(no subject)
GCSEs over with: German listening, RE paper 1 (well, technically paper 3, but we only do two...).
The German was actually surprisingly easy overall, though it was kind of disheartening walking out of the hall to discover that you were the only person in the exam who didn't know what a Zeichentrichsfilm was. But, on the bright side, it's done! I've only got, ooh, the other two German exams to sit through, and then I won't ever have to listen to another word in German again. Unless I, you know, go on holiday to Germany again in the future, but it won't be official in any way. That has to count for something.
RE was also a cakewalk, as RE is wont to be; you blather about Christianity for a couple of paragraphs, taking care to mention either Paul, Jesus or the Catholics in every other sentence, and that's half of your marks nailed already without even looking at what the essay question actually says. I managed to finish every question, barely - as in: drop pen, massage wrist for ten seconds, "Stop! Put your pens down, everybody..." - and that's an improvement over the mock exams, which I still scraped an A on, so I'm cautiously optimistic. The second paper isn't until the middle of June, giving me plenty of time to revise more important subjects before then.
Tomorrow morning is French listening. I'm better at French compared to German, so I predict the French paper is going to be obscenely difficult, but that's just fine.
However, the main point of this post - a meme! Obviously.
Comment to this entry and I'll pick three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:
01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?
AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER
01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
Back when I actually properly RPed - ah, those were the days, uphill in the snow - somebody in the game I was in apped an Avatar character and, after gushing about the series to me over AIM for a while, convinced me to look the series up on YouTube. Most of what I found was just random clips posted by fangirls (the mushroom-related Sokka scenes showed up in those a lot...), but I thought it looked all right, so I torrented the first two Books and fell in love. It's not an especially interesting story, but that's what happened.
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
I guess I'm not properly in the fandom anyway, in that I don't read comms or forums, read or write fic or anything else. The show was over a while ago, too, so the really big drama has kind of petered out by now. I still love the show, though; I think it'll hold a special place in my heart for quite a while.
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
My favourite season overall is Book 2, which I watched first. Individual episodes... it's difficult to choose just a couple of episodes because they're (nearly) all so damn good. The Ember Island Players and Avatar Day are both hilarious. Tales of Ba Sing Se also manages to be funny and cute, and then makes me cry every time. The last few episodes jumped straight into my list of favourites, not because of the freaking epicness (though they did have that in spades) but because of what happened to Azula, and how immaculately they managed to pull that off. There are probably others I've forgotten, since I haven't rewatched any episodes lately.
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
As said above: no, not really. But I do fangirl it when I get the opportunity.
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?
It's a fairly big fandom, but more people couldn't hurt, could they? It's an awesome show.
---
HARRY POTTER
01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
I wasn't quite old enough to get into the books or remember all the media buzz when Philosopher's Stone first came out. Actually, I don't think I got into the books until Goblet of Fire was new. An elderly friend of the mother's from church gave me a battered copy of Chamber of Secrets, and I liked it so much (despite completely missing all the allusions to "last year") that I went and borrowed the other three from the local library. I think they ended up about three weeks overdue, but it wasn't me who had to pay the fines, so I didn't care.
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
Again, I'm not particularly active in this fandom, but I like the books a lot. They're not perfect, but they've definitely got a lot of charm.
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
My (and everyone else's?) favourite is Prisoner of Azkaban. Half-Blood Prince I think is the weakest, what with how her editor seems to stop caring about punctuation and how a lot of the plot could have been circumvented if Dumbledore had sat Harry down and told him what he suspected about Horcruxes to begin with, but it's not awful by any means. I didn't like Order of the Phoenix or Deathly Hallows much on my first reading, but both have grown on me a lot - Order of the Phoenix might even be my second favourite.
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
I've read some fic before, but I don't do it on a regular basis. I don't contribute anything, either. (I am such a proactive member of fandom.)
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?
Well, it's in less need of new fans than just about every single series out there...
---
POKÉMON
01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
My memory is a bit hazy regarding when Pokémon first hit our sleepy little village in the UK; I don't remember when Red and Blue were new, but I vaguely remember remembering when Red and Blue were new, if that makes sense. I didn't have my own cart at that point, so I kept borrowing my then best friend's copy of Blue - he didn't mind, because he was more interested in platformers and racing games, so I pretty much raised my own team on his cart and only let him have it back for a few days at a time before asking to borrow it again. At this time, the anime was also on Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings, but I couldn't catch it regularly as I was a lazy sod when I was seven and still am. Then Yellow arrived in the shops, I got it for my birthday, and that was the start of a beautiful relationship.
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
At the risk of sounding repetitive, I'm not properly in this fandom either. Pokémon has more sentimental value to me than either of the above two series, though, and that says a lot.
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
My favourite generation was GSC. I haven't squeed about the remakes here yet, have I? But rest assured, I am very, very ecstatic about them! I don't follow the anime, so I can't say anything about that, and I also can't say many specific things about Pokémon Special (though what I've read of it is extremely good).
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
I've dreamt up crappy Sues and Stus and written crappy fics around them, because everyone must have an embarassing Pokémon Sue somewhere in the murky depths of their writing history. I kept those offline, generally. Short answer: no.
A few nights ago, I was bitten by a plotbunny involving game canon, HP Lovecraft and an OC that might not suck completely... and I wrote down a brief outline for it, but whether I do any more about it depends on how much time I can spend not revising or procrastinating. So I probably won't. It's a shame.
Oh yeah, but I do occasionally fire up Shoddy and lurk around the Smogon boards when I really have a lot of time to kill. The last time I did that was when Platinum was brand shiny new. That may make me a Stop Having Fun Guy. I don't know.
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?
More people writing from game canon as opposed to anime canon would be nice, I suppose. But there are lots of those anyway.
