Being a nerd has certainly gotten popular these days, hasn't it?
Which is ridiculous, you know. Remember the days when we were the kids in Elvish cosplay, getting stuffed into lockers - well, figuratively, at least - and teased for our fluency in Klingon?
*sigh.
Those were the days.
OKay, admittedly, that was before my time. For me, it's been all abolition of house elf slavery (go Team Dobby!) and looking down my nose at anyone who hasn't read the Game of Thrones books. (ASIOF, anyone?)
I've read a few hundred fanfictions - no, really, I have -, can intelligently debate the merits of martyring Severus Snape, can rattle off fifty spells off the top of my head, along with an example of usage, list off three generations of ancestors for virtually every major character - and that's only Harry Potter. Let's not even get started with Game of Thrones, or His Dark Materials, or Narnia, or heck, even Twilight.
And a lot people laugh their ass off at us, you know.
What's the point, you idiot?, they ask.
It's a valid question.
Nowhere in my life is the fact that Abraxas Malfoy and Pollux Black were the great-grandfathers of Draco Malfoy going to be of any use to me.
The fact that I let A Clash of Kings sit on my bookshelf for two solid months because Ned Stark died at the end of A Game of Thrones and that broke me is plain silly, because he's "not even real".
I cried at the end of The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass because Lyra and Pantalaimon and Will were braver and stronger and so, so much more than I could ever hope to be, and for what?
stupidstupidstupid
It's almost unnecessary, the way we invest ourselves in their lives, they way we grow so hopelessly attached to some paper and ink, to the fictional lives of impossible people, that when we're done and we put it away, we wrap up a little bit of our souls in them.
Bit crazy, the lot of us.
That's why the sheepish "I'm such a nerd" thing bothers us so much. Being a nerd isn't this sort of worldwide brotherhood it once used to be, where you could just bond with just about anyone who had a crush on Arwen. Now it's some kind of ridiculous excuse these fucking wannabe popular kids use to explain away their passing interest in Star Wars.
Like, no bitch, you aren't a nerd. Being a nerd means loving something, wholly and absolutely, means allowing yourself to be emotionally connected to something intangible and wonderful and little bit infinite.
It isn't a fucking suffix you can add to end of your sentence like, "Oh my gawsh, I totes just watched all 5 Star Trek movies - I'm such a NERD!"
You're NOT a part of nerd-dom, you're staring at its butt as it passes by.
(In case you're wondering, there are 6 Original series movies, 4 Next Gen movies and 2 in the reboot series.)(And yes, I did borrow that line from a Cyanide and Happiness comic strip. Sue me.)
We aren't the popular kids - because we never cared much for it. What we've wanted has always been simple - a good conversation over coffee with someone intelligent and quick witted, friends who let us use words like pretentious and hyperbolic and don't consider us pretentious or hyperbolic for it, someone to cry with about Ygritte and Catelyn Stark; easy, silly, wonderful things that are never that easily found.
We've learnt love from Lily Potter, persistence from Skywalker, and patience from Gandalf.
We've battled Labyrinthine monsters, and stood in the halls of Olympus.
We've lived and lost a thousand times.
We've loved and been betrayed, and we've closed each book and put it away, and we've come out better men for it.
There are things that our meagre lives can't teach us, things hidden in the words of someone else, and goddamnit, we take pride in that courage to learn from a hero's mistakes.
This is who we are, this is how we feel. You are not a nerd, we are.
Because we took the time to discover, and the patience to love, and the imagination to believe.
That is what makes us who are, and makes you who you are not.
We're nerds, and we're bloody proud.
Addendum:
Here's 50 spells, just for the heck of it:
1. Reparo
2. Wingardium Leviosa
3. Lumos
4. Lumos Solarus
5. Nox
6. Expelliarmus
7. Avada Kedavra
8. Imperio
9. Crucio
10. Impedimenta
11. Accio
12. Obliviate
13. Duro
14. Muffliato
15. Obliviate
16. Levicorpus
17. Liberacorpus
18. Tantellegra
19. Confundus
20. Reducto
21. Engorgio
22. Expecto Patronum
23. Riddikulus
24. Episkey
25. Evanesco
26. Relashio
27. Specialis Revelio
28. Homenum Revelio
29. Erecto
30. Locomotor Mortis
31. Petrificus Totalus
32. Glisseo
33. Furnunculus
34. Serpensortia
35. Sectumsempra
36. Avis Oppugno
37. Orchideum
38. Aguamenti
39. Diffindo
40. Finite Incantatum
Eh. So it isn't fifty. Still, I wanted to check my spelling on Evanesco, and found this: Wikipedia's List of Spells used in Harry Potter. Nifty, huh?
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