A list of happy things from 2016

I was going to write out my thoughts on Luke Cage (it’s amazing), but I’m not qualified to really get into it. I can’t discuss how accurate or inaccurate it is to the modern Black American experience—I know nothing about that, I’m white. Instead, I will just say this: it is an amazing show with terrific actors and phenomenal writing. And the soundtrack is well-worth multiple listens.
The world is a complicated place right now, and it is hard to focus on the good in the world right now. That’s what this post is going to do though. We’re gonna look back at 2016, and I’m going to list (kinda) the things that made me happy this year.
- Deadpool: might as well start with the low hanging fruit since it’s just dangling there anyways, flaccid in the wind.
- Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: Finally, a comic’s accurate Spider-Man played by a teenager, who is sarcastic, actually poor, and has an aunt who looks like a normal aunt and not a great-grandmother.
- Bucky and Falcon’s banter: “Can you move the seat?” “No.” Classic.
- Ant-Man’s reaction to seeing Steve Rogers
- Basically all of Civil War
- Wonder Woman and her electric violin intro: by far the best thing DC has put out all year in the film department. I mean, the way she smiles before she jumps into the fray? Amazing. And the only time someone smiles in that movie.
- Saskatoon Pride 2016: just an all-around great time with some great people.
- Getting back into the Pokémon TCG: I’m a nerd, yeah. Get over it.
- Star Trek’s 50th anniversary: Always nice to see loved ones survive the test of time.
- Star Trek Beyond: A return to form for the Star Trek franchise that included using science to defeat the enemy instead of phasers.
- Starting a hilarious and amazing DnD campaign with some great people (plus Hudson): seriously, it’s kind of hilarious. My character had a fling with a bear.
- Luke Cage: I already talked about this, why would I say more?
- Mending relationships with old friends (one in particular)
- Thanksgiving at the sister’s: it was great. Plus we beaked her one friend so hard and she never picked up on our sarcasm.
- Partying with a bunch of directors at a small after party: great times, but man can they drink.
- Hitting one hundred vlogs and getting all the nice letters people sent: Seriously, that was awesome.
- Summertime swimming: nothing is better than Canadian summers spent at a beach.
- Starting a new job: new adventures are always fun. And other clichés. But seriously, I’m enjoying it.
- New Harry Potter: From the screenplay of The Cursed Child to the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, it’s been a good year for the Potter-verse.
- Joe Biden memes: while not new to this year, they become more relevant.
- Expanding my musical horizons: to include actual musicals. And more varied hip-hop.
- Reading The Expanse series: finding and falling in love with new science fiction is always a good thing.
- Preacher: more Dominic Cooper is never a bad thing.
- Season 2 of Supergirl: SUPERMAN SMILED AND WAS NICE TO PEOPLE. Don’t tell Zak Synder.
- Jason Momoa’s Instagram.
- The Rock’s Instagram.
- My Instagram.
- Spending time with loved ones.
- Writing pieces that resonated with people and made a difference.
- Being able to make positive changes in people’s lives
- -Being Canadian: That makes me happy every year, but with everything that happened south of the border this year, I was especially happy about that fact this year.
- Coming out about my gender.
- Being honest about mental health.
- The sun.
- Hanging out with the puppers, and going camping with her.
- And a bunch more probably.
2016 was a rough year, but there has been good stuff too. Tell me what made you happy in the comments!  

Some times when I made funny jokes!

I like to think of myself as a slightly humorous person. I’d like to think that my writing and videos accurately reflect that. In honour of how funny I am, today’s post is going to be a list of my top 7 (I’m just being too lazy to find links for the times I was funny in videos) funniest moments (plus I’ll explain why the jokes are funny; always the best part!)!

7: The time I made Spongebob joke

                I’m gonna be honest with y’all: I have never watched an episode of Spongebob 4x90°pants in my life. And yes, that math joke took way longer to write out than it should’ve, but that isn’t the joke this entry is about! That’s right; this article is going to be funnier than the time that Patrick burnt down the whole time in a fit of coke-fueled rage. Again, I’ve never watched the show, I’m just assuming that happened at some point or another.

                Here’s the real deal though:

Mixing classic tumblr style humour with the playful antics of Spongebob, truly I am a saint.

6: The time Ramsay Bolton nee Snow liked my tweet:

                If you’ve known me for any amount of time, or looked at my twitter feed on a Sunday night, you’ll know one fact about me: I somewhat enjoy the global pasttime that is Game of Thrones. And by somewhat enjoy, I mean that I can discuss the fan theories like a pro, and debate whether or not the interest charged by the Iron Bank of Braavos is fair or not.

                Without spoiling too much, Ramsay was not a delightful person. He did however love his dogs and kept them well fed—by feeding them people. He killed, maimed, and raped often. And he tried to kill fan favourite Jon Snow. Just an all around bad guy. He was even more hated than Joffery, by some fans.

                And then the actor, Iwan Rheon, got cast as Hitler in a production about Hitler’s time as an artist. Everyone was making jokes about this, so of course I jumped right on the ol’ bandwagon!

Bonus points for my awesome profile pic.

5. The time I made fun of Kylo Ren:

                Another thing you’ll know about me, is that I am a huge nerd. Especially when it comes to science fiction. Now, as a disclaimer, Star Trek is better than Star Wars, but this joke is all about Star Wars.

