I Don't Think We'll Have Enough Place Settings.

[rionaleonhart]

On 3 August 2003, at the age of fifteen, I created a Livejournal under the name rionaleonhart.

I moved to Dreamwidth along the way, but I imported all my entries, so this Dreamwidth is functionally the same journal, and I still keep the lights on at Livejournal in case any old friends come by. So I've been keeping the same blog for two decades, from my teenage years well into adulthood.

It's hard to know what to say for this anniversary, really! This journal's been an important part of my life for so long, and I'm so glad that there's still a place for long-form blogging in a forgotten corner of the changing Internet. I've had a blast rambling about anything and everything over the years, and it's been great to share it with you guys.

I'm glad to know the people who've been here from the beginning; I'm glad to know my new friends; I'm glad to know everyone I've met along the way. I don't know if I have any lurkers, but, if I do, I'm glad you're here as well.

Thank you all for being here. I hope I'll still be here and writing in another twenty years.

(My AO3 account also had its tenth anniversary in January. Something about years ending in 3 makes me want to establish long-lasting fandom presences, apparently.)

If there's anything you've ever wanted to know about my presence on Livejournal or Dreamwidth, or about my fandom life in general, or about my ficwriting, feel free to ask in the comments!

Comments

[sushiflop]

Congratulations on your (blog's) 20th birthday!

I honestly love being able to look back at my journal's history and realize how much I've changed and grown since (whenever).

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you so much! It's great to have this record of my adventures in fandom over the years, even if it's also occasionally embarrassing to look back on. You don't need that many italics, teenage Riona, I promise!

[wolfy_writing]

Twenty years! Congratulations! I hoep we're still online talking to each other in another twenty!

What's something fun you'd like to see more of when it comes to fandom?

[rionaleonhart]

Twenty years! Congratulations! I hoep we're still online talking to each other in another twenty!

Thank you, and so do I!

What's something fun you'd like to see more of when it comes to fandom?

Promptfests and kinkmemes! Low-pressure, no-obligation events where people can throw out prompts and others can write whatever catches their fancy. On the rare occasion I've managed to get into a fandom while there's been an active promptfest going on, it's always been a blast.

[fishguts]

Congratulations on the milestone and happy twentieth anniversary to your journal across both websites! (Also, happy tenth anniversary to your AO3 account!)

Your posts are always a blast to read; I'm delighted and excited every time I see you on my Reading list. I too hope you'll still be here and writing in another twenty years yet to come!

After wracking my grey cells for an interesting question to ask, I landed on this: I think you mentioned in a few posts past that you tend to keep a (traditional?) journal for fic ideas - I'm curious to know, roughly how many journals for fic ideas have you filled up over the years?

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you so much! I'm delighted you enjoy my posts; your journal is a lot of fun as well!

I think you mentioned in a few posts past that you tend to keep a (traditional?) journal for fic ideas - I'm curious to know, roughly how many journals for fic ideas have you filled up over the years?

I don't have journals solely for fic ideas, but I've used an academic diary to keep myself organised ever since I was in secondary school. I used to draft a lot of my entries in it; I don't write in it as much as I used to, now that I've got a smartphone to take notes on, but I still get one every year because it's handy to have a notebook on me at all times. It's got a few pages for general notes at the back, so I fill those up with fic ideas over the course of the year.

'How many physical notebooks have you filled up with scraps of fanfiction?' would be a very different question! I've got six full notebooks in my home (seven or eight if you combine the contents of notebooks in progress), and that number would probably at least double if you added the notebooks at my parents' house. Again, though, now that I have a smartphone, I write by hand a lot less than I used to.

[necrophilia]

Happy 20! Your journaling life is at the emerald anniversary. ♥

I’ve two questions, and they’re each as subtle and dignified as the last:
1. What, if anything, would be the final straw that would make you shut the lights on LJ?
2. Three reasons why I’m your fave, go.

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

1. It'd take a lot! I don't really visit Livejournal for any reason other than mirroring entries (and replying to the very occasional comment) these days, but I've got twenty years' worth of rambling in this Dreamwidth, and Livejournal serves as a backup. For that reason alone, I really don't want to delete my LJ; I'd be very upset if Dreamwidth went down and everything got wiped. I suppose 'from now on, anything you post on Livejournal will be republished in the Daily Mail' would do it.

2a. You're extremely funny, and your comments make me smile!
2b. Whether our tastes agree or not, I always find your thoughts on media interesting to read.
2c. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim.

[thawrecka]

That's awesome! I created my LJ some time in 2002, so it's about 21 years for me now.

What I want to know is what was the best surprise about Person of Interest?

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you, and congratulations to you as well!

I think the best surprise was how invested I got in the cases of the week! I can struggle to get into procedurals and procedural-adjacent shows, as the individual cases often aren't that interesting to me; I tend to be more interested in the recurring characters and the overarching plot. But most procedurals focus on investigating murders, so the central figure of each case is already dead and the characters never get to interact with them. I think 'every case has a living main character' adds a really interesting dimension to Person of Interest.

