Intro??

[ourspecial]

I've started and deleted probably five posts here, and I'm realizing how much fourteen years on tumblr trained me to avoid personal disclosure. I think on tumblr I got very good at communicating the general flavor of who I am through the collage of curated reblogs and additional tags, but no exact thoughts or feelings that someone could piss on the poor about. And now it's very hard to actually compose and post sentences and words without thinking either "well this could be misinterpreted in xyz ways" or "who cares?"

Anyway! I like writing fucked up fanfiction about twisty, complex characters. I'm currently reading The Once and Future King by T.H. White, the Berserk manga, and rereading one of my favorite epic longfics from the golden age of Kylux. I like looking at birds (and occasionally identifying them). I like native plant gardening, a new interest this year. I'm old enough to have been on livejournal but never was, so there might be a bit of a learning curve here.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I've started and deleted probably five posts here, and I'm realizing how much fourteen years on tumblr trained me to avoid personal disclosure. <<

newcomers has lots of resources about how to use Dreamwidth and where to find things you'll enjoy here. If you're coming from Tumblr, soc_puppet is posting tutorials for that angle. Find your Tumblr friends here.

Regarding personal disclosure: It's not required. Not everyone is into that. Many DW blogs are just fanfic, book reviews, photography, or some other thing that isn't at all diary-like. Many mix personal and nonpersonal things. And some are all personal.

If personal stuff is something you want to explore here, then I recommend starting small with things you'd be comfortable telling strangers. Build up an audience, get to know people, then gradually try sharing more personal details to see how that feels to you. One advantage of having a circle of online friends is that they usually aren't entangled in your local personal advice and may have good advice when things go haywire. And sometimes it's nice to have folks you can complain to who will say, "Yeah, that sucks."

>> Anyway! I like writing fucked up fanfiction about twisty, complex characters. <<

That is super popular on DW. Find fandom at fandomcalendar and fandom_on_dw. Search your favorite fandoms in the Interest box.

>> I like looking at birds (and occasionally identifying them). I like native plant gardening, a new interest this year.<<

See birdfeeding, common_nature, and gardening. Add fresh_haul if you're also into farmer's markets or similar. Those are all good places to share little personal things like how you feed birds or what some of your favorite foods are.

Currently running is Three Weeks for Dreamwidth (April 24-May 15) so activity is high and there are lots of extra things to do.

Re: Thoughts

[ourspecial]

This is very kind and helpful, thank you so much for the tips and resources! I'm really liking the vibe of the platform so far, looking forward to exploring it more.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.

[mxroboto]

Ahhh it's so good to see you postin!! I feel ya on the whole self-policing aspect -- it feels like sanding yourself down to be as palatable as possible. How can we please everyone when every post has the ability to become a megaphone? And what happens to our own thoughts and feelings in that?? It's rough!

Oooh, it sounds like those are all excellent reads! I saw a peregrine falcon today (!!!) and thought of you! Not an osprey, but another member of the Birds of Prey Convention. :P

[ourspecial]

Wow, a peregrine falcon, great eye! I am not so solid on my various hawks versus falcons. Mostly we get red-tailed hawks around here, plus the ospreys. I saw a handful of bald eagles on the Hudson river when I lived out there, which was really cool.

It's amazing how much certain types of 2010s tumblr discourse lodged in my brain over the years. Somewhere along the line I picked up this baseline assumption that I'm somehow hurting people just by existing, along with a conveniently vague concept of "being complicit", which is not very fun, lol. Definitely working to unravel all that. It's all just christianity in progressive packaging, anyway.

[mxroboto]

It did swoop in front of my car so I got an eyeful ahaha. Bald eagles!! That's so exciting! Red-tailed hawks are so wonderful, I always think of Tobias.

OOF you are not wrong, it really is just christianity by another name. The internet makes it such an easy trap to fall into because it's an unfocused firehose of information that we just aren't made for, yknow? I'm proud of you for recognizing it and working through it! That kind of self-awareness is *hard*