So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Dearest readers,

Thank you for your patience as we’ve been on hiatus. As you may know, this blog is a labor of love off of which none of us have ever made a cent. Unfortunately, for that very reason, it’s also become a burden on us as writers, admins, and editors. As our lives have changed—and they have significantly over the last seven(!) years!—it’s become more difficult to keep up with the writing, editing, and posting schedule we set for ourselves.

We spent a long time working on trying to find a model that worked better for us and our authors—this hiatus was meant to be over in January! But ultimately we came to the conclusion we were trying to avoid: we can no longer maintain both this site and keep up with the rest of our personal and professional commitments and our own mental health. And so we’ve made a very difficult decision: to close down Lady Geek Girl & Friends for good.

We’re leaving the website available for readers—just because we won’t be creating more content, doesn’t mean we want readers to lose access to the thousands of posts we’re so proud of! That said, we have turned off the ability to comment on posts older than fourteen days—which, now, is all of them but this one—as we previously moderated comments individually and will no longer be actively doing so.

We would not have been the site we grew into without you all, dearest readers. From those of you who started as readers and eventually wrote for us, to those who left heartfelt comments, to those who just perused the site occasionally, you’re what kept us going for so long. Thank you for your attention over the years! We wish you all the best, and hope you feel the same way towards us.

With love,
Lady Geek Girl and Friends

gif via reactiongifs.com

Thank you all for your support of LGG&F during 2016!

We’ll be on break for the holidays till early January—in the meantime, feel free to check out our archive, or you could even submit a guest post or apply to be a writer! Have a great new year!

Web Crush Wednesdays: Big Bang Press

Fanfiction seems to get a pretty bad rap, especially amongst the mainstream publishing community. Thanks to Fifty Shades of Grey and, well, Fifty Shades of Grey, most people now think of fanfic as some sort of really terrible internet porn. Those of you who read fanfic, though, know differently. There are so many fics out there that have great plot, great characters and characterizations, and yes, great sex scenes, they just make you wonder “why hasn’t this author been published yet?!” Today’s Web Crush is working on answering that question.

ZE Presents New Opportunities for Trans* Representation

As the fall television season begins once more, I find myself mostly excited for a drama whose release date currently isn’t known. What I do know, however, is that it’s going to be tackling an important issue. The CW, known for shows like 90210, America’s Next Top Model, and fan favorite Supernatural, is currently in the process of creating an hour-long drama with the title of ZE. From what I’ve gathered so far, it’s about a young transgender teenager growing up in one of the more stereotypically closed-minded states, Texas. In the words of The Hollywood Reporter:

Written by playwright–musician Kyle Jarrow, ZE revolves around a Texas teenager who announces that [he] is transgendered and will be living life as a boy.

Problematic misgendering and insensitivity of The Hollywood Reporter aside, I have high hopes for this drama. While it may not be true that ZE is the first show to house a trans* character, it will be the first to star one. From Elementary’s Ms. Hudson to Glee’s Unique, positive portrayals of transgendered and non-binary adults and teens alike are becoming more and more prevalent in media. Hell, even choosing to name the drama ‘Ze’, a non-gendered pronoun used by some members of the trans* community, expresses the idea that the topic of transgender issues are important. From choosing executive producer Michael London—who has films like Milk and The Family Stone under his belt—and scriptwriter Kyle Jarrow, it seems clear that the CW wants to make a series that stresses the importance of the issue, remains relatable to teens in the same situation, and has the finesse of a major motion picture.

Hannah Hart’s “Hello Harto” Tour

About a year ago (wow, I can’t believe it’s been that long!) I talked about Hannah Hart in a Web Crush and since that time I have grown from simply crushing on this wonderful young woman to full on loving her. Yes, I am a Hartosexual, and I’m clearly not the only one, because Hannah is taking her show on the road!

