November was such a busy month for me! For me, that’s pretty unusual since I’m normally busy during the peak Fall season i.e. September – October. Last month, one of my best friends got married and I was so happy to be included in all of the festivities. I had this post in my draft for a while because I was waiting for the photos to come back and they are such beautiful pictures.
The photos were taken at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis, so we had the skyline in the background. When we took this photo, it was 32 degrees out, so we all were shivering next to each other. Photos always manage to tell a story and bring back lovely memories.
Throughout my blog posts, I tend to repeat myself every now and then. One of the things that I will continue to say is that I’m so fortunate to have my friends. My friendships have carried through my teenage years, through college, and now as we continue on into our adult lives. New friends have been added to the mix and some friends I have grown apart from. With all of that being said, I have a good group of friends and I couldn’t imagine my life without them.
Before I publish my first official Doctor Who rewatching post, I thought it might be a good idea to talk about some of the terminologies within Doctor Who. I remember attending my first convention in 2013 and not knowing what a Dalek was. I saw it zooming around the convention having no idea what it was from. Doctor Who references are everywhere at conventions and I figured this guide might be interesting for those who may have heard these terms mentioned, but not know exactly what they are.
The Doctor
The Doctor is the main character in Doctor Who. The Doctor is a timelord from the planet Gallifrey. The Doctor travels through space and time-solving problems or stopping an evil alien species. I think what’s interesting about The Doctor is that The Doctor doesn’t have a gender. The Doctor exists and it’s not illustrated whether The Doctor is a man or a woman. This might be an incorrect statement since I haven’t watched the old Doctor Who series, but I have always thought of The Doctor as someone who exists rather than being a certain gender.
The Doctor travels on a TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) which I will explain a little bit more in a bit. Biologically speaking, The Doctor has two hearts versus one and has superhuman stamina which allows The Doctor to explore different planets with a variety of different atmospheres.
Tardis
The TARDIS is the spaceship that The Doctor travels on. TARDIS is disguised as a blue telephone booth, so when it enters Earth’s atmosphere, it doesn’t look like a spaceship. The joke within the show is that it’s “bigger on the inside” meaning when companions see the TARDIS, they think it’s the size of the telephone booth when really there is a lot more room to move around. In Doctor Who merchandise, the TARDIS is featured quite a bit and I think is one of the main characteristics of the show.
Gallifrey
Gallifrey is The Doctor’s home planet. It’s hinted that there was a war and Gallifrey may have been destroyed. This war is known as the Time War. When Gallifrey is brought up on the show, it often gives a glimpse into The Doctor as having survived something that’s violent and the trauma that comes with that. The Time War is a war that’s between the Time Lords and the Daleks, one of The Doctor’s most fearsome foes.
Dalek
The Dalek is one of the most feared enemies in Doctor Who. It’s basically a robot with a toilet plunger as its eye. As a fun fact, the original Daleks were made of egg cartons and sink plungers. The Daleks come up a lot as each Doctor has had to confront the Dalek. While the Daleks seem a bit dorky, they are incredibly powerful. Their signature line is “Exterminate” as they say this every time they go to kill anything.
Companion
Companions are incredibly important in Doctor Who. The companions are humans, aliens, robots, or any other living being that travels with The Doctor. Each actor who has played The Doctor is often brought up based on the companions that they travel with. There’s Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper) who traveled with the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and the 10th Doctor (David Tennant). There’s Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Wiliams (Arthur Darvill) who traveled primarily with the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith). Companions help keep The Doctor company by bringing their natural intelligence to help save the day.
Regeneration
Whenever The Doctor is wounded or old, The Doctor regenerates. This is how it’s explained when new actors or actresses play the role of The Doctor. Out of all the franchises that exist, Doctor Who may be the only one that has a way to explain new people playing the role that’s canon in the fandom. I think it’s rather creative. It shows how The Doctor has existed in many lifetimes and how each lifetime has certain companions or memories associated.
When The Doctor regenerates, The Doctor usually glows as a yellow beam explodes out of their body and they take on a new appearance with the new actor.
History Behind Doctor Who
Doctor Who is listed in the Guinness World Records as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world. The original Doctor Who show aired in 1963 and continued until 1989. The show was relaunched in 2005 and has been airing new episodes along with the announcement of Ncuti Gatwa as the new Doctor. With a show running as long as Doctor Who has, there’s so much history to explore.
