miscellanium | fandom meme

thanks to

kradeelav for getting me thinking about these questions!

1. How long have you been in fandom?
oh jeez, depends on how you define "fandom" but i would say since starting middle school? so about twenty years, dang. when i was in elementary school and writing fanfic for pokemon i didn't share it with anyone besides my family lol and i don't remember reading fanfiction (not sure i even knew it existed as a Thing tbh) so i'm not going to count that.

2. Which fandoms are you in now?
can i count my little cult for lawrence dane as a fandom? lmao. hellsing is one that i've most recently been active in, and i still have ideas for things i want to do there, but i've pulled back a lot from trying to engage with the wider english-speaking fandom since it's a fucking mess. ygo arcv has its weird thought police but in my experience they haven't been as bad, which is a bit ironic considering that arcv's meant for a younger audience and hellsing most decidedly is not. ah well. still consider myself currently in the arcv and dm fandom, albeit more on the inactive side. if i listed ones i'm not presently active in but still interact with i'd be here forever. i've also been doing a lot with one of my own ocs, since i adopted him out of hellsing and gave him a backstory where he literally had nothing and so on.

3. Do you create transformative works (fic, fan art, podfic, etc.)?
fic, art, fan soundtracks, yeah. Back In My Day people put time and effort into making covers and tracklist graphics for their mixes!! dang spotify ruining everything. when i was in high school it was a pretty even mix of fic and art but since finishing undergrad i've mostly been writing. i keep meaning to pick visual art back up....

4. What was your first fandom?
yugioh is the fandom that won't die for me, or my bedrock fandom as i've seen

tempural put it - dm and then arcv specifically. my level of activity in a given media might wax and wane but if it hooked me then the interest never fades. i don't understand how people can be super into something for a month or a year then just move on. like, i'd probably still be writing prolifically for arcv right now if i hadn't had a lousy experience with the big bang that some fans tried to run back in uhh 2017? killed my motivation to write for a while but my love for the series never faded.

5. How often has fic made you cry?
y'know what, i'm not sure it ever has. or if it has, it's been a long time. i know i was very touched by some fics i read way back when i was in the spn fandom, particularly ones having to do with the novaks.... after some thought, though, i remember tearing up at this one quantum leap fanfic i read during high school or undergrad and have not been able to find again. it was short iirc (maybe unfinished?) and it had sam realizing after yet another leap into a female body that he might be a trans woman, sharing his happiness with al, and then a couple more leaps took their toll on his memory of that realization. but al still remembered and had to weigh whether it was worth telling sam when he'd just forget again, and again, and again.... my summary doesn't do it justice - the way it was written was so deft and sensitive i haven't been able to forget the emotional gutpunch of it.

i also recall tearing up at a couple of the "millennium roommates" ygo dm fan comics. and can officially-sanctioned books count as fanfic?? because i also got sniffly at some of the books for star trek tos, specifically the crucible trilogy but also some of the really early ones that are very yaoi (if you can find the original uncensored versions lol).

6. Rec a fic that you love!
this is hard because a lot of the ones i liked enough to remember years later seem to have been deleted from livejournal, or i just can't find them again :/ but one i read more recently that i was really impressed by is "For Want of a Shovel" (logged-in users only) - reanimator, heavy heavy cw for rape since the premise is "what if hill hadn't been decapitated". somehow he wins custody of meg and west after her father and dan both die in an alternate version of the events of the movie. it does a great job with west and meg's perspectives and the effects of hypnosis/drugging combined with repeated sexual assault, and hill is so fucking sleazy and awful in this i love it. like in the official novelization but written way better imo haha. it's loads of fun if you like reading what-if fics where the villain wins, even if it's only a temporary victory. someone also did fanart for it here, using a scene from the middle of the story. i only found the fic because i was searching the hill/west tag and after running out of fics in english was going to try one in russian. running it through deepl made it apparent it was a translation of this fic and the original fic didn't have any ship tags so thanks, russian fan!

