2019 was kind of a lackluster year for me. Sure, there were highlights. I did some fun things. But I overall I got almost nothing done. I took very few photos, I only wrote one short fic and made one vid (and it wasn't the vid I really need to work on), I acquired a few books but didn't read them.

2019 notables:

• My niece Clara was born
  
• I hit my ten-year anniversary at work
  
• My cat Cali died, a few months later I adopted my new cat Annabelle
  
• I went to three cons: C2E2, WisCon, and SHareCon
  
• I did a handful of escape rooms
  
• I went to live shows of TAZ and MBMBAM in Chicago
  
• My nine-year-old MacBook finally died, so I got a new MacBook. Well, a recent refurbished one.

2020 upcomings:

• I'm going to New Zealand for two weeks in February
  
• For the first time since 2011, I am not going to C2E2, but I will be going to Fanworks Con in August in Chicago, and WisCon as per usual.
  
• My main fannish goal is to Vid. All. The. Things. Starting first and foremost with my Marvel Trumps Hate vid, which is now more a year overdue.
  
• I also want to take more pictures. Obviously I'll take a bunch in New Zealand, but I want to take more back home, too.
  
  This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/65723.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

Song Title: The Promise
Music Artist: The Shondes
Fandom: Russian Doll (TV)
Length: 3:30
Warnings: Some non-gory shots of characters dying temporarily in a Groundhog Day-style narrative, a character standing on a ledge contemplating suicide.
Author Notes: This premiered at WisCon43 (2019). I'm happy with how it turned out, especially considering it's one of the quickest vids I've ever made. Now I will turn all my fannish attention to the project I should have been working on (I just really wanted a premiere at WisCon)!

This is the third vid I've made to a song by The Shondes, tying it with the number of vids I've made to Halsey songs.

Also viewable on AO3 and tumblr.

View on YouTube (subtitles are available on YouTube):



Or view on Vimeo (password is: we are the promise):



This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/65504.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

Against all odds Jen and I managed to get to the hotel in time for an 8:30 panel on Saturday morning, which was New Pop Culture And Old Farts, which was about how to keep up with new scifi/fantasy works when there's just so much of it, and how to find fandom when fandom spaces change. The focus was a little scattered but it was an enjoyable panel. Our friend Sigrid was one of the panelists.

Then I went to Learning To Hear The Dog Whistle, which defined and explained political dog whistles, and then listed ones the panelists and audience had experienced. Very informative.

Lunch was at Umami's food truck on the Square, amidst the farmer's market. I had a delicious tofu dumpling. Then I attended the popup panel for discussing the Vidparty premieres. Apparently, because the Vid Deep Dive panel had been proposed for the first time this year, scheduling thought the Premiere discussion was redundant and dropped that one, even though the Deep Dive was only proposed because there were so many premieres the last two years that one panel only allowed a very cursory discussion.

The popup panel wasn't well attended, but we did manage in-depth discussion of all the premieres. For the first time (as far as I recall) some of the discussion was pretty critical for a couple of the vids. Laura Shapiro was there (she had a premiere at the Vidparty) and I got to fangirl at her, because she's been a vidding inspiration for me.

The next two panels I went to were Inside The World Of Comics And Graphic Novel Publishing and Comics As Collaboration. Jen was on both of them, as well as one of the Guests of Honor, G. Willow Wilson. (The other panelists were fabulous too!) The moderator had dropped out of the first one so Jen stepped up at the last minute to mod it, and did a great job. Both panels were entertaining and informative.

We had dinner at Taiwan Little Eats on State Street. I had a tasty chicken and rice dish, but if I go agin I'll probably try the coffin toast, because Jen let me try some of her's and it was delicious.

Saturday ended with the Comic Book Party! Jen and I drove home to grab the supplies we didn't think to bring that morning, and by the time we got back to the hotel Rachel and Elizabeth had set up basically everything. We'd been worried because we were assigned a smaller room this year, but honestly it worked fine. We had tables full of comics that people could read in the room, some rows of chairs, and a table for the door prizes. All we had left to do was decorate the room with posters and some disassembled comics-themed calendars. And of course I brought my original comic book pages and displayed them too.

