i'm giving up my vices/i'm going back, back to school
It's a little early on New Year's Eve for a roundup post but whatever, I want to make sure that I get this done.
[2015 RESOLUTIONS]* I'm going to try Popsugar's 2015 book challenge. It's 50-ish books, which fits with my now-usual-book-resolution, but it's a bit more guided, which should be more of a challenge.
COMPLETED. I'm really glad I did it, too, as it drove me to step outside of my usual comfort zone in many ways. It also got me to read things that I've been meaning to get around to but never did, including but not limited to James Joyce's Ulysses (yes, until this year I was the one Joyce fan in the world who had not read Ulysses), Ireland: A Novel (started but didn't finish several years ago; have now finished and loved), and the Dublin Murder Squad series (recommended to me many times, with good reason, as it turns out).
According to Goodreads, I read 97 books this year. That is not an entirely accurate number, as I made the decision not to include some YA rereads I did. Most specifically, I reread the entire Animorphs series in order between April 19 and July 18 but thought including 65-ish 100-page books aimed at 9-year-olds would throw off my stats horribly; a few other rereads also did not make the cut.
Goodreads helpfully provided an overview of my year in books, which you can view here, if you're interested. The most interesting stats in my opinion: I read a total of 30488 pages in the books that were included; the longest book was Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, clocking in at 818 pages. Average length was 318 pages. Only 15 other people on Goodreads have also read the Secret Diplomatic History of The Eighteenth Century by Karl Marx (I don't particularly recommend it). My average rating was 3.7.
I rated eighteen books five stars and three books one star.
* 250 new-to-me episodes of TV, which is a step back from my (unachieved) 2014 resolution but is still quite a lot of television.
COMPLETED with tons of room to spare. I actually watched 635 new-to-me TV episodes this year. I maybe watch too much television.
That's not even including the rewatches this year, which included a full rewatch of Lost (STILL LOVE IT UNCONDITIONALLY) and my ongoing rewatch of The X-Files in preparation for the new season.
New and new-to-me shows I picked up this year included the Librarians, Galavant, Fringe, Over The Garden Wall, Younger (probably not going to watch the second season), Supergirl, The Flash, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Marvel's Daredevil, Sense8, Dark Matter, Killjoys, Arrow, The Muppets, and The Magicians (which hasn't properly started yet but whatever I watched the sneak-peek pilot that counts).
Seriously, I watch too much TV.
* 30 new-to-me movies. Again stepping back from my (unachieved) 2014 resolution, but still enough that I should get some good range in there.
COMPLETED, though just barely. 34 movies. This included two movies seen in theaters (Inside Out and Star Wars: The Force Awakens), which is an unusually high number for me as I do not get to the movie theater very often; both movies were excellent and totally worth it and I want to go back and see Star Wars again. I also have to mention Song Of The Sea, which is one of the best animated movies ever and also one of the best movies ever. Seriously, go watch it.
* Just read some comics. I'm not gonna put a number on it. I just want to read something new to me in 2015.
COMPLETED. I kept up with/finished The Sandman: Overture, and also mostly kept up with the new Hellblazer reboot Constantine: The Hellblazer. I started reading Deadpool but didn't get very far. Thanks to my brother, I've also started Fables (enjoyed, though not excessively so) and Saga (LOVED, really want to finish).
That said, it's a good thing I didn't put a number on it.
* AT LEAST one non-exchange fic written and posted.
COMPLETED, with one Song Of The Sea fic and two Girl Meets World fics, not counting my Yuletide stuff. I'm very proud of myself for putting out three fics without a deadline pushing me towards it, okay.
So I did very well on the resolutions front.
[2015 TV]I knocked two shows off of my formal To Watch list, Fringe and White Collar.
I also watched a bunch of other stuff.
It's a good thing my sister gave me a Netflix gift card because I get a lot of mileage out of my account.
I'm totally just going down the list of shows I watched in order to make comments on them.
A To Z and Selfie were both, unsurprisingly, canceled after their first season. I loved both and I miss them, but given their ratings I wasn't shocked to see them go. Selfie in particular was a victim of a poor title and bad marketing. But seriously, someone give Karen Gillan, Cristin Milioti, and John Cho all a show together.
Galavant is SUPER AWESOME and silly fun and the second season starts soon and I'm very excited because it ended on a terrible cliffhanger and I was afraid it wouldn't be picked up.
Sleepy Hollow lost me. I kept giving it shots right up until the winter hiatus, but it still hasn't gotten me back and it's now moving to a time slot that conflicts with other things I watch, so, bye Sleepy Hollow.
Elementary continues to be awesome, and Girl Meets World just keeps getting better even despite the love triangle I'm not feeling at all.
Constantine was canceled and I was devastated. Matt Ryan: perfect John Constantine. And it had so much potential to grow into an excellent Hellblazer adaptation. And ARRGH. Matt then went on to reprise the role on Arrow and I got very emotional.