One of the scandals or mishaps in Doctor Who are the mystery of the missing episodes. It’s assumed these episodes were deleted, but the reasons aren’t confirmed. It could have been because of a lack of storage or a lack of broadcasting rights. No one knows where these episodes are and it leaves some series of Doctor Who as being incomplete. I remember hearing about the missing episodes at CONvergence when I attended a Doctor Who-themed panel. It’s something that’s worth referencing in this “Doctor Who 101″ post as you might hear someone bring it up.
I hope this helps! You may hear these being brought up with Doctor Who fans and now you know where they come from or at least a little bit more about Doctor Who in general. I hope to have my first post up with the first series of Doctor Who before the end of the year.
My brother always brings the most interesting games that I have never heard of to our family board game nights. Some of the games he brings may not be my cup of tea, but I still like them because it exposes me to board games I wouldn’t have thought to play. One of the games that he brought was GoodCritters. GoodCritters is a game that I could see myself bringing to a friend’s board game night. It’s easy to learn and it can be played with up to 8 people, which is the exact size of our group.
The premise of GoodCritters is pretty simple. The object of the game is to collect the most money from the heist compared to other players. The characters are a variety of different animals hence the name of the game being GoodCritters. One person plays the mob boss who decides how they want to split the money in the heist. After the boss splits the money, the crew places a card that represents an action after the round. They can either approve of the boss, meaning they like how they split the money. They can reject the boss, meaning they don’t agree with how the money is split. There’s an action to skim, where a player can pull the next money card off the deck and add it to their pile. However, if one player skims before the other player, the player who was second to reveal their skim card gets no money. Players can rob each other or be on guard to prevent being robbed. Once a certain card is revealed, the round ends, and players add up their money.
I think the fun of GoodCritters was to figure out what the strategy is. When I was the boss, I tried to split the money evenly while giving myself $100 or so more than everyone else. Additionally, I tried to skim when it was closer to my turn to reveal my card to increase the likelihood of a payout. I ended up guarding myself anytime someone tried to rob me to protect my money stash. In the end, I ended up winning by only a $100 difference.
I like that GoodCritters is an easy game to learn. As my brother explained the premise to us, I found it easy to pick up. I liked the bluffing aspect of the game. Whenever a player wants to rob another player, they take their animal token and place it near the player they want to rob. However, that doesn’t mean that the player has to rob. They can place it there to force the player to guard their stash while the player ends up doing another action instead. I also liked how the rounds don’t take a long time. I don’t mind games that take several hours to complete, but sometimes that’s exhausting.
GoodCritters was a fun game that I would definitely play again. I’m not sure if I would purchase my own copy since my brother has his. I do think if you’re looking for a game to play with friends or a game to bring to a brewery, GoodCritters is a good option.
With 2022 coming to a close, I’m already prepping my end-of-year blog posts. One thing I noticed right away was I was only able to attend one convention which is pretty low for me. I wanted to make conventions more of a priority this year, so I have started planning out 2023 and which conventions I could more than likely attend. I wanted to share a portion of my convention schedule along with conventions that I have on my radar, but I haven’t confirmed just yet.
The two conventions I know that I will for sure be attending are C2E2and Plant Comic Con. C2E2 is a convention that I attend every year as one of my friends from college lives outside of Chicago. Luckily she lets me stay with her, so I don’t need to pay for a hotel. I end up taking transportation to downtown Chicago and it’s so slick! C2E2 has so much going on and there’s something for everyone with this convention. Planet Comic Con is more of an every-other-year convention. The last time I went to Planet Comic Con was last year as it was my first convention since the Covid-19 pandemic. I love Kansas City, it’s one of my favorite cities in the US to visit. My cousin still lives outside of the city and I’m able to stay with him. I’m fortunate to have family and friends outside of Minnesota to stay with which makes traveling for a convention much cheaper.
Besides C2E2 and Planet Comic Con, I want to get back to attending CONvergence.CONvergence will always have a special place in my heart because it’s the first convention I have ever attended. The last time I went was in 2019 before the pandemic. If I were to attend CONvergence this year, it will probably look a little different. Some of my convention friends who I would meet up with have moved away or are planning to attend another convention on the same weekend. It probably won’t make a difference to me whatsoever because I always manage to have fun at CONvergence.
Finally, I wanted to share a few conventions that are on my radar to attend, but they may not happen in 2023 due to other travel plans. The first convention is Gen Con.My first Gen Con was in 2019 and I was completely mesmerized. There were so many booths in the vendor area and there was so much going on in downtown Indianapolis. Attending Gen Con was easily one of my favorite memories of 2019. I hope to get back to Gen Con soon! Besides Gen Con, I have Siouxpercon as a potential convention to attend. Sioux Falls, South Dakota isn’t too far of a drive, so I don’t suspect this to be an expensive trip. I know a few people who tabled at Siouxpercon and they said it was a good convention.
