When I first played D&D as a freshman in college, it was all I could talk about. My writing assignments for English 101 were all D&D-based. I re-wrote Red Riding Hood as play about a roleplaying group. “Wow, with that perception score, all you notice are what big eyes she has.”
In the early 2000’s, I went through a heavy Buffy phase, binging all of the series on DVD and then running out and buying Angel: The Series when I was done, and then doing my first-ever google for “Fanfiction”. I set my screensaver to be a variety of pictures of Spike downloaded from the internet. I remember the building custodian, Denis, walking by my cubicle, and saying, “Oh hey, that’s that vampire guy.”
I quickly wriggled my mouse to banish the images. “No it wasn’t!”
“Yeah. He’s cool. You really like him, huh? He’s from Buffy.”
I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. Why? Why couldn’t I just turn to Denis and say, “Yes, I’m really intrigued by the character. It’s fascinating how he’s physically strong but emotionally a mess.” We’d probably have had a good conversation, just like we’d talked about Denis’ favorite band.
Instead, I ran away so fast I left my lunchbox (and a very confused coworker) behind.
Why was I so afraid to admit, “yes, I like this character a lot”?
A friend recommended the book, “This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch” recently. I didn’t expect it to be so life-changing. It WAS. I saw myself perfectly in the narrator, when I got on my helpless Buffy craze, or even when I was obsessing over Battle of the Planets when I was five.
Seriously, read this book. I grabbed it as an audio book for the drive to In-Con-Junction and I only expected it to keep me awake through endless miles of straight I-70, but it made me feel uplifted, hopeful, introspective, and aware of the unique beauty in human minds.
For a time, my life revolved around football, around hip-hop, around She-Ra. These obsessions come like fevers, burn hot, and then slowly fade. I don’t think any of them made me a worse person, though they might have made me an annoying conversationalist. But, just maybe, not even that!
My sister was obsessed with ElfQuest for a while, so bad that I ended up reading all of it and joining an ElfQuest online MUD just so I’d have things to talk to my sister about. I don’t begrudge that. The comic was enjoyable in its own right, and I had some good roleplays. (I was Two Edge, a character who speaks only in rhyme, which was challenging to do quickly in live chat!) Although it wasn’t my obsession, I wouldn’t have had that experience without my sister getting outright taken over with love for Winnowill, the bad guy and Two Edge’s mom. She bought a particular “Mermaid” Barbie with long black hair and we discussed different ways of trying to melt her ears into elf-points. Heat some tweezers? A pin?
So, yeah, looking from the outside, I never minded my friends or close relations’ obsessions. My husband reads Star Trek news EVERY DAY. I had no idea there’d be enough news to have Star Trek news every MONTH. And I love that about him.
If I don’t mind obsession in others, why do I cringe when people notice it in me? Why do I fear “bothering” the world when I want to discuss Yet Another Theory About Captain America’s Morality?
The point of the book “This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch” was: let the heart love what it loves. Embrace your silly obsessions, be it an actor’s cheekbones or a quarterback’s completion percentage. It’s how our minds engage in play. And it’s okay.
We have this thing where we’ll forgive children but not adults. Or men, but not women. (He’s just a kid, they say.) I didn’t hide my feelings when I was twelve and insisted on being home in time to watch Transformers every day, and it’s okay now I’m fifty to admit I have entertainment properties I consume voraciously.
Now, excuse me, I have some Cap / Black Widow fanfiction to read.
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