Hello!

[epithalamium]

Yes, this is epithalamium. I decided after some thought not to delete my LJ. It's going to remain as is because I was an embarrassing young adult and I guess it's good to remind myself that I used to be an embarrassing young adult as I go about my cranky old man life.

All my entries--fanart and fanfic alike--are going to remain in that old account. For my dreamwidth, I decided to delete all posts I've already made (which were just test-run html coding for the fests I've signed up for anyway) and start over.

どうぞよろしく! And for people I've known since the LJ days, ただいま!

Comments

[nerakrose]

Hello! :D

[epithalamium]

I am here!! \o/ And probably around to stay now that my journal looks nice :p

[nerakrose]

Yay :D dw is much nicer when people are around tbh.

[dragondi]

GLOMPS!
I am here! I feel as if I'm in a strange and foreign land, because I know nothing about DW and now I have to learn it all. I keep reminding myself that I was new to LJ once too. I just have to remind myself that an old dog CAN learn new tricks.

So, how's it going? Anything exciting happening?

[epithalamium]

Dude right? At least it's similar enough to LJ that we won't get too confused ahaha /o\ I honestly took the longest time getting used to tumblr only to realise how it's a cruel world out there. :p

I missed you tho!! <3 I decided to set up shop here in case RS Games decides to host at DW and I realised how much I missed this environment. How're things going tho? <3

[dragondi]

I love tumblr for the fandom stuff (gifs and memes) and tips on writing, but I can't get onto the actual fanfic writing thing there. I don't know. It seems weird, like when you're dreaming that you're in your house, but it's not really the house you know. Maybe I could get used to it, but I'd really rather not try right now. I have enough stuff going on to think about.
Things are going okay. The horrible kindergarten teacher that we've had in our school for three years was finally fired last week, so that made me happy. I'm sorry she lost her job, but she wasn't willing to take any kind of constructive criticism, and she never takes responsibility to her own actions. I am now organizing my classroom in preparation for next year. I'm good at organizing, but not so good at keeping it. So, I have stacks of papers that I need to file and teaching stuff that needs to be put into storage boxes... So much fun *rolls eyes*
What are you up to?

[epithalamium]

I was talking about it with a friend and I mentioned that tumblr is not a safe space for creators (or even people who put out their headcanons and post in the fandom tags): unlike in LJ and DW where communities are usually moderated, comment threads hidden or frozen, people banned for stirring shit, there is nothing like that on tumblr. People can harass you on your own blog or spread 'callout' posts with misinformation about you. Just because they disagree with whatever you've said or dislike your ship. It's disgusting. Defo not the best place for fandom, which has always been about transformative works and NOT policing.

Oh man good luck with work tho!! ;;; It's good that you guys won't have to deal with an unpleasant teacher (esp for the kids? It's their formative years! ;;) but also that probably means more work for you? *hugs*

I'm currently hovering over the poverty line and have just discovered the magical properties of peanut butter. :p

[dragondi]

Because the Kdg. teacher wasn't doing her job correctly, I was having to catch the kids up to a 'proper' first grade level before teaching what I had to teach. I tried to tell her where she needed to supplement the curriculum to fill in the gaps, but she just flat out wouldn't listen to me. She was absolutely evil to the kids, too. She would scream at them so loudly, I could hear her in my room--about 20 feet down the hall--with my door shut! So, yeah, it's good she's gone, and the principal has already asked me to mentor the new kindergarten teacher (whoever that might be) so we don't have that problem again.

And yay for peanut butter! I love it because it really does well with so many things!

Tumblr does not sound friendly at all. :(

[epithalamium]

Uuugh that sounds so bad for the kids also? ;;; When I was in the 2nd grade our homeroom teacher always told us we're bad kids and we'll wake up one day and we'll be in hell. It was so bad I skipped so many classes and was terrified. /o\ Hopefully the new teacher is better!

Good luck with the additional work tho waah ;;

I'm eating a tablespoon after every meal just so I can meet my daily calorie needs ahahah :'D

[fayte]

I hope you stick around. I'm trying to do better (but probably won't?). I'm going to try, though.

