Linksgiving (Why Fantasy Matters, Twilight Fanfic, and More)

I love this photo and I don't know where it's from. Halp.

Oh my gosh, what is this? Are we - gasp - back to a normal posting schedule? Blasphemy!

Well, blasphemous or not, it's the truth. Thank you all for sticking with me through the crazies of last month, and let's hope that we can stick to something more sane for a bit. Fingers crossed, at least.

Anyway, this week we've got a vast variety of more editorial links, by which I mean that they don't fit into an easy category, except that I find them interesting and worth reading. So, enjoy!

1. The Problem with Female Werewolves from Fangs for the Fantasy. I mean, I generally fangirl over everything that FftF writes, but this is one of my favorites.

2. Female monsters: My mother made me this way from Feminema. You know how most female monsters have messed up mommy issues? Yeah, well, there's a reason for that. A sexist one.

3. Fifty Shades of Grey and the Twilight Pro-Fic Phenomenon from the MarySue. Probably the best explanation of how Fifty Shades of Grey happened that I've seen. Also makes you kind of mind that less.

4. How Harry Potter Became the Boy Who Lived Forever from Time Magazine. About Harry Potter, fan phenomena, and the legacy of one little boy under the stairs. Gosh I love those stories.

5. Why Mass Effect is the Most Important Science Fiction Universe of Our Generation from io9.com. Science fiction so often is used to glorify people, to assure us of our importance in the universe. But as this article rightly points out, what if we aren't all that important?

6. Forget why fantasy matters. Why does realism matter? from io9.com. HOLY CRAP THIS ARTICLE IS AMAZING. Basically, if you can tell a story with dragons and wizards and time travel, why wouldn't you?

7. Women in the Anita Blake Series from Fangs for the Fantasy. I hate the Anita Blake series, but I've never been able to eloquently express that. So read this instead. It's everything I would say if I weren't so busy frothing at the mouth.

8. The Visual Philosophy of Genis Carreras from Make a Powerful Point. As a philosophy major, I love it when people put these things together - where they find a way to clearly portray complex ideas. And this is beautiful.

9. How to Live Without Irony from NYTimes. Just because sincerity is better, doesn't mean it's easy. It isn't. But it is good.

10. Average Faces from Around the World from MediaDump. Gosh people are pretty.

11. More Romance Tropes We'd Like to See Buried from Fangs for the Fantasy. I'm not stalking them. Promise. I just like everything they write?

12. Punctuation Social Personalities from Doubleday Books. Okay, it's hard to explain. But adorable.

13. The Battle Against "Sexist" Sci-fi and Fantasy Book Covers from BBC News. Basically, author Jim Hines has started a crusade against sexist book covers and we should all join him because he's awesome and also that crap needs to stop.

14. Ukiyo-e Heroes: Donkey Kong Visits 17th-Century Japan from Storyboard. Japanese art remade to include videogame characters? Yes please!

15. Four ‘Lizzie Bennet Diaries’ characters who are better than their ‘Pride and Prejudice’ counterparts from Hypable. So maybe Lizzie Bennet Diaries has been over for a while. Who cares? It's still awesome.

16. An Open Letter to Facebook from MotherWise. If upskirt shots, creeper shots, nude selfies, and general creepiness aren't too much for Facebook, then why do they have a problem with anatomical charts and breastfeeding photos? Because those things aren't designed to titillate.

17. Animated 'Art Story' Film Looks Painfully Adorable from Huffington Post. Every once in a while you hear about an upcoming project that just sounds wonderful and exactly like what is missing from the world. That's what this is. A thing that needs to be.

18. Fallen Princesses: When The Happily-Ever-After Doesn’t Happen from BoredPanda. These are depressing as hell, but I love them.

19. This steampunk girls' adventure novel might actually knock your goggles off from io9.com. Another project that sounds ridiculously amazing.

20. Empathy is the Enemy: The Fall of Orson Scott Card from Pajiba. A very succinct explanation of why we all hate Orson Scott Card now. Because we do.

Well, that's it for this week. I leave you with Clothing of the Future, a cute little video from the 1940s, speculating what people would be wearing now. You know, a couple of them aren't far off...



We'll be back on Monday with a review of The Hobbit. Happy weekend!