Without getting in too deep, the last few years have been tough on a lot of us for a variety of reasons. Many things haven’t exactly gone the way that we would like them to. People are even throwing around the term “the darkest timeline” in reference to the way the world is going. When we find something that makes us happy, no matter how small, we ought to embrace it. It was with this in mind that I proposed to our contributors the same question that we answered last year at around this time: What brought you joy? Our answers ranged from catching them all to touring Wakanda. Some of us really like a certain Doctor. Take a look at our responses and see if you find something that might make you happy, too!
Yours truly spent a large portion of the year exploring the Kalos region during my first jaunt through Pokémon X. I am so late to the game side of the Pokémon party that it’s a little sad. I did watch the cartoon pretty obsessively when I was in college, so I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the concept of being the very best. There’s something extremely relaxing about embodying a teenager who gets to wander around the platonic ideal of France, catching adorable (and occasionally creepy) little creatures, and then making them fight for the hell of it in order to win honor. And this is an actual, legitimate CAREER OPTION in these games. You wander around, battle with other trainers, and get money when you win. Can I have this job in real life? I know that I can’t, so this, friends, was my weekly (sometimes daily!) vacation. After I finished the story in Pokémon X, I snagged the sister game, Pokémon Y so that I could go around again, and continue attempting to catch them all. I recently snagged copies of Pokémon Sun and Moon so that I can winter in the Alola region (the platonic ideal of Hawaii).
I invited contributors to add a non-speculative thing if they wished, mostly so that I could wax poetic about Parks and Recreation. I recently went back and re-watched the series, because Leslie Knope’s endless optimism was something that I needed a great deal of this year. This show has a bit of a rough start, but some time in season two, after Mark Brendanawicz is replaced with Chris Traeger and Ben Wyatt, everything falls into place. This is a show where the characters grow and develop into the best versions of themselves that they possibly can. Almost everyone undergoes some kind of positive change, and that’s not something that you see very often on television. The only character that stays the same is Gary/Jerry/Larry/Terry Gergich, but he was always a kindhearted, creative soul from the very beginning (even as he was the mostly good-natured butt of endless jokes around the office). This show made me cry so many times, and they were always tears of pure joy. My heart swelled when Leslie earned her dream job and even convinced the federal government to move their regional office to Pawnee (which then inhabited a previously unused office space that Ron Swanson personally renovated, simply for the fun of it, earlier in the season). I’ve never attended a more perfect wedding than when Leslie and Ben tied the knot in the Parks Department offices in the middle of the night. I’m already homesick for Pawnee, so I might have to make another trip back in the near future.
Parks and Recreation — “Leslie & Ben” Episode 513 — (Photo by: Tyler Golden/NBC)
More than anything, 2018 was a year when I craved escapism. When I found myself wanting to turn off the world around me and bury myself in something silly and fun. This is probably why I turned back to a love from my childhood: video games. I’ve already talked about how much I enjoyed Super Mario: Odyssey, but the game that brought me the most joy was an old favorite: Banjo-Kazooie. Yes, there are certain aspects of Banjo-Kazooie that haven’t aged well-from the damsel in distress storyline to the at times cringe-y witch doctor character, Mumbo Jumbo — but purely on a nostalgia level, this really worked for me.
In Banjo-Kazooie, you play as a bear-and-bird duo named Banjo and Kazooie, and one of the games strength is how it well it utilizes aspects of both characters to interact with the world around you. Sometimes Kazooie is safely tucked away in Banjo’s backpack, but in a flash, you can bring her out to help move over sloped terrain, shot eggs with deadly accuracy, or even fly.
I loved getting to explore and discovery all the different levels again. The characters are so lovable. I remember as a kid, getting excited when I discovered that Kazooie was female. After all, she’s the more aggressive/proactive member of the team. Grunty the witch is also a great antagonist, mocking you in rhyme as you explore the different levels of her lair, and providing a satisfying challenge during the finale, which starts out as a game show-style trivia contest and ends in an all-out brawl. In addition the soundtrack, provided by Grant Kirkhope, holds up well.
Sometimes the best kind of escapism is revisiting an old favorite, and this is something I experienced replaying Banjo-Kazooie this year.
