I Didn't Think I Was Cut Out for the Fairy Smut Book Club, But 700 Pages Later and I Might Be After All?

SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERS!!!!!!

There will be ALL the spoilers for A Court of Thorn and Roses here, and some bonus spoilers for A Court of Mist and Fury, since I've somehow already found myself fifteen chapters in...

While you think about whether or not you ever want to read this book for yourself and therefore do or do not want spoilers of it, here is some actual footage of me posting this book review on Goodreads:

And now, on with the show!

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Setup: I read this book because the cover was copy-pasted onto a flyer advertising the "Fairy Smut Book Club" at a college I was touring with my high schooler. Nobody else in the parent/kid tour group reacted when we walked through that hallway and passed this flyer, but I was all, "Fairy smut? What on earth is FAIRY SMUT?!? If other people know about fairy smut, then *I* should also know about fairy smut!!!" I figured, if it's good enough for some undergrads to make a whole club about, I should read it!

Later I learned that you only need four kids to start a student club at this college, AND I think all the student clubs get funding from the school, so maaaaaybe you don't have to have a super big reason to start a club there and I didn't need to feel fairy smut FOMO, but what's done is done.

All that to say that I'm willing to concede that I might not be the target market for fairy smut. But I listened to this on hoopla (having fun isn't hard when you've got a library card!) while I washed dishes and sewed some new coasters for the house, so at least I know how to pronounce all the names... but I might not know how to spell them correctly for this review, ahem.

Also, the coasters are little log cabin quilt blocks with a fussy cut bee print as the center panel. They're adorable.

Soooo... this book in general is kinda... rapey, right? Are we all getting the rapey vibe? And it's not just the scenes in which Feyre's consent is violated--the fact that I had to pluralize SCENES, because it happened more than once, is grossing me out all over again!--or the specific scene in which she was almost gang-raped by fairies at that spring sex party, but also, seriously, it was a vibe throughout the entire book. Like, that's half the "fun," ahem, of the Rhys character, right? That he's a dark, night-themed sexy boy who's always on the cusp of raping her? And he forces her to dress in "sexy," super revealing clothes that she doesn't want to dress in? And he forces her to have her "intimate areas" painted by fairy servants? And he forces her to dance I'm assuming "sexy" dances for him in public--which reminds me that the other time that she danced a "sexy" dance for Tamlin, which, yuck, SHE WAS ALSO DRUNK!--and in the morning she can't really remember what she did but she's relieved, y'all, that there's evidence that he only touched her waist and arms. Oh, and he non-consensually body-modified her.

That's rapey, right?

Also: Tamlin. Not only does he absolutely sexually assault her, because I HEARD her tell him to let go while I was trimming the batting for my coasters (I'm using stash polyester felt instead of proper batting, but I think it's working really well!) and he did not, and then she literally pushed him and I think that's when he bit her, but tbh that's not even the rapiest thing about him. So maybe it's because I listened to this book instead of reading it with my eyes, but did anybody else notice how many times Feyre says "high lord?" A high lord just spoke to her at the breakfast table! A high lord serenaded her with his fairy fiddle! A high lord wants to swim in liquified starlight with her! It's just... if she's using his status instead of his name when she thinks about him, that's because she thinks about him as his status instead of his name. And she's clearly super impressed by it, so it's definitely a factor in how she feels about him. It sets up a power dynamic between them, and crossing that power dynamic is always going to be sketchy. Like, sub in "my boss" or "my teacher" if you want to set it in the mundane world. See? It's sketchy, right? And not to mention that she's not *exactly* imprisoned inside his estate, but she IS imprisoned inside of fairy land, and if she does leave his estate then she'll get eaten so also she is kind of imprisoned inside his estate. Sub "my warden" or "my guardian" for "high lord" and it's even grosser!

All that to say that I'm not even dinging the book on stars because it's rapey, because books are allowed to be rapey if they want--it was just something I wanted to talk about. I DID personally ding the book on stars because Feyre said "high lord" into my headphones so much. It got on my nerves.

