Snowflake Challenge #1 - Introduce Yourself

[jedibuttercup]

Challenge #1 - In your own space, introduce yourself! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

[Giving this a try this year. I can't promise I'll hit every challenge, but hopefully it'll help get me posting again for non-fic related things!]

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm pretty consistently known as jedibuttercup across the fic and journaling sphere, and have used that name since 2002. (Though I am not the JediButtercup on Twitter or the one on Instagram; I was bemused to find not-me JB's out there the last time I vanity Googled.)

I work these days as a "technology and media manager", which basically means website design, database management, document design, and other marketing and software-support related fun. Mostly for the same not-for-profit HR consulting firm since 2006, where I am lucky enough to have excellent co-workers and decent benefits.

I graduated college in 2000, for some perspective; I found fanfic in ... 2001? I was living with my brother at the time and commuting to my first post-college job, and he loved having the TV going in the background all the time in the evening while playing video games. We tuned in at the beginning of both season 6 of Buffy and, a year later, Stargate SG-1 season 6, and I quickly caught the fixit bug. Followed soon thereafter by the crossover bug! Though that was neither my first experience as a writer, or my first experience as a fan (more on that in Challenge #2?)

I'm a fairly voracious reader, as much as time allows (see my yearly list posts) primarily in genre fiction, but also the occasional nonfiction book too. My movie/TV preferences are very similar; I have an embarrassment squick, and I have a hard time with plots that are primarily romantic or horror-centric or plagued by idiot balls, but actors and characters I get attached to can make up for a lot. I also take yearly roadtrips with my best friend (38 US states now and counting) and the occasional trip with my widowed mom (Disneyland last year; Grand Canyon coming up this year). I spent the first several years of my life in coastal Texas, but we moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1988, and I've lived there ever since.

I'm single, and have three young niblings and a very spoiled 13-year-old half-Maine-Coon cat named Berúthiel. My equally nerdy BFF and her husband both went to college with me; we found out years after they married and we all graduated that he's a distant cousin (ninth, according to the genealogical charts, diverging back in the 1600s), through my mother's father's well-documented ancestry.

Life is much crackier sometimes than any half-way believeable fiction ever could be.

Comments

[rose_griffes]

That's so strange to have people on other platforms using "your" online name.

I love road trips. Hooray for visiting new places!

[jedibuttercup]

I blame my parents for the roadtrip bug; they always wanted to drive when we visited family in bayou Louisiana or up in Austin when I was little, and when we moved we did it the long way too, seven days from Houston to California and then up I-5 with stops at Carlsbad Caverns and Disneyland along the way. I wasn't able to afford it on my own for years after college, but the second I had enough income to save for it I ordered a map of the country to stick up on my wall and started making plans with the BFF. I will never regret the expense. :)

Very boggled about the online name; but I guess they (if it's two people and not one) probably got it the same way I did, from two popular genre media? :)

[fadedwings]

Wow, 38 states!!! That's really impressive!

[jedibuttercup]

The goal is to hit all 50 by age 50? We'll (hopefully) be picking up two more in 2020, and again in 2021, so we'll see.

Our goal is always to hit one local food hotspot and one major waypoint for every day of travel - be it a national park or a museum or a scifi convention. It's been worth every penny and every vacation day spent on it so far. But it wouldn't be the same without someone to share it with - I'm just glad my BFF is equally enthusiastic.

[nonniemous]

*waves*

Nice to "meet" you.

I share your embarrassment squick. Just, no.

[jedibuttercup]

*waves back*

I've found I can tolerate a very little of it by muting the TV and leaving the captions on - that's how I get through the occasional skin-crawly scene in otherwise entertaining shows like The Rookie - but if I'm watching with anyone else, I either end up leaving the room or hiding behind the couch, which is also embarrassing but still better than sitting through it! :)

[pronker]

Your last sentence is deep, deep truth ... but wow, having folks online with the same username would seem to be amusing, once the shock wears off. :)

[jedibuttercup]

I guess I figure they must also be fans of Star Wars and The Princess Bride? So, having good taste in nostalgia fandoms? :)

[spikedluv]

Hey you!

I'm glad you're joining Snowflake this year!

Grand Canyon is someplace I'd like to visit. 38 states is amazing!

Life is much crackier sometimes than any half-way believeable fiction ever could be.

So many times I've thought that if I put a RL event into fiction people would think it was too out there, lol!

[jedibuttercup]

Thanks! The Grand Canyon has been on my mom's bucket list for years, and I've been helping her cross things off, so. Bonus for me that I get to enjoy it too, though. :)