intrigueing: (Default)
Finally returning to this great meme! I'll mush these two days together, because I have one answer for both: I don't have one. How could I choose a favorite or least favorite species? The question makes no sense to me. I think Cardassians were the best-written/best-thought-out species within the actual episodes, but that doesn't make them my favorites.

So I'll have to bow out with another wishy-washy ALL OF THEM. There are so many fascinating species in Star Trek, made all the more fascinating by how haphazardly they were slowly developed over the course of decades, gaining whole mythologies by static cling, bit by tiny bit. I love this sort of wordbuilding approximately ten times more than the most wonderfully thought-out pre-planned worldbuilding (sorry Tolkien, I love you too but...), because there is just nothing else like it.

The Rest of the Days )

intrigueing: (piper and trickster have no taste)
I am getting behind on this, but oh well what the hell. Not the end of the world if I'm late.

I'll break it down by series:

TOS: City on the Edge of Forever. Yes, it's the one everyone picks. Super unoriginal choice. But it really is just that great. It's got everything. It's got a little bit of every single thing that makes Star Trek so wonderful.

TNG: Darmok. The perfect melding of great character-driven material and great sci-fi concept. A few months ago, I wrote a post saying my relationship with fiction and how I understand the universe through it sometimes makes me feel like I should have been born a Tamarian, because that language structure works for my soul, goddamn it.

DS9: Man, trying to pick a favorite out of the conventional contenders is impossible, so I'll pick In the Cards. Because it is a) howlingly hilarious in a very "The Zeppo"-of-Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer way, and b) has one of my favorite things ever, the Christmas Truce trope --  bitter serious enemies deciding that, you know what? just for a moment, just for one little moment, lets fuck this war and fuck the fact that we all hate each other and fuck our mission to destroy each other and just take one, short, deep, pure breath of baseball squee fresh air.

intrigueing: (tww: 20 hours in america)
Ha, is this some sort of trick question?

Patrick Stewart. Always Patrick Stewart.

In fact, let me post a few pictures to further elaborate my point:

;


;
;


Stay classy:

;

This is what he does every time someone screws up their lines (btw if you haven't watched the TNG bloopers you are horribly deprived)

;


Or he screws up his lines:

;
;
;


Here's the ice bucket challenge:

Patrick Stewart ALS challenge


He wears a fedora better than anyone:

;

This is the only anti-smoking ad you need, really:
;

There's other more substantial stuff for why he's awesome, but I am lazy and so I'll let other people cover that.

The Rest of the Days )

intrigueing: (harley quinn wants you to put on a happy)
Okay, I'll break this one down by series.

TOS: Kirk/Spock. I wouldn't say I ship them, because to me personally, that term implies that I prefer them as a romantic couple rather than platonic friends, which I don't. I love them as platonic friends somewhat more than I love them as a romantic couple. However that's a bit like saying out of Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors, I love Chocolate Fudge Brownie somewhat more than Chocolate Therapy. Also, ancient - I mean, uh, classic - Kirk/Spock fanfic was the first in-depth, emotionally-serious, explicit depiction of sex in fiction I had ever read (or watched), and I cannot overstate the (extremely, extremely positive) impact on shaping my understanding of how sex and sexual desire and romantic relationships could be a good thing rooted in good feelings rather than the weird, disingenuous, exasperating, romance-is-important-just-'cause-now-shut-up non sequiturs that I had seen so much of in Hollywood romance movies and YA novels.

TNG: I actually don't really have one. I suppose if Tasha lived, it might be Data/Tasha, but is that canon or non-canon? I almost ship Picard/Guinan, but in the end I know it's just something I like to occasionally think about, not read about or picture happening in the future. And I don't know if my thing for Picard/Q counts as a pairing. Mostly I think of it as one out of a never-ending list of ways that Picard fascinates Q and Q pisses Picard off (I will take all the non-sappy fanfic recs for this though. Hint hint.)

DS9: Bashir/Garak. Don't even have to pause for a millisecond to come up with that one. It is also one of a very, very small handful of non-canon pairings that I think could have actually, really, seriously, been canon without screwing up anything about the show or the characters if the showrunners hadn't been so skittish and "no homo!" I'm not certain a relationship between them would have worked out as something permanent, but I really think they could have had sex or a short-term doomed relationship or explicitly acknowledged romantic feelings and made it believable.

