Pre-Author's Note: I feel like a parrot except I think even a parrot would be bored by the redundancy of what I'm about to say. Yes, this is ChibiFrubaGirl. This is my new account because the old one is lost to me. … Wow. Um. It's been years since I've been active on this site. Anyways, I wanted my first piece on this account to be special, and I felt like using Aqua as the medium for telling the story of my relationship with fanfiction was fitting. Not only that, I think of this as my tribute to the Tenth Anniversary of Kingdom Hearts.
Disclaimer: So it looks like I need to start coming up with witty things to say in these again…
o…o
Looking back on it now, Aqua found that it was hard to tell where it all first started.
She remembered setting up the account. Yes. And she remembered writing her first stories. That was all pretty clear. But when did she start reading fanfiction in the first place? The easiest way to trace it back was to start at the beginning. That was in sixth grade, which meant that it had been eight years since then. Eight years made up of inexplicable circumstances and little instances that brought her to where she was that very moment. To Aqua, the whole process appeared completely ineffable.
Then, suddenly, she smirked to herself as she realized, in true metacognitive fashion, that eight years ago she also would not have known the word ineffable. That word she had picked up on the definition from watching How I Met Your Mother—a show that she only got so into because it was the only show she and her boyfriend both watched. The revelations in her life that came with growing up, such as acquiring said boyfriend, would have definitely shocked that little girl from eight years ago.
And the whole thought process came full circle.
Circles aside, there was a chronological chain of events that had brought her to this moment in time. And that chain started eight years prior, in the month or two leading up to the Christmas of her sixth grade.
o…o
More than anything, Aqua remembered it as being the song that initially drew her in. An excellent argument for the power of music in advertising, the commercial would come on and right away that melody would strike up and fill her living room as she sat on the floor with her homework or drawings spread out on the coffee table before her.
"When you walk away
You don't hear me say please
Oh baby, don't go
Simple and clean is the way that you're making me feel tonight
It's hard to let it go"
Well, that and the Disney characters.
The fascinating combination of the two drew her child self's attention. Every time those words came on the TV, her eyes would instantaneously spring up to the screen. It was obvious to her parents as well, thus rendering Aqua's declaration that she'd like the game for Christmas as wholly unnecessary.
One conversation between her and her classmate on the matter was particularly clear, for whatever reason.
"You're getting Chain of Memories?" Axel asked, his eyes big with the enthusiasm he always had for friends. Especially back then. The Axel of junior high was an individual Aqua reflected on with particular tenderness mixed with disappointment due to events to come in high school.
"Yeah!" she replied in earnest. Axel was always fun to talk about video games with. Of course, video games in this sense referred mainly to Pokémon as that was their largest area of discussion. Other remembered conversations spooled forth from that one central discussion that had been held in front of the cupboards in the sixth grade history teacher's classroom: Axel arguing that Aqua resembled the main character of a new Pokémon game, and asking her about one of the villains in Chain of Memories—identified as The Trick Master, in retrospect.
That was the period leading her to Christmas. Christmas day itself was a little foggier than those individual conversations that stood out for reasons unclear. But Aqua could still distinctly remember the game's shining silver box appearing in stages as wrapping paper was carefully pulled off. And she could remember that, after the other presents were opened and fussed over, her first move in the strategic process known as Christmas was to start the game, sitting cuddled up in her blanket on the couch with snow outside and the promise of more presents later that day at her grandparent's house where she would show off her new game to her two cousins—one of whom would get the same game and begin his own interest in the series early in the next year.
o…o
The trail from getting Chain of Memories to getting into fanfiction was clouded in Aqua's memory. But the vague outline was still there. Almost more than the game's actual main characters, she had been particularly drawn to the side characters making cameo appearances from their original games—especially that good looking blonde one with the sword.
But she hadn't known the stories behind each of these characters, as their original games were a foreign concept to her. This combined with her poor internet skills at the time, led her to whatever sites she could find descriptions of their story on. Which inevitably led to the fanfiction.
"All But Blood" had been the title and the story was practically canon in its portrayal of the two characters' suffering as hostages to the evil overlording company that provided their original game's antagonism. She had read that and slowly begun the process of moving on to other fanfiction.
o…o
Junior high was an interesting and varied time when it came to peoples' internet use. Facebook wasn't a thing. Some people had MySpace. But overall, most were as uninvolved in the internet as Aqua had been. And she certainly didn't have her own email account.
Now looking back, Aqua found it impossible to remember the conversation in which she had expressed her desire to Axel to write more of the fanfiction that she had been reading online. But somehow, miraculously, Axel had offered up his email address for the account.
And like that, Axel became Aqua's secretary.
It may have had something to do with his crush on her.
o…o
Writing became an integral part of Aqua's life. She loved getting reviews; it was all the positive encouragement from strangers that a girl in junior high could ask for. The community of fans and writers she found herself in was fun. And she did an incredible amount of reading through the other fanfics she came to love and obsess over.
Her dive into this dimension of writing, reading, reviewing, and receiving reviews was egged on by her friends. Larxene had been the one to get Chain of Memories shortly after Aqua, and the two close friends had talked endlessly about it (see again: hot blond with giant sword). When she and Axel set up her account, Aqua wasted no time in telling her friends all about it. And they in turn wasted no time in setting up their own accounts.
