Bustin' makes me feel good!

As a lovely tumblr post I've seen somewhere said: I am really enjoying this new film genre of Mens Rights Activist Horror Films. Films in this genre include Mad Max: Fury Road and Ghostbusters 2016. The so called man hating films that are taking macho genres away from the men with their positive female characters and the fact that the male characters are secondary. You've probably seen the man hate on Twitter, Youtube, and any other place stupid babies need the most attention.


I thought Mad Max: Fury Road was the best film of last year and I wouldn't have seen it without all the man hate it got. I also credit Tumblr's "It's actually really fucking good!" posts and the Biker Kookums in the movie for making me love it. So I'm expecting good things from Ghostbusters 2016 after seeing all the hate it's been getting months before it's even released.

I saw the most recent trailer for the film and really loved how bad ass it made all the female leads look. There's a scene around minute 1:08 where Kristen Wiig's character fires off her weapon and she looks like freakin' Xena Warrior Princess! I love how Thor is their dimwitted but well-meaning receptionist that they're most likely going to have to save at one point in the movie. I LOVE HOLTZMANN AND SHE IS ONLY IN THE TRAILERS BRIEFLY.

I'm also really blown away by the hate it's getting before everyone has even seen it. I think I know why it's getting so much hate from the men, let me tell you a story:

When I was a little girl, I loved the original Batman movie with Michael Keaton. I wanted to BE him and told my mum on Halloween that I wanted to go as Batman. She said I couldn't cause Batman was for boys. She said I could go as any girl character I wanted. So I looked at my choices in that movie.

There was:

Vicki Vale who faints after getting jump scared.

Alicia who is disfigured and presumably murdered by the Joker

And Martha Wayne who is killed by the Joker. 

For a long time, this was basically the choices for nerdy girls to look up to in their favourite media. The girls in nerd media were always secondary and the ones that needed to be saved or die for the male hero's story.

With the new Ghostbusters, this is reversed. The leads are the women who are going to have to save their guy. Now the nerdy girls and women are the Batman and the nerdy Gatekeeping MRA asses are the Vicki Vales. And they can't even handle ONE movie where they aren't the focus and that makes me laugh. 

So I'll see the new Ghostbusters and I'll cosplay as Holtzmann at my next con. Cause it's cool to be the Batman for once.

Native Women and Film

Or How I was on a Panel with so many Amazing Ladies

There's a problem with Native culture where there's an unspoken belief that the success of one person is at the expense of another. I met Alanis Obomsawin recently and she said that jealousy is so prevalent amongst our people and it needs to be eradicated. Vitriol would always come up back home on the reserve whenever anyone would tell anyone else about their good day, their success or whatever. This is best represented by this comedy sketch Craig Lauzon did where he mentions his brother thought Craig thinks he's "better than everyone" cause he left the Rez. 

Cause the worst insult a Native can throw at a Native is, "You think you're better than everyone?"

Personally, I've never felt that any success I've got has been at the expense of someone else. I've worked hard for my degrees and to keep the funding I received. I've worked hard at jobs I've had to be really good at them. I also prepared for 2 weeks to be ready for a film pitch at Gimli Film Festival in 2014 (that I won). And it hurts when people imply that my success hurts someone else. 

Hence why I was happy to be around the ladies at Native Women and Film. It's a week long event focusing on female filmmakers and their films focusing on Native issues. And everyone was AMAZING and insanely talented. I got asked to show Crash Site and I was really honoured to be amongst the likes of Amanda Strong, Jennifer Dysart, Jessie Short and others, all ladies I really admire.

Getting to meet these ladies made me feel like Po from Kung Fu Panda meeting the Furious Five: I've held these ladies in high regard and basically internally nerded out over them when I got to meet them (particularly Elle Maija who's film I saw for the first time last night and really loved). And I felt really great that Crash Site was chosen to be shown with films like Mia and Bihhtos Rebel. I kept thinking about what Alanis said (who all the ladies held in high esteem). I couldn't imagine feeling jealous of these ladies. All I could feel was amazement that I was there and intense nerd like enthusiasm to be seated with them. Like with Alanis, all I wanted to do was make more films to show these women I met last night and make them proud. Success for any of us is success for all of us and it gives us all more opportunities. 

From maijatailfeathers

Support people, people! Can't we all just get along? 

One Scene Wonder.

I love movies. I wouldn't make them if I didn't cause making movies is a long ass boring process. It's why I have a soft spot for movies that are terrible but still have some sort of redeeming quality. I also use this as my excuse for why I still love Street Fighter.

Fuck you, it's amazing.

 

But even in the worst movie with the most cliched story line or terrible acting, there's always a scene that can save it for me. Hence why I still love a lot of movies I hated as a kid. There's this Jonathan Taylor Thomas movie with Chevy Chase playing his dad that I thought was the shits as a child (mostly because of their faux Native hipster boy scout crap throughout the movie) but it has one of the best endings I've ever seen. Chevy Chase is about to marry JTT's mom in this beautiful outdoor   wedding while JTT in voice over is summing up the movie. And they play Return To Innocence for the whole thing and it's amazing! 

 

A single scene can save any movie for me. I hated Revenge of the Sith for the entire time I was sitting in the audience at the midnight showing opening night. But the second they show Obi Wan dropping off Luke with his Uncle and Aunt and they do the call back shot to A New Hope with Beru and Owen looking at the binary sunset I was like, "THIS WAS THE BEST MOVIE EVER."  

 

I'm fickle, what can I say?

 

My favourite bad movie has got to be The Next Karate Kid with a pre fame Hilary Swank playing the annoying as hell Julie. Despite her faults, Julie had a kick ass taste in music and she was the reason I got into The Cranberries. I was 10 years old when Julie went into the monastery to practice her drills and she put on Dreams by The Cranberries. Dolores O'Riordan's voice is one of my favourite sounds in the world and the last 2 minutes of Dreams is my favourite part of the song. I don't know if the scene is made because of Julie's shadow spar or the song or a mix of both. But I love the scene with its adorable dancing monks and Dolores' vocals. 

