Fandom Year-in-Review
Dec. 31st, 2023 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosanicusIt's New Year's Eve! Let's have a duvet day and play Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishment (said only me, in the history of the world). I hope everyone is having a nice day, wherever or whenever you may be. This is a round-up post of things I've enjoyed this year. Tomorrow will bring Yuletide reveals and thus I will be able to make an accurate post about exactly what I wrote and posted for some of the fandoms mentioned herein...
Please note: I have added the silent caveat "..discovered this year" to each question, otherwise there would be a lot of re-reading and re-watching besides the ones I mention.
Favorite fictional characters this year
Surprising noone, the entire main cast of Biggles makes this list! But I would also include Viv, Tandri and Thimble from Legends & Lattes, Goodsir, Crozier, Silna and Collins from The Terror, Worrals and Frecks (of course!) from the Worrals series, and (although I did read the first two last year...) Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries. I've also just started reading The Hands of the Emperor and I sense that Cliopher may reach favourite character status, but I'm only about two hundred pages in so far.
Favorite ships this year
Biggles/EvS, Worrals/Frecks, Algy/Ginger... but also of course Goodsir/Collins, which I wrote forty thousand words for over a period of about three months...
Favorite TV shows to watch this year
The Terror!!! And also the latest series of Sewing Bee, and I've just got back into Pottery Throwdown, and my mum and I mainlined two seasons of Best In Miniature. AND BBC GHOSTS SERIES 5. I also watched Why Didn't They Ask Evans? with my partner. Actually, shoutout to shows I watched with my partner: Survivor, the Takeshi's Castle reboot, Hell's Kitchen, Ru Paul's Drag Race UK (a consistent hate-watch, we actually quit before the finale this year we were so cross), and Taskmaster (as always <3).
Favorite books read this year
Have you heard about this series called 'Biggles'? I think they're pretty good! Seriously though, I really enjoyed the twenty-ish good Biggleses I read this year, and managed to avoid too many duds by carefully reading the blurb of each one and putting it aside if my spidey senses tingled. W.E. Johns generally just hit for me this year - I have read four and a half Worralses, one Gimlet and the singular The Spy Flyers, and for Christmas I received enough Gimlets that I'm now only missing one!
Having watched the first episode of Cadfael about a year and a half beforehand, I read A Morbid Taste for Bones and ADORED it. Cadfael, it turns out, is exactly my shit (shouldn't be surprised given how instantly I adored Pentiment last year...). I also reread the first two Murderbots, and followed up by immediately reading the next two on the same day because I Love Murderbot So Much.
In non-fiction, I was a lot further behind on my big old stack of books this year but I did finish Robert Macfarlane's Underland, a gorgeous exploration of hidden underground places around the world. One of them was shockingly near my house! I also just finished Secret Britain: Unearthing Our Mysterious Past, which was a light and interesting overview of a variety of artefacts and places from the Stone Age through to the Stuart period. It does lean back on 'or maybe it was for... rituals...' a little too often for me, but I enjoyed looking at the pictures of all sorts of interesting carvings, and especially the bits about churches. I like church architecture!
I also read Sam Starbuck's series of Ruritanian romances over a three-day binge just before Christmas. They're a lot of fun, although the international politics of it all made my head hurt if I thought about it too much. They're sweet, sappy romances with a fun recurring cast, so I recommend them wholeheartedly if you need an easy read!
Favourite video games played this year
BALDUR'S GATE 3!!! So good I had to stop playing it for three months because I had spent, not joking, eight hours a day playing it and it was seriously bad for my health. I romanced Astarion and felt like I might finally understand heterosexual desire (mostly joking, but I do love that horrible little vampire man). I also loved the 1.0 release of Coral Island, although I've put it aside for now while we wait for the next content update.
Other recommended games: A Highland Song (which I finished one run of and need to go back to!), My Time at Sandrock (very grindy, quite fun, kills my laptop), The Forgotten City (fun, twisty time-loop mystery), Unavowed (need to finish it!!! Arcane detective point 'n' click is entirely up my alley...), Lamplight City (see previous note, although I did finish it! Very good, do recommend), Tangle Tower (another very fun point 'n' click detective game, with a fun deduction mechanic), Dinkum (Australian 3D Stardew Valley with aggro'd wildlife), Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (an atypical power fantasy), and Powerwash Simulator (so much content... so satisfying...)
