Somewhere Different Now

Well, there's an hour and change left of 2018 in my timezone. It hasn't been the shittiest year ever for me personally, but it hasn't been an especially good one either. On the larger scale of national and world news, it's been a deluge of horror with a hint of hope to come. However, rather than delivering any thoughtful reflections on larger issues, here's a list of some movies, books, and fanworks I loved this year. This is a list of my favorites, not necessarily what I think was the best quality.

Favorite Movies
-Black Panther - This list is in alphabetical order, not ranking order, but Black Panther is undeniably my top film of 2018. Perfect blend of dealing thoughtfully with big issues, fascinating characters, great action, and a gorgeous look.
-Colette - Keira Knightly plays a bisexual author, stands up for her desires and recognition against patriarchal expectations, and wears gorgeous period outfits...it's like they made it just for me. I found the depiction of her marriage to be fascinating. It wasn't a healthy relationship at all, but it was an interestingly complicated one.
-Ocean’s Eight - A super fun romp featuring competence porn and a great cast of ladies.
-Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse - Would have been the best Marvel movie of the year if Black Panther hadn't existed. The animation was outstanding, and somehow made even a Spider-man origin story feel fresh. Fun for both very casual and more serious fans.
-The Spy Who Dumped Me - The most underrated movie of the year. Look, I'm not saying it's great cinema for the ages, but TSWDM was probably the most fun I had in a movie theater all year. I laughed so much. Kate McKinnon and Mila Kunis seem to be having a great time onscreen together. Part of building a movie industry less centered on men is that women should also get to be at the center of silly action buddy comedies of middling quality. We deserve a Mary Sue-ish fantasy of being swept up from a boring life into a more exciting world and eventually, after a lot of mishaps, ending up being really good at it. If that hasn't sold you on this movie, Kate McKinnon flirts with Gillian Anderson (only minimally in character) and performs on a trapeze.
- A Star Is Born - The second-closest I came to crying in a movie theater this year. Lady Gaga proves that her acting chops are as strong as her singing voice.
-Won’t You Be My Neighbor - Definitely the closest I came to crying in a movie theater this year was in this documentary about Mr. Rogers. It's well worth watching if the world at large is dragging you down as a reminder that there are truly decent and kind people in the world, and at least one of them was even a white man.

Favorite Books (Alphabetical by author. Not necessarily books published this year, just ones I read this year)

-All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders - Moving, inventive, quirky, relevant.
-The Mortal Word by Genevieve Cogman (Invisible Library series #5)- One of my favorite ongoing series.  So much fun, and characters who really need more fandom.
-The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal - alternate history of space travel after a devastating meteor strike in 1952.  Great premise, diverse lady-centric cast, tautly written.
-Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty - tense space thriller full of clones and nonlinear narratives.
-Night and Silence by Seanan McGuire (October Daye #12) - Latest installment in my other favorite ongoing series.  I love these characters so much and want to protect them from all the terrible things and big revelations that keep happening.
-On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor - Fascinating nonfiction about trails from the first organisms to move along the sea floor to modern long-distance hiking. 
-The Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab (A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, & A Conjuring of Light, all read this year) - Fantastic worldbuilding, suspenseful, memorable characters including a piratical female antihero.  
-The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne Valente- deliciously angry tales from all the women killed in male-centric superhero stories.
-Space Opera by Catherynne Valente - Eurovision in space with the fate of humankind at stake.  Glam rock meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Hopepunk comedy.

Favorite Fanworks 

-The Night War: 60th Anniversary Edition by praximeter - Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers (with hints of unrequited Bucky/Steve). Do you like strong backstories for characters left underdeveloped by canon, frame stories, historical research, unreliable narrators, or being utterly emotionally compromised? Then go break your heart into a million pieces with WWII-era Bucky's diaries right now. This immersive fic blew me away.
-Avengers Get Ready by niyalune- fanvid distilling so many MCU feelings.
-Winter's Herald by leveragehunters.  My inner 14 year-old died of squee at seeing that there was an epic length MCU/Heralds of Valdemar fusion focusing on Steve/Bucky, and it was incredibly well done.  Soul bonds and telepathy and magical horse-like beings, oh my!
-i need a forest fire by tomorrowsrain - Bucky and Tony go on an epic roadtrip as fugitives, enemies to friends. Also Steve/Bucky relationship. Plotty with excellent dialog.
- light a match and burn them down by defcontwo - it has Steve/Bucky/Peggy and serum!Peggy with great banter...all the things my heart desires in a fic for these characters, pretty much.

