Origins: Hannah, Part II

In the first part of this post, we covered the first half of my life as a nerd. From cats, to science, to boy wizards, to HTML and nerdy fan websites.

Part II is here now, and instead of a fancy intro, lets just start.

HERE WE GO.

PHASE 10: FANFICTION

Oh man. Guys.This is the first time in the history of this blog where I have actually had to stop myself from panicking and deleting all of this. Maybe, since this is the first one of the post, you'll somehow forget about it by the end?

This is a chapter of my life that I guess I am just now facing...and now that I think about it, I think I've maybe only told a few people about this.

So here it goes.

Hey Mom and Dad, remember when I used to write a ton in middle school? Filled like....12 notebooks?  Yeah. Yep. It was Fanfic.

I'm sorry if I've broken your hearts.

What kind of fanfic, you ask through your tears? Does it matter?

Luckily for the world and my future children, I have since disposed of said notebooks in a way that most shameful things can be destroyed: by fire.

PHASE 11: THEATRE

Because of Lord of the Rings (see part I), I decided that I would really love to be an actor, mostly in order to marry Elijah Wood someday. But after I was in my first play (Sherlock Holmes) I was addicted.

This phase lasted about 5 years, and I even applied to universities with the plan to get a degree in theater. My focus? Shakespeare. Man, I loved Shakespeare. I just got Shakespeare, you know? Until I realized that Shakespeare was really the only thing I liked about theatre.

Also...high school theater kids?

PHASE 12: BAND

Oh man. BAND. Band was great, but if you were ever in band, you know that when you are in one of the band classes, you end up doing everything else, including...

Jazz band, pep band (the only way you could get me to a sports event), I was in marching band.

I hung out in the band room at lunch.

PHASE 13: WELSH 

The Welsh language isn't nerdy, and neither are my reasons for learning it. What made it nerdy was my friends and family. I made the mistake of saying something to them that they will never, ever forget.

I have never lived it down.

(Though I would like take this opportunity to tell thousands of people that Erika up there actually owns an Elvish dictionary. WHO IS THE NERD NOW, MELLON?! Hah. Loser.)

PHASE 14: FANART

This is just becoming a secrets-about-Hannah free-for-all, isn't it. Buuuut since I'm putting it all out there, I may as well just go all the way.

I draw fanart.

I'd like to say I don't, because (most) fanart is the scariest stuff you'll ever see. (Go ahead. Stare at that. Think about it a little. Cry if you have to. I did.) The scariest fanart resides in the darkest corners of the internet, where none go besides those few who type in "The Avengers as Ponies" (Don't...google that.)

I'd like to say my "fanart" is more character study, since I'm an illustrator and it's good to practice character design...right?

But I'll let you decide for yourself. Behold, an example of my fanart.

Yeah, no. Sorry guys. If you are truly meant to see it, you will know where to look.

PHASE 14: VIDEO GAMES

I'd always liked playing video games with my family and friends, but they were usually the really simple, multiplayer games.

A little while ago, though...I truly found the joy in playing a first person game. It has only gotten worse since.

And then when I did every single (let me repeat that, every single) quest that was available in Skyrim, I thought I would be done with games forever.

But nope. I found Minecraft. I found Borderlands. I started playing the Sims again.

Someone is going to need to lock me in a room by myself without any technology whatsoever and never allow me to leave that room.

PHASE 15: CATS STILL

Yep. Cats still. I don't think I ever got over it - and the internet certainly hasn't helped at all. 

I wanna fall asleep buried in kittens every single night.

PHASE 16: Nerd Rock Bottom

It's all over, you guys. I'm on the downward spiral. My Mom, in her moments of self-validation for birthing a nerd, always said "Just don't hit Nerd Rock-Bottom..."

I think I've hit it, Mom.

I think I've hit it hard.

Origins: Hannah

ORIGINS: HANNAH

Part I

A little while ago I found myself in a game store. Not like video games...but a real one. The kind where you walk in to see board games, and eventually if you walk far enough through the thick clouds of body odor, you end up in the very back, surrounded by the unwashed social misfits you only ever saw huddled in the corners of your high school, all staring up at you as if you were some sort of strange mirage.

I don't want to delve too far into the reasons why I was in such a place. All I know is that I had a little bit of an existential crisis.

So here we go. We are going to take on the massive and probably terrifying task of tracking my nerdiness back to its origin. Wherever and whatever that may be.

Before we begin, there's something I need to explain. As I was thinking back on my life, I had a realization. That most of my "nerd" phases were more like obsessions. Obsession that I was incredibly loyal and dedicated to.

When I love something, I don't just love it. I flat out obsess over it. Even as a 25-year-old, I still find things I love and I just...hold on to them for dear life.

PHASE 1: CATS

I believe it all began with cats.

I loved cats.

I mean, you don't even know how much I loved cats.

My only goal as a child was to obtain as many cats or cat-related things I could.

PHASE 2: SCIENCE

My love for cats was only matched by my love for space. Yeah, space as in...the solar system and stuff. There was a point in my life when I knew almost all 50-or-so of Jupiter's moons and I would make sure everyone knew it.

