My personal canon
I saw this post from Ava, looked at the other personal canons linked on that post, and felt inspired to create my own, which turned out so much longer than I expected.
I expanded on some of the things that I thought needed the most explanation, but others I'll just list for now. At some point, I'll probably expand on more of the media and make a page for this list on my website.
My canon contains things that:
- have deeply influenced me
- I consistently return to for inspiration
- I think about relatively frequently
- I bring up in conversation a lot
Movies
- The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
- The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005)
- Asteroid City (2023)
- Beauty and the Beast (1991)
- Bride of Re-Animator (1990)
- Clue (1985)
- Eyes without a Face / Les yeux sans visage (1960)
- Freaked (1993)
- The Last Unicorn (1982)
- Return to Oz (1985)
- Seed of Chucky (2004)
- Shrek Retold (2018)
- Society (1989)
- Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003)
- Starship Troopers (1997)
TV shows
- Adventure Time (2010-2018)
- Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008)
- The Boulet Brothers' Dragula, seasons 1-3
- Doctor Who, especially doctors 9 & 10
- Community (2009-2015)
- Midnight Gospel (2020)
- Ouran High School Host Club (2006)
- Steven Universe (2013-2019)
Musicals
- Cats, especially the 1998 recording
- Ghost Quartet
- The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals
- Into the Woods, especially the 1989 recording
- Jesus Christ Superstar
- Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
- Ride the Cyclone
YouTube videos/series/channels
- Asylum by Antisocial Bunny, especially Opal Jalowitz's Big Chance
- I have never seen a machinima quite like Opal Jalowitz before or since. It was so lovingly and meticulously crafted, and I LOVE this chilling portrayal of the cowplant. I can still hear its voice...
- The series itself is also so fun, both in terms of its characters and its wild plotlines. It feels like you're watching someone earnestly play with dolls as an adult, and it's wonderful.
- Car Boys
- To this day I cannot hear Clair de lune without picturing a car flying through the air while dividing itself into beautifully glitching polygons.
- Dances Moving
- It's a well-crafted story about the emotions brought up by moving out--disguised as dance videos. The last episode always makes me a bit teary.
- Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware
- I was obsessed with this when it came out, and I've re-watched it many times since. I still stand by calling RTVS more of an art or theater group than anything else. Like, they literally streamed an hours-long work of theater on Gary's Mod, and it was widely loved. And it was by far not the first or last time they added an absurd, overarching story to a stream. That's fucking awesome.
- Monster Factory: The Boy-Mayor of Second Life
- This is a short series, but there didn't seem to be an official playlist for it. I think it's four videos long. It's just a silly little time and I've watched it several times to cheer me up when I'm down.
- Sharpie Song by Vi Hart
- I couldn't find Vi Hart's channel, which made me pretty sad. They made a lot of videos I loved when I was in middle and high school. I particularly loved the Sharpie Song, and a few lines still pop up in my head every once in a while: "Which one? this one? No!" and "Made in America... Just like me..." Vi Hart also applies sharpies as makeup while repeating the words "there's no such thing as permanence" ominously. It's so iconic and I miss it.
- STARSHIP TROOPERS by Kyle Kallgren
- This three-part series of video essays is by far my favorite I've seen, and it singlehandedly put Starship Troopers in my movie canon. I think I like it so much because the topic is (as you find out) so intertwined with Kallgren's life. The essay series touches on so many things, including media adaptation, ideology, nationality, and the ways politics and culture affect families and individuals. I think about it a lot, and I might rewatch it soon.
Games
- Apocalypse World, and the Powered by the Apocalypse system in general
- This game, along with the podcast Friends at the Table (listed further down) introduced me to the vast world of ttrpgs that weren't Dungeons and Dragons. Also, if this game didn't exist, my fiction project Tempest wouldn't exist, either, for several reasons.
- Dwarf Fortress
- I heard about Dwarf Fortress when I was like fifteen, and it not only introduced me to ASCII graphics, but to the sheer depth that could be achieved through the procedural generation of a world.
- Minecraft
- I'm Gen Z and I love sandbox games. Of course Minecraft is in my canon. I have fond memories of logging onto random public servers with my brother and building secret bases when we were kids, and I also have fond memories of building cursed structures on private servers with college friends. It's a classic.
- Sims 2, 3, & 4
- Even though I only play 2 & 4 now, I started on 3. The Sims has been an almost life-long special interest for me. I just love it.
Books & Short Stories
- Coraline by Neil Gaiman
- Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard
- Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott, especially "The Autumn Kill" and "The Plums at the End of the World"
- The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber
Music
- Green Day
- Indigo Girls
- Joni Mitchell
- Lemon Demon
- The Mamas & the Papas
- Oingo Boingo
- Pavement
- Pixies
- Talking Heads
- They Might Be Giants
- Tori Amos
Podcasts
- The Adventure Zone, especially Balance and Amnesty
- American Hysteria
- Friends at the Table, especially COUNTER/weight and Sangfielle
- Maintenance Phase
- Spirits
- You're Wrong About