'Wherever You Are' was my little passion project when I was in year 7.
I'd been a passionately devoted 1D fan since I was about 9. So, naturally, in about 2012 I discovered 5sos, firstly through their video for 'Try Hard.'
Was I instantly obsessed? No. I'm not sure when it happened but sometime just before the release of their self-titled debut album.
The first fan fiction I ever read was 'Bad Meets Good.' At the time I thought it was the best piece of fiction ever written- a story, online, free, which is basically a literary manifestation of every fantasy a One Direction fan has and ever will have. Now I realise it really was just another rip off of 'After,' the mother of all fanfics. Can you believe that Harry Styles smutty fan fiction is now literally I cinemas?
Wattpad, and fan fictions, pushed my borders. They pushed the borders of what I thought it was possible to fantasise about, and how to fantasise about it; it was this fictional fantasy land that I was allowed to delve into every day. As I sat late at night, in the dark in my room, hunched over my iPhone 4, I was so no longer just a 12 year old girl one direction fan in year 7: I was '[your name],' and both Harry Styles and Michael Clifford were in love with me. They had a punch up about it last week. Now Harry's in juvie, and Michael is grounded, but its okay because I'm secretly dating Ashton on the side, he's on his way to pick me up on his black motorcycle now. I sure hope he's taking me to Milkshake City!
'Wherever You Are' fast became my favourite 5sos song, Ashton, the underdog drummer with dimples and a goofy laugh, was my favourite member. I GENUINELY believed we would marry, I was unable to imagine any other potential future. I was so in love with him, this emotion needed to manifest, out needed reciprocation. The only problem was that I was about 12, so our 5 year age gap was akin to one of 30 years between adults. Also that we'd never met, had really no way of staging an accidental 'meet-cute,' and that I genuinely believed I was too fat for love at that point (mind you, I was a very fit dancer, 12 years old and probably only 50kg or so.)
So, I created Callie. She was basically me, but an idealised version. Everything I felt was lacking, Callie had. She was fit and naturally thin, she wore makeup everyday, had kinda-nerdy-but-cute girl glasses ands green eyes, she was a rich only child (like basically every other fan fiction protagonist), she'd just moved from England started year 11 at Ashton's high school, luckily for her she just happened to be right next to him to roll call, too. So there we go, now that personal failings and fantasies have been sorted, we'll move onto conceiving the most deluded nonsensical hallucination of the life of a teenage girl ever!1! That's the beauty of this platform.
'Wherever you are' was originally meant to be 30 chapters or so, but it took them about that long for Callie and Ash to actually become 'official,' because I really like DETAILS. The plot suffered under my pure love and enjoyment on tending to every last detail of kisses and gazes and outfits, random fantasies (such as attending an UAN concert in Sydney with my gay best friend) and how my morning warm alternated 1D songs every day!
My 'endgame' plan for this story was a little unclear. I don't think I exactly knew where I was going with it. However, I need closure on this, I occasionally consider just writing the rest for fun but I know I'd get caught up in perfectionist tendencies and try to overhaul this entire thing. So my plan is just to recount what went down in this fantasy universe, in this alternate reality, this fantasy version of my life.