Favorite movies of the year
Counting only new releases, I saw six films this year: Enys Men (capital-S Strange, capital-W Weird, very very good), Evil Dead Rise (I love horror movies that are this nasty while still having an emotional core!), Dungeons & Dragons: Hono(u)r Among Thieves (I miss playing D&D So Much), The Meg 2 (everything about this film is perfect), Barbie (my partner just got an I'm Kenough hoodie for Christmas) and Five Nights at Freddy's (we watched this twice). So I will be including other films too!
According to Letterboxd, my 4*+ films this year (that I first watched in 2023, otherwise half this list would be The Descent...) were: Gremlins, Big Eden, and Dolls. There were a lot of 3-3.5 films this year, mostly in the horror genre (as usual!). I was also on a downswing for film watching in general, I'm hopeful that in 2024 I will watch at least one a week. Of the rewatches, I got through all the Wallace and Gromit shorts (all perfect, of course) as well as a few Disney films and (of course) The Thing and The Descent. Oh and The Muppet Christmas Carol. OBVIOUSLY.
Best new fandom discovery of the year
I'm taking this to mean 'best new thing in an old fandom', which for me would be discovering that Paradise Towers is Very Good, Actually. I also started listening to a new adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock & Co, it's a podcast) which I am really enjoying and has me back into reading ACD Holmes fic - I just got Lyndsay Faye's latest anthology for Christmas and I'm very excited to dive in.
Fandom that you never expected to get into
HAHA. HA. Okay so I'm going to map out my exact entry into Biggles fandom here for everyone's amusement.
Fandom resolutions for next year
Finish at least three of my current WIPs. Knowing myself, there's going to be a lot more new ones being created so it'd be nice to get some of them out there in the world! Besides that, I'm happy just noodling along as I have been with the fandom friends I've made this year. I still can't believe I went to a Real Life Biggles Meetup a month after joining the forum!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Please note: I have added the silent caveat "..discovered this year" to each question, otherwise there would be a lot of re-reading and re-watching besides the ones I mention.
Favorite fictional characters this year
Surprising noone, the entire main cast of Biggles makes this list! But I would also include Viv, Tandri and Thimble from Legends & Lattes, Goodsir, Crozier, Silna and Collins from The Terror, Worrals and Frecks (of course!) from the Worrals series, and (although I did read the first two last year...) Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries. I've also just started reading The Hands of the Emperor and I sense that Cliopher may reach favourite character status, but I'm only about two hundred pages in so far.
Favorite ships this year
Biggles/EvS, Worrals/Frecks, Algy/Ginger... but also of course Goodsir/Collins, which I wrote forty thousand words for over a period of about three months...
Favorite TV shows to watch this year
The Terror!!! And also the latest series of Sewing Bee, and I've just got back into Pottery Throwdown, and my mum and I mainlined two seasons of Best In Miniature. AND BBC GHOSTS SERIES 5. I also watched Why Didn't They Ask Evans? with my partner. Actually, shoutout to shows I watched with my partner: Survivor, the Takeshi's Castle reboot, Hell's Kitchen, Ru Paul's Drag Race UK (a consistent hate-watch, we actually quit before the finale this year we were so cross), and Taskmaster (as always <3).
Favorite books read this year
Have you heard about this series called 'Biggles'? I think they're pretty good! Seriously though, I really enjoyed the twenty-ish good Biggleses I read this year, and managed to avoid too many duds by carefully reading the blurb of each one and putting it aside if my spidey senses tingled. W.E. Johns generally just hit for me this year - I have read four and a half Worralses, one Gimlet and the singular The Spy Flyers, and for Christmas I received enough Gimlets that I'm now only missing one!
Having watched the first episode of Cadfael about a year and a half beforehand, I read A Morbid Taste for Bones and ADORED it. Cadfael, it turns out, is exactly my shit (shouldn't be surprised given how instantly I adored Pentiment last year...). I also reread the first two Murderbots, and followed up by immediately reading the next two on the same day because I Love Murderbot So Much.
In non-fiction, I was a lot further behind on my big old stack of books this year but I did finish Robert Macfarlane's Underland, a gorgeous exploration of hidden underground places around the world. One of them was shockingly near my house! I also just finished Secret Britain: Unearthing Our Mysterious Past, which was a light and interesting overview of a variety of artefacts and places from the Stone Age through to the Stuart period. It does lean back on 'or maybe it was for... rituals...' a little too often for me, but I enjoyed looking at the pictures of all sorts of interesting carvings, and especially the bits about churches. I like church architecture!
I also read Sam Starbuck's series of Ruritanian romances over a three-day binge just before Christmas. They're a lot of fun, although the international politics of it all made my head hurt if I thought about it too much. They're sweet, sappy romances with a fun recurring cast, so I recommend them wholeheartedly if you need an easy read!
