a heap of things; or, an introduction

[ladytemeraire]

Figured I should probably make an intro post before too long, so.

I'm LadyTemeraire, or LadyTem or Tems. Most of you probably know me from Tumblr, or elsewhere on social media. If you don't, welcome! I'm still figuring out this platform so please bear with me.

I was actually thinking of making a DW blog some time ago, before the latest Tumblr nonsense happened, so I guess this timing is somewhat fortuitous. Wish it wasn't on such a tight deadline though. I'm still really nervous about how the 17th is going to go down; there's a part of me that can't shake the feeling that everything's just going to disappear without warning, NSFW or no.

It's going to take some time to get used to this format. To get back in the habit of making original content, not just sharing what other people have made. Can't use a blog as a digital commonplace book if you can't share anything. God but I'm going to miss the ease of that; it's the difference between taping a piece of paper into a notebook, and having to copy the information into a notebook by hand. (I actually like the Italian word for commonplace book better - it's "zibaldone", which literally means "a heap of things", hence the title of the post.)

I'm going to miss tag novels and rambles. I think DW has a cut function - I know LJ did - but I liked that feeling of being able to add thoughts "under my breath" without feeling like I was horning in on someone else's post. Less of an issue when there's no reblogs, I suppose, but I still added those asides even on my original content.

I wonder if I'll still be able to use an "aesthetic" tagging system like I did on tumblr, or if I'll have to be more straightforward with my tags. I liked being able to use phrases or lyrics for character tags and poetic tags for certain themes.

Kind of want to copy-paste a whack of posts as a manual backup but I'm not sure that's kosher if they're not my own content. I've got a WP import running but their servers are hella overloaded, and I've got one of those python export things too, but idk. I feel like it can't hurt to have more backups, yanno?

Anyway. Enough maudlin rambles from me.

Comments

[hebethen]

I don't think there's anything preventing you from using #aesthetic tags, but personally, I stopped using them here even though I used them for EVERYTHING on LJ -- because DW has that hierarchical tagging functionality, and the temptation to Organize(TM) was just... too irresistible haha. YMMV!

[ladytemeraire]

Makes sense! I didn't know about the hierarchical tagging, I'll have to check up on that. That's really cool though! And boy do I hear you on the temptation to Organize(TM), haha.

[hebethen]

Yeah, basically "some broad category: a specific subset" will display in /tags as

* some broad category
        * a specific subset

It's like catnip @_@

[ladytemeraire]

Ohhhhhh this is dangerous knowledge

I just had a peek at your page and tags and omg that tickles the part of my brain that craves organization and structure so hard

[elsajeni]

I think tags here only work as a sorting system for your own blog, not a search system for the whole site. So if you'd been using aesthetic tags in part to be less searchable, there's no need to keep doing it, but if you just like 'em, I don't think there's any reason you can't keep using them! (I am a little bummed not to have that "searchable" feature -- it definitely helps art and fic get attention.)

[ladytemeraire]

That makes sense, although it really sucks that they're not searchable across the site. Makes it hard to find things and people that way.

(How do you find people on this site? Via interests, I guess? Probably should fill that out at some point.)

There's only one I was really using to replace a common searchable tag; most of them are just because I'm a dork, lol. I was really proud of my tagging system, dammit; it may have been a bit off the wall, but it made sense to me, and it got the jist of the post or feeling across in a really nice way.

[astraiarose]

I've been here at DW for a while now. I loved that I was able to transfer all of my LJ and IJ (Insane Journal) blog entries over here so easily. This one even allows me to still cross post to my LJ for those who followed me there but didn't want to transfer to here. If you are used to things LJ did, then luckily, DW is run almost exactly the same. You can use tags to help sort through your blogs but there is a cap after awhile for how many different tags you can use. I think I used them all on mine so I quit tagging. But otherwise, Ive enjoyed being here on DW. Hope you do as well :)

[ladytemeraire]

Oh hey, that's really cool about the crossposting! Thanks for the info and the welcome, I look forward to using this site :)

[astraiarose]

I really like how they make it pretty easy to figure out too. Everything is explained pretty clearly in the settings. I was afraid I would screw up the transfer, but it was a lot easier than I expected too, once it got started. It kept all the dates and times and tags and everything. Every time I make a post here, after I set up the settings for the LJ account I wanted to cross post to, it gives me a notice to tell me that the cross post went through as well so I never have to worry.

[bettsfic]

i went the python route and am pretty pleased with it. also i'm going to miss a lot of the functionality tumblr had. like here, you have to go looking for people to follow, or know them from somewhere else. on tumblr, you saw content from across the board on your dash. but also, even though tumblr is a personal blogging platform, that very same feature kept people from using it as such. the ability to reblog, for me anyway, made it so i made every post with the intention of reblogs, so i couldn't post personal thoughts, either for fear it would clog up ppl's dash or go viral outside of my reach. so dw doesn't feel like a replacement in that regard, and i hope federated platforms end up working out.

[ladytemeraire]

Ooh, good to know! And yeah, especially with tags not being searchable across the site, it makes it a little harder to find common interests.

You make an interesting point about the whole personal blogging platform - I saw your other post about no longer feeling like you needed to make things Hashtag Relateable and boy is that a mood. I'm not even remotely close to tumblr famous and the fear of a personal post (or any post really) going viral really put a damper on making personal posts. Hopefully that's something that won't be as much of a problem on DW, especially with the f-lock option.