Snowflake Day 1 and Fandom Year in Review memes
Happy 2018! Any minute now I'll actually bestir myself to wrap New Year Presents and then, like, pack for our trip or something. Aaaany minute. Instead, what I want to do is wallow in fandom:
Day 1: In your own space, talk about why you're participating in Snowflake and, if you’ve participated in the past, how the challenge has affected you. What drew you to it? What did you take away from it? What do you hope to accomplish this year?
I've participated, hmm, looks like this will be my fifth year. I did part of the challenge (which still counts) back in 2014, the first 11 days, and then the complete thing in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and hoping to reprise that this year (I know it's perfectly OK to skip days, but I'm a completist, so). Anyway, it's been a gradual evolution with every year -- the first year I did only some of the days, the next year was my first full year, 2016 was the first year when, besides doing my own posts and commenting on the Snowflake posts I saw naturally on my flist, I went and browsed the posts in the community and commented on those, and 2017 was the first year that I linked some of my own entries to the community, and as a result picked up a few new friends and garnered a funny crossover story. I'm planning to try to do even more of that this year, because it definitely ups the fun.
As for why I'm participating, well. I feel like my LJ flist has become considerably less fandom-oriented over time -- partly fannish content drifting over to Tumblr, partly friends with whom I've shared fandoms moving on to fandoms/out of fandom, so their fannish content is no longer necessarily releant to me, while I of course still want to keep in touch with them on their RL goings on (this is somewhat less true of DW, but my DW flist is smaller/less active than LJ, so it's still true of my LJ/DW experience overall). Anyway, so, with that, it's really nice to be able to count on the first half of January to produce a fannish Renaissance on my flist, and have an opportunity to talk about beloved fandoms with other people who are also in a fannish frame of mind.
And it's absolutely been instrumental in evolving my fandom experience in some small but important ways: It, along with
fandom_stocking, got me to log into DW periodically, for one, before I took the plunge to start cross-posting, and it was also the thing that got me past the weirdness I was feeling with commenting on fic on AO3. And the "make a fanwork right now!" challenge has not produced any transcendent works of staggering genius, but it did make me do SOMETHING early on in the year, to sort of... set the tone right, and I feel like it definitely serves its purpose. (I mean, I think it's not a coincidence that I produced at least a couple of fannish poems in 2015-2017 even in the absence of points-garnering for thetyrells (they were in all cases either prompts (and/)or presents, but still!
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This seems like a good post to which to append the Fandom Year in Review memes:
1. Your main fandom of the year?
This was a weird year for me -- I discovered a bunch of new-to-me things with small fandoms that I dipped into (e.g. Killjoys, Lewis, In Other Lands, Six of Crows), but none of them ate my brain the way major favorite fandoms do. Probably the thing that came closest was Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire -- I read the first book, read all the shorter works I could find, immediately bought #2 as soon as I could, raced through that, and commenced cheerleading the series to others / giving it as a gift. Having ikel89 and cyanshadow to read it / discuss it over text with was a big part of the fun, and having
yhlee's ficlets and crack and meta on DW for it was also great, and has been making the wait for Revenant Gun more tolerable. (It's also the one fandom for which I have a new fannish icon -- that's got to count for something, too :) And as of now, I've also created a fanwork in it, which I guess officially makes it a fandom of mine.
2. Your favorite film watched this year?
Answered elsewhere (December year end meme), but Guardians of the Galaxy, volume 2. That was a lot of fun! (Also the only film we saw in theaters, which gives it a nice edge.) (Best film I saw this year was Hidden Figures, I think, but GotG2 was also pretty good. And Logan deserves an honorable mention; it was not FUN exactly, but I was really impressed by it as a movie, and especially by the girl playing Laura.)
3. Your favorite book read this year?
Answered in detail in the book meme, but Ninefox Gambit (I do think Raven Stratagem is probably a stronger book, but NG had Cheris-and-Jedao, and introduced me to Jedao and this universe, and turned my opinion on an author from "I don't get what the hype is about" to "rite moar pls!", and it's always so nice when that happens.) There were other books I loved this year, but they either weren't the author's best/my favorite, or the books took a turn that disappointed me in some significant way after a strong beginning, and Ninefox Gambit more or less did the opposite of that.
Strong honorable mention goes to Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, though. That was, like, a perfect YA book.
4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
My only new album for the year was from the Shaov concert. No huge stand-outs on that disk, but I did like the tequila song and the Onegin rap.
5. Your favorite TV show of the year?
For once, I actually have more than one TV show to pick from. Of new to me TV shows -- i.e. Killjoys and Lewis -- Killjoys was my favorite. I liked the worldbuilding (even if it's grimmer and also, mmm, less organic than is my preference, and I *really* liked the characters, and it's very quotable. Basically, it slotted nicely into the Firefly-like niche that's apparently the sweet spot for a TV show for me. (I mean, there's B5, which isn't like that at all, but there's only one B5, and I only need one of it.)
I also partially caught up on Sherlock (watching it with the rodents was a lot of fun! even if the degree to which L is able to predict the lines of various sociopaths was a tad disturbing), and found season 3 way better than I'd been expecting (still haven't watched season 4, though). And also watched more Modern Family (on planes), which continues to be cute cute cute.
Also, my Buffy rewatch with the rodents continued, and I really enjoyed seeing the Faith arc play out again, although now we're into season 4, and I know the stupid Initiative stuff is coming, although I am looking forward to the return of Spike (as is O).
6. Your favorite LJ community of the year?
Once again, I did my Yuletide spectator sport thing in
yuletide and related comms, and have also had a chance to be active in
fandom_stocking at both ends of the year. But these are both seasonal things. I haven't really had a year-round comm, although I am following
fanart_recs, which tends to yield at least a couple of RTMI pictures a month.
7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Machineries of Empire, I guess, even though in this case 'fandom' is mostly
yhlee himself writing hexarchate short fic and crackfic and meta and sharing random headcanons (Old Eshpar is the shape of Texas :DDD) on his DW. I did read a couple of ficlets, and am reading through the crop of Yuletide stories, since it was one of the bigger fandoms this year, but given that most fic seems to be Jedao/Kujen or other things I have no particular interest in, that's been less instrumental.
