a look at 2022 (i hope!)
Jan. 5th, 2022 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
particularitiesSOME THINGS I'D LIKE TO GET DONE...
this is actually a pretty small list of things to get done, now that i think about it... i didn't want to aim too high and get nothing done, so i decided to stick with this as is. for each section, the points are either listed in descending order of completeness (if the list is numbered) or no particular order (if the list is a bullet point list)!
ALSO APOLOGIES FOR THE COLOURS they look a bit insane to me um... let's just roll with it for now shall we... !!! i had a better colour scheme initially but i decided to use that for a different very long thing i'm working on that i'll hopefully post on dreamwidth as well. (it is for one of the media analyses so hopefully i will complete it and the colours will not be wasted in vain!)
OK I CAN EXPLAIN... actually i can't. i hate 2/4 of the x-men prequel movies (as in the 2011-2019 movies... yeah i think apocalypse and dark phoenix are the worst things to ever exist). i have SO MANY gripes with this cinematic universe oh my god, starting with how pissy and annoying they made hank and charles, and how they KEEP MAKING ERIK THE VILLAIN EVEN THOUGH HE'S ALWAYS RIGHT. MAGNETO WAS RIGHT. not to get too heated or anything but like...
regardless i want to write my own little Look into hank's brain. i like the idea of using fic as a way to explore and extend what's given to us in canon... so i will be doing that! but it might be a bit canon-divergent because i refuse to make hank as self-loathing for as long as he is. it pisses me off so badddd why do they movies make the characters so insufferable... I HATE THE WRITERS so much...
general themes this would get into is like. internalised mutantphobia... internalised homophobia/biphobia... the intersection of both of these... (yes mutantphobia is completely hypothetical but i will write about it anyway) and how hank's feelings for/about people might help shape his personal growth. Anyone else feel like unrequited romantic feelings are fun to play with in fic btw? (maybe i'm just too unhappy and single to make characters happy. oops)
i actually don't have any particular ideas for this rn... the hank one i have some vague ideas of what to write and what the Plot could be. for this one i just have a concept... both of these fics are going to focus on [unrequited] romantic feelings. but i think this one is gonna lean more into the Sad aspect of unrequited feelings... i want q to be a bit pathetic. i think that's fun sorry!
also why are these both about the scientist characters. someone needs to examine the relationship gay people have with their little scientist characters!
the movies introduce a lot of very interesting themes... and then just do not discuss them at all. it would be so interesting to interrogate (ha) how bond's profession and his personal life are entangled, and how difficult it is to separate the two (and is it even possible to do that, anyway?). or how the things he has to do in his job affect his psyche. how his trauma affects his ability to have an actual life, and how that's made even harder by the fact that his personal life... literally cannot exist because he cannot escape his job.
sorry i know these are a lot of words that are probably confusing even if you've seen the movies because i'm still trying to find a way to put words to the thoughts in my head!!! but there are SO many concepts that are super interesting and the movies don't discuss. which is fair, because there's only so much Movie and there's only so much you can do within the movies. especially since they have such interesting plotlines and themes already so it's challenging to work even more introspection in! but that's why i want to think about them personally i guess.
the reason i called this the Contradictions of james bond is that sometimes characters say some things that are absolutely bewildering because they do NOT jive with the character of james bond who is shown in the movies. this is like. somewhat of a mild spoiler... but a character says to bond that he's not "built to trust". but it's like. ?!!!! he IS though. he's so much softer on the inside than everyone thinks he is and than he pretends to be... and even the people he cares for the most don't know that about him. he keeps trusting people despite being a spy and that's both his fatal flaw and the thing that keeps him human!!! the PROBLEM isn't that he isn't built to trust. it's that he is, and he keeps getting betrayed... no matter how many times people hurt him, he just keeps trusting people.
so yeah i just want to... talk about all of the themes i wish they'd had time to explore in the movies! i think daniel craig said once he was bothered by how bond's character was focused a lot more on physicality than on personality (paraphrased very extremely) but i think his portrayal lent a lot of humanity to the character, and it was a pretty consistent performance throughout too so it really gives us a Lot To Unpack Here. which i am excited to do!!! i've already gotten started on this because i haven't stopped thinking about these movies for more than a month but. very slow progress (i have more than 4k words written already but it's super slow going because i'm not used to doing analyses of media so putting words to feelings is hard. this is something i hope to work on this year too!)
