raloria

There was quite a surprise waiting for me in the mailbox yesterday!

I have no idea who ordered this for me, but THANK YOU!!! I'm so very honored! From looking this up on Etsy, it looks like only 10 have been sold, so this is a rare gift indeed. I'm really pretty speechless. I'd love to know who ordered this, but I suppose I'll never find out.

You know sometimes I've wondered whether I should keep posting stuff for SPN, especially now that the show is over. Do people still want my caps? Are they still even interested in anything from the show? This incredible gift is certainly reassuring! :D

Again, thank you for this, my SPN Family!

The SPNFamily fell into shock on Friday with the posting of this video on Social Media from Jensen, Jared, & Misha, saying that Season 15 will be the end of the line for SPN.



I've gone through a gamut of emotions, as I'm sure we all have. It's a huge loss. One we all knew would happen one day, but perhaps not quite this soon. It's kind of funny to say the word "soon" in relation to a show that will have a 15 year run. I got to thinking who I was when SPN began and you know what? I can't even remember. This show has forever changed who I am. So what will I be now with it gone? That has been one of the many thoughts going through my head since Friday afternoon.

I've lost sleep, I've shed a few tears, I've feared what this will mean for me and my various homes online, including this journal. But now at the end of this long weekend, I've reached a state of acceptance with it all. After all, we still have the last few episodes of this season and a full 20 episodes for Season 15. A whole year before we really have to say goodbye to the show.

It's a testament to how messed up I've been all weekend that it's taken me this many days to even be able to make a post about this. And I've seen so many of the rest of you make posts already and I haven't even been able to read them. I just couldn't. I promise to go back and read and leave comments, now that I'm more emotionally stable. Goodness knows we all need to support one another now more than ever.

Admittedly, hearing the announcement was similar to learning the world was ending. Our, SPN world, is ending, so I guess it makes sense. Here I thought, "Oh, I'll be prepared for this day." Nope. No way. Not even close! My world turned upside down.

Do I keep capping? Yes. I'll finally catch-up...hopefully!
What about my LJ? Like I'm going anywhere? I think you're all stuck with me.
But the filming locations will come to an end, too. What about those? Again, a chance to catch up at last!

I've asked myself so many questions this weekend. Some I have answers to and others I'm still searching for. But I still have a year to figure it all out. That's something I've had to keep reminding myself of. It's sometimes easy to forget with all the emotions rolling around in my brain.

So what does it all come down to?
SPN has had an incredible run. We are so lucky to have 15 years of this amazing show! I remember back in the early years when we wondered every summer if the show would be coming back. And then it became this invincible thing where the network president loved it and guaranteed it would go as long as the Boys wanted it to. And well, here we are. It says a lot that we learned from the guys themselves and based on what I've read, we learned of their decision right after they told the crew the news. If there was ever any doubt to how they feel about the fans, well, there it is. They broke the news to us themselves. It wasn't some Tweet from a news outlet. Jensen & Jared have said over & over that we're a family, so they had to share the news with all of us. No doubt this is equally a rough time for all of them. So many lives affected - that whole cast & crew. I'm sure it was a difficult decision to make. But I respect that the guys want to spend more time with their families. They spend 9 months out of the year making SPN. That's a lot of missed time with little kids who are growing up so fast. They deserve this break at long last.

The conventions will continue. Less of them, but they'll go on. The SPNFamily will definitely go on and our many creative works will continue to be made in the years to come. The Winchesters will never truly die. Not now, not ever. We will keep them alive. Fanfic will be written, fanart will be made.

I'm not going to talk about all this show has given me right now: the inspiration, the friendships, the strength it's given me to keep going. For this isn't our goodbye. Not yet.
We can see the end of the tunnel, but there's still a few miles to go! Let's embrace these final 24 episodes and use this year to celebrate everything SPN is for each of us! ♥

John from 14x13 "Lebanon":
"All right. Near as I can tell, we have two choices.
We can think about what's coming.
Or we can be grateful for this time that we have together.
Now, me? I choose grateful.
So, to whatever brought us together, we owe you one. Amen."

"OH, BOY!"

Tonight the wonderful SPN_sil on Twitter announced she is no longer going to be covering SPN conventions on Twitter due to her new job and personal reasons. I used to cover cons myself on Storify back when I initially started on the site (I think it was 2013?). I stopped in 2015 when I fell behind and Sil began con coverage with her team. I instead concentrated my Storify posts on Tweets about the SPN Production and namely info. about when and where they were filming.

So with SPN_sil calling it quits, it looks like I'm needed for convention coverage once again.
You know...on top of all the other things I'm doing. 'Cause I've got ALL this time on my hands...obviously. :P

Ha! In all honesty though, this might be the spark I need to light a fire under my butt and get in gear to get myself better organized and actually....you know, get things done. Like I used to.

Or it will be one of the worst decisions ever and a total disaster.

Either way, I've got the experience, so why not step up and take over?
I've supported Sil and her team since day one and I know how much work they've put into the cons they've covered. I only hope I can get close to filling the gap myself. Who needs sleep, right?

Fortunately, I've got a week until ChiCon to prepare and to see if I can actually do this.

Since Storify went caput, I've moved everything over to Wakelet.
So all my old Storify posts are here: https://wakelet.com/@raloria613_bb33d
I'll continue to use this account for SPN Filming Info.

I've set up a new Wakelet account just for SPN Convention Coverage here: https://wakelet.com/@raloriaspn_Zlcr5u

Feel free to follow either or both.
Wish me luck! :)

Been thinking about doing a Friending Meme. Remember those?