The party was a great success. The room was packed for much of the night with people browsing and reading comics. We had the door prize drawings at 10:30, and at least 50 people crammed into the room to participate. Our youngest guest was happy to win an Adventure Time graphic novel, and Jess was ecstatic to win a Supergirl doll. It's too big to fit in her luggage so Jen's going to take it back east when she drives home this summer.

We started cleaning up at midnight on the dot, and were home by one, which was a nice feat.

This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/65202.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

My WisCon is going well so far! Carrie arrived on Tuesday and I had Wednesday through Friday off work, so Jen, Carrie and I got to hang out. On Thursday I abruptly remembered that I was supposed to make posters for the Comic Book Party, so I whipped up two variations of the same poster and went to OfficeMax to print them on Friday morning. The staff member there told me they can only print PDF files now, but was nonetheless able to print my files eventually.

I got to the con around 1 pm, bought my weekend pass, and put up the party posters. This is the third year I've started my WisCon by putting up posters, and honestly it's a nice way to ease into the con. I grab some painter's tape and put some up by the elevators on the 2nd and 6th floors, a few in the stairwell, one on each of the notice boards, and a few by the lanyard and program stations. I get to scope out the con, without any aimless wandering.

The first panel I went to was Favorite Queer Depictions In Fiction, which was a really nice recommendation panel, focusing on scifi/fantasy prose fiction, but also included some comics and podcasts. I now have a long list of (more) things to read!

Then I went to Mental Illness, Disability, And The Villainous Body In Batman Media, mostly because Jess was a panelist, but it turned out to be a darkly funny and very insightful panel. It covered a lot of ground, too, from how Arkham Asylum became a fixture of Batman comics, to the implications of the very recent Heroes in Crisis comic.

I had dinner with Rachel, Elizabeth, and Shelley at a tasty (and nicely quiet!) taco place off the square.

Then we had the Vid Party! I had a premiere, a Russian Doll fanvid which I'll post in a few days. Beyond the premiere playlist there were lots of delightful themed-playlists, including "Be Gay and Do Crimes" and "Witches be Trippin'". Those should be up on the Vid Party's DW soon.

So that was my Friday!

This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/64842.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

Fandom: Starsky & Hutch (TV)
Song: If We Were Vampires
Length: 2:40
Warnings: a very small amount of blood
Notes: This is a really beautiful song about the shadow of mortality hanging over your deepest and most loving relationships. So of course my mind associated it immediately with Starsky and Hutch. They love each other so much, guys.

Also posted to Tumblr and AO3.

( YouTube and Vimeo streaming under the cut, plus lyricsCollapse )

This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/61773.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

WisCon happened! The highlights for me, this year, were the vid party on Friday night, and the comic book party on Saturday night.

So, the vid party. This was its second year in the ballroom. I'm so glad they moved it to such a large location. They also moved the start time from 9 pm to 8 pm -- another great idea. There were a dozen or so premieres this year, and they were AMAZING. I could easily rec them all, but I'll just rec two:

Candy Girl by Vassalady is a vid for Princess Princess Ever After, which is an adorable f/f fairytale comic book. The vid is bouncy and funny and so, so cute.

Straightening Up the House by Eruthros is vid that uses source from Marvel movies and comics to illustrate all the missed opportunities for queer characters in the movies. The song choice is so clever and the vid is very effective.

Then on Saturday, I helped host the comic book party at WisCon. We had several tables filled with comics that guests could browse and read at the party, and we had 50+ door prizes -- mostly more comics, but also some merch. There was an adorable little girl who was SO EXCITED to win a Storm Dorbz and a Bumblebee action figure. Also, one of the GoH, Saladin Ahmed (Black Bolt, Abbott) stopped by the party. So that was cool.

On a less fun note, yeah, I was at the panel where stuff went down. This post is a fairly complete and accurate summary of the panel. I don't really have anything to add, except that I support WisCon's decision to ban the panelist.

To end on a better note, it was so nice to see all the WisCon people again, lots of people who I only see once a year in this whirlwind of a weekend. And I found myself laughing a lot. Particularly at the Superpowers for Banging panel, and the Animorphs pop-up panel. Overall, a great weekend!

