my modus operandi is amalgam.

[bookshop]

Today I bought this shirt. This is either totally lame or totally awesome. It's probably a bit of both, just like me.

There was nothing to do at work today; everyone who needs to be there was gone and the rest of us had little to do. I installed 13 Firefox skins on my computer, haha, and kept going back and forth between them. Do I want Black Japan or Pimpzilla. The choices in my life are so difficult.

This morning when my alarm clock went off to the strains of Super Junior, I wondered what day it was and realized with a mild shock that it was in fact the last day of the year. It's weird, normally I at least get a little nostalgic at some point during the holidays; and you'd think since this has been my happiest year in a long time I'd've been more so - but no, I'm just kind of in this mode where I'm thinking, 'well, okay, come on, 2008, let's get on with it.'

Tonight I am ringing in the new year by myself, curled up on the couch with Chinese food, Starbucks ice cream, a stack of dvds, and my laptop. I'm cozy and comfy, and it dawned on me suddenly, as I was driving through the rainy evening earlier listening to Fujiwara Motoo seduce me into a state of nostalgia with his voice, that I am completely content right now. This has been a quiet year, but it's been the most monumental year for me of the 2000s in a lot of ways. This was the year I finally learned to stop looking back. This was the year I finally learned to stop living with one eye over my shoulder and one foot poised to go down some other path. This was the year I finally decided that if I wasn't going to show myself any respect then I'd never be able to ask it from anyone else. This was the year I finally let myself want something. This was the year I finally went out and got what I fucking wanted for myself.

It was also the year I burned a t-shirt and left livejournal forever and came back 3 months later with my tail between my legs, but you know what? Even the act of going "fuck this, I'm out of here" was empowering on a fundamental level for me. I'm not the same person I was when I left. And now I can honestly say that I've done one truly stupid no-holds-barred embarrassing thing on video that I will never live down. Which, I mean. There are plenty of more embarrassing things I could have done on video. Let the lesson of this new year be that we should all count ourselves lucky for that. :D

Here is my year, in fandoms.

January: January was odd and busy. I sort of fell out of lol_meme because I was too busy to think straight. Tenipuri fandom was making me angsty and antsy, and I sort of ran over to Hikago and went "HOLD ME I LOVE YOU." And it did, for many months. Still is, in fact. ♥

tiny tezuryo drabble for Sam and a tiny tezuryo drabble for partaken. <3

lots of ficlets posted as a response to a question meme posted the same month - including a few Hikago ficlets, a couple of TezuRyo ficlets including the one where they go grocery shopping, I loved that fic! :D - the only Akame ficlet I've ever written and the only Nobuta ficlet I've posted to date. This post makes me happy, I love all these fandoms so much.

Go Players In Love (and other Alien Life Forms)! This was written as a response to a prompt from Sam from the aforementioned question meme. I never actually finished most of those prompts but I love the things I did. This fic was so cracked out and crazy, but lots of fun, and I'm delighted you guys liked it so much.

- February:

I wrote an 18,000 word genderfuck Tezuka/Ryoma fic (filtered) that was problematic but which I was still really proud of - my longest finished fic to date at that point, actually. I had so many absolutely hysterical YM conversations with Sam and Starla and Anna and Orphne about that fic. It was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had all year. <3 And Orphne wrote me the loveliest long letter about it when it was done. :(((((( (i miss you, i miss you, i love you, little sister <3.)

wrote 2 small TezuRyo fics, a fat!Ryoma ficlet for Sam and "Team-Building".
Er, I accidentally made meme hate me so that sort of cooled that relationship for a while. When Tenipuri fandom and canon started making me angst too much I ran to Hikaru no Go for comfort. Oh lovely Hikago fandom. Also tried and failed for the third significant time to become a Naruto fan. Naruto/Sasuke calls to me, Gaara calls to me, and yet, and yet. Still the show continues to bore me on the most fundamental level. Orphne made me a lovely new layout header and it even properly labled Naruto as "cheesehead." It was hilarious and awesome, before she changed it because she decided I didn't deserve to be a Sasuke fangirl. :D I cannot blame her a bit.

- March was the month I discovered my 2 biggest and most unexpected addictions of the year: Bump of Chicken and Death Note.

