coprime

In your own space, rec at least three fanworks that you think would make a good intro into XYZ fandom. Rec a fandom overview, a introductory picspam, stories that define and shape the fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I chose Nero Wolfe for this, a mystery series by Rex Stout. I find the books a joy to read, and I highly recommend the A&E television adaption. (There are other adaptions, but I'm not familiar with them.)

-The Orchid Thief by Leviathan0999, a Doctor Who/Nero Wolfe crossover. Crossovers can be a great intro to a new fandom: read it for the characters you already know, get interested in the new characters in the process! This story reminds me a bit of "Blink" where it's definitely a Doctor Who story but the focus is more on the OCs (here, they're the Nero Wolfe characters) than on the Doctor.

-Aesthetics by Jennifer Lon, a story about how Archie came to work for Wolfe. Another great intro to a fandom is the pre-canon story: you can't get confused by references to canon events if none of them have happened yet. There are several good "how Wolfe and Archie met" stories; I chose this one because I like Saul's voice here.

-Hostage by Parhelion, where Wolfe gets taken hostage in his own office. The final way I like to get familiar with new fandoms is the "just like canon but with added slash" type of fic. Fun!

And a Nero Wolfe primer featuring cookies if you'd like a little more information before trying the stories.

In your own space, share something non-fannish about yourself. A passion or a hobby or a talent, something that people might not know about you. We are more than just our fandoms. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This was tough because I tend to be very close-lipped about my non-fannish life on the internet, but I eventually figured out that I could talk a bit about math, which was my major in collage and something I've always found fascinating.

I actually chose my username, coprime, because it was a math term that was unique and that I liked the look of. Two whole numbers are coprime if the only whole, positive number that divides both of them neatly is one. As an example, 9 can be divided by 1, 3, and 9 while 22 can be divided by 1, 2, 11, and 22. The only number in both those lists is 1, so 9 and 22 are coprime. (As a counterexample, 9 and 15 are not coprime because both are divisible by 3.) It's not a term or idea that I ever used in my studies at school, but as I said I liked the look of the word.

I've also dug out some math-related links from my bookmarks that I think laypeople might also find interesting or fun (as well as two more math-intensive links).

-A video about the surprising Menger Sponge and its cross section. If I were a cartoon character, I would have had hearts in my eyes while watching this video. It does a good job explaining what's going on in friendly terms, and I think the cross sections are beautiful to look at. (Sorry to any visually impaired persons reading this because while there is narration explaining things, it's a bit of a brain-twisting idea even with being able to seeing the model. I doubt it's easily understandable without the model.)

-What the Tortoise Said to Laurie is an Alice in Wonderland-esque look at the idea o infinity via an infinitely long, two-inch piece of string. Infinity is one of those ideas that's fun to explore because it lends itself to all sorts of mental diversions.

-How to make your bagel into a Möbius strip, for those who like a little math with their breakfast. Neat looking even if you don't have a bagel yourself handy to experiment on.

-Finding Point Nemo, the spot in the ocean furthest from any land, and the answer is not where I would have guessed. There's not much explanation here of how the computer calculated this point, but I find it an interesting bit of mathematically discovered trivia.

-A function that is continuous at only one point, and this link is something you need some higher math (basic calculus) to get. But if you do understand calculus, I think this is a pretty nifty function.

-The Tau Manifesto, positing a replacement for π that makes a very compelling argument. This is super-math geeky, I'm afraid, but the basic idea is that π is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter while τ is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its radius. And by changing π to τ, a lot of things found in trigonometry (which are then populated up into higher mathematics) get simplified. I find it an interesting thought experiment, even though I know π is not getting replaced anytime soon.

-A comic poking fun at the word problems you used to do in elementary school, to close out my links. This one should be understandable to everyone.

( Transcript under here )

And two book recommendations! Fantasia Mathematica and The Mathematical Magpie, both edited by Clifton Fadiman. They contain short stories, cartoons, poems, and other things that have a mathematical bent. A lot of the things in these books are laypeople playing around with ideas like infinity or multiple dimensions, so I don't think any extensive math knowledge is required to enjoy them. I adore these books because of the imagination and the fun the various authors have with all these ideas.

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you did not create. Drop a link to your post in the comments. See if you can rec fanworks that are less likely to be praised: tiny fandoms, rare pairings, fanworks other than stories, lesser known kinks or tropes. Find fanworks that have few to no comments, or creators new to a particular fandom and maybe aren't well known or appreciated. Appreciate them.

