Wow, so it’s been a year.

I’d like to hit some high and low points in geek culture and life in general.

It’s been kind of amazing for strides in equality in Nerd-dom between the genders.  More people started to really sit up and take notice of the small but vocal group of women who’ve been bitching about ridiculous female superhero costumes, including a great article on Cracked.com, and it’s follow up article about the incredibly painfully stupid “justifications” the author of that article received regarding those costumes.  And the Hawkeye Initiative started its good work by drawing Hawkeye in poses typically used with female characters, demonstrating how incredibly stupid many of those poses are.

This is the year we lost Ray Bradbury and Sally Ride.

Seanan McGuire once again scoffed at the mere idea of sleep and not only did she finish up the Feed trilogy, but she put out another October Daye book AND started a new series.  This woman is the Energizer Bunny of authors.

I blogged a lot about body consciousness, fat hate, misogyny and sexism amongst the people I consider my tribe.  I seriously enforced the Draconian Moderation Policy while doing it.  I talked to you guys about what “Nice Guy ™”s are, and how not to be that guy.  I talked about how women and girls feel when someone they trusted turns out to be that guy.  And I broke my only rule, and had two dudes on my podcast to have THEM explain it to you as well, thinking perhaps my estrogen laden voice was making the signal unintelligible to you.  (I love the smell of sarcasm in the morning!)

I saw the Avengers, and then immediately went and watched Thor and Captain America.  I developed my unreasonable crush on Tom Hiddleston.  I read a lot of books, and reviewed several of them here.  I made an assload of new friends on Twitter and Tumblr.  I went to Geek Girl Con, and loved it!  I got to finally meet Surly Amy in person, and Gail Simone!!!!!  I talked to Tamora Pierce over Skype.

We went to Go Play NW again, and AmberconNW.

I wrote a game.

We lost both the Man and the hedgepig in one 24 hour period in September.

Female game designers, game players and others came out of the woodwork with the #1reasonwhy tag on Twitter, talking about why we aren’t more visible, oftentimes even when we ARE.  This spawned the #1Reasontobe tag as well, talking about why those of us who do speak out, in spite of the crap we get, keep doing it.  Honestly, being part of that whole thing was one of the most moving things for me this year.  Seeing all of those women involved in all sorts of game design, from videogames, to RPGs, speaking up together about all the crap we’ve just taken, and taken for granted as part of the price we pay for being women in a male-dominated hobby/career.  And because of that I’ve made a crapton of really awesome friendships online.

There’s so much more to talk about, and I could go on for days.

But mostly, as far as I’m concerned, this is the year we really saw the misogynist douchebags losing the battle.  That’s why they’re fighting so hard.  It’s like why the Republicans are fighting so hard to ban gay marriage and all that:  they’ve already lost and they know it.  Those guys who felt the need to call us all bitches and cunts on the #1reasonwhy hashtag, apart from proving our point, they demonstrated the blind, flailing, panic of people who know they’ve already lost.  They’re done.  Gaming is no longer a boys’ club, and it hasn’t been for years.  It may take a couple decades for the last of them to die slowly and alone, but it will happen, and what they’re leaving behind is a world full of gamers across the gender spectrum and of all orientations.  And that chaps their hides something fierce.

2012 was rough on a personal level for me, but that’s getting better, my hobbies are getting better, I know so many more people to cherish.

My followers on all my social media have proved to me time and time again that there is a good and bright side to social media. From posting that we couldn’t afford vet bills and having people throw money at us, or just posting that I felt icky and unloved, and receiving a flood of validation and support. Social media and life online has so much to offer.  It isn’t all facebook bullying.  In fact, I’d wager that most of what goes on in social media…  well, most of it is inane reposting of cat pictures and memes, but much of it is long distance love and support for people you’ve never met, but whom you know better than you know  your family.

My wish for 2013 is for all of you who read this, who follow me on twitter, tumblr, or where ever, to have a happy and healthy year, full of fun, love and awesome geekery!   I love you all.

 

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T-shirts will happen, however, vet bills and end of life cat care have sort of put everything else on hold for awhile.

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