Amy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brightknightie) wrote2022-12-31 08:08 pm
brightknightie) wrote2022-12-31 08:08 pm
Entry tags:
2022 Fandom end-of-year meme
Meme picked up from lightbird...
1. Your main fandom this year?
Overly Sarcastic Productions. They make videos about myths, literature, and history, and they bring me much delight. Check out their 2-minute trailer for a whirlwind overview of the glory that is OSP. And then check out their whole YouTube channel. (This is where I picked up on Journey to the West.)
Unlike most YouTube channels, OSP usually does one polished episode per week (released on Fridays). And they aren't talking heads -- barring the occasional livestream -- as they actually illustrate their work (original drawings and maps!) instead of turning the cameras on themselves. They have a number of assorted ongoing series/categories into which their videos fit, and of course everyone likes some of the series/categories more than others, and you can pick and choose. (Obviously, watching anything on YouTube is better if you can shell out for Premium to avoid the commercials, I know...)
2. Your favorite movie watched this year?
New movie? Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Oscars all around, please. All the actors, writers, directors, editors, etc. Seriously. Don't let the fact that it's genre and comedy eclipse its brilliance. Family and identity and fulfillment struggles. Nihlism versus existentialism. If nothing matters, everything matters. "Be kind."
3. Your favorite book read this year?
Read for the first time?
Among novels, Monkey Around by Jadie Jang (2021), a clever, unusual, diverse, energetic, female-lead, urban fantasy set in the San Francisco Bay Area with a tantalizing subtext connection to Journey to the West. I hope it gets a sequel!
(I must admit that as much as I adored the two Wilkie Collins novels I read last year (The Moonstone and The Woman in White), I haven't yet finished the third that I started this year (No Name). He really hit a cliff there, didn't he? Should I just reread his first two...?)
Among comics collections, Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaimen and Andy Kubert (2005), a hard-hitting time-bent canon-loving AU tribute to early Marvel that is also a metaphorical deconstruction and coping with the world-event traumas of early this century (and pretty darn resonant for some more recent traumas, too). I've had this on my shelf for some years, and even took it on a trip pre-pandemic, meaning to read it, but all in all, it waited for its moment, seized it, and took my imagination by storm.
Among non-fiction... I started several non-fiction books, but it looks like I didn't finish a single one (ouch).
4. Your favorite TV show of the year?
New TV show? Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes the crown. Unlike the other current Trek shows, Strange New Worlds feels like my Trek. It's sufficiently episodic, with a beginning, middle, and end each week. It rings with the optimism and futurism of TOS, the conviction and found-family of TNG, and the self-aware meta forays of DS9. I actively looked forward to each episode of its first season after the premiere and, while not all episodes were equally good, never once felt disappointed or ill-used (as I did feel from the sad wreck that was second-season Picard, or how I drifted away from Discovery and haven't tried Prodigy) (stop making more shows than you can make well, Trek).
The Quantum Leap sequel series on NBC/Peacock+ very slightly edges out Moon Knight on Disney+ for second place. Of course Moon Knight is wonderful (so is Ms. Marvel!), but it's also over. My hopes for Quantum Leap are for it to grow better and better as it runs for years and years, please.
5. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
New stuff? Strange by Jed MacKay! The current run of Doctor Strange comics in which Stephen is [temporarily, I'm sure] dead and his widow Clea has picked up the mantle as Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. (She's also declared herself Warlord of Manhatten. Should have expected that.)
It's been over a decade since I've followed any monthly comic instead of just catching up through collections from time to time. I discovered this one essentially by accident and am now absolutely besotted by this author, this story, and these characters.
Old stuff? Avatar: The Last Airbender! WOW. JUST, WOW. Not kidding. This three-season animated series is magnificent. Join me. If you haven't yet seen it, get it on Paramont+ or at your local public library. This is an epic hero's journey with the power of friendship, the power of sacrifice, lessons about recognizing and resisting oppression and domination, hilarity, profundity, identity... it's really, really, really good.
6. Your biggest fandom disappointment?
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
I think that I still don't really want to talk about it.
7 & 8. Your TV boyfriend and/or girlfriend of the year?
I'm never quite entirely sure what this category means, but I believe that Red and Blue of OSP must surely count here for me this year.
9. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Learning that official Dungeons & Dragons (the '80s cartoon) toys are finally for-real being produced and pre-ordering mine. (Get 'em on the Target site.)
Some other good moments:
Not squee, as such, but I was also happy to learn this year the MacGeorge has ported her HL stories to the AO3 and is currently writing new fanfic. Similarly, I learned that Sandra G. is still out there, though she sadly isn't moving her fic to the AO3.