[epithalamium]

Aaaah it's probably a good way to vent? ;;; *hugs* I'm glad to see familiar places in my f-list for sure! <3 (which is 'reading' and not 'f-list' but old habits :p)

I hope you're feeling better tho!! <3

[kitty_fic]

Hi lovely! <3

Sorry to hear you won't be on LJ anymore :( but I'm glad to have you added here so we can at least still keep in contact <3

(Though, I'm really just backing up here for now)

[epithalamium]

Hello hello!! <3

Uuugh I've been dithering about whether to log into my LJ and accepting the new ToS for a while now but I still can't bring myself to do it. I'm so glad to see familiar faces here tho!! ;; <3 Hopefully more people crosspost to DW so I can also catch up with the LJ crowd.

[paulamcg]

Hello! I've come looking for you here only today – because nerakrose linked to a fic co-written and co-illustrated with you, and I realised you could still be around even if not on LJ, where I returned two years ago after an eight-year hiatus. It's been eight years now since the two of us lost touch – after I failed to have my Remus novel printed, after all. I still cherish the art you made for it – and continue to love other art by you as well. <3

[epithalamium]

PaulaMcG!! You won't believe the sound I made when I saw the email notification for your message. ;_; I haven't been very active in DW or LJ communities for a long time as well, but I still think of our long talks sometimes and wonder how you're doing. I'm really glad you reached out and would love to catch up!! ♡♡

[paulamcg]

Oh, I'm so glad I've found you, and that you still remember me, too! ♡♡ Now I realise I could have found you earlier through your lj profile, but in early 2019 I immediately gave up trying to find anyone, because there was close to nothing in my friends' feed. I assumed everyone had moved on, and I just posted my new fics to the vacuum until I found some fests on DW in October. (Even when I friended nerakrose at this year's snowflake_challenge, I didn't notice your name in the subscriptions list.) I'm doing well, living with my middle son. I assume a lot more changes have taken place in your life, as the eight years are a bigger part of the years you've lived... if that makes sense! :) Feel free to send a PM if/when you feel like telling me about something privately.

[epithalamium]

Ah, coming back to LJ after a lot of people left or deleted their accounts must have felt like a Rip van Winkle moment? 😓 But I'm really glad we found each other and started talking in the end. And that you're posting over here too!! ♡ Now I really need to check DW more regularly!

I'm glad you're doing well! :D Haha, eight years is a lot of time for the younger ones, this is true! I turned 33 this year and even though that's not the flush of youth anymore, I've been realising how what I thought was 'old' years ago wasn't actually what I expected (or 'old', to be honest). :'D

I did change my job recently and am glad we're allowed to work from home. I hope things are going well there even through the pandemic!! ;_;

[paulamcg]

a Rip van Winkle moment? Oh, yes! It took me some time to realise that the HP fandom had not completely died, just gone through some changes (not even a revolution) and spread over different platforms and collected fanworks somewhere away from where small corners of community could be developed.

I'm glad to hear you can work from home – and that you're glad about it! As a (special) kindergarten teacher I continue to work as if there were no pandemic (just wearing a mask), and my life hasn't been affected much, as my son and I wouldn't go much anywhere in any case. In turn, I could say, to be honest that I am actually old, unfortunately still about seven years too young for retirement. :)

I hardly ever make any but fic-related posts, never any friends-locked posts so far, and I've had the habit of granting access to everyone I subscribe to. Yet, just before I found you, I started considering doing a personal meme – after revoking access from those with whom I've had very little interaction. Stay tuned... And, of course, I'll be glad if you're still interested in having a look at my fic. (The 90 stories I have on AO3 are all rather short, and I don't even know how much I'd need to edit Revolt if I decided to post it there.)

Do you do anything in the HP fandom any more? I'm afraid I don't know your other fandoms at all.

(Oh, I realised I friended nerakrose only in February, on the basis of a comment on a HP writer's entry.)

[epithalamium]

The HP fandom is definitely still around and strong! I'm still glad there are communities that are still active in LJ, although the activity has really spread out.

Oh man, I hope there's not a lot of risk when you go to work!! Please stay safe! 😭 It's a good thing that the vaccines are getting rolled out, but it seems like it would be a while before I can get them myself. Haha, I definitely long for a time when I can retire from work and maybe have some rest. 😅 (Actually, I did retire from my previous job! Apparently we had this option to file for an optional retirement if we've worked there for 10+ years and I decided to take the chance.)

Yay! I'm a big fan of memes, so I look forward to it! ☺
I have to say I'm really glad you posted some of your older work at AO3. It's such a convenient site and there's less worries about getting deleted. (Revising old fics for posting can definitely be therapeutic haha! I've done it to some of my fics.)