I did attempt to find fandoms for a couple of other things, but Lewis fandom was fairly tedious Lewis/Hathaway, when what I was really wanting was all the cracky crossovers with, IDK, Sherlock and Harry Potter (Hathaway as Ravenclaw prefect, make it so!), and Six of Crows fandom was, oh god, all the modern high school AUs, complete with chat transcripts and sugar-high author notes and "my friend is taking french so all the french in this fic is from her lol!". (I have also read a few Killjoys and In Other Lands fic, but mostly when people have linked me directly, which I hesitate to count.)
And then, just in the last couple of weeks, I read Check Please!, which I enjoyed more than I would have expected to enjoy a webcomic about hockey, and that has an actual, proper, too-big-for-Yuletide fandom, with multiple ships (although this is one case where it's the canonical juggernaut that interests me) and everything from gen-y fluff to like 20 pages of Explicit fics on AO3. There seems to be an odd predilection for writing AUs which dispense with the hockey setting (so they don't have to do the hockey research, I guess?), but it's quite a nice feeling to have SO MUCH FIC to choose from that the handy-dandy AO3 filters actually serve a purpose.
8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
I can't think of anything that was a major disappointment in the sense that something I'd been looking forward to fizzled for me, but I did have several things that, for me, didn't live up either to the promise of their premise or the hype.
I had been expecting to enjoy Wonder Woman and Rogue One more than I ended up doing (which is that I didn't bother to finish watching either of them, and at this point probably never will), but there's never yet been a DC movie I cared about, and while I do find the original Star Wars formative, anything good after Attack of the Clones comes as a pleasant surprise.
More relevantly, there were also several books this year which sounded better in theory than they ended up being for me in execution. I had expected an epic Magneto-and-Xavier thing from Vicious, which turned out to be, instead, a pretty cute found family story with intriguing worldbuilding, but the nemesing was completely uninspired (and I'm annoyed that it sounds like the nemesis premise that didn't work even once will be back in the sequel). Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue had such a great idea and potential for a lot of charm but frustrated me with pointless misunderstanding-based pining and Tumblr-esque PSAs. But the top award in this category definitely goes to The Love Interest, which sounded crackily amusing in theory and totally disintegrated in every conceivable way (prose, structure, characters -- ALL OF THEM XD, theme, worldbuilding, level of cliche), which is actually kind of impressive, in a backwards way. But I was also forewarned about both 'Gentleman's Guide' and Love Interest, which definitely softened the blow.
9. Your fandom boyfriend of the year?
Um. Jedao. I have a type... Teenage!me would've also fully appreciated Reed from Upside of Unrequited, but at this point, with him being basically my kids' age... (this is actually a problem with a lot of my reading this year -- so many of the characters were teens, since so much of what I read was YA. Like, I liked Jesper from Six of Crows a lot, too, but, yeah, he's also something like 16...) And, of course, Nightingale still (he did have some small appearances in Black Mould and Furthest Station after all).
And I don't think I'd want Johnny Jaqobis (Killjoys), Hathaway (Lewis), or Kail (from the Patrick Weekes books) for a boyfriend, but I'd be happy being friends with them. Also Mikodez, provided I wasn't the one who had to babysit him :P He can for sure feed me all the cookies! :D
10. Your fandom girlfriend of the year?
OK, apparently the "they're my kids' age" doesn't actually bother me when it comes to girls, because Jack from Every Heart a Doorway is definitely my answer to this question, oops. Besides that... Grandma Harken from the Jackalope Wives sequence, maybe? I don't know if there was someone this year who fell between my daughter's age and "having a grown-up grandson". Maybe Sybilla, Lymond's mother?
Also, I would DEFINITELY not want the actual character as a girlfriend, given what she's like, but damn Delle Seyah Kendry is pretty...
And I don't want her as a girlfriend, but I kind of want to adopt Mantis from GotG2.
11. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
ikel89 and cyanshadow reading Jhereg for/with me :D That ranked higher than even getting my hands on Vallista. Oh, and getting my Dragaera shirt from ikel89 (I guess these are all Dragaera-centric? Although starting to read Raven Stratagem was also pretty darn fun.)
12. The most missed of your old fandoms?
Dragaera managed to get even more forlorn, somehow, because something happened to the mailing list, I guess? or at least to its archives. And I was hoping Vallista's release would bring people to the newly created Slack channel, but I think at most 3 people showed up, including myself, and no to ever seemed to be on at the same time. (Although I did, fortuitously, find a few more Brust fans on LJ/DW (*waves* at zigadenus and
bjornwilde.) And, par for the course, a couple of the things I read this year made me want to see crossovers with Dragaera (the additional space!Elf books from MCA Hogarth, and, surprisingly, Six of Crows).
In a slightly different category of "missed", I had all kinds of renewed Babylon 5 feels this year, as [Bad username or site: cyanshadow @ livejournal>> watched more than half of the show and now <user name =] has started watching it as well.
13. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
Heh, well, I didn't try either The Long Price Quartet or Coldfire, like I'd been meaning to and said I would on this meme last year (and the year before that, LOL). But I still intend to (and maybe a sync read with cyanshadow will help make the former happen, since that seems to be just about the only way for me to finish books...). And Farscape (which keeps eluding me -- it's no longer on Netflix here, now that we have Netflix, and not streaming on Amazon either, either under Prime or for purchase. Bah.)
With more hope of getting accomplished in the future, one of the books I bought for myself Powell's was Sorcerer to the Crown, which I've been meaning to read for ages.
14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
WORLDCON, tbh! :D
For books, I've kind of answered this already on the other meme, but: Revenant Gun! (currently Amazon lists a June pub date? Hopefully that's real!) And, if Book Depository's dates are to believed, Lies Sleeping, the next RoL book (June 28, 2018). I'd also like to at least know when the new Paarfi book is coming out, since I'm sure there's no way of getting Tsalmoth in 2018. Maybe Thorn of Emberlain, if it FINALLY comes out in 2018.
Among non-books, IDK... Infinity War, I guess, although I'm worried about my favorite possibly getting killed off, and the Ant-Man sequel? (Black Panther looks very shiny in the trailer, too, but I dunno if I can take the catsuit thing seriously for an entire movie... time will tell.) And presumably I'll start looking forward to Killjoys season 4 once I finish watching season 3.
