Snowflake days 2-3 and fandom year in review memes
Day 2: Rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create.
First, let me take this opportunity to add a few more Yuletide recs. Two late adds that were super Relevant To My Interests:
Dragaera: What is Owed (1.8k, gen, Morrolan, Blackwand), with a downright Brustian framing device and great character voices and a really neat look at a Great Weapon/wielder relationship we never get to see in canon (and which I, personally, have of course geen intensely curious about). This is basically the fic I was hoping this Yuletide would produce when I saw the Dragera requests, and it's amazing.
Ghostverse: Language of Flowers (752 words, G, Five/Hyeon), by
ambyr, for ikel89. It turned out there was a third Ghostverse story hiding in Madness! Another canon-tone-perfect ficlet told entirely through texts -- and a casefic, no less! Funny and sweet and lyrical, just like the canon story, and I, too, appreciated that (Also, the "forensic gardening" tag -- which made me LOL when I first saw it -- should've really tipped me off this was by a Vorkosiverse fan :)
And two that I wouldn't have found on my own but ended up really enjoying:
Mrs Piggle-Wiggle: The Never-Puts-Down-the-Phone Cure (5.6k, gen, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle and OCs) -- this was one of
aome's gifts, which she mentioned to me as we were hanging out in person, and it sounded intriguing enough that I took a chance on it despite I think never having actually read the canon (though I know the basic premise of it through parenting osmosis). It's great! Really funny and upbeat without being preachy at all. And I imagine someone who actually is familiar with canon will get even more out of it than I did.
Fairy Tales: Off to NAN's Housing We Go (2k, teen, Big Bad Wolf/Little Red Riding Hood) -- a sci-fi version of Little Red Riding Hood, which I would've completely overlooked if not for
isis's rec, because I don't go looking in the fairy tales tag, and the relationship tag is also not my thing, but this was actually great, clever and funny.
The "challenge mode" for the day was to rec works other than fic, so let me do that as well.
Meta: Gender Balance in Avatar: The Last Airbender, or, Why I Like The Great Divide (
ambyr, 2012). It has charts! And did a thing that really good meta does, meaning that it opened my eyes to something that had vaguely niggled at my mind in the background as an inconsistency but never rose to the level of me consciously noticing it.
Fan poem: The Ruba'iyat of Wade Wilson (Deadpool, gen, 280 words) -- with all the fourth-wall-breaking, innuendo, and general hilarity you could want. For fan poems, the two critical things for me (both writing and reading) is character voice and the fittingness of form; this nails them both. It's honestly amazing! (Also, Theresa Nielsen Hayden is apparently a fan XP)
Fan vid for book fandom: So while I can definitely enjoy vids based on visual media, if the songs are catchy or there are clever crossovers or points they're making, the thing that really impresses me is when people manage to create vids for book fandoms with no visual adaptations. Like Miles to Go, an amazing Miles-centric Vorkosiverse vid, or the Ancillary Justice book trailer I've linked before, Rivers of London concept vid, and also this one for the same fandom, which uses a mix of panels from the comics and live action "fancasts" (and has a really great jazzy tune), or this Captive Prince vid "Carry Your Throne" (I really like the Damen and Regent casting here, as well as the song choice).
Icons: And here's a similar really cool thing I've never seen done before: icons illustrating/retelling M.C.A. Hogarth's Earthrise by
tinny. I love the idea, and I LOVE the casting (especially Gina Torres-as-Zoe as the Reese casting). The individual icons are lovely (and the Firefly reference one makes me LOL every time I see it), but the whole set is the neatest thing!
Day 3: In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
This is a tough question for me every year, apparently, because I find it hard to distill a favorite canon into a favorite small piece -- I have favorite characters or favorite arcs, but mostly don't go down to that level of granularity. the first year I did Snowflake I did favorite quotes from favorite books in favorite series and last year I did favorite scenes from favorite movies. And I already did favorite TV episodes [DW link] for perpetual's 30 days meme. So, hmm, what does that leave that I haven't yet done?
I guess I can do favorite songs from favorite movies? That definitely seems fannish enough!
1) My favorite musical of all time, and in fact one of my very favorite movies, is the glorious camp which is the Soviet Three Musketeers. I grew up with this movie and have been singing the songs from it as long as I can remember myself. It's actually much harder for me to pick a favorite song from this one than from any other entry on this list, because I've gone through periods where I loved pretty much each one of them best -- you can fit a lot of changes to favorites into 35 years of being a fan of something XP These days, I think my reigning favorite is de Treville's song:
I think the thing I love about this song -- in addition to the choreography of lots of people in pretty blue cloaks fencing -- it the wonderful dissonance between the jaunty tune and the words, which are all about bloodshed (which is in fact both the title and refrain of the song, for the non-Russian speakers) -- and the fact that the song actually lampshades that combination of wasteful death and having a good time.
2) Prince of Egypt was an animated movie I did not expect to like, and ended up really loving. The animation is very pretty, and Ofra Haza's voice on the Hebrew song is amazing, but the main reason I loved it as much as I did is the song "Playing with the Big Boys Now", which is my favorite song from anything animated.
Damn, that's good lyrics! I have genuine admiration for the rhymes -- gesture/best you're, Horus/before us/splendorous -- the internal rhymes and triple echoes which really makes it feel like a chant. And the actual chant of the Egyptian deities names which opens the song, along with creepy visuals. It feels genuinely sinister and hypnotic, and I also really like the way the ominous magic chant contrasts/complements the informal language of the song itself -- it feels like a very good match for the movie as a whole.
