LJ and Fandom Nostalgia
Nov. 25th, 2008 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ht_murrayWow, it's funny how things come full circle. I was just sitting here sorting through my journal entries, trying to think what to keep and what to delete, and I came upon a post I made waaaaay back when I had just opened this LJ. And it's funny, because it was right after "No Exit" had aired, and fandom was in an uproar about the craptastic lack of awesome it was... kinda like now. Tracer and I had been wanting to write a letter to Kripke for months, and because we knew he read the message boards, and the message boards were just overflowing with negativity at that point, we decided that was the best time to write him.
This has to be the single most fangirly thing I have ever done, aside from going to a convention, and now I'm looking back at it and grinning, because... man.
I don't think I had very many LJ friends yet, so most of you probably won't remember what happened. But Tracer and I wrote this really ridiculous letter and mailed it to Kripke. We mailed it from Tracer's house. We included our screen names (BurstynOut and Tracer2032) but not our email or any site information. We sent the letter and just kinda figured that was that. We didn't know whether to expect a response or anything, but we felt good for doing it. At the time, we were both writing the Virtual Season over at supernatural.tv, and a couple months later, out of the blue we got an email through our VS account from someone at the address we'd sent the letter to. I don't have the email anymore, so I can't remember what the name was. But this person was like, "Your letter was awesome, and we're so tickled by it here, we're forwarding it to Eric." As a postscript she asked us not to give out the email address we got it from, because they were constantly having to change it because it got passed around too much.
You can imagine, we were flabbergasted, because, their super secret email aside, how the hell did they know where to email US? Like I said, we never included our email or site info in the letter. A couple people, of course, peed in our ears and said it was just someone pulling our legs, because it made no sense that they found us, two lowly fangirls adrift in the great sea of Internet, and went to the trouble of contacting us personally. To be honest, we almost started believing it probably was a joke, though only a handful of people even knew we sent the letter.
Then, out of the blue, in February, Tracer pinged me on IM and said, "Go check your mail! I got something from Supernatural Productions!" And I looked, and lo and behold, we both got an autographed picture of the boys and a hand-signed letter from Eric and the Writer's Office. Okay, so the letter was kind chinchy, but it was on Supernatural letterhead and even had the address blacked out in the corner. Glee! Most satisfaction I've had in years, lemme tell ya.
And the moral of that story is, make no mistakes people, they are watching and reading, and they pay attention. They found our virtual season contact information just based on our screennames. If you suspect they're reading something you posted, they probably are.
So, anyway, digging through my journal, I found the post about the letter and the response, and I realized that, at the time, I didn't have a scanner, but now I do. So, I'm scanning in the letter and the picture they sent us.
Erm, in case you're curious, here's the revised edition of the letter we sent:
November 3, 2006
Dear Mr. Kripke (aka the god of all things supernatural and owner of the Winchesters in this and all inspired Alternate Universes in which we frequently reside),
As two of your most loyal, obsessed, and ever-present subjects in this fandom, (and yes, this is a co-write), we feel the need to first, express our undying love and loyalty for Supernatural, the foundation upon which our feeble realities are built. Thursdays have become a haven. They're the only day on the calendar as far as we're concerned.
Cut large piece of text in which we apologize for fandom and sound like total asshats
Salt lines may not be a powerful enough deterrent in such matters of asshattery. You might try incorporating exorcism rites directly into the episodes subliminally instead, preferably during the massive commercial breaks CW seems so fond of.
Devoted and enamored fans that we are, (let the fangirling begin) we spend just about every waking hour completely submersed in all aspects of Supernatural, and we truly do appreciate all the work that you and your team put into this show.
We just wanted to thank you, personally, for: the decreasing GPAs, lonely spouses, pissed bosses, hard drives full of promo pics, paid membership to NowCasting, sleepless nights, stacks of dirty dishes, strokes and coronaries, renamed pets, and Latin kinks. You deserve credit for: boosting Stanford's application numbers, addiction to Fan Fiction, and the inspiration that led to hundreds of thousands of penned words of said fiction,(*takes deep breath before continuing,) -- crooked, arthritic fingers, carpal tunnel syndrome, eye strain, and a new-found appreciation of classic rock. Foreigner never sounded so damn good.
Wait...there's more--we thank you, as well, for: the love of gas guzzling automobiles, making demonology dinnertime conversation, and giving us something new each week to counteract the onset of writer's block. We also credit you, personally for the increased work productivity of CW network employees everywhere who receive second by second progress reports when the channel doesn't cough up our boys on schedule. Those people should know the Winchesters are top priority -- who really gives a damn about tornado warnings anyways.
