perpetually off-topic

I've been on Dreamwidth about 1 month now. Since the day Tumblr announced it was imploding.

The funny thing is, I haven't really been affected. I follow about 100 blogs there, all fandom-related. I don't post a lot of original work. Everything I post is SFW anyways, because I am shy. I have never been searchable via Google because I do not want someone on Google to find me randomly - which means, due to the switch to have search results listed first instead of tags, I have not really gained any followers in the last 2 years. And if I were to be flagged NSFW, I would... be made unsearchable? Big whoop.

I'm the sort of demographic Tumblr probably wants to keep around - a quiet, safe for work, mostly apolitical, content creator/reblogger. But I'm halfway to being gone anyways, because their ridiculous policy makes me feel unsafe. Not just because I could probably do a still life of a cantaloupe and be flagged. But because I'm also a young, queer, nb person. And under that sort of ridiculous policy, I know that people like me will be disproportionately impacted. People looking for support. People showing off their love. Because to some people, our existence is not safe for work. Not safe for children. Not safe for anywhere.

Even if I am not affected in a single way, I cannot feel safe there because of who I am.

I don't think they understand that.

It's not all bad though. Having come here just seeking something a little more stable and less legally tenuous than Pillowfort, I have found I actually really like Dreamwidth. I was never on LiveJournal in its heyday. I browsed it a bit, but I never had an account. My fandom experience went straight from forums (ah, Mugglenet) to Tumblr.

I was part of the earliest Pillowfort beta wave, but I was never super active. It just didn't sit right. I couldn't figure out why. But now I'm here, and I like posting again. Dreamwidth feels more private. Its format naturally encourages longer text-based posts - like this! The tag organization is phenomenal. In contrast, the dash-focused experience favors images, quotes. Bite-sized bits, easily consumed in a few seconds and on we go. There's a lot of pressure - to be witty, to be eyecatching, to be seen. I never imagined that part of why I was getting fed up with Tumblr was the very format of the site itself.

I think I'll like it here. I need more icons.