sweetondean

So yeah. I pretty much fly around the world…well over the Pacific…just for this guy. I don’t even remember how it started. Well, I guess it started with Dean and blossomed into Jensen. The more I found out about him, the more I dug him. Of course now, I’ve met him a few times and each time seems more awesome than the last.

Once again, I had a really good photo op experience with him. This time, I was surprisingly lucid! Jensen was in incredibly high spirits. Maybe it was the birthday party the night before, maybe it was just being home in LA. I don’t know, but he was obviously feeling good and he was looking fine! So, to say I was excited about my meet and greet with Jensen at Burcon would be…well, an understatement would be an understatement!

Jensen’s Meet and Greet….Or 30 minutes in Heaven.

I had front row for Jared’s meet and greet, but unfortunately for Jensen, I was in the back. Hazel sacrificed her 2^nd row seat to come and sit next to me. It was her AMOK act for the day. We’re a little joined at the hip at these things so I was very happy she did. I managed to orchestrate a moving of the seats. I suggested we squish the rows up…anything to get closer to the man…and everyone did. I then sort of sat/knelt on my chair to get a bit of height and waited…….

I love the way Jensen moves. There I said it. He has a way to his stride that feels very familiar, amongst other things. Maybe it’s those bandy legs of his. So when he came into the room…striding….I was all sixes and sevens. I so dig being this close to him. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to him just coming in and saying “Hi” all friendly and relaxed and then recognising a bunch of us. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to sitting with him in this kind of situation, in this little room, with him right there. Never, ever. Which is kind of nice right? It’s almost too much for my Jensen lovin’ heart to cope with. Plus he was looking particularly spectacular in a soft, black, wool hoodie and scruffy jeans, with a bit of scruffy stubble….yup…..

One of the things I really love, well one of the million things I really love, about Jensen, is his listening face. That’s what I call it. He has this expression. He really concentrates when you speak to him. He leans right forward in his chair, one eyebrow arched, as he listens intently to what you have to say. Then he sits back, has a think and then answers, zeroing right in on you, holding eye contact while he thoughtfully responds to your, probably months in the making, question. It’s amazing, it makes you feel special, it makes you feel like he’s interested in talking to you, like he’s enjoying interacting with you and, well, it’s completely discombobulating!

Anyhoo, the first thing Jensen said was, what was with the separate buildings? He joked that they needed a tram to get everyone back and forth. He wasn’t kidding. It was like a mini marathon every time you had to go from one place to the next! It was funny that he mentioned it. I mean he had to go from the photo room at the back of the other building all the way over to another wing for the meet and greet and then back again for the panel! I wish I’d seen that, him being walked past the fans with that ridiculous caricature of a security guard that was with him the whole time (not Clif, some man mountain who never took off is sunnies and looked like he came straight out of a box from the cliché security guard store), but I was sitting in a small room waiting for him to arrive, with baited breath, so I missed that particular circus!

He rocked up with a friend called Chris who sat in on the meet and greet to “Audit the class” as Jensen put it. From something Jensen said later I got the sense that he was a pal from high school. I wonder what on earth he thought of the 19 women and 1 man hanging on every word his buddy had to say! Weirdness I’m sure.

Right of the bat we heard how Jensen found the shooting of Bobby shocking. He was busting to read the follow up script to “How To Win Friends And Influence Monsters”. Usually the scripts are emailed to him, but not this time. The script for “Death’s Door” was hand delivered. Because of that, he knew something was up and it must be big. It wasn’t a complete surprise as he and Jared had been given a heads up, but he was still blown away by it. And though I get the distinct feeling neither of the guys are at all keen on the killing of Bobby storyline, they both admit that “Death’s Door” was an amazing episode, their favourite in fact.

