Test / Intro

[arthropodic]

I was going to make a test post so I could evaluate journal themes, but then I realized I might as well just make an introduction!

Yes, like probably most other people joining right now, I am "from Cohost," you could say, except I was really just a Very Invested Lurker there. I expect to make more comments than posts here, too, but also more than zero posts.

I am a lapsed photographer. Do art somewhat more often than that. I like making little paper guys. Here's a photo I took when I first got my DSLR, which remains the clearest picture of a jumping spider that I've captured to date:

But mostly, I write. Lately I've been trying to do a few drabbles per week. Exactly 100 words each. This is partly a warmup exercise, but mostly because I have a tendency to RAMBLE GREATLY and I am out of practice with succinct descriptions. Most of these drabbles have been turning out more like vignettes, but that's fine. (The real problem is finding ideas. Used to have a goal to do a drabble a day, but THAT well ran dry fast.)

For the sake of playing with formatting, here's a couple of the less awful drabble attempts:

The chicken, suddenly, is not.

It—she—flops backward into the mud, flapping her terrifyingly naked arms in a vain attempt at balance.

“Gaw?” she croaks. “What?”

What is she saying? How is she saying? How does she know what she is saying? Her nearby flock—still chickens, the rest of them—clucks inscrutably.

“God damnit. Not again!”

Oh! The Man Who Bears Food! He’ll fix this! She tries to strut over to him, but can’t puzzle out these long, long legs.

“Figure out how to stand up,” he sighs, “and we’ll take that damn wizard his eggs, I guess.”

\

Every day I am made a little more from mold.

It began kindly: a hasty signature for a clinical trial, strings of self-healing slime reattaching a mangled leg that should have been lost. I was careful not to look until the skin healed over; by then the mold was only visible as a slight yellow tinge behind a pale scar.

Each new wound followed suit. The slime would crawl out, make me whole. Every cut. Every bruise.

Everything smaller, too.

I lift myself up from bed carefully, wishing I could sense the threshold where muscle use becomes muscle growth.

\

Sable tears the streamers from the wall. A few papery scraps refuse to be scratched off, but fuck it! They can stay. What a joke.

Crumpling up the rest, she dumps them atop the body in her living room. Her PhD lies beneath, soaked in blood barely fresher than its ink.

Five years. And only then had her friend bothered to tell her about magic. Only after her dissertation—which had seemed so clever—when the real problem was that nobody accounted for magic!

Sable wishes it had stayed fictional. Though—then she couldn’t use it to hide the body.

...Hm. Can't figure out how to make boxes separate without something between them.

...OH WELL! That's all I've got to say ig! Journal customization time baby!!

Comments

[halcyon_garden]

glad to see you here!

[malymin]

Oh, I love that jumping spider photo! Very lovely.

I like the drabbles, too - they really wonderfully evoke an unseen larger whole. I don't know how to describe the emotion #2 invokes in me, but #1 and #3 are funny. :)

[arthropodic]

That photo has haunted me for years. I took it literally the day I got my camera, and it really gave me the wrong idea about how easy jumping spiders are to photograph up close lol

[beehaiku]

hi!! welcome :)
i really really love the second drabble as a huge fan of mold, human alteration, and human alteration via mold

[arthropodic]

Thank you!

#2 is probably my favorite of the lot too honestly. I am ALSO a huge fan of mold, human alteration, and human alteration via mold

[pnictogen_wing]

🐉 spooder frand! 💜🕷️💜 nice to see u! :} ~kel

[onlyknownothing]

For reference, my favorite thing to use when I "need something to make the formatting cooperate" (a very common issue with HTML/CSS) is the Non-breaking space. It isn't parsed out like the regular space is, but is still invisible. Blank lines with a non-breaking space in them are great space-fillers when you need one. You could also use the Horizontal rule if you'd like, but that adds an additional element in addition to your pleasant looking quote-boxes.

[arthropodic]

Non-breaking space! I forgot about him! Yes, that would definitely look better than the random slash between the boxes. I was hoping adding more new lines between each quote box would be enough to separate them, but alas. New lines only appear to break the quote box when followed by non-quote text (or other non-quote elements, I imagine).

Hello!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I was going to make a test post so I could evaluate journal themes, but then I realized I might as well just make an introduction! <<

Good idea.

Dreamwidth has a lot of journal themes to explore. Currently there are several plum-colored ones that may be inspired by Cohost.

>> Yes, like probably most other people joining right now, I am "from Cohost," you could say, except I was really just a Very Invested Lurker there. <<

If you're new here from Cohost, then you might like newcomers which is covering the shutdown and providing resources about Dreamwidth. You can introduce yourself in the Friending Meme or find your Cohost friends if you wish. These are also resources you can share with other folks riding the wave from Cohost.

See also eggbug_club and eggbug_writes for communities devoted to former users of Cohost.


>> I expect to make more comments than posts here, too, but also more than zero posts. <<

Totally fine. It's not rare for people to make comment-only accounts here. It's free and lets you do things like make a reading page or join communities in addition to commenting. Watch for blogs and communities that say they're lurker-friendly. Mine is one.

>> I am a lapsed photographer. <<

If you enjoy looking at photos, you might like common_nature (mostly photos) or birdfeeding (occasional photos).

>> Do art somewhat more often than that. I like making little paper guys. <<

Art is very popular on Dreamwidth and has many communities.

>> Here's a photo I took when I first got my DSLR, which remains the clearest picture of a jumping spider that I've captured to date:<<

:D That is so adorable! Wow, you caught the tiny hairs on his head. I love the contrast between the green background and pink stem.

Jumping spiders are great. We have a lot of them here, but most of ours are black. They're like tiny eight-legged panthers. I garden for wildlife so I see them often. We've got orb weavers, hankie spiders, and wolf spiders too.

>>But mostly, I write. Lately I've been trying to do a few drabbles per week.<<

Writing is another very popular activity on Dreamwidth. There are many drabble communities and writing communities. allbingo gets a lot of drabble fills and just finished a People with Disabilities Drabble Fest.

>>The chicken, suddenly, is not.<<

ROFL that is my favorite line!

>>...Hm. Can't figure out how to make boxes separate without something between them.<<

Yeah, I wind up using a period or dashes as a placeholder sometimes.