i want to think about this from the angles of: was it a good standalone movie? (yes imo. sorry to spoil it. but yes.) was it a good conclusion to the series? (in some respects yes... although its implications for mental health might be troubling, considering bond's character arc and the way trauma and betrayal have impacted every inch of his life).
sorry this section has a lot fewer words than the first bond analysis i want to write because i've worked on this a lot less... as i said. descending order of completeness!
i think i personally enjoy fics a lot when they're set in the canon universe and explore themes that are In canon but aren't Explored! kinda like the themes i'd like to talk about in the first analysis in this section. and i also like when they have a tone similar to canon. for instance, one of my favourite craig-era bond fics explores the implicit sexualisation of bond that's done by the canon, where people assume that he's easy and promiscuous because of what he does in his line of work, without really considering that there's an actual person underneath that. (if anyone's interested: To the Victor Go the Spoils by beaubete. sorry if i didn't explain the themes super well i think the author did a really good job with this and a bit of it might've gone over my head)
this would just be more of a... list, for personal reference i guess, because i want to figure out what themes i like seeing explored in fic! cause obviously not every piece of media has the same themes, so they wouldn't all discuss the same themes. so it would be Cool to see the whole range of what people write about.
(also in case anyone was Worried let me defend myself and say i'm not some kinda fic elitist i'm down for a good au... i just think canon-compliant stuff that explores themes within the canon body of work has a specific type of Deliciousness to it too...)
i've recently discovered a love of film and i really want to watch a LOT more this year... i waste a lot of time doing things that are useless, generally, and watching movies is much better a use of my time than doomscrolling instagram or reddit or whatever. i haven't seen a lot of iconic franchises or film directors' movies, so i want to rectify that in 2022! (i will forgive myself if i watch a lot of western/english movies this year instead of expanding my horizons because everyone has to start somewhere... hopefully i'll make it through the more Required Pop Culture Watches quickly and then i can try to watch more niche movies.)
my priorities rn are: the lord of the rings trilogy (2/3 done and i am in LOVE?!), star wars (i watched 1977's star wars/a new hope on the 3rd and that was my first star wars EVER), the dark knight trilogy, and... i can't think of more rn but i'll make a more complete list sometime maybe.
i only have one real reading goal for this year which is. i want to read the lord of the rings... i've had a copy of the book since i was like. 8. and now that i've watched (and enjoyed!!!) the movies, i think it's finally time to get started on the book. the length is, admittedly, intimidating... but that's why i'm giving myself the whole year to read this ONE (1) book. this is my only Solid goal for the year.
but also hopefully i'll [continue to] read some marvel comics this year! i am a really disorganised comic reader and so i don't have any real handle on the canon or timeline... maybe this will be the year i read in an orderly fashion.
IDK I REALLY LOVE READING PEOPLE'S MONTHLY MEDIA CONSUMPTIONS ON HERE... i don't know if i'll consume enough media/varied enough types of media to actually make substantial posts but i'd like to make some kind of summary every month i think that'd be fun! i also think it could be a fun way to try new css formatting bits and bobs (for instance, i tried Something in this post... not sure how well it worked, but it's certainly Something...) and get some practice in, so. here's to a more... reflective dw presence i guess!
i've wanted to get a penpal for a WHILE and i finally bit the bullet and made a post on r/penpals and i have a few people who seem interesting to talk to which is exciting! snail mail + writing on pen and paper has a certain appeal and i really wanted to capture some Zest for life by having new people to talk to... i think i was sorta inspired to bring some little joy into my life after seeing this video where actor/Incredibly Interesting Person rajiv surendra talks about his day-to-day life and. idk it was really inspiring! i want to have things that bring me joy and take deliberate actions to do that. and penpalling was my choice!
also if anyone here wants to be penpals (like via snail mail) u can like... message me... i would be open to that for sure! internet mutuals to penpal friends would be an interesting progression.
idk WHAT i was doing when i set up my dreamwidth but all the colours on my page clash and it is PISSING ME AWF... so i want to change the colours up sometime this year. it's just so annoying to do because dreamwidth is so unnecessarily fiddly and annoying which is just GRAH. not much to this point i just do not like the colours on my dw theme rn...
i also have a few new year's resolutions, but those are going to stay in my diary until the end of the year, when i will hopefully make a post reflecting on whether i actually accomplished what i set out to do this year. and my tech-related projects remain largely consistent with the ones i stated in my holiday plans post so i won't be updating those until i make a serious dent in those plans!
