y’all wanna hear the story of how @amazinmango and i got this photo op at phxcon this weekend?
PART ONE: BEFORE THE OP
so here’s the thing: n o n e of this was planned. it was amazing, hilarious, ridiculous kismet.
mango’s had his birthday recently, and so i brought his birthday present with me to phxcon. part of the present was a pair of jensen’s underbears (i think the text i sent mango right after jib was, “we’re close enough that it’s not weird if i buy u underwear right????”) bc i thought that was hilarious from jib and mango is a huge jensen fan and dean!boy. so the original joke was just that mango could have the bear underwear. i also got him a second pair in orange, bc orange is his fav colour. this was as far as i thought this would go.
so i get into phoenix thursday night and give mango his present. we didn’t know there were cockles photo ops until friday afternoon when we saw hard tickets for sale. i distinctly remember being bummed that my hometown con had cockles photo ops for sale online but phxcon, the one i was actually going to, did not. but obviously once i saw they were available, like. THERE WAS ONLY ONE CHOICE. so after deciding it was completely financially irresponsible when we have no money, i bought the op.
i can’t remember when it occurred to us that we had both the underbears and a pair of lucky orange underwear for misha in our hotel room. we wanted to do something fun and funny for the op, and cracked ourselves up at the idea. but we were also aware that it could be, you know, kind of sort of maybe intensely uncomfortable to be like (a) i know what underwear u were wearing and (b) here i brought pairs of them for you to further laugh over. i have a T E R R I B L E akdslkjkas embarrassment squick, so we didn’t want to do anything that made us uncomfortable, and we definitely didn’t want to do anything that would make misha or jensen uncomfortable. we wanted them to have fun with us and play around with us.
we ran our idea passed our roomie, who has some good con experience, to see if she thought it would fly or not. we agreed on judging our plan based on their mood on the day and asking them if they felt comfortable enough to do it was the best course of action, with a back-up plan ready to go immediately just in case, so j+m knew we were serious that they could totally pass on it if it was weird. CONSENT AND SAFE SPACE. we were hella concerned about this.
PART TWO: THE PHOTO OP
sunday we get all our props together, the underwear for Plan A and the wigs for Plan B. (both mango and i have mohawks, so we bought them mohawk wigs so the four of us could just mohawk it up). finally tickets for our op get called and i bounce all the way down the corridor next to mango, first as a joke and then for serious because i started to get nervous/excited and asking mango who was gonna talk and how were we gonna get the backstory out quickly that they were mango’s birthday underwear and it was just too funny and coincidental to us to pass up and we love them and we’re sorry and they can totally say no.
so we get into the room, and at this point i’m chanting PROPERTY TAXES in my head to try to adult maturely and repress the hysterical giggling i’ve been doing for the last half hour, while also dancing around bc i always need to move, especially when i’m all adrenaline-y and happy and slightly manic (as anyone who has ever drank with me will tell u), and mango’s false mask of calm is completely dissolving as he starts swearing and we can SEE THEM and they’re RIGHT THERE and we really want Plan A to be a go but we don’t know and also they are like two meters from us holy shit holy shit breathe.
at the j2 panel, jensen seemed like he was in a good mood, but that had also been a couple hours passed already. so we check in the handler, and she’s like, nah you’re fine they’ve been happy and playful all day go ask. so then it was us! and we showed them what we brought and did our quick spiel that i bought the underwear for mango for his birthday and they can totally say no; we just thought it was funny. so jensen and misha are, like, inspecting the underwear and jensen does really seem to like those underbears. he was like checking the size and holding them up against himself to see how they’d fit. mango mentions to jensen that i bought one of the last pairs because when i reloaded the website after paying, they said SOLD OUT. and then jensen leans over to misha and laughs that he should’ve bought stock in ethika.
so at this point we’ve taken up wayyyy more time than we’re supposed to and get waved to move to the side out of the frame (we already mentioned we didn’t want to be in the photo once they said yes), and jensen and misha pose, and then given us back the underwear and i got a quick hug from jensen.
PART THREE: THE AUTOGRAPHS
obviously after this both mango and i are, like, hysterical and super happy and can’t believe they actually fucking did the thing. and had fun with it. and it wasn’t awkward and they don’t hate us or think we’re creepy and we’re going to have an amazing, amazing photo. so, like. i know a lot of people will cry before/during/after their photo ops, but for me, apparently my response is just loud, uncontrollable pleased cackling. i laughed for the next hour and 15 minutes just continuously and bouncing around and waiting impatiently for the photos to come out so we could take a picture and be like LOOK AT WHAT WE DID. which is when i posted the op yesterday.
right after that, jensen and jared started signing autographs. so we’re waiting for our row to be called while i’m watching my phone start to blow up with notes and questions and mango and i also realize that we’re starving and need to go get food stat.
we’re standing in line for jensen’s auto cramming bacon-loaded grease sandwiches in our faces with one hand and watching our phones with the other hand when i start to notice the op getting tagged with #underbears and people asking if we’re going to get them signed. and, okay, i love you fandom. i love you so, so much, so i say this with all the love in the world. but when i read the tag #underbears i literally fell down on the floor laughing because that was the funniest shit i had ever heard in my life at that point. and was like, MANGO WE NEED JENSEN TO SIGN THESE I HAVE TO TELL HIM ABOUT THE UNDERBEARS TAG. and mango was like, well we’ll ask but say he can sign something else, and i was like, no no no he h a s t o i have to tell him that his underwear has a tag and it’s great and i love everything right now.
so again, once we got up near the table, we asked the handler if it’d be okay, and they were like, oh please he’s signed like four pairs already. so: score!
jensen totally remembered us, and we thanked him for being such a good sport about everything, and then i told him about the tag. which his response to was an eyebrow and a, “well, r a w r.” in that smirky smug playful attractive asshole way of his. and then he signed the underbears with rawr as well.
we thought that’d be it (i was after mango for autos, and was waiting for jensen to sign my thing quickly), but then jensen asks mango if he’s tried ethika and what he thinks and mango says yes and then jensen gets into this, like, two minute discussion about underwear preferences and how comfortable ethika is. to the point where he leans back, spreads his legs, pulls up the hem of his shirt, and shows us like almost the entire crotch of the underwear he’s currently wearing. which were these:
so. you know. THAT HAPPENED.
he’s also a size large.
you’re welcome, fandom.
and to anyone STILL wondering if it was the bear underwear jensen had on at JIB: uhh, yes, yes it was. and to anyone STILL wondering if we made jensen uncomfortable: no, no, we didn’t. we took a lot of pains not to, and he laughed and joked around with us both at the op and at the autos.
we’re getting the jpeg, so high resolution is coming, so you can see their ridiculous smug teasing faces better. i’m probs gonna write up something about the rest of my time at the con, because that was ALSO amazing, but at least now you have the Saga of the Underbears.
the beautiful and fabulous @culumacilinte and @goodtidingsdean both tagged me for the six selfies in 2016 thingy. so yep here’s my face throughout the year, all the way back to when my hair was mint.
tagging: @whoismisha @deathtwonormalcy @peppermintbisexual @stardustmisha @thearronaut @plays-with-shadows @nursedean @princesscas @amazinmango (but only if you want to)
