If anyone would like me to make a tutorial about something Dreamwidth related, or how it compares to Tumblr, I've got request posts up on Newcomers and The Great Tumblr Purge. Also on Dreamwidth Sharing on Tumblr. Leave a comment at one of those places or direct message me, and I'll see what I can do!
Current planned tutorials include cut tags, icons in general, and image uploading/sharing on Dreamwidth.
Current planned tutorials include cut tags, icons in general, and image uploading/sharing on Dreamwidth.
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Absolutely devastating that Tumblr communities don't allow embedded links from Dreamwidth. I include so many of those fuckers in my tutorials, because I want to make things easier for potential Dreamwidth users! Unfortunately, when I go to copy-paste one of the tutorials I'm writing for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
newcomers over to Dreamwidth Sharing on Tumblr, that means I have to manually remove all hyperlinks and either enter a Tumblr substitute (or the occasional non-Dreamwidth substitute), or include a plain text version of the link after the text I would normally embed the link in. Very frustrating, especially when Tumblr informs me that I missed a link, and therefore cannot post the entry to the community.
newcomers over to Dreamwidth Sharing on Tumblr, that means I have to manually remove all hyperlinks and either enter a Tumblr substitute (or the occasional non-Dreamwidth substitute), or include a plain text version of the link after the text I would normally embed the link in. Very frustrating, especially when Tumblr informs me that I missed a link, and therefore cannot post the entry to the community.
Hallelujah, Praise the Lord! There's finally a canonical tag for reader-insert fic on AO3!
From the latest admin post:
They're also changing pregnancy canonical tags, so if you've got fic that deals with pregnancy you might want to check it out and figure out if you want to change how you have tagged it.
From the latest admin post:
During this round of updates, we tested a discussion method which permitted many related canonicals to be canonized at once, instead of each canonical having its own separate discussion period. This allowed us to canonize over 200 additional tags from one discussion.Let us hope that people start using this so that people who want it can find it, and those who don't want it don't have to deal with it!
Consequently, we've canonized many additional tags related to Reader-Insert. All Reader-Insert modifier tags will be subtags of Reader-Insert. The full list is available via tag search.
They're also changing pregnancy canonical tags, so if you've got fic that deals with pregnancy you might want to check it out and figure out if you want to change how you have tagged it.
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Oh right, I should probably explain why I suddenly switched from posting about specific Dreamwidth communities I run to posting about Dreamwidth in general.
Automattic just laid off 16% of their workforce;![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
3liza reports:
I know we've claimed that Tumblr's death knell was tolling before, but this sounds really bad.
I've seen people suggesting alternatives, but Dreamwidth is what I know, and I love it here, so Dreamwidth is what I'll be talking about. Expect me to be talking about it more for at least a little while, even if all I'm doing is drafting out posts to make elsewhere.
Automattic just laid off 16% of their workforce;
from my sources adjacent to tumblr–from which i can spread rumors and insider information freely because i dont give a fuck about ever working in the tech sector–im hearing this round of firings was focused on purging the senior staff, and not just from support but from the entire remaining tumblr workforce. i’m hearing there are about 25 people left.
I know we've claimed that Tumblr's death knell was tolling before, but this sounds really bad.
I've seen people suggesting alternatives, but Dreamwidth is what I know, and I love it here, so Dreamwidth is what I'll be talking about. Expect me to be talking about it more for at least a little while, even if all I'm doing is drafting out posts to make elsewhere.
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Well, Dreamwidth post organizing didn't really happen today, but I did post an updated version of "What to post about on Dreamwidth" a few places!
I also thought of a couple more About Dreamwidth posts I want to make, with some points I want to touch on:
Commenting on Dreamwidth, and specifically how the comment section is where our "Yes, And" stuff happens on "silly" posts.
Icons on Dreamwidth, and specifically the comparison I made to reaction images. Information on where to get icons and/or how to make icons is a must (I only know the most basic of basics myself, so I'll have some looking up to do!), but I also plan to cover the fun that can be had with icon keywords.
Both of these I'd say fall under the "Dreamwidth Culture" umbrella, with the icons post potentially also covering "How To" basics.
I also thought of a couple more About Dreamwidth posts I want to make, with some points I want to touch on:
Commenting on Dreamwidth, and specifically how the comment section is where our "Yes, And" stuff happens on "silly" posts.
Icons on Dreamwidth, and specifically the comparison I made to reaction images. Information on where to get icons and/or how to make icons is a must (I only know the most basic of basics myself, so I'll have some looking up to do!), but I also plan to cover the fun that can be had with icon keywords.
Both of these I'd say fall under the "Dreamwidth Culture" umbrella, with the icons post potentially also covering "How To" basics.
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I am apparently incapable of doing these posts at month's end, but here's a round-up of things I've read since my last books read post.
Recently Finished:
Cinema Love, Jiaming Tang. 1980s China and 2020s NYC (specifically pandemic times), with multiple POVs. The book centers around gay men from rural China and the women who loved and hated and protected them. Not an easy read, but compelling. This one also hit weirdly because I live near one of the neighborhoods featured in the book. The pandemic times scenes were spot-on, but it's also a little disorienting to read about a specific time and place you know pretty intimately but from the perspective of someone else who also clearly knows the time and place pretty intimately!
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories, Gennarose Nethercott. Solidly mid short story collection. I really liked "The Thread Boy" and "Drowning Lessons," but most of the others stories left me either feeling meh or completely baffled about what I was supposed to get from them. At least two just stopped in a way that I think was supposed to be ~edgy or ~shocking, but came across as unfinished thoughts.