The Rest of the Days )

intrigueing: (piper and trickster have no taste)
Favorite canon pairing?

Kirk/Enterprise.

Duh.

What else would it be? :)

As for any "this doesn't count as canon!" accusations, well [personal profile] selenak elaborates on this better than I ever could, but in short: the Enterprise is the object of Kirk's romantic energies. He has many emotionally serious affairs with women, yes. He has an intense and deep friendship with Spock, yes. But the Enterprise, for him, is not only 1) transcendence, consuming his identity and doing so in a way that gives his life purpose and meaning, but in addition, 2) he himself, as well as his colleagues, as well as the events of the universe (as in Elaan of Troyius), explicitly describe his relationship with his ship as a romance. The first one alone has nothing to do with romance per se. And the second one alone would be more of a joke than anything. But put the two together, and, well, as far as I'm concerned the only human/vehicle pairing more canon than this one is Doctor/TARDIS.

The Rest of the Days )
intrigueing: (Default)
Sorry this one is late!

TNG. I had watched it sporadically before, but I really got attached to it when I had just turned 14 and my family was in the middle of a temporary moving situation. We were staying at a hotel suite for one month, my sister and I had nothing to do while our parents did moving and househunting things all day, and during that one month I watched three hours of TNG every day (an insane amount of TV for us). Voila. A fandom was born.



intrigueing: (tww: 20 hours in america)
I can't remember my first experience of watching Star Trek. I'm sure it was TNG. I vividly remember scenes in the conference room, the darkness, the gleaming table, Geordi's VISOR, the stars streaming past the windows so beautifully and steadily, (and the fact that none of the characters even paid any attention to them, like those amazing stars were just a taken for granted everyday part of their lives.) And I remember being afraid of Worf, because the pattern of his forehead makeup made him look super-angry. But I have no memories that I can tie to any specific episode.

The first episode I can definitely remember watching was when I was eleven years old. It was TOS, A Private Little War. I thought aspects of that episode were really fascinating, like the whole Cold War plot with giving weapons to the alien race, and Spock's healing trance, but it was all firmly overshadowed by the ridiculousness of the guy in a big fluffy pastel sparkly unicorn-yeti suit with footie pajama feet. I thought that was the dumbest-looking thing I had ever seen. Hey, I was eleven, gimme a break!

Also, I remember being seriously, seriously disturbed by the concept of phasers that could vaporize your body and leave nothing behind, not even a charred crisp, as if you had never existed at all. That was just the creepiest thing ever for me.


intrigueing: (mutts: little pink sock)
Again with the cop-out "I don't have one."

A few years ago I would have said Pulaski from TNG. Not because she was abrasive or anything like that, that aspect of her was actually quite refreshing, but because of her attitude towards Data (they were probably going for a McCoy vs Spock thing, which was never going to work because Data is the diametric opposite of Spock). Now, I didn't mind her attitude toward Data per se either, because it probably helped him grow and examine himself and learn to stand up for himself better (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's noticeably less down on himself in season 3 than in season 1 -- I'm pretty sure season 3!Data wouldn't have said it was all his fault the Enterprise got hijacked because he was *gasp* painting on his shore leave rather than manning his post 24/7, as he did in 11001001) but back then I was under the impression that Pulaski herself didn't develop in her views, since I hadn't seen enough of season 2 due to it being super-boring. Later I realized she did develop towards the end, and that retroactively made her likeable even earlier in the season. So nowadays I like Pulaski a lot.

So...yeah, I don't have any regular characters I dislike. I quite like the much-maligned characters like Wesley, Troi, Neelix, Ezri Dax, because when other fans start talking about how awful a character is, all it does is throw their good points and likeable traits into sharp relief for me and make me like them more, even if I didn't care much for them before. However, [personal profile] selenak  listed some of the minor one-shot characters that were particularly crummy, so just to not be wishy-washy again, I'll pick Nero from Star Trek XI. So boring I can't remember a single line he said. I remember he was bald and had tattoos, which should make him automatically interesting because he wasn't wearing an '80s powersuit with Over 9000-level shoulder pads, but I still can't remember a single line he said.