1) Eternal Friends by simounsibylla is an Aria fanfic featuring Alicia/Akira. Aria is an anime/manga in the slice of life genre where the characters appreciate the beauty and simplicity of everyday life, but this one is set on a future version of Mars that's been colonized, terraformed, and is now mostly covered by water and the characters are all Undines (gondoliers). It's a gentle and optimistic series, and "Eternal Friends" captures that feel perfectly. It's lovely to see Alicia and Akira, two of the secondary characters, given a chance to shine with the glimpses of their past together and also looking forward towards their future. I really don't know what else to say except that I think this could fit into the canon beautifully.

2) Put away childish things by sophiap is an Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic looking at Monk Gyatso after Aang ran away. It's sad, but it's perfect in its own way. Gyatso doesn't get a lot of fanfic written about him, but the few things I've found have all been brilliant. "Put away childish things" even has some worldbuilding to make it feel like, yes, this is exactly how Gyatso dealt with his grief and how could it be any thing else.

3) Tape Madness by jmtorres is a Sector General fanfic starring Dr. Conway. who is having a problem with one of the tapes in his head. Sector General is a science fiction series by James White set on a huge, interspecies hospital/space station. All the alien species White came up with are imaginative and different, so the way canon works around having different species operate on each other is via tape technology. A tape is basically a psychic impression of a person's mind which is then overlaid onto another person's mind. The tape contains all the knowledge of the original person (hence letting vastly different species understand each other's anatomy), but it also contains all the instincts, drives, preferences, etc. of the original person. So there are pretty much always conflicts between a person's own needs and what the tape is telling them they need, like carnivore vs. herbivore or oxygen-breather vs. nitrogen-breather. I hope that explanation made sense because "Tape Madness" is a brilliant bit of fanfic dealing with one possible problem from a tape that has an even more brilliant ending. It is, if fact, the only fannish thing I have ever found for this canon, and I wish more people were familiar with Sector General because "Tape Madness" is just plain old fun.

Bonus) Did you ever wonder, if there were people like you? by Qem is a super short crossover between Azumanga Daioh and Hikaru no Go. It's a perfect little morsel of a fic, especially the last sentence, but I think that a passing familiarity with both canons is required to enjoy it.

Going through my unorganized bookmarks, I found several links to bookshelves that I liked. Hence, linkspam.

This one looks so useful! It's got a spot to a drink, a spot to keep your place when you put your book down, and a spot to store other books you're reading. All in a nice, small piece. The more I look at this shelf, the more I like it.

The minimalist-est shelves I have ever seen. The lack of hard shelves would drive me nuts in my own home, but I really like the geometry of these shelves.

Another holder for books you're currently reading. This one would be useful on a desk. And it spins, which would be fun to play with while bored.

This is a bookend rather than shelving, but I can't imagine any lover of physical books not enjoying this bookend. It is cute and funny!

It looks like someone played Jenga with a bookcase. I like all the little nooks and crannies.

This bookcase is rather clever although not very practical for actually holding books.

Louis Moinet (whom I've never heard of before, I'll admit) has made a pair of watches inspired by Jules Verne. And they've got a piece of the moon in them! Seriously, how cool is that? They've got a wonderful steampunk look to them too.

I want the Trilogy bookcase so bad. Look how geometric and orderly it is! Sadly, I cannot afford it, and even if I could I have no place to put it. I think the Platzhalter bookcase is cool idea well-executed. It was my favorite bookcase until I saw the Trilogy one.

Uncharted Territory - Connie Willis
For the longest time, whenever I went into a bookstore, I had to remind myself that it was a bad idea to start collecting everything by an author when I'd only read one thing of hers, even if I had really enjoyed it. And that I already had two other novels of hers sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. So I finally decided to actually read one of those two novels, and I picked Uncharted Territory (rather than Lincoln's Dreams) because the premise sounded fun -- hijinks and adventures! exploration! needlessly ridiculous bureaucratic red tape! a socioexozoologist who specializes in sex! -- and it was short.

And I did really enjoy it until the end because nothing had changed in the end. Fin and Carson are the same at the end of the story as they were in the beginning. I would have been happy even if the end change had just been mental or if they'd decided that they didn't want to be in a relationship. Instead, I finished and was left with the impression that all the events in the book might as well have not happened for all the impact they had on Fin and Carson. Which is not what I would call a satisfying ending.

The Drakon #3: Queen of Dragons - Shana Abé
Ohh, I wanted to like this book. It's a historical romance about a race of dragon/human shapeshifters, and glenraven read and thought I'd like the first Drakon book. I picked up the third Drakon book first, but I thought I'd be okay because I've found that most romance series can be read out of order so long as you don't mind not knowing all the details when couples from previous books pop up. But it turns out this approach doesn't work so much for this series because when the hero from a previous book popped up, he was doing secretive, important-to-the-plot things and not a one of them was explained. I was left thoroughly confused, right in the middle of the final action scene.

