Every week there’s something happening in the world of nerds. Crunchyroll Expo was this past weekend and Angelica, Joey and I had a blast! Let’s get started!

This was the first year I’ve gone to a Crunchyroll Expo, although there’s only been two, and I had no clue what to expect exactly. Would it be as massive as Anime Expo is every year? What would be different from AX?

Well turns out, quite a bit actually.

While Anime Expo has always been a good time for me, there’s something almost intimate about going to Crunchyroll. Each panel was this very personal experience where you could almost always chat with those who ran the panel before, during and afterwards.

I had the pleasure to listen to many give their experiences in anime, thoughts on different subjects when it came to anime and even see world premieres and sneak previews!

And you can’t forget about all the amazing cosplayers walking around and participating in Masquerade, hosted by none other than Johnny Weir!

I’ve gotta say, my favorite part was probably watching the live dubbing each other’s characters during the My Hero Academia panel; Clifford Chapin, you have a new fan thanks to your amazing voice acting skills. That, getting my All Might jacket (finally) and getting a sneak peak at the first episode of FLCL dubbed were the highlight of my weekend.

Unfortunately there were some hiccups, like not being able to record even though everyone else was, but mostly dealing with the security that were hired to overlook the con, especially when it came to prop checks. According to reports on Twitter, security at the event would sometimes not allow Worbla, which is essentially hard plastic that can be molded with a hairdryer, into the con. Some even reported that security would destroy props, or just being all around dicks to the con-goers.

At one point, even Joey got yelled at for getting out of line and trying to ask security a question.

That being said, the actual staff that I met were pretty on point and helped whenever we had questions. I’d rate CRX 2018 pretty highly and hope to be back next year, as it was overall, an amazing experience thanks to all those that attended.

And, of course, we were able to convert Joey into one of us by the end of the weekend!

So on August 7, “Inside the Culture of Sexism at Riot Games” was published over at Kotaku by Cecilia D’Anastasio. And it was quite an interesting read. Just a very quick synapse, D’Anastasio wrote about the sexism and lack of diversity that is prominent over at Riot Games. Of the 28 current and former employees that were interviewed, it seemed that many of them had their own experiences on the matter. It’s long, but definitely worth the read.

22 days after the fact, on August 29, a new article was published by the same author over at Kotaku, giving an update after Riot Games basically admitted that they’ve screwed the pooch, and were planning to fix it.

Then PAX West happened.

We're happy to have you back @BigCityForReal, for real! pic.twitter.com/uYejWHNxNw

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) September 7, 2018

And the internet went wild.

Now personally, I don’t agree with the approach the people over at Riot Games took in order to include women and non binary folks. I get trying to include more women and non-binary people in a world that is largely ruled by males. I wish that my community was more inclusive to all people, unfortunately that isn’t always the situation. And I get that, but being exclusive to be more inclusive is a bit of an oxymoron, at least in my opinion.

To make matters worse, systems designer at Riot Games, Daniel Z. Klein, wrote some interesting ideas on how the concept of sexism towards men does not exist because men have all the power. As well as this lovely comment on Reddit:

The question he was responding to was basically asking whether women should be hired on just because she’s a woman as opposed to because of her skills, or if companies should strive for a 50/50 gender ratio in the workplace even though that isn’t the case for graduates from these fields.

I believe this to be a valid discussion to be had, should we hire people just so we can be diverse, or should we hire people that are better qualified for the job regardless of diversity, or should we have a little bit of both?

I’ve always thought that people should be hired for their skill set, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. I do get, however, that this isn’t always the case. So then what is the solution?

Whatever is or isn’t the solution, I think we should be able to discuss this as adults, unlike how Daniel Z. Klein went about it:

Fuck off and sea lion somewhere else.

— Daniel Z. Klein (@danielzklein) September 1, 2018

I’ve loved Brie Larson since her portrayal of Envy Adams in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, if you haven’t seen it, go watch your new favorite movie soon! And although short, I really loved Brie Larson as Rachel in the show Community, though we never did get an answer to the question, “And what happened to that girl I was dating?” which Abed asked breaking the fourth wall in S6E01.

But although I really am excited for this movie, I’m also, frankly, quite pissed. I’m pissed because I keep hearing the same thing over and over again, “Finally, a movie that showcases a strong female character.” And that’s complete bullshit.

Let’s get one thing straight, there have always been badass females in movies, let me give you some examples: Leeloo in The Fifth Element, or really anything with Milla Jovovich, Trinity in The Matrix trilogy, Black Widow in The MCU, Princess Leia in the Starwars franchise, Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass and of course Sarah Connor from Terminator 2.