 

 

I also dig the movie for Julie kicking the crap out of the dude who was stalking her for the whole movie. Some guys just deserve kicks to the head. 

 

I love scenes that stand out and long after I have finished bitching about how much I hate a certain movie, I will recall scenes I really liked and made the movie worth it. I can't hate on a movie if it was entertaining even if it was only for one scene.  Anyway, I want to listen to Dreams again. 

Don't mess with his funky flow

I credit my friend Sage with getting me into one of my favourite shows of 2015: Steven Universe. It combines all my favourite things: fantasy, adventure, mystery, clever dialogue, and WOMEN KICKING ASS.

Female identifying sentient rocks to be exact

I wasn't originally interested in the show despite the abundance of GIFs I kept seeing from my Tumblr friends. I was incredibly obsessed with Gravity Falls and didn't want to go down the rabbit hole with a new show. But Sage kept pestering me to watch it so he'd have someone to talk to about it.

And I really liked it! I went through every available episode throughout the summer and continue to rewatch episodes I've enjoyed. I really love how much the show focuses on the strength and beauty of femininity, the value of friendship and family, and the joy of being yourself and fighting to protect that. 

According to Wiki: Steven Universe is "the coming of age story of a young boy named Steven, who grows up in the town of Beach City living with three magical humanoid aliens, the Crystal Gems: Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. Steven, who is half-Gem, goes on adventures with his human friends and helps the Gems protect the world from their own kind."

Each episode is 10 minutes and has filled me with wonder for that reason. I can't believe how this show can be so emotionally complex with only 2 seasons of 10 minute episodes. 

A message from Steven's mother to Steven aka the episode that broke my heart. 

This generation of animation that believes its audience can handle this complexity is just killing me with its greatness. 

My favourite part of this show has to be the fact that the most respected warrior in the galaxy with a legend that precedes her is a 7 foot tall woman in a wedding dress that loves pink. No, my favourite part of this show is how the Power of Love will kick your ass. 

I am made of love and it's stronger than you 

There is basically nothing I dislike about this show. Even the stuff I thought I'd dislike like the songs were things I came to enjoy.  As a child, I thought to be "girly" was the worst and this show made me realize that "girly" is just as or even more bad ass than lone wolf toxic masculinity. 

This show also blows me away with its positive representation of not only women but people of colour and general body positivity. ARGH THIS SHOW. It cannot return quick enough. Go watch it, I'll wait here and we'll talk about it later.

Awasis.

I was never as lonely as I felt when I was the only little Native girl in the world that liked Batman (or so I thought).

I wrote my short film Crash Site because I wanted a movie about a bunch of nerds that were either Native girls or girls of colour. I also wanted a Native super-heroine that was shy and from a reserve. I designed Maggie Thunderbird with my good friend Kelly Tindall and I was speaking to him about creating a pitch so we can get her an actual comic book! Here's hoping.

Maggie Thunderbird as designed by me and Kelly. 

I continue to be blown away by the response Crash Site has got. It's wonderful to know that other people want Native girls being nerds and being awesome. But I hadn't seen Crash Site with the audience I intended it for: Native kids. 

Cue my friend Cella and her mum, Silvana, asking me to speak at Strathcona School to their kids Grades 1-6. I showed the movie during the assembly and spoke to a group of grade 5s afterwards. I was nervous the night before as I knew how I reacted when I was a grade 3 kid and some loser came to speak to us at my school. I was ready to be thrown out because I was so boring. Yeah, there was a bit of unrest when I introduced the movie but once the movie was halfway through, the kids were quiet, laughing at the right moments, and enjoying everything.

Two parts that blew me away though were when Cella told me about hearing little girls being horrified at a character telling her sister, "You can't act like an Indian fresh off the reserve" and overhearing another little girl trying to repeat the Cree lines after she heard them. But the best part was when I got to talk to the kids of Grade 5 about the movie and what they thought about it. A bunch wanted to know if I was going to make it longer. One kid wanted me and Kelly to make the comic book. And they all wanted to know what I wanted to make next. The teacher mentioned that the kids had been thinking of questions to ask me all week and she had hadn't seen them so focused for a guest.

It was great to hang out with a bunch of kids who were as nerdy as I was when I was their age. I loved cracking jokes about nerd memes and talking about Spiderman with them. And seeing their excitement to talk about making and acting in their own movies was infectious. I had a great time! And I felt really touched when they asked if I could send them a link to the movie.

Even though I am still terrified of being run out of the school cause I'm so boring, I would still like to visit another school. Here's to Native nerds!

 

Stronger Together

I'm a huge Superman nerd and will get into huge nerd arguments about how awesome he is. As a girl, I loved that he could fly. As an adult, I like that he's an endless fountain of hope and optimism in a world that tends to value anti-heroes.

I was also a HUGE fan of the Helen Slater version of Supergirl.

I always wanted to do that dip your hand in the lake as you fly over it thing.

So when I found out that there was going to be a Supergirl tv show. I was like, meh. Gotham turned out to be this batshit fanfic straight out of the mind of a 13-year-old girl and Man of Steel made me hate where DC was going with Supes so I had little hope for it.

Until I saw a Supergirl photoset on tumblr and saw that HER SHOES WERE SENSIBLE. 

So I watched the pilot and was charmed by her dorkiness, her optimism, and her sweetness.

Then I found out that this show is wall to wall women and I was down as hell for it!

AND HELEN SLATER IS HER MUM

I'm only two episodes in but I just went hard on that show. I love its celebration of femininity, that Kara has so many awesome women in her life, and that being a "girl" isn't a negative thing. She begins to take it and own it.

