obstinatecondolement | Entries tagged with fandom: porridge

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Dear Yuletide author,

I am SweetPollyOliver on AO3. Thank you for offering one of my fandoms! I'm excited to see what you write.

Except for DNWs, everything I’ve said in this letter is extremely optional and I’ve only included what I have to give people who like a jumping off point some guidance into things I enjoy. Feel free to ignore whatever you don’t vibe with and read as much or as little of this as you like.

Likes

SFW likes

Fic that is largely canon compliant. Canon divergent AUs are great, fic that re-interprets or re-examines canon events with a different lens is also great. I am not especially reverent towards canon and non-canon compliant fic is not a problem, but I do really like fic that rattles the bars of its canonical confines while remaining within them (or stays within them for the most part). See also:
- Post-canon fic and prequel fic—especially ones that are:
  - Character studies.
- Missing scene fic.
Fic with a strong ensemble cast.
Dramatic irony, especially when it’s comedic.
Witty or otherwise humorous dialogue.
As you can probably tell from the last two listed likes, I prefer fics with a comedic tone, or at least a comedic tinge (which can be ironic and/or bitter, in fics that skew more towards the dramatic side of the comedy-drama spectrum). I like pretty dry and understated humour, but I am also just a fan of Funny more generally.
Getting together and/or stuff with a first kiss.
There Was Only One Bed.
5+1 fic.
Bittersweet or melancholy fics. I am always a sucker for regret and missed opportunities/wasted time.
References to queer culture and history. This can be in conjunction with one or more queer ships, but can also be in a gen fic featuring one or more queer characters.
Pining.
Cuddling, especially in conjunction with touch starvation.
Overwrought emotion and crying.
Polyamory
Emotionally intense and tempestuous co-dependent relationships, which can either get healthier over the course of the narrative or remain very much a "don’t try this at home" kind of depiction.
Kid fic.
Knitting or other kinds of crafts
I love STEM-y things being featured in fic, either realistic or I also love wildly unrealistic and campy fake science escapades.
Things relating to ageing.
Stuff about (wanted) pregnancy. Can be along the fluffy side or the kinky side.

NSFW likes

First time having sex. I particularly like if first time sex scenes (and sex scenes generally) aren’t Perfect™ and things are a little awkward in a way that the characters can laugh about.
- First time bottoming and, more generally, first time doing X sex act or kink and/or characters realising that something they hadn’t given much thought to, or had assumed they wouldn’t be into, is something they’re really into. I’d prefer they go into it with a “Sure, I’ll try anything once” attitude rather than an “I’ll suffer through it for you 😥” attitude.
Friends with benefits/platonic sex. This can turn into fuckbuddies-to-lovers, but it doesn’t have to. I am particularly partial to a character who wingmans for their fuckbuddy and gets them together with another love interest (whether or not the two friends continue to have platonic sex afterwards is fine either way).
Non-penetrative sex.
- Intercrural sex specifically. This can transition into penetrative sex or not.
- Oral sex of all varieties.
Virginity kink, even/especially if the fic itself doesn’t buy into the social construction of virginity as a concept.

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DNWs

I don’t mean to imply any judgement with any of my DNWs and some of them are things that I do enjoy from time to time in some contexts, but aren’t things that I’d like as part of a gift work/that I’m in a headspace for right now.

DNWs

Mundane/modern AUs (e.g. college or coffee shop AUs, etc.)
Harry Potter AUs/fusions/references
Grimdark fic. I’m fine with angsty or bittersweet fic or with stories that are framed as tragedies, but I do not want something that is primary intended to be disturbing, or that is unrelentingly miserable with no reprieve and no catharsis at the end.
Non-con
Degradation kink.
Desperation kink.
Edging

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Requests

I have included some suggestions for prompts below. I was able to write more for some fandoms than others, largely because I was able to plunder past letters for details for some fandoms and I wrote this letter over a couple of days and my brain was braining great toward the end, so any disparity in length or level of detail isn't a reflection on how much I like any of them and I will be equally delighted to receive a fic for any fandoms I've requested.

Porridge

Requested characters: Norman Stanley "Fletch" Fletcher; Lennie Godber

Something shippy would be lovely, if you were so inclined, but canon-typical gen would also be a delight. I'd love a "case fic" of some kind where they had to do some labyrinthine shenanigans to accomplish a goal of some variety, or a scene that implied a larger plot to that effect. Other thoughts I've had is that Fletch and Godber both had birthdays while in prison, so maybe you could do something about that? Godber feeling glum about turning 24 on the inside possibly? Fletch having his own inscrutible birthday-related feelings when he adds up how many he's spent on the inside versus out? Something more lighthearted and caper-adjacent than I'm suggesting? You could also do something more general with holidays/special occasions where they try to make the days feel different from each other, maybe up to and including inventing nonsense holidays to amuse themselves. If you wanted to write something post-canon that included stuff from Going Straight or Life Beyond the Box: Norman Stanley Fletcher, or that diverged from the spin-off and mockumentary if you wanted to go in other directions, that would be great! In terms of tone, I enjoy the comedic and silly vibe of canon but feel free to have more somber moments about life in prison, etc., if the mood strikes you. If you were interested in writing something shippy, I do also think that Fletch has about a metric tonne of internalised homophobia, so that's also something I'd be intrigued to read about.

The Producers (1968)

Requested characters: Max Bialystock; Leopold "Leo" Bloom

I really love the relationship between these two whether it's framed as shippy or platonic. For all that it starts out as a manipulation to try and get Leo more on board with committing fraud with him, it seems to turn very sincere and affectionate very quickly. I think both of them, in their own way, are very lonely at the start of the movie. Bialystock does, technically, have a sex life, albeit one that is having sex with his investors to fund his rapidly diminishing lifestyle, but I don't think it would be a stretch to say there is no intimacy in his life before their friendship develops. Leo, for his part, was never called by his first name even in kindergarten!

On the shippier side of things, it intrigues me that on Bialy's side of things, sexual relationships with women seem to be a means to get something rather than something he wants in their own right. He has sex with the little old ladies for money, he cat-calls women out the window to peacock and put Leo off-balance when he arrives to do his accounts, he hires Ulla to ogle but then turns her down every single time she propositions him, sometimes quite irritably. Obviously it's Not Great to use women as a status symbol, but is that what's going on? Is he maybe gay or ace?

While we're in headcanon territory, I also think that Leo Bloom pings very autistic (although I wouldn't use that specific terminology in a fic because it would be incongruous with the time period). His composure that rapidly gives way to emotional fragility and meltdowns, his job that involves a lot of tolerance for tedious repetition and attention to detail, his near-total social isolation and then intense devotion to a single friend, it all adds up into the most relatable character I have ever seen on screen. I also have thought on occasion that there is scope for a trans reading of him, with lines like "No one ever called me Leo before" and "I'm Leo Bloom! I'm me! I can do whaever I want! I'm Leo Bloom!" and his discomfort with gender non-comformity (when he meets Roger de Bris and is thrown by him wearing a dress and the "I'm not a madam; I'm a concierge!" scene), which I think have a different vibe when you interpret him as a stealth trans man in his mid-thirties in the late 60s. This would also, potentially, factor into his loneliness and social isolation, if he were stealth and trying to a) distance himself from his pre-transition life and b) avoid intimacy that could be compromising. If this was something you were intrigued by, I'd be interested in reading a fic along those lines, but it is far from the only take I'd be interested in reading about!

For some specific ideas, maybe something post-canon where they are putting Prisoners of Love from prison? Or maybe a canon-divergent fic where they were able to make it to Rio de Janeiro before it all went south. Do they immediately start a new scheme when they're there? Does Leo manage to convince Max to quit while they're ahead? Maybe something set during canon? A missing scene when they're going through scripts? Bialy telling Leo stories about his old shows?

Supacell

Requested characters: Sabrina Clarke, Sharleen Clarke, Rodney Cullen, Spud

This show was such a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre! It had such a strong sense of place and the characters were so distinct and vivid, and the premise genuinely felt like a novel take on a superhero origin story. As I mentioned in my sign up, if you would prefer, you can write a fic that just features Sharleen and Sabrina or one that just features Rodney and Spud rather than something with all four of them. Although, maybe something around the theme of family would lend itself to something that they'd all fit into?