I got to ask Jensen a question. Having been in the Chicago meet and greet and hearing how he sometimes has to ‘Deanify’, as I like to put it, dialogue, I wondered if he ever had to tackle anything in the script, around an action or plot point, that just didn’t feel right and how he dealt with that. He said, yes sometimes an action but rarely a storyline or plot point. More often than not it’s simply just a tweak to the dialogue to make the script sound true to Dean. He spoke again about how they have one outside writer a season submit a script. He asked his buddy Chris about this, as apparently, Chris is a writer. Chris didn’t know. Jensen chastised him. We all grinned like idiots. He then spoke again about the scene where Sam finds out that Dean killed Amy, and how it sounded like a rom-com until they rewrote it while sitting in the makeup trailer and he said Amy…while looking right at me. Amy. That’s me. Amy! I think my heart shot out of my mouth! Yes, I’m that ridiculous….

One of my favourite moments was Jensen’s Bob Singer impersonation. Bob seems to talk to Jensen in some kind of, mumbling, body language, arm-waving code. He basically just has to shrug his shoulders and make an “Ermmmmm” sound, put his hands in the air and walk away and Jensen has it! It means, slow it down, make it longer, or do something different. Jensen got up and acted the whole thing out complete with crazy arm movements and funny faces. Bless.

Like Jared, he also talked about hitting the reset button. He wants to get “the band back together” as he put it. He wants all the old characters back, the dead ones. He also said he didn’t think they’d be listened to because they’re the actors not the writers. But I thought it was really interesting that they both want this. I don’t think it’s necessarily that they don’t like the direction of the season, because both commented on the old school vibe of season seven, which they both like, but I think it’s more as actors, having an ensemble to work off is more rewarding than just having the two of them and as Jensen said, this far into the series, really, they’re making the show for us now, they’re not going to get a slew of new viewers, so if the fans want people back, that should happen. I love that they think they’re making the show for us. It makes me appreciate everything they do, all those long hours away from home, even more. I have to say I don’t mind the reset concept, but not the lose a whole season, disregard what the brothers, but more importantly we, have invested and gone through over the last year or more and just throw it in the trash concept. Uh-ah. Not like! Seems like a jip to me. But I know many people do like the idea. Having said that, I would love to see the band get back together. I would love to see some of my favourite dead guys and gals come back. But if they do it, it better be perfection, s’all I’m saying. I didn’t say any of this to Jensen of course. That would have required me to be coherent!

One thing to look forward to, the Air Supply, All Out Of Love scene in “Slash Fiction” has an extended version that’ll hopefully make the gag real. The song was in the script but then they took it out because it was too expensive. But John Showalter thought they should do it anyway. So in true Jensen style, he went for it. They did the whole song and John said, “You just cost Warner Bros 20 grand” because he knew there was no way they couldn’t use it once they saw it. Personally, that was one of the highlights of the season for me! I loved the moment…when Dean turns, closes his eyes, scrunches up his nose and nods his head to the beat….gold. I can’t wait to see the long version! Jensen can be a huge goof.

Hazel asked a question. She asked if post Supernatural, is there was anything he wouldn’t do. Like, if there was a role that was morally opposed to his beliefs or if there was a line that he wouldn’t cross. He was beautiful about it. He said his grandmother once said to him about acting that it’s in here – points to his head – not in here – points to his heart. So for him, there is an intellectual separation between the content and his personal beliefs. But yes, there are lines he will not cross. He didn’t share what they were. Not that I expected him to. It’s funny, Hazel and I discussed this question and both said, he won’t tell us what that line is. I like that about Jensen. I like that level of privacy.

Someone else commented to him about how amazing the end of “Adventures In Babysitting” was, with the fake smiling. He talked about how that was in the script and sometimes that makes him nervous, when a reaction is actually written into the script like that. He’s worried that he’s reading it right, that he’s doing what the writer wanted. But the fan that asked the question said it was amazing. Jensen thanked her. I wanted to tell him, I barely know a single soul who can get through that scene without bursting into tears. But I couldn’t get my brain and my mouth to connect quickly enough. Blame it on the Jensen effect. Jensenated. Totally.

