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While I almost always have, and probably always will, choose to introduce myself with my name un-shortened, one of my first memories of High School is when that choice was swiftly taken away from me.  It was my freshman year, and I had just made the tennis team.  On the first day of practice, one of the team captains declared that they refused to call anyone by a name that was more than three syllables and then started assigning nicknames.  While most of the names didn't stick, mine did, and I was never referred to by anything other than "Mel" by the other team members.  This opened the door for all my other friends to call me whatever crazy nicknames they could think of (luckily they weren't that creative).  I'm will probably always call myself "Melanie," but at this point, I'll respond to pretty much anything, as long as I can tell its referring to me.

Image: Melanie Mikkelson playing with her dog, Tyber; Source: Author

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While most of my childhood friends have been long-time anime fans, I somehow didn't watch any until my junior year of high school.  The first anime that ever watched was Attack on Titan, which I binged the first two seasons of in two days.  I was easily hooked on the constant combat and carnage, and, after catching up the mystery aspect to the story kept me waiting anxiously for the new episode each week.  After the insane reveal at the end of season three, (which I will not spoil here) I have absolutely no idea how the story will end, making me all the more impatient for the fourth and final season.

Image: Eren Jaeger and the Colossal Titan from Attack on Titan; Source: Flickr

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I'd have to say that Hunter x Hunter is probably my favorite anime that I've watched.  I'll admit that the story starts off painfully slow; in the beginning, the main reason I kept watching the series was because I had a friend constantly insisting that it gets better.  And it got so much better.  The intricate power system makes every fight new and filled with complex strategy.  I also loved how each story arc was distinct in it's setting and tone; the story never got old despite the main premise remaining unchanged.  My favorite aspect of the series is probably how each character has their own unique story and motivation, no matter how many episodes they appear in.  Characters that are given full backstories may only stay around for an episode or two, never to be heard from again.  This shows that, while the series follows two characters, the world those characters exist in does not revolve around them.  Everyone has their own story, we just don't get to see all of them.

Of course, you can't talk about Hunter x Hunter without commenting on the Chimera Ant arc (which takes up more than a third of the series).  It never fails to amaze me how beautifully Gon and Meruem's stories mirror each other, despite never actually meeting.  Gon spirals downward in his quest for revenge; the human becoming increasingly "monstrous."  At the same time, Meruem begins to care for Komugi, a blind girl; the king of the "monsters" becoming increasingly "human."

Image: Meruem and Komugi playing gungi from Hunter x Hunter; Source: CBR

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For most of my friends that liked to read when they were younger, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series was the reason why; it had been the first book series that they enjoyed.  And, while I do love the Harry Potter books, I never read them until High School.  The first book series that really enjoyed reading was Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The sarcasm and humor in these books have never failed to make me laugh, and, no matter how many other books I read, I always find myself coming back to this series.

Image: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan; Source: Goodreads

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I'm not really the type of person that follows an artist or genre; I'll pretty much listen to anything. When I listen to music, I'll put on a random playlist, and listen to whatever songs appear without paying close attention to who the artist is. While I definitely haven't listened to all their songs, one artist that seems to appear in my playlists often is Panic! at the Disco, which, upon further research, makes sense. They've been around for a long time, and they change their sound often. No matter what kind of music I happen to be listening to at the moment, they have a song that, at least somewhat, fits into that genre.

Image: Panic! at the Disco's fourth album cover, Too Weird to Live, too Rare to Die!; Source: Genius