That Fandom Year in Review Meme
Jan. 3rd, 2018 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingivia umadoshi
Your main fandom of the year?
Mirage of Blaze again! This amazing BL light novel series has been resurrected in English language fandom after its substantial death from dwindling translations around 2012. Now the series has been summarized in detail up to the end! Almost as good as translated. And this year I discovered that they’ve been doing stage plays since 2014, and the stage plays are awesome. If you love angsty boys love, check it out!
Your favorite film watched this year?
The Last Jedi. It is, indeed, not perfect but it has given renewed charge to my Star Wars fandom and imagination, quite a bit more than The Force Awakens did, though I enjoyed it too. This is the first time in a long time I’ve actually wanted to check out Star Wars books.
Honorable mentions: Logan and Wonder Woman. (Wonder Woman is a very important, very well done film, but Logan meant more to me emotionally.)
Your favorite book read this year?
Since it’s not fair to list Mirage of Blaze stuff since it’s been more summarized than translated and all builds on stuff I’ve been reading since 2006, I’m going to go for volumes 1-5 of the manga Acid Town (which is about the length in story content of a shortish book). It’s a really excellent, unconventional BL manga with lots of wonderful character and relationship work, and not just with regard to the romantic pairings.
Honorable mention to Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy, a very satisfying novel about Alexander the Great’s eunuch. It feels a lot like slash before slash was a thing.
Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
It’s hard to name just one song, and I don’t usually listen to full albums, but if I had to pick just one, it would be William Shatner’s cover of “Common People.” I love the socioeconomic critique of the song. In addition to being fun to listen to, it’s important. It does a move I think Foucault would be proud of in subverting our expectations that it will be about sex and forcefully turning its focus to class. And Shatner does a wonderfully angry narration.
Your favorite TV show of the year?
Nothing has moved me strongly fannishly, but I did really appreciate Legion and am currently being quite impressed with Sense8, after putting off seeing it for years.
Your favorite online fandom community of the year?
Asphodel’s Mirage of Blaze forums! It’s so great to be involved in this kind of fannish community again.
Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Acid Town.
Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
The perennial disappointment is that it’s so hard to find stuff I’m fannishly interested in. But overall, the fandom I’m in that disappointed me most was Game of Thrones. It was entertaining; it was just not written to the caliber of previous seasons. It felt rushed and a bit paint-by-numbers, lacking the sense of organic realism in both characters and setting that typified early seasons. Still fun though.
Runner-up: The Orville. Disclaimer: I’ve only seen the first two episodes, but based on these, the show, hyped by my friends, is a tonal miss for me. It’s like it can’t decide if it wants to be a Star Trek drama or a comedy series, and so it ends up doing mostly Star Trek drama series stuff but with characters interjecting bizarre, unprofessional bits of chit chat.
Your TV/fandom boyfriend of the year?
Your TV/fandom girlfriend of the year?
There was a time (c. 2005?) when I could have answered this, but the days when I had that many current fandoms to sift through and distinguish are long since gone.
Your fictional crush(es) of the year?
Oh Gosh, probably Kylo Ren. Yes, he’s an extreme emo adolescent, but I do find him compelling as such.
Your biggest squee moment of the year?
One huge, giant squee for all three of the Mirage of Blaze stage plays I’ve seen on DVD to date, with a special bit of squee for the surprising degree of chemistry between Kagetora and Minako. (It’s a bit unfortunate that Kagetora’s main love interest, Naoe, wasn’t very well cast, but he’s been recast—apparently better—in play 4, and I am pre-squeeing for that DVD.)
The most missed of your old fandoms?
Most missed… I dunno, but I have missed Blake’s 7 because its commentary on how societies fall into fascism is so relevant for our times and so trenchant and well written. I’ve missed Babylon 5 for its serious discussion via Londo of what it’s like to belong to a people who are conquerors and to be tarnished by their wrongs, both by association and by your own internalized attitudes and personal actions. Eurocentric civilization, in general, needs a lot more of this kind of storytelling, and there isn’t much of it about, not that I’ve seen.
(And I just miss TV space opera overall! I mean space opera that really explores different cultures, not just culturally 21st-century type people in space.)
The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?
katinka put me on to the Administration series, which I’m interested in checking out. I also keep getting recs for The Expanse, and while it doesn’t intrinsically feel like my thing, neither did Trigun at first and I do trust the judgment of all those recommenders.
Your biggest fan anticipations for 2018?
The DVD of the fourth Mirage of Blaze stage play!! I’m not sure if it’s coming out in 2018, but right behind this would be the anime (at last!) of Banana Fish!
umadoshiYour main fandom of the year?
