The Sunshine Award

So, I kind of disappeared there for way too long... sorry about that. Band camp is pretty intense. Now that I've got a bit of free time, I can write another blog post. Yay!

Strix Spell at How to Make Dusty Tea nominated me for the sunshine award, so that gives me a topic to discuss now that I'm back.

To start off, here are 5 facts about me.

1. I'm in marching band. That's why my blog was really quiet for the first two weeks of band camp, since after a long day, I'm too tired to blog (and band camp takes up most of the day anyway). Marching band is a lot of hard work, but it's awesome.
2. I will gladly reread/rewatch movies/books/tv shows/etc. if they're good enough. If they are written well, you can often find something new and interesting each time.
3. I don't have a favorite color. If you asked me, I would answer blue, pink, green, gold, silver, purple, red, or rainbow, depending on my mood.
4. I'm actually bad at picking favorites in general. If you asked me what my favorite subject is, I would have to pick between music, languages (if you want to be specific, I'd have to narrow it down between English, Japanese, and Chinese), computers, fandoms (does that count as a subject?), and science.
5. I'm really protective of my stuff. I get mad if someone comes into my room without permission, especially if I'm trying to sleep. I'm not good at lending my stuff, unless I have complete confidence that I'll get it back.

And now it's time to answer Strix Spell's questions.

What is your favorite location to read?

It doesn't really matter to me where I read, as long as it's a good book. I used to curl up in bed to read, but then I would stay up all night and not get any sleep, which was kind of a problem. I've read in trees before, but I don't have a good tree to read in near my house. And also, I don't like being eaten alive by bugs. Now that I think about it, though, I do have a reading spot. My bed is a loft bed, and underneath it is a comfy blue rocking chair that I like to sit in to read or just relax.

Do you have any subscriptions on YouTube and if so, who is your favorite YouTuber?

I have lots of subscriptions on YouTube. As I mentioned earlier, I have trouble choosing favorites, so here are a few YouTubers I really like:

• SciShow- my first YouTube subscription. It's hosted by Hank Green, and I've learned all sorts of cool scientific facts from it.
• Mental Floss- similar to SciShow, but it has random trivia facts instead of science stuff. It's hosted by Hank's brother, John Green.
• Vlogbrothers- hosted by both Hank and John Green together. It's got all sorts of interesting stuff, and I'd give a better description, but I don't know what more to say about it.
• Charlieissocoollike- hosted by Charlie McDonnel. He does funny videos, songs, and short films.
• Nick Pitera- an awesome singer with an extensive vocal range. His "one man" videos are awesome, and he's also done covers of really great songs.

Attempt to count all of your fandoms.

Ha! I'm ahead of you on this one! I've got a list of my fandoms on the right sidebar of my blog that I update as I join more and more. Here's what I have so far:

1. The Avengers
2. The Big Bang Theory
3. Broadchurch
4. Captain America
5. The Chronicles of Narnia
6. Divergent
7. Doctor Who
8. The Fault In Our Stars
9. Frozen
10. Harry Potter
11. How to Train Your Dragon
12. The Hunger Games
13. Kung Fu Panda
14. Les Misérables
15. The Lord of the Rings
16. Merlin
17. The Princess Bride
18. Sherlock
19. Star Trek
20. Star Wars

Do you prefer tea or coffee?

Tea, but I'm not a big fan of either (especially since I find the smell of coffee mildly nauseating). My beverage of choice (besides water) would be juice or hot chocolate.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being neat and 10 being: I clothes all over the floor, old food, and used tissues everywhere (you get the picture), how messy is your room?

Well, entropy (the natural tendency towards chaos and disorder) is clearly present in my room. My room is probably about a 6. It doesn't look pretty, but I know where everything is.

And now it's my turn to ask 5 questions.

1. What is your favorite book?
2. Why did you start blogging?
3. If you knew today was your last day, how would you spend it?
4. If you could become famous, what would you want to be famous for?
5. If you had to choose between reading and watching tv/movies, which would you do?

Finally, I'll tag people:

Amith Shaju at The Idle Mind

Ely at BadWolfBlonde

Reminders of You (Doctor Who fanfiction)

Warning: this fanfic is set after series 4 (of New Who, not Classic Who), so be prepared for feels and/or spoilers.

Sometimes, I wonder why my life is so... dull. Nothing ever happens to me. Nothing ever has. Nothing ever will. I'm nobody special. I tell this to Gramps, and he smiles and tells me that's not true. He says I'm the most important woman in the whole wide universe. Mum tells me that, too. I don't know why, but she's been a lot nicer to me recently. It's strange. My life is pretty good; I should be happy... but I'm not. I keep feeling like I'm missing something. Like there's something... someone... I'm forgetting.

