INTRODUCTION AND AVATAR

Hi! I'm Kohikari (or Hinohikari, or Judy-chan, or what have you), and I lurk like it's going out of style. Part of it is laziness, part of it is having nothing to say, and part of it is that it frequently takes me and my OCD hours to finalise any sort of review or comment or email or what have you...so, haha, um, I read and read and read and only review if I have something I'm absolutely itching to say, usually involving timelines or codes or something nitpicky like that that only a freak like me would notice. I know a lot of people get ticked off with lurkers like me, so, um, sorry in advance and/or belatedness? ^^;

The furry slug in the picture is Candace, my crotchety old lady (clawless toothless leukemia'd and still terrorising my house); I'm now also fostering (permanently at this point) two other cats: an enormous cross between a puma and a chickadee named Skippy (he's like 15lbs, and it's all bone and muscle, but he trills in an octave usually only available to tiny kittens, it's so cute) and an adorable cross between a mouse and a pumpkin named Roxy (...except less vegetal than you'd expect, and she's this special kind of crazy that, unlike Candi, doesn't go straight for my throat at the slightest provocation, and she also has A MILLION TOES).

OTHER SITES

I have an f/p account, http://www.fictionpress.com/~kohikari , which has emo poetry from early high school, some attempts at non-emo poetry, and a couple 'proper story ideas' that never took off. Eh, what can you do. My ADD, OCD, perfectionism, and cripplingly low self-esteem pretty much guarantee that I'd never finish anything anyway, in fandom or o-fic.

Some old things from like Playwriting class (later on in high school) are up on my dA account, http://hinohikari.deviantart.com/ , along with a script idea from my early days of analysing intrafandom statistics that never turned into a comic because (a) I'd've needed to completely revamp the results and script anyway, as I'd overlooked a critical factor in judging pairing popularity rankings (b) I lost interest (c) I couldn't have put the comic up on the internets because I didn't have access to a scanner at the time.

Also there is the blog thing I tried when I was knee-high to a grasshopper (no seriously, I was that short) and still pretty internet-retarded, back in liek '04, http://www.freepress.com/kohikari/ , which I called Amethyst because it's my birthstone and also because I suck at titling things (as you may have noticed from my work here).

Oh yeah, and the elljay. http://kohikari.livejournal.com/ has pretty much been my HQ for the past few years. Occasionally I'll do something like investigating obscure song lyrics or conducting fandom surveys or assembling a list of all the Anime Boston AMV Contest winners since 2006 (which is when I started caring about it) or answering "writer's block questions" or the occasional meme.

In the past I have been briefly but enthusiastically active on NationStates (Queendom of Talent), Gaia (Korinohikari with mules Taerra and Chiridena, and later I retried the application process to see all the shiny new options and clothes, they give you CLOTHES now(!!!), with the name Seikawa-Hikaru, and promptly never did anything on that site ever again)(I miss you, +Dial-Up Crisp Sandwich+...the internet is great for making instant buddies with complete strangers from halfway across the globe); I also spent a great deal of time on the Mew Mew Power Uncensored forums ( http://mmpu.smuncensored.com/forums/index.php?c=3 )(...which has for some reason been registered as an attack site? ;_; ) and made a lot of good friends there, including an internet wife for whom I was betareading before I dropped off the face of the planet...I tend to do that a lot...

(I also have various accounts on various sites sprinkled throughout the internet, which I have largely forgotten because I haven't used them in like four or five years. Or longer. Hey, I have a MySpace. I never actually did anything with it, a friend of mine just wanted me to make one back in 'oh-whenever for the sake of having it. *shrug*)