The Rest of the Days )
intrigueing: (Default)
I don't have one.

Sorry if that's a cop-out answer, but I really, honestly, genuinely, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die could not pick a favorite character out of all of them. Not even one-from-each-series. I've always found the concept of favorite characters mostly baffling and incomprehensible, and that goes double for Star Trek, whose characters are so wildly different they can't be compared.


The Rest of the Days )
intrigueing: (tww: 20 hours in america)
Stolen from [personal profile] selenak , whose answer to the meme starts here.

Day 1 - Which Star Trek series is your favorite?

Hard to pick between TOS and TNG. I love them both more than DS9, and I do, in fact, think they are better than DS9, in a certain way. They are not better shows than DS9, but a better show has nothing to do with being a better thing. DS9 is a better show than TOS or TNG in terms of having less of the kinds of stuff that tends to make a show bad -- less ignored and flat and ill-used characters, less facepalmy and winceworthy material, less oversimplified black-and-white declarations, and less dated deviations from a number of narrow, ephemeral, value-neutral current-day storytelling features that people are impressed by in 2015. It is not, however, better than TOS or TNG in terms of the gross quantity of awesome that is contained within it, (though it does come very, very, very close.)

However, I love TOS and TNG in such completely different ways I can't really compare them. For example, I barely read any fanfic for TNG, and find a lot of the TNG fandom to be annoying or pointless. It's also not a show I enjoy critically. At all. My interest in analyzing TNG is so far below zero that my reaction to analysis of it makes my eyes glaze over and then I will eventually say "what is this shit you are talking about? Why would I care about it? Do you remember that time when the computer told Dr. Crusher that the universe was a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter?" I just love to absorb it and bask in it. My TNG love is for it as a show that I watched with my family completely oblivious to any hint of fandom when I was younger, and which introduced me to the concept of future-fantasizing in sci-fi. I can barely think of it as a show at all. It is more of a mental space.

TOS, on the other hand, I discovered completely on my own, watched on my own, and got into the fandom short after discovering it, and TOS was my introduction to fandom and fanfiction. My love for TOS, my experience of watching TOS, and my memories of TOS are completely entwined with the framework of fandom and fanfic, and my personal experiences of discovering fandom and fanfic, and the (highly enjoyable) exercise of mental dissonance and elaborate "authorial intent? what authorial intent?" explanations and cherry-picking what parts to train a microscope on and what parts to judiciously allow to fade out of focus (cough cough, sexism) that is involved in seriously delving into this show on a fandom analysis meta level. And, of course, the elaborate mockery that is irresistible to not indulge in when watching it. My approach to TOS is the diametric opposite of my approach to TNG -- it's entirely about sussing out deeper meanings and nuances and implications and theories and fanon and building it into a bigger and more detailed story than the show.

Apples and oranges, really.


The Rest of the Days )
intrigueing: (piper and trickster have no taste)
[personal profile] jadelennox is hosting a dreamwidth friending meme here, and since there's a whole bunch of new people who've subscribed I thought I'd say hello. Hello! Details about me are on my profile.

My current state of fandomness is largely unchanged since winter. I am fangirling a whole lot of fandom history and fandom culture and fandom meta for early (or, to my early twenties self, "ancient" as one friend will never let me forget) fandoms, mainly Star Trek TOS, Starsky & Hutch, and Star Wars. I am firmly not getting excited for Star Wars Episode VII, since I always enjoy this kind of thing a million times better when I'm not anticipating it, but my massive Star Wars love has been steadily rising for the past few months.

Some comms I subscribe to and/or visit semi-frequently (I am also very busy with work and real life, so I have less time for this than I used to), and recommend for people wanting to participate in fandom more on dreamwidth, are:

For discussion: [community profile] fandomsecrets , [community profile] fail_fandomanon 

For fandom events, challeges, etc: [community profile] fandomcalendar , [community profile] fandom_on_dw ,

For fanfic writing: [community profile] onedeadplotbunny , [community profile] fan_flashworks , [community profile] fic_promptly 

And also, if you're a gen fan looking for fic recs, I highly recommend [community profile] gensplosion which recs not just gen fic but usually very unique and creative gen fic.

