2014 lists
last week I finally finished my 2014 project, at least to the extent it will ever be finished. were there originally supposed to be fourteen lists? maybe. the world may never know.
but here's the eight lists I did all in one place in case you are at all interested in that. including the rest of the TV show list. sorry about that.
FOURTEEN TV SHOWS I WATCHED IN 2014
Star Treks (Deep Space Nine & The Next Generation)
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Good Wife
How I Met Your Mother
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Once Upon a Time
The Mindy Project (*1x10 "Mindy's Brother", 1x14 "Harry & Mindy", 1x18 "Danny's Friend", 1x22 "Triathalon")
Game of Thrones (*2x09 "Blackwater", 3x01 "Valar Dohaeris", 3x05 "Kissed by Fire")
Orphan Black (*the majority of the second season was golden let's be honest)
Haikyuu!! (*1x12 "The Neko-Karasu Reunion)
Castle (*4x22 "Undead Again", 2x02 "The Double Down", 2x11 "The Fifth Bullet", 3x19 "Law & Murder", 3x22 "To Love and Die in L.A.")
Doctor Who (*7x02 "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", 7x07 "The Rings of Akhaten", 7x08 "Cold War", 7x10 "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS", 8x03 "Robot of Sherwood", 8x04 "Listen", 8x09 "Flatline", 8x10 "In the Forest of the Night")
Fringe (*5x12 "Liberty")
Arrow (*1x05 "Damaged", 1x10 "Burned", 1x14 "The Odyssey", 1x15 "Dodger")
THIRTEEN FANTASTIC CHARACTERS I MET IN 2014
there were a lot of characters I was very obsessed with last year but I limited my list to characters I'd never watched or read before
Elsa (Frozen)
Tora Ziyal (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Finn Polmar (The Good Wife)
Ro Laren (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Sam Wilson (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)
Hinata Shouyou (Haikyuu!)
Porthos (The Musketeers)
Ezri Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Aeryn Sun (Farscape)
Diana Brooke-Holt (Jaran books)
Lord John Grey (Outlander books)
The Twelfth Doctor (Doctor Who)
Ronan Lynch (The Raven Cycle)
TWELVE BOOKS/BOOK SERIES I READ IN 2014
NK Jemisin - The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms & The Broken Kingdoms (BEAUTIFUL fantasy with a focus on characters and relationships and fantasy cultures & the gods who mess with their lives)
Emily M. Danforth - The Miseducation of Cameron Post (loss and grief and teenagers and homosexuality and prejudice in rural Montana in the 1990s)
Marie Lu - Prodigy & Champion (the futuristic dystopian YA trilogy of your dreams. well, my dreams, at least.)
Diana Peterfreund - For Darkness Shows the Stars (Jane Austen's Persuasion but post-apocalyptic)
Sherwood Smith - Crown Duel & A Stranger to Command (Crown Duel is one of my favorite books of all time and the prequel was quite nice, especially as a fish-out-of-water cultural exchange kind of story)
Diana Gabaldon - Outlander & Dragonfly in Amber & Voyager (this was a lot of words and I liked some of them. not all of them, I won't lie to you. but some of them.)
Kate Elliott - Jaran & An Earthly Crown (WOW. WOW. the greatest sci-fi epic you've probably never heard of, unfortunately on indefinite hiatus after four books. still worth your time. you like space? you like thoroughly developed fictional cultures? you like complex stories of human relationships? otp feelings? sibling feelings? parent/child feelings? YOU LIKE DIVERSITY? DON'T LIE TO ME, I KNOW YOU DO. READ THESE BOOKS. COME BACK AND TALK TO ME WHEN YOU HAVE ACCEPTED ILYANA ARKHANOV AS YOUR LORD AND SAVIOR.)
Garth Nix - Sabriel (I thought I read this book years ago but none of the story seemed familiar but I liked it a lot!!! can't wait to read the other ones. I hear there's a fourth one now, how about that!)
various Diana Wynne Jones books (still my favorite fantasy author, I had forgotten how much I love the Chrestomanci books...)
Malinda Lo - Adaptation (government conspiracies! bisexual protagonist! birds? please read this thoroughly delightful book.)
Lev Grossman - The Magicians (Harry Potter/Chronicles of Narnia meets the bitterness and disillusionment of your 20s)
Maggie Stiefvater - The Raven Boys (supernatural fantasy about fate and love and friendship and ghosts and myths and psychics and if you love yourself you will read this book. and the second one. and the third one but I can't actually officially advocate that because I put it on hold because I'm a terrible person/I've been busy/I'm scared bad things will happen to my babies/I needed to read the third and fourth Jaran books whoops. that doesn't matter. read this book. I'll finish the third one this weekend? I might.)