3) My favorite Disney song is actually "I'll Make a Man out of You", but because it's too obvious an answer, let me talk about a newer favorite. I really, really loved Tangled overall (and am quite baffled that it's not appreciated more, TBH), and my favorite song from it was "I've Got a Dream", but that's not the song I'm going to talk about either. The song that ended up sticking with me the most is a much different song from Tangled:
"Mother Knows Best" is an amazing song, because it's got actual layers. Like, I tend to love villain songs in general (Scar, Gaston, Ursula -- they're all great!) -- but usually they are pretty one-note and also over-the-top. The super-effective thing about this one is that the things Mother Gothel sings? -- individually I can easily believe them coming from an actual, real-live parent -- even a parent who thinks they are really doing what's best for their kid. It's so insiduous, and so much more frightening because of that! I also just love Mother Gothel's voice, and Rapunzel's reactions and body language during the song, and the way once you know to watch for it, you can clearly see that Mother Gothel is hugging and kissing Rapunzel's hair. It's one of those cases where a song isn't just a fun showstopper number (or even a glorious training montage :), but actually does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of pretty subtle character reveals.
4) Not all of my favorite songs are from actual musicals; I would be completely remiss if I didn't mention this one, from Gostya iz buduschego [Guest from the Future], a YA sci-fi TV miniseries I grew up with. It had time-trave and space pirates and a dude in lame playing a robot, and it was AMAZING. It also had a theme song which is one of the few things that give me that shivery feeling some people get from music:
(Even if you can't follow the Russian lyrics -- honestly, they are mostly just "Beautiful Faraway [Future]" and some platitudes, the amazing thing is the voice -- I suggest you check out the video for a look at what 1985 USSR on a miniseries budget thought the late 21st century would look like. It is ADORABLE.)
The Wiki article says the song gained popularity that was separate from the miniseries, and sure it did, but for me it's firmly a part of a movie I loved, which had me searching out aliens in my backyard. (I did read the Kir Bulychev stories on which this movie was based, but this was one case where the movie, and the Mystery of the Third Planet cartoon, also featuring Alisa Selezneva, the titular guest from the future, came first for me, and so are the most foundational.
*
And some fannish year-in-review memes:
1. Your main fandom of the year?
I guess this would be Terra Ignota, although "fandom" in this case means reading Ada Palmer's meta on the worldbuilding as well as Renaissance history and censorship and various other things and accosting people who haven't read the books with long lectures on the awesomeness of the worldbuilding. Like, I'm not surprised there isn't much fic in this space (and what there is of it... isn't terribly great -- this is a really tough canon to pull off!), or there isn't more of a critical mass of people with whom to discuss it, because I can absolutely see how the majority of people would bounce off it, actually. But I really enjoyed talking about it with
ambyr and
sunlit_stone, whom I followed into this fandom, and with cyanshadow (it's her favorite book that she hates :D), and now ikel89, who is reading the first book and seems to be enjoying it so far (on an "intellectual boner" level, which sounds about right). And, of course, one of the coolest fannish things for the year was meeting a bunch of Terra Ignota fans live at the Ada Palmer kaffeeklatsch and autograph line and secret reading at Worldcon. They were a really dedicated and pretty interesting bunch!
2. Your favorite film watched this year?
The films I watched this year were The Last Jedi, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Blade Runner 2049, Death on the Orient Express, The Shape of Water, Get Out, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Why Him?, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Love Simon, Coco, Incredibles 2, and Despicable Me 3.
I think Three Billboards and Get Out may have been the best movies I watched, but they were definitely not my favorite. I think my favorite was Thor: Ragnarok; it was a lot of fun, and I can't think of anything about it I would've liked to see done differently. But I also thoroughly enjoyed Deadpool 2 and Incredibles 2. And liked all of the movies except Why Him? which was dumb and Blade Runner 2049 which I found boring.
3. Your favorite book read this year?
Answered in detail in the book meme. Strong contenders were Lies Sleeping (which was probably the most satisfying book), Spinning Silver (which hit me emotionally the most), and And Then There Were (N-One) (which I just admired the hell out of, it was so clever!) But there were A LOT of books I really enjoyed this year, so this is particularly hard.
4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
This was the year I discovered, via
skygiants, Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird (I'd been aware of him before, via the Yiddish-language "Hallelujah", but not their original songs), and have been listening to "March of the Jobless Corps" in particular. It's so catchy, and also these guys are one of the examples in English-language songs where the lyrics are complex and clever as well (and yet it's not rap, which I can't stand aurally). I just wish I could understand the Yiddish, to appreciate the songs fully.
5. Your favorite TV show of the year?
This year I watched EVEN MORE TV (I don't know who I even am anymore XP). I binge-watched the first two seasons of The Good Place, both seasons of Castlevania (filed under "things that are K's fault"), most of two seasons of Grace and Frankie, the available single seasons of The Dragon Prince and Disenchantment, and some scattered episodes of other things, which don't really count. Grace and Frankie impressed me with its premise and I enjoyed aspects of the other stuff, but my favorite TV show of the year is definitely The Good Place, not even a contest. I have Hugos homework to thank for this, but I'm really glad I finally discovered this show. I've even been trying to get L and B to watch it, because I honestly think L would get a huge kick out of Eleanor in particular, and that it's a smart enough comedy for B to enjoy, but so far I have been unsuccessful.
6. Your favorite LJ community of the year?
Once again, I did my Yuletide spectator sport thing in
yuletide and related comms (well, not 100% spectator sport this year, I guess). Also,
fandom_stocking was a ton of fun at the beginning of the year -- I got some great fic and icons, and enjoyed filling a few stockings, too. Because of how late it got underway this round, I didn't have any time to play there in December, but I'm definitely planning on doing so this January.
7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Well, Terra Ignota was a new discovery. I'm also really enjoying all the fic Spinning Silver has produced this Yuletide (filling in some gaps in canon). Also, I'm just going to keep on taking credit for the existence of Ghostverse fandom, because that ended up with THREE stories in Yuletide this year, and the nominator, both the requesters, and two of the three writers (three separate people wrote this little fandom!) picked it up off my rec. Another thing to thank Hugos homework for :D
8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
No huge disappointments, fortunately. I know The Last Jedi was polarizing, but I really liked it. I liked the latest installments in all my various book fandoms (OK, The Stone Sky I had some quibbles with, but it was still a bloody good book and a worthy conclusion, if not quite as great as the first two). I *was* disappointed by Holly Black's The Cruel Prince, but it was the start of a new series, and I'm not fannish about it anyway. Probably the closest to a fandom disappointment was in Castlevania: 1) season 2 had a lot of tedious Dracula and vampire stuff when what I wanted was OT3 shenanigans, and 2) dipping into the fanfic mostly also led to tedious vampire stuff instead of OT3 shenanigans. But it's not like this is a fandom I'm particularly invested in, so I can't really claim to be disappointed. Oh, and I guess I did get to the part of Saga people had warned me about, but because my expectations had been sufficiently adjusted, I didn't feel disappointed, more like, "Oh, there it is."