But those movies, they’re not the main characters… Korben, Neo, Tony, Luke, Kick-Ass and the Terminator were, so those movies don’t count!

You know damn well Hit-Girl made that movie, but okay, no problem. Here’s some more badass women that starred in their respective movies: Alice from Resident Evil, Aeon Flux in the same titled movie, Babydoll in Sucker Punch, Mulan in Mulan, Merida from Brave.

But I didn’t like those movies, and two of those are animated films!

Just because they’re animated doesn’t keep them from being awesome, but fine, here’s even more badass female characters that are: Ellen Ripley in Aliens, Beatrix in Kill Bill Vol. 1&2, Selene from Underworld, Lara Croft from Tomb Raider and Diana in Wonder Woman.

And there are so many badasses I didn’t include in my list, but I hope I got the point across. I understand that women are not represented as much as men are in many, many things, but I don’t think that praising each time a movie with a none male lead is released is right either.

I think this for two reasons, 1. I think it takes away from all the other movies that have come before it with strong female characters, and 2. this should be a given, there are many, many badass women in real life, it’s time it becomes the norm in our media, and we shouldn’t have to praise it each time it happens.

The rules were simple, it had to be related to video games, comics or anime, anything tech related or nerdy, and most importantly, had to be about stuff I actually cared to write about.

My first ever Nerd News was, embarrassing to say the least. It was just nine pieces of news I found interesting that happened that week, without much explanation as to why it was cool or newsworthy. Over time, each week’s Nerd News was better than the last, at least in my opinion, and I put in effort to slowly mold it to what it is today.

It was probably during the summer, when I wrote this Nerd News about how I would be going to AX 2018 as press, when I finally decided what I wanted my Nerd News to be. It was going to prove that I could find stories and write about them each week, and finally get my own section.

Unfortunately, that never happened, and I was told this week that it won’t. Obviously I protested, but as I’ve said, I’ve never been good with saying or expressing how I feel correctly, as much as I’ve tried.

I was explained three things, one that was a hard truth, one I don’t agree with at all and one that helped me in making this choice:

This will be my last Nerd News.

I was asked what makes me different, why anyone would read my stories over someone elses and that hurt because there’s truth in it. Why would anyone read SAC.Media over Kotaku, over Gizmodo, Comicbook, or any other news organization that writes about the things I find interesting.

I was told I haven’t been doing a good job recently.

I was questioned as to what’s stopping me? What’s really stopping me from writing my Nerd News? Is it because I don’t have my own section? Shouldn’t I be writing what I want, not just because I have a tab on a website?

And I thought about these things over and over again, and have come to the only viable conclusion for me. So let me answer those questions that I couldn’t, now.

Why would anyone read my stories over other news organizations? Why would I be asked to cover a shooting at a video game tournament when all these other news outlets would be covering the same thing? Everything and anything will be covered by someone, somewhere. Does this mean I should just not cover anything because someone else will? Why even have a college publication if this is the case? But to answer this truthfully, I think people would read my stories because I’m a student who, with my work, has seen actual payoff. I’ve already been asked to cover two conventions and will be going to cover my third at the end of next month. Growing up I’ve always questioned whether the time and effort I’ve spent at school would actually be rewarded once I left, now I’m being rewarded for the work I’m putting into my stories while I’m still in college, and that’s pretty kickass.

I haven’t been doing a good job? I won’t even warrant this with an answer, I’ll let my writing speak for itself.

What’s stopping me from writing what I want to write? This I can actually agree with. What is stopping me? Well, I guess nothing is. I’ve already been writing what I’ve wanted to write, minus a few stories here and there. So I’ll continue to write what I enjoy writing and I hope people continue to enjoy my writing.

Nerd News was never supposed to be what it’s become. Once I got my own tab, I was going to get rid of Nerd News and write the things I wrote in Nerd News in my own section, each story being more fleshed out than what I write for Nerd News, for the sake of length.

But even then, I went into the journalism program in order to study PR, and somehow found myself with an editor title, although I’ve really just been a staff writer thus far, and somehow found myself trying to nurture this Nerd News by myself.

So what does this mean? I’ll still be writing nerdy news, just not in the same way I have been refining over the summer. It’s always scary killing something I’ve created, but does someone really grow without change?

As I said, I’ve never been good at saying or expressing myself in public, but that’s not the case for when I’m writing. Although I won’t be seeing you next week for Nerd News I hope you continue to grow with me as I start a new chapter of sorts.

Stay tuned!