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World of Earpers – getting to know your fellow Earpers, one Earper at a time.

She’s the Volunteer Coordinator for Earper Homestead Convention Canada and has been running the Earper Murder Brunch Crew (EMBC) zoom calls for the Earpers in lockdown, meet B (aka @Earperdemic)!

Who’s B?

Herro there! I’m B, I like long walks on the beach and — oh shoot, this is the wrong form… oops. Sorry, let’s try again 😆 Hi, *waves*, I’m B, I am a Queer Taiwanese-Canadian Earper who currently resides on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations – also known as the Vancouver Lower Mainland.  I can often be found posting academic or mental health related threads on Twitter, and while some of my friends doth protest much, I think I’m occasionally funny.

B and a furry friend

For work, I am a trauma informed clinical counsellor. I work primarily with post-secondary students, and in my private practice, I specialize working with BIPOC and the LGBTQIA2S+ community. It’s incredibly fulfilling work and I love what I do.

How did you discover Wynonna Earp? What does Wynonna Earp mean to you?

I first stumbled across Wynonna Earp by means of Netflix nearing the end of my time at graduate school. It had been recommended with a 97% match and being a student who had a ton of reading and work to do, I of course binged the entire first season – just in time for the second season to be released a month after.

To me, Wynonna Earp is a show and community about family and growth. Wynonna Earp encompasses not just the good and bad, but also the complex and greys of life. It also has incredible representation and is easily one of my most favourite TV shows of all time. If it were not for Wynonna Earp, I would not have met so many wonderful individuals who I now consider family. 

Family

You’re a mental health practitioner, what do you think of eps like ‘Jolene’?

Oh, where do I even start? I have so many thoughts about the Jolene episode. I will try to keep this brief. What I loved most was how Shelley Scarrow found a way to symbolize and externalize the mental health struggles that many of us experience. A lot of the time, what will happen is we aren’t able to separate what is happening to us with who we are as individuals; we internalize the negative thoughts and we end up beating ourselves down.

Now? Now, Earpers are able to express how their Jolene has been bothering them and making their life hard. We see it in the #EarperSupport tweets on the regular. Earpers able to acknowledge that even on our darkest days, we are extraordinary, we are worthy, we are here and we stay. Which is absolutely incredible, because that’s legit what externalization is in narrative therapy! So, shout out to Shelley for making the lives of therapists the tiniest bit easier – cause Earpers have already got the buy in! (If that last sentence makes no sense at all, my apologies for the therapy jargon)

If you’d like a deeper breakdown on the Jolene episode, please see the Dealing with Jolene panel that I had the privilege of being part of at EH Con Canada 2019.

You’re one of the organizers of EH Con Canada. How did that come to be? Must be a lot of work, organizing a con and coordinating all the volunteers.

STORY TIME! During the late evening of Saturday, September 16, 2017, another Canadian Earper (K, @numinous_wander) and I started talking about how wonderful it would be if we could have a Canadian based convention for the show. Prior to watching Wyonnna Earp, I hadn’t fully realized just how much Canadian talent existed in our entertainment industry, and it just made sense to have a convention where we could highlight that.

So, a tweet was sent out, and within 24 hours it was like magic happened – we had our planning committee, delegated roles and responsibilities based on our strengths, and we were off to work! K has since stepped away from the EH Con team, but I will always credit her for the initial conversation and spark that lit the flames.

Planning committee EH Con Canada

As for the organizational part… it is truly a team effort. Our planning committee is made up of individuals who have had years upon years of hotel management, logistical planning, event coordinating, volunteer organizing, legal, finances, web development, graphic design, security, risk management, social media experience, and more… and don’t even get me started on the volunteers. They are all absolutely incredible.

I still have no idea how everything fell into place so well; with all these individuals from all walks of life, we’ve been able to bring EH Con Canada to life year after year. Although COVID has impacted #EHCon2020, we are excited for everyone to meet or reunite at the next EH Con Canada!

When the pandemic hit you started daily (on weekdays) zoom calls for Earpers in lockdown, and they’re still going strong. How did you come up with the idea?

Honestly? It was out of necessity. I am a night owl and an extrovert, so when we switched to working from home, I knew I needed to figure out a way to start my day on time and get my daily dose of socialization or I’d be in trouble. With how COVID was looking, I wasn’t 100% certain if conventions would be happening, so I also wanted a way to stay connected with Earpers. Instead of setting up the calls to be open to my existing community of friends and family on Facebook, I decided to have it be open drop-in instead. So, a tweet was sent out (apparently I do this a lot…?) and… EMBC was born. We earp, we murder brunch, and we also murder the Happy Birthday song.

The first call began on March 23rd, 2020. We are still going strong and we actually now have a dedicated Twitter handle (@EarperMBC) and to keep everything sustainable, an admin team who takes turns facilitating the topics (shout out to JessReiniLindseyCass, Kimmie, and Shazam!). We have individuals joining from all over the world, and on average, we have anywhere between 25-30 Earpers answering during each call. 

EMBC happens every Monday to Friday, 8-8:30am PT / 11-11:30am ET, more details here

What does the future hold for you, Wynonna Earp wise? Planned cons?

Once it’s safe to do so, I have plans to attend the next EH Con Canada and Earp Expo.

Outside of convention planning and volunteering, I will be co-hosting a Wynonna Earp focused podcast with my brilliant co-host, Tayvia (@tallfemsci), a fellow Earper I had the pleasure of meeting through EMBC. The podcast invites our listeners to consider the following: What would it be like to view the Wynonna Earp series as though it were Sacred? To watch each episode through a different theme, to reflect on what the characters and storyline is trying to tell us, and to ask ourselves how we can learn and grow from the process?

If y’all have ever listened to Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, it’s basically that, but we’re Earping it up, so prepare for Earper Feels – cause that’s the name of our podcast.