Hello. My name is Daryl Sun, but you can call me Daryl. I identify as a woman, and I'm a Filipino currently residing in my home country, the Philippines.

Perhaps you've heard of me before, from my previous blog, Beyond the Garden Walls, which was my attempt at a tech review blog during my time as a jobless shut-in. I discontinued it before PrivacyTools.IO' WriteFreely instance shut down (RIP), partly because I found a job, but mostly because I took updating the blog way too seriously, and thus blogging began to stress me out.

Yet here I am, almost two years later, writing another blog post. Why?

Let me rewind.

Sometime around 2019, I was scrolling through the Android Apps subreddit when I noticed a link that seemed off-topic. It's the original PrivacyTools.IO website, and reading through it kicked me down a rabbit-hole that would take another blog post to describe.

Later, I would join PrivacyTools.IO's Mastodon instance, a quiet but friendly community. Much later, I would nervously post my first blog post on Mastodon, only to receive warm reception.

I was happy. Then 2021 came, and the Mastodon instance sputtered and croaked, until it met its silent and controversial death.

I drifted for two years.

Early in 2023, I discovered omg.lol while browsing the Dracula Theme website. I found the website cool, but hesitated to join, because I wondered if I really needed it.

I wondered, will I fit in?

Then I saw this blog post, and decided that if the admin @adam supports LGBTQ+ rights, then the Mastodon instance should be okay.

So, I'm here today.

My voice has been silent for too long, I think. Before, I focused so much on establishing a "persona," that being online became no longer fun for me. Now, I swear to myself that I'll do different. No more polished articles, just 1 AM rough drafts on anything that I've fixated on for a week or so. This is my blog, so I can post whatever I want.

I found a good community here. It'd be a shame not to share my ideas and thoughts.