I also really love her relationship with her older sister and the season-long subplot related to her Kryptionian aunt's relationship with her birth mother. Kara and Alex's relationship is so refreshing and multifacted and ARGH THIS SHOW GOT ME SO HYPED.

But my favourite thing so far is the value of help to Kara. Kara tries to get all Superman in her first few outings as Supergirl and she ends up causing a mess of things. So she gets help from her friends James, Wynn, and her sister. In the second episode Kara tells James,

"Back on Krypton no one was their own man. Growing up I was taught that to accept help from people is not a shame, it's an honour."

AND I LIKE THAT. She's not just a refugee alien and one of the last of her kind that must go it alone. She's going to get help and be better for it.

SupergirlFanaticsTumblr

There's an unabashed sweetness about this show that I'm just loving. And it reminds me why I like the House of El: they inspire you to always aspire to be better. And this show is unabashed with its positivity, which I think people are missing the point of. It's not Gotham and it's not Daredevil. It's a show about a woman that wants to make things better. It's a show about women helping other women. AND I AM ONLY TWO EPISODES IN. ARGH I AM SO HYPED.

The Female of the Species

 I am a massive Sherlock Holmes nerd and nothing gets me annoyed than when I tell people that and they'll inevitably say, "Oh, do you watch Sherlock?"

Pinterest

I've seen Sherlock and enjoyed it at first. But then I realized that Sherlock's Sherlock is a really big douche. I didn't like that he lorded his intelligence over everyone and absolutely everyone was inept when he was around. I also didn't dig that Watson had absolutely no reason to hang out with him or be his friend.

Watson in the stories has always been a valued partner to Holmes. Holmes even told him:

"It makes a considerable difference to me, having someone with me on whom I can thoroughly rely."

Which, coming from Holmes, is a big deal. Holmes's relationship with Watson is one of the biggest weakness of Sherlock but it's one of the biggest strengths of one of my favourite shows Elementary.  

In Elementary, John Watson becomes Joan Watson, played with intelligent adorability by Lucy Liu. This caused a bunch of people to freak out when the show first premiered cause how DARE they make a white man an Asian woman! HOW DARE they not make her a solider! HOW DARE she not be a doctor (even though she is).

But Lucy quickly usurped Jude Law's position as my favourite Watson in fiction. And it's not just because of her fabulous Joan Watson wardrobe. 

Though I do try to steal her style

But she's such a great character. She starts the show as a disgraced surgeon turned sober living companion assigned to Sherlock Holmes after his stint in rehab. By season three, she's an NYPD consultant who takes over for Sherlock after he disappears to London and is probably just as good as he is at deduction. Together, they're unstoppable, working together as a great team that compliment each other perfectly. 

And the relationship between Joan and Holmes never goes anywhere near romance, which is amazing! They value each other, they deeply care about each other, but when someone mistakes Sherlock for Joan's boyfriend, she reacts with annoyance and mild disgust. He looks out for her and she looks out for him. They're family. Their relationship is how I imagine Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr's Watson and Holmes would have started their relationship. 

I also love that she doesn't take any crap from Holmes. When he tries to get her to pour him a cup of coffee by rudely holding his mug up, she tells him to do it himself. Or one of my favourite situations is when they have sneaked into the morgue and Sherlock is trying to convince Joan to dissect a body, which she isn't going to do. He starts to dissect the body himself but he keeps mucking it up so she takes over. 

Sherlock: That’s lovely. You’re really quite skilled, Watson....

Joan: No! I am dissecting a body in the middle of the night. We are not having a moment.
 

This show treats female characters so well that I just love when they add new women. I hope they bring more Ms. Hudson into the show (played by the amazing Candis Cayne) and after the amazing Kitty Winter arc, I really hope they bring her back. 
 

And Sherlock. He is a real person in this show! One of my least favourite things about Sherlock Holmes adaptations is how Sherlock gets away with acting like an insufferable know-it-all. Sherlock is an ass in Elementary but people call him out on it and he does try not to be so much of a dick (which he is). I like watching his growth on the show. His change from the person who tells Joan he doesn't need her in season one to the person who tells her he's better when she's around.
 

Maybe I'm biased cause I think Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller are great actors but it's a legit awesome show. I've got about 10 episodes to finish in season 3 before season 4 starts on Thursday. I hope they bring back Ms. Hudson! 

To Boldly Go

As a kid, I was massively obsessed with Star Trek: The Next Generation. My whole life, I wanted to be an adventurer and that show fed my curiosity to see places others hadn't ever seen. On blizzardy nights when my dad would take our family for a ride around town, the snow flying past the windshield made me feel I was on the bridge of the Enterprise at warp. The show made me feel like I could be anything I wanted to be and I always loved it for that.

The only thing I hated about it was there weren't any Native people in Starfleet.

If I see myself on screen, then I know that I exist

Gabourey Sidibe

  

I've read numerous times of how other people of colour have been inspired by Trek into pursuing their dreams. It's why I was pissed when a former friend said Uhura was just a glorified telephone operator. As a child, I would have loved to see someone who looked like my mother as a Lieutenant or even a Captain on Star Trek. Not just because it would have been COOL AS HELL but it would have been awesome to have a role model in the sciences even if they were just a fictional character.

As of right now, I am still the only person in my family to get a university degree. I was the first to graduate high school. When I was kid, I taught myself to read and read everything I could get my hands on. My parents supported it but it was always sad to me when my dad couldn't help me with my homework because of his lack of education. When I first went to university, the fact that I had no one to learn from who had been there before was terrifying. Luckily, I met many Aboriginal women who were in the same boat as me and I made a lot of lifelong friends (Looking at you, Miranda, Anna, Angeline, and Randi) who I felt I could learn from. They also understand the subtleties of Native humour that many non Natives don't get.  