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And another quick meme to wrap up the fannish year-end memes:
Favorite main character of 2017: I liked Simon in Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Elliot in In Other Lands, and Bells (both as a secondary in Not Your Sidekick but also as the protagonist of his own book). I also liked Juliet quite a lot in the beginning of 'Guernsey Literary Society', though my fondness was eroded a fair bit by the disappointingly cliche/Hollywood ending of the book (which I suspect is an artefact of the second writer finishing it up after the primary author's passing). And of course I continued to enjoy Peter Grant (also Penric, but I found older Penric not quite as compelling as the Penric of the very first novella). Over on the the TV side, I really liked Johnny Jaqobis and Hathaway for TV, and the new Spider-Man for movies, and was blown away by Laura in Logan (she counts as main, right? she definitely should...).
Favorite villain of 2017: Hmm. I liked Khlyen in Killjoys a lot, although he is not ultimately a villain, and really like Delle Seyah, although I'm not sure what she ultimately will be, either. I liked that the "bad guy" in Spider-Man: Homecoming was a regular guy with some fairly understandable reasons rather some universe-munching galactic horror (although actually Ego was an entertaining villain in GotG2, for all that he WAS a universe-munching galactic horror, heh). And there were some neat episodic villains in Lewis. The reason I'm leading with movies/TV is that there were very few memorable villains in my books this year. A lot of the books I read, being queer YA, didn't even have villains, or even antagonists, and a number of the other YA books had such RIDICULOUSLY cliche villains that I could only roll my eyes at them (e.g. Not Your Sidekick, the Foxhole Court, the Palace Job books, Godmother).
I did like a number of people I would hesitate to call villains, although they are people who either oppose Our Heroes or whom Our Heroes regard as such: Lady Tassell (the mother of the male lead) in Sweet Disorder, whom I think I like a lot more than Rose Lerner intended, and repeat appearances by Niles Whyborne (in the Whyborne & Griffin books) and the Preston-Wolfes in The Change series. Also, I'm really not sure what Gavar Jardine in The Gilded Cage is ultimately meant to be, but I doubt it's a good guy. And I do find Kujen memorable in the Machineries of Empire books, though "villain" seems to have little meaning given the nature of the hexarchate and what even the "heroes" are responsible for.
Favorite M/F couples of 2017: Much to my surprise, John Watson/Mary in series 3 Sherlock. Yeah, I had totally expected to hate it... but there you go.
But honestly, my favorite M-F relationships this year have been platonic ones -- Johnny and Dutch in Killjoys, the partnership between Penric and Desdemona (not new, but much more of a friendship than a first meeting in the books I read this year), the father-daughter thing Victor and Sydney have going in Vicious, Ballister and Nimona, the weirdo relationship between Drax and Mantis in GotG2, the love you can clearly see in every line of the letters between Juliet and Sidney in 'Guernsey', and whatever the hell you want to call the relationship between Cheris and Jedao in Ninefox Gambit. Oh, and also the relationship that grows between Cas and Bao the giant turtle in The Abyss Surrounds Us (yeah, IDEK... they wanted to be on the list).
I mean, I read a couple of books where het romance was the whole point, or a large part thereof, but I was decidedly meh on the romance of the two Rose Lerner books I read this year (proving, I guess, that True Pretenss was a fluke). I felt like the Juliet/Dawsey ending frankly cheapened the 'Guernsey' book. On Killjoys, I liked the idea of Johnny/Pawter well enough when it first started, but not when it looked like he would be lying to Dutch because of it, and I didn't like the way it ended.
If I really had to pick a romantic M/F relationship among the books, I do find the potential Kaz/Inej in 'Six of Crows' the most interesting, probably (they have a lot of issues to work out!). And Molly/Reed in Upside of Unrequited was fairly cute, if needlessly plagued with the spectre of unnecessary love triangles?
Favorite F/F couples of 2017: Once again I read several books with F/F couples, including two where that was the central arc -- The Abyss Surrounds Us and Not Your Sidekick. I found the Jess/Abby relationship cute, and more to my taste even though I thought NYS was a much weaker book -- the captive/captor dynamic just doesn't sit well with me, I guess. Becky/Brisa was a big part of Rebel, but while it finally succeeded in making me like Brisa at least a little bit, seeing her through Becky's loving POV, the relationship itself I'm indifferent to. Among more background relationships there's the one in 'Unrequited', which I might have liked more if I'd liked Molly's sister better -- as it was, I just found it kind of obnoxious. Cheris/Khiruev appears to be a thing that is being set up, at least as UST, and I find myself completely uninterested in it, though I do like both characters individually (reading some Yuletide fic basically confirmed for me that I'm just not interested in Cheris in a romantic relationship, even when not particularly fraught with anti-fraternization rules and identity games). My favorites in the canonical space are Maggie Parkhurst/Persephone finally becoming canon in Undertow, and I guess Abby/Jess in 'Sidekick'. I'm also intrigued by Aneela/Delle Seyah in this latest season of Killjoys, and had really enjoyed the Dutch/Delle Seyah foe-yay in the earlier seasons: it was the best f/f foe-yay I've ever seen, and confirms for me that, just like m/m foe-yay, this is a dynamic that works for me very nicely.
Non-canonically, I continue to really like the idea of Felicite/Kerry in The Change books (speaking of f/f foe-yay potential :) Now also competing via rat specialness! :DD) And, as we finished rewatching season 3 Buffy, I continued to enjoy all the Buffy/Faith vibes. (Yeah, there is definitely a specific type of f/f that appeals to me :P) On a different note, though, I was seriously feeling Nina/Inej more than any of the canon-indicated pairings in Six of Crows :)
Favorite M/M couples of 2017: This was another year with a TON of canonical m/m, though I feel like a lot of it was miss rather than hit, but a few WERE hits: I found Simon/Blue super-adorable, both in email and in-person; Kiem/Jainan in Course of Honor was ridiculously tropey, but just the right tropes, apparently, given how fast I read the whole thing; and Elliot and Luke in In Other Lands were also adorable but in a more complicated way. Also, surprising the hell out of me, Kit/Ty in Forbidden Parabatai Het #2 was actually... pretty nicely done by objective metrics, and, like, lightyears beyond the quality of the rest of the book. Oh, and the light-touch Blackheart/Goldenloin in Nimona was nice, too. And as mentioned above, I'm liking Jack/Bitty in Check Please!. Oh, and I'm continuing to find Mitch/Cam on Modern Family really cute, too.
