2011 - Spyro’s Adventure and Universe released, and the adventure began! I never actually got into the series until early 2012, but I remember being so fascinated by the figures and stuff and always finding them intriguing from a distance but never really bothered to play. Funny how that turned out, huh?
2012 - This was a really bountiful year, between Giants and all the apps and side material that came out! This was also the year I got into Skylanders, after seeing how Kaos was basically wizard Zim which made me really happy as someone who was hyperfixing hardcore on Invader Zim at the time! So, I played the game and ended up falling head over heels—next thing I knew, I was obsessively looking at art and fics, patiently waiting for Giants news, and making fifty million Skylanders OCs and started what would become the very first incarnation of CHS because the writing bug bit me bad! And when Giants came out, I cleared my entire day just so I could play it to the very end! Feels surreal, thinking about how that was so long ago...
2013 - Swap Force came out this year, and this was also the year I got to really get invested in the news cycles and all the info now that I had gotten into the series! I discovered DarkSpyro around this time and spent so much time patiently checking every day for new Swap Force info and general Skylanders talk, and I even got to pick it up on the day of release! The picture for this year was even based on a true story - when we were opening the starter pack on the way home and Wash Buckler broke apart I panicked for a bit before I remembered “Oh wait, he’s supposed to do that.”
2014 - Trap Team was released this year! But being honest, I never really played much of this one so I don’t have a lot to say about it beyond all the time I spent looking up info as I usually did. I was still busy making my OCs as usual, but as this was also a pretty big time of change for me—this was around the time I started to want to expand my horizons as a writer and artist, and it was around the time I started to realize I wasn’t straight, which caused a lot of the landscapes for my Skylanders stuff to change!
2015 - Superchargers came out, and it ended up sealing its spot as one of my favorite Skylanders game with its story! I actually drew my sona playing Battlecast here initially because I thought Battlecast came out that year, but it was actually the following year so just pretend that she’s playing a generic card game instead lol.
2016 - This was a pretty bountiful year with the release of Imaginators and Battlecast as well as the first season of Academy! I remember the days when we all thought we’d never get a TV show, and yet here we are! Even if Academy wasn’t really what I’d have wanted out of a Skylanders TV show, I’m still proud we even got one! On the fandom/personal side of things, I admittedly didn’t do too much as this was the year I started dipping my toes into other series and also getting started doing original stuff, but Skylanders was still something I mainly enjoyed from the sidelines. I actually distinctly remember that when Academy’s first season dropped, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep and stayed up all night waiting for Netflix to get it daksljasdkjadsjkljkasdlads
2017 - This was the very first year we didn’t get a game, but we at least had season two of Academy (the best one imo). Even though I didn’t do much Skylanders stuff this year as I was mainly focused on original things that year, the series remained a constant for me in the background like it always did, with me mostly lurking around fandom corners from the sidelines.
2018 - As par the course with the circle of life, Academy came to an end this year and Ring of Heroes came to a beginning with an official announcement and beta—but perhaps more importantly for me, this was the year that I finally joined social media and started getting active in the online Skylanders fandom after years of lurking from afar! It was so exciting, getting my first taste of online community... And on top of that, it also really motivated me to get back to doing Skylanders stuff regularly, inspired me to do more art and OC related stuff, and things really felt like they were looking up!
2019 - Ring of Heroes’ first version came out, and it had the honor of being the first game I was active in the fandom for! Even if I didn’t cover V1 as much as I’d have liked to because of Internet issues, I still had a lot of fun playing it and watching the game develop! And in addition, this was the year I finally buckled down and published CHS’s first installment! Even if it was kind of an impulse decision for me, I’m really glad I ended up doing it—getting to put my writing out there really helped me overcome my self consciousness about it, and it was always exciting seeing the views and reviews I’d get!
2020 - This was a big year in Skylanders history for me for two reasons - Ring of Heroes got its revamp and coming with it were none other than the portal masters, who I immediately latched onto as new faves (they knew what they were doing, giving the person who spent so much time writing fic about earth portal masters going to Skylands a canon example of that) and it was also the year that I finished CHS’s first installment, which was a really big deal for me as that was the first time I had done so! Even if 2020 was a rough year for me for a lot of reasons, I at least had the series to keep me going like I always did!
2021 - And here we are in the present! (AN: At the time of posting this online, anyways) Ring of Heroes is still going strong-ish, as is the fandom, and I’m still here, writing and drawing and posting as always with work on CHS’s second installment and a whole host of other things! It feels surreal looking back at all the time I’ve spent with the series and its fandom, almost feels like it grew up with me in a sense, almost... And here I am, looking forward to ten more years!