I love that Sharleen and Sabrina are so different from each other, but that doesn't flatten them into a "bad girl vs good girl" stereotypical dynamic. Sabrina does let herself get coaxed out to the club (and, for that matter, tells Krazy that she will kill him herself and be the one going to prison for thirty years when she thinks Shar is in danger), Sharleen is writing her dissertation, and they both love each other so fiercely. If you wanted to go post-canon and show something about Sabrina trying to rescue her sister from where she's been kidnapped, that would be great, or you could go pre-canon and have something about the two of them growing up, or something that wove through pre-, during and post-canon. Maybe Rodney could bond with Sabrina about how horrifying it is for your loved ones to be in peril and for you to have no power to help, even with bloody superpowers.

With Rodney and Spud, I'm intrigued by what their relationship is. Is it romantic? If so, are they non-monogamous, or does Rodney just keep flirting with random women to keep in practice? They do seem to share all their money and I did assume they lived together in that one-bedroom flat until the line where Rodney says that Spud "stays over most nights". See also: Rodney saying they'd be shopping for a house once the money started coming in. I don't think it necessarily needs to be kissy-kissy for them to be life partners, of course, and a fic about them being in a QPP would also be great. It would also be pretty on-brand for Rodney to have sped past the trivial little details of asking someone out or telling him he like him before deciding they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.

The Tick (TV 2017)

Requested characters: Dorothy "Dot" Everest, Overkill, Arthur Everest, the Tick

As mentioned in my sign up, I'm open to something that only feaures Dot and Overkill or something that just features Arthur and the Tick if you don't have an idea for somethign with all four of them. I'm happy for something shippy involving either or both Dot/Overkill and Tick/Arthur, or something gen.

I love how this show combines campy superhero shenanigans with a more grounded approach to emotional storytelling. I'm totally in the market for either silly jokes or something with a more serious slant. Or, indeed, both! If you wanted to do sort of a mid-mission case fic (since 1000 words isn't a lot of scope for a full on plot along those lines) that would be really cool, or something not related to crime-fighting would also be fun. Maybe something where Arthur could flex his paperwork skills to save the day through administrative means? Dot and Overkill having to get bailed out by Arthur and the Tick for some antiheroics gone wrong? In the event you wanted to write something shippy with Tick/Arthur, I tend to prefer when smutty fic for this pairing is a bit off the beaten path and I think there's a lot of scope for some fun xenophilia-adjacent things. The "suit" being a living part of his body rather than something that can conveniently come off or make way for more conventional human anatomy is very compelling to me. With Dot/Overkill, I think that something that engages with Overkill's disabilities in an access intimacy kind of way would be really cool. Him allowing himself to be vulnerable around Dot by taking off/turning off his prostheses to be comfortable maybe?

Beetlejuice (movies)

Requested characters: Beetlejuice, Lydia Deetz, Delia Deetz, Astrid Deetz

I'm open to somethat that just features Beetlejuice and Lydia, or something that just features Lydia and Delia, or something that just features Lydia and Astrid if you would rather write that than something with all four characters.

I saw Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on the big screen recently with no real expectations, but I loved it so much! Maybe even more than the original, because it was so much less cruel, especially in its treatment of Delia. I've always felt that, all things being equal, she as an oddball artist would have been a natural ally to Lydia the weird goth girl with a penchant for photography. I also like that Beetlejuice was significantly defanged in terms of how menacing he seemed and he was borderling sweet at points. Honestly, Lydia's scumbag fiance being a more realistic kind of terrible makes old BJ come off like a prince in comparison. She could, and did, do a lot worse! Which is all to say, I am very happy to receive shippy Beetlejuice/Lydia fic, although feel free to not go that route if you'd rather write something gen with them, or a gen fic about Lydia's relationship with either Astrid or Delia. Or both of them! I'm very intrigued by how Lydia's relationship with Delia improved and how it was that they reached the cheerful equilibrium they did in the sequel that wasn't barb-free but was still friendly. Similarly, when did Astrid's relationship with Lydia start to go downhill? Was she maybe more even-handed before her father died, or did she start being resentful once Lydia and her dad separated/divorced? Was she embarrassed about Lydia's paranormal shtick before then, or was it "selling out" that soured her on it? Or maybe did she believe her mom as a kid and get made fun of for it?

Feel free to drop references to other adaptations – I loved the cartoon as a kid and I have approximate knowledge of the musical from my sister who is a big musical theatre fan. If you do go shippy with Beetlejuice/Lydia, I'd prefer if Lydia had agency and the ability to assert boundaries and was actively choosing the relationship as opposed to being tricked or coerced, although I'm not against a "fake marriage to real relationship" sort of thing, or something that starts more dubious and moves to a more equal playing field.

Kaos

Requested characters: Caeneus, Eurydice "Riddy", Ariadne "Ari", Dionysus

I am open to a fic that just features Caeneus and Riddy, or one that just features Ari and Dionysus or one that is about any of the requested characters invididually.

I loved this show so much! I feel like it's so hard to adapt Greek mythology in a way that feels fresh at this point, given how many centuries worth of interpretation and reinterpretation have been going on at this point, but it had me in the palm of its hand from start to finish. I have been saying for ages now that I want a version of Ariadne who genuinely loved her brother instead of aiding and abetting his murder (justice for the minotaur!). And the idea of a Eurydice who just isn't that into Orpheus is inspired! What does it mean to be the object of someone's undying loyalty when that comes at the expense of being the subject of your own narrative? Caeneus as a former Amazon who had to leave after coming out as trans was a very rich vein to mine too, and I really liked Dionysus as just sort of a nice (by the standards of the gods) guy who likes people, which seemed very appropriate for a god with his particular domain. The nod at the end of the series to his relationship with Ariadne in the myths was also very fun! I'd love if you wanted to write a fic where they met. I also adore Caeneus and Riddy's relationship and I think that's rich with the potential for something deliciously angsty, or maybe something more fluffy as a missing scene when they are in the underworld together? I also would really love to read a character study of any of the characters I have requested. Their backstories are so intriguing and canon has left a lot of room to carve out discrete moments in their past in a fic.

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To anyone else reading letters to look for people to treat, hi there! I have gifts enabled on my AO3 account, so treat away if you so desire, and thank you for the kind thought.

Challenge #11
In your own space, create a fanwork.
Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I've just posted the fic I wanted to use to fill this challenge with! I don't imagine it's going to have much broad appeal, since the AO3 tag has all of 11 works, three of which I wrote and two of which were gifts for me, but here it is all the same.

Fandom: Porridge (more specifically the spin-off Going Straight)
Title: I'll Always Feel Just the Same
Relationship/characters: Norman Stanley Fletcher/Lennie Godber
Word count: 7739 words
Warning(s): Homophobia (internalised and systemic), biphobia, systemic inequality, implied past dubiously consensual sex, insecurity about being a financial provider, some ironic in-character disparaging remarks about social welfare, references to prejudice against people who've been in prison/a lack of opportunities to make a living within the bounds of the law after being released from prison.
Summary: Godber catches Fletch trying to sneak out to dig up the field in Essex where he buried ill-gotten gains from his past. Sex and emotional catharsis ensues.

Read on AO3

Challenge #12
Tell Us about a Personal Win.
Share whatever wins you’re comfortable with telling us all about. Found a new fandom that makes you light up? One of your creations has earned more kudos than you dreamed of? Wins from life, new job, new school, new adventure? You have a couple of wins you want to celebrate, we want to hear about them. Share a win or two so we can cheer for you.
Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Yesterday, another Porridge fan who is trying to make fetch happen with getting a transformative Porridge fandom going, reached out to me on Tumblr and linked me to a fic they wrote! The fic is called "a certain type of man" and the author who reached out to me is Ebenelephant. The basic premise is that Lennie Godber, one of the show's two leads, comes out to Lukewarm, a canonically gay secondary character, as bisexual. It's really well written, beautifully in-character and evocative of the show in the dialogue. It's very nice to read something with gen with a queer reading of a canon character, as well as something that features a more minor character. While I'm still very deadset on writing whatever I want, whether anyone cares to read it or not, it's nice to not have to make all my own fun in a small fandom in the Yuletide off-season and it's great to meet someone to talk to about the show and the characters.

Since I've mentioned stuff I've been writing though...

Challenge #8
Talk about a current fannish project (fic, art, vid, crochet, funko pop village) (that you are creating or enjoying)
Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

As well as various other WIPs I have bubbling away in the background, I am writing another Porridge fic at the moment that has been on the cusp of completion for a few days now, once I can muster up the willpower to knock the sex scene out of the way. I'm not shy about it, or anything, or in any way reluctant to imagine Ronnie Barker getting a good seeing to, but I often find smut kind of a grind to write and I get bored by it easily. I have been reassured by friends that this doesn't translate to the finished product, which still gets the job done, but, having been actively writing fic for about fifteen years at this point, it does just feel pretty staid and routine from behind the scenes, haha.

