And a Happy New Year?

I’M BACK. WITH PRESENTS. BUT NOT FOR YOU.

Sheww. Another year gone, full of a surprising amount of awkwardness, even for Kiersten and me. It just goes to show, the older you get, the more concentrated your personality becomes Soon enough, I’ll be so awkward that it will be like a super power or something.

Anyone interested in being my New Year kiss? What, no takers? Awkward isn’t contagious, I promise.

Ahh man, I remember this year I accidentally flashed my date to a dance when I tried to slide down the stairs. And that one time I tried to eat salad and it ended up in my lap. And that one time I didn’t leave my dorm room or talk to another human being for an entire weekend because I’d just discovered BBC Sherlock.

But I digress. The main point of this post is to reassure you lovely readers that were are still in fact, alive, and we survived the apocalypse, and to talk about some of my hopes for the New Year.

At the top of my list of Resolutions is the ambiguous task of becoming less of a social pariah. So, more or less, becoming more involved, less awkward, maybe working on becoming less of a robot. I mean, robotdom is fun and all, but there’s nothing like the arbitrary point in space which marks the Earth’s complete resolution around the Sun to harken a bit of change. I think getting some practice pretending not to be socially awkward sometimes may be one of the best methods of getting rid of some awkwardness anyway (9/10 doctors recommend).

(Also on my list of resolutions: get Kiersten to watch the last 2.5 seasons of Doctor Who. Anyone interested in helping me with that? All nagging on my behalf is appreciated.)

Fanfiction Saturday: Tumbling Down Tumblr?

The reason behind fanfiction is to create a community of sorts, also known as a fandom. Fandom are kooky and stuffed with sarcasm and inside jokes and the weirdest ships imaginable, and most of the time, a simple fanfiction site isn’t enough to contain a fandom and all the fanfiction/fanart associated with it.

Enter Tumblr, a younger relative of livejournal, a website based on users posting and then reblogging images, videos, blah blah you know the drill. As it turns out, Tumblr is an ideal stomping ground for a fandom.

Sure, Tumblr’s home to a variety of blogs, from hipsters to social justice bloggers to artists to 12.9 year-olds, but fandom blogs occupy a special spot in the Tumblr community. Here, fans are often able to connect with the authors and actors responsible for all the stuff they’re hyperventilating over (ask Kiersten about her breathing experience with Doctor Who season 4 episode 13). Not only that, but here you’re also able to find fanfiction and art and videos, blah blah you know the drill, all in one place by searching through tags or going to fandom-specific blogs. Tumblr is essentially the junk drawer of the internet in that sense. But don’t be fooled into thinking that junk is junk. Every now and then, you can trike gold.

Some of the best fanfiction I’ve read I came across while browsing through tumblogs, either by the original authors or through a third party blog that might make recommendations. One of the best parts about hunting for fanfiction on Tumblr is that you can be very specific. Entire blogs are dedicated to one fandom or even a particular paring, and because the platform is so casual, you can easily ask a blogger for recommendations, or even talk to fanfiction authors to make requests for stories or give them a more personal view.

Something else about Tumblogs: there’s a reason 12.9 year-olds aren’t allowed. A blogger is much less restricted by rules about what sort of content can be posted, which means you can come across some pretty hardcore stuff that you probably should not read in public (or so I’ve been told), as well as some of the craziest crack fics you’ll ever read.

Tumblr is huge! It’s vast and complicated, and every now and then strange things happen and we call them…wait. That’s Dr. Who. Anyway, Tumblr really is a huge place, and merits more than one measly post. This has just been an introduction, a gateway to those of you who haven’t succumbed to its siren call. We’ll probably post more in the future.

Have a nice weekend and a holly jolly holiday if you’re into that sort of thing.

A Vignette of Concentrated Awkward Juice

Most of my posts are on the longer end of our spectrum. I know I tend towards rambling, rather than succinctness, so here’s my attempt. (Characteristically introduced with a dash of babbling.)

I was at a friend’s party over Thanksgiving, watching Magic Mike. I spent the whole movie wondering when the plot would start and trying not to fall asleep on my tall friend’s bony shoulder. Then, out of the blue, the question was asked.

“Kiersten, have you read 50 Shades of Grey? You read a lot.”

When put in a potentially awkward situation, for me, the question is not fight or fly. It’s lie or embellish obscenely.

