Ramblings of a Ninja Insomniac

When I was in elementary school, there was a girl on the fringes of my friend group who would spend all recess telling Naruto stories--basically oral fanfiction. I remember being so bored and annoyed because I knew nothing about Naruto and didn't even care to learn. There were times when I would even step away to do something else while everyone else enjoyed the stories because they just weren't for me. Fifteen years later, my boyfriend-now-husband suggested we watch Naruto when he was first getting me into anime, citing that he thought I'd really like it. I was skeptical and didn't expect much but gave it a chance anyway. And now here we are eight years later, I have written over one million words in Naruto fanfiction, created roughly 1,000 Naruto OCs, and met the voice actors for my two favorite characters (Dave Wittenberg as Kakashi, Stephanie Sheh as Hinata) including in cosplay as my main OC who ships with Kakashi and had him autograph a digital art piece I drew of the two of them together. Looking back, I want to laugh in child me's face for being so fucking stupid.

I was deep in the Twilight craze when it was first gaining traction with the first movie, and had gone totally vampire crazy to where I dressed up as one for Halloween and would suck my wounds whenever I'd get a cut to pretend I was a vampire siphoning blood. Thank god that died down. Now here I am twenty years later in love with a stupid dramatic vampire disaster.

Which also ties in to this: when I was in college, one of the city bus drivers who I befriended would talk with me about books and recommended R.A. Salvatore's writing to me since I was interested in fantasy. I didn't think much of it, I never really acted on his suggestion, and I had no idea of R.A. Salvatore's deep ties in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. I didn't even really know much about D&D. My husband started playing it not long after with some friends online, playing in a couple different campaigns that never really lasted all the way through. He started collecting dice sets and D&D manuals. He bought us both a copy of Baldur's Gate 3 thinking it would be something I might enjoy and that we could play together. I tried to get into it in a gameplay with him and his best friend but never really got into it. Then, this most recent New Year's Eve, my husband suggested we give it another try. This time, something clicked. And now here I am eight months later having already started writing a fanfic account of my own solo playthrough and having crafted a cosplay of my Tav from that gameplay and begun collecting some merchandise.