Sunday, May 10, 2015

Too much Fandom

Supernatural is in its 10th and possibly final season (I heard that season 11 was confirmed and also that this was the last season if someone knows for certain please tell me down in the comments) and a lot of things are happening that I was not prepared for. As well as Homestuck ending its year long gigapause, instigating a microgigapause, and then updating every day for a week straight. It is honestly gotten pretty overwhelming after months of radio silence. I am not complaining, it is just a bit too much to take in at the moment.
These are all my reaction

In Supernatural, Rowena, Crowley's mother, has made a bargain with Sam Winchester to translate
the book of the damned in exchange for Sam killing Crowley. Sam struck the bargain to save his brother Dean from the effects of the mark of Cain, which is slowly turning Dean into a demon. The spell in the book of the damned will cause a great tragedy if it is used, so Dean refuses to use it. So Sam has been working on it behind dean's back.

On top of all of that, a family called the Steins is hunting for the book that they used to possess eighty years before. They used the book to cause tragedies like world war two and the hundred year war. They used to be called the Frankenstein family before they had to go underground after Mary Shelly saw their genetic modifications of extra muscle and two hearts. One of them goes after a friend of the Winchesters',, Charlie thinking that she has the book and ends up killing her. Before she died, she was able to crack the code of the book and send it to Sam and Dean. Although Dean will be much more reluctant to try the cure after what happened to Charlie.

Homestuck is a slightly better story, since Cal, the creepy puppet that has been a mult-iuniversial constant since the beginning, turned out to be a seed for bringing Lord English into universes at their ends so he can destroy them. As a giant time traveling skull faced god, he is rather intimidating and tries to fight with the heroes of the story. The heroes must tie his soul to the doll to win the fight, along with a version of one of the heroes, Dirk, and a troll named Euqius.

All of that was communicated through bad claymation by the ultimate villain. Ah, yes, that was worth the gigapause, definitely. It is, however better than the timeline where everyone except Roxy and John died off in a pretty terrible way, considering that they are mostly god tiers, who can only die heroic or just deaths. You would think that they would be less heroic and temporarily evil.

The major difference between the timeline where nearly everyone died and the one we are currently in, is that Vriska is still alive. Although she is my patron troll, I did not like her for most of the story, probably because of the occasional murders and maimings, but I actually sort of like her now. Plus, if it means everyone is alive and have cut the garbage and Davekat is canon, I am fine with this change of events. In a recent update Dave and Karkat were analyzing all of Johns feelings.

So that is what has been happening in both of those fandoms.

How have I changed this year?

Throughout this school year I have become better at writing and less self-conscious about sharing what I write. I normally just shared little ideas for stories and would never let someone read something that I wrote unless I absolutely had to. I think that I feel better that I have expanded my vocabulary as well as learned more about grammar than I probably would have ever wanted to. I am still quiet and reserved in most conversations and in classes, and I do not think that is going to change.

However, I am less afraid that my ideas and bad puns (and yes, there have been way too many puns in these blog posts) will be overlooked or ridiculed and have shared them with people other than my sister. I feel more comfortable talking to people in person, even though writing allows for more editing and revision to make the point you are trying to make clearer.

I have joined more fandoms and met so many people at conventions. It is easy to get sidetracked by my dozens of fandoms and I procrastinate about practically everything except for keeping up with them. I think I have gotten better at managing my time, probably not by much. Although my grades are doing alright, so it can not be as bad as I think. I also cosplayed for the first time and that was cool. I hope that it becomes a tradition to go back to Anime Bonzi for years to come.

How I changed this year
One of my really good friends mother died and she had to live with her extended family, and I miss her very much. Another friend moved to South Jordan and we have not kept in touch very well, and another friend can not go to school anymore because of allergies. I am grateful for the rest of my friends and am really glad that they are here and are so nice to me all the time. I have also found that smashing watermelons in parking lots is really fun, so thanks guys.

I have also volunteered more than I have in the past, and it was so much fun to work at Swaner and Furberbia on the weekends with my sister. I have stopped skiing for the Park City team, and I think that doing that was an important thing for me to do, since I felt like I had to more than I wanted to and it gave me more time to focus on things that matter to me, such as fandoms, friends, and doing well in school. Even though that sounded sort of sarcastic and rude I do actually mean that I like doing well in school.

I have changed very much in the past year and I am proud of what I have done. I felt happy with what was happening in my life, and although High school is more difficult than I expected, based on this past years experience, I think that it is going to be pretty good.

