indri

My first reaction to the news of Angel's cancellation was a strange sense of relief and release. I love the Buffyverse, but since I crossed the line from being a keen viewer to an obsessive fan, I've gone from pure enjoyment of a well-scripted show to a kind of half-voluntary captivity. I care more than I want to about the characters, I spend untold hours of free time thinking about the show, and every time I get my hands on a new episode I am physically nauseous with apprehension. The prospect of this going on for many more years was daunting. For some months now, I have been planning a partial withdrawal from Buffy and Angel fandom, so I could spend more time with people I've been neglecting for a while, my "first fandom" as it were, which is the lit crit science fiction crowd.

But I no longer feel I have to do this. Nine more episodes and we'll have closure. No more gnawing off my own arm while ME taunts me with my own expectations and then slaps me around. No more fear as to whether the trust I've placed in them as writers is misplaced---I'll know, as far as I'm ever likely to. And that will allow me to concentrate my time and energies on the fandom itself, the friends I've made here and the pleasures of fanfic and discussion.

I've no doubt that the fandom will remain; in lit crit fandom we're still discussing books written more than a century ago, when we're not discussing gardening or politics or what we did on holiday, like any other group of friends who first met through a shared interest. It's not going to go away, although I expect some people will drift away.

So, although I was originally planning to trim my friends list, I'm planning now to expand it. I've just belatedly friended everyone who's friended me and now I'd like to those who are reading my journal to recommend a few other people in Whedonverse fandom whom I should read. (Was it

anniesj who asked this question recently? But she got hundreds of responses which is far more than I could choose from.)

In more trivial news, yesterday was the hottest day in Adelaide since 1939. So I wasn't just whining.

Update Changed my request from a rec of a single other person's LJ to a few. I just wanted to avoid long lists of people at this stage.