For those of you who don't know, tumblr is a pretty amazing place. It's where people who have the same interests can band together. There are plenty of Mori girls and Lolitas on there, and as a lot of people know, plenty of fandoms. For those of you who don't know, a fandom is basically a group of people who all love the same thing. Personally, I'm okay with liking things and not becoming a part of a community celebrating that. The reason is that fandoms can get crazy. The people in these fandoms can have a wide range of feelings about their interest. I'd say it's a scale from this cat, who's happy to see it's owner:
To Nicolas Cage in Vampire's Kiss:
It's the Nicolas Cages of fandoms that make me cringe. What follows are some instances of the extreme end of fandoms: Harassment. This past winter actor Tom Hiddleston (or Loki, as some people know him) was in a production of Coriolanus. Every night when the play was over he would come out and meet with his fans, signing autographs and whatnot. As time went by though, things got crazy. There would be too many people wanting too much and at one point the security guards themselves were actually scared. Hiddleston then stopped coming out to meet people, and it made him sad that he had to do that. There was even an incident where a group of fans followed him and Benedict Cumberbatch to a restaurant where they were just trying to have dinner. These are only two examples (Please don't get me started on the person who stalked Benedict Cumberbatch in his own home). While famous people do open themselves up to their lives being more public, they still deserve respect, and honestly, they don't owe you anything. Premature Obsession. Now I'm going to talk about Frozen. First, I have not seen it yet. And while I have a strong suspicion I won't like it, the jury is still out. That being said, do you know one of the reasons I feel like I won't like it? The fans. Before Frozen even came out it was all over tumblr. People were freaking out and saying how much they were going to love it, and this was all based on concept art, pictures, and a minute long teaser trailer. And Disney didn't help by prematurely producing Frozen merchandise. I can understand fans getting this excited over a sequel to a movie, because they have something substantial to base their love on, but this is a little much. Not to mention Frozen fans are a little too excited in general. I'm tired of hearing the songs and seeing it on tumblr. I'll get around to seeing the movie eventually, and that, I'm sure, will be a blog post in itself.
Fanfiction. In general I don't find anything wrong with fanfiction. It's a form of creative writing, and I would never discourage someone from writing, especially if they're passionate about it. However, there will always be the slightly deranged ones. Apparently there is a whole genre of sexual and really creepy/strange fanfic. I've never read any, and I don't want to. In addition to that, there's some extremely explicit art that circulates around tumblr, especially in the Sherlock fandom. I know, because I once followed a Benedict Cumberbatch blog for a month before unfollowing when one of those explicit images showed up on my dash. The girl that created it reblogged WAY to many pictures anyways, and I got tired of seeing it all. I recently found a blog whose creator is way more toned down, and now I only see just enough to know that my favorite actor still exists. I have to say, though, that while I haven't read any fanfic, I've seen some really amazing fan artwork. Keep it up guys! Maybe you can drown out the crazies. Shipping. Behind harassment this is probably one of the worst things I've encountered about fandoms. Shipping is basically when a person really likes two characters together, romantically. It's not limited to inside of fandoms: a character of one fandom can be shipped with a character from another fandom. It's also not limited to male-female pairings. There are so many things I don't like about shipping. First, people become very obsessed about their ships, to the point of invalidating other people's ships. Very recently this term was added to the dictionary, with an example of a popular Sherlock (BBC series, awesome by the way) ship: Sherlolly (Sherlock and Molly). The actress who plays Molly, Louise Brealey, was excited about it and tweeted about it. But count on someone to ruin it. The fans of another Sherlock ship, Johnlock (John Watson and Sherlock) became enraged because they thought their ship should have been the example, merely because it had "been around longer" and "was more popular." They proceeded to rant about it over the internet and harass Brealey because of her tweets. This kind of behavior is really creepy and it's divisive to the Sherlock fandom, not to mention the fact that it makes the docile end of the fandom look crazy too. Another element I don't like is that shipping diminishes the existence and importance of platonic friendships. Can characters be close friends without people trying to put them in a romantic relationship? Not according to some fans. If I'm going to rant on the bad end, I feel like I should give a little credit to the adorable kitty end of the spectrum. These are the people who don't do any (or most) of the things that I've mentioned above. Not only that, but they actively speak out against these things like I am right now. They don't like being grouped with the bad part of their fandom and they aren't against chastising those people either. The best part is seeing people from different fandoms getting along well, and I've heard that some of the best fanfic has come from fandom crossovers. I'm still not convinced that being a part of a fandom is such a good idea, though. I think I'll stick to distanced admiration for now. How about you? Are you a part of a fandom? Have you ever had any bad experiences with a fandom? And yes, Vampire's Kiss is a real movie.
I don't really consider college to be dramatic. There are times when things get hard and hectic, of course, but school in itself is not dramatic, unless maybe you're a theater major. This particular semester was deeply entrenched in the hectic category. However, the great part about being an art major is that your classes usually end the week before exam week, so by the time the weekend rolls around you're free until the next semester. There are those times, though, when you take a class, like Spanish, where you have to go back for that one exam. So there I was on Sunday night, the day before my Spanish exam, finishing up cleaning my room and deciding what Mori outfit I was going to wear. Then suddenly my phone started ringing, nearly flinging me up to the ceiling. It doesn't ring often, so the sound always scares me when it does. It was the beginning of my drama-filled break. Through the confusing labyrinth of human communication I found out that my dad had had a heart attack. Because a fling to the ceiling always warrants a slam back to the floor, right? The good news was that he was at the hospital when he had it. The great news is that he was okay. The best news in the world is that I got to take this picture of him and my nephew Nolan last week, almost two weeks after the incident.