9. Your fandom boyfriend of the year?
Adelis Arisaydia from the Penric/Five Gods books (although I'm also fine with him being Desdemona/Penric's boyfriend). Brand from The Last Sun was great. Oh, and Nathaniel York from Calculating Stars (sadly taken, though). I do also continue to love Nightingale and Peter, of course. And over on the TV side, Nwabudike Bergstein (Frankie's son on Grace and Frankie). Also, I wouldn't want either of them as an actual boyfriend, for different reasons, but Chidi Anagonye is a character I grew to love this year (and we would actually get along; we just would never, ever be able to make any sort of decision), Trevor Belmont (in this case I definitely prefer to point and laugh from afar), and Bwabudike Berg
10. Your fandom girlfriend of the year?
Surprisingly, Terry Gordon from the Ellen Klages books. I mean, probably in the platonic sense -- we can talk Cal and chemistry and parenting -- but I liked her a lot. Also, Neena the niece-of-shame from White Teeth, Glisselda from the Seraphina sequel (I liked her even more than in the first book), and Miryem from Spinning Silver (I liked Irina a lot as a character, too, but she's definitely got other priorities). And let's say Domino from Deadpool 2. Also, I would not want her as a girlfriend at all, but she was a super-fun character: Kiva Lagos in Collapsing Empire.
11. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
WORLDCON again, but if that's too big for a single moment then 1) getting to ask Ada Palmer a question which she said was a good question and then flail at her at the signing, and 2) waylaying Alexandra Rowland in the hallway with cyanshadow and then turning around to see that Macey had also walked up.
12. The most missed of your old fandoms?
Last year my answer was Dragaera, but actually 2018 produced some brand new fic, including three stories for Yuletide (and some Morrolan-centric fic for the first time in YEARS), and I also made several new Dragaera-reading LJ/DW-friends, which has made the fandom feel more active and less missed. I felt a burst of Dresden Files nostalgia when reading the Christmas ficlet, but that was at the very end of last year -- ditto The Last Sun making me miss Amber, due to a similar vibe. I guess I missed Killjoys and Buffy, but not enough to actually make progress watching them, so, hard to say.
13. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
In terms of fandom for a canon I have consumed, that would be The Good Place -- I havent had a chance to dip into all those Yuletide fics yet.
In terms of actually trying new canons, I keep thinking about The Expanse. And Farscape has been on this list since I started doing this meme, I think XP -- unfortunately it's not streaming anywhere I can find it legally. I suppose I could go through the library? but it's not worked out well in the past whenever I tried it.
14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
Perhaps the Stars!! I'm also looking forward to nominating for the Hugos since I'm still eligible.
**
And another quick meme to wrap up the fannish year-end memes:
Favorite main character of 2018: I really liked all the Hardinge protagonists I met, but especially Faith in The Lie Tree. Harriet Hamsterbone was a ton of fun. I also continued to be super-impressed by Essun and to like Seraphina and Murderbot in the later installments, and continued to like Jack in the Wayward Children novella, and Peter Grant and Penric in their latest outings. Leah Burke was great -- I think I liked her even more than Simon last year in the Albertalli-verse. I liked Elma York in The Calculating Stars a lot, and really liked both Miryem Mandelstam and Irina in Spinning Silver. And while it wasn't one of my favorite books, I did like Astrid of An Unkindness of Ghosts, especially for that impressive POV work. In non-book media, Eleanor on The Good Place was hugely entertaining, and Thor in Ragnarok was definitely my favorite take on Thor.
Favorite villain of 2018: My favorite villain this year is actually not a new one, but Nirai Kijen, who got a lot more interesting to me in Revenant Gun with some backstory revelations. I was kind of underwhelmed by Thanos in Infinity War, and Hela was cool, but I had been hoping for more from Cate Blanchet, but I did find Ulysses Klaue hugely entertaining in Black Panther; I also LOVED Killmonger, but don't know that he can be categorized as a villain -- an antagonist, sure, but he was too nuanced and sympathetic for that, I think.
Favorite M/F couples of 2018: Elma and Nathaniel York in The Calculating Stars were ADORABLE. I continue to like Marko and Alana's relationship in Saga a lot. I'm kind of at a loss for other m/f relationships I liked; I thought Frankie and Sol was very sweet in the first season of Grace and Frankie but a later development spoiled that for me. This appears to be a year with a particular paucity of m/f romance. *shrug*
Favorite F/F couples of 2018: On the other hand, there was rather a lot of f/f this year, both canonical and not quite. Leah/Abby was really cute in Leah on the Offbeat; for other canonical f/f relationships, I enjoyed Layla/Katrina in Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night, and I don't have particularly strong feelings about it but Jack/her girlfriend in Down Among the Sticks and Bones was also pretty cute (until the tragic end, that is, except in a canon with reanimation, maybe it doesn't have to be a tragic end). Non-canonically, Eleanor/Tahani was definitely the most plausible ship on The Good Place, and I was getting very distinct Suze/Ynez vibes from the second Gordon Family Saga book.
There were also some platonic relationships between women that I liked a lot this year: Trista and Pen in Cuckoo Song, with all the complicated siblingness there, Frankie and Grace on the eponymous show, Dewey and Suze in the Gordon books (and also Dewey and Terry's more mother-daughter relationship), Beth and Jennifer's friendship in Attachments.