Even though I am no longer pursing the sciences, I still think it's an important subject. Yeah, it's cool that there's so many Native lawyers but there should be more doctors, physicists, and engineers. I used to work for a program that allowed children from reserves to explore various "career" options that involved showing them a day in the life of a doctor or an engineer and it was so cool to see them excited about designing a bridge or checking their friend's blood pressure.  I think a lot of us forget that the true essence of science is discovery and get distracted in high school by terrible teachers who made it horrible. I always loved physics but it is one of my weakness. I often wonder where I'd be if I had had a teacher that supported my curiosity on the subject rather than criticized me for a 63% on a final exam by sneering, "I thought you studied for this exam?" 

 Lastly, if there had been a Native person on Star Trek, it would have given me hope that we did make it to the future. I know, that sounds lame but hear me out. With a government effectively trying to wipe out our way of life and make it more "Canadian", it seems unlikely that our culture will survive without a massive campaign to maintain it. My Cree teacher told me that the Native languages most likely to survive into the next few decedes are Cree and Ojibway. With my sister and I unable to speak it fluently, I know that Cree is going to die out with my parents unless I put my mind to it and try to learn it. But when I think about stuff like this, I remember a quote from another sci fi show I came to like...

You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're gonna get killed by eggs, or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible. Like maybe you survive.  

The 9th Doctor, Doctor Who

I want to have a hand in maintaining my culture. I became a writer because I wanted to make sure that one day, there would be a Native character that a little Native girl could look up to. I became a director so I could make sure I had good parts for Native people. And I became an actor so I'd be ready to play the first Cree Starfleet Captain. 

Hey, we all have an impossible dream.

SDCC or There and Back Again

I followed Carmen into a dark room, the only lights coming from the screens scattered about the ceiling with two massive ones at the front of the room. You can sense thousands of people around you in the dark. I hear Carmen telling me my seat is here. I can't tell where "here" is until I see Carmen back lit by a screen. I feel myself slap someone with my huge novelty bag that I got handed to me on the street and which I packed with my various purchases. I fall into an empty chair next to a dude who is typing up the whole panel on his laptop. And that was my first time in Hall H.

I got to be in the same room as Sirs Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. PatStew once called me "my dear" and it was awesome.

 ----

I've always been a nerd. Hence why I was upset when my sister went to San Diego Comic Con before I did. She being my younger sister means I've been a nerd longer. I refreshed Facebook constantly during her trip going over every one of her updates full of jealousy. She had an amazing time and said she was going back next year. I vowed to go with her. I've only ever been to my city's local con, C4. I was worried that the size of SDCC would make it less enjoyable than a smaller con. At my local con I was able to speak to the celeb guests and basically take my time on the sales floor. But with half of my friends going, I decided to just go in and see how things went.

The trip was full of a lot of firsts. The biggest one being was finally getting to meet my good friend Carmen, who I've known for just over 10 years but never met officially. As it always is when I meet a good online friend in real life for the first time, I was worried we wouldn't get on like we do online. My fears were quickly dismissed when Carmen rolled up to the loading zone at the San Diego airport and asked with a huge grin, "HOW MUCH!?"

Carmen and I after our bloodbath at Evil Dead: The Musical. 

----

I get lunch with my friend Kim after we were both in need of a break in the con. We went to this amazing Mexican restaurant that had all-you-can-eat tortilla chips. Kim freaked out when she saw the Saints Row promotional presidential motorcade drive by and stop right across the street from us. She ran out, followed by me. I yelled over my shoulder at the waitress as I ran out that we left our stuff and we'd be back in a moment. We weren't dashing on the bill.

----

In the WWE panel, the audience started the annoying, "WHAT?" chants. A guy dressed as the Governor two rows in front of me stood up, turned around and yelled, "THE WHAT CHANT NEEDS TO DIE A TERRIBLE DEATH".

A dueling chant of "YES, YES, YES" started and it was amazing.

I also ended up having a massive crush on the Gov (does that make me the Andrea in this situation?).

 Kim: he's into WWE and Walking Dead, you should marry him.

----

The trip to the con also included a few days hanging out with Carmen in Vegas and a quick side trip to Area 51 (or Rachel, Nevada if you're nasty).

Since Carmen's foot was out of order, I had to drive. This turned out to be a bad idea when I ended up missing the turn to Rachel and drove 40 miles out of the way while Carmen was asleep.

By the time we arrived at the only business in town, the sun was setting beautifully behind the mountain range that circled Rachel and Area 51 all around us. The A'Le'Inn had a UFO hanging from the back of a tow truck and an old dude sitting outside the place watching us suspiciously.

The little restaurant/bar/tourist spot had only 4 people other than us inside. The bartender/waiter was prompt and told us a lot about the area. The cows we had seen all over the desert on our way down the Extraterrestrial Highway belonged to one man who herded them on horseback over miles of open desert. The cows were black and were the cause of a lot of accidents at night when drivers wouldn't see them in the dark. The herder's farm was on the  road known as "the Black Box" (actually white) entry to Area 51 and it was the road Carmen and I went down after we got the best homemade pie in America.

By the time we got to the black box road, it was so dark that the sky was bright with stars and the black cows were invisible until you saw their eyes. Carmen and I turned onto the road and saw the uneven service and foreboding look of the desert track leading to the site.

We had been warned by the bartender that the signs marking the "Cross this and get shot" border were easy to miss in the dark.  

After a moment of sitting in the car, I said, "......want to go back to Vegas?"

Carmen: "Yes."

On the drive back, despite signs warning of "low flying aircraft", Carmen and I saw only big-earred rabbits, black cows, and bright stars that we stopped to admire at the end of the Extraterrestrial Highway.

Sunset in Dreamland.

