Top Five New Year’s Resolutions for Fanboys and Girls

In the spirit of making this page about all things nerdy or for the various fandoms, I decided to make a list of my top ten New Year’s resolutions essential for every fanboy or fangirl. These are designed to make us better fans with less strife and in fighting than we had in 2017.

5. Do not feed the trolls

It is essential to our existence as a fanbase to recognize when someone is just being a troll and to not bring them the attention, fame, or glory they seek by engaging them. It can be damaging to an entire fandom to do so. (Either by clicking on their click-bait, or trying to argue with them in the comments section). Some trolls are easy to recognize. Others or more subtle. It will be another entire blog for how to avoid them, but the simple resolution is to ignore all trolls.

4. Try not to make or subscribe to ridiculous fan theories

Sometimes hindsight is 20/20 in revealing how ridiculous certain fan theories are. However, most should be obvious from the start, and should not get a huge amount of attention. The reason for this is exactly what happened with Star Wars: The Last Jedi. We as fans run the risk of setting up unreasonable expectations. Fan Theories like Snoke is Mace Windu or an avatar of an evil Luke Skywalker should never gain so much traction. Making fan theories is part of the fun of being a fan, but we can lose ourselves in them and forget what a screenwriter is actually going to do. Our resolution should be to be more level headed about them.

3. Do not support loot crates or extras with real money in video games – EVER.

Honestly we gamers and fangirls/fanboys are at fault for EA attempting to get us to pay extra money in their games. The digital gambling idea works because we the people shell out the cash. We even buy virtual real estate in video games for hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. If we want to just play our video games and have good stories, we need to stop paying for the extra content. We are only the best at something if we have paid zero extra dollars to prove it. The more our resolution becomes to stop paying for the loot crates, the more they will stop trying to make an extra buck with shady practices.

2. Do not dress up as Harley Quinn, Joker, or Deadpool for comic con

Comic cons have come a long way since my college days at the turn of the millennium. More and more fantastic cosplay can be seen, and even the low budget costumes are always so creative. But every comic con also has become overrun with certain characters, and unless you are going to do a creative twist on these characters, we as cosplayers should try new things. When Deadpool 2 comes out there will naturally be a surge in Deadpool again, but by then maybe some people will try to be Cable, Colossus, or Negasonic Teenage Warhead. Maybe? I think it is a good resolution.

1. Play and watch less, read more

I can already hear some of my blog readers gasping. “Read? I don’t . . . read!” It has become sort of a dirty word in our instant gratification culture, but I would be remiss as an author if I didn’t plug the importance of reading. How many of us have actually read the book “Ready Player One” and knew it was awesome before we saw a trailer for the feature film? I am guilty. I did not. Read comics. Make them give us the good stories when these things turn into movies. Support struggling and new authors. Reading is where the true good stories come from, so make a resolution to support it, and treat your imagination, not just your eyes.

Tides of Pacifica Excerpt and Art

The following is from my newest completed manuscript, toward the climax of the book.

Xara and the Star Clan managed to do a lot of damage with their first six shots. The Omega Trident worked as well as if were the trident of prophecy, raining down thunder under the waves. The first objective was to take out the perimeter pillboxes. They did not have the firepower to do so with mini-torpedoes alone, but Janine and Mr. Galloway had devised a plan.

On the initial attack, Xara lead all the armed orca in a line abreast formation. She pointed the Omega Trident to her left and aimed for the top of the southern wall of the undersea canyon. The Omega Trident contained a highly sophisticated targeting computer. The orca could be scattered throughout a battle, but if she sent a sonar pulse at a target with the trident, the computer would choose to automatically fire torpedoes from the orca with the best attack angle on the target. She flipped up the safety cap and depressed the fire button for a long pulse, sending two torpedoes at the southern wall. Then she shifted her target to the north canyon wall, and two more torpedoes zipped from the pectoral fins of a startled orca.

The resulting explosions shook the entire canyon. Tons of rock and coral tumbled in a storm of bubbles as the fire blossoms from the torpedoes snuffed out. The rocks crashed down on the pillboxes nearest the canyon wall. If they fired any of their arsenal now, they risked exploding themselves. The middle two pillboxes took some damage but not enough. Xara dove Mizuchi straight for them. She pointed directly at a torpedo tube with the trident.

A torpedo left Mizuchi in a storm of bubbles, crashed through the torpedo tube door, and exploded the pillbox. The rumble and shockwave knocked Mizuchi and Emperia back, causing them to have roll over on their back and climb toward the surface a few meters. Xara managed to hang on, but frowned as the final pillbox guarding the east wall of the Iron Reef launched a volley of deadly mines. They must have been set with a timed fuse, because three exploded only a few seconds after launch. Xara was forced to break up her formation as all twenty four orca wove their way further into the base. She depressed the fire button again, but no orca were headed for her intended target. She ordered Mizuchi to swim in an inverted loop as she fired his second torpedo straight down at the final pill box. The explosion cracked the top of the concrete, and the pressure of the sea took care of the rest. No more mines could be launched. Their escape route would be secure. Twelve torpedoes left.

Artwork by: https://lukefitzsimons.deviantart.com/