Deku and Kristina are about to Texas Smash it at the JUMP Shop in Fukuoka.
Animation brought me a lot of joy this year and was pretty much my primary way to unwind after a busy day at work. My go-tos: Voltron: Legendary Defender, The Dragon Prince, and My Hero Academia.
Streaming is my comfort food, but it’s not always a guarantee that what you watch in America will be available in Japan. Sometimes we get movies later here; sometimes we don’t get things at all due to licensing and whatnot. While Voltron had been on Netflix since 2016, it was a recent edition to Japan’s catalog – it was a few months ago when it popped up as a new release in my list. To be honest, I knew Voltron was based on the older iteration from Japan, but mecha anime was never my thing (Gurren Lagann is the exception). I only knew of Legendary Defender thanks to Tumblr and its copious amounts of fan art and gush-posts, so I thought it was worth a shot.
Seasons 1-6 ate two back-to-back weekends (and OMG, Season 6! Shiro! Keith! Lotor! FEELINGS!). Not long after, Season 7 premiered and it did not disappoint. I could go on about the awesomeness of the series but I’ll just say that what makes Voltron: Legendary Defender so great is how the conflicts and characters mature with every season, yet the series still retains its sense of humor and definitely knows who its audience is (I loved the wink-nudge to the D&D fandom with the Voltron version, “Monsters & Mana”). I am sooo impatient for Season 8 but I know the wait will be worth it.
Another great Netflix series is The Dragon Prince, masterminded by the same creative teams that brought you Avatar and The Legend of Korra. That was pretty much all I needed to know to be sold on the show. I know fans have mixed feelings about the art style, but I didn’t mind (I’m used to the weird CG/2D combo that pops up in various anime series). The character designs, backgrounds (everything is like a gorgeous painting), music – all of it comes together along with your favorite fantasy elements: dragons, elves, black magic, and more! I can’t wait for season 2. And… is it weird that I have a crush on an elf? You know the one. If I don’t see him come back in season 2, well… “I’m already dead.” *wink*
Last but not least, I have to say that My Hero Academia has been my happy place this year. I’ve watched it ever since it first premiered in 2016, and Season 3 just wrapped on Crunchyroll a few weeks ago. I love its spin on the superhero genre, and there are some truly unique heroes and villains in this series (and you can bet both sides are sympathetic). I’ve always looked forward to learning the backstories of each character, but I especially enjoy watching All Might mentor Midoriya (aka Deku). And I’ve anxiously waited on more resolution between Midoriya and Bakugo, so yay! Season 3 really delivered in that regard! Now that the villains are coming together and something big seems to be brewing, I’m holding my breath for Season 4. I’m sure it’ll be Plus Ultra!!!
Podcasts. It’s not every year you learn to embrace a new-to-you media. But after a shaky start, I’ve really come to love podcasts. Especially the ones that tread the line between a written story read aloud and a complicated radio show. I love that there’s this whole middle ground of storytelling that is its own thing! Mabel, Limetown, Girl in Space, The Magnus Archives, The White Vault—sure, you could turn them into books or stories, but why would you when they’re so great as is! My (short) commute to work is suddenly much more interesting.
Jodie Whittaker! So, the new Who. I heard the powers that be had decided to have the next regeneration of the Doctor be female and thought, oh that’s cool. Then they said Jodie Whittaker and I thought huh, I like her, that’ll be really fun.
Then I watched the first episode and said, Yeah! This is great! And then I watched the second episode and when her name showed up in the title feed, I felt this massive upwelling of happy excitement that I can’t quite explain. Except there it was! The Doctor was a woman! Somehow it felt more real in that moment than it had in the first episode. Jodie Whittaker!!! My Doctor!!!
Bingeable Books. The same concept every year. That series you stumble over and end up devouring in a dreamy haze of GIVE ME MORE. This year, my book binge was fueled by Clara Coulson’s Frost Arcana series, and the City of Crows series. They’re urban fantasy, and I’m addicted. One of the things I like most about these two series (besides the magic and adventure and surprisingly violent action sequences) is that they’re snapshots of two separate time lines linked by several cataclysmic events. It’s all one universe and such a cool one. I could quibble about characterization if I felt like it, but I don’t! The rest of it is just so much fun!