As for the others, well... Neil/Andrew in the murdersports anime books that are 100% completely ikel89's fault could've actually been an interesting premise -- similar in levels of trauma to overcome to Kaz/Inej above -- but the series was so completely buried under layers of totally unnecessary batshit mafia drama that I couldn't take anything about it seriously, including that. Similarly, Monty/Percy in 'Gentleman's Guide' could've been cute! -- if not for the ridiculously drawn out misunderstanding-based pining, and the book's other faults. Dairy/Mister Dragon in the Rogues of the Republic books was at least preferable to the frankly creepy Dairy/virgin-obsessed unicorn in book 1. The couple in Boy Meets Boy was so utterly forgettable I legit can't remember either of their names. And over on the just plain negative side, the relationship between Nick and Patrick was my least favorite part of 'Evil Minion's Guide', and the canonical m/m in 'The Love Interest' is just as bizarre and mismanaged as everything else about this book.
Non-canonically, I find that I prefer Jesper's ill-advised crush on Kaz ("hive of bees" and all) to whatever the book is setting up with him and Wylan. And D'avin/Fancy probably wouldn't have occurred to me on its own, but that one Yuletide letter has TOTALLY sold me on this idea, and fortunately there were some fics (which, unsurprisingly-in-retrospect, turned out to be by
misura, LOL XD) that delivered! :D
Favorite Crossover couples of 2017: One crossover that occurred to me (not too unexpectedly, because it was one of the things that made me pick up Six of Crows in the first place) was between Six of Crows and the Vlad Taltos books. And going from there, if the ages were tweaked right, I could actually see Vlad/Nina as a casual thing. They're both magic-wielding types who enjoy the finer things in life, especially when it comes to food, and don't give up in the face of overwhelming odds, but they're coming from different places and positions ideologically, which could be interesting.
Also, not so much in a shippy sense, but I absolutely want Peter Grant and James Hathaway to have to work a case together, and to see Elliot from In Other Lands and Mikodez collaborating in some grand scheme. Oh, and Elliot & Hermione could be very interesting -- not as a romantic relationship -- they're too much alike in certain ways and need someone mellower to balance them out, but as crusader buddies.
This was actually part of the reason I reprised the Character Russian Roulette meme this year, which consequently also made me consider the possibilities of Ivan Vorpatril/Cordelia Chase (I said: "He's handsome and fairly pliant -- would maybe even remind her of Xander a little, only with better self-confidence and a noble title -- she's decorative but with a core of steel, which should appeal to a Vor lad. They wouldn't bring out the best in each other or anything, but they'd have a good time." and I stand by it) and the fairly terrifying premise of Azula/Sherlock.
(But Miles Vorkosigan/River Tam forever, still.).
Favorite Polyships of 2017: Interestingly enough, this year's reading brought some canonical polyships (again): More Jennie/Ross/Mia in The Change sequel (which ship is still not doing much for me), and Lisinthir/the Slave Queen/the Emperor in MCA Hogarth's BDSM space!dragons book (which was... well, BDSM xeno with more non-con elements than you can shake a whip at, but kind of interesting for all that?). It also feels like Kieran/Mark/Christina in Forbidden Parabatai Het is heading towards canonical polyship territory maybe? There were also several books not really featuring but referring to group marriages as a norm -- Machineries of Empire does this, and Murderbot as well.
Non-canonically, I was actually slightly intrigued by the idea of Neil/Andrew/Kevin in the murdersports anime book -- at least more than by anything else in the series. And I liked Livvy, Kit, and Ty together before *spoilers* (definitey as a V, since Livvy and Ty are siblings) . But that's about all I've got. Not a great year for polyships. (IDK why only Quality Lit brought out prospective non-canonical polyship feelings this year, but that seems to be the case XD)
Favorite Crossover Polyships of 2017: Still shipping various space!elves from the Pelted universe / Dragaerans crossover potential, even more so now that Rose Point Holiday has given me more time with Hiranthiel, the Queen, and Hiran's cousin. Just throw in Zerika, Morrolan, Aliera, and stir...
And the last round of the Character Russian Roulette meme has made me consider the possibility of Peter Grant, James Hathaway, and Hermione Granger as a poly V with Hermione in the center. It would be cute, and technically they even all sort of coexist in the same timeframe and the same general place (although Potterverse magic and Newtonian magic are obviously incompatible, worldbuilding-wise, so it would probably have to be an "everybody goes to Hogwarts" AU. (Of course, both James and Peter -- I agree with Caroline here -- would be in Ravenclaw.)
(Also, it doesn't fit this question, but there was a question on the character roulette meme that made me sort a few other characters into Hexarchate factions, and that was a ton of fun: "Thomas Raith would be an Andan like whoa, Morrolan would be Nirai for sure, Sherlock would make a good Shuos, and Hermione and Elliot Schafer would both be Liozh (even if Liozh is a heretical faction at this point. You know they would be!), and Kirk would be Kel, of course, having joined basically on a dare. I mean, he would obviously be a crashhawk, but he's got the suicidal tendencies down.")
NOTPs of 2017: I'm interpreting this as canonical pairings that didn't work for me. Quite a few of these, but pride of place goes to Emma/Julian in FPH#2, and Caden/Dylan in 'The Love Interest' (what the hell, even) and Patrick/Nick in 'Minion's Guide' (so little actual chemistry, so ATG...)
On a slightly different note, Victor/Eli in Vicious were an excellent example of how to do a nemesis relationship wrong. I didn't even think that was possible...
Fandom that you never expected to get into: Check Please! is probably a good pick for this -- it's in a format I usually don't go for, and it's about hockey, of all things. Over on the books side, the several "superhero" books I ended up reading (Not Your Sidekick/Not Your Villain, Minion's Guide, and Vicious actually feels pretty super-hero-y too) -- but none of these books are ones I'd say I'm fannish about.
Fandom that made an unexpected comeback: Temeraire, courtesy of the AU/drabble art-book. It was only a brief splash, but still.
Last fandom of 2017: Check Please!
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And a few more Yuletide recs, most of them from before reveals happened:
Calvin & Hobbes / Philosophy RPF fusion: The Anachronistic Calvin and Hobbes (1.2k, gen) -- crack played straight and pretty delightfully so, capturing both the feel of the comic strip and enough of the philosophers to be really delightfully odd.
Corfu Trlogy: The Extraordinary Egg by
rachelmanija (2k, gen, ensemble) -- the "Gerry hatches a phoenix" prompt I'd loved the idea of actually got a story written, and it's glorious! :D
Machineries of Empire: Hexarchate Board Game Club (1k, gen, Cheris, Jedao, Kujen, Mikodez) -- cracky ficlet of everyone playing Monopoly.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1066413.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
Day 1: In your own space, talk about why you're participating in Snowflake and, if you’ve participated in the past, how the challenge has affected you. What drew you to it? What did you take away from it? What do you hope to accomplish this year?
