>>3616625>Give an explanation/story if you want toAs a pre-teen I was really into Niels Holgersson and later into Link from Minish Cap (I swear, it wasn't the hat and height (okay, maybe a little)) and just them facing dangers and helping people/animals was really appealing to me.
I didn't really realise what those feelings were or meant though.
Later when I was watching shows like censored One Piece and Naruto on TV, I gained more access to the internet and I was told about a forum for students at my school so I went on there to check out my school and stuff (I didn't even know about facebook).
There were clubs, similar to facebook so I typed in anime and immediately joined one, overjoyed to see other people watching anime too.
There were threads with forum games, like guessing quotes and word-chains which was fun and I also saw a gallery thread I didn't understand the title of but I clicked since I saw One Piece....
Something felt weird about the pictures, like wholly different from what I expected.
Nothing NSFW, just always two guys, well drawn and being close to each other.
It took me scrolling through the thread, reading the notes and seeing a picture where they kissed to realise that they were gay.
My blank-slate mind hadn't even realised that people could be gay, that boys could like each other like that and my mind was absolutely blown.
I went down the rabbit hole of reading fanfiction and looking at more fanart and I became positively obsessed.
And now, more than 10 years later, I have a huge image, video, audio, game, manga, doujin and writing collection and most importantly, good friends I found because of my interests and whom I can share my 2D boys love with.
Life is good.