I also dinged the book for being weirdly plot-less for the first 80%, and when Feyre finally went under the mountain and started doing stuff it honestly made me even more annoyed because hey! She was always capable of doing stuff! We could have had a plot the whole time! Tamlin is apparently NEVER capable of doing stuff so it's not his fault we didn't have a plot while we were at his house, I guess. I'm trying to think of something he even DOES in the book... Okay, he came and scared the snot out of Feyre's family in Beast Mode and abducted her and did a ton of magic to ensorcell the rest of them while setting them up for life, which must have taken all the energy out of him for the rest of the book because later he makes a huge stinking deal about magicking his dining room table to a different size. Otherwise... he picnics with Feyre. He sits at the table and eats. He stands there and lets Feyre be the one to comfort that random wing-less fairy as it dies from blood loss. He gets hopped up on spring fairy magic at one of his parties and nearly rapes Feyre, and then at another party he's part of the house band. He sits on the dais with Amarantha and widens his eyes once. He sneaks her off to try to have sex with her the night before her third task, I'm only assuming so Amarantha kills them both on the spot instead of making Feyre go through the actual task. Like, half the time when Feyre is admiring how powerful or whatever he is when's he's standing there doing absolutely nothing, she's all, "His claws almost came out that time." But they didn't.

I was pretty much just listening to this book for the noise until Feyre went Under the Mountain, and then all of a sudden it got interesting! I don't know if I really liked it yet at that point--I'm still not sure if I actually liked this book at all or not--but it was surprising, and I became much more interested in the plot and unable to predict the characters' actions. I am so invested in how completely odd Rhys behaved and how he was written, for one thing. I was all, "Wait! Are Rhys and Feyre about to be A Thing? Ooh, are Rhys and Feyre and TAMLIN going to be A Thing?" I'm still not totally sure, tbh; I'm pretty sure we got some Rhys and Tamlin backstory at some point but I wasn't paying attention, so I'm not sure if Rhys and Feyre are supposed to be low-key into each other and that's why Rhys kept sticking his neck out for her, or if Rhys and Tamlin are down-low a thing and he's sticking his neck out for her to help Tamlin... or he's just supposed to be a chaos lord who's sticking his neck out for Feyre just to have something to do. Being an immortal fairy really seems like it would wear on you. I'd be bored to death after four of those Under the Mountain cocktail parties, and they've apparently been doing them every night for multiple human generations, yawn.

Okay, but until then the book was pretty uneventful and very light on graphic details, and then all of a sudden it got INSANE and I was so there for it! The worm battle was kind of stupid but Feyre was left with literally her ARM BONE STICKING OUT OF HER BODY and OMG they just left her like that! For a crazy long time! And then Rhys is all, "I'll heal you but only if you enslave yourself to me," and Feyre is dithering about how she should probably wait for Lucien to do it, but then she does the deal with Rhys and worries that it was a huge mistake, etc. So the way I'd have expected this to go is that Feyre says, "Nope, I'm loyal to a fault, that's why I'm here Under the Mountain instead of on a boat halfway across the ocean with my asshole family by now, duh, and I am of course going to wait for my pal Lucien," and then she does, and Lucien heals her.

But y'all!!!! NOOOO!!! Later, after she's done the deal with Rhys and has to do all the mostly-nude dirty dancing, she actually talks to Lucien about it, and he shames her for her decision even while in the same breath telling her that Amarantha fucked up his back torturing him and he'd only been able to stand up the previous day. AND THEN NOBODY SAYS, "SEE? IT WAS THE RIGHT CHOICE TO DO THE DEAL WITH RHYS BECAUSE OTHERWISE YOU'D HAVE DIED." Nobody mentions that AT ALL!!! I am both inordinately amused/entertained that the wrong decision *was* the right one, and irritated that nobody pointed that out to congratulate Feyre on making what it turns out was the right decision after all.

Okay, and then. And then! Obviously, the entire point of the third task should have been for Feyre to refuse it. It should have been an agonizing decision for her, of course, but in the act of refusing it, that's when the solution to the riddle should have come to her. Because the whole point should have been that she, as a human, while she doesn't have the powers that the fairies have, has the power of her humanity and that is what makes her equal to them and able to overcome Amarantha's fairy wickedness. Also, she's showing that she's no Jurien and Amarantha is obviously wrong to treat all humans like they, too, are inconstant and immoral. Because YOU GUYS. HUMANS OUGHT NOT EXECUTE INNOCENT PEOPLE IN COLD BLOOD. I'm sure that's a basic moral stance that should unite us all. If someone, anyone, any fairy tells us to, they're wrong and we shouldn't do it. If there's some magical task that instructs us to do it, the task is wrong and whoever made it is bad and we should not do it. Even if it means death, we are supposed to embrace our humanity and make the right choice.