When Hannah first proposed her tour, she started an Indiegogo campaign to raise money to fund it. I had every intention of making a post here about it to help spread the word a little, but it turned out that I didn’t have to. Why? Because Hannah reached her goal of $50,000 in less than 24 hours. I literally didn’t have time to make a post about her campaign before the Hartosexuals of the world swooped in and saved the day, making her campaign one of the most successful in Indiegogo history and reaching more than four times the original goal. Hannah’s response to the success was touching:

Because Hannah is such a loving person, her tour is going to focus on charity. In each city she visits, rather than doing a typical “Meet & Greet” event, she will be volunteering at a local non-profit organization where fans can pledge to spend their time volunteering with her. She will also be filming episodes of her web series “My Drunk Kitchen” in fans’ kitchens throughout the tour.

I don’t know about you, but I really find Hannah very inspiring. For one thing, she is one of the success stories that really shows the power of the internet to connect people and move them. We aren’t just schlubs who sit in basements watching cat videos and ranting anonymously about whatever irritates us, we are people who have found a community and connection with people spread far across the world that we often have difficulty finding in person.

In addition to this somewhat intangible success, Hannah is taking that community out into the “real” world and doing good. This humanitarian effort, combined with her own personal brand of entertainment, helps so many people, from the organizations she assists to her fans who get to be a part of something bigger than themselves. If you’re a fan, or even if you just want to be part of a group of people trying to make a difference, I encourage you to check out her tour site to see when she’ll be near you and pledge to take part in the activity she has planned for your area.

Come on, Rushers. Don’t be that fandom.

This week it was announced that Big Time Rush will be touring the US with fellow Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice this summer. Good news, right? That’s what I thought at least, but the reaction of my fellow Rushers has been less than positive.

Now, there have been times when I’ve kind of shaken my head at this fandom, but the only time I’m truly disappointed in it is when a girl has anything to do with the boys. That’s when the unabashed hate comes out and I just have to plead with my fellow Rushers to stop insulting any woman who comes into contact with the members of the band.

[For the remainder of this article I will use the word “you” to address the fans to whom I must speak. If you, dear reader, are not a person who has ever insulted a woman who was linked with your favorite celebrity, then my use of the word isn’t actually directed to you, but if you are, then maybe you need to hear what I’m about to say, whether you’re a Rusher or not.]

Con Etiquette (Connecticut, if you will)

Lady Bacula: After another excellent con and our hectic lives (hopefully) being a little less crazy, Lady Saika and I decided to bring you a lovely guide to Con Etiquette, a small state in New England with a lot of wealthy people and home to Yale University.

Lady Saika: We have a lot of cons under our belts, and we see people engaging in the same annoying behaviors time and time again. This kind of stuff can range from mildly annoying to con-ruining for the people around you. We’ve painstakingly considered the most obnoxious con behaviors we’ve encountered and made you a list of what to do and not do at a convention.

• Do not ask for someone’s picture while they are eating or in the bathroom.
• Do not stop walking in the middle of hallway or stairwell. Move over to the side.
• Also, do not stop at the top or bottom of a stair case/escalator.
• Do not ask for someone’s picture in any of the above locations.
• Never say anything bad about other people and/or their costumes. People come to cons to get away from the judgmental jerks in real life. Cosplayers have varying degrees of money and time and skill to put into their costumes, and they wouldn’t be wearing it out if they weren’t proud of it. Don’t be a dick.
• Shower so that you don’t smell like con. Believe us, it’s a smell that you would prefer not to smell. Because it is a smelly smell that smells smelly.
• Ask before you take a picture. 99.999% of cosplayers want you to take their picture because it makes them feel like the work they put into their costume is validated. Ask first, and you’ll get a nice pose instead of a blurry and candid sniped picture.
• Absolutely ask before you hug, touch, glomp, etc. Just because con-goers are fellow fans doesn’t mean that consent is irrelevant.
• Do not complain about people in costumes that aren’t relevant to the con theme. I’m looking at you, people who complain about Homestucks. Everyone at the con paid the same registration price to be there, and it’s none of your biz what they dress up as once they’re inside.
• Do be aware of your surroundings. Cons tend to be very crowded, and if your costume or prop is big and unwieldy, then make sure you remember that you’re occupying more space than usual. You can’t expect others to watch out for the long hem on your dress.
• If you are cosplaying as a specific character (ex: Vegeta) who has a Funny Thing They Do (for Vegeta, responding “IT’S OVER 9000” when asked what the scouter says about his power level), expect to be asked about it. If you do not want to be asked about it, do not cosplay as that character. Nothing is worse than a grumpy con-goer.