So I said no. I’m not really sure why. Was it because she was one of my more conservative friends and I didn’t want to have that conversation? Or because I’m just not that comfortable talking about sex around friends anyway? Or because it felt safer?

Whatever the reason, I told my friend I hadn’t read it, although I had, mainly because Chewitt was so disgusted by it.

Then, later on, I almost gave myself away. We were talking about Magic Mike and before I remembered my lie, I said, “Fi-”

‘Fifty Shades of Grey had more of a plot than this movie. Which is saying something.’

Everyone turned to me. “What, Kiersten?”

“Fi… Fig trees. Are those real things?”

Merry Awkwardmas

So last week I talked about awkward exam stories, but now that I’m free (Hooray, Hooray! Callooh! Callay!) it’s time for something even better: awkward Christmas stories! Or seasonal holiday Hanukah Kwanza stories.

So an introduction to Chewitt’s holiday traditions: we open the gifts on the usual day and devour cookies until everyone in my immediate family is reduced to a semi-comatose state as our bodies try to process the sugar. We have one or two days of that, and then we pack up for a fun-filled (actually in reality incredibly tortuous) few days with extended family members, until basically some fifty people are crammed into one house. We have card tourneys and other mind-meltingly traditional stuff. Most of the time I hole up in a coat closet and read until we can go home, because, y’know, I’m a robot.

But one year, tragedy had struck just a few months before. A cousin of mine broke up with a pretty serious boyfriend and replaced him with one of those rat-sized dogs. And as rat-sized dogs tend to do, it ran out into the road, unnoticed, and turned into a pancake-sized dog.

As it so happened, we had the post-cookie-coma gathering at her home, and we quickly discovered she had not gotten over the loss. Pictures of the pancake dog remained on the fridge, a dog bowl with the remnants of the Last Supper- kibbles and bits- languished in the laundry room. And little fluffs of pancake dog hair floated about like snowflakes, or like she’d never heard of a lint roller before.

Being a robot, I enjoy the company of animals over people, but I still couldn’t fathom the connection between my cousin and her pancake dog. Apparently in the two months of face-licking and degrading-doggie-outfit-wearing, they’d forged n impressive bond. Little did I know how strong that bond would prove itself to me. I liked my cousin, and decided not to broach the subject with her, fearing I might trigger some sort of psychological collapse.

Soon the time came for the impersonal gift exchange, a time when I was usually given socks or lotions or gift cards to book stores. That year I got socks, and my cousin got this really pretty mug-looking thing with a fancy lid with a little pancake-rat dog painted on. Her eyes grew teary, and she clutched the mug thing to her chest, which, looking back, should have been a clue to me that this was no ordinary mug thing. But I was busy admiring my socks. I resumed hiding and reading for half the day, and emerged to the kitchen for sustenance to find the mug thing sitting by the sink with this weird dust in it. I immediately assumed it was hot cocoa powder or something similar, and, thinking I would be a kind and thoughtful cousin, washed it out for her and stored it in a nearby cabinet.

A few minutes later came the explosion. Of tears that it. No real pyrotechnics.

“WHO DID THIS TO JULIET’S URN. WHO DID IT?”

I came back to the kitchen to find my cousin clutching the mug thing again, weeping into its emptiness. Except it wasn’t a mug, oh no, it was an urn. For little pancake doggie ashes. Ashes that I mistook for coco mix and then washed down the drain.

“I WENT OUTSIDE TO SPRINKLE SOME OF HER ASHES IN THE BACK YARD AND THEN I CAME BACK IN AND HER URN WAS IN THE CABINET AND EM-EM-EMPTYYY.”

Oh snap. Fortunately, no one saw me do it. And there was no way I was going to confess to washing precious little Juliet down into the water treatment system. If they wanted to figure out whodunit, we’d have to go through each suspect like we were taking part in a murder mystery dinner. I’d probably end up having to kill everyone in the house to maintain my innocence.

I was all ready to start bashing in some skulls with candlesticks and other unlikely weapons when my mother announced that she had a headache and we had to get home.

I escaped, and afterward nobody suspected me because they assumed I’d ben hiding out in a closet and reading the whole time. Huh. Turns out that being a robot can be pretty useful sometimes.

Fanfiction Saturday: FanFiction.Net

Another fanfiction themed weekend update talking about a website for reading and publishing works written about things you love. But first, this post requires a little background about my fanfiction evolution.