The Librarians became my feel-good show even though I still haven't watched the movie (movies?) they're based on. I just love the team and their friendship so much!
Castle was . . . frustrating. Let's leave it at that.
Gravity Falls. GRAVITY FALLS. I can't say enough about Gravity Falls. I don't think a Disney channel cartoon has ever affected me so much, from the characters (Mabel Pines is EVERYTHING to me) to the plotlines (I've gotten SO INVESTED in everything going on) and now it's ENDING although God knows when because Disney hates consistent and predictable scheduling. But, I mean, GRAVITY FALLS.
I marathoned Fringe on Netflix and really enjoyed it. It didn't inspire me fannishly and I haven't done much (any) rewatching, but I did enjoy it, IDK.
Once Upon A Time continues to keep rehashing the same plot points over and over with very little creativity. At this point I'm just in it for the characters. Specifically I'm mostly in it to see Belle occasionally out-think everybody else when the writers remember she exists.
Over The Garden Wall is an intenesly weird and lovely show that lasted exactly the right amount of time and I highly recommend it to everyone.
I kinda liked Younger, kinda was embarassed by it, was mostly watching it for Sutton Foster, probably won't watch season two.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic continues to be not quite as good as the first season but still enjoyable. Also the one hundredth episode (Slice Of Life) was AMAZING fanservice that I adored.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was weird in ways that alternately appealed to me and turned me off. I don't know. I was strongly ambivalent about it. I'll probably watch season two anyway.
Marvel's Daredevil is probably my favorite of the Marvel live action properties I've consumed to date, but I'm still a DC girl at heart; it didn't measure up to any of the DCTV properties I'm familiar with.
Sense8 was my favorite of the Netflix Originals I watched by a long shot. Weird in ways that consistently appealed to me, with characters I fell madly in love with. I'm so eager for season two!
I also gave two new SyFy shows a shot, Dark Matter and Killjoys. Of the two I ended up liking Killjoys slightly more but they both ultimately got me hooked. Dutch and Johnny and Lucy's dynamic is fantastic even if I'm not hugely enthused by D'avin, and everyone on Dark Matter has interesting relationships with everyone else even if the plot can't always keep me interested.
I finished watching the US remake of Being Human. The end was definitely better than the beginning, mostly because they'd stopped trying to slavishly stick to the original; by the end they didn't have much in common with the UK version at all, and they were a better show for it. (I love the UK version! I already had the UK version, I didn't need it again but with American accents.)
Star Wars: Rebels is a delight and I recommend it to any Star Wars fans. I should watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars, shouldn't I? I think it's on Netflix.
I finished watching White Collar. The ending was a disappointment. That's all I really have to say.
Dance Academy is soap opera-y fun with ballet, which is all I really ever wanted from it.
I finished Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, which is . . . weird. It's a weird show. Fun! Weird.
When I heard Matt Ryan was going to be guest starring on Arrow as John Constantine I immediately set about getting caught up on Arrow so I would understand what was going on when he showed up. And I enjoyed it a lot! Not quite as much as Constantine, and the flashbacks got old pretty fast, but still enjoyed it.
Puffin Rock is an adorable animated show by Cartoon Saloon, the same studio that made Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, two of my all-time favorite films. It's also aimed at preschoolers. I'm not ashamed, it's really cute and weirdly soothing.
The final season of Continuum aired, with a finale that struck the perfect balance between triumphant happy ending and heartbreaking everything is awful. Seriously, I don't know how they did it. That show is so good. Recommended to everyone who likes time travel-y scifi.
Season nine of Doctor Who might be my favorite season of New Who ever. Maybe. I find it difficult to rank these things. But Twelve and Clara find this perfect dynamic so even the episodes I didn't like so much were wonderful, and the episodes I did like a lot were almost flawless. And then it ends and sends off Clara perfectly. PERFECTLY. And then the Christmas special was definitely my favorite Christmas special to date. SO GOOD.
The Muppets was not quite as good as I wanted it to be, but it's still the Muppets so it's better than a lot of other things on TV. Apparently it's going to be undergoing a bit of a revamp (or reboot?) before it comes back from winter hiatus; I'm curious if that will bring it more in line with my own ideas of what a Muppets TV show should be.
Once I finished catching up on Arrow I naturally started working my way through The Flash, which strikes a strange balance between being much more feel-good and upbeat than Arrow while at the same time being more morally dubious. It's hard to explain. I've only seen the first season so far because I'm watching it on Netflix, but . . . I'm intrigued.
Supergirl is adorable feel-good fluff that handsdown beats every Superman adaptation I've ever seen. I love the cast. They're all so cute and they have so much chemistry with each other.
I started watching Ash Vs Evil Dead but fell out of the habit. Probably mostly because I don't have Starz so I was watching on a delay with a lot of effort anyway, but also the first couple of episodes weren't that great. Maybe it'll eventually end up on Netflix and I'll marathon it.