Favorite M/M couples of 2018: You know what? This has got to be Five/Hyeon from "Texts from the Ghost War", even though the entirety of the canon is a couple of pages and the story unfolds purely through some dialogue. And yet I was totally shipping it and so were a bunch of other people, so clearly it's enough.
Also, um. Mycroft and Saladin in Terra Ignota. Which is disturbing to me as well as to anyone else, I'm sure, but somehow I'm really digging the axe murderers in love thing they've got going. I try not to think about it too hard...
The one specifically m/m story I read this year (as opposed to queer lit that was also doing other things) was Hexbreaker and it was kind of eh. Oh, and there was also Witchmark, I guess, whose m/m was as boring as everything else about the book. I did like the way the relationships between Matt and Tariq (The Art of Starving) and Quinn and Amir (The Great American Whatever) were handled, but a relationship is definitely not the point of the latter, and while I was rooting for the former, it was clearly healthier for them not to be involved, at that point anyway. But at least Simon and Bram continued to be the cutest in the Leah book.
Oh, and non-canonically, Trevor/Alucard in Castlevania, and Rune/Brand (as opposed to the canonical Rune/Addam) in The Last Sun.
Favorite Crossover couples of 2018: This was a thing that had occurred to me as I was watching Disenchantment: Princess Bean &/ Princess Harriet Hamsterbone. Obviously, Harriet would need to be aged up. And they would probably need to be the same species, if it were to be a non-platonic thing. But I feel like they would have a lot of fun together, picking fights at bars. Also, Elma York and Terry Gordon -- probably just as science buddies, but it would be great! They are both Jewish women in science in the 50s, married to men who are also scientists; they both have family in California. It's just something that would lend itself to a crossover very nicely.
(But Miles Vorkosigan/River Tam forever, still.).
Favorite Polyships of 2018: There were more canonical polyships in my reading this year. My hands-down favorite was the Kiggs/Seraphina/Glisselda endgame in Shadow Scale, because I really liked the way it was set up and resolved. It made a ton of sense -- Glisselda needed a marriage and an heir, all three of them had responsibilities they couldn't shrug off for love. And I do really like all of the relationships comprising this poly arrangement -- Kiggs/Seraphina was really cute, Glisselda's crush on Seraphina and the way she came clean and Seraphina reacted, and the strong bond between Kiggs and Glisselda. Basically everything I could possibly want from a poly ship.
There were also poly relationships in Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night -- but honestly other than Layla/Katrina (which I mentioned above), I wasn't terribly won over. Ditto for Mercy of Kalr/Breq/Seivarden
On the other hand, I am VERY much aboard the non-canonical demon W (like a V, but the apex is possessed by a demon; what?) which I emerged from Penric's Mission shipping hardcore, that is to say Nikys/Penric-Desdemona/Adelis. Mira's Last Dance did not diminish this one bit.
I also enjoy the idea of Sypha, Trevor, and Alucard as a trio -- more platonically than as a romantic OT3, but I could easily see the latter, too, and in fact prefer to it anything but Trevor/Alucard with Sypha rolling her eyes at her two idiots.
And just recently opened my eyes to the possibilities of Brand/Rune/Addam as an OT3 in The Last Sun, which I'm now going to see if I can make work for myself (whether it becomes canon or not).
Favorite Crossover Polyships of 2018: I don't know that I picked up any new polyships this year, but the relevant thing is that
sunlit_stone wrote me the Duv Galeni & William Laurence & and Hermione Granger high school AU which has been one of the dearest cracky crossover wishes of my heart (spawned by a character roulette meme) for several years (and the fic is not at all cracky, in fact, but GLORIOUS).
But from new stuff this year, it wouldn't really be a polyship, because I'm more interested in it as a double-date of sorts, but while reading The Last Sun, I kept wanting to see Brand-and-Rune and Vlad-and-Morrolan crossover scenarios between The Last Sun and Dragaera.
NOTPs of 2018: I'm interpreting this as canonical pairings that didn't work for me. There was nothing I outright HATED -- well, except Bean/Elfo in Disenchantment, but hopefully that's not actually meant to be canon? -- but there were a number that didn't really do it for me, or that I thought had major problems that were never addressed by canon but just kind of ignored. Like Lincoln and Beth in Attachments, for example, which seemed implausible and tacked on even though it was ostensibly the whole plot of the book. Miryem/the Staryk King was... kind of baffling in execution. I loved both characters separately, and I liked their on-page dynamic, too, but it didn't add up to an endgame ship for me, like, at all. They never seemed to TALK to each other, so I had a hard time figuring out what they were getting out of it. (Irina and Mirnatius in the same book were really interesting individually and the way they thought about each other, but also the book ended JUST as a possible relationship could start being explored -- so thank goodness for fic.) Similarly, the Vasilisa/Morozko stuff in The Bear and the Nightingale sequel was not working for me at all -- and is one of the reasons I haven't finished the sequel, and may just abandon it.
Also, all of the relationships involving Jedao Two and Kujen that we see in Revenant Gun were VERY uncomfortable, but, of course, they are meant to be.
Fandom that you never expected to get into: Any of the TV fandoms, really, since I pretty much never used to watch TV. So probably The Good Place, if we go by the ratio of how much I like the fandom to how much it's not my usual thing. Followed by Grace and Frankie.
Fandom that made an unexpected comeback: I was reading a lot of Uprooted fic this year because ikel89 finally read it. Also Discworld, I guess, in the sense that I stumbled across a Discworld book (one of the companion volumes) that I hadn't yet read.
Last fandom of 2018: If we go by last fandom I got into that I read fic for -- oh! I was all set to say Castlevania, but it's actually totally not. I checked my AO3 history, and it's actually The Strange Case of the Starship Iris, which I started listening to when it popped up in Yuletide nominations and discussion, caught up on right around the end of the year, and went looking for fic in the second half of December. This one: A Ring and a Plan (1.3k, G-rated, Brian/Krejjh) was really cute!
