A few lists of 2017 things, included book recs and fics:

Author Events: Robin Hobb, M R Carey, Patrick Ness, and Natalie Haynes (all at events put on by Waterstones bookshops in the two cities nearest to me)

Plays seen: Gabriel, Lost Soul, Jayne Eyre, That Play That Goes Wrong (hilarious), Twelfth Night (at the Globe in London!), and A Comedy About A Bank Robbery

Concerts/gigs: Postmodern Jukebox, Hayley Reinhart, and Amanda Palmer (the first time I’ve been to a gig in London, a gig on my own, and to a drag show; I made friends with some strangers and had a wonderful time *grins*)

Trips: Edinburgh, Thought Bubble con in Leeds, and London & Salisbury

Favourite Films seen at the cinema: Hidden Figures, Logan, Gifted, and Thor Ragnarok

Favourite comics of 2017: Saga, The Wicked + The Divine, Runaways, Hawkeye, and Giant Days

Favourite Graphic Novels read in 2017: Porcelain: Ivory Tower, The Secret Loves of Geek Girls, and The Vision (vol2): Little Better Than A Beast

Favourite Books read in 2017:
Instead of listing all the books I’ve read this year, which is what I usually do, I’m going to link you to my goodreads account and then share my favourite books of 2017. Picking favourites is HARD, but I tried -
( Favourite fiction book recs )

Non-fiction: Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Wolf, and Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit, which I read at the start of the year and gave me a much needed boost of optimism in the face of politics

Poetry: Plum by Hollie McNish and Undying by Michael Faber, which is beautiful written and gives voice to so many emotions, and yes it made me cry

Fics posted in 2017: I posted five fics last year, all of which were gifts for other people. Good job I had that as an incentive I think. All Marvel fandom; two Clint/Nat and three Clint/Nat/Bucky.

( 2017 fics )

Life Things in 2017:
( life things in 2017 )

That counts for online friends too – thank you for the fandom chats with me, talking with me about your ideas, prompts, and WIPs, posting new things for me to enjoy, commenting on any of my creative works, and in general being your lovely selves. Sometimes those little things help a big deal *hugs*.

And now it’s 2018! Lots of things to look forward to – starting with a trip to Budapest next week with franztastisch and alphaflyer! What were your 2017 highlights and favourites? Things that you’re looking forward to in 2018?

Friday I went to see Emily St John Mandel at Waterstones in Liverpool for a Station Eleven book event. (March is a month of authors!) To my amusement she was interviewed by a guy who didn't ask many leading questions because he was too busy fanboying - I would be the same in his shoes, ha - but we learnt that she used to be a ballet dancer, the deer in the book has no significance there's just a lot of them in the area, she threw in the ghost moment just for fun, and she's currently writing the script for the comic featured in the book so hopefully that will get a life of its own. There was a lot of talk about book genres, as Station Eleven is one of those lovely books that are difficult to categorise, and technology as well as appreaciation of the now.

Her earlier books have now been released in the UK and the shop had stocked a bunch for the event, which was great because I've been looking for them without success since I finished Station Eleven.

Also, she looks really young, maybe 20, and I had that moment of 'how can she be that young and have written four books already, and have a husband and live in New York, and be all successful and have such a life?!' And I googled and found out she was born in 1979, so she's older than she looks and this made me feel a little better ;)

Then on Saturday I was under instructions to be at the train station bright and early for a surprise trip out, as a birthday present from a friend. The surprise turned out to be a day trip to London for a Sherlock Tour she'd put together! We started at the BBBC Sherlock's 221b with brunch in Speedy's, saw the actual 221b address, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, spent some time searching for that St Barts building at the end of the BBC season 2 and eventually found it (it's at the back of the hospital), and then went to the Sherlock Holmes exhibit at the Museum of London.

To enter the exhibit you "take the second bookcase on your right," which is the best directions I've ever been given, and it's full of fascinating things, including original manuscrips and notebooks for some of the stories, props from films and tv shows, and maps of the time used to write the stories with videos showing what taking those routes would look like in the modern day.

We also had ice cream. Because ice cream.

( Sherlock Tour Photos )

( This is the squee part. Because NEIL GAIMAN AND GAYLE FORMAN. WOW. )

Forman says she she’s been asked why she writes about, and why young people read, dark subjects – the contents of her books include family members dying, a girl dealing with her best friend having committed suicide, depression, and grief. She said that it isn’t about the dark things, not really, but about ordinary people being put in extraordinary circumstances and showing that you can live through them; that ultimately it’s about giving hope.

