Snowflake Challenge #4

[snowynight]

IceBreaker Challenge! Tell us about yourself. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


As a kid, I was an avid reader of books and manga. I also watched a lot of animes. It's interesting to trace their influence on me.

Five canons that have shaped my fannnish life



1. Sherlock Holmes series by Arthur Conan Doyle

It fuels my love of mystery.
It also introduces me to fanfic(known to me as pastiche and parody back then) and slash when I went online to look for more stories about them.

2. Sailor Moon

The first anime I get addicted to. It has identity porn, mutual loyalty, and the first canon same sex f/f pairing: Sailor Uranus/Neptune. It's groundbreaking for me to see a same sex couple treated as normal, has a prominent role and a happy ending in mainstream media.

(Sailor Moon franchise is great for f/f shipping. Chibiusa/Sailor Saturn is great).

3. Angel Sanctuary

Angel Santuary is about the protagonist going through heaven and hell to revive his killed love (also his sister) while unveiling a war between Heaven and Hell.

It is weird, gorgeous, dark and Gothic as well. Its world building is extensive. The cast of characters are extensive and memorable. It blew my mind.

It has loads of one side loyalty/pining, people making awful choice in an awful situation, love/hatred feeling. I'm reluctant to re-read it again because it may not match my rose tinted impression from that day.

3. Getbackers

Ban Midou and Ginji Amano are retriever for hire with superpowers. The manga has quickly turned from episodic adventure to explore their complicated past and launched into weired extensive world building.

Everyone has a complicated past. Former friends (or more than friends) can turn into enemies on different sides and have painful fights, only reconcile with lingering impacts. One can cling to their past connection at the cost of leaving everything behind (and the devotion may not be reciprocal)

It let me discover yaoi/BL and later Chinese m/m webnovel. It also gives me my first pairing that is canonical in a genderbend canon AU.

4. Star Trek: the Original Series

Although my interest varies over time, I think of it as my forever fandom. I love the optimism, expression of loyalty and space that no one has gone before. Kirk/Spock has a special place in my heart. I also enjoy writing them.

I have got into the fandom after its prime, treking through fandom archive, Yahoo groups, bbs, and personal websites. Quite a number of them are now sadly lost to the Internet forever. It teaches me the importance of back up.

5. Marvel comics 616

It's my first livejournal fandom that I befriended other fans, wrote and commented on fics and joined exchanges. It's really great until the canon kills my interest. The risk of getting into an ongoing comics canon is that it can easily go where you don't want to follow any more.


5 Very Specific Ship Dynamics I Enjoy



1. Best Friends to lovers with presumed/temporary death and emotional reunion:

"The Adventure of the Empty House" has imprinted on child me. The Search for Spock is my favourite movie.

2. Former friend/lovers turned enemy/rivals (that may turn lovers) (with bonus "I know you're still here!" fight)

If I have a nickel for pairings that fit this dynamic, I'll at least have 6 nickels. My first canon with this dynamic is Sailor Moon: Usagi Tsukino/Tuxedo Mask, which Tuxedo Mask spends a season as a brainwashed villain only finally saved by Usagi Tsukino in the last episode.

The canon fight between Kazuki Fuuchouin and Juubei Kakei cemented my love. They were extremely close, but are now enemies due to different beliefs. It hurt them to fight as they still care for each other. Then Juubei goes to extreme to show how much it hurts him to fight Kazuki. Such delicious angst!

My first exposure of Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (Marvel 616) is Civil War: The Confession. I'm immediately sold.

3. One sided stoical pining and caring from afar to death, without entitlement and expectation of reciprocation

Hello, Angel Sanctuary! So many unrequited feeling, stoical suffering and willing sacrifice of their own lives!

4. Human Disaster/Hypercompetent Person who is a secret disaster in his own way

A is a known disaster. B is hypercompetent and gives them a hand. When B collapses due to their own band of problem, A's here for them.

It's rarer for me to come across pairings with this dynamic. I first come across this in Cable/Deadpool (self appointed savior cyborg from the future to save the past/mercenary who breaks the fourth wall because Wall? what wall?). Someone aptly described them as a king and his royal jester who forces him to see the truth.

Fraser/Ray Kowalski from Due South gives me a similar vibe when Fraser drives a burning car into "The lake they call Michigan" and Ray K goes through with it.

5: Sad older person A dedicated to a cause/younger pragmatic ruthless person B who may argue with A but loyal to them.

Back when livejournal was a popular fandom platform, I read a ship manifesto about Severus Snape/Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter book series) and was converted. I like when both people know that A is willing to sacrifice B for their cause, but it'll be a hard decision and B'll go through with it.