I’m in Boston right now, and about to do some meetings, but in the meantime, I can still keep you at least marginally entertained.
First, you can catch me over on the 2MTL (that’s Two-minute Time Lord to you) podcast talking about how and why people mourn fictional characters. Chip gives great interview and makes me sound smart. Also, the the music under his opener is really worth a giggle in all the best ways, but we do try to jump into the topic as seriously and respectfully as we can. It was super fun to do, and um, you can hear my shockingly girlish giggle at one point.
Next, for those of you who still actually read my LiveJournal, I’ve committed some Glee fanfic (and thanks, by the way, for putting up with my “Oh, hey, shiny,” about all that). I might just have some meta for you here later about Blaine’s hair styling choices and race/ethnic identity and private school. Not even kidding. And I’ll certainly totally at least have some less serious business meta back on LJ about why I wrote the story I did and what is and isn’t realistic about it (and why I made those choices), and why, aside from parts of Glee being problematic, writing about some of the non-problematic parts of Glee (like the well-rendered queer relationships) actually runs the risk of creating whole new problems because of certain aspects of fandom culture and its tropes.
I suppose this makes me more an ironic mourner than an enchanted one. I love the idea of the memorial, of people mourning him. For me, it was intense when it happened, but not the kind of intense it has been for so many people.
I don’t think there is any shame in people mourning him.
I suspect I’ve mourned too many real life partners to ever feel that intensely about someone fictional, even if it’s a fictional character I’m genuinely fond of.