When fanfiction authors are gone.

This is a rather personal entry, and one that I didn't really plan beforehand but I need to write this for personal reasons. A friend sent me an email last Saturday, asking me if I knew that Ranma 1/2 fanfiction author The Eternally Lost Lurker had died in his sleep this month, and that he had just learned about it.

To be honest I didn't even remember who he was.

Then my friend mentioned this story titled Road Diary of a Young Martial Artist, which I didn't remember either.

It was not until my friend sent me a link to the old RAAC (Rec.Arts.Anime.Creative) Google group, and then I read it and rememembered the story and a little bit about the author. The reason I couldn't remember anything about it is because this story was published way back in 1996.

But I did remember the author then. I read some of his work back in the late nineties and we even exchanged notes in the FFML (FanFiction Mailing List) at the time.

My friend mentioned that he had gotten curious about how other Ranma 1/2 fanfiction authors from the old days were doing, and he discovered a few of them were now dead and mentioned another writer, Durandall, had committed suicide due to depression in 2014. He also mentioned Jim Bader had died that same year, apparently of heart failure.

I admit I never talked to Durandall even if I did read some of his work in the FFML, but I do remember having a couple of email conversations with Jim at one point in the early 2000's.

It was shocking to learn the three of them were dead.

This made me think and wonder if writing fanfiction is worth it or not. I've been asking myself a few things for the last couple of days, things like, is fanfiction something you wish people will remember you for? Is it something worth your time in the end? Considering the causes of death in these cases, I also started wondering, what kind of people are we as fanfiction writers? Are we even healthy?

I mean, none of these men were old. The oldest was probably Jim, and he should have been at least in his mid to late fifties by now; that's not so old.

What makes me think is... that by the time more of us old guard Ranma 1/2 fanfiction authors (I started writing for this fandom in 1999) are gone, will this be the only thing people will remember us for and does it matter?

I'm not sure, perhaps the reason why this is affecting me is that I had health issues earlier this year, and to learn others who share the same hobby of writing fanfiction for fun are no longer around hit me a little harder than what it should have. I can only say that the three of them will be missed.

I guess that in the end all we can do is live as best as we can, and do what we feel is good for us.