I've participated, hmm, looks like this will be my fifth year. I did part of the challenge (which still counts) back in 2014, the first 11 days, and then the complete thing in 2015, 2016, and 2017, and hoping to reprise that this year (I know it's perfectly OK to skip days, but I'm a completist, so). Anyway, it's been a gradual evolution with every year -- the first year I did only some of the days, the next year was my first full year, 2016 was the first year when, besides doing my own posts and commenting on the Snowflake posts I saw naturally on my flist, I went and browsed the posts in the community and commented on those, and 2017 was the first year that I linked some of my own entries to the community, and as a result picked up a few new friends and garnered a funny crossover story. I'm planning to try to do even more of that this year, because it definitely ups the fun.
As for why I'm participating, well. I feel like my LJ flist has become considerably less fandom-oriented over time -- partly fannish content drifting over to Tumblr, partly friends with whom I've shared fandoms moving on to fandoms/out of fandom, so their fannish content is no longer necessarily releant to me, while I of course still want to keep in touch with them on their RL goings on (this is somewhat less true of DW, but my DW flist is smaller/less active than LJ, so it's still true of my LJ/DW experience overall). Anyway, so, with that, it's really nice to be able to count on the first half of January to produce a fannish Renaissance on my flist, and have an opportunity to talk about beloved fandoms with other people who are also in a fannish frame of mind.
And it's absolutely been instrumental in evolving my fandom experience in some small but important ways: It, along with
fandom_stocking, got me to log into DW periodically, for one, before I took the plunge to start cross-posting, and it was also the thing that got me past the weirdness I was feeling with commenting on fic on AO3. And the "make a fanwork right now!" challenge has not produced any transcendent works of staggering genius, but it did make me do SOMETHING early on in the year, to sort of... set the tone right, and I feel like it definitely serves its purpose. (I mean, I think it's not a coincidence that I produced at least a couple of fannish poems in 2015-2017 even in the absence of points-garnering for thetyrells (they were in all cases either prompts (and/)or presents, but still!
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This seems like a good post to which to append the Fandom Year in Review memes:
1. Your main fandom of the year?
This was a weird year for me -- I discovered a bunch of new-to-me things with small fandoms that I dipped into (e.g. Killjoys, Lewis, In Other Lands, Six of Crows), but none of them ate my brain the way major favorite fandoms do. Probably the thing that came closest was Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire -- I read the first book, read all the shorter works I could find, immediately bought #2 as soon as I could, raced through that, and commenced cheerleading the series to others / giving it as a gift. Having ikel89 and cyanshadow to read it / discuss it over text with was a big part of the fun, and having
yhlee's ficlets and crack and meta on DW for it was also great, and has been making the wait for Revenant Gun more tolerable. (It's also the one fandom for which I have a new fannish icon -- that's got to count for something, too :) And as of now, I've also created a fanwork in it, which I guess officially makes it a fandom of mine.
2. Your favorite film watched this year?
Answered elsewhere (December year end meme), but Guardians of the Galaxy, volume 2. That was a lot of fun! (Also the only film we saw in theaters, which gives it a nice edge.) (Best film I saw this year was Hidden Figures, I think, but GotG2 was also pretty good. And Logan deserves an honorable mention; it was not FUN exactly, but I was really impressed by it as a movie, and especially by the girl playing Laura.)
3. Your favorite book read this year?
Answered in detail in the book meme, but Ninefox Gambit (I do think Raven Stratagem is probably a stronger book, but NG had Cheris-and-Jedao, and introduced me to Jedao and this universe, and turned my opinion on an author from "I don't get what the hype is about" to "rite moar pls!", and it's always so nice when that happens.) There were other books I loved this year, but they either weren't the author's best/my favorite, or the books took a turn that disappointed me in some significant way after a strong beginning, and Ninefox Gambit more or less did the opposite of that.
Strong honorable mention goes to Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, though. That was, like, a perfect YA book.
4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
My only new album for the year was from the Shaov concert. No huge stand-outs on that disk, but I did like the tequila song and the Onegin rap.
5. Your favorite TV show of the year?
For once, I actually have more than one TV show to pick from. Of new to me TV shows -- i.e. Killjoys and Lewis -- Killjoys was my favorite. I liked the worldbuilding (even if it's grimmer and also, mmm, less organic than is my preference, and I *really* liked the characters, and it's very quotable. Basically, it slotted nicely into the Firefly-like niche that's apparently the sweet spot for a TV show for me. (I mean, there's B5, which isn't like that at all, but there's only one B5, and I only need one of it.)
I also partially caught up on Sherlock (watching it with the rodents was a lot of fun! even if the degree to which L is able to predict the lines of various sociopaths was a tad disturbing), and found season 3 way better than I'd been expecting (still haven't watched season 4, though). And also watched more Modern Family (on planes), which continues to be cute cute cute.
Also, my Buffy rewatch with the rodents continued, and I really enjoyed seeing the Faith arc play out again, although now we're into season 4, and I know the stupid Initiative stuff is coming, although I am looking forward to the return of Spike (as is O).
6. Your favorite LJ community of the year?
Once again, I did my Yuletide spectator sport thing in
yuletide and related comms, and have also had a chance to be active in
fandom_stocking at both ends of the year. But these are both seasonal things. I haven't really had a year-round comm, although I am following
fanart_recs, which tends to yield at least a couple of RTMI pictures a month.
7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Machineries of Empire, I guess, even though in this case 'fandom' is mostly
yhlee himself writing hexarchate short fic and crackfic and meta and sharing random headcanons (Old Eshpar is the shape of Texas :DDD) on his DW. I did read a couple of ficlets, and am reading through the crop of Yuletide stories, since it was one of the bigger fandoms this year, but given that most fic seems to be Jedao/Kujen or other things I have no particular interest in, that's been less instrumental.
I did attempt to find fandoms for a couple of other things, but Lewis fandom was fairly tedious Lewis/Hathaway, when what I was really wanting was all the cracky crossovers with, IDK, Sherlock and Harry Potter (Hathaway as Ravenclaw prefect, make it so!), and Six of Crows fandom was, oh god, all the modern high school AUs, complete with chat transcripts and sugar-high author notes and "my friend is taking french so all the french in this fic is from her lol!". (I have also read a few Killjoys and In Other Lands fic, but mostly when people have linked me directly, which I hesitate to count.)
