#supernatural fandom history

[how-the-feathers-have-fallen]

Just when I think this fucking fandom is getting some fucking peace some mad man driving a gasoline truck rams straight into garbage fire....

Anyway wake up babe new Supernatual actor men rpf dropped!!

[orionsangel86]

There is something about proudly proclaiming a show "tumblrista catnip" that makes me emotional.

Something about how for years tumblrinas were ridiculed by show creators.

Something about Supernatural having a meta episode set at a convention with all the weirdo fans that made the main characters uncomfortable. Something something about Becky and the message that fangirls are gross and obsessive.

Something about Sherlock and the way fans were portrayed as crazy obsessive nutjobs for trying to figure out how he faked his death.

Something about creators mocking fandoms, dismissing them as freaks. Something about queer people not being welcome to engage in their creations because "why do you have to make everything gay?"

Something about the malicious culture of queerbaiting throughout the 2000s/2010s, followed by Bury Your Gays tropes across the media landscape because hell, you should be grateful we even gave you queer characters to begin with - and everyone dies in our show! You ain't special!

Something about Destiel questions being banned from conventions...

And then...

Something instead about Good Omens, and letting the story adapt naturally, embracing the fanbase and leaning into the fanservice.

Something about Our Flag Means Death, and the genuine outpouring of love and affection between cast, crew, and fandom that culminated in an explosion of fanworks that were never once mocked or deemed gross or wrong.

Something about Sandman, and staunchly digging in their heels on the queerness of it all, refusing to give in to the homophobes and instead avidly mocking THEM on social media rather than us.

Something about the writers hearing about fandoms favourite ships and excitedly stating that YES! We DID lean into that because it happened naturally and made sense.

Something about a firefighter coming out as bisexual after 7 seasons...

So yeah, something about a new high quality show made FOR US. By creators that love US. Respect US, and WANT our love.

Something about US FINALLY being a target audience for the best shows being made on TV now.

Tumblrista catnip. Creators saying "we made this for you. You are important. Your voices have been heard."

It just... all got a bit overwhelming for a moment there.

[destinationtoast]

Toastystats: TV fandom fix-its on AO3 - Supernatural

Following the previous cross-fandom look at TV fix-its, we're starting fandom deep dives. We're starting with the strongest fandom response to a finale I've ever seen -- Supernatural.

For lots more data, explanations of all of the above, plus any clarifications & corrections, click through to AO3.

[boywifesammy]

i will always love spn not only because i like the show but because as someone who enjoys fandom & transformative fiction, it is THE foundation for modern fandom. it’s a pillar of the fandom experience. this show lead to the creation of ao3 and the entire omegaverse. simply from a historical perspective it holds so much weight & value and u gotta take some joy out of being a part of that.

[geekthefreakout]

Ten Years Ago This Week....

Jared Padalecki started some Twitter beef with Justin Bieber.

This led to Beliebers calling for a boycott of Supernatural, which was airing it's 9th season at the time to diminishing views.

In response, the Supernatural Fandom (currently at the height of its power) called on every fan, former fan, and fellow nerd to tune in to that week's episode (9.11, First Born) to collectively defend Jared and shove the Beliebers into a figurative locker by making their boycott night into a triumph. The call to action looked like this:

(sorry it's blurry, I'm on mobile and just downloaded this screenshot from Pinterest here)

Feel free to cringe.

The campaign was successful, and when the episode aired on 1/21/14 it became the most viewed episode of Supernatural since 2010, when the show's 5th (and arguably best) season was airing.

A wacky time was had by all. This is yet another example of Supernatural having been an Unparalleled Media Experience.

Thank you for coming to history class today.

[shinelikethunder]

inspired by @not-supernatural's TWOP fandom-history deep dive, i did some drive-by gifting of paid-account time to old SPN livejournal communities that have been imported to dreamwidth - namely, ones with thousands upon thousands of prompt/fill comments that live beyond the reach of any built-in tagging system

behold, now with ✨ full-text comment search ✨

SPN Masquerade (anonymous kink meme that runs in brief rounds; fills manually archived and tagged on the spn_masquerade pinboard)

hoodie_time (general community for dean-centric hurt/comfort; in addition to regular tagged posts, has ten comment-meme rounds with manually compiled masterlists of fills)

ohsam (general community for sam-centric hurt/comfort; in addition to regular tagged posts, has a variety of comment memes listed under the '&' prefix in the tag list, with fill masterlists)

btw, hat tip to the insane manual curation work that's gone into maintaining those masterlists and external pinboard archives over the years. y'all are the real fandom-history MVPs and the only reason The Good Stuff is still findable a decade later. comment search is just a supplement for people who really want to dig.