----

I think my favourite part of the con was how at home I felt. From the moment on preview night when I saw clips from Star Wars playing on huge screens and took my first picture with an awesome cosplay, I just felt like I was in the right place. It was amazing to be in a room and not apologize for how much I liked something. It was great to have so much fun with total strangers as we took pictures on the Iron Throne or in Scrooge's Money Pit, giggling as we found the right angle to wear the hat. Being un-apologetically dorky is such a rare thing when you're an adult and I usually apologize for being so silly and forgetting myself in normal every day life. At the Con, I was rushing about to enjoy everything with a huge grin on my face.

My favourite picture of myself. 

To be with friends I hadn't met but getting on like we knew each other for years (cause we have) was brilliant and we have memories we still talk about. Angel tweeted me recently to ask, "Hey, remember that time we had to sit through a powerpoint presentation to get to the Hannibal panel?" after we had to sit through the One Ring panel, which was like watching a group of people outside a movie spoiling the whole thing for you. Despite that panel, panels I hadn't planned to attend were fun and the excitement of the die-hard fans was contagious and got me interested in checking out the subject of the panel (Looking at you, The Following). 

All in all, it was an amazing time and I am determined to go again next year. Here's hoping I find a job soon so I can pay for the mayhem.

Plus I still need to meet Andy Serkis!

I want you to believe in yourself, imagine good things and moisturize, I cannot stress this enough.

Makeup is such a mystery to me. I'm intrigued by the artistry that goes into putting it on. Though I do love the look of "natural" makeup, there are so many eye shadow colours available that I never knew why anyone would limit themselves to browns and nudes.

This summer, I decided I was going to start wearing makeup. My current routine is just Clinique's City Block in SPF 25 with the occasional foundation and blush for work. Putting on foundation continues to scare me as I'm nervous I'm going to look like Miss Chi-Chi Rodriquez before she was a full-fledged queen.

"And I'm gonna try and find a foundation that's a little closer to my actual skin tone."

I never learned how to apply makeup.  Usually, teenage girls learn from their older sisters and moms. I only had a younger sister and my mum didn't wear makeup so I didn't have anyone to learn from. I had friends who had their "beauty" routines but after my best friend gave me some horrible advice one summer, I stopped asking them questions. I have my father's genetics, which means naturally big eyebrows that have a mind of their own. As puberty hit, I became extremely self-conscious about them. I asked my best friend what I should do and she suggested I take my dad's shaver and "shape" my eyebrows. I accidentally shaved off half of my right brow and spent the next two months wearing Bono sunglasses to hide my lack of brow while it grew back in. 

As I entered my twenties, I always hated getting makeovers because the makeup artist would want to focus on a feature I didn't like about my face. I'm a bit self conscious about my lips and a makeup artist will get their hands on them and blow them up with gloss and dark pigment to an allergic reaction-ish size. I'd look at my huge Jagger mouth and feel like my head was about to fall forward from all the weight. 

Makeup should be about making you feel good about yourself. I've always wanted a makeup artist to focus on my eyes and it wasn't until I met this one guy at the MAC counter that he did what I asked him to. I looked like Pris from Blade Runner after the MAC guy was finished and I loved it. 

During my Voice class this year, I met the awesome Cella. I loved how fantastic her makeup looked. She looked like she had just walked out of a magazine and she put so much love into doing her makeup. During our random chats before class, Cella would tell me about getting unwanted comments about how excessive her makeup is. I told her how people would tell me my hair was too short for a girl. We told each other how we would tell these people to shove it. 

Cella does her makeup for herself and it's something I really admire about her. Her makeup never seemed like it was something she was hiding behind. Confidence is all about you. You can constantly be called beautiful but unless you believe it, no one can change your mind. In a world where you're bombarded with conflicting messages on how you have to be perceived by others, it's better to take back that power and decide for yourself how you want to be presented to the world. 

I went to Sephora recently and bought a brow powder set as I wanted to learn how to draw in my brows so they can look fuller. Also my love for Batwoman finally got me over my self consciousness over my lips.

I got Batwoman's lipstick matched to MAC's Russian Red and keep it around for days when I want to feel bad ass and/or fancy. I also added the orangey juicy clementine to my makeup bag, which goes awesomely with my bright eyeglasses, after everyone at makeup counters kept trying to give me pink lipsticks.

I may not have a makeup routine but it seems to lean towards the unique.

My job ended recently and as a parting gift, my coworkers got me a gift certificate to Sephora that includes a makeup lesson. Here's hoping I can get out of my shell a bit more with their help.

Any funny/embarrassing make up stories? 

Love is a first

At my last day on the job lunch with my coworkers/friends, I got talking to my friend Paul who is a huge Trekkie. We got into a discussion about how your vision of a certain character is influenced by who you saw first. He said it's why he prefers Captain Kirk to Captain Picard as a Starfleet Captain should not be "a bald, Earl Grey tea drinking" dude.

Only question I ever thought was hard
Was do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?

I totally disagreed ("PICARD GOT RESULTS") but he mentioned that it was because I grew up with Picard as my captain whereas Kirk was his. He also went on to add that the Tony Stark in his mind was different than the Tony Stark in mine as his Tony was based on the comics and mine was based on RDJ's portrayal.

I thought about it a lot and realized that it was pretty much true. My Batman will always be Michael Keaton. My Superman is always Christopher Reeve. These first characters become your archetypes for what the character should be and it's hard to shake. Though I really enjoyed Man of Steel, I was comparing Michael Shannon's aggressively determined General Zod to Terrance Stamp's cerebral dictator General Zod the whole time.

The only exception to this rule that I can think of is Commissioner Gordon. Yeah the first Gordon I saw was Pat Hingle in Batman but the Gordon in my head became the one I read in comics like Batman: Year One, The Killing Joke, and Birds of Prey. But my Gordon will forever be Gary Oldman's Gordon from The Dark Knight films. Partly because of my love for Gaz but largely because he showed the heart of the character.

