MY ETSY STORE IS GO!

The link to my Etsy store can be found HERE. It at the moment only has jewelry that I've made, and jewelry that I've made that's about 10 years old as I made them in the mid-2000's with the intention of selling them and never did.

Over time, some more recent stuff will be posted, as well as some tye-dye clothes and maybe some fairy figurines.

If you are friends with me on Facebook, I am selling some other things as well, that I did not make (hence why it's not on Etsy) so look those over and let me know too.

I hope to continue blogging and to be a jewelry maker and to eventually, either be a freelance artist full time or to be able to have a career that I enjoy during the day that also allows me to freelance on the side. My career path is a bit frazzled right now, but the blogging and Etsy store are hopefully here to stay. So check it out! Support your local starving artist!

Nerida, Give Me Strength: A Reflection on the RPG Characters I've Played and What They've Meant to Me

When I create a character, either in a fictional universe of my own design or a fictional universe created by others, that character comes from a part of me. My life experiences up to that point, my opinions, my tastes in music, my external life outside of the character, all of this comes together to create this character. As such, every character, even the throwaway ones, become a symbol of what my life was at the time, or at the very least, a reflection of my decisions at the time.

This is very much a personal post, so please bare with me as I delve into my history through the lens of my RPG characters.

Let's begin with my first RPG character: Lina Svana

Lina Svana was a bard in a home-brew Viking campaign using the D&D 2nd Edition combat system. Her talents were archery, magic missile, and astrology. Her name came from a brief Google search of "Female Viking Names" and I picked the two I liked. Svana is nordic for "swan." As I was the only woman in the party, I wanted to highlight my character's femininity, but not become the damsel in distress.  There isn't much to speak about her, but she's important because she is the starting point in all of my other characters.

Next character: Maria Ava

Maria Ave was a cleric. This was a situation where my exlover's friend's stepfather wanted to lead us in a one-off D&D campaign and gave us already generated character sheets. My first sheet listed my gender as "male", though my second sheet when we played a second time was "female." Her name came from the song "Ave Maria" and me being like "my character is religious, Maria is a religious name, let's call her Maria!" Maria's skills were as a healer, though she had a few other talents as well, particularly with a short sword and with the flame blade and fairy lights spell. She was also chaste, and stated, when she was stranded with her male cohorts, that she had no intention of sleeping with any of the characters (which is hilarious since the only reason I was there was because I was sleeping with one of the players.)

Next character: Astrid Blane

Astrid Blane was a level 6 ranger in a 1st edition D&D campaign that I played all throughout college. She was one of the longest lasting characters as she survived for a year and a half (the average life expectancy for the characters in this campaign were 3-4 months) and she became an integral part for both the campaign and the universe the campaign was set in. She was the first character I had ever written an intense backstory for (she changes her name a few times, has a lesbian relationship that gets her exiled, worked security for a bard troupe, and kills a town guard) and I even worked with the DM to see if we could incorporate elements of her backstory into the campaign (unfortunately, she died before we reached that point). Her talents included archery, long sword, tracking, and various other I'm neglecting. Her name came from a quick Google search looking for "medieval women's names" and I pulled it from a list of Elven names, even though she was a human. Astrid and my time playing her in the D&D group heavily defined my first two years in college. She died in one of the first campaigns back from summer break from junior year and it hurt me deeply. Like, I had to go to Flaco's Tacos, buy some nachos, and watch some cartoons with my boyfriend. Astrid was a deep part of me and I became very invested in her.

Next character: Clara Orbsen

Clara was a ghostbuster in a one-off game of Inspectors (a game where the players improvise everything and the DM just rolls with it). Her talents included "being cute." Her name came because in the ballet the Nutcracker, the lead girl is always named either Clara or Marie. I already played a character named Maria, so I picked Clara. 'Orbsen' came from the fact that in professional ghosthunting, orbs are the little circles that appear on photographs as proof of ghostly apparitions (which in reality are probably dust particles or bugs, but that's a story for a future article). With her fellow team of incompetent ghostbusters, she pushed off a potential rapist and helped to prevent the Chilean apocalypse.

