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Fandom squee meme
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12_12_12 (and, well, everyone else, really):
I think we should all do this about whatever our fannish bliss is at the moment. Lets make it so that today it is impossible to turn around on LJ without running into a list of joy about some show or another. Who's with me? C'mon, I challenge you. A list of ten things that you love about your current fandom(s) posted to LJ and a challenge to all of your f'list to do the same.
It's not exactly my "current" fannish bliss - that changesmonthly weekly daily hourly - but it's a fannish bliss, and it's what I feel like talking about right now, so here are my "ten things" about The O.C.
1) Ryan/Taylor. Seriously, if I had one OTP, this would be it. Of all my OTPs - and there are a lot of them and I can call them all OTPs if I like, even if I occasionally give that name to two conflicting pairings in the same fandom - Ryan/Taylor is at the top. And, really, who'd have thunk it? When we met Taylor in season 3, the last thing I expected was for her to end up with Ryan in the OMGMOSTAWESEOMPAIRINGEVER, or for her to become my absolute favourite character. But sometimes, the really unexpected pairings are the best ones; and Josh Schwartz's reasoning for getting them together is just perfect:
That was something that a lot of the writers really felt passionate about and Taylor was a real bright spot last year. She was somebody that everybody really gravitated towards and writing for Autumn Reeser, as well, was really joyful. The idea that Ryan was in a really dark place, probably in a darker place than we've ever seen him was coming into this season, and who is the character that was best suited to bring him into the light. You know, when we started down the road, we definitely left the door open that if it was just too weird and too out there to put these two characters together, we could get out of it fairly quickly. But, once we got the first couple dailies in of these two actors playing off each other and these two characters interacting, we knew we had something that was really special.
2) Marissa's death. Which sounds meaner than it is, really. When I first heard they were killing her off (damn you, Channel Ten - "Marissa is going to die" is not a teaser), I expected the worst. Season 3 was ... well, angsty, and overdramatic, and beginning to slide into that pit of "how did we get from there to here?" that most shows seem to go through if they last long enough. I was afraid that the naysayers were right; that Marissa's death would sound the death knoll for The O.C. - not because the show needed Mischa Barton (it didn't - though, ironically, the number of people who formed that viewpoint in advance and didn't bother to tune in and be proven wrong means it was probably that that actually did kill the show), but because I was afraid that:
a) Marissa was integral to the show - after all, wasn't it all about Ryan and Marissa, in the end?
(Apparently not.)
and b), her death would send an already angst-ridden show to new depths of angst from which there was no recovery.
I was right about b) for about two episodes. And then ... well, Taylor happened. And The French Connection happened. And I could barely believe that they had actually done it; that they'd turned the whole show around, and made it something I could have never even dreamed of, let alone had expected. And it turned out that the cause of all that angst was really just Marissa, after all.
3) Season 4. (Originally, this was going to be #2, but I ended up talking so much about Marissa's death, and what it meant for the show, that I realised it had to be its own point.) One of my favourite seasons of television, ever. It sucks that so many people had written it off before it even began, but seriously, who knew? Zombie references. Alternate universes (which are always a love of mine, but a canon AU in a realistic, non-fantasy series? Made of win). Ryan/Taylor. Pretty much the best thing ever.
4) The Chrismukk-huh? If season 4 was one of my favourite seasons of television, this is one of my favourite episodes of any show, ever. Seriously. Alternate universe. The use of music has always been one of the standout things about The O.C., and this episode was no different; I love the use of covers (particularly Sia's cover of Paranoid Android, and Band Of Horses' The End's Not Near), and I love love love the fact that they used a cover version of California for the opening credits. MY LOVE FOR THIS IS INDESCRIBABLE.
5) Kaitlin. Another big surprise; when she first re-emerged in season 3, I fully expected to hate her, or at least be completely indifferent to her; and the rumours that she would be a season 4 regular replacement Marissa really did not appeal to me. And then, like Taylor, she turned out to be awesome.Marissa Two, you're so much better than Marissa One. I loved her relationship with Julie. I loved her ... everything, actually. I loved her. Gay dad trumps slutty mom.
6) Little Miss Vixen. My writing journal isn't called that for nothing. No matter how much my Taylor!love tends to eclipse everything else, I will always love Summer, and I will always adore Little Miss Vixen. And Zach. And the comic book club. And Summer in a corset. And the Atomic County intervention.