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1097243.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
First, let me take this opportunity to add a few more Yuletide recs. Two late adds that were super Relevant To My Interests:
Dragaera: What is Owed (1.8k, gen, Morrolan, Blackwand), with a downright Brustian framing device and great character voices and a really neat look at a Great Weapon/wielder relationship we never get to see in canon (and which I, personally, have of course geen intensely curious about). This is basically the fic I was hoping this Yuletide would produce when I saw the Dragera requests, and it's amazing.
Ghostverse: Language of Flowers (752 words, G, Five/Hyeon), by
ambyr, for ikel89. It turned out there was a third Ghostverse story hiding in Madness! Another canon-tone-perfect ficlet told entirely through texts -- and a casefic, no less! Funny and sweet and lyrical, just like the canon story, and I, too, appreciated that (Also, the "forensic gardening" tag -- which made me LOL when I first saw it -- should've really tipped me off this was by a Vorkosiverse fan :)
And two that I wouldn't have found on my own but ended up really enjoying:
Mrs Piggle-Wiggle: The Never-Puts-Down-the-Phone Cure (5.6k, gen, Mrs Piggle-Wiggle and OCs) -- this was one of
aome's gifts, which she mentioned to me as we were hanging out in person, and it sounded intriguing enough that I took a chance on it despite I think never having actually read the canon (though I know the basic premise of it through parenting osmosis). It's great! Really funny and upbeat without being preachy at all. And I imagine someone who actually is familiar with canon will get even more out of it than I did.
Fairy Tales: Off to NAN's Housing We Go (2k, teen, Big Bad Wolf/Little Red Riding Hood) -- a sci-fi version of Little Red Riding Hood, which I would've completely overlooked if not for
isis's rec, because I don't go looking in the fairy tales tag, and the relationship tag is also not my thing, but this was actually great, clever and funny.
The "challenge mode" for the day was to rec works other than fic, so let me do that as well.
Meta: Gender Balance in Avatar: The Last Airbender, or, Why I Like The Great Divide (
ambyr, 2012). It has charts! And did a thing that really good meta does, meaning that it opened my eyes to something that had vaguely niggled at my mind in the background as an inconsistency but never rose to the level of me consciously noticing it.
Fan poem: The Ruba'iyat of Wade Wilson (Deadpool, gen, 280 words) -- with all the fourth-wall-breaking, innuendo, and general hilarity you could want. For fan poems, the two critical things for me (both writing and reading) is character voice and the fittingness of form; this nails them both. It's honestly amazing! (Also, Theresa Nielsen Hayden is apparently a fan XP)
Fan vid for book fandom: So while I can definitely enjoy vids based on visual media, if the songs are catchy or there are clever crossovers or points they're making, the thing that really impresses me is when people manage to create vids for book fandoms with no visual adaptations. Like Miles to Go, an amazing Miles-centric Vorkosiverse vid, or the Ancillary Justice book trailer I've linked before, Rivers of London concept vid, and also this one for the same fandom, which uses a mix of panels from the comics and live action "fancasts" (and has a really great jazzy tune), or this Captive Prince vid "Carry Your Throne" (I really like the Damen and Regent casting here, as well as the song choice).
Icons: And here's a similar really cool thing I've never seen done before: icons illustrating/retelling M.C.A. Hogarth's Earthrise by
tinny. I love the idea, and I LOVE the casting (especially Gina Torres-as-Zoe as the Reese casting). The individual icons are lovely (and the Firefly reference one makes me LOL every time I see it), but the whole set is the neatest thing!
Day 3: In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
This is a tough question for me every year, apparently, because I find it hard to distill a favorite canon into a favorite small piece -- I have favorite characters or favorite arcs, but mostly don't go down to that level of granularity. the first year I did Snowflake I did favorite quotes from favorite books in favorite series and last year I did favorite scenes from favorite movies. And I already did favorite TV episodes [DW link] for perpetual's 30 days meme. So, hmm, what does that leave that I haven't yet done?
I guess I can do favorite songs from favorite movies? That definitely seems fannish enough!
1) My favorite musical of all time, and in fact one of my very favorite movies, is the glorious camp which is the Soviet Three Musketeers. I grew up with this movie and have been singing the songs from it as long as I can remember myself. It's actually much harder for me to pick a favorite song from this one than from any other entry on this list, because I've gone through periods where I loved pretty much each one of them best -- you can fit a lot of changes to favorites into 35 years of being a fan of something XP These days, I think my reigning favorite is de Treville's song:
Click to viewI think the thing I love about this song -- in addition to the choreography of lots of people in pretty blue cloaks fencing -- it the wonderful dissonance between the jaunty tune and the words, which are all about bloodshed (which is in fact both the title and refrain of the song, for the non-Russian speakers) -- and the fact that the song actually lampshades that combination of wasteful death and having a good time.
2) Prince of Egypt was an animated movie I did not expect to like, and ended up really loving. The animation is very pretty, and Ofra Haza's voice on the Hebrew song is amazing, but the main reason I loved it as much as I did is the song "Playing with the Big Boys Now", which is my favorite song from anything animated.
Damn, that's good lyrics! I have genuine admiration for the rhymes -- gesture/best you're, Horus/before us/splendorous -- the internal rhymes and triple echoes which really makes it feel like a chant. And the actual chant of the Egyptian deities names which opens the song, along with creepy visuals. It feels genuinely sinister and hypnotic, and I also really like the way the ominous magic chant contrasts/complements the informal language of the song itself -- it feels like a very good match for the movie as a whole.