thank you for reading this and HAPPY NEW YEAR! :] <3
ALSO APOLOGIES FOR THE COLOURS they look a bit insane to me um... let's just roll with it for now shall we... !!! i had a better colour scheme initially but i decided to use that for a different very long thing i'm working on that i'll hopefully post on dreamwidth as well. (it is for one of the media analyses so hopefully i will complete it and the colours will not be wasted in vain!)
fics
1. untitled hank mccoy-centric x-men prequel films fic
OK I CAN EXPLAIN... actually i can't. i hate 2/4 of the x-men prequel movies (as in the 2011-2019 movies... yeah i think apocalypse and dark phoenix are the worst things to ever exist). i have SO MANY gripes with this cinematic universe oh my god, starting with how pissy and annoying they made hank and charles, and how they KEEP MAKING ERIK THE VILLAIN EVEN THOUGH HE'S ALWAYS RIGHT. MAGNETO WAS RIGHT. not to get too heated or anything but like...
regardless i want to write my own little Look into hank's brain. i like the idea of using fic as a way to explore and extend what's given to us in canon... so i will be doing that! but it might be a bit canon-divergent because i refuse to make hank as self-loathing for as long as he is. it pisses me off so badddd why do they movies make the characters so insufferable... I HATE THE WRITERS so much...
general themes this would get into is like. internalised mutantphobia... internalised homophobia/biphobia... the intersection of both of these... (yes mutantphobia is completely hypothetical but i will write about it anyway) and how hank's feelings for/about people might help shape his personal growth. Anyone else feel like unrequited romantic feelings are fun to play with in fic btw? (maybe i'm just too unhappy and single to make characters happy. oops)
2. untitled q-centric james bond (daniel craig) fic
i actually don't have any particular ideas for this rn... the hank one i have some vague ideas of what to write and what the Plot could be. for this one i just have a concept... both of these fics are going to focus on [unrequited] romantic feelings. but i think this one is gonna lean more into the Sad aspect of unrequited feelings... i want q to be a bit pathetic. i think that's fun sorry!
also why are these both about the scientist characters. someone needs to examine the relationship gay people have with their little scientist characters!
media meta/analysis/personal thoughts
1. the contradictions of james bond — daniel craig movies
the movies introduce a lot of very interesting themes... and then just do not discuss them at all. it would be so interesting to interrogate (ha) how bond's profession and his personal life are entangled, and how difficult it is to separate the two (and is it even possible to do that, anyway?). or how the things he has to do in his job affect his psyche. how his trauma affects his ability to have an actual life, and how that's made even harder by the fact that his personal life... literally cannot exist because he cannot escape his job.
sorry i know these are a lot of words that are probably confusing even if you've seen the movies because i'm still trying to find a way to put words to the thoughts in my head!!! but there are SO many concepts that are super interesting and the movies don't discuss. which is fair, because there's only so much Movie and there's only so much you can do within the movies. especially since they have such interesting plotlines and themes already so it's challenging to work even more introspection in! but that's why i want to think about them personally i guess.
the reason i called this the Contradictions of james bond is that sometimes characters say some things that are absolutely bewildering because they do NOT jive with the character of james bond who is shown in the movies. this is like. somewhat of a mild spoiler... but a character says to bond that he's not "built to trust". but it's like. ?!!!! he IS though. he's so much softer on the inside than everyone thinks he is and than he pretends to be... and even the people he cares for the most don't know that about him. he keeps trusting people despite being a spy and that's both his fatal flaw and the thing that keeps him human!!! the PROBLEM isn't that he isn't built to trust. it's that he is, and he keeps getting betrayed... no matter how many times people hurt him, he just keeps trusting people.
so yeah i just want to... talk about all of the themes i wish they'd had time to explore in the movies! i think daniel craig said once he was bothered by how bond's character was focused a lot more on physicality than on personality (paraphrased very extremely) but i think his portrayal lent a lot of humanity to the character, and it was a pretty consistent performance throughout too so it really gives us a Lot To Unpack Here. which i am excited to do!!! i've already gotten started on this because i haven't stopped thinking about these movies for more than a month but. very slow progress (i have more than 4k words written already but it's super slow going because i'm not used to doing analyses of media so putting words to feelings is hard. this is something i hope to work on this year too!)
2. was no time to die good? — james bond (daniel craig movies)
i want to think about this from the angles of: was it a good standalone movie? (yes imo. sorry to spoil it. but yes.) was it a good conclusion to the series? (in some respects yes... although its implications for mental health might be troubling, considering bond's character arc and the way trauma and betrayal have impacted every inch of his life).
sorry this section has a lot fewer words than the first bond analysis i want to write because i've worked on this a lot less... as i said. descending order of completeness!
