Three Shows I Have a Lot of Feelings About

I'm working on another post at the moment, but I've gotten completely stuck on it, so in the meantime, I present for your consumption:

three shows I have a lot of feelings about

Bene Watches: Historical Series

The wonderful thing about being on a university holiday break is that I can watch a bunch of tv series and then talk about them to you guys! The following is in no particular order and contains series which have been renewed, completed or cancelled, with varying degrees of success. I'm trying my best to be non-biased but that tends to be a bit hard sometimes. Please note that I often do not know where to live-stream these series but if I give it a good recommendation, buying the DVD is probably not going to be a waste of money. Light spoilers ahead.

Historical Profile: Baroness Emma Orczy

When you think of heroes with secret identities, you probably think of the superhero genre and comics, but where did they begin? As far as we know, they begin with The Scarlet Pimpernel in the early 20th Century, which was the inspiration for later characters like Zorro and Batman. The Scarlet Pimpernel was set during the French Revolution, boasting a titular character who masquerades as a shallow dandy while leading a secret society of English aristocrats who rescue their French counterparts from the guillotine.

the cover of the 1908 edition

And, yes, that says Baroness. Because the creator of the original dual identity hero was a woman. Last week, Sarah was talking about the concept of the “fake geek girl” who is supposedly taking a thing that is just for boys and pretending to enjoy it for the attention. I didn’t mean for my post to tie in so nicely—I chose my topic before I actually knew what Sarah’s was—but this is a happy coincidence that lets me add this argument to the mix: How can it be just for boys when a woman wrote the play and subsequent adventure novels that inspired such a large part of the genre? Yeah, no, it can’t.

I’m not going to keep going with that though, because Sarah did a great job with it and this post is actually the first of a new series we will be updating intermittently on women of significance throughout history.

The famous quote goes that history is written by the victors, but there’s another facet of that is often left ignored: History is written by men. Women have contributed so much to the world as we know it, but they are frequently forgotten or their work is stolen by a man who presents it as his own. F. Scott Fitzgerald is certainly not the only example, but he’s the first I can think of off the top of my head.

NYAD’s series on historical women, then, serves to highlight women we wish we’d learnt about in school, women who impress or astound us, women we adore, women whose contributions deserve recognition. And this week, I’m starting with:

"Fake Geek Girls"

I’ve been in the Marvel fandom for over a decade now, and it wasn’t until joining Tumblr that I learned there was such thing as a “fake geek girl”. It's still a mind boggling situation to me. So let’s have a little chat about it. But first a little background information so you know where I’m coming from. Growing up there was one phrase I almost never heard said in real life that it seems everyone else heard too often. “That’s just for INSERT GENDER HERE.” I sit here now completely confused as to how this is possible. I had friends. I spent time with adults beyond my parents. I had a social life. Let’s be honest here, I grew up on a farm in a small town there should have been so much sexism there that you couldn’t take a breath without choking on it. But no, when the chicken barn needed shoveled the saying was, “I have a mask and shovel that’ll fit you,” and my parents did. When wood needed chopping: “I’ve got an axe that will fit your hand.” When laundry needed to be done: “You wore it you can learn to wash it.” When baby animals or the occasional baby human needed minding, it didn’t just get put off on my mom, sister, or myself. No, my dad and brother were tasked with just as many dirty diapers and bottles.

Snow Gum River

Snow Gum River is a literary short fiction piece that unfolds around a bushranging gang in New South Wales, Australia during the late 1800s. I recently entered into the daunting world of publishing and this is my début short story which is available for free download through Smashwords here. After the break, I'll be discussing a little bit about how I came to write Snow Gum River and the process behind it. Spoilers below in case you haven't read it.

16 Female Musicians You Definitely Need to Know Exist

I’ve decided to highlight some female singers and songwriters for y’all this week by sharing a collection of my favourite songs with female vocalists. It was so difficult to narrow it down, but I’ve managed to keep it to just 16. There’s a mix available here on 8tracks of the songs I ended up choosing, and if you love any of them, I 100% recommend checking out their other work and supporting them!

And now, in no particular order, the ladies who made this mix possible.

On Stress and Worry

If my degree had any units based around studying worry and stress, or anything along those lines I would be a high distinction student, totally averaging around 80-90% (after all experience is the best teacher right? I wouldn’t even have to attend classes!) It’s amazing how often my thoughts can be consumed with stressful thoughts and worries; worries about Uni and Uni work, worries about work and figuring out how to balance it with Uni, worries about my family and friends, worries about money, worries about my car (which has a tendency to break down at the most inconvenient times, such as last night) and yeah…just worries about all aspects of life in general.

At some point in the last few weeks I have realised that too often those thoughts, worries and stress were stopping me from doing things that I would really love to do (like moving away, which I did anyway but that’s another story,) and that it might actually be possible to build a life free from an insane amount of worries and stress. I realised that I was lying awake at night worrying about things completely out of my control… worrying years into the future (what will I do when I graduate Uni? Where will I live? Where will I work?), worrying about members of my family (should I have moved away? How’s my brother coping at school? What if something happens to mum or dad and I’m hours away?), worrying about money (What if something happens at work and they decide to fire all the night fillers? How will I pay my rent? What if something goes horribly wrong with my car?)…you can see the picture.