Year-End Round-Up 2015, Part II
Dec. 30th, 2015 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
earlgreytea68Best Movie I Saw This Year: “Mad Max: Fury Road.” I did not expect to be impressed by this movie. I was very impressed by this movie. Many words have been written about amazing this movie is, so I don’t really need to write any more. All I have to say is: Thanks, Tom Hardy, for being in this movie, so that I felt compelled to go and see it, and therefore got to experience it.
Movie That Surprised Me the Most This Year: “The Night Before.” I was, on the whole, actually pretty bad about stalking my various boyfriends in their movies this year. But I did go see “The Night Before” and was pleasantly surprised by how hilarious I found it. And also by the fact that JGL is basically the star of the movie. I thought it was silly and light-hearted but quite charming, and I laughed very hard of it. My favorite part, though, was JGL’s dimples. Runner-up: “The Force Awakens.” I know the entire planet was super-excited for this movie but I was mostly dreading it because I remembered how all of the prequel movies were. I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie being, like, actually good. Good dialogue! Good acting! Good job!
Movie with the Best Clothing: “SPECTRE.” Everyone in this movie wears the most spectacular clothing. None of it is at all practical (good job packing a white pants suit to go take down a megalomaniac) and don’t even get me started on when the Bond girl bought that evening gown and how it got packed in her tiny bag but it was all so beautiful. If you’re not going to make any sense, at least look lovely doing it. The woman looked gorgeous, Daniel Craig looked edible, and Q’s sweater in Switzerland made me want to be best friends with Q. Can we make that happen?
British Actor with the Most Amazing Hair This Year: Ben Whishaw. In a year when one of my other British boyfriends just kept saying sad things about his beautiful hair, Ben Whishaw was never afraid to let his hair grow ever more cotton-candy-ish atop his head. Own it, Ben; you wear it well.
Best British Actor Moment This Year: Tom Hardy bringing Woody to the “Legend” premiere. There was genuinely a time in my life when Tom Hardy elicited merely a shrug from me, and now I see photos of him and think, Look at that gorgeous specimen of a man. Probably a lot of it has to do with the fact that he does silly things like this. (Also: he’s a pretty gorgeous specimen of a man.)
Best Moment in a Movie Theater: The gun barrel opening of “SPECTRE.” I was SO NERVOUS, you guys. So nervous they wouldn’t do this. AND THEN THEY DID. It was almost like it didn’t matter what the rest of the movie was like, because GUN BARREL.
Best Fiction Book: “The Lies of Locke Lamora.” This was recommended to me by someone on Twitter so I stuck it on my TBR list, and then randomly I picked it up this summer when it was the only book on my TBR list that was in the bookstore I was in. Lucky me, because I adored this book. I think I read it described somewhere as Ocean’s Eleven only on an alien planet and yup, basically. I love stories about con artists and heists and stuff anyway, and this is a really gloriously good one, and Locke is a delight of a character. Trust me: Go read this.
Best Non-Fiction Book: “Walkable City.” I have long wanted to learn more about urban planning. I feel like, in a different life, where I understood engineering, I would have been an urban planner. It has long been a topic of great fascination to me. So I solicited a bunch of reading recs on Twitter and once again ended up with this one because it was the one in the bookstore I was in. But this book was AMAZING. I think of things I learned in this book all the time. I learned about how parking works, and how walking works, and how public transportation should work, and how streets should be built, and how to get rid of traffic, and seriously, I think people are sick of listening to me talk about the things I learned in this book, but I learned A LOT. And it was very readable and engaging. If you want to know more about why you sit in traffic or why you should be paying for parking, I recommend you read this book, too.
Favorite Ship This Year: the couple on “Fixer-Upper.” I chose “Love It or List It” as the show in my HGTV verse, but the more I watched HGTV this year, the more I realized that my real basis for Arthur and Eames in that ‘verse was the couple on “Fixer-Upper” (funnily enough, the name I gave the first fic). These two are so sweet and adorable. I love them.
Most Delightful Thing to Happen This Year: “Next Big Thing.” I never expected anything about NBT. It was not a story I planned to write. At all. I never knew what was going to happen in NBT until it happened. And the best part about it was I was discovering all of it at the same time as the readers. I have never written a fic in such real time. I have never written a fic with such extravagant amounts of reader input. I have never written a fic so meta. That fic is *multi* meta. I mean, it’s a fic about being the object of fandom and then belonging to your own fandom. It’s a fic in which the main characters read and write fic. It’s meta-ception. And, truthfully, I’m not sure I’ve ever written such a self-indulgent fic before. It’s crowded with every trope I could think of, it meanders in and out and around some laughable excuse for a plot, there are whole chapters in which nothing happens but the characters quipping at each other. I loved every second of NBT. Every second of it. It threw off everything about my writing schedule in a way I still haven’t recovered from, but I think I needed NBT. And I think I needed all of you who read it, who comment-partied every night, who shaped it with your reactions and your suggestions and your love. It’s basically a crowd-sourced fic, and it reminded me of how much fun fandom can be. And am I tickled by having the most commented-on fic on all of AO3? Well, yeah, I am, I have to admit. I consider it a marvelous treat to have had NBT this year, and I thank all of you for making it the unforgettable ride that it was. The best part about NBT to me is that AO3 still won’t let me mark it as complete. It’s basically the fic that will never end. And I somehow think that’s kind of appropriate for it.