March 1st. I'd just made this post about how much I loved J-pop and how I really felt like it had made me happier and more centered and freer than I'd been in a long time, and then like a week later, on 3/1/07, I heard "Supernova" for the first time, and I just. Instant and immediate obsession. I listened to that song for 3 hours straight and then went and downloaded every single song I could find. And unlike most of my obsessions, it just continued to grow over time. It was a slow, slow burn but oh, how intense.

while browsing through teleprompt's icons, I wound up dragging myself over to DeviantArt and stalking Death Note artists like Silent Reaper, kuroineko, and quaedam for days before giving up and getting my own DA account after all these years, just so I could keep track of them better. This is only the second time I've gotten into a fandom before I read/watched canon (Shalott pulled me into watching House with her House fics 3 years ago, which was a huge huge thing for me, as i wasn't even really a tv fan at that point.)
Shortly after that derogatory made me actually read Death Note; I got to the spoiler and mentally threw my manga across the room, but Light and L continued to completely entrance me. They were so much that I loved in H/D, combined with my well-established penchant for gay serial killers. MMMM. This would come back to haunt me later, thoguh I did not yet know how much. Anyway, Death Note fanart totally became one of my favorite things ever in a very short space. It has the best crack ever.

I wrote a tiny Light/L handcuff arc drabble, and thought that would be all that I ever wrote for this fandom. Little did I know!

Franzi sent me the Season 1 box set of Supernatural! :D :D :D - and despite this show being a guilty pleasure of mine, I still failed to produce any fanfic for her. One of these days! We will be in the same fandom again. :D

I made a post devoted entirely to J-pop covers. omfg I love that post. Most of the songs are still there only the directory has changed from /ihatejapan to /ajanpop, so if you want to download anything or contribute or make a request, pop over and feel free!

- April: April was Hikago month. I spent most of the month panicking over Phoenix Rising, and the rest of the month SCREAMING FOR JOY because JIN CAME BACK TO KAT-TUN. But in between, I was all about Hikago:
- one chapter of a Hikago futurefic AU that will never be finished, haha

- 1 very weird gothic akihika thing for sutlers

a hikago drabble for toko, and another hikago drabble inspired by toko. Toko, you are a strange influence.

ihikago opened! I recorded Flowers and Go for arboretum, and Wardrobe Malfunctions, and they both recorded A Whole New Apocalypse for me!!!! omg best circlejerk of the year. <3

The Hikaru no Go Top 5 Meme, which is one of my favorite posts of all time ever ever!!!!!! and which made me burst into tears repeatedly. I love that post so much. Oh, man.

5 OTPs, which is probably the smartest post I made all year, but is really just an excuse to babble on about how much I love Akira/Hikaru, and Nobuta, and so forth.

Watched Ugly Betty! I love Ugly Betty, though I fell off the downloading wagon at the beginning of S2 and haven't caught up yet. I'm looking forward to it.

Also watched Petshop of Horrors, which was fun and creepy, and, er, well, pay attention to the ongoing theme in this post about gay serial killers.

- May: PHOENIX RISING!!!!!! and the advent of Fanlib (ugh what a condescending name, anyway I digress) and a dark shadow across Middle Earth. But mostly: Phoenix Rising. The best HP conference that has ever happened to me. :D But specifically, I went to Phoenix Rising and stayed on a high from it for weeks. I met Henry Jenkins and the fantastic mimoletnoe, I got to take a tour of the devastated parts of New Orleans, Erica and I hit the pavement and interviewed hurricane victims and city residents about the aftermath of the storm, and there was something about that week that just. You know, I have been meaning to email you, praetorianguard, for the last 9 months, to tell me how much it meant to me. It was incredible. It shifted me towards something. I left LJ in August, but I really feel like I left it behind in May, in New Orleans. And I don't think I'm back. Not the way I was before.
We had too much room service and I bought a squeaking mardis gras necklace with a naked girl with a back penis that was probably really a tail, but still. Amazing. And the conference!!!!! I had the best roommates ever in Erica and Claire and Dana (omg meeting Dana finally, she made me play Bump of Chicken for them, haha). I love you guys and I'm so happy I could be there with you, and ahh I followed Catja and Tilly around all weekeend like a groupie, and I got glomped, and Sister M's Draco talk was amaaaazing, and, and, my slash panel was amazing! and just. everything about it was amazing.