Lady Bacula: We hope that some of these are rather self-explanatory. And in a perfect world, some of these wouldn’t even be an issue in the first place. However, our world is not perfect and so we need to put these guidelines on the internet.

Anyone have any other guidelines that we missed? Leave them in the comments!

Sexualized Saturdays: The Over-Sexualized Teenage Girl

So back during college, I found myself replaying Final Fantasy XIII while my roommate’s friends were over. And to my everlasting annoyance, these twenty-some-year-old men felt the need to fake orgasm and talk nonstop about all the nasty things they wanted to do to Vanille, whom everyone thought was fifteen, based solely on the fact that she has “perky boobs”. And according to them, her voice sounds as if she’s in the middle of an orgasm too, apparently. They treated Vanille as if she was no longer a character, but as a sex object whose sole purpose was to please them.

I didn’t have a lot of fun playing that day.

But this experience does bring to mind something that should be addressed. While Vanille is actually at least nineteen, I believe, and video games and plenty of other mediums tend to objectify grown women to titillate male audiences, many things in geekdom tend to do the same with underage girls as well. And even more surprisingly, not many people seem to have problems with this.

Switched at Birth

Switched at Birth is one of those shows that I initially wrote off but ended up loving once I gave it a chance. As you can probably guess from the title, the show is about characters who were switched at birth. Of course, the characters find out about their switch and drama ensues. This show airs on ABC Family, which hasn’t produced entertainment of particularly high quality as of late, so I was very skeptical when this show premiered.  I know the ~drama~ this channel likes to pump into its shows at the expense of character and story development, and the premise of this show set itself up for dramatic dramatized drama in spades.

I am glad to report that this show is actually fantastically written and, while it does dip itself into soap opera territory with certain plot elements, it is overall a very smart show.

The two girls switched are named Daphne and Bay. Bay (the brunette in the above image) is raised by the wealthy Kennish family consisting of Kathryn, John, and older brother Toby while Daphne (the redhead) loses her hearing as a child and is raised by a single mother named Regina Vasquez, whose estranged husband Angelo was absent for most of Daphne’s adolescence. The show explores some really intricate themes but especially the ideas of who these girls are, who they would have been, and which (if either) is who they are supposed to be.

Sexualized Saturdays: “Straight guys don’t do that!”

I’m sure our readers know that I am a big fan of Big Time Rush, but you may not know that I am also a fan of Supernatural. In fact, I was the one to tell Ladies Geek Girl and Saika about the show in the first place and encourage them to watch it, so…

I’m not very active in the SPN fandom anymore, though, because my work schedule makes it difficult to keep up with the show, which is why I don’t really post about it. (I am watching the anime version right now though, so expect a post or two about that once I finish the series) Back when the show started, however, I followed the fandom pretty closely through LiveJournal and forums (these were pre-tumblr days folks!) so I was very aware of the shipping and all that in the fandom. One of the things I noticed that irked me, which I’ve also noticed in the BTR fandom, was that any time Sam and Dean (or Jared and Jensen, for that matter) showed affection or concern for one another everyone jumped all over it as being proof that they were gay for each other.

 

Why does this bother me? Well, for one, I related strongly to the family dynamic in Supernatural. I saw myself in Sam so much and the relationships he had with Dean and John hit really close to home with my own relationships with my brother and father. It was wonderful to see them try, fail, try again, make headway, etc. in their relationships with one another and the strength of familial love between them reminded me of my own and gave me hope that no matter what troubles may exist in my own family we could get through them because we loved each other.

Then I went online and that love was turned from something purely familial into something lustful and I was made to feel uncomfortable and confused. Why did it seem no one could believe that these men loved each other as father and son, brother and brother? Why did any sign of affection have to be turned into something romantic or sexual? One of the phrases I saw thrown around a lot in the SPN fandom and even more so in the BTR fandom is “Straight guys don’t do that.”

And any time I see that phrase, or some variation thereof, I want to ask “Says who?”