ELEVEN SHIPS THAT RUINED MY LIFE IN 2014
I'm dead and here are the 23 people who killed me with feelings
Bashir/Garak (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) like how dare you
Alicia/Cary (The Good Wife) it's fine too if they are friends but I NEED THEM TO KEEP SMILING AT EACH OTHER FLORRICK/AGOS FOREVER
Ted/Tracy (How I Met Your Mother) [gross sobbing] [off-key singing] we can always be chasing the sun
Jack/Roz (The Posterchildren) I'D SAY YOU HAVE A FINE ENOUGH FACE FOR LUNCHBOXES
June/Day (Legend books) sometimes I think "what if they made a Legend movie" and then I have to sit down for a minute because goddamn
Picard/Crusher (Star Trek: The Next Generation) the real otp of my childhood
Jamie/Claire (Outlander books) I nearly cried in front of some japanese air conditioning repair men when I read the end of Dragonfly in Amber not gonna lie to you it was terrible
Tess/Ilya/Vasil (Jaran books) ok so Tess/Ilya is the true otp (true one true pairing? lmao) and Vasil is several kinds of fucked up but this dynamic ESPECIALLY in An Earthy Crown is so important and Vasil named his firstborn child after Ilya and Ilya named his firstborn child after Vasil and OH MY GOD
Eleven/Clara (Doctor Who) I was so determined not to like anything about series 7 but this isn't a ghost story it's a love story
Killian/Emma (Once Upon a Time) in case you didn't notice I've spent the last year and a half slowly descending into captain swan hell
Blue/Gansey (The Raven Cycle) now that I'm most of the way through BLLB I'm extremely into Ronan/Adam but at the end of last year when I read the first book these two were a lot wHEN HE DREW THE PAGE OF CUPS CARD TWICE LIKE it was hilarious but also I probably cried
TEN SONGS I LISTENED TO A LOT IN 2014
I know the darkness pulls on you and it's just a point of view
lost my patience with the lord and we lost faith in the arms of love
time crawls on while you're waiting for the song to start so dance alone to the beat of your heart
I found the heart of a lion in the belly of the beast and I held it in my hands and I could feel the beat
fell in love with another burning bright she dreamed of a way to ignite
I don't think the world is sold on just doing what we're told
if I told you what I was would you turn your back on me and if I seemed dangerous would you be scared?
there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow when I play it on repeat 'til I fall asleep
who are you to tell me how to keep myself afloat? I treaded water all the while you stuck in the knife that you held at my back
stop thief somebody hey he just stole her heart and he's getting away
NINE MOVIES I LOVED FROM 2014
I saw loads of movies last year that were actually released in 2014, which is pretty unusual for me, I'm generally pretty late to the game for movies, I just saw Die Hard for the first time on the flight home for Christmas, after all...
Vampire Academy (saw it in theaters in February, not as good as the book, but still better than the reviews and crappy box office performance would indicate)
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (saw it three times in theaters and once on DVD in my best friend's living room and if you walked in right now and said "hey wanna watch Cap 2" I would absolutely be up for it)
How To Train Your Dragon 2 (saw it in theaters during the summer)
Belle (I think technically the original release date was in 2013 but the theatrical release in the U.S. was 2014; saw it at the theater during the summer)
Guardians of the Galaxy (it came out in the U.S. less than a week after I left for Japan and in Japan I had to wait a month and a half but IT WAS WORTH IT)
Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno & Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends (do I actually understand enough Japanese to follow the dialogue in these movies? nope. did that interfere with my enjoyment of them? HELL NOPE.)
The LEGO Movie (saw it on movie night at a teaching conference in November; everything is awesome)
Interstellar (spaaaaaaace)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (good thing I saw it while I was home for Christmas since the current scheduled release date here in Japan is "June 2015". when in June? idk. just June.)
EIGHT PICTURES I TOOK IN JAPAN IN 2014
Mt. Fuji (sort of)
ikebana (I am an expert now as you can see)
Atami (the beach!)
standard lunch (fruits and vegetables charlsa LOOK)
hotel at dawn (part of my Nagoya Adventure)
BASUKE CANDY
cat (it sat in my lap for a while)
Hamamatsu (now that's a castle!!!)
SIX PICTURES OF ME IN 2014
they're not, for the most part, selfies bc I am very new to this smartphone-having business but they are all pictures of my face
February
May
June
September
November
December