At any rate, I'm quite happy with how it's working out. It amused me that Ebenelephant had a bit in their fic where Godber mentions David Bowie in relation to bisexuality, because I did that too, haha. The parallel thinking there certainly not at all improbable, given we're in the 1970s here and Bowie is a very relevant cultural reference in discussions of bisexuality in that period, but it's nice that there are now enough of us in the mix that parallel thinking is occuring.

It was my hope to post a link to this still in-progress fic for my response to challenge #11, but it's not quite there yet, so in the mean time:

Challenge #10
Five Things! The five things are totally up to you. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

In no particular order, here's five of my favourite things about Porridge:

Ronnie Barker's portrayal of Fletch is just so charming and funny and devastatingly relatable to me personally. He's funny, he's quippy, he's very keen to see if everyone's noticed his funny quips, he's a 'failure' by many conventionally understood metrics of fitting into mainstream society and is defiantly unashamed of it.
While it is very punny and gag-heavy, the dialogue is very naturalistic in its delivery and the vernacular it's written in, which feels very lived-in and realistic in a way that more contemporary media with a similar quip-per-minute rate don't to me.
While there are certainly aspects of the show that haven't aged great, in my subjective opinion it is a lot less uneasy viewing in terms of bigoted humour compared with a lot of its contemporaries and, even though it has unquestionably racist and homophobic aspects, its portrayal of McLaren, a Black character, and Lukewarm, a gay character, are overall sympathetic and I find them well-rounded and well integrated into the ensemble cast.
For a show that has been criticised for sanitising the image of British prisons at a time when they were rife with abuse, it is refreshingly cynical about the criminal justice system and the inequalities that it enforces and perpetuates.
Okay, fine, Richard Beckinsale is very pretty and I like to think about him trying his absolute best to shag Ronnie Barker, what do you want from me? I'm not made of stone.

That's all for now! Hopefully I can circle back on #11 soon with a link to my new hyperniche fic with whatever the opposite of broad appeal is, haha.

Challenge #9
Rec Us Your Newest Thing. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Content warning: Discussion of prison, abuse of prisoners, sexual assault, IRA hunger strikes, homophobia (including internalised homophobia), queerness being closeted/repressed, racism, and systemic injustic (especially classism).

This is, um, about a lighthearted sitcom, lol. Oh, which one?

Porridge

Click to expand

Intro

So my 'new' thing is not really new, either to me or in general, but I have been revisiting the 1970s British sitcom Porridge recently and, having had a lovely windfall of Yuletide gifts and written a couple of my own fics, am now absolutely in its thrall with no clear endpoint in sight. The show is generally remembered fondly by people in the UK and Ireland (and, I think, some other Anglophone countries) who are of an age to have seen it, but there is not much of a transformative fandom presence per se, which, of course, means that I have to do my level best to drag a few of you, who it may or may not be new to, down with me 😉

Porridge stars the late Ronnie Barker in the lead role of Norman Stanley Fletcher, a small-time career criminal who has been sent to serve a five year prison sentence in Slade Prison. This is far from his first time on the inside and, as an old hand, he takes the other lead, Lennie Godber, a young first-offender from Birmingham, played by the late Richard Beckinsale (father of Kate and Samantha Beckinsale), under his wing. Fletch and Godber are cellmates for most of the show, despite Fletch's attempts to finagle a single cell, and many of the scenes are set in their cell and mostly, or only, feature them.

Click for more background on the show

Other characters include:

Mr Barrowclough, an easily taken advantage of and ineffectual prison officer.
Mr McKay, a more punitive and harsh prison officer.
Mr Venables, Slade prison's governor, a tropical fish enthusiast who likes to think of himself as enlightened in his approach, a belief which may or may not be justified.
Lukewarm, an affable gay trusty^* who knits and lends his dubious cooking skills to the prison kitchen. Jokes are often made about his sexuality, but they are generally not meanspirited, especially when compared with other casually homophobic jokes and language in the show, but this is something to be aware of.
Jim "Jock" McLaren, played by a young Tony Osoba, a cagey prisoner who hasn't had many breaks other than the fractured bones he's inflicted on others, but who is generally on good terms with Fletch and Godber and who, under his defensiveness, is pretty easy going. Just to flag this as a 'buyer beware' thing, there are a number of jokes made about McLaren's ethnicity, nationality, and race (his is Black and Scottish, his biological parents being a West Indian woman and a white Scottish man, although he did not grow up with either of them and was "found wrapped up in a copy of the Glasgow Herald in a Greenock housing estate" and grew up in an orphange) which would not fly today and shouldn't have then, as well as outdated terminology that is not (usually) intended offensively, but which is by almost universal consensus considered racist today. Although some of the homophobic language in the show is, arguably, harsher, as they were used as slurs then as well as now, I think the racism in Porridge, both in its treatment of McLaren and in other incidental dialogue, is more overt and harsh than the homophobia.
"Bunny" Warren, a prisoner who often goes in on schemes with Fletch and who gets him to read his letters from his wife for cigarettes, since he himself is illiterate.
"Genial" Harry Grout, a prisoner who the rest of Slade, inmates and staff alike, lives in terror of and has fingers in many pies relating to blackmarket goods and gambling.
Ives, a horrible little man and frequent antagonist who, among other offenses, commits the cardinal sin of stealing from other prisoners.
Cyril Heslop, a prisoner who came in with Godber and Fletch who is slow and thoughtful, but not one of nature's great intellectuals, and often several steps behind in a conversation when he chimes in with a contribution.
Blanco Webb, a 63 year old prisoner serving a long sentence who is old before his time and who Fletch is very caring toward and reserves most of his sarcasm from.
Harris, another horrible little man along similar lines to Ives. As far as I know, the same actor played an almost identical character "Norris" in one of the other episodes, but I may be conflating two different actors.
Ingrid Fletcher, Fletch's daughter, who he conceived out of wedlock in Highgate Cemetary on the grave of Karl Marx (he was going through a political phase, and it was as handy a place as any). Ingrid is friendly and cheerful, but a little flakey.

Most of the plots involve harebrained schemes that go awry, like an underground high-stakes game of snakes and ladders, or a pineapple chunks heist. It is very silly and, while aspects of the humour are now dated, a lot of it stands up and I enjoy it a lot. Something I really like about it is that Fletch often repeats jokes in a nudge-nudge-did-you-get-it way, or looks around to see if people are laughing at them, which feels very true to his character, who is very prone to off-the-cuff wordplay and holding forth, and not a little show offish about it. He's very charming and funny and well-spoken, albeit in a way that includes frequent malapropisms, and he clearly bases a lot of his self-esteem on being seen as such. Also, being funny and irreverent is a large part of how he keeps the bastards from grinding him down.

Aside from the aspects of the show that have not aged well that I mentioned above, I really love the humour of the show and I find it very charming. As well as the wacky sitcom shenanigans, the dialogue has a lot of punning and wordplay, largely from Fletch, and the way Barker performs Fletch is extremely winning. A lot of the time he'll repeat jokes in a nudge-nudge-get-it way, or look around to see if people have reacted to a witticism, and I find that just such a lovely and real layer of characterisation. Fletch is rarely serious, often joking, loves playing with language and often holds forth, all of which he is pretty vain and show-offish about and it's clear that being thought of as funny and well-spoken or clever is a big part of his self-image. His irreverance is also a big part of what keeps him sane and stops the bastards from grinding him down, because, while the show is mostly a light hearted take on incarceration that does not really square with the realities of British prisons in the 1970s, at the height of IRA hunger-strikes and at a time rife with human rights violations of prisoners, it is not entirely rosy and uncynical or uncritical about the criminal justice system and prison. There are a lot of elements that focus on how class and marginalisation plays into who ends up in prison and the show is very much on the side of most of the prisoners in Slade over the system that put them in there even if they are as cheerfully unrepentent as Fletcher, although some crimes are framed less sympathetically than theft, notably white collar crime.

*A trusty is a prisoner with special responsibilities and privileges. Also, per the Wikipedia page on the prison trusty system, apparently trusty rather than trustee is the standard spelling, so the more you know, I guess.
[return to where you left off.]

The show has three series and two Christmas specials, two spin-offs—Going Straight, which follows Fletch immediately after he's released from Slade, and a reboot from 2016 where his grandson is the lead, which I have not seen and don't really intent to—a semi-canonical movie from 1979, and a once-off mockumentary set in-universe—Life Beyond the Box: Norman Stanley Fletcher—which came out in 2003.

