#once a year i get reminded of my middle school hyperfixation by tumblr

[jackie-gremlin-ghost]

Today marks 7 years since the reawakening of my Captain Underpants hyperfixation, which had been asleep for a very, very long time.

I had first discovered the books much like any kid in the late 90s/early 2000s; at the Scholastic Book Fair. If I remember correctly, the first one I had found was the second book, Attack of the Talking Toilets. I remember thinking how silly the cover looked, and it drew my little elementary school self in like a moth to flame.

I had quickly read it and absolutely loved it, and like discovering a new favorite treat for the first time, I immediately wanted more.

I was able to find the first book in my school’s library so I was able to get the full story on the two best friends who pulled the ultimate prank by hypnotizing their grouch of a school principal, and how it immediately became the worst decision they ever made.

And I loved every second of it.

As the years went on, I eagerly anticipated the Book Fair’s arrival at my school and would beg my mom for a few dollars extra, just so I get my hands on the newest adventure.

I devoured every single story I could find and bought as soon as I could, and each one was more entertaining than the last. From alien lunch ladies and zombie nerds, to a megalomaniac professor with an incredibly silly name in a giant robot with charts that you could use to give yourself a silly name (mine is “Poopsie Bananachunks” BTW), to an insane hypnotized woman with Medusa hair that gave atomic wedgies.

The more I read and reread these stories, the more I couldn’t help but think that it would make a pretty fun movie, or at least a tv show.

These stories had been with me through a lot of ups and downs in my life, the biggest being my parents’ divorce. They were there to remind me that even when times could be tough, you can make it through and still be able to laugh at even the silliest of things, no matter how old you got.

By the time I was 10, I got my hands on the latest book in the series, The Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 1. I loved it as always, but was shocked to see it ended on a cliffhanger. This had never happened before. I was anxious to see what would happen and how George and Harold would get out of this mess.

But… it would be some time before I got those answers.

Time went on, and my attention went to other things. I found new hyperfixations over the years, and while I didn’t have the 7th book at the time, I was eventually able to get answers thanks to the internet.

Eventually I entered middle school, and I found myself drawn to new book series that I grew to love, but Captain Underpants remained a big part of my childhood and some of its happiest memories. And for a while, I thought that was all it would be; memories to just fondly look back on.

But that all changed the winter of 2016.

It was the halfway point between Christmas and New Year’s, and I was gonna be 24 in less than a month. I was spending my downtime between holidays like any other bored 20-something year old; scrolling through Tumblr, of course. It was during that time that I stumbled across this post by @mondentertainment. It was photos of posters from a Licensing Expo, showcasing upcoming animated projects, be it films or series.

Among them were a few that sounded promising, others not so much.

But what caught my eye was this.

A poster from DreamWorks with a very familiar face on it.

I could barely believe what I was seeing, and from the comments and reblogs on the post, neither could a lot of other people.

It was like a door that had been long locked in the back of my brain finally burst open, and all those memories came flooding back, particularly of a reoccurring thought that ran through my young mind whenever I would look at those illustrations every time I turned the page.

Could it really be true? Was one of my favorite childhood books finally getting a chance to truly come to life on the big screen?

It had already happened once before after I read Coraline in middle school, so there might be a chance.

As you could probably imagine, I poured my thoughts of hope and excitement into the tags as I reblogged the post.

And when the trailer finally dropped three months later, it was like meeting that one childhood friend you never truly forgot all over again.

So much happened after seeing the movie on opening night, including meeting Dav Pilkey himself!

And all the great memories and friends I’ve made since rediscovering the fandom all lead back to that one moment on December 28th, 2016.

And I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

[a-vibing-potato]

Okay, but why can I never decide what media I want to consume or what I want to do when I'm sick?

Like please, I have a low-grade fever and feel like shit but not bad enough or tired enough to sleep. I've got so much free time to consume ANY media I want. I always have no free time but know exactly what I want to do in my free time and that want is eating me whole but now that I'm sick?? And I actually have time for once?? Nah, I've never wanted free time a day in my life.

Normal me is upset that I have school because I want to listen to this podcast or watch this show SO bad and whenever I have a little bit of free time after school or on the weekends, I consume as much of my current media obsession as I can.

