Sidetracks - October 19, 2017

[helloladies]

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag. For more links and commentary you can follow us on Twitter, Tumblr. You can also support us on Patreon.

Clare

1. Tumblr user cancerously explains their 1% theory of fandom—namely, only 1% of fans in a given fandom are awful, but the bigger the fandom, the more of them there are… which explains Rick and Morty fandom, to be honest.

2. Middle-Earth: Shadows of War includes a little epic poetry minigame, which should really be the only kind of game based on a Tolkien property, you know?

Jodie

3. The Book Fair for Ballou wishlist is open. If you're able consider buying a few books to help fill this high school library with books they aren't able to buy with school funding. The list is designed by the school's students and librarian (so you know these are books they really want), and the students are always so delighted to see the packages start rolling in. You can read more about the project and see a video about Ballou here.

4. Clare's piece A Certain Point of View: Star Wars and Emotional Labour about "From a Certain Point of View: A Star Wars 40th Anniversary Celebration" at New York Comic Con was great (and reminded me to pick up this anthology).

5. New Black Panther trailer!!!

6. Netflix's next superhero drama, Raising Dion, is about a single, black mother raising her superpowered son. I think we can all agree we need this one.

7. LGBTQ Reads has a really interesting interview with Anna Maria Mclemore, author of Wild Beauty and When the Moon Was Ours.

8. How K-Pop and Korean History Helped Axie Oh Write Her Debut Novel.

9. Pearl Mackie met a Bill Potts cosplayer!

10. Elizabeth Bear wrote Where Are All the Women? which looks at the ratios of women in epic fantasy. Bear thinks the problem is that many writers and readers have been taught that women, and the things they do, just aren't interesting.

11. Finally, SFF Reviews is looking for reviewers to cover some unclaimed short fiction venues. If you're interested the organisers would love to hear from you. I review for this site and it's a really low pressure, fun way to get involved in reviewing short SFF.

KJ

12. "Save Jeanie" is an excellent tribute to Ferris Bueller's long-suffering younger sister. I've always liked Jeanie and wanted the story to treat her better, even before I realized that her brother was a monstrous representation of white male privilege personified, and now I want fic of the future the author suggests, where Jeanie and Cameron grow up to become friends.

13. The original Blade Runner is one of my spouse's favorite movies, so we went to see Blade Runner 2049 on its opening weekend. I'm still sorting out what I think of it, but I found these two (very different) takes instructive: "Blade Runner 2049's Politics Aren't That Futuristic," from Devon Maloney at Wired, suggests that the new film doesn't improve on the gender politics of the original; meanwhile, Sunny Moraine writes about the movie's themes of personhood and abuse and comes away with a more favorable impression.

14. I don't know that I agree with Robert Greene II that "Past Tense" is the single most political episode of Star Trek -- "Far Beyond the Stars" and "The Maquis" come immediately to mind, and I'm sure there are non-DS9 episodes that might make the short list -- but it is interesting to revisit this two-parter from 1995 and its still-current message about racism, social justice, and homelessness.

15. Ugandan students who watched The Queen of Katwe, a movie based on a true story about a Ugandan chess star, did better on their final school exams than students who watched a different film. Representation matters.

16. "How The Good Place Mastered the Art of the Twist" - spoilers through the third episode of Season 2.

17. I'm intrigued by Pornokitsch's concept of 10 Films We've Outgrown (but were there when we needed them)." It's only natural for favorites to change over time, especially as we grow and change, but I also like the idea of honoring the memory of films, tv shows, and books that were pivotal in our lives even if they haven't aged well. Some really good choices on their list. On my own, I'd put the aforementioned Ferris Bueller's Day Off -- I see now just how terrible Ferris is, but when I was a teenager, I really needed a story about someone who didn't always follow the rules and still came out okay. What's on your list?

Renay

18. Read the Resistance is a book club about reading books deal with political resistance. I'm not sure I have time for the book club, but it looks like a great resource for finding interesting books.

19. Children of Time is getting adapted for film. I have this book but I haven't read it yet. Also, Hollywood, when will you adapt ANY Kate Elliott book? ಠ_ಠ

20. I forget if I mentioned this (did I mention this?), but The Expanse is getting some prequel graphic novels, which sounds really cool. More characterization!

21. The evolution of trust. Who showed this to me? I have been obsessed with it.

22. Although Google will probably release another cute game this halloween, don't forget about the magician cat game from 2016. STILL ADORABLE.

Susan

23. The Rock Test: A hack for men who don't want to be accused of sexual harassment made me laugh and despair in equal measure.

24. This one is old, but I really enjoyed Michele Tracy Berger talking about the politics of hair and beauty in the context of race and her novella Reenu-You is really interesting!

25. Isabel Yap writes about how Life Is Not a Shoujo Manga and I am overcome.

26. There's been a lot of discussion in my corner of twitter recently on whose voices get amplified and in what ways, including this post about allies quote-tweeting/screencapping transphobia being how most hate gets into the author's feed, which is helping me in thinking critically about how I'm using twitter.