[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey this is Tatiana King Jones,
and watch Marvel make me the hero.
I realized that I love to produce and podcasts,
because when I went online I noticed that people had
a chance to talk about everything they loved
about geek culture, whether it was about the characters,
whether it was about the design, whether it was
about the stories that they appeared in,
people had a voice online.
And I've always been a great writer.
I've always loved to write.
So I realized I can put the two together
and make something happen.
It was like late '90s.
You know, I'm in elementary school.
And I was kind of like the dork.
Like no one wanted to-- everyone said, oh, she's so weird.
She's into all these weird things, into tech
and engineering, and comics.
But as I got older, I started meeting people who realized,
you know what?
That's really cool that you like that.
And I think that's what it was.
It was just growing up.
And really comics helped me meet new people, helped me grow,
and realize there are different ways,
there are different people, there
are different attitudes about everything you like in life.
The fact that now with the podcasting
I have this community that not only embraces my thoughts
and my words, but also they want to have their own thoughts
and words also out there, and I'm
able to interact with everybody, like this
is just something that I can only dream of happening.
And I'm so grateful that I'm able to have it.
This experience of making my own hero
really helped me be a little bit more introspective
into my own life, to assist everyone within geek culture,
but potentially and especially for black women
and geek in pop culture.
So with my hero I wanted her to be a black woman for sure.
And I definitely wanted my own hero to take
up after me in that way.
I've always thought my character in the sense of a techno mage,
which is what I envision as someone who can pretty
much have lord over all technology,
regardless of where it comes from.
If they came across a situation where
they had to, I don't know, get into a building,
and there is some security system,
they're able to connect right into that building.
They're able to connect right into the security system,
understand the protocols behind it, hack right into it,
and open doors for everybody.
So the costumes for my hero, I always
envision it similar to Rogue in the sense
that it's kind of mercenary-ish.
She's super badass.
And it's just so sleek and modern.
But at the same time, it's colorful
so that she stands out.
I wanted cerulean blue.
That's my favorite color.
Blue, in general, is my favorite,
but cerulean specifically.
So I had to incorporate that into the outfit.
I would say my character would be
able to use her powers of techno maging to be
able to help fix situations.
Lots of times you see people in communities
who don't have access to technology,
or their access is pretty limited.
I wanted her to be able to open up that world for everyone.
I've always wanted this materializing heads up display,
basically a shade that can just materialize right in front
of my eyes and give me all the information about the world,
all the tech in front of me, all the people in the room.
I figure that this will be incredibly
useful for my character.
[GASPS]
Holy crap.
This is amazing.
I'm sorry.
I shouldn't have said that.
Oh, my god.
I'm about to cry.
This is like so cool.
Like she immediately reminds me of like like Rogue,
with like a dash of Shuri, and also a dash of Storm.
This heads up display, the fact that it's translucent, which
means you can still see the real world,
but also you have some information
about the real world overlaid on top of it.
Being a black woman and having a character that's now--
was in my head, and now drawn to life
just gives me fuel for the fire.
It gives me an understanding that anything is possible.
And that's important.
It's important for me.
It's important for other little girls of color
if you put your efforts, your love, and your energy
into it that you can make it real.
And she's real.
[DIGITAL BLIPS]
[WHIRRING]
[DIGITAL BLIPS]
Thanks, Marvel, for making me into a hero.
[MUSIC PLAYING]