rionaleonhart | In Which Riona's Journal Becomes Heat Magazine.

So it turns out that Charlie Brooker and Konnie Huq are engaged! I am a bit sad that the media found out, because I suspect that the plan was to get married secretly and then go 'LOL WE'RE MARRIED AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WE WERE DATING', which would have been hilarious. Alas, it was not to be.

I won't pretend my reaction to the news wasn't mixed, given how unexpected it was and the part of my little fannish heart that massively 'ships Brooker with David Mitchell/Victoria Coren/me. But the two of them are charmingly mismatched, and Huq seemed adorable during Konnie's Great British Wee (parts one, two): 'I'm Konnie Huq. I'm thirty-three years old, but I look about nine, and for as long as I can remember I've been fascinated by the world of urination.'

(I really hope that Konnie's Great British Wee was how Huq and Brooker first met. I can't imagine a better answer to the question 'So, how did you two meet?' than 'Well, we were making a documentary about weeing in public...')

Also, Brooker has seemed happier and calmer in recent months than he used to be, and perhaps that's due to Huq's influence. If so, that's a good thing. Brooker's misanthropy and rage may be entertaining, but I disagree with comments I've seen on the Internet criticising him for becoming more mellow; it's absurd to wish unhappiness upon someone we admire for the sake of our amusement (and, in any case, I think he's still hilarious even in his mellowed state). I wish them the very best of luck.

(My only real selfish concern about this is how it will affect the Brooker fandom. I love this fandom, but this revelation has made me feel a bit guilty about writing for it. I hope I'll be able to get past this, because Brooker and Mitchell are such a joy to write (and read) for. I'm not ready to switch fandoms yet.

I suppose I can always write gen.)

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It's so much easier to write Brooker/Mitchell when they're both single, dammit. Or believed to be single.

And Konnie Huq is adorable, so I don't want to completely ignore her in fanfic, but I don't want every story to be 'polyamory yay!' and and and.

I swear, in future I'm sticking to closed canon fictional fandoms. Ones that are extremely unlikely to be rebooted. So... I'll get back to you when I've thought of any.

Oooh, Was Tun, Wenn's Brennt?, of course!

And Konnie Huq is adorable, so I don't want to completely ignore her in fanfic, but I don't want every story to be 'polyamory yay!' and and and.

I think you can probably get away with acknowledging her or writing in a Brooker/Huq-less AU as you see fit. The treatment of canon in RPF can be more flexible than in other fandoms, I feel. My particular brand of RPF guilt actively dictates that I ignore some aspects of canon, in fact, because if a figure isn't in the public eye (Mitchell's brother, for example) I'm not comfortable with including them in fic; when I was in the Top Gear fandom I wrote in a universe in which the trio were all bachelors.

Konnie Huq is in the public eye, of course, but I'm not familiar enough with her to write for her. (Also, writing 'canon' real-person pairings makes me feel a bit creepy. The further removed from reality my fic is, the less guilty I feel. Not that I judge other RPF writers; these are just my personal boundaries.)

I agree with this entire comment.

(It's odd though. In my past RPF fandoms I've been perfectly fine with ignoring real-life relationships, but for some reason I'm having trouble with this. Sort it out, self.)

My only real previous RPF fandom is Sex Pistols, which a) one of them was dead, b) the one who was still alive was happily married to somebody he didn't even know in the timeframe I was writing, and c) half the time, I was doing a crossover with Buffy anyway. So real-life relationships weren't really an issue.

I didn't even know Mitchell had a brother, which makes me feel distinctly less creepy for the amount of other stuff I know about him.

My problem with RPF is that I adore fandoms that let me do shedloads of research. With fictional fandoms, this is fine. Learning German so I don't have to rely on dodgy subtitles? Great! Going to Syria and Jordan to follow TE Lawrence's travels? Nothing wrong with that!

