This is the seventh Pop Culture Year in Review that I have written. When a new year begins, I keep a drafted post with the title being the current year. As the months progress, I keep track of the various movies, TV, video games, and comics I enjoy throughout the year. Additionally, I like to jot down the trips, conventions, and other random fun memories that happened, so I’m incredibly organized when writing this all out. 2023 was definitely a memorable year in many ways.

Movies I Watched

• Set It Up
• Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
• Underworld
• Bullet Train
• Exposed
• Tenet
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
• The Flash
• Nimona
• The Marvels

I was debating what my favorite movie of 2023 would be and honestly, it has to be Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. This movie was so funny. As the movie played out, I thought to myself what each of the characters must have rolled where that event would have occurred. This is done wonderfully in the way that Chris Pine plays a Bard and tries to do an illusion.

I think another favorite movie of mine would be The Marvels. I know not everyone liked The Marvels, but I loved it and I can’t wait to re-watch it once it’s available to stream.

TV Shows I Watched

• Critical Role Vox Machina Campaign!
• The Umbrella Academy
• Andor
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars
• The Night Agent
• Hawkeye

This was a no-brainer, the best show I watched in 2023 was The Night Agent. The show was full of twists and turns and I ended up finishing the show very quickly because I wanted to know what happened! It’s not often that I breeze through a show in a short amount of time.

The last thing that I will mention is how this was the year that I finally finished watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I had been watching The Clone Wars off and on for the past several years. I decided that this would be the year where I finished the series. I’m so glad I did. Ahsoka’s character arc is one of the most defining moments of the show.

Video Games I Played

• Nancy Drew Last Train To Blue Moon Canyon
• Nancy Drew Treasure in the Royal Tower
• Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York
• Gotham Knights
• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
• Sudocats
• Stray
• Marvel’s Spider-Man New Game + (didn’t finish)
• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
• Unpacked

I know this might be a shocker, but Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is the best game I played this year. I say this sarcastically since I talk about the game all the time. This game was so good. I ended up playing for thirteen hours straight, so I could finish the story without being spoiled. If that wasn’t enough, I finally unlocked all the trophies which is something I don’t do very often. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was well worth the five-year wait.

Another gaming highlight was giving Jedi: Fall Order another chance. I played Jedi: Fallen Order for the first time in 2020 and didn’t finish the story. It felt like I couldn’t go back and play it because it reminded me of 2020. Once enough time passed, I started over with a new save file and the game was awesome! I’m glad that I decided to go back to it.

Reviewing my gaming list, I had such a good year when it came to video games! Stray was another highlight of the year. The ending had me in tears, like the type of ugly crying that I couldn’t catch my breath. The first half of the year was more PC-focused and the latter half of the year was more focused on playing games on my Switch. It’s tough balancing my console gaming with my PC gaming, but I felt like I did a good job at playing games on a variety of different systems.

Gaming in 2023

• One Night Ultimate Werewolf
• Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
• Llamas Unleashed
• Wingspan
• Marvel’s Villanous
• Vagrant Song

I don’t think that I did the best when it comes to tracking all of the board games I played. Vagrant Song was probably my favorite board game that I played this year. I like the cooperative aspect of it and the cartoonish art gives the game its unique feel to it. Another board game that I tried was Wingspan. Wingspan was fun to learn and I liked being able to create my own wildlife center.

Graphic Novels / Comics I Read This Year

• Vox Machina Origins Volume #1
• Star Wars Hidden Empire Issue #1
• Ironcat Issues #1 – #4
• She-Hulk Issues #8 – #10
• Lore Olympus Volume #1
• Nailbiter Volumes #1 – #6
• Mary Jane & Black Cat Issues #1 -#4
• Bloodline Daughter of Blade Issues #1 & #2
• Batman: Legends of Gotham Issue #1
• Captain America: Winter Soldier – Ultimate Collection
• DC Titans Hunt Volume #1
• Nightwing Issues #101 & #102
• Suicide Squad: Bad Blood
• Chainsaw Man Vol #1
• Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: Legion of Bats Issue #1 & #2
• Gangster Ass Barista Volume #1
• The Umbrella Academy Volume #1
• Quincredible Volume #1
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
• Cats! Girlfriends and Catfriends
• Plume Volume #2
• Crossover Volume #1
• Moonknight Volume #2
• Teen Titans Robin
• Harley Quinn #28 and #30
• Batgirls Volume #1
• Box
• Cat Gamer Volume #1
• Ms. Marvel Issue #1
• Harriet Tubman Demon Slayer Issue #1
• Scarlet Witch Volume #1
• Batgirl Birds of Prey Volume #2
• Dark Ride Issues #1 and #2
• Locke & Key Volume #1

The standout comics that I read in 2023 include Nailbiter, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Suicide Squad: Bad Blood, and Dark Ride. It feels like I read more superhero comics this year versus indie comics. I want to take more trips to my local comic book store in 2024.

