Hello, Smol World!

Hello hello!

I've made my foray into the smol net. Hooray! But who am I?

I am:

Okasen, if you like pseudonyms

Jaimie Black, if you don't.

My pronouns include:

Literally any pronouns you could come up with

I invite you to get creative

Alternately,

I prefer anything but she/her

I find they/them clunky on a cognitive level for myself (of course I use it for others)

He/him? Can't tell if that's too radical for me right now, but I'd be curious for you to try

I go by xe/xyr sometimes and it's a bit hard for me cognitively, but I do like it.

What am I

I'm a people, just like you, unless you're a dog and I just can't tell! I'm also a software engineer. As of writing I do a lot of Python and backend API nonsense, and I spend a lot of time thinking about infrastructure for the code that I write on services like AWS (Amazon Web Services).

I absolutely hate Amazon's monopoly over technology, books, the universe and everything.

But, I get paid money to act cordial with their services.

Google might be evil now, but if you ask me they're the lesser of two evils. Of course, we're dealing with cosmic demon tiers of evil, so... not high praise.

What else am I

I'm a solarpunk enthusiast, which basically means I acknowledge our planet is being curbstomped by oil companies but I try to put on a smiley face while trying to fix that whole thing.

It also means that I keep a garden that grows food. As of writing, this garden is theoretical. But, I'll get there. I mean I have the land, it's just currently a jungle of brambles and also toxic plants (I hate Azaleas and their gorgeous, evil blooms)

Even before I was into solarpunk I had a passion for creating things from their base materials. So I had a spinning wheel and would turn fibre into yarn, and then crochet with that fibre. I really, really want some goats or angora rabbits so I can get even closer to the source there. Unfortunately I don't even have a spinnning wheel anymore since moving to the UK.

Speaking of...

Where am I?

I'm in Scotland! But I'm originally American. Texan, to be clear. But I married my partner back in 2019 and he's Scottish (though he lived in England at the time) and we decided to start our lives together on his home turf. Finally, in 2023, we moved to his actual home turf. Scotland. Not England.

Why am I here?

I'm on the small net because it reminds me of the days when I was growing up, with a much smaller internet. I'm younger than the world wide web, so I don't remember a time without it, but I do remember:

making petpages on neopets

making websites on freewebs which were coded in notepad

when you could turn off javascript and the web still worked

So y'know, this whole small, social net thing that's more about what you write than how many people read it? That's pretty neat to me.

Anything else?

I'm also a hobbyist author. Not hobbyist in the self-deprecating sense. Hobbyist in the sense that turning writing into a professional side hustle took the joy out of it, and I'd rather write for people than for profits. My books are very queer and a chilled out kind of sci-fi that's more social sciences than astrophysics. You can find them on the web.

My author site under my pen name, Rosalind Wulf

If you buy my books, please do so via my website. Don't go through Amazon, please god no. But also, thank you either way! I enjoy sharing stories that make an impact on people's lives and I hope they impact yours.

How can I contact you?

I have a few emails.

jaimielblack@outlook.com for most things

author@rosalindwulf.com for bookish things

As of writing on July 23rd, 2023, I monitor both of these emails.

Want an up to date version of this post?

I wrote this as a bit of a time capsule. An updated version is available on my about page

About me

Email (normal): JaimieLBlack@outlook.com

Email (author stuff): author@rosalindwulf.com

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