The man chain smoked on the park bench several yards from where I'd settled. He looked over at me as I played fetch with his little French Bulldog for about an hour. I had no business in the dog park, really, being in town without a dog.

I just went out for a walk. The hotel had grown too small and the world outside just a little too large; the relative quiet of the Tribeca park was a nice compromise between New York City and me. The fact that it was a dog park was a happy accident. No one seemed to mind me being there, quietly petting or playing with the furry visitors as they came by to pay respects.

This man's dog, though. She was different. She took a shine to me as soon as I shut the iron gate and sat on an empty bench. She was a stout little thing, fifteen pounds of muscle in a seven pound frame. The little critter actually reminded me of the cartoon bulldog from Tom & Jerry in shape if not size. Her front legs were like oversized arms on a bodybuilder, with her rear legs like that same bodybuilder who ignored leg days. She snuffled at me and dropped a ball at my feet.

I looked up at her owner, and he gave a tiny nod. Permission granted to play, from behind a veil of tobacco smoke. I grinned, and tossed the ball across the park and the feisty little bulldog fetched. This went on for the better part of an hour, not a word was spoken, and I lost count of how many times the flare of a Zippo caught my eye.

Finally, flicking away his last butt, the man slid to the end of his bench and turned towards me. He stood, straightening a tan trenchcoat that fell from his shoulders like it'd hung there for years. Watching us continue to play fetch, he spoke in what I immediately clocked as a British accent. I'm terrible with identifying them beyond "British," it could have been somewhere in London or the countryside, I don't know.

"That ain't my dog, bruv," he said. I was surprised to see a new unlit cigarette between his pointing fingers. "Nope. I'm just watchin' 'er for a bit. Thank you for playin' with the thing. Saved me the trouble."

I smiled. "It's been fun. A nice distraction from...everything." I tried to keep melancholy out of my voice, but it always has a way of creeping in around all the edges.

"Mate. It ain't my business, but what brings you to the city?"

"Family stuff." I wasn't going to tell this stranger that back in my hotel room were ashes to be spread at places in the city that meant a lot to someone I cared about.

He nodded, not comprehending, but understanding. I gave him a weak smile as thanks for his refusal to press the issue.

"You notice how that little mutt keeps droppin' the ball just out of your reach every other time she fetches?" I had noticed, in fact. We'd established a pattern: after about four throws, she'd break in the shade, lying with her legs splayed so her belly would rest on the cold autumn concrete. I was comfortable in the crisp air, but several people around us were wearing sweaters or coats. The little Frenchie was obviously getting heated with all the exercise. Every other throw, though, she'd drop the ball too far to my right, almost like she thought I was sitting on that side of the bench instead of leaning on the left armrest. I'd tell her to bring it to me, she'd stare up at the empty seat, look over at me, then kick the little ball so it would roll into my hand. I thought it was a clever trick, but odd that she kept doing it that way instead of bringing it directly to me.

"Yeah, it's strange. Like she forgets where I'm sitting."

The man nodded, grunting in what I assumed was an affirmative.

"It's not that, mate."

She dropped the ball at the opposite end of the bench again.

I looked over that way, then back up to the blonde chainsmoker.

He reached into a coat pocket, handed me a plain white business card. I thanked him, looked at the card, and then back at him. "So, Mr. Constantine, what kind of work do you do?"

He paused, lit yet another cigarette, and stooped down to hook the bulldog up to a leash. He didn't answer until he'd taken a couple of long, contemplative drags.

"Mate, when you ever need me, call me. I don't know what brings you here to the City, but what I do know? You ain't been sittin ’ere on this bench alone, and the mutt knows it, too."

I should have felt a cold chill, but instead, all I felt was happy.

...I'd finished watching my first anime.

In that time there used to be free anime on special sites right on your laptop, just a quick Google search and heck, you even get the new Frozen movie just because.

But I suppose I can't think about fanfiction without thinking about my first exposure. Which included the need that spurned such search history in the first place.