2023 Pop Culture Moments

• Taylor Swift World Tour
• Taylor and Travis Kelce

Honestly, 2023 was the year of Taylor Swift, enough said.

Podcasts

• Punch It Chewie Podcast
• Live Laugh Lorcana

The first podcast I started listening to was Punch It Chewie Podcast. I found out about Punch It Chewie after stumbling upon Bella’s Instagram. Bella was describing a negative experience she had with a Star Wars fan who shared her videos and then made fun of her. As a result, she received horrific death threats online. It’s an awful situation and no one deserves to be treated that way. One of the episodes details what Bella went through and while it was hard to listen to, I’m glad that Bella felt comfortable sharing her story.

The second podcast I listened to was Live Laugh Lorcana. Live Laugh Lorcana is a podcast devoted to Disney’s trading card game Lorcana. It’s funny, I don’t have an interest in playing the game, but I still like listening to the podcast.

Catchiest Song in 2023

According to Spotify, the top song that I listened to in 2023 was Burn It to the Ground by Nickelback. Listen, I’m not going to stand for any Nickelback hate. When I think about what I had on repeat the most, I think that would be Drew Jacobs. Drew Jacobs has been doing hard rock covers of country songs and they’re so good. I’m listening to God’s Country on repeat and I love it.

Conventions I Attended in 2023

I went to five conventions this year; Planet Comic Con, C2E2, CONvergence, Gen Con, and Twin Cities Con. I’m slowly getting back up to the number of conventions that I attended pre-Covid.

Personal Memories

Top Three Memories of 2023

Europe

Returning to Gen Con and CONvergence

Spending time with friends and family

As Halloween approached, I was running out of time to put together a costume. As I was scrolling through Pinterest, I found a Kylo Ren cosplayer. I liked the way that her cosplay turned out and how she made the character her own. I pinned it to my cosplay board and used that as inspiration to put together my own take on the character. I’m proud of myself as I really liked how the costume came together and I wanted to share how it all came to be.

Once I decided to put together a Kylo cosplay, I went to Amazon. While I don’t love the idea of supporting Amazon, it’s so convenient to order everything in one spot. I bought a black body suit, a black faux leather belt, a black drapey skirt, a red light sword (due to copyright), and a Kylo Ren mask. The black body suit was okay. It looked the way that I wanted it to, but the fit was a little odd. It’s not something that I would wear outside of wearing it as Kylo. The faux leather belt was top notch and I could see it lasting for a long time. The black drapey skirt added to the look though the slits on the skirt are really high. There isn’t a way that I can wear the skirt on its own without leggings on underneath. The “light sword” that I bought was a happy surprise. I figured it would be cheaply made, but it was actually decent. The Kylo Ren mask wasn’t a hard helmet like I had originally thought. Instead, it was a floppy mask. It wasn’t the end of the world, it just wasn’t what I was anticipating.

One thing that’s important with Kylo is the scar on his face. I was mulling this around for a long time. I’m not a makeup expert, so I rely on makeup tutorials to help me out. I ended up putting my own spin on how I wanted the scar to be. In Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Kylo’s scar is there, but it’s faded. I wanted the scar to look fresh like Kylo just got hit with the lightsaber before putting on the Halloween costume.

To do this, I used: red lipliner, black eyeliner, brown eye shadow, and vaseline. The red lip liner helped lay out the foundation of the scar. I ran the scar from my eyebrow, all the way down to my neck. The black eyeliner added a charred look. The brown eye shadow was how I tried to blend everything together, so it would appear more blended with my natural skin tone. Finally, the vaseline was something I used to help give off that shiny coating. I did get a lot of compliments on it, but whether that means the makeup was good or not, is to be determined.

As I look back on the photos, I’m thrilled with how everything turned out. I think it was an accurate Kylo Ren depiction, yet I was able to put my spin on the character. I think that’s what makes costuming and cosplay so fun for me. There’s a baseline of what the character looks like, but everyone can interpret that in their own way. I’m looking forward to cosplaying as Kylo Ren in the future as this is one of my favorite cosplays that I have done.

