ION, the glaziers in my area are doing well.
Radio silence
I've been pretty quiet for most of this year. I've lurked a little here and there, but haven't been very involved in fandom. Due South will always have a special place in my heart (the show, the fandom, the fen), but I have faded away from it. I hate it when things end, and I hate analysing why such things happen. It's just the way things go, I suppose. Dwelling just makes me feel sad and guilty, and that's just not necessary, so enough of that.
There have been lots of programmes that I've been enjoying - Rizzoli and Isles, In Plain Sight, The Good Guys, Community, Archer, BBC Sherlock to name but an immediate few. And while I have enjoyed bringing a semi-fannish eye to them (not least because fandom has taught me to watch things with a much more critical eye), nothing gave me the same all-over tingle that due South did. That irrepressible urge to plunge in and roll around in it, to immerse myself, greedily and gleefully. They gave me squee, but not The Squee, if you see what I mean.
Never say never. No, I mean it. DON'T SAY IT.
I would never want to judge someone else's fannishness, or squash their squee, but I have never had any interest in RPF. (You know where this is going.) There are lots of things around it that concern me, or turn me off (such as the problem of borrowing someone's real life to play with as opposed to borrowing a fiction that they've been involved in and happen to lend their face to). OTOH, I have massive crushes of various types on various Real Persons. OTOOH, I find even the thought of meeting any of those people IRL so crushingly embarrassing that I can't bear to think about it. Seriously - I passed Martin Freeman in the street the other day, and remained stony-faced and impassive. Even the notion of approaching him sends me into flitters of self-loathing. I know some people can do this with no worries. I am not one of those people.
Anyway, as I thought I'd learnt from my early forays into the strange and wonderful crevices of fandom, I ought never to have said never. RPS doesn't work for me; let those who enjoy it have at it, but I'll strenuously avoid it.
And now I'm all... there.
It starts, as so many things do, with David Mitchell.
I was already wildly in love with him. I'm reasonably convinced that he and I ought to get married. I mean, apart from being flat-out adorable (face, eyes, grin, weirdness, etc etc and so on), he's wildly intelligent, wildly funny and, on occasion, wildly silly, while also being made of tweed. I love that he's unashamedly unfashionable and awkward and so on. I myself am secretly a 48-year-old Englishman, so I can well understand the whole "I was born middle-aged and am taking many years for my body to catch up with that" thing.
Turns out heaps of people are in love with him (which is only right and proper). I started watching Would I Lie To You, and after glutting myself (I was home sick, which is an excellent excuse to overdose on panel games), I was struck by this:
David Mitchell: To be honest, Lee, I don’t quite know why you come into so many encounters with me expecting arousal.
(Found at 7:19, or for the full hilarity and adorability watch from 5:00)
Click to viewSo. I went looking for David Mitchell/Lee Mack slash. Because, well, you would, wouldn't you.
Turns out that, for some reason, there isn't very much of that pairing. But there's a healthy selection of David Mitchell/Charlie Brooker. I wasn't so familiar with Brooker (initially; after the first dozen fics I felt I knew him a lot better). I am now familiar with Brooker. And falling swiftly in love with him, too.
In conclusion, Your Honour...
There it is. New fandom. And it's quite different from the last. I'm already reasonably well-informed about the context (BBC geek from way back). I know lots of the characters and like them. And my goodness but between Brooker and Mitchell there's a shitload of material to get through. More than enough fuel for the fire, including (deliciously) some things I'd heard or see before without realising that they were delightfully slashy. I mean, honestly, these two flirt as if there's no tomorrow.
Even without the slashiness, I kind of adore this avenue into a world that I'd already liked. Knowing that I'm not the only one out there shattering glass with my high-pitched appreciation of David's LITTLE FACE and his delightful smile when he (or someone else) has just said something clever (his grin when he's made Stephen Fry laugh is a delight to make angels cry). And shouting "STOP BEING SO IN LOVE WITH HIM" when Brooker's teasing or berating David. Or falling into little pieces when Brooker giggles. Because. Oh.
This is quite the change from the previous content of this LJ. I considered getting a new one, for clarity, but in the end decided in favour of some tidying up instead.
china_shop asked if I thought I'd ever write in this new fandom. I opened my mouth to say, "No! Oh, no. Definitely not." Then I referred myself to my earlier injunction not to say never. Just don't say it, woman.
So, there we are. Another small, obscure fandom and a vague sense of having no idea where I'm going with this. For all I know I'll fizzle out in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I'm going swimming.