My crackpot shippy slant on the dynamic between the leads, which is actually very reasonable, how dare you, I don't have to stand here and be insulted like this

Click to expand

Godber: I'm fed up with crime. I wanna go straight.
Fletch: How old are you, son?
Godber: Twenty-three.
Fletch: Twenty-three and you wanna go straight? What kind of talk is that, eh? You've got your whole life ahead of you!

So, yeah, I ship Fletch and Godber, because of course I do. Here is a graphic I made and posted on Tumblr in 2023 when I started rewatching the show:

A collage of featuring several images of the characters Norman Stanley Fletcher and Lennie Godber from the sitcom Porridge, which have been edited to look like Polaroids and superimposed over a background image of exterior of the fictional Slade Prison as seen in the show's opening credits. There are miscellanious hearts and arrows edited onto the image and it is captioned 'Back on my bullshit, 2023' with a smaller caption reading, '*at least I'm having fun, okay?'

This is not a recent development or a revelation I've only had upon rewatching the show, because I also shipped them a LOT when I saw the show first as a teenager. It was, however, extremely arresting (aha) to revisit it and be hit by the shippiness anew. Given my much-touted love of roguish con-men and crooks, and shipping them with wide-eyed younger men who adore them, this is extremely on-brand behaviour from me, to the point where a friend, after I told her that I was rewatching Porridge and having a great time sexualising Ronnie Barker through the proxy of Richard Beckinsale, said, "That makes total sense as a ship for you." A statement which remains the funniest way I have ever been called out in my entire life.

However! In my own defence, I don't think this is shipping goggles forcing a romantic dynamic that may not exist onto two characters who tick enough boxes for me that I'd like to imagine them kissing. I mean it's not not that, but it's not just that. There is, of course, Godber's general open admiration, sometimes almost to the point of awe, of Fletcher, and Fletch's protectiveness over Godber, and their little domestic squabbles and stuff like Godber darning Fletch's socks and nicking tins of pineapple chunks for him at great personal risk, but the first thing that piqued my interest came from their first scene together.

Godber: Know all the form, don't ya? You been here before?
Fletch: No, never been here. But it’s all the same; porridge is porridge innit?
Godber: First time for me. Don't know how I'll get through.
Fletch: Oh, cheer up, could be worse. State this country's in, you could be free, couldn't you? Stuck outside with no work and a crumbling economy. How horrible that would be. Nothing to do but go to bed early and increase the population.
Godber: Won't be doing that for a while.
Fletch: No, that's true, hmm. No, I shouldn't have said that, it's a tasteless joke, innit?
Godber, with an expression like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth: I'm gonna feel ever so deprived.

Like??? I cannot overstate how easy it is to read a lot of scenes in the first few episodes as Godber trying desperately to signal in every way that he can think of that he's up for it to this older, more experienced man who's done time before and has taken him under his wing. Tragically, Fletch doesn't pick up on these hints. I imagine that he hasn't quite got it right yet, per this quote from the pilot:

Godber: Hey, Fletcher, what does he mean by 'practising homosexual?'
Fletch: One who ain’t quite got it right yet.

Ah well, better blatant than latent, but better latent than never, eh? And, like, again, I feel like it is an extremely small stretch to read Fletch, a man who has spent most of his married life in prison and who got married very young to his also-very-young girlfriend after an unplanned pregnancy, as someone who is gay and just hasn't spent enough time outside prison to reflect much on not being that interested in women sexually/romantically.

Fletch, talking to the hens in the prison farm as he steals eggs: Now then, girls. This is what's known as one of the perks of the job. Now, with these eggs I'm smuggling in 'ere, I can get meself a quarter ounce of shag, or two tubes of toothpaste, or... three bars of Fruit 'N Nut! Or I could take them down to E-wing and see Smutty Garland, the king of the porn, exchange 'em for two of his dirty books, yeah, full of full-frontal naked nubiles...
Fletch: I think I'd rather have the Fruit 'N Nut meself.

He also says at various points that 'carnal thoughts' are a bad idea in prison and you should try your absolute best to suppress them—although he also plasters the cell with pictures of topless Page 3 girls, so he's not entirely consistent here, at least on a surface level reading where you do not assume that this choice of decor is performative. I am, however, equally open to readings of him as not gay but otherwise queer and attracted to men, but deeply repressed about it, perhaps in part because of having spent so much time in prison, where there is a lot of homophobic violence and sexual assault, which queer prisoners are disproportionately the victims of. Fletcher himself expresses a lot of casual homophobia, often in the form of jokes about sexual assault, which could just be read at face value as bad-taste homophobic jokes, but could also take on a more sinister undertone if you scratch the surface of it, particularly since Fletch's primary coping mechanism is humour.

Fletch is pretty fond of Lukewarm, who is gay and out, and textually treats Lukewarm's boyfriend on the outside, Trevor, and their relationship as basically equivalent to other prisoners' relationships with their wives, with the only caveat that Trevor also has to worry about Lukewarm having wandering eyes while they're apart, so I don't think he's a unilateral bigot. I do absolutely think he needs some practice to get the hang of one or two things though. As it were.

Where you can watch it

Click to expand

There are some different options to rent or buy various parts of the canon as well as a few streaming services that have it available in certain regions. What I've been able to find online are the following:

Porridge S1-3 (TV 1974):
- DVD
- Britbox
- BBC iPlayer
- Prime
- Apple TV
The Christmas specials:
- No Way Out:
  - DVD
  - Britbox
  - Apple TV
- The Desperate Hours:
  - DVD
  - Britbox
  - Apple TV
Going Straight (TV 1978):
- DVD
- Apple TV
- YouTube
Porridge (Movie 1979):
- YouTube
- DVD
Life Beyond the Box: Norman Stanley Fletcher (TV 2003):
- YouTube

I also think there were some episodes released on VHS at some point, if you have a VCR. I don't think any part of the canon has been released on BluRay, and as far as I know the 2003 mockumentary is only availabe online on YouTube. It doesn't seem to be on the iPlayer anymore and I don't think it ever got a physical release.

The digital options above may or may not be available in your region and there may be others that I am unaware of.

In terms of the DVDs, you can buy the individual series/seasons by themselves, or in one of a few different boxsets (one with S1-3, one with S1-3 plus the Christmas specials, a few miscellaneous Ronnie Barker DVD boxsets that have some of his other work), but something to bear in mind is the DVDs I've seen online seem to all be Region 2 or Region 4. If you are not in those regions, and you don't have a multiregion DVD player, VLC can usually play DVDs regardless of region if you plug a USB DVD player into a computer in my experience, but I think it depends on the drivers in your DVD player. It may be possible to change the region of your DVD player (although sometimes you can only do this a fixed number of times before it gets locked to one region) or install firmware from the internet that will allow it to play DVDs from any region, or you might also be able to use one of a variety of programs online, such as HandBrake, to rip a region-locked DVD (sometimes with some workarounds if it is not working in a straightforward way, but there are how-to guides that I can put you in the way of it you would like).

For what it's worth though, in my experience a USB DVD drive and VLC will play any DVD I throw at it, which I think is the case for most USB DVD drives and laptop DVD drives, and I've never tried to rip a DVD and then been prevented by region, regardless of the software I used (and I have tried a few), but your mileage may vary and there is a chance you might buy something that you can't play, or can't play without voiding your DVD players warranty or wandering into what you may consider to be legally grey areas (although I believe that ripping DVDs you bought legally for private use is legal in most juridications, which, again, is just my impression and may be wrong). They generally seem to be going fairly cheaply though, so it could be a relatively inexpensive gamble to pick up a single Region 2 DVD to test it out if you felt up for it.

There may be other more dubiously legal methods of seeing Porridge, or its various spin-offs and extended canon, but this is just an observation and not a recommendation, and I certainly would not advise anyone to send me a message asking me to make MP4s from DVDs that I've bought and ripped available to them.

As ever, please let me know if any of the links are broken and I'll fix them

Search in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture (a link to a picture will be fine!) or description of something that is or represents:
1. Something your favorite character would like
2. Something that makes you laugh
3. A fandom place you would like to visit
4. A fandom creator (pro or not) you'd like to meet
5. Something you find comforting
6. Something from a favorite TV series or movie from your childhood
7. A piece of clothing you love
8. A book or song with a color in the title
9. Something only someone in your fandom would understand

Something your favorite character would like
This one was tricky! For one, I have so many characters who I love it would be hard to single out out as my absolute number one favourite, and for another I am quite different from a lot of my favourite characters in the things I like, or at least am a bit short on stuff they'd like at the moment. So, in the spirit of a well-intentioned relative doing their very best:
It's the thought that counts, Blorbo...
Who doesn't love nice, warm hand knitted socks? They're made from 100% alpaca fibre yarn! Well, almost 100%, there's a bit of polyamide in there to make them more hardwearing. But all the better, really, less darning! Really, Blorbo, you could be a little grateful.

