both shocked at this callout culture and that our dynamic is so easily displayed, though I think the loss of the stupid ticket did give Vera a pretty big hint. 

I guess I was in a one-man competition with myself for the trophy of ‘least prepared for life’ because I get in the autograph room thing and realize I have literally nothing for fucking Gabriel to sign (also there was a whole situation with pdf v physical tickets thing but you know what bye), so I gotta give the man my hot pink Michael Kors wallet, just like everyone else does duh [note: this was also when Melanie and I meet an amazing lady who let us hold the angel blade she had, and the thing was fucking authentic, THANK YOU WHY IS EVERYONE SO NICE]. 

So he gets the wallet, along with a sticky note of my name (everyone got a sticky note with their name but I was especially grateful because my name is ridiculous), and he proceeds to PERFECTLY pronounce it, better than some of my fucking friends irl (this is a callout post, do better). He asks me where I’m from. I panic because that is the identity crisis that every foreigner faces after living more than fifteen years in a new country, but I just say Bulgaria cuz it explains my name. He then proceeds to say that I don’t have an accent which is impressive and I just nod silently like a goddamn idiot. THEN he asks me if he should visit Bulgaria, because he’s never been, and this is clearly my limit in terms of speaking with a celebrity because I reply with ‘we have a sea’ and WRENCH BACK MY WALLET FROM HIS GRASP. Having zero chill, I don’t even give myself one damn second to walk away from the man before throwing my hands in the air and doing a bizarre victory lap in a quest to find Melanie again (yes he saw and no I don’t give af).

That night we eat amazing food and play a short session of DnD, wherein my HP drops to zero and I’m pretty sure I have two angels competing to save my life because everyone realizes the odds were against my Level 1 fucking human hunter (oh, Sam...) but whatever. 

Saturday:

I remember this day the least. We were SUPER late so we missed, like, all the panels lol. There was one panel with the guy who played Henry Winchester in, and correct me if I’m wrong here, ONE goddamn episode. So at one point me and Melanie are like ‘fuck that’ and go check out the vendor’s room at the con, including the Random Acts table. We meet an amazing volunteer there (shout out to Sara, girl I will find you on twitter ok give me a hot second) and Rachel Miner, who is absolutely lovely and dedicated to bettering this black hole of a world. We talk to them for like 40 minutes (fulfilling my dream of combining fandom and real life by talking to an actress I admire about shit that matters for A LONG ASS TIME FUTURE ME OK) before leaving for Melanie’s Photo Op that I was in lol (Saturday was ‘Melanie day’ and Sunday was my day in terms of actors we came to see). 

We stand in line for the Photo Ops, and it’s about as close as I’ve ever seen Melanie to a sober ‘not in control’ form. Even though she hasn’t been in this fandom for years, she was still worried she’d cry. She didn’t, thankfully, because at the last second I realized I had brought nothing in the form of a tissue...

So:

Melanie’s directions to Misha Collins were something along the lines of, “we’re in a fight, can you mediate between us?” (inspired by the other night’s DnD catastrophe). Misha very benevolently accepts, and the beauty before you is the result (I was Sam on Saturday, btw, though I realized very quickly that my super low key interpretation did not register like most of the dedicated cosplayers’ did - and by the way? At this con, 90% of the people were dressed in some form of plaid monstrosity, obviously including me). 

After we leave (Misha said thank you to us because he is a doll and maybe socially awkward deep down inside), we are immediately accosted by Creation for an interview because obviously, we are the smoothest chicks around. We praise them to the high heavens then go off to listen to some more panels. 

OH DEAR GOD. How could I forget Mark Sheppard?! OK I don’t remember where this fits into the timeline, but Mark Sheppard comes out, gives a very lovely speech to thank Louden Swain and Rob and fucking Gabriel for the time and effort they put into these cons, then proceeds to give the most MAUDLIN talk of the whole convention. So many highlights. He expresses frustration at the fact that his final line, “even when I lose, I win,” was cut. He explains that Crowley’s character arc had run its course a while ago. He takes the piss out of any Castiel cosplayers that were there (we were momentarily worried he’d target Melanie because he was walking up the aisle right where we were sitting, but he was thankfully distracted by a cute baby). He talks about his sobriety, what God and humanity mean to him. It was very deep, very cool (one part of his speech was about the power of fandom, “it’s not just that they wear the same uniform as you, it’s that you CAN wear the same uniform”, and honestly I was near tears, the man fucking understood). This went on for quite a while, it was Mark’s last convention, and it was around this time I felt ABSOLUTELY fucking exhausted. 

I’m pretty sure-NO. Actually. Before Misha’s panel, it was the actor who plays Jack (I believe his name is Alex). It was his first convention too, though tbh, though there were more people watching him, David Hayden Jones got louder cheers. ANYWAY. I don’t remember much about Alex’s panel except that Misha crashed it using a ridiculous voice, and he crashed it RIGHT IN FRONT OF WHERE WE WERE SITTING. Night made. 

Then it’s Misha’s panel, and I honestly don’t remember anything about it, sorry future me. I remember he was pretty funny, and I liked him. 

Thennn we go home (no karaoke or concert), and after dinner and tea sleep pretty much immediately. 

Sunday:

Then, the big day (for me). It starts off pretty great. Though we were later than I wanted to be, we catch the end of fucking Gabriel and Rob’s panel (Matt was there too, the guy who plays young John Winchester). These three are fucking hilarious together, but also, super talented. They do this weird talk-sing improv that ends up AMAZING and that Melanie assures me is very hard. 