I've got a headache again. Typical. I've been getting a lot of headaches recently. Gramps says it's nothing to worry about. I wonder if I should go to the doctor about it. The doctor... something seems strange about that. Why? There's nothing wrong with a doctor. No, not a doctor. The doctor. So big he doesn't need a name. Just a great big "The". Again, something sounds wrong with that sentence. It seems so familiar, and yet so distant. What is wrong with me?

The headache is getting worse. I take some medicine. I don't know why I bother, it never helps. It's like I keep repeating... repeating... copycat... why does that sound familiar? It'll be midnight by the time I figure it out. It's really a mystery. Mystery... like the ones Agatha Christie writes. "Writes"? I mean "wrote", past tense.

What's going on? I can't remember. I look down and see a stag beetle. Thankfully, it doesn't head for me. It goes back and turns left. I should be trying to kill it, but I can't stop staring at it. Something is wrong... there's something I'm not remembering. If only I can stimulate the inhibited brain cells into reversal...

My head is hurting even more. I go into my room to lie down. I see a spider. I should be screaming, but for some inexplicable reason, I'm wondering why it isn't red. I shake my head, trying to rid myself of the burning sensation. Even though I'm going to try to sleep this off, I draw open the curtains. I have to stay out of the shadows.

My head is getting hotter and hotter. I feel like I'm in Pompeii on volcano day. It's a strange vision, I know.

I curl up in a ball from the pain. No, not a ball, a circle. The circle must be broken. I can hear a song. A song of the Doctor-Donna. Wait, I'm Donna. What?

My head is about to explode, like it's been hit by some sort of reality bomb. If it's a bomb. I have to run. There's an outrageous amount of running.

Something's wrong. Is there something wrong with me? Or am I just remembering wrong? Remember, forget... Oi, watch it, spaceman!

I gasp. There's definitely something I'm forgetting. A lot of something. But trying to remember is... killing me. I have to stop. I have to forget. I have to live my life like nothing's happened, knowing that a part of me is missing, knowing that I can never, ever find it. I feel alone. Like I'm somehow the last of my kind. The only one of my kind. I am, or was, different.

Whatever it was, it's gone now. The memories are fading now. Not that they ever quite surfaced. But one thing seeped through, and I can remember it without hurting my brain: I am important. No matter how useless I feel, I am special. And I don't know what I'm missing out on, but that information is enough for me.

Fandom School (3rd period): How To Deal With Feels

Settle down, students- it's time for Fandom School. This week's topic: feels. A while ago, I wrote a post about what feels are and what causes them (note: while feels could be positive (I think?), in this post I'm focusing on negative feels, as those are the ones you have to deal with). Now, I'm going to go into detail about what to do to deal with all the feels that are an inevitable part of a fandom.

1. Remember that feels are inevitable. When you join a fandom, there will be things that make you cry. Some fandoms are particularly sad, while others will only have a few things that make you cry. All the same, you will have feels, so you need to be ready to deal with them.
2. Find people who share your feels. You need to find people who are in your fandom (click here to see my blog post about how to find other fans) who will be upset about the same things as you. This sets up the opportunity for number 3.
3. Commiserate. Don't be afraid to share those feels with others. As John Green said in "The Fault In Our Stars" (a great book that I wrote about yesterday), "Pain demands to be felt". (If you feel the need to break your friend's basketball trophies in order to feel that pain, be sure to ask permission first.)
4. Write (or draw, sing, etc.) about what's giving you feels. The Fault In Our Stars, the book I just mentioned, was written in a furious period of grief after Esther Grace Earl, a teenage girl who was friends with John Green, died of thyroid cancer. I'm not saying you should expect to write a bestseller because of feels (nor am I comparing feels from a fandom to somebody dying in real life), but sharing your thoughts can help you deal with the pain, and sometimes others might appreciate those thoughts.
5. Find something to cheer you up. For example, ice cream. Since I don't have a lot of real life friends in my fandoms, I have had many a virtual ice cream party (through comments on Google+ posts) to deal with feels. Whether your time together trying to deal with feels is online or in real life (except that online stuff is real life, so I need a better expression...), don't forget the shock blankets.
6. Find something to take your mind off the feels. For example, another fandom. Of course, that could lead to more feels... and depending on how obsessed you are, you might not be able to take your mind off the feels no matter what you do. That being said, spending all your time on something that makes you cry is not a good idea, so it's good to spend some time doing other things, even if you can't keep your mind off of the fandom(s) you're in.
7. Realize that it will never be "okay". Whatever fandom you're in, something sad will happen. If the writer(s) in charge of your fandom(s) are being honest, they will show that bad stuff happens. You're going to suffer, but you're going to like it.

