the mature companion

Archive of Our Own came out of beta today and in honor of that milestone I've decided to come back to Dreamwidth. For how long, I don't know. But as someone who was posting fanfic before AO3, it made me nostalgic for my early fandom days, which were very much tied to livejournal (and I finally went in and deleted my livejournal, something I should have taken care of years ago).

I feel like my fandom life has been divided into phases. First there was childhood, being raised with Star Trek and without much access to the internet, when I read obsessively. Then there was undergrad/post-bacc times in New York City, with a gang of geeky friends both online and irl, when fandom was a huge part of my life, and I followed some of the classic dramas like msscribe right as things came out. Then came the journal-based RP era when I lived in Baltimore and most of my fandom life was online, but I got to see a few friends in person. That was when I actually used this journal a little after fleeing livejournal. Of course nothing lasts forever and my main game shut down, and then after finally finishing school I decided to move to the other side of the country. Looking back it's unfortunate that I lost connection to friends in person and online around the same time, though I did find non-fandom friends here in Oregon. I guess that was the Blake's 7/tumblr era.

I do still hang around tumblr and Asian BL had me in a chokehold, but now I don't know. I feel like I'm in the market for a new fandom, or to get more into an old one. I really only write something every few years, so maybe it's time for that? If I stay here and keep journaling, I'll have to look for friends. Unfortunately no one from the old days is still active here. Skimming my old livejournal was a blast from the past. I miss some things about that time and am vaguely horrified by others. I actually like being a real grownup with a work from home job and money and an apartment I share only with a cat, even if my life didn't turn out the way I expected. I do miss some of the social aspects of being a student and irl fandom activities, and I miss communal learning. There are definitely friends I regret falling out of touch with, but at least I can say orangeaddict and I are still close 20 years later and I even got to visit her last summer. 

I have tumblr friends and it's still lively for my fandoms, but there's always the feeling that the site might be nuked any day. Or just sort of collapse into spaghetti code. It's also not somewhere I feel like is suited to journal-style blogging. So maybe I will stick around here, just to have some outlet for rambling. 

One thing for sure, if I stick around here, I definitely need new icons.