Happy Halloween! I’m going as Kylo Ren for Halloween this year. I think my husband wanted to do a couple costumes, however, I was set on Kylo. I was browsing through Pinterest and was inspired to put this costume together. Besides dressing up as Kylo, I also dressed up as Darth Vader and went to a Halloween-themed workout class at the gym that I go to. As someone who loves both Halloween and exercise, it was a fun thing to do.

When me and my husband bought our house last year, I signed up for a group fitness gym. I have been a member at a lot of different gyms and this one is unique. It feels like a small community. In bigger commercial gyms, people show up to work out and leave. Instead, I feel like I have gotten to know some of the members who attend the same classes that I do. Attending group fitness classes is something that I look forward to each week. I gravitate towards boxing and cycling if I want to do cardio or I do a strength class or circuits if I want something that’s weight lifting based. I end up doing about 4-5 classes a week depending on how sore I am.

My gym puts on events every now and then including this Halloween-themed class. There were four different cycle classes. Each class was 30 minutes long with different instructors per class. I ended up signing up for all four classes. The time went by fast! I couldn’t believe I cycled for two hours straight. When I got off the bike, my quads were a little wobbly. I ended up winning a prize for being on the bike for the longest in costume.

I don’t write about exercise here and part of that is intentional. My health and fitness goals are something that I have chosen to keep private. With that being said, I’m so happy that I found this gym.

The last country that we went to while in Europe was Ireland. Adding Ireland to our trip itinerary was an easy decision. With our trip being two weeks, we didn’t want to travel too far into Europe and run out of time to see the things that we wanted to see. Plus, it would have added time to our travel back to the US which I think me and my husband wouldn’t have been a big fan of. Ireland was lovely and I’d love to go back.

One of the first places we visited while in Dublin was Trinity College. Trinity College is located in Dublin and is open to the public. The campus was stunning! The architecture is well-preserved and the buildings themselves are gorgeous. The real draw for me though was The Old Library and the Book of Kells. Wandering through the library made me feel like I was in a Dark Academia book. I love all things Dark Academia and Spooky in the books I read and going through the library was right up my alley. It’s interesting because when we were there, a lot of the shelves were empty. The books are going through a restoration process right now which I found fascinating. There were some videos displayed that highlighted what that process is like. Trinity College was one of my favorite places we visited while in Dublin.

Besides Trinity, me and my husband also went to the Guinness Storehouse and booked a Guinness tour. This was something that we booked far in advance. There aren’t that many beers that are as globally well-known as Guinness is. The Guinness Storehouse has seven floors. On the first floor, it talks about what actually goes into a Guinness and how Guinness is made. Throughout the other floors, it shows how Guinness has evolved. One of the facts that I took with me is that Guinness was the first beer to have Nitrogen added to it. During the tour, we had a free tasting along with a demonstration of how you’re supposed to drink a Guinness. At the end of the tour, you could visit the gravity bar on the top floor. The gravity bar is a bar surrounded by windows, so you could have a stunning view of Dublin. The Guinness Storehouse took a lot longer than I thought as we were there for almost four hours. There was so much to see and it was nice to have a pint after the tour.

One of the last things that we saw while in Ireland was the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs of Moher are on the Western coast of Ireland. To get there, we took a train from Dublin to Galway and then a tour bus from Galway to the Cliffs. The Cliffs are breathtaking. The grass is so green which makes sense because it was pouring the entire day that we were there. It was really windy while we were there. It felt like I was going to be blown over the cliff. There are a few pictures that me and my husband took and my hair is whipping around. We were at The Cliffs for two hours and I thought that was plenty of time. I walk fast, so I found that we climbed The Cliffs relatively quickly. Seeing The Cliffs in person was so worth it.

I wish that we had more time in Ireland. I’d love to visit Cork or Kilkenny, but we didn’t have the time. I feel like a broken record at this point, but I’d love to go back to Ireland. As I reflect on our trip as a whole, I do feel that two weeks was a long time to be away from home. In many ways, this trip has taught me a lot about how I like to travel and helped me prioritize different trips that I want to take in the next few years. I’m so glad that I was able to finally go to Europe, it was a trip that was a long time in the making.

I knew for a fact that I wanted to go to London on our trip. I love all things pop culture that are based out of the UK such as James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who, and more. I had London listed in a travel bucket list post that I wrote in 2016, so it’s neat to be able to say that I can cross London off my list. London was nothing short of amazing and it held up to every expectation that I had.