But most especially? New Orleans is amazing. In a nutshell, I came back from New Orleans going, "if this city can find itself again, so can I."

- June: I don't even remember June, honestly, except as one dizzy high blur left over from PR.

Draco's birthday! :D I wrote a birthday drabble! - my one actual H/D fic all year - though I wrote many more words of H/D that have not yet been finished or posted. Yeah.

TezuRyo! I wrote "Flying Blind", which was sweet.

I WATCHED HOT FUZZ. Hot Fuzz!!!!!! <333333

Wizard Rock! :D I listened to so much wizard rock after PR. My favorites are Remus and the Lupins and the Parselmouths, but Party Like You're Evil is to LOVE FOREVER OMG. <3333333333

- July: all hell breaks loose on Livejournal, and something about this whole fandom experience shifts irrevocably for me and many many others.

But more importantly, there was ihikago round 2!!, and I recorded flonnebonne's Go God Rap! and qem_chibati read my tiny little AkiHika prediction that I stuck on my website on a whim. So awesome. :D

I wrote Flashfic for pillarchallenge and an untitled domesticated porn ficlet, and Kish and I had this crazy crazy angst fest-turned-fic-sort-of over the tumultuous and suitably omgwtfamnesia.

Gankutsuou! I finally finally watched Gankutsuou after wanting to see it for 2 years. 2 years! That is how slow I am to let myself enjoy things I think I will like. In any case, it was awesome and psychedelic and it is tied with Samurai Champloo for the best new show I saw all year. I loved it loved it loved it, and it is just the most gorgeous thing I've seen onscreen - well, basically ever. So amazing. So completely astonishingly beautiful.

And, okay. Kirk/Spock. I. I just can't believe I enjoyed it that much. Every time I think of it I'm like OH MY GOD WHY CRINGE, but then when I go back and watch I'm like OH MAN THIS IS SO AWESOME :D :D :D :D :D. There were Hortas! And tribbles! And so many ridiculous assortments of longing looks. And pon farr, ahahahaha I need to stop now. Anyway. I really do hate sci fi. Really.

HP Book 7. I read the online version first, and I really, really am so glad that I did, because the week it leaked was the week that all the shit I'd been carrying around in my personal life for three years sort of overburdened me all at once. It was incredibly emotional, and I think having the distraction of Deathly Hallows, and being able to read it over the whole week instead of a crammed frenetic frenzy starting at midnight over the weekend, was exactly the way I needed to read it. Goodbye, Harry. Goodbye, Draco. Goodbye, 7 years of fandom. Goodbye......... LJ?

Ikasucon!!! My first ever anime convention, haha. It was in Northern Indiana and they were nice enough to let me run the yaoi/slash discussion. It. Was. Incredible. The room was packed and halfway through one of the attendees went to get her teenage daughter and her friends. They allowed our session to run over the time limit for half an hour because everyone was so into it, they invited me to come back next year (which I gladly will), and after it was over, the daughter gave me a hug because it had been such an empowering evening.

And. Oh my god, that really, really, really meant a lot to me.

- August - October: I pretty much ran straight from LJ to....lol_meme. Haha. D: It was a kind of a bittersweet reunion. I love anonymous memes, you know I do, but it's also a sort of act of intentional self-deprecation. I was okay with it, though, because I was also in the process of making up my mind to get the fuck out of my job and into one that actually didn't make me hate myself, and the distraction was well-needed.

I stopped checking all my LJ comms and my friends list and basically tried to stay away from LJ, but then I found out Quaedam was on LJ and stalked her for like a month. :(

Haha, I wrote a tiny Point Break ficlet in the middle of a Hot Fuzz/cop movie marathon, over on Icarus's journal. :D

I also spent, I think, the entire month of October reading CrimeLibrary. Like. ALL I DID was meme and write death note fic and read CrimeLib. Oh, and quit my job. And played DDR. Actually, October was kind of an awesome month. :D
Also I think I'm kind of in the serial killer fandom now. I really have a thing for Vlad the Impaler. :(

While I was off LJ it was like my reserve broke, and the dam of complete love that I had been trying to suppress burst, and all I could talk about was Bump of Chicken. And Death Note. Bump of Chicken and Death Note. My short-lived attempt at Wordpress journaling is nothing but posts about Bump of Chicken and Death Note. For the Bump of Chicken, I have no one to blame but myself. For the Death Note immersion, I have Epon to blame. She forced me to write 30,000 words of Death Note fic. No seriously, she did, she screamed at me and took me as her slave until I finished it.
Actually, I started drabbling while I was on lol_meme and they encouraged me to keep going, so I did, and I loved it!!!!! I loved the experience a lot a lot and I'm really grateful to the meme for giving it to me, and for pushing me to write it, because I've never finished a fic that long or even written a fic that long in 5 years, so it was a fantastic trip to take and I'm so glad I did.

