Jan Hits The Fan

I don't have a television, so the last couple of years my TV watching has limited itself to a couple of tv shows, about 3 per year, that I follow more or less while they air. They never overlap while airing, so that's easy enough.

There's just not that much TV I'm interested in?

Up til 3 weeks ago, because suddenly there's stuff I need and want to watch everywhere. American Gods is finally airing, based on the book by Neil Gaiman. It was my favorite book for a long time, I met Neil (we even hugged) and have my copy signed, and while the fervent love is over now, I'm still super into the concept, and the show is looking good. Plus, you know, Ian McShane is always amazing. So far it's incredibly pretty, there's good build-up of all the characters, but I'm still waiting for the emotional bang.

In the same category of based on old favorite books, there's the Handmaid's Tale, based on the book by Margaret Atwood. It's horrifying and brutal and terribly and so fucking gorgeous. I can't watch more than one episode every couple of days because every single one leaves me rattled and upset, but fuck it's so good. I especially love how the focus is very much on the relationships between the women, trapped as they all are. I wish I had the time and brain space to let it all digest more. (Although it's possible it's a good thing I'm so occupied, so the horror can't linger too much). In any case, I definitely see myself rewatching this in the future. It's also the show I'm recommending to everyone, everywhere, because it's so poignant and so current, despite being based on a book from the 80s. Guess nothing ever changes.

Last weekend, Netflix dropped the new season of Sense8. I promised myself I wouldn't binge it, because well, other stuff to do! But it was so good, definitely an upgrade from season 1 and the disappointing Christmas Special, that I couldn't help myself. So I pushed through all of it, and I'm still reeling with everything that happened. I'm sure there are tons of details that I missed, so I'll probably rewatch it at a more leisurely pace. And I'm itching to rewatch the first season, because I kind of want to look at everything with what we now know. It feels like I haven't given myself the chance yet to properly enjoy it.

The same happened with the 2nd half of the first season of The Get Down, which was dropped in April. I rushed through it, rewatched a couple of favorite scenes, but I didn't get the chance to let it all gesticulate. There was fic I wanted to write, but I need a little more time to let a canon digest to really make it mine and feel comfortable writing about it, and now because of all the other things I've watched and am watching, the ship has probably sailed.

I was thinking about this yesterday, while reading Sense8 comments on FFA lamenting the lack of fic, that this whole thing of dropping seasons in one go, makes for a whole different process of familiarizing oneself with a canon. When something airs weekly, you have time in between to think and speculate and focus on little details. By the time the end of the season is there, you're ready to write all the fic, because you've had the time to make it yours. This doesn't really happen when you binge-watch something, you loose the details of the worldbuilding.

I need those details to feel comfortable writing fic for something.

So I don't know. I'm feeling somewhat overwhelmed. Shadowhunters 2b is airing soon, which is my main fandom of the moment, so that'll probably eat up my attention, so before that I honestly want to enjoy all of this other stuff. I'm just not sure how I'm going to do that with the job, and all the fic exchanges I'm enrolled it. I've got more than 2000 posts in my tumblr drafts, because I love pretty graphics, and suffer a little bit of the 'want to catch reblog them all' syndrome.

Choices, choices, choices...

Fandom life is hard sometimes!