And it is always a joy when folks choose to play in FKFicFest. I am so grateful.
10. The most missed of your old fandoms?
I almost never really, wholly, leave any of my old fandoms, so I don't so much miss them as miss the rest of everyone else in them with me...?
But, yes, of course... yes, for sure... sometimes, I do very much miss the way Forever Knight once was, both in terms of the vibrantly invested community, and in terms of the baseline shared thematic assumptions, when most fans seemed to take it for granted, in large part, that Nick was the hero and Lacroix was the villain, and the hero's professed values are supposed to prevail (and when they don't, that's tragedy).
11. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
I don't know that I want to try any fandom ;-D but I do want to try several media properties, including She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the DCAU Justice League or Justice League Unlimited, that immortals action movie on Netflix I still haven't seen (because I don't have Netflix), the new Three Pines series based on Louise Penny's novels, the Netflix Daredevil now on Disney+...
I want to finish the second season of Earth: Final Conflict.
I've promised my best friend that I'll try Andor and, if it's good for me, then Kenobi for the kid!Leia. (I don't do Star Wars anymore. I can't trust it. Not since the advent of Jar-Jar Binks has it deserved any trust, and when I've been foolish enough to hope, I've been slapped down.) (In other words: To me, Hayden Christensen's most important role will always be as Nick's nephew and Fleur's son, and it didn't have to be that way.)
What else should I plan to check out...?
12. Your biggest fannish anticipations for the new year?
I hope you all will play![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fkficfest with me again in 2023.
I also hope that all the new Marvel movies and shows will be delightful and wonderfully made, especially Sony's Across the Spider-verse! I'm looking forward to a new Sherry Thomas "Lady Sherlock" novel in early 2023. I hope that the next batches of episodes of Quantum Leap and Strange New Worlds are as good as or even better than their first batches.
Most of all, I hope that some ongoing show catches all of our attentions and we can share it together going forward in happy ways.
What about you and yours?
lightbird...1. Your main fandom this year?
Overly Sarcastic Productions. They make videos about myths, literature, and history, and they bring me much delight. Check out their 2-minute trailer for a whirlwind overview of the glory that is OSP. And then check out their whole YouTube channel. (This is where I picked up on Journey to the West.)
Unlike most YouTube channels, OSP usually does one polished episode per week (released on Fridays). And they aren't talking heads -- barring the occasional livestream -- as they actually illustrate their work (original drawings and maps!) instead of turning the cameras on themselves. They have a number of assorted ongoing series/categories into which their videos fit, and of course everyone likes some of the series/categories more than others, and you can pick and choose. (Obviously, watching anything on YouTube is better if you can shell out for Premium to avoid the commercials, I know...)
2. Your favorite movie watched this year?
New movie? Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Oscars all around, please. All the actors, writers, directors, editors, etc. Seriously. Don't let the fact that it's genre and comedy eclipse its brilliance. Family and identity and fulfillment struggles. Nihlism versus existentialism. If nothing matters, everything matters. "Be kind."
3. Your favorite book read this year?
Read for the first time?
Among novels, Monkey Around by Jadie Jang (2021), a clever, unusual, diverse, energetic, female-lead, urban fantasy set in the San Francisco Bay Area with a tantalizing subtext connection to Journey to the West. I hope it gets a sequel!
(I must admit that as much as I adored the two Wilkie Collins novels I read last year (The Moonstone and The Woman in White), I haven't yet finished the third that I started this year (No Name). He really hit a cliff there, didn't he? Should I just reread his first two...?)
Among comics collections, Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaimen and Andy Kubert (2005), a hard-hitting time-bent canon-loving AU tribute to early Marvel that is also a metaphorical deconstruction and coping with the world-event traumas of early this century (and pretty darn resonant for some more recent traumas, too). I've had this on my shelf for some years, and even took it on a trip pre-pandemic, meaning to read it, but all in all, it waited for its moment, seized it, and took my imagination by storm.
Among non-fiction... I started several non-fiction books, but it looks like I didn't finish a single one (ouch).
4. Your favorite TV show of the year?
New TV show? Star Trek: Strange New Worlds takes the crown. Unlike the other current Trek shows, Strange New Worlds feels like my Trek. It's sufficiently episodic, with a beginning, middle, and end each week. It rings with the optimism and futurism of TOS, the conviction and found-family of TNG, and the self-aware meta forays of DS9. I actively looked forward to each episode of its first season after the premiere and, while not all episodes were equally good, never once felt disappointed or ill-used (as I did feel from the sad wreck that was second-season Picard, or how I drifted away from Discovery and haven't tried Prodigy) (stop making more shows than you can make well, Trek).
