End of the Year Q&A

 Song of the year? Anoana Heilung It's one of those songs that reset your soul.

Album of the year? All Nerve The Breeders This album actually came out in 2018, but I only found it this year. It's the first album in a while that I've listened to all the way through, many times, and really thought about a lot.

Favorite musical artist / group you started listening to this year. alyona alyona, a Ukranian artist who raps fiercely and sings like a damned angel. 

Movie of the year? I think the one I enjoyed the most was the new Hellraiser. I know a lot of people were against it because of the gender switch, but I usually find genderswaps interesting and I did in this case as well. Better yet, the movie had a clear plot, which is rare in Hellraiser movies. 

TV show of the year? House of the Dragon. Great performances, great costuming. I love that we're learning more about the culture of dragon riders. The showrunners made some odd choices in how they structured the timeline, but I'm applying my 'all adaptations are alternative universes' philosophy and just letting it ride. 

Having said that, the content I enjoyed the most this year was podcasts.  I listened to the totality of The Magnus Archives. I caught up with Old Gods of Appalachia and The Silt Verses. I started The Black Tapes and Hello from the Hallowoods. All this is surpassed anything else media-wise.

Episode of tv or webisode that defined the year for you? It's from Old Gods of Appalachia and involved The Railroad Man and Jack trading barbs over who owed who what now. I'm always here for well-done trickster content. 

Favorite actor of the year? Méabh de Brún, who plays Sister Carpenter in The Silt Verses. If this list had a bit for Best Character Arc it would be Sister's Carpenter's over the first two seasons of the podcast. There is a moment when she accepts a certain something about herself that gave me the chills harder than anything else has in a long while. 

Best month for you this year? August, weirdly. It was hot but nothing screwed up. Basically, every other month was a stressful mess.

Something that made you cry this year? Okay a lot of stuff, but I want to go with one of the uplifting things and say that commercial where the guy makes his grandmother's recipe for the holiday meal and her ghost is watching him. 

Something you want to do again next year? Listen to podcasts. Create stuff.

And in relating back to the last question, just to put it out there, I would like to shed more tears this year over well-written fiction than over bullshit going wrong in the real world. Enough of that. Give us a year of peace and quiet. Give us a year to recover and be okay again. 

Favorite book you read this year? Blindsight by Peter Watts. I usually don't go for hard sci-fi, but this had vampires so I couldn't help myself. It ended up having the kind of nihilistic vision of the future that I assume will probably happen and questioning everything we value about ourselves. 

What’s something you learned this year? I really learned a lot about writing and writing techniques. They've changed a lot over the last decade and I think implementing the newer style has made my writing stronger. 

If you could send a message to yourself back on the first day of the year, what would it be? Shockingly, you will still be writing at the end of the year.

Did you keep any New Year’s Resolutions? I did, actually. My resolution was to spend the year writing fan fiction and I did. I am very proud of myself for that. I plan on having at least one more fic out before the year ends.