ITEMISED BIO LIST

Age: I'll be turning twenty-two in February, and am proud of the fact that I no longer look like a twelve-year-old; indeed, now I resemble a sixteen-year-old. How I've grown!
Education: Five years at a small Catholic school in the North End of Boston, one miserable fifth-grade year at a massive charter school in the Back Bay (lol culture shock...haha, it's kind of alarming how much of those memories I forcibly repressed), middle school at a tiny pilot school in Brighton that specialised in kids with behavioral problems and did wonders for me (along with having a math and science curriculum that boosted me through high school and into college), and then high school enrolled as a Theatre major at the Boston Arts Academy across from Fenway Park, which was amazing; I've been really lucky. Now I'm in my third year as a Marine Bio major at Salem State University, and am working on not imploding like I did in my senior year of high school. I considered double-majoring (or at least minoring) in Theatre Arts, emphasis on acting because it's the only thing I'm good at (media? computer crashes. set and lights? splinter magnet and klutz. costume? ball of anxious paralysis--although I was pretty good at jewelry and hand sewing. directing or playwriting? I ran screaming in the other direction. props was fun though...), but what with my flow sheet (bio majors here have like zero free electives, so I'd have to exceed 120 credits, and that's really not happening on our budget) and the drama-club cattiness (I was lucky enough to be part of a really tight ensemble at BAA, and I have none of the diva attitude or cut-throatedness I'd need to survive in the real world) and the economy (make a living as an actress? HA!)...yeah, there goes that idea. I'm eyeing a Master's of Biology in Arctic Ecology or something (while we still have an Arctic, at least) at the University of Tromsø in far northern Norway, but I'd need to scrape together $30K for living expenses... *sigh*
Gender: (mostly) cisgendered female
Blogs: The LiveJournal counts, right? Even though I only update it like twice a year?
Music: I'm a big fan of Rurutia, Every Little Thing, and JUDY AND MARY, and a small fan of Emily Loizeau, Ani DiFranco, and Amano Tsuki(ko); I also like a bunch of other music, but apart from the grew-up-with-classical and the instinctive appreciation of rock, it's pretty random.
Favourite Books/Authors: I cut my teeth on Anne McCaffrey, Tamora Pierce, The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, and anything else I could get my hands on, including my dad's old SFF classics--H.G. Wells, Ursula K. LeGuin... With Borders gone there aren't any bookstores within walking distance of my house, despite the fact that I live in the middle of downtown Boston two blocks from the State House, so I'm pretty much 100% a denizen of the internet with occasional library breaks or trips across the river to the Galleria or wherever. Ideally I'd like to live in the juncture between YA, SFF, manga/graphic novels/comics, literature, and the children's sections, but there is no more lovely Borders to go frolic (read: mooch) in. T_T At least I have Naomi Novik (the Temeraire series--Napoleon...WITH DRAGONS!!!) and Sarah Rees Brennan (the Demon's Lexicon trilogy, coming out with a Gothic mystery trilogy soon, also working with Justine Larbalestier on Team Human) to proselytise at people with.
Favourite Movies: If it's good, it's good. I'd run out of space (and attention span) trying to remember all the movies I've enjoyed over the years.
Favourite Anime/Manga: In terms of becoming involved in the fandom, I've been mostly monogamous with D.Gray-man for the past four years; I was a Narutard for two or three (depending on how you define my post-Itachicaust rebound), and an Inuyasha fan for two(ish), which is when I first discovered fanfic. I'll always read fic for Harry Potter even if I can't really ship anything for it, because I love the world setting so much; in the past I've read a lot of fic for Tokyo Mew Mew, Cardcaptor Sakura, Sailor Moon, and Teen Titans, and much much more recently have been poking Young Justice because it's hilarious. I will also read anything Asuka Kureru/Askerian writes and/or effusively recommends, along with spur-of-the-moment trolling of random favorites/rec lists, so I've wound up in FFVII, Kingdom Hearts, Stargate SG-1, Sherlock, Merlin, Doctor Who, Gundam Wing, Avatar: The Last Airbender... But the question was about favourite manga. I don't dabble in fandom for but love love love: FMA, Fruits Basket, Azu Manga Daioh, Chrono Crusade, and Chobits, among others that I've probably forgotten.
Most Inconvenient Bad Habit: Being really intelligent and enjoying school work, but running away from it at top speed instead of doing the smart thing and getting good grades.
Grievance of the Moment: Um. I've finally decided to be an Internet pirate because I'm sick and tired of not being able to find the music I like on YouTube since my darling IMEEM went down, but there isn't exactly a 'Music Pirating' manual. Also I need to get a missing piece of software to fix Ark, my file unzipper, but that's really just laziness because Linux is freely available on the intertubes.
Joy of the Moment: Four straight weeks cuddling the cats I haven't had time to spend with because of school, and those four weeks have been filled with holiday baking! Ah, I love the Christmas season. Jesus is all well and good, but dude, my mother's making COOKIES.

FANFIC

-- Myuu Amaranth/Amaranth are the result of me actually trying to type up one of the little adventure stories I would act out with those little plastic Mobil figures I had when I was a kid (...actually, I still have them, I think), one inspired by Tokyo Mew Mew and of course riddled with like Sueness and self-insertion because I was like fourteen and playing with dolls. I had a lot of fun fleshing out the concept for the medium of fanfiction, but in the end I just wasn't happy with it and it never got very far and I lost interest and so on and so forth. I'm going to try and upload what information I had on how the story ended as a sort of closure for the like three hypothetical people who might still care about it.
-- Value happened because I'd been living in Naruto-head-land for so long and was bouncing ideas around from fanfic I'd read and character studies in the canon, and seriously sat down and thought about what physical part of themselves each of Team 7 might most value, and then my brain insisted it be typed up. At that point it was less of a 'why put it up' than a 'why not'.
-- ...But I'm probably not going to put anything else up in the near (or far) future, because I'm more of a reader than a writer (and more of a lurker than a reviewer...)

FAVORITES

I'm gonna be honest, I haven't cleaned out my favorites list since like 2006, before I even really got into Naruto. There's stuff still in there from when I was a wee little n00blet...maybe I should do something about that...

FANDOM DEETS

I've been in D.Gray-headspace for the past four years, and I'm showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. I love love love good gen, but have a habit of searching out terrible yaoi and reading it gleefully as a sort of guilty pleasure (although it's much better when the writing's actually good, reading terrible horrible no good very bad fanfiction is just so damn entertaining...). The fans (fen?) have their ship portmanteaux and their ship wars and their pairing weeks, and I cheerfully reap the results of their hard work. Yullen is typical, if tenuous in reality, and then there's the 'hawt' scale and the 'canon/plausible but boring' scale...because yeah, Allenalee is so cute (and MariMira!) but that Yucky stuff is not only hilariously weirdly named but also kinda full of pretty boys, so. Yeah. If I have an OTP it'd be maybe Poker Pair? But probably not, because I ship EVERYONE. Yes, everyone. [/fandom needs moar poly] Because at this point, every single character in D.Gray-man is Allensexual, right down to the boss villain and the talking umbrella and the golden snitch and the Extremely Gay Sweater. Awww yeahhh~ (Of course, I still have to care first...so it's difficult to read a romance fic without working up the investment in the world setting and the story and the characters and their dynamics together...but fortunately I've put a lot of thought into this fandom, so I usually come prepared.)