[insanesonofabitch]

Someone should make like a The Road So Far montage with Carry On My Wayward Son playing in the background but for basically everything insane that’s happened in spn history going back from at least after 2020 up to current day, including recent bedlund podcast/twitter post, like as a form of preparation before we proceed to the next season

[panicroomsammy]

Absolutely devastating that the guys who ao3 was invented for (samdean) never got to do what the guys who fandom was invented for (K/S) did (fuck or die episode)

[lol-jackles]

Whenever Anons tell me that Jared fans are just as bad as AAs and hellers, I always ask for receipts.

The reason they won't ever be able to provide this (besides the ones Jai & co have been exposed as having faked to frame Jared fans...) is they don't exist (I know you know this lol, just making a general statement). The thing is, AA's are soooo beyond sensitive that they literally think saying we don't like Jensen's outfit at a con, or that he looks tired, or that he's had botox is "hate". You say anything even remotely critical about Jensen? You must hate him. They take such personal offense to things that are barely a slight to Jensen as hate.

Jared fans on the other hand, have had over 16 years of dealing with the hate and insults and biting their tongues. They have a much thicker skin. They are getting more assertive and pushing back more nowadays, but they still had to stay quiet for 15 years to keep the peace because, for some reason, it fell on them (much like it falls on Jared).

Btw this is exactly how and why I left the Jensen fandom completely. I was a Jensen leaning J2 fan when I joined the fandom. Problem was that I didn't immediately turn on blinders to Jensen's behavior when I joined (like a good little Jensen fan is expected to). So I made a mildly critical comment about him and was dogpiled. I was told I wasn't a real fan and that I actually hated him and was just pretending to like him. I was called some pretty gross stuff and told I wasn't wanted there. And from people I really didn't expect (at the time I didn't expect it at least). That's when I realized there weren't a lot of "safe spaces" in the Jensen fandom and it was exhausting trying to get news about him from sites where I also had to see (tagged) Jared hate and them attacking other fans like me. It was just easier to not bother anymore.

I actually saw a few posts recently from TB/GenV fans who were really annoyed that Jensen had a cameo in GenV because it's annoying how he takes over and all the gifsets and everything are all him. They didn't want him on the spinoff because that was a show mostly safe from his fans. It took them less than one season to piss off TB and GenV fans. Jared fans put up with it for 15 years.

Thank you for sharing your history. This completely jives with the many private convo I had with Dean/Jensen fans laminating the lack of safe space within their fandom that doesn't include Destiel and/or hating on Sam/Jared (X) but also expected to never discuss Dean or Jensen other than a perfect victim because AAs viewed themselves as perfect victims that the world must change and cater to them. The only advice I could provide them was to go to original posts by Sam girls (because at least they respect the show's canon) and look at who are reblogging or liking with Dean's avatar or his name.

Yeah I never understood why it fell on Sam girls to keep the fandom peace by appeasing the demented Sam haters. Just like it fell on Jared to protect Jensen from Destiel hellers' campaign to slander Jensen as a homophobe (*wave hello to MallorytoyourMickey aka Heidi aka High-D aka my buddy!*) but they won't protect Jared from slanderous lies spread by their own fandom on social media.

Which is why AAs, hellers, and even Kripke get the shock of their lives when Sam/Jared girls do strike back because they're like cats - chill and indifferent but have murder mittens and Freddy Kruger hands when rudely poked.

I’ve joked that Jared’s stans’ response to the Prequel debacle was “I’VE BEEN FREED!"  They no longer have to support and defend Jensen especially now that SPN is over, then the Prequel debacle was the cherry on top because it gave them the ultimate permission to no longer do the geek social fallacy thing. And I like to think that Dean fans are also free from Ackles Army's death grip of the character now that they're moving on to The Boys fandom.

Speaking of which, I'm not surprised to hear TB/GenV fans are annoyed by the AAs. The soap opera and SPN fandom couldn't stand them, why would TB fandom be any different? As long as AAs view themselves as perfect victims, they don't believe they need to change their attitude.

[cuppertys]

I'm afraid I've travelled back in time about 10 years (ish)

The only thing that can make this narative complete now is if we get supernatural trending

I mean like we don't have to but It would be kinda cool

[sapphicsigh]

Y'all are so weird (derogatory) for pressuring actors to confirm their sexuality for YOUR comfort. You do realize that REAL PEOPLE CANNOT QUEERBAIT RIGHT?! GET A GRIP!!! Y'ALL ARE ACTIVELY MAKING PPLS LIVES WORSE!!!*

*if you think forcing kit connor to come out of the closet was a good thing, then ur a freak (derogatory), and u need to rethink ur entire life

Queerbait is a term that was created to describe how TV SHOWS & MOVIES market their project as queer to entice queer viewers to watch and there's no follow thru/delivery. Queerbaiting can also occur unintentionally at first and then when the showrunners/writers realize the audience's reactions they can start to intentionally lean into making their characters do gay shit. The writers lean into a queer reading of the relationship to gain queer viewers and (most importantly) their money (think Supernatural and Sherlock). Cas confessed his love for Dean (duh, obviously he loves him) and then was sucked away into super hell. 😀 cool/s. When John and Mary got married, they were dancing together at the reception, and SHERLOCK LEFT BC HE WAS SO SAD. He couldn't stand to be there and feel so alone. He had to go brood elsewhere, he was brooding so hard.

