Fandom Friday – Supernatural

The Fandom Friday is a weekly feature, with each blog post written by a new contributor.This is the weekly post where either myself, or a guest blogger, talks about a new fandom. See, I’ve had the experience in my life where I’ve been made fun or put down about my particular fandoms. And that has made me feel pretty crappy. But I’ve also put down other fandoms as well.

So I’ve decided to change that. I’m opening my world up to new fandoms, and the best way to do that is to bring people in to write about various fandoms. I’m very excited about this segment.

If you guys are interested in becoming a guest blogger for the Fandom Friday, feel free to email me at whatanerdgirlsays at gmail.com or contact me HERE

This week’s contributor is Jackie, also know as Bazingirl, from the nerd blog, Seeking Bazinga. She will be writing all about the extremely popular show, Supernatural. Check it out!

Supernatural

One of the early fandoms I came into when I started to embrace my true inner geek, was Supernatural. And I’m not speaking of supernatural things in general, though I do have a personal tendency to gravitate towards things paranormal, I’m speaking the AMAZING TV show, created by Eric Kripke, Supernatural.

Supernatural starts off following two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester on a quest to find their father who has gone missing. John Winchester, their father, was on a hunting trip…but he wasn’t hunting for wildlife. He was hunting the paranormal, the things that go bump in the night and the things in your closet that scare you to death, but more specifically he was hunting the yellow eyed demon who killed his wife and maybe not so coincidentally, Sam’s college girlfriend, Jessica.

Leaving behind his leather journal, which houses every shred of knowledge John knows about the supernatural, he essentially passes on the torch to his sons, Sam and Dean, to continue the family business – saving people; hunting things.

While the boys search for their dad, they drive around in Dean’s 1967, black Chevy Impala (or as the fandom calls it, the Metallicar, because of Dean’s love of classic rock on cassette tape, no less) looking for supernatural things to hunt down and kill. All of the first season deals with Urban Legends like Bloody Mary, Hook Man, Woman in White or Weeping Woman, Wendigo, Skinwalkers, Cursed Indian Burial Grounds, Killer Scarecrows, Shtriga (child soul sucking witches) and even a couple of way nerded out guys who think they’re paranormal investigators like the guys from Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures.

As for the Fandom istelf…Supernatural has some of the most RABID fans on the internet today. It all started with the fact the the two protagonists are INCREDIBLY dreamy looking.

Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester:

and Jensen Ackles as his older brother, Dean Winchester:

These are pictures from Season One, which debuted in 2005 and they are now filming it’s 9th season. They boys have since both gotten married and Jensen now has a baby boy, named Justice Jay Ackles. The thing is? The guys have only gotten better looking as they’ve gotten older. Which sends the mostly female fans into fits of drooling. Trust me, I used to be one of the rabid drooling fans. Well, I still kind of am, especially since well, they look even better in person!!!

After season one, the fandom started going very heavily slash, which for those of you who don’t know wikipedia describes it thusly:

Slash fiction s a genre of fan fiction that focuses on interpersonal attraction and sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex.

And Wincest was born. According to SuperWiki:

Wincest is the term commonly used to describe fanfiction (or other fanworks) that depict or assume a romantic or sexual (i.e. Slash) relationship between Sam and Dean Winchester. It is the most popular pairing in Supernatural fandom, along with Destiel or Dean/Castiel.

Now, we won’t get to Castiel until his first appearance in Episode 1, Season 4 Lazarus Rising. But I don’t want to get into much after Season One, because well, you really just need to watch the series to understand all the stuff these brother go through to save people.

Now, one of the greatest things about this show, and one of the m any reasons the fans love it so much, is that like real brothers, Sam and Dean banter. They tease each other mercilessly, and then turn around and have moments of sincere and heart wrenching emotion, which makes them seem so real to us, the viewer. Especially Jensen, as Dean. One of the most touching scenes in the first season is when Dean calls his dad and asks for help, which occurs in Episode 9, “Home.” All we’ve seen Dean do up to this point is be kind of the jerk you hate to love, and in “Home” we see him scared and emotional and for the first time, vulnerable. And it’s AMAZING. Because Dean doesn’t let his guard down. He plays everything close to the chest, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning. He covers up his feelings with humor. That’s just the way he is.

Sam on the other hand, is much more able to show his feelings openly. We see him as extremely vulnerable to begin with because he gave up hunting to try and have a normal life, going off to Stanford on a full scholarship. He hides his past from his friends, yes, but he still shows them who he really is. Everyone he meets gets a real piece of Sam upfront.

The relationship between the two brothers is vastly complex as it is with most siblings, but when you add that they’ve never had a real “home,” that they spent their lives on the road learning from their dad how to hunt all the bad things out there, you can see how that kind of life has taken it’s toll on each brother in different ways.

The relationship between the brothers is what keeps the show alive and fresh, I think. The plot has taken so many twists and turns, introduced so many memorable characters both good and evil, that the only constant is the brothers’ love for one another and their inherent sense of duty to keep people safe from evil. The show could not continue without BOTH of the Winchester Brothers. They are the glue of the show, they are the reason the fans tune in every week to watch, and they are the reason we just LOVE this show.

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I hope you all enjoyed this week’s edition of the Fandom Friday!

Check out previous weeks here, and read last week’s all about Harry Potter, because I love Harry Potter and nobody wanted to write a FF so there you go!

Happy Friday everyone!

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