He also talked, once again, about how his music taste is very much like Dean. He loves classic rock. Add a bit of blues and a bit of country and you have Jensen. He turned to his friend Chris and said how he’d been like that since high school right? Chris smiled and nodded. Poor Chris. Honestly…what on earth must he have thought? He looked like he was enjoying it though, but I wonder if it was an eye opener for him, to see his pal in the light of adulation.

There was also a question about his best and worst working experiences. His best of course is “Supernatural”. He said it was the best thing that every happened to him. That he’d made life long friendships and that the crew was like family. The worst was “Devour”. He suggested we don’t watch it…we all shuffled uncomfortably, because obviously, we’ve all watched it! He said that the movie was rewritten as they were making it, so the movie he signed on for was not the movie that came out. I found myself wondering if that chair scene was in the original script or not. You all know what I’m talking about. Do not pretend for a minute you don’t! Anyway, Jensen said he still couldn’t figure out what the Hell the end meant. I have to agree with him, I have no clue either! He also said that “Ten Inch Hero” held a special place in his heart, because that was where him and Danneel fell in love. Nawwww.

I can’t remember what the question was, but Jensen ended up talking about when Supernatural ends. He said he’s looking forward to getting back to his life. To seeing his wife again, to going and spending some time with his family in Dallas, to being able to hang out with friends. He said he’s not there yet, he still loves the show and doing the show, but he can feel it’s coming and he can feel that he’s going to want to move on and have a change, just not yet. This is what I was saying in the Jared report when he discussed 8 and a possible truncated 9. I got the distinct feeling they’ve got a vision for the next couple of years. We know that they’re all for one and one for all, so I guess maybe they’ve discussed it. I must admit I found it a tad confronting. But realistically, we all know it has to end in the next couple of years and we all know that this, brilliantly talented pair have to move on eventually. Of course we will follow them! They can’t get rid of us that easy! At the end of Jensen discussing this subject, me being the smartarse I am, said “But what if after Supernatural you got offered the most an amazing opportunity on an amazing show, and it shot in Vancouver?”  He looked at me and said he’d knock it back. If it was in LA yes, but he’s done with working away from home…

I saw him do a little nod so I knew the whole thing was coming to an end. Hazel rounded it out with a question about the giant slinky, did he really love it as much as it looked like he did? He laughed out loud. I gotta say, Hazel was beyond stoked that she made him laugh like that! No, he wasn’t in love with the slinky…he was acting. Well, yeah, we knew that, but it was fun to see you bust out a laugh Mr. Ackles.

And it was over. He got up and thanked us for coming. He said it’d been a pleasure to talk to us and I believed him. Jensen puts so much thought into his answers. I love how thoughtful he is. He’s respectful and conscious of giving us all the time we need. He makes sure he gets to everyone who has a question. Man, I can’t even….

Then he strode out of the room and I knew I’d have a long, long wait until I got this opportunity again. But I also knew that I would definitely have this opportunity again, because like I said in part 1 of this longer than long report, I just can’t see me ever giving up the opportunity to sit in a small room with him. I just can’t. Jensen’s meet and greet is the cherry on a huge pile of delicious convention ice cream and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

That’s it! I guess if you didn’t know before how much of a Jensen fan I am, you sure do now! Big surprise huh? ;)

I hope you enjoyed my reports. Thanks so much for reading. See you next time.

Well here I am, another Supernatural Convention in my rear-view mirror and I’m already feeling the long drag until the next one.

My name is Amy and I’m a Supernatural convention addict.

It started last year…no wait, it started before that. It started in 2010 when I went to All Hell Breaks Loose 2 in Sydney. Just being amongst people who didn’t think I was loony-tunes was such a revelation. Let alone meeting the fantastic cast members who attended. Misha, Jim, Rob, Julie and Sam. Of course that year, there was no Jensen or Jared. So for a gal who goes by the moniker sweetondean, there was nothing else for it, I was going to have to head over the seas to get my chance to meet the man in my life and his ridiculously tall buddy.

