Last weekend we watched, or I should say, got around to watching, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, a BBC America show from last year which we were reluctant to check out at first under the mistaken impression that it would be another US copy of a UK property in the vein of Coupling, Skins, Being Human, etc. But after it came out we saw from other people's reactions that actually everyone seemed to love it, and when we finally did watch it we loved it too, so I've been poking around for things to reblog on and off for a week now.

It feels funny in several ways to be fannish about a show with Elijah Wood in it again...

1. Nostalgic. Fellowship of the Ring came out in 2001! waxjism and I MET because of Elijah Wood, really, when she sought me out because of a Frodo/Sam and then a Sean/Elijah fic. The whole time we were long-distance dating, she was talking about The Faculty and something about Elijah Wood being chained in Chester Bennington's basement, for some reason (I'm not sure I ever really understood that one, though, to be fair). And it's been a long time! Neither of us has been actually interested in either of those fandoms since before 2005, a few rereads and recs and the like notwithstanding.



2. SURREAL. The inescapable association of Elijah Wood + fandom... the tangential connection to the dangerous con artist and noted fandom cult leader formerly known as Victoria Bitter, who, as chronicled in the well-known fandom memoir When a Fan Hits the Shit, later briefly posed online as Elijah Wood for... some unknown reason... (I think for a brief time before he told people that he was channeling the 'soul' of the real Elijah Wood even though Elijah Wood was still alive and therefore physically growing a cock?)... and for some reason waxjism and I, old acquaintances who were close to one of his primary online friend/dupes, were chosen to be guinea pigs for this pose and for like... a week?? we thought he possibly actually was Elijah Wood with a side dose of what the hell is going on, and during this time he... for some reason... sent me a care package of cough drops because I had a cold, I guess to prove realness?? He also like ordered pizzas delivered to the residences of some of the other people he was long-distance trying to Be Elijah Wood on, if I'm remembering right? Anyway... wow... that was an insane time! Like, our dangerous??? but also laughably minor??? brush with fandom history.



3. Embarrassed: because of having believed him, or maybe like 80% believed him for a while there. But as waxjism succinctly put it, "Then again, he is a con artist. But AUGH."
   
   Also embarrassed because if I think about my previous fannish engagement hard enough, I'll remember how I wrote when I was 19 years old, which is also kind of embarrassing from the perspective of my current taste (though, like, I stand by it as perfectly ok for 19-year-old me). Like, for example, when my dad asked my permission to give his best friend, who is gay, the link to my LOTR fanfic, and I said sure, and then his best friend attempted to delicately and tactfully make sure that I knew that "that's not really how gay sex works" after reading one of my Legolas/Gimli fics, and I had to be like "YES YES LUBE WE KNOW NO TMI PLEASE".



4. Damn, I feel old. Because a lot of time has passed and people like Elijah Wood that are the age of me are now firmly grown ups. Just like I am.

Anyway, back to Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency... I highly recommend the show, which is delightful and probably a bit more Adamsishly madcap than the previous British series that starred Stephen Mangan (which I also loved however). The plotting particularly is A+, not because the other aspects of the show like dialogue and casting are not as outstanding - they are, actually; the main cast is half female and there's an okay distribution of racial and gender diversity, the dialogue is fun and clever, the special effects are not to be sneezed at, there are cute animals etc - but because the plotting is the aspect of a derivative work based on Douglas Adams that would be the most challenging to manage (just as it is for Terry Pratchett or PG Wodehouse fanfic, where that is the most common tough point, evidently, for would-be fanfic writers), and yet they manage it beautifully. It's not at all derivative or unnecessarily repetitive of canon Douglas works, while dazzlingly recreating the feel and scope and all that good stuff.

They've already filmed the second series, too, and they just released a trailer for it a little while ago, so it's probably going to air soonish. Which makes this a good time to try it out.

Last spring during Project Runway Madness thelionforreal tried to convince me to read peter_and_fran (an epic-length multimedia LOTR RPS AU with the members of the fellowship as Belle & Sebastian), but in her charming missi way, I always got more of an impression of enthusiasm and SO GREAT. SERIOUSLY. than a clear portrait of what, exactly, it was. But I was at loose ends the other day and buddleia mentioned it, so I went to read it, and I've been sampling it in between cleaning the house and shopping downtown for a few days now, and now I've just discovered that it has Eric Bana! Slashed with Ian and Orlando, not married to Jason Isaacs and adopting an Armless Russian Hermaphroditic Crackbaby™, granted, but still, ♥! His appearance is a mere cameo, and not actually one of the principal selling points. The story is engrossingly, quirkily charming, hilarious, well-written, moving, and really brilliant.