Next character: Morwen Elvenstar

Morwen Elvenstar was a street samurai in a small Shadowrun Campaign. This was a mixed campaign as the DM intentionally kept saying her name wrong ("Morrowind" he called her) and it was right when my problematic relationship with an ex-lover really began to show the cons outweighing the pros. Morwen was more defined by her backstory (an escapee of the Elven Mafia and estranged daughter of a corrupt politician) than the events of the campaign. Her name is the Elven word for "dark woman" and elvenstar is a direct reference to her Elven heritage. Her talents included street smarts, particularly in Elven Mafia matters, gymnastic abilities, and kicking butt. She had a small addiction to Bliss, cybernetic enhancements that boosted her fighting abilties, and she was allergic to animal dander.

Next character: Loralove Lunadash

Loralove Lunadash was part of a one-off campaign in a D&D-like game from a company with a name similar to "Old School Games." I think I had her playing a ranger type, but I honestly do not remember. I do remember that she was talented with a dagger (she stabbed a fairy) and became very protective of a baby puppy she had found (that was later eaten by a landshark). Her name came from the fact that I had been watching a lot of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (and I wasn't the only one, another campaign member managed to get our DM to have our story take place in Equestria and he stated that his character was basically Twilight Sparkle. This person is one of two people from that friend group I'm still in contact with).

Next character: Svana Brookstanton

Svana Brookstanton was an assassin that took Astrid's place after Astrid was killed. Svana was also Astrid's lesbian lover (a character I had written in my backstory long before and was made an NPC until Astrid had died). Disgraced by her lesbianism, she had left her rich home and joined an assassin's guild. Unfortuntately, being raised as an upper class woman poised for marriage, she wasn't a very good assassin, though she did have a few successes (including one where I happened to role a critical hit and I backstabbed an animated skeleton, shocking the DM and everyone else at the table). However, because I had never played an assassin before, I wasn't very good at it, and that was Svana's downfall. I have no doubt that in more experienced hands, she would've lived.

Next character: Marigold Faerydae

Marigold was an elven ranger that took Svana's place. Marigold was basically an Astrid clone, except more feminine and less efficient. She lasted three sessions before she was killed by mind controlled slugs who turned the party against each other.

Next character: Chandra Rivendell

Chandra was another elven ranger who came and took Marigold's place. She was a combination of Marigold and Astrid, but she had a bit more spunk to her and was less likely to take peoples' bullshit. She and Marigold were classmates and she came out searching for Marigold, not knowing that Marigold has been killed. Chandra never learned the truth as I had graduated college and never went back to the group.

Next character: Nili Unicornstorm

Nili is a dwarven ranger in my current D&D 5th edition campaign. She has had animal companions, she's estranged from her matriarchal mother, she loves a good drink, she has a charisma of 6, and she is talented in archery, short sword, and axe swinging. Her name comes from a list of "female dwarven names" I googled. She's also a lesbian and has tried, with no avail, to hit on women she finds attractive (remember, 6 charisma). Her story is still in development, so there is not much to talk about for her at the moment.

Next character: Lillianth 'Lesbiana' Wenchdyke

Lillanth is my lesbian bard that I bring out D&D 5th edition one-offs. She basically Lea DeLaria in D&D character form. I haven't played a whole lot as her, but it's been fun doing disguises and flirting with everybody, so we'll see what becomes of her.

Final Character: Nerida Fforesston/Neriluna - The Spirit of the Moon

Nerida is very important to me and there's a reason she's the one who is referenced in the title of this blogpost. Last August, I went to my first LARP session where I played a NPC. I had a day off from telemarketing and had my job interview for the Planetarium. I went in, played my NPC, and I loved it. It was so much fun, the people were great, it was just fantastic. So, I immediately began creating a character. She was taken from Chicago as an 8 year old, raised amongst the mermaids and eventually became one, was betrayed by one of her slaves, turned into his slave and used as a political tool by the Petty Ffiefdoms government, escapes, falls in love with water elemental, is rejected, tool used by Ffiefdoms government for her slavery is handed to the big bad in Chicago, goes to great lengths to eliminate said tool and ends up losing her ability to speak, uses her new found free will to defeat the wind of the Chicago and become the Spirit of the Moon, and helps defeat the big bad and helps to free the Changelings of Chicago. That is by no means a comprehensive summary, but you have to understand: Nerida was a character I created out of frustration with sexism and body negativity. I created Nerida out of feeling stuck and scared and useless in my own life. Like, that my decisions were not my own to make. I mean, yeah, she disappeared in 1969 and I used many musical theatre and Beatles references in order to create her, but the bottom line here is that Nerida overcame that struggle, she became strong, she became the moon... AND SHE STILL FELT SAD AND LONELY. It didn't matter what her triumphs were, Nerida couldn't let go. But she still kept going. She still kept fighting, despite the sadness and lonliness. She still did her duties as the Moon despite feeling like she was empty and wasn't good enough. Something in her helped her along the way. That's why she's inspiring, that's why she's strong. I created her from my own securities and frustrations, and she blossomed into something much more symbolic and greater than that.