Shaw was also a delightful surprise. I wasn't sure at first how I'd feel about another character joining the team, but she's so much fun!

[facethestrange]

Yay, congrats on your very impressive anniversary! :D

I joined lj in 2005, at 21, and used it in a very 'on and off' way - there were years when I posted literally every day, and years when I didn't even open the site at all, and it flipped between these states a lot, both on lj and on dw. But in the end here I am. :D (And my ao3 account is from 2011, so no neat anniversaries for me, lol.)

And since you have flawless taste in fandoms, I'm going to ask if you have any recs for media (especially tv shows and/or anime) that you liked in the past and maybe still like but you don't post about them anymore?

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

since you have flawless taste in fandoms

(I kick my High School Musical DVDs under the bed, sweating profusely)

It's hard for me to give recommendations, because I'd describe my taste as 'highly questionable' at best! But here's some anime I both love and think is genuinely excellent:

- Your Name, my absolute favourite film of all time, in which a boy in Tokyo and a girl in a country town start swapping bodies.
- Erased, a twelve-episode anime about a man going back into his childhood body and trying to prevent the abduction and murder of a classmate. (As you might guess from the premise, this one is pretty dark, but, hey, you enjoyed Higurashi!)
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a twelve-episode anime with a dark and intense take on magical girls.

You could also take a look at this entry, in which I listed ten canons that really made an impact on me in the 2010s.

[tinkaton]

oh wow, happy bloggiversary! now I'm curious when I made my first LJ journal so I went and looked, apparently it was April of 2005. (Also 14 going on 15 years old at the time, 15 must be a good age for blogging haha.) I think I did possibly have a Xanga started before that but I long ago deleted my Xanga (like a fool) so I don't exactly remember. It's super cool you've kept this blog going the whole time, I've jumped blogs multiple times so my stuff is more spread out.

Fandom question...what was your first big fandom? Like that you were actively involved in!

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

(Also 14 going on 15 years old at the time, 15 must be a good age for blogging haha.)

Ha, evidently so!

My first big fandom was Pokémon! I first discovered fanfiction on someone's personal Pokémon website, and it absolutely blew my mind. A free story? Just sitting here on the Internet? For me to read? About Mew, one of my favourite Pokémon??? I dragged my younger brother to the computer and made him read it as well; I don't think he entirely understood why I was so excited.

My first real presence on the Internet, if you don't count all the petulant messages I left on the guestbooks of 'anti-Pokémon' websites, was on a messageboard for fans of a series of Pokémon/Animorphs crossover fics. My first attempt at writing fanfiction myself was inspired by zarla's fics on Neglected Pokémon Lovers Unite!, which, to my delight, she still keeps online all these years later; it's an incredible relic of the Internet around the turn of the millennium, and it meant a lot to me when I was a kid.

I actually revisited and annotated my first fic, Rachel's Pokémon Journey, a few years ago. It's under the tag 'old fanfiction book club' if you have an inexplicable craving for terrible self-insert Pokémon journey fanfiction written by a twelve-year-old.

I'd be interested to know your first fandom in return!

[ryulynn]

Congrats on the anniversary! Let's hope for at least another 20 years :D

I'm someone who has changed online names a bunch so I'm curious if you ever thought about changing it? (Not that I think you ever should - you have a solid name)

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

Before Riona, I was briefly Mew, and then 'Darkmew' or 'Evil Mew of Darkness'. Since I settled on Riona (while creating my fanfiction.net account in late 2001), though, I've never really thought about changing it. I knew I wanted a handle that sounded namelike, rather than e.g. a string of words or numbers; I went with 'Riona' because I initially misread Rinoa's name in Final Fantasy VIII and thought my misreading sounded pretty.

As 'riona' was already taken on Livejournal, I added 'leonhart', and I'm happy with that as well; Squall Leonhart is still one of my favourite characters of all time, all these years later. (Although, as my username consists of the intentionally misspelled first name of a Final Fantasy VIII character and the surname of another Final Fantasy VIII character, I did unintentionally make myself look like a Squall/Rinoa shipper who can't spell.)

For creating accounts I don't necessarily want to be traced too easily back to my 'main' Riona identity, I'll use other usernames. For example, I was nervous at first about making a Tumblr because of the fandom purity culture there, so I signed up under the name rixareth (formed by creating an anagram of my first name and adding an 'x', in Kingdom Hearts fashion), although eventually I relaxed and started promoting my fanfiction there. I'm also rixareth on Reddit, and I have a Something Awful account under the name Rith, which I occasionally use for the Let's Play forums. But I still think of Riona as my 'true' online name.