Attending conventions will always be a blast. I love sharing my interests with other people, cosplaying, and going to panels. Let me know in the comments section if you are going to any conventions in 2023!
I have been brainstorming an idea for a new blog prompt for Bizarre Brunette. I did write a James Bond blog prompt where I would rewatch all the Bond movies. The prompt fell apart when I got stuck watching the Sean Connery era. I thought about this and that’s when the idea came to me. I wanted to do a full rewatch of Doctor Who starting all the way back with Christopher Eccleston’s series which originally aired in 2005. Me and my husband are planning a trip to Europe next year and I recently found out that there’s a museum in London devoted to Doctor Who. It would be fun to do a full rewatch, so by the time that I go, I will have all of the Doctor Who lore fresh in my mind.
How will this prompt work? I decided that I think I will write a post anytime I finish a full series. Originally, I was thinking of a post per episode, but that seems exhausting. Once I finish a series, I’ll do a post recap of the series, the Doctor, a favorite companion or episode, and potentially even a favorite enemy. I’m still figuring out what I will recap or write about. My end goal is to get fully caught up, so I can start watching new episodes of Doctor Who when they air. I would love to rewatch old Who aka. the Doctor Who episodes before 2005, but that’s a huge goal and I may need a Doctor Who break once I’m done with my rewatch.
To help get into the mindset of rewatching Doctor Who, I wanted to share my Doctor Who origin story or how I became a Whovian. In 2014, I was looking for a new show to watch. I saw Doctor Who on Netflix and remembered seeing Doctor Who cosplays and content at CONvergence. I started watching the show and my first thought was “this is kind of weird”. It didn’t stop me from finishing the episode and I ended up continuing throughout the series. I met my husband shortly after watching Doctor Who and I introduced him to the series. He started watching and since he finishes shows way faster than I do, he quickly got ahead of me.
While me and my husband watched Doctor Who, he bought a Tardis mug and in the mug, we came up with “date” ideas for when we wanted to do something but didn’t know what. Me and my husband stumbled upon this recently and saw a prompt, “go out for a drink (when legal)”. This was created before we were both 21 and me and my husband thought this was too cute. Doctor Who in a lot of ways reminds me of the beginning of my relationship with my husband. Our wedding dinner entrance was the Doctor Who theme song. Doctor Who in a lot of ways is so much more than a TV show. It’s a show that’s been with me through various portions of my life.
I’m excited to do a full rewatch. It’s about time since it’s been at least five years since I have watched an episode. Doctor Who will always have a special place in my heart. Allons-Y!
I feel that the Ravensburger Disney Villainous board games are top-rated. I have seen multiple people I follow on social media rave about the game. Several editions and add-ons released since the original game came out. One of those editions is a Star Wars Disney Villainous which I received as a present from a friend after moving into our new home. I recently brought it to a game night to test it out. Star Wars Villainous was a lot of fun and I hope to see more Star Wars expansions in the future.
For those unfamiliar with Disney’s Villainous games, each game has several villains to pick from. Each villain has a goal and if that goal is accomplished first, they win the game. Each goal relates to each villain depending on what the villain’s ultimate endgame goal was. For Star Wars, there were five villains to choose from: Darth Vader, Moff Gideon, General Grievous, Kylo Ren, and Asajj Ventress. There is an option to mess with other players by drawing out of their “hero” deck. This helps to throw a wrench in a plan to win the game.
As we opened the game, I immediately took Moff Gideon. Nothing is more evil to me than stealing a child. How rude. Moff’s end goal was to have an ally out, laboratory materials, and Grogu on the villain side of the board. I was so close to winning, but then my brother drew a card out of my hero deck which moved Grogu and kill my Death Troopers. I’m not going to lie, it set me back quite a bit. However, I was able to draw another set of Death Troopers from my villain’s deck which helped me win the game in a few turns.
In the second game, I played Darth Vader. Darth Vader’s goal was to have Luke in the “conflicted” stage meaning he is debating the Dark Side. Vader also has to have Emperor Palpatine out on the board as well. As I was playing through the game, I realized I wasn’t drawing Palpatine. I basically had to maneuver throughout the planets to draw cards. I ended up losing the game and as I looked through the deck, Palpatine was at the bottom. Sometimes that’s how it goes. Both Moff and Darth Vader rely on drawing the correct cards and if the cards are towards the bottom, that can slow down getting the win conditions together.