3. themes that make fics good — sorry idk how to explain this one
i think i personally enjoy fics a lot when they're set in the canon universe and explore themes that are In canon but aren't Explored! kinda like the themes i'd like to talk about in the first analysis in this section. and i also like when they have a tone similar to canon. for instance, one of my favourite craig-era bond fics explores the implicit sexualisation of bond that's done by the canon, where people assume that he's easy and promiscuous because of what he does in his line of work, without really considering that there's an actual person underneath that. (if anyone's interested: To the Victor Go the Spoils by beaubete. sorry if i didn't explain the themes super well i think the author did a really good job with this and a bit of it might've gone over my head)
this would just be more of a... list, for personal reference i guess, because i want to figure out what themes i like seeing explored in fic! cause obviously not every piece of media has the same themes, so they wouldn't all discuss the same themes. so it would be Cool to see the whole range of what people write about.
(also in case anyone was Worried let me defend myself and say i'm not some kinda fic elitist i'm down for a good au... i just think canon-compliant stuff that explores themes within the canon body of work has a specific type of Deliciousness to it too...)
media consumption
movies
i've recently discovered a love of film and i really want to watch a LOT more this year... i waste a lot of time doing things that are useless, generally, and watching movies is much better a use of my time than doomscrolling instagram or reddit or whatever. i haven't seen a lot of iconic franchises or film directors' movies, so i want to rectify that in 2022! (i will forgive myself if i watch a lot of western/english movies this year instead of expanding my horizons because everyone has to start somewhere... hopefully i'll make it through the more Required Pop Culture Watches quickly and then i can try to watch more niche movies.)
my priorities rn are: the lord of the rings trilogy (2/3 done and i am in LOVE?!), star wars (i watched 1977's star wars/a new hope on the 3rd and that was my first star wars EVER), the dark knight trilogy, and... i can't think of more rn but i'll make a more complete list sometime maybe.
reading
i only have one real reading goal for this year which is. i want to read the lord of the rings... i've had a copy of the book since i was like. 8. and now that i've watched (and enjoyed!!!) the movies, i think it's finally time to get started on the book. the length is, admittedly, intimidating... but that's why i'm giving myself the whole year to read this ONE (1) book. this is my only Solid goal for the year.
but also hopefully i'll [continue to] read some marvel comics this year! i am a really disorganised comic reader and so i don't have any real handle on the canon or timeline... maybe this will be the year i read in an orderly fashion.
general
monthly media consumption
IDK I REALLY LOVE READING PEOPLE'S MONTHLY MEDIA CONSUMPTIONS ON HERE... i don't know if i'll consume enough media/varied enough types of media to actually make substantial posts but i'd like to make some kind of summary every month i think that'd be fun! i also think it could be a fun way to try new css formatting bits and bobs (for instance, i tried Something in this post... not sure how well it worked, but it's certainly Something...) and get some practice in, so. here's to a more... reflective dw presence i guess!
penpalling
i've wanted to get a penpal for a WHILE and i finally bit the bullet and made a post on r/penpals and i have a few people who seem interesting to talk to which is exciting! snail mail + writing on pen and paper has a certain appeal and i really wanted to capture some Zest for life by having new people to talk to... i think i was sorta inspired to bring some little joy into my life after seeing this video where actor/Incredibly Interesting Person rajiv surendra talks about his day-to-day life and. idk it was really inspiring! i want to have things that bring me joy and take deliberate actions to do that. and penpalling was my choice!
also if anyone here wants to be penpals (like via snail mail) u can like... message me... i would be open to that for sure! internet mutuals to penpal friends would be an interesting progression.
update dw theme colours...!!!
idk WHAT i was doing when i set up my dreamwidth but all the colours on my page clash and it is PISSING ME AWF... so i want to change the colours up sometime this year. it's just so annoying to do because dreamwidth is so unnecessarily fiddly and annoying which is just GRAH. not much to this point i just do not like the colours on my dw theme rn...
i also have a few new year's resolutions, but those are going to stay in my diary until the end of the year, when i will hopefully make a post reflecting on whether i actually accomplished what i set out to do this year. and my tech-related projects remain largely consistent with the ones i stated in my holiday plans post so i won't be updating those until i make a serious dent in those plans!
thank you for reading this and HAPPY NEW YEAR! :] <3
