The Un-Important But Honest Backstory (Blah, Blah, Blah)
Hello, my name is Kirk Spencer Van De Walker.
My fan name is Kai Wolf at Science Fiction and Anime Conventions.
Generally online I’m called Timekeeper (or Kai Wolf if Timekeeper is taken.)
I’m approximately 24 years (as of this writing.)
I'm a male college student who's a born-again christian and believes in the power of the holy spirit, who thanks God for every single iota of Fandom out there and for every day.
My relationship to fandom:
- I’m a fan of the Science Fiction and Fantasy literary genres (and the fan-run conventions that are associated with those said genres.)
- I’m a Lego Fan.
- I’m an occasional fan of trains.
- I’m a fan or Okatu of anime, manga and all things Japanese (including Tokyo Disney Resort, which I haven’t visited yet, but hope to do so in the future.)
- I’m also a fan of all things Disney.
- I’m also a furry, but I don’t let that hinder me one bit.
- I read books, novels, non-fiction, Sunday funnies, comic books, graphic novels, manga (Japanese comic books), manwah (Korean comic books), webcomics and digital comics (there is a difference between the last two readable materials which I will explain in a future post.)
- I listen to various genres of music, but mostly arrangements of video game and Disney music, particularly classical and jazz arrangements and some new age, or as my brother calls it, elevator music.
- I’ve see a lot of different viewable media such as Movies, Television, Original Home Video and Digital Releases especially anime, (including Original Video Animations or OVAs and Original Net Animations or ONAs.)
- I am also a Secret Master of Fandom (or SMoF for short, will explain later.)
You’re Reasons for a blog in the first place?
I essentially created this blog so that I have someplace for all those geeky, nerdy and fandom related topics that I have thought about writing over the years, such as what’s in Disney fandom and what it is all about; what common mistakes people make when you mention the word “science fiction convention”; answers to word definitions such as Anime (the French word for animation) and the genre for Japanese animation, etc. I hope to answer those, plus do reviews on viewable media such as a serious-comedy trilogy from Mad House (comprised of Jubei-Chan, Carried by the Wind: Tsukage Ran and Jubei-Chan 2) and the obscure Bandai Entertainment Catalog. Some histories, such as a history of sci-fi conventions and their off-spring; theories such as what happened to Japan during that time was reflected in their animation from Neon Genesis Evangelion to the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime series (and every Japanese animation between those titles, including OVAs and films.) Hamlet’s famous monologue serving as the guide for the Kingdom Hearts series, etc.
I might add, I felt inspired to write about geeky things, but doing so in an academic style (and to keep up with my writing.) My closest inspiration would be Foxxfur’s blog, "Passport To Dreams Old & New." The other reason was so that I could give my thoughts through reviews and retrospectives.
Why is this blog called exactly?
Now changing gears again… Why is this blog named as ‘X-Ing Over’?
Well, I tried naming my blog as ‘Crossing Over’, but that name had already been taken, so I stuck it out with this name.
From googling the meaning of the word, crossover, it refers to “a point or place of crossing from one side to the other.” A crossover is commonly associated in readable and viewable media such as found in a fictional crossover, a famous visual printed example being the comic book mini-series, “Archie Meets the Punisher.” An infamous example of a filmed fictional crossover would be the first “Alien vs. Predator” movie, playable media such as the Capcom Versus video games series, etc.
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| Yeah, it's that famous. |
There are lots of displays of crossovers in video games such as the fairly recent release of Project X-Zone which features various video game characters interacting in a number of different and varied environs. In manga, Osasu Tezuka often reused and displayed his characters through his "Star System" and the manga writing/drawing CLAMP does something similar to Tezuka with their own creations, sometimes in different places and settings, one of their biggest crossovers being Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and XXXholic.
A lot of 'What-Ifs' happen a lot in comics, one of the more interesting comic book subjects is What If Stan Lee Created the DC Universe aka "Just Imagine..." Interestedly enough, the Slayers anime series and the Lost Universe anime series shares the same multiverse with the names being the same but portrayed differently; such as the demon god Shabranigdo being the antagonistic in the Slayers series as opposed to being a ship in the Lost Universe series being one example.
I
could have called the blog “Amalgam”, but that is slightly more obscure, as
that would only relate to fans that like science and fans who read comic books.
Plus, it would only talk about mashing-things up (which are close to being
similar to crossovers, but not really.) A mash-up would refer to pushing two
things such as objects, people, places, etc together and creating a new
item/person/place/etc; an example would be the Amalgam Comics’ One Shots from
Marvel and DC, that mashed two characters to create a new character, such as
Wolverine and Batman becoming the Dark-Claw.
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| Also pretty famous. |
The point is, I could have called my blog by any number of other nerdy/geeky/fanish/fandom related blogs, but I wanted to choose something different and “unique” if it sounds clichéd and overused as word. I also made this blog to include as many different fannish topics as possible in an umbrella (and so I don’t have to do the headaches of keeping up multiple blogs.) I know I'm using mostly Wikipedia (for SHAME!) for the links (LAME,
LAME!) but I still need time to research and organize my thoughts for
the future set of posts.
Aside from that, I welcome you aboard and thank you for taking the time to read my post.
Aside from that, I welcome you aboard and thank you for taking the time to read my post.
So,
what’s coming up… Well, it's a column I call “Dictionary Definitions” that
would more or less explain some the words I might be using in future posts.
Until Next Time and God bless.
