June Somthing I

I liked the questions on June Something (30 day fandom meme) and needed a fairly brainless/chill change in pace in topics, soooo here goes~

Day 1: What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?

I got really, really back into Fire Emblem as a series thanks to its gacha game, lol. While FE was always going to have a place in my heart being the first fandom I seriously created art for, I sort of disowned it between the years of Awakening to Three Houses after being severely dissapointed in Awakening (I think a lot of people inevitably do get their hearts broken by media these days, if they put too much of their 'selves' in a franchise without caution.) Three Houses was okay, but being able to play again as all my personal favorites/(villains) and actually have a true competitive multiplayer experience while being brainless enough to distract me from Hell Year? hell yea

also valter is hot lol, man I slept on him the first few times I played FE8.

 

Day 2: You've got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them?  Bonus question: What about adding a third to your OTP from a different fandom?  Who and why?

Alutegra + Seras from Hellsing is a no-brainer imo; they function as a threesome as is. While I don't enjoy Alucard/Seras as the same kind of M/s kink dynamic that Integra/Alucard clearly are, there is still definitely Some kind of chemistry what with the whole vampire fledgling/master thing and the idea of Integra/Seras being a steady (spicy! emotionally conflicting!!!) thing during the years of his absence is a whole slew of fics I still desperately wish existed.

(The even spicier option would be to say (FE) Petrine/Titania + adding Greil as the third because whooboy chemistry in Shades of Evil (that first map in Path of Radiance where Petrine shows up). Admittedly rational brain is not thinking too hard about this one other than 'they're color coordinated and would make helluva sparks off of each other lol' I'd post the shit out of that on a kinkmeme.)

 

Day 3: What's a favorite, or at least memorable fandom meeting/interaction that you've had?

Having an impromptu hellsing photoshoot at my convention art table a few years back was mega cool. :')  So was finding my ero/nsfw art in a russsian torrent doujin dump. that being said, meeting my steady girlfriend through hellsing beats all of them - one of those animes that ended up being a lot more emotionally truthful in its camp than I think it ever intended.
 

Day 4: What are the origins of your penname/username?

 
Writing LOZ (OoT/MM) fanfiction was my gateway drug? to the internet as a whole, and teen!krad needed a name for an OC-villain that came out of Ikana Valley (alluded to as Dark Vale in the fic aka <=> krad elav > 'krad(e)elav' > added an extra E because it sounded edgy lol) 
 

Day 5: Compare and/or contrast your very first fandom obsession and your very latest fandom obsession.

 

i mean zihark's kind of the alpha and omega of my fandom contribution lmao (more on that later, likely). LOZ was kind of the ... proto-fandom? pre-interet-pre-knowlage-of-fandom so it's really interesting to remember how I started creating and consuming online by making sites and blog posts and forum posts (thedesertcolossus, serenesforest, thedekunut, etc)... then there was the whole span of social media years where other fandoms came and went ... aaaand now I'm back basically 100% on my site / randomly posting in fire emblem forums again, if a little less fandom-focused.

 I met a lot of cool people on the years of social media but it's ... interesting seeing how very *little* of that permanence remains today. I don't know if I regret my social media years, I guess? It's a little sad.  I think I appreciate them for what they were especially pre-2017, but fandom is pretty unrecognizable from how I care to participate in it, these days. (shrines/fansites, early tumblr, kinkmemes, incredible nsfw/edgy fandom art with soul, etc)

(I think it's one of the reasons that this meme looked appetizing - a gentle way to remember the good sides of fandom without being far too specific.) 

RIP Zorro

( cw: peaceful pet passing ) 

( 2003-2021 )

( for a bit of levity: this is the picture that still makes me crack up every time tho ) 

June Somthing II

Day 6: What's a fandom that you wish had a bigger following?

I don't know if I'd ever curse the fandoms I actually like with increased size, because I've directly gone through the whole "fandom gets a remake/relaunch/etc" and it absolutely destroying the social fabric from before (cough, star wars EU, FE, soon-to-be-hellsing).

