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A Different Kind of Angel: An Interview with Michael By Claire Schumer Michael was the second Transformed person to become a public sensation. The existence of Kaylee, a “catgirl” straight out of a Japanese cartoon, brought out the worst in a lot of anime fans, but Michael’s symbolism is the sort that isn’t lost on people who aren’t into a niche hobby. There’s no getting around the fact that he looks like an angel. Sitting across from me in a quiet café, he looks out of place even with a caramel macchiato in front of him. He is such a perfect specimen of a beautiful man, with these great white bird wi

You are very likely aware of the larger fandoms, the Trekkies, the Warsies, the otaku, the Pokemans, and the Homestuckies. There are however many smaller fandoms out there. Friends of Joe Joe Redding is a pretty ordinary geek, with a love of D&D and science fiction. He does however have a certain amount of charisma and a devious mind, and got his friends to start referring themselves as “Friends of Joe.” The term has spread around various forms of social media, and people have been using the #friendsofjoe hashtag even in South Korea and Japan. He realized that he may have made a mistake when he discovered a Joe Redding/Chris Har

I didn't plan to become a vampire. I mean, the whole not dying thing sounds nice and all, but I wasn't about to go hang around the "blood light district" or anything.  It happened in the Safeway downtown of all places. Downtown San Jose varies between nice and scary over short distances, but over by the Paseo de San Antonio light rail station it usually tends more towards the college student/downtown professional side of things. I saw him wandering around the supermarket in a daze. He was handsome in that weird, porcelain way some vampires are, which doesn't translate to photographs because it's partly some weird pheromone thing. He was carr

I am a huge fan of John Hodgman, especially his trilogy of Complete World Knowledge (Areas, More, and All). Each of these books has a list of 700 names of something (Hoboes, Mole-Men, and Ancient and Unspeakable Ones respectively), and I thought it would be fun to write a list of 700 catgirl names. I was wrong. Writing this list was a terrible idea that took several months and left my brain feeling as though someone had grabbed it and scraped out every last bit of goop they could possibly get out, and then just kept on scraping. And then I was at around 500 names. Since I actually did this thing, I have no choice but to share it with you, bec

Usually when alien/sci-fi stuff shows up in my life it's a source of aggravation. It might not reflect well on me, but my friends have learned that they can tell when I've spotted something alien by how I groan and rub my temples. But on Christmas Eve, when I was 17, my cynicism turned out to be misplaced. A package came in the mail, addressed to "Janet Q. Smith" (and no, I'm not telling you what my middle name is), without a return address. Though my "alien senses" were already tingling, I figured it was better to open the package and find out what I was dealing with rather than leave it be and let it do god-knows-what on its own. About 9

Bryce woke to the sound of pounding on his door. He rolled over in bed and hoped it would go away. It didn't. He picked himself up and shuffled to the door. Something fell over in the apartment. When he opened the door, Julie slipped inside and slammed the door. "Zombies!" she cried. "Morning," he mumbled. "Zombies!" she repeated. "You broke your paddle thing." He pointed at her wooden paddle, which had at one point said seme on it. It was broken, splintered, and splattered with red. Julie looked at it, then up at him. "Bryce! Zombies!" He stared at her. She rolled her eyes. "Ugh! Coffee." Bryce shuffled back to bed, and didn't stir u