We're really grateful, seriously -- to the tune of installing cable lines even though we already had hundreds of expensive satellite channels which did not show the Winchesters and were, therefore, deemed worthless, for making us feel like geniuses when we actually see similarities between our own ideas and theories and the ever-developing canon of the show.
And yes, more...for giving us one-word essay test answers such as "Dean", "Sam" and "John" when professors are clueless enough to ask us to define the difference between true heroes and mortal men, for showing us heroes that are human enough to inspire us to strive for moral excellence in our own lives, and for making us consider and reflect upon the grey areas, where society pushes black and white.(Wow, all the way back in November 2006 we wrote this. *raises eyebrows*) And let's not forget, thanks for making being antisocial and spending hours and hours on the internet totally cool.
But most of all, we praise the dedication you have to your vision, and the extreme effort you put into this project and into the fans' numerous questions. Now if you would just address this necklace thing, we'd all sleep just a little bit better, or maybe, a small gesture-- recommend an old book or something so we can figure it out Sam style.
Okay, okay, we get it. It's a secret. Well, at least until the End of Days when we'll probably all fall into the Hellmouth under the Stull Cemetary. Of course, we'll all be seeking refuge in Sacramento when that happens, so thank Shiban personally for us, seeing as he provided the name of the sacred place that will save our damned souls.
Basically, it all comes down to us just wanting you to know that there are people out there in fandom who actually GET what you're doing and respect you and your vision. Thanks so much for making our lives a hell of a lot more interesting and giving us a 24-hour, 7 day a week obsession that revolves around THE best hour on TV.
Sincerely, (well, he knows our names now, and you don't, LOL.)
And here's the scan of the full letter they sent in return, mostly just included for the Supernatural letterhead:
And here's just the text. Yeah, it's kinda lame, but it is hand-signed, even if it looks like some dude named CiCi signed it, LOL.
AND last but not least, the autographed picture. I know, I know, it's just an autographed picture, but now that I've done the whole waiting in line at a convention thing, I appreciate this sooo much, cuz LOOK, Jared wrote, "Much Love," and Jensen wrote, "All my best," and best we could hope for at the convention was the loopty-loops we assume are their names. I dunno, maybe you can get personalized autographs on ebay or something, but I'm just tickled they sent us this and we didn't ask for anything.
And there you have it, the tale of two fangirls. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Funny how things come full circle and I'm reposting one of the first things I ever posted in this journal and it still seems so relevant.
This has to be the single most fangirly thing I have ever done, aside from going to a convention, and now I'm looking back at it and grinning, because... man.
I don't think I had very many LJ friends yet, so most of you probably won't remember what happened. But Tracer and I wrote this really ridiculous letter and mailed it to Kripke. We mailed it from Tracer's house. We included our screen names (BurstynOut and Tracer2032) but not our email or any site information. We sent the letter and just kinda figured that was that. We didn't know whether to expect a response or anything, but we felt good for doing it. At the time, we were both writing the Virtual Season over at supernatural.tv, and a couple months later, out of the blue we got an email through our VS account from someone at the address we'd sent the letter to. I don't have the email anymore, so I can't remember what the name was. But this person was like, "Your letter was awesome, and we're so tickled by it here, we're forwarding it to Eric." As a postscript she asked us not to give out the email address we got it from, because they were constantly having to change it because it got passed around too much.
You can imagine, we were flabbergasted, because, their super secret email aside, how the hell did they know where to email US? Like I said, we never included our email or site info in the letter. A couple people, of course, peed in our ears and said it was just someone pulling our legs, because it made no sense that they found us, two lowly fangirls adrift in the great sea of Internet, and went to the trouble of contacting us personally. To be honest, we almost started believing it probably was a joke, though only a handful of people even knew we sent the letter.
Then, out of the blue, in February, Tracer pinged me on IM and said, "Go check your mail! I got something from Supernatural Productions!" And I looked, and lo and behold, we both got an autographed picture of the boys and a hand-signed letter from Eric and the Writer's Office. Okay, so the letter was kind chinchy, but it was on Supernatural letterhead and even had the address blacked out in the corner. Glee! Most satisfaction I've had in years, lemme tell ya.
And the moral of that story is, make no mistakes people, they are watching and reading, and they pay attention. They found our virtual season contact information just based on our screennames. If you suspect they're reading something you posted, they probably are.
