171: "I'm Lost in the Vids," Cried the Little Fox

So. Hi! I've been recovering from surgery for the past, um, two and a half weeks. (For the record: ouch. But my defective part is gone now, and I am supposed to be nearly as good as new, at least when the swelling goes away. In the meantime, I have drugs.)

Fandom looks entirely different filtered through pain and pain medication, though, let me tell you. (It all goes really really fast, for one thing. I kept thinking, all the first week after the surgery, "How do they type so much? I can't even stay awake to read it all!" As you will see, though, I have remembered how we all type so much. Yay?)

One thing I did manage to do - in fact, I did it right after the surgery, so there's only a 30% chance any of it makes sense - was the first round of strangefandom. I was determined not to miss that no matter how many people came at me with small sharp knives. Because, basically, the minute I saw the project, I thought, "Yes. This was designed for me." See, it's a project where you watch vids in fandoms you know nothing about. And you crazy kids with your "watching of the television," you don't do that all that often. But I pretty much always do.

(Let me pause for a true story: a man came around the other day to sell us a different cable provider, and I was home clutching my stomach and blinking at dust motes, so of course I answered the door. He said, "So, who provides your cable now?"

I said, "We don't have cable." He just stood there, every line of his body clearly saying, "What? Who doesn't have cable?" He quite obviously didn't believe me. I'm not sure if it was just panic or what that made me confess to him that we also don't get regular television, but after that, I could tell he was thinking: "Alien or liar? It must be one or the other, and if I can just figure out which, I'll know if it's safe to leave this porch."

It was awkward, and I wanted to sit down, so I said, in an overly bright and cheerful tone, "Well, we do have a DVD player!" I don't know why I said it. I'd blame the drugs, but the truth is I thought it might make him feel better; I had clearly challenged his whole worldview. A man does not expect this when he enters door-to-door cable sales.

He said, "So, what, you," and there was a pause while he considered what a person without cable or regular TV might do with her life, "go to Blockbuster a lot?"

And I said, "Um. No." And then I apologized, although I'm not sure for what.

We stood there for some long, long seconds, and then he backed away and went to talk to our neighbors, who, luckily, definitely do have cable. I hope it made him feel better.)

Anyway, my point is: vids are often my first exposure to a fandom. Sometimes that's not the case; sometimes I've read stories in the fandom, and then it's all happy discovery: "That's JACK'S CABIN!" I remember squeaking happily to Best Beloved during one vid. "It's REAL!" Sometimes, though, I don't even know what the fandom is. (And, seriously - vidders, you would be doing me a great favor if you put the fandom in the vid's credits. I don't care how obvious you think it is. Trust me. I am capable of missing things much more obvious than that.) In that case, it's all a lot of glorious hypothesizing. (Me: "I think that guy is a bad guy. I mean, do good guys wear hats like that?" BB: "Does anyone wear hats like that?" Me: "Well, obviously in the future they do." And then we fervently agree that it's probably a good thing we won't live to see that particular time, which will likely be called the Century of the Bad Hat.)

My point is, strangefandom was just like that, except I got to write my initial crazy ideas down. While I was on drugs. And I think today one of my synopses will be posted, so you should all go over and check it out, because a) did I mention the drugs? and b) oh my god, you have to see the vid. sdwolfpup had to promise to explain the fandom to me in small words after it's all over; it's all gay sex and naked men and bad special effects.

So, in celebration of strangers in strange fandoms, I give you vid recs for fandoms that are vid-only for me. In other words, I'm going to suggest you watch vids in which I have no idea what's going on. Trust me! Come on, trust me! (Or just go to strangefandom. The people there will probably be funnier.)

( Vid recommendations this way. )