Doesn’t look like I’ll finish any more books before tonight, so here’s my list of pretty much everything I read in 2021, plus a few other odds and ends, like this year’s reading trends, books I’m looking forward to in 2022, and Favorite New-To-Me Authors.
Fanfiction
World’s Worst Trekkie: Carlie Takes On “Mirror, Mirror”
People. Compatriots. Fellow nerds across the galaxy. I am extremely pleased to report that we have officially hit one of the most iconic Trek episodes of all time, the episode that first introduced us to the Mirror Verse and–more importantly–Spock’s Beard of Evil. This is the episode that actually created the whole Evil Counterparts Have Goatees trope. This, my friends, is television history.
It also happens to be one of my favorite TOS episodes to date.
World’s Worst Trekkie: Carlie Takes On “The Conscience of the King”
From Klingons spouting Hamlet quotes to Captain Picard fake-wooing Lwaxana Troi with a sonnet mashup, Star Trek has had a very long and very weird history with William Shakespeare. In fact, the Bard features so prominently in the franchise that he has his own motherfucking entry on Memory Alpha.
And this, my friends, this episode is where it all begins.
8 Things Fanfiction Has Taught Me
Here’s a thing about me: I fall into fandom blackholes with some frequency, sometimes because I’m looking for happy distractions from sad life stuff and terrifying political news, but also just because I love fanfiction: I’ve been reading and writing it since I was 16-years-old, and I can unequivocally say that it’s made me a happier person
I’d planned to write up a review of Seasons 1-2 of Voltron: Legendary Defender, as that was my fandom blackhole of choice a couple of months ago . . . but life happened, the review got delayed, and I’m now happily in the midst of a Riverdale spiral instead. More importantly, I realized that so much of the review was going to be about discussing the relationship between fandom and show that I realized what I really wanted to do was talk about my experience with fanfiction in general: what I look for, what doesn’t interest me, how it’s made me a better writer, and how it can shape my perception of the canon material itself.
I’m not sure if anyone’s interested in that kind of thing, but hey, that’s why it’s my blog, right? (Also, did I mention I’m throwing out some random fanfic recs? Because I am definitely throwing out a few random fanfic recs.)
So, here we go, people. An essay in list form, because that’s how I roll.
My Geek Blasphemy 