Love At First Sight Does Not Exist...At Least In The Case Of Fangirling.

I was planning to spend the four day weekend catching up on reading, i.e, tackling all the heavy hardbound tomes on my reading list that would be a pain to lug around on regular school days.

Of course, I ended up marathoning TV shows/Tumblr-ing instead.

Anyway, as I was scrolling through the Benedict Cumberbatch tag on Tumblr (I'm not even sorry), I realized that the fandoms I've come to love the most are the fandoms I decided I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot long stick.

It was my sixth birthday, I believe (way back in 2000), when my godmother gave me Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Even at that age, I was already a Don't Tell Me What To Read reader. So I thanked her, put the book on a shelf, and promptly forgot about it. A few months later, my eldest cousin, who was in college at the time, asked me if I had the first Harry Potter book because she was dying to read it. Then a little later on, a family friend who was in high school borrowed it as well. All I remember thinking was, "What are these older kids doing borrowing a book from a preschooler?" I guess you could say I was also a bit of a book hipster then too, because after they borrowed it and raved about it, I dismissed it as being overrated and mainstream (although I probably used more pre-K words). I mean, it couldn't be that good, could it? But one day, I was bored out of my mind had nothing to read. So I retrieved the book from the very back of my bookshelf, flipped to page 1, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The next two fandoms I came to love and cherish, I used to hate for one reason: I was too much of a Potterhead purist. I remember loathing the first Chronicles of Narnia film and all the hype it stirred up, because my 11-year-old self felt like it was taking attention away from the Potter fandom. I voiced my opinion so much in school, that, one day, as a prank, some girls took an Aslan toy from one of those McDo meals, and stuffed it into my cubby. But then somewhere along the way, the hate turned into love, and by the time the second film came out, I was screaming "For Narnia!" in the theater along with the best of them.

Then when I was 13 and dealing with post-Potter depression (the final book had just been released), I noticed one of my classmates completely wrapped up in a Tamora Pierce novel. I asked her about it, and she said it was a fantasy series. Drama queen that I was, I proclaimed, "Oh. I could never read another fantasy series. Harry Potter will be the only one of its kind that will be in my heart." My friend told me something along the lines of, "That's not what J.K. Rowling would want." So, grudgingly, I bought the first book of the Tortall series, and fell in love with them. Side note: Tamora Pierce also gave me my first OTP ever--Daine and Numair.

Through the years, mostly in the area of films, the same thing happened. "That Prince of Persia trailer annoys me." I ended up watching the film 3 times while it was still in theaters. "Oh, great, another Marvel superhero film. This Iron Man'll probably bore me like all the rest." I now have an entire drawer stuffed with Marvel t-shirts.

And now Sherlock. I bought the first season on DVD back when I was in the States. Honestly, when you've got therapy for two hours a day everyday and the rest of the time doing nothing, you watch A LOT of TV (and eat. But that's really a whole other story). I couldn't even drive down to Disneyland, because I had everyday appointments. There was also a Barnes & Noble right across the street from my therapist's office, so at the end of my stay, I probably bought twice my weight in DVDs. I bought the Sherlock DVD because, "I heard it was nice." I ended up, of course, never watching it, until a month ago.

Now, a short month later, I'm spending my vacation on Tumblr and Youtube, looking at Benedict Cumberbatch's mug for hours on end. No regrets.

Hope you guys are having a nice (hopefully fandom-filled) weekend as well!