[nomelon]

Happy journaling anniversary! I just got a message today that I've been on tumblr for ten years and I stopped dead and went WHAT? But but wasn't that just last year? I mean... How the fannish time flies.

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you! (And congratulations on your Tumblrversary in return!)

How the fannish time flies.

It really does. I can just about process having this journal for twenty years - it's definitely been a while - but I can't comprehend being on AO3 for ten. What? But that's the brand new fanfiction website I've only just signed up for!

[sholio]

Happy blogiversary! :D

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

[sonofgodzilla]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!!

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

[pauraque]

Happy fanniversary!

[rionaleonhart]

'Fanniversary' is a great word. Thank you!

[vriddy]

That's a really cool milestone!! Congratulations :D Too sleepy for questions right now, but always happy to see you on my reading page <3

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you, and likewise! ♥

[newbie1990]

Happy blogiversary! V glad you're still around making blogposts, they're always v interesting to read. My Livejournal is apparently around 16 and a half years old, which is about as old as I was when I made it.

What do you think you'll be writing about in twenty years? (I realise this is... not easy to guess at, but!)

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you; I'm delighted that you enjoy my entries! I'm glad that Scrubs could bring us together.

What do you think you'll be writing about in twenty years? (I realise this is... not easy to guess at, but!)

It's actually pretty easy! Guilt, weird memory issues, isolation, being unsure of what's real. I may flicker rapidly between fandoms, but I revisit the same themes again and again and again, and you'll still find those ones showing up in my fanfiction even if you go all the way back to my teenage years.

[rainbowsandrum]

I'm glad to have been able to know you for these million years or so. ♥

I might not actually participate on DW like, ever? But I lurk like nobody's business on your account almost exclusively. It's why I stick around here, really. Life would be terribly dull without your updates.

[rionaleonhart]

It's been so great to reconnect with you! You can participate as much or as little as you like; I'm just glad to know you're around. ♥

[apiphile]

Your journal is certainly one of the most consistently entertaining and interesting ones out there! Here's to another 20 years :)

[rionaleonhart]

That's great to hear; thank you!

[feast_of_regrets]

Happy blogiversary!

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

[marginaliana]

Happy blogiversary! I've really enjoyed following you all these years.

If you could come up with an ideal fandom, what would it be? Not necessarily what you would write yourself, but what would the canon be like?

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you so much! I'm glad to know you as well.

This is an tricky question! Fandom-wise, I think my ideal canon is imperfect, which seems a bit contradictory. Earlier in this post, I listed some anime I think is genuinely good - Your Name, Erased, Puella Magi Madoka Magica - and it struck me that, although I write a lot of fanfiction for a lot of different things, I've never written anything for these 'genuinely good' canons. If the canon is too polished, there's nothing left for me to do!

I like writing for messy but heartfelt canons. I like dark themes with hints of hope or friendship or playfulness; I tend to struggle when a canon takes itself too seriously. Give me some fun characters with intense dynamics, give me unanswered questions or loose threads so I feel there's still space to be filled, and I'll have a great time.

[ruuger]

Congrats! You're slightly earlier adopter than I was - I created my LJ in late 2003, though I had been eyeing it for a while already (I think they only did away with the invite codes in late 2003).

[rionaleonhart]

Oh, that's right, I created my Livejournal while they required invite codes! A couple of years earlier, though, before they required invite codes, I'd created a Livejournal for in-character entries as my Neopets; I think I only ever made one or two posts on it. When I decided to create an LJ for myself, I used my Neopets LJ to send myself an invite code. I'd completely forgotten about that.

[sewn]

Congrats on the blogiversary!

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

[dracothelizard]

Huzzah :D My first entry is February 2003 so I guess I've also been posting on LJ and here for 20 years!

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you, and high-five! Congratulations to both of us.

[wyomingsmustache]

I am trying to remember when we met, and I feel like it would have had to have been in the summer of 2oo8, which means we have known each other for fifteen years now :O. This gives you and Wolfy (who I met around the same time) the dubious honor of being my oldest friends, as that was right after high school, and I am no longer in contact with any of my high school friends.

Anyway, I'm glad you made that Livejournal account all those years ago. I'm glad I got to meet you :)

[rionaleonhart]

Just searched back through my email account, and you're right; the first record I have of a comment from you is from 26 July 2008! We've known each other for fifteen years pretty much exactly, which is impressive. I'm glad to know you as well!

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you!

It's definitely slightly intimidating to know that, in theory, anyone could go back through my journal and read all my breathless teenage rambling about Jeremy Clarkson! But, on the other hand, I do like having a record of my adventures in fandom over the years.

I tend to assume most people won't bother reading back a long way, unless they a) like me and are prepared to be forgiving or b) hate me and are seeking evidence of terrible crimes, and in either case I doubt my early entries will change their opinion. And, in any case, it's not like my tastes are much less embarrassing these days; I've just learnt to use italics with more restraint.