an unrefined start

[hatpinvigilante]

In the process of deciding to start a Dreamwidth account, I went deep into the archives and unearthed my old LiveJournal account. I've done this before, and it is always a surprise when I fall in love with my teenaged self. The journal is such a beautiful and wild catalog of my adolescence that I can't help it. I was melodramatic and easily excited, bold and unafraid. The things I loved, I loved without shame. I wrote literally everything down, whether it was the flavor of a cookie I was eating or the length of an orchestra audition or my results at a dance competition. I kept trying to convince myself I was "horny." Honey, baby, sweet child, calm down! I regularly posted original writing, and people commented...or they didn't. Either way, it didn't seem to bother me.

Anyway, I've had this DW account for two days now, and I really wasn't sure what to do with it. How do you drop yourself into writing about a life that has already been ticking away for so long? It seems insurmountably complicated, but I found my very first LJ entry, and it really was as simple as just typing "hello."

So, in an effort to channel some of that rogue, carefree teenaged energy: Hello! I'm Jen!

Seventeen years ago, a bunch of friendly online strangers on an anime forum convinced me to get a LiveJournal, and I really had a great time. It's weird, because I truly thought it was friends from high school who had given me the idea, but I suppose they found my account later and brightened the experience. In any case, I like to think of this as history repeating itself, pleasantly. After watching a few people on fandom Twitter talk about Dreamwidth, I grew curious and finally took the plunge. I lifted the default icon and journal title from my old LJ, even though these things mean close to nothing to me now, because I wasn't feeling creative. I'll come up with something more relevant to my adulthood soon, but these are good, comfy placeholders for now.

I'm not sure exactly how I'll use this space, but I'm optimistic I will use it. Some topics I may mess around with: nature facts! women's history facts! classical music! books I'm reading! anime reactions! CQL headcanon thoughts! unemployment and depression yuck!

I'm active on Twitter, but very shy hatpinvigilante. I'm more comfortable on Instagram but almost exclusively nature oriented hatpin_vigilante. Still not ready to link anyone to my AO3 account, because it is so sad. When strangers find it and leave me kudos, I panic, which is both tragic and hilarious.

Okay. That's all for now. I'm excited to see where this goes...