So, anyway, digging through my journal, I found the post about the letter and the response, and I realized that, at the time, I didn't have a scanner, but now I do. So, I'm scanning in the letter and the picture they sent us.
Erm, in case you're curious, here's the revised edition of the letter we sent:
November 3, 2006
Dear Mr. Kripke (aka the god of all things supernatural and owner of the Winchesters in this and all inspired Alternate Universes in which we frequently reside),
As two of your most loyal, obsessed, and ever-present subjects in this fandom, (and yes, this is a co-write), we feel the need to first, express our undying love and loyalty for Supernatural, the foundation upon which our feeble realities are built. Thursdays have become a haven. They're the only day on the calendar as far as we're concerned.
Cut large piece of text in which we apologize for fandom and sound like total asshats
Salt lines may not be a powerful enough deterrent in such matters of asshattery. You might try incorporating exorcism rites directly into the episodes subliminally instead, preferably during the massive commercial breaks CW seems so fond of.
Devoted and enamored fans that we are, (let the fangirling begin) we spend just about every waking hour completely submersed in all aspects of Supernatural, and we truly do appreciate all the work that you and your team put into this show.
We just wanted to thank you, personally, for: the decreasing GPAs, lonely spouses, pissed bosses, hard drives full of promo pics, paid membership to NowCasting, sleepless nights, stacks of dirty dishes, strokes and coronaries, renamed pets, and Latin kinks. You deserve credit for: boosting Stanford's application numbers, addiction to Fan Fiction, and the inspiration that led to hundreds of thousands of penned words of said fiction,(*takes deep breath before continuing,) -- crooked, arthritic fingers, carpal tunnel syndrome, eye strain, and a new-found appreciation of classic rock. Foreigner never sounded so damn good.
Wait...there's more--we thank you, as well, for: the love of gas guzzling automobiles, making demonology dinnertime conversation, and giving us something new each week to counteract the onset of writer's block. We also credit you, personally for the increased work productivity of CW network employees everywhere who receive second by second progress reports when the channel doesn't cough up our boys on schedule. Those people should know the Winchesters are top priority -- who really gives a damn about tornado warnings anyways.
We're really grateful, seriously -- to the tune of installing cable lines even though we already had hundreds of expensive satellite channels which did not show the Winchesters and were, therefore, deemed worthless, for making us feel like geniuses when we actually see similarities between our own ideas and theories and the ever-developing canon of the show.
And yes, more...for giving us one-word essay test answers such as "Dean", "Sam" and "John" when professors are clueless enough to ask us to define the difference between true heroes and mortal men, for showing us heroes that are human enough to inspire us to strive for moral excellence in our own lives, and for making us consider and reflect upon the grey areas, where society pushes black and white.(Wow, all the way back in November 2006 we wrote this. *raises eyebrows*) And let's not forget, thanks for making being antisocial and spending hours and hours on the internet totally cool.
But most of all, we praise the dedication you have to your vision, and the extreme effort you put into this project and into the fans' numerous questions. Now if you would just address this necklace thing, we'd all sleep just a little bit better, or maybe, a small gesture-- recommend an old book or something so we can figure it out Sam style.
Okay, okay, we get it. It's a secret. Well, at least until the End of Days when we'll probably all fall into the Hellmouth under the Stull Cemetary. Of course, we'll all be seeking refuge in Sacramento when that happens, so thank Shiban personally for us, seeing as he provided the name of the sacred place that will save our damned souls.
Basically, it all comes down to us just wanting you to know that there are people out there in fandom who actually GET what you're doing and respect you and your vision. Thanks so much for making our lives a hell of a lot more interesting and giving us a 24-hour, 7 day a week obsession that revolves around THE best hour on TV.
Sincerely, (well, he knows our names now, and you don't, LOL.)
And here's the scan of the full letter they sent in return, mostly just included for the Supernatural letterhead:
And here's just the text. Yeah, it's kinda lame, but it is hand-signed, even if it looks like some dude named CiCi signed it, LOL.
AND last but not least, the autographed picture. I know, I know, it's just an autographed picture, but now that I've done the whole waiting in line at a convention thing, I appreciate this sooo much, cuz LOOK, Jared wrote, "Much Love," and Jensen wrote, "All my best," and best we could hope for at the convention was the loopty-loops we assume are their names. I dunno, maybe you can get personalized autographs on ebay or something, but I'm just tickled they sent us this and we didn't ask for anything.
And there you have it, the tale of two fangirls. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Funny how things come full circle and I'm reposting one of the first things I ever posted in this journal and it still seems so relevant.