3) My favorite Disney song is actually "I'll Make a Man out of You", but because it's too obvious an answer, let me talk about a newer favorite. I really, really loved Tangled overall (and am quite baffled that it's not appreciated more, TBH), and my favorite song from it was "I've Got a Dream", but that's not the song I'm going to talk about either. The song that ended up sticking with me the most is a much different song from Tangled:
"Mother Knows Best" is an amazing song, because it's got actual layers. Like, I tend to love villain songs in general (Scar, Gaston, Ursula -- they're all great!) -- but usually they are pretty one-note and also over-the-top. The super-effective thing about this one is that the things Mother Gothel sings? -- individually I can easily believe them coming from an actual, real-live parent -- even a parent who thinks they are really doing what's best for their kid. It's so insiduous, and so much more frightening because of that! I also just love Mother Gothel's voice, and Rapunzel's reactions and body language during the song, and the way once you know to watch for it, you can clearly see that Mother Gothel is hugging and kissing Rapunzel's hair. It's one of those cases where a song isn't just a fun showstopper number (or even a glorious training montage :), but actually does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of pretty subtle character reveals.
4) Not all of my favorite songs are from actual musicals; I would be completely remiss if I didn't mention this one, from Gostya iz buduschego [Guest from the Future], a YA sci-fi TV miniseries I grew up with. It had time-trave and space pirates and a dude in lame playing a robot, and it was AMAZING. It also had a theme song which is one of the few things that give me that shivery feeling some people get from music:
(Even if you can't follow the Russian lyrics -- honestly, they are mostly just "Beautiful Faraway [Future]" and some platitudes, the amazing thing is the voice -- I suggest you check out the video for a look at what 1985 USSR on a miniseries budget thought the late 21st century would look like. It is ADORABLE.)
The Wiki article says the song gained popularity that was separate from the miniseries, and sure it did, but for me it's firmly a part of a movie I loved, which had me searching out aliens in my backyard. (I did read the Kir Bulychev stories on which this movie was based, but this was one case where the movie, and the Mystery of the Third Planet cartoon, also featuring Alisa Selezneva, the titular guest from the future, came first for me, and so are the most foundational.
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And some fannish year-in-review memes:
1. Your main fandom of the year?
I guess this would be Terra Ignota, although "fandom" in this case means reading Ada Palmer's meta on the worldbuilding as well as Renaissance history and censorship and various other things and accosting people who haven't read the books with long lectures on the awesomeness of the worldbuilding. Like, I'm not surprised there isn't much fic in this space (and what there is of it... isn't terribly great -- this is a really tough canon to pull off!), or there isn't more of a critical mass of people with whom to discuss it, because I can absolutely see how the majority of people would bounce off it, actually. But I really enjoyed talking about it with
ambyr and
sunlit_stone, whom I followed into this fandom, and with cyanshadow (it's her favorite book that she hates :D), and now ikel89, who is reading the first book and seems to be enjoying it so far (on an "intellectual boner" level, which sounds about right). And, of course, one of the coolest fannish things for the year was meeting a bunch of Terra Ignota fans live at the Ada Palmer kaffeeklatsch and autograph line and secret reading at Worldcon. They were a really dedicated and pretty interesting bunch!
2. Your favorite film watched this year?
The films I watched this year were The Last Jedi, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Blade Runner 2049, Death on the Orient Express, The Shape of Water, Get Out, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Why Him?, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Love Simon, Coco, Incredibles 2, and Despicable Me 3.
I think Three Billboards and Get Out may have been the best movies I watched, but they were definitely not my favorite. I think my favorite was Thor: Ragnarok; it was a lot of fun, and I can't think of anything about it I would've liked to see done differently. But I also thoroughly enjoyed Deadpool 2 and Incredibles 2. And liked all of the movies except Why Him? which was dumb and Blade Runner 2049 which I found boring.
3. Your favorite book read this year?
Answered in detail in the book meme. Strong contenders were Lies Sleeping (which was probably the most satisfying book), Spinning Silver (which hit me emotionally the most), and And Then There Were (N-One) (which I just admired the hell out of, it was so clever!) But there were A LOT of books I really enjoyed this year, so this is particularly hard.
4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
This was the year I discovered, via
skygiants, Daniel Kahn and the Painted Bird (I'd been aware of him before, via the Yiddish-language "Hallelujah", but not their original songs), and have been listening to "March of the Jobless Corps" in particular. It's so catchy, and also these guys are one of the examples in English-language songs where the lyrics are complex and clever as well (and yet it's not rap, which I can't stand aurally). I just wish I could understand the Yiddish, to appreciate the songs fully.
5. Your favorite TV show of the year?
This year I watched EVEN MORE TV (I don't know who I even am anymore XP). I binge-watched the first two seasons of The Good Place, both seasons of Castlevania (filed under "things that are K's fault"), most of two seasons of Grace and Frankie, the available single seasons of The Dragon Prince and Disenchantment, and some scattered episodes of other things, which don't really count. Grace and Frankie impressed me with its premise and I enjoyed aspects of the other stuff, but my favorite TV show of the year is definitely The Good Place, not even a contest. I have Hugos homework to thank for this, but I'm really glad I finally discovered this show. I've even been trying to get L and B to watch it, because I honestly think L would get a huge kick out of Eleanor in particular, and that it's a smart enough comedy for B to enjoy, but so far I have been unsuccessful.
6. Your favorite LJ community of the year?
Once again, I did my Yuletide spectator sport thing in
yuletide and related comms (well, not 100% spectator sport this year, I guess). Also,
fandom_stocking was a ton of fun at the beginning of the year -- I got some great fic and icons, and enjoyed filling a few stockings, too. Because of how late it got underway this round, I didn't have any time to play there in December, but I'm definitely planning on doing so this January.
7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Well, Terra Ignota was a new discovery. I'm also really enjoying all the fic Spinning Silver has produced this Yuletide (filling in some gaps in canon). Also, I'm just going to keep on taking credit for the existence of Ghostverse fandom, because that ended up with THREE stories in Yuletide this year, and the nominator, both the requesters, and two of the three writers (three separate people wrote this little fandom!) picked it up off my rec. Another thing to thank Hugos homework for :D
8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
No huge disappointments, fortunately. I know The Last Jedi was polarizing, but I really liked it. I liked the latest installments in all my various book fandoms (OK, The Stone Sky I had some quibbles with, but it was still a bloody good book and a worthy conclusion, if not quite as great as the first two). I *was* disappointed by Holly Black's The Cruel Prince, but it was the start of a new series, and I'm not fannish about it anyway. Probably the closest to a fandom disappointment was in Castlevania: 1) season 2 had a lot of tedious Dracula and vampire stuff when what I wanted was OT3 shenanigans, and 2) dipping into the fanfic mostly also led to tedious vampire stuff instead of OT3 shenanigans. But it's not like this is a fandom I'm particularly invested in, so I can't really claim to be disappointed. Oh, and I guess I did get to the part of Saga people had warned me about, but because my expectations had been sufficiently adjusted, I didn't feel disappointed, more like, "Oh, there it is."
