melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)
melannen ([personal profile] melannen) wrote2016-08-22 09:54 am
Entry tags:

Dreamwidth Meme

..because all the Imzy invites are making me feel disloyal and I really do love it here!

1. Why did you sign up for Dreamwidth?

I was blogging at JF at the time and really looking forward to DW starting up and having functions JF didn't (and people who wouldn't move to JF for ethical reasons back with me.) IIRC the proximate cause was that [staff profile] denise needed someone to test JF integration and offered me a beta code fairly early on.

2. Why did you choose your journal name?
This is from way back when my main internet presence was the Keenspot forums. It's a mistyping of a character name from the Ler novels (which some of you may have hear about in my 'alternate family structures' overviews, although the character in question disrupted her entire society by *not* getting married and living in an isolated lighthouse instead, because some things in my fannish history are remarkably consistent...) I mistyped it when I signed up and kept the mistyping because I figured that made it even less likely someone else would start using it, little did I know LOTR would decide it was theirs.

(Also, Ler names have very specific rules, so the short version should actually be "Me" or "Elané" rather than Mel.)

3. Do you crosspost? Why or why not?

Not formally, mostly because there's nowhere I particularly want to crosspost atm. I left LJ because I didn't want LJ having control of any more of my content, and I feel like the stuff that's appropriate for the Tumblr format/audience and the stuff that's appropriate for the DW format/audience don't really have that much overlap, although I will sometimes manually crosspost if I feel like they do overlap on a certain post. Also I don't want to encourage any more people to abandon DW for Tumblr if I can help it. (Theoretically I crosspost fics here and AO3 but in practice I am usually too lazy to do the proper crosspost here.)

4. What do you do online when you're not on DW?

Tumblr, fanfic, AO3 volunteering, anything interesting on the Pinboard.in/popular/fandom page, things people linked on Tumblr or DW, research for writing, goodreads, librarything, British panel shows and old science documentaries on Youtube, lately fivethirtyeight, and a few blogs that I can't RSS onto my DW feed or prefer to read in large chunks. (Also, memrise in the memrise app and a lot of podcasts through a podcasting app. And Pokemon Go, still.)

5. How about when you're not on the computer?

...there is still a space for "on the computer, not online," you know.

Um, I read books, practice piano, go for walks, very occasionally remember I have a garden, play with cats, visit friends, go to yard sales, go to church, work. Play solitaire with actual decks of cards. Sometimes draw. I also do a fair amount of crafty stuff and cleaning/organizing, but usually with a podcast on, so IDK if that counts.

6. What do you wish people who read your journal knew about you?

I read every single post even when I can't manage a comment and I absolutely miss you all when you disappear from here!

7. What is your favorite community on Dreamwidth?

I don't really do much with communities on here (I know, part of the problem!) Probably [community profile] fancake if it comes to it.

8. What community do you wish was more active?

ALL OF THEM.

9. Are there two people on your reading list that you think should meet?

I wish the various people who are lonely and have fandom stuff in common lived somewhere near each other so they could be offline friends.

10. Tell me about your default icon.

It's Commander Valentine from the Tek Jansen comic! It combines obscure comics, superheros, silly space adventures, current-events satire, and ridiculous levels of fandom meta. So it's like it's made for me! Also I like her hair. And I've been using it long enough that even I would be disconcerted if I changed it, I think.

11. What features do you think Dreamwidth should have that it doesn't currently?

If we had proper image hosting/posting and drafts/scheduled posts, I might actually manage to get people to move here from Tumblr. (Also, better mobile, although I suspect half of my problems with mobile are that I'm still using a custom theme last edited in 2009.)

12. What do you consider the five most "telling" interests from the list on your profile?

fleegix, goblin rebellion novels, licking rocks, oracular pigs, the primordial ass

13. Do you have any unique interests on your user profile? What are they? How'd they get there?

Uh. As you can probably tell from the above, many of them. I haven't touched the list in years though.

14. Did you have a gateway fandom? Still in it? Why or why not? Is there a community for it on DW?

I have several. Most of them are sort of around in the ether but changed out of recognition from when I was drawn into them. (In order, probably ST, SW, DW, webcomics, Ranma 1/2, HP.)

15. What's your current obsession? What about it captures your imagination?

Check Please still, I guess. Also more Les Mis than you might think, although mostly Eponine and Cosette these days for some reason.

16. What are you glad you did but haven't really had a chance to post about?

Tons! Maybe I'll get through the backlog someday. I still have all the pictures from Iceland a year ago to post!

17. How many people on your reading list do you know IRL?

It depends on if "see at fangatherings a few times a year" counts. (Also there are many of you I have never met face-to-face but seem like I know IRL because you post about it so well.) Most of the people I knew offline first have moved away from journaling as their social media, though.

18. What don't you talk about here, either because it's too personal or because you don't have the energy?

So much, for so many reasons.

19. Any questions from the audience?
Good question!

20. Yes, but what are your thoughts on yaoi?

It still amuses me that yaoi in the Japanese can be translated pretty accurately as PWP and yet at the same time that American fans were fighting really hard that slash didn't mean PWP, they were using yaoi to mean any Japanese-related m/m.

21. What's your favorite thing about Dreamwidth?

The people who are still here are all my people! I can post about stuff here that I can't other places and know y'all will understand me.
extrapenguin: Yoko Tsuno & Khâny (yoko tsuno)

[personal profile] extrapenguin 2016-08-22 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
You mentioned liking science fiction adventures and obscure comics, so I have to ask: have you heard of Yoko Tsuno? (The titular character's on the left, one of her numerous BFFs Khâny the space alien is on the right.) It's a bande dessinee by Roger Leloup, and I've recently fallen back in love with it. (I also desperately need to loan the books from the library so that I can make a better icon.)
extrapenguin: Northern lights in blue and purple above black horizon. (Default)

[personal profile] extrapenguin 2016-08-23 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
They're all really enjoyable reads, so if you can get your hands on any, I heartily recommend reading them!

(Though they might have been translated out of order, as they were into Finnish – reading them in internal chronological order is recommended. Leloup leveled up his drawing noticeably between #1 and #3, too.)
birke: (Default)

[personal profile] birke 2016-08-22 09:34 pm (UTC)(link)
It's Commander Valentine from the Tek Jansen comic! It combines obscure comics, superheros, silly space adventures, current-events satire, and ridiculous levels of fandom meta. So it's like it's made for me! Also I like her hair. And I've been using it long enough that even I would be disconcerted if I changed it, I think.

Now I know! I will probably continue to think of it as "What Melannen looks like to herself," though. Because that's just how it goes with user icons of people you've never met.
liv: Bookshelf labelled: Caution. Hungry bookworm (bookies)

[personal profile] liv 2016-08-23 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
I had wondered if your name was connected to the Ler books but wasn't sure because of the changed letter. Cool!