I’m always incredibly obnoxious when it comes to my birthday.

I’m the baby of the family and my parents’ only child in their marriage (they had other children and other marriages) so I was pretty spoiled as a kid. To be fair, I’m still pretty spoiled when it comes to birthdays.

In my adulthood, I’ve done more and more to celebrate, stretching it out until I went from celebrating my birthday to my birthweek to a whole birthmonth thing where I’m even more inwardly focused than usual. I think it started with the week of my 21st birthday when I still lived on campus and I spent over a week thoroughly taking advantage of what being 21 in the US means. I thought that since it was my birthday, that I shouldn’t have to be constrained to only celebrating a day or a week.

No.

If I’m going to celebrate anything, let it be for the whole month.

When I was really active in fandom, I started doing stuff to celebrate. I’d take writing prompts and write fanfiction for my people on tumblr. I moved away from that to writing drabbles for myself shortly afterwards (because it’s my birthmonth and I’ll write what I want to). And last year I wrote a a relatively massive fanfic just for myself because hardly anyone was writing anything close for what I wanted for myself.

And of course, I do other stuff too —

I try to hang out with my friends (but not very well because I am at my happiest one on one and spoons go fast in social situations). I hang out with my niecelings. I nap. I watch movies that I like and write stories that I wish other people would write. It’s weird. I put a lot of focus on my birthday and on what I’d like for it but really, just give me a good book, a notebook, some wine, and some privacy and it’s all good.

I will be the happiest Stitch in the world.

So what am I doing this birthmonth?

Lots of self care.

Repeated links to my book wish-list on Amazon.

Writing all the things.

Sharing things I’ve written in the past and that I’m especially proud of.

Talking about myself on previously unseen levels.

Eating good food.

Watching bad movies.

I’m still 90% unsure what this birthmonth’s story will be. Last year was an epic Harvey Dent/Bruce Wayne romance that I felt was pretty underrated by fandom.

This year?

I’m still pondering the POC-centric Gothic Horror fandom challenge I mentioned on twitter but I think that I’m going to set it up for November after many people in fandom have seen Crimson Peak so that people would have more experience in the genre and know what they want to do. (And I still have to make the graphic and look up examples of what I want to do and that could take a while.)

I am still in a James Bond mood though and what better way is there to get a little  bit of that out of my system than to write fanfiction for it? I’m feeling something NSFW with Bond, Moneypenny, and Q because it’s my birthmonth and I deserve all of the pretty things!

You’re not required to buy me presents.

You don’t have to wish me happy birthday.

You don’t even have to celebrate my birthmonth with me.

But I’m going to be celebrating in my own way and I’m going to have FUN!