Killing Eve was probably one of the gayest shows I've seen in my entire life but they (Villanelle and Eve) never got together.

Queerbaiting sucks. I understand the hatred for it. I hate it too!!! But it's not an individual issue and is not going to be solved by harassing 18yr olds on Twitter (incredibly sick & twisted (derogatory) btw). Do I find it annoying that Harry Styles is purposely vague about his sexuality? Yes! Absolutely! It's weird asf. At best, he's actually queer, just incredibly private, and at worst, he's straight but wants to maintain an air of mystery around himself to seem cooler/edgier. No matter how annoying/cringe YOU PERSONALLY find a celebrity and how they describe (or don't) their sexuality it DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO THAT (very personal) INFORMATION!!! Queerbaiting is an industry wide issue and is a product of our society's deep rooted homophobia! If you can't understand that, then you should try learning about queer history and the Hays codes.

[bakanokiwami]

TOP 10 FANDOMS FOR CROSSOVERS ON FANFICTION.NET BASED ON NUMBER OF FANFICTION (1999-2022)

To make this bar chart race, all series titles in the Crossovers section and the Crossover entries in the regular Misc section on November 29 (or the closest date to it) of every year were copy-pasted from Wayback Machine to Google Sheets, rearranged according to number of fanworks, and then inputted to Flourish to turn into a bar chart race.

In March 27 2009, FFN launched support for crossover fanfiction. Before this date, authors either posted their crossovers in just one category and noted that it was a crossover in its summary, or posted them in one of the generic crossover categories in the Misc. section (such as X-overs, or Cartoons X-overs). There wasn’t a filter to screen all crossovers of specific fandoms back then.

Originally, the fanfiction list was sorted alphabetically, but was changed to number of fics at around early 2013.

Interestingly enough, the crossover sections don’t seem to be suffering from a total fanfiction discrepancy, unlike the sections for non-crossover fanfiction.

Please refer to this post for more fanfiction bar chart races.

Thanks for understanding and hopefully I didn’t mess up anywhere! 🙏

[annmariethrush]

Just took a stroll through the wiki page for Omegaverse and I can’t stop laughing. How did a person use a professional tone to write about someone in 2010 creating a whole new kind of fiction just to make a mpreg w*ncest fic. Crazy world, I fucking love this fandom.

[sassy-sofia]

There is a fine line between comfort characters and characters you want to comfort. But there are a those gems that fit into both categories and you will cling to them for far too long

[onedumbasscow]

im still relatively new to spnblr and i'm just wondering why does everyone hated jarpad? i know about the et tu twitter fiasco but that can't be it has he truly done unspeakable crimes or do ya'll just think he's annoying

[shinelikethunder]

#you gotta know how dire the gay tv landscape was in 2005 to understand why this show hit livejournal like an a-bomb#even if you were lucky enough not to get hit directly you were still living in the fallout zone of whatever the fuck this is

PLEASE elaborate 💖 i am sitting and taking notes

i mean, pretty much what it says on the tin - this was before even Glee, it was a fuckin' wasteland out there, especially for major/recurring characters in genre TV. Xena was over; Willow/Tara had long since gone down in flames; Doctor Who had just been revived by a gay showrunner who was being absolutely pilloried in the press for "pushing a gay agenda" over the mere existence of Jack Harkness. hell, even as late as 2009, when Torchwood had been a thing for several years and Russell T Davies was getting fan backlash for killing off one half of the juggernaut m/m pairing, know what the, again, then-current Doctor Who & Torchwood showrunner's advice was for shippers threatening to ragequit?

"I thank them for watching the show and I recommend they go watch Supernatural, because those boys are beautiful. And don’t tell me they’re brothers. [Laughs] Not in my mind."

over on livejournal, fic communities had been trending more and more open to weird shit for a while, but SPN was basically every possible kind of catnip for slash and iddy kink fic rolled into one and the only price of admission was getting over the incest thing. it... pretty much opened the floodgates on taboo fic. (not that there was any shortage of weird shit in, say, harry potter fandom, but there was still a mainstream vs. weird shit distinction, y'know?) the SPN and J2 kinkmemes were like. the twin black holes of weird gay porn at the galactic center of LJ fandom. the shit SPN generated/popularized spread so fast and so widely that it was Basically Impossible to exist on that corner of LJ without constantly hearing echoes of the latest bizarro J2 drama or encountering tropes that had crawled out of the seedy underbelly of SPN fic. we're talking "documented Patient Zero origin of the omegaverse" here.

basically, up until 2 months ago i had only ever seen one episode of this damn show in my life, but i feel like i've been unwilling neighbors with it for 17 fucking years, lol. because ever since the show first aired, it's been impossible to be in slash fandom and NOT be at least adjacent to it.