Cosmic greetings, one and all. I am new to this. This site and writing for someone else's site, in general. So, please, try not to be too harsh. My nom de plume of choice is Leo Wyld, it is a name I have entertained writing under, in some form, for many years now. I am a lifelong resident of Indiana, save most of one year in Virginia, and I have had an interest in writing since the first grade. My main literary pursuit was fiction, however, particularly fantasy/sci-fi. I began writing lengthy stories in said genre in the third grade, and I continued to rework them over the years. Rewriting, re-editing, and, a couple times, redesigning the entire universe in which the stories were set. I have never fully finished a set of writing enough that I consider it a finished work and, because of that, I have never really attempted to become published. (I still have a novel idea I am conceptualizing, I think of the characters and storylines on a daily basis. I hope to someday find the drive to commit it all to prose)...
But that is not why I am writing here today. I am here to talk about a raccoon. Always been one of my favorite animals, the raccoon. The cunning rogues of the Animal Kingdom. So, I probably was a bit biased to some degree, I can admit that. I once frequented IGN on a daily basis. I have been a fan of Marvel through games and cartoons for most of my life. At one point, I had not read any actual Marvel comic books, but I knew the Universe to some degree, I had even read hero wikis and the like. Well, I was quite surprised when I heard a character announced on IGN for the upcoming Ultimate version of Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. Rocket Raccoon. I had never heard of this character in my life. I looked up his profile on Wikipedia, skimmed it, thought he sounded like a cool character (as I mentioned above, I was probably a bit biased). Anyway, his Wikipedia article was all I knew of him for some time after that. I didn't buy UMvC3, my entertainment budget at the time was tight, and I am not a big fighting game player.
Some months later, not sure how many, I was, once again, visiting IGN. I saw, an article or a banner ad about a game called Marvel Heroes opening registration for Beta. Well, wouldn't you know it, that odd dude Rocket Raccoon was on the roster. A chance to play as this character on an MMO? That might be cool. I went to the site and registered as Leowyld, I was accepted in November (of 2012). As I began to post on the forums and discuss that I was planning to play Rocket when they added him to test, I met a couple people who were already fans of his. I realized I wanted to know as much about this hero as these people did, so I began to process to read every comic book in which Rocket Raccoon had made an appearance. It did not take long, it really did not, for him to become my new favorite hero (a position that had been previously held for most of my life by Hank McCoy, he's still in second place). Independent of what he was, he was just such a complex and thoroughly unique personality with an equally unique history. Rocket Raccoon was the most awesome character I had ever seen anywhere, and I made sure to spread that opinion in various ways on the Marvel Heroes forums. When I attended a PAX East livestream chat on March 22 of this year, I proudly introduced myself as his biggest fan on the Marvel Heroes forums.
Importantly, though, I did not use the phrase "fan of Rocket Raccoon", I threw out a word I had created, had entertained, in my head: Raccoonatic. With that, I created a word for his fans. I first created a fanclub site when I could not find an online fanclub for Rocket called Raccoonatics HQ. That site did not last long because, soon, my best friend on the MH forums DarkBeast created a thread announcing we were going to form a guild called the D'ast Raccoonatics. When another guild announced they were the first "official" Marvel Heroes guild a couple weeks later because they had created a website, I quickly created a website for the D'ast Raccoonatics, which is still my homepage. Because DarkBeast had created the guild announce topic, and he was such an important presence on forums (even though Beast, not Rocket, is technically his fave), I insisted he be the leader, the Captain, and I took the title of Raccoonatic Commander.
Today, I consider myself Rocket Raccoon's #1 fan. Even though I am aware some may want to contend that. I have his figurine on my desk, a RR T-Shirt, and a digital version of UMvC3 on my 360. (I really want one of those Joe Quesada Rocket Raccoon mugs, but that is a quest I continue to pursue). A big part of who Rocket is, is his loyalty. His commitment to the team, to his friends. The Guardians of the Galaxy are everything to Rocket Raccoon and, while his buddy Pete is usually the leader, Rocket is really the heart of the team. As such, I am as big a fan of the modern Guardians of the Galaxy as I am of Rocket himself. That, I suppose, is what brought me here. There is no movie, past or present, that I have anticipated more then the Guardians of the Galaxy. Going to see that movie on August 1st of 2014 is the only event I am certain of for next year. I've said this on the MH forums, as well, I truly believe it is my future favorite movie of all time. As if there could be any doubt, Rocket Raccoon is gonna be on it, and you know what they say about doubting raccoons.
I am Leo Wyld, signing out for now but I hope to speak to you all again soon. Until then, stay awesome...
Welcome to the team!
ReplyDeleteThanks for having me.
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