Starting with the pop culture references first, I made a point to visit the SIS Building aka. the MI6 building featured in many of the James Bond films. The SIS Building wasn’t a far walk from where we were staying and I wanted to see the building up close. It’s a really cool building. We didn’t go inside and quite frankly, I don’t think we could go inside? It was still worth it to see. Besides the SIS Building, we also visited the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221 B Baker Street. I read a few of the Sherlock Holmes stories in high school and I love the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective game that my brother bought for me. Right when we exited The Tube, there was a Sherlock Holmes statue waiting for us. My friend commented that Sherlock looked like Bill Nye and I can’t unsee it. My husband wasn’t the biggest fan of the museum since the tour guide acted like Sherlock Holmes was real, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. We also went out of our way to find the TARDIS from Doctor Who. We did not go to the Doctor Who Museum because it was really out of our way, but I would happily go to London again and make time to see it.

Besides the pop culture references, we did see quite a bit including the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, and Big Ben. My husband successfully convinced me to go to The London Eye. I don’t do well with heights, but it was worth it. It was cool to see London in all its glory. There was also a voiceover explaining all the buildings and it was easy to follow. Seeing Big Ben was another highlight of visiting London. While we were walking around, I found myself looking at the architecture of the various buildings we passed. It’s cool to see these buildings still preserved and in good shape.

Me and my husband couldn’t leave London without going to a few pubs. I liked how most of the pubs we visited were two floors. I liked sitting at a pub and looking out the window. I’m usually a beer drinker and I definitely had a few pints. Another drink of choice for me is an Espresso Martini. It’s so good. I like it because it’s the perfect drink to have after dinner and socialize. It doesn’t feel as heavy as beer. I kind of knew that going to London, we would be drinking more than we normally would in a day-to-day routine.

London was well worth the visit and if I ever have the chance to go back, I would. There’s so much to see in London and I figure that if I were to go back, I’m sure I would have a different trip since I didn’t get to do everything that I had on my list. I would love to make it to Scotland at some point as well. My next post will focus on Ireland as that was the last country we visited on our trip.

This is the first post in my Europe travel series. I wanted to start off in chronological order as Iceland was the first country that me and my husband traveled to. When me and my husband started planning this trip, Iceland wasn’t a country that was on our radar. However, when we began researching flights, we saw that we could take a direct flight from the Twin Cities to Iceland which helped solidify our decision to fly to Iceland first.

One of the first impressions that I had of Iceland was that it felt like we were on a different planet. Iceland is a beautiful country. As we were traveling to Reykjavík, the scenery was exquisite. There was black lava rock and green and yellow rolling hills. Reykjavík is a gorgeous city surrounded by water and mountains. I’m reviewing all the pictures I took and they don’t do the city justice.

On the first day we spent in Reykjavík, we did most of the touristy stuff including Rainbow Road, Hallgrímskirkja (a Lutheran Church), and shopping downtown. We ate a lot of waffles, drank a lot of coffee, and had to stay awake for 18+ hours due to the time zone difference. The jet lag hit both of us hard.

On the second and final day in Iceland, we went to The Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal hot spring, spa, and hotel resort. This was another touristy thing to do, but so worth it. It’s about 30-40 minutes outside of Reykjavík, so not too far out of the way. As we arrived, there was a pathway that led to the entrance which again was surrounded by this black lava rock. The water at The Blue Lagoon was a bright blue color which seems so unnatural, yet beautiful. We made a reservation ahead of time, so we were able to quickly check-in and proceed to the springs. It was 50 degrees out, so pretty chilly, but the water was warm. We spent a few hours at the hot springs before navigating back to our hotel.

We spent two full days in Iceland which I felt was a good amount of time. If I were to revisit Iceland, I’d love to rent a car and drive around the country. I’m sure there was a lot that me and my husband missed out on since we could only do so much. From Iceland, we flew to London, and that’s what I will talk about in my next travel post.

I took a mini writing break, but I’m happy to be back! The reason I wasn’t writing regularly was because I WENT TO EUROPE!!!!! I can’t believe that this trip happened. I had so much fun on this trip as this was me and my husband’s first time in Europe. This trip meant so much to me as it was a dream vacation that I had planned for so many years.