I would definitely replay Star Wars Villainous. There are still three characters I haven’t played yet. In my gaming group of four, it helped to see how the other characters were being played. I hope that there would be more expansions for Star Wars Villainous. I could see adding Count Dooku, Boba, or Jango Fett, or even a political opponent like General Hux or Snoke could be an interesting addition to the game.
I’m finally out of my reading slump! I have been slowly finishing the multiple books I have started. As my reading habits have changed, I realized I can’t read numerous books at once. It ends up slowing me down. If I end up not liking a book or not getting into the book right away, I need to be better at putting it away and reading something else. With that being said, I credit Wolf Gone Wild as one of the books that helped me move out of my slump. Wolf Gone Wild is a fantasy romance centered on a witch trying to break a hex placed on a stubborn werewolf.
Evie Savoie is a hex breaker. Evie is one of the older sisters in her witch’s coven. Based in New Orleans, Evie and her family run a variety of businesses including a storefront and a bar. During a shift, she’s sought out by Mateo Cruz, a werewolf who’s been unable to change into his wolf and it’s causing him stress. Mateo has to constantly fight off his wolf persona on a daily basis which is interfering with his art commissions. Evie agrees to help Mateo which leads to them getting closer along with uncovering the mystery of who placed the hex on Mateo.
While Wolf Gone Wild is technically a romance, I felt that there were enough fantasy world-building elements within the story. Wolf Gone Wild introduces Evie’s family, along with how each of Evie’s sisters has a different specialty in their magical abilities. I liked that while the romance takes the center of the story, there were so many other interesting aspects that kept my attention throughout the book.
As far as the characters themselves, I liked Evie. She’s independent, she doesn’t take any bullshit from anyone and she has her own hobbies that keep her busy. She’s a comic fan and it’s shown through several scenes that she’s trying to make her own comic. I thought Mateo was an interesting character too, but I felt I didn’t know as much about him as I did with Evie.
While I liked reading Wolf Gone Wild, there were two things that I wasn’t a huge fan of personally. First, I felt this book was too long. I found myself reading a chapter and then not picking the book back up for another week. I’m not sure why because I love spooky books and stories featuring witches and witchcraft. Eventually, I set aside part of my weekend to fully finish Wolf Gone Wild which I’m glad I did, otherwise, I think I would still be reading through this slowly, but surely. Finally, there was a scene or two that had non-consent / pushing boundaries of consent. For some, they may find this to be hot, but that’s not for me. I ended up skimming this portion and I didn’t let it ruin the book for me.
I liked Wolf Gone Wild. It wasn’t my favorite book this year, but I’m glad I read it. I think Wolf Gone Wild sets up the series as the future romance books star Evie’s siblings. I want to read Jules’s story as she is the oldest sister and it’s hinted that she has a fling with a vampire. I rated Wolf Gone Wild four stars on Goodreads.
I finally made it to my first convention of the year! I try to make it to a few conventions every year, but I quickly realized that my schedule was packed. I had Twin Cities Con on my radar for this year and I was happy to have been able to attend on Friday. I tabled at the Twin Cities Geek booth which is the online magazine I occasionally write for. Twin Cities Con was one of the most organized conventions I have ever been to especially since this is only the second year for the convention.
Prior to Twin Cities Con, there were several bigger conventions that tried to move into the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. However, these conventions were focused on profit and driving away the local community. Each convention never stayed longer than two years. With Twin Cities Con, there was more partnership with the community. One of the runners of Twin Cities Con talked to the local cosplay community to get a gauge for what weekends Twin Cities Con would work for everyone. With Twin Cities Con happening every November, it doesn’t run into some of the local conventions in the summer. It’s neat that there was a lot of thought put into this convention.
As far as cosplay, I always wait till the last minute. I went through all of my previous Halloween costumes and ended up settling on a Jessica Jones cosplay. I already had the leather jacket, the light jeans, and the combat boots. All I needed was the black gloves and the white t-shirt which I found at Target the night before. It was such a quick cosplay and I did get recognized which is always fun. I do wish I would have thought more about what I wanted to cosplay as. I have an orange wig sitting in my closet that I haven’t been able to wear yet.
Twin Cities Con was a blast to attend. I’m excited to see this convention grow. Minneapolis and Saint Paul need a bigger convention that’s similar to a C2E2 in Chicago and I think Twin Cities Con can get there.
