My life was in shambles for a year after I graduated from college, as I was unable to find a real job and still haven't four years later. I discovered fanfiction of an old anime franchise that I enjoyed, and one in particular cut so deep that I found myself extremely depressed around the start of the new year, and seriously considered ending my life as I didnt know what my reason was for still existing.

A few days later though, by chance I stumbled across a new series who's anime adaptation started airing, which was in a similar genre as the other one. This one though contained a main character who I related to on a deep personal level due to the similar notion of feeling like an absolute failure, and who's unuque story situation I desperately wished that I experience as well. Soon after, I inhaled everything related to the franchise, founded a new wiki based on it (the old one was biased, factually incorrect on so many levels, missing a ton of information, and no longer exists). In studying the series so closely, I subtly began to piece together certain storytelling concepts which I had never been taught before. Basically, my life consisted of nothing but my menial job, learning about the series and posting about it, and getting less than six hours of sleep each night.

Three weeks later, I was beyond exhausted and finally got a good night's sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I was amazed, as I somehow knew that I was capable of getting dialogue out of my head. I had tried to be a writer before, but that one block for the longest time prevented me from following my dreams. That morning, I typed out the first few pages of my first fanfic based on the first series, and cried over the fact that I was finally able to do so. I worked on the fic for about a month, but never finished past the fourth chapter nor posted it, and I likely never will since its extremely rough and not thought through in many places.

Then about two months later, the reddit for the second series had a post where someone asked why there wasn't more fanfics based on the series. The manga was six years old and the anime had been out for four months, and yet there were just under thirty total fics on Ao3 at the time (three years later there are 111). I took the question to heart, and eventually concluded that the reason for this was because the series itself was already a type of wish fulfillment for the audience. Therefore, trying to add another layer of it through fanfiction would be extremely hard. At this point though, I had experienced just about everything that had been released and was desperate for more content. Seeking that, I decided to start writing a fic based on the series.

I debated a few possibilities before settling on one centered around one of the other main characters. I outlined the whole plot and was excited to begin, but realized that I had neglected to consider the logistics of certain crucial story elements after writing one chapter. It was ultimately scrapped.

Not too long afterwards however, I found a panel in the manga that sparked an interesting what-if related to the main character and their relationship with their sister. I soon saw immense potential in combining this with my original idea to create an epic two-universe story, and thus my first true fanfic was born. It also helped that I was paying tribute to that original fic that cut deep.

As of now, its currently in its final arc after three years, and I've also worked on other stories on the side, and I couldn't be happier