Essay: Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA)

I was ten years old and a complete preteen mess when I was madly in love with the fictional character Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA). It was his strong character development arc from a broody banished prince to the sweet and empathetic ruler of the Fire Nation throughout the entire television series that captivated me. My tiny fingers were itching to write down anything about him that was running through my preadolescent mind. Without any prior knowledge of what fanfiction was, my preteen self immediately grabbed a pencil and a sheet of paper and started jotting down an entirely branched out idea of Prince Zuko eventually finding love in the sweet waterbender Katara. It was right then and there as I began romanticizing the pairing of Zuko and Katara that I started to enter the world of fanfiction without entirely realizing it.
Although I knew the internet fairly well along with its capability of exposing anything and everything in the world, I did not imagine that I would come across a defining moment in my writing career. I was browsing through multiple fanart of Prince Zuko when it redirected me to a website called fanfiction.net. As I quickly scrolled through the web page, I began to realize that it was a romance story between Zuko and Katara. Hours passed, and before I knew it, I was finished with the story. I wanted more. I Googled the term “fanfiction” and discovered that it was written work by a fan of, and featuring characters of, a particular TV series, movie, or book. It was for people who idealized the notion of continuing a story or creating an alternate plot to the original storyline. There was fanfiction on nearly every popular culture such as Harry Potter, Naruto, and Pokemon ranging from all genres from romance, comedy, hurt/comfort, to horror. Instantly, I was stuck on my desktop computer for hours every day reading Zutara (the pairing name between Zuko and Katara in the ATLA fandom) stories.
Fanfiction allowed me to explore storylines in a world that I have fallen in love with that were never shown or expanded on. Unfortunately, there was always more mud in the pile than gems, and I am not talking about the dark side of fanfiction where it introduces controversial topics in graphic detail. An example of the supposed dark side is when the authors defy canon reality such as a story where Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony pulls a Hannibal Lecter on the other ponies and feeds them to the other survivors. However, in this case, the mud in the pile would be considered fanfiction that is written by amateur writers who have not had a lot of practice at the craft. There are poorly written stories laden with grammatical errors and inaccuracies. Regrettably, my written work would soon belong in that atrocious department.
Two years of reading fanfiction ignited a fire in my soul to writing to my heart’s content. Fanfiction was an excellent practicing ground for me to easily channel my creativity into writing. After months of shoving story drafts in my three inch binder, I was finally a junior high student who finally summoned the courage to publish the first chapter of her ATLA fanfiction. I recall sitting in a panicked daze on my office chair as soon as I published my Zutara story online. “Will people like it?” and “What if they hate the way I paired Zuko and Katara together?” were questions that never left my mind. A day passed without anyone reviewing my story. I felt my throat close up as discouragement started to eat away at me. I was about to permanently delete the fanfiction until I refreshed the page one more time and saw my very first review. To this day, I can still remember the exact wording: “This sucks. You really need to use a spell checker.” Believe it or not, that was enough for me to continue writing. The feedback on my pathetic attempts at writing fanfiction as I wantonly butchered the English language allowed me to grow as a writer. I continued to write to my heart’s desire while keeping my readers’ constructive criticism and negative reviews in mind. Before I knew it, the hits on my story started rising, and I was garnering hundreds to thousands of hits on my Zutara fanfiction chapter after chapter.
Writing fanfiction quenched my insatiable thirst for writing. It became the primary outlet for my inherent desire to write stories without having to go through the official publishing process. My rising popularity as both a writer and reviewer on fanfiction.net granted me years of experience with honing my writing craft and the opportunity to explore literary elements such as outlining a plot, developing a character, escalating the suspense, and building up to a climax. I found that the community was the most helpful in the learning process because people were open to giving constructive criticism. I was popular on fanfiction.net to the point my readers drew fanart for my version of Zuko and Katara and wrote one-shots after my multi-chaptered story.  I have spent the majority of my preteen to early teenage years writing fanfiction, and the anonymity of writing fanfiction behind a computer screen never failed to thrill me. Overall, the world of fanfiction was a welcoming area for different ideas and concepts I have never even dreamt of. At the age of fourteen, I was famous in the fanfiction community. I was a nerdy junior high school student by day and a popular fanfiction writer by night. Once I entered high school, I deactivated my account and permanently removed 1000+ hits story from the website. My reign as one of the top writers in the ATLA community is a life I left behind for the sole purpose of anyone ever discovering what I have done in my double life.