Playing video games will always be a hobby of mine. With that being said, I have been contemplating how I play video games today and where my priorities are with choosing the games I like to play. One of the bigger realizations that I have come to recently is how I’m trying to be less of a completionist and more focused on the games that I play. I wanted to share a little bit of what that means to me and how I got here.
For those unfamiliar, a completionist is a gamer who strives to collect every achievement or trophy in a video game. This can relate to PC gamers who may unlock achievements in Steam games as well. When I first started playing video games, I found myself motivated to unlock achievements. I liked seeing my gamerscore increase and I felt a surge of energy if I unlocked as many of the achievements as I could in a particular game. In high school, I had the time to devote that many hours of my time to a video game.
When I went off to college, I didn’t bring my Xbox with me. Therefore, if I wanted to play video games, it was playing with others on their consoles. I would come home from breaks and play Xbox every now and then. When I would play Xbox, it would be games that I felt a lot of nostalgia for such as Gears of War, Bioshock, or the Batman Rocksteady games. After college and moving into my own space, I started developing a pattern where I wouldn’t move on from a game unless I collected all the achievements and trophies in that game.
The problem I quickly realized is that I don’t have time for that level of commitment. It ended up being more of a chore to play a game through multiple times versus feeling satisfied that I finished the game and was ready to move on to something else. I found myself feeling frustrated especially if an achievement was taking more time than I realized it would. It made me go back to the basics of why I like playing video games in the first place. I don’t want to spend hours collecting every item in a game. Part of the fun of leaving achievements or trophies unlocked is now I have something to look forward to if I replay that game again in the future.
Since I have set aside my completionist ways, I have noticed that I’m motivated to play video games on the weekends. I have started playing through Resident Evil 2 and I don’t feel pressure to pull up a walkthrough and find items. I can play through the game on my time and feel fully immersed in the story. I’m able to better balance my video game backlog because I don’t spend as much time on one game. I feel a lot more relaxed than I have been in a few years.
There’s still a part of me that finds joy in collecting achievements or trophies. I think that will always be fun for me, but now I’m able to play more video games since I’m not as strict about collecting everything right away. I’m looking forward to playing Resident Evil 2 in between playing rounds in Overwatch 2. I have had my eye on some new games coming out including Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and Bayonetta 3. The way I play video games have changed, but my love for the hobby remains the same.
I have been in a little bit of a reading slump. I tried to read too many things at once which dragged me down. I’m getting through it slowly, but surely. While my reading has been a hit or a miss, I have been reading a lot of single-issue comics lately. I wanted to talk through a few series that I have loved reading this year.
Captain Carter – McKelvie, Cresta, and Arciniega
Captain Carter exists in a world where Peggy wakes up after being frozen instead of Steve. As she reenters the world, she works with S.T.R.I.K.E in Westminister, London. Peggy has been working on preventing potential terrorist attacks plotted by Hydra. As Peggy gets more involved, she realizes that there might be a double agent working amongst her team.
The best way to describe this Captain Carter comic series is if Captain America: The Winter Soldier starred Peggy instead of Steve. This feels like a James Bond or Bourne Identity comic series and I love it. Each issue is action-packed and there are several guest appearances by other Marvel heroes. Captain Carter is a limited five-issue series which I hope could be a full series later on because I loved it.
She-Hulk – Rowell, Maresca, and Renzi
She-Hulk left the Avengers and is starting over as an attorney in New York. She reunites with Jack of Hearts who she believed to be killed in a previous Avengers mission. Jack of Hearts doesn’t remember much and She-Hulk is committed to helping him figure out what happened to him along with getting his life back on track.
Reading the She-Hulk series, it feels like a continuation of the show. Rainbow Rowell does a great job at making Jen relatable to any young working professional. The covers of each issue are done by Jen Bartel and they are beautifully done. This series alone is worth buying to collect the covers. I would say if you weren’t a fan of the show, you may not like this series.
Bettie Page – Ani-Mia, Celor, Nurmalia, Mangual, and Idelson. Covers by Linsner, Burns, Roux, and Ani-Mia Cosplay.
Bettie Page is a pinup model who stars in her own comic series. Bettie is an academic and archeologist of sorts and she teams up with Sofia and Young-Ja to travel the world and find clues as to the locations of hidden artifacts.
This series is so fun to read about. I liked reading about Bettie and all the locations she travels to. She can hold her own when things get a little dicey. The story is simple and easy to understand. I don’t read a lot of comics from Dynamite, but now Bettie Page is a series I am keeping tabs on.
I always read a lot of comics throughout the year and it helps that I try to visit my local comic book store every other week. Let me know what comics you’re reading in the comments down below.
Bizarre Brunette 