And then, just in the last couple of weeks, I read Check Please!, which I enjoyed more than I would have expected to enjoy a webcomic about hockey, and that has an actual, proper, too-big-for-Yuletide fandom, with multiple ships (although this is one case where it's the canonical juggernaut that interests me) and everything from gen-y fluff to like 20 pages of Explicit fics on AO3. There seems to be an odd predilection for writing AUs which dispense with the hockey setting (so they don't have to do the hockey research, I guess?), but it's quite a nice feeling to have SO MUCH FIC to choose from that the handy-dandy AO3 filters actually serve a purpose.
8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
I can't think of anything that was a major disappointment in the sense that something I'd been looking forward to fizzled for me, but I did have several things that, for me, didn't live up either to the promise of their premise or the hype.
I had been expecting to enjoy Wonder Woman and Rogue One more than I ended up doing (which is that I didn't bother to finish watching either of them, and at this point probably never will), but there's never yet been a DC movie I cared about, and while I do find the original Star Wars formative, anything good after Attack of the Clones comes as a pleasant surprise.
More relevantly, there were also several books this year which sounded better in theory than they ended up being for me in execution. I had expected an epic Magneto-and-Xavier thing from Vicious, which turned out to be, instead, a pretty cute found family story with intriguing worldbuilding, but the nemesing was completely uninspired (and I'm annoyed that it sounds like the nemesis premise that didn't work even once will be back in the sequel). Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue had such a great idea and potential for a lot of charm but frustrated me with pointless misunderstanding-based pining and Tumblr-esque PSAs. But the top award in this category definitely goes to The Love Interest, which sounded crackily amusing in theory and totally disintegrated in every conceivable way (prose, structure, characters -- ALL OF THEM XD, theme, worldbuilding, level of cliche), which is actually kind of impressive, in a backwards way. But I was also forewarned about both 'Gentleman's Guide' and Love Interest, which definitely softened the blow.
9. Your fandom boyfriend of the year?
Um. Jedao. I have a type... Teenage!me would've also fully appreciated Reed from Upside of Unrequited, but at this point, with him being basically my kids' age... (this is actually a problem with a lot of my reading this year -- so many of the characters were teens, since so much of what I read was YA. Like, I liked Jesper from Six of Crows a lot, too, but, yeah, he's also something like 16...) And, of course, Nightingale still (he did have some small appearances in Black Mould and Furthest Station after all).
And I don't think I'd want Johnny Jaqobis (Killjoys), Hathaway (Lewis), or Kail (from the Patrick Weekes books) for a boyfriend, but I'd be happy being friends with them. Also Mikodez, provided I wasn't the one who had to babysit him :P He can for sure feed me all the cookies! :D
10. Your fandom girlfriend of the year?
OK, apparently the "they're my kids' age" doesn't actually bother me when it comes to girls, because Jack from Every Heart a Doorway is definitely my answer to this question, oops. Besides that... Grandma Harken from the Jackalope Wives sequence, maybe? I don't know if there was someone this year who fell between my daughter's age and "having a grown-up grandson". Maybe Sybilla, Lymond's mother?
Also, I would DEFINITELY not want the actual character as a girlfriend, given what she's like, but damn Delle Seyah Kendry is pretty...
And I don't want her as a girlfriend, but I kind of want to adopt Mantis from GotG2.
11. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
ikel89 and cyanshadow reading Jhereg for/with me :D That ranked higher than even getting my hands on Vallista. Oh, and getting my Dragaera shirt from ikel89 (I guess these are all Dragaera-centric? Although starting to read Raven Stratagem was also pretty darn fun.)
12. The most missed of your old fandoms?
Dragaera managed to get even more forlorn, somehow, because something happened to the mailing list, I guess? or at least to its archives. And I was hoping Vallista's release would bring people to the newly created Slack channel, but I think at most 3 people showed up, including myself, and no to ever seemed to be on at the same time. (Although I did, fortuitously, find a few more Brust fans on LJ/DW (*waves* at zigadenus and
bjornwilde.) And, par for the course, a couple of the things I read this year made me want to see crossovers with Dragaera (the additional space!Elf books from MCA Hogarth, and, surprisingly, Six of Crows).
In a slightly different category of "missed", I had all kinds of renewed Babylon 5 feels this year, as [Bad username or site: cyanshadow @ livejournal>> watched more than half of the show and now <user name =] has started watching it as well.
13. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
Heh, well, I didn't try either The Long Price Quartet or Coldfire, like I'd been meaning to and said I would on this meme last year (and the year before that, LOL). But I still intend to (and maybe a sync read with cyanshadow will help make the former happen, since that seems to be just about the only way for me to finish books...). And Farscape (which keeps eluding me -- it's no longer on Netflix here, now that we have Netflix, and not streaming on Amazon either, either under Prime or for purchase. Bah.)
With more hope of getting accomplished in the future, one of the books I bought for myself Powell's was Sorcerer to the Crown, which I've been meaning to read for ages.
14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
WORLDCON, tbh! :D
For books, I've kind of answered this already on the other meme, but: Revenant Gun! (currently Amazon lists a June pub date? Hopefully that's real!) And, if Book Depository's dates are to believed, Lies Sleeping, the next RoL book (June 28, 2018). I'd also like to at least know when the new Paarfi book is coming out, since I'm sure there's no way of getting Tsalmoth in 2018. Maybe Thorn of Emberlain, if it FINALLY comes out in 2018.
Among non-books, IDK... Infinity War, I guess, although I'm worried about my favorite possibly getting killed off, and the Ant-Man sequel? (Black Panther looks very shiny in the trailer, too, but I dunno if I can take the catsuit thing seriously for an entire movie... time will tell.) And presumably I'll start looking forward to Killjoys season 4 once I finish watching season 3.
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And another quick meme to wrap up the fannish year-end memes:
Favorite main character of 2017: I liked Simon in Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Elliot in In Other Lands, and Bells (both as a secondary in Not Your Sidekick but also as the protagonist of his own book). I also liked Juliet quite a lot in the beginning of 'Guernsey Literary Society', though my fondness was eroded a fair bit by the disappointingly cliche/Hollywood ending of the book (which I suspect is an artefact of the second writer finishing it up after the primary author's passing). And of course I continued to enjoy Peter Grant (also Penric, but I found older Penric not quite as compelling as the Penric of the very first novella). Over on the the TV side, I really liked Johnny Jaqobis and Hathaway for TV, and the new Spider-Man for movies, and was blown away by Laura in Logan (she counts as main, right? she definitely should...).
