have been unavoidably detained by the world

So Dreamwidth is doing the anti-spam crackdown thing and reminded people to check that their emails are verified for their accounts.

I have the following accounts:

Eldabe - my main one, where I spend my time, hello.
Eldarwannabe - my LJ backup. It makes me sad I couldn't back up the comments, my favorite part, but I don't want to lose this either. Why didn't I back up my LJ to this account? I don't know, I'm a messy disaster.
S****** - An old account I made a while back to be my main complaining place for stuff I didn't put anywhere else. I used it for a few months and then stopped, but I logged back in to check anyway.
I***** - This account I've been saving for one day when I am a Serious Adult Person who blogs about Serious Adult Things. I should probably give up on that dream, but whatever! I still want the account, the username is really meaningful to me.

I pay for a bunch of Dreamwidth points every year, I don't feel bad about four accounts. I tried to log into each of them, and good news, I still have the first three passwords saved. Bad news, don't know what the password was for the last one and more importantly, don't remember which email address I connected it to! So that's my next great adventure to track down, WHOOPS. x_x

More importantly, I've been wanting to make a new account and I feel like this is a good impetus to do so. See, the thing is, one of the things that makes me anxious about the fics I'm writing right now is that they are darker fics in Cursed Child fandom, a ridiculously fluffy fandom. Like, RIDICULOUSLY fluffy. And there's been some...IDK, fandom drama seems too strong, but I was made to feel uncomfortable in this fandom for wanting to write about some dark stuff. And with my fandom anxiety, it completely shut me down for a while. And I feel like, if I can find an even MORE pseudonymous account to post some of my darker (and, uh, sexier?) stuff, it might help give me the courage to do it.

Part of me thinks, oh gosh, this is ridiculous. How many accounts do I want to juggle?

And part of me is like, if it helps, do it. It's free! I'll made a DW and an AO3 account and I'll just make sure to only post on those two platforms. And people will find my fics, or more likely they won't, and at least I'll have the courage to put them out there. And that's a good goal.

(Part of me is like, no one uses DW, I can just post them here and only make a new Ao3 account and the odds that anyone will put it all together are small lolol. But I've linked my DW on my fandom twitter and my fandom tumblr and my Ao3, so I think....not.)

The one thing is coming up with a new username. And maybe a new email address to keep it all tidy. I mean, roleplayers on DW do much more complicated stuff! This shouldn't be so hard!

So, I've been on tumblr more than I want to be in the past few days for Reasons. (Reasons = I have too much free time on my hands and I'm not home so I don't have my normal distractions.)

The good (?) news is that someone reminded me of fandomsecrets so now I'm back in JULY and I have like ten tabs open of secrets I don't want to forget and I'm even enjoying reading the comments, that's how much I crave LJ-style communities lololol

So I think I'm finally reaching the tipping point.

For all of my fandom life I have tried to keep fandom and real life separate. For lots of reasons. One of them is the law professor who looked me in the eye when I was just a college student and told me that "fanfiction is illegal." One of them is that when I started this fandom journey that was NORMAL; we weren't selling our data to big companies for the right to use websites regularly and everyone agreed it was safer to keep your real name hidden. Right now it's because I don't want to be the odd one out in my professional workplace, where it's ok to be into fantasy football (which is OBVIOUSLY not gambling lol) but only two people know I'm a Harry Potter fan and neither will ever be told how much. (I haven't even mentioned Torchwood.)

So basically, I prefer it this way. VASTLY PREFER IT THIS WAY.

Then I made the stupid, stupid mistake of getting into a theater fandom. It's a fandom where meeting people in person is THE NORM. So when I meet someone I want to stay in touch with, I have to freeze. What username do I use? My real ones (on facebook and twitter) where I try to avoid fandom unless absolutely necessary? My fandom ones (twitter, tumblr, instagram, dreamwidth, AO3, ff.net, livejournal...) where I Very Much Do Not Want it connected to my real name??? And this isn't even talking about chatting with actors on social media, which is something that is a huge part of the fandom right now (and is something I both crave and fear. WTF self)

So I feel like I need something in between and new. Something "nerdy" where I can associate with my real name. It would be another life subdivide, because again: No fanfiction connected to my real name. That's the hard line. And sure, I haven't posted fic in a while, but I have three Torchwood fics lined up to go, and I've been quietly writing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child fics since *cough* 2016. They just need a beta.

But do I want to do that? What platforms get the Liminal Username treatment? Am I sure I want this??? Maybe it's better to keep being a lurker in theater fandom, because do I want this to haunt me in the future????

Ahhhhh.

Livejournal users are fleeing LJ to DW and I keep wanting to write a longer post about the issue and spend time pondering if I want to leave Livejournal or not but in my brain I am 100% PANICKING ABOUT THE TORCHWOOD FANFICTION.

Should I start downloading? Should I use evernote? Should I just save it in word so I can convert to .epub? What about the fic I've already not saved?????? Chasing down fic from my MASSIVE personal rec list is going to take forever!

SAVE THE FIC. (AND THE META)

Today’s XKCD is spot-on. The ability to curate and control your own feed should be essential in any social media platform. LJ/DW has a pretty good system in place although some features aren’t exactly well-used. Tumblr has extensions that a lot people use. Twitter doesn’t have a system as far as I can tell, BUT neither does twitter reorganize your feed by some unknown algorithm.

Essentially, Facebook exerts a great amount of control over how you socialize. Which means to me, at least, that it’s a failure of a social media site, isn’t it?

Online communities are so complicated. Interesting, but complicated.

I say, writing this on a small and dying platform. Woot?

So, livejournal went down halfway through me drafting a comment over there. THAT was annoying.

I've really come to realize that tumblr isn't going to work for me, and as LJ is dying, I'm willing to stretch my fandom feelers a little more over here on Dreamwidth. I have some worries about this site (perl-based when everyone is going to ruby (apparently), no mobile app, many non-active users, a profit-system hugely dependent on userbase, etc.) but there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

And I adore the commitment to accessability.

I just wish there were more places to meet people? With most of the active communities I see being RPG-based, it's a little harder to say hi to strangers. And the "lastets entires" page is weirdly spammy -- the same three uses putting up context-less pictures, lots of Russian posts 24/7 and some new person with awkwardly-phrased how-to-use-sex-chatting online.

*pokes around some more*

Dear Dreamwidth Communities,

Putting "We are just like community X over on Livejournal!" is NOT A GOOD WAY FOR ME TO KNOW WHAT YOUR COMMUNITY IS ABOUT.

*twitch*

___

For something completely different, anyone interested in being a spaghetti wall* for a Torchwood fic? I have vowed to not work on any of my longer stuff until this is nearly complete, so I'm at a standstill here.

It's gen, it takes place pre-series, it stars a minor-ish lady character, and I'm also trying to find a job so I'll probably be rubbish at being consistently in contact.

*listens to crickets chirp*

Or I can just post more rambles about Joseph Gordon-Levitt's FACE. That also works.

___

*Spaghetti wall = I will throw ideas/snippets/rants at you and see what sticks? I will also gush adoringly at you and thank you a bajillion times. I do not promise to take your advice. I should really try to sell this better.