About
Why was Captain and Commander created? And who created it?
Terms of Use
Characters found on this website are from Gundam SEED/Destiny, and belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended. However, all the graphic and text here are by MapleRose. You are welcome to use the wallpapers for your own desktop, and the icons for forums, Livejournal, MSN, etc. But other than that, please do not post the graphics found here anywhere else. Thank you.
About the Fangirl: The epic journey to SEED obsession
Once upon a time, a girl named MapleRose stumbled upon an episode of Gundam SEED playing on TV (dubbed). She had known it was being shown for some time, but was never interested in seeing it, because she wasn't really into meccha, or even action/adventure. However, on that fateful summer day (or rather, night) in 2005, she happened to keep the TV on after she finished watching Inuyasha instead of turning it off like always, and saw phase 5 of Gundam SEED. Even though she didn't really know what was going on, she got hooked on the story, and wanted to see more to find out what happened next. The characters, although she had no idea who was who, looked very pretty, and she liked the art style.
So the next day, she tuned in for Gundam SEED, which was playing the re-run nightly instead of once every week when it was first shown, and got even more hooked on the story, and thus followed it along. A few episodes later, she had a sense of what was going on and remembered most of the characters' names. However, after she finished watching phase 13 or so, she went on vacation for a few weeks. By the time she came back, she found that they had changed it to weekly showings (Tuesday nights) again, and they were already on phase 23.
But it didn't matter. She picked it up from there and continued on, phase 26 and 27 helped her understand more of the story, as she hadn't seen the first 4 episodes either. She remembers seeing the Mwu and Murrue scene in phase 23, and laughing at it, even though she wasn't as attached to the characters as she is now. By the middle of the series, she had started liking Mwu la Flaga because of his character design and his awesomeness and laid-back personality (and his humour). She was surprised and sad when she found out that Mwu would be transferring off the Archangel in phase 33, because she thought he'd be out of the story already. But when he came back to the Archangel with style, she was even more impressed by him. By phase 36, MapleRose's favourite female character was actually Lacus, because she was impressed by the Pink Princess' lecture to Athrun. MapleRose liked Murrue as well, but she wasn't her favourite character at this point, because the series didn't reallly focus on her too much. But MapleRose had always liked Murrue's rivalry with Natarle, especially by phase 43.
Because she hadn't seen episodes 14-23, she missed some of Mwu and Murrue's flirting scenes earlier, so the kiss in phase 38 came as somewhat of a surprise, although the end of phase 37 did give somewhat of a hint. However, she did like the idea of them being a couple, and quickly became a fan (although not as much big of a fan she is now). By the end of SEED, she was in love with the couple, and was shocked and saddened by phase 49, yet was amazed at the awesomeness of how the plot unfolded.
Somewhere around phase 44, the TV channel decided to start the series again from phase 1 on Friday nights. So MapleRose decided to watch those early episodes that she had missed (so for a while, she was watching the first episodes and last episodes at the same time). Starting the series again and seeing those episodes she missed gave MapleRose new insight into the series and Mwu and Murrue's relationship, as well as the characters themselves. After seeing their development, she became even more of a fangirl of the couple. Watching the series over again also gave her a chance to pick up on those subtle details and scenes that she had missed or forgotten about the first time through.
Now she had watched the series so many times, she can practically remember what happens in each episode. And even after 2 years from when she first saw the series, she remains obsessed with it, and the series remains one of her favourite animes. Before SEED, she didn't really look into the meccha genre, but afterwards, she decided to give meccha and action a chance, and it had opened up her to many meccha series (such as Rahxephon, Fafner, NGE, Eureka 7, Gundam Wing), although she didn't like any of them as much as SEED.
A few months after she finished watching the series, in both English and Japanese as well as Destiny in Japanese (which she didn't like nearly as much as SEED), she started writing fanfiction for the couple, and drawing fanart of them in Jan 2006. It wasn't long before she created a large collection of fanfiction, fanart, and other fan material, and became a certified fangirl of the characters (and of the series itself).
MapleRose can be found a various online communities, spreading her fangirl-ness. She can be found at deviantART, Fanfiction.net, Minitokyo, and Livejournal
About the Site: Born out of the fangirl's mind
MapleRose found that there was a lack of Mwu/Murrue fanart and (English) fansites on the Internet. So during the summer of 2006, she got the idea of starting up her own fansite for them. Thus, "Captain and Commander" was born.
"Captain and Commander - a Mwu and Murrue Shrine" was launched on August 12, 2006. Although parts of the site was still unifinished, MapleRose made sure to finish the fanart and fanfiction section, and threw her works in there. Since then, the site grew and expanded, but MapleRose was still too lazy to finish some of the relationship, rants, and image sections that she had originally planned.
The site changed hosts multiple times. It started out as http://maplerose.bravehost.net/mwurrue/ , but she didn't like the host, so she moved it under geocities to http://www.geocities.com/mwurrue/ . However, she was running out of storage space geocities due to the images. So in May 2007, MapleRose decided to change hosts. Currently, Captain and Commander is hosted by Freehostia. But just in case she decides to change hosts again, MapleRose also used a free redirecting service from Freedomain, so that the address will stay the same even if she changes hosts in the future. Thus, Captain and Commander came to its permanent location at http://mwurrue.co.nr/ .
Captain and Commander has almost reached its one-year mark, and has achieve 1000 pageviews (even though MapleRose suspects a large percentage is from herself testing the site...) In that one year, it has changed the main layout twice (Past Layouts), though the fanfiction section went under major renovations 2 or 3 times.
It currently features 60+ pieces of fanart, and 15+ wallpapers (with 4 resolutions for most) of Mwu and Murrue, links to her fanfictions (hosted on fanfiction.net) and other people's fanfictions, some fangirl rants and character summaries, external links and affiliates/fanlistings, and other misc MxM-related stuff.
All of the graphics on the site are created by MapleRose, put together by Jasc Paint Shop Pro8 (‹3). It is currently powered by a CMS called Drupal, though a lot of the coding is done by herself as well.
About the Webmaster: The girl outside of the fangirl
Outside of being the obsessed fangirl, MapleRose enjoys drawing, writing, photography, playing badminton, and watching anime. She like doing both traditional and digital art, and does non-fanart once in a while. Her original artworks and photography can be found at Dreaming of a Stream (her personal website), as well as deviantART. To contact her, fill out the feedback form