I haven't really done anything for the HP fandom in a long while. I still read fic, but I haven't done anything myself. 😭 I'm in a video game fandom now (surprising myself, I didn't think I'd end up here), but I'm always still up for HP talk! Especially since K is also active in the HP fandom still. ☺

[paulamcg]

Yay! I'm so glad that not only the HP fandom is still strong, but you have not completely left it. <3 I've turned out to be still (again) addicted to writing fic based on the first five HP books and to looking for interaction with others who make HP fanwork, and I haven't managed to make myself interested in writing on the basis of other canons.

I've posted on AO3 all my fic except the novel and the very first two short stories. And I'm in the slow process of completely rewriting the less old one of those two, a Lost Years fic written in 2004. I love how easy it is to manage my fic on AO3, but when I make friends on DW, I wish the fic weren't so separated from any conversation we have here. I've still got the best community feel at some journal fests, both here and on LJ. A lot of the fests are only on Tumblr and AO3, and I don't think I want to even try to learn to really use Tumblr, even though it seems to me that particularly Remus/Sirius fans get to know each other mainly on that platform. In 2020 I branched out – so as to participate in more fests – and I've written about several other characters (including my ace Amelia Bones and ace Cho Chang) besides the Marauders, even though all the fics are set in the same ficverse as my Remus's story.

Oh, it somehow comforts me that younger people, too, look for retirement. :) I'm not old enough to get the vaccination yet, but I'm not very much worried about getting ill. The children need to stay absent if they have any flu-like symptoms, and the parents are not allowed to come inside.

[epithalamium]

I'm back!! ;__; Speaking of pandemic, my brother had an anxiety attack yesterday because our neighbour (who had been exposed to Covid) talked to him briefly and he had no time to put on a mask. I'd be glad once all of this is over. But it's good to hear that schools are taking a lot of precautions!! ;__;

I feel HP is one of my forever fandoms, where even if I wander around I still come back and get excited whenever I see something interesting. 😅 I don't think it's something that would ever leave us, is it?

I need to read more of your fics when I have time! 👀 Ace Cho Chang sounds like right up my alley!! I'm glad you're writing ace characters. ☺

Even now it seems a lot more fans are talking in discord servers (which I can't do because I don't like chatting in real time with strangers 😭), I hope the communities in places like DW never die out. But you're right, I don't think I've ever made a connection with people in AO3. It's definitely more of an archive. 🤔

[paulamcg]

I guess it comforts my son a bit that while his anxiety stops him from meeting people, nobody is supposed to gather in groups. And a mask helps a bit against the chemicals I'm sensitive to, so that maybe I'll continue to wear a mask in a lot places, including the stairwell of my own building. In any case, I'm looking forward to this being over and most people feeling less anxious!

I'm so glad that the HP fandom can still give you joy. After my return from hiatus it's clear that the HP fandom or rather my ficverse will never leave me. I just have to be reconciled that I can really share these stories with very few people. I'm also happy that (after I'd probably figured out (my) asexuality even later or not at all, if I hadn't been in fandom) I can use HP characters for my ace stories, although most of them are perhaps too much of issue fics and also historical, set in the years when these characters were young adults, mainly B.C. (before cake, and before the term ace).

This past winter I tried a bit of chatting in a couple of Discord channels (for some Wolfstar fests). And last summer someone who found my fic on AO3 continued discussion on comment threads of several of my fics. But I still hope for small corners of fandom on journals where people would be interested in each other as creators of fanwork.

[epithalamium]

Aah, I'm sorry I've been so spotty! ;__;

But I'm really glad you decided to share your stories again Before Cake is such a cute term 🤭 and this is true, the word 'asexual' wasn't a thing before. It's strange how people experience things before there's a proper word for them, isn't it? There's not a lot of asexual characters in stories so I really do like seeing them, 'issue fics' or not.

Ooh! How are the discord servers you've seen? I've never been on an HP Discord, aside from a brief moment during the final RS Games... 🤔

[paulamcg]

Before Cake is such a cute term <3 Yes, and even when there was the word and the definition of asexual, asexuals first (before ace) called themselves (human) amoebas. :)

It's wonderful how the awareness and the representation of asexuality have developed. And that's just one of the changes in the contents that people now want in fic, and perhaps the spreading on new, different platforms isn't the biggest change, after all. After my hiatus I must have tried to write something closer to what was more popular ten years earlier than my fic was, but now it seems to me that I really should have written these stories ten or fifteen years ago.

As for Discord, besides those channels for particular fests, I've been to The Quibbler, which is for any HP fanfic writers, but I don't think it's very active.