| The Adventures of Kat and Clara (the history of the story) I have been writing creatively for fun since I was 12; I am now 23 years old. What began as a love for writing Sonic the Hedgehog fan-fics shortly after the release of the then-immensely-popular video game Sonic the Hedgehog II in 1992 ultimately led to the creation of what I believe to one of my best writings. (Note: This is coming from a math/chemistry/music individual, rather than someone who writes his/her whole life.) The writing of fan-fics for Sonic the Hedgehog (which have never been released to anyone, with the exception of some close friends) first involved -- of course -- Sonic, your favorite spiny, strangely-blue, chili-dog-eating, hyperactive nudist rodent; and his genetically-mutated fox friend, Tails. Let's not also forget their enemies -- Dr. Robotnik, Scratch, and Grounder -- as well as friends Sally Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, Rotor, and Antoine. In due time, I dreamed up a great deal of other friends of Sonic and company, including Tails's three long lost brothers, Sonic's long lost cousin, a pair of girlfriends for our heroes, a heavy metal band fronted by one of Tails's aforementioned brothers, just to name a few. The storylines were equally broad; they extended to the simplicity of "Sonic and Tails rescue their home island from Dr. Robotnik's forces of evil" to such things as "Tails gets engauged voluntarily to another vixen at the age of 8" and "Sonic and Tails end up in trouble with the South Island mafia." However, it would come to pass that, in the course of character and psychotic storyline creation, that two new characters would emerge -- a brown panther girl named Kat, and a black panther girl named Clara. In the midst of November of 1996, I was watching an episode of The Simpsons on television; it was the one where Homer forms a mob to catch a cat burglar. In one part of the episode, there is a scene in which journalist Kent Brockman makes a report about the cat burglar on the news. On his screen is an inset of a regular house cat with white paws, wearing a black mask (or something like that). Seeing the image of the cartoon cat gave me the idea for my new character; the white paws looked like a pair of gloves, and the mask kind of reminded me of some sort of Zorro-ish character. I quickly made a colored sketch of this character the best I could. (To this day, I still have that drawing!) On November 24, 1996, during Thanksgiving vacation, Kat Panther, was born. Her first name was that of my first (and, so far, last) girlfriend I dated the previous year and with whom I broke up the past April. At the time of this "birth," Kat was 16 years old; I also decided that her birthday should be on the same day that I created her. Her first story was kind of silly; she comes to a concert of Tails's brother's heavy metal band, dressed in a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, and meets up with the lead guitarist. Two hours later, she saves his life after he's attacked on stage by one of Robotnik's lackeys; she picks up his guitar and smashes it over the head of the attacker. News of her act of bravery is quickly spread and she invited by Princess Sally to join the Freedom Fighters. Her original persona is equally weird; it was this story, which includes much more than what was previously mentioned, that Kat is given a new set of clothing that makes the religiously-insane pantheress look more daring and heroic: a pair of leather gloves worn to the elbows, a pair of leather ankle bands, a "V"-shaped leather vest, and a pair of leather pants that can best be described as a pair of women's underwear; all clothing was also black. Kat, in later stories, describes herself as being a devout Lutheran and becomes something of a war general. I didn't know it at the time, but this is where things started to go bad. After writing a huge story about how Kat leads the whole village of Knothole to battle Robotnik's legion of robots and is ultimately victorious, it would become apparent that Kat was too powerful, much more than Sonic. Soon I wasn't writing Sonic fan-fics anymore; in fact, it now seemed like Kat could break Sonic's spine like a toothpick. Finally, in the summer of 1996, I abandoned writing about Sonic. Oh, well -- it was a nice 3-1/2 years while it lasted. This directed my writing more towards Kat and her daily life. Next page >> |