I subscribe to, but have mixed feelings about [community profile] metanews . It's an awesome posting of recent fandom meta from around the internet, but the links contain a mixture of both eyerolling are-you-fucking-serious pretentious bullshit and omg-that's-really-cool awesomeness in roughly equal measures.

I am currently immersed in writing -- or more like grappling with -- four or five separate fanfics. Why four or five instead of one? Because I'm a fucking idiot, that's why.

A wonderful fandom friend also graciously lent me a stack of ancient sorry, I mean, "older" Star Trek TOS zines from the '70s-'90s and I have been going over them with great glee and will probably post some reflections about them in my journal soon.

I keep telling myself I will post more fanfic recommendations, but I keep forgetting. I am taking this opportunity to remind myself to get on with it.

eta: I also just discovered the Anonymous Writing Feedback Meme [personal profile] anonconcrit , courtesy of [personal profile] moetushie !

intrigueing: (starsky & hutch: two's trouble)

In a new post, list ten FICS that have stayed with you in some way. Don’t take but a few minutes, and don’t think too hard — they don’t have to be the “right” works, or even all the same pairing or fandom, just the fics that have touched you or that stuck with you somehow.

I swiped this from [personal profile] moetushie , whose answer to the meme is here, way back in March, started it, forgot about it, rediscovered it a week or so ago, and finished it. It's rambly unfiltered musing and I have made a conscious effort to excise as much critical thinking and journalistic argumentation out of it as I can, and just write down what these fics are in my head and the imprint they left in my memory, rather than what they may be in reality.

Well, I spent much more than a few minutes on these. And they all got so long that I had to put cuts in all the "What Stuck with me and Why" bits so people's eyes don't glaze over while scrolling over it. Though I DID jot the list of fics down pretty fast, though, because if I didn't it would be impossible to choose just ten. So if anyone swipes this from me, moetushie's approach to the meme is probably closer to what it's meant to look like. ;)

As the description implies, these are not recs. Not in the sense of "read this, this is so good!" They're personal why-this-fic-stuck-with-me musings. However, in my opinion, they all do qualify at least as this-was-a-pretty-interesting-story recs.

I do recognize that a couple of them would not affect me the same way if I first read them today instead of reading them when I did read them, so any overpraising belongs to the fic's personal impact, not my critical analysis. But here goes:



1. Prison Of Glass by LuipaardJack (Futurama, Fry-centric)

Summary: "Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him." - George Santayana

Context: Read when I was 16, deeply embroiled in Futurama and other cartoon fanfic.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



2. Sick Home by Lance Ruhiru (South Park, Scott Tenormen-centric)

Summary: When time makes it worse. (Scott Tenormen's thoughts about Cartman, South Park, and the nature of reality and fiction, years after Scott Tenormen Must Die).

Context: Written years before 200 and 201 aired, so retroactively AU yet eerily prophetic. Read when I was 15 in my several months-long nothing-but-South-Park craze, during which I inhaled almost the entire ff.net archive.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



3. Nothing Compares by Cszemis (South Park, gen, Stan & Kyle, Kyle & Cartman, death-fic)

Summary: "His fingers traced over the shadow of Stan. “When we are dead and gone nobody will care about these pictures. No one will remember how happy we were. How much it all meant.” How much he meant to me…"

Context:
Continuing the dark fics for goofy shows trend. Read when I was 15, yada yada see above.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



4. Mystery Kirk/Spock Slash Story of Awesomesauce by Mystery Kirk/Spock Slash Writer of Awesomesauce (Star Trek: TOS, Kirk/Spock)

Summary:
I don't know and can't remember and cannot (and will not) find it again. If anyone recognizes this fic, don't tell me or link me or I will hunt you down for wrecking my childhood memories.

Context:
I was 15 years old, and TOS was one of my very first and primary fandoms. I had read some smut, in the form of triofic in Harry Potter, but not much slash except some lame OOC stuff that belonged in a teen drama. I was also at that point in sexual development where encyclopedia descriptions of sexual acts were wildly titillating to me. From what I recall of the writing style and attitude, I am pretty sure this story was written in the '70s or '80s.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



5. No Means No by idioticonion (How I Met Your Mother, Barney/Robin, domestic violence, dub-con, rape(?))

Summary: "Barney is accused of raping Robin. This a single, fractured story told in one hundred drabbles going back and forwards in time. Spoilers up to The Goat. Written for the HIMYM DarkFic Livejournal Comm. Warning: Very dark."