Oh, and I watched the sneak peek preview of the Magicians pilot, which looks great. Better than the books, which were bogged down by an unlikeable POV character. Quentin is still kind of unlikeable in the TV show, but we're not tied as closely to his perspective which helps a lot.
I also rewatched the entirety of Lost, which totally holds up. I still love the ending and the entire most of the journey. (I still hate What Kate Did and the one with Jack's tattoos, ughhhh.) And the characters. Lost is so good, oh my Lord.
And then I started (but have not yet finished) the #201DaysOfTheXFilesRewatch, which is timed to conclude with the start of the new season. (I'm SO EXCITED about the new season.) It's reminded me of so many great episodes (how had I forgotten just how much I love Paper Hearts???) and I've fallen in love with Mulder and Scully and the Gunmen and Skinner and so many other characters all over again.
God, I watch too much TV.
[2015 MOVIES]I didn't watch that many movies this year.
As I mentioned, I saw two films in theaters, Pixar's Inside Out, which I loved and which made me cry with its depiction of (situational) depression, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which I loved EVEN MORE and desperately want to see again; I've heard some of the criticisms against it, they're probably valid, I don't care, it was everything I wanted and more even with the heartbreaking [spoiler].
My other favorite movie of the year was Cartoon Saloon' Song Of The Sea, which I would've loved to see in theaters but wasn't released anywhere near me so I had to wait until it came out on DVD. It's SO GOOD, you guys. I'm a sucker for selkie stories, and this one is so lovely and perfect and says such meangingful things about grief and family. And it uses Irish mythology in such a clever way. And Saoirse is such a great character, I'm crazy about her.
I'm not going to discuss every new-to-me movie I watched this year, but some other favorites were The Secret Of Roan Inish (I love selkie stories so much, I'm not going to apologize for it), Big Hero 6 (Song Of The Sea should've won the Oscar, though), The Last 5 Years (a surprisingly good adaptation of a very difficult musical), and Home (super cute and sweet).
[2015 BOOKS]I discussed the various stats further up in the post, so I'm just going to single out a few books for discussion.
Ireland: A Novel by Frank Delaney is strange and lovely and does really interesting things with both history and mythology and I'm really glad I finally finished it.
I don't really read a lot of crime thrillers because they stress me out, but I'm glad I finally took a bunch of people's recommendations and read the Dublin Murder Squad books; they also kind of stressed me out but I loved them, and their very strong sense of place, and the little touches of the supernatural that wove through each one.
Trigger Warning is probably not my favorite Neil Gaiman short story collection, but it had several stories that I loved, particularly The Truth Is A Cave... and The Thing About Cassandra.
I was spoiled that there was a plot twist in Passage that apparently blew everyone's mind so I spent the first chunk of the book trying to predict it. I PREDICTED WRONG. IT BLEW MY MIND. That book is bizarre and fantastic and WOW.
Burning Chrome is a collection of short stories by William Gibson, most of them set in the same world as the Neuromancer series, and they're so good they resparked my interest in cyberpunk and motivated me to start working seriously on my post-cyberpunk novel again. If you have any interest in the genre at all, READ THEM.
The Holy Or The Broken is a history of the song Hallelujah and (partly) a biography of Leonard Cohen and it's fantastically interesting.
I struggled a lot with PopSugar's challenge's request for a book "that takes place in your hometown" because there are multiple places I could consider my hometown and nobody really writes about any of them. I eventually settled on the place I am currently living in because the local library had a book set here: The Mystery Of Beautiful Nell Cropsey, a slightly-fictionalized account of a local girl who went missing and was eventually discovered dead at the turn of the twentieth century. It was pretty interesting, actually, and I kind of want to do a walking tour to see some of the specific places important to the story.
Because I was obsessed with Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton like every theatre nerd in the country, I read Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton. It's a really interesting read and it's easy to see why it caught Lin's attention so thoroughly; it's also a lot of fun to go through and see the bits that inspired specific parts of the musical, and things that Lin obviously changed for dramatic reasons.
The final book I read this year was The Sandman Companion by Hy Bender, a collection of interviews (mostly with Neil Gaiman, but also with various artists and editors associated with the series) about The Sandman. It was a Christmas gift from my brother, and it's a really interesting read; I definitely learned a lot about the creation of the series and the work that went into it. Now I want to do a full reread of The Sandman so I can check out some of the things that were specifically mentioned.
I also reread the entire Animorphs series, including Chronicles, Megamorphs, and Alternamorphs, in chronological order by publication date. That series holds up so well. It may be aimed at middle schoolers but it holds up so well. And it's so intense and dark and basically shaped me into the person that I am today. Rachel alone, God.