That's why I love RPGs and why I love my characters. They reveal deeper parts of you and they eventually become a part of you. It's a never ending loop: they come from you and they come back to you, but different, and then you're different for having experienced their experiences with them. It's a deep connection and it has made me stronger overall, even on days when I don't feel strong.

KLog: It Sucks to be Me Reprise (except not actually)

Before we get into the actual blog post, I actually don't think it sucks to be me (well, okay, I don't think that at this moment in time), the title of this post is a reference to the opening song in act 2 of Avenue Q, which is basically Sesame Street for college graduates (and if you aren't aware of it yet, I will make you aware of it since it is one of my favorite musicals ever composed, despite it being problematic in certain ways.)


In any case, I go on the phones for the first time since telemarketing tomorrow and I am scared. It's at this point that I must decide which path I take with my current job: do the three months while searching for something else and telling the temp agency that this isn't a match OR stick with this one, do good enough to get by, and spend my time doing stuff on the outside and also searching for something else OR be super fucking awesome at this job, get promoted to a position where I won't be talking on the phones with people, and do stuff on the outside for my own amusement and growth.

Yeah, I have no idea what's going to happen either.

In other news, I found a therapy place that will take my health insurance, but we keep having this game of cat and mouse where they leave a phone message and I leave a phone message and they leave a phone message. Like, seriously.

 I also want to get back into Feldenkrais, so until I find a class that jives with my schedule, I'm just going to be doing some exercises at home. But seriously, I did a Feldenkrais thing on Sunday that I hadn't done in so long and I felt so much better afterwards. I didn't even have a job trauma dream like I had the two nights prior. (I know I keep talking about it, but seriously, getting laid off fucked me up, you guys).

I've also been asking around my group of older friends about their grad school experiences and professional certificates. I feel like my job experiences and my theatre degree aren't enough to get something stable that I enjoy. I don't want to talk on the phones for the rest of my life and I definitely don't want to be in a job position where I am easily disposable, so I need to figure out how to be marketable and important.

My Hermione Granger love life blogpost has almost 90 views. That's the most views any of my blogposts have ever gotten and I am so ridiculously grateful, especially since I feel like that is some of my best writing and that I have talent as a storyteller.

Tomorrow, I go to see UHF at the Music Box theatre where Weird Al and Jon Levey (director of the film) will be doing a Q&A afterwards. I hope I get to meet Al for the third time so we can have more beautiful moments like these:

This weekend is the LARP party, and keep an eye out for a blog post concerning the various roleplay characters I've played and how they have affected my growth as a person. I imagine the LARP related paragraphs are going to be super long.

In a few weekends I will be flying back to MN for a doughnut crawl and a movie night. It'll be the weekend before my 23rd birthday and I can't think of a better way to spend it.

During that time, I will also hopefully get my hands on some beads and jewelry making stuff so I can finally open "That One Chick's Earring Emporium" on Etsy (that will also occasionally feature tye-dye clothes, so keep an eye out for that too).

 At the moment, I am just trying to keep busy and to keep finding things to look forward to, because the busier and more distracted I am, the less amount of time I will spend in my own head wondering what I did wrong at my old job, despite glaring evidence that the problem was way more them and way less me. In any case, now I'm ranting again. Here, have the Jem and the Holograms song I sometimes sing to myself when I need a boost of confidence:



I'm going to end this post with a huge, huge thank you to my Dad and my Mom and my sisters and my boyfriend and my LARP friends and my MN friends, and basically everyone who has taken me under their wing, given me advice, offered to make me food, taken me out to Karaoke, or even just reaffirmed my frustrations and reassuring me. I don't know what the hell I did to deserve having such fantastic people in my life, but I am so thankful. And so relieved that one of my fears of moving to Chicago, not having a safety net, is non-existent. So thank you for being my Mama Birds through adulthood. It means a lot.