7. Who's your ult OTP?
i want to have an answer for ygo dm but i've spent so much time with that series i've become very omnivorous so this is a tough one. can't go wrong with puzzleship tho. arcv is easy - sawayuu/dartship all the way, and crewshipping but that one's mostly just me cooking my own food, haha. i still have a huge soft spot for ships with kawamura from prince of tennis (and you can really see that my tastes haven't changed much since high school when i say my fav ship with him is akutaka lmao. i do love fujitaka and momotaka tho. once i start listing off tenipuri combos it's hard to stop so i'll just quit here) and nart ships like kakairu and naruiru.... obviously i'm a multishipper lmfao.

8. Share a pic that would convince someone to fall for your current fandom!
you can just look at my blog if you want to see pictures/videos of lawrence dane. otherwise oh man where do i start? uhhhh look at this meme redraw i did with my not-hellsing oc (dude with the scar, i named him maurice and i have walls of text about him here)

9. Have you ever met a fandom friend IRL?
reader, i'm married to one. but otherwise, not very often - my first fandom friends were ones i made irl. i've met a grand total of three who were previously online-only. the first person is the one i married. the second turned out to be a horrible human being lol. the third one was great! i hosted her during a cross-country move she was making and it was fun getting to shoot the shit and put a face to the handle. i was really awkward though i'm sorry. social skills definitely degraded during covid.... but i'd still be happy to try meeting up with other people, if it works out!

10. What's the last fandom merch or craft you got?
i think it was the international hellsing anthology. i've been meaning to get the new anthology from that circle (no international participation this time, but still excited to see it) so this is a good reminder.

11. Rare pairs, big ships, or gen?
i've never really been a gen reader, now that i think about it. i def enjoy gen scenarios but it isn't my go-to unless it was recommended/by an author i already liked or i'm starving for ship food or really wanting to read about a particular character. i've liked a mix of rare pairs and big ships - the big ships are generally in massive fandoms like yugioh or prince of tennis where there's better odds that i'll like at least one of the main characters enough to enjoy shipping them, lol (disco elysium is an exception, since there's not a lot of ship options anyway and i've been fortunate to pretty much only see the nuanced/Complicated shit, and i don't think the izzy ships from ofmd count as big ships in that fandom but i could be wrong since i don't really go there). otherwise i tend to default to rare pairs, i think, since my favorite characters tend to be the side ones. sometimes it's the fandom that makes me allergic to a main character, sometimes it's the character itself. but i usually find a way to feed myself in the end.

12. Are you multi-fandom or mono-fannish?
as i said earlier, once something hooks me my interest in it never dies. so, multi-fandom, i guess? i do tend to focus on one fandom at a time since i like doing deep dives into the history/production of the media and things like that, but of course there's always exceptions.

13. When did you last travel for a con, concert, or fanmeet?
the last time i went to a con was otakon in like...2016? i'd love to go to a con again but the way a lot of them handled/are handling covid really dampened my enthusiasm for that kind of thing. i'd love to take my parter to a con or something like that in the future, since they haven't been to one before and i feel like those are a lot more fun (and less overwhelming!) when you can go with someone else. i don't really view concerts as a fandom thing? at least not since i moved away from the irl friends i had who were into bandom. seeing gogol bordello without them just doesn't hit the same :pensive: but i did have a good time driving like an hour and a half to see the mountain goats perform a few years ago when i was living in the middle of nowhere! i felt kinda bad for the interpreter since he was a last-minute replacement and didn't have time to review the set list so he had trouble understanding darnielle, lol, but he did his best and i knew most of the songs anyway so it was fine. it's always fun going to concerts where there's a lot of die-hard fans singing along.

