This blog post is inspired by the amazing video that Kaci did about an essay she wrote on "How Supernatural Has Changed My Life". So I thought, why not do one for myself as well.
First I want to talk about, My Story, which is pretty much how I got into Supernatural when I first started watching to the show to where I am now. I started watching Supernatural around the fall in 2014, I find this just a bit funny probably because I have a weird sense of humour, but I learned about Supernatural because I found a Top 10 Death Scenes On Supernatural video. I watched it and without even knowing who the characters were or what the story behind the show was, I got really sad seeing the deaths and felt bad for those characters. I was curious about the show, so I went onto Netflix and at the time there were 9 seasons because season 10 was playing live at the time. I watched the pilot and instantly fell in love with the show. I binged watched all 9 seasons, then waited for season 10 to come on Netflix, and then I did the same thing with season 11. When season 12 came along I found a channel for The CW in Canada and watched it live; every week I would have a new supernatural to watch and it was both fun and nerve-racking. I was so used to having episode after episode to watch and now I had to wait to watch the next either one week apart or more depending on what hiatus or 2-week break kind of thing was happening.
I went to my first Supernatural convention in 2017, luckily not my first convention ever I had been to a Fan Expo Canada convention before this in 2016. I wanted to go the year before but I think they were sold out so I couldn’t do it. Then when I was at the Fan Expo Canada convention I saw an advertisement for the Supernatural Convention in October in Toronto. I told my mom and we planned it out, well I planned it out. We had single day preferred admission for Sunday, because I was only 15 and didn’t have that much money or knowledge of the con to go all weekend. I had a J2 op that I was gonna do on my own but then got scared so my mom joined me, and a Sam Smith solo op. That day, on October 8, 2017, was one of the best days of my entire life. On that day, I understood what this show was and the meaning behind it, and who and what the SPNFamily was. That just made me love the show even more. I wouldn't know what these conventions were, how to handle them, what to do for them, I wouldn't know a lot about this show if it wasn't for Alana King's videos. Without her convention vlogs, her tips videos, the content she creates because of her love for Supernatural, I would've been lost.
After that, I started to get way more involved in the show and everything about it. I started to talk more on twitter about it, and make friends and have people I can turn to and call family now. I started going to more cons and doing more at them, meeting new people, actors, fans, vendors, everybody. And the more I did the more and more my love grew for this crazy show and this amazing dysfunctional family…my family. Now here I am, I am 17 years old, been watching for 5 years straight this fall; I have been to three conventions, hopefully making it 5 by the end of the year. I have lots of new friends and family, I've grown and changed as a person, all because of this show.
Supernatural allowed me to become who I am today, the show helped me find out who I truly am inside. Before I started watching Supernatural, I was 12 to 13 years old, I was in grade 8 and I was a shy girl who wanted to hide and not let anyone see her or know what she was a fan of or what her interests were. I had this idea in my head that I would be made fun of for loving the things I love, that people wouldn't like me. And back then, that's all I wanted, was for people to like me, to have friends and get invited to things. But now, I proudly embrace my love of fandom and my love for this show. I don't hide it anymore, I constantly wear fandom clothes, not afraid of what people will say, because I don't care what they think. I know who my real friends are, who my real family is, and I know that they'll accept me for who I am because we all love this show and support each other. I went from being a shy little girl to being a lot more confident in myself, and in what I love. This show made me a better person for myself and it has carried me throughout all of my 4 years in high school and will carry me through my first year of college. And even though their won't be any new episodes after season 15, there are still conventions that will happen, we still have the SPNFamily, we still have over 300 episodes to rewatch as many times as we want, and that kind of reassures me. Because as the boys have said, the show will end, but what this show has built will never go away. This family will never go away.
Because of Supernatural, I chose to start my own blog, and write about things that I like and am passionate about. One of the main reasons why I started this was because I wanted to talk about my favourite book that was written by the people I love, the actors and fans of Supernatural, “Family Don’t End With Blood” by the lovely Lynn Zubernis. I wanted to talk about my favourite show, and I had so many ideas for things going around in my head that I decided why not try it. If it doesn’t work out then at least I tried. And so far I think it’s going pretty well.
Supernatural changed my life because it gave me people I can turn to, it gave me friends, it gave me a family. When I’m upset I know I can go scroll through, or get flooded with cute animal gifs and feel better. I know that I have people I can talk to, who will listen, who will support me, who will let me know that I’m not alone. One day I was mad at my parents, I got really upset, and I chose to take a break from twitter. I turned off my notifications for the app and shut myself out from it. But I realized quite quickly, what I really needed at the time was my SPNFamily, not silence, not to be quiet and left alone, but to talk with my SPNFamily or Twitter Family as I also like to call it. And I only left for about two days and was still a little raw and emotional about it, but I instantly felt better when I saw all the love and support I got and when I started talking with everyone again.
Supernatural was a real eye-opener for my life, it changed me so much and I wouldn't change it for the world. Everything that has happened has been amazing, I have done so much and am so happy that it all happened. This insane, fantastic, wild fandom and show, has changed my life, brought new things to my life, and shown me things that will stick with me forever. Thank you Supernatural, thank you SPNFamily. Thank you to the cast, and to the crew, everybody. Thank you.