What is Love? A Free Form Rambling

A good friend of mine posted the question "What is Love?" on her Facebook page. This was my response.

To put it simply, love is on a spectrum. 

There are times when you are so fully in love that it affects your being, and there are times love is absent, or not a priority. 

But overall, love is doing what you need to do, even if you don't want to. 

Love is buying food for your partner(s) when their bank account is low, even if it annoys you.

Love is rubbing your partner's back after they've had a hard day at work. 

Love is letting your partner rant and gush about things you don't understand, but you love seeing the joy from them. 

Love is watching bad sci-fi films together.

Love is bitching at each other to do the dishes that neither of you want to do. 

Love is open, honest communication. 

Love is admitting that at times you're not feeling love. 

Love is compromising on pizza toppings. 

Love is getting off a bunch of train stops early so you can meet up and train the rest of the way home together.

Love is getting annoyed with each other all the time. 

Love is knowing when your partner needs space... 
Or sleep. 

Love is giving up your scarf so your partner's ears don't freeze off on the way to the doctor's office. 

Love is flicking through Netflix trying to find things to watch. 

Love is being confused by some of your partner's likes and behaviors. 

Love is all encompassing and not enough.  It's not always the lighter, brighter ball of joy that makes days worth living, it's another element to life that brings both pros and cons. 

But personally, for me, the pros outweigh the cons. 

 I'd argue most "love" songs and poems are actually "lust" or "infatuation" songs and poems. Love is a bit more complicated and cannot be adequately described by aesthetically pleasing words alone.

Man, I Feel Old: A Review of Starkid's 1Night2Last3Ever

Team Starkid, known for their Youtube hits:  A Very Potter Musical Trilogy and Holy Musical B@man, take up residence at the Up Comedy Club stage after their previous sketch show success Airport for Birds and present a new set of original sketches and songs that reflect the pop culture and experiences of the 1990’s: a time when the Internet was accessed by a telephone cord, boy bands ruled the world, Pokemon was everyone’s favorite TV show, and the greatest gift a child could receive was a Nintendo 64. With lots of laughs and in jokes relating to their previous works, Team Starkid shines and further cements its place in Chicago theatre.

Brian Holden’s direction of the show is brilliant, and while the audience can hear the actor’s individual voices in the sketches they wrote and performed in, Holden’s direction helps all the sketches and songs flow beautifully and connect to each other. If his direction was absent, the sketches would seem inconsistent and disjointed. While he did not perform in this Starkid show, his presence is still there and the audience can feel it too. Denise Donovan, a Columbia College Alum, stands out as a performer with her “go big or go home” energy that she brings to all of her roles. In Horse Shirts, a sketch she co-wrote with Lauren Lopez and performed in, all she does is speak in a German accent and provide ridiculous scenarios in which wearing a “horse shirt” would be acceptable, but because she puts so much passion and energy into the role, it gets progressively more hilarious as the scene goes on. 

Joe Walker is another stand out performer. A member of Starkid from the beginning, he goes from playing a member of the boy band 3ever to a girl at a sleepover that’s in love with the film Titanic to Die Slammer, a violent German man who appears every time a certain Pog card is played and back again within milliseconds. He manages to capture the parody nature of each character as well as giving them depth and a certain humanity that the audience can relate to. A fan favorite of Starkid, known for his roles as Voldemort and Professor Umbridge in AVPM and B@tman in HMB, he once again delivers a hilarious, heartwarming performance in every role he decides to take on. For hardcore Starkid fans, he even drops a reference to playing Voldemort in one of the sketches. Pat Rourke, whose debut performance was Airport for Birds, shines as Gus, a blues singer who wrote all the hit songs for popular 90’s musicians like Spice Girls, Avril Lavigne, and others. Hearing “Sk8ter Boy” or “Wannabe”, very upbeat pop songs, sung as if they were old blues songs is nothing more than gut-busting hilarious.

