16 Aug 2013

The Geeky Influence In My Life

Everyone comes into geekhood at different times and in so many different ways. Some are raised geeks from birth, some encounter their geeky influences later in life. Some are introduced to it through other people, others have more of a solitary discovery of it. But what I think every geek have in common is that one defining factor, that one moment, experience, fandom or whatever that got the ball rolling. For me that factor was a person.

Apart from playing the occasional video game with my siblings growing up (and keeping with it when both of them lost interest), I had very little geeky influences in my life up until age 13 when I met the person that I consider to be my best friend, my sister in everything except blood.

It was on her recommendation that I checked out Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show I often refer to as my gateway drug to all things fandom (I can pretty much trace back every type of fandom activity I do today to that show and its influence on me). Of course, I had seen the promos running for it and thought it looked interesting - however I never remembered to actually check it out until my best friend specifically told me to... and I was hooked instantly.

She didn't stop there, though. The first piece of fan fiction I ever read was one that she showed me, I had no idea that was even a thing until that moment - that the little stories I had scribbled on paper for my own enjoyment actually was something other people did as well, that there were people out there making sites to archive things like that (fanfiction.net was still in its infancy in those days, so most fan fiction were more commonly found on a plethora of fan sites, and the only way to give a response was to e-mail the author directly). We even wrote a story together (but thankfully it was neither finished nor published online as it was pretty darn bad).

When I was 17, my best friend decided it was about damn time I gave Harry Potter a chance. I can't recall if she tried recommending the books to me before that (I have pretty huge gaps in my memory from those days for certain reasons I'm not going to delve into right at this moment), but one day in late spring or early summer, she locked the door of her bedroom, handed me the first book and told me I was not leaving until I had read it. She then proceeded to play Silent Hill (a game she knew I had absolutely no interest in whatsoever) while I laid on my stomach, reading the book (she did let me out after I had read most of the book). The following day I bought all four Harry Potter books that had been released so far.

You'd think after those and a few other less geeky but important nonetheless influences she's had on my life, that I'd learn to just go with whatever she wants to show me - but no, I'm a darn stubborn person. Less than a year ago she finally talked me into letting her show me Doctor Who (I had caught a random episode at a convention a few years ago and been so confused that I simply decided it wasn't something for me) - well, now there's a TARDIS on my desk and one on top of my glass cabinet, I carry no less than three Sonic Screwdrivers in my purse at any time, my phone has a TARDIS decal, and I went to a Doctor Who convention just last month... I really should learn to just submit myself to her each and every whim...

Just One trip to the UK and I had enough figurines to start my own Doctor Who shelf...

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