The Fault In Our Stars: Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Other Infinities

An edit by me. The images used are from the movie, so I don't own them.

Okay. If you're reading this blog post, you probably like The Fault in Our Stars, a wonderful book by John Green (click here to read my review) that got made into a great movie. And you probably recognized that "some infinities are bigger than other infinities" is a direct quote from the book (which they included in the movie, thankfully). That quote is really a good example of the theme of the story, and that theme is what I'd like to discuss today in a #fandomphilosophy post.

(Note: if you haven't read (or at least seen) The Fault In Our Stars, you probably want to stop reading now to avoid spoilers. Okay? Okay.)

So, Hazel and Augustus both know their time is limited. We all know we'll die eventually, but for these two, they know that they will likely die of cancer very soon, so the reality of death is even more real to them. Sorry to start you off with such a morbid thought, but it's absolutely true.

Do they fear death? Well, they don't want to die, but from what I can tell, they don't actually fear death , or at least not in a way that consumes them. However, we do know that Augustus fears oblivion. He wants to be remembered. If you think about it, there's a deeper meaning to the fear of oblivion. To be remembered, you have to have a life worth remembering. You have to have a life that has meaning. What Augustus (and almost every human being) fears is having a meaningless life.

So what makes a life meaningful? What you do with it. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities, and everybody wants forever within the numbered days. Many religions have an afterlife, but even so, you only get one life on earth.

Living for what you believe in is the best way to find meaning in your short life. You believe in God? Good. Do what you think God wants you to do, and live for God. You believe in love? Good. Find someone to love who loves you back, and live for love. You believe in knowledge? Good. Learn everything you can, and live for knowledge. You believe in fun? Good. Do the things you enjoy (that don't detract from others' happiness), and live for fun. You believe in all these things? Good. Live for all of them. You don't believe in any of these things? Fine. Find something you do believe in, and live for that.

Another thing that gives our lives meaning is to give other people's lives meaning. Be kind to everyone, even if (like Peter Van Houten) they're not kind to you. Love other people, and show them you love them. (It doesn't have be romantic love like Hazel and Augustus' relationship, you can always show platonic love to others.) Make other people happy, not because you want to make them like you, but just because seeing someone smile because of you is a beautiful thing. Life is too short to hurt other people because in doing so, you hurt yourself. Whatever it is you do, do it in such a way that others can benefit. Even if you think you're a nobody, you never know how many people you have inspired, how many people you've made happy, how many lives you have saved. Give others an infinity within the numbered days.

And of course, don't forget to live for yourself. As Gus said, "I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence". Take the time to do the things you love (like going to Amsterdam) because you never know which day will be your last.

Life is short. Even if you're perfectly healthy (or appear to be healthy, like Gus), your days are numbered. Hazel and Augustus knew that, and they made the most of their time. They created a forever within the numbered days, and that is what we should all strive to do. Make every day count, and you will have your own infinity. The more meaning you put in your life, the bigger the infinity. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

The Right TARDIS (Doctor Who fanfiction)

Over at The Star Cult, the fanfiction contest was to write a 100-word (or less) story about one of Clara's "echoes". This is mine. Enjoy!


I don't know where I am. I just know I'm running to the Doctor.

There he is. I must save him. I was born to save him. He's stealing a TARDIS. I must set him off in the right direction.

He must take the broken TARDIS. She will be his, and he will be hers. She won't always take him where he wants to go, but she will always take him where he needs to go.

The Doctor runs away with his TARDIS. He is free. My task is done. I was born to save the Doctor, and I did. 

100th Post

Hooray! My 100th post! Obviously I need something to do with 100. To celebrate, I'll share 100 gifs, because gifs are cool.

Speaking of cool...

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I should have posted this at the beginning, but whatever...

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This next one isn't technically a gif, but it's awesome, so here it is:

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Also, the BBC seems to have only one script because there's this...

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(sorry, couldn't find the gif for the Eleventh Doctor one)

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So... yeah.

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(sorry about the cutoff in the next gif. I couldn't make it any longer)

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So there you go. I hope you enjoyed that!