On the other hand, my life would have been better if I hadn't read Ballerina by Deirdre Kelly (a history of ballet), Model by Michael Gross (a history of the modeling industry), and/or Bowie by Wendy Leigh (a biography of David Bowie). They're all three nonfiction books with weird attitudes towards sex, with both Ballerina and Model being weirdly unpleasant towards young woman who were essentially forced into prostitution and Bowie being weirdly scornful towards everyone Bowie slept with (or may have slept with) while still praising him for his own sex life. I don't know, they were all three unpleasant about subjects I don't think they had any reason to be unpleasant about. Do not recommend.
[2015 MUSIC]According to last.fm my top five artists of the past year were The Pogues (920 plays), Glen Hansard (552 plays), Declan Bennett (361 plays), The Frames (261 plays), and Flogging Molly (224 plays). Glen and the Frames are both new arrivals on the list, Declan has dropped one place from last year (from 2nd to 3rd), and Flogging Molly dropped one place (from 4th to 5th). Last year's 3rd and 5th place artists (Taylor Swift and Dropkick Murphys) have dropped to 6th and 7th place, respectively.
The top ten tracks of the past year are all the Pogues, to no one's surprise: Dirty Old Town (35 plays), Sally MacLennane and If I Should Fall From Grace With God (31 plays), Streams Of Whiskey and Repeal Of The Licensing Laws (30 plays), Fiesta (29 plays), A Pair of Brown Eyes and The Body Of An American (27 plays), and Boys From The County Hell and The Broad Majestic Shannon (26 plays).
The top five albums of the past year, discounting concert bootlegs, are Declan Bennett's An Innocent Evening Of Drinking (152 plays), Declan Bennett's Record:BREAKUP Live And Unplugged (102 plays), Declan Bennett's Record:BREAKUP (85 plays), The Essential Leonard Cohen (62 plays), and Leonard Cohen Live In Dublin (59 plays). The top five concert bootlegs of the past year are Sting performing songs from The Last Ship (99 plays), Glen Hansard in Dublin (92 plays), Jonathan Coulton in Atlanta (79 plays), The Frames in Dublin (78 plays), Audra McDonald at Carnegie Hall (72 plays), and Flogging Molly in Stockholm (70 plays).
I really like the Pogues and Declan Bennett, what can I say.
This deliberately excludes musical theatre, by the way, because last.fm doesn't play well with things labeled "Original Broadway Cast" or "Once" or whatever. See the next section for that stuff.
[2015 THEATRE]HAMILTON. Yes, every theatre geek in the world, me included, got obsessed with Hamilton. It's just that it's so good. The cast is ridiculously talented, Leslie Odom Jr.'s voice is made of sunshine and rainbows and everything beautiful in the world, Philippa Soo as Eliza makes me cry a million times over. It's so wonderful. If I let last.fm track my musical theatre listening habits I'm pretty sure Hamilton would blow everything else out of the water.
Which is not to say I've forgotten my other loves.
I got to see a local production of [title of show] this year, which was great; the cast killed it and really seemed to get the material. I also saw a local production of Tartuffe at the same theater, which was delightfully bizarre.
The Actors' Fund staged a concert reading of Bombshell (from Smash), which I did not get to see in person (duh) but was wonderful and hilarious and filled with great moments.
Once had too many final performances in too many places, and made me cry a lot. That said, I now hold tickets to go see the 2nd National Tour next year, which I am looking forward to a LOT.
Several great shows opened on Broadway, including but not limited to Hamilton (BEST), Something Rotten, An American In Paris, The King & I, and Fiddler On The Roof. Also a revival of Spring Awakening which I'm told is great but Spring Awakening has never been my thing and I don't think there's any twist that could make me enjoy it, even though this particular production's twist is very original and interesting otherwise.
The Tonys involved Fun Home winning a bunch of well-deserved awards, Kelli O'Hara finally getting her overdue statue, and a bunch of fun performances.
[2016]Media resolutions for next year:
* Do PopSugar's reading challenge again, since it worked out well this year and their 2016 challenge has a bunch of interesting things on it.
* 250 new-to-me TV episodes. Why mess with a resolution that works?
* 35 new-to-me movies. I'm going to try a little harder to watch more movies, but I don't want to go too far outside of the achievable.
* Finish a closed comics canon.
* At least one non-exchange fic posted. I'm worried that this year's three was an outlier, so I'm giving myself some wiggle room here.
* To start keeping track of new music that I listen to.
My main non-media resolution is to try to focus more on the positives in my life. Sometimes that will actually turn out to be media-related, because a lot of times what I'm looking forward to is a new episode of a TV show or something. (Or going to see Once in May. I plan to spend a lot of energy being excited about going to see Once in May.) But I'm tired of constantly thinking about the things I hate in my life (my job, my health, my finances), and I'm going to try to do less of that.
Wish me luck?
That said I would like to get in one last vent about my health before 2015 ends: I'm so tired of being sick. I would just like to be able to breathe again, and to wake up in the morning not being in pain. Please, whoever controls this stuff? PLEASE?