Fandom Terms

It has occurred to me that most people in the world do not know what an OTP is or maybe even what a fandom is. I figured that google would sort of come into play at some point or someone would use the context to learn what some of the things I say mean during my never-ending monologues. I have finally thought that this is probably overdue and I should explain some of my nerd slang.

Courtesy of Pintrest
The word 'fandom' come from mushing the words fanatic and domain into one word, it basically means a group of people that like the same actor, band, TV show, anime, book, webcomic, etc. The populations that make up fandoms are called fangirls or fanboys, depending on gender. These people are sometimes really closely knit groups in real life or online. Now, you might be wondering, what do these strange subcultures do besides share a common like for something?

These people sometimes cosplay, ship, draw fanart, write fanfictions, role-play, go to conventions, and worship their actor, band, TV show, anime, book, webcomic, etc. Cosplay is when a person dresses up like a character from their fandom and at Anime Bonzi most of what I saw was from an anime or Homestuck. You may have heard of ComicCon or something similar, but it is basically a gathering of fandoms that nerd out together and there are panels where people talk about anything from headcanons to origami to actors talking about filming.

Fanart and fanfics are fan created drawings and stories that revolve around characters in the stories or original characters created by a fan. Shipping is when you like the idea of two characters being in a relationship, and it can be platonic or romantic as well as canon or not. The acceptance of shipping varies from fandom to fandom. A Headcanon is an event or fact that someone likes. An example being that a character is secretly ticklish or what their height is.

Going back to shipping, the ship that you consider your favorite is called an OTP, and although it stands for One True Pairing, most fangirls have a dozen or more. A common word used by all fans is 'feels' as in feelings, because typing out ing is too much to do when your feels have been hurt. Finally an AMV or MEP are some fanart with music playing in the background. They stand for Animated Music Video and Multi Editing Project respectively, the main difference being that more people work on a MEP.

After getting such an amazing crash course in fandom slang, you are ready to dive face first into the world of fandoms and read this blog with a basic understanding of what I am saying some of the time. Either of those, or you are just really very scared and want nothing to do with fandoms or anything like them ever again and have probably stopped reading. Whichever one you are, you can now better understand some of the nerds you will meet.

The Hobbit and the Five Armies

When I was in sixth grade we were given the Hobbit as assigned reading. Now, it is a simple law of nature that even if the book you have to read is something you would like to read in your own time, the fact that it is an assignment practically forces the reader to detest it. I was the only one that actually read the book all the way through instead of relying on spark notes or hoping the person sitting next to me knew the answers to the chapter quiz.

So I really liked the Hobbit and am in the midst of reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy since I got the box set for Christmas. I was apprehensive about seeing the Hobbit movies because although directors have good intensions when changing things to "make the story better" the fans of the book are there to see a movie about the book, not something vaguely based on it. I am still bitter about the Percy Jackson 'movies'. Anyways, I watched the first movie when I was sick and I do not remember much of it, but I felt like it stayed true to the story.

My copies of LOTR and the Hobbit
Besides the dwarf love and general orc shenanigans that went down in the second movie, it was also fairly in sync with the book throughout it. However, leaving three of the dwarves in lake town did not seem like something that the other questants would have done and it was not canonical, but I can live with that. The final movie showed more of the battle than the book, since it was from Bilbos perspective and he was knocked out pretty early in the fight. Then again just leaving out an epic battle for control of a mountain full of gold would have felt sort of cheap and removed the need for a third movie.

 I was sad when Kili and Fili died, but mostly because a twin or both of them always seem to get killed in movies (Avengers) and books(Sea of Shadows). As a twin, I take offense. Plus they seem like pretty good guys. Yes, Kili's romance was heartbreaking and sweet, but that was not all that big of a reason to why his character was appealing to me. Maybe it is a twin thing, but I feel really sad when a fictional twin dies.

It also felt overly heavy-handed when they referenced the Lord of the Rings. There were some scenes that someone would be really confused about if they did not have previous knowledge of the other movies or books. Overall it was one of the better movie adaptations tha
t I have seen, and to be fair I am being rather knit picky when it comes to this sort of thing. I would highly recommend this for anyone who wants a good fantasy movie to watch or story to read and any Tolkienies (that's probably wrong) that are apprehensive about the movies, they are not perfect but they are certainly worth watching.