Connecting the Dots: Vancouver, Part 4

Connecting the Dots: Vancouver, Part 4

A Supernatural convention travelogue by Axy @Aaaahhhxy

Read Part 1 here. Read Part 2 here. Read Part 3 here.

J2. Oh, God. If you have to do ONE op at any con, pick this one. It’s the best damn thing.
My first one was mind-blowing, since, it’s nothing but the Winchester brothers, right ? SAM AND DEAN WINCHESTER. It’s insane to have them both with you.

But I wanted this one to be playful and different.

At the last minute, as I was headed for a good old Winchester hug, I had this idea that could end up being one awesome op. Jared was kind of surprised, in a “um, I’m pretty sure you are one of mine so WTF are you doing ??” that I went straight for Jensen and hugged him, and I asked Jared not to like it. I knew Jared wouldn’t so much as doubt there was no ill agenda behind it and that I was and would forever remain a Sam girl, but I also knew that if they both played it the way I hoped they would, the result could be brilliant.

It was all on Jared.

And I didn’t see how he reacted. It’d be all on the final print.

I was really nervous to find out to what extent he was willing to play along.

Maybe, at this point, I will actually start using blind faith with Jared. Come what may, he always overpasses my wildest expectations by a mile. Always.

However, something strange happened after that, and to this day, I still can’t decide what it meant or what he expected. At the end of this op, and at the end of the solos as well, Jared looked like he expected me to say something, or that he wanted something more. Usually, once we’re done, I don’t stay around because I don’t want to deprive people after me of their moment, but he really looked… I don’t know, as if I left before HE was done.

This has been bugging me for a week now. Should have I stayed around longer? Or said something? I’m still unsure as to how I could have slowed it down. But there was something. And this something both frustrates me and make me feel special. This, strangely enough, echoes what happened on Sunday at Birmingham. He told me something that I was too emotional to so much as hear, and it feels like there is a piece missing in our bond-in-progress, and for some reason, this felt like it came from the same place.

Keep in mind that it’s not any form of angry frustration that results from this weird few seconds, just that… as far as I can remember, every time I met someone who I was admiring and who had any form of impact and importance on my existence, I always was, one way or another, in demand because whatever I’d received would objectively be poor. With Jared, I always got so much back I barely know how to handle it whole. Some emotions are lost in translation because I’m simply not made to take in so much in such a short time. And here, it was kind of making me feel like I’d have to work on my own capacity to take more in because things even nicer might stem from it.

This is a constant. And it’s the same thing I felt at Birmingham, even if, there, it’s much, much bigger: He’s probably giving too much. I don’t feel like he’s protecting himself in any way, and he is so eager to connect intensely with people, I do wonder how he does that. At the end of such days, I do genuinely worry about how actually drained, both physically and emotionally, he is. It’s a little scary, to be perfectly honest.

As a fan, there’s always a dimension of care, of… protection, almost, and it puts me in a position that’s extremely paradoxical, because I’m basically concerned about what I’ve crossed half the world to get. Maybe it’s just because I’m all too aware that his level of selflessness is off the charts. He gives. He gives a lot. And don’t take that the wrong way -- so do the others. Misha and Jensen are amazing, but I’m, unsurprisingly, better suited to focus on Jared because I experience different and various things during the whole day, and it builds itself on a collection of moments and feelings, rather than one or two.

As I was waiting to get my double solo with him, almost immediately after the J2, I went to pick up my first print of the day. I didn’t really know what to hope for, and as I looked at all the pictures aligned on the several tables, I started to actually cross my fingers for it to be as good as I hoped it would be. When I found mine, the first thing I noticed was how cute my hug with Jensen was, and a couple of people pointed at it and laughed -- “ha, nice one !” -- it took me a little while to dare looking… and to keep my laughter contained.

File under “the photo op that killed me.”

It’s going to take a whole, whole lot to beat this one. Strangely enough, I used to firmly believe in the hug pictures, but now that I’ve seen how playful J2 are, my imagination is probably gonna free itself and attempt at things a little bolder. Once you get the hug out of the way, possibilities are vast and infinite. This made me love the both of them even more than I did. 

The solos went amazingly off the rails, and instead of a focused moment, I probably spent thrice the time I was supposed to with him. At first, I explained that I wanted a hug (forget what I’ve previously said -- THIS hug I won’t even bargain away for anything else) and for us to make a heart with our hands, and he squished me so hard and was fully willing to do hug AND heart in the same picture until I explained I had, actually, two. He laughed, then hugged me a second time even tighter, and we did the heart thing, and trust me, at this point of my day, still super close to him, to even remember what a heart was took a massive intellectual effort. 

This probably qualifies as half a heart, half a...potato ?

He has this extraordinary talent that makes my mind go blank within seconds. And that’s about when Chris whispered to us both that for some reason, the hug picture wasn’t good and we had to redo it all over again. AND HE PULLED ME EVEN CLOSER, which at this point, rendered me breathless for good.

Who the hell needs breathing anyway? 

When I say that Jared takes his hug business SUPER seriously, TRUST ME, he does. The fangirl in me had been killed and sent straight to heaven, and even as he took my hands and smiled to me again, reciprocating this vague instant I simply couldn’t take any more of his generosity, I was reaching this really embarrassing moment of being so close to crying my eyes out because he kept on out-Jareding himself, and I wasn’t correctly trained to process it all at once. 

