Gender Inclusion in Kids and Geekdom

So I have recently discovered the truth that when it comes to inclusion and differences kids do not care. At least not unless a parent make a deal about it and trains the kid to care. I have an awesome example:

My daughter loves My Little Pony. Most of you know them as the ponies on TV:

IMAGE

As standard understanding all the ponies are girls. From Apple Jack to Rarity. It's a show about a bunch of girl ponies doing things together and helping each other. Well my daughter believes differently. As a four year old experiencing the world she has decided that Apple Jack and Rainbow Dash are boys. I don't know what made her decide this but she will argue till she is blue in the face that the two characters are definitely boys.

Now comes the cool part.

We have a new obsession with My Little Pony: Equestrian Girls. Here is a Pic of them:

Found HERE

As you can see the girls are all in skirts and makeup and fancy hair. What does my daughter say?? "Wow Rainbow Dash is cool, He has an awesome outfit." Yup you heard that right. She still believes that Apple and Rainbow are just boys who like to dress up in the same clothes as the girls.

I think this is totally amazing. I love the fact that she isn't even fazed by the idea at all. There is no "boy's clothes", "girl clothes" attitude. Mind you I do buy "boy clothes" for my girls because seriously what little geeky girl doesn't want to wear avengers and marvel stuff! lol :)

Even cooler she now wants a Rainbow dress... just as she has a Spider-man outfit... too her it doesn't matter the gender of the character. She could be Pym from Next Avengers or Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony. She wants the costume of the character she likes the most despite the gender.

I think I've had a major Mom win with this little one.

Until Next Time.
Keep on Geekin' On.
Angie

Monday Awesome.

I had a rather Geekily eventful weekend. On Saturday we joined thousands(?) at Toronto Comic Con in their expressions of Geekdom. I have a list of amazing artists that I will be sharing soon, but today I sucked cause I forgot all their cards with their info at home. So hopefully you'll get to see and I'll link all their sites over so that you can revel in their awesomeness as well.

I had decided that this Cosplay won TCC... There were some amazing and beautiful costumes (which I suck and totally failed to take pictures of) but Baymax was AWESOME. He was even letting kids give him hugs and everything. Two thumbs up to Baymax!

So we went to see Kingsmen... if you haven't seen the trailer here you go:

(I hope the trailer works. I'm just figuring out this linking from You Tube thing LOL)

Anywho.... when you watch the trailer you almost think it may be a little Teen Spy Like.... it is SO NOT! I mean. I really really liked it. Who knew that Colin Firth could actually be a fighter in a movie. SERIOUSLY. After movies like the King's Speech and Bridget Jones and Mama Mia and Nanny McPhee... you assume the actor will be more serious but fun. But he TRULY kicks but.

I warn you, because it took me off guard. It was quite visual, more so than I was expecting. Lots of dead bodies and blood and such. Here I am going in expecting some silly spy flick and leave going "OMG that was Awesome!". I'm not going to hype it too much for you though because I'm sure someone will go and say it was horrible. And if you are looking for a serious boring blah blah blah kind of movie then it was. Actually it had that amazing B movie quality where in one point you are thinking this might be an absolute wash but at the same time realize you would re-watch every Sunday for a month without blinking an eye.

On another note have you seen this amazing house?

GeekxGirls did an article ( HERE ) about house done up in the theme of avengers. My issue? I would totally own it but I love too many types of Geekdom to have my house limited to one genre. I have an eclectic mess for my Geeky abode of my dreams LOL.

I leave you with a Pon and Zi image:

Why? Because they are Adorables! I love Pon and Zi!! You should love them too :)

Until Next Time.
Keep on Geekin' on!!
Angie

All the things... To the CON!

This is my first scheduled blog post... and my first attempt with Twitterfeed.com .

From HERE

I know this sounds funny but for the last few months I have been doing "ALL THE THINGS". I'm getting penpals, joining Con groups, making crafts... I've sewn my daughter a dress, started on cosplay costuming for myself. I've started this blog and revisited my profile on twitter, finding new people and new things. I've rekindled my love of dolls and crafts and toys and collectibles. I've started reading Manga and debated on getting into comic books again.