When asked what the difference is between writing for adults and writing for younger audiences, Neil Gaiman said that when he writes for adults he’s not obliged to offer hope, but when writing younger books he is.

I find this interesting, the idea that the difference between adult literature and young adult literature is hope, not the content of the plot, or swearing, or other criteria that you sometimes see books ‘warning labeled’ for on the back. I’ve been trying to think if I’ve read any YA books without hope and whether I read YA differently to traditionally ‘adult’ books in terms of hopeful expectations. Does anyone else have thinky thoughts on this, in regards to reading and/or writing?

On Friday I went down south to London to meet up with franztastisch and alphaflyer, two lovely fandom ladies :D We talked all day, it was brilliant. Conversation is never boring when it can go from fandom to politics of many countries to legalities to stories of adventures abroad, books, funny factoids, religion, and everything going. We went around Camden, bookshops, and fic tour places like the cafe from Second Mouse:



As well as a Turkish restaurant where franztastisch actually had her food taken away from her because "it seems to be fighting you", which was more hilarious than it ought to have been, but really, best dinner steal ever. Food was tasty and I have now tried baklava. (alphaflyer has the good photos.)

Fandom chatter and fic enabling happened of course *grins* so there should be another Bond/Avengers big bang fic and a huge university AU epic and, huh, I guess I'll have to finish stuff too ;)

Saturday was spent with franztastisch doing more talking, being good by not buying books, and wandering the British Museum. (I have now proven to her flat mate that I'm not a figment of franztastisch's imagination, ha.) And I had to read Life of Crime by neveralarch (explicit, 35,399 words, A supervillain AU where Clint shoots arrows at people and gets beat up a lot. ) because reasons, and because when your return train is delayed by an hour you don't really care if there's fun fanfic to read :)

Sunday night I went to see Postmodern Jukebox. I'd never heard of them but I was told I would love them and I do! They take modern songs and rewrite them in the style of the 1920s-1950s. There was a live band, singers with fantastic voices, adverts/messages from sponsors in the style of the era but for things like facebook, and even a tap dancer. This is one of my favourites:

I went to the Thought Bubble con in Leeds yesterday cosplaying as Fraction’s Natasha (black dress, gold belt with circles, trench coat, red wig, ace of spades) with franztastisch cosplaying as a genderswitched Hawkeye (H hat, target patches on green coat, fantastic arrow sewing on the back of a black jacket, target t-shirt, purple converse, bandages and plasters) and Laura cosplaying as Lady Loki (amazing fur (fake) cloak, tunic dress, horns, evil boots). There were far less cosplayers than at the Manchester MCM, but notables were a couple cosplaying as The Will and Lying Cat (very wow), a Captain Jack (who swayed around in character), a Red Skull (incredible make up), a Bilbo (hobbit feet!), and a Peggy Carter (eating noodles, heh).

We mostly spent the day queuing up to meet and chat with amazing people. Fiona Staples seems surprised-bemused at the attention, aww. David Aja’s queue didn’t. move. for. ages. Then we realised this was because he was cheerful drawing lots of things for lots of people, and even doodling on things he was just supposed to be signing. Also, he asked for a large, black coffee as if wondering why ‘what type of coffee’ was even a question from one of the organisers lol. It was the first time he’d met Matt Fraction and the pair of them kept laughing at each other’s doodles. Matt Fraction is crazy and lovely, climbing across a table to have a photo with me and franztastisch! He saw us and complimented us on our cosplay when we were coming in and was signing at us across the hall when we were queuing! Kelly Sue DeConnick was chatting away to everyone without a break and is the sweetest person, seriously. I will now never stop admiring and fangirling this woman. My kind of crazy. Unfortunately we didn’t get to speak to Emma Rios, but the prints of the upcoming Pretty Deadly comics look incredible. Amusingly Kieron Gillen’s face is only serious when having his photo taken. He loved Laura’s costume, and she went to a Young Avengers panel with him and all the YA artists in the afternoon. We also spoke to Annie Wu who was sketching away and the lovely creative team of Porcelain.