A favorite sketch was Man I Feel Old, a sketch written by Walker, Holden, Daniel Strauss, and Nick Gage. In the sketch, Gage questioned Strauss, playing a 27 year old, and Lopez, playing a 16 year old, on things relating to pop culture and there is the disconnect between the contestants. Whenever one of them shouted “Man, I Feel Old”, they received 10 points. As great as the overall show was, for those in the audience who grew up in 90’s, they couldn’t help, but hear that refrain echo throughout the show. The sketch, while hilarious, covered that generation gap perfectly and summed up how the 90’s generation feels when looking at the world around them and how things have changed since they were youth. It was a nostalgic revue of their childhood and it made the show all the more poignant for those audience members.

How Hermione Granger Saved My Love Life

 I told this story at a storytelling open mic when I was in college. I'd argue this probably one of the best things I have written.

I had just come back from summer vacation and I’m hanging out with this darling gamer boy I had met in my Russian History class. We’d talked a lot over the summer and now it was time that we finally got to see each other in person, not over Skype. We were in my dorm room sitting on my bed when I told him that I never thought of myself as beautiful, citing my stomach as one of the main detractors from my physique. He lifts up my shirt, kisses my stomach, and says that it is part of what makes me beautiful; it is a part of me and all of me is beautiful. I began to tear up. I pulled him in for a kiss because I didn’t want to explain why I was crying tears of joy. It would’ve ruined the moment.

My whole life I had digested media, mainly Disney, that had told me that in the end, you get married and it’s a happily ever after. Even in Harry Potter, Hermione marries Ron. While I had Disney Princesses that I loved and adored (Ariel was my favorite) I clung to Hermione like a sloth clings to sleep: she was the person who gave me the guidelines on how to live life. She taught me that brains mattered more than beauty, and since I was a young chubby girl who never exactly fit in with the people around her, that was reassuring. 

Armed with my Harry Potter books, I went through my junior high and high school years wondering why I hadn’t found my Ron. All of the other girls had boyfriends and were losing their virginities, why wasn’t I? I mean, yes, I was wearing baggy clothes, but I had figured my brains and personality would be enough to win people over. I was at a loss. I’m smart, why don’t boys like me? I came to the conclusion that while I was a Hermione Granger, I was swimming in a sea of Ginny Weasleys, Cho Changs, and Angelina Johnsons; girls who were smart, talented, funny, AND pretty. A frizzy haired brunette with small boobs, bad teeth, and a big belly wouldn’t cut it no matter how high her grades were or how many show tunes she could sing from memory. Instead of Beauty, I was the Beast.

            

I thought back to the Disney films I had watched as a kid and I found a recurring theme: just about every princess sacrificed something for the person they loved: Ariel sacrificed her legs and voice, Belle sacrificed her freedom, etc. I got it into my head that I had to lose a part of myself in order to be worthy of love. I could be me, but less me. So, I started small: watching movies they said they liked on Facebook so I could engage them in conversation about it, wearing slightly tighter clothes to show off what curves I did have, not talking so much about my own loves, asking questions about their loves, etc. If I could keep them talking about the things they liked, then I didn’t have to do much other than agree. They’d think I was cool and they’d fall in love with me. It was a perfect plan. And it worked… a bit too well. And then that’s when the problems started. 

I had about five… not relationships, let’s call them “involvements”, in the course of two years. I molded myself into the perfect girl, but that perfect girl began falling apart the moment I was required to speak. I began second guessing everything. I came off as passive and, as an ex had pointed out to me, “an idiot.” I had lost my authority when saying no to things I didn’t like, and in turn, lost my bodily autonomy on more than one instance. One of my lovers even went so far as to tell me on Yahoo Messenger, and I quote “Honestly Katie, I don’t think I’m capable of respecting you. You have no personality, no discernment, and you’re thoroughly uninteresting. … But, your tits are nice, if you lost some weight, they’d look good on you.”