I found fanfiction by Googling Harry Potter stuff. I loved Harry Potter and I wanted more and more about it. MuggleNet was just not cutting it for me anymore. The first fanfictions I found were on Quizilla, which is not so much a fanfiction site anymore. It’s more of a Teen Nick/personality quiz/pre-teen to teen hangout. There are still some fanfictions, but after Quizilla changed its format so many times, I, like many other Quizillans, moved on to more fanfiction-friendly pastures.

First, this was HarryPotterFanfiction. They did, after all, specialize in the only kind of fanfiction I was interested in reading at the time. Although I didn’t like their search engine, it was a pretty good site, even with an “Original Character” option– which is of course very popular with Harry Potter fanfiction. But for some reason the content didn’t interest me as much as Quizilla’s did. I wandered around, fanfiction-homeless for a while, until I finally found FanFiction.net

Since I believe FanFiction.net, HarryPotterFanFiction.Com, and FictionPress.Com are all siblings in some way, I probably should’ve found FanFiction.net a littttle bit earlier. But I didn’t. When I did, I was as dissatisfied with its search engine as I was with Harry Potter’s, but I have to admit, its latest upgrade is nice. It’d still be nice if there was a Rank by Popularity option– instead of follows or reviews or favorites, it could be page views or something like that.

Fanfiction.net’s most obvious pro is its variety. It has a lot of comics, books, movies, TV shows, plays, anime, cartoons and even games. If you’ve ever wondered the real story behind Bella Goth in the Sims, here you go (Warning: It says completed, but after three chapters, the author admits she lost inspiration for the story. If you don’t like unfinished fics, I’d consider finding your own Bella Goth fanfiction). Although your favorite obscure book might only have a few fanfictions, you’ll probably be able to find some other books you like on there with a few hundred stories.

Some cons? You may or may not agree with some of these. Lately, they’ve been cropping out some categories of fanfiction. Like the one-shot Chewitt mentioned last week, some writers prefer different styles in their fanfictions. I’m not talking about whether they like horror or romance, but what they choose to integrate into their stories. Some authors like putting song lyrics into their story and weaving the two narratives. Others like graphic sex scenes. Both of these are banned on fanfiction.net.

Another con that might just be me being picky has to do with the searching again. Once you click on a category and then a subcategory, like books and then Harry Potter, you can’t just search within that category for specific words. You can go to the top of the screen and go through the search options, but then you have to narrow down the search to that topic… And when you are in the search field, if you want to include both Batman the comic results and Batman Begins/The Dark Knight results… Well, you’ll have to do those searches separately.

However, fanfiction.net does seem like the leading fanfiction site out there. This is coming from a person who generally just goes straight there without checking others out, though, so maybe you feel differently? If you’ve got a favorite fanfiction site we’ve not talked about or you don’t think we’ve heard of, let us know! We are hungry for more places to read! Especially now that it’s winter break.

Come Here Often?

There’s this man on campus who sometimes stands in a central location and preaches at those walking by. A lot of people enjoy stopping and staring, which would be a sign to me that I should stop. Considering that it feels like he’s an animal at the zoo everyone’s cooing at. “Oh, how cute! He just threw feces!”

Now, I am okay with religions. Believe whatever you want, as long as you are okay with me, and others, believing what we want. But this is getting away from the point again. (Just a general disclaimer to hopefully extinguish fires before they begin.)

Normally, I don’t stop to stare at the man yelling religion. Partially because I am in class throughout most of the day time, but also because I feel like giving him attention is what he wants. But that day, I finished my second class early, and had a half hour to wait until my third class, but didn’t feel like going back to my dorm. Also I saw something on Facebook about Religious Zealot Bingo. And I’m a sucker for bingo. So I went to the zoo exhibit.

I was standing there, listening to his points. I like dissecting arguments in my head, and some of the things he was saying were okay, just not what I believed, personally. I was leaning against the railing of the path leading to my next class and this tall ginger was standing a few feet away to my left. I noticed him because he was obscuring my view of the main attraction. When the girl came around handing out the bingo sheets, I took one. More because it felt awkward refusing than because I wanted one. Shortly after, I stuffed it in my pocket. The tall boy blocking my second row seat moved. I brightened and listened more closely.

Then, it happened. The boy was next to me and trying to initiate conversation. “Hey,” he said. I jumped. I promise you, I am the easiest person I know to startle. When I am in my own world, just say a word to me. I will jump.

“Hi,” I said, shrinking into my own space. In Nonverbal Communications this year, we learned that means, ‘I am not interested in talking to you.’ (Rough translation.)

