Let me tell you a story. . .

[CSIBeauty]

This is basically going to be my full fanfic life story. It is going to be long. I have been writing for a long time and a lot has happened. It will not be so much in story format so much as blog like.

Overview:

1. Intro
2. It began with Fanficion.net
3. Searching for new posting ground
4. A home inside the internet
5. It all came crashing down
6. We're Fanlib Refugees
7. Simple insults blown out of proportion
8. Resolving complications
9. Going behind our back
10. A hard choice to make
11. Unwelcome to FanNation
12. Conclusion  

[CSIBeauty]

It began with Fanfiction.net

Truth be told, I started writing in notebooks not on the internet, but when my brother told me about fanfiction.net I had to try it out. I loved it instantly. The abilty to post stories and let anyone read was fantastic. I always liked people telling me what they thought about my writing. And nobody ever read what I had written on paper so it was perfect.

I loved writing and it seemed that everyone loved what I had written. I always felt my writing could be improved, but I was never really able to do much about it. School didn't really teach you how to write dialoge. Not to mention that I was going for nursing, which writing dialoge didn't prove to be needed.

I would continue to write in my spare time, even sometimes when I should have been studying. It was my own way of escaping the reality I lived it. You always need to get away somehow. For some reason writing and reading always relaxed me, so I would find myself going onto fanfiction.net all of the time, even during school.

I still payed attention to my grades and all that, but sometimes I felt the need to sneak away even when I shouldn't. I didn't do it often enough to cause any problems so nobody really noticed.

During nursing school I began to write even more and when I got a laptop it made it easier to do whenever I wanted. I think because of all the stress of school, I was finding writing to be my escape. It always calmed me down when I was overly stressed. Friends began to notice the pitter patter of my keyboard during class. It was always clear that I wasn't actually taking notes. rolleyes  

[CSIBeauty]

Searching for new posting ground

As time went by during school, I had begun to write at least an hour every day. And I was liking the comments I was getting on fanfiction.net, but I was searching for more. I wanted to improve my writing and most people on fanfiction.net didn't say much more than "update now" rolleyes

I began looking around the internet for other places I could post fanfiction. I found a nice little CSI:Miami place, but that really only helped for the one fandom out of many I write for. (Though it was my most written for fandom at the time.)

So after a few days on the CSI: Miami board and getting more reviews, I decided to set out for a general, all fandoms type of place. I went to Google (you gotta love that place), and simply typed in fanfiction. Of course the first result I got was Fanfiction.net. That did me no good so I continued to scroll down the list.

I came upon a promising looking site. Fanlib.com: Where the stories continue. . . I was interested and clicked the link. When I got there I looked around a bit. Tried to get a feel of what it might be like. I loved it immediatly. The first thing I noticed was the ability to put pictures and themes to each story. I thought it was a nice touch. Something that fanfiction.net didn't offer at least. So I signed up and began posting.

It took a while before I would actually venture outside of my own profile. It was a new place and I wasn't sure how I felt about everything else. But one day I got brave and decided to investigate the forums. I saw many fun little forum games so I decided to come out of the shadows and give them a try.

I played around for a couple days venturing into random threads. Then I ended up in the "person above you thread" I got what to do immediatly. It was a lot of fun and I immediatly clicked with two people I will never forget. Their pennames "Darsynia" and "Shilom". They became friends of mine almost immediatly. We shared a lot of the same interests. Darsy was a CSI and Harry Potter fan. Shilom loved Heroes.

The three of us got to know each other pretty well and began talking often. It was only the start to many great friendships.  

[CSIBeauty]

A home inside the internet

After only hanging out on Fanlib for a few days I was addicted. The forums were too much fun and we all had so much in commone. Mostly the writing, but you know. rolleyes

I was making lots of new friends. Some that I talked to every once in a while. Others that I talked to practically every day. Not only had I become good friends with Darsynia and Shilom. I was making other great new friends. Leila_Data, Smokie4ever, Tina_wa, and Diehardjavajunkie14. I had bonded with each and every one of them. Each I had a special bond with. Leila was overly obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean and would always get into crazy discussions about how much we love Riley Poole. Smokie was always upbeat and put a smile on my face. Tina was an amazing poet, even though she thinks she sucks. And Java and I share a love of Dane Cook. wink

After a while we started to talk to each other via chat like messaging. It was our thing. We had created our own group of aspiring writers. We would talk about pretty much anything. Fandoms we likes, things going on in life, and writing in general.