May 2016 be better than 2015 for all of you, regardless of what your 2015 was like.
[2015 RESOLUTIONS]* I'm going to try Popsugar's 2015 book challenge. It's 50-ish books, which fits with my now-usual-book-resolution, but it's a bit more guided, which should be more of a challenge.
COMPLETED. I'm really glad I did it, too, as it drove me to step outside of my usual comfort zone in many ways. It also got me to read things that I've been meaning to get around to but never did, including but not limited to James Joyce's Ulysses (yes, until this year I was the one Joyce fan in the world who had not read Ulysses), Ireland: A Novel (started but didn't finish several years ago; have now finished and loved), and the Dublin Murder Squad series (recommended to me many times, with good reason, as it turns out).
According to Goodreads, I read 97 books this year. That is not an entirely accurate number, as I made the decision not to include some YA rereads I did. Most specifically, I reread the entire Animorphs series in order between April 19 and July 18 but thought including 65-ish 100-page books aimed at 9-year-olds would throw off my stats horribly; a few other rereads also did not make the cut.
Goodreads helpfully provided an overview of my year in books, which you can view here, if you're interested. The most interesting stats in my opinion: I read a total of 30488 pages in the books that were included; the longest book was Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, clocking in at 818 pages. Average length was 318 pages. Only 15 other people on Goodreads have also read the Secret Diplomatic History of The Eighteenth Century by Karl Marx (I don't particularly recommend it). My average rating was 3.7.
I rated eighteen books five stars and three books one star.
* 250 new-to-me episodes of TV, which is a step back from my (unachieved) 2014 resolution but is still quite a lot of television.
COMPLETED with tons of room to spare. I actually watched 635 new-to-me TV episodes this year. I maybe watch too much television.
That's not even including the rewatches this year, which included a full rewatch of Lost (STILL LOVE IT UNCONDITIONALLY) and my ongoing rewatch of The X-Files in preparation for the new season.
New and new-to-me shows I picked up this year included the Librarians, Galavant, Fringe, Over The Garden Wall, Younger (probably not going to watch the second season), Supergirl, The Flash, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Marvel's Daredevil, Sense8, Dark Matter, Killjoys, Arrow, The Muppets, and The Magicians (which hasn't properly started yet but whatever I watched the sneak-peek pilot that counts).
Seriously, I watch too much TV.
* 30 new-to-me movies. Again stepping back from my (unachieved) 2014 resolution, but still enough that I should get some good range in there.
COMPLETED, though just barely. 34 movies. This included two movies seen in theaters (Inside Out and Star Wars: The Force Awakens), which is an unusually high number for me as I do not get to the movie theater very often; both movies were excellent and totally worth it and I want to go back and see Star Wars again. I also have to mention Song Of The Sea, which is one of the best animated movies ever and also one of the best movies ever. Seriously, go watch it.
* Just read some comics. I'm not gonna put a number on it. I just want to read something new to me in 2015.
COMPLETED. I kept up with/finished The Sandman: Overture, and also mostly kept up with the new Hellblazer reboot Constantine: The Hellblazer. I started reading Deadpool but didn't get very far. Thanks to my brother, I've also started Fables (enjoyed, though not excessively so) and Saga (LOVED, really want to finish).
That said, it's a good thing I didn't put a number on it.
* AT LEAST one non-exchange fic written and posted.
COMPLETED, with one Song Of The Sea fic and two Girl Meets World fics, not counting my Yuletide stuff. I'm very proud of myself for putting out three fics without a deadline pushing me towards it, okay.
So I did very well on the resolutions front.
[2015 TV]I knocked two shows off of my formal To Watch list, Fringe and White Collar.
I also watched a bunch of other stuff.
It's a good thing my sister gave me a Netflix gift card because I get a lot of mileage out of my account.
I'm totally just going down the list of shows I watched in order to make comments on them.
A To Z and Selfie were both, unsurprisingly, canceled after their first season. I loved both and I miss them, but given their ratings I wasn't shocked to see them go. Selfie in particular was a victim of a poor title and bad marketing. But seriously, someone give Karen Gillan, Cristin Milioti, and John Cho all a show together.
Galavant is SUPER AWESOME and silly fun and the second season starts soon and I'm very excited because it ended on a terrible cliffhanger and I was afraid it wouldn't be picked up.
Sleepy Hollow lost me. I kept giving it shots right up until the winter hiatus, but it still hasn't gotten me back and it's now moving to a time slot that conflicts with other things I watch, so, bye Sleepy Hollow.
Elementary continues to be awesome, and Girl Meets World just keeps getting better even despite the love triangle I'm not feeling at all.
Constantine was canceled and I was devastated. Matt Ryan: perfect John Constantine. And it had so much potential to grow into an excellent Hellblazer adaptation. And ARRGH. Matt then went on to reprise the role on Arrow and I got very emotional.