“I just come here to make fun of this guy,” he said, leaning towards me. I mentally “eek”ed. I like my personal space. And I don’t know how to say things like that.

“Yeah,” I said, wishing he’d shut up so I could hear what he had to say about polygamy in the Bible.

“Did you see this bingo stuff?” he asked, waving the paper in my face.

I wrinkled my nose. “Yeah, love bingo.”

He deflated. “Oh. I thought it was kind of dumb.”

He tried to pull me into conversation a few more times. He asked for my name. I think I told him, “Yeah.”

Then he asked if I was busy that night. I handled the situation well. I casually (read: awkwardly) mentioned I had a boyfriend that I was meeting in the coffee place in the bookstore just a few steps away and ran away. When I exited the coffee shop with beverage but without boy, I noticed he had moved on and was showing a girl that he had the same tattoo she had on her wrist on his back. I want to know what tattoo that is.

Lesson: If you fail to pick up a girl at a strange place, don’t worry. You might connect with another girl over a shared tattoo shortly after.

Finals!

Ahh, It’s that time of year again. People are singing carols, snow is falling, and virtually every college student in the world is losing sleep and years of life while worrying about finals. So, to commemorate this special time of year, I will share an awkward story about finals.

What, you didn’t think I had an awkward story about finals? I’ve got one for every day of the year. I have awkward stories about Arbor Day.

Anyway, finals. And awkwardness. Remember when I talked about my spells of non-awkwardness, and how they are often broken by my own body rebelling against me? Yeah, this is one of those times.

It all started with Pythagoras, that bastard, who invented the triangle or something. Well, eventually that triangle or something evolved into this demonic thing called the Calculus, and for reasons unbeknownst to me, English major have to take Calculus to earn a degree, in case we y’know, need to find the derivative of J.R.R. Tolkien or something (that would be Christopher Paolini by the way [ba-dum tsss!]).

So I had a calculus final one glorious Monday morning, and I was nervous so I skipped breakfast, not wanting to vomit all over everyone. (I was trying to be proactive and avoid awkwardness, see.) But as I quickly discovered, Calculus makes me very, very hungry.

It was halfway through my second attempt at graphing some squiggly line or another that it started. The burbling. The grumbling. The oddly catlike noises emitting from my stomach as if I had an animal shelter rolling around in there. And the emptiness of my stomach amplified the sound, so every time my digestive juices started boiling, everybody knew about it.

*grumble grumble*

The guy in front of me jumped slightly, startled.

I was sooooo hungry. I couldn’t think. What’s a number again?

*burble burble*

The chick next to me gave me a weird look and scooted away slightly.

I considered eating my own pencil. Someone had scratched strange hieroglyphics onto this paper. Maybe some kind of elvish. It looked like my handwriting.

*stomach starts to play Washington post through gurgles*

Literally every student in the room turned to look at me, giving me looks like I was the most awful person in the world for having a verbal stomach.

Some way, somehow, I managed to finish the exam and get some Reese cup cookies with chocolate milk into my system.

And if I could make it, you can too. Good luck and stuff yay.

Fanfiction Saturday: An Archive of Our Own

Fanfiction is this weird amorphous thing that has the potential to be awful in any number of ways. First, it can be awful in the way that My Immortal is awful- as in, completely freaking awful, so awful that it’s hilarious. Then it can be awful in the sense that the stories are so good that they distract you from real life and the next thing you know, your life is in shambles and you don’t know what to do.

Today, I’m going to talk about this second kind of awful fanfiction, and this great new site, Archive of Our Own, or Ao3. Archive is still in the beta stage, but if you’re tired of the weird policies on other sites (I won’t name any names), this is the place to go. Not only does it host a ton of really great writers who became disenchanted with the way their work was treated on other sites, it also hosts fan fiction about real people, like celebrities (not my cup of tea but it’s out there).

But the thing I love most about Archive is the search system. It’s one of the best systems I’ve seen on the internet. You can search by fandom, tags, characters, pairings, what other people have bookmarked, and of course the usual title and author. Series of works can be sorted into collections, which cuts down on confusion while giving the reader an idea if what they’re getting into. It has the usual option to track and follow authors and stories, and it’s open to invite requests. Of course, getting in at this stage takes a while. But it’s worth it. Trust me.

So why not help out a great new site and check out Archive? You will definitely regret it once it starts eating your life.

Have a nice weekend. Chewitt out.