So I was shocked--and honestly thrilled because it was so surprising--when Feyre literally murders those people just because the task told her to! OMG! I mean, she was very sad about it and she's definitely going to be traumatized for life, but I can't believe she did it! AND that it was apparently the correct move! Like, what on earth kind of amoral psychopathic fairy tale IS THIS?!? Our heroine just executed two innocents for The Greater Good like freaking Grindelwald! It would have been even more hilarious if it had been a test and she failed it, but whatever, at least the plot kept moving.

It does make sense, then, that she's turned into a High Fae herself, since she apparently gets nothing and no guidance from her humanity. Considering how poorly her family and most of that village treated her, actually, maybe she'll go all Evil Fae on them in a future book?

Okay, last thing that got on my nerves: I'm not going to try to sift back through the audiobook to check, but I swear that when Rhys and Feyre did the deal to heal her, she promised to enslave herself to him for one week a month "for the rest of her life." I was sure that part of the ending gimmick would be that because her life had ended then she was free. But nobody mentioned that, so I guess no? I could have remembered wrong, though.

No, wait, this is the last thing, but this is something I loved: We never learn what the question was that Feyre had to answer with the levers in the second task, lol!

Predictions for future books:

*We're going to learn that Feyre's mother has some sort of connection to the fairies, or some other reason for making Feyre be the one to promise to support her entire family, and not, say, her older sisters or, I don't know, her FATHER?!?

*Nesta is going to become a mercenary and there will be conflict and drama there. Because otherwise, what was the point in having that scene with the mercenary at the beginning of this book? Just to tell the news about Trouble in Fairy Land? We didn't actually DO anything with that news!

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Here lie the spoilers for the first fifteen chapters of A Court of Mist and Fury:

Are you SURE you want to keep reading? Don't spoil yourself if you think you might want to read A Court of Mist and Fury, because shockingly, it's good so far! While you think about it, here's some archived footage of how I spend my days:

Fortunately, I solved the above problem with this series, as I'm listening to it on audiobook while I sew lots of little patchwork pretties. I finished the coasters, and now I'm making blank greeting cards with patchwork fronts to give as graduation gifts. They're turning out so adorable!

Now, back to our show!

Mind you, I know nothing about the author of this series, but if I had to guess, I'd say that ACOTAR (check out how I can do the acronym title like all the real fans!) is one of her early works, and she learned a lot in the process of writing and promoting it. I wonder if she got some good feedback and applied it, or if she thought through the plot and characters with a long-term view. Because ACOMAF (I don't even know if people do acronyms for the later books or not, but I love it and I will not stop) is SO much better!

And not just better than the first book--it's SO genuinely good so far!

There's more action, yes, and although Feyre hasn't actually acted much of that action her ownself, Maas is writing in a ton of realistic trauma responses that make a lot of sense and that are also easily applied to the characters' stupid behaviors from ACOTAR. 

Like, I still don't know if we're supposed to really, genuinely think that Feyre murdering those innocent fairies for the third task was the Right Decision, but Feyre is for sure hard-core suffering from it in a way that shows that it wasn't, at least morally speaking. 

And Rhys, who was a full-on sociopath in the first book, literally told Feyre that his 50 years Under the Mountain with Amarantha had been a hostage situation for him, and he strongly implied that Amarantha had been raping him the entire time. So his awful violations of consent with Feyre, and that one bonkers torture scene where he touched her literal ARM BONE VOMIT, are still awful, buuuuuuut now they're in line with his character at that time, sort of a "hurt people hurt people"/Stockholm Syndrome/acting out one's abuse onto others sort of vibe. 

Even some irritations that I had with this very book are calming down as I get further in. I was so irritated with what a miserable bastard Tamlin was being at first, because the same thing happened in the first part of ACOTAR with Feyre's family, mainly implying that when you're not supposed to like someone, DON'T WORRY ABOUT FIGURING IT OUT BECUASE MAAS WILL TELL YOU. 

But I dunno, because now I'm pretty into what a miserable bastard Tamlin is being, AND it makes sense with his behavior in the first book, AND AND it's turning into quite a compelling domestic violence narrative that actually reads pretty realistically considering it's a fantasy novel. I still don't really love how Maas writes her secondary characters without a ton of nuance, but I would not have told you even 24 hours ago that I would be 15 chapters into the book and gushing even this much about it.