Gordon, to me, has always been the example of what a good person of Gotham is. They're not blind to the corruption around them and do what they need to in order to survive but they still believe that things can get better. His desire to do the right thing isn't a weakness. The Dark Knight films were the first time he was a real flesh and blood character and that's why he became the archetype Gordon for me. 

Despite my love for The Dark Knight films, Alan Napier's Alfred from Batman 1966 is eternally loved by me.

They see me rollin'

They hatin'

I'm curious to see who your archetypes are. 

Coping as a superpower

It was somewhere over the Pacific when I was shaken from sleep. Momentarily disoriented, I clawed madly for my glasses case in the pocket behind the seat in front of me. I got my glasses on as the plane shook again. Dropping my glasses case to my lap, I clutched the arm rests for dear life. U2’s MLK played softly out of my iPod headphones but not even Bono’s reassurances could calm me down.

The flight was already nerve wracking: from thinking I forgot my passport at customs, to the attractive Aussie sitting next to me that wanted to talk about nude beaches, I was certain I was about to re-enact the intro scene from Bioshock but in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic. I was shaking under my itchy airplane blanket.

The plane shook violently and before I realized what I was doing, I was saying the oath:

In Brightest Day,
In Blackest Night
No Evil Shall Escape My Sight
Let Those Who Worship Evil’s Might
Beware my power: Green Lantern’s Light

-----
Back in my undergrad, my developmental psych professor loved to talk about how important coping mechanisms were to children dealing with stressors. It didn’t matter what sort of mechanism it was, a kid could get through anything using them. I had my own coping mechanisms.

My grandma had strict definitions of what a girl was like and I wasn't it. As a kid, I would hide my butt-length hair under the hat I had taken from my dad and would pretend to be my own male twin. I spent most of my childhood angry at my mom for not letting me go as Batman for Halloween 1990 after she said I couldn’t because “Batman is for boys”. My grandma made a big deal once when she caught my grandpa taking a hockey stick out of the back of his truck that he had hidden from her. He had bought it for my birthday. I got the hockey stick but I think she was the reason I never got to play pee-wee ice hockey as a kid.

Since my grandma’s first language wasn’t English, she could be really blunt. I remember being hurt when she told my dad to stop watching hockey with me because it would “make me weirder”.

Looking back on it as an adult, I know she was worried about me. It was dangerous (and still is) to be a Native girl. I reckon she didn’t want me to draw attention to myself since the more visible you were the more likely you were to be targeted. But, being a kid, I just knew that there was something wrong with me. And it upset me that I couldn’t figure out how to change to make my grandma happy.

I think things would have been different for me if I hadn’t been sick in the car one day. My dad had taken me to The Pas and we were driving home. Before we had left, he bought me a Superman comic book. I started reading it and, as I did, I began to get dizzier, my head hurt, and saliva started to pool at the bottom of my mouth.

I got to a 2 page spread of green Kryptonite and my dad hit a bump as I did so. I threw up all over the comic book. As my dad stopped the car, a bit of green rock slivered through the bits of digested chicken fries into view and I threw up again. As my dad pulled me out of the car to clean me, I realized why I was so weird. I was Kryptonian.

I had seen the 70s Superman movies before this trip and knew the sort of effect Kryptonite had on a Kryptonian. The realization of my true origin was only solidified when my dad took me to see the burial ground near the rapids that gives my hometown its name.

The site around the burial ground has been blasted and driven over by heavy equipment for 40 years and looks like something crash landed there. My arrival took root in my mind: my dad had seen a light in the sky while he was out driving with my mom. They followed it and found my ship and me, as a baby, inside. My parents raised me as their child. My grandma decided she didn’t want people to catch on to my being an alien so she was always telling me to act normal.

Call it crazy but it helped me deal with my anger towards myself over never measuring up to what my grandma wanted. Though I knew deep down that I wasn’t the last daughter of Krypton, pretending I was helped me feel unique rather than weird and to not feel so bad when people called me the latter.

Some girls think they are princesses, others think they're Supergirls.

-----

Imagining myself surrounded in an aura of willpower energy helped me deal with my turbulent flight the same way imagining I was a Supergirl helped me deal with my negative thoughts of myself when I was a kid. The moral of this story? Cope the way you want. And beware my power, Green Lantern's light.

You're the real thing

"OH. MY. GOD. THERE IT IS," I yelled as I shot forward out of the backseat and pointed out the windshield.

My sister, her boyfriend, and I were in the parking lot of some random office near the airport, looking for U2's plane. As I told them earlier, we'd know their plane by the big "U2" written on it. Even with the distance, we could make out the "U2 360" logo on the tail of the plane.

I had heard through the grapevine the exact time U2 would be arriving in my fair city and with some deduction and a recalled story about a friend meeting U2 the LAST time they were in my city, I made my way to the airport hoping my guess as to where they would be landing would be right.

A fence, a field, and a hell of a lot of security were between me and U2. My sister's boyfriend, Sean, frantically tried to find an alternate route to the other side of the airfield while I was certain we were going to miss them.

We arrived in another parking lot and we saw the plane was still out of reach. "IT HAS SOMEHOW MOVED FURTHER AWAY!" I yelled like it was somehow Sean's fault.

We sped on, totally trespassing on private property and scanning the GPS every few seconds.

We found the landed plane behind a chain link gate with a few people already waiting, cameras ready. The doors to the plane were open and people were unloading. Not being a U2 fan, Sean drove as close to the gate as he could and dropped me off, telling me, "It's now or never!"

I got out of the car and ran for the fence. There were 15 or so people waiting, the excitement apparent on their faces.

My face dropped when I saw a few BMWs roll up, obviously to pick up the boys and to take them to their hotel/venue/wherever. I was mentally preparing myself for disappointment and sighed sadly as my sister walked up and asked what was happening.

Then Bono came out.



And he didn't look like he was heading for the cars.

I was the second person he talked to (after this cute little girl who's Dad kept trying to get her to say hi even though she kept shyly pulling away from Bono). Bono smiled brightly at me and said, "Hello."