Baby Cows, a Robot is Demoted(?), among Other Things

So everyone who’s anyone knows that I am exactly three quarters of a robot, or…at least I was until a few days ago. Recent developments have brought question onto my status, but more on that later.

First let’s talk about what a robot is in the first place. Kiersten and I have used our combined experience as socially awkward and distanced members of society, and decided that a robot is, more or less, a person who doesn’t do people things. A robot, for example, doesn’t particularly enjoy things that people like- such as parties, talking loudly. Or maybe that’s to general. Maybe we do enjoy them. Love these things even. There’s just something inside of us- something roboty- that prevents un from doing it all the time. I’d call it common sense, but then, that’s three quarters of a robot talking (right? Maybe? We’ll see.)

So, basically. Robots= people who don’t do people things/avoid interaction with other people.

Shew! Now that we’ve got that hammered down, let’s talk about baby cows. (They’re called calves, really, but that’s a sensitive spot for Oxward so let’s just not mention it). By show of hands, has anyone ever fed a baby cow, preferably via bottle? Anyone? No one? Eh, maybe it’s a farm thing.

Anyway, bottle-feeding cows is probably one of the cutest things you could ever do, because baby cows are still small with pink noses and they don’t smell like a rotten corpse. But they’re not very smart. They have a habit of thrashing their heads wildly as they eat, and the bottle slips from their mouths. They don’t like this very much. They freak out, and then they latch onto the closest thing that seems bottle-like. Usually it’s your hand. And when a baby cow starts sucking on your fingers, it feels freaking weird, like- a strangely moist finger massage. Not exactly unpleasant, but you get goosebumps. Keep this in mind.

Now! To the robot demotion. It’s in question. And  this is why.

I, Chewitt the Awkward, did something so not awkward, something so not antisocial, that I might not be three quarters of a robot anymore. I might just be…GASP…one half.

I like, kissed somebody. It was my idea. And I did it. And yes. I willingly interacted with the human race. I typically wouldn’t announce this to the human race, but this is the internet and nothing lasts on the internet. (ha. Get it that was me being sarcastic.)

Anyway, that’s why I might be only half a bot now. But! My status is still in question because of what I said after I kissed the person.

It went something along the lines of: “That reminded me of milking cows.” And what I meant was giving milk to a baby cow, which isn’t much better I guess and is also insulting? Anyway, the poor guy gave me this look and yeah. Awkward. Typical. Of course I would say that after my first kiss.

Also I bit his tongue.

So what do you think guys? Am I still three quarters robot? Or have my cow milking activities demoted me to Kiersten’s socially adept level?

Smooth vs Robot

Sorry to switch our updating schedule up on everyone, but surprise! Instead of a post from Chewitt, today you get one from Kiersten! Chewitt’s been slacking on her posts, so feel free to leave her angry comments. They actually motivate her! I promise.

Most of our posts so far have been about awkward things we’ve gone through. We’re almost magnets for awkward situations. Since this is a blog about awkward situations, you’re probably not surprised.

But there is another kind of person that needs to be discussed or this blog will be lacking the other point of view. There is a person who resists awkward situations instinctively. I’m not saying that these people are afraid of awkwardness or anything, in fact, they might not even know what awkward really feels like. Because these people are just smooth. These smooth people have the ability to suck the awkwardness out of us robots like Chewitt and I like leeches used to suck blood out of sick people. Except there are no doctors administering smooth people, they just walk around, free, not helping as many people as they could.

Mostly kidding. These people are like a goldmine to find. I found one in Old Navy on Black Friday and I let her slip away, but the experience of being around someone who wouldn’t let my awkwardness into our conversation like your little brother or sister listening to all your phone calls… It was nice.

This post goes against the entire idea of this blog. A not awkward encounter? Why am I even talking about it? Because it raises an important question. Are the things we post about awkward? Or is it us, the people, making it awkward?

Maybe there is a way to train the socially awkwardness out of a person. But maybe this idea is like those camps that claim to take the “gayness” out of people. (Read: ludicrous.) Maybe it’s just another part of who we are. We’re people who don’t know how to progress through social situations—and that’s not a bad thing. Hopefully it’s provided you with a few laughs. It’s definitely kept Chewitt and I entertained through the years.

Leave your thoughts if you want to. I’m interested to know if other people assumed it was the people who made things awkward and not the situations, because I definitely assumed it was the topics or this big looming unavoidable thing. Let us know!