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As March was winding down, I was in a discord call with some friends and the conversation drifted towards our writing habits. How often we did, in what capacity, and when it came time to talk about my addiction, the only words I could really manage were “I just write. I don’t think about whether it’s good or bad, I just put something on the page and figure out the rest later.” I spent the next two weeks thinking about that in excruciating detail, and here we are in the throes of April.
During seventh grade, I had transferred to a new school midway through the semester and hadn’t gone through a lot of their county specific testing for class placements in their Gifted and Talented program. (At some point, we will find time to unpack the history and current state of the American education system as it relates to nerd media, but one topic at a time.) I had a handful of weeks of classes before said assessment occurred, and during that intervening time, I had this distinct memory of my English teacher pulling me aside after class and telling me, “Hey, have you thought about doing more creative writing?” I was then promptly handing a middle school appropriate version of Antigone saying, “You’re gonna be reading this next week when you switch classes, so you might as well get a jump on it.”
And with that simple nudge, I did end up doing more creative writing. I wrote short stories and treatments. I made a portfolio that I have somehow kept over the better part of a decade and a half, and I look back at it and go, “Wow, I really thought I was cooking huh.” But those hastily printed, poorly proofed docs are evidence of an honest love of writing that was fostered because someone said, “You seem to be having fun.”
In high school, sophomore year, my English teacher then noticed that I had free energy and introduced me to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for the handful of you on this site that might not be familiar). Every November, aspiring writers aim to write 50,000 words in the span of 30 days. It ends up being an average of 1667 words a day, and the length is probably more akin to the novella; however, the point stands that it is a game that we play to get us to write. The goal is not to make anything good; the goal is to make, the goal is to push past any mental barriers and just get something on the page.
Given the narrative structure, you can now predictably predict that in undergrad I was introduced to other mass production exercise that last for thirty days. This time it was in the form of April’s 30/30 (thirty poems) for National Poetry Month and Script Frenzy (100 pages). At one point, I fashioned my own MicroFiction version where I attempted to write 1,000 words of fiction each day. This ended up being a different vector of difficulty than any of the other challenges up to the point.
The point was never “winning” or finishing. The point was just trying.
And as it turns out, you become a thing by doing a thing. You become a thing by becoming obsessed, absorbed with a thing. And sometimes, we get lucky and find that thing early on before we have a proper understanding of what it means to be *good* at something. And sometimes we don’t, and we put up mental walls and inhibitions, saying that we could never do the thing.
At the tail end of 2023, Netflix released Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, a reimagination of the original story. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it highly. One of the best scenes is when Knives and Kim are just chilling, and Kim invites Knives to play.
That line: “That’s why they call it play.” It’s been stuck in my head, a motto, a reminder, a vibe for months. And as I see the occasional 30/30 on my social media this April, I keep thinking about it. I would argue it should be the default gif for getting people into a hobby instead of the Jake the Dog one from Adventure Time (which is still a good message, but my personal pedagogy doesn’t start a conversation by highlighting difficulty).
And ultimately, that actually comes around to one of my favorite quotes from Haikyu!! (out of context spoilers for the anime-onlys. Eventually, the movies will be released stateside).
It doesn’t matter the genre or the medium. Whether it is fiction, poetry, nonfiction. Whether it’s crossword construction, game design, or streaming. Whether it is drawing, painting, photography, or comics. Whether it’s sports, swordplay, or art and crafts. The fundamentals do not change. The foundation is shockingly similar.
If you want to do something, you gotta do it. You gotta try and experiment. You gotta be unafraid to be at it for a while and be willing to unlearn bad habits. But it all starts with trying.
It starts with play.
I think there’s an unspoken notion that childlike wonder fades with age, but I don’t think that’s actually true. I feel like humanity is a naturally curious species and societal conventions stymie that. But I encourage this National Poetry Month, that if you want to write poetry, just start writing poems. Don’t worry about being good. That will come with practice. Imitation will teach you convention, which you will fashion into something you could do, and that’s the dream. That’s the goal we’re always chasing.
And if you’re an aspiring person in any other field of your choice, the advice applies to you. Go make things. Go listen to Neil Gaiman talk about this a little more eloquently than I do. Prepare for NaNoWriMo. Take out your phone and take all the pictures. Go outside and play.
And maybe fun will not be enough to sustain it. And maybe there will be hurdles later down the line, but I think you owe it to yourself to at least start.