Favourite video games played this year
BALDUR'S GATE 3!!! So good I had to stop playing it for three months because I had spent, not joking, eight hours a day playing it and it was seriously bad for my health. I romanced Astarion and felt like I might finally understand heterosexual desire (mostly joking, but I do love that horrible little vampire man). I also loved the 1.0 release of Coral Island, although I've put it aside for now while we wait for the next content update.
Other recommended games: A Highland Song (which I finished one run of and need to go back to!), My Time at Sandrock (very grindy, quite fun, kills my laptop), The Forgotten City (fun, twisty time-loop mystery), Unavowed (need to finish it!!! Arcane detective point 'n' click is entirely up my alley...), Lamplight City (see previous note, although I did finish it! Very good, do recommend), Tangle Tower (another very fun point 'n' click detective game, with a fun deduction mechanic), Dinkum (Australian 3D Stardew Valley with aggro'd wildlife), Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (an atypical power fantasy), and Powerwash Simulator (so much content... so satisfying...)
Favorite movies of the year
Counting only new releases, I saw six films this year: Enys Men (capital-S Strange, capital-W Weird, very very good), Evil Dead Rise (I love horror movies that are this nasty while still having an emotional core!), Dungeons & Dragons: Hono(u)r Among Thieves (I miss playing D&D So Much), The Meg 2 (everything about this film is perfect), Barbie (my partner just got an I'm Kenough hoodie for Christmas) and Five Nights at Freddy's (we watched this twice). So I will be including other films too!
According to Letterboxd, my 4*+ films this year (that I first watched in 2023, otherwise half this list would be The Descent...) were: Gremlins, Big Eden, and Dolls. There were a lot of 3-3.5 films this year, mostly in the horror genre (as usual!). I was also on a downswing for film watching in general, I'm hopeful that in 2024 I will watch at least one a week. Of the rewatches, I got through all the Wallace and Gromit shorts (all perfect, of course) as well as a few Disney films and (of course) The Thing and The Descent. Oh and The Muppet Christmas Carol. OBVIOUSLY.
Best new fandom discovery of the year
I'm taking this to mean 'best new thing in an old fandom', which for me would be discovering that Paradise Towers is Very Good, Actually. I also started listening to a new adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock & Co, it's a podcast) which I am really enjoying and has me back into reading ACD Holmes fic - I just got Lyndsay Faye's latest anthology for Christmas and I'm very excited to dive in.
Fandom that you never expected to get into
HAHA. HA. Okay so I'm going to map out my exact entry into Biggles fandom here for everyone's amusement.
- Get nostalgic for the golden days of your Rivers of London fixation, when you wrote that 10000 word fic which was mostly done so Peter could take Nightingale to a gay bar called The Swallow (a real bar, for the record).
- Think, 'Oh, I want to reread philomytha's fic where Peter and Nightingale shelter in a haunted house on Dartmoor'.
- Visit Philomytha's Ao3 profile. Immediately forget your initial goal in favour of going 'BIGGLES?' in a loud and confused voice, which makes your mum wonder what's going on (you are home for the Easter holidays at this point).
- Read some of Philomytha's Biggles fic. It's really good but you're totally not going to actually read any Biggles, that would be crazy.
- Go through the whole Biggles Ao3 tag sorted by kudos, continuing to insist that you're not going to read any Biggles, that would be CRAZY.
- Having run out of fic you understand, spend some time on various authors' Dreamwidths looking at Biggles posts. Wow, these books sound kind of... fun? But you're not going to read any, because that would be crazy. You JUST got into The Terror. You signed up for the Big Bang! You've got a lot going on!
- Read Biggles Buries a Hatchet and Biggles and the Black Peril in such close succession you genuinely can't remember which way round you read them. They're really good. Oh god.
- Over the next week or so read several more Biggles books in complete secrecy. Lurk on lots of Dreamwidth blogs. Consider your life choices, then read more Biggles.
- Write your first Biggles fic, which will lead to a snowballing effect that ends up with you on New Year's Eve having written and posted almost sixty thousand words in this single fandom.
- ...Profit?
Fandom resolutions for next year
Finish at least three of my current WIPs. Knowing myself, there's going to be a lot more new ones being created so it'd be nice to get some of them out there in the world! Besides that, I'm happy just noodling along as I have been with the fandom friends I've made this year. I still can't believe I went to a Real Life Biggles Meetup a month after joining the forum!
Happy New Year, everyone!
