My year in fandom

[selenak]

Meme stolen from likeadeuce.

Your main fandom of the year?

I remain a committed fandom polyamorist without a main fandom.

Your favorite film you watched this year?

The Avengers. Four times watched in the cinema and three times on dvd... yes, it's a pretty safe bet to say it was. :) I just loved it to bits.

Your favorite book read this year?

It's a tie between Her Majesty's Will by David Blixt (when I read the Yuletide prompts asking for Shakespeare/Marlowe adventures & relationship I thought every time "does the prompter know there is now an entire novel like that out there?) and Raphsody in Blood by Roz Kaveney, though I had the chance to read the later in manuscript last year, so I suppose it's a bit cheating to say "this year"? Anyway. Rereading it in printed form only heigtened the love.

Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?

Come Together: Black America Sings Lennon & McCartney. Detailed review explaining why here.

Your favorite tv show of the year?

Breaking Bad. Which I started to marathon early in the year and thus was able to watch in real time when it began its final season.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

I would say Breaking Bad as well, except for the part that Breaking Bad fandom aside from fabulous people on lj also includes the people majorly into Skyler and Marie bashing on tumblr and elsewhere, so, no. But I was delighted to see one of my oldest fandoms, Babylon 5, still has an influx of new watchers and writers, and B5 never inflicted shipping wars and character bashings on me either then or now, so I declare the new B5 fans my best new fandom discovery of the year.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

Fringe's fourth season, after a promising start, cementing the show's decline. Alas.

Your fandom boyfriend of the year?

Jeremy Irons, for a) making Henry IV. for the first time ever the most captivating character in the two plays named after him to me in The Hollow Crown and b) continuing to do a fantastic job with Rodrigo Borgia, aka Pope Alexander VI., in the second season of The Borgias. I've said it before, I'll say it again: the man is a walking, talking illustration that some actors dramatically increase both in acting skill and hotness in their middle age. Young Mr. Irons, playing Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited? Eh. Current Jeremy Irons as Henry and Rodrigo both? Gimme gimme gimme!

Your fandom girlfriend of the year?

Skyler White. Followed closely by the ladies from The Borgias, Judi Dench's M, Katniss Everdeen and my darling Guinevere from Merlin, always, but still, no question about it: Skyler. For being complicated and not easily likeable but layered and smart and above all able to accept responsibility for her own deeds as opposed to blaming everyone else. A longer love declaration to Skyler is here.


Your biggest squee moment of the year?

Natasha pwning Loki in The Avengers. That moment when she turns around and says "thank you for your cooperation". (Come to think of it, Katniss Everdeen's "Thank you for your consideration" in The Hunger Games was also a fantastic moment and almost identically phrased, but Natasha's turnaround was when I went from loving The Avengers to SQEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.)

The most missed of your old fandoms?

I go through moments of missing the BTVS and AtS fandom heydays fiercely. Then I check to see what's happening, and people are either obsessed with being upset with the comics (which I have no interest in) or are still fighting the Spike Wars (ditto), and I remember all the reasons not to miss said days. Until, that is, I come across unexpected splendid meta essays like the one about Chosen this year, or anything timetravellingbunny posts, and I'm full of BTVS and AtS fandom love again.

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?

Once Upon A Time and maybe Teen Wolf. Also I really want to watch The Wire, but is there still a fandom?

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?

The second half of Breaking Bad's final season; the SHIELD tv series; X-Men: Days of Future Past; Catching Fire; and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Comments

[monanotlisa]

As for The Wire -- yes and no; it always had a fervent viewership, but whether that counts as fandom as such I don't know: few fanworks, although their quality tends to be exceptional. I still recommend it (and would weigh in, in my sadly shallow ways these days).

[selenak]

So noted. :)

[astridv]

I don't think there ever was a fandom for The Wire but watch it! All the praise you see heaped on this show is deserved. I've watched season 4 four times... that season is so good that I'm okay with there being almost no fic - I'll just rewatch it again.

re Buffy: lol, I know. I have Buffy people on my flist and it makes me happy that the fandom is still so active since deep down I never left it. But it also cracks me up that there's still wank about the exact same things.

[selenak]

I know! It's like you leave a room, come back years later, and the people in it may have changed but they're having the exact same arguments they did when you left!

[kalypso]

I keep meaning to rewatch The Wire, as I've got most of it on my V+ box, but there's always so much new stuff on, and I have a tendency to fall asleep halfway through an episode, however gripping. I did rewatch the first season a couple of years ago but then ran out of time to go further. But maybe if someone else were doing it, that would be an incentive to keep going. Not for the next couple of months, though.

[kalypso]

By the way, wasn't Black America Sings Lennon & McCartney 2011? Or do you mean you went on playing it throughout 2012?

[selenak]

Oh, my next couple of months are booked full, too. But's definitely a plan for 2013.

[blueswan]

I miss the days when my fandom was almost entirely set in the Whedonverse. Sometimes. I look back on it with great fondness.

Ooooh, come and play in the OUaT sandbox. We have fairies and magic, and awesome women. There is miles of pretty and there is spell-casting and there is true love's kiss.

The Wire remains on my list of shows to watch.

[selenak]

I plan to, I definitely plan to come and play. :)

[weewarrior]

Once Upon A Time and maybe Teen Wolf

Both have their advantages and disadvantages: OUaT is brimming with important and well-drawn female characters, but has quite simplistic morals and one of the most horrific child actors I've seen in years; Teen Wolf has an ambitious structure and often deals with stereotypes in surprising ways, but is so far mostly a letdown where female characters are concerned. In regards to Teen Wolf fandom: avoid at all cost, they are mostly extremely young and cheerfully repeat every fandom cliché in the book (not to mention that there is one pairing that penetrates everything).

[selenak]

not to mention that there is one pairing that penetrates everything

You do realize you just made a horrible pun... :)

But yes, even via fannish osmosis I gathered that pairing is to Teen Wolf what Jack/Ianto was to Torchwood, and just as in Torchwood, I'm afraid I'll probably not go for it. Or maybe I'm just being silly because it's EVERYWHERE - and I haven't even seen a single episode. Also, OUAT is first to try on my list.

[weewarrior]

Oh, yes. ;)

This likely won't surprise you, but I don't see it. They are funny together, yes. But sexual attraction? Eh. More a case of making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Have fun with OUAT.

[timetravellingbunny]

How did I miss this post? I feel so honored for being namechecked by you, and in an end-of year post no less. :) Now I feel bad for not having posted anything in ages... Granted, the Buffy comics have been so meh of late that I didn't feel inspired, but it's my own fault I've put my Buffy rewatch on hold for quite some time.