Thekellinunderthevic the_kellin_under_the_vic the-kellin-under-the-vic
A multi-part vent, personal story and open letter written years much too late
Dear Sarah,
I spent so many hours reading your stories. I was truly enthralled by your never-ending twists and turns, how you made my heart race, or cry from the emotional overhaul you created. Checking your blog became a part of my daily routine; not only for chapter updates but just to hear you talk about music, your own interests, or personal life.
I spent years following you until the time came where I decided to step away from social media, including tumblr. When I came back your blog was gone; like it had never even existed. I checked the other platforms but found them empty.
I spent time googling your username trying to find anything I could about where you had gone. I didn’t find you; just support groups, chat logs, and the devastating news that you had left writing fanfiction behind.
I was told you left because you began feeling uncomfortable writing stories based on real people and it had started to give you anxiety. I understood your reasons, but it didn’t make it any easier.
I spent a good deal of time thinking about how I had secretly feared that a day might come, where you would feel this way. But in the back of my head, I always thought that you were more secure in your position. After all, you were older than most fanfic writers at the time and so I naively assumed you were past the point of squeamishness and embarrassment over it; that you had made your peace with your interest in it.
You had once said that when you wrote your fics you didn’t consider them the actual individuals, that you saw them as different people. I always personally felt they took on a new life in your stories.
I admit, I was completely unprepared for the reality of your disappearance but there was nothing I could do. Although I’m certain it seems dramatic to some, I felt genuine grief. It was like losing an old friend.
After you left, I stopped reading fanfic, and truthfully I stopped reading much at all. In a way I had lost my wonder for the written word.
All these years later I am writing this and it’s because of the simplest thing. I was scrolling and stumbled upon a fanfic based around a popular tv show I watch, and found myself instantly drawn in. I ended up reading it for hours until I became overwhelmingly discontent; because I could only think about your writing, your stories, and how I wished you were still there and that I could read them once again.
For the second time I found myself embarking down the rabbit hole, searching for your blog name, your stories, looking for any remnants of your work.
I found people who claimed you were rewriting your stories but with different names on a new account, which has since disappeared. Others claim you created another new account, completely removed from fanfic, writing original short stories.
I found people who had saved some of your work; so few in comparison to the numerous you had before. Despite knowing it would make me sad that I couldn’t read them all again especially some of my favorites, I was sucked into reading a republished version of your work. One of your original stories and I simply couldn’t stop until I finished it.
Afterwards I thought about many different things. For instance, I remembered how when I was younger, I had started saving your stories in Word because I had wanted to keep them just in case, however I thought it might be strange and decided to stop; and now I am filled with regret over something so small.
I allowed myself to ponder over whether or not you had kept your stories. I struggle to imagine how someone could delete so many years worth of effort and hard work no matter how they may have felt about it. But then, you deleted your blog seemingly without hesitation; you always were the forward, no nonsense know exactly what you wanted kind of person. So perhaps you are in fact the person who could erase it all and move on.
Part of me secretly and perhaps foolishly hopes that, even if I can never read them again, that you saved your stories somewhere. In case somewhere down the line your feelings change, and you wish you could come back to where you started to see how far you came, in case one day you regret deleting a part of yourself even if it made you feel conflicted. Maybe it’s because I never was the person who could let things go. I was never the person who could burn everything someone gave me in order to move forward or throw away old things I made in the chance I would want to turn and look back on them.
Most of all I wondered where you are now and if you ever think about those days and how it used to be. I wonder if you stopped writing after you left fanfiction, I hope that you didn’t. Although someone once told me a writer can never truly stop writing for long. So, even if you no longer wanted to share your stories with your old readers, I hope you never lost your passion for writing.
Wherever you are and whatever you are writing now I wanted you to know that I don’t think of fanfic as a lesser form of writing, and I hope you don’t either. Whatever you feel about your past in this world of ours I want to say to you that; I don’t believe that it was about bands or smut or anything else. Our strange connection to the writing went beyond who’s namesake they were inspired by. I think the names simply made it easier to connect to the stories faster, that it created a connection to the story before we even started reading it.
I think fanfic satisfies this desire we have to feel connected; whether to bands who’s music made us feel less alone, to shared concepts between stories and writers, and the rest of the readers, knowing we can all see the same faces that we are reading together.
In some ways I think that fanfic authors offer us more in their stories than “official” authors who write printed books. Fanfic authors write stories in a way that would never lead to them being published; they write intensive interpersonal narratives that take us on a roller coaster. They write so detailed about all the minute things that get left out of “official” books and are left for the reader to wonder about; the characters, their thoughts, and life outside of the plot. (All the things that supposedly dredge down “real” books that secretly I think we all wanted to read about.)
Perhaps now, as an adult it does seem strange to have read stories naming real people, with often times extreme plots or outrageous concepts. Stories that are “cringey” that we should be embarrassed about reading or in your case writing. But I find myself unable to feel regret or embarrassment now over something that brought me so much joy; especially at a time I needed it the most.
In a strange way it was like we almost took you for granted. Holding you and these stories dear and therefore being unable to imagine them as anything other than permanent; something that would always exist and always there to be relived. Your disappearance reminds us all of the impermanence that exists in this life.
Perhaps that’s why I now of all times I would come back to this, to feel so passionately about something so seemingly silly as to write about it as an adult. Is it just remembering and being unable to let it go again so easily, is it nostalgia for the past, or is it the way even years later life has found ways to mimic the circumstances that led me to reading fanfiction in the first place. Writing to you here in the void of the internet is a way to remind myself, others and perhaps even you that these times we shared were real.
I know that your writing was causing you anxiety, and that you likely felt strange about your involvement and maybe even still do. Fanfiction is almost like a taboo. I really hope that you found your inner peace with it; because speaking from experience I know that you can destroy everything relating to something that makes you feel embarrassed or ashamed, but it doesn’t change that part of your life.
I hope you know that you were never just a fanfiction writer to me; you were an author and one of my favorite ones. However you may feel about your past, your stories reached hundreds of thousands of readers; readers just like me who fell in love with your stories just the way they were.
You influenced an entire subculture of youth with your stories; you were my inspiration for my rekindled interest in reading at the time and my desire to try writing too. Something I always thought I couldn’t do.
Even now as I grow older and struggle to remember certain details of what was discussed on your blog, the time you changed your username and everyone panicked, to struggle to remember all of the specific titles of the fics I cherished. Despite that I can still remember the stories even if I can’t recall its name, I remember where I was and how I felt when reading them.
I still follow tkutvfics tag on tumblr, my one and only followed tag on tumblr. Maybe it’s a desperate hope, maybe it keeps the memory alive, but no matter what it’s a piece of the past we shared and is a bittersweet reminder of all the good times.
So, as I said, however you feel about your past, your stories and your existence continues to live on in all of those readers including myself. Who even now remember them, miss them and you like one misses an old friend, who were effected in whatever ways they might have been by your writing; for the better.
Wherever you are, (down under), I hope you found the mental peace you were looking for, I hope you continued to imagine stories and be creative in whichever way you choose, I hope you are happy and living your life filled with passion. Although, wherever you are I hope perhaps you haven’t and won’t forget about us, because I sincerely believe that I am not alone, that we haven’t forgotten you.
Sincerely yours,
A faithful and loving reader