Quirky Monday: Nerd Alert

Raph. Leo. April. Casey. Hawkeye. Cap. Iron Man. Black Lightning. Winchester. Buffy. Angel. Spike. Willow. Mal. Kaylee. Splinter. Castiel. Clark Kent. Oliver Queen. S.H.E.I.L.D. The Winter Solider.

Familiar? Of course! Any nerd knows who they are, or at least has an idea of who they are. These belong to DC, Marvel, Mirage, Eric Kripke, and the Whedonverse. Still don't know who they are?

That's ok. I didn't either. For a long time.

Yeah. Just....yeah.

There are nerds that are born and then there are nerds that hide in the closet and bloom later.

I was the latter.  I grew up on Winne-the-Pooh, Peter Pan, and Ducktales, which I suppose counts as nerdy, since Ducktales are also comics(I found this out and had a serious nerdout!!!). I was convinced if I concentrated hard enough I could fly, and that there were such things and Heffalumps and Woozles, and "The Odyssey" was about a dog who lived in Ithaquack and got turned into a pig(thank you DuckTales).

This show guys. This show, this show, this show!!!!!!

 But I didn't read comic books, I never saw Justice League, or Superman or TMNT or any of that. And there were a number of reasons for this--not the least of which was we didn't have cable growing up and I was too busy scribbling the stories in my head to pay attention to anything else.

My grandpa used to babysit my sister and me when we were little, and every time he did he'd bring a new movie. For two little girls who watched Peter Pan  and Winnie the Pooh more times than was probably reasonable(thanks for your patience, Mom!) this was a novelty.

Neverending Story and The Princess Bride. Those became our "grandpa movies"--Neverending Story for my sister; Princess Bride  for me. And yes, Neverending Story terrified me. To no end. I only watched it when my sister was in the room, and had to make myself sit through the sequels on her birthday(all of them--agggg!) Princess Bride did not terrify me. I watched that thing so much I think I wore out the VHS(the 90s, guys. This was the 90s.)

The one scene in Neverending Story that didn't freak me out. With a giant doggy thing that--yeah. Moving on. 

Point: these two movies had nerdy stuff. A lot of 70s and 80s nerdy stuff, but still--nerdy stuff.  Flying dog things, weird giant rats, swordfights, fisticuffs, classic corny lines, the works. We dabbled in nerdom for those movies.  And it got better from there.

When I was seven, my second cousin showed me Star Wars. And the nerd bug bit me hard. Because there were lightsabers, and spaceships, and little furry thingys that ran around making squeaky noises and looked like teddy bears(Return of the Jedi, guys. That's what he showed me.). I was gone. Gone, gone, gone.

My first exposure to the comic book wasn't even an English series. My sister and I got into the Asterix/Obelix  comics--which are basically about two Celts who bash the Roman's head together for fun and possess a magic potion that gives them super strength. And is so delightful!!!!

So yes, I read those.  Binge read is more like it. 

And then my brother was born. This is the sibling of mine who is basically the male version of me. He's creative, and charming and a very loud nerd. This was the boy who checked out Superman, and Batman, and TMNT and comic books from the library and watched them ad nauseum. He was the one who showed me all these delightful comic book characters--Batman, Robin, the Peguin, Leo, Raph, Superman, Splinter, April, Casey, etc. etc.

Yep. I saw this. Too much. Did I get what was going on? Not exactly? Did I want more? AB-SO-FRIGGIN-LUTELY!!!!

 Once I got introduced, I got totally obsessed(emotional investment, remember). I had to find out every little thing about TMNT, about Marvel, about DC. At this point there were also new movies, coming out; and there was YouTube, and my brother, and so that helped.

And then there's the Whedonverse.

You know, until I had access to Cable, I had no idea what I was missing. Which was a good thing and and a bad thing. My family has PBS, which meant things like Arthur, and Zoom and Wishbone(agggg! there's another show I miss so much!!!!) and we had the basic channels--ABC, CBS, NBC etc, so we could watch primetime tv too(like Home Improvement--such a great show!!!). So good thing--because no access to questionable stuff.

But bad thing. 

 Because I missed the Whedonverse!!!! 

People my age would talk about Buffy, and Spike, and Faith and why did Firefly get cancelled and I'd go "....what?..." And of course, by the time I got around to looking into what the heck they were talking about, all of the shows were off air.

 But they were on DVD.

 Cue binge watch. 

And a deeper dive into my nerdom.

Now, I read all the comics I can find. I watch Star Trek and Star Wars and Princess Bride without shame. I know what people are talking about when they ask me with Turtle I prefer(Raph, people. Always always Raph.) or what made the new Batman trilogy so sick(or wrong, depending on who you talk to). I own TMNT and Whedon comic books(from the BEST comic book store I've been to in my life and should probably never be allowed in again, but that's a post for later). I watch other nerdy shows and get into debates about their accuracy--and everything else. 

So yeah, it took me a bit to get comfortable with this quirk of my personality, for more reasons than one. 

Now, I am a nerd, people! And I'm #soproud!