Year in Fandom Meme

[selenak]

Your main fandom this year? I remained firmly rooted in the 18th century with cahn and mildred_of_midgard, where we were joined by felis, prinzsorgenfrei and gambitten on occasion.

Your favourite film watched this year? If it counts as a film, since it was the filmed recording of a performance technically, then Hamilton, which this European never saw on stage (nor did I ever hear the songs before, though fannish osmosis spoled me for some). If not, The Old Guard appealed to my inner Highlander fan, the two leading roles - weary old warrior and new-to-this-world-idealist - were female and compelling, and the rest of the ensemble was interesting as well (and included a textual gay couple).

Your favourite book read this year?: I had fun with Lord Hervey's bitchy memoirs in which he mainly has a go at George II and family, and his friend Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Embassy Letters, and I loved at last reading Boswell's diaries of his travels through the German states and Switzerland (featuring such highlights as meeting Voltaire or deciding to write a letter to Johnson while postrated on Luther's tomb in Wittenberg), but really it was volume IV of the Lehndorff diaries which I marathoned in the week just before they locked down libraries along with everything else in Germany in March. Lehndorff continues to be my favourite German diarist of the era and if you check out the entry I just linked, you'll see why.

Your favourite tv show of the year?: The Clone Wars season 7 was heartbreaking and excellent, a worthy (long delayed) conclusion, but I think I'll award this designation to Harlots. (What can I say? The 18th Century strikes again.)

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?: see above, and also, figuring out how to write historical fiction in emojiis was fun.

Your biggest fandom disappointment?: Doctor Who''s The Timeless Children. Enough said.

Your favorite online fandom community of the year? rheinsberg. I’m so glad Mildred had the idea of collecting the main results of our discussions, research and pure silliness there, I can’t tell you.

Your tv boyfriend of the year?: Rex from Clone Wars, see above, re: heartbreaking. (With a bit of hope.)

Your tv girlfriend of the year? Kim Wexler, from Better Call Saul. Season 5 belonged to Kim. That was a powerhouse performance by Rhea Seaborn, and that she wasn't even nominated for it was one of tv life's greatest injustices.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?: Discovering that the British ambassador to Frederick the Great during the 7 Years War, one Andrew Mitchell, in his younger years also had a fling with Francesco Algarotti (who was simultanously involved with a triangle with Lord Hervey and Lady Mary, see above for who they were, and very likely had one with Frederick the Great as well). You may think it's all about serious history, but really, mildred_of_midgard, cahn and I are in this for the racy soap opera. Also this caused me to create a meme, see here and here.

The most missed of your old fandoms? 2020 was horrid in many ways, but pretty good in catering to my older fandom loves. Not only do I have a beloved new Star Trek show in Discovery, the admittedly uneven Picard gave me Patrick Stewart acting, a wonderful reunion episode with Riker & Troi and a fabulous later day Seven of Nine. I wrote DS9 fic again. My one month submission to the Mouse gave me the final season of The Clone Wars. Otoh, what I do miss a bit outside of my tiny 18th century fandom, which has all the debates and fanction one can wish for, are fannish conversations. However, there's also the fact that whenver I briefly check out conversations in a few larger fandoms Star Trek being one of those), I encounter a lot of bile and hurry away, or there's a fandom many people are squeeing about but which I can't muster more than "yeah, it was nice" enthusiasm about (Good Omens comes to mind, which I enjoyed a lot, but which didn't leave me with an urge to seek out discussions or meta, and after reading a few stories also didn't leave me with the wish to read more fanfiction; I watched it once, it was nice, that was it for me).

The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to? Too many. Even in the time of the plague, there's not nearly enough time.

Your biggest fannish anticipation for the New Year?: Watching live theatre again, listening to live readings again, and live lectures on topics which interest me, attending a live book fair again. Always with the caveat: if it is possible without endangering people before 2022, of course.

Comments

[kore]

Picard was a really bright spot, although it feels pretty far away now! It was so good to see SirPatStew, and get real endings for some classic characters. I need to catch up on Disco, tho.

[trobadora]

Doctor Who''s The Timeless Children. Enough said.

That was this year?! OMG. It feels like forever ago!

[mildred_of_midgard]

My biggest fandom squee moment of the year was hands-down you going to Wust for your friend who ships Fritz/Katte, an American scholar currently studying the Katte family. A thousand hand-kisses, and here's to another year in this fandom!

My biggest fandom disappointment...I guess it would have to be discovering Catt was a lying liar who lies. Speaking of which, I was rereading my Yuletide gift from last year, and I ran across this line:

swisscatt: Behind a firewall, and you have to pay for access, but totally worth it. Lots of blog entries with actual Fritz conversations! This one really has the goods.

My first reaction was, "What clever irony/sarcasm!" Then I remembered the date of the fic and started laughing and facepalming so hard. The line still works in-universe! Since nobody but you reads the goddamn preface, it's 2020 and people are still believing stuff Koser exploded circa 1880. So of course your fandom primer does too. But wow, reading this line now is really an experience. :D

Will make fun of Catt in my fics *forever*. :P After all, revenge is a dish best served cold. And it is very cold in space posthumous fanfiction.

[selenak]

LOL. You know, after reading the preface I did consider changing the line, but I thought, nah, the fanboys are going to do what most other people did through the ages, utterly believing what Catt tells them. Otoh, it was most unfortunate I read the fanfic featuring Catt as Bambi after reading the preface, thus preventing me from buying into the depiction. And I can understand why you were disappointed, given all the characterisaton points and anecdotes Catt is the source of (such as Fritz waking him up in the middle of the night for the opera title). Whereas my Fritz knowledge had been limited until our salon started and so I hadn't had time to get invested into Catt and then to feel let down. However, I must admit his readerfic tendencies make me feel extra amused when coming across contemporaries such as Mitchell or Boswell (neither of whom can be accused of anti-Fritz bias like Heinrich) diss him.

[cahn]

...It is definitely true that our tiny fandom is sort of spoiling me for other fandoms! Though for the most part I was never any good at being part of large fandoms while they were actually in the process of being large, because usually it takes me so long to watch things -- I think the only time I ever really managed it was right after the Les Miserables movie (musical version) came out, and I caught the tail end of Vorkosigan fandom, quite a while back :)

[selenak]

One of the aspects I treasure most about our tiny lot is that we can bring in different priorities and feel enriched by it, not prone to bash the other or prove how their fave is inferior. I knew nothing of Algarotti, of Peter Keith no more than he existed, nothing of Suhm etc., and without Mildred's interest in the boyfriends it would have remained this way, instead of knowing about them now and finding them interesting, wanting to know more. Whereas I dare say she'd never have written a gigantic fanfic featuring the siblings in the leading roles with no Frederician boyfriend in sight (other than Voltaire in the epilogue) if not for my siblings thing. Meanwhile, depressingly in many a fandom there's this "your fave is boring and your ship is abusive, my fave is interesting and my ship one which all right-thinking people must acknowledge" attitude, and that's before we get to hate-watching/reading the canon stuff etc.

[schneefink]

rheinsberg remains my favorite fandom community to watch from afar. The sheer amount of canon and sources is a constant reminder why I do not want to actually become interested in a fannish sense, but I love your enthusiasm and I like knowing just how much information there is available if I do change my mind.

[selenak]

It is definetely a rabbit hole of fannishness we've fallen into, but such a fun one. :) Thank you.