rivers_bend

Something tells me that this show I kind of love is airing it's 100th episode tonight. I remember when that happened on Buffy, and when it happened on Smallville, because I had fangirl friends (of the merch-buying, con attending rather than internet-based, fanfic-reading variety) who cared about such things. I'd never even known it was a big deal before.

This time I'm a little more caught up in the excitement. and so I share my Supernatural story


I read my first SPN fanfic sometime around May of 2006. I was only reading one WiP at the time, and though I googled Jared and Jensen so I'd know who we were talking about, I never really cared much about seeing the show. It wasn't airing in the UK on any channel I got anyway, and I wasn't dl-ing at the time. Then I heard the first three episodes were airing on ITV3, and by that time we had a freeview box, so I stayed up late and watched them. I was very excited to see Sarah Shahi, as I was really into The L Word back then, and I liked the show fine, but I wasn't what you'd call gripped :)

Several months later I got ripped discs of the first season and watched the first eleven episodes around the time I wrote my first SPN fic, in May of 2007. I'd read a few more SPN fics that people were posting in MMOM, and it felt like a fandom I could dip my toes into. I was moving back to the states in June, and the S2 discs were about to come out, so I pre-ordered them to be sent to me in California, along with the official S1 discs. I made my first post admitting my addiction on 19 June, '07, and was asking my flist for SPN advice by the end of July, at which point SPN was my only fandom. I was writing a couple fics a week. Though I slowed down over the last few years, I posted my 100th SPN fic December 22nd of last year, and have kept writing. SamandDean are deep in my heart.

I didn't realize at the time that I placed my orders that I'd asked for shipping which meant they were holding the S1 discs until the S2 ones were released, and caught my error in August of '07, by which point I'd watched eps 13 through the finale of S1 on the dl discs I had. Only when I caught my error and got the S1 discs and mainlined them in two days did I realize that I'd missed possibly the best episode of S1: Faith!!!! My S2 discs came on September 12th and I watched them in two days before throwing myself into S3. I've watched every episode live since the S3 premiere.

I've rearranged dinner with friends, told my parents I'd have to come down later in the week, and left parties early in order to be home in front of my TV at 9pm on Thursday nights. I tend to be a solo viewer: the only times I've watched episodes of SPN for the first time with anyone else have been at Wincon '08 and Wincon '09 and the episode I got to watch with missyjack after Wincon '09.

I sometimes think it's funny that I almost always watch alone, because I never actually feel like I am. I've been doing as-I-watch commentaries since 3.02 which is kind of like watching with someone that doesn't talk back while the show is on. I've gotten into some interesting conversations with people, and avoided some, too. I've loved the meta and the squee and the codas. I've loved the fangirling and the picspams and the flail. I've loved the conventions and the meetups and the interviews and the panels. I've loved being part of something so very much bigger than myself.

Right now I am sitting in a cafe, and outside there is a boy repeatedly tying his leg to a chair leg while a girl gives him pointers. I think they are probably doing some kind of rock-climbing preparation, but I cannot help but think of Sam Winchester, who is always getting tied to things in canon, and of Dean Winchester who was literally all tied up in the first SPN fan fic I ever read. Some people would probably say that makes me perverted, or obsessed, or at the least weird. But to me it feels like I'm in on something amazing.

Dear Show. You've brought me so much happiness (and not a little heartache) in the last three years. Thank you, and carry on.