2022 in fandom meme

[shallowness]

Your main fandom(s) of the year: My main fic reading fandoms were Harry Potter and MCU, and then, Hart of Dixie, because after I started watching the show, I mainlined fic – Zoe/Wade, mainly, (I have a thing for Wade taking care of Zoe) although the only fic I recced was atypical. Otherwise, I was reading all sorts

I didn’t go to the cinema, and I have to admit I’m stalling on buying any MCU films, because Disney won’t release Wandavision as a DVD, and I won’t subscribe to Disney+. I’d definitely need to see that to see Doctor Strange 2. I know it's a ridiculous stand-off because Disney/Marvel doesn't care.

TV – I wrote fic for Sanditon, voted online (mainly) for Strictly Come Dancing, watched most episodes of It Takes Two, and am slowly making my way through The West Wing on DVD. (Once I’ve listened to The West Wing Weekly, I’ll post about the final two episodes of season 4.)

Books – I read a couple of volumes of Lady Trent’s Memoirs, and the latest Cormoran Strike novel, followed by the adaptation of the book before that.

Best film you watched this year:
On DVD: Promising Young Woman.
On Blu-Ray: The Batman
On a TV channel's platform: The Lion King (animated), What Maisie Knew.

Best book you read this year: Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner - unlike Kamet, I knew I’d be wrongfooted (and yet I still was). I sympathised a lot with his short-sightedness and I loved the frames of refectence for his turns of phrase.

Your favourite album and/or song to listen to this year:
Album: I listened a lot to Migration by Benobo, which I only bought in 2021 and which came out years before. Tresor by Gwenno, perhaps. I love NYCAW and the soundscapes (the Cornish songs don’t quite touch me as much as the ones on Le Kov did).

Song: Turn Up The Sunshine by Diana Ross ft Tame Impala. I love that chorus to bits.

Your favourite TV show of the year: This was another year when fictional TV had to compete with the !?!? news. The English was probably the most ambitious and successful drama I watched, and if it had been all Cordelia and Eli all the time, it might be my favourite. But it’s The West Wing (end of season 3 and season 4) and Strictly Come Dancing again.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year: That the Kylie on Ghosts sketch for Comic Relief didn’t happen thanks to COVID or something else I've forgotten. (The reason why I couldn’t go to the cinema to see a film on the big screen or go to the theatre and watch a show is a non-fannish disappointment.)

Your biggest squee moments of the year: Discovering Gwenno had been shortlisted for the Mercury prize. Writing and posting a fic! Realising The English was a TV series and not a film as I’d first thought when I first caught the trailer. Or something else I've forgotten.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year: It’d be nice to go to the cinema or theatre again some day...

The trailer for Barbie has me excited, as has the fact that French cinema has decided to adapt The Musketeers…with Eva Green as Milady. Is that not a thing that you didn’t know wanted to be in the world until it was?

Favourite couple of 2022: I seem to have used the ‘shipping’ tag mainly for couples in DVDs I watched in 2021 in 2022.

Books - Isabella/Suhail from the Memoirs of Lady Trent (I read Labyrinth of Drakes and Within the Sanctuary of Wings in 2022) and Robin/Strike (having read ‘The Ink Black Heart’ and watched Strike- Troubled Blood.

More TV - I was one of those who fell (more than I had originally in the late 80s) for Jane and Mike in Neighbours. Jane was disappointed in the man she’d finished a relationship with and then her first love rides back into town. Reconnecting with the one who got away, while acknowledging the knocks suffered over the years worked very well for me and in the nostalgic context of the last few episodes of a long-running soap. Jane/Mike made that goodbye to Neighbours.

And then we got the deeply weird news that the online outpouring of feelings from fans, current and former, had piqued Amazon’s interest and maybe the show is going to get resurrected. The general reaction is puzzlement, I think. I can’t see myself watching it (obviously Mike isn’t going to move back unless if they recast, and that would be madness. Mike Young =/= Lucy Robinson.) I was mainly confused by all the young people and not really recognising characters that I should have, although in my defence, maybe Clive was slightly before my time.

I also got sucked into shipping Charlotte/Colbourne (Sanditon) Zoe/Wade (Hart of Dixie) and Cordeia/Eli (The English) and Josh/Donna are so MTB on The West Wng it’s ridiculous.

If pushed, though, Mike/Jane (Neighbours).

Favourite main character of 2022:Favourite other character of 2022: CJ Cregg.

Favourite team of 2022: The Bartlet administration or
Hamza and Jowita.

[Edited 16/12/23 for typos.]