Last year I did LAcon. Or as I like to call it, the beginning of Amy’s bankruptcy (I kid…sorta). I was blessed to not only meet fellow fans, some of whom have become my closest friends and my convention cohorts, but also to get full on J&J hugs and attend Jensen’s jam session with Jason Manns.  The whole experience was wonderful. The whole experience spoiled me forever. I was hooked.

I followed up LAcon with Chicon…with the friends I met in LA. This time around I did the Jensen meet and greet….. Oh dear. It was all kinds of perfect. He was all kinds of perfect. The spoilage continued.

I was in a predicament. How could I ever do a convention without including something that allowed me to sit in a small room with this man and his freckles? (I have a bit of a thing for the freckles).

The answer was simple: I couldn’t. There was no turning back.

So Burcon rolls around and yep, me and my buddy Hazel, who had basked in the glory of the jam and Chicago meet and greet with me, decided come Hell or high-water, we’d be sitting in a small room with Jensen again. At LAcon his meet and greet had gone for crazy money and I missed out….by one dollar….I may or may not have cried. Then as luck would have it I got a ticket for the jam, which was one of the highlights of, well my life actually! So this time around, having seen LAcon prices, having done the Chicon meet and greet, we had a pretty good idea of what we’d be up for. We placed our bid and tried not to compulsively visit the page for the next week. Both of us were awake to watch the final minutes of the auction tick over. Miracles of miracles, not only did we win 2 seats but the auction closed way under what we thought it would! We had money left over! So at 4am in Sydney and 6am in Wellington NZ, we decide, via a series of frantic and somewhat over excited texts, to bid on Jared’s as well. Guess what. We won that too! You could hear the cheering back and forth across the Tasman that morning! Meet and Greets with both the boys, I was thrilled.

Flash-forward and it’s Sunday March 4 at Burcon, or what I like to call, J-day. As Alice from The Winchester Family Business did a great write up of the Js panels, I won’t be doing that here. I’m just going to give you a sense of my crazy Sunday and then, to the best of my ability in parts 2 and 3, report on both the Js meet and greets.

Having the 2 meet and greets meant that Sunday needed to be like some kind of strategic military operation. It was going to take organisation and maybe a bit of brain engagement, which doesn’t come easy for me on J-day, as you will see.

Hazel and I prepped. We worked out all our timings. We found the meet and greet rooms early, so we’d know exactly where we were going. We even walked the route from the photo room to the meet and greet room and kind of timed it. We weren’t sure how they were doing the seating. In Chicago it was pre-organised, but we heard that sometimes it was lucky dip and sometimes it was first in best seat (it was lucky dip), so we needed to make the trek across the building in the quickest possible time, just in case. We felt ready, we felt organised. We had no idea how crazy it would be.

And so it begins….