So stay tuned, I guess, because I think this book is going to see me through at least the rest of this graduation present and possibly through the Little Free Library bookmarks I'm making next!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Indiana Comic Con: Where Dreams Come True (Especially if Your Dream is To Own a Print of Wonder Woman as a Cat)

We LOVE Comic Con, where you're free to be as weird as you are! Even Will, who does not engage much with pop culture, has plenty to get excited about, with every third person she passes dressed as an elf with a dragon on their shoulder, etc. There are also plenty of booksellers and comic book writers and artists, and literally, I swear to you LITERALLY, we were all walking through the exhibition hall together when some random guy sitting at a table caught Will's eye, said to her, "Hey, what's your favorite type of fantasy book?", and like a kid promised candy if she'd just get into the nice stranger's windowless white van and help him find his lost puppy, Will peeled off from us and spent the next ten minutes discussing... I don't even know what. Something about Tamora Pierce, I think?... with him.

Our Will. Voluntarily shot the poop with a stranger. Wonders never cease.

We later set the kids free to roam the exhibition hall on their own while we went to more panels, but we did make them get some pop culture education with us. Here we are listening to Jim Swearingen, who designed the original Star Wars toys that were later featured in the documentary, The Toys That Made Us:

As he spoke about the designs he'd made for existing creations, I became curious if he'd ever been interested in doing any original toy designs, so I asked him. He said that he and a friend had made one original prototype once, an extremely spicy lollipop with a personal fan attached so that you could cool yourself while you licked it.

Oh. Okay.

His Star Wars toy designs are brilliant.

Here we are enjoying Matt fanboy over Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman in the 1990s cartoons:

We're cosplaying as the Hogwarts Comparative Muggle/Wizard Literature Professor and her partner, the Quidditch Coach and Flying Instructor, taking two of our students on a field trip.

Even if I'm not personally that familiar with a speaker, there's always an interesting take-away. Conroy, for instance, spent some time talking about his audition for the Batman role, and he explained to us that when auditioning, an actor has to make a choice about how to portray their character. The casting director may give them some guidance, but it may or may not be that accurate compared to what they're actually looking for, and that's not their fault, because what's in someone's mind is so subjective. But an actor who auditions has to make the choice right then, and that choice, how they're portraying the character, is what gets them hired or not. Probably they could have given the character the tone that the director wanted, but if they didn't make that choice but someone else did, then it's that other person's good luck, and if they're the one who happened to make the choice that got them the part, then that's their own good luck, but luck it is.

Fascinating, and I'm not even interested in acting!

Here are Matt and I listening to Timothy Zahn speak, while the kids were off playing retro video games in the exhibition hall:

 And here we are playing retro video games in the exhibition hall!

They had Crazy Taxi. I was basically in heaven.

Optimus Prime made an appearance:

You might remember that I collect fan art, and Will's into dragons, and Matt's into comic books, and Syd's into My Little Pony and comic strips, so we always spend plenty of time browsing the exhibition hall when we go to Comic Cons. I'm kind of pissed about it this year, because to keep myself from buying ALL THE THINGS, I like to check everything out, and then check out the artists' websites later and maybe buy what I really want, but this year, the organizers deleted the exhibitor list from their app and website basically as soon as the weekend was over, and NOW I AM NEVER GOING TO FIND THAT GUY WHO LASER CUT PUZZLE BOXES AND PUT TEA LIGHTS IN THEM.

I am really sad about that.

Here, at least, is Will's favorite artist. She collects original dragon art, and for the last two Comic Cons where she's been allowed to choose a souvenir, she's chosen one of this guy's pieces. Feel free to buy her something from him for her birthday!

The kids and I were also SUPER interested in this guy, and I'm definitely going to buy them some things from his shop for Christmas. I mean, he sculpts both cats AND dragons! And door knockers, which I really, really want. And steampunk goggles. It was pretty cute to watch Syd seeing all these people cosplaying in steampunk and all of these steampunk accessories in booths and fall in love with all of it in the course of about eight hours.

I have promised to score her a bunch of clock parts and leather scraps if she'll do steampunk for the next Trashion/Refashion Show.

Matt met and bought some art from Ty Templeton, whom he's really into, and I became deeply obsessed with a woman who draws characters as if they were cats. I bought a print of Cat Wonder Woman, but I didn't get her business card, and when I try to Google her there are actually, um, a lot of people who draw characters as cats. Huh.

OMG OMG OMG you guys! I just found THE TEA LIGHT GUY!!!!!!! I was tidying my desk, because I suspected there was some grammar that I hadn't marked somewhere in the pile of clutter (there was), and I found exactly four business cards that I remembered to take from booths that interested me, out of the approximately four hundred booths that interested me.