Reading is my favorite form of entertainment, so it’s no shock that the speculative fiction thing that brought me the most joy this year is a book, Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero. Back in 1977, Peter, Nate, Andy, Kerri, and their dog formed the “Blyton Summer Detective Club” and discovered that the Sleepy Lake Monster was just a dude in a mask. In 1991, Kerri drinks too much, Andy is a wanted felon, Nate is in a mental hospital, and Peter died by suicide. The gang reunites, with Peter as one of Nate’s hallucinations and Tim, the grandson of their original dog, to find out what really happened at Sleepy Lake that summer. If you were a fan of Saturday morning cartoons, this probably sounds familiar because Meddling Kids is basically Scooby Doo fan fiction. The characters are not exact duplicates of Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma (Tim is a Weimaraner and I’m pretty sure Scooby was a Great Dane), but there are similarities.
I was drawn to the book’s eye-popping, luridly colorful cover, which features the silhouettes of the four kids and the dog standing in front of a lake with tentacles coming out of it. However, I picked the book up and put it back down multiple times because it felt impossible that a re-imaging of the Scooby Doo gang would actually be a good book. When I finally read it, I was pleasantly surprised that Cantero pulled it off. Meddling Kids is nostalgic fun but it also packs an unexpectedly emotional punch. My only disappointment was that the Harlem Globetrotters don’t make an appearance.
The non-speculative thing that brought me joy this year is the awesome non-profit organization, Worthdays, whose mission is to ensure that children in the foster care system are loved and encouraged. Many children in foster care do not receive any celebration on important days such as birthdays, holidays, and graduations. Worthdays facilitates the creation of birthday boxes, filled with gifts and messages of encouragement, for children who might otherwise go unacknowledged on their special day. The organization is based in Richmond, Virginia and birthday boxes can be dropped off at physical locations in Richmond and Alexandria, VA. But you can mail a birthday box from anywhere in the world. I sponsored a birthday box in August because it’s my birth month, too. The photos of the gifts on Worthdays’ Facebook always put a smile on my face.
It’s been hard for your Editor-in-Chic to wallow in the speculative fiction world. Getting a new job that requires lots of hours and mental real estate does that to you. Not that I’m complaining: it’s just that I don’t have a whole lot of things to choose from.
That said, it just means what brought me joy stands out even more. While I’m no accolyte of Stephen King’s work (seriously, I think I’ve read only one book by him), I have no trouble enjoying the film/television adaptations. When Castle Rock came out, I was hooked from the start and if I could’ve binged the entire series in one sitting, I would have. While it was a wee bit uneven, and the ambiguous ending made me wish they’d gone a slightly different direction (or any direction), there was one episode that was so good, so perfect, that to this day I think it’s one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying something, because Westworld’s “Kiksuya” was absolutely amazing).
Castle Rock’s seventh episode was called “The Queen,” and it’s an episode that’s firmly grounded in the point of view of Henry’s mother, Ruth Deaver (portrayed by Sissy Spacek). Through-out the show, you’re worried about her, and that worry hits a peak in the prior episode. Ruth is well and truly in danger, even more than before, and given how storytelling often works, you have every reason to think this is it, you know?
image via Castle Rock‘s imdb page
So what the episode actually does, without getting into spoilers, is really genius. Ruth has Alzheimer’s, and she isn’t always certain what’s now and what’s past. We’ve seen that in every episode to date as she’s interacted with Henry Deaver and Alan Pangborn, but in “The Queen,” we experience it from her perspective, and it’s mesmerizing. By time the episode reaches its climax and we see the fallout, your heart is absolutely broken. You have expectations over what will happen next. And then the show surprises us with a final beat that doesn’t negate the heartbreak, but it turns it into something bittersweet and beautiful.
I watched that episode in August, and I’m still talking about it today. Whatever else Castle Rock offered (and it offered some really, really good stuff, don’t get me wrong), “The Queen” is worth watching the entire season for. And trust me, you want to at least watch the six episodes prior, because it won’t quite pack the same emotional punch otherwise. Still, it quite possibly is the most perfect episode of television I’ve ever seen, and that’s something to celebrate.