Context: In 2011, How I Met Your Mother single-handedly dragged me out of the worst summer of my entire life, the only time in my life I can remember being depressed for longer than a few days. I leapt into the fandom in gratitude, which was a bad idea because it jilted me horribly a few months later (season 7, what a nightmare). However, unlike 99% of sitcoms, HIMYM has a fantastic fandom. This is partly because of its extensive and detailed continuity, and partly because of one writer, [personal profile] idioticonion, who wrote around 200 HIMYM fics, many of them extremely dark, ranging from ludicrous ~edginess~ to genuinely chilling what-ifs. This fic, while technically OOC, is mostly towards the latter.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



6.
The Snow Queen by [personal profile] elspethdixon  (Marvel/Captain America Comicsverse, Steve/Tony, fairy tale fusion)

Summary: A fairy-tale fusion between The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, and the characters of the Marvel 616 comics universe (i.e., putting the Marvel characters and ideas into the roles of the fairy tale's plot), with Steve Rogers (named the Soldier) in the part of Gerda, and Tony Stark (named the Smith) in the part of Kay.

Context: I read this in 2010 during my great Marvel and DC comics craze. Even more specifically, during my rabid comicsverse!Steve/Tony shipping craze, which kind of went dormant shortly prior to the release of The Avengers, (and thank god it did because movieverse!Steve/Tony has not a single shred of commonality with comicsverse!Steve/Tony, and being an active comicsverse shipper during the MCU explosion would have made me tear my hair out.) There are innumerable non-canon pairings (especially slash pairings) that I like and enjoy reading, but there are very few pairings I like as much as (let alone more than) the platonic friendship interpretation present in the canon source. And there are even fewer that I actively ship. Comicsverse!Steve/Tony is one of those few.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



7. Just a Face on a Train by katheryne (Spider-Man movies (Tobey Maguire), Peter Parker, OFC, gen)

Summary: "After rescuing a train from Doc Ock's attack, Peter Parker found himself unmasked and indebted to those he had just saved. 4 months later, a train passenger again crosses paths with the young hero. Based on events from Spider-Man 2."

Context:
I don't really remember when I read this or why, or how I found it, since I was never in this fandom (though I loved the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies). It was a couple years ago, though, and I am glad I did.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



8. Who's Afraid of the GI Bogeyman? by Curley Green (M*A*S*H, gen ensemble)

Summary:
"Naïveté has its advantages. Radar is afraid of the dark, but it's the rest of the 4077th who truly have uncontrollable fears. A series of short vignettes, c. season 7. One-shot."

Context:
M*A*S*H was one of my first fandoms, and the first really in-depth one. I read this fic when I was 14, in 2006. If I recall correctly, my fic-reading method in M*A*S*H fandom was mainly to filter the entire ff.net archive by a character combo or genre -- in this case, horror -- and read everything listed there that pricked my ears up.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



9. World In Your Eyes
by jamjar (DC Comics/Superman comics, gen with background Clark Kent/Lois Lane)

Summary: "The first time Clark had looked at the world from above, he almost thought he was dying."

Context:
I read this maybe in 2013, a year or two after my Marvel and DC Comics superhero binge which was abruptly killed stone cold dead by the Nu 52 over in DC. I never lost my love for superhero comics, though, nor superhero fanfic, as in evidence here. Superman is and always has been my favorite superhero of all time, even if he wasn't one of the ones I was most interested in reading about.

What Stuck With Me and Why )

 

10. The Thousandth Man by Suzan Lovett (Starsky & Hutch, gen, post-Starsky vs Hutch)

Summary:
This was written before the days of summary boxes, so in brief: the ending tag was nothing but a performance, Hutch offers no explanation of his actions nor any attempt to fix things, Starsky kicks him to the curb in a fury, and the two of them spend the next several weeks estranged until the plot finally puts them face-to-face once again.