The Librarians became my feel-good show even though I still haven't watched the movie (movies?) they're based on. I just love the team and their friendship so much!
Castle was . . . frustrating. Let's leave it at that.
Gravity Falls. GRAVITY FALLS. I can't say enough about Gravity Falls. I don't think a Disney channel cartoon has ever affected me so much, from the characters (Mabel Pines is EVERYTHING to me) to the plotlines (I've gotten SO INVESTED in everything going on) and now it's ENDING although God knows when because Disney hates consistent and predictable scheduling. But, I mean, GRAVITY FALLS.
I marathoned Fringe on Netflix and really enjoyed it. It didn't inspire me fannishly and I haven't done much (any) rewatching, but I did enjoy it, IDK.
Once Upon A Time continues to keep rehashing the same plot points over and over with very little creativity. At this point I'm just in it for the characters. Specifically I'm mostly in it to see Belle occasionally out-think everybody else when the writers remember she exists.
Over The Garden Wall is an intenesly weird and lovely show that lasted exactly the right amount of time and I highly recommend it to everyone.
I kinda liked Younger, kinda was embarassed by it, was mostly watching it for Sutton Foster, probably won't watch season two.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic continues to be not quite as good as the first season but still enjoyable. Also the one hundredth episode (Slice Of Life) was AMAZING fanservice that I adored.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was weird in ways that alternately appealed to me and turned me off. I don't know. I was strongly ambivalent about it. I'll probably watch season two anyway.
Marvel's Daredevil is probably my favorite of the Marvel live action properties I've consumed to date, but I'm still a DC girl at heart; it didn't measure up to any of the DCTV properties I'm familiar with.
Sense8 was my favorite of the Netflix Originals I watched by a long shot. Weird in ways that consistently appealed to me, with characters I fell madly in love with. I'm so eager for season two!
I also gave two new SyFy shows a shot, Dark Matter and Killjoys. Of the two I ended up liking Killjoys slightly more but they both ultimately got me hooked. Dutch and Johnny and Lucy's dynamic is fantastic even if I'm not hugely enthused by D'avin, and everyone on Dark Matter has interesting relationships with everyone else even if the plot can't always keep me interested.
I finished watching the US remake of Being Human. The end was definitely better than the beginning, mostly because they'd stopped trying to slavishly stick to the original; by the end they didn't have much in common with the UK version at all, and they were a better show for it. (I love the UK version! I already had the UK version, I didn't need it again but with American accents.)
Star Wars: Rebels is a delight and I recommend it to any Star Wars fans. I should watch Star Wars: The Clone Wars, shouldn't I? I think it's on Netflix.
I finished watching White Collar. The ending was a disappointment. That's all I really have to say.
Dance Academy is soap opera-y fun with ballet, which is all I really ever wanted from it.
I finished Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, which is . . . weird. It's a weird show. Fun! Weird.
When I heard Matt Ryan was going to be guest starring on Arrow as John Constantine I immediately set about getting caught up on Arrow so I would understand what was going on when he showed up. And I enjoyed it a lot! Not quite as much as Constantine, and the flashbacks got old pretty fast, but still enjoyed it.
Puffin Rock is an adorable animated show by Cartoon Saloon, the same studio that made Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, two of my all-time favorite films. It's also aimed at preschoolers. I'm not ashamed, it's really cute and weirdly soothing.
The final season of Continuum aired, with a finale that struck the perfect balance between triumphant happy ending and heartbreaking everything is awful. Seriously, I don't know how they did it. That show is so good. Recommended to everyone who likes time travel-y scifi.
Season nine of Doctor Who might be my favorite season of New Who ever. Maybe. I find it difficult to rank these things. But Twelve and Clara find this perfect dynamic so even the episodes I didn't like so much were wonderful, and the episodes I did like a lot were almost flawless. And then it ends and sends off Clara perfectly. PERFECTLY. And then the Christmas special was definitely my favorite Christmas special to date. SO GOOD.
The Muppets was not quite as good as I wanted it to be, but it's still the Muppets so it's better than a lot of other things on TV. Apparently it's going to be undergoing a bit of a revamp (or reboot?) before it comes back from winter hiatus; I'm curious if that will bring it more in line with my own ideas of what a Muppets TV show should be.
Once I finished catching up on Arrow I naturally started working my way through The Flash, which strikes a strange balance between being much more feel-good and upbeat than Arrow while at the same time being more morally dubious. It's hard to explain. I've only seen the first season so far because I'm watching it on Netflix, but . . . I'm intrigued.
Supergirl is adorable feel-good fluff that handsdown beats every Superman adaptation I've ever seen. I love the cast. They're all so cute and they have so much chemistry with each other.
I started watching Ash Vs Evil Dead but fell out of the habit. Probably mostly because I don't have Starz so I was watching on a delay with a lot of effort anyway, but also the first couple of episodes weren't that great. Maybe it'll eventually end up on Netflix and I'll marathon it.