This wasn’t the happy ending I was hoping for, this isn’t what happened in the movies I’d seen or books that I read. After I had ended the involvements towards the end of my sophomore year of college, I asked “what would Hermione do?” Hermione never lost sight of who she was. She had her faults and her insecurities, but she never changed herself to be with Ron. Hermione was beautiful because of her brains and goals for house elf equality, her physique had very little to do with it. Draco Malfoy consistently belittled her and made judgments based on her blood purity. Cormac McLaggen liked her for her beauty and quirkiness, not because she was human being. She was a trophy to him. And I realized, I’d entered into a pool of Cormac McLaggens and Draco Malfoys, thinking I could make them love me as opposed to looking for someone who actually would. I ended losing who I was in that process, so I took some time, built myself back up, and began Skyping with this darling gamer boy from California who I shared my Russian history class with, as well as a love of theatre and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Back to the tearful kissing. Darling gamer boy, after a while, pulled himself away and asked why I was crying and smiling so much. I just put my arms around him and squished him because here was someone who liked me for who I was, the Ron to my Hermione. Disney lied, there is no happily ever after and while sacrifices sometimes need to be made for relationships, they should never compromise who you are as a person or your values. Darling gamer boy and I are still dating and I don’t know if we have an “ever after”, but we have a happy present. That’s what matters.

A Sound Idea: Cosplay Posters

I read this story at the Nerdologues: Your Stories recording last week. This was the original draft, what I ended up reading was a quickly retyped  version from my memory because my computer died on the train. 

Okay, so last year, I attended C2E2. I did this year too, but this concerns last year specifically. It was my senior year of college, I had just gotten hired at my first job, telemarketing (which, for the record, was an awful idea, but it paid the bills for a few months while I searched for something else, taught me just how cruel people actually are to other people, and I got some free tickets out of it), I was preparing to move in with my boyfriend… basically, this particular C2E2 became my last hurrah before I would have to start being an adult. Like, full on adulting… which I didn’t know at the time would include nights of me lounging around in my underwear, eating coffee ice cream, and binge watching Jem and the Holograms (all of which is a very good idea, you guys), but I digress.

 

This C2E2 I attended a bunch of panels. One of those panels was Genre: Feminism and it was basically a discussion with the people in the room and the two panel heads, a comic artist and an indie filmmaker, both women. During this discussion, one of the women in the audience stood up and asked for help: this was her first con, she and her friend were on the show floor, and she saw some asshole taking upskirt pictures of them. When he noticed they had noticed, he ran off and they couldn’t find him again. Luckily, there was a C2E2 staff person in the room and they took it from there, but I was heartbroken. To go off on a small tangent again, my first time at C2E2 was my sophomore year of college after a massive break-up with a guy who ridiculed me and belittled my intelligence and self-worth. Going to the con dressed as Kaylee from Firefly, getting hugged from Nicholas Brenden from Buffy, then having indepth conversations with strangers about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic while I waited in line to get John Barrowman’s autograph and watching Team Starkid perform “Super Friends” at their panel basically jumpstarted my path to self recovery and self love again. To see the thing that had helped me so much hurt someone else tore me apart.

 

 

So, the next day, I went to the C2E2 staff Q&A panel. Basically you sit down with C2E2 staff people, you talk about what worked, and what didn’t work, you find ways to solve those problems for next time, and you may even get free stuff out of it. I remembered the woman who dealt with the upskirt shot. How she didn’t know what to do. I knew C2E2 had an anti-harassment policy, but it was in a not obvious place on the website, was mentioned briefly in the handbook that I didn’t grab because I arrived late, and it was absent on the mobile app. So I suggested, maybe putting up posters or like slides on giant TV screens. Display it everywhere. Let people see what the rules are and also see how they can find help if they need it. The panel said it was a good idea, I got my free C2E2 hat, and went on my way.
 

Now, I’m not sure how many of you are aware, but C2E2 is run by ReedPop, who runs a bunch of cons around the country and some internationally. Later last year, right around September or October, The Mary Sue and other sources of geek news were praising New York City Comic Con, run by ReedPop, for having “Cosplay is not Consent” posters up all around the con. ReedPop continued that trend to Star Wars Celebration and this year’s C2E2, where it was not only on the posters, but on the back of the badge as well. One of my friends who works with ReedPop said that the posters made the attendees feel safer and that some of the more clueless people on staff actually had discussions on how to handle the problem. I didn’t eradicate sexism in geekdom, but I like to think I helped. So moral of the story: if injustice has occurred, if you need help, speak up. No really, speak up, scream, keep screaming. Eventually, someone will listen and they will help you.