Juno Delphi

Writer.

“Take someone who doesn’t keep score, who’s not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing, who has not the slightest interest even in his own personality: he’s free.” – Rumi Jalalu’l-Din

If some might consider themselves a Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark figure, Juno would most likely compare herself to Peter Parker. Although quite unhappy with the second half of the “Spider-Man” moniker (and not too big a fan of the first half, truth be told), her style is one of the School of Hard Knocks. Not to cast aspersions upon the struggle others have faced, so much as to emphasize that her growth was hard-fought and harder won. Her writing was borne not out of a love of fantastic tales with elves and wizards, nor was it the modern mythology of men dressed in star-spangled spandex. No, her long journey on the road to creating her own fiction came from nothing more than boredom, curiosity, and a mind bursting with ideas. A mind that would not rest until it put pen to paper. Or, more accurately, finger to keyboard. Her journey started more years ago than she’s willing to admit, with her mother’s acquisition of an old computer running WordPerfect.— functionally, a fancy typewriter with a screen attached. Thankfully for Juno’s career, her mother had no way of saving her most heinous of work. She was wise enough to write on something with less memory than a Nintendo DS cartridge.But where do the “Hard Knocks” come in? Well, Juno wasn’t athletically inclined. Or popular, even for the “Smart Kids.” Her only respite from the cruelty of children was video games. Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros., Kirby, Donkey Kong Country… these games helped weather the hardest events of her life, including her parents divorce. However, this  was merely the beginning of her ventures in fandom. One fateful summer, Juno and a few friends saw an issue of Nintendo Power about a brand new game slated for Fall release that had already taken Japan by storm. Anyone who’s read her articles by now, knows that  that this was the beginning of her great passion– the world of Pokémon.

Since then, Juno has broken out of her shell and into several communities that accepted her. This has even fueled her writing, as cutting her teeth on fanfiction supplied new ideas which didn’t fit within the boundaries of somebody else’s world, leading to creation of her own realms altogether. It took longer than she’d like to admit, but she eventually found her way to Dungeons & Dragons, albeit  through the much maligned Fourth Edition, before working her way backwards. Having cut her teeth further in  3.5, she’s earned her bones DM’ing and has progressed, to 5^th Edition, where she now resides (and runs, and plays, and homebrews, and…) today, and for the foreseeable future. When she’s not engaging in D&D, raiding in World of Warcraft, or writing, Juno is cosplaying. Her two go-tos are the Doctor (of various regenerations, including 11th & 13th) of Doctor Who, and John, soon to be June, Egbert from the webcomic Homestuck.

It is through cosplay that Juno came to join the SFS team, honing her ability as a performer, and harnessing a half-believed confidence, at first. This has let her be true to herself, granting the grace of self-acceptance, enabling her journey as an intersectional activist in the LGBTQ community, and fighting alongside people of color for a world that respects them, just as queer women of color fought for her. Juno is many things, to many people, but “quitter” has never been one of them.