Some context
Hello reader,
If you're seeing this, you probably fall under one of two categories:
1) you were one of my readers, coming back to check if I (gasp!) wrote something new, or:
2) you were directed here by searching Google for 'MountainMadman', of which this site is part of the first page of results.
If you're part of that first category, I'm sorry, but this isn't new fanfiction. (bows deeply) I do write short stories, on occasion, on my actual blog, found here!
If you're the latter type of person - and, chances are, three years after I've published anything new on this site, you are - then before you scroll down, allow me to give you some context on what you're about to see.
When I was in high school and college, instead of going to class, I fell headfirst into the K-Pop fandom. (Imagine Directioners or Beliebers, except screaming incoherently in Korean.)
Out of the many, many K-Pop idol groups I became a fan of, I was especially smitten with two in particular: Girls' Generation, a 9-member girl group, and CNBLUE, a 4-member boy band. (Yes, I was into boy bands. #noshame)
Here, an aside: there was a popular Korean television show called 'We Got Married'. (It's still on the air.) The central premise of the show revolved around two celebrities, one male and one female, getting together and living a fictional 'married' life on the show. It was part comedy, part drama - people would get invested in the couples, and would often - fervently - wish for them to be real. (Imagine Ross and Rachel, for example.)
One of the couples on that show was Seohyun, from the girl group Girls' Generation, and Yonghwa, the lead singer from CNBLUE.
As you could imagine, I became one of their biggest fans. I watched every episode; joined the translation team (being Korean, I was an invaluable member for the heavily English-speaking fan population on this forum I frequented); and, as you can see below, wrote fanfiction. A lot of fanfiction.
I spent literally years as one of this couple's biggest fans. Just to be clear, that's not time I regret spending; I consider this period of my life to be a great influence in how I eventually shaped the rest of it. And all of that fanfiction down there? I treasure every one of them. I read through them, years later, when I'm bored; I suitably cringe at all of the weird parts; I laugh at my amateur writing.
But, most of all, I read them fondly, like any author would with some of their first works. Those pieces of fanfiction set the stage for what would eventually become the building blocks of my career; it's not hyperbole to say that my time spent as a fanfic writer - and being a creative - was the basis for my eventual decision to move into media as a professional.
So I'm not going to do that thing many other fanfiction writers do, years later, and delete all of their work, squirreling away some of the best, most significant parts of their lives. I don't consider it embarrassing to have been truly passionate about something, passionate enough to dedicate a significant chunk of my life toward it, and contribute as much as I could for it.
Instead, I'm going to leave it up, for future generations to read (and laugh and cringe at). And if you came here from my resume, all the better - hopefully this cements your decision, one way or the other. :p
- Seung (MountainMadman)
10.24.2016