Lesson for me: remember to take business cards, because sometimes people will delete their exhibitor list right after Comic Con, dang it.

Lesson for exhibitors: put your business cards front and center so I can remember to take one!

I'm probably gonna go buy a bunch of tea lights now, and also about fifteen clocks.

Okay, so here is where the magic happened. Syd's favorite comic strip, by a landslide, is Foxtrot. She's read every strip, and reads the collections over and over. She talks about it when we're hanging out. She retells entire comic strip runs. She references it any time we're doing something relevant, like eating food or doing math or touching a computer. LOVES. IT.

Hey, you know who was one of the guest artists at Comic Con this year?

We bought her a print of her favorite comic strip, and he signed it for her, and drew her a little Sharpie Quincy. She was starstruck and so happy.

It was magical.

And we get to do it all again in June, with more business cards this time, when Indy hosts the Pop Con!

Homeschool Field Trip: Clayshire Castle Medieval Faire

This field trip happened back in the fall, when our combined AP European History/World History Grade 6 studies both just happened to wrap up the medieval period in time for the Clayshire Castle Medieval Faire.

What better way to celebrate?

Now, what you must know about the medieval period is that all interpretations of that period, from the Renaissance to now, are technically "medievalisms," or just that--interpretations. They're ahistorical in that they tell us more about the culture in which they were created than the culture that they're meant to represent, but as long as you take what you experience in with a grain of salt, and you listen carefully to the woman next to you with a Master's in Medieval Studies (hint, hint: she's your mother!), you can happily immerse yourself in A Knight's Tale, or The Name of the Rose, or yes, even an Indiana Medieval Faire!

On Will's syllabus (I don't write syllabi for Syd, but Will, who is doing high school coursework this year, needs a written syllabus, book list, and portfolio for each subject), these types of experiences are referred to as Contemporary Interpretations.

There's a lot to take in at, and quite a lot to take from, an Indiana Medieval Faire!

Here are The Knights of the Rose, an all-female jousting troupe:

Women wouldn't have jousted officially in the Medieval period (that we know of... see? That's a medievalism!), but otherwise, these performances are pretty accurate. And also full of powerful women!

And of course you get to pet the horses afterwards.

The tall, tall horses...

A turkey leg is also an anachronism. Come on, you know why! Can you tell me? Think about it...

The turkey is a North American bird! And yes, I know you're going to tell me about that painting of Henry VIII holding a turkey leg, and that's why we have turkey legs at Ren Faires, but Friends. That painting is a myth. Nobody would have painted a member of the royal family nomming.

Henry VIII eating turkey legs is a myth. Troll bridges, however? Clearly not a myth!

OMG I just noticed Matt is still holding his turkey leg in this pic. Sigh...

 Syd made a friend, and this is pretty accurate to the Medieval period, two little girls sitting around on the grass playing with a pet bunny:

Get to the Point, the bullwhip performance duo, are not particularly medieval in tone, but that's okay because they're awesome:

There's also fire breathing:




Also not particularly medieval, but who particularly cares? They breathe fire!!!

I have a huge soft spot for stage combat, having done a little of it in college, so we for sure watched the stage combat show by the Shattock Schoole of Defence:

I think the kids might have liked it, too, don't you think?

I was pretty well getting sunstroke by this point in the wildly unseasonal day-- 

--so we sat in the shade-ish for a while and learned some truly authentic facts about medieval falconry, thank goodness:

Syd helped:

Okay, now I really had just the teeniest bit of sunstroke:

If only Medieval women wore baseball caps! Or covered their bosoms better!

Going to dress as a Medieval man next time, I swear. They looked so comfy and well-shaded.

I was so dizzy and sunburnt and pestered by flopping skirt folds that when this stage combat show asked for a volunteer to swordfight with one of their actors, I couldn't even volunteer! Worst letdown of my life. The guy who did volunteer did an okay job, but I am sure that if I'd been wearing pants and a hat, my fencing skills would have taken that knight down within seconds.

Well... after reflecting on their fighting style, maybe not...

We bought Syd a present:

 And on the way out, look what we found! Stocks! EVERYONE loves to pretend that they're locked up in the stocks, right?!?

Hmpph, children. Here, you do it like this!

Although much of a Medieval Faire is intentionally silly--I mean, of course!--if you keep your eye out and keep your Medievalist near, you can find some moments of good authenticity. For us on this day, it was jousting and falcons.

Although if I'd had some rotten fruit at hand, I could have made the children's experience in the stocks more authentic...

