Be my undoing, be my slow road to ruin...

In the words of Neil Young, off "Fork in the Road", "Truth is fiction, truth is lies, strange things happen when worlds collide..."

Weird things happen when you're cycling through fandoms at hyperspeed so you can get back to actual work! You know how fandom seems multitudinous and labyrinthian at first blush? Then you run across familiar people -- leici commenting on an old U2 story, otherbella popping up in Hunger Games fandom, discovering that twistedchick, the lady for whom I was writing a Yuletide treat, was a friend of my beta for that self-same story, cinco -- and suddenly there are intricate connections across fandoms where you least expect them :)

And of course, out of those different fandoms comes the crossover fic ideas :)

To wit: in Inception fandom, I've been stalled on the Anthemic-as-Inception-team idea for ages (c'mon, who doesn't wanna see DCook as scene-chewing Extractor DCobb?), and Part II of Tommy Solomon-and-crew-incept-Archie elevator!fic is still at the planning stage :(

Over at The Hunger Games, it's easy to picture Cook and Archie as Finnick Odair and his beloved Annie, or to imagine the Quarter Quell kids getting their golden tickets to Captiol Hollywood, and singing for their lives on the Idol stage -- where they meet Haymitch as Simon Cowell and Snow as evil 19E Network producer Simon Fuller (and Caesar Flickerman as their host, Ryan Seacrest!); Peeta and Katniss sing Marly's "The Letter"/Kradam's We are the Champions and Finnick sings DCook's "Sharp Dressed Man" - and in a nailbiting photo-finish, the number of votes cast for the top two are exactly the same and there are two American Idols crowned! I kinda want to write that :)

Where worlds collide there are duets, too, of course. evilgeniuslady reminded me of the epic 80s Springsteen/Sting duet on "The River", and how epic it was. Magnificent, and magnificently slashy, these classic rockers in their glorious youth singing each other's words and getting up close and personal in each other's space:



( This is the time of worlds colliding, this is the time of kingdoms falling - Springsteen/Sting/U2 OT6 )

Things do get a little sketchy, though, where RL collides with fandom. I have no problems with the idea of celeb RPF - actors and musicians and entertainment and sports personalities are public figures, and as such they sign on to a certain amout of stanning and fair play in re: those public images. Reclusive Harvard figures and businessmen may however not be quite the same kettle of fish, and although I've followed The Social Network fandom and the Mark/Eduardo fic with interest, I have always felt there's a difference.



( Cut for small-world, small-town TSN-related gossip )

This entry was originally posted on dreamwidth; you can choose to read it there.

...only to be with you, only to be with you...

As some of you know, I’d headed out to Melbourne this last week, only to be with U2 and the 360 Degree Tour. The concert was amazing, you guys; I know nobody but Beth and Julia and Clio will care, but this 3,000-word concert recap is for me to hold to my U2-loving and Bono/Edge-shipping heart when I’m cold and in need of something to warm me ;)



I got to watch the Zoo TV Tour when I was barely out of my teens, when the lads were young and vital and at (IMO) music’s cutting edge – they immersed themselves in mass media, music sampling and electronica, and the whole stadium rock performance art experience, all big screens and pirate radio stations run out of Trabants, with absurd smash visuals and deliberate sensory overload like Baz Lurhmann on acid – it was an amazing, life-changing trip. (Producer Nellee Hooper famously told Bono that Zoo TV "ruined irony for everyone", and OMG did it ever.)

Over the years the lads changed, but always stayed relevant, always current, always larger-than-life. You loved them for their focus on the world's issues or hated them for their pompous grandiosity, but you’d have to acknowledge they became the biggest rock band in the world. I was keen to see how they’d stack up now I’m in my thirties and the lads are that much older...and I wasn’t disappointed.

( I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls...only to be with you )