haitangkitty

Introductions are contextual affairs.

They begin with the name you choose to give. The one I use online is older than any other name I have save my legal name, which I have never really used socially; it's only for doctor's appointments and my driver's license and other such paperwork. (It is not dead to me. None of my names are dead to me. I still go that's my name, not yours! about the oldest names I have, the ones I haven't used for nearly twenty years, because they were me and I still lay claim to that name and the person I was when I used it.)

(I also still lay claim to the names of characters I played in LARPs and TTRPGs. Again: It's about context. Those names are mine but they are me through a lens I crafted for myself. I have known some people more deeply as their characters than as players, held meaningful relationships with people via the medium of roleplay and taken months to learn their personal name because I only talked to them when I was my character and they were theirs. This doesn't make the relationship lesser; it simply makes it highly context-dependent.)

Shadaras, the name I gave myself when I was thirteen, has lasted. It's been two decades, nearly exactly, since I took that name—and its short form, Shade. (Not Shad, like so many people naturally go to, a name that I deflected as being too masc for reasons I would have given differently at thirteen than I do now. As it is, I often accept it in passing, but it's more oh I know you mean me than it being my name.)

Depending on the introduction, perhaps you talk about pronouns (they/them, except at work where he/him is simpler), or your job (I'm beginning my fourth year as a union sheet metal apprentice), or your hobbies (the major ones right now are: aikido, which I've been doing for over half my life and in which I now rank nidan [second-degree black belt]; table-top roleplaying games, which are all about playing pretend and collaborative storytelling; art, which I've done for joy since childhood; reading, which I wish I had more time for these days; and writing, which is the reason I'm writing this introduction today). Or maybe it's about your pets (I have a little void-cat called Mar; she's my perfect baby) or your living arrangements (solitary, other than said cat) or the old standard of the weather (currently rather nice, as summer fades into autumn; it's no longer too hot and humid, but neither is the air yet overly chilled).

Maybe you give a fun fact about yourself as an ice breaker. My go-to for that is that I'm a twin (fraternal, not identical; my twin took after our father, and I took after our mother). Sometimes I talk about growing up in Silicon Valley, which usually prompts a question about why I moved to New England (college; I stayed after graduating because cost of living and also having a good group of friends similarly sticking around). Other times it might be something about doing a psych degree, going into elementary education, and then burning out due to COVID-19 and moving into the union trades. Again, it's about context, and what's fun, and what I think the people around me already know.

(Another fun fact, this time not about me: Have you ever heard a list of all the names for the puma/cougar/mountain lion? They have so many because they ranged all across the continent and so everyone had their own name for them, and then English adopted those names as regional variations. Once upon a time I could recite a whole list of their names, courtesy of volunteering for a local wildcat outreach organization as a youth, but now I'm limited to a more reasonable number. I think my favorite atypical name for them is painter; it has so much space for storytelling and mythmaking.)

Then, often, you talk about what brought you to this place, or why you're interested in this topic, or something else about the reason for your introduction.

In this space, for this context? Perhaps that's a little story:

Once upon a time (as the classic introduction goes) there was a person. But that's not specific enough, is it? A few years ago, this person, a human calling themself Shade, saw some people posting prompt fills for something called "therealljidol", went "huh" and didn't think much of it. Last year, they looked at the writing comm, because therealljidol was doing something called The Wheel of Chaos and it seemed cool but also baffling and perhaps not like a good time to try it out. And then this year when therealljidol rose once more from the depths their bestie was like ":eyes: what if you joined this time?" and they were like "...maybe." They thought about it for a week, mostly while sign-ups were being hinted at, and then signed up because it does seem like a lot of fun.

This is not a good story, because it's not something designed to be a story. It's just the little happenstances of real life. But it follows the rule of threes, and it has a beginning, a middle, and an end (which is itself a beginning since it brings us to here and now; the cycle repeats, or it is unending, depending on how you choose to view it...), and so perhaps it is a fair(y) story after all.

So! I'm doing therealljidol because I like writing and telling stories (you can see my ao3 account for ample evidence of that, including a fair chunk that's original work), and I think it's extremely fun to write short stories in response to unusual prompts on a time limit. Deadline-fueled creativity amplified by the energy of community is is a powerful pressure cooker that often results in beautiful and unexpected things.

I look forward to everything we're going to make together, and also the story of the season and game itself, however strange, twisting, weird, and wild they may become.

(sign-ups for therealljidol are still open for anyone else to throw their hat in should they choose. no expectations, of course, but this is written for the first prompt and you may as well know there's still time to join in if it seems fun to you too!)

I would like to remember to post here more often, so!

1.
Went out to Boston [greater metro area] [anyone actually in Boston would be like "THAT'S NOT BOSTON" if I named the specific suburb] [people not in Boston would be like "yeah no that's fair that's basically Boston"] on Wednesday because (a) I had the time and (b) my twin has moved there for this coming semester.

Good to see him! Took him to the local dojo, which is one I'm fond of because it's the dojo some of my friends here started at but which I'd never visited before. That was a fun time, got to see some different variations than I usually practice.


2.
Saw my surgeon and got fully cleared to return to aikido and work and everything else! She is very pleased by how well I've healed.

2a.
So I called the company I'd been working for, and was told that "sorry, we're slow right now, we don't have a place for you to come back to", and thus called the union hall like "hey I've just been laid off" and was told "I'll get you on the list, but things are slow; don't expect anything soon."

...an hour later the hall calls me back and goes "Hey, you want to work on Tuesday?" and I say yes obviously. It's with a different company (technically; iirc it's a related branch of the other company I'd been working for, which means they might just be like "hey we're sending your paperwork over"), and idk who's on the job site, but hey, good to be wanted.

I'm told, when I comment on how quickly that came back, that it's because I've gotten a good reputation among everyone I've worked with, and all the teachers, etc etc. Everyone knows I'm a good worker, reliable, pick things up quickly, etc. So.

The job site is a 15-20min drive depending on traffic. Dunno how big a job it is, how far into it they are, etc. I'll learn on Tuesday.


3.
I've been reading the light novels of Apothecary Diaries lately, having been reminded that they do exist and that my library system has them and that I will read ebooks so long as I remember they exist.

I watched the first 21 episodes of the anime uhhhh last winter...? If you're like "wait doesn't that mean you got basically to the end of s1 and then stopped" you would be CORRECT. I am Not Great at watching things on my own! I do this all the time!

I've just gotten to the end of volume 4, which lines up with the end of season 2 of the anime. Delightful reads! The the first two volumes were fun for "oh I can see exactly how you adapted this to the anime" reasons, and then it's just been fun seeing what new nonsense and plotlines are happening when I don't have foreknowledge. Occasionally there are bits of extra exposition that narration can provide which are harder to slip into a visual medium, but that's not going to meaningfully impact the vibe.

(I do find it interesting/jarring that occasionally in the light novel at least I'll be like "...okay like you're giving me the translation of these names but these are Japanese names not Chinese names despite this being set in what's generally pretty clearly a China expy..." but uh that's not a problem so much as just a weird little linguistic Thing that makes me blink and then move on because it doesn't matter to the story.)

Favorite Name Bit, though: Maomao (protag) and Maomao (cat) having Different Names that sound exactly the same.

...I mean I could talk about the plot of this but xD I'm mostly here for Maomao's love affair with poisons, fun little mysteries, and Jinshi getting ignored because he's too pretty for his own good and gets too easily upset by aroace icon Maomao preferring to pay attention to women and children and mushrooms and pretty much anyone who isn't him.