But I literally stayed home from school yesterday, and yesterday and today I have spent my free time doing the most chaotic, uncalled for, out of the norm things ever for me, including but not limited to:

Listening to random songs, ESPECIALLY "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback. Like seriously, I discovered that song for the first time yesterday and I've probably listened to it like 30 times. (also, featuring me wanting to sing SO FUCKING BAD but I actually can't breathe and my lung capacity is non-existent because mucus and I can't go one minute without coughing up a lung. But I want to singggggg)

Watched two and like 1/4 episodes of House MD (actually like the only normal for me thing I've done these entire 2 days)

Watched SO. MANY. YOUTUBE SHORTS. THAT I COULD FUCKING DIE (pleaseeee it's such a waste of time why did they add this feature my attention span is cryingggg I've probably spent 12 hours watching shorts in 2 days PLEASE)

Watched random ASMR in the middle of the day bc I don't know what else to do and I think I'm gonna take a nap and then don't

Watched Buzzfeed Unsolved for honestly about the same reason (it's my sick show but god I never watch it anymore)

Watched a video about the French guy that destroyed his life with Orbeez and messed up the sewer system all around his neighborhood

Listened to Chrissy, Wake Up for the first time in months, maybe years

Remembered and got mildly obsessed with the "2 Days Into College" song and anything I could find with it for like an hour

Watched random animated storytime videos?????? (PLEASE like WHY lmaooo)

Played stupid Roblox games (Clicker Madness, Bee Swarm Simulator, Death Row, and Restaurant Tycoon)

Watched one (1) Jessii Vee video and one (1) Loey Lane video bc why tf not

Watched food tiktoks to motivate myself to get hungry and eat

Got obsessed with the "Baritones shouldn't sing Will Wood" videos and that guy in general

Listened to "Don't Stay in School" by Boyinaband (stopppp this is like a recurring thing I never watch him or think about him but then I get sick and I listen to his music lol)

Scrolled WAY too much on Tumblr

Listened to the pilot episode of Welcome to Night Vale

Read The Magnus Archives fanfic (I actually NEVER read fanfic so that's wild)

Heck, I contemplated getting into Supernatural like I need another thing to get into rn

Basically, wasted time doing stupid short-form media consumption that fucks up my short attention span even more than it already is, and spending way too much time thinking if I should listen to/watch TMA/WTNV/House MD, indulge in one of my sick hyperfixations like Buzzfeed Unsolved or if I should pick or or re-pick up a different hyperfixation like Supernatural??? Or literally any other audio drama podcast I've ever listened to (Hello from the Hallowoods??? Why????)

So literally I'm please begging for this to stop. If I could pick ONE (1!!) media to consume right now, that would be great, but they're all consuming me right now and I'm consuming none of them. God help me. Anyone. Please help me.

[roseofhybrids]

So this reblog earlier reminded me of this thing I made a while back. It's something I worked out back when Murder Drones made me question whether GAD could give someone hyperfixations. During this questioning, I looked back at some of my past media obsessions and organized how they generally went into stages. They go a bit like this:

Stage 0 Come across piece of media and get hooked

Stage 1 Binge whatever official content there is till the passion dies down. Once it dies down I'll typical still interact with it, but to a calmer more moderate degree. Long-running series typically only get this far. If it doesn't die down, proceed to stage 2

Stage 2 Fanart, I'll begin scrolling Tumblr, Instagram, et cetera for some fan drawings. 99% of the time, it ends here. There was a good 7-10 years, where I didn't move past this point. Until around 2 years ago, when a fan comic artist linked to a fanfic with an interesting enough premise for me to go read it. Which brings us to-

Stage 3 Fanfiction, If somehow the obsession's still burning strong, we start on the reading. In middle school it was Wattpad, now it's A03. Still, this is where it ends. Until I reached the last page of Murder Drones fics on AO3 that is. Literally, the first time I'd gotten that far and still had such a strong passion of something. Thus, stage 4 was born.

Stage 4 Self-made fanart and fiction, I've made fanart before for interests at earlier stages, but never to this extent. Currently, the only series to reach this point is Murder Drone and Digital Circus. Though, this maybe in part because they have characters that I'm actually able to draw. This is also why I created this stage system in the first place. I reached the "end" of stage 3 and was like "well this has never happened before" which made me consider how often I went through stages 1-3 with other things.

Stage 5+ Purely theoretical at this point. I don't know what this entails. But considering my interest for those 2 shows are still going pretty strong even now, we might find out. The way things are looking, it could be a larger fan project. Such as a longer comic or AU world building. By that metric, I guess the MD reference file could fall into this category. As it was a larger project that took a significant amount of time and thought to create. I could also include purchasing merch into this stage because that was also something I've never felt compelled to do before this point. Maybe stage 5 would be merch and then long form projects could fall into a stage 6. Hypothetical stage 7? Maybe going to an in-person convention? While for others this would probably occur at an earlier stage, my anxiety makes the idea very intimidating. So for the love something to win out against that fear would be notable.