Tag: Minncon

Minneapolis Supernatural Convention 2018 – Sunday with Jared and Jensen!

Minneapolis Supernatural Convention 2018 – Sunday with Jared and Jensen!

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Sunday was, as always, J2 day. The Jared and Jensen morning panel started out with a sad story of how Jensen hurt his knee training for the Bad Idea marathon with Jason Manns.  Good friend that he is, Jared took a picture.

Jared: I took a picture of Jensen from the waist down with ice on both his knees and sent it to our guy friends and they were like, why’d you send this?

Jensen: No, they were like, why didn’t you show more?

 

Jared got a spam call and made a face, which prompted Jensen to give a talk about how to deal with unwanted sales calls.

Which was just proof that these two can make any topic hilarious.

And nice to look at.

Then someone made the mistake of giving Jared an entire tray of cupcakes. Jared went from gloating and gleeful while Jensen made faces and looked worried…

To dropping the entire tray on the floor. There was red icing everywhere, including all over Jared’s face!

While handlers swooped in to try to clean up, Jensen made Jared crack up even more by muttering that “you look like you just fellated Ronald McDonald”.

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Minneapolis Supernatural Convention 2018 – Friday and Saturday

Minneapolis Supernatural Convention 2018 – Friday and Saturday

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This was the last Supernatural con in Minneapolis (at least for now) so it seemed like everyone in attendance was determined to make it the very best one. The cast and the band love the giant theater with its for-real stage, complete with floor to ceiling (like 100 feet up ceiling) thick velvet curtains. There are layers of them, so finding your way onstage from backstage is a bit of a challenge – but it also makes everything seem like real theater and adds a feeling of professionalism to everything that happens.

It was also a great place for taking pictures, even for a non-photographer like me, so this post will be broken into two. First up, Thursday through Saturday, including Misha Collins and the Saturday  Night Special!

Minneapolis is a funny city, interconnected by indoor walkways that tie all the hotels to the convention center like a network of human hamster habitrails. I was outside the first day I was there and then never ventured out again as the weather took a turn for the cold and rainy.

Thursday, after setting up in the vendor room, I got to watch the new Supernatural episode with some fellow fangirls at the honors floor guest suite in one of the hotels. There was wine and cheese and crackers and even sandwiches custom made by the lovely gentleman in charge of the suite. I’m not sure what he made of the four women shrieking with screams and then doubling over with laughter, but he seemed to be amused enough to want to make us sandwiches, so that’s a win. And we were grateful!

Most of the “vendor squad” was there, so I spent a little time catching up with friends, and then met lots of new people who hadn’t yet read Family Don’t End With Blood or any of our other books. And some familiar people who I haven’t seen in a while too, one of the best part of cons.

Predictably, I stayed up way too late chatting, then grabbed a bagel and latte and headed back to the convention center for the start of the con on Friday. SPNMinn kicked off with our hosts Richard Speight Jr. and Rob Benedict.

And then with Rachel Miner, who is always a ray of sunshine every time she takes the stage.

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Sunday with Jared and Jensen at Minncon 2017

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Sunday is J2 Day at Creation Supernatural cons, this time joined by another Winchester (Mary, aka Samantha Smith) with the day introduced by Rich and Rob and closed out by Ruth Connell and Louden Swain.

The Sunday morning gold panel saw a rather sleepy looking Jared and Jensen joining us – and of course the very first question asked was about that “this is a bad idea” Instagram video Jensen posted of him and Jared on Friday night.

J2: nope.

As in, they declined to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate them. Or, you know, get them incarcerated.

All kidding aside, Jensen and Jared were worried about their families in Austin as Hurricane Harvey began to takes its incredible toll on Texas. Jensen took a call from Danneel while they were onstage, Jared hovering over his shoulder.

This eventually resulted in shenanigans as Jared tried to grab Jensen’s phone (or something) and Jensen spun around and around to avoid him, then backed up like ‘here ya go’. #boys

 

Glad to report that Danneel and Gen and the kids are fine, and were all having a ‘sleepover’. In the wine cellar.

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Supernatural Minncon Friday and Saturday – Misha, SNS and More!

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The Supernatural convention in Minneapolis is notable for a couple of things. First, it’s in the grandest theater on the whole tour – an actual slanted floor tilted and cushioned seated amphitheater style theater with two clamshell balconies that open up like magic on Sunday for J2 Day. The stage is so big that some of the guests aren’t quite sure what to do with it and it makes the Saturday Night Special seem like a rock show in a bona fide concert hall – and Louden Swain and guests know exactly what to do with that!

The convention center, and the city itself actually, is also notable for being connected by a series of hamster trail elevated tunnels that allow you to make your way from the hotels to the convention center without being pelted by the inevitable wind and rain. My hotel was also playing host to a furry convention, so we had furries and Supernatural tee-shirted fans sharing space and high fiving in the hallways. I was struggling to transport my hundreds of copies of Family Don’t End With Blood the mile and a half (okay okay, exaggeration, but it felt like that…) of hamster trails to the convention center when a very nice young man at the furry convention offered to help. He pushed the overloaded handcart the entire way to the convention center, while we chatted about what our two fandoms had in common and why nobody should be ashamed of what they’re passionate about.