Oh, and I watched the sneak peek preview of the Magicians pilot, which looks great. Better than the books, which were bogged down by an unlikeable POV character. Quentin is still kind of unlikeable in the TV show, but we're not tied as closely to his perspective which helps a lot.
I also rewatched the entirety of Lost, which totally holds up. I still love the ending and the entire most of the journey. (I still hate What Kate Did and the one with Jack's tattoos, ughhhh.) And the characters. Lost is so good, oh my Lord.
And then I started (but have not yet finished) the #201DaysOfTheXFilesRewatch, which is timed to conclude with the start of the new season. (I'm SO EXCITED about the new season.) It's reminded me of so many great episodes (how had I forgotten just how much I love Paper Hearts???) and I've fallen in love with Mulder and Scully and the Gunmen and Skinner and so many other characters all over again.
God, I watch too much TV.
[2015 MOVIES]I didn't watch that many movies this year.
As I mentioned, I saw two films in theaters, Pixar's Inside Out, which I loved and which made me cry with its depiction of (situational) depression, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which I loved EVEN MORE and desperately want to see again; I've heard some of the criticisms against it, they're probably valid, I don't care, it was everything I wanted and more even with the heartbreaking [spoiler].
My other favorite movie of the year was Cartoon Saloon' Song Of The Sea, which I would've loved to see in theaters but wasn't released anywhere near me so I had to wait until it came out on DVD. It's SO GOOD, you guys. I'm a sucker for selkie stories, and this one is so lovely and perfect and says such meangingful things about grief and family. And it uses Irish mythology in such a clever way. And Saoirse is such a great character, I'm crazy about her.
I'm not going to discuss every new-to-me movie I watched this year, but some other favorites were The Secret Of Roan Inish (I love selkie stories so much, I'm not going to apologize for it), Big Hero 6 (Song Of The Sea should've won the Oscar, though), The Last 5 Years (a surprisingly good adaptation of a very difficult musical), and Home (super cute and sweet).
[2015 BOOKS]I discussed the various stats further up in the post, so I'm just going to single out a few books for discussion.
Ireland: A Novel by Frank Delaney is strange and lovely and does really interesting things with both history and mythology and I'm really glad I finally finished it.
I don't really read a lot of crime thrillers because they stress me out, but I'm glad I finally took a bunch of people's recommendations and read the Dublin Murder Squad books; they also kind of stressed me out but I loved them, and their very strong sense of place, and the little touches of the supernatural that wove through each one.
Trigger Warning is probably not my favorite Neil Gaiman short story collection, but it had several stories that I loved, particularly The Truth Is A Cave... and The Thing About Cassandra.
I was spoiled that there was a plot twist in Passage that apparently blew everyone's mind so I spent the first chunk of the book trying to predict it. I PREDICTED WRONG. IT BLEW MY MIND. That book is bizarre and fantastic and WOW.
Burning Chrome is a collection of short stories by William Gibson, most of them set in the same world as the Neuromancer series, and they're so good they resparked my interest in cyberpunk and motivated me to start working seriously on my post-cyberpunk novel again. If you have any interest in the genre at all, READ THEM.
The Holy Or The Broken is a history of the song Hallelujah and (partly) a biography of Leonard Cohen and it's fantastically interesting.
I struggled a lot with PopSugar's challenge's request for a book "that takes place in your hometown" because there are multiple places I could consider my hometown and nobody really writes about any of them. I eventually settled on the place I am currently living in because the local library had a book set here: The Mystery Of Beautiful Nell Cropsey, a slightly-fictionalized account of a local girl who went missing and was eventually discovered dead at the turn of the twentieth century. It was pretty interesting, actually, and I kind of want to do a walking tour to see some of the specific places important to the story.
Because I was obsessed with Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton like every theatre nerd in the country, I read Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton. It's a really interesting read and it's easy to see why it caught Lin's attention so thoroughly; it's also a lot of fun to go through and see the bits that inspired specific parts of the musical, and things that Lin obviously changed for dramatic reasons.
The final book I read this year was The Sandman Companion by Hy Bender, a collection of interviews (mostly with Neil Gaiman, but also with various artists and editors associated with the series) about The Sandman. It was a Christmas gift from my brother, and it's a really interesting read; I definitely learned a lot about the creation of the series and the work that went into it. Now I want to do a full reread of The Sandman so I can check out some of the things that were specifically mentioned.
I also reread the entire Animorphs series, including Chronicles, Megamorphs, and Alternamorphs, in chronological order by publication date. That series holds up so well. It may be aimed at middle schoolers but it holds up so well. And it's so intense and dark and basically shaped me into the person that I am today. Rachel alone, God.