My favorite planet was Saturn...by far.

PHASE 3: CATS AGAIN

I just want to stress how intense my love of cats was when I was a small child.

My laser eyes will obliterate anyone who keeps me from holding every cat.

PHASE 4: POKEMON

Come on. If you are currently in your twenties, then you know what it was like when Pokemon first became a thing. 

Pokemon was the best. Especially when you opened that fresh pack of cards. It was like freaking Christmas morning! You never knew what you'd get, but you knew there's at least one rare in there. Just waiting for you to see it, to cherish it, to show your friends, and maybe even trade for a Charizard or something. 

Usually you just got like 5 more Weedles or whatever.

But we all wanted that stupid Charizard! And those of you who were lucky enough to get one were the envy of all. Oh and those of you who were even luckier and got the freaking HOLOGRAPHIC CHARIZARD?

You were Gods among children.

I never got Charizard, but my brother did. And when he showed the neighbor kids, one of them bit him.

PHASE 5: SPORTS?

Not nerdy. I included this because I'm feeling vulnerable and need some sort of redemption before I delve even deeper. I used to play sports. A lot of them.

I don't know what happened.

PHASE 6: HTML

Oh that's right. This happened. The internet happened. And with the internet came my discovery of HTML code. I could make my own Internet!

It was my ticket to a lifetime of pasty skin and strained eyes.

PHASE 7: HARRY POTTER

If you're new, then let me tell you now. There have been few things that have rivaled my dedication to the Harry Potter fandom. I read the books when I was 11, and subsequently cried myself to sleep that summer when I didn't get a letter. From the 4th book on, I was at every single midnight release - dressed up. 

My sister, Annie, finally gave into my pestering and started the books last year.

I could go on and on about sentimental stuff like how Harry Potter made me feel less lonely when I moved and had no friends, or that Harry Potter made me love reading again, etc, etc...but I'll leave it at this.

PHASE 8: LORD OF THE RINGS 

Oh man. I did love LOTR. The fact that I usually still call it "LOTR" should tell you that. I wish I could say I'd read the books first, but that wasn't the case. Although... I began reading them almost immediately after seeing the first movie, and I was truly dedicated. The final one was the first time I'd really cried during a movie.

Unable to deal with these new emotions, I hid inside of my sweatshirt so nobody would see my Lord of the Rings-induced tears.

PHASE 9: A COMBINATION OF PHASES 6 and 8

This is an example of one of those times where two nerd forces combine to make something nerdier.

When I was 14, I was the creator and webmaster of an LOTR fansite.

I gathered news, interviews, statistics, and photos and compiled them all on a crappy little website made completely of tables and hosted on Angelfire.

If I still had any of the original graphics or anything, trust me...I'd post it. But maybe it's a good thing that it seems to have disappeared forever. Just know that the font Papyrus was used in excess and that most of the website revolved around Elijah Wood.

We've made it halfway through. There's quite a bit more. The rest covers the second half of my life so far, and we get into some pretty dark nerd stuff.

The second post is almost done, so it won't be too long to wait.

If "Pottermore" Were Real

So Pottermore finally opened. No big deal. Not that I was whining on Twitter about having to wait for it to open or anything.

It's a pretty fun site, for what it is (Although I feel like they need to change their target demographic from 13-year-olds to those in their mid-twenties). But It connects loser Harry Potter fans like myself to the closest thing to the books as possible. It makes it a tiny bit more real.

I'm glad it's not, though. First of all, if it were real, I'd be a twenty-something-year-old first year, and my name alone would get me kicked out of Hogwarts.

The name SkullMarauder doesn't quite put people at ease. It definitely doesn't help my case that I am carrying around a trunk-full of some suspicious and possibly incriminating items that I've found and kept.

I mean, there are probably plenty of situations where most of those things could be used. None of which are conducive to being seen as anything other than a serial killer.

And just like in Pottermore, I would probably try to get rid of my items by seemingly the only means possible. Gifting them to a friend.

Actually, I'm probably going to do that anyway.

Hannah's Wonders

Pardon the lack of drawings in this post.

Aside from drawing stuff, I do have a few other talents. One of them is particularly useless, though. (Unless I want to scare children)

The talent? I can go from looking completely normal to absolutely hideous in a matter of seconds. Now, obviously camera angles help a lot with this, but take a look anyway...

Here's me looking normal.

And then...

Oh my. 

Uhhhdurrrrr

OH.

This one says "I'MA SLITHER INTA YER BED IN THE NIGHTTIMES"

Constipated...?

Imagine waking up to see this watching you. "Well g'mornin' sunshine. I left a present for you under your pillow."

Those are just from last night. There's an entire album on my friend Erika's Facebook called "Hannah's Wonders." (See it here). This album exists because I sent Erika so many ugly pictures of myself over a four year timespan. Little did I know, she saved every single one of them. Biding her time, waiting for the right moment, she finally posted them to Facebook one day.

Here are a few choice photos from that album.

Just to remind you, I am a normal human being sort of. I'm just completely incapable of looking normal in a photo.

On a different topic, I'm working on a post right now. It's about vomit, of course. Also, t-shirts... YAY!