How to Make a DIY Magnet from Any Paper

I collect fan art, and one of my favorite artists is the author of My Life as a Background Slytherin. I was SUPER stoked to buy a print and a book of collected works from her etsy shop last year, and even more SUUUUUUPER stoked when it came with a teeny-tiny bonus print!

My teeny-tiny bonus print was not going to go live in a drawer, so instead I made it into a super awesome magnet, which is something that is super easy to do with any paper.

Super, right?

Here's how to make your own DIY magnet from any paper:

Step #1: Don't trim the image that you want completely to size, instead leaving some border around it that you can trim later. Turn it over, and cover the back well with double-sided tape (for the quick and dirty solution) or archival-quality glue, if you want your magnet to last forever:

Step #2: Stick your paper to the back side of a piece of mat board, then trim to size with a ruler and craft knife:

Step #3: Use clear packing tape (for the quick-and-dirty solution) or archival-quality sealant (if you want your magnet to last forever) to protect the front of the magnet from stains:

Step #4: Use an epoxy glue (I prefer E6000) to attach a magnet to the back of the mat board. Let it cure, then use your magnet!

I know, I know--ALL my magnets are pretty baller. I've got a souvenir from our Alaska cruise up there, as well as some Super Mario Bros. magnets, as well as some DIY Scrabble tile magnets!

I might need an even bigger metal board...

In Which I Write New Kids on the Block Mary Sue Fanfiction

In order to not be a hoarder (which is a losing battle, I'll go ahead and tell you), I've lately been going through some of the random piles of papers and keepsakes that I've collected over the years.

And yes, I HAVE been tossing some of it! I saved, like, napkins from places that I don't even remember. I have blurry photographs of people whose faces I don't know. Scrapbooks full of totally random pictures cut out of magazines. I have no idea what I was up to with that...

But of course there are treasures, as well. I was stopped dead this morning when I just happened upon a snapshot of Mac, sitting in front of some waterfall or other, looking pensive and perfect and so, so young. Now that snapshot gets to go on my wall, instead. I destroyed with happiness every member of this super dorky genealogy Facebook group focused on my grandparents' hometown by carefully unbinding, scanning every page  before carefully rebinding (thanks, Girl Scout Cadette Book Artist badge!), and then uploading the entire contents of my Mamma's autograph album from the years 1941-1943 to the group. You'd think it was Christmas all over again, with the enthusiasm with which my contribution was received. I'm pretty chuffed, as well, that my Mamma's album could bring so much pleasure to people still.

The most fun, though, is recovering things that were written by and for me when I was a kid. When I was in the fifth grade, I was out of school for a tonsillectomy, and the whole class made me cards. I found (and scanned, and uploaded to his Facebook timeline...) a get-well card that one boy made for me, a really elaborate card that was a combination of recipes that all involved murdering cats (you had to stir together a cup of motor oil with a cup of cat blood and its brains, etc.) and a bunch of really stressful reminders that we had a big project coming up and our teacher was going to be mad if I didn't finish. Thanks, Chris!

I found a letter that another friend wrote me a week after I left for college, in which he referenced America Online a lot (like, a LOT) and demonstrated this new thing that he'd discovered. It looked like this:

:)

Yep, my friend wrote 300 words explaining the smiley to me. Thanks, Josh!

In my own hand... or on my own typewriter, rather, because my Mamma bought me a typewriter when I was in elementary school and I used my aunt's old secretary manual to teach myself how to type... I found a lot of...

Well, it's a lot of fanfiction, I guess you'd say.

A lot of on-the-nose Mary Sue fanfiction.

A lot of on-the-nose, Mary Sue, New Kids on the Block fanfiction.

I was into New Kids on the Block the same as I was also into Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica and Bon Jovi and The Lost Boys and Top Gun, but something about New Kids on the Block seemed to lend itself especially well to fanfiction, mostly of the sort where I'm discovered by some happy accident and join the band or something. It was pretty good stuff.

Of course, in other of my works, higher adventures ensue. Here, for instance, my friend and I happen up a--gasp!--drug deal gone wrong, and it ends in a--gasp!--murder!

You can tell from my writing that I know a lot about both drug deals and murders.

