What is old is new again

I went to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie a few days ago because I had the Scene points to get a free D-Box ticket and popcorn to boot. I also have a soft spot for TMNT no matter how terrible the subject matter.

Donatello is my favourite. Always a soft spot for an intelligent man.

I headed over to the theatre after work and saw an earlier presentation and there were loads of kids in the audience. I was also surprised to see so many little girls.

The only time I ever felt lonely as a child was when I didn't have friends who were into the same things I was. Being a nerdy Native little girl in the middle of nowhere meant I read a lot, played a lot of video games, and watched a lot of TV. And I fell in love with a lot of things: Power Rangers, TMNT, Super Mario, and Legend of Zelda.

When I moved to the city, I became friends with a lot of nerds and spent a lot of time online meeting more. I was surprised to see how possessive other nerds were about the things they loved. The only thing I ever really felt possessive over was Hawksley Workman and it was only because I wanted him to stay weird and awesome and just for me! I couldn't imagine being possessive of something like Power Rangers or TMNT so it's always strange to see 30-year-old dudes on Twitter complaining about kids being into things they digged when they were kids.

I was talking to my sister's boyfriend about it (As he is a huge Transformers fan) and I asked him what he thought about nerds being possessive of things like Transformers, TMNT, and the like. He said that it tends to be wanting to see your favourite thing grow with you.

"Is the big ugly one shooting laser beams into the crib!?

In some ways I think that's true. I like when my favourite properties grow and create newer and stronger stories. I love how the Super Mario games went from the simple "Your princess is in another castle" to the absolutely heartbreaking story that made up most of Super Mario Galaxy.  I like how Majora's Mask makes more sense to me now as an adult than it did when I first played it at the age of 12. I also like how the Batman films have grown with me. Batman 89 being the film of my childhood and Dark Knight being the film of my adulthood.

But I like when properties create new stories but have shout outs to the old fans. I liked how the first Transformers brought back the majority of the voices for characters that 80s kids grew up with. I loved the cute little shout outs to the original games when I played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

Bowser was so precious in this

I still don't understand hating new fans though. It usually seems related to media that is usually targeted to young men and boys. "Girls aren't into that sort of thing", etc. However, I think it's cool as hell to see little girls getting into something that was the domain of men. Yeah, love Barbies but don't feel like you can't like something because you're a girl.  I am not completely innocent though as I don't like to share. I once saw a guy I disliked dressed as the Terrance Stamp version of General Zod and I wanted to beat him up and take his lunch money.

But I could never hate on a kid being into something I love. My friend Devon's son was asking me how to play Luigi's Mansion when we both got the game for Christmas last year. I was happy to help him figure out how to use that vacuum. I got into a fun argument with a kid during the midnight showing of the first Hobbit when we were saying who had waited the longest for the movie. (Him: WELL YOU'RE OLDER THAN ME). I also loved seeing so many little girls checking out the new Turtles movie.

Little kids being into the things I love means they're always going to be around. I'll be 80 taking a grandchild to see another reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They'll always be teens to me. 

Don't call me 'Junior'!

 

-I can remember the last time we had a drink together. I had a milkshake. but, we didn't talk, we've never talked. Only if you were a regular dad just like the other boy's dad, this would be different. 

-I was a wonderful father. Did I ever tell you to eat up, go to bed, wash your ears, do your homework? No, I respected your privacy and I taught you self reliance. 

After going through my past blog posts, I noticed that I talked a lot about my dad and my sister but not so much about my mom. My mom and I are quite similar: we're both determined, we're both intelligent, and we're both the incredibly spoiled first born children of our parents. So we would yell at each other a lot as you always dislike personality traits of yourself when you see them in others. Because she yelled at me a lot more than she did my sister, I assumed she didn't like me. As a child, I assumed that she and I weren't close at all as we didn't have the sort of relationship I had with my Dad. 

Though my dad was free and loose with his affection towards me and always being supportive, my mother was very reserved with her affection. 

I apparently look scarily a lot like her.

My mom believes in me but she wanted me to be able to go it alone if I had to. She was the safe point from which I could explore the world. When I had to present a poem I wrote to a huge audience at my school's assembly, my mom sat in the front row. As I motored through that 10 line poem, I finished and ran into the arms of my mom who just smiled and held me, knowing how nervous I was. When she was affectionate, it mattered to me. And she never doubted me. When I was worried that I'd never get into law school and later found out I got into 3 of the 5 I applied to, she laughed and said, "Was there ever any doubt?" 

However, my mom, not my dad, was the planter of the seeds for my love of films. All of my childhood favourites were put into our VCR by her. While my dad wanted me to watch movies like  A Little Mermaid, my mom would let me watch Batman, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and all the Indiana Jones movies. The latter being the reason I got so interested in traveling (though I never really went anywhere until I was 16 and even then that was only to Vancouver).

My mother is also the only parent I have that understands my depression because she has gone through it too. As a teen, she went through the same difficult time I did. She told me recently that thoughts like that never really go away. It's always been a fear of mine that I will never get better. Robin Williams' death just unsettled me because he was 60 and couldn't beat it his shadows. I'm almost 30 and feel so tired thinking of another 50 or so years fighting mine.

I look at my mother though and see the strength she needs to deal with her trips to dialysis. Her strength to deal with an affliction that makes walking difficult. The strength to be tired all the time but still do what she needs to do. My mom has survived on nothing but her own determination and I look to her to see the kind of person I want to be. I want to be as strong as her.

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You left, just as you were becoming interesting. 

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I think my moving away from home was what brought my mother and I closer together. With the distance, we annoy each other less and enjoy each other's company more. Our relationship is never going to be the stereotypical mother and daughter thing but I like the way we are. We're like Drs Henry Jones Sr and Jr with me as the Indiana. Our relationship is better as a heartfelt action adventure than a sappy drama.

-They're trying to kill us!
-I KNOW, DAD