I was 10 or 11, I was coming up with Sailor Moon OCs, I flipped to the “list of mythology topics” page in what must’ve been the family World Book Encyclopedia, and picked half a dozen names basically at random. One of them ended up being Sailor Ptah.
…you want to see some art, right? Of course you do.
(This was drawn on the back of…some kind of school worksheet, I think? I wasn’t getting sketchbooks yet. You can see the backwards text through the scan.)
So I was “SailorPtah” everywhere for a lot of years. Eventually swapped the “sailor” part for my first name, and now I’m “ErinPtah” everywhere.
30s (as if the “childhood hardback World Book encyclopedia set” wasn’t a dead giveaway)
…okay, look. One of the sticky points about Fandom These Days is, if a person says something like “transphobes do not interact,” they could mean anything from “DNI if you advocate for the murder of trans people” to “DNI if you headcanon my favorite character as cis.” And I don’t want to sit here writing out “a detailed list of things I rule are not transphobic (or whatever else) and will not block you for.”
Don’t harass people! For any reason! Disagreement is fine, criticism or correction is fine, but don’t just be terrible at someone! I think that covers it?
As of this writing…it is several years out-of-date, oops. Going to give it a touch-up after I post this.
The forced-perspective in this photo makes Fiddlesticks look ridiculously huge. IRL, Fluffy is twice her size.
You mostly write about:
Comics/webcomics, fandom drama, my cats, blockchain rubbernecking (and, more recently, AI rubbernecking), reactions to stuff I’m reading/watching, music recs.
You never or very rarely write about:
Sexy stuff, travel, kids (don’t have any), school (I’m not in one), recipes…? There’s probably other Generally Common Blogging Topics that it would make sense to mention, but I’m out of ideas.
Is your journal mostly public, locked, or a mix of public and locked?
A few years ago I mass-locked everything through the end of 2019, and will probably roll that forward every few years, just to cut down on the internet’s ability to go “hey, look at this embarrassing thing Erin said 5 years ago!”
As of now, everything from 2020 onward is mostly public. Very occasional access-locked posts.
Do you use filters for certain types of posts (e.g. fandom-related posts, or posts about sex, or mental health issues, etc.)?
Just a general access-lock for the broad category of “this is really personal and/or deals with identifiable people I know IRL.”
Your posting frequency (e.g. daily, every few days, weekly, etc.):
Sometimes I’ll go a few weeks without posting, sometimes I’ll post 2-3 times in the same week.
Does your journal frequently include any of the following: memes, linkspams, gifs, photos, videos, etc?
Frequently: link roundups
Rarely: memes, gifs, photos/images, videos
What do you enjoy most about journaling?
Same thing I enjoy about social media in general: the way I get to keep up with how a bunch of people are doing, and they get to keep up with me, without the energy-drain of “personal one-on-one interactions with everyone all the time.”
How often do you read your friends list (e.g. daily, every other day, once a week, etc.)?
At least once a day, more often if I’m bored and/or procrastinating on something.
You really enjoy reading about:
Same things I enjoy blogging about, more or less. But if there’s something you think is cool, and you write about it in a way that conveys the coolness, I’ll probably have fun hearing about it.
You have very little interest in reading about:
…sports. You’re not gonna hook me if it’s sports.
Your thoughts on journals that regularly include any of the following: memes, linkspams, gifs, photos, videos, etc?
If the content of the memes/linkspams/gifs/photos/videos/etc is relevant to my interests: cool, I’ll read this! If it’s boring: meh, time to scroll.
When it comes to comments on your posts, what matters more — quality or quantity?
Comment if you have something to say! I don’t want comment quantity for the sake of quantity, but that doesn’t mean you should worry about making every reply a poem, either.
Do you unfriend people who don’t comment much, even if you know they are reading you regularly?
I would absolutely not even notice.
What is your approach when it comes to commenting on other journals?
What I’m guessing is the default introvert approach? If I have something to add, and nobody’s swooped in and said it already, I’ll probably comment. If not, I probably won’t.
When you friend someone, but things don’t really click, do you unfriend them without warning, or do you send them a note first? How do you prefer to be unfriended in similar circumstances?
I would not send someone a note before unfriending, and would find it kind of weird if somebody sent one to me.
Full disclosure: I almost never unfriend people on DW, because I have a limited reading filter for “journals and feeds I want to actively keep up with.” If for some reason your posts are totally failing to grab me, but I don’t have any reason to dislike you as a person, I’ll probably just take you off the filter.
AND LASTLY
Friending memes often ask people to list their favourite TV shows, movies, books, etc., but more often than not, those aren’t things people actually write about in their journal. Do you have any favourite TV shows, movies, books, etc., that you DO often write about — not necessarily in a fandom sort of way, just in general?
Scrolling back through my last couple months of posts…the recurring titles are Moon Knight + WandaVision, associated Marvel stuff in general, and Madoka Magica. I also post about Eurovision when it’s Eurovision season.
There’s a ton of fandom activity, it just gets posted on other sites: mostly fics on AO3, and fanart/comics on DA.
I keep meaning to write more blog/journal entries about Moon Knight, because I have lots of feelings, and they can’t all be expressed through an on-topic fic and/or fancomic. Haven’t really pulled it off so far, but here’s hoping.
Any final thoughts you’d like to share with potential new friends?
I keep seeing comments in the vein of “I miss the old internet, where you could…” — and the sentence inevitably finishes with a thing you can still do. Not to be all Old Man Yells At Cloud about it, but:
If you’ve ended up reading this but you don’t actually have an account on this site, you can still follow the blog via RSS. If you get a Dreamwidth account, you can make it double as an RSS reader! It’s free, easy, and hard-to-monetize. Joiiiin uuuuus.
(If you’re reading this on a normal subscription and/or an RSS feed already: high-five.)
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findingfriends looked fun and substantive, so here goes!
Classic!
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