Funky music. Yeah.
We are a fanclub of Enterprise and various other Science Fiction movies, as
Fandoms, but
mainly it's about Enterprise, Star Trek.
I came to it
15, 16 years ago, through a
former colleague.
And since then
I'm a big fan of Star Trek.
Enterprise is
something that's not
that much of an utopia.
Enterprise is nowadays
almost reality.
Mobile phones for example.
Captain Kirk's communicator was the inspiration for today's mobile phones.
Kirk to Enterprise.
Scotty here, Sir.
We're beaming up.
Notify transporter room.
That's why Enterprise is something more real to me.
Star Wars on the other hand, the Jedis for example. You can't bundle light to a
lightsabre. That's
impossible.
But Enterprise, yes,
there are many possible things.
I came to
the anime-fandom, because I started drawing Mangas.
And 2012 I went to my first convention,
the "aninite" in vienna.
First I was there "in civil", but I liked it so much that
the next day I returned in
Cosplay, although it was a simple one, "L" from deathnote,
which is not complicated at all.
But I got to know many people,
and was "sucked in" into the scene. I'm staying in the fandom, because everyone's
tolerant and there are no borders of how you should be or not be.
You get weird looks when you go out in
Cosplay, like
this saturday.
I was on a cosplay-meetup with a blue
120cm long wig.
We got these weirded out looks quite often, people mocked
us with "Is carnival?", "Is Halloween?" questions and stuff.
But we ignore it, we're used to these things.
When you do that often, it's
easy to ignore.
My name is Dominik Scheidl, I'm
17 years old,
and about
one and a half years ago I came to the Brony-fandom through coincidence.
My little pony is already pretty known since childhood,
the old 80's series and stuff. I came across the new series in
2012
at the ACTA-demonstrations, where
I met the Bronies with their signs and
their slogans.
That was just amazing.
I asked myself,
"Where from?"
So I searched youtube, and
found the new episodes.
I started watching and I just kinda fell in the fandom. You think, "a children's cartoon",
but it handles a lot of different topics, like
friendship, courage, and
problem solving.
They give direct advice on how to handle
everyday-problems and -situations,
wrapped in an entertaining series.
The
fanactivities, that fans create websites, are active in a
creative way,
that's pretty rare in nowaday-scenes. That's what's so cool about it.
The people draw fanart, they animate stuff,
they organzie events, meetups,
write stories, it's...
It's similar to
the anime-fandom.
It's exactly the same there, people are active on their own,
create new things around the fandom, and that's what makes it so alive and dynamic.
The people in the anime-scene organize events on their own,
for example
the "Krümmelday vienna", a monthly meetup
from a friend of mine.
The cosplayers and Otakus, animefans go there,
and unfortunately there are few big conventions,
so most of the cosplayers and otakus
have small monthly meetings, or go to the VCC Vienna Cosplay Club
every wednesday.
We are very active.
I go to events like, for example last year was an event at the Prater.
You get photographed all the time,
we also already were on television in various shows.
So, weird looks, no not at all,
once we walked through the Mariahilfer-street with a group of klingons,
and it was just really funny, so,
weird looks, no,
nowadays they give other people the weird looks.
There are always abysses
in fandoms. For example, I got invited to a group on facebook,
called
"Bad Bronies austria - not safe for work".
And there are more...let's say,
offensive pictures and videos.
There's
brutal pony content, like,
the ".MOV" series on youtube, a kinda
extreme variation of my little pony.
Boy let me tell ya, I sure do love apples.
Applejack, what are you doing? You can't eat all those fucking apples. - FUCK YOU I CAN'T EAT ALL THESE APPLES! Nomnomnom.
There also is,
a very delicate topic, ponyporn.
Yeah, as I said, everything has
a dark side.
There are
many in the scene
who are only here for Etchi and Hentai, so, the erotic stuff.
But they're not that active.
I mean, not that active in the "normal" anime-scene. But there's
a lot of hentai-sites,
I know one hentai-artist personally,
he draws extremely good, and
I mean, I accept it, it doesn't matter,
he draws, he's active, he likes anime, why shouldn't I
tolerate it
when he likes to watch and draw hentai.
Right now we're in the hobby room of the residential complex which I'm
caretaker of.
The room's used once or twice a month
for
meetups of our fanclubs
"Galactic friendship" and "Vulkan Spirit".
So I set up the whole room in fitting style.
That's fandom.
Pure fandome.
You can become very obsessed about it, or not at all, it depends.
How many autographs do you have?
When I say 30 or 35, it's not much.
I have a lot.
The wall's full of them.
Are they all real?
Except of one, yes.
I tried to gather them all, but sadly McCoy died
and so the best I could get, was...
let's say,
a good copy.
But it is almost worth as much as an original.
Klingooon!!!
HAHAHAAAA!!!
HAAAARGH!!!
Now you see me as a klingon.
That's one of the most-beloved races in Star Trek.
I made the costume myself, you see,
the only things I bought are the hair and the beard.
I didn't want the usual uniform they have in the movies, gray, with
stripes.
I wanted a different color, plus,
I'm not that much of a warrior, but more the governeur.
I work in a media company,
my colleagues know what I do in my free time,
they don't really have a problem with it.
Sometimes you get the weird looks, but
that doesn't bother me.
All my friends, except
of two are from the anime-scene.
Almost
daily I just write with the people, draw Mangas, prepare
cosplays, I don't really do
much more than meeting them and cosplaying.
That's why I have less time now for my other friends,
unfortunately, some of them can manage it, some
not,
and I try to show a good friend of mine
the scene,
hopefully she likes it so that we can
hang out together more often and have fun.
I really hope that I
stay in the fandom,
I promised me that.
Maybe one day my children will become bronies too,
I'd find that great, 'cause this fandom's just a good thing.
Slipping out of myself for one hour,
becoming the character I portray,
is like 2 weeks of vacation and recovery to me.
Woooooo-woooooo! Woooowoowoowoowooooooo!
Woowoooooo-wooooo! Woooowoowoowoowooooo!