Something that makes you laugh
This one was a lot easier, because I was in the middle of laughing at it when I first read today's challenge on the snowflake_challenge community.
You gotta make your own fun sometimes...
This is a once-off single episode podcast I recorded with my fellow trek-rarepair-swap co-mod cosmic_llin recently for voiceteam's Mystery Box 2023 event. The challege was Temptation and bluedreaming tempted people to record a mini-podcast or oral not!fic about their favourite overlooked fandom/rare ship/etc., which I all but jumped at and immediately asked the mods if it would be okay to record something with a non-Mystery Box participant if I did the rest of the work of creating the audio work, i.e. organising, editing and cover art, etc., and fortunately they gave me the all clear.
It was really lovely to record this with Llin and reminisce on the magical four years we spent modding trek-rarepair-swap together, the amazing community that built around it, the many wonderful fanworks that were created for it, and the Star Trek rarepairs of our own that inspired the creation of the swap.
If you're interested, you can listen to the pod on AO3 via an embedded stream, or you can use the download link on the work to get a copy of the MP3. Or not, this is not intended as a hard sell, haha. But in my subjective opinion it is a pleasant 51 minutes of listening to two Star Trek nerds being silly.

A fandom place you would like to visit
Now, to be clear, I am not saying that this would be a good idea, but:
All roads lead to...
or rather away from, the Big Wahoonie itself: Ankh-Morpork! More specifically, the offices of The Ankh-Morpork Times to visit William de Worde, who in many ways is The pedantic, morally scrupulous, yet often a bit of a dick, OCD/autistic character of all time. Also, going to visit a newspaper office at a place that's vaguely analogous to a Gutenberg-era print shop is too good a chance to pass up.

A fandom creator (pro or not) you'd like to meet
I am going to cheat here and pick two...
I went to World Con 2019 in no small part to see both of these creators. Sadly, Lindsay Ellis overslept, I think due to jet-lag, and missed the panel she was supposed to do on the day I had a ticket for, but I did get to go to two things where Naomi Novik spoke, which were both fabulous. In one, she read the first chapter of the then-upcoming A Deadly Education. She was a very engaging and funny speaker and had both sets of crowds in the palm of her hand.
I've loved Novik's Temereaire series for years, and reading Spinning Silver was what finally got me to get my drop spindle out again after having it for a full year before then but not being able to figure out how to use it from videos, and I at long last managed to crack how to get the first bit of fluff to catch onto my leader thread, which has brought a great deal of fun and quality of life to me in the years since. From reading Novik's work, I really like her sense of humour and her ideas, and I think she'd be fun to chat to in a low stakes sort of setting.
And, regarding my cheat-y second pick, it would be nice to see Lindsay Ellis speak in person at some point, even if I didn't get to "meet" her, since I didn't get the chance to see her panel in 2019.

Something you find comforting
This one was a doozy...
I've blurred most of the handwriting here to protect the innocent, or myself at any rate, but this is a kind of three, or perhaps even four-for-one thing that I find comforting. Firstly, I find planners and journals very helpful in terms of using pen and paper as a better memory than my fallible meaty brain and in helping me unplug a bit and do something tactile to stop my eyes from getting too square from looking at a screen. Secondly, I also like printing out digital photos on either of my two Polaroid printers, because I so often lose my photographs when I change phones, or I never back them up, and it's nice to just have them somewhere printed out and maybe stuck down. Even, and maybe especially, silly fandom-y ones. Thirdly and fourthly, in the photo-in-the-photo here, you can see my current knitting project, which is another non-digital hobby I am trying to give more time to, and the show that's paused on my laptop in the photo is Porridge, which I've been finding to be very comforting to revisit recently.
More specifically about journaling though, I have found that with my five-year Hobonichi journal, I've been trying to talk about the things, which so far this year have mostly been silly little fandom things, I'm doing that I want to remember five years from now, and that I want to remember how I felt about them at the time.
It has been kind of interesting having a five-year journal for the first time, because I've been finding myself very hestitant to be too optimistic about looking ahead, knowing that I will be looking back on what I'm writing, because historically with journaling it has been a bit dispiriting reading about things I wanted/intended/thought I would do that never happened or didn't work out.
But I suppose that's all part of life, really, and I do want to be able to capture how I really feel in part because I know it will change and I don't want to fall prey to thinking that I don't change my mind and that I've always thought X, Y or Z. The only constant is change, but I like to keep in touch with my past self and write my future self letters about how I'm getting on, you know? So I have, at the very least, been writing down that I'm worried about being optimistic and that it feels foolish, because I don't want to forget that's how I felt. I don't want to put on a brave face to my future self and hope the shame of having over-promised how well I'd do will keep me on the straight and narrow, but I also don't want to self-censor out of some kind of misguided PR-motivated impulse to not look foolish to myself.

Something from a favorite TV series or movie from your childhood
I actually had another plan for this one, until I saw this during the IRL portion of my scavenger hunt...
It wasn't actually the Boom! comics that got me into my brief, but intense, summer of writing Bulk/Skull fic and talking about Power Rangers on Tumblr in 2016, but it was this intense revisitation of my childhood favourite that led me to read the first few volumes of the MMPR and Go Go Power Rangers comics. I sort of fell off around Shattered Grid, and did intend on catching up again at one point, but there has been a lot of lamentation and rending of garments about writing choices that the comics have made from the people I follow on Tumblr who have kept up, so I may or may not at this point.
Regardless though, it's nice to be reminded of my summer of Power Rangers, because that felt like a very pure and unabashed expression of fannish joy and I want to do that more often for whatever niche corners of fandom I find myself in. It was also around that time that I was revisiting a lot of stuff from my childhood again and allowing myself to just be self-indulgent and juvenile about liking what I liked, up to and including campy '90s shows with questionable monster costumes, which is another thing I want to remember to do more often.

A piece of clothing you love
In the context of #3, this one is kind of funny...
I coveted this Beach Boys-print Aloha shirt a lot before I bought it, because I was, at the time, trying very hard to be better about not buying things on the other side of the world impulsively and wanted to a) buy less new clothes in general and b) buy fewer clothes that weren't 100% natural fibres (this is 50/50 cotton and polyester IIRC). However, after about 5 weeks of sitting on my hands and Thinking Seriously about if I Really Needed it, I bought it. Just in time, really, because my size was very nearly sold out and it's a limited edition print that wasn't going to be brought back in stock. But I absolutely love it and I feel that it is very representative of me as a person, so I think that counts as mindful consumption, haha.
I have been trying to be more comfortable with the fact that I am not ever going to be able to pull off the willowy androgyne, or tall lumberjack, take on masculinity just because of my basic body type, which even with HRT can only change so much. I will always be short and round with small hands and feet, but that's okay because there are lots of short, round-faced men (and otherwise masculine-of-centre people) and they are great, so if I'm more of the Justin McElroy school of masculine gender presentation then I want to do that very hard and on purpose instead of living in bland unisex clothes that I try to hide in. I've fallen off a bit on this fashion-effort lately, so this is a good reminder to keep persisting in trying to get better at this.
And, regarding what I said about the relationship to #3, I wore this shirt when I was going to visit some friends in North Wales, one of whom happened to be wearing a Rincewind shirt when I got off the train. The friend wearing the Rincewind shirt took my luggage for me and my other friend remarked, shortly after I got done taking a photograph of the sign for Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch,^* "Um, so I've noticed something here..." and we all had a good laugh about me doing touristy things while I was doing an unintentional closet cosplay of Twoflower and my friend was channeling Rincewind at the same time. I, fortunately, did not leave my luggage in Wales, however.
*Which, incidentally, is a request only stop, so I had to tell the conductor that it was where I was disembarking ahead of time, a task for which I prepared by relentlessly drilling myself with Welsh language tutorials on YouTube and getting Welsh friends at vidukon_cardiff, where I was travelling from, to tutor me on the pronunciation before I left the hotel. All told, I spent almost a full day on this preparation (remember what I said about finding William de Worde relatable?), only, after all that, for the conductor to tell me he was getting off at Chester and I would have to tell the next fella.
Should you ever be in this situation though, I have been reliably informed that you don't have to say the whole name, and would seem like a bit of a try-hard if you attempted to, and all that you need to do is say "Llanfair-PG" or, if you really want to seem like you're in the know, "Llanfairpwllgwyngyll." I tried the latter the first time pretty successfully with conductor #1, but stumbled at the fence by not taking a long enough run up to it with conductor #2, and had to resort to shamefacedly saying that I'd meant Llanfair-PG.
The rather unfortuante thing is that even with an abbreviated version of the name in question, I'm really bad at the ll sound in Welsh (to say nothing of other sounds in Welsh that weren't there to trip me up on this occasion, like the trilled r), so I run into issues straight away. But, as an Irish person who gets very irate about tourists on the train who do not even attempt to learn how to say Irish language place-names and just blithely and confidently mangle them by assuming they should be pronounced like English, I wanted to do my best and make a genuine attempt. Which, unfortunately, was not amazing. Better luck next time, I guess, lol. At least I knew that written Welsh has it's own phonetic conventions that are not identical to written English, I suppose?
[return to where you left off.]