And this is going to sound so lame but he looked so genuinely happy to meet me. I've heard so many people say that when he speaks to you, all his focus is on you. And it's true, he made me feel like it was just him and me and I asked if he'd sign my photo. We talked for a few moments and I just grinned like an idiot.

He moved on to the next people and totally stole my Sharpie.

I ended up briefly talking to The Edge and Adam Clayton. Larry didn't make an appearance. Edge spoke to my sister and me and we both told him how happy we were to meet him and how excited we were for the show. He shyly lowered his head. Adam came over and I held his hand through the fence and he told me it was very nice to meet me. I was too star stuck to speak as he is my favourite member of the band. My sister spoke to him while he kept his fingers on mine.

Adam and Edge slowly made their way to their cars while Bono continued to sign autographs and started to pose for photos. I quickly snaked my way forward to get a few more pictures and saw my chance to get a picture with him.

"Hey, Bono!" I held up my camera, "Is it ok?"

"Of course!" He put his hand up to the fence and I did so too. His fingers came through the holes in the chain link and rested lightly on mine.

AND IT WAS AWESOME.

Once I got my picture, I thanked him and turned on my heel with a huge grin on my face. My sister grabbed my hand and I started to laugh like a maniac and skipped down the walkway to find Sean's car.

You better believe I'm going to be bragging about this forever.

It's Gotham

There is no quicker way to start an argument amongst nerds than by asking then which they prefer: DC or Marvel comics.

Back in my more militant nerd days, I was a hardcore DC. While working at McNally’s I used to get into arguments with a hardcore Marvel over the strengths of each of our companies. It ultimately always came down to one thing: realism. Hardcore Marvel preferred the realistic nature of his heroes and disliked the godhood of mine.

Homeboy obviously did not read Gotham Central.



Imagine Homicide: Life on the Street. Now imagine Homicide: Life on the Street with Batman as a supporting character. That’s Gotham Central. The series is a gritty look into a realistic Gotham City as it would appear if it was just another American city. Corruption and crime are rampant and the Major Crimes Unit of Gotham tries its best to cope with a situation that pulls no punches. It presents detective work as it truly is: repetitive, draining, and glory-free. It can also be psychologically damaging as seen throughout the series when despair drives many characters to the point of suicide.

There’s nothing cartoony in this series. Each panel is drawn with realistic colours and events unfold the way they would in real life: heroics are finite, perpetrators evade justice and the few good people in the city either leave or die in the cross fire. And it’s somehow made worse by the presence of the DC Trinity. Though Batman is the only one seen, there are several references to heroes such as Superman and Wonder Woman existing within this universe. As a child watching cartoons, you know that, somehow, these three are going to save the day. It just doesn’t happen here. One of the biggest tearjerkers within this series happens near the end of its run. Without giving anything away, there’s a point in the story where you feel it drawing towards a horrible event and you find yourself hoping Batman will make it this time and things will be all right. The event happens and nothing can be done to right the wrong.

I’ve never cried that hard over a comic before or since.

Whenever the inevitable trade happens between a Marvel and a DC, Gotham Central is always what I suggest. It’s about realistic heroes in unrealistic circumstances (the first of the Batman Rogues Gallery that the detectives encounter is Mr. Freeze) where bad things happen often. Where the heroes are flawed and deal with their situations in positive and negative ways. And where hope and being a good person isn’t enough.



Despite how dark the series is, I find solace in how many of the major characters never compromise their personal integrity. In a world where apathy has run amok and people accept their situations because "Hey, It’s Gotham" it’s good to see people so angry at the injustice they face that they’ll never stop fighting to change it. No matter how many friends they lose, they keep going.

For a girl who grew up angry at her situation for the same reason, it really resonated with me. I think the story is more powerful because it’s the non-superpowered heroes that are pushing through to change their world. It’s easy for Superman to fly on or for Wonder Woman to go forward with the Gods’ favour but for the detectives that at times only have themselves to urge them forward, that takes strength. That’s ultimate bad-assery.

It may not have a happy ending but knowing that there are people like the detectives in this story within the DC universe (and in real life) makes me happy enough.

Taken from the pages of a kindle

I've always loved books. When I was 3, my kindergarden teacher had a hardcover novel on her desk. I looked at it, opened it up and I really wanted to know what the words said. When the teacher came by and saw me I pretended to read it and did so with other books until they actually started to make sense. I remember I really loved the word "upon". That word continues to blow my mind.



My favourite book as a kid was The Hobbit. I read it when I was 8 and felt like such a grown-up when I got through it. The Mirkwood in my mind was scarier than any movie I had ever seen and I loved it.

Although it was not yet very cold, they tried lighting watchfires at night, but they soon gave that up. It seemed to bring hundreds and hundreds of eyes all round them, though the creatures, whatever they were, were careful never to let their bodies show in the little flicker of the flames.

Bi-annual Book Fairs were the highlights of my youth (my parents hated them) and I'd leave with about seventy five dollars worth of books. In a town without a bookstore and with the smallest library known to man (I read all the books by the time I was 15), book fairs were a big deal. My medical trips into Winnipeg every so often included the usual trip to McNally Robinson where I'd leave with a backpack full of novels.

I've had friends who would not lend me books because I'd leave them open, face down, to mark my place. I'd intentionally crack the spines. I'd dog ear pages and shove books into my backpack (catching paperback fronts on zippers as I did so). One ol' best friend almost had a heart attack when I dared to make it known that I had read her paperback copy of Bridget Jones.

I like books. And I think this is why I won't get a Kindle any time soon. I mean, I would like a Kindle. After I nearly took off my own head when I was reading a hardcover copy of Stephen King's It in bed, I thought about getting one.

