all the blogging platforms i've loved before

Ever since I was a child, I knew that I wanted to be hunched over a desk, writing about nothing in particular. 

On a notebook, writing is easy. I just had to find a quiet space, and then, pen and notebook in hand, write down everything plaguing my little heart and mind. Sometimes my hand cramps. Sometimes my pen runs out of ink. Always, eventually, I run out of pages. Then, it would be time to archive my notebook in a huge plastic box, where it would collect dust. But then, who would be able to read these journals, when they're all hidden away? And who would be able to decipher the looping cursive mess of my handwriting? After all, what is a writer without anyone to read what they've written?

The moment I discovered the Internet and the wonderful world of blogging, I accepted that I would spend the rest of my life writing for and running one (or more!) blogs. I didn't know what I would be blogging about; I just knew that I was meant to be a blogger. 

At the time, there was only one true blogging platform: LiveJournal. Yes, Geocities existed, but it was too complicated for my preteen self. LiveJournal was easy to navigate, easy to customize, and, most importantly, easy to find friends and a community on. It was my introduction to both blogging and fandom.

On LiveJournal, I wrote not only diary posts, but also... fanfiction. I can't remember all of the fandoms I wrote for, but I do remember that I would join fic challenges and kink memes, write for prompts, and comment on other people's posts and fanfiction. I specialized in canon-compliant drabbles, which are short stories that are exactly 100 words long, no more and no less.

My love for writing and reading really flourished on LiveJournal, so much so that I decided to take up Creative Writing in my mother tongue as my college major. I had a lot of fun in college, honestly — I learned the basics of writing prose, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, and scripts; participated in workshops and drinking sessions; laughed and cried and read and wrote, wrote, wrote. 

Even during all of this, I was blogging. But I had switched platforms: I said goodbye to LiveJournal and hello to Tumblr. 

Ah, Tumblr. To be honest, I am still on Tumblr. I've had my main blog for close to two decades now, and my video game fandom sideblog for 13 years. It's less a blogging platform and more my home on the Internet. I live there. It was a post on Tumblr that encouraged me to create a blog here, on Blogger/Blogspot, in the first place. But I am getting ahead of myself. 

The ease of creating an account on Tumblr, as well as the option of creating sideblogs, allowed me to make separate blogs for my serious writing and art, my fanfiction and fanart, and my personal posting. In between posting my writing and art, I would reblog posts that inspired me or made me laugh.

Over time, my fandom sideblog amassed some followers because I became obsessed with a particular character who was unpopular and even hated by the fandom at large, and I would post about how great and well-written he actually is. I drew him, I wrote about him, I shipped him with my original character. I still do. It is this obsession with this character and the game that he is in that has been fueling my creative fire for years now. It is this obsession that keeps me on Tumblr.

Aside from Tumblr, though, I also dabbled in other blogging platforms. Wordpress, Medium, Substack — I have accounts and blogs on all of those platforms, but none of them stuck. Wordpress had too much going on. Medium was full of self-serious people. Substack was fine, for a time, but there had been a controversy, which I don't remember now, that made me leave.

So here we are now, on Blogger/Blogspot. I'm finding it easier to post non-fandom writing here than on Wordpress or Tumblr, because 1) there aren't many people here, so I have no audience and no one to be conscious of, 2) the interface is intuitive and simple, especially when compared to Wordpress and everything it offers, and 3) my blog looks cute.

I've only been on Blogger/Blogspot a couple of days, but I like it here so far. I hope I keep up this blogging habit for 2026 and beyond.