7) The music. I love it when TV shows can release a soundtrack, and have it be really good; because the music was good to begin with, and because it was that integral to the show. But six soundtracks? Including one Chrismukkah compilation (which nicely complements my Rockin' Bethlehem CD my dad burned for me and my copy of The Dandy Warhols' Little Drummer Boy, together ensuring I never have to play Christmas Carols at Christmas) and one CD made up exclusively of cover tracks, which pushes my buttons so hard you would not believe. I love cover versions to a completely irrational degree, so a CD that was an O.C. soundtrack and a cover CD? And as if I didn't love it before I even played it - covers of Pretty Vacant? Debaser?!! So. Freaking. Awesome.
8) Chrismukkah. At the risk of being an irredeemable fangirl ... I celebrate it. Actually, to be more accuruate, I celebrate Margaritamukkah, which is like Christmas but with way more presents than should reasonably be expected and nontraditional music and (lots of) margaritas. Yep, that's my Christmas, and it's the most awesome thing ever. (To be celebrated with friends only, unless, like me, you have a mum who doesn't care for family gatherings and actual food and thinks getting drunk with your friends is the funnest thing ever, and who leaves before the strip poker.)
9) The Night Moves. Zombies, people! Motherfucking zombies. "If we could've turned this into a body swap comedy, we could've gotten another two years out of this thing." Singing. Seth trading his car for a shopping cart. The perfectly apocalyptic feel of the entire episode. And zombies!
10) Family. In the dirty way, and the not-so. Jeremy and I play car games on long drives, and one we did was trying to name every canon pairing in The O.C. - and man, you really don't realise just how incestuous the show is until you've actually done that. (I mean yeah, you have some idea, but ... seriously. Try it.) But mainly ... every time Sandy and Kirsten call Ryan their son. When Ryan refers to them as his parents. Kaitlin bonding with Bullit. And did I mention Seth trading his car for a shopping cart to save his - *sniffle* - brother?
Man, I love this show. And not at all in a trendy, ironic, cool way. I just love it.
And I love that #2 was not at all borne out of Marissa!hatred. I actually liked Marissa. I'm a total multishipper, and I ship Ryan Marissa in seasons 1-3 even thought Ryan/Taylor is totally my OTP - just like I ship Luke/Lorelai AND Chris/Lorelai, Logan/Veronica AND Lamb/Veronica AND Casey/Veronica, with a side of Dick/Veronica and even Duncan Veronica a little. Which is one of my favourite things about all my fandoms, really. In fact, it'd be so much easier to list all the pairings I don't like than even just the ones I'm head over heels in love with. If it's a ship, chances are I ship it, and that makes me happy.
12_12_12 (and, well, everyone else, really):I think we should all do this about whatever our fannish bliss is at the moment. Lets make it so that today it is impossible to turn around on LJ without running into a list of joy about some show or another. Who's with me? C'mon, I challenge you. A list of ten things that you love about your current fandom(s) posted to LJ and a challenge to all of your f'list to do the same.
It's not exactly my "current" fannish bliss - that changes
1) Ryan/Taylor. Seriously, if I had one OTP, this would be it. Of all my OTPs - and there are a lot of them and I can call them all OTPs if I like, even if I occasionally give that name to two conflicting pairings in the same fandom - Ryan/Taylor is at the top. And, really, who'd have thunk it? When we met Taylor in season 3, the last thing I expected was for her to end up with Ryan in the OMGMOSTAWESEOMPAIRINGEVER, or for her to become my absolute favourite character. But sometimes, the really unexpected pairings are the best ones; and Josh Schwartz's reasoning for getting them together is just perfect:
That was something that a lot of the writers really felt passionate about and Taylor was a real bright spot last year. She was somebody that everybody really gravitated towards and writing for Autumn Reeser, as well, was really joyful. The idea that Ryan was in a really dark place, probably in a darker place than we've ever seen him was coming into this season, and who is the character that was best suited to bring him into the light. You know, when we started down the road, we definitely left the door open that if it was just too weird and too out there to put these two characters together, we could get out of it fairly quickly. But, once we got the first couple dailies in of these two actors playing off each other and these two characters interacting, we knew we had something that was really special.
2) Marissa's death. Which sounds meaner than it is, really. When I first heard they were killing her off (damn you, Channel Ten - "Marissa is going to die" is not a teaser), I expected the worst. Season 3 was ... well, angsty, and overdramatic, and beginning to slide into that pit of "how did we get from there to here?" that most shows seem to go through if they last long enough. I was afraid that the naysayers were right; that Marissa's death would sound the death knoll for The O.C. - not because the show needed Mischa Barton (it didn't - though, ironically, the number of people who formed that viewpoint in advance and didn't bother to tune in and be proven wrong means it was probably that that actually did kill the show), but because I was afraid that:
a) Marissa was integral to the show - after all, wasn't it all about Ryan and Marissa, in the end?