A book or song with a color in the title
This is very cheeky, but...
I also recorded this filk for voiceteam's Mystery Box event. It's based on Under a Blanket of Blue, as performed by Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. I was taking part in a Filk Broken Telephone and the work before mine was 'Meet me in the blanket fort' (based on Meet Me in the Battlefield) by irrationalpie, so this seemed like a good lead on from that and I liked the opportunity for green as a reference to BrickGrass's browser extension that highlights the usernames of users on Rindle's directory of creators with blanket permission statements for transformative works of their fanworks in green, because an audio fanwork event seemed like the right venue for a work about blanket permission statements.
I do a fair bit of amateur singing and other kinds of music in a non-fannish context, but this is the first time I've made an attempt at a musical fanwork, so I hope it turned out okay. If I was doing it again I'd use my other mic, because this sounded a bit tinny, but I think it's listenable.
If you're curious, you can click on the image itself to follow the link to the AO3 work, or for convenience, here's another link here. But absolutely no pressure, and I am linking purely in case people wanted to hear it to save them from hunting it down or asking for a link. My 2024 fandom mission statement is doing whatever I want whether people are interested or not, so if you're not interested then that's genuinely fine.

Something only someone in your fandom would understand
Some more cheekiness...
Once again, the image is a link and here is another one, haha. But also, once again, I genuinely do not expect anyone to make use of either of these links and am just putting them there on the off-chance someone does want a link and, honestly, to scratch the itch caused by the HTML-fuelled goblin that lives in my brain.
I'm mostly including this at all to show that I am walking the walk re: doing whatever niche bullshit I want as I resolved to as part of my day #2 resolutions, because I've already written another fic for one of the micro fandoms I nominated, requested, and offered for Yuletide,^* in addition to the one I wrote for my assignment.
I am 10,000% delighted with how well I did out of Yuletide this year—so much in fact that I still wanted to write more because I was all fired up. So I did. Even though it will be completely impenetratible to, I'm gonna say, 100% of the people who are subscribed to my AO3 profile. And I may still write more! I have an idea for a vid too.
^*And, happily, which I was gifted two wonderful fics for as well, Long Drawn Sunday Night by twoam and A Bit of Bottle by nomadicwriter, as having the opportunity to write one of my own, What Good Are Cupid's Arrows to a Fletcher Without a Beau?, for my recip Emma_Oz.
[return to where you left off.]

I got very link happy in this, so if any are broken, give me a shout in the comments and I'll fix them.

P.S. I've screened comments on this because of a minor brain weasels concern about [REDACTED], but I've unscreened every comment I've gotten so far and if yours is screened for a while I'm probably just asleep or haven't checked DW for a bit.

Challenge #3
Create a wish list of fandom things (podfic, graphics, playlists, canon recs translations, research help, vids, sky's the limit!) that you'd like to receive. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Oh gosh! I obviously do not feel entitled to expect any of these wishes to coming true, but in the spirit of blue-sky thinking, here's some things that would make my entire year:

A shippy Fletch/Godber Porridge fanwork of any variety.
A synopsis of, or fanwork about, a hypothetical episode of The Muppet Show (1976-1981) where the very special guest is a contemporary 2020s celebrity. Time travel optional, and feel free to use any medium (text, audio, audiovisual, visual, etc.) or format, e.g. meta, notfic, oral notfic, fanart, etc.
An unconventional soulmate AU, or a fake dating fanwork, about Roman Roy/Gerri Kellman.
A recommendation of a new-to-me fandom with a canon younger man/older woman ship.
A Survivor (as in the reality TV show) AU for any of my fandoms (anything I have a fandom tag on Dreamwidth for and anything I've created a fanwork for on AO3, besides Teen Wolf which I'm not really into anymore, is fair game).

Dear Festividder,

Hi! I'm SweetPollyOliver on AO3. Thank you so much for offering one of the fandoms I've requested! I can't wait to see what you make :D

General vid and music related likes

Humourous lyrics or ironic pairings of clips with lyrics for a humorous effect
Character study vids
Ensemble vids
Uptempo vids with lots of quick cuts on the beat and a sense of movement
But also: slower, contemplative vids with long clips
Vids with a strong narrative/emotional arc
Music specific likes:
- Vocal jazz, especially Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Chet Baker (my token white man in this category, lol). I mostly listen to stuff from the 1930s-1960s, but I'd be thrilled to get something set to more contemporary jazz too
- Great American Songbook singers, i.e. anyone known for singing things composed by Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc. but especially Judy Garland
- Motown, e.g. Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5 and Smokey Robinson
- Disco, e.g. The Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Boney M., Earth Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan and the Village People
- Rock and pop from the 1960s-1980s, e.g. The Mamas & the Papas, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Cher, The Turtles, The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, ABBA and Queen
- Contemporary pop, e.g. Carly Rae Jepsen, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, Mitski, Hayley Kiyoko, Marina (& the Diamonds), Florence + the Machine
- Contemporary hip hop and R&B, e.g. Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Shea Couleé and Janelle Monáe
- Pop folk, e.g. Simon & Garfunkel, Sufjan Stevens, Belle and Sebastian, Mumford & Sons and Joni Mitchell
- Musical theatre e.g. Patti Lupone, Audra McDonald, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel
- Country, e.g. Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Trixie Mattel, Skeeter Davis, Loretta Lyn, Woody Guthrie, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, Norah Jones, Lil Nas X, Sheryl Crow and Miley Cyrus

Other notes regarding vid preferences

There aren't any genres of music that I actively dislike and if you get the vibe that I would like something based on the things I have listed above, and it's not a DNW, then you're probably right. I don't listen to a huge amount of instrumental music, but I do enjoy it! Also feel free to vid something to a non-music audio source, such as poetry. I don't have strong opinions about talky face, so unless it's something you personally prefer to avoid then don't worry about it on my account. I also don't mind dialogue in vids, but I prefer that it's over instrumental sections of the music with no lyrics, that there is no audible music from the source's score, and that the volume of the song the vid is set to is adjusted so that the dialogue isn't fighting with it.

DNWs

Vids set to music by Michael Bublé or Taylor Swift
On-screen suicide
Footage of rats
Strobing or sudden bright lights

Requested fandoms

Porridge (TV 1974)

I rewatched Porridge a little while ago for the first time in years and was suddenly and violently reminded of how much I shipped Fletch and Godber when I saw the show as a teenager, a thing which a dear friend, who shall remain nameless, said that it made "total sense" as a ship for me, presumably given my long documented weakness for pudgy middle aged con-men, and for pairing them with wide eyed younger and more innocent sidekicks who adore them. You do not have to come with me on the magical journey of shipping Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale if that's not something that makes sense for you though, and I would be more than delighted with a gen vid.

Some specific ideas if that would be helpful

I think that the obvious route to go is to do something funny, possibly related to Fletch's many schemes, or his antagonistic relationship with Mr MacKay, or something about his relationship with Godber through either a canon-aligned gen lens or a shippy lens, or maybe a bigger ensemble vid about the inmates in Slade Prison managing to not let the bastards grind them down through various means. If you wanted to do something less lighthearted than the show itself usually was about incarceration that would also be cool to see.

When Harry Met Sally (1989) [SAFETY]

I have been completely obsessed with this movie since I was about twelve. I do not in any way co-sign the semi-implicit theme that men and women can never be friends, because the sex always gets in the way, but that's never spoiled the movie for me. I can totally buy that this man and woman can't just be friends. I just love Sally's fussy perfectionism and optimism and Harry's nihilistic cynicism and I don't see them as "you know what women/men are like!" archetypes at all, because they feel so much like real and individual people to me.

That said! (specific ideas and prompts)

You do not have to feature the romance centrally, or at all, if you'd prefer to focus on other elements of the movie, like a character study of one of them, or something about Sally's relationship with her friend Marie (played by the late great Carrie Fisher and who is amazing in this movie), possibly combining it with Harry's friendship with Jess, or Marie and Jess's romantic relationship, or Harry and Sally's friendship, or all of the above in a kind of metacommentary on the film's thesis that romantic and/or sexual attraction surpasses platonic love. I think that there are also so many beautiful visuals of New York in the movie that you could make use of if you wanted to do something about the city as a character in the movie.

