Year-End Fandom Review

[adevyish]

Your main fandom of the year?

So first of all: very weird year. Originally, my plan for this year was to devote my free time to 1D members on tour. I’m wistful for the Louis Tomlinson concert that could have been, on the ten-year anniversary of One Direction’s formation at a beautiful venue in my own city.

Obviously I still spent quite a bit of time on 1D, but much less than I was expecting. I’d say Hades comes closest to an actual fandom, though I haven’t started reading Hades fic yet! For reading fandom-du-jour, I switched between four or five different fandoms.

Your favourite film you watched this year?

I am very late to this, but: Paddington 2! What a platonic ideal of a film.

(Pouring one out for Dev Patel as David Copperfield, which I still have not seen. It was one out of my two quota for watching in a movie theatre this year, but that’s not a thing now.)

Your favourite book read this year?

The End of Everything by Katie Mack, which is a very funny book about one of my favourite post-midnight reading topics — the end of everything, or the science version of doomsday prophecies. It’s comforting to know that humans might not screw up the universe any more than the universe will screw itself up.

As usual, I’ll take the opportunity to rec a few fics:

• An Ever-Fixed Mark by AMarguerite, an engrossing and believable soulmate AU of Pride and Prejudice.
• Chessmen by kaydeefalls, which very cleverly adapts the powers of its X-Men characters to its Inception setting.

Also a few I read at the tail end of last year, so I haven’t rec’d yet:

• the way you move is like a rainstorm by sevenimpossiblethings, an Inception AU where Arthur is a winner of The Voice, Eames is his backup dancer, and they embark on a secret relationship. Has the bones of a Larry Stylinson entertainment industry fic without the baggage. (I’m not just saying this, I swear there’s a couple references!)
• I Talk of Dreams by nolaespoir, a pre-canon Inception fic where Eames is a member of the Bullingdon Club. I have to admit loving fic about high society, and this one has the Riot Club feel down while managing to keep its main characters human and real.

Your favourite album or song to listen to this year?

I’m posting my albums list separately, so here are some album-less singles:

• Accusefive — Night Life. Take Us to the Light — I really like the lyrics to the chorus, enough that I translated it. And now that it’s close to Christmas the music video is actually appropriate to post!
• misi Ke — Cast Away — A wistful, plaintive song with a nostalgic and bittersweet video.
• Perfume — Time Warp — My fave song and music video combo from them since 2013’s “Sweet Refrain”. It feels like a throwback to their earlier days yet new and fresh. And it’s technopop!

Your favourite TV show of the year?

I’ve just been watching nature and wildlife rescue documentaries on the local public broadcaster all year.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

That’s going to be Hades. My friend convinced me to play it, and it’s my first non-smartphone game since actually either Bastion or And Yet It Moves. I wouldn’t have made it as far as I have in Hades without the dangling of the romance plotline in front of me, so I’m working to not spoil myself too much despite actively working on a fic. The Struggle™.

(Okay, I played a lot of games in the past decade which are available on non-phone platforms as well, some party games on friends’ Switches, and maybe 5 seconds of Untitled Goose Game before I got motion sickness bad enough to stop. And one of the non-phone phone games is Badland 2, which is insanely hard. Although my personal multi-platform faves are still puzzlers — The Gardens Between and Lumino City, both absolutely gorgeous and 3D. One of the reason I like phone games is it’s harder for me to get motion sick!)

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

Figure skating. I cut it out of this post, but full explanation here (CSA TW).

Your fandom boyfriend of the year?

Zagreus Hades. Yes it’s weird that my favourite character is a main character for once! He seems like a nice boy, amicable and personable, and is just a little foolhardy. I wouldn’t call him a fandom boyfriend in the I am going to obsess over him sense, or in the I want to marry him sense, or the I want him to be related to me sense; but I’m writing my first 20k fic with him as the boyfriend so what does that say about me.

Your fandom girlfriend of the year?

None :(

Your biggest squee moment of the year?

Louis Tomlinson Veeps live! Debuting new arrangements of every song and a brand new song, with a great string quartet and amazing camerawork. The whole thing blended the intimacy of a small space with the energy of a live concert, and it worked beautifully. Wrote more about it here.

Non-1D moment: seeing clips of Reno and Rufus in Final Fantasy VII Remake. I went straight back into the problematic trash pit.

The most missed of your old fandoms?

Is Nervous Venus even a fandom if it’s just me and 4 other people?

A fandom you haven’t tried yet but want to?

I bought Tasogare no Umi but haven’t had a chance to read it. Also, I need to catch up with the webcomics Heart of Gold, Electric Bones, and Two Keys. And I bought Peacemaker / Kurogane years and years ago but have I read that? No.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?

Tokyo Babylon anime even though I have low expectations because it seems like they’re changing the year it’s set, like was done for Clear Card Arc, and the studio was already caught for plagiarizing fashion from other shows! How do you plagiarize fashion when you are working on one of the manga with the most iconic fashion designs‽

Like I’ve said elsewhere, TB is deeply tied into themes about societal changes and anxieties due to technology in the early 90s, while I can see how it would translate well to 2021, it would be a very different story. And artistically, the original TB is my favourite CLAMP series still—there is such a surety in its art style that they have rarely come close to since. Most importantly, city pop is in right now! All I want from TB is a full-fledged early 90s revival and the dramatic fashion to go with it.