After all, each girl had their own thing they were passionate about. Their own obsession that fanfiction enabled them to express themselves over. Selphie had Pirates of the Caribbean and, really, anything Johnny Depp related. Xion had her miscellaneous, girly TV shows. Tifa bounced around between fandoms before ultimately settling on Aqua's; which was completely ridiculous because she hadn't even played the games.
Yet again, Aqua found herself looking back on those days through a bittersweet lens. How many of those girls—her closest friends in junior high—had she stayed in touch with? What had high school done to all of them? And, ringing through her mind more prominently than any of those questions combined, was it normal to grow apart (or break apart in some cases) from so many friends?
o…o
One of the proudest moments in Aqua's life had come during her eighth grade award ceremony when she found out she had won recognition in a statewide writing competition for students in her age group. It had come as a surprise. Ms. Klauser had forced her accelerated English students to enter that way earlier on in the year; Aqua had all but forgotten about it.
No one told her she'd be getting a special award. Special awards that went to individuals (rather than most of the grade) went to athletes. Or people on Student Council. Hearing her name read aloud (and for something English related too!) had been a singularly proud moment, a kind of recognition Aqua was not used to, and a complete surprise.
Thank Shiva her mom had brought the camera anyways.
It was the kind of thing that, on top of the generally positive feedback she was getting online, made Aqua feel like maybe just maybe she could achieve her dream of being a writer. For once she felt like she had the potential to actually do well at something, to stand out as better than others when it came to this thing.
o…o
And then came high school, and with it a real workload. Not to mention, those freshmen and sophomore years in which Aqua had still been insecure enough to feel self-conscious about being into fanfiction (much less yaoi, and shonen-ai, and the rest of that terminology that most American teens didn't delve into habitually). Between social pressures, school work, and the general high school ness of it all, fanfiction slipped through Aqua's fingers before she could even realize what she'd lost in letting go of it.
It wasn't until junior (and, really, senior) year that Aqua developed a better idea of who she wanted to be and accept it. And that was when she began itching to go back to fanfiction. She didn't care anymore if people knew she liked video games that much. And writing in her free time, would be an unsurpassable source of pride.
At that point, the things holding her back were time, laziness, and the fact that she knew her old account was gone. She had felt bad relying on Axel for so long, using his email for her account. High school provided her with an email address. But a complicated one. Luckily her computer filled it in her for her whenever she logged in after the first time.
Ultimately, that became the problem because by the time she had come around to wanting her old account back her computer's internet history had been cleared multiple times. It wasn't going to fill in that email address for her again, and the school had given all of the students new and better emails. There was no way to get an account back when the email for it no longer existed and she couldn't remember the password.
Aqua resigned herself to the fact that she would just have to accept she was done with fanfiction. The idea of going back on with a different account, readers not knowing who she was, left a bitter taste in her mouth. It didn't seem worth it.
o…o
Except that it was worth it, and it took college to make Aqua realize that. As an English Major, Aqua was officially pursuing the career was a writer that she'd wanted, and an English teacher (because that had never been a "back-up option," it had always been another goal equally as important). She wrote her papers dutifully and got good grades on all of them. But none of it satisfied the creative needs fanfiction had met in her.
It didn't matter how inventive she got with her thesis, or how well she avoided falling into the "five paragraph shuffle." A paper was not the same as a story, and stories were what Aqua wanted. That had always been the best thing about fanfiction; it was such a practical and wonderful way to practice creative writing. The original material had provided the basics. You had the characters; you just needed to decide what to do with them. And from there, you could do anything.
o…o
Having the dorm to yourself every now and then is nice, Aqua muses. Having Xion, who somewhere along the way became the most ridiculously busy person, as a roommate provides her with ample time to collect herself in the room. Just have a breather.
Moments like this are certainly ones Aqua prefers having on her own.
She types in her email, laughing at the fact that she is actually excited that this account will have a real email that is hers attached to it. She types a password, again inwardly celebrating her confidence that she'll remember this one.
Organized passwords and email. Two things college requires.
The day had led up to this perfectly. She had received her paper back—another A. And had returned to her dorm and internet to find more released information and videos for Dream Drop Distance. These two factors on top of Aqua's ever progressing move back towards fanfiction created the amalgam that finally sent her back.
After watching the videos, there was a brief pause wherein she considered what creating a new account would entail. She thought about time. She thought about priorities.
She clicked "Sign Up."
The account settings are a little different now than a few years ago. Aqua is careful to think about what she wants on her page, and adds her previous penname without a second thought. She has a chance to finish old stories now. To write the ones she never got to before.
Ironically, she can't find proper words to capture what beginning with a new fanfiction account feels like. But the thought occurs to her that a story might help with that, and she smiles as she opens up a new word document on her laptop.
o…o
Happy Tenth Anniversary, Kingdom Hearts.
o…o
Author's Note: Sort of reads like a rambling diary journal doesn't it? Haha. Well, I'm not really sure how interesting this will be for anyone who doesn't know me (or even people who do). I certainly tried to make it more interesting for a third party but I don't really think I managed it.
Still, I felt like this is what my first story on this account needed to be. And yes, Aqua is me. Nothing in here is really inaccurate; I just picked characters I thought were most fitting to fill each role. Not only that, I think this is a good kind of thing to do for the Tenth Anniversary. I don't know. Is that a trend in the fandom right now? Are people writing about their experience with Kingdom Hearts over the years? Seemed like a good idea to me.
Anyways, send a review my way please~ And thanks for reading!
*bliss*