Lots of shiny things, but I didn’t really buy much. Fiona Staples art, which was a must, some Avengers postcards, and a graphic novel. Me and Laura enabled franztastisch in buying comics though. We are shamelessly evil that way, heehee.

We talked over a picnic lunch in a relaxing room that was set up, and after the event finished at 5pm staked out a coffee shop at the train station for another two hours of chatting. There was the kinda nervous meeting online people offline thing – first time I’ve ever done that – but no one was an axe murderer *grins* and if meeting online people offline is always that fun, wow, let’s do it again!

I’m paying for it today, post-op achey and the cold I caught on top plus chatting yesterday means I’ve pretty much lost my voice, but worth it. So very much worth it.

Pictures up soon!

& sarahtales has once again worked her commentary magic, this time on Pacific Rim HERE. It captures all of the things I liked about that film, cheerfully pokes fun at the bits that I found problematic, and is full of hilarity.

& For the love of all things, why do people leave during the credits for Marvel films? When will they learn?! Which is to say that the after credits scene is probably the best bit of the new Wolverine film. It caused much geeking out amongst us. Mind you, the bit at the very end of the credits that thanks the hotel, as in that hotel, you know the one, is an actual hotel possibly caused as much noise. Also fun is tallying how many excuses there are for Hugh Jackman to lose his shirt. This is not the best film you will see this year. But it's fun.

& Far. Too. Many. Comics. But yay, new Saga!!!

& Far too many books, and fics, and tv things, argh.

& I'm reserving judgement on the New Doctor until we've actually seen him as the new Doctor. For all the people commenting on his clothes and scarf in the promo shots: remember when everyone said Matt Smith looked too young and was wearing a leather jacket like Nine, and Amy wasn't even wearing a real police uniform, and this was a travesty? Remember when it turned out that Eleven wore tweed and acted older than the previous two Doctors in some ways and Amy was actually a kissagram? Remember that? Moffat, people. Learn.

& I've been working on heroine big bang graphics. I have two wonderful stories to work with! I'm almost done with the graphics for one of them, but I'm contemplating doing a little actual art thing as well for it. The other I need to crack on with. I'm also loving gearing up to do a postcard graphics project with franztastisch, and playing with some graphics for cybermathwitch, and I think there needs to be more Skottie Young icons...

& I might actually get the rough draft of a fic done for marvel_bang, wow. If I make good use of the bank holiday weekend at the end of this week. Writing hat on!

& I'm going to see Neil Gaiman in Ely tomorrow evening. It's not sinking in. I am so very excited, really, Fangirl: Headless Chicken Version. I still have no idea what I'm going to get signed! I've narrowed it down to Endless Nights, Issue 8 of Sandman (The Sound of Her Wings), and the little gold ghastly book. So I'm taking all three with me, because train reading, plus The Ocean At The End Of The Lane (of course - he's going to sign all copies of that, since that is the point of the book tour, and one other thing for people) but I don't think any more time will help me decide, ha. The friend I'm going with is trying to persuade me to take my laptop - we're staying over in a hotel, there may be a night of internets and a Marvel film. Or we might crash from the excitement; that's a distinct possibility. Then again, that's what sugary food stuffs are for *grins*.

Night all x

I went to Manchester Comicon today with laurajade221b (the friend I dragged to see Amanda Palmer, and who is more than willingly being dragged to see Neil Gaiman), my other half, his sister, a friend of his, and her brother. It was the first time any of us had been to a comicon, so whilst Manchester may be far from the biggest con going (although next year it’s going to be two days instead of just one) it was certainly a big deal for us. It was even more of a big deal because, being the all-out people we are, we decided we were going to cosplay as well.

Yep. First time at a convention and we also do our first time cosplaying.

( Cut for photos, rambling thoughts on first time cosplaying, and rambling about how much fun we had )

I'm going to see Amanda Palmer on Thursday! And Neil Gaiman in Ely when he comes to the UK in August! MY EXCITEMENT CANNOT BE CONTAINED.

I had other things to share, I know I did, but BY THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS, AMANDA PALMER AND NEIL GAIMAN!!! AND IN THE SAME YEAR. WITHIN TWO MONTHS EVEN.

And I'm dragging the same friend to both, heehee. Well, I'm dragging her along to Amanda Palmer because of all my friends I think she'll like the music, but I converted her to a Neil Gaiman fan some time ago and she's as excited about that as me. I do so enjoy enabling people ;)