November 2006
About Me and My Fandom
Me
I was born a country girl, but now I live in the city. I've loved animation all my life as well as stories and animals.
I have also enjoyed being a huge nerd about things. I decided I wanted to be an artist around 4th grade and went from
tracing pictures to actually drawing them myself by 6th grade. Ever since then, I wanted to be an animator. Unfortunately,
my school system had next to nothing in the art department so I'm pretty much self taught. I finally got a chance to start
living my dream when I was able to take two semesters of animation in college. That was when I decided it wasn't for me and
now I'm floating free trying to figure out what else to do with my life.
That's about where I am right now.
My Show
I've always been a big fan of animation. I was all over American shows when I was a kid. In 1999 I started to get a look
at some Japanese shows on American television. Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon were okay, but they didn't keep my interest
any. Ronin Warriors was on at the time, but I refused to watch it. It had already aired on Cartoon Network at least once
through before I happened to catch near the end of the last season one day. I thought it was interesting enough and watched
it again the day after. By the end, I was hooked and eager to go back and watch the rest of it.
I was already active in several American animation fandoms at the time so I was hesitant on getting into something else.
Especially something as drastic as Japanese Animation. Yes, I was biased back then. But when Gundam Wing came out, I started
seeing what other shows Japan had to offer. After all, I do love animation and these days, I don't care where it comes from
as long as its good.
So I started to discover the anime world. When I got into college, I also joined an anime club and got more into it than
I ever dreamed I would. My life got saturated with anime and I fell headlong into it. All my American fandoms got left
behind as I started my anime kitty page and never looked back.
These days I've calmed down and I'm not so rapid. I used to be an anime fan. Now I'm more picky and I'm just a fan of
certain anime shows. I've jumped back and forth from Ronin Warriors to other fandoms, but I've always come back to this one.
It was my first love and it seems by now that I'm stuck with it for the long run.
My Page
Though I liked Ronin Warriors, I tried really hard not to get too into the fandom. I was writing fanfics for multiple
other shows at the time and was trying to avoid the temptation of starting a new fanfic series at all cost. But when I got
into Ronin Warriors, all the fanfics were so awful. Granted, there were some good ones, but not a lot. I was on a Ronin
mailing list (I know, I was TRYING to stay out of the fandom, just not succeeding) and there was a thread where everyone
was complaining just how low the quality of Ronin fanfiction was out there. I'm not sure exactly when it was, but I decided
to take on the challenge.
Originally, all I had was a small sub section on my kitty page
to host my fanfics and some art. But it gradually grew into its own monster and I had to continuously delete files if I
wanted to add more to it. Lucky for me, my super awesome friend felt bad for me and allowed me to hook up with her web page
account. She doesn't really get my obsession, but she is willing to share space anyway. I love you Neffie! Without you this
page isn't possible! My own little corner of the Ronin universe is my dream come true!
My Board
Samurai Reflections is a message board started
by myself and Dixxy in early 06. We put it together because we were afraid the Ronin fandom was dying and we wanted to do
anything we could to breathe some extra life into it. It's still a humble little board, but I very much enjoy it. It's a
lot of fun and it doesn't just belong to Dixxy and myself. It belongs to all the other Ronin fans who have taken advantage
of this opportunity to speak out and say that there are still a few fans out there.
If anyone wants to find me on the board, I go by Ty-Chou on there. This place is a great way to get information on
the show, see pictures, fanart and fanfiction. As well as see what some of the other popular web page owners are doing. I do
have a personal section there and I post
updates and art and little extras that sometimes don't make it on the page here. Everyone is super nice down there so drop
by and say hi sometime.
Other Pages
These are a few other pages I have floating around:
My online web comic.
A page my friends and I run.
My anime kitty page.