Context:
Every S&H fan and their dog has written a post-"Starsky vs Hutch" Fix-It Fic. The Fix-It Fic is that panfandom fic genre designed to explain and resolve baffling and outrageous canon events -- in this case, it's Hutch sleeping with Starsky's girlfriend, an act whose seriousness has zilch to do with conflict, and everything to do with a betrayal of trust, the cornerstone of their friendship, and the absence of either motive or onscreen reconciliation. The Thousandth Man is much longer and more complicated than most fix-its. It's one of the earlier ones too, written in 1985. I read this during a kick I'm sure some other S&H fans have had -- consuming every post-SvH fic I could lay my hands on and marveling at the S&H fandom's unparalleled reality-weaving powers as it collectively constructed, out of the resonating patterns of the common denominators of a hundred wildly varying fanfics and observations, a shadow-arc for season 4 that the canon never quite articulated. Out of all those innumerable fix-it fics, no one single story ever satisfied me like this one.

What Stuck With Me and Why )



Now I'm thinking up all the other fics that stayed with me but which didn't make the cut of the first ten such fics to cross my mind. Perhaps I'll do this meme again in a few months...
intrigueing: (tww: 20 hours in america)
So, like several people on my flist, I'm jumping on the "when you see this, post 3 lines from 3 WIPs" bandwagon. This has the added benefit of motivating me to finish them faster, because I don't want to go around for months with those lines out in the open without posting the fic that goes with it. And of course, not exactly random selections, but lines that hopefully make a bit of sense in context.

1. The West Wing, prequel fic, Jed and Leo-centric

He made a stab at pulling himself to his feet on a nearby shopping cart before Jed's voice got any louder, but forgot to take the cart's wheels into account. He found himself deposited back on his stomach as the cart rolled out from under him with a half-hearted clatter, rolled a few parking spaces away, and came to a squeaky halt.

"Jesus Christ," growled Jed. He walked back, grabbed the back of Leo's belt, hauled him up like a duffel bag and propped him diagonally against the base of the streetlight. "I said just sit still. You got that through your fucking head?"

"Sorry," Leo sat still, feeling bad and then progressively worse about letting Jed down. He desperately wanted to ask Jed to get him a drink so he could stop feeling bad about it, which made him start laughing.


2. Starsky & Hutch, long decades-spanning snapshot series

"You kiddin'?" Starsky's eyes were dancing, and either didn't know or didn't care that Hutch could see it in the mirror's reflection. "Listen, Blintz, you better get all your romancin' in now, because if you're seen around with me after I'm back in shape, there ain't a woman with a lick of taste who's gonna take a second look at your ugly mug. On the beach, next summer? Who's gonna go for some balding chump with a mustache like that over a gorgeous guy who's clearly the biggest badass in California, and got the scars to prove it? Chicks can't resist the sight of 'em."

"Right," said Hutch, appraising Starsky's reflection with one raised eyebrow over the top of his newspaper, "I forgot that it's every woman's dream to sleep with a guy with only one nipple."

"Hey, that's one and a half nipples," muttered Starsky, frowning mournfully at his chest. "The doc said I'm gonna be able to see most of this one again once all the stitches come out."


3. Harry Potter, several decades post-epilogue

But at the end of the high table, Potter had his glasses tilted so that only one eye was covered, and was holding a piece of treacle tart aloft in one wizened hand. He was closing first one eye, then the other, as though he was taking turns between gazing at it like he'd never seen food before, and letting it go blurry.

"Well, they wouldn't let him teach if he was a complete nutter, would they?" said Neil, "My granddad was in the war, there's some times where he starts talking about stuff and can't stop, but he knows he's doing it."

Sean shook his head. "Nah, not like that. I don't mean he loses his grip or anything, it's just...well," Sean jabbed his fork in Potter's direction. "He always acts like he's just taken a swig of Felix Felices."
intrigueing: (the simpsons: daddy's girl)
I literally spent several straight hours last night out dancing, and then danced some more with my dad after crashing at my parents' in anticipation for our big family dinner today, because of all the jazz being played on NPR on the drive home. Remind me to look more into Cab Calloway. As a consequence, I was out like a light when I got into bed and slept better than I have all month. Hopefully this will be good motivation to be more busy and active. It makes me a lot happier. Anyway, my belated 2014 fandom reflection courtesy of [personal profile] selenak :

Your main fandom of the year? I haven't had any new ones, but I have been indulging very deep in three old ones: Star Trek TOS, Starsky & Hutch, and Star Wars (mostly original trilogy).