9. Your fandom boyfriend of the year?
Adelis Arisaydia from the Penric/Five Gods books (although I'm also fine with him being Desdemona/Penric's boyfriend). Brand from The Last Sun was great. Oh, and Nathaniel York from Calculating Stars (sadly taken, though). I do also continue to love Nightingale and Peter, of course. And over on the TV side, Nwabudike Bergstein (Frankie's son on Grace and Frankie). Also, I wouldn't want either of them as an actual boyfriend, for different reasons, but Chidi Anagonye is a character I grew to love this year (and we would actually get along; we just would never, ever be able to make any sort of decision), Trevor Belmont (in this case I definitely prefer to point and laugh from afar), and Bwabudike Berg
10. Your fandom girlfriend of the year?
Surprisingly, Terry Gordon from the Ellen Klages books. I mean, probably in the platonic sense -- we can talk Cal and chemistry and parenting -- but I liked her a lot. Also, Neena the niece-of-shame from White Teeth, Glisselda from the Seraphina sequel (I liked her even more than in the first book), and Miryem from Spinning Silver (I liked Irina a lot as a character, too, but she's definitely got other priorities). And let's say Domino from Deadpool 2. Also, I would not want her as a girlfriend at all, but she was a super-fun character: Kiva Lagos in Collapsing Empire.
11. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
WORLDCON again, but if that's too big for a single moment then 1) getting to ask Ada Palmer a question which she said was a good question and then flail at her at the signing, and 2) waylaying Alexandra Rowland in the hallway with cyanshadow and then turning around to see that Macey had also walked up.
12. The most missed of your old fandoms?
Last year my answer was Dragaera, but actually 2018 produced some brand new fic, including three stories for Yuletide (and some Morrolan-centric fic for the first time in YEARS), and I also made several new Dragaera-reading LJ/DW-friends, which has made the fandom feel more active and less missed. I felt a burst of Dresden Files nostalgia when reading the Christmas ficlet, but that was at the very end of last year -- ditto The Last Sun making me miss Amber, due to a similar vibe. I guess I missed Killjoys and Buffy, but not enough to actually make progress watching them, so, hard to say.
13. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
In terms of fandom for a canon I have consumed, that would be The Good Place -- I havent had a chance to dip into all those Yuletide fics yet.
In terms of actually trying new canons, I keep thinking about The Expanse. And Farscape has been on this list since I started doing this meme, I think XP -- unfortunately it's not streaming anywhere I can find it legally. I suppose I could go through the library? but it's not worked out well in the past whenever I tried it.
14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
Perhaps the Stars!! I'm also looking forward to nominating for the Hugos since I'm still eligible.
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And another quick meme to wrap up the fannish year-end memes:
Favorite main character of 2018: I really liked all the Hardinge protagonists I met, but especially Faith in The Lie Tree. Harriet Hamsterbone was a ton of fun. I also continued to be super-impressed by Essun and to like Seraphina and Murderbot in the later installments, and continued to like Jack in the Wayward Children novella, and Peter Grant and Penric in their latest outings. Leah Burke was great -- I think I liked her even more than Simon last year in the Albertalli-verse. I liked Elma York in The Calculating Stars a lot, and really liked both Miryem Mandelstam and Irina in Spinning Silver. And while it wasn't one of my favorite books, I did like Astrid of An Unkindness of Ghosts, especially for that impressive POV work. In non-book media, Eleanor on The Good Place was hugely entertaining, and Thor in Ragnarok was definitely my favorite take on Thor.
Favorite villain of 2018: My favorite villain this year is actually not a new one, but Nirai Kijen, who got a lot more interesting to me in Revenant Gun with some backstory revelations. I was kind of underwhelmed by Thanos in Infinity War, and Hela was cool, but I had been hoping for more from Cate Blanchet, but I did find Ulysses Klaue hugely entertaining in Black Panther; I also LOVED Killmonger, but don't know that he can be categorized as a villain -- an antagonist, sure, but he was too nuanced and sympathetic for that, I think.
Favorite M/F couples of 2018: Elma and Nathaniel York in The Calculating Stars were ADORABLE. I continue to like Marko and Alana's relationship in Saga a lot. I'm kind of at a loss for other m/f relationships I liked; I thought Frankie and Sol was very sweet in the first season of Grace and Frankie but a later development spoiled that for me. This appears to be a year with a particular paucity of m/f romance. *shrug*
Favorite F/F couples of 2018: On the other hand, there was rather a lot of f/f this year, both canonical and not quite. Leah/Abby was really cute in Leah on the Offbeat; for other canonical f/f relationships, I enjoyed Layla/Katrina in Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night, and I don't have particularly strong feelings about it but Jack/her girlfriend in Down Among the Sticks and Bones was also pretty cute (until the tragic end, that is, except in a canon with reanimation, maybe it doesn't have to be a tragic end). Non-canonically, Eleanor/Tahani was definitely the most plausible ship on The Good Place, and I was getting very distinct Suze/Ynez vibes from the second Gordon Family Saga book.
There were also some platonic relationships between women that I liked a lot this year: Trista and Pen in Cuckoo Song, with all the complicated siblingness there, Frankie and Grace on the eponymous show, Dewey and Suze in the Gordon books (and also Dewey and Terry's more mother-daughter relationship), Beth and Jennifer's friendship in Attachments.
Favorite M/M couples of 2018: You know what? This has got to be Five/Hyeon from "Texts from the Ghost War", even though the entirety of the canon is a couple of pages and the story unfolds purely through some dialogue. And yet I was totally shipping it and so were a bunch of other people, so clearly it's enough.
Also, um. Mycroft and Saladin in Terra Ignota. Which is disturbing to me as well as to anyone else, I'm sure, but somehow I'm really digging the axe murderers in love thing they've got going. I try not to think about it too hard...
The one specifically m/m story I read this year (as opposed to queer lit that was also doing other things) was Hexbreaker and it was kind of eh. Oh, and there was also Witchmark, I guess, whose m/m was as boring as everything else about the book. I did like the way the relationships between Matt and Tariq (The Art of Starving) and Quinn and Amir (The Great American Whatever) were handled, but a relationship is definitely not the point of the latter, and while I was rooting for the former, it was clearly healthier for them not to be involved, at that point anyway. But at least Simon and Bram continued to be the cutest in the Leah book.
Oh, and non-canonically, Trevor/Alucard in Castlevania, and Rune/Brand (as opposed to the canonical Rune/Addam) in The Last Sun.
Favorite Crossover couples of 2018: This was a thing that had occurred to me as I was watching Disenchantment: Princess Bean &/ Princess Harriet Hamsterbone. Obviously, Harriet would need to be aged up. And they would probably need to be the same species, if it were to be a non-platonic thing. But I feel like they would have a lot of fun together, picking fights at bars. Also, Elma York and Terry Gordon -- probably just as science buddies, but it would be great! They are both Jewish women in science in the 50s, married to men who are also scientists; they both have family in California. It's just something that would lend itself to a crossover very nicely.
(But Miles Vorkosigan/River Tam forever, still.).
Favorite Polyships of 2018: There were more canonical polyships in my reading this year. My hands-down favorite was the Kiggs/Seraphina/Glisselda endgame in Shadow Scale, because I really liked the way it was set up and resolved. It made a ton of sense -- Glisselda needed a marriage and an heir, all three of them had responsibilities they couldn't shrug off for love. And I do really like all of the relationships comprising this poly arrangement -- Kiggs/Seraphina was really cute, Glisselda's crush on Seraphina and the way she came clean and Seraphina reacted, and the strong bond between Kiggs and Glisselda. Basically everything I could possibly want from a poly ship.
There were also poly relationships in Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night -- but honestly other than Layla/Katrina (which I mentioned above), I wasn't terribly won over. Ditto for Mercy of Kalr/Breq/Seivarden
On the other hand, I am VERY much aboard the non-canonical demon W (like a V, but the apex is possessed by a demon; what?) which I emerged from Penric's Mission shipping hardcore, that is to say Nikys/Penric-Desdemona/Adelis. Mira's Last Dance did not diminish this one bit.
I also enjoy the idea of Sypha, Trevor, and Alucard as a trio -- more platonically than as a romantic OT3, but I could easily see the latter, too, and in fact prefer to it anything but Trevor/Alucard with Sypha rolling her eyes at her two idiots.
And just recently opened my eyes to the possibilities of Brand/Rune/Addam as an OT3 in The Last Sun, which I'm now going to see if I can make work for myself (whether it becomes canon or not).
Favorite Crossover Polyships of 2018: I don't know that I picked up any new polyships this year, but the relevant thing is that
sunlit_stone wrote me the Duv Galeni & William Laurence & and Hermione Granger high school AU which has been one of the dearest cracky crossover wishes of my heart (spawned by a character roulette meme) for several years (and the fic is not at all cracky, in fact, but GLORIOUS).
But from new stuff this year, it wouldn't really be a polyship, because I'm more interested in it as a double-date of sorts, but while reading The Last Sun, I kept wanting to see Brand-and-Rune and Vlad-and-Morrolan crossover scenarios between The Last Sun and Dragaera.
NOTPs of 2018: I'm interpreting this as canonical pairings that didn't work for me. There was nothing I outright HATED -- well, except Bean/Elfo in Disenchantment, but hopefully that's not actually meant to be canon? -- but there were a number that didn't really do it for me, or that I thought had major problems that were never addressed by canon but just kind of ignored. Like Lincoln and Beth in Attachments, for example, which seemed implausible and tacked on even though it was ostensibly the whole plot of the book. Miryem/the Staryk King was... kind of baffling in execution. I loved both characters separately, and I liked their on-page dynamic, too, but it didn't add up to an endgame ship for me, like, at all. They never seemed to TALK to each other, so I had a hard time figuring out what they were getting out of it. (Irina and Mirnatius in the same book were really interesting individually and the way they thought about each other, but also the book ended JUST as a possible relationship could start being explored -- so thank goodness for fic.) Similarly, the Vasilisa/Morozko stuff in The Bear and the Nightingale sequel was not working for me at all -- and is one of the reasons I haven't finished the sequel, and may just abandon it.
Also, all of the relationships involving Jedao Two and Kujen that we see in Revenant Gun were VERY uncomfortable, but, of course, they are meant to be.
Fandom that you never expected to get into: Any of the TV fandoms, really, since I pretty much never used to watch TV. So probably The Good Place, if we go by the ratio of how much I like the fandom to how much it's not my usual thing. Followed by Grace and Frankie.
Fandom that made an unexpected comeback: I was reading a lot of Uprooted fic this year because ikel89 finally read it. Also Discworld, I guess, in the sense that I stumbled across a Discworld book (one of the companion volumes) that I hadn't yet read.
Last fandom of 2018: If we go by last fandom I got into that I read fic for -- oh! I was all set to say Castlevania, but it's actually totally not. I checked my AO3 history, and it's actually The Strange Case of the Starship Iris, which I started listening to when it popped up in Yuletide nominations and discussion, caught up on right around the end of the year, and went looking for fic in the second half of December. This one: A Ring and a Plan (1.3k, G-rated, Brian/Krejjh) was really cute!
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1097243.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).