The Quantum Leap sequel series on NBC/Peacock+ very slightly edges out Moon Knight on Disney+ for second place. Of course Moon Knight is wonderful (so is Ms. Marvel!), but it's also over. My hopes for Quantum Leap are for it to grow better and better as it runs for years and years, please.
5. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
New stuff? Strange by Jed MacKay! The current run of Doctor Strange comics in which Stephen is [temporarily, I'm sure] dead and his widow Clea has picked up the mantle as Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. (She's also declared herself Warlord of Manhatten. Should have expected that.)
It's been over a decade since I've followed any monthly comic instead of just catching up through collections from time to time. I discovered this one essentially by accident and am now absolutely besotted by this author, this story, and these characters.
Old stuff? Avatar: The Last Airbender! WOW. JUST, WOW. Not kidding. This three-season animated series is magnificent. Join me. If you haven't yet seen it, get it on Paramont+ or at your local public library. This is an epic hero's journey with the power of friendship, the power of sacrifice, lessons about recognizing and resisting oppression and domination, hilarity, profundity, identity... it's really, really, really good.
6. Your biggest fandom disappointment?
Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
I think that I still don't really want to talk about it.
7 & 8. Your TV boyfriend and/or girlfriend of the year?
I'm never quite entirely sure what this category means, but I believe that Red and Blue of OSP must surely count here for me this year.
9. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Learning that official Dungeons & Dragons (the '80s cartoon) toys are finally for-real being produced and pre-ordering mine. (Get 'em on the Target site.)
Some other good moments:
- Learning that OSP's next episode would be a new installment of Journey to the West
- Watching the first Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer the first time
- Finding that all -- 100% -- of the original Zorro stories had become available in physical book form for the first time ever due to the magic of copyright expiration and on-demand printing
Not squee, as such, but I was also happy to learn this year the MacGeorge has ported her HL stories to the AO3 and is currently writing new fanfic. Similarly, I learned that Sandra G. is still out there, though she sadly isn't moving her fic to the AO3.
And it is always a joy when folks choose to play in FKFicFest. I am so grateful.
10. The most missed of your old fandoms?
I almost never really, wholly, leave any of my old fandoms, so I don't so much miss them as miss the rest of everyone else in them with me...?
But, yes, of course... yes, for sure... sometimes, I do very much miss the way Forever Knight once was, both in terms of the vibrantly invested community, and in terms of the baseline shared thematic assumptions, when most fans seemed to take it for granted, in large part, that Nick was the hero and Lacroix was the villain, and the hero's professed values are supposed to prevail (and when they don't, that's tragedy).
11. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
I don't know that I want to try any fandom ;-D but I do want to try several media properties, including She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, the DCAU Justice League or Justice League Unlimited, that immortals action movie on Netflix I still haven't seen (because I don't have Netflix), the new Three Pines series based on Louise Penny's novels, the Netflix Daredevil now on Disney+...
I want to finish the second season of Earth: Final Conflict.
I've promised my best friend that I'll try Andor and, if it's good for me, then Kenobi for the kid!Leia. (I don't do Star Wars anymore. I can't trust it. Not since the advent of Jar-Jar Binks has it deserved any trust, and when I've been foolish enough to hope, I've been slapped down.) (In other words: To me, Hayden Christensen's most important role will always be as Nick's nephew and Fleur's son, and it didn't have to be that way.)
What else should I plan to check out...?
12. Your biggest fannish anticipations for the new year?
I hope you all will play
fkficfest with me again in 2023. I also hope that all the new Marvel movies and shows will be delightful and wonderfully made, especially Sony's Across the Spider-verse! I'm looking forward to a new Sherry Thomas "Lady Sherlock" novel in early 2023. I hope that the next batches of episodes of Quantum Leap and Strange New Worlds are as good as or even better than their first batches.
Most of all, I hope that some ongoing show catches all of our attentions and we can share it together going forward in happy ways.
What about you and yours?
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First squee of 2023: There will be another FKFicfest. :D
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I haven't watched any SW TV ever yet, and I would have continued to stay away from it (despite the appeal of kid!Leia) if not for the praise Andor seems to be getting from folks who usually lament SW TV... fingers crossed.
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Happy New Year :)
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I wouldn't say that ST:SNW is as good as TOS, TNG, or DS9 [yet?], and it does emerge from a crossover with Discovery, but I feel so far that it belongs in the TOS, TNG, DS9 category, rather than the Picard and Discovery category. (Voyager and Enterprise have their own in-between category in my head.) Good luck! I hope that if you try it, it suits you!