This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/61521.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

Now on the road back to Wisconsin! Missy's graduation went well, and the whole trip was pretty smooth. I had one fight with my mom because I felt like she hurt Missy's feelings at one point, but it was near the end of the trip, so I'm not surprised it got a little heated. It rained the first two days, which wasn't ideal, but the third day was beautiful. We almost went on a hike, but decided to go dress shopping for Madeline instead. She's getting married end of July, and she wants a fairly casual dress to match the small and casual courthouse ceremony she's having.

Of course Missy kept trying to steer her towards slightly fancier dresses. Madeline took it in good spirits. She ended up buying a pale pink lacy knee-length dress that was heavily discounted to $30, though she said she was going to buy that one regardless, so it may or may not be her wedding dress.

In the car yesterday I almost finished reading The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, which is a really excellent YA novel about a girl who witnesses her unarmed teenaged friend get shot and killed by a white cop. The characters are all nuanced and the story is by turns harrowing and heartwarming.

This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/61398.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

I'm traveling with my parents from Wisconsin to Virginia to attend my sister's graduation. We're in Columbus, Ohio tonight. My parents sprang for separate rooms, which surprised me -- I figured we were going to share a double -- but I can't say I mind having my own room.

This was a conversation that happened earlier:
Mom: We're going to stop at a very nice restaurant in Illinois that your dad and I had lunch at before.
Me: Sounds good.
Mom: It's a Chinese buffet.
Me: Cool.
Mom: Your dad loves their brisket.
Me: Um..?

I didn't try the brisket but it was a very nice buffet. Dinner, in a logical inverse proportion, was an apple and some string cheese. My mom bought Avengers string cheese for me. My parents are so cute.

Since they did all the driving, I had plenty of time to read. I almost finished Freed by Flame and Storm by Becky Allen. It's a sequel; I enjoyed the first book immensely last year, and this one is a worthy continuation. If a fantasy story about a young woman with magic fighting to free her people sounds like your thing, I recommend it.

WisCon is fast approaching and I need to finish making posters for a party I'm cohosting. I'm also about 2/3 done with my next Starsky & Hutch vid. And I have ongoing cleaning goals; I left my room in a state of mid-rearrangement, which will hopefully be somewhat rectified by WisCon.

This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/61171.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

I've decided to make writing a goal for April, but knowing myself I'm setting a low bar: do a 15 minute writing sprint each day. So far so good. I might actually finish this silly Starsky & Hutch smut story I started, and additionally I'd like to submit a fic for the SHareCon zine. I'm kicking around a couple of plot ideas.

C2E2 is this week! I am very excited, even though I haven't even looked at the panels yet and none of the guests are of intense interest to me. Jen is curious to see the Mark Millar and Bendis panel -- which very well might be a trainwreck -- so I'll probably do that. I like watching things out of morbid fascination.

But mostly I think I'm just excited to go to a con. My last con was in the autumn, and my last trip of any kind was December. I'm ready to spend hours in a car and get gas station coffee and stay in a hotel and see tons of cosplay.

Oh, I might even finally get an Instagram account, so I can share my cosplay photography to a wider audience. Past years I've just posted to Flickr and Tumblr. I'm also going to try to post the pictures as the con is happening, not all a day or two after the con is over, like I usually do. I can learn to ride trends like the young folk!

I did actually read some comics this month: David Walker's Power Man and Iron Fist. I borrowed 15 issues, not realizing that those were the entire run. When I finished the last issue I was thinking, "I really enjoyed this! I should go track down the next issues ASAP!" And then I read the letter column, where the writer was saying goodbye and thanking the fans.

It was funny and quirky, with a serious undertone. And Luke and Danny were so, so cute together. Why did it have to end?

This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/60825.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.

I made a fanmix for the IDW Jem and the Holograms comic book. There's a cover and an image for each track, but please be warned each image is a gif and some of them have spinning or flickering movement.

( Track images and lyrics under the cutCollapse )

Listen as a YouTube Playlist or download zip file from SendSpace

This entry was originally posted at https://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/60483.html. You may comment on either site. There are comments on DW.