But for the Grace of Oz

It is downright astounding, the tenuous connections that shape our lives. The moments that lead to our futures. The smallest things that, at the time seem like nothing, but looking back changed our lives forever.

My moment is a commercial, playing on the radio, in Tacoma one day about five years ago. A clip from the song 'The Wizard and I' caught my attention, leading me to pay attention the next time the commercial aired. It was for the musical, Wicked. It was going to be playing in Seattle.

A few weeks later in a Half-Price Books, flipping through the CDs, I came across a copy of the soundtrack. It didn't have every single song in the musical, but it was enough. I brought it to my mom, because I wanted to hear every note from this wonderful thing that had caught my ear. She recognized it, or rather, the book it was based from, and proceeded to outline to me the novel while saying there was a copy in the garage somewhere.

I listened to the CD nonstop, I can't remember how long at this point. Eventually I had the book to go through, and I read it as fast as I could. It was an entirely different sort of story than I was used to at that point, almost solely because I already knew how it ended.

When it was over, I decided I hadn't had enough, and started searching on deviantArt for fanart, to see how this book and musical had inspired others. Within a short time, I noticed a trend. A search for 'Elphaba' (being the Wicked Witch of the West, of course) turned up an awful lot of images of Elphie and Galinda (later Glinda the Good). A lot of friendly images. And some stories.

It was my first encounter with fanfiction, and fan-pairings. I kept looking.

After a while I started going through the galleries of some of the folk that drew these pictures, they were pretty good and I wanted to see more. I began to notice a trend. A lot of people who drew Gelphie (G(a)linda/Elphaba) also drew what I later learned was called Kigo. Kim, of the Disney cartoon Kim Possible, with Shego (that green lady with the firey hands and a lot of black hair).

I had to see what the big deal was with those guys, how could they compare to WICKED? So I started searching for Kigo, and started getting stories and fanart and art for stories and stories for art and a lot of references to a place called 'kpslash' but never ever any links.

Eventually, through a series of links I could not remember even the moment after I'd completed it, I finally found this place. It was a forum. A forum for those that loved the Kigo pairing and other 'alternative' relationships from Kim Possible. After spending some time, months, lurking and watching people posting on the forum, I finally started posting myself. And months after that, I noticed a little link lurking on top of the page that simply said 'Chat'.

Curious, I clicked.

And was thrown into a crazy place where text flew by faster than I could read it, conversations happened at 100WPM and I didn't know anybody. It took me some time, but they were welcoming, and I got used to their hectic ways.

Fast-forward almost two years: A new face comes into the chat room, someone I didn't recognize and neither did anyone else. She said she was from the 'other' Kim Possible chat. What other chat? There were more out there? Why did no one tell me?!

I asked for a link, followed it to a brand new crazy place, made a whole bunch of new friends and had my eyes opened to the pure chaos and comraderie that fills the best places on the internet. In time I became friends with this original, that random person to lead me there. And then more than friends. And then more. And after more events that would make this altogether far too long, we got engaged.

Which would have never happened if I hadn't heard a commercial on a radio, for a very good musical.