But call me old fashioned but I like being able to see my progress as I make my way through a novel. I like seeing how much further I have to go. I like the wear and tear of paperbacks and putting a hardcover on my lap. I like having the hard copy around and being able to read specific bits over and over again. I also like sharing books and it doesn't feel the same in an electronic format.

And it makes me feel smart to see all the piles of books in my bedroom. I've already given up my CD collection in favour of an iPod, I'm going to keep the books.

Anger as Beauty

U2 will be sad to know that I've been cheating on them with someone else.

Ladies and gentlemen, Hawksley Workman

I've seen U2 three times in concert. I will have seen Hawksley five times come April when he plays the West End Cultural Center in my fair city.

My first Hawksley concert was back in 2004 and I didn't see him again until 2007. That 2007 concert held the top spot on the list of The Best Concerts Sonya Has Ever Attended for 3 years. And that list included two U2 shows.

Everyone knows my U2 fan flag flies high so it surprises people that U2 hadn't held the number one spot on that list.

So how does a Canadian with a guitar take the Biggest Band in the World down a peg for a girl that absolutely adores them?


That's me holding up the camera at 0:18

Well, the small concerts he puts on for one.

The above video is a bit of that 2007 concert. That show had less than 250 people there and it was only Hawksley on guitar and vocals with his pianist Mr. Lonely on piano and backing vocals. When I saw the setup when we arrived at the venue, I was certain things weren't going to be that exciting. Oh, ye of little faith, Sonya. Not only was I blown out of my Red Chucks but I spent that whole concert with my eyes like this

O_O

How many musicians can blow you away with just a guitar and their voice? Not that many I'll tell ya.

And that concert was just so darn intimate. When my sister and I were reminiscing about the concert as we walked home, I told her that we were so close to Hawksley that, when he blinked, I could feel his eyelashes on my cheek. Whereas U2 is at their best when a legion of 50000 strong are singing along and bringing down the stadium with their jumping, Hawksley is at his best with a smaller audience. I've seen Hawksley at bigger venues and he was great but I'm really glad that the upcoming show will be a solo show at a venue similar in size to the 2007 venue.

He may regain his trophy yet! He just has to sing You and The Candles to me like he did back in 2007 *hearts in eyes*

Underrated Women and the Girl Who Emulates Most of Them

Since I made a post about my favourite underrated guys, I thought it was only fair to whip out a post on my favourite underrated ladies.

Firstly, The Birds of Prey
Barbara 'Oracle' Gordon, Black Canary, Huntress, and Lady Blackhawk

Now I love comics but I do find myself growing annoyed with the way the few awesome women in my DC universe are treated. Not many female characters have their own story lines and, when they're included in the main titles, it's often in the capacity of a wife or girlfriend (even if these ladies have powers of their own). This is why I'm digging Birds of Prey. The ladies take on their own cases, solve their own crimes, and fight their own battles. I wasn't around for the first Birds of Prey series but I'm getting quite a kick out of the new series and catching up on their history.

It's always nice to have women in fiction kicking metric tons of ass and having personalities. Seriously? Women? With personalities? In my comics? AWESOME. I have a love/hate relationship with the art but the story-line keeps me coming back. And it's awesome female superheroes. What else do you need?

On a personal note: I'm seriously considering going as Black Canary for Halloween even though I imagine everyone will say, "Great Lady Gaga costume!".

----

Wrestling is my new obsession.

The WWE's Divas division's tag line is "Smart, Sexy and Powerful". There's only a few Divas that embody all three characteristics with two of my favourites being in that few. The first is Beth Phoenix and the other is Natayla (Natalie Neidhart).



Every time this girl is given a jobber entrance (no music and she's in the ring as the match starts) or a 2 minute match, I want to punch the TV. She is as brilliant a wrestler as Daniel Bryan but neither are being used to their full potential on WWE programming. Another fist through the TV moment is whenever she's called "fat" by either another female wrestler or that douche-canoe Michael Cole.

I quite admire Nat's obvious love for what she does. Whereas the majority of the other Divas wear the title as just another piece of jewelry, she wears it with the same reverence that the boys hold the World Championship. She takes it seriously while her peers spend their time on the catwalk. Keep your Maryses, WWE universe! I'd rather have Nattie on my tag team.

And I'm totally dyeing a pink strand into my hair because of her.

----

So I went to Australia for 3 things: 1) it's gorgeous, 2) Australia Zoo is there, and 3) it's the homeland of Ms. Kylie Minogue



But Kylie, like Doctor Who, is not appreciated in North America. And that is just sad.


When this bad boy starts a-jumpin', I defy anyone not to shake their butt to it

Back in my early 20s, I wanted to write a musical (ABBA-style) using Kylie's entire Fever album. I still want to. It would be bad-ass. And it would bring Kylie her much-deserved American break (and a concert date in Winnipeg for me).

----

There are certain life defining moments. My first one was when I saw Batman for the first time. The second was when I saw Mulan at 12.



Seriously, whenever I have children, this is the only Disney movie they're going to be allowed to watch. Little Dinah Lance and Little Bruce Wayne will thank me when they grow up with Mulan as the only Princess in their Disney canon. I was one of those little girls that wanted to be Prince Phillip instead of Princess Aurora. I wanted to slay dragons and always hated that, because I was a girl, I could never do it (never mind that whole bit about dragons not being real).

I wish I had been a bit younger when Mulan came out as I probably wouldn't have been so hard on myself for not being born a boy if I had her as a role model. Oh well, at least I've found awesome women to emulate in my older incarnation.

Now if only the Disney Store would release a Mulan costume for girls that wasn't the dress she wore to the Matchmaker's, Disney would have my respect.

----

So, now that you've reached the end of this post, I highly advise you check out a Natalya match, watch Mulan, listen to a Kylie Minogue song, and READ A BIRDS OF PREY COMIC.

Let the following song convince you cause after all....

While all the boys can always save the day, no one does it better than The Birds of Prey!