Mirage of Blaze again! This amazing BL light novel series has been resurrected in English language fandom after its substantial death from dwindling translations around 2012. Now the series has been summarized in detail up to the end! Almost as good as translated. And this year I discovered that they’ve been doing stage plays since 2014, and the stage plays are awesome. If you love angsty boys love, check it out!
Your favorite film watched this year?
The Last Jedi. It is, indeed, not perfect but it has given renewed charge to my Star Wars fandom and imagination, quite a bit more than The Force Awakens did, though I enjoyed it too. This is the first time in a long time I’ve actually wanted to check out Star Wars books.
Honorable mentions: Logan and Wonder Woman. (Wonder Woman is a very important, very well done film, but Logan meant more to me emotionally.)
Your favorite book read this year?
Since it’s not fair to list Mirage of Blaze stuff since it’s been more summarized than translated and all builds on stuff I’ve been reading since 2006, I’m going to go for volumes 1-5 of the manga Acid Town (which is about the length in story content of a shortish book). It’s a really excellent, unconventional BL manga with lots of wonderful character and relationship work, and not just with regard to the romantic pairings.
Honorable mention to Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy, a very satisfying novel about Alexander the Great’s eunuch. It feels a lot like slash before slash was a thing.
Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
It’s hard to name just one song, and I don’t usually listen to full albums, but if I had to pick just one, it would be William Shatner’s cover of “Common People.” I love the socioeconomic critique of the song. In addition to being fun to listen to, it’s important. It does a move I think Foucault would be proud of in subverting our expectations that it will be about sex and forcefully turning its focus to class. And Shatner does a wonderfully angry narration.
Your favorite TV show of the year?
Nothing has moved me strongly fannishly, but I did really appreciate Legion and am currently being quite impressed with Sense8, after putting off seeing it for years.
Your favorite online fandom community of the year?
Asphodel’s Mirage of Blaze forums! It’s so great to be involved in this kind of fannish community again.
Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Acid Town.
Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
The perennial disappointment is that it’s so hard to find stuff I’m fannishly interested in. But overall, the fandom I’m in that disappointed me most was Game of Thrones. It was entertaining; it was just not written to the caliber of previous seasons. It felt rushed and a bit paint-by-numbers, lacking the sense of organic realism in both characters and setting that typified early seasons. Still fun though.
Runner-up: The Orville. Disclaimer: I’ve only seen the first two episodes, but based on these, the show, hyped by my friends, is a tonal miss for me. It’s like it can’t decide if it wants to be a Star Trek drama or a comedy series, and so it ends up doing mostly Star Trek drama series stuff but with characters interjecting bizarre, unprofessional bits of chit chat.
Your TV/fandom boyfriend of the year?
Your TV/fandom girlfriend of the year?
There was a time (c. 2005?) when I could have answered this, but the days when I had that many current fandoms to sift through and distinguish are long since gone.
Your fictional crush(es) of the year?
Oh Gosh, probably Kylo Ren. Yes, he’s an extreme emo adolescent, but I do find him compelling as such.
Your biggest squee moment of the year?
One huge, giant squee for all three of the Mirage of Blaze stage plays I’ve seen on DVD to date, with a special bit of squee for the surprising degree of chemistry between Kagetora and Minako. (It’s a bit unfortunate that Kagetora’s main love interest, Naoe, wasn’t very well cast, but he’s been recast—apparently better—in play 4, and I am pre-squeeing for that DVD.)
The most missed of your old fandoms?
Most missed… I dunno, but I have missed Blake’s 7 because its commentary on how societies fall into fascism is so relevant for our times and so trenchant and well written. I’ve missed Babylon 5 for its serious discussion via Londo of what it’s like to belong to a people who are conquerors and to be tarnished by their wrongs, both by association and by your own internalized attitudes and personal actions. Eurocentric civilization, in general, needs a lot more of this kind of storytelling, and there isn’t much of it about, not that I’ve seen.
(And I just miss TV space opera overall! I mean space opera that really explores different cultures, not just culturally 21st-century type people in space.)
The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?
katinka put me on to the Administration series, which I’m interested in checking out. I also keep getting recs for The Expanse, and while it doesn’t intrinsically feel like my thing, neither did Trigun at first and I do trust the judgment of all those recommenders. Your biggest fan anticipations for 2018?
The DVD of the fourth Mirage of Blaze stage play!! I’m not sure if it’s coming out in 2018, but right behind this would be the anime (at last!) of Banana Fish!
