A Fan's Playground

it occurred to me tonight that when I watched CQL aka The Untamed a couple years ago, I put all my thoughts about it up on twitter, live as they happened. and as twitter continues its death throes, perhaps that's not the best place for them to live permanently. So I dug through my twitter archive and copied them all over. HERE IT IS. My live-reaction to watching through the show over the course of four months, beginning January 30, 2021!


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WELL I guess I finally have a new fandom-obsession. The Untamed!!!!!!

It's been ages since my last real fall into a fandom, which is so weird, because they always used to happen back to back or even overlapping. But I think I faded out of my most recent fandom in 2017ish if I've calculated right. That's approaching 4 years ago! I've missed the sensation of overwhelming joy and love, and always having something worth thinking about whenever I'm bored. And yeah, sure, many of my old fandoms I never leave behind completely, the love is still there -- but it's not omnipresent anymore. It's different to have something be my Current Obsession.

Also unusual about this one: generally if I'm going to fall for a fandom it happens fast. This one....well I read my first fanfic for The Untamed/MDZS more than a YEAR ago, and I've been steadily reading more ever since, just casually you know, because it's what I keep seeing around. I even tried and failed to read the novel at some point. But in the last week or so something tipped over and now this fandom is My Thing.

What changed? I do not know! But here we are! I I started watching the show just a couple days ago and am already 3 1/2 episodes in (I know, objectively not much, but for me it's impressive), and I keep on giggling with glee at it, and also just having feelings about seeing the faaaaaaces of everyone I care a lot about.

I have been livetweeting my episode-watching on twitter (sophy_sol) if you're interested in such things.

Talk to me about the Untamed! :D

Why yes I DID watch 4 whole seasons of Queer Eye in just over a week.

I live in a five-person house and all four of the folks I live with are into Queer Eye these days, and it was like....I had no choice to at least give it a try, eventually. And the last few weeks have been stressful because I just started a new job and change is hard, and so having something formulaic and positive like Queer Eye to immerse myself in was just what I needed.

I'm very charmed by Queer Eye's whole thing! The 5 hosts are all very clearly committed to helping their guest of the week and wanting good things for that person, with a lot of focus on the importance of reaching out to the people who care about you, taking the time for what you need for yourself, and learning how to present with confidence while still being you. All things I believe in! And it's also lovely to just watch five people be openly and unapologetically queer in their different ways, and have that not only be accepted but celebrated.

While watching, I did have questions about how much real, lasting change can be accomplished in these people's lives from a single whirlwind week. It was clear that for some guests-of-the-week they experienced some sort of true transformation in at least one dimension, but for others I was like.....that person needs some kind of long-term support to figure out how to truly integrate the lessons!

And occasionally I also wondered about the kind of....pressure that comes to both the guest-of-the-week and the people in their life, to respond to things "the right way" when they've got cameras in their face. It sometimes makes for a really uncomfortable power dynamic between me as audience member (who's thus the reason for the camera) and the people being put on display. As an example: the Burning Man guy who was planning on moving to a different city, and the Queer Eye hosts were very against his moving for a variety of reasons, and at the end he decides not to move. Is that decision really from him, or was it the pressure of expectation?

But a lot of the guests seem, by the end of the week, to be genuinely grateful for what their week has done for them, so overall it does seem to be successful at doing something good for these folks even if I have occasional skeptical moments.

My other major reaction to spending so much time immersed in Queer Eye is thinking about how I'd react if I were the guest of the week, and you guys, I'd be so bad at it. I'm so picky about all my stuff! I'd be all like, "no, you can't change that or that or that or that or that, it's all the way it is for a REASON!!!" No I can't use product in my hair, because it's just going to be squashed by a bicycle helmet or a winter toque depending on the season. No I can't hide my laundry basket behind doors or under a lid, if I can't toss clothes directly into it from wherever I'm standing then my clothes will never be put in the laundry basket. No you can't give me nicer-looking shoes, my feet are awkwardly shaped delicate flowers and your shoes either won't fit comfortably or will give me blisters if I try to walk anywhere. No you're not going to convince me to cook more often, it's not about the time it takes but the energy I don't have. AND SO FORTH.

Basically what I'm saying here is that I definitely don't have the openness and willingness to learn/change that they often praise in the people they're helping. I would be dictating exactly what kind of help I'd be willing to accept. (What I would accept: free renos and tailored clothes.) Whoops. Guess it's good I'm never going to be put in that spot!

I've loved Good Omens for many years, so when I heard there was a tv adaptation of it that had actually done a pretty good job, I was like, aw fuck, I guess I have to watch some tv then.

Watching tv is hard for me, between being Extremely Easily embarrassment-squicked and also finding plot stressful, both of which problems are greatly amplified by consuming narratives in audio-visual formats. And tv goes on for so much longer than movies, that it's just that much harder to actually make it through. (although movies are themselves challenging enough!)

So I've pretty much given up on watching tv shows in recent years. But. Good Omens!

So yeah I watched it.

By which I mean, I watched much of it. I did a lot of judicious skipping of scenes I was having trouble with, to ensure I actually FINISHED the dang show instead of getting hung up 20 minutes into the first episode.*

And it was worth the effort! I didn't love everything about it but I enjoyed it enough to have been glad to have watched it.

I'm possibly being unfair in some of my critical feelings towards the show, since I haven't read the book in AT LEAST a decade and possibly longer, so I'm not comparing the show to the book but instead comparing the show to what I remember liking about the book. Which is a different thing entirely.

But to me it didn't feel like Aziraphale and Crowley were the same people as in the book. Aziraphale was too nice, and Crowley......look, I've seen David Tennant in a few too many things, so what I was seeing was "David Tennant having a great time pretending to be Crowley" rather than "Crowley".

And watching David Tennant have a great time pretending to be Crowley, along with heart-eyes-Aziraphale, was truly fun! I liked them both a lot! It's just that they were a different Aziraphale and Crowley.

And I loved how much the show committed to showing how important the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley is. This was absolutely amazing and I loved it a lot. And then the line in ep 3 where Aziraphale says "You go to fast for me, Crowley," oh dang I just about DIED, it was incredible. I had seen people on the internet freak out about this line already so I was in some respects expecting it, but I was NOT expecting it to be a) DIRECTLY IN RESPONSE TO A FRIENDSHIP OVERTURE and b) in the second half of the 20th century. Oh my god. Aziraphale!

So yes. Mostly I loved this adaptation for being an extremely charming story of the complicated relationship between an angel and a demon who love each other very much. Though I also have to put in a good word for whoever decided to use Extremely On The Nose choices of Queen songs throughout because that was A+.

The things I didn't like......eh, I don't really feel the need to get into it honestly.

But I will mention one thing that I have no idea if I like or not, which is that God uses they/them pronouns for Pollution. So that's....okay, like, nonbinary representation is nice, but making the only explicitly trans person in the entire show be one of the literal members of team apocalypse? Don't love it. I would be all over nonbinary Pollution if we had A N Y other trans people in the entire show! But.


* things I skipped:
the nuns
the birthday party
Newt
Shadwell
Madame Tracy
nearly every time Aziraphale went to Heaven's room of business to talk to the other angels