I don’t do NaNos or 30/30s these days, because I got what I needed from the genre and exercising, but I have continued a tradition of arbitrary rules in experimentation as I’m currently working on making one-page RPGs at a pace of once per month. I don’t do these any particular reason other than I think it’s interesting. I have no aspiration of becoming a game designer, but there’s something fun about toying with something new. About realizing how different skills manifest in different spaces. About writing for the sake of writing.
In seventh grade, an English teacher told me, “You seem to be having fun when you write,” and (a number of years later that I refuse to calculate because that would be directly acknowledging the passage of time and require some arithmetic I don’t want to do right now) to write every day. Sometimes tech manuals, sometimes non-fiction, sometimes poems. It’s still fun. And sometimes it’s even good. But even when it’s not, I write, and that’s something I continue to be thankful for.
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The post That’s Why They Call It Play appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
As March was winding down, I was in a discord call with some friends and the conversation drifted towards our writing habits. How often we did, in what capacity, and when it came time to talk about my addiction, the only words I could really manage were “I just write. I don’t think about whether it’s good or bad, I just put something on the page and figure out the rest later.” I spent the next two weeks thinking about that in excruciating detail, and here we are in the throes of April.
During seventh grade, I had transferred to a new school midway through the semester and hadn’t gone through a lot of their county specific testing for class placements in their Gifted and Talented program. (At some point, we will find time to unpack the history and current state of the American education system as it relates to nerd media, but one topic at a time.) I had a handful of weeks of classes before said assessment occurred, and during that intervening time, I had this distinct memory of my English teacher pulling me aside after class and telling me, “Hey, have you thought about doing more creative writing?” I was then promptly handing a middle school appropriate version of Antigone saying, “You’re gonna be reading this next week when you switch classes, so you might as well get a jump on it.”
And with that simple nudge, I did end up doing more creative writing. I wrote short stories and treatments. I made a portfolio that I have somehow kept over the better part of a decade and a half, and I look back at it and go, “Wow, I really thought I was cooking huh.” But those hastily printed, poorly proofed docs are evidence of an honest love of writing that was fostered because someone said, “You seem to be having fun.”
In high school, sophomore year, my English teacher then noticed that I had free energy and introduced me to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for the handful of you on this site that might not be familiar). Every November, aspiring writers aim to write 50,000 words in the span of 30 days. It ends up being an average of 1667 words a day, and the length is probably more akin to the novella; however, the point stands that it is a game that we play to get us to write. The goal is not to make anything good; the goal is to make, the goal is to push past any mental barriers and just get something on the page.
Given the narrative structure, you can now predictably predict that in undergrad I was introduced to other mass production exercise that last for thirty days. This time it was in the form of April’s 30/30 (thirty poems) for National Poetry Month and Script Frenzy (100 pages). At one point, I fashioned my own MicroFiction version where I attempted to write 1,000 words of fiction each day. This ended up being a different vector of difficulty than any of the other challenges up to the point.
The point was never “winning” or finishing. The point was just trying.
And as it turns out, you become a thing by doing a thing. You become a thing by becoming obsessed, absorbed with a thing. And sometimes, we get lucky and find that thing early on before we have a proper understanding of what it means to be *good* at something. And sometimes we don’t, and we put up mental walls and inhibitions, saying that we could never do the thing.
At the tail end of 2023, Netflix released Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, a reimagination of the original story. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it highly. One of the best scenes is when Knives and Kim are just chilling, and Kim invites Knives to play.
That line: “That’s why they call it play.” It’s been stuck in my head, a motto, a reminder, a vibe for months. And as I see the occasional 30/30 on my social media this April, I keep thinking about it. I would argue it should be the default gif for getting people into a hobby instead of the Jake the Dog one from Adventure Time (which is still a good message, but my personal pedagogy doesn’t start a conversation by highlighting difficulty).
And ultimately, that actually comes around to one of my favorite quotes from Haikyu!! (out of context spoilers for the anime-onlys. Eventually, the movies will be released stateside).
It doesn’t matter the genre or the medium. Whether it is fiction, poetry, nonfiction. Whether it’s crossword construction, game design, or streaming. Whether it is drawing, painting, photography, or comics. Whether it’s sports, swordplay, or art and crafts. The fundamentals do not change. The foundation is shockingly similar.
If you want to do something, you gotta do it. You gotta try and experiment. You gotta be unafraid to be at it for a while and be willing to unlearn bad habits. But it all starts with trying.
It starts with play.
I think there’s an unspoken notion that childlike wonder fades with age, but I don’t think that’s actually true. I feel like humanity is a naturally curious species and societal conventions stymie that. But I encourage this National Poetry Month, that if you want to write poetry, just start writing poems. Don’t worry about being good. That will come with practice. Imitation will teach you convention, which you will fashion into something you could do, and that’s the dream. That’s the goal we’re always chasing.
