Your main fandom of the year? That would really have to be The Big Bang Theory. It's hard to believe that I hadn't seen a single episode this time last year! But it's true. I rapidly cycled through complete love to intense disappointment to a more balanced critical approach, which is where I am now with the show.

Your favorite film watched this year? This is incredibly difficult to answer, considering I watched the following films this year: Hamlet (RSC, Tennant/Stewart), Moon, How to Train Your Dragon The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, and The Secret of Kells. So. Yes.

Your favorite book read this year? This is also incredibly difficult to answer, considering I read Feed by Mira Grant, the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, The Demon's Lexicon & The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan, the first Flora Segunda novel by Ysabeau Wilce, Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett, the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, and several other awesome books. So. Yes.

Your favorite album or song to listen to this year? This is the year I discovered Lady Gaga, and spent an inordinate amount of time listening to The Fame and The Fame Monster.

Your favorite TV show of the year? Doctor Who, True Blood, The Big Bang Theory, The Vampire Diaries, The Guild, Eureka, Warehouse 13, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Sherlock, and The Venture Brothers. I think that's all. Maybe. Oh, no! Community, as well.

Your favorite DW community of the year? Alas, I didn't spend a lot of time on DW this year. If we switch the question to LJ, however, I would say bigbang_land.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year? For most of the year, this belongs primarily to The Big Bang Theory, before life and fandom-funk caught up with me in the fourth quarter. The year is ending with a burgeoning obsession with The Hunger Games.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year? Lost. I can't even remember the good times, the five years of fannish glee and theorizing, because of the complete awfulness of the resolution.

Your TV boyfriend of the year? Oh, yes. That would be Alexander Skarsgard as Eric in True Blood, with a side of Ian Somerholder as Damon in The Vampire Diaries. Possibly some Misha Collins as Castiel in Supernatural as a dessert.

Your TV girlfriend of the year? Felicia Day, all the way! And a little bit Allison Scagliotti as Claudia from Warehouse 13 as well.

Your biggest squee moment of the year? There aren't many specifics leaping to mind right at this moment, but I'm sure most of them were contained in the latest season of Doctor Who. Oh! And then there was the porch kiss from The Vampire Diaries.

The most missed of your old fandoms? Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Not that the brilliance of the show and related fandom has gone anywhere; it's just that this is the year I decided to catch up on the so-called S8 comics, which I have formally struck from canon (although I haven't yet talked about that here).

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to? Fringe! I keep hearing such good things about this show - I can't wait to actually watch it. I'm also interested in finally getting on board with Inception, and doing more than avidly reading in The Hunger Games fandom.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year? New Doctor Who! Finally catching up with S2 of The Vampire Diaries! Seeing where the hell this surprisingly riveting season of Supernatural is going! A Game of Thrones!

I hate to default on my first day of doing the Fannish Advent Calendar, but between working and getting sick, I'm just not going to be able to post a piece of flashfic today.

I'll make up for it, though! Hopefully with two pieces tomorrow - we shall see! If not, I guess we'll be seeing multiple pieces over the weekend.

Looking at pictures of the Harry Potter actors aged for the epilogue sequence for the last film, I just have to ask:

They should be in their late 30s when that scene unfolds at the train station. Why do they all look like they're in their 50s? (And so disturbingly hard-used by life, yikes.)

Now that I've doubled the number of The Vampire Diaries episodes I've seen (yes, since yesterday!), let's expand on my thoughts:

I just finished watching "Unpleasantville" (or S01E12) a few minutes ago, and I have to say that I haven't felt this compelled to fall headlong into a television show since Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the entirety of which I watched in just a couple of months back in 2005).

There are definitely shows I've fallen head over heels for in the past few years - my love for True Blood is one such, and GoD knows I mainlined that series 3-4 episodes at a pop when I started watching it in S2 - but I was able to restrict myself to viewing it once a week, teasing out the enjoyment.

I'm also heavily into The Big Bang Theory, and zoomed through its first 3 seasons pretty quickly as well. But, again, I was able to save that for once- or twice-a-week viewings and it lasted me a few months. (Also, my relationship with that show is fraught: my love is tempered by my heavy criticism of the writers.)

But I haven't felt this overwhelming need to immediately consume the text as quickly as possible, to revisit it as soon as possible, to start analyzing and drawing parallels and writing notes as I watch in quite some time. (I'm not counting Doctor Who in this statement - that's a very old romance.)

I have criticisms. The text is nowhere near perfect, nor would I want it to be. That would make it much less interesting. Sometimes I think things move too quickly to reach their full thematic resonance, but I also thrill with how quickly everything can completely change. Fully embracing the ephemeral nature of life - and of a human life compared to savage, immortal monsters and a hidden supernatural world - well, that's thematically resonant in itself.

I want to write about Vicki and Lexi and Bree. I want to write about how stoked I am that they're pulling no punches with Damon's characterization. I want to write about how they're not depicting Stefan with an Angel syndrome, nor hiding from Elena that he's not a good person in the everyday moral understanding of the word. I appreciate that Elena is changing, clearly yet subtly (much like Sookie Stackhouse evolves in the Harris books, which is something that Paquin and Ball haven't managed to convey well in True Blood). I'm delighted with how they work in all those pesky questions about vampire mechanics, and I guiltily (yet gleefully) admit that I'm really down with Elena/Damon. (Yeah, I was much more Buffy/Spike than I was ever Buffy/Angel too.)

I love the dialogue quips. I respect that they don't flinch from convoluted back story, and expect their readers to keep up with bombshells conveyed in dialogue. I'm incredibly pleased with the direction of the episodes, and the directors' abilities to invoke a menacing atmosphere in such comparatively little space (since they're generally juggling teenage drama intercut with life-and-death games on the supernatural front).

I even really dig the music, though I must add to my earlier definition of "CW Land": not only is it the land of the incredibly good-looking and trendily-dressed, it is also the land of the constantly-swelling pop or indie music.

Anyway, I'd really like to go into further detail about a number of the things I mention above, but it's already half past ten and I need to be getting some work done before bed.

I can't believe that I already want to rewatch this series.

Another picspam for a challenge hosted by Big Bang Land! This one features five of my favorite conversations from Season 1 of The Big Bang Theory.

I found my caps at Caps by Emma-Jane and Screencaps.org.

Enjoy!

( This way for the picspam! )

Big Bang Land hosted a picspam challenge, and I chose to explore five of my favorite Sheldon moments! I tried not to go with the totally obvious favorite moments (for me) in this picspam, so you won't find any pics from "The Panty Pinata Polarization" or "The Work Song Nanocluster" or "The Barbarian Sublimation" or "The Einstein Approximation," or... I'll stop there. What can I say? Sheldon is just a whole bucket of ♥s to me.

I got my caps from Caps by Emma-Jane and Screencaps.org, except for one notable exception: the winking-Penny cap was specifically taken for me by kasiopeia (once more, sugar, you are fabulous!).

Enjoy!

( Click the cut to see the picspam! )

I have been absent far too long! But that's what happens when assignments come due and there is a local con to get to: I've been spending every spare moment writing or working, for the most part, with a quick visit to Faerie Escape Atlanta last weekend. It's another 10-hour shift at work today but, before I go, have a drabble I wrote for TrueBlood100's 19th challenge, "Instinct."

Title: Through Death, and What Pam Found There
Rating: PG-13.
Characters/Pairings: Pam/Eric.
Word Count: 120.
Spoilers: None, really, as this takes place about a century ago.
Disclaimer: Neither True Blood nor the Southern Vampire Mysteries are my sandboxes; I just like playing in them. All fun, no profit.
Summary: Pam seeks a Wonderland in the garden, and finds herself tripping through the rabbit hole into death and beyond.

( Drabble behind the cut. )

DOWNLOAD HERE

Screencaps are 624x352 HD.
They represent every 2 seconds of screentime excepting where there were no appreciable differences to the frames captured.

Let me know if you download. Thanks!

( Screencap samples behind the cut. )

If you discover the download link has expired, please let me know and I'll re-upload the files.

Before tonight's episode, I thought it might be fun to step back and enjoy the FULL-ON DOUBLE RAINBOW that is the fucked-upness of the courtship of Tara Thornton by Franklin Mott.

I'm not saying that ( spoiler )... just pointing out that ( spoiler ).

I'm not saying that ( spoiler )... just pointing out that ( spoiler ).



There is no way in which this picspam is dial-up friendly. Also, this totally breaks my Livejournal style, but I don't have time to fix it right now. If you'd like to read it in an unbroken style, you can view it at Dreamwidth.

Thanks to deny1984 at midnight_road for the caps!

( PICSPAM OF DOOM... in no way friendly to dial-up! )



You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently comments.

Episode Title: "The Pack"
Writers: Matt Kiene and Joe Reinkemeyer
Episode Number: 1.6

Spoilers. And, as usual, I got my script transcripts from TWIZ TV.

( Demon Lore, in four parts. )

( Slayer Notes. )

( Characterization. )

( Themes. )

( Miscellaneous. )

Giles Knock-Out Count

KO #3: The zookeeper knocks Giles out with his staff-- first a blow to the gut, then a blow to the back/head. He drags him off-stage and into the maintenance area behind one of the walls of the exhibit.

Favorite Quotes

Principal Flutie: "Today it's all gangs and drugs and those movies on Showtime with the nudity. I don't have cable, I only heard."

Coach, on how to play dodgeball: "Now, for those of you that may have forgotten, the rules are as follows: you dodge."

Coach, on dodgeball: "God, this game is brutal. I love it."

Giles: "It's devastating. He's turned into a 16-year-old boy. Of course, you'll have to kill him."

Giles: "Testosterone is a great equalizer. It turns all men into morons. He will, however, get over it."

Buffy: "I can't believe you, of all people, are trying to Scully me."

Willow: "What're you gonna do?"
Giles: "Get my books. Look stuff up."

Buffy: "It shouldn't be too hard to find a new principal. Unless they ask what happened to the last one."

2010 Update

Now that I've actually watched all of The X-Files, I finally caught Buffy's Scully comment in this episode. Heh.


Links

Analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Movie
Analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Origin comic
Analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1.1: "Welcome to the Hellmouth"
Analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1.2: "The Harvest"
Analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1.3: "The Witch"
Analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Viva Las Buffy! comic
Analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1.4: "Teacher's Pet"
Analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1.5: "Never Kill A Boy On the First Date"