                When we first saw Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, we all had a good long laugh about it. Cross guards made out of lasers on a laser sword? LOLK. After watching the film, we all felt a little stupid for making fun of the lightsaber, because we found out there was so much more to make fun of than just that. Honestly, the saber is like the least funny thing about Kylo Ren. Unfortunately, this joke went for the low-hanging fruit that was the lightsaber.

I mean, it was still a pretty solid joke. Hopefully Disney didn’t take it too seriously though.

4. The time it got a little too real:

                I write a lot about sexuality and gender identity. It’s something that is important to me, and to the entire world. Representation is something that is needed, and is crucial in showing the queer community that there is nothing wrong with them.

                Unfortunately, straight people still think that being straight is the best, and that remembering other things exist is just far too much work. After all, wearing khaki and golfing takes all their energy. Plus, who’s going to watch all the Adam Sandler movies? Too much? Oh well.

                One time, a friend forgot that I wasn’t straight. Moments after I had sent a link to a video chronicling my coming out story. But don’t worry! She had a valid excuse, and I had an even more valid retort:

Ah, the causal sarcasm as I threw her words back at her. While this may not be the funniest thing I’ve said, it’s one of the things I am most proud of. Straight people, am I right?

3. Just to lighten things up, the time I made fun of my sister’s texting:

                Millennials, the laziest group of people to ever exist, right baby boomers? Them and their texting and activism, don’t they know that they should just be cynical and work jobs that they hate so they can buy houses in a market that your generation wrecked? God. Anyways, millennials love to text! I can confirm this because I am sending 243 texts right now! As I type! Amazing!

                Kat, as she describes herself, is a basic bitch. A white girl. And texts like one af. As evidenced by this short and sweet exchange of ours:

I apologize for the appalling language. Everyone knows I only swear while playing Mario Kart and Halo. Blue shells and lag, my language kryptonite.

2: A topical Pokémon Go joke!

                No article these days is complete without at least one PKGo (as the cool kids call it) joke or reference. And by all ‘eevee’dence, I sure am up on the trends. I’d be a piece of ‘trubbish’ if I didn’t squeeze in a few Poképuns. Honestly, I could just start using tree puns, and everyone would think I was making clever jokes about the professors in the franchise.

                My joke might be a ‘jolteon’ the old system, but I think if I put the ol’ ‘charmeleon’, you’ll enjoy it! Okay, I’m done, here’s the original joke. All 151 of em:

Those Poképuns hurt my brain.

1. The time I made an inappropriate joke:

                Sorry mom and dad, sometimes I do make some inappropriate jokes. And sometimes they are hilarious! Other times, they came out during Cards against Humanity, and left me feeling bad. This is not one of those times!

                The final joke contains no pop culture, no vulgar language, and no funny pictures. Just words. Please, enjoy:

So good. So pure. So funny. 

My New Years Resolutions

        New Years resolutions are usually a thing I avoid making, or at the most I just say that I'm going to try and be a better person. A friend recently told me that I should actually make some this year, and being the easily manipulated person that I am, I have decided to go for it.
       I was told that my resolutions should be actual goals to strive for both professionally and personally. Since I am making myself a public figure, I am posting my resolutions here, for all to see! All twenty of you that read my blog on a regular basis.

I'm just gonna list them, I was going to separate them by category, but too bad:

1. put more effort and time into my ongoing creative pursuits
1. that's YouTube, my blogs, and instagram
1. writing is separate from this
1. calm down
2. put more time and effort into my personal writings
1. that includes my poetry and personal writings (journal entries, rants, facebook status updates)
2. make my tweets more clever
3. put more effort into my online branding
1. again, that would be my blogs, my YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter
4. find a place to live in Yorkton while working for the film festival
5. set aside dedicated time for my writing for OutWords magazine
6. work out more
7. be more open with the people who matter
8. care less about the people who don't
9. be more outspoken on important issues
10. drive less
11. spend less
12. save more
13. focus on the positives, not the negatives
14. be a better friend
15. be a better person (ha! sneaked it in there)
16. put more time and effort into the writing I'm planning on publishing
1. memoir, novels, short stories
17. create better content for YouTube
18. try and actually do some of this!

There. I actually made some resolutions. Happy, Kiara?



Damn well better be, that was so out of character for me.  

A Short List of Happy Things

    The interview went really good today! I went in feeling positive, and the interviewer was super friendly and nice! I really enjoyed it. She told me that she would let me know by the end of the week.
     Hoping everything goes good!
     Anyway, on to the rest of the blog post!
    Today I will publishing a list of things that have made me happy this past month, because this month has thrown a lot of hits my way and I want to look back at the good!

1. putting extra time into my writing
2. dedicated time for my vlog and other filming pursuits 
3. time for introspection (which is both positive and negative, but only positives)
4. making new ace friends
5. writing a post that meant so much to so many people
6. binge-watching Jessica Jones
7. binge-watching Master of None
8. reading Ready Player One and Armada for the first time
9. starting on my memoir
10. finishing my solo campaign on Borderlands 2 (first time taking the Warrior out solo)
11. playing through Halo 5: Guardians (great game btw, solid story)
12. the warm start to winter
13. midnight cupcakes
14. started working out again
15. time for recharging 

     I know this list seems short, but a lot of the things on it are pretty big, or took up a significant portion of time!
    This has been a short list of things that made me happy.