And if you’re an aspiring person in any other field of your choice, the advice applies to you. Go make things. Go listen to Neil Gaiman talk about this a little more eloquently than I do. Prepare for NaNoWriMo. Take out your phone and take all the pictures. Go outside and play.
And maybe fun will not be enough to sustain it. And maybe there will be hurdles later down the line, but I think you owe it to yourself to at least start.
I don’t do NaNos or 30/30s these days, because I got what I needed from the genre and exercising, but I have continued a tradition of arbitrary rules in experimentation as I’m currently working on making one-page RPGs at a pace of once per month. I don’t do these any particular reason other than I think it’s interesting. I have no aspiration of becoming a game designer, but there’s something fun about toying with something new. About realizing how different skills manifest in different spaces. About writing for the sake of writing.
In seventh grade, an English teacher told me, “You seem to be having fun when you write,” and (a number of years later that I refuse to calculate because that would be directly acknowledging the passage of time and require some arithmetic I don’t want to do right now) to write every day. Sometimes tech manuals, sometimes non-fiction, sometimes poems. It’s still fun. And sometimes it’s even good. But even when it’s not, I write, and that’s something I continue to be thankful for.
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The post That’s Why They Call It Play appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
One beloved series in the Star Trek franchise is set to continue boldly going, while one is coming to an end. Paramount+ revealed that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, currently in production for its third season, will return for season four. The streamer also announced that the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks will conclude its run with the upcoming season five. Season five, the final season of Lower Decks, premieres this fall. This means two Trek series are ending this year, as Star Trek: Discovery is also wrapping up at the end of the current season.
In a statement, CBS Studios President David Staff said the following:
Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds are integral to the Star Trek franchise, expanding the boundaries of the universe and exploring new and exciting worlds. We are extraordinarily proud of both series as they honor the legacy of what Gene Roddenberry created almost 60 years ago. We are so grateful to work with Secret Hideout, Alex Kurtzman, Mike McMahan, Akiva Goldsman, Henry Alonso Myers and the cast, crews and artists who craft these important and entertaining stories for fans around the world.
Right now, it feels like the Star Trek franchise is contracting and not expanding. Both Discovery and Lower Decks are ending after five seasons. In the modern streaming era though, most view five seasons as a decent run. Paramount+ canceled Prodigy, but its second season found a home on Netflix. A third season remains in doubt. Section 31 went from series to film. Picard ended on a high note with season three. Yet there has been no news about a proposed follow-up series, Star Trek: Legacy. The only other live-action Star Trek series going into production soon is Starfleet Academy. All of this may have more to do with Paramount’s financial uncertainty than anything else. However, if Star Trek has proven to be anything over nearly 58 years, it’s that it will survive any studio downturn.
The post STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS to End with Season 5 appeared first on Nerdist.
It’s A Wonderful World
We live in a wild time. Artificial Intelligence is (alive) and well, real-life geopolitics is as close to fiction as it’s ever been, cars are self-driving (and self-crashing) and we got to witness the largest bag fumble in recent Black history, the ousting of Jonathan Majors as Kang The Conqueror. Not only is Majors as phenomenally talented as he is troubled, but it is also genuinely sad to not see him do this character justice; this should do nothing to undermine just how important Kang is to the Marvel Universe at large and the MCU itself.
To put this whole thing in perspective, please know that there’s a huge gap between the publication history of Marvel Comics and the media inspired by them. What we’ll need to do is scale the impact of Kang’s legacy so y’all see what we might miss out on if Kang is ripped out of the MCU.
The Wonder Years
An entire generation of self-professed geeks, nerds, Blerds, and everyone in between have had the experience of a decade of bangers that redefined genre as it exists and cinema itself. From 2008’s Iron Man through to 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, the ‘Infinity Saga’ had its foot on our collective necks from scene one. The whole world rallied behind it, and for a time, it was good. What made the ‘Infinity Saga’ so compelling was the consistent and shadowy presence of some villain behind the scenes, pulling the strings. That…Was Thanos. He was the ‘big bad’ for so long in the MCU that the character was thoroughly elevated in the zeitgeist. Thanos and ‘the snap’ became household names everywhere because of it. All of the fanfare, the prestige, the memes, and the merch – all of it, exists because those movies (and Josh Brolin’s performance) made him out to be one of the best villains ever.
The Supergoat
Kang is who people think Thanos is. On the other side of the pop culture strata, readers of comics know that Thanos is legitimately formidable in every way. Strong, tactical, scientifically minded, and arrogant as a Wall Street trader in the 80s, but he ain’t anywhere near as insidious, calculating, or omnipresent as Kang The(e) Conqueror.