I was in the vendor room throughout the con, and was so honored to meet many people who had read Family Don’t End With Blood and been inspired by what the actors and the fans shared in their personal essays. I also was thrilled to collaborate with Jodi from Eldwenne’s Fantasy – she created an original Women of SPN – FDEWB necklace that I adore, and was kind enough to give one to me. The necklace symbolizes that for the women of Supernatural, family means more than just blood – there’s a blue backdrop that matches the cover of the book, hugged tight by silver to symbolize the found family that surrounds the Winchesters, and black for Baby. And of course the drop of blood red. Gorgeous. Jodi is giving $5 off the necklace to anyone who purchases the book, or $10 at a con!

The con kicked off on Friday with Rob and Rich a bit overwhelmed by the amount of greenery onstage – not just the usual couple of dead trees, but a whole forest of them, along with some equally-dead potted plants.

Rob and Rich rearranged them, made a makeshift Supernatural Christmas tree, and generally had way too much fun with inanimate things. They even had a Christmas story, with Richard sitting crosslegged on the stage.

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Family Don’t End With Blood at #SPNMinn!

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If you’re coming to the Supernatural con in Minneapolis tomorrow, come see me in the vendor’s room if you’d like to grab a copy of Family Don’t End With Blood. The book is unique for being written by the Supernatural actors themselves – Jared, Jensen, Misha, Mark, Kim, Briana, Ruth, Rachel, Rob, Matt, Jim, Gil and Osric all tell their very personal stories of how the fandom and the show have impacted their lives. In their own words. As Gil joked recently, they can now all add “author” to their bios! Most of the actors who wrote chapters will be at the con, and they are always thrilled to sign their chapters – it’s one item almost all of them love to sign since they’re (very justifiably) proud of their chapters. I’d be honored to sign it for you too at the vendor’s table – I’d love to meet you and hear your Supernatural story, to add to the powerful chapters in the book written by fans.

I’m extra excited about this con because the super talented Jodi from Eldwenne’s Fantasy has designed a special necklace inspired by the stories in Family Don’t End With Blood. This piece was commissioned to honor the powerful, courageous, inspiring chapters written by some of the women of Supernatural – Briana Buckmaster, Ruth Connell, Rachel Miner and Kim Rhodes. The blue is from the book’s iconic cover art of the Winchesters, with silver and black wrapped around to symbolize their supportive found family (including black for Baby, of course – she’s family!). And that drop of red? Just the beginning of what family means in Supernatural – and in the entire SPNFamily.

I love the little drop of blood and I love the whole wrap around family feel of the blue with the black and silver hugging it. I love that the necklace stands for the way the characters have each other’s backs, and also for the way the fandom and the cast support each other too. That’s the inspiring message you’ll take away from reading the book.

Jodi is offering $5.00 off at the con to anyone who buys a copy of the book that inspired the necklace, and I’m offering $2.00 off the book at the con if you happen to be wearing the necklace.

Here’s what Gil and Osric had to say about writing their chapters in Family Don’t End With Blood, and what Jared and Matt had to say about writing theirs.

Gil and Osric at Chicon

Jared and Matt JIBCon

Hope to see you tomorrow in Minneapolis or at an upcoming con!

–Lynn
Not coming to the con? You can grab a copy of
Family Don’t End With Blood at the links on this page.
And check out eldwennesfantasy.com for all the
gorgeous custom jewelry!

J3! (Jared and Jensen and Jeff) at Minncon

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So where did I leave off in my Minncon adventures?

Saturday night I was invited to speak at the Attitudes in Reverse ‘In Their Shoes’ event, which kicked off the Minneapolis chapter of AIR. If you have not been to one of AIR’s events, let me tell you that it is tremendously powerful and moving to see all those shoes with all their messages – of doubt, sadness, fear, and ultimately of hope. Hope because it is people speaking out, talking about how they feel, reaching out and asking for help even though that’s tremendously hard. I’m inspired by the work that AIR and SPN Survivors are doing to combat the stigma that keeps us from talking about mental health issues and prevents people from getting the help they need. That’s the best way to prevent suicide – and if people can feel comfortable asking for help, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope.

That’s one of the messages of our new book, Family Don’t End With Blood: Cast and Fans on How Supernatural Has Changed Lives. It’s a story twelve years in the making, with chapters written by ten Supernatural actors and a dozen Supernatural fans. Every chapter in the book, both those written by fans and those written by the actors, is personal and incredibly powerful. Some of the chapters were hard to write, but every author persevered because the message is so important. We all hope that the book will be an inspiration to others to speak up and be real too, and to ask for the help we all need sometimes to get through the challenges life throws in our way.

Jared Padalecki is one of the actors who wrote a chapter for the book, written with candor and trust, and so inspiring I still can’t read it without tearing up and smiling simultaneously. He came to the AIR event to talk about his own journey – the help he has needed and the hope he has found.

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A common thread in all the chapters is how the extraordinary relationship between the Supernatural cast and fandom has been a source of support and inspiration – for both sides. At the AIR event, Jared didn’t leave after he’d had his turn at the mic. Instead, he reached out to a young girl who was crying, crouching down and holding both her hands as he listened to her and helped her feel grounded.

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Jared, Jensen and Misha at an Emotional Minncon (with J and J Meet and Greet Tidbits)

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j2 ja reaches for jp

All Supernatural conventions are emotional; it’s been that way from the beginning for me, because I’m so emotional about this Show and this fandom. Over the years, that’s only become more true. Not just for me, but for all of us – for the fans whose lives have been changed or even saved by an unlikely little show on the CW, and for the actors who make the show and have been interacting with the fandom for the past decade. It’s amazing, unprecedented. I’m writing a new book about it, with chapters written by those fans and those actors, so maybe I’m primed to be even more emotional than usual. But I think anyone who was at Minncon would agree that emotions were running high all weekend.

j2 serious

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