Being on Fanlib even helped my writing a whole lot. People there were so helpful with everything. They helped correct spelling and grammer. Things I wished others had done. Soon I was a much better writer and it was all thanks to Fanlib. And the members of course.

Me and my friends had been talking for a long time and Christmas was right around the corner. We had started to think that we needed a group name. Dead Writers Society was the first thing Shilom came up with. We all laughed. It was far too odd since none of us were dead nor strived to be so. lol So everyone did thinking and the name Inklings came up. Everyone liked it and so we were known. (That is were this guild name came from)

Everything was going so well. I was writing more and more and doing better at it. However, Christmas Eve was not the good day everyone hopes for. We are sitting around the tree and Mom tells us to each open one present. She picks the out, even though she doesn't remember what is in them. rolleyes She gives me the wrong one and I open it up to find a Wii game. A clear indication of what I would be getting. I was excited for several minutes. Then my brother opens his gift. He gets a new Sims2 game. He mentions that I still forgot to get the first one back from a friend. Then the yelling begins.

I get chewed out for not thinking about getting it before Christmas. And that if I dont get it soon they will take back my biggest gift. I was thinking there could have been a better time for that, but I just walk to my room without a word. I wanted to enjoy Christmas Eve, but they sucked the fun right out of it.

The first thing I do is go straight to Fanlib.com and head to the forums. Leila is of course there. She was always there. She was the number 1 member on the site. Me? I was number 3 at the time. I begin to tell her of my day and she gives me an internet hug and tells me that she has a Christmas present for me. She gives me the link to an image she put up and go straight there. This was of course not long after our Obsessive Riley discussion.



Despite everything I got that day it was the best gift. I was feeling horrible and she gave me a wonderfully thoughtful gift that made my Christmas that year.

This was around the time my friend Anna introduced me to a friend she had on Fanfiction.net. Pigslay was her name. I talked a bit with her on FFN, but not so much. I never really checked out her profile. I didn't ever think about it. But I got along with her well enough, but she didn't want to come to Fanlib for some reason.

Anna became another of my good friends. We both shared a love of iCarly and H2O. It seemed like there was always somebody there I could talk to. It had become my internet home. I loved it so much and I almost never went anywhere else.  

[CSIBeauty]

It all came crashing down

I had been on Fanlib for so long and I was making tons of friends. I wrote many stories for random member made contest and even made a few of my own. The most popular ironicly being the "Unpopular Fandoms Contest". I had the best times ever there.

So many people had joined fanlib. Over 25000 to be exact. We were even getting more. An old website known as Fanlit which was associated with fanlib was closing down. And all of there members came flocking to fanlib. We all welcomed them with open arms. We wanted to make them feel at home and help in any way that we could. We were all a sort of family.

I had even had the highest honor that you could get on Fanlib. One of my stories was featured. It takes a lot for that to happen and when I found out it made my month.

I had recently been having some internet problems so I was unable to get on as often as usual. It always seemed like I would miss things too. But I always caught up and everything would be fine. But one time when I came back it wasn't so fine. I went to our usual chat and asked what had been going on. We all shared some random stories and I noticed that something was off. Our friend Anna was no longer in our group chat. When I asked why, Shilom explained.

Apparently during the time I was gone Anna created another account and acted like she was one of her friends. She called herself Pigslay. My heart dropped immediatly. I interupted stated that I had been talking to someone who called themself Pigslay for over 4 months. This just made everyone else more mad. Shilom said she could tell it was Anna by the exact same interests that she put up on the profile. When I realized that I never checked Pigslay's FFN profile I went there to check it out. It was so obviously Anna that it wasn't funny. I felt like an idiot not bothering to check the profile before.

It seemed as if Anna had planned this little trick for a while. None of us could figure out why. All we knew was that she had lost her trust forever. Nobody wanted to talk to her. She had always seemed a little "odd" for lack of a better term, but now we knew that she couldn't be trusted.

We were all annoyed for a while. It was the worst thing that had happened to us on Fanlib. That is until July 23, 2008.  