Not that... I knew just what I was looking for.

Angel Beats by Key was an amazing show. You can say it's an opinion but also, a majority of the Internet will agree with me. Though I do admit, it was short. It was or felt, incomplete.

With such a huge, diverse cast of fun characters there was a lot to explore and think on. So many questions which never received answers. For Angel Beats it was: the reincarnation question. Where did the characters end up? Is it together? Is it apart? Who are they now? As Yuri had said in episode twelve, they've "stolen" a life now haven't they? That soul that the world believes is a wholly new person is actually someone who'd already been over the whole life thing once and moved on. And where does the baby go? Their soul that-- did or did not-- exist prior? I can't answer. And soon enough it came to me that the Internet couldn't definitively answer for me either.

A first for me, since it used to be YouTube and search engines had everything. Whatever I wanted to search up there it was. My cartoons, skits about kidnapping and anime torture compilations-- I was a strange child with little supervision on my Internet use.

So thusly I typed...

'Angel Beats Season 2'

Sometimes some other anime 'Season 2'

'Death of Hideki Hinata'

I liked the character but I never find out much about what led him to the afterlife besides a baseball game and a pop fly to second. And an older creep of a student who gave him pills.

What about his family, his other friends? Who let him base his entire self-worth and unknowingly bind his soul to some purgatory Hellscape of a school with gunslinging girls and whatever Angel is?

On a related note I also discovered Clannad. To be frank the resemblance between protagonist and male deutragonist is striking. I'd genuinely believed I'd stumbled onto his life story after the afterworld. Until I realized he was called by a different name. Moot point but true nontheless.

Nevertheless, I did eventually stumble onto Wattpad. Not knowing what it was then I was afraid of making a commitment or having to pay to read. Even so, I was able to find stories promising 'insight' into the life of Yuri Nakamura. It stuck with me as to how she died if not suicide.

I wondered about the other side characters too.

I accepted the idea that Shiina was a modern ninja girl practicing with knives, had a good father but a horrid bitch of a stepmother and died by butterfly knife to the back.

Eventually it became a tick off my viewer/reader checklist. Whatever I want elaboration on, whatever plot points or emotional beats I feel could be used with characters I search up the fanfic community.

More often than not I find stories that satisfy the types of interactions and repartee I want to see.

In my teenage years, fun reading material I didn't take so seriously became a break from my "serious" writing projects. As long as I was writing then I could fiddle with characters I already knew and settings I didn't have to create from scratch.

But like any other character or setting I became fond of what I was bringing to a screen with each tap of the keys. I felt they had worthwhile things to say, even if I didn't convey it in a very articulate or entertaining way.

Fiddling with the craft it turned out that fanfiction is no different than any other story. Now here I am, with several writing accounts, a virtual journal, and my most successful was certainly my first Wattpad account from my high school's server.

I'd say that fanfiction is an expression of passion, a love project by people for other people. There may be a better guarantee to quality when it comes to fan work, spawning it's own universes, without the lures of monetary gain or threat of cancellation. So creators may tell their own stories and even impart themselves on the page.

Any writer on Wattpad, AO3, FF.Net is a serious writer just like their fans are real, serious fans and readers who appreciate a good story and compelling character.

I may ironically be a teenage girl but I'd have to say romance is a peripheral focus of my stories. I would like to toy around with it and incorporate it more, but more than anything since it opens the door to explore so much emotion and the types of plot that can push two people forward or in the worst combinations tear them apart. No, instead I'm writing about trauma. Most often the hurt and sting that comes from fractured relationships, the bitter betrayal of a once dear, intimate friend, the path back towards light and love. Seldom in the way they had before but grown if not weary from their experience. I write about the adult influences who should be there, provide nurture and growth but don't. Who put themselves above the child. The children who are dismissed and talked down to for being children.

If anything, what I write is the feeling that's festered inside me for a long while that feels less caustic to present under Sanders Sides or a ghost boy. I just want to be heard! I just WANT to be appreciated and valued as I AM!