My Very Own Geeky Origin Story

Hey Guys!

My name is Hide and I have always wanted to write. Unfortunately, I suck at writing and find it pretty hard to do most days.

I have, for some horrible reason, decided that I'm going to though. It's interesting, just hard.

I've given myself a list of prompts that I'll be following (Between making them up and utilizing the internet, I have about 100 right now to try to follow) and I hope that it will work out to tell you a little bit more about me and who I am as a person. I'm here for being transparent, I'm just really awkward when it comes to talking to people. Communicating. Ha.

SO

A bit about me.

I am a huge nerd, and I blame my dad. And I wouldn't change that fact for the world. I vividly remember waking up in the middle of the night when I was little and finding him up in the living room with a PB&J, a block of cheese, and watching Star Trek. Sometimes he would even let me stay up and watch with him until he went to bed.

This happened often. Between Star Trek at night, cartoons on Saturday morning, and every movie I could get my hands on in between, I definitely found myself to be what would late be defined as "A Nerd".

By the time I was 7, I had seen all of the Matrix's, all of the Lord of the Rings (Including the books, and let me tell you, the Silmarillion is a DRY READ FOR A 7 YEAR OLD), all the Star Wars to date, and many, many others. I couldn't get enough! I LOVED the stories! I still love stories.

Fast forward from late night Star Trek to a few years later, I started staying up late less and often waking up WAY to early- A habit that I have VERY much strayed from in adulthood, lemme tell ya. Waking up early meant I could watch TV either longer, or just see different things. I had well established my hatred for reruns as I wanted NEW STORIES TO CONSUME! In my early viewings, I discovered something that would change my life forever. For the better? Maybe?

Anime. I discovered anime. 5am was Tokyo Mew Mew on channel 4. I still remember that. I soon after discovered what Manga was and kicked off the "Big Comic Books" with Tokyo Mew Mew and Ranma 1/2. I only devolved from there. I started finding all the Manga I could and reading them, watching so much anime, and overall developing a greater love for new stories to lose myself in.

Video games were also a huge part of this and still are, but for the sake of not getting further and further side tracked, I'll keep the gaming bit minimal. Me and my 2 siblings had a Nintendo 64 loaded with Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Smash Bros, DK 64, Gex, and a few others. Zelda and Donkey Kong were my JAM. For a long time, my sister and I would watch my brother play Zelda for hours. It was a one player game, but we all wanted to participate in the amazing and intricate world that is Hyrule. I have to reign myself in before I just talk about my love for the Zelda franchise to date. ....That may need its own blog post... Basically what you need to know is that they were a part of my formative years for sure. My first Pokemon game was Ruby Version, and I chose Treeco as my starter because my brother had Torchic and I didn't know how types worked against each other. The first game I bought for myself ever was Spyro: Season of Ice. I almost 100%-ed it. Almost.

Okay long story short, videogames also helped my descent into irrevocable, undeniable nerd-dom. I'll move on.

I started getting in trouble at school for reading too much when I should have been paying attention. Not just Manga mind you. I lived in the library. I wouldn't even pay attention to titles I grabbed, I would just grab handfuls and read them all. My teachers used to have to take my books away from me until the end of class.

When I wasn't reading (I'm just gonna go ahead and fast forward to high school because as far as anyone needs to know, I didn't exist before the age of 13. We don't talk about middle school) I learned to play Magic the Gathering with my friends ( I ran a red-black vampire deck from the Innistrad set), we played videogames together, and got into webcomics and tv shows together.

Homestuck, Superwholock, QC... So many.

I got involved in theater for a short while too. I would have wanted to go back and maybe do more of that if I could, I just wasn't the type to...do things in high school. Sports were...not my thing. I tried though! Once. Eugh.

The Wig I “Borrowed” From School. I wore it to the Zombie Crawl back in 2011.

My short time in theater reminded me of how much I was into dressing up though. I helped them in the costuming department (and I did lights, but that doesn't really fit in here) I got to take ideas and make them into a physical thing that was wearable! I discovered wigs. I loved them.

How Long My Hair Had Actually Been at That Time.

Somewhere in there, I also discovered that I love to mess with people too. At the time, I had thick hair down to my waist. Wigs. Our school had recently done a performance of "Gift of the Magi". For those who are unfamiliar, that's the story that boils down to "He sold his pocket watch to be able to afford a comb for her long hair, and she cut off all of her hair to be able to afford a new chain for his pocket watch." It was a good show! The best part(and the most relevant one) about this was that they had gotten a wig for the female lead to wear and actually chopped the wig mid-show for the right effect. This wig looked super punky and like a pixie cut after the show, and they had no use for it then. ...So I took it. For a few months. And wore it everywhere.

See, with my hair as long as it was, it was kind of a fixture that was associated with me. So I got to run around telling everyone that I chopped it all off without having to commit to actually chopping my hair off. MWAHAHAHA! The ULTIMATE RUSE! I don't know. I got a kick out of it. And this was like a 3 month long game of me messing with everyone. Finally when everyone was convinced and it just became an accepted fact that my hair was now short, I stopped wearing the wig and got TWO kicks out of the SAME JOKE! HA! EVIL MASTERMIND MATERIAL RIGHT HERE.

I think I'm losing my grip on the flow of this blog. LOOK! A SEGWAY BACK TO RELAVENT MATERIAL!

ANYWAY, I discovered wigs and costumes and new that they were something I loved, and that being able to change my appearance entirely felt super cool! Like I could be a spy or something! I was a huge dork. (I still am, nothings changed)

Now where I went to school, there was nothing. Like. Nothing to do. We used to go play hide and seek in the Walmart because it was the only thing open that wasn't a casino or bar. Since 'Cosplaying' was a foreign and far of notion, my love for dressing up in poor disguises and hanging out at the mall were mostly the extent of me participating in a hobby that I didn't really know existed at the time.

I graduated High School, moved to Colorado, and suddenly there were Things to DO. There were events, and conventions, and meet-ups, and more so- People who liked the things that I did! People who knew about the Easter Eggs in Act III of a specific webcomic. And these people CoSpLaYeD?!

I had found my people. I soon after actually got into cosplay myself and met all of these really cool people who I still hold near and dear to my heart. I'm currently living with 2 of those people that I met all those years ago.

Today, I'm living with two of my best friends, we work on cosplay stuff together. We play games together. We help each other continue to pursue our passions and define what they are. We all have our goals, and I'm so happy to be surrounded by people who want to help each other achieve them!

So uh. Thanks for reading. This is probably what will be later known as "The bad 1st draft of an origin story", but for now I'll leave it up for you to read. I left out a lot of things that I'm sure would be relevant. I didn't want to make the one post TOO dang long. Hopefully, I'll be able to continue to write and let you guys know who I am! I'm excited to share stories with you. I have always loved hearing them, but I'm also realizing that I have my own to share. I hope that you will stay tuned to see me get better at writing and to hear some of my stories as well.

Thank you!

-Hide