The Geek Embassy

The Geek Embassy starts a new series: Watches. Every month, Mark, Ryan, and I will share our thoughts and critiques of some summer blockbuster movies. We launch the series with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 because of course.

And away we go where the perils abound! This week finds our adventurers in the thick of the action. Hargath, Sevarka, Nera, and Freya finally on foot entering the swamp and they run into their first foe.

The excitement builds in this episode as our adventurers begin to understand the depth of the dangers present in the Vastwood. But our party will not be intimidated by the size of the foes they will fight! No! We will press ever onward.

Don't miss this episode where you can see Nera (Regina) roll terribly but still swing a big ax, watch Sevarka (Dante) joke around, Hargarth (Mark) do some magical serious damage, and Freya (Isabela) aim her bow for the first time. We laugh a lot and hope you will too!

Greetings, Geeks!

We continue our roleplay adventure with the next segment in our Pathfinder campaign. We begin the journey we started in our first episode, after spending the night in the Vagabond's Rest deep in the Vastwood.

Our adventurers start on the first leg of their journey after being bestowed a map from their employer, Ruchior. The party seeks a guide and safe passage down the treacherous rain-swollen Varidan River and into the wilds beyond.

Join us as we learn to play Pathfinder and enjoy this story crafted for us by Evan.

Until next time, get your geek on! Regina, Evan, Isabela, Mark, and Dante

Greetings, Fellow Adventurers!

On this holiest of geeky holidays, International Tabletop Day, The Geek Embassy welcomes you to follow us on a Pathfinder role-play adventure. Isabela, Mark, Dante and I will take our newly rolled characters on an adventure handcrafted for us by Evan Graham. In today's intro video, we share with you our character backstories, and a few hints about the story we will be exploring.

This campaign will be a journey in exploration and learning for me. This is my first ever pen and paper role play experience. I've wanted to jump into a true role-playing game since I started my dissertation research almost 10 years ago. I noted in one of the texts I used how ironic it was that role players are often disparaged for their "performance" but we pay movie actors huge amounts of money to play scripted characters. It takes so much more imagination and innovation to improvise a character in a setting like this. As you will see just from this introduction, I have a lot to learn. I'm delighted to share my experience with the community here.

I hope you all will join us on our journey and watch and learn along with me. Let's get this party started!

Geek on! Regina, Isabela, Mark, Dante, and Evan

Come on, admit it. You've taken a Harry Potter house quiz or two. It's a great geeky time killer at the very least.

This month, we decided to take a few quizzes and compare results. Isabela, Evan, and I have lots of opinions about all things Harry Potter, not just the house definitions and meanings. We open with a brief discussion of Fantastic Beasts and The Cursed Child to kick off our discussion. I get all the names wrong. All of them.

For those who might not be as well versed in the Hogwarts houses, summaries of each house (taken from the Harry Potter Wiki):

Gryffindor values bravery, daring, nerve, and chivalry. Its emblematic animal is the lion and its colors are scarlet and gold.

Hufflepuff values hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, and fair play. Its emblematic animal is the badger and its colors are yellow and black.

Ravenclaw values intelligence, knowledge, and wit. Its emblematic animal is the eagle and its colors are blue and bronze.

Slytherin house values ambition, cunning, and resourcefulness. Its emblematic animal is the serpent and its colors are emerald green and silver.

The fandom dedicated to Harry Potter is highly devoted and there are many ways to look at the Hogwarts Houses. We have a great time discussing the quizzes and our own desires to sort ourselves into the house we truly feel the most aligned to.

Guilty pleasures! We had a great time at this hangout. First, we discuss what makes something a guilty pleasure. We decided it's often something you don't talk much about, you generally don't tell your friends or your family about it. Sometimes it might make you feel a little embarrassed that you enjoy it so much. Or it might be a show or movie that you watch and watch over and over again.