LJ seems so quiet lately and I thought maybe a Friending Meme would help us make some new connections and friends and hopefully rebuild our Friends Lists a bit. The meme would be SPN-based, of course, for the most part.

So what do you think?

[Poll #2078634]

Back in January I posted about someone reposting my SPN caps on Instagram without giving me any credit.

Well, I finally left them a comment....on two different posts of my caps. What did I get?

Silence.

I'm sure they'll keep taking my caps and reposting without any credit. Don't really know what else I can do at this point. Caps are fair game, right? 'Cause it didn't take hours to get caps from an episode, sort the good ones out, fix them, and upload them online. Nope. No work involved at all. *sigh*

I love sharing my caps with the fandom. I do. I want people to take and enjoy them. Why is it so hard to expect a quick note of credit???

It's a losing battle. And they won.

Sure would like to know what this Tweet from yesterday is all about. Btw, Mark Meloche is the VFX Supervisor on SPN.

#SPNFamily Don't bask in the glory of something you didn't do, feel the heat, then come clean. It makes you an even bigger ass. Just sayin'.

— ♈ Mark Meloche ♈ (@rotomonkee) September 7, 2017

I mean, why lump the entire SPN fandom together? Surely we didn't all do something so terrible. Seems unfair to make such a Tweet and then not explain it while vilifying the entire SPN Family.
I've read this statement over and over again and still can't figure out what he's talking about. Any ideas out there?

Been busy trying to work on things over at spn_locations aka The Locations List, but it's tough because it's eating away at what little internet data I have left. *sigh* It's frustrating.

So, since that is kind of hit a roadblock at the moment, I've also been trying to figure things out for the spnconcatalog. Things were brought up when I initially started the community, like whether we'd be doing transcripts of the con panels. This was not initially my intention, but I can understand the need for that. It also increases the challenge quite a bit because I know I have a hard time hearing and understanding what's being said in the videos.

Then last week, I was using SuperWiki's list of SPN Cons to look for panel videos. It became pretty apparent that the material from the oldest cons is limited at best. It's also disappearing.

Youtube videos are no longer available, links are no longer viable. So any documentation on the older con panels is fast disappearing. It's also very difficult to find full panel videos from the early cons. Example: I've found a Jensen Panel video from LA Con 2009, but there's none (that I've been able to find) for Jared and then Jared and Jensen's panel.

I've been trying to do a transcript of the J2 Breakfast Panel from ChiCon 2007. Again, there's like only one full video out there, the audio is kind of muffled, and it's difficult to make everything out. But of course, this was from the first SPN Con in the US, so it's pretty important and there's some great moments in there (like Jared wiping his sweaty face on Jensen's shirt).

In thinking all of this over, I've come to a conclusion - We've got to save/document these older con panels before they're totally gone. We need to at least try to transcribe them in order to preserve what happened. At the same time, there's such a backlog of cons to cover, some 10 years of cons from all over the world. Some have more panel videos than others and some were more attended than others. For some cons it's going to be very difficult to find panel videos, especially full ones. Though I'm willing to include panel videos that are broken up into 2 or 3 parts. Not much beyond that though because then it gets too chopped up.

My plan for spnconcatalog is to have entries for individual con panel videos that include an embedded video of the panel and then a transcript of the video/panel. If a transcript can't be done, then there will at least be a list of the highlights of the panel, possibly with some time codes from the video. Since doing transcripts can be really time-consuming, I'm thinking of just doing the highlights first. At least that way we'll have something that documents the panel. The other important element of the comm is going to be the tags. I want them to be simple, yet detailed enough that people will be able to find what they're looking for.

I'm preparing to contact my initial volunteers for spnconcatalog to see if they're still available and interested in helping, but I'm certainly happy to have more. If you enjoy watching SPN con panel videos and have some time, please volunteer over at the community. We're fighting time to preserve these con memories!

Along with losing a lot of the SPN fandom to other social media like Twitter and Tumblr, it seems to me that LJ communities are fast becoming a dying breed. Even I don't post to as many comms as I used to, basically because I could see I was the only person still posting.

I remember when comms were so active and a place where people talked about the show and the actors, now they're pretty much ghost towns.

So is there still a place for LJ comms or are they essentially dead?

[Poll #2061948]

YESSSSSSS!!!!!! All that voting worked!
We've done it yet again, fandom. Bravo! Don't the boys look sexy all laid back on top of the Impala? And in Henleys no less! *drools* I kinda feared Gilmore Girls would win instead, but I kept on voting and putting my faith in our fandom. We still have the power!!!

And you gotta love how EW put a little moose & squirrel in the letters on the cover. Cute!!! Even Jensen noticed & tweeted about it. Nice little Easter Egg that only the SPN Family will get and appreciate. Can't wait to pick up one of these later in the week!

It’s official: #Supernatural won the #EWCoverBattle for their first-ever EW cover! https://t.co/4EFps0A1Xs 😱 #EWxSPN pic.twitter.com/O31yJvrNvP

— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) September 6, 2016

Check out the awesome video of the photo shoot as well (yes, I will be capping it soon!). All the guys showing appreciation for the fans. ♥ :D

Check out this gorgeous work done in Photoshop by gonzosgirrl on Twitter of one of my Jensen 2012 VanCon photos. Stunning. :)

PS smudge painting of @JensenAckles based on an amazing original VanCon 2012 photo from https://t.co/gSPJvZlDgD pic.twitter.com/4vdcyQkV8n

— gonzosgirrl (@gonzosgirrl) November 2, 2015