Going to Europe was supposed to be me and my husband’s honeymoon trip. We got engaged in 2019 and started wedding planning and then Covid happened. Our wedding was pushed into 2021 and by that time, there were still Covid restrictions where a Covid test was required in the countries we wanted to visit. I didn’t want our vacation to be stalled if one of us got Covid while on our trip. In 2022, we bought our house which led to the general house costs of buying house stuff. When 2023 came around, me and my husband knew that we wanted to make this trip the priority for the year.

We were gone for two weeks and visited three countries: Iceland, England, and Ireland. As we flew home, we had a brief stop in Boston to visit a friend who moved there before finally flying home. I learned so much about myself and how I like to travel from this trip.

I will be back to writing regularly now that I’m home. I’m dedicating one post per country that we visited and I will share plenty of pictures. Europe was amazing and I can’t wait to do more international travel in the future.

It’s safe to say that Fall is here! Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. I love the changing of the leaves, Halloween, apple orchards, carving pumpkins, and decorating our house with Halloween decorations. Me and my husband went on a shopping trip where we bought two inflatables and a cat wearing a witches hat that’s sitting outside on our doorstep. My husband is not thrilled that we put it out in August, but I couldn’t be happier. Unfortunately, my husband didn’t approve of buying a 12-foot-tall Skeleton, but there is always next year.

For every convention, I always set aside a certain amount to spend. For Gen Con, my budget was substantially more than other conventions that I attend. I was fully aware that this would be a more expensive convention due to all the cool things that you can buy at Gen Con. To end my blog post series, I wanted to share my haul from Gen Con this year.

As a side note, I did receive a press badge from Gen Con. This means that I did attend the convention for free. I applied under Twin Cities Geek versus BizarreBrunette when I applied for my press badge. While I did receive a press badge, all my thoughts are my own. Additionally, everything in my haul was purchased with my own money, nothing was given to me for free.

Queen by Midnight – Darrington Press

I alluded to this already, but the first thing I bought at Gen Con was a copy of Queen by Midnight by Darrington Press. I wasn’t planning on buying Queen By Midnight, however, by the time I made it to the front of the line, I was intrigued by the concept of the game. I do wish that Darrington Press had more merch to sell. I would have easily bought a Candela Obscura t-shirt or dice set. There were also a lot of fans waiting in line who weren’t able to get a copy of Queen By Midnight, so I think it would have been neat if there was additional merch that fans could buy if they weren’t able to purchase a copy of the game.

Vagrant Song + Malifaux Starter Set – Wyrd Games

The second purchase I made was at the Wyrd Games booth. Vagrant Song is a board game that reminded me of Bioshock and Cuphead. It’s a cooperative game in which players face off against rogue ghosts on a train. I liked the spooky aesthetic of the game and I look forward to playing this game closer to Halloween.

The second purchase was a Malifaux Starter Set. My brother actually bought me this starter set as a late birthday present. One of the booth employees was explaining the concept of Malifaux to me. I will say, I have struggled to get into miniature games, but what intrigued me about Malifaux was the idea that you could still win the game even if your minis are killed in battle. I played Warhammer once and once my minis died, it felt cumbersome to try and remain invested in the game. Malifaux also has a spooky element as well which I love. I convinced my brother to buy a starter set too, so I would at least have someone I could play the game with.

Trail of Cthulhu – Pelgrane Press

I mentioned Trail of Cthulhu in an earlier post. I won’t say much else except that I’m looking forward to paging through the rule book and eventually writing my own story.

Laudna Dice Guardian + DnD Notebooks – Dice Guardians

This was my last purchase at Gen Con. I walked by the Dice Guardians booth on Thursday and made a note to myself that if the Laudna Dice Guardian was still available by Sunday, I would purchase it. Sure enough, I was walking by their booth on Sunday and saw they had some left and I couldn’t resist. I plan on taking it to work with me and setting it on my desk. Besides the Laudna Dice Guardian, I also bought some new notebooks. I tend to take lots of notes in my DnD sessions and I had been using a regular standard notebook to write in. The issue is that it’s bulky to carry, so I like that these are a lot smaller. They had a deal if I bought three at once, so I figured why not, now I will have backups.

Besides gaming stuff, I ended up finding a local comic book store in downtown Indianapolis called Downtown Comics. It was within walking distance of the convention center, so I ended up purchasing a few comics. The final purchase I made was at Sun King, a brewery that’s a sponsor of Gen Con. I purchased a four-pack of their beer, so my husband could try some.

Gen Con will easily be a highlight of 2023. I hope to attend Gen Con next year.