The reason I was taking pictures and not actually in the pool will come up later. So with the knowledge that my dad was okay the exam went smoothly. I was a really cute Mori girl and I drew my teacher some great doodles on the back of my exam. But by the time I got back to the apartment I realized that I hadn't picked up my portfolio for figure drawing, and the Fine Arts Building closed at 5. It was after 4. So lucky me, I got to drive back to school (because the bus would have taken too long) and get it. Thankfully I made it in time, and I got an A. The rest of my night was spent packing to head back to Lake City for a week and a half break of fun-filled medical attention. Tuesday was awful. For some reason it seems to rain anytime I have to drive long distances, so I got to drive on the interstate in blowing wind and heavy rain nearly all the way home. Since my dad's heart attack was pretty recent he was still in Gainesville and my mom was with him, so I was alone for the afternoon. The next day began my torture. You see, for a year or two now my dentist has been bugging me to get my wisdom teeth out. I've had them for a couple years now without any problems, but he thought that eventually they would cause problems. I've been ignoring him for a while now, but I finally decided to give in after a) they developed cavities and b) I'm graduating soon and I won't be on my parents' insurance forever. Thankfully I only had the top ones. Hopefully the bottoms ones will never show up. So that's how I spent my morning that day, getting teeth pulled. I didn't get any of the happy gas, just eight pleasant numbing shots, four on each side. I'd really rather not talk about what happened after that. The sound of my teeth being yanked out of my head will scar me for life. My dentist had the audacity to ask if I wanted to keep the teeth, and I refused. Caroline said I should have made them into a necklace. I think they would have been better as earrings. I spent the rest of the morning at my sister's house while my mom went to go pick my dad up from the hospital. I attempted to play with my nephew, but it's hard to make playing noises when you're mouth is stuffed with gauze, so he mostly stared at me like I was insane. With my dad back at home we had the task of keeping him out of trouble, physically and food-wise. My mom had taken the rest of the week off so we cleaned the pool while my dad "supervised" and generally listened for the door opening and closing to let us know we should be following him outside. My mom even said we needed a door alarm. While I was stuck with eating applesauce and mashed potatoes and changing my gauze until the blood stopped, I was still quite the police officer myself. Monday was the real test. It was the first day my mom went back to work and the first day I was in charge of keeping my dad out of trouble. It went smoothly. The next day was the worst day of all. For about two or three years now I've had what my doctor thought was a cyst on my leg. It was really creepy looking and I was honestly tired of nicking it every time I shaved my legs, so I finally got up the courage to have it removed. I had to go to a surgeon because my doctor couldn't do it. I was REALLY nervous. I've never really had any medical problems and I've certainly never had to have surgery, so this was a big deal for me. Plus, I don't like anything medical related anyways, especially blood, needles, and sharp cutting instruments. They used local anesthesia, and a lot of it. I could feel him cutting in the first time, and that was really not okay, so he had to poke me again. I was thankful that I was laying down and didn't have to watch, and I was also thankful that my mom was there with me. I'm not ashamed to say I had to hold her hand. I seriously DO NOT do medical things. My mom said what he pulled out was about the size of an acorn. From my previous reactions the doctor figured I didn't want to see it, so he didn't ask. Up until then I had been relatively okay, but when it came time for the stitches I was internally not okay. I thought, "Okay, he's just going to stitch me up and I'll be done." No. First he stitched the inside up and then he stitched the outside up. But he made the mistake of telling me that before he did it. It really bothered me, especially because I could feel the pressure of him stitching and tightening the stitches. When it was over I was SO done. The next few days I was confined to the couch because any pressure I put on my leg would make it start bleeding. When I did move around I had to use crutches, which I despise. I also couldn't get it wet so I had to wrap my leg with saran wrap and take baths with it out of the water. I also couldn't get in the pool, which is why I got to be the photographer for my nephew's first time in the pool. I got to use my sister's snazzy camera with lots of buttons I didn't know how to operate. It was actually kind of fun. I also went to the eye doctor, while I was on crutches, to get my eyes checked, only to find out that my prescription hadn't changed at all in two years. I'm not complaining, though, because at least my eyes haven't gotten worse. My Lake City excursion ended Sunday with Mother's day. I gave my mom one of the three copies of the trip journal I made (you can see them in my last post here), and we ate out with Hannah and Nolan, who played with straws the whole time. Ryan, sadly, was in Pensacola dealing with the aftermath of all that flooding and storming a couple weeks ago. Right before I left I soaked my leg under running water so my sticky bandages would come off and mom mom could see my wound. It grossed me out a lot, and it still does, though by now it's scabbed over nicely and I can walk normally. And that was my break. I can only hope that this semester is not nearly as dramatic as all that. Seriously, no more heart attacks, please.
