We wanted to kick off the New Year with a post full of love and gratitude and optimism – what better way to do that than a chat with Supernatural’s version of God (or Kripke, if you prefer), Rob Benedict? Rob has had a tumultuous year, which is ultimately very inspiring. An update on that in a bit. But first, Lynn caught up with Rob at the Dallas Supernatural convention, both a little tired from karaoke the night before (which was so worth a little next-day fatigue, btw). Rob had recently debuted his short film, The Sidekick, and we were dying to ask him about it.
Photo Op! SPN Writers with Jared and Jensen – photo Chris Schmelke
We’re quoting Supernatural writer Adam Glass in that title – but we’re also feeling very lucky to be part of the SPN Family today. For those of you who missed it, there has been a lot going on in the Sherlock fandom for the past few days, after a journalist at the screening of the new season printed out some racy Sherlock fanfic and then got the show’s stars to read it aloud, apparently trying for some cheap laughs at fandom’s expense. (Ironic for a television show that is itself – literally – fanfiction). We’d be the first to stand up and say that fans shouldn’t be ashamed of however they participate in fandom – that’s the whole point of Fangasm: Supernatural Fangirls after all – but it wasn’t the fan author’s idea to share and in fact she was mortified. We reached out to her and offered to send her a copy of “Fangasm” and “Fandom At The Crossroads” – which she graciously said she appreciated but wanted to purchase for herself in fannish solidarity. We wish we could send a copy to the entire Sherlock fandom!
The Sherlock actors were respectful (unlike the journalist), but the whole kerfuffle got us thinking about how much the Supernatural cast has embraced the fandom – how much they respect their fans, how the term “SPNFamily” is used by the cast and crew and writers as much as it’s used by the fandom. We thought about Jared’s words at Burcon about how fandom lets us all be ourselves, that we shouldn’t let anyone else tell us what to like; Misha’s joyous and inspiring way of bringing us all together to do good in the world through Random Acts; Jensen joining fans and family in this year’s Buddy Walk for Downs Syndrome in Dallas; Osric cosplaying along with fandom and writing his own Kevin Tran fanfic; Kim Rhodes’ passionate defense of the Sherlock fan and all fans; the writers, actors, producers and crew members –virtually everyone involved with the show — joining fandom for live tweets of episodes. We’re lucky – and so are they. And I think we all know it.
As we blogged at the time, we invited a bunch of the SPN writers to ‘crash’ our photo op with Jared and Jensen at Burcon. It was wonderful to see the surprised looks on the boys’ faces when so many of the writers walked in! Some hadn’t met the actors before, so the whole thing was warm and wonderful (and we’re still really glad we lured them in with us!) We got the jpeg from super-photographer Chris yesterday, and sent it on to the writers. Adam Glass tweeted it out with the message “feel privileged to be part of this Supernatural family.”
Happy holidays from Fangasm! Whatever other holidays you’re celebrating this season, we hope you’re also celebrating what we all have in common – our love of Supernatural. And we hope you’re celebrating something else that we think is unique, special and important: Fandom.
The mid-season finale of Supernatural is often when something very bad happens – in fact, it’s often when a character I’ve come to love and care about is brutally killed off. Ellen, Jo, Bobby….and now Kevin. The ending of this episode left me reeling, so shocked that for a while, I didn’t even need the ever-present box of tissues beside me. It took a few of the stages of grief before reality set in and I started to tear up. Is Kevin really gone? And why didn’t I see that coming?