Movie That Surprised Me the Most This Year: “The Night Before.” I was, on the whole, actually pretty bad about stalking my various boyfriends in their movies this year. But I did go see “The Night Before” and was pleasantly surprised by how hilarious I found it. And also by the fact that JGL is basically the star of the movie. I thought it was silly and light-hearted but quite charming, and I laughed very hard of it. My favorite part, though, was JGL’s dimples. Runner-up: “The Force Awakens.” I know the entire planet was super-excited for this movie but I was mostly dreading it because I remembered how all of the prequel movies were. I was very pleasantly surprised by this movie being, like, actually good. Good dialogue! Good acting! Good job!
Movie with the Best Clothing: “SPECTRE.” Everyone in this movie wears the most spectacular clothing. None of it is at all practical (good job packing a white pants suit to go take down a megalomaniac) and don’t even get me started on when the Bond girl bought that evening gown and how it got packed in her tiny bag but it was all so beautiful. If you’re not going to make any sense, at least look lovely doing it. The woman looked gorgeous, Daniel Craig looked edible, and Q’s sweater in Switzerland made me want to be best friends with Q. Can we make that happen?
British Actor with the Most Amazing Hair This Year: Ben Whishaw. In a year when one of my other British boyfriends just kept saying sad things about his beautiful hair, Ben Whishaw was never afraid to let his hair grow ever more cotton-candy-ish atop his head. Own it, Ben; you wear it well.
Best British Actor Moment This Year: Tom Hardy bringing Woody to the “Legend” premiere. There was genuinely a time in my life when Tom Hardy elicited merely a shrug from me, and now I see photos of him and think, Look at that gorgeous specimen of a man. Probably a lot of it has to do with the fact that he does silly things like this. (Also: he’s a pretty gorgeous specimen of a man.)
Best Moment in a Movie Theater: The gun barrel opening of “SPECTRE.” I was SO NERVOUS, you guys. So nervous they wouldn’t do this. AND THEN THEY DID. It was almost like it didn’t matter what the rest of the movie was like, because GUN BARREL.
Best Fiction Book: “The Lies of Locke Lamora.” This was recommended to me by someone on Twitter so I stuck it on my TBR list, and then randomly I picked it up this summer when it was the only book on my TBR list that was in the bookstore I was in. Lucky me, because I adored this book. I think I read it described somewhere as Ocean’s Eleven only on an alien planet and yup, basically. I love stories about con artists and heists and stuff anyway, and this is a really gloriously good one, and Locke is a delight of a character. Trust me: Go read this.
Best Non-Fiction Book: “Walkable City.” I have long wanted to learn more about urban planning. I feel like, in a different life, where I understood engineering, I would have been an urban planner. It has long been a topic of great fascination to me. So I solicited a bunch of reading recs on Twitter and once again ended up with this one because it was the one in the bookstore I was in. But this book was AMAZING. I think of things I learned in this book all the time. I learned about how parking works, and how walking works, and how public transportation should work, and how streets should be built, and how to get rid of traffic, and seriously, I think people are sick of listening to me talk about the things I learned in this book, but I learned A LOT. And it was very readable and engaging. If you want to know more about why you sit in traffic or why you should be paying for parking, I recommend you read this book, too.
Favorite Ship This Year: the couple on “Fixer-Upper.” I chose “Love It or List It” as the show in my HGTV verse, but the more I watched HGTV this year, the more I realized that my real basis for Arthur and Eames in that ‘verse was the couple on “Fixer-Upper” (funnily enough, the name I gave the first fic). These two are so sweet and adorable. I love them.
Most Delightful Thing to Happen This Year: “Next Big Thing.” I never expected anything about NBT. It was not a story I planned to write. At all. I never knew what was going to happen in NBT until it happened. And the best part about it was I was discovering all of it at the same time as the readers. I have never written a fic in such real time. I have never written a fic with such extravagant amounts of reader input. I have never written a fic so meta. That fic is *multi* meta. I mean, it’s a fic about being the object of fandom and then belonging to your own fandom. It’s a fic in which the main characters read and write fic. It’s meta-ception. And, truthfully, I’m not sure I’ve ever written such a self-indulgent fic before. It’s crowded with every trope I could think of, it meanders in and out and around some laughable excuse for a plot, there are whole chapters in which nothing happens but the characters quipping at each other. I loved every second of NBT. Every second of it. It threw off everything about my writing schedule in a way I still haven’t recovered from, but I think I needed NBT. And I think I needed all of you who read it, who comment-partied every night, who shaped it with your reactions and your suggestions and your love. It’s basically a crowd-sourced fic, and it reminded me of how much fun fandom can be. And am I tickled by having the most commented-on fic on all of AO3? Well, yeah, I am, I have to admit. I consider it a marvelous treat to have had NBT this year, and I thank all of you for making it the unforgettable ride that it was. The best part about NBT to me is that AO3 still won’t let me mark it as complete. It’s basically the fic that will never end. And I somehow think that’s kind of appropriate for it.