5 am Sunday - Wake up to the dulcet tones of Colder Weather by the Zac Brown Band, register that stomach is doing some kind of gymnastic move that would win it gold at the Olympics, get ready in pre-planned Sunday photo op outfit, say my mantra “He’s just a dude, he’s just a dude”, hit the breakfast, don’t eat because of the stomach Olympics, wait….only twitching slightly, gasp when Jensen suddenly appears by himself…come on….who in the audience didn’t think THE BABY CAME EARLY, breathe a sigh of relief when Jensen explains it was a car mix up, cheer when Jared bursts in late. Phew. Laugh. A lot. Bolt from the room when the panel is over, get first in line for the Jensen photos because we have the Jared meet and greet, check lipstick, check teeth, remind myself what my name is, what his name is, how to form whole sentences, step forward, say hello, ask for my poses with surprising external composure, get awesome photo, say thank you, giggle like a thirteen year old, rush to the other damn building (Jensen will comment more on that) for Jared’s meet and greet, anxiously wait for him to arrive, grin like an idiot when he walks in the room, sit for 30 minutes transfixed by his ridiculously gorgeous dimples and surprisingly long eyelashes, rush back to the other building, wait for the J&J photo, check lipstick, check teeth, remind myself what my name is, what their names are, how to form whole sentences, say hello, say thank you, forget to walk away and have Jensen yell jokingly (in his Jensen stern *read smokin’ hot* voice) “Get outta here”, pull weird embarrassed face at Jensen, head-desk internally, find Creation attendant, get first in line for Jared’s photo because we have the Jensen meet and greet, check lipstick, check teeth, remind myself what my name is, what his name is, how to form whole sentences, say hello, blush when he calls me a dag (I’ll explain later), get awesome photo, say thank you, bolt back over to the other building again, try to stop nervous Olympic tummy from making a commando assault on my entire body, drop into a seat and wait for that guy to arrive, remember that I need to breathe if I don’t want to pass out, gasp when Jensen walks in, remind myself about the breathing thing again, gaze at him for 30 minutes while occasionally whispering under my breath to Hazel…Oh..My..God, ask a couple of surprisingly confident and coherent questions, wiggle so much that the ridiculously cliché bodyguard with the sunglasses on nearly makes a move on me, pout when my precious 30 minutes is over, watch him stride out of the room as I feeling equal parts elated and sad, sit for a minute absorbing it all, remember where I am and that I’m on a schedule, sprint up to the hotel room to get that Jensen banner I accidentally bought at the auction (how did THAT happen), sprint back down and drop into my seat in the auditorium to wait for the Js to come on and regale us with their silliness. Laugh. A lot. Go up first for the autos because I have that mysteriously purchased banner, nearly remove Jensen’s head when I flip said banner onto the table, apologise profusely while he laughs it off, get my autos, thank him for the day, blush when he’s all adorable back to me, briefly forget what I’m doing, where I am, who I am, float over to Jared in some kind of haze, have him call me and Hazel a couple of dags, giggle like a thirteen year old, give him a Boba Fett key-ring we bought in Legoland in Chicago, have him be all awww about it, thank him for the day, blush when he’s all adorable back to me and float away. Wait for the upgrade for Vegas, manage to go from row G to row C (!)…and realise….. IT’S ALL OVER……NOOOOO! Grab friends and go drown the post con sorrows in copious amounts of carbohydrates at McDonalds while I start counting the days until VanCon (164).

Doing the two meet and greets did make for a very hectic schedule, but I’m so stoked I got to do them both. It made the day all the more fabulous. You know, these conventions are the most fun I’ve ever had. Having done 3 now, I’m starting to get recognised by other regular convention goers and also, by some of the cast, which is unbelievably cool. I’m so impressed with everyone I meet and so very impressed with the cast that attends and how wonderfully laid back they are. I’ve not had one single negative experience. I sometimes read things about how some fans are disappointed by the reaction they get from the cast members, but I’ve never found that. Maybe it’s because I don’t go in there expecting the world. I understand the time constraints and the pressures they are under, I also understand they are people, they get stressed, they get tired, they’re allowed. So if I didn’t get the most positive response, I would totally understand why, but that’s not the case, because every interaction has always been brilliant. It might be because I’m polite and always make and effort to say something semi-intelligent to them. I always say please, always say thank you, I never assume. I do think sometimes fans can forget that we are all human beings and though I get ridiculously silly around Jensen, I treat him like a human being. I’m courteous and thoughtful about his personal space and never do anything without asking him first if he’s cool with it. I think, especially with him, that goes a long way to getting a positive response. That would be my advice for everyone who goes to these things, always be polite, never be demanding and always make an effort to interact. If you don’t speak to them, why would they speak to you in return? And remember they are people…just people…ridiculously gorgeous and awesome people, but people all the same. They let us hug them, do crazy poses with them and they do it all with a smile. How lucky are we? Very.

Ok….that’s part one! As always, thanks for reading, your support means the world to me!

Next up….Part 2 - Jared’s Meet and Greet.