(Apparently not.)
and b), her death would send an already angst-ridden show to new depths of angst from which there was no recovery.
I was right about b) for about two episodes. And then ... well, Taylor happened. And The French Connection happened. And I could barely believe that they had actually done it; that they'd turned the whole show around, and made it something I could have never even dreamed of, let alone had expected. And it turned out that the cause of all that angst was really just Marissa, after all.
3) Season 4. (Originally, this was going to be #2, but I ended up talking so much about Marissa's death, and what it meant for the show, that I realised it had to be its own point.) One of my favourite seasons of television, ever. It sucks that so many people had written it off before it even began, but seriously, who knew? Zombie references. Alternate universes (which are always a love of mine, but a canon AU in a realistic, non-fantasy series? Made of win). Ryan/Taylor. Pretty much the best thing ever.
4) The Chrismukk-huh? If season 4 was one of my favourite seasons of television, this is one of my favourite episodes of any show, ever. Seriously. Alternate universe. The use of music has always been one of the standout things about The O.C., and this episode was no different; I love the use of covers (particularly Sia's cover of Paranoid Android, and Band Of Horses' The End's Not Near), and I love love love the fact that they used a cover version of California for the opening credits. MY LOVE FOR THIS IS INDESCRIBABLE.
5) Kaitlin. Another big surprise; when she first re-emerged in season 3, I fully expected to hate her, or at least be completely indifferent to her; and the rumours that she would be a season 4 regular replacement Marissa really did not appeal to me. And then, like Taylor, she turned out to be awesome.
6) Little Miss Vixen. My writing journal isn't called that for nothing. No matter how much my Taylor!love tends to eclipse everything else, I will always love Summer, and I will always adore Little Miss Vixen. And Zach. And the comic book club. And Summer in a corset. And the Atomic County intervention.
7) The music. I love it when TV shows can release a soundtrack, and have it be really good; because the music was good to begin with, and because it was that integral to the show. But six soundtracks? Including one Chrismukkah compilation (which nicely complements my Rockin' Bethlehem CD my dad burned for me and my copy of The Dandy Warhols' Little Drummer Boy, together ensuring I never have to play Christmas Carols at Christmas) and one CD made up exclusively of cover tracks, which pushes my buttons so hard you would not believe. I love cover versions to a completely irrational degree, so a CD that was an O.C. soundtrack and a cover CD? And as if I didn't love it before I even played it - covers of Pretty Vacant? Debaser?!! So. Freaking. Awesome.
8) Chrismukkah. At the risk of being an irredeemable fangirl ... I celebrate it. Actually, to be more accuruate, I celebrate Margaritamukkah, which is like Christmas but with way more presents than should reasonably be expected and nontraditional music and (lots of) margaritas. Yep, that's my Christmas, and it's the most awesome thing ever. (To be celebrated with friends only, unless, like me, you have a mum who doesn't care for family gatherings and actual food and thinks getting drunk with your friends is the funnest thing ever, and who leaves before the strip poker.)
9) The Night Moves. Zombies, people! Motherfucking zombies. "If we could've turned this into a body swap comedy, we could've gotten another two years out of this thing." Singing. Seth trading his car for a shopping cart. The perfectly apocalyptic feel of the entire episode. And zombies!
10) Family. In the dirty way, and the not-so. Jeremy and I play car games on long drives, and one we did was trying to name every canon pairing in The O.C. - and man, you really don't realise just how incestuous the show is until you've actually done that. (I mean yeah, you have some idea, but ... seriously. Try it.) But mainly ... every time Sandy and Kirsten call Ryan their son. When Ryan refers to them as his parents. Kaitlin bonding with Bullit. And did I mention Seth trading his car for a shopping cart to save his - *sniffle* - brother?
Man, I love this show. And not at all in a trendy, ironic, cool way. I just love it.
And I love that #2 was not at all borne out of Marissa!hatred. I actually liked Marissa. I'm a total multishipper, and I ship Ryan Marissa in seasons 1-3 even thought Ryan/Taylor is totally my OTP - just like I ship Luke/Lorelai AND Chris/Lorelai, Logan/Veronica AND Lamb/Veronica AND Casey/Veronica, with a side of Dick/Veronica and even Duncan Veronica a little. Which is one of my favourite things about all my fandoms, really. In fact, it'd be so much easier to list all the pairings I don't like than even just the ones I'm head over heels in love with. If it's a ship, chances are I ship it, and that makes me happy.
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