[CSIBeauty]

We're Fanlib Refugees

July 23, 2008 was one of the worst days of my life. As I was beginning to log into fanlib there was a large announcement on the front screen. I stared at it for what felt like hours unable to believe what I was reading. I began to cry as I was logging in (I know it seems pathetic). Fanlib would be closing in a little over a week.

I went straight to our message and tried to catch up with what was happening. The sadness and disbelief was everywhere. People trying to find ways to keep in touch with friends, others trying to find out why. To this day we were never given a proper answer. But sadly there was nothing we could do to stop it.

Everyone began to gather their work and try to find a new place to put it up. Many of us stayed in the forums paniking. However one of our fellow Fanlib members created us a new forum to hang out at for a while. Thus we were known as Fanlib Refugees. Wanderng anywhere to try to find a new home.

It all seemed like a good idea. Our fellow fanlibber, MK I will call her for this, was planning on creating a new website for us to post stories. A attempt to replace our most beloved home. A nice idea, and many of us were willing to try anything. As time went by we began hanging out in her Fanlib Refugee forum were another fellow fanlibber would update us on the progress of the new site. I will call this one DHT for this story.

Many of us were back and forth between Fanlib and the Refugee forums. As the deadline came closer, I was beginning to take down all of my stories. I had started hanging out at the Refugees forums to try to distance myself from Fanlib. And on August, 1st, 3 days before the official close of fanlib I did something I never thought would be so hard. I closed my account. I felt the need to have some control over me leaving, instead of being fully kicked out the door. But with that I said goodbye to Fanlib.

I stayed on the Refugee forums talking to many of my good friends and having a fun time despite the horrible situation. We all looked forward to the new site that MK and DHT were creating. I even got a message from the heads saying they wanted me to be a Mod in the new fun forums. Even with such sadness there was something to look forward to.

For some reason, it never stayed happy or fun. cry  

[CSIBeauty]

Simple insults blown out of proportion

Now, during my time in the Fanlib Refugees forums I had begun getting off topic. Something I did very often. But luckily I was not the only one. I ended up giving this group a name. We called ourselves, The Syndicate of Distraction, or SoD for short. It was just a little fun thing and we would have this group on Myfandoms.

Now I was in charge of the group, but members were also alowd to give their opinion on who is to join and not. We has someone who wanted to join, but was rejected. And though I felt sorry for that, It was how it worked. There is no need to give this person a name, because oddly though it started with him. It hardly has to do with him.

He was upset, understandable, I never held that against him. But when I got online one day I was told that he was insulting me. I thought it was immature, but he was upset. I let that go. I still felt I had a right to know what was said. However the mods felt that they should delete everything that was said. I had many friends who were defending me when I could not defend myself. Which I appreciated. But I was the main topic and somehow I wasn't given the right to know what happended.

That was really the only thing that made me mad. The person who started the insulting appologized and I accepted that. I didn't even know what was said, but in the heat of the moment you can make mistakes and I believe that shouldn't be held against you. So that was the end with that.

My friend Leila was one of the people defending me the whole time. Something I always love her for. She also felt it was unfair for me to not get to know what was happening, but sadly there was nothing we could do. We were both angry about it, but stopped talking in that forum. Leila went to her private Live journal to rant about it. As she sometimes feels the need to do. I often read her LJ and as I was she tells me that DHT who happened to be on her friends list there, was yelling at her and insulting her for the post.

This of course gets me mad. She's sitting here standing up for me and now getting yelled at for it. So I of course let my feelings go. It was stupid. Only a few people can read it and she wasn't being rude. She was stating what had happend. Then somehow in the midst of this I'm being instulted again. This time for apparently arguing with someone I didn't. This whole thing was originally about me even though I wasn't there. Somehow I was being dragged into situations I was never originally a part of.

Me and Leila are of course mad. This person was supposed to be a friend, she was someone we respected and now this. We just let it go for the time being.  

[CSIBeauty]

Resolving Complications

The previous days situation was still bothering me and Leila the next day, but we felt we had to try to resolve it. We were talking in a random forum and out of nowhere MK shows up telling us we can't talk there. The forum was made for talk about anything and then we were being told we didn't have a right to Rant there.