However, knowing the village where Brooker grew up? Creepy. As. Fuck. (Which is why I have an anonymeme prompt currently stalled.)

But I think my issue with a Huq-less AU is how often women get ignored/sidelined in fanfic and I don't especially want to do that. But, equally, I don't want to write Brooker/Huq because OMFG WAY TOO CREEPY EURGH. And I'd probably feel equally EURGH, with bonus inclination to pull all my fanfic offline, if Brooker and Mitchell were engaged.

(When I was in Top Gear fandom, I wrote in a universe in which their personas on the show were actually 100% totally real and things accidentally caught fire all the time and there was no such thing as health & safety. This meant that, because Jeremy and Richard had both mentioned their wives, they were married. However, James was single because, at that point, he hadn't mentioned his girlfriend. And the Stig was an alien. Probably with tentacles. On his face.)

Oh, RPF, why are you so complicated?

Oh, yes, the 'at what point does research for RPF become stalking?' question is one that's troubled me as well.

I think my issue with a Huq-less AU is how often women get ignored/sidelined in fanfic and I don't especially want to do that.

I don't think sidelining women is something you really need to worry about in this fandom, though, as Aisleyne and Coren have a large presence in the fic. Not to say you shouldn't include Huq if you want to, but I don't think you should feel bad about setting her aside for a bit.

And I'd probably feel equally EURGH, with bonus inclination to pull all my fanfic offline, if Brooker and Mitchell were engaged.

Oh, yes, I don't think I'd ever write another word of Brooker/Mitchell if that happened. That really would destroy the fandom. (But what a way for the fandom to go!)

(I loved that the Top Gear fandom freaked out and demanded warnings if the Stig was portrayed as a man in a suit. Real-person fandoms with completely bizarre canon (multiple Brookers!) are a joy.)

come on, stig as a-man-in-a-suit is a preposterous idea!

I'm really familiar with Konnie, so I could write her (and maybe I will!) but... she's from the generation of Blue Peter presenters I grew up with. It'd be like slashing my primary school teachers.

It'd be like slashing my primary school teachers.

Not primary! There was no clear pairing there, really. But several of my secondary school teachers were actually fucking. There was even fucking-related drama! The Science department basically had shipwars.

See, if that happened at our school we'd probably never find out. DAMN.

I don't think we were supposed to, people just couldn't contain themselves. Gossips gotta gossip!

In my secondary school two teachers allegedly got fired for having a lesbian relationship.

Yours was Catholic though, right? I was about to make an ANGRY COMMENT but if I'm right then I'm not really surprised.

Yeah, it was. And I was entirely pissed off about it, too. But there were several other LGB members of staff who didn't get sacked, so it was possibly just the relationship part?

writing 'canon' real-person pairings makes me feel a bit creepy
yeah, this. I've never been able to read/write fic involving the TG wives (in a sexy way. perhaps oddly I have no problems with adultery!fic).

this squick is suddenly faintly annoying because part of me now really wants to read Charlie/Konnie and the other part of me will never let me do it.

Off-topic a little, I can think of some excellent closed canon fictional fandoms. M*A*S*H, for example. Jam and Jerusalem. There should be more Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow fanfic, especially femslash. Ditto Monty Python and the Meaning of Life fictional fanfic (or RPF, for that matter). Lots of old British sitcoms need fandoms: The Good Life, Reggie Perrin...

Oh, is Jam and Jerusalem closed? I thought that was still ongoing. Pooh.

I can see M*A*S*H being rebooted at some point, unfortunately. Probably with Jack Black as Hawkeye.

Or maybe they'll go with the right-wing slant of the original novels and cast Kiefer Sutherland as Hawkeye.

Alas, yes - see Wikipedia. Which means you should write some fic for it because otherwise I'll have to go on craving more Tip forever.

I take your point about M*A*S*H although I will carefully ignore any such events.

In Which Riona's Journal Becomes Heat Magazine.

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