I additionally encountered imagines and FanFiction on these
blogs. The owners of blogs would either create their own Imagines/FanFictions
or post links to stories from other authors, for One Direction fans to enjoy.
The fact that I was reading a story, where I knew how the protagonists looked
like and enjoyed the main characters, intrigued me. I admired the creativity
and passion many authors showed and I was fond of the chapter length. The rapid
progression of the storyline was another aspect that differed from traditional
books and therefore I devoured one book after the other.
Once I discovered more German FanFiction websites, for
instance, “FANFIKTION.de” (*click*), I started to read for countless hours.
 |
| "FANFIKTION.DE" Logo |
I was amazed
by was the fact, that there was even some FanFiction on YouTube, where the
creators would write their chapters in the description box. While some people
made trailers for their art (Trailer example), looked up as many images as possible to illustrate
their books and would always communicate with their readers, others translated
these books into multiple languages.
The number of Books available was so
astonishing, that I often read into the early hours of the morning. The results
were huge bags under my eyes, countless yawns and naps after school. Luckily,
my grades did not drop at all, because before discovering FanFiction I used to
spend my time in front of our television. Now I started to read more. After a
couple of months, I stumbled upon Wattpad (*click*).
| "Wattpad" Logo |
Not only were more books on this
platform published than on the previous websites, but Wattpad also had an app.
Whenever I was bored now, I started to read FanFiction in class. Obviously with
the brightness of my phone at the minimum, so no one could see what I was
doing. I felt as if I was doing something illegal and not a single soul would
understand my hobby. The only people who knew that I was reading FanFiction
where two girls, who also were part of the same Fandom at that time. Still,
reading books and even liking One Direction was somewhat of a secret. In a way,
I felt ashamed. I knew that the music they put out in their first years was
very cheesy and that my friends and classmates did not share the same taste in
music as I did. They often declared them as “gay” or “annoying”, and I was
afraid to stick up for them and my music taste. Not wanting to go against the
mainstream and the fear of being left out was too oppressive.
My schedule back then would somewhat look like this:
- Getting up in the morning
- going to school
- sometimes reading FanFiction in class
- finishing school for the day
- walking home
- sporadically doing some homework
- continue reading till I fell asleep
Miraculously, my social life did not suffer at all in this
time frame, as I still went out with my friends. I do not know how I could
obtain both (social life and being a part of the Fandom), but I somehow managed
to do that. After browsing and reading for a couple of weeks I got increasingly
frustrated, once again, with my dire English skills. I knew that there were so
many more intriguing books in English than in German. Desperately looking for
German translations of books was not the solution, so the first step I took was
translating every sentence and occasionally every single word with Google
translator. It occurred multiple times, that I would, at the end of a passage,
forget what was written in the first few sentences. Even though it took me a
double amount of time to finish a book in English I maintained this technique.
Fortunately, I noticed that after a couple of months, I was gaining a lot of
speed while reading in this language. I had to look up words less frequently and
after another couple of months did not have to google anything at all. Not only
did I observe these changes, but my grades also got better as well. My English
marks got better after I started to consciously make an effort to learn the
language.