This year has been a rough one for many reasons and I’ve needed books and movies as an escape even more than usual, so thankfully I’ve had quite a few things that brought me joy this year, however fleeting the moments were. In no particular order . . .
This was a pretty decent year for movies. February gave me Black Panther, which reset the bar for any action/comic movie to follow. What a beautiful movie that was. Michael B. Jordan was simply AMAZING as Killmonger and I’d like to petition that Shuri be in every single movie to follow in this franchise.
We also got A Wrinkle In Time that month, and while that movie didn’t quite reach the heights I wanted it to, it was a really beautiful adaptation of that book that brought me to tears of joy in the theater. From Mrs. Who quoting Lin-Manuel Miranda to the entire scene with the Happy Medium, I was delighted.
In TV, Jodie Whitaker took over the iconic role of the Doctor in Doctor Who and brings new joy with every episode. So much about that show is different now, from the executive producer on down, but she is flipping fantastic as the Doctor and I’ve absolutely loved watching her in the role. Could have done without the spiders in that one episode, but I’m glad to see the things I’ve always loved about the Doctor are still present in the new iteration. If you haven’t watched her yet, give episode 3, “Rosa”, a try.
In podcasts, I listened to and fell in love with The Bright Sessions this year, which is a show about people in therapy who also happen to have super powers. The super powers almost took a back seat to the therapy in 
some ways, though it definitely colored the sessions. For instance, a girl with severe anxiety time travels whenever she has a panic attack, and the sessions were to help her deal with her anxiety. Such a good show with some great voice acting.
This year I decided to stop reading books by white men [Editor’s Note: Check out K. Tempest Bradford’s reading challenge for some food for thought on this idea!] (unless it was for the book club or the book was by John Scalzi or Chuck Wendig) and let me tell you, this year was a revelation in books. I found authors I’d never heard of before, and among my favorites of those is Nnedi Okorafor. I first read Binti back in February, when I searched specifically for fantasy and science fiction written by authors of color, and I’m just hooked. She’s so interesting and good. I also really loved Nalo Hopkinson’s Brown Girl in the Ring.
And, of course, I found great comfort in revisiting some old favorites, like Sharon Shinn and my eighteen millionth rewatch of Starship Troopers.
A lot of fun things happened in 2018, so I’m going to go with two groups: Marvel and Funko Pop! figures.
Marvel movies were plentiful this year, starting with Black Panther before moving on to Infinity War, Deadpool 2, and lastly Venom (I still have yet to see Ant-Man and the Wasp). All of which I enjoyed immensely. In the past I haven’t had much of a reason to visit the theaters. I’d see maybe one movie a year, two if there was anything interesting enough. But Marvel not only has plenty of material to use in order to create movies, but everyone in charge thus far has done an excellent job of it. Yes, even Venom, which many people – myself included – feared would be an utter disaster, was a pleasant surprise. In fact, I had such a good time during that movie I’ve considered going back for a second viewing.
Funko Pop! figures weren’t something I ever thought I’d collect in any capacity. A lot of the early figures aren’t that cute, and for a long time I even poked fun at them. But now they’re more detailed and feature better designs overall. So now they’re pretty cute and fun to pick up. August is really what exploded the number I had, and I went from about 6 to over 30. And I’m small time compared to other people who collect — even compared to people who collect entire lines of Pops (for example, Dragon Ball Z alone has over 60 at this point!). But I only pick up the figures that I truly enjoy, such as my Little Shop of Horrors Baby Audrey II in it’s little coffee can, and good ole’ Steve from Stranger Things, looking worse for wear, but ready to charge in with his spiked bat. There are a handful more that I’d like to snag at some point, and if you’re thinking about collecting yourself, BE CAREFUL. It’s addicting!
What a list! If you didn’t find something that you personally liked in this fantastic collection, that’s okay! You know how much we love to chat, so please feel free to answer the question for yourself: What brought YOU joy? Let’s spread the happiness around as much as we can!
I need to get my hands on Castle Rock because I am a Stephen King fan and it looks so good. Plus I almost always love anything Shara recommends. I really want to do a “read only books by diverse authors for a year” challenge but I have no self-restraint when it comes to books that excite me. It’s hard enough to keep myself from buying hardback books. I read Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death and was underwhelmed by it, but maybe I will give Binti a chance.