As the world waits with bated breath for the release of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in 2017, it’s fun to reflect and reminisce on the amount of progress that Nintendo’s protagonist Link has made throughout the years of his development. What once was a 2D top-view game for the Nintendo Entertainment System…
Boystyle: A Continuation of the Lolita Fashion & Subculture
Sasa Stickings Cheung, she doesn’t like to broadcast her age, has been wearing Ouji for almost two years. She first started wearing Lolita in 2014, then transitioned to Ouji, which is a Boystyle fashion of Lolita. Cheung watches young women dressed in maid uniforms bustling around the room getting orders in Uncle Tetsu’s Angel Café…
Harry Potter and the Case of the Disappearing Asians
Like most millennials, I grew up loving the Harry Potter series. I went to the midnight film premieres, collected Gryffindor gear, and reread the books several times over. But sometimes the things we love let us down. For a while now I’ve been bothered by how the original series treated its Asian characters, the Patil…
The Borderline Mother in Netflix’s Stranger Things
The Duffer Brothers’ Stranger Things intrigued me with the fantastically ’80s splash screen on the Netflix series page and totally hooked me with the title sequence. And then my wife and I watched the entire, too-short eight-episode series in, oh, a weekend. I reveled in the plethora of cinematic and musical nods to the decade…
Whaleish Work in the Disciplines: Comics and Religion Swimming Around
The last time you heard from me—and it’s been a while—I was urging academics who love comics to find their peers and work with them. I took my own advice! I was delighted to be a part of the Comics and Sacred Texts Symposium at Haverford College. It was wonderful to collaborate with scholars that…
Outfit Select: Lara Croft, Vogue, & Personal Development
Thinking about Sarah Harris using “gaming heroine” to define to aesthetic spirit of the decade in British Vogue’s centenary edition–a Royal on the cover, input from seasoned industry greats, and women of the moment throughout, a real authoritative environment, if Harris’ name alone isn’t enough to convince you of the scale of this proclamation–I came…
To Bullet Journal or Not to Bullet Journal?
I am an obsessive list maker. I make full use of the ToDoist app, I always have sticky notes in my purse, Excel is one of my favourite pieces of software ever, and I constantly keep Notepad open on my computer with a running tally of what I want to accomplish that day. I also…
Mom’N’Pop Culture: 5 Games My Kids Would Rather Play Than Pokémon GO
There have been many instances in my parenthood thus far in which I’ve known exactly how I mishandled my mothering know-how. For example, when my four-year-old son told me to “go love myself,” I knew right away allowing him to listen to the Beibs was my mistake. I understand my kids are their own people, meaning…
Why I Cosplay: Seeing Myself and Them
Costumes were always a source of fun for me. I was one of the kids that looked forward to Hallowe’en more than Christmas… And now I’m one of those adults. As a kid, it was mostly the excitement of the candy run, but I also found enjoyment in becoming characters I loved. Whether it was…
Firewatch, Gone Home, and the Power of a Good Bad Ending
Spoiler Warning: This piece contains spoilers for Firewatch, Gone Home, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Two of my favorite games of the past few years are also two of the games I most frequently see criticized for having bad endings–Gone Home and Firewatch. These are quiet, simple stories told in only a few hours at most….
Love Letter to My Best Friends
Ann Patchett in Truth and Beauty: A Friendship writes, “Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn’t realized was gone. With Lucy…
Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover: The Action Lab Conundrum
Middle school cookie dealers, hockey stick wielding magical girl vigilantes, princesses who don’t need saving, a space demon slaying comic retailer, and a time travelling chef who cooks prehistoric creatures. Action Lab is making comics you should be reading… so why aren’t you? The “Action Lab Conundrum,” as I call it, is one I’ve become…