That being said, there's specific swaths of Neon Genesis Evangelion with character focus on Yui, Misato, Ritsuko, Fuyu, Gendo and the adults that I think is criminally under-loved in comparison for the usual adoration of the children characters. Those adults are fucked up, man. I'd like to see more fucked up art because I'm a sadist like that. :')  I'd like that side of the cast to get equal attention in a perfect world.

 

Day 7: What's the longest time you've been in a fandom. Not necessarily your oldest fandom, but a fandom that you started and still continue to read/write/create content for in some way.

Fire Emblem 9/10 is probably the easiest answer. While I also like the rest of the world/story tremendously, you can trace a pretty straight line backwards from this art log of Zihark from my latest works alllllll the way back to the very first artworks I uploaded on deviantART. :')  For a while he was just a favorite/fun character to draw listen swordmasters are hot man but these days when everything feels so grey and there's nothing in the tank, doodling him is literally the one reliable way to hold that artist's flame alive. I've learned to stop questioning that, years ago, and well, it's no exaggeration to say that the discipline learned in drawing him inadvertently gave me a vast majority of my career opprotunities. (Life, man. s'weird.)

FF7 is another one of those that I've had a weird relationship with. I was a fangirl of Sephiroth the first time I clapped my eyes on that sexy leather-studded arse, was one of those rewatching FF:AC all the time due to mostly the last fight, etc - but I didn't fully get a chance to play the OG game until two years ago, in my adulthood. I dunno if that counts being in a fandom, but FF7's slightly ... dirty, horror-core rawness really moved me in a way I haven't had a game do in years. It's an honor to have it quietly shadowing me.

 

Day 8: Crack!fic - We all know it. What's your opinion of it, and if you want, show us an example.

Love it, crackfic and villain crackships fuel my soul. I was into Hux/Rose for about a week or two and actually found this adorable (finished!) ballet AU of them that unfortunately is deleted. It's the exact kind of villain ship with a side of redemption and glove kink to read when you just need to space out for a few days.

That being said, you can't beat this lesbian Cars fic.

 

Day 9: Drop the cast of a fandom you follow into a reality tv show - who/what/why?  If you need a list of reality TV show examples, click here.

Day 10: Drop your OTP or small ensemble from the fandom they're in into another fandom - how do they do?

 

Day 11: What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?
 

Increased attention, and number of folks younger than ~30 is a pretty reliable indicator of the kind of drama I prefer to steer clear of. Put it this way - anything "newer" than Hetalia in terms of popular fandoms is a hard turn off for me. Which is nice in some respects because you can pick up a popular videogame (like say, Fallout New Vegas) 10 years later for dirt cheap and a relatively chill fandom in one go. : P 
 

Day 12: Who is someone that you share the most fandoms with?

I actually try to not share too many fandoms with any one person; made that costly mistake a few times in college and as friend/fandom networks fell apart, it hurt a lot to realize you had nothing in common with the person other than a franchise that you were starting to hate, anyway. (It's also not fair on that person, for friendship to be based in taste of media that's fickle). 

My girlfriend and I like a lot of the same tropes (we're both villain fuckers; she introduced me to some exquisite Snapefucker fics recently) - and she's had a ball introducing me to fandoms I never knew existed (Dragon Ball Z Abridged, for instance), and vice versa. We're never offended if we don't glom onto something, though.

Day 13: Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.

IDK man, I'm here for a wide variety of pretty hardcore taboos (gestures vaguely at my Ao3 bookmark list).  I could say something like medical trauma (IRL pix being the most consistent squick) and yet I've got a fair few eroguro fics bookmarked involving Medic from TF2 not to mention some delicious whump/experimentation trauma fics involving Alucard.

It really depends on the fan-creator.  That being said I'd fight to my grave for freedom of expression in fanwork, no matter how sordid or unsavory.