麻豆

鈥淯苍别蝉蝉补测鈥�

By Evan Camargo

A loud bell rang was heard across the slightly worn building, signaling the end of the day. On one side of the building, car engines roared as they remained in a row, parents ready to receive their children. On the opposite end of said building, a crowd of restless parents stood, some already walking away with their enthusiastic children, others still trying to look for their child among the eager wave of kids washing out of the school building. A small kindergartener navigated his way through the ocean of sweaty yet excited kiddies. Sulking as the little one fought his way through the crowd of older children, desperate for the arms of his mother. Once he spotted his mother, his small legs shook as he ran to her, tears obstructing his sight but he knew his mother was there. He tightly wrapped his arms around her as he shakingly broke down, unable to articulate the unwelcoming environment he was stuck in for several hours. Unfortunately, he didn’t need to verbalize anything, as this sight was one his mother was all too familiar with. This wasn’t a case of a kindergartener having a hard time being away from his mother. No. This was a child who was placed in an inadequate space for someone learning a new language with the disadvantage of having learning difficulties. This child was me.

But kindergarten wasn’t where this scene stopped. This scenario carried on for years although my mom never got to see it again. The struggle didn’t stop, it continued but in silence. As I went through kindergarten to second grade in my, not the best funded, school-- A somewhat worn-down school building where something was always acting up. Another ceiling light blinking like it was raving until the party was shut down, another funky unidentifiable smell lost somewhere in the hall trying to find its way back home, another mysterious puddle slowly growing under a suspiciously stained ceiling tile. The playground set screeched in pain due to being used by rowdy growing children for years, without anyone checking up on its wellbeing.  But the school held up. No kid complained, really, despite the struggling aspect of it, we were very much happy with our activities distracting us from the flaws our school held.

As a result of our school’s state, it will come to no surprise that our school didn’t exactly teach English to its full potential. From what I remember, when it came to English being taught in the bilingual classes I was destined to remain in during my duration at this particular school, English was taught scarcely. We were taught a few basic English words every day, although I don’t remember ever being taught how to use said words in sentences much less for conversations, nor do I remember being taught how to write it. What I do vividly remember is how short these lessons were, which may have to do with the fact we were only taught a few words. Purple, January, Summer, Bear. Words that, even if used in a sentence, would sound like a nonsensical list. Yet, it seemed like the kids around me picked up far more than I ever did. I couldn’t tell you if this was due to being taught outside of school, receiving extra help, or if they simply understood the lessons far better than I did. I don’t remember the full context of those lessons. But knowing what I know about my mental health today, if I wasn’t understanding what was going on, it was no doubt my learning difficulties beginning to let themselves be known. And yet, no one around me picked up on these warning signs. Instead, I was left behind. Left to struggle, left to fight back tears the moment my fellow classmates would turn their backs on me, refusing to communicate in Spanish, a language we all knew too well, and preferring to speak amongst themselves in their learning English. I was left to fend for myself. 

Getting through kindergarten up to second grade was quite easy in this school, due to how Spanish dominated the class lessons. The real monster woke up when my mom remarried and we moved to the other side of town, where I was enrolled in a better funded public school. In these bilingual classes, the English monster was in complete control of the communication system. English was no longer part of the supporting cast, English was the star of the show now. With Spanish merely fixing the spotlight for English when no one else could reach the high, hard to reach, spaces. I was thrown into this practically fully English class without really understanding what was going on yet. But my third-grade teacher wasn’t exactly the warmest person, and I was mortified of the punishment I would receive from my parents if I didn’t pull myself together. Feeling like I had no one to turn to, no one to rely on, I was left to my own devices to push through this language barrier I had been fighting a losing battle against for years. 

My saving grace for that time, my device I was able to use to help myself, was the fact my brother was barely a teenager, slightly rebelling in his own way by beginning to consume English media outside of school. I began slowly picking up on the speaking and audible portion of English by showing curiosity about the English music, shows, and movies he’d consumed at the time. Despite the fact our parents disapproved of us speaking English or consuming English media at home, as they felt the need to constantly be aware of what we were hearing and what we were talking about. We would giggle quietly as we huddled around the family PC listening to my brother’s favorite rock bands, mumbling the English lyrics which, way more often than not, I had no idea what they meant. Still, this silly bonding experience was what slowly helped me speak and audibly understand English. Through questionable, yet helpful, songs such as “True Friends” by Bring Me The Horizon, “Fangirl” by Ghost Town, “Fallen Angels” by Black Veil Brides, and “Corpse Grindin’ Man” by Harley Poe. Yes. You read that right, Corpse Gridin’ Man. If you try to guess what the song is about, you'd most likely guess correctly. Like I said, this was my thirteen to fourteen year old brother sharing English music with a nine-year old me at the time.