What have y'all enjoyed this year?  What great things did I miss that I'll have to catch? 

Happy 2019, y'all.  May it hold manifold good things in store for you, and may you all find the strength to meet its inevitable challenges.

Time for a short link dump!

First, a fic rec!  I loved the Leverage/Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover Nerds of the Earth, Take Note! by Betty and Emeraldwoman.  SHIELD needs some hacking done by someone outside not connected to their organization, so they kidnap Hardison and get him to do it.  Features some high quality banter (Hardison and Tony Stark conversing is a thing of beauty), Coulson getting all the credit, a rogue AI, lots of orange soda, and answers to the questions you might have about what might happen if the Leverage gang and SHIELD went up against each other.  No particular spoilers for either universe.  Written back in 2010, so has been jossed by more recent canon, but not in an especially distracting way.

Next, for those who like judging other people by the contents of their bookshelves (I certainly do!), I took pictures of my bookshelves for a meme over on tumblr.

From the realm of cool news, scientists have discovered a beautifully preserved fossil of an ancestral snake with four legs!

Finally, here is a video of actor Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries, Lost) holding a rehabbed pelican prior to its release. I saw a photo of this occasion someone had brought into the wildlife rehabilitation center where I volunteer.  I hope your day will also be improved by footage of an attractive man holding a pelican!  Some further information about pelican holding (disclaimer that I am a fairly casual wildlife rehab volunteer, so errors are possible):

-If you hold a pelican that has only recently come in from the wild, you are probably going to get feather lice running up your arms since many pelicans have nasty infestations of them.  Feather lice don’t bite mammals, but they feel and look super creepy.  The pelican in this video is almost ready for release, so it may have been treated with anti-parasitics to get rid of the feather lice.

-Unlike most birds, pelicans need to be able to breathe through their beaks, so if you hold their beaks closed you choke them.  You need to hold on to the bill so it doesn’t gouge someone’s eye out but keep a finger in between the jaws so it can breathe, as Ian is demonstrating here.

-During handling, keeping a sheet or towel over them when possible keeps them calmer and more under control.

-Keeping control of both of a pelican’s wings and the beak and preferably the feet too often feels like it requires several more arms than the average human possesses.  Those things are friggin’ huge.

-If a pelican needs to be given medicine or force-fed, you have to stick your arm WAY DEEP into the pouch to squirt the meds/meal replacement down the bird’s throat.  The inside of a pelican’s pouch and throat is covered with thick goop known among wildlife rehabbers as “peli-cheese.”  That stuff is rather hard to scrub off your skin.  Working with wildlife:  so glamorous!

-If you or someone you know goes fishing in an area where there are pelicans, please make sure to never feed fish waste to the local pelicans.  (Really don't feed your fish waste to any local wildlife, but pelicans seem especially prone to getting into trouble from it.)  They develop the habit of hanging around fish cleaning stations instead of foraging for themselves, and often end up either getting coated in fish oil that wrecks their feathers (requiring washing much as if they got contaminated in an oil spill) or trying to eat a partial fish carcass with bones or spines sticking out that can get stuck in the pouch or rip up their throat.

There's a meme that's been going around (I picked it up from isiscaughey, but I know I've seen it elsewhere) where the idea is that you post 10 fanfics that have stayed with you for whatever reason. I thought that sounded like a fun excuse to link y'all to some fics I love, so here goes.

For ease of your reading I'm linking to AO3 when possible (even if the story was originally posted elsewhere), but some of my favorite older Doctor Who stories have never been posted there, so those links are to Teaspoon.  Interestingly, it seems that many of the fics that stick with me the most are either emotionally rough reads (dark or bittersweet or just full of intense feelings) or super lightweight fluff that sticks with me because it's comfort reading I keep going back to.  Stories are arranged by fandom (Doctor Who, Sherlock, Marvel Cinematic Universe), but otherwise there is no implied ranking within this list.