Your favorite film watched this year?  Newly released? Guardians of the Galaxy by default (because I only watched three new movies this year). Old but new-to-me? Double Indemnity. Love it so much. Would've tempted me to go on a noir kick if I had the time :)

Your favorite book read this year? Don Quixote volume I. Basically dying of laughter on every page, which I did not expect because you know, old wordy translated tome of satire that was topical in 1605. I only bought the books because they were ancient (undated, but god knows how old given the physical state they're in) copies of an 1847 translation and I cannot resist stuff like that, and I only started reading it so I could truthfully tell people that I read part of it. I didn't expect them to be actually hilarious to me.

Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?: There are only three newly released songs I even know the names of off the top of my head: The River by Son Little, Yellow Flicker Beat by Lorde, and All About That Bass by Meghan Trainor. IDK.

Your favorite TV show of the year?  Haven't been watching any new TV, but I did rewatch a lot of Star Trek TNG in order during the summer when I was staying with my family after graduating, and I swear it just gets better every time (and more ridiculous, but I can't begin to articulate how little I care about that.)

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?  I wouldn't say I discovered fanlore.org this year, because I've known about it since 2011 or 2012, but I only recently discovered what an amazing resource it is for information about old fandoms. Hence my in-depth revisiting of the three 2014 fandoms listed above ;)

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year? I...can't think of many. Perhaps, simply a dark aspect of my best new fandom discovery: getting a nasty kick in the teeth on the subject of just how nasty the character-bashing fights in Star Wars fandom in the early 1980s, before and after Return of the Jedi was released were. I mean, I knew it by hearsay, but never read through the kind of ugliness it consisted of.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?  In September, buying a fanfiction zine that was first published in 1977 on ebay. I don't recall ever being that excited and squeeful - heart pounding, unable to sit still - about anything fandom-related since I was 16 or 17. Have you ever planned out a day carefully to be perfect in order to enjoy something you were anticipating? It was like that for me. I ordered it so that it would arrive when I had a half-day at work, made sure to have the afternoon and evening free, and then in order to savor it all alone in perfect solitude, I parked in a quiet spot and spent about half an hour just looking at the little details of it, the crumbling yellow pages and peeling faded ink, before even reading the stories. Because I am a dork.

The most missed of your old fandoms? This is going waaaay back, but I've been recently thinking about M*A*S*H a lot. M*A*S*H was one of my very first online fandoms ever, and the first one where I regularly participated in a discussion and interaction-heavy way, rather than only reading other people's fanfic. I was 14-15 years old (wow, 8-9 years ago, really?) and I participated and discussed and fanned on the bestcareanywhere.net forums. We had an amazing tight knit lively little community there, and I lied my ass off about my age (I think I said I was 20) and we talked about everything, absolutely everything, there were episode discussions, character discussions, fanfic reviews, general topics, off-topic/personal, and people would bring up and post new topics and activities almost every day. There was a completely insane guy (or probably a troll, but I was 14 and didn't get it yet) named John Cooper II aka Radar's Election Campaign Manager who wrote all characters' names in ALL CAPS and wrote the most befuddling posts and fic (google it and you might find some stuff about it) that we all mocked to death. I think forum style was probably even then (2006) getting outdated by LJ, and it saddens me that it has mostly gone by the wayside.

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?  Specifically, I think The Americans. I've heard so much good stuff about it. More broadly, next year's Yuletide. I've been eavesdropping on my flist and other members of my communities' participation in it closely, and scooping up recs by the handful. But I am commitment-phobic and also too fucking lazy to ever learn the rules for exchanges and fests, so I've never actually done anything in it. Next year!


My Vaguely Fandom-related Resolutions

Daily
Write for either at least 40 minutes or at least 500 words, depending on the nature of the writing

Weekly
Make at least one DW post
Comment in more than one of my flist/circle's journal posts
Edit/revise a discrete section of something I've written so that the section works as a readable excerpt

Monthly
At least one new-to-me movie watched
Either one short fic posted or 3 chapters (or the equivalent length) of a long fic written

Profile

intrigueing: (Default)
intrigueing

August 2015

S M T W T F S
      1
23456 78
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031     

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 6th, 2025 06:04 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios