05 January 2019 @ 10:13 pm
2018 Year In Review  
Or specifically a recap of good things from 2018:

Author Events: Holly Black, Chris Riddell, and Marcus Zusak - not many this year, but all excellent.

Shows/Theatre: The Band, Hamilton (!!!), Happy Days, The Play That Goes Wrong, Queens of the Coal Age, Cirque du Soleil: Ovo, Othello, King Lear (with Ian McKellen!), and Matilda.

Concerts/Gigs: Amanda Palmer, Postmodern Jukebox, and Hozier (ridiculously good live).

Trips: Budapest (!!!) with [personal profile] alphaflyer and [personal profile] franztastisch in January, which was freezing and fantastic, and the Netherlands with the family to visit family friends. Conventions were YALC at LFCC and Thought Bubble in Leeds, which are my two favourite cons and I’m hoping/planning to do both again in 2019. I had a few day trips, including to a Terracotta Warriors exhibition and Bletchley Park. I also went on a weekend writing course, where I met some good people, and on a reunion day for a previous writing course, where I got to re-meet some good people. (How productive and useful I find writing courses, groups, group exercises, and so on varies - the weekend one was actually really good - but I love going to them regardless. I find spending time writing with other people, and chatting about writing and books with other people, to be a really good self care type break.)

Films seen at the cinema: Greatest Showman (is it a good film, I have no idea but I enjoy the hell out of it), Black Panther (SO GOOD), The Shape of Water, Coco, Tomb Raider, Infinity War (ARGH), a Deaf Shorts cinema event that was really interesting, Ant Man and the Wasp, Into The Spiderverse (which I didn’t have any expectations about; it was good fun and I love what they did with the art), and Mary Poppins Returns (on December 31st, squeezing that in there *grins*).

Some Comics Enjoyed in 2018: Runaways, The Wicked and The Divine, West Coast Avengers, Giant Days, Skyward...

Books in 2018: Goodreads tells me I managed to read 108 books. A lot of it was poetry - 22 books - which is unusual for me, but I was doing some exploring and I discovered while there’s a lot out there people say is good that just isn’t my cup of tea, there’s also a bunch that I really do like and it was fun finding out. (Some favourites: You Took The Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston, Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith, Running Upon The Wires by Kate Tempest, and Poems To Live Your Life By chosen and illustrated by Chris Riddell). I read a bunch of fiction about musicians or featuring the music industry (of which my favourites were: Greatest Hits by Laura Barnett, Five Flavours Of Dumb by Antony John, and I Was Born For This by Alice Oseman), because I was in that mood (and there may be a fanfic idea percolating). Others I loved this year: record of a spaceborn few by Becky Chambers, Bygone Badass Broads by Mckenzi Lee, and Giant Days by Non Pratt.

Fics Posted in 2018:

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Back From The Hospital which is Hawkeye and Deadpool. This one owes a lot to the fun Hawkeye vs Deadpool comics run.

In Deed is Bucky having a bad day, and Clint, Natasha, Lucky, and Liho making it better, for [profile] meatball42.

i carry your heart and Welcome To The Neighbourhood were for prompts left by [personal profile] franztastisch and [personal profile] gsparkle in the [community profile] be_compromised Valentine’s mini-promptathon, both Clint/Natasha.

State Your Emergency was my post-post credit Clint Barton scene for Infinity War (because Infinity War, argh).

The Strike Team Delta Method of Brainwashing Recovery is Clint, Natasha, and Bucky for a [personal profile] franztastisch prompt. (I didn’t have time to write anything for the [community profile] be_compromised summer promptathon, but then I had a hellish travel day where I was stuck on trains for over 8 hours. I’ve managed to squeeze in a fair bit of writing on transport with the help of google docs.)

Not super productive, but I did manage to post more finished words than in 2017 and I’ll aim to top that again in 2019!

And to finish, a couple of photos from 2018:


We made it to Budapest!