Favorite villain of 2017: Hmm. I liked Khlyen in Killjoys a lot, although he is not ultimately a villain, and really like Delle Seyah, although I'm not sure what she ultimately will be, either. I liked that the "bad guy" in Spider-Man: Homecoming was a regular guy with some fairly understandable reasons rather some universe-munching galactic horror (although actually Ego was an entertaining villain in GotG2, for all that he WAS a universe-munching galactic horror, heh). And there were some neat episodic villains in Lewis. The reason I'm leading with movies/TV is that there were very few memorable villains in my books this year. A lot of the books I read, being queer YA, didn't even have villains, or even antagonists, and a number of the other YA books had such RIDICULOUSLY cliche villains that I could only roll my eyes at them (e.g. Not Your Sidekick, the Foxhole Court, the Palace Job books, Godmother).
I did like a number of people I would hesitate to call villains, although they are people who either oppose Our Heroes or whom Our Heroes regard as such: Lady Tassell (the mother of the male lead) in Sweet Disorder, whom I think I like a lot more than Rose Lerner intended, and repeat appearances by Niles Whyborne (in the Whyborne & Griffin books) and the Preston-Wolfes in The Change series. Also, I'm really not sure what Gavar Jardine in The Gilded Cage is ultimately meant to be, but I doubt it's a good guy. And I do find Kujen memorable in the Machineries of Empire books, though "villain" seems to have little meaning given the nature of the hexarchate and what even the "heroes" are responsible for.
Favorite M/F couples of 2017: Much to my surprise, John Watson/Mary in series 3 Sherlock. Yeah, I had totally expected to hate it... but there you go.
But honestly, my favorite M-F relationships this year have been platonic ones -- Johnny and Dutch in Killjoys, the partnership between Penric and Desdemona (not new, but much more of a friendship than a first meeting in the books I read this year), the father-daughter thing Victor and Sydney have going in Vicious, Ballister and Nimona, the weirdo relationship between Drax and Mantis in GotG2, the love you can clearly see in every line of the letters between Juliet and Sidney in 'Guernsey', and whatever the hell you want to call the relationship between Cheris and Jedao in Ninefox Gambit. Oh, and also the relationship that grows between Cas and Bao the giant turtle in The Abyss Surrounds Us (yeah, IDEK... they wanted to be on the list).
I mean, I read a couple of books where het romance was the whole point, or a large part thereof, but I was decidedly meh on the romance of the two Rose Lerner books I read this year (proving, I guess, that True Pretenss was a fluke). I felt like the Juliet/Dawsey ending frankly cheapened the 'Guernsey' book. On Killjoys, I liked the idea of Johnny/Pawter well enough when it first started, but not when it looked like he would be lying to Dutch because of it, and I didn't like the way it ended.
If I really had to pick a romantic M/F relationship among the books, I do find the potential Kaz/Inej in 'Six of Crows' the most interesting, probably (they have a lot of issues to work out!). And Molly/Reed in Upside of Unrequited was fairly cute, if needlessly plagued with the spectre of unnecessary love triangles?
Favorite F/F couples of 2017: Once again I read several books with F/F couples, including two where that was the central arc -- The Abyss Surrounds Us and Not Your Sidekick. I found the Jess/Abby relationship cute, and more to my taste even though I thought NYS was a much weaker book -- the captive/captor dynamic just doesn't sit well with me, I guess. Becky/Brisa was a big part of Rebel, but while it finally succeeded in making me like Brisa at least a little bit, seeing her through Becky's loving POV, the relationship itself I'm indifferent to. Among more background relationships there's the one in 'Unrequited', which I might have liked more if I'd liked Molly's sister better -- as it was, I just found it kind of obnoxious. Cheris/Khiruev appears to be a thing that is being set up, at least as UST, and I find myself completely uninterested in it, though I do like both characters individually (reading some Yuletide fic basically confirmed for me that I'm just not interested in Cheris in a romantic relationship, even when not particularly fraught with anti-fraternization rules and identity games). My favorites in the canonical space are Maggie Parkhurst/Persephone finally becoming canon in Undertow, and I guess Abby/Jess in 'Sidekick'. I'm also intrigued by Aneela/Delle Seyah in this latest season of Killjoys, and had really enjoyed the Dutch/Delle Seyah foe-yay in the earlier seasons: it was the best f/f foe-yay I've ever seen, and confirms for me that, just like m/m foe-yay, this is a dynamic that works for me very nicely.
Non-canonically, I continue to really like the idea of Felicite/Kerry in The Change books (speaking of f/f foe-yay potential :) Now also competing via rat specialness! :DD) And, as we finished rewatching season 3 Buffy, I continued to enjoy all the Buffy/Faith vibes. (Yeah, there is definitely a specific type of f/f that appeals to me :P) On a different note, though, I was seriously feeling Nina/Inej more than any of the canon-indicated pairings in Six of Crows :)
Favorite M/M couples of 2017: This was another year with a TON of canonical m/m, though I feel like a lot of it was miss rather than hit, but a few WERE hits: I found Simon/Blue super-adorable, both in email and in-person; Kiem/Jainan in Course of Honor was ridiculously tropey, but just the right tropes, apparently, given how fast I read the whole thing; and Elliot and Luke in In Other Lands were also adorable but in a more complicated way. Also, surprising the hell out of me, Kit/Ty in Forbidden Parabatai Het #2 was actually... pretty nicely done by objective metrics, and, like, lightyears beyond the quality of the rest of the book. Oh, and the light-touch Blackheart/Goldenloin in Nimona was nice, too. And as mentioned above, I'm liking Jack/Bitty in Check Please!. Oh, and I'm continuing to find Mitch/Cam on Modern Family really cute, too.