The German was actually surprisingly easy overall, though it was kind of disheartening walking out of the hall to discover that you were the only person in the exam who didn't know what a Zeichentrichsfilm was. But, on the bright side, it's done! I've only got, ooh, the other two German exams to sit through, and then I won't ever have to listen to another word in German again. Unless I, you know, go on holiday to Germany again in the future, but it won't be official in any way. That has to count for something.
RE was also a cakewalk, as RE is wont to be; you blather about Christianity for a couple of paragraphs, taking care to mention either Paul, Jesus or the Catholics in every other sentence, and that's half of your marks nailed already without even looking at what the essay question actually says. I managed to finish every question, barely - as in: drop pen, massage wrist for ten seconds, "Stop! Put your pens down, everybody..." - and that's an improvement over the mock exams, which I still scraped an A on, so I'm cautiously optimistic. The second paper isn't until the middle of June, giving me plenty of time to revise more important subjects before then.
Tomorrow morning is French listening. I'm better at French compared to German, so I predict the French paper is going to be obscenely difficult, but that's just fine.
However, the main point of this post - a meme! Obviously.
Comment to this entry and I'll pick three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:
01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?
AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER
01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
Back when I actually properly RPed - ah, those were the days, uphill in the snow - somebody in the game I was in apped an Avatar character and, after gushing about the series to me over AIM for a while, convinced me to look the series up on YouTube. Most of what I found was just random clips posted by fangirls (the mushroom-related Sokka scenes showed up in those a lot...), but I thought it looked all right, so I torrented the first two Books and fell in love. It's not an especially interesting story, but that's what happened.
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
I guess I'm not properly in the fandom anyway, in that I don't read comms or forums, read or write fic or anything else. The show was over a while ago, too, so the really big drama has kind of petered out by now. I still love the show, though; I think it'll hold a special place in my heart for quite a while.
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
My favourite season overall is Book 2, which I watched first. Individual episodes... it's difficult to choose just a couple of episodes because they're (nearly) all so damn good. The Ember Island Players and Avatar Day are both hilarious. Tales of Ba Sing Se also manages to be funny and cute, and then makes me cry every time. The last few episodes jumped straight into my list of favourites, not because of the freaking epicness (though they did have that in spades) but because of what happened to Azula, and how immaculately they managed to pull that off. There are probably others I've forgotten, since I haven't rewatched any episodes lately.
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
As said above: no, not really. But I do fangirl it when I get the opportunity.
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?
It's a fairly big fandom, but more people couldn't hurt, could they? It's an awesome show.
---
HARRY POTTER
01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
I wasn't quite old enough to get into the books or remember all the media buzz when Philosopher's Stone first came out. Actually, I don't think I got into the books until Goblet of Fire was new. An elderly friend of the mother's from church gave me a battered copy of Chamber of Secrets, and I liked it so much (despite completely missing all the allusions to "last year") that I went and borrowed the other three from the local library. I think they ended up about three weeks overdue, but it wasn't me who had to pay the fines, so I didn't care.
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
Again, I'm not particularly active in this fandom, but I like the books a lot. They're not perfect, but they've definitely got a lot of charm.
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
My (and everyone else's?) favourite is Prisoner of Azkaban. Half-Blood Prince I think is the weakest, what with how her editor seems to stop caring about punctuation and how a lot of the plot could have been circumvented if Dumbledore had sat Harry down and told him what he suspected about Horcruxes to begin with, but it's not awful by any means. I didn't like Order of the Phoenix or Deathly Hallows much on my first reading, but both have grown on me a lot - Order of the Phoenix might even be my second favourite.
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
I've read some fic before, but I don't do it on a regular basis. I don't contribute anything, either. (I am such a proactive member of fandom.)
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?
Well, it's in less need of new fans than just about every single series out there...
---
POKÉMON
01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
My memory is a bit hazy regarding when Pokémon first hit our sleepy little village in the UK; I don't remember when Red and Blue were new, but I vaguely remember remembering when Red and Blue were new, if that makes sense. I didn't have my own cart at that point, so I kept borrowing my then best friend's copy of Blue - he didn't mind, because he was more interested in platformers and racing games, so I pretty much raised my own team on his cart and only let him have it back for a few days at a time before asking to borrow it again. At this time, the anime was also on Cartoon Network on Saturday mornings, but I couldn't catch it regularly as I was a lazy sod when I was seven and still am. Then Yellow arrived in the shops, I got it for my birthday, and that was the start of a beautiful relationship.
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
At the risk of sounding repetitive, I'm not properly in this fandom either. Pokémon has more sentimental value to me than either of the above two series, though, and that says a lot.
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
My favourite generation was GSC. I haven't squeed about the remakes here yet, have I? But rest assured, I am very, very ecstatic about them! I don't follow the anime, so I can't say anything about that, and I also can't say many specific things about Pokémon Special (though what I've read of it is extremely good).
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
I've dreamt up crappy Sues and Stus and written crappy fics around them, because everyone must have an embarassing Pokémon Sue somewhere in the murky depths of their writing history. I kept those offline, generally. Short answer: no.
A few nights ago, I was bitten by a plotbunny involving game canon, HP Lovecraft and an OC that might not suck completely... and I wrote down a brief outline for it, but whether I do any more about it depends on how much time I can spend not revising or procrastinating. So I probably won't. It's a shame.
Oh yeah, but I do occasionally fire up Shoddy and lurk around the Smogon boards when I really have a lot of time to kill. The last time I did that was when Platinum was brand shiny new. That may make me a Stop Having Fun Guy. I don't know.
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?
More people writing from game canon as opposed to anime canon would be nice, I suppose. But there are lots of those anyway.