Kang is really him. Kang is who people think Batman is. In the last twenty years or so, whenever the DC fandom cooks up a hypothetical involving Batman, it comes down to the same thing, “How much prep time does he get?” So, Batman’s defining trait is that given enough time he can prepare for ANYTHING. Add to that Batman’s deep-seated paranoia and trauma-based insomnia, and he’s got unlimited ‘time’. Meanwhile, Kang has ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD. Literally. So, in comparison, the question for Kang’s potential becomes, “What can’t he do with all that time?” Sway ain’t got the answers for this one either.
Valley of the Kangs
What folks don’t know is that Kang is time. With nothing but his brain and an insatiable need to be right, this man is one of the most diabolical, paradoxical, and fully realized characters in the Marvel Universe. For clarity, Kang is both the descendant of and is Nathaniel Richards. He’s if ‘the chicken or the egg’ was a person. Hailing from the 30th century, he finds the instruction manual for a time machine and travels throughout the boundless multiverse out of sheer boredom. He is the embodiment of two (million) things happening at once. He’s ‘the dude playing the dude, disguised as another dude.’ Kang’s whole deal is that he has gone back and forth through time so much that he’s created thousands of divergent timelines that then branched into thousands more. There are so many versions of him out there that he actually exists EVERYWHERE. [See almost every version below]
Let’s say you find a reality where Peter Parker is Black, lives in The Bronx, and has Timbs as a part of his costume. Kang is there somewhere, making a chopped cheese that tastes exactly like a bacon, egg, and cheese – and this sandwich will help him, somehow, rule the timeline.
Forever? Or Fornever?
Kang always has an agenda. As time goes on and writers design more and more lore – we find that Kang is the Kevin Bacon of this shit. Better yet, that Kang is the Kevin Bacon of his own existence. In 2021, the comics had him retcon [to change a previously established narrative ] his publication history, by having the oldest version of himself send the youngest version of himself through every major divergent version of his many identities. So now, he doesn’t only exist everywhere and everywhen – but all these versions know each other and can communicate! That’s game, set, match on anything. No one can honestly step to this man, because he cannot play fair. You know how the X-Men might (definitely will) jump you in a fight? Kang will jump you with different versions of himself at the designated time, at the designated place, and designate yo ass. And each version will leave you on the floor leaking on their way to the next scheme like nothing happened.
If Marvel Studios chooses not to recast Kang for the foreseeable future, we will have missed out on exploring one of the greatest literary villains in cinematic history. Here’s to hoping they recast and keep the legacy of Kang going.
(Shoutout to whoever can name the artist’s album titles I used for the headings!)
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The post Why Kang Matters appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz got turned on its head with Gregory Maguire’s Wicked. The 1995 book put the spotlight on Elphaba and her life, often one full of hardship, until Dorothy kills her. Wicked became a Broadway musical in 2003 and has since become the fourth longest-running Broadway series. And this journey through Oz doesn’t stop with a musical: we’re getting a two-part film adaptation from director Jon M. Chu. The first Wicked trailer is here, showing off a beautifully cinematic version of Oz and the beginning of Elphaba and Glinda’s fateful and witchy friendship.
Cynthia Erivo plays Elphaba and Ariana Grande plays Glinda. They meet as students at Shiz University and become close friends. Elphaba and Glinda could not have more different backgrounds. Those backgrounds definitely put a thorn in the side of the friendship. As Wicked‘s synopsis explains:
The two meet as students at Shiz University in the fantastical Land of Oz and forge an unlikely but profound friendship. Following an encounter with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads and their lives take very different paths. Glinda’s unflinching desire for popularity sees her seduced by power, while Elphaba’s determination to remain true to herself, and to those around her, will have unexpected and shocking consequences on her future. Their extraordinary adventures in Oz will ultimately see them fulfill their destinies as Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.
Wicked is an epic and long story. Is it a story that needs two movies? Only time will tell.
In addition to Erivo and Grande, the cast for Wicked includes: Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible; Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero; Ethan Slater as Boq; Marissa Bode as Nessarose; and Jeff Goldblum as the legendary Wizard of Oz. Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, and Keala Settle also star. Most recently we learned that Peter Dinklage would Dr. Dillamond, a goat with the ability to speak. You can see more first-looks from the movie, below.
Wicked arrives in theaters on November 27, 2024. Wicked Part Two will follow on November 26, 2025.
Originally published on February 12, 2024.
Featured Image: Universal
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