I have done all this stuff and more and I'm actually quite happy. Part of me keeps feeling like I'm looking for something. That I'm on the right path to get where I want to go or find what it is I'm looking for but I haven't really gotten there yet. I feel like I'm looking for the WOW, the excitement, the insane exuberance in finding that thing. I have found somethings that I will continue. Some people that I have now decided to keep as new friends. I'm feeling like I'm on a path that there is something just out of reach. Something that I'm starting to aim towards but haven't discovered yet.

This is a journey... and I'm quite thrilled to be on it at the moment and even more happy with all those who are joining me on it through this blog.

Okay Okay,... enough with the deep. I'm off to a Con today so I'm hoping that this posts properly and links up to ALL THE ACCOUNTS. (I guess today is a Hyperbole and a Half kinda day)

Actually what's kinda funny is this:

This a a pic from Hyperbole and a Half talking about power of being in a Dino Costume.

This is my 18 month old in her Dino outfit. She goes around Roaring LOL. Maybe I should be afraid! LOL

Well, hopefully I'll get some pics of other amazing costumes this weekend and maybe meet some new friends in the process.

Until Next Time!
Keep on Geekin' on.
Angie

Fun Fridays!

So today, for spring I decided to post some Cool Geeky finds... Ideas for penpal stuff. Tutorials. Toys. Things like that. Here we go...

Found Here

I have been looking for some fun stuff for Pen pals and found this Tutorial Site by Omiyaga Blogs.

What I really liked was a Washi Tape tutorial for Script Cards. I keep wondering what to do with some of the awesome Washi tape I've been buying (mostly 'cause they are adorable) and then I found this! It gives me all sorts of ideas to make stickers for Pen Pals and swaps out of Washi Tape.

So I was wondering around GeekxGirls and found through them this awesome site by Mari Kasurinen and look what I found:

Isn't it cute???? I'm not usually big on starwars but I SO WANT a storm trooper pony!

Also have you seen the preview for PIXELS???

My 80's kid gamer geek self is in love with this. I am a fan of most of the cast too... looks hilariously amazing!

Last but not least.... Baymax as other Disney Characters.

I found this on Fashionably Geek. I want to hug him and squeeze him and call him George.... He's SO CUTE. I think I need Baymax dolls in all the costumes for my shelves. (If I could keep my kids from stealing them, not that I'd blame them)

So I'm off to the awesome Toronto Comic Con tomorrow to see all the cool things. I love cons. This will be like a prequel to Fan Expo this summer.

Until Next Time.
Keep On Geekin' On
Angie

Soul Eater

(Sorry about the delay, I had this post prepared 2 days ago then my house was hit with the PLAGUE lol... so I was unable to go online!)

I have watched all of Soul Eater not too long ago and have recently decided that I should read the Manga. As a Manga-newbie it took me a few pages to read it properly. I knew I was to start at the back of the book and read the right page first... but what I forgot was to read Right to Left across the page.

From Here

It made for the first few pages to be rather confusing but now that I've gotten the hang of it it's actually pretty awesome. The funniest part of reading a Manga at work is the looks you get in the lunchroom when people see you flipping from back to front as you read. I've gotten a few comments of "Oh are you looking for something?" when I change the page backwards. The cool part is I think I may have convinced some of the less geeky in my lunchroom that they should try and read a Manga. It's definitely a different experience and I think I'm falling in love with it almost as much as reading standard comics.

I do love comics, but with the price and the speed I read through them, I've been having a hard time getting back into reading them regularly. I've recently been given a few by an awesome penpal so I really need to get onto reading them. Hopefully before my foray to Toronto Comic Con this weekend. That way if I have discovered a new love I can look for the next ones in the series for myself.

I totally recommend Soul Eater to anyone who is thinking of getting into Manga's. I love the story... the mixture of Light and Dark, Serious and Humour is perfect for me. I have never been into the really dark Anime's but I do enjoy a good story. I particularly love the characters. I think I like most of the them from the book/show so I don't mind reading any of the "stories" in the Manga.

I have been also debating on Cosplaying one of the characters for Fan Expo this summer. I'm not sure if I want to do Maka or go for a cross play like Kid-Death.

Any ideas? Opinions??

Well until next time.
Keep on Geekin' on.
Angie

It's Monday... Lets talk Costumes.

So I've been reading this big discussion on the Mary Sue today about Mr. Erik Larsen's views on some of the new costumes for Female superhero's. How he feels they lack sex appeal and are built specifically to make it less sexy.

It also continues to talk about the different artists weighing in on the discussion. If you want to read it in full find it here!

