Monday Meme: The Geeky Meme

There is a certain irony in Strawberry making this meme a geeky meme about what we think is geeky, since I just started practicing writing in Circular Gallifreyan, one of the Alphabets of the Timelords based off of the recent series of Dr. Who, over the last couple of days. Circular Gallifreyan as I'm learning it isn't a language; it is more a cipher - meaning with a couple exceptions (y and c), one is simply reproducing English letters in a new form. I started where a lot of people start with a new cypher, especially one as gorgeous as this one - with my name and the names of people I spend the most time with, so at the top we have my name (Deoridhe Grimsdottir), and below we have Charlie and Rowan, two of my closest friends. A few steps into the process, I realized how easy it was to color these black and white shapes, and proceeded to do so according to what made sense for me, with the open spaces of consonants the background color while the vowels and the circle the consonants are cut out of are color two different colors or fades. Rainbows were obvious for me, and I tried to match the coloration to each person whose name I was making, trying to capture some of their personality in what appears to be abstract art.

Doctor Who was my first fandom (arguably my second; it's difficult to figure out if I was playing with My Little Ponies first, or watching Doctor Who), and was my fandom before we really had the concept of fandoms. The first episode I remember watching was Doctor 5 in The Caves of Androzani, peeking over the back of a couch because I was supposed to be in bed. I still remember being terrified at the changes to Peri's face, and how much I wanted to have watched it from the beginning. Doctor 4 is really "my" Doctor, though; the goofy curly haired man I grew up with. When he was exchanged for Doctor 5 I was outraged and upset, and I didn't grow to like Doctor 5 until years later when I rewatched the series without the same emotional attachments I had had; I still love Doctor 4 best, but I grew to appreciate Doctor 5's subtle humor, and while I still really dislike Doctor 6, when he began I loved Doctor 7 dearly and I was willing to accept subsequent Doctors without the same fire of partiality that drove me when I was a child and a teenager. I still prefer the pacing and story development of the earlier style of season, but I accept that the current style as well - Doctor Who has always been a reflection of our current times, and so it's imperfect as all things are imperfect, but I love the world it created which fired my imagination for so long.

1. What do you consider yourself to be? Geek? Nerd? Dork? None of the above? All of the above? – I'm probably closest to a Geek. I was always too socially savvy to be a Nerd, though I was friends with Nerds, and I lived comfortably in the Nerd / Geek / Freak nexus that existed in my High School. I played tabletop Roleplaying Games, I own a gaming console, and I was the "expert" in my circle of friends for a video game (though I came to video games late), which I think all qualifies me. I watched Doctor Who, and Star Trek, played Magic: The Gathering briefly, and now spend a lot of my time in a video game called Second Life. I wasn't the computer person when I was a teenager - my brother and I parceled those roles out parsimoniously - but college introduced me to the wider internet and web; I was on BBSes for years, used to program on MOOs, made a web page with a clickable graphic in the 90s, actually made friends through the internet, and now write on a blog.


2. What was the first computer you ever owned? – We had a Commodore 64 that I used to write on in Paperclip and play Die Pyramid. I got am IBM with Windows 3 when I went to college, and now I have two computers - a desktop and a laptop - both on the cheap end of good.


3. When and how did you first get on the internet? – My college VAX account, which linked me up to BBSes, MUDs, and MOOs. I used to roleplay on MOOs a lot, and build rooms and program effects.


4. Which geek fandom do you subscribe to? – Doctor Who, My Little Pony, Star Trek (kind of), Star Wars (I own Princess Amidala and Jedi Dolls, yo), Japanese Anime and Manga (particularly Magical Girl series like Wedding Peach and Princess Tutu), I used to cosplay Anime characters. I spent years writing fanfiction for Mortal Kombat (yes, it has a plot), Gundam Wing, and Final Fantasy 7. I have gotten more into American Comics series, like Avengers and Green Arrow, via the live action reboots. I tend to find the comics themselves too sexist for me to endure, however; the live action can't deform women's bodies the way drawings can, so it's easier for me to put up with the rest of the casual sexism and usual Bechtel Test Fail.


5. Star Trek or Star Wars? – Star Wars, though I never thought it lived up to its potential. I also do like Star Trek, but the continual reboots lost my interest and certain aspects of it are just goofy. I would pick Doctor Who over both of them, however.


6. How Geeky Are You? – I got 81%: "Smartypants! Why are you mucking about with stupid personality quizzes instead of solving the world’s energy problems and genetically engineering flies that can find their way around windows?" I'm actually not an engineer at all, but I know HEX colors, of course - I used to manually program my website - and I've always liked Buckyballs (they, like Fractals and other bits of match which become artistic, fascinate me). It would be interesting to know why they picked those questions, as a lot of them seemed to be specifically about historical knowledge and not anything I'd consider pure Geek, but then we'd need an operational definition of Geek and things could get messy.

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

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