We just ignored her and went about our buisiness. Now DHT messaged both me and Leila and said she wanted to try to resolve the differences. Though neither of us particularly wanted to talk to her. We each had our seperate conversations, all of us appologizing and getting everything sorted out. And after all of that it seemed perfectly fine.

Me and Leila of course still hung out there, but we felt we were not alowed to give opinions on anything anymore. I had however started talking to Anna again. She had done something stupid, but I was willing to at least try to be friendly towards her and that worked out fine.

Everything was going well again. At least in the front lines.  

[CSIBeauty]

Going Behind our back

As me and Leila kept our conversations with old friends everything seemed to be going okay. All things appeared to be resolved. Then Shilom comes up and tells us that they were talking in the Mod forums about needing to hire 2 Mods because they no longer wanted us to be them. Me and Leila were mad, but not about losing the Mod jobs.

Neither of us were going to take them, partly because we already felt as if someone was constantly monitering our posts. And we didn't want to deal with that as mods. But it was annoying that they didn't bother to tell us anything about it. As we go on and talk about it, we decide to confront the person in charge. MK!

She of course never has any real answers to anything. She's attempting to run a website and she tells us we are out of line for getting upset about past events. Yet her own partner/mod starts stuff with us and she gets nothing. Not so much as a slap on the hand. But according to MK, DHT is allowd to make one mistake. rolleyes

MK had always been someone that I was never real trusting of. But I respected her. Her and DHT. Everything I had thought about them had been changed suddenly and over nothing. She tells us that she didn't announce the change in mods because we were never officially appointed. Of course she never listens to what we say. Like when we asked why didn't she just PM us. She acts as if we would post it everywhere we can. We didn't really tell anybody that we were supposed to be Mods. Shilom only new because she was one.

And this is our leader?  

[CSIBeauty]

A hard choice to make

As the opening of FanNation starts coming up close it is proven that Mods are always watching what we post. Mention even the slightest thing like thinking about not going to FanNation and someone PM's you. It had gotton out of control and me and Leila make a very hard choice.

Neither of us were going to be going to FanNation. We didn't want to be watched and we didn't want to go to a place run by those two. They were horrible leaders and already proved that it was going to be a disaster. So we chose to step away. Our minds were made up and we didn't change them.

We hung around in the forums a bit, but started to back off after MK's last PM. I had never hated someone so much in my life. Both of us would get the urge to hit someone everytime we saw our name. And the word FanNation, made us sick. So we stayed away and didn't bother celebrating with others when it opened.  

[CSIBeauty]

Unwelcome to FanNation

August 29th, 2008. The date FanNation opened. Apparently it was supposed to be as popular as Fanlib. And many former fanlibbers were supposed to show up. Ha! From everything I heard from day one, it's all crap. Not a real good fanbase and apparently many of the former fanlibbers found themselves elseware.

Me? I'll be everywhere but there!  

[CSIBeauty]

Conclusion

As it stands today I've never even set sight in FanNation. Nor do I ever intend to. I still here from friends that it's pretty much dead there. No surprise! rolleyes

I can be found at many fiction sites, but I mostly publish on FFN now. And more recently here. I still talk with many of my fanlib friends. Leila, Shilom, Allie, Smokie, Tina, Shiba. . . . the list goes on.

I even started talking to Anna more during my time writing this. For me all is well. Though missing Fanlib never stops. I'm just glad to have a new place to write and share.

And thus concludes my fanfiction history.  

[Raixsen]

oww..i cant believe i actually read this.
NEVER GIVE UP =D

you just made me feel like writing but im real tard with it rofl
guess ill stick with drawing more =P  

[CSIBeauty]

Raixsen

oww..i cant believe i actually read this.
NEVER GIVE UP =D

you just made me feel like writing but im real tard with it rofl
guess ill stick with drawing more =P

Thanks! I'm actually surprised that anybody read this. I figured they would think it's too long and if they did, think it was pathetic. rolleyes  

[Amber-Lily3050]

Believe me, it's not pathetic. In all honesty, I was a little scared to post on fanfiction.net. I only have two stories on there, one that's discontinued and a oneshot.
BTW, I was just wondering, I wrote a couple poems for two characters in one of my favorite fandoms, would those go under Fanfiction or Poems? (Dumb question, but I can't help but be somewhat confused.)