While at the beginning of third grade, my English writing was nonsensical and illegible, at the very least, through this newfound way of registering the English language in my small brain. I was finally starting to understand English and speak it more clearly. As the school year progressed, my English writing slowly began to improve. This, once again, thanks to the new way I found myself engaging with the English language. Not only was I listening and singing along to these quirky songs, but I began asking my brother to play lyric videos of them. Even if he didn’t stick around, I would sit for hours, watching the lyric videos to these songs I had learned to sing. I matched what I repeated up to the words I was seeing, and it all began falling into place, it all started to make sense. Finally, my brain was slowly switching on that gear that allowed me to identify words, I got to see and repeat the writing of those words.

As a result, my English writing slowly began to improve and by the time I reached fifth grade, I became best friends with two girls who, unbeknownst to them, are behind the reason why I slowly fell in love with writing in English. I had actually met one of them the year before, in fourth grade, while awaiting cheerleading tryouts. I sat alone at a long grey lunch table, other children loudly talking and laughing around me as the cafeteria was a sort of waiting room for children who would stay for afterschool activities. I tuned out the roars in the cool cafeteria by drawing on a blank piece of printing paper, when suddenly a girl I had never seen before came up to me. She walked up to me joyfully, smiling so bright that she practically lit up the room, her light brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail as her big squared glasses were perched upon her small nose.

“Is that Star from Star Versus the Forces of Evil?” she excitedly yet softly asked about the character I was drawing. Noticeably, she kept her tone gentle and she made sure to stay out of my space.

“Yeah.” I responded with a small bashful smile, feeling anxious about the interaction since, up to this point, I wasn’t good at making friends with people who only spoke English. Even if my verbal English was completely understandable at this point. 

“That’s awesome! I love that show! Do you like to draw? I love to draw! Your drawing looks so good!” She didn’t hesitate to sit next to me, albeit still keeping some space between us, as she softly gushed. Something about her bubbly, friendly, yet mindful personality knocked down my small fragile walls which I had put up, avoiding making friendships with someone who had spoken English their entire lives. But once those walls came tumbling down, my friendship with Hailey quickly took off.

I’m incredibly grateful that Hailey had approached me that day. Not only is she someone who still encourages me and helps me with my writing, but she became my best friend in the entire world. We’ve been best friends for almost a decade now. And once we entered fifth grade, we became friends with another girl, Lily, though I don’t clearly remember how we met her since we slowly stopped being friends. But thanks to Lily, we really became engulfed by different and multiple fandoms. She showed us different online spaces where we could consume more content about our favorite shows. Lily would show us digital art she’d create for the shows she loved, which we slowly began loving too. Yet, what captured my attention the most was the fact she spent her time writing fanfics about characters she loves. Her “X Reader” fanfiction was what completely awestruck me and what got me curious about this type of writing. As she explained to me, “X Reader” fanfiction are pieces of writing that consist of someone writing a relationship between a specific character and the person reading the piece. In front of the “X” would stand a character’s name. For example, if you wanted to read a story about a romantic relationship between Batman and yourself, you'd look for “Batman x Reader” or “Bruce Wayne x Reader” fanfiction. Whoever was reading the piece was a character in the story. You were the main character in the story. This type of literature blew my mind completely. I grew up loving reading, in fact, instead of playing with physical toys I preferred being gifted or buying books and reading those books. I would always immerse myself in the stories I would read, building worlds around me the more I got into a book, pretending as if I was part of the story I was reading. To then find out there were people out there who dedicated their time to create stories which were meant to involve the person reading them as an actual character in whatever series, show, or movie the writing was based on was a dream come true. 

Not only did the type of writing fascinate me but the fact that there was a whole system to it did as well. Different types of “X Reader” content you could write along with different themes you could write for it. There was your standard “X Reader” fanfic which was usually a couple of chapters to an entire book long. But there were also “Oneshots” which was another way to refer to short stories, usually one chapter or page long. “Drabbles” referred to content which was typically 100 words long. And there were also “headcanons” which consisted of short, typically bullet-point, writing of how the author believed a character would act or react to you, the reader, depending on a scenario. And all of this does not include the citrus system or other theme categories you could also dive into or base your writing around. “Orange” referred to PG-13 content, “Limes” non-explicit sexual content, “Lemons”/ “Smut” explicit sexual content, “Grapefruit” referred to hardcore/fetish/graphic content. This system actually often helped me avoid accidentally reading material I did not wish to read about. There’s also other terms which are often used such as “Fluff” which refers to purely wholesome and romantic stories, “Yandere” which referred to practically the opposite of “Fluff” where the character you were reading about was typically violent towards other characters and possessively in love with the reader, and of course “AU” which stood for “Alternate Universe” in which stories may not follow the original plotline of where the character originates from or it does, but something is added or changed to the plot and/or characters.