Once more, regardless of how tired I look, or how non-photogenic, Chris did miracles, and Jared looks so… present, in the moment, with me and no one else, the result looks fantastic. I love those pictures more than I can tell, even with my half of the hand-heart resembling, basically, anything but a heart. It really doesn’t matter. I once again look like the epitome of happy, and… yeah, I was. But just like some places have Wi-Fi hotspots, Jared is a happy hotspot. It’s hard not to feel good around someone that just shines from within. 

After that, we went back to the panel room, to get the end of the Mark & Ruth panel -- which I wasn’t exactly really focused on -- and then Alex’s. Within six months, Alex has literally blossomed. At Birmingham, he was still very shy and a little concerned about how his panel would go, but this time, he’s visibly fully himself, he jokes and laughs, and he’s warming up to us, and he’s been nothing but amazing. It’s spectacular to see someone change right before your eyes, and it only made me love Jack more. Alex is not afraid anymore of going into slippery territories and to deliver some one-liners that made me cry my eyes out in laughter. Once more, my memories are often in overload when Jared is anywhere around, so don’t count on me to point at precise instants of the panel. Please, do watch the videos, though, because Alex’s performance was nothing short of stellar. He was amazing. 

And then came the… uh, seventy-sixth mind-blowing moment of a mind-blowing day, when the panel ended and Creation put the names of the people picked up for questions on the screen while waiting for J2 to arrive. Once again, the first thing I’ve seen was that my friend Taylor was first on the left side, and then overlooked the others until Jess nudged me and pointed at the first name on the right side -- “Hey, G31, wouldn’t that be… you?” 

I AM SORRY, WHAT? 

I didn’t really have any time to figure my shit out. I grabbed my passport, let go of a few “putain”  that made my seat neighbors laugh -- putain is wonderfully universal -- and ran to the right side behind the mic, still fully shocked at how, in the same con, I could get picked for Misha, J2 AND end up in the middle front-row seat in a meet-and-greet. That must be the equivalent of winning the fandom lottery. 

And little did I know it would be a question for the books. Taylor asked hers first, and it was all lovely and getting them to talk about the goodness of the fandom, and the kind of warm and fuzzy question that makes you want to hug your neighbor. 

But as soon as they looked my way, I knew I was headed for turbulence. I saw this childlike light in Jared’s eyes and knew he wouldn’t deprive himself of the pleasure of messing around with French Girl. IT DID NOT FAIL. I had barely introduced myself when he started to ask whether my name was “from France.”  AND JENSEN JUMPED RIGHT IN TO MAKE MATTERS (BETTER)WORSE. I was laughing so hard I could barely hear anything, besides that they went overboard with the language thing, until the moment Jensen asked me to say things in French, and when I did, he went for Serge Ladouceur’s help to translate it all. 

SERGE LADOUCEUR, PEOPLE. THIS HAS TO BE THE COOLEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME. I WORSHIP THE MAN. Initially, my question was what they would say to their younger selves, character wise, but they messed around with it all so damn much, even I forgot what I asked. I genuinely thought I was going to die laughing, and even as they finally replied and I found my way back to my seat, the last “Ciao, Bella”  (Jared has issues telling what is Italian from what is French, visibly) and “enchanté” (Jensen’s French is actually kind of OK) did nicely wrap up a moment I will never forget. 

Nowadays, people send me gifs of how playful they were with me, and I am actually honored they were comfortable enough with me to push the game this far. This moment was… hard to describe. For a while, it felt like I was joking with friends, rather than two of the people I admire and love the most on the entire planet. And the further it went, the more… loved? validated? I felt. I didn’t needed to cheat in any way with who I was. I was fully myself, flaws and all, and it just worked. It’s impossible to explain, but it was a really, ridiculously good moment. 

Without any single doubt, it was my favorite J2 panel in a long, long time -- even if today I can’t precisely remember why. I just know it felt like I didn’t want it to end. Ever. And when it did, it dawned on me that I’d been given so much more than I bargained for, and so much more than I expected, I was already considering that if my day stopped there, I’d be the happiest. 

But inside my bag, the last two copies of the book were becoming heavier by the minute, and it felt kind of right, even if still pretty terrifying, to know that I had a weapon of such importance to actually give back significantly after receiving so much. 

Jess, Carrie and I were then headed for the Jared and Misha ops. And I cannot stress it enough: this one is underrated and yet, there’s so much to get. Jared and Misha together are like kids who inspire each other in escalating in the playfulness. It was one of my favorite ops at Birmingham, and I was very much looking forward to doing not one but two this time. One with Carrie, and one with Jess. I actually exchanged a solo Jensen to this dual op with Carrie, since it was her first con, she didn’t know when she’d be able to do it again, and Jensen ops were sold out before she even had the chance to buy them. Anyone deserves a solo with each main on their first con, and I knew I’d get another chance soon, and maybe she wouldn’t, so, it was kind of natural for me to make that exchange. 

My first shot with Carrie was on Misha’s side, and he was so, so lovely. He winked at me and pulled me close and thanked me. The second one, however, we didn’t ask for anything, and let them do whatever they wanted. Jared pulled me even closer than Misha did, while Misha was doing the same with Jess, and for reasons I can’t explain, because there’s nothing really original or different in that picture, this one feels so, so right. There’s something extremely normal, almost logical to the way they erased the barrier between who they are and who we are. It doesn’t look like it’s a couple of fans with their respective fav. It feels like it’s a whole. Almost… almost like a family picture.

Now that I think about it… that’s exactly what it is. 

Read Part 5 here.