I’m gonna mess up the order now, but I think we go in the vendor’s room and we meet Jared Padalecki’s sister Megan, who has a children’s book coming out. I buy one for my sister (you’re welcome Adi) and she signs it for us. We also have a pretty productive conversation about how to get your work noticed online, and I for some bizarre reason that is completely unknown to me advise Megan to get a DeviantArt. God did not bless me with ANY reasoning skills, and I am decidedly bitter about that. 

Then...it was time.

So I’m worried the entire time I’m going to cry. I didn’t understand the phrase ‘thrumming with excitement’ until this point. I also felt slightly like throwing up, which was very uncool but just my luck. I was thankfully distracted by a very tall woman who was excited to meet someone her height.

When you enter the room for the photo ops, it’s about five minutes before it’s actually your turn, so I got to watch Jared Padalecki interact with people for five minutes before it was our turn, and I have to say it was freaking incredible. The man was bouncing off the walls. He had already been doing this for TWO HOURS and he was still energetic and hugging EVERYONE. Also, since he was the one initiating, Creation couldn’t say SHIT, so pretty much everyone left with a GIGANTIC grin on their faces. Still felt a little like throwing up though. 

Ok. I know everyone says this. But he is TALL in real life. He’s not ‘huge’, it’s not season 3, but he’s very elegant looking and quite frankly beautiful. Better looking than he is on the show. And he greets us with a gigantic SMILE and his hair is so fucking SHINY and I was just ready for death at that point tbh.

...anyway. I say something along the lines of, “channel the DRUNKEST sorority girl you’ve ever seen in your life. We’re your two friends dragging you home.” He nods very determinedly, we grab him by the waist and ABSOLUTELY do not see the face he makes, and it’s over in like 5 seconds. BUT when we’re done, I catch his eye briefly (and am close to tears at this point) and he BRINGS US INTO THE BEST DAMN BEAR HUG I HAVE EVER RECEIVED IN MY LIFE. I forget if any thank you’s were exchanged because at that point my mind was mush. I do remeber he said that he channeled ‘emotional drunk’, and this was the goddamn result. Acting, folks.

(Later, when we see this picture, Melanie and I laugh so loud that some random man asks to see the photo op because we just could not chill for ages). 

As we were leaving the room, we briefly meet Clif, J2′s bodyguard, and he was very nice and very graceful about the fact that I gushed about Jared to him for like 20 solid seconds. 

Then, it’s time for the main panels. The first one was with the actress who plays Mary, and she was lovely if a bit inefficient at answering questions quickly (I’m only bitter because I was going to ask her where she WANTED Mary and Sam’s relationship to go, and what she thought about the fact that Sam felt disconnected from her), and then Jeffrey Dean Morgan came up and riffed with her a bit (I did not think I would be as excited as I was to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan). 

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is something else. First off, he’s fucking hilarious. There are many things I could say about the answers he gave, but I’m sure there’s a transcript somewhere that would do a better job, All I need YOU to remember, future me, is the fact that the man brought up fanfiction by himself (”we’re in fanfiction land now, people”), and then for some reason that will never be clear to me brought up WINCEST. And then KEPT TALKING ABOUT WINCEST. I WAS LAUGHING SO HARD I NEARLY CHOKED. Also, while I’m sure 99% of Destiel shippers were laughing along with all of us, I’m sure there was a faction of 1% that was bitter about the fact that JDM was under the impression that Wincest was still the BNS and that made me so happy inside. 

(It makes sense that JDM thought that, though. He was on the show when Wincest was at the height of its popularity, and he never kept up. APPARENTLY, J2 sent him some Wincest, and he got a kick out of it. These guys really are a lot more open-minded than I would be in their situation...JDM did call Wincest fans perverts though, so all is right with the world.) 

Thennnnn it was J2 time. The main event for me had been seeing Jared up-close, so I was relatively subdued, but it was still a great panel. The two of them are hilarious. They sound like every pair of best friends that remember shit differently and refuse to stop arguing about it (highlights of the panel: whose fault was Jared’s stabbed leg, how does one pronounce Nevada, how J2 respectively almost died, Jensen refuting a fan who implied that Sam was better as a supportive role to Dean). Jensen kept interrupting Jared’s stories with (admittedly funny) asides, and while Jared did the same occasion, it was not on the same level, which I found interesting. Idk how I felt when Rob and fucking Gabriel came back out and started jamming out hardcore with Jensen while Jared kinda hung back. I know that’s his own choice, and that they’d love him to perform with them, but idk. I wish he was secure enough to come out of his shell. 

Also - when they came down the stairs, Jared was all smiles and waves while Jensen was super subdued. We as fans don’t know anything about them so this is pure speculation but I am allowed to do that on my own blog damn it and I’m pretty sure that Jared is a genuine extrovert while Jensen is the opposite, and it really shows when the two of them are apart (together, Jensen becomes about as animated as Jared, albeit in a different way).

We stayed for the Kings of Con panel so I could stare at fucking Gabriel some more, and was heartened to find out that Richard Speight Jr. took objection to the fact that God “didn’t have time” to bring back Gabriel as much as I did. Nevertheless, fun panel, though I don’t remember any more details (Melanie probably will tbh, in keeping up with a recurring theme, she has a better memory than I do). After the panel, Melanie and I took pictures, I scored some free shirts, we went home. 

Something that didn’t really make it into this entry but I would like to keep note of is the fact that the people at this con were incredible. The volunteers, the people in the audience, every random human Melanie and I spoke to - all incredible. It was finally a group of people ready to debate the finer points of Sam’s refusal of Lucifer in the 11th season, etc., which is on one hand, like, “duh”, but on the other hand, it really isn’t. Amazing experience overall, you had fun, Melanie had fun, no one died, all was well. 

Until the next one (which, uh, we may have to end up going to New Jersey?! We will see about THAT)!