I also had an issue with the fact that the entire action plot was just a set-up for the next book and nothing actually gets resolved. No, seriously, I very nearly threw the book across the room I was so frustrated with the ending. The book ends with ( spoilers if you care )

And then I had a lot of issues with the romance aspect of the novel. Partially, it's because I'm a bit sick of every shapeshifter/demon/animal hybrid/etc. having some sort of "animal instinct" where they must mate for life with one specific person and if that person isn't overly enthusiastic about them, then they just keep pursuing the person despite the other's wishes because their instinct tells them differently. It's very popular in paranormal romance, which is mostly what I read. And I don't like it because it dehumanizes the couple for me. There's always lots of talk about mates and alphas and such, and it's done regardless of whether our hero and heroine are dragon-shapeshifters, psychics, vampires, some form of were-. I can understand it more with the weres/shapeshifters, but why with other paranormal characters? Why can't the hero and heroine just fall head-over-heels for each other like normal, human romance couples do?

I will give Abé credit for doing a good job of integrating the different forms of the Drakon so that they all seemed equally natural. Kim and Mari were appreciative of each other and had chemistry no matter their form, and it never read weird for me. (Although -- and I know I'm harping -- I wold have expected dragon instincts to tend more towards a solitary existence rather than a pack existence.) But then halfway through the novel Kim did something where, if I had been Mari and had gone through what she'd gone through with her previous husband, I would not be able to trust him again without some serious work on his part.

I never got the emotional payoff of them rebuilding their trust however because Abé (and therefore Mari) didn't see what happened as that much of an issue as I did. So Kim made extra special sure not to do what he did again, and Mari had no doubts or hesitance at all stemming from Kim's actions. Sure, she still didn't want to end up in the same situation as when she'd been married before, but that was because she was against getting remarried in general. She never once thought "I don't want to get married, and especially not to Kim because he treated me like my former husband did (albeit by accident)."

Oh, and then there's Kim, who (along with the rest of his village) spends nearly the entire book acting like Mari and he are already married because years before he met her, he and the village council decided he should marry her for political reasons. And then when Kim and Mari finally meet, bam! they're married in the eyes of everyone except Mari, who keeps saying that no way no how is she going to get married again. Kim doesn't ever physically force himself on Mari, but it's incredibly annoying to have the hero saying that he doesn't care about the heroine's wishes on the matter of her marital status, he's decided they are and that's that.

Between my numerous frustrations with the romance plot and the wash-out that was the ending of the action plot, I was very dissatisfied with this book, and I don't think I'll read any more of this series. I might be willing to read one of her other novels if it was recommended to me by someone I know, but that's it.

ETA: glenraven has informed me that this is the really sucktacular book of the series and that the two before it are better. So maybe I'll read them at some later date.

Warrior - Marie Brennan
I have nothing bad to say about this one! Haha, finally my first book of the new year that I just out-and-out enjoyed. It was fun and interesting fantasy, and if I had the sequel I'd probably be reading it. I really like both Mirage and Miryo, and it was a nice change of pace to read a fantasy novel without any romance in it.

podslash looks like a really nifty idea.

The Eerie Sounds of Saturn's Radio Emissions made my frickin' week. Possibly the month as well.

And, I went in search of a writing prompt community that'd be a good fit for me. This was more difficult than it sounds, since I may write original fic or fanfic of the het, gen, or slash variety depending on my mood. Plus, I hate timed prompts since those just make me panic. The closest I found to the sort of prompts that work for me was museteasers, but they're original only. I don't wish to step on toes, but I do so like the prompts and really want to get back in the habit of writing. So my solution is to use the prompts but not participate in the community; we'll see how well that works.

I've been listening to this mp3 cd my dad gave me of songs from the 50s to the 70s. In addition to being reminded that the 50s were bizarrely in love with songs about dead teenagers^*, I just finished listening to a two and a half minute long song about Burma Shave. Yes, someone was just that inspired by ads for shaving cream that he sang about it for a sum total of 150 seconds. If you doubt, there are lyrics.

^*And I still find it hilarious to be listening to a song which has that happy, smiley 50s vibe but is lyrically about a boy who's crying in the rain because his girl is dead. And he's only crying in the rain so no one can see his crying. Do any of today's boybands sing about dead teenagers? 'Cause I might listen to those, if only to laugh.