Isabela previously discussed how guilty pleasures are often code for feminine. Romances are often described as guilty pleasures. One of the ideas we mention is they are often more light-hearted or popcorn entertainment. There seemed to be some feminine qualities to our choices but overall I think our choices have more to do with exactly how much we enjoy these pastimes. In the end, I think we all decided we would keep on enjoying our favorites, guilty, geeky, or otherwise.

The most amusing part of this hangout for me was hearing us defend each other's guilty pleasures and then finally finding something Mark considered a guilty pleasure, even if he didn't want to admit it.

Until next time, get your geek on! Regina & Isabela & Mark & Julie

To Discuss

What are your guilty pleasures? What don't you talk to your friends and family about enjoying? Let us know in the comments!

Capes & Baskets: What Fairy Tales Can Teach Us about Superheroes

Were you unable to attend Geek Girl Con or Wizard World in Portland, Oregon? Have you always wanted to see The Geek Embassy's ambassadors in action?

Well, now is your chance! For our recent presentation in Portland, I was able to record our panel on my phone on a mini tripod recommended by a photographer friend of the show, Andrew. The sound isn't great but I think you can hear each of us well enough. Isabela is the faintest since she is farthest from the mic.

I truly adore this presentation. It represents the best of The Geek Embassy: a bunch of geeks merging their interests into a completely new idea. The genesis of this presentation came from me and Jen having cocktails one spring afternoon. All of sudden I had out a notepad and we were sketching through the ideas that ended up becoming the basis for this presentation.

To Discuss: Capes & Baskets

What fairy tales do you love? What superhero stories could you relate to that fairy tale? Can you make the connection? Want to challenge us to?

Relationships

Those we love, those we wish for, and those we mourn. For our February hangout, we discuss relationships. We talk about canon couples: those fictional couples who set the bar for love and romantic gestures.

But we've talked about those geeky relationship moments before so to spice this up we threw in our favorite doomed couples and our favorite "ships" or relationships we wish for, AKA "fanon." We've got some crazy matches in store for you and some sad couples who either had tragic ends or tragically ended their shows because they ended up together. (Writers: don't kill the sexual tension! It really ends things!)

My 'ship couple brought up quite a bit of discussion and some creative ideas. Check it out to see what crazy world we really would like to see come about.

We WRaP the end of the episode with what we are Watching, Reading, and Playing. So much great geeky material to discuss!

Make sure to check out the live video and the podcast episode.

Until next time, get your geek on! Regina & Isabela & Julie & Dante & Evan

To Discuss

Tell us: Your favorite couples? Who do you 'ship? Who is doomed but awesome in your mind?

New Year's Eve has come and gone but the staff of The Geek Embassy had to take some time to reflect on 2016. We suffered plenty of misery, had some good times, saw some good movies, and read some great books. 2016 is one for the record books for sure and we are hoping that 2017 will bring everyone lots of joy.

Or at least fewer celebrity deaths.

Rhonda and I recall our fabulous time at Geek Girl Con in Seattle. We presented a great panel titled, "Capes & Baskets: What fairy tales can teach us about superheroes." It was really well received and a blast. The comments were amazing. It was so much fun to see people take our ideas and run with them. We also offered some advice about what not to do if you have a panel at a con. (The dreaded, "We want to hear from you!" is at the top of the list.)

We shared some of our expectations for 2017 and things we hope to find this year. We also shared some geeky gifts we got from the holiday season. One of Rhonda's gifts to me is going to play a pretty significant role this year for the site. Keep an eye out for that in the coming months.

Unfortunately, we will not be at Emerald City Comic Con this year. Our panel and press badges were both rejected. Maybe we will make it again in 2018.

Until next time, geek your geek on and have a fabulous 2017! Regina & Rhonda & Mark & Ryan

Get your geeky gifts here!

For our November hangout the staff of The Geek Embassy put together a wonderful gift guide of all kinds of geeky themed gifts. I won't lie. Quite of few of my suggestions are things on my very own wish list. Check out our consulate themed gift suggestions.