On the other hand, my life would have been better if I hadn't read Ballerina by Deirdre Kelly (a history of ballet), Model by Michael Gross (a history of the modeling industry), and/or Bowie by Wendy Leigh (a biography of David Bowie). They're all three nonfiction books with weird attitudes towards sex, with both Ballerina and Model being weirdly unpleasant towards young woman who were essentially forced into prostitution and Bowie being weirdly scornful towards everyone Bowie slept with (or may have slept with) while still praising him for his own sex life. I don't know, they were all three unpleasant about subjects I don't think they had any reason to be unpleasant about. Do not recommend.
[2015 MUSIC]According to last.fm my top five artists of the past year were The Pogues (920 plays), Glen Hansard (552 plays), Declan Bennett (361 plays), The Frames (261 plays), and Flogging Molly (224 plays). Glen and the Frames are both new arrivals on the list, Declan has dropped one place from last year (from 2nd to 3rd), and Flogging Molly dropped one place (from 4th to 5th). Last year's 3rd and 5th place artists (Taylor Swift and Dropkick Murphys) have dropped to 6th and 7th place, respectively.
The top ten tracks of the past year are all the Pogues, to no one's surprise: Dirty Old Town (35 plays), Sally MacLennane and If I Should Fall From Grace With God (31 plays), Streams Of Whiskey and Repeal Of The Licensing Laws (30 plays), Fiesta (29 plays), A Pair of Brown Eyes and The Body Of An American (27 plays), and Boys From The County Hell and The Broad Majestic Shannon (26 plays).
The top five albums of the past year, discounting concert bootlegs, are Declan Bennett's An Innocent Evening Of Drinking (152 plays), Declan Bennett's Record:BREAKUP Live And Unplugged (102 plays), Declan Bennett's Record:BREAKUP (85 plays), The Essential Leonard Cohen (62 plays), and Leonard Cohen Live In Dublin (59 plays). The top five concert bootlegs of the past year are Sting performing songs from The Last Ship (99 plays), Glen Hansard in Dublin (92 plays), Jonathan Coulton in Atlanta (79 plays), The Frames in Dublin (78 plays), Audra McDonald at Carnegie Hall (72 plays), and Flogging Molly in Stockholm (70 plays).
I really like the Pogues and Declan Bennett, what can I say.
This deliberately excludes musical theatre, by the way, because last.fm doesn't play well with things labeled "Original Broadway Cast" or "Once" or whatever. See the next section for that stuff.
[2015 THEATRE]HAMILTON. Yes, every theatre geek in the world, me included, got obsessed with Hamilton. It's just that it's so good. The cast is ridiculously talented, Leslie Odom Jr.'s voice is made of sunshine and rainbows and everything beautiful in the world, Philippa Soo as Eliza makes me cry a million times over. It's so wonderful. If I let last.fm track my musical theatre listening habits I'm pretty sure Hamilton would blow everything else out of the water.
Which is not to say I've forgotten my other loves.
I got to see a local production of [title of show] this year, which was great; the cast killed it and really seemed to get the material. I also saw a local production of Tartuffe at the same theater, which was delightfully bizarre.
The Actors' Fund staged a concert reading of Bombshell (from Smash), which I did not get to see in person (duh) but was wonderful and hilarious and filled with great moments.
Once had too many final performances in too many places, and made me cry a lot. That said, I now hold tickets to go see the 2nd National Tour next year, which I am looking forward to a LOT.
Several great shows opened on Broadway, including but not limited to Hamilton (BEST), Something Rotten, An American In Paris, The King & I, and Fiddler On The Roof. Also a revival of Spring Awakening which I'm told is great but Spring Awakening has never been my thing and I don't think there's any twist that could make me enjoy it, even though this particular production's twist is very original and interesting otherwise.
The Tonys involved Fun Home winning a bunch of well-deserved awards, Kelli O'Hara finally getting her overdue statue, and a bunch of fun performances.
[2016]Media resolutions for next year:
* Do PopSugar's reading challenge again, since it worked out well this year and their 2016 challenge has a bunch of interesting things on it.
* 250 new-to-me TV episodes. Why mess with a resolution that works?
* 35 new-to-me movies. I'm going to try a little harder to watch more movies, but I don't want to go too far outside of the achievable.
* Finish a closed comics canon.
* At least one non-exchange fic posted. I'm worried that this year's three was an outlier, so I'm giving myself some wiggle room here.
* To start keeping track of new music that I listen to.
My main non-media resolution is to try to focus more on the positives in my life. Sometimes that will actually turn out to be media-related, because a lot of times what I'm looking forward to is a new episode of a TV show or something. (Or going to see Once in May. I plan to spend a lot of energy being excited about going to see Once in May.) But I'm tired of constantly thinking about the things I hate in my life (my job, my health, my finances), and I'm going to try to do less of that.
Wish me luck?
That said I would like to get in one last vent about my health before 2015 ends: I'm so tired of being sick. I would just like to be able to breathe again, and to wake up in the morning not being in pain. Please, whoever controls this stuff? PLEASE?
May 2016 be better than 2015 for all of you, regardless of what your 2015 was like.