Gattaca (1997) [SAFETY]

I'm always kind of surprised when people say that Gattaca has aged poorly in its takes about disability, because I kind of think it's spot on? It's a very powerful commentary on eugenics and ableism in my opinion, and things like Jerome/Eugene's internalised ableism regarding his paralysis and his anger with himself for not living up the expected potential of his genome is not co-signed by the movie itself as far as I can tell.

At any rate (ideas and prompts)

I think that you could pull on some interesting threads about ableism and meritocracy if you vidded this. I think it would probably be a more serious and somber vid, because while I do like humour the only way I could really see a way of incorporating it here if I were to do something myself is by picking something with bitterly ironic lyrics about not being good enough? I do also ship the hell out of Vincent/Jerome and Jerome/Eugene, so you're more than welcome to play with that dynamic if it interests you. I think that there's some fun identity fuckery things to tease out there and it would be very interesting to see that in a vid as opposed to a fic. I don't not ship the canon f/m ship though, so please don't feel like Irene is not welcome in the vid! Again, I think that while obviously the movie is about specific indivuals and how the eugenicist society they live in has affected them, it does also affect the whole of society, so an ensemble vid with multiple characters (possibly including the guy at the end who didn't blow Vincent/Jerome's cover because his own child would probably face workplace descrimination based on their genetics as he wasn't "all that they promised, but then who knows what he could do?")—maybe something that featured lines of dialogue from the movie? Although I think with the right song choice there are certainly the visuals to convey that kind of message. Something about Vincent's relationship with his brother, and family, would also be interesting, possibly as part of a character study. Just a note: please do not feature footage of the canonical suicide scene.

Willow (TV 2022)

The Willow movie from the 1980s is incredibly dear to me and I was really looking forward to this show for a long time (it kept getting pushed back, which made waiting feel agonizing and now... well. Anyway.) but it turned out to be everything I could ever have wanted from a sequel/reboot. Visually, it's so in keeping with the aesthetic of the movie, with the higher production values not implying a disrespect or reinvention of what came before. Also! The new characters are so, so amazing! The returning characters are also amazing and there isn't this kid-gloves treatment where they're afraid to present beloved characters as complex and flawed.

Prompts/ideas

I think that you could span the whole spectrum from a very straight epic fantasy vibe to something more irreverant and silly. The show handles both tones very well and either (or a combination of both) would be very in keeping with that. I think a contemporary choice of music would work well—maybe a cover of something from the 80s if you wanted to get meta with it? I love all the characters and an ensemble vid, or a character study of any of them, or a shippy vid with any of the canon relationships, or perhaps something about Elora and Kit's contentious relationship, which I am basically sitting there chewing through a chair leg about every time I see them on screen together. Some character specific angles I can think of is maybe a Kit vid about her relationship to her family and to the privileges and responsibilities of nobility, something about Jade's relationship to Galladorn, both before and after [SPOILERS REDACTED], a vid about Boorman being annoyed by the younger cast/Kit in particular and trying not to let on that he's warming up on them, something about Willow's arc from the movie to the show and the tragedy he's lived through and the weight of responsibility on him, or something about Graydon's relationship to magic and the guilt he lives with. There is a lot of scope in this fandom and I really don't thinkt here's a wrong move here, so if you have a different idea then by all means go for it!

Cagney & Lacey (TV 1981)

Full disclosure: I started watching this show primarily, some might say exclusively, for reasons of being thirsty for Martin Kove (and then very rapidly started being thirsty for Tyne Daly). However! It's so much more than that. It is, of course, a cop show, with all that that entails, but I think that, in many ways, it does a better job of portraying nuance and honesty about the failings of the police than a lot of more contemporary police procedurals? Your mileage may vary, of course. I certainly think that it holds up very well compared to its contemporaries in the genres at any rate though.

Prompts/ideas

I think that there's a lot of ways you could go on this! You could do something about gendered expectations of the 1980s (in the police force and more generally), you could do something about friendship, you could do something that was explicitly critical of the show's more overtly copaganda moments. Music-wise, I think something from the time period would work well, but that's not to say that something more modern, or something from an earlier time period, like something deeply sexist that came out when that sentiment was less controversial in the mainstream, along the lines of Wives and Lovers. In terms of the titular character themselves, I am deeply compelled by the contradictions and self interest of Cagney's politics, where sexism (against her) is very bad, but she's otherwise markedly conservative and status quo (and I think Republican? Oof, Christine...). I personally read her as I see her as a closeted (even to herself) lesbian and/or aromantic who has been very messed up by being raised by her socially conservative father. Something about her struggles with alcoholism would be very interesting, as would something about her stated feminism juxtaposed with her willingness to pull the ladder up behind herself and judge women who make choices she disapproves of, or come from backgrounds she is prejudiced against, or her partnership with Lacey, or her issues with maintaining romantic relationships, etc. For Lacey, I love her relationship with her husband and how unconventional it is for TV marriages of the time period, where he stayed at home with the boys for the first few seasons and does most of the cooking, etc. I also love how they are both such raging pinkos, because I think it would have been very easy for the show to be like "She is the married one who has kids, so therefore the conservative, as opposed to the sexually liberated single one with no dependents." Something about how she's in the era of "you can have it all!" and how demanding it actually is to try to have it all would be really great, as would something about her partnership with Cagney, or something about her politics (either juxtaposed against the background sexism of her workplace, against Cagney's politics, or against her own choice to join the police force). I am also, and I say this merely as a passaway thought that you do not have to pay much mind to, not at all opposed to shirtless footage of Martin Kove in the mix somewhere...

Steele Justice (1987) [SAFETY]

So uh... yeah. About how I'm violently in lust with Martin Kove? That was the one and only reason I watched this movie the first time and I wasn't expecting it to have any appeal other than beefcake, but... oh my god. I could not have been more wrong. This is an extremely bizarre, but amazing, action movie where Kove plays an ex-cop and Vietnam verteran John Steele whose former partner gets killed by an organised criminal gang (full disclosure: the former partner and the criminal organisation are both Vietnamese) and who he... okay, so the plot is kind of so hard to follow that I experience it every time as if for the first in some ways, but basically he gets frustrated with the bureaucracy and ineptitute of The Proper Authorities and wages a one-man vigilante war against the gang. Which... he seems to face absolutely no consequences for at the end of the movie, where he also steals a police car and drives off from his ex-boss who is trying to beg him to come back to the police force. It is The movie of all time and not just because Martin Kove is at his most beautiful and objectifiable. With some caveats*, I highly recommend that you watch it and experience it in all it's baffling majesty!

Prompts/ideas

So, look, I would admire you a lot if you managed to full of a serious vid for this movie, but I think that going broad and silly is a very viable option that would be much easier. You can also go ham on the beefcake, because I'm absolutely here for it. Steele also has this incredibly homoerotic vibe with his ex-partner (who is essentially his fridged wife?) whose wive seemed absolutely fine with it and whose daughter he is implied to adopt, so if you could get enough footage for something that frames that relationship as explicitly romantic and you wanted to go for that, please feel more than welcome to!

*the way it tries to have it both ways on how it treats Vietanese people, the authoritarian/vengence-as-justice/not technically copaganda but only because the movie things they need to be WORSE, the seemingly adult woman playing a teenager/ten year old from the childish voice and mannerisms the actor uses, the giant honking confederate flag in a bar at the beginning of the movie, etc., etc.

The Tick (TV 2017)

I am madly in love with this show. It is so silly and while it is occasionally winking at the camera, it is deeply and earnestly sincere and is never embarrassed about being a superhero show in the way a lot of modern superhero comic adaptations seem to be.

Prompts and ideas

I like all of the characters and something about any of them and any of their relationships would be welcome (with the exception of Arthur/Danger Boat where Arthur reciprocates DB's feelings, because I am not always super comfortable with the way DB harasses Arthur being played for laughs, even if he is a boat with a sentient AI). I really love Arthur and Dot's sibling relationship where they sometimes almost resent each other and can try to restrict each other's agency in the name of protecting them, but they love each other so deeply. I also am always here for Dot and Overkill's relationship, either played as romantic or platonic, and I love how Dot's arc from season one to two and the part that Overkill played in it. I also love, love, love The Tick and his big blue heart. Gotta love a superhero with amnesia who is not really torn up about it, because he's just happy to be here. I do ship him and Arthur, but as with all the shippy things I've mentioned in this letter, that's definitely an optional extra. In terms of tone, I think that it's one where you can have high highs and low lows and you can go silly or serious or anywhere in between (or both!).