In other news, wax and I usually eat our dinner out of large bowls instead of from plates, which may be because we tend to eat it from our knees at the computer instead of at the table, but the result is high wear & tear on bowls. We've broken bunches of them in two years and were down from six to two, and my constant low-level whining finally prevailed upon wax to give up her preference for the staid plain white Arctica in favour of Teema in green and brown. So we bought ( two green bowls, which I'm extremely pleased with. )

And then I had a ( silver-polishing adventure! )

Meanwhile, there is still angst in our household - 99.9% of it mine - about the proper art to hang over our couch. The problem is that our beautiful lovely Ikea couch is covered in a gigantic print of leaves and flowers in emerald and chartreuse and white, which looks rather trippily 60s, and it's hard to find a poster to go with it, because nothing seems to get the right mood. Yellow Kill Bill was too small, and also too clean-cut and slick; my mostly-green Rodney Matthews Jabberwocky poster was too busy, too muted, and not sufficiently abstract. I thought of something graphic-looking in black and white, or something dramatic and monochrome, but ( the new Pirates 3 poster obviously isn't right either. )

some pictures of surfing the other day made me nostalgic for those surfing vacation stories, and my audience happened to be unfamiliar with the genre. it wasn't something i'd thought about before then, but now that i have i'm pretty sure it is a subgenre invented in lotr rps fandom (and something that fandom should be really proud of!). i proposed this idea to wax and she said it sounded correct to her too - which actually probably means fandom as a whole owes the genre to ukcalico, whose first stories in the blood orange universe were posted very early, like in the first couple of months of 2002, if i remember right. that wasn't really going anywhere, just - i love surfing vacation stories. thank you, lotr rps. and thank you, cal.



obviously, the ohmiya of the day has been supplanted by jun/aiba of the day. *_*

southpaw526 and i would like to challenge all you lotr rps writers to write a dom and billeh are heterosexual lifemates fic. premise: they're deeply in wuv but both straight.

msa parody thingamabob bwahahahahhahaha.

msa's letter to the other tinhats about comiccon

a devastatingly sweet report from a girl who got backstage at comiccon and talked to dom, sean, and elijah

this whole karggo thing is such an intriguing idea, but there are only TWO stories at that silly archive. i read one of them. well, it wasn't BAD, but it was short and pretty fluffy, not to mention a tad melodramatic. i don't know anything about karl, that's the problem. or else i could write one (what am i thinking? REAL novel? hello? original work? someone kick me. oh hell, i know i'm going to write it. the idea has well and truly bitten--the only question is what i'm going to write... but i'm definitely bad. feel free to kick me if you like...)

i want everyone to write me crossover fic. mikey (elijah wood's unlikely assasin from the movie chain of fools) with geoffrey (dominic's big-eared sidekick from hetty wainthropp investigates).

just drabblets? dribblets? snippets? hints and teases and whispers? just TEENSY little bits? ::bats eyelashes::

okay, i'd do with just one or two. crave! crave! imagine that i'm going to die if i don't get some. you wouldn't want *that*, would you? and if you write me some, i just might love you forever! so come one, come all.

i'm looking at you, mcee. and dorkorific. and phineasjones. and wax_jism, if we're feeling reckless. which we are. and you know, really, with this pairing your grasp of canon isn't particularly important; it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing, you know?

::cravecrave::

::soulful hobbit eyes::

ohh a otp survey. for those interested only mildly, just the questions, gacked from leyenn but invented by sloaneywoney and publicized here:

Your OTP/OT3:
Why:
Canon (books) or Fanon (films):
Popularity Level in the Fandom at Large: [my edit: and what fandom would that be?]
Your Favorite OTP Fic (yours) and why:
Your Favorite OTP Fic (someone else's) and why:
OTP Quote/Movie Lines:
Favorite OTP Moment:
What Pisses You Off About Your OTP:
Line that Describes Your OTP: [my remark: umm, this may be a little too, well, twee.]
Song that Defines your OTP, and let's See Them Lyrics: [and likewise.]

and, my lovely darlings, i have three otps in three separate fandoms. let's go through them in order of importance, shall we?

( kirk/spock )

( fraser/kowalski )

( chris kirkpatrick/justin timberlake )

also, some secondary otps. ie, they don't devour my world but i won't stomach them paired with other people:

(lotr) frodo/sam, merry/pippin, and legolas/gimli; (lotr rps) viggorli, dom/lijah; (star wars) qui/obi

--of the plot bunny variety.

eager, puppyish, underweight college student seeks inspiration for smutty domlijah goodness. all plot bunny body parts accepted, even the putrescent ones--i just read frankenstein, after all, much to my dismay!

someone? throw me random snippets of ideas? i have a core of an idea, but i need to figure out (a) why lijah is so eager to get dom's attention, other than dom's cuteness. i mean, why would dom not be paying attention to him? (b) what kinds of curse words does lij use in everyday conversation? stuff like that. um. help? and. what kinds of drinking games do they play? anyone? ally_star? <--pitifully sheltered. people play chess as a drinking game at my school.

[edit: what is it about a beta that never fails to make my day? if only she had im and no life... *pout*]

i want to sing. out loud. loudly. along with christina. and horribly screw up her riffs. will settle for aubry. uhm. right. oops! email for aubry!

*scurries away*

no. wait. 1. wearing tuxedo blouse in honor of lij and dom. theirloveissopure. must write fic soon. 2. have talked to wax instead of working. go me! 3. outwitted by combined efforts of breakfast and medicine. damn you! *shakes fist*