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On the Origins of Geekdom
Be Forewarned: Big and rambly entry ahoy!
This big and rambly monstrosity is expanding on something I mentioned in my previous entry.
I had two epiphanies regarding my geekdom; firstly, while I consider myself a sci-fi geek first and a fantasy geek second, I've actually read or watched hardly any sci-fi while my bookshelves are mostly fantasy.
I'm a little surprised I hadn't noticed this before. I have enjoyed both sci-fi and fantasy since I was very little. I was born at the start of the Disney Renaissance and was watching those movies pretty much from the start, so its barely surprising that when I started reading I picked out fairytales. But, I was also raised on the Star Wars movies and radio dramas, which I wore out from listening to them over and over again. My first grown-up books were the Thrawn Trilogy that my dad gave me when I was ten or eleven, and my first teenager books were the Young Jedi Knight series - they were also the first books that I bought myself. I started reading the Harry Potter books around the same time, and while I enjoyed them I didn't love them or constantly reread them like I did Star Wars. Not so with Lord of the Rings; I absolutely loved the first movie, read all three books plus The Hobbit, bought the special edition of the DVDS, even got some action figures. Now I probably won't read any but The Hobbit again, but I was obsessed for a quite a while.
I dabbled in comicbooks -which really are both sci-fi and fantasy- when the second X-men movie came out, and got into anime/manga after Spirited Away, still tending more toward fantasy stories than the sci-fi ones. And I was always reading something from the library. Yet all through out highschool I was taking notes and trying to plot a sci-fi story; it wasn't until senior year that I took a break from it and tried out some fantasy plots too.
And then this summer I was reading a lot of Nu!Trek fanfiction and considering salvaging the world-building I'd done in those old notes with a new plot but didn't want to use a cliche plot... Which is when I realized I didn't really know which plot elements were cliche for sci-fi. Figuring out which books/movies/television I would like (and which I might not, but need to be seen because they're classics,) helped lead to my second epiphany.
and secondly, my Dad is not in fact where I get it from.
I cannot believe it took me so long to notice this one. I knew that both Dad and Mom watched the Alien movies and X-Files, but since Dad was the one who enjoyed Star Wars with me, he got labeled geek. I vaguely remember watching a Star Trek with Mom once, but only once. Thinking back now though, I can also remember watching with her the Stargate movie and a few episodes of SG1, episodes from Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. On her own she's also watched/is watching ST:TOS, ST:TNG, ST:DS9, Dr. Who, Quantum Leap, Stargate Universe, the new Battlestar Galactica, V, and who knows what else.
My mother is a geek. And I'm following in her footsteps; I gave Stargate Atlantis a try just before school started, and ended up watching two seasons in less than two weeks. Now I'm stockpiling SG1 and SGA to have a marathon over winter break. I also watched some DS9 episodes on youtube and will get that next.
This big and rambly monstrosity is expanding on something I mentioned in my previous entry.
I had two epiphanies regarding my geekdom; firstly, while I consider myself a sci-fi geek first and a fantasy geek second, I've actually read or watched hardly any sci-fi while my bookshelves are mostly fantasy.
I'm a little surprised I hadn't noticed this before. I have enjoyed both sci-fi and fantasy since I was very little. I was born at the start of the Disney Renaissance and was watching those movies pretty much from the start, so its barely surprising that when I started reading I picked out fairytales. But, I was also raised on the Star Wars movies and radio dramas, which I wore out from listening to them over and over again. My first grown-up books were the Thrawn Trilogy that my dad gave me when I was ten or eleven, and my first teenager books were the Young Jedi Knight series - they were also the first books that I bought myself. I started reading the Harry Potter books around the same time, and while I enjoyed them I didn't love them or constantly reread them like I did Star Wars. Not so with Lord of the Rings; I absolutely loved the first movie, read all three books plus The Hobbit, bought the special edition of the DVDS, even got some action figures. Now I probably won't read any but The Hobbit again, but I was obsessed for a quite a while.
I dabbled in comicbooks -which really are both sci-fi and fantasy- when the second X-men movie came out, and got into anime/manga after Spirited Away, still tending more toward fantasy stories than the sci-fi ones. And I was always reading something from the library. Yet all through out highschool I was taking notes and trying to plot a sci-fi story; it wasn't until senior year that I took a break from it and tried out some fantasy plots too.
And then this summer I was reading a lot of Nu!Trek fanfiction and considering salvaging the world-building I'd done in those old notes with a new plot but didn't want to use a cliche plot... Which is when I realized I didn't really know which plot elements were cliche for sci-fi. Figuring out which books/movies/television I would like (and which I might not, but need to be seen because they're classics,) helped lead to my second epiphany.
and secondly, my Dad is not in fact where I get it from.
I cannot believe it took me so long to notice this one. I knew that both Dad and Mom watched the Alien movies and X-Files, but since Dad was the one who enjoyed Star Wars with me, he got labeled geek. I vaguely remember watching a Star Trek with Mom once, but only once. Thinking back now though, I can also remember watching with her the Stargate movie and a few episodes of SG1, episodes from Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise. On her own she's also watched/is watching ST:TOS, ST:TNG, ST:DS9, Dr. Who, Quantum Leap, Stargate Universe, the new Battlestar Galactica, V, and who knows what else.
My mother is a geek. And I'm following in her footsteps; I gave Stargate Atlantis a try just before school started, and ended up watching two seasons in less than two weeks. Now I'm stockpiling SG1 and SGA to have a marathon over winter break. I also watched some DS9 episodes on youtube and will get that next.