FanX Spring 2019: Meeting Our Heroes

I was planning on a much bigger article about this year’s Spring FanX in Salt Lake. However, it turns out that I am struggling with my depression right now and I have other demands on my time, and I just don’t feel terribly inspired to write a blow-by-blow 3000 word essay.

I moved to Arizona last fall, but my mom was willing to drive me up to Utah for a weekend and also give me a lot of financial support for the con. Not to mention that she gave me a lot of help with my Captain Marvel costume a month earlier. 

I will tell you about a few important things. The biggest one is that I got to meet Clark Gregg. Clark Gregg is the actor who plays Phil Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Those of you who have been reading my blog posts might have an idea about what this character means to me.

I told you briefly last fall about my Jedi OC and her living in the Marvel Universe and being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. What I didn’t tell you was that her partner and trainer is Phil Coulson. That was the story I came up with for Coulson when I quit watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.—at least the first part of his story in my fanfic arc.

20 Things I Love about ‘The Phantom Menace’ 20 Years Later

To the people who actually read this blog, all five of you: I know what you must be thinking. You are anxiously expecting me to write a review about Endgame or talk about FanX. But this coming Sunday—the nineteenth of May—is THE twentieth Anniversary of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I care about this movie enough that this is an occasion worth commemorating with a blog post, if I do nothing else. So if you don’t like the prequels or skip TPM in your Star Wars marathons, come back later. 

Now, to business:

When I was a little kid, my family had the Star Wars original trilogy on VHS, but I didn’t care much for watching it. Maybe I was a little young for Force lightning and Darth Vader.

Twenty years ago this week I was wrapping up first grade and on my way to second. Mom and Dad went to see The Phantom Menace by themselves the first time around, and then the second time they took me and my two little brothers (I only had two back then???).  Except for a Jar-Jar Binks cup lid I had for a while (more on that below), I didn’t care much for the film.

 

It was when TPM came out on VHS that it got my attention. The world that it showed me was completely different from the original trilogy: it was brighter, cleaner, and more organic. Being a little girl who grew up watching princess movies, of course, I very quickly became obsessed with the queen, because she had so many beautiful dresses. For a while I thought of The Phantom Menace as its own world, because I wasn’t ready to admit that the boy my age who won the podrace was going to grow up and become Darth Vader (and I was naieve enough to think that Senator Palpatine wasn’t actually Darth Sidious).

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.

FanX 2018: Not the Last Time

SUMMARY: I had a blast at FanX 2018. I did a lot of cool stuff. I got my first-ever celeb photo-op with Karl Urban. I went to a Star Wars wedding. I cosplayed Hela, my Jedi OC, and Princess Black Widow.  I’m so happy I got to see my cosplay friends one more time before I moved out of Utah.

It’s been over month since FanX 2018, and I am painfully aware of that. But right after FanX I moved to Arizona, and since then I have been getting settled in and adjusting. I probably could have, and should have, written this post sooner. But I am still writing about this a month later because I have a few thoughts that I think are worth sharing

I did three costumes: Hela on Thursday, a Jedi/SHIELD agent on Friday, and Princess Black Widow on Saturday. Last year I didn’t do any Marvel cosplays, so I swore that I would do all Marvel at the next convention I went to. I think I did good on keeping my bargain to myself.

‘Part of Your World’ Live: A Reflection

It’s been a week or more since Shark Week and today I’m taking you back under the sea, this time with a mermaid.

My family didn’t have Disney’s The Little Mermaid on VHS until the 1997-ish edition came out. Growing up a Disney girl, with sing-along-songs and all that, I knew the story of Ariel and her friends and her voice. We had a big picture book of the movie story at home. And “Part of Your World” was one of the songs I loved to sing to myself, even though I didn’t know it very well. But after finally getting it on tape, it’s one of those movies I regret not watching more as a kid.

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.

13 Reasons Why Winter Soldier Wednesday is the Best

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you might have noticed a little thing I do called #WinterSoldierWednesday. If you don’t know me at all, then you should know that every Wednesday I post something related to Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier or Sebastian Stan on my social media feeds. On the FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention Facebook group, I’m known to go crazy with photo spams. Almost every week.

Why do I do this? Because Bucky is my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe character. And because Sebastian Stan is one heck of a gorgeous human being. Let me give you thirteen reasons why Winter Soldier Wednesday is a big deal for me and my friends.

#1 Some of us otherwise find Hump Day rather dull

Daily Evanstan/Pinterest

#2 Instead, Winter Soldier Wednesday is a Bucky fan’s day to SHINE!

Pinterest