Farewell, Supernatural

November, 19th 2020.

I know it is silly to dedicate a whole post to a TV show that ends tonight after being on air for 15 years, accompanying me on my way through 11 of those 15 years. And yet, for the impact it has had on my life, my friendships and memories, I can’t help saying Goodbye to the Winchester Brothers this way. And in a way, I am thankful Covid-19 has happened, because it delayed the end for 8 months – I am in a better mental state now that I would’ve been on May, 18th (thanks, person in China who thought it would be a good idea to eat a bat!). So, here goes.

Thanks to not being a person with a lot of friends, I joined an Online Forum for the TV Show “Prison Break” at the end of 2009, resulting in finding my former best friend, Lea, (who I’m grateful still today is a friend by my side despite the distance of 400km between us!) who introduced me to another TV show called “Supernatural”. I gave it a shot when it aired in Germany, watched the first 2 episodes in german on Pro7 and realized – it wasn’t for me. Something wasn’t clicking.

Fast forward a couple of months, the middle of 2010, when the same friend (knowing I adore Horror Movies) advised to me a movie called “My Bloody Valentine”, where a certain Mr. Jensen Ackles was playing the main character, a man who was – and still is up to this day – EXTREMELY hot to look at. I followed her advice, watched the movie, was totally in love with it and had my first Celebrity Crush in years. When I realized that the same man playing a crazy serial killer was also one half of the brothers in “Supernatural”, I decided to give it a 2nd shot, this time in OV/english.

Fast forward another couple of months, with night after night spent on tumblr with memes, gifs and quotes, bingewatching the entire seasons of “Supernatural” that were available at the time (how I kept up going to work every day with less than 6 hours every single night AND looking for a new job at the same time, I have no idea), I found myself at my first german “Supernatural” Convention in Mannheim – AECON2, hosted by Rogue Events (there’s a post somewhere far down the line of this blog, if you’d like a full description of the experience).

Though it hurts to think about that first one due to the friend I met on Facebook in the months upcoming to it, who was like the sister I always wished I had, who I instantly clicked with, who shared my craziness about the show and its Cast, who loved to make fun of certain things as much as I do, and who introduced me to the world of Musicals, which honestly changed me for the better. Thanks to that special person who loved “Supernatural” as much as me, I went on my first ever trip abroad at the age of 26 – to London, where I would fall in love with the West End and its shows, and one particular show without which I would have never have found three of the best, kindhearted, wonderful human beings that I am allowed to call my friends today – Sarah, Noor & Sigal. And it all hurts because that friend who made my very first ever Convention SO SO special and beautiful, is not my friend anymore because I made a stupid mistake and she wasn’t able to find enough love for me and our friendship in her heart anymore to forgive me and give our 9-year friendship another chance.

BUT there is also something wonderful, which might or might not have happened if I would’ve been alone at The Dorint Hotel in Mannheim on May, 20th 2011 – I met the most important person in my life, the human being closest to my heart than anybody else, despite living 1.182,55km away – Susie.

I met her in front of the door to the registration room (she was part of the Staff back then, just as the wonderful Jaynee, who quickly became a star that weekend with her “Hug the walls” shouting and at a later event, T-Shirt; though I’m barely in touch with her nowadays, back then, she was like a mum to me), where my former friend and I were very amused by a trash can full of empty Red Bull cans and chocolate bar wrappers, and the first thing she ever said to me was “Please don’t take a picture” when I took one of it because it was hilarious to see what already the first few hours of the event did to its Staff. We three talked and I instantly took a shine to her, because she was so easy going and smiley and nice, and she felt like someone I wanted to talk to all the time. Then the fateful sunday happened, where my former friend and I experienced the cattle herding of “Supernatural” fans into a hallway and a room where Jensen Ackles & Jared Padalecki – the two main actors who played the brothers Winchester – were being seated for taking Photo Ops with their fans. As we somehow lost track of time and the timetable of the event and therefor missed our first Photo Op appointment with them on Saturday (we both had booked two with Jensen Ackles, as we wanted to see him up close twice with different poses and clothes, paying 75€ per photo, how crazy were we???), it was ESSENTIAL we got both pictures together, with different poses at least. But due to the cattle herding feeling Rogue put us through, resulting in screaming “No poses! No touching!”, it was a desaster for me. I hate both of mine up to this day (though Jensen looks absolutely gorgeous, of course), and I remember sitting on the floor, bawling my eyes out on that last day of the event, looking up and spotting Susie coming my way. I stood up to tell her how unhappy I was about my photos, and because it was so expensive, I wanted the chance of a do over because the photographer didn’t say anything during the shoot, but she just bristled along, telling me Jensen had already gone to get on his flight back home, in quite an annoyed and pissed-off manner. I was so disappointed and angry I had estimated her character wrong that I complained about her on a Fan Forum that Rogue ran, without saying a name, needing to get it out how wrong I felt I had been treated. Long story short – Susie saw it, read it, apologized to me, explained what had happened that day, we started following each other on twitter, started talking in private messages and she asked for my number on February, 2nd 2012 – and ever since then, she has been the most important and dearest, caring friend I have ever had the honor to have in my life. And she gave me the chance to visit her in Scotland in 2015, which resulted in my falling head over heels for this beautiful place on earth, giving me the BEST birthday gift in 2017 with taking me to St. Abbs (where, knowing I am a massive Marvel fan, scenes from the last Avengers movie, “Avengers: Endgame” had been filmed,) and basically treating me like the most delicate and important person in the whole world that day, which nobody has ever done before.

So, “Supernatural” did give me a whole lot more than I ever signed up for, and though there are parts of this fandom that I will neither ever get nor can accept to be a thing, the past 11 years have given me so much more than I could’ve hoped for when I gave that TV show a 2nd shot in 2010. I met loads of Celebrities thanks to it, I have the most wonderful and hilarious (and in parts, painful) memories from the 3 Conventions hosted by Rogue Events that I will always keep close to my heart and in my memories, and, like some sort of snowballing system, my life is the way today because of that TV Show and everyone and everything working alongside it.

So THANK YOU, “Supernatural” – it’s been a pleasure being a fan, accompanying Dean and Sam Winchester on their journey to “Save People, Hunting Things, The Family Business”. And THANK YOU to Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, Misha Collins, Alex Calvert, Sebastian Roché, Jim Beaver, Mark Sheppard, Mark Pellegrino, Samantha Smith, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Rob Benedict, Ruth Connell, Richard Speight Jr., Kim Rhodes, Katie Cassidy, Genevieve Padalecki, Felicia Day, Osric Chau, DJ Qualls, Ty Olsson, Rachel Miner, Brianna Buckmaster, Jake Abel, Julian Richings and all the other Cast members I can’t write down here.

And a special, massive THANK YOU goes out to the Show’s creators and directors – Eric Kripke & Robert Singer. You’ve created a whole world of monsters, demons, ghouls, wendigos, ghosts, witches and whatnot, that thanks to your amazing creative minds and Cast were brought to life for 15 years and created a space of 42mins every thursday to forget worries or problems one might have at that moment (and, very often, left the viewer with a smile or a loud laugh when Sam Winchester made a commercial for a haemorrhoid cream, or Dean Winchester shouting like a girlscout when a cat came out of a locker, or the countless times Castiel held his FBI insignia upside down).

And although I would’ve somehow loved it a bit more if the Winchesters had sacrificed themselves so the world could survive, I have to say, both of them riding into the Sunset in Dean’s 67′ Chevrolet Impala, just the two brothers and an endless Highway ahead of them, like it was in the beginning, holds some soft, fuzzy feelings for me, too.

THANK YOU.