14. How did you get into your current fandom?
if i'm answering this for hellsing - right before covid hit i was feeling the nostalgia itch (thinking fondly of how shamelessly horny it was - gun in a shota catboy's mouth drawn with big blowjob vibes, anyone? also erotic impalement, so much erotic impalement) and realized i never finished the manga - it was still ongoing when i read it originally! devoured the whole thing in a single night because i just could not set it down. then lockdowns happened and i had a lot more time to watch the various animated adaptations, write fanfic, and find japanese fans interested in chatting lol.

for ygo - with dm it was pretty straightforward, since when the anime dub debuted in the USA i was a kid already very interested in ancient egypt stuff and i was hooked immediately. but i didn't watch any of the spinoffs after that - i remember being curious about gx when it was first starting because of kenn being in the prince of tennis musicals, but at the time i was so put off by chronos's design i couldn't do it lol. (i like him now, but.... man.) so arcv was the first spinoff i watched! i was struck by yuuya's design and the premise of action duels was really cool, especially compared to dm where they just stand and yell at each other most of the time haha. i started watching not long after it started airing and i enjoyed the show enough to watch 30 episodes (the pacing is good and of course i fell in love with shingo pretty quickly) but it wasn't until episode 31 that the character relationships really started clicking for me and then episode 39 sealed the deal with its huge season 0 vibes - it felt like a deliberate homage to very early ygo but in a way that didn't seem lazy since it wasn't an obvious attempt at pandering. i had to stick around and see where it went.

15. What's your favorite trope?
enemies-to-lovers, maybe? including its milder variations like rivals-to-lovers (lavirs) etc. but i also can be a sucker for mentor/mentee. idk if i really seek out fanworks based on tropes - for me it's more about ships and/or characterization.

16. What are 3 tags that will make you click no matter what?
no matter what?? assuming it's about characters/ships i actually like, then... probably vomit/emetophilia, tbh, but beyond that i think i might be too picky for this question.

17. Fav fest you've prompted/read/written for? / 18. Share an upcoming fest you're excited about!
honestly? i'm not sure if it counts in the spirit the question was written, but i had a great time with

kidscomefirst. (and thank god for this q&a meme since it reminded me to check the comm and they're running again this fall! yay!!!) the name alone is top tier and i really liked how dedicated the mod was to making sure everyone got something before revealing works. with that kind of fictional erotica already so stigmatized it can be easy to feel left out, and it meant a lot to me that the mod didn't want that to happen to anyone. there were so many great prompts it was easy for me to do a pinch hit for someone in addition to my assignment. looking forward to seeing what the options are this year!

i was also glad i could organize a kind of private test run for a hellsing mini exchange earlier this year - definitely a learning experience but i'm happy that people didn't seem to feel restricted in what kind of subjects they could prompt or create. i'd like to do it again and open it up to a more public audience, maybe, as long as i can keep the ants out. i've also had a good time helping out with/participating in the

ygorarepairs mini bang, but i'm mostly in the background as a back-up mod and whim does all the heavy lifting lol. still, always great to see how passionate people are about their niche ships and the solidarity we can show each other even if we don't ship the same things!

19. What's your favorite episode, song, moment, etc. from your current fandom?
for ygo arcv it's the championship duel between shingo and yuuya, no question about it. i usually call it the courtship duel because, come on, that is literally what is happening, shingo is peacocking for yuuya and begging to be taken seriously. they've been trying to understand each other and that's the duel where they both finally get it, where shingo fully understands the appeal of entertainment dueling and wants to be yuuya's equal and yuuya sees that shingo was just hurting and needed a different way to express himself/get the recognition he was chasing. an extended hand, even if he didn't want to take it just yet.... i love it when two people who are hurt in similar yet not identical ways try to connect and show each other kindness even if they don't quite mesh.

for hellsing it's the museum scene. maxwell is such a bitch <3 and the rest of it is so funny. they made it a little more over the top in the ova (japanese fans like to talk about eating his crushed-up glasses as a topping for their rice) and the gonzo anime version is nice too but it doesn't have maxwell and anderson interacting directly :(

20. Tag three fandom friends!
if you wanna do it then be my guest :3