2021 fandom meme
Your main fandom(s) of the year: My main fic reading fandoms were Harry Potter and MCU, and also Scorpion, which was my main fandom at the start of the year as I watched and obsessed over season 4 and wrote some fic for that (and Harry Potter). Skimming over my posts: Battlestar Galactica at the start of the year, The West Wing throughout the year and Strictly by the end of the year. And as I only saw Black Widow and none of the other Marvel films, let alone a TV show, Strictly was the only live fandom I was a part of.
Best film you watched this year:
On DVD: Harriet. However, Moulin Rouge!, which is about 20 years old!!, was my favourite rewatch.
On Blu-Ray: Soul and Black Widow.
On a TV channel's platform: Phantom Thread (which I’d seen before in the cinema) and All The President’s Men (which I hadn’t seen before).
Best book you read this year: The Skylarks’ War by Hilary McKay, and a close second Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers, which is part of the Wayfarer series. Graceling by Kristin Cashre was my favourite reread.
Your favourite album and/or song to listen to this year:
I preferred listening to mostly instrumental electronica, jazz and classic-folk albums in 2021, although only two of them were released during the year. For my favourite song, I’m leaning towards ‘Remember Where You Are’ by Jessie Ware, which was released as a singlein 2021, and always stopped me in my tracls when it was played on the radio. I still listened a lot to ‘What’s Your Pleasure’.
Your favourite TV show of the year: The West Wing! For all the things I don’t love, the misogyny, the way it handles its misogyny, I am so happy I decided to rewatch this show in 2021. At it’s best it is just dazzling and intelligent and demanding, and it’s nearly always pretty good. I watched seasons 1 and 2 and most of season 3 in 2021. It’s fitting that it wasn’t a show from 2021, because most of this year I was talking about TV shows that had first aired before: Battlestar Galactica, Miss Scarlet and the Duke, even To The Manor Born! Although I enjoyed The Masked Singer and Ghosts a lot, the only other contender would be Strictly Come Dancing, which swept me up along with it again.
Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year: I still didn’t get to see Mulan, (but there’s a happy ending to that story). Realising the timing just didn’t work out for me to see Black Widow on the big screen, and not feeling confident enough to go to the cinema. Realising that despite the fact the DVD case was plastered with ‘Scorpion - The Final Season’ the showmakers clearly hadn’t known that was the show’s finale, not a season finale. I thought it was a good season ender, but a deeply unsatisfying series ender (apart from on the Quintis front.)
Your biggest squee moments of the year: Getting my mitts on ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ and ‘Black Widow’ and Mulan (the latter was supposed to be a Christmas present last year.) There were moments of squee as I watched the first two films, but it was tempered. The musical number at the start of Scorpion season 4?Nah, it’s Rose and Giovanni winning Strictly (because of the Titanic foxtrot, her couples choice, her being Anna and that showdance.)
Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year: Watching Mulan, finally. I believe there’s a new series of Killing Eve, possibly its last, and I’m going to carry on watching The West Wing. Also, it'll be Strictly's twentieth anniversary, so I'm interested to see how they celebrate that.
It’d be nice to go to the cinema again some day... or theatre.
Favourite couple of 2021: Lorelai/Luke on DVD (I rewatched Gilmore Girls season 5, although I haven’t got around to writing about it, and ‘Written in the Stars’ !!! That should probably have come under the squee question. Yes, there were a few wobbles, but the show didn’t break them like Scorpion did Paige/Walter in season 4, I’m only 60:40 pro the ship after seeing where they ended up at the end of season 4, and I suspect that’s because I was so invested. Lane/Zack were kind of delightful in season 5 of Gilmore Girls. Helo/Athena and Bill/Laura in BSG, but I have quibbles. Josh/Donna, with a little room in my heart for Bruno/Margaret and CJ/Toby.
I’ll plump for Bitterblue/Giddon from The Graceling Realm series. After rereading all the books, they’ve both come on a jorney from ‘Graceling’ The shipping really starts in ‘Bitterblue’ - I had much less patience for Bitterblue/Saph this time around - ‘Winterkeep’ was so satisfying on this front - they’re finally each other’s person.
Favourite main character of 2021: Lady Isabella Trent or Clarry Penrose from The Skylarks’ War or Natasha Romanoff.
Favourite other character of 2021: Yelena, or Patty in Scorpion or CJ Cregg.
Favourite team of 2021: Scorpion season 4 went and broke team Scorpion, and the show got cancelled instead of a season 5 putting the cyclone all back together. Ugh. So, it’s either Natasha Romanoff’s other found family, the Bartlet administration or Rose and Giovanni - I loved what they brought out of each other from the beginning and once I started getting transported by their dancing, I was seriously rooting for them.
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