The Russian Beauty & the American Disaster

Note: This posts uses a lot of fandom slang. I have tried to explain the terms in context where possible, but click here for a more definitive glossary of terms.

Where to begin? Why do I love BuckyNat? How do I love BuckyNat?

It’s that time of year again when I devote social media and blog space to my favorite fictional couples or “ships.” This year I am doing my Marvel superhero OTP, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow and Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier.  With Avengers: Endgame on the horizon, and with it the end of the MCU as we know it, I figured this year it was either go big or go home. (Subtext: it may never happen.)

Those of you who follow me on my socials know I have been doing a spam called 28 Days of BuckyNat. Mainly because I can, simply because I want to make Valentines’ Month a little more special for me (single in real life) by actually celebrating love through sharing something I am passionate about, and taking an opportunity to share not only materials I have curated but art and writing content that I have created myself about this pairing.

At the very least, they deserve better than her riding him like a bull during their fights in the last two Captain America films.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Hello, all. It’s been over a month since I last wrote. Long enough that I need to mentally wipe off the dust when I seriously contemplate beginning a new post. The holidays were crazy, understandably. And it’s taken some time for me to get adjusted to the new year. Now it’s time to get started.

Stan Lee: A Life that Touched Ours for Good

The morning of Veterans’ Day (Nov. 12), I came home from eating out for breakfast to log onto my computer, and I discovered the sad news that Stan Lee had passed away only hours before.

I knew he had been suffering from some health problems in the last year. But I wasn’t ready for him to go.

The tributes that so many people in the entertainment industry have written have been touching and inspiring. I have written a few short tributes of my own already, but I feel the need to say more.

The Art of Writing Fanfiction

This post is partly a confession. It is also partly a statement on what I believe to be a valuable art form.

Eight years ago, I never thought I would get into writing fanfiction as a hobby. I wanted to be a “real” writer when I grew up–clearly I didn’t have time to spend in someone else’s universe.

But a lot of things happened to change that.

For the record I don’t read a lot of other people’s fanfiction. I am trying to put my efforts into my own.

I started writing fanfiction because I felt that if I had a good enough idea, then I should write it down. I started with some notes about my Jedi persona. I didn’t start to fully write out my fanfiction stories until after I had graduated from college, because I knew I was going to really get into it.

Ereh Saw Yzil (me) meets R2-D2. FanX 2015

Why I do Cosplay

A blog is a good place for self-reflection as well as sharing thoughts and ideas. The truth is I haven’t been doing a lot with cosplay in the last few months, mostly because I have been trying to keep a job. Now I am not employed, and while I am negotiating my job situation, I also am having thoughts about getting back to cosplay. This has led me to think about why I got into cosplay in the first place and what I get out of it.

To Make Other People Smile

There’s a sense of wonder that comes with seeing your favorite characters at a convention, and not just on a TV screen. That wonder is seeing your favorite heroes and villains living and breathing. You know that it’s not really them, but they will say or do something that the character will do and for a moment it’s the real thing. And they’re interacting with you.

‘Rechenka’s Eggs’ and Finding Miracles

Some of you nineties kids, I hope, remember the show Reading Rainbow with LeVar Burton from back in the nineties. I got to meet LeVar briefly at a FanX event, actually, about two years ago (and I need him to come back so I can get his autograph). So that might be why I have an itch to blog about one of my favorite books from the show. I already wrote about The Indian Paintbrush when I came across the book at a thrift store. Since it is Easter this week, I thought I would share with you some thoughts I had on the featured book Rechenka’s Eggs. ( Western Christianity observes Easter this coming Sunday, April 1, while the Eastern church celebrates Easter on the 8th).

The episode featuring Rechenka’s Eggs was all about eggs and the things you can do with them. It was probably the only thing I watched before Anastasia that exposed me to Russian/Slavic culture that I remember. (Anastasia came out when I was in Kindergarten—I had a lot of years watching PBS before that)

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