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) [SAFETY]

I said in my Yuletide letter that I could watch this movie every day for a month and not get sick of it and I knew that because I'd done it and... yeah. Still very much that.

Prompts/Ideas

This is another one where I think an ensemble vid would work great, but any indvidiual you wanted to zoom in on or a particular interpersonal relationship would also be amazing. My one caveat here is that I do not buy that Doric reciprocates Simon's feelings for her... or that him not being confident enough was the issue in the first place, if you catch my drift. My drift being that I think she's a lesbian and I have no idea why that wasn't explicitly canon. Honestly my one criticism of the movie was that it could have been gayer, given that D&D is the queer nerd game. If you wanted to do a vid along those lines then that would be amazing! I, along with half the internet and their dog, am also deeply compelled by Edgin/Xenk and their whole thing where Edgin finds him insufferable and Xenk seems to find it very funny how annoyed he can make Edgin by being polite, straightforward, morally upright and implying that Edgin is at heart and honourable and good person. Ugh, what a jerk, right? 🤣 Something about Edgin's family (him and Zia and/or Kira; him and Holga; him, Kira and Holga; him and the party; any combination of the above) would be very lovely as well and I think it's one you could play pretty straight if you weren't in the mood for jokey jokes, or one where you could have humour, sentimentality, and pathos alongside each other. I also am here for Simon's arc of getting better at magic through gaining self confidence (Tub Thumping anyone?), or something about Forge being a smarmy bastard (I love him). I am here for any kind of vid for this fandom, honestly, so feel very free to follow your muse.

Marilyn Monroe Movies [UMBRELLA]

I once came out of HMV with about six Marilyn Monroe DVDs and put them in a bag from the bookshop where I'd bought a book about her and my sister said, "But you can kind of take or leave Marilyn, can't you?" because what are siblings for if not to make sport of you. I think Marilyn was such a subtle and talented actor and it's such a shame that even now she's primarily remembered as a sex symbol and almost... a part of American iconography, whose personal tragedies only make her more consumable, as opposed to a real person who was highly skilled at her craft and dedicated to it and who had a difficult life that was not a predestined tragedy or a cautionary tale. My favourite movies of hers are Some Like it Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire, Niagra, and Don't Bother to Knock. She doesn't have a huge role in it, but I also quite like her in There's No Business Like Show Business. I haven't seen all of her films, but feel free to pull from any of her work. I don't have any specific ideas, but I think there's a lot that you could play around with intertexually.

Only Murders in the Building (TV)

They called it the intergenerational friendship murder mystery show of dreams... and it was. It really was. Well, is, it's been renewed for season 4. But. Yeah.

Ideas/prompts

I just love how to the forefront anxieties about ageing and failure to reach expected markers of acheivement (either professionally, romanticaly, familially, or otherwise) is in this, in many ways, very silly comedy show. The highs are so high, the lows are so low, the silliness is so silly. I think that you could go very comedic or very dramatic with this and mix the two as much or as little as you wanted. I am always here for stuff about the central trio's relationship with each other, but I also highkey ship Theo Dimas with Mabel and would not be at all averse to seeing something along those lines. I also think that the rest of the cast are very interesting: Bunny and Uma's friendship, Howard's arc from lonely shut in whose only friend is his cat to someone who plays an active role in the plot as a recurring character, Cinda Canning and her... spectacular terribleness. I do support women's wrongs and Cinda is amazing. I am open to something shippy about Charles and Oliver, but I say that just on the off-chance that you wanted to do something like that anyway and weren't sure if I'd like it, so no pressure.

If you are someone browsing letters to scout out potential treats: hello! Thank you for the kind thought and if you are inspired by anything in my letter I am definitely open to being treated and have gifts enabled on AO3.

[Updated Jan 2 2024]

I'm Art! My pronouns are they/them or he/him.

This got long, haha

As well as being obstinatecondolement here, I am also obstinatecondolement on Tumblr, obstinatecondolement on vidders.net (which I really must post some of my vids to!), obstinatecondolement on Vimeo (most of my videos are password protected, but they are all posted with the passwords on AO3), and (you guessed it) obstinatecondolement on my much neglected Pillowfort.

In terms of my other fannish pseudonyms, I'm SweetPollyOliver on AO3; unmanlygrief on Twitter (Edit Jan 2023: but, uh, given current events, watch this space? Edit Jan 2024: Still there for now, but I probably would have deleted if I didn't want to do ITPE and since I do not think that will be on the-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter in 2024, it's not unlikely that I won't be there much longer either, but I have made such threats before and not followed through on them), and I am also unmanlygrief on Discord.

Feel free to add me or PM/DM me on any of these platforms, or email me at obstinatecondolement@vidding.com if you'd like to get in touch that way.

Let's talk fandoms! I am an evergreen Star Trek fan, despite beyind disgracefully behind on most of the newer iterations of canon bar Lower Decks, and I was very monofannishly creating things for The Karate Kid and/or Cobra Kai for a good while, but I have started branching out again in the past few years. I am still a big TKK/CK fan (Cobra Kai never dies!) and mean to write some stuff on my to-do list, but I am not as intense with it as I was and other things have drifted in and out of my number one spot in the mean time.

Most recently, I've fallen very hard for the CBS Ghosts show, I had a very intense love affair with Succession that may be heating up again, I was massively invested in S1 of OFMD and slightly disappointed with S2 (although not as devastated as some were), I love Only Murders in the Building and am chipping away at some Mabel/Theo fic that has not yet seen the light of day, and I pretty recently reignited my younger self's love of the 1970s sitcom Porridge. I am a lifelong Discworld fan, but I only started writing fic in the fandom in 2023. As of now I have a handful of Discworld fics and podfics on my AO3 account that I hope to keeping adding to on and off.

Other things that are less to the forefront, but are still very much bubblings away in the background: I love Quantum Leap, both old and new, and am even now still rending my garments in lamentation over the Willow tv show and A League of Their Own (2022) being cancelled. And, honestly, I have lots of other fandoms, past and present, and there are a few that I often request for exchanges and am not usually "active" in otherwise.

The ways I participate in fandom are larely writing fic, but I am a bit of a fanwork dilettante and have also dipped my toes into vidding, podfic, fanbinding, writing meta (or jokey-joke posts, depending on how serious I am being at the time), making character/ship fanmixes, and putting together the occasional graphic (mostly podfic covers at the moment). I also have made a few fancrafts over the years! Mostly crochet dolls of Star Trek characters, like these ones. I have also betaed fic for other people and I would like to do that more often.

My transformative works policy can be found on my AO3 profile, but TL;DR, I give blanket permission for non-commercial transformative works of my fanworks.

Other things I do/have done in fandom are volunteering with the OTW as a tag wrangler and modding a few fandom events. I modded allvalley100, a weekly Cobra Kai/Karate Kid drabble challenge, with trinityofone from 2021–2023, I previously modded trek-rarepair-swap, a (first monthly, then quarterly) exchange where people created fanworks for each other's rare (which we defined as <50 works on AO3) Star Trek ships, with cosmic-llin between 2016 and 2020 and we have plans to revive it at some point when we have the time, and I will be starting a new podfic challenge called tidepodchallenge in January 2024 where participants receive bingo cards with prompts and then fill them by making podfics of Yuletide works written by authors who give permission for podfics of their work. If you are a fan of podic, please follow the comm and, if you are a podficcer youself, consider signing up once I get the ball rolling on that in the next few weeks!

Non-fandom things to know about me are that I am bisexual, disabled, transmasc, a leftist, I love fibre arts and textiles (crochet, knitting, weaving, spinning, dyeing, sewing), I sing, I am (slowly) learning the cello, I love spreadsheets and planners (I am the most disorganised orderly person you will ever meet), I live with (most of) my siblings and parents, and, as well partial custody of the family pets (dogs, chickens, another cat), I have two very spoiled cats of my own.

I tend to go through phrases of being more and less active on Dreamwidth, but what I mostly post about here is just various things that are going on with me in real life, stuff about my hobbies, goals that I'm working on or thinking about setting, etc. I very occasionally post links to fanworks, but I will try to keep more up to date with that going forward, as I have found DW fandom to be very rewarding when I do go to the effort of being more active in it. This is also where I tend to post my exchange letters, so you will probably at least hear from me once a year when I sign up to Yuletide. Most of my more personal, non-fandom entries are access-only, but I'm very liberal about granting access, so don't feel shy about asking!

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