The lovely search_soleil recorded 'Go Players in Love'!!!! And I don't think I've ever even reviewed it yet because I was off LJ and I suck, but please please, go listen! :D It is awesome and she is awesome and I hope you guys do another round of ihikago soooooon.

DDR. My friend Dave and I discovered DDR at Ikasucon and then came back and played it for 3 months straight. We made all these stepmania vids to KAT-TUN, Bump of Chicken, M-flo, and on and on. My favorite is still the Signal file, which I sucked at because instead of watching the arrows I was watching Jin's hips, and the vid to "Make You Free," because Dave put a random TezuRyo AMV as the background so I would just screw the dancing and watch it over and over. ♥_♥

- November: 2 things occupied me in November: creating The Big Bang Forums and finishing my Death Note fic.

I also marathoned Samurai Champloo! Which was trippy and hilarious and adventure-ful and fun, and ahhh. Amazing soundtrack.

I watched the first 8 eps of Terra E! Which among other things got me to download tons more Uverworld than I already had.

I WATCHED AVATAR. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D I loved Avatar!!!! When I am away from it I'm mostly like, oh, yeah, Avatar, it's cute, but while I'm watching I'm always thinking 'okay, this is seriously fantastic and amazing.' It's such a great show, and it even managed to make me overcome my hatred of westernized cartoon voices. D: Avatar! Awwwww.

AND THEN I POSTED MY DN FIC AND EVERYONE LIKED IT AND THAT WAS PRETTY AWESOME. Except the part where I realized I couldn't format my fanfic correctly in my wordpress style and had to post it at LJ if I wanted to post it anywhere. Oh my god, that was not so awesome. D:

But posting under the name ningenfucker? Totally, totally made up for it. :D The fic, by the way, is A Tithe to Hell, and quaedam drew the most incredible (very nws) fanart to go with it while it was still in progress, and that? Right there? Just absolutely made my entire year.

- December: when I look back, the thing I will probably remember the most about this month is that I finally finally finally sent rach her Christmas present. And by Christmas present I mean her birthday present. From 2004. I mean. That says so much about me and my life and the direction we are moving, haha.

And we ended the year with:

3 Light/L drabbles and a Tezuryo Bump of Chicken fic. Ahaha.

Tedomari, my Hikaru no Go Christmas fic!

Yuuuuuuuletide. *_* As always.

Bump of Chicken's new album, Orbital Period, which has taken over my soul. The winner of my contest, by the way? dyfferent! Who got herself good karma by pimping other banjo-loving musicians Shearwater, right here. :D

____

Last year, during the holidays, I thanked you guys for your grace, in allowing me to be myself and allowing me to stumble and fall and work my way through things online and off. Not too long ago, Amy said something to me - that I'd done my growing up on Livejournal. And that's true. I take 2 steps forward and 3 steps back, but I have grown up in front of you guys, and that hasn't been easy or natural sometimes, but it has been ....safe, when all is said and done.

Kara also said something to me that has meant a great deal: that it takes as long as it takes for you to become the person you want to be. And Lissa said something to me that I hope I never forget: she reminded me that an object in motion stays in motion. Ken also said to me once: "inertia is such a powerful force." And I wanted to break away from that force. I wanted to be motion. I wanted to burn bridges. Not really with LJ, I don't think - but with myself.

It's the end of the year. I have a job that doesn't make me hate myself. I have a space and a town and a life and a body I actually want to live in.

In 7-10 days I'll have a t-shirt with a pig on it.

I am content. I am all grown up. I am who I want to be.

But I'm still not going to stop all-capping at you in font size 7 on your journal.

Happy new year, everyone. ♥