Life on Mars: fannish feeling and a couple of vid recs

[cimorene]

Last year when I loved Life on Mars it was in a feverish way - because we watched all eight episodes in like, two days - and also a slightly distanced way - because it's so compelling and hilarious and cute and yet unflinchingly violent, and gritty, and all the characters you can identify with will eventually do something to piss you off as well. And because there was no fandom around - much - at the time that I finished watching, and because this is one of those shows where the character voice would be almost impossible to nail, let alone a good narrative voice - I ended up able to forget about it without moving it into a fandom-fannish compartment in my mind. This happens with canons I don't feel any need to fill in with fanfictiony speculation, and with canons that I love too much to read other people's fanfictiony speculations about without fuming in a puddle of rage, and with canons where I give up hope because I judge the probability of good fanfiction interpretations to be close to null.

Anyway, this year the situation is different. The new series, so far, is just as gritty, but the dynamic has shifted a little. It's funnier, and there's more rapport amongst the team, and I, at least, find it even more engaging. For another thing, there's more fanfic, although it's still a tiny-tiny "it qualified for yuletide a few months ago" fandom. And I feel very fannish about it now. I feel desperately sad that there's not more fiction for it, having already, I'm relatively certain, waded through all that there was over the course of the last week. I feel inspired and desperate enough almost to write it myself, except that I'm certain I am one of the many people who could not successfully pull off the dialogue for this show. (My more standard British is bad enough.) I've collected some bookmarks, anyway, for my own use, and I suppose that eventually those will turn into a few entries on my recs page.

Perhaps vids could be the solution to my fannish longing. It's an excellent canon for making vids of, anyway, but I'm not a regular vid-watcher, and so far I've only seen two. They were both really great, though: Club Foot by charmax, which is musical and brilliantly timed and edited, and There Is Too Much Light In This Bar by absolut3destiny, which is exquisitely hilarious and one of the best vids I have ever seen, reminiscent of the wonderful Angel vid This Is My West Hollywood Lifestyle... Whatever by luminosity and sisabet.

Comments

[norah.livejournal.com]

There's also a vid called "Time Bomb" in my imeem favorites, and I love it unreservedly.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

At your and your otp's unanimous recommendation I have downloaded this, and I have watched it (twice), and I have sighed and thought that it was very pretty, but due to illness my brain refused to actually engage and process and analyse, and so I will have to watch it again when I am healthier in order to get it in any meaningful way, or comment on it intelligently.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, LoM vids are wonderful. AD's is my favorite - of course - and I love Club Foot, but there are so many other great ones. MMWD's right about Lum's Time Bomb (http://community.livejournal.com/vidding/617917.html). And there's cherryice's Devotion (http://cherryice.livejournal.com/180795.html) and gwyn_r's I'm Immortal (http://community.livejournal.com/vidding/703637.html), too. Among others.

And, yeah, for me they fulfill the need for fanworks, at least to a certain extent - I'm afraid to read LoM FF, because the show is so tightly written, so intense, with such a fabulous sense of place, that I just - I don't know how well it could be written for. Which isn't to say that I wouldn't love some great LoM FF, just that I'm scared to trust unknown writers in this fandom.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I - well, I read as much as I was able to find, and a couple of them were sort of fabulous - one had some really perfect dialogue, but didn't really work as a whole, and one was hilarious, and had some pretty great lines. But what I could find mostly matched my expectations - because I expected the show to be impossible (or nearly) to nail down. It's got so much atmosphere and flavour, such a delicate, nearly induplicable balance even on top of the voices - which are hard enough, I'm sure. Nothing that I could rec unreservedly to you, anyway, alas.

So: thank you for the vid recs! I'm off to devour them eagerly.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

I have watched them and found my brain let me down, because I was unable to process vids in that usually necessary way, so that I could actually get what was going on. Instead my reaction was more like: "Shiny! Pretty!" Not that that's bad, but I know I missed part of the value. It must be this inflated balloon inside my head at fault, so I'll watch again when I no longer have the flu. Meanwhile: thank you again!