Okay, this next part is pretty great. Jenika and I have run headlong through the shopping mall, through a door marked PRIVATE, and we've just slammed it shut behind us and are catching our breath:

Gasp! We've happened upon the New Kids on the Block, themselves! I have no memory of this Biscuit fellow, but in my story he appears to be some kind of handler or chaperone. I'm betting that in reality, there would have been more staff on hand to tend to the performers' needs, but whatever. I'm also pretty sure that they're not going to serve as some sort of proxy Witness Protection Program for two twelve-year-olds. I mean, did we even talk to the police? It doesn't sound like it!

But the baby blue eyes of Joey McIntyre, amiright?

So here's where the story gets kind of weird. Remember how I was into New Kids on the Block AND Metallica? Top Gun AND The Lost Boys? Well, I now seem to introduce some sort of additional me, and the two of us converse, and, well...

Yay, I'm a vampire! That always WAS my dream! Well, that and marrying one of the New Kids on the Block. So, you'll never guess what happens next:

YEAH, I showed all those junior high bitches who never believed in me! I DID, TOO marry Joey McIntyre! And I DID, TOO become a vampire! And I DID, TOO start a vampire rock band and we're really successful!

Did I mention that I was a weird and lonely child? I probably didn't have to, did I?

Fangirl

Some of you may know that fandom, and fan cultures, are major interests of mine. I'm interested in fan cultures academically, because I'm fascinated by the immersive experiences that fans can create around a book, movie, TV show, or video game, and the community that also participates in this experience, and extends it. People take ownership of creative works that already have "owners," because creativity cannot be owned. They feel empowered to rewrite and recast characters and situations to fit their own visions, whether it's finding a way to get Harry and Hermione together as a couple, or exploring the adventures of Rose Tyler and John Smith in their alternate universe. People also forge communities through their fandom, subverting the often socially isolating experiences of TV watching, book reading, and video game playing. They connect online, of course, constantly, finding common ground with other people all over the world who also think there's totally a ton of sexual tension between Sherlock and John, but they also connect in person, through conventions, and the experience is really, really, really fun.

I say that last part because, of course, although I'm very interested in fan culture academically, I'm also interested in it personally. I read and write fanfiction. I have a favorite wizard rock band (It's Swish and Flick, for those of you playing the home game). I collect fan art. I make fan art. I attend fan conventions. And, yes, I cosplay at those conventions. Here I am cosplaying as my favorite superhero, Krrish, at the Indy Pop Con last weekend:

Matt went in regular clothes, but with Sharpie tally marks up and down his arms as one who fights the Silence, and the children cosplayed as their OCs, The Awesomes.

There are a ton of things to do at a fan convention. Some people like to meet celebrities and get photos and autographs. Some people like to buy rare collectibles. Some people like to photograph the other cosplayers. Some people like to meet up with their friends who they usually only interact with online. The kids like to shop for vintage toys and, for Will, dragons and sharp pointy things. Syd likes anything My Little Pony. Matt likes to watch live gaming (at this con, we sat in on a Halo championship that was being livestreamed on Twitch--very cool). I like to browse the fan art for sale in the exhibit hall, all of which is created by super-talented indie crafters and artists, check out brand-new indie comic books and video games, and attend the workshops and panels.

I really like celebrity panels, because I'm always interested in the process of creation, and I always like to hear about a writer or actor's experiences. At this con, for instance, I insisted that we all get up bright and early so that we could be sitting in our seats in the third row of the main hall in time for the first panel of the day, a Q&A with Sam Jones, star of Flash Gordon:

Although Jones is now back in filmmaking, he has apparently spent much of his time since Flash Gordon running a security and extraction services business aimed at high-profile businesspeople traveling to Mexico.

Jones spoke a lot about his experiences making Flash Gordon, of course, but also about his cameos on Ted and Ted 2, and since these are his only film credits, and there's so much time separating them, I was curious about his thoughts on the evolution of filmmaking during that time. I mean, just animating that talking teddy bear in Ted uses technology way beyond all the tech involved in making all the effects in the special effects-heavy, sci-fi Flash Gordon.

As I'm standing with the microphone, however, asking this question, I go off on a little tangent (of course) about how much I'd loved Flash Gordon as a kid, and how one scene in particular--the one in which they're sticking their arms into the woodbeast's lair, when at any moment it could bite their hand off--had scared the stuffing out of me, even though it had required no special effects at all, and I said that I'd watched Flash Gordon "a lot."

"How many times?" Jones asked me.

Well, when Flash Gordon is asking you how many times you've seen his movie, you've got to tell the truth, so I replied with the approximate number, and this number was so large that even the other fanboys/fangirls in the audience with me audibly gasped.