Terracotta Warriors


A view in the Lake District (North of England), just ‘cause I like this photo.


A bombe machine at Bletchley Park - fascinating place to visit.


IKEA bookshelves me and my dad put together in the summer. (Somehow we managed to trap a pencil between two of them, but a few months later I finally managed to fish it out with a ruler.)


Cosplay at the 2018 Thought Bubble Convention. I was pleased with how my Old Lace turned out.


Illustrator Chris Riddell live drawing as a voice actor read from The Tales of Beedle The Bard.

What good things did everyone else get up to in 2018? Any recs of books/films/comics you discovered?
 
 
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alphaflyer[personal profile] alphaflyer on January 6th, 2019 05:06 am (UTC)
Cool idea, doing a Year in Review.! And yes, Budapest was an early and definite highlight! <3

Mine included a visit to Northern Uganda which was eye-opening - meeting victims of the Lord's Resistance Army and seeing the work being done for their physical and psycho-social rehabilitation. Got to go home to Canada a couple of times, including visiting Kidlet in her tiny lair at uni. And family trips to France (Vimy, Amiens, Normandy); Germany (Cologne, the Moselle region); Austria (Vienna and Salzkammergut); and more Germany (Christmas markets!).

I am woefully under-read. My discretionary reading time is wasted spent on scrolling through newsfeeds, alas. Haven't cracked a book in eons... :P

Happy New Year!

inkvoices[personal profile] inkvoices on January 9th, 2019 10:09 pm (UTC)
I like to look back at the end of the year and remember, actually, that there were lots of good things even if some big, bad ones might have overshadowed them for a bit or warped time so you think a thing happened ages ago that really wasn't that long ago at all. Even if I really don't like New Year's Eve, heh. Budapest was such good fun in a beautiful city; I'm so glad we managed to pull that trip off :D

Uganda sounds like a really interesting, if heavy, experience and I'm glad you managed lots of family trips. Look forward to hearing your travelling tales when next we meet!

I try to limit my news intake these days because after a certain point it's just draining. I can't not read though, be that fanfic or books, novellas or poetry. I love books, but just so long as there's words being read and new ideas. I'm thinking I might make this year one of trying to fit more non-fiction... Last year year was poetry. I still end up reading mostly fiction, becaause that's my happy place, but good to mix it up a bit.

Happy New Year!
Sugar_Fey[personal profile] sugar_fey on January 6th, 2019 09:45 am (UTC)
Oooh, you went to so many cool places this year! I would love to go to Bletchley Park and Budapest.
inkvoices[personal profile] inkvoices on January 9th, 2019 10:15 pm (UTC)
I really enjoyed both of those, would love to go back to both, and would recommend :D If you're ever in London, Bletchley Park is about half an hour by train from Euston station and then a 5 minute walk and very worth it. Budapest was getting there, but once there the living costs (food, transport, trips) was kind in comparison to the UK.

I like the history of the people who lived and worked in Blethchley as much, if not more, than the technical type history although both were interesting. They have projected images of people dressed in the stype of the time telling you about what they were doing, and vidoes of intereviews with people who actually worked there, and such fascinating little stories about day-to-day life.

Budapest was great fun because of the company and, naturally, the fandom slant to the trip *grins* and is a beautiful city with lots of interesting architecture and places of worship and so much history.

/end excited chatter about holidays here ;)

Any favourite travels or day trips of 2018 for you?
Megan[personal profile] mahmfic on January 11th, 2019 08:59 pm (UTC)
sounds like 2018 was an awesome year for you
inkvoices[personal profile] inkvoices on January 14th, 2019 08:42 pm (UTC)
Well, it had its downsides but that's why I like to list all the good stuff because sometimes it feels like the bad is too heavy, somehow blots out all the rest, but I got to see all these people too and do fun things with them! Hope you had some good things in 2018 too :)

Edited 2019-01-14 08:42 pm (UTC)