Found HERE

So as a female, how likes comics, and likes to cosplay I would like to call BULLSHIT on all the arguments about the changes being due to a minority, due to fans or due to any of that crap. Sometimes things change, sometimes costumes and characters change. I will give you an example:

found HERE

Here is Wolverine... we all love and hate and at times love to hate wolverine's costumes. The have been variations of his costume where he is fully clothed, long sleeves, short sleeves, ripped pants, and shirtless. With each variation have we had an upheaval with people shouting from the rafters that the change was due to fan critiques?? No. Have we had people saying that by giving Wolverine longer sleeves or Jeans and a jacket he in no longer to move because it is too constricting?? Well I guess it's different for men and female characters as Mr. Larsen says:

Erik Larsen @ErikJLarsen

Follow

... because bulky clothes actually hinder movement). And in any case--these are lines on paper. People can't fly in the real world...

4:35 PM - 14 Mar 2015

Well I guess women are more delicate or lack some sort of ability to move... when they have clothing on. I also guess a woman in a leather jacket lacks some sort of sex appeal needed for comic.

What I don't understand is why sex appeal is needed. Do we need the female characters to portray a Sex Appeal that the male characters seldom require. Yes male characters are exaggerated as well, but they are not exaggerated to appease to the sex appeal of women. They are exaggerated in a sense to appeal to the ideal that the artist/fan/whatever had of the male form.

Skin is not needed for the character to fly better, fight better, or save the world any easier. Clothing reduces chafing and rug burns and marks from the fight... I like the new versions.

Look how awesome Batgirl's costume is:

Found Here

Or Spidergirl:

Found Here

See clothing can still make for an awesome character.

If you have an opinion, as I'm sure you do, feel free to comment. I love a good discussion. As an artist I like all sorts of art on my characters and have drawn them fully clothed and very little. It doesn't change how my character acts, only how they dress.

Until Next Time
Keep On, Geekin' On
Angie

Geekiness and Disney

So I'm debating if I should have posts prepared so that they post on the weekend. Even if it's just something small.

found HERE

What do you think?? Good idea??

Anyway, I've been pretty busy with people and friends and pocket letters and everything. I really am trying to figure out if I want to try and expand my blog... being it's at baby blog level... into intermediate level. How to do this I really don't quite know but it would be neat to have a slightly bigger audience I think. It would also give me a reason to actually prepare more than my daily rants (not that there's anything wrong with my daily rants). LOL.

If you have any suggestions or want to share this blog with a larger audience I would be thrilled. I'm just not quite sure where to start.

Anyway, back to a geeky rant.

I have decided to acknowledge publicly my love of Disney... and Marvel... and Disney LOL. I find so many cute versions of Disney princesses that aren't so "Princess-y" that I almost think I should start a Links Page just to include them in. For now I'm going to start sharing them here...

found HERE

If you haven't already seen them and fell in love with them... here is Pocket Princesses. Think of this scenario: If all the princesses were to live under the same roof what do you think would happen?? Well this artist explored them in the ABSOLUTELY CUTEST ways possible. I will spend minutes *cough*hours*cough* going through all the little drawings. Each one is in the above format and shows them in doing different things. I like the interactions and the unashamed acceptance of each characters "quirks". Go now and take in the cute!

I also found the picture at the top of the post at Tee Turtle. It's actually a shirt you can buy. I've been getting into all the geeky t-shirts lately (who would have guest I'm in my 30's) and am seriously considering spending some invisible money (invisible money is that from credit cards that doesn't actually exist) on some. I think I need to hold off for a few months though being I will be paying for Fan Expo Tickets fairly soon and I don't want to blow my budget.

I have been seeing a variety of re-imagined Disney princesses. It seems to be a theme lately. I think it's awesome (and have done a fair share of my own as well),

Here is a collection of some of the cool ones I have found. The link is attached to the name if you want to see other stuff by the artist.

From Dark:

By Jeffrey Thomas

To Tattooed:

By Timothy John Shumate

To Chibi:

By Meekgeek

To Fashion:

By Sashii-kami

So many styles. So many awesome artists. If you find any more feel free to add them into the comments below.

For now I am off for the weekend. I will try and figure out this weekend how to get an automated post to happen... I'm sure I can figure it out. Just need to actually look into it.

Until next time.

Keep On Geekin' On
Angie