And in case you're curious, the acting in that woodbeast scene was so good, Jones says, because it was an open set, and the lair was actually elaborately constructed as an actual lair, and the actors were actually concerned that little animals could actually have sneaked inside it at some point and could actually be waiting to bite them when they stuck their arms in.

John de Lancie, at his Q&A, had a lot more ground to cover, because he has been in TONS of stuff:

It was interesting, however, to see the way that he thinks of his career. Whereas Edward James Olmos, who I'll tell you about in a minute, had some very powerful things to say about why he chooses only projects that are personally meaningful to him, and how he treats his acting as art, de Lancie portrayed himself as much more of a career actor who chooses his roles based on time and money. For instance, he says that by the time My Little Pony became a hit and people began to contact him about his role as Dischord in the series, he had completely forgotten about having done it. He'd accepted the part, prepared for the role, voiced all his scenes over three days in the audio booth, and then gone about his business, leaving it all behind him.

He therefore had more interesting things to say about the technical aspect of acting, how to fabricate a side story to save a poorly-written scene, how to work with other actors, how to prepare your voice for the recording studio (never eat chocolate when you're going to be doing voice work!).

So he was interesting. And Sam Jones was interesting. But Edward James Olmos?

He was freaking AWESOME!

I'm mostly familiar with his work in Battlestar Galactica and Dexter (I know he's also on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, but I'm not up to date with that series yet, so don't spoil me!), so I already knew that he was a great actor, but the stories that he told about his work, and the way that he cogently explained how  he decided to take the projects that he did, were incredible. He was really sharing what it was like to be a gifted artist and how to make meaningful contributions to society using his gift.

For instance, his role on Miami Vice? He was offered that part while he was still a relatively new actor, and one would think that he would still be interested in taking roles for the money, right? Lots of actors do that their entire careers, and do just fine. But Olmos described getting the call, with an offer that was more money than his father had earned in his entire life.

And he turned it down.

Of course he did take the part, after several more negotiations, and for reasons that went beyond the money. And then he told us a bunch of stories about how miserable it was to work with Don Johnson, who was an utter prima donna, and how their contentious relationship off-camera affected their scenes together, evidence of which you can see in the scenes.

It was really cool.

He offered the same kinds of fascinating insights about all his roles, bringing depth and context to the way that I'll watch Battlestar Galactica and Dexter and Agents of SHIELD from now on. And he's gotten me thinking about how American films portray Hispanic culture.

The other major guests at the con included these super-famous Youtube gamers, Markiplier and Jack Septiceye. Matt and I aren't way into them, but there is a huge fan culture that is WAY into them. Seriously, the line to meet them was hours long--no, it was days long, because when we were all sitting in the main hall waiting for the Edward James Olmos panel to begin at 1:00, they made an announcement that the people who were waiting in line to get in line to meet them were not going to be able to meet them that day, as the line was already full up to the end of the day, and they were given tickets to come back the next day to get in the line.

Here's a little video from the meet-and-greet. What you see here is probably .01% of the fans who came to see them:

When this was filmed, I was waaaaay across the exhibit hall, checking out fan art smack at the other end, and I could still hear the singing.

I bought a couple of great art prints--a My Little Pony castle scene for the kids' bedroom, and a Hermione Granger, surrounded by books, for myself (from this guy)--and saw a ton more great examples of the genre, but a bunch of these types of artists aren't really online. Copyright, you know. Or this isn't their full-time gig. Or they do enough business in person that it's simply not necessary. So now I'm kicking myself for also not buying anything from the artist who creates her own My Little Pony designs based on mythical creatures, or the artist who makes Rorschach prints that look like superheroes, OR the artist who makes furry critters who will sit on your shoulder and can actually move their heads, because who knows when I'll see them again?

Sigh...

Here are some of the awesome artists who ARE online, however:

• Raven Designs--Frankenstein-like character stuffies
• Loveworn--clothes from upcycled T-shirts
• Twisted Wire--wire sculptures
• Icypanther--Syd SUPER wanted a My Little Pony sculpture!
• Chris & Gin--two of the coolest comics EVER. Seriously, Dexter's Digs and Presidents of the United Space are both basically perfect.
• ChaosxCreations--Syd LOVES Perler bead art.
• Willy Chyr--Will play-tested Relativity, and it was REALLY cool.

So that was the con! We saw some cool stuff, we learned some interesting things, and we had a great day together as a family.

And the kids didn't even think it was weird to spend the entire day at a fan convention, so I win!