I’d like to say that I found the Tracy boys in the good old days of black and white, and where everything was so much richer and more real; but I can’t.

I discovered Thunderbirds as many of my generation have; by seeing the 2004 movie. I watched it back in 2009, and I liked it. (That was mostly because I was sixteen, and the hotness the blokes playing my now-favourite brothers had just totally appealed... That and the fact that they saved the world). But then I just kind of shoved it in a cupboard and forgot all about it.

A couple of years went by, until this past summer. I was bored on my Uni break, and I was trawling our VHS collection for something to watch... Bingo. The second time around, I was much more receptive. I Googled the character names, looking for the actors and other films they could be in so I could ogle them some more. Imagine my surprise when a link for ff.net popped up, and I discovered that there was more to this than met the eye!

My mum vaguely recalls watching them when she was small, but when I asked her about it, she’d somehow forgotten that there were five sons, not three and that Jeff is their dad, not John. *Smiles sadly* At least she knows who they are...

There’s something about the Tracys that just makes everything so much better. Perhaps it’s the fact that they’re there; ready to risk their lives to save others. Maybe it’s the idea that a television show actually exists that doesn’t contain wildly unrealistic, soap-drama-filled slosh... Thunderbirds contains family-based values and themes, encouraging the need to help thy neighbour and to help others out if you have the tools. I just think that that’s something that’s sorely lacking in this day and age. That makes me sound extremely weird considering I’m barely out of my teens... but there we go...

My friends at home ask me what I’ve been doing on the weekend. I say I’ve been reading fanfiction.

They nod their heads— thinking that I’m looking at ‘normal’ stuff, like Harry Potter. I tell them Thunderbirds, and I just get blank looks, or if I’m very lucky; a ‘you’re a weirdo, where’s the nearest loony-bin?’ stare. I’ve found that I really don’t care all that much.

I’ve fallen in love with something more than twice my age. I don’t think I’ll ever give them up!