-Do I Twist, Do I Fold by rosa_acicularis.  (Doctor Who.  Ten, Rose, The Master)  This story is so good and so intensely unsettling.  Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.  The prose is vivid.  Rose is such a BAMF even in a terrible situation.  Warnings for disturbing content, sexualized violence, and possibly ruining pineapple pizza forever, but worth the reading if that's something you can cope with.  I could honestly fill much of this meme with rosa_acicularis's stories (Days and Hours, But Broken Lights, and The Anatomist spring to mind).

-Coming Around by honorh.  (Doctor Who, Nine/Rose)  I am a little bit obsessed with what Nine was like pre-"Rose" and what happens to Rose after "Doomsday."  This one-shot connects those two in a bit of timey-wimey bittersweet brilliance.  Really lovely.  I read this very soon after I joined this fandom and it has lingered with me.

-Tales from the Findersverse by dameruth.  (Doctor Who, Ten/Rose/Jack)  This is one of the first fic series (yeah, I'm cheating a bit by having a series rather than just one fic) that convinced me that I shipped Doctor/Rose/Jack, not just Doctor/Rose, and for that it will always have a special place in my heart.  The Finders-verse series is comfort reading post-Doomsday fixit.  There's a bit of hurt/comfort and lots of fluffy romance.   Dameruth has great dialog and grasp of the characters. I don't even know if this is my overall favorite of her several OT3 'verses, let alone the many other great fics for this ship, but I think it's the one I found first so it always makes me go "awwww" when I think of it.

-Ulysses by Rheanna.  (Doctor Who. Martha Jones, John Smith, Joan Redfern)  This is a haunting "what if" story about what it might have looked like years down the line if John Smith hadn't been the one to find the courage to open the fob watch in "The Family of Blood."  It's about stories and choices and the nature of humans and Time Lords, and if you watch Doctor Who you should really read it.

-The Paradox series by wordstrings.  (Sherlock, Sherlock/John) This is one of the most-recced fanworks in Sherlock fandom for very good reason.  It's intense, immersive, gorgeous, difficult, creative, and moving.  This is the story of two very, VERY broken people who find they fit together better than either of them dared to hope, even if that doesn't make everything better always.

-The Shape I Found You In/Lay Me Down by irisbleufic and moony (Sherlock, Sherlock/John)  There are so many things I love here:  epistolary fic!  Humor!  Case solving!  Men who rarely talk about things finally talking about it!  Character parallels with well-written OCs!  Travel!  Longing and the sexy fulfilment of all that longing!  All of it is really beautifully written (irisbleufic is a published poet, and it shows) with impeccable characterizations.

-The Watches 'verse by bendingsignpost.  (Sherlock, Sherlock/John)  The creativity and planning that went into the two stories in this series is just amazing.  I have a huge place in my heart for Sherlock stories where John is even more extraordinary than Sherlock in a very different way, and this story about John with his consciousness jumping between alternate realities every time he goes to sleep certainly fills that craving.  Bendingsignpost is another one of those writers who has written lots of fics I could just rave about for ages.

-Bring Biscuits by wiggleofjudas (Sherlock, Sherlock/John/Mary)  This fic is like a blanketfort of OT3 happiness.  It's exceptionally sily and loving text fic with Sherlock, John, Mary, and a baby, and re-reading it (or its sequel) is the antidote to all bad feelings caused by accidentally encountering anti-Mary tirades.  Also, at one point Sherlock and John fall into a big display of sex toys and Lestrade takes pictures.

-We Were Emergencies by gyzym.  (Avengers, Natasha/Clint)  This is the gorgeous, emotionally-charged, insightful story of two damaged assassins in love.  It's about recovery from mind control (and recovery in general), subtle and intense at the same time.  I came out of The Avengers craving a story like this, and to find one that filled that craving so brilliantly was marvelous.

-Reconstruction Site by EmilianaDarling.  (Avengers/Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve/Bucky).  This fic perfectly fits my headcanon for Bucky after the events of the movie, and does so with graceful writing and SO MANY FEELS.