Helen Writes Fanfiction

As many of you know I discovered fanfiction thanks to becoming a part of the Sailor Moon fandom.  Anyway during the 2000’s, there was a trend of rewriting the Harry Potter stories, but putting the cast of Sailor Moon in them.  If you look at fanfiction.net there were a ton of them, but two of my favorites were Heroine of Valley’s Sailor Witches series (which was never finished) and Cheska’s Needed.  Anyway sometime in the early 2000s prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (trust me this is important). I began to write my own version.  In which teenaged me included:

Naming it Harry Potter and Moon Crystal (I know so unique)

Usagi Tsukino being named “Serena” so she was more westernized

“Serena” being Professor Dumbledore’s granddaughter

I was literally copying passages from the book word for word because I did not understand what plagiarism was at the time.

“Serena” of course came with Hagrid to tell Harry he was a wizard and went to Diagon Alley as well

“Serena” and Draco hated each others guts

Minako Aino became “Mina Lovegood” and was Luna’s older sister

Makoto Kino became “Lita Diggory” and was Cedric’s little sister

Ami Mizuno was Amy Anderson and was a muggle born (but her squib grandfather was Marius Black) and was Metamorphmagus because she had blue hair

Rei Hino became “Raye Sheilds” and was Mamoru Chiba/”Darien Sheilds” little sister

Luna finds “Serena” at Hogwarts and she discovers she’s sailor moon and she needs to find the moon crystal and the moon princess

Instead of the philosopher's stone, Harry and co. were looking for the moon crystal

Did I mention the constant plagiarism

Anyway I wrote this for about a year, and made it up to the christmas break until I found out about Dumbledore’s sexuality.  So I scrapped the story and rewrote it.  With “Serena Dumbledore” now becoming “Serena Moon” and was Professor McGonagall’s great-niece.  At this time I learned what plagiarism was, but let’s face it I was still a teenager at this point and my second attempt was too close to the original book.  This time I made it  up to Hagrid’s dragon egg before I stopped writing all together.

However, teenager me had plans for this series.  I roughly outlined how I planned on retelling all seven books, which was basically me writing the entire plot of Sailor Moon into the Harry Potter universe.  Apparently Rini was Harry and Serna’s child from the future.  I think Tuxedo Mask died saving Sailor Moon.  Princess Kakyuu was a Beauxbaton student and the Starlights went to Drumstang.  Apparently Lord Voldemort was the son of Queen Metallia reborn.  Apparently also later on in the books I planned on the Sailor Guardians being able to use their powers without transforming because they were witches.  I’m not gonna question what teenage me was thinking, she had big dreams ok.

Why did I stop writing this fanfic?  The answer is high school. I was very lucky to be able to attend a private school, but it meant a harder course load.  It was during those high school english classes when we were studying literature and doing creative writing practices I realized that my fanfic wasn’t really fanfiction.  It was heavily plagiarized and was me hashing two franchises together without bringing anything new or creative to the table.  So I stopped writing it.  I did write fanfiction over those years as you all know and I continued to read more and more.  I ended up dropping most of my fanfics after a chapter or two because life kept getting in the way.

Then I met my best friend, who in 2019 convinced me to write fanfiction again, which was my wattpad band-fic era.  Honestly writing fanfiction while she was my beta was some of the happiest moments of my life.  That was until she passed away in 2023, which during my grief I unlisted my incomplete wattpad fics and ended up deleting them, which is a choice I’m still ok with.  I just didn’t want to write for a while and I was ok with that.

Then I moved to ao3 in 2024 and I’ve been writing there on-and-off ever since.  I even finished posting a completed fic, which was a goal I didn't even accomplish during the wattpad era.  I think the reason this finally happened was because I wrote a fic I wanted to write.  My best friend was an amazing beta, but she hated anime and manga with a passion and refused to read my sailor moon fics.  All my wattpad fics had started out as Sailor Moon fics and she made me switch them to 5SOS fics because that was the only way she would beta for me.  Looking back at it now, I realize that stifled my creativity.  I don’t think that makes my best friend a bad person,  especially since she has now passed.

The point is it was good that I failed to write that Harry Potter fic and every other fic I failed to write over the years.  Because every time you fail, you learn from it and move on. If I hadn’t failed so many times and kept continuing on my goal to write a fanfic, I never would have finished my first long-fic in the first place.  Besides as you know I write Hana Yori Dango fic and the fandom is very, very small.  The fact that I don't get discouraged because our fandom is so small is amazing in the first place.  So I will continue my goal of giving us Hanadan fans something to read.