Being fed this information and knowing someone that was incredibly involved with this online space astonished me. Before I knew it, my brain began turning its gears into making my own story. I mean, I’ve always loved reading books, how hard was it to write one of my own? I had a show I loved at the time, a character I loved as well, friends who were much better at English and writing it who could support me and give me advice on how to write. Literally nothing was stopping me from writing and publishing my own book like my friend had done multiple times with her own writing. I was young, naive, but determined to finally bring forth my own creative writing, based on a show and character I loved at the time. An “X Reader” fanfiction about Adrien Agreste from the animated show Miraculous Ladybug. April 6th, 2017 on the fanfiction site was where I published my first ever fanfiction. 

I sat alone on my dad’s family couch, my dad’s Mac Book, which I’d used to write on, quietly humming as it illuminated the dimly lit living room. The sun was long gone as I excitedly typed away with a small yawn. Everyone had already gone to sleep but I stayed up, eager to finish and publish my first chapter. I remember being giddy and excited seeing the number of likes and reads on the fanfiction increase with each passing day. People were clearly liking my work, despite how illegible it honestly was. Though, this wasn’t surprising, because even though I had gotten better with my written English compared to second grade at this point, I was still a child, and so were my friends. Even if they were giving me advice and suggestions on how to improve my writing, we were all only 10 to 11-year-old kids. So, even with the advice they were giving me, I was only actually improving a little bit. Unfortunately, this blast of creativity and excitement was incredibly short lived. Only lasting for a few days before I abandoned my story. I honestly don’t remember why I stopped writing. Especially because I do remember I still loved the show and character for years afterwards. 

Nevertheless, despite my mysterious termination of my own fanfiction, I never stopped consuming other people’s content. My love for fanfiction and people’s writing only grew as the years went by. And in 2020, about three years after my first published story, when the Coronavirus hit and everyone was stuck at home with nothing to do, that spark of creativity and excitement which once silently disappeared, decided to emerge from the darkest hidden corner of my mind. And with a new hyperfixation and love for new characters, I decided to put my school chromebook to use for something other than Google Classroom. 

Another fanfiction was born. With the encouragement of my best friend, after months of talking her ear off about the new anime I got into and the characters I love, she hit me with a question which ignited an old flame I thought had been extinguished.

“Why don’t you just write a fanfic about them?”

Her questions and suggestions, were all the encouragement I needed. Not only to actually sit down to write but look back at my old and first fanfiction. The pain and need to mock myself for how poorly I used to write was what gave me the motivation that, for this new fanfiction, I had to actually work hard. Yes, this was supposed to be fun and it was but I knew now that, for this to be enjoyable for other people it also had to be written well. This idea not only coming from seeing my previously flawed work, but from the thousands of fanfictions I had read myself. I had grown familiar with what people liked to see versus what they didn’t. I learned how I could be more inclusive in my work for all types of readers to be able to insert themselves in my story. I even provided, essentially, a guide in case any new readers to fanfiction came across my work and weren’t completely familiar yet with this type of reading content. I had goals for my writing now rather than for it to be a borderline nonsensically written piece of fiction. I wanted to immerse people, I wanted my work to be as accessible as possible, and I wanted my work to be accessible to those who may not be familiar with the terms thrown around in the community.

So, a process was soon born. Whenever I would get ready to write a chapter I would rewatch the episodes of the anime I was basing my chapter on. I sat on my couch, a small notebook resting on my lap while I would pause over and over again as I’d take notes on what I wanted to include in my chapter along with how I would modify each scene to include my readers. After about an hour or so of this, I’d move on to slowly beginning to type up my chapter. Transforming those short sentences on my notes to long detailed scenes playing out in my google document. Once I had my chapter fully typed out, I’d distribute it to my friends for them to look over and give any advice on what to improve along with any grammar I may have to correct. Afterwards, I’d go back and tweak my chapter, this whole process taking me about two days or so before I felt confident enough to publish my work. 

And once again, the community was more than welcoming of my work. The comments across the websites I would publish this work showing nothing but love and support. Encouragement which only made me fall further in love with what I was doing and how I was doing it.