As for the others, well... Neil/Andrew in the murdersports anime books that are 100% completely ikel89's fault could've actually been an interesting premise -- similar in levels of trauma to overcome to Kaz/Inej above -- but the series was so completely buried under layers of totally unnecessary batshit mafia drama that I couldn't take anything about it seriously, including that. Similarly, Monty/Percy in 'Gentleman's Guide' could've been cute! -- if not for the ridiculously drawn out misunderstanding-based pining, and the book's other faults. Dairy/Mister Dragon in the Rogues of the Republic books was at least preferable to the frankly creepy Dairy/virgin-obsessed unicorn in book 1. The couple in Boy Meets Boy was so utterly forgettable I legit can't remember either of their names. And over on the just plain negative side, the relationship between Nick and Patrick was my least favorite part of 'Evil Minion's Guide', and the canonical m/m in 'The Love Interest' is just as bizarre and mismanaged as everything else about this book.
Non-canonically, I find that I prefer Jesper's ill-advised crush on Kaz ("hive of bees" and all) to whatever the book is setting up with him and Wylan. And D'avin/Fancy probably wouldn't have occurred to me on its own, but that one Yuletide letter has TOTALLY sold me on this idea, and fortunately there were some fics (which, unsurprisingly-in-retrospect, turned out to be by
misura, LOL XD) that delivered! :D
Favorite Crossover couples of 2017: One crossover that occurred to me (not too unexpectedly, because it was one of the things that made me pick up Six of Crows in the first place) was between Six of Crows and the Vlad Taltos books. And going from there, if the ages were tweaked right, I could actually see Vlad/Nina as a casual thing. They're both magic-wielding types who enjoy the finer things in life, especially when it comes to food, and don't give up in the face of overwhelming odds, but they're coming from different places and positions ideologically, which could be interesting.
Also, not so much in a shippy sense, but I absolutely want Peter Grant and James Hathaway to have to work a case together, and to see Elliot from In Other Lands and Mikodez collaborating in some grand scheme. Oh, and Elliot & Hermione could be very interesting -- not as a romantic relationship -- they're too much alike in certain ways and need someone mellower to balance them out, but as crusader buddies.
This was actually part of the reason I reprised the Character Russian Roulette meme this year, which consequently also made me consider the possibilities of Ivan Vorpatril/Cordelia Chase (I said: "He's handsome and fairly pliant -- would maybe even remind her of Xander a little, only with better self-confidence and a noble title -- she's decorative but with a core of steel, which should appeal to a Vor lad. They wouldn't bring out the best in each other or anything, but they'd have a good time." and I stand by it) and the fairly terrifying premise of Azula/Sherlock.
(But Miles Vorkosigan/River Tam forever, still.).
Favorite Polyships of 2017: Interestingly enough, this year's reading brought some canonical polyships (again): More Jennie/Ross/Mia in The Change sequel (which ship is still not doing much for me), and Lisinthir/the Slave Queen/the Emperor in MCA Hogarth's BDSM space!dragons book (which was... well, BDSM xeno with more non-con elements than you can shake a whip at, but kind of interesting for all that?). It also feels like Kieran/Mark/Christina in Forbidden Parabatai Het is heading towards canonical polyship territory maybe? There were also several books not really featuring but referring to group marriages as a norm -- Machineries of Empire does this, and Murderbot as well.
Non-canonically, I was actually slightly intrigued by the idea of Neil/Andrew/Kevin in the murdersports anime book -- at least more than by anything else in the series. And I liked Livvy, Kit, and Ty together before *spoilers* (definitey as a V, since Livvy and Ty are siblings) . But that's about all I've got. Not a great year for polyships. (IDK why only Quality Lit brought out prospective non-canonical polyship feelings this year, but that seems to be the case XD)
Favorite Crossover Polyships of 2017: Still shipping various space!elves from the Pelted universe / Dragaerans crossover potential, even more so now that Rose Point Holiday has given me more time with Hiranthiel, the Queen, and Hiran's cousin. Just throw in Zerika, Morrolan, Aliera, and stir...
And the last round of the Character Russian Roulette meme has made me consider the possibility of Peter Grant, James Hathaway, and Hermione Granger as a poly V with Hermione in the center. It would be cute, and technically they even all sort of coexist in the same timeframe and the same general place (although Potterverse magic and Newtonian magic are obviously incompatible, worldbuilding-wise, so it would probably have to be an "everybody goes to Hogwarts" AU. (Of course, both James and Peter -- I agree with Caroline here -- would be in Ravenclaw.)
(Also, it doesn't fit this question, but there was a question on the character roulette meme that made me sort a few other characters into Hexarchate factions, and that was a ton of fun: "Thomas Raith would be an Andan like whoa, Morrolan would be Nirai for sure, Sherlock would make a good Shuos, and Hermione and Elliot Schafer would both be Liozh (even if Liozh is a heretical faction at this point. You know they would be!), and Kirk would be Kel, of course, having joined basically on a dare. I mean, he would obviously be a crashhawk, but he's got the suicidal tendencies down.")
NOTPs of 2017: I'm interpreting this as canonical pairings that didn't work for me. Quite a few of these, but pride of place goes to Emma/Julian in FPH#2, and Caden/Dylan in 'The Love Interest' (what the hell, even) and Patrick/Nick in 'Minion's Guide' (so little actual chemistry, so ATG...)
On a slightly different note, Victor/Eli in Vicious were an excellent example of how to do a nemesis relationship wrong. I didn't even think that was possible...
Fandom that you never expected to get into: Check Please! is probably a good pick for this -- it's in a format I usually don't go for, and it's about hockey, of all things. Over on the books side, the several "superhero" books I ended up reading (Not Your Sidekick/Not Your Villain, Minion's Guide, and Vicious actually feels pretty super-hero-y too) -- but none of these books are ones I'd say I'm fannish about.
Fandom that made an unexpected comeback: Temeraire, courtesy of the AU/drabble art-book. It was only a brief splash, but still.
Last fandom of 2017: Check Please!
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And a few more Yuletide recs, most of them from before reveals happened:
Calvin & Hobbes / Philosophy RPF fusion: The Anachronistic Calvin and Hobbes (1.2k, gen) -- crack played straight and pretty delightfully so, capturing both the feel of the comic strip and enough of the philosophers to be really delightfully odd.
Corfu Trlogy: The Extraordinary Egg by
rachelmanija (2k, gen, ensemble) -- the "Gerry hatches a phoenix" prompt I'd loved the idea of actually got a story written, and it's glorious! :D
Machineries of Empire: Hexarchate Board Game Club (1k, gen, Cheris, Jedao, Kujen, Mikodez) -- cracky ficlet of everyone playing Monopoly.
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1066413.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).