Speak Geek #5: Favorite Speaks

For my last entry in the Speak Out With Your Geek Out series, I want to highlight some submissions from fellow geeks that I enjoyed. You can find more great submissions in the comments section and with the Twitter hashtag #speakgeek.

Jess Banks wants to make room for all women to live out their sci-fi/ fantasy fashion dreams.

Geeks are pretty good at recognizing and giving respect for the hard work and creativity that goes into good costume-making, but nothing draws contempt and derision at a convention faster than a female fan who has the audacity to dress for a role that doesn’t “fit.” I’ve seen women posing for the battery of cameras that come out to capture the super-size Slave Leia or a larger-than-expected Invisible Woman. I’ve wondered and worried at how many of those picture-takers know (or care) how many hours of work went into making the costume, and how many more went into working up the gumption to wear it. And I’ve wished I had the nerve they had, even as I knew I couldn’t ignore the pointing.

Jedediah's geekness is the stuff of my nightmares.

My parents taught me about the animals I encountered and they never said that any of them were ugly or gross – although I do know that my mother is afraid of spiders and earwigs. I started to keep woodlice as pets, my father built me a terrarium for them and I soon had a busy colony. I remember watching a woodlice give birth (the eggs hatch in a pouch underneath the mother’s belly) and I found the tiny little woodlice every bit as adorable as a puppy or a lamb.

Maggie makes awesome little dolls!

Mononoke by Maggie Dot

WD Robertson writes on science and religion, love and zombies.

I danced the Samhuinn and Beltaine fires with Wiccans and attended séances with witches while at work I developed cell culture techniques. I delved the dark recesses of the human mind withThelemites and Luciferians during grad school when I wasn’t excavating late Pleistocene fossil sites. I debated nature of God with Buddhists and Hermeticists when I wasn’t in the lab buried behind thousands of pages of data to review. Perhaps, as some have suggested, like Augustine I walked the streets of Babylon with the basest of companions. I don’t think so. These were some of the finest people I’ve ever met. And you know what? At some point in this process, I came to know myself.

Cation Designs is not just a geek; she gives geeks a safe space.

It made me so happy when kids said that they knew my classroom was a safe place to play Pokemon cards, or that I was the teacher who would lend them a copy of Ender's Game, or that it was totally okay to use my board to map out a potential new app or RPG they wanted to develop.

Kit at Goggles & Lace on steampunk (with photos), one of those things that I love and admire, but don't practice.

You can mesh the romance of Victorian high society or the grit of the under-privileged with modern luxuries and conveniences laden with brass, copper, wood, and leather! Not sure if Steampunk can coexist with your non-nerdy interests? I bet I can prove you wrong.

Alex at Ooo! Shiny! shares his Con experiences with some great photos.

For the uninitiated, July to October is when a large number of geeky conventions take place. From the mac-daddy of all conventions - Comic Con in San Diego - to smaller, regional cons, it is possible to get your geek on for months on end (assuming you have a big travel budget and lots of vacation time).