Remember that bizarre story you wrote at 15? Well, this guy on Twitter does

When I was about 15, I wasn't too sure of myself. While I was leaps and bounds above where I was two years ago, I nevertheless had a tough time at school. In particular, I was the target of a "popular" girl, who seemed to like everyone but me. I could just say "hi," and she's be all like "Get away, loser!" The other girls weren't much better, not only did they defend her, they almost encouraged her. In particular, they gave her the attention she very much craved.

That being said, one thing I always had going for me was my writing abilities, something I've had long before I was talking up a storm. Not to mention, when I was about seven/eight years old, my dream was to create a film and/or animated series based on the Backyard Sports series of games. Long story short, I convinced my parents to send me to a computer camp circa summer of 2004, which led them to find the YMCA camp. (Which is not really a computer camp, but did have a computer area.) That's where I discovered the series, applied my amazing imagination to the series, and the rest, they say, is history.

So, as a sophomore in high school, I was going to a special needs high school that could only charitably be called a "high school." Because it was a "special needs" school featuring various grade levels, they couldn't differentiate between various "functioning" levels. Not that they cared, because to them, nobody was studying to go to college- except maybe incredibly small community colleges, so why bother stimulating us? Clearly we'd just get frustrated anyway.

Naturally, this inspired me to follow my childhood dream. Technically, I've had the dream of writing movies long before I discovered the series, however, with the characters of the series I found a neat little outlet to show off my writing abilities. One interesting aspect of them, was that I typically wanted to give Jorge, the snobby rich kid who hates getting dirty, the role of the handsome action hero. Granted, he was my first crush (Okay, technically Mandark from Dexter's Laboratory was my first crush, but I felt so guilty about liking a "bad boy" that I mentally classified the former as my first crush. To be fair, they do kind of look and act similar.) At first, the ideas were too bizarre to be written out, and I didn't have the proper focus to write them anyway. However, as I got older my writing skills evolved, and I was able to write a coherent story.

So what did I do? I decided to make him a magical superhero in the vain of Harry Potter! And have him kick the ass of a super villain mean girl! And transform him into a panther while I'm at it, because people transforming into animals is the most awesome shit in the history of awesome shit! (Okay, if that was true, Manimal would've been a heckofa lot more popular than it was.) What could possibly go wrong?

Needless to say, I had no idea what I was thinking.

About two years ago, I found this gem while surfing Twitter.

"I just found out about a Backyard Sports fanfic involving Jorge getting superpowers and TFing into a panther.

Welp, time to grab the bleach."

As if that wasn't enough, the following tweet said: "And it's about as well-written as it sounds, too. Lovely." (Clearly he's being sarcastic.)

Now, I'm one of the most sensitive people in the world. I couldn't handle girls at school not liking me, and I especially couldn't handle my dad making jokes about how my family "wasn't that popular" after only one family RSVP'ed to our NYE party that same year.

And yet, I wasn't offended. Not one bit.

In fact, I did a little dance out of my college dorm room. Somebody was noticing my work! My own work! Without me promoting it to them! (Did I mention I promoted the hell out of it because I had nothing better to do?)

Sometimes, on Twitter, my friend Robert Cargill, otherwise known as Massawyrm or the screenwriter of Dr. Strange (but sadly not the sequel), gives writing advice. Like, "Don't be afraid to write something terrible. No one will see it until you let them." Naturally, I responded to him with my story and the young man's response, adding that "Autism is a hell of a drug." You see, it's one thing if someone makes fun of me (even Dad), I can, however, laugh at myself- for pretty much the same reason only black people can use the "n-word."

Not to mention, the young man who made that comment actually found me on Twitter, and told me there were no hard feelings, nor did he mean to cyberbully me- after all, the stuff he made at that age wasn't much better. The fact that he was also on the autism spectrum (and was a furry at that, to the point where he made another page for his furry blog) definitely helped.

It's not even the first time I've had a weird idea for a fanfic story. Back in 2007 when I was having an even worse time at school, and found solace in watching and talking about my favorite movies, I, believe it or not, thought a crossover between Alvin and the Chipmunks and Family Guy, called Megan and the Chipmunks, was a good idea. Granted, I had noble intentions (I felt sorry for Meg, the punching bag daughter, and wanted to cheer her up because I saw myself as her) but frankly, the two franchises have so little demographic overlap that it wouldn't work. And even if Meg needed cheering up, surely there were better ways to help than putting novelty-singing chipmunks into her life. Thankfully, I was too disorganized to put it down on paper, unlike my Backyard Sports story. I did, however, mention it in a Family Guy Facebook message board for its 20th anniversary last year- cue plenty of "laughing" emoji reactions. (And no, I wasn't remotely offended, for pretty much the same reasons I wasn't offended by the autistic guy on Twitter.)

Now, Deviantart is chock full of bizarre fanart of every well-known film, TV show, videogame series, play, book series, and webseries under the sun. Especially transformation fics. Girls getting bustier, more muscular, fatter, you get the idea. You should see the amount of transformation fics involving "animal-morphing" from series where there is none! So, you could say that, by having a fic where a character transforms into an animal, you could say, in a sense, that Backyard Sports has finally hit the big time. By 2018, even I could agree that taking the series' least popular character and making him a superhero so weird that Dr Strange would've looked mundane in comparison was a little too much for the fandom to handle.

Be that as it may, I am still holding on to my dream of writing a film for the series. I am currently working on a film series where the characters spoof popular films and television (and even some unpopular ones, such as Manimal!) and sharing it was my writing group, which I'm seeing tonight. It won't be easy, but soon I can get it off the ground. I do, however, need to make sure my ideas work before I put them on paper and share them with the rest of the world.