Catfish Rolling, Clara Kumagai. First five-star read of the year. Loved the magical realism, loved the timey-wimey-ness, loved the science fiction elements and the family dynamics and the late teens/early twenties protagonists. Highly recommend this one, and definitely going to keep an eye out for more from Kumagai.
What You Are Looking For Is In the Library, Michiko Aoyama (translated by Alison Watts). I wanted to like this book. It does some fun magic-of-books-and-libraries things, and I liked how each of the vignettes connected to each other. But the prominent fatphobia from all of the POV characters (the Librarian is described as grotesquely overweight) was extremely uncomfortable and a major turnoff.
In Memoriam, Alice Winn. I absolutely consumed all 380 pages of this book in two days. It would have been one day except I had prior engagements already scheduled that I could not skip. My second five-star read of the year. I could not put it down. I'm still thinking about it a full month later. It immediately went on the to-buy list.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder. All I can really say about this is oof.
The Clothing of Books, Jhumpa Lahiri. A meditation/essay on book covers and how they are and aren't a reflection of the author's vision of their book. I liked the insight into the lack of control traditionally published authors have over the cover designs of their books and how that can be distancing for the author (or for Lahiri, at least; I think she'd be the first to admit that her feelings on this aren't universal).
Daughter of the Moon Goddess, Sue Lynn Tan. This was a fun adventure story after some much heavier reads. This was my beach vacation read, and I had a good time. I think the love triangle would be more interesting if it were queer, but it's the B- or C-plot, so whatever. Looking forward to the sequel once my library hold comes in.
Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again, Shigeru Kayama (translated by Jeffrey Angles). The novelizations of the first two movies, by the screenwriter! They mostly follow the films, but there are a few major changes, especially in the first (like shifting characters' ages to minimize the romantic subplot). I appreciated the translator's historical context notes at the end. I can't imagine a Hollywood blockbuster going from concept to wide release in just six months!
Current Reads:
The Siege of Burning Grass, Premee Mohamed
Sonnets to Orpheus, Rainer Maria Rilke
Recently Finished:
Cinema Love, Jiaming Tang. 1980s China and 2020s NYC (specifically pandemic times), with multiple POVs. The book centers around gay men from rural China and the women who loved and hated and protected them. Not an easy read, but compelling. This one also hit weirdly because I live near one of the neighborhoods featured in the book. The pandemic times scenes were spot-on, but it's also a little disorienting to read about a specific time and place you know pretty intimately but from the perspective of someone else who also clearly knows the time and place pretty intimately!
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and Other Stories, Gennarose Nethercott. Solidly mid short story collection. I really liked "The Thread Boy" and "Drowning Lessons," but most of the others stories left me either feeling meh or completely baffled about what I was supposed to get from them. At least two just stopped in a way that I think was supposed to be ~edgy or ~shocking, but came across as unfinished thoughts.
Catfish Rolling, Clara Kumagai. First five-star read of the year. Loved the magical realism, loved the timey-wimey-ness, loved the science fiction elements and the family dynamics and the late teens/early twenties protagonists. Highly recommend this one, and definitely going to keep an eye out for more from Kumagai.
What You Are Looking For Is In the Library, Michiko Aoyama (translated by Alison Watts). I wanted to like this book. It does some fun magic-of-books-and-libraries things, and I liked how each of the vignettes connected to each other. But the prominent fatphobia from all of the POV characters (the Librarian is described as grotesquely overweight) was extremely uncomfortable and a major turnoff.
In Memoriam, Alice Winn. I absolutely consumed all 380 pages of this book in two days. It would have been one day except I had prior engagements already scheduled that I could not skip. My second five-star read of the year. I could not put it down. I'm still thinking about it a full month later. It immediately went on the to-buy list.
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder. All I can really say about this is oof.
The Clothing of Books, Jhumpa Lahiri. A meditation/essay on book covers and how they are and aren't a reflection of the author's vision of their book. I liked the insight into the lack of control traditionally published authors have over the cover designs of their books and how that can be distancing for the author (or for Lahiri, at least; I think she'd be the first to admit that her feelings on this aren't universal).
Daughter of the Moon Goddess, Sue Lynn Tan. This was a fun adventure story after some much heavier reads. This was my beach vacation read, and I had a good time. I think the love triangle would be more interesting if it were queer, but it's the B- or C-plot, so whatever. Looking forward to the sequel once my library hold comes in.
Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again, Shigeru Kayama (translated by Jeffrey Angles). The novelizations of the first two movies, by the screenwriter! They mostly follow the films, but there are a few major changes, especially in the first (like shifting characters' ages to minimize the romantic subplot). I appreciated the translator's historical context notes at the end. I can't imagine a Hollywood blockbuster going from concept to wide release in just six months!
Current Reads:
The Siege of Burning Grass, Premee Mohamed
Sonnets to Orpheus, Rainer Maria Rilke
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Still not quite recovered from Surprise Nibling Appearance yesterday, nap imminent, but wanted to do a quick share: Dreamwidth Sharing community on Tumblr. Hopefully we'll be able to centralize some resources there, and then mirror them to Dreamwidth, and/or vice-versa.
Last thing I'm going to do tonight and then I'm going to bed for realsies, I swear.
I post a fair amount about Dreamwidth on Tumblr every time things look like they're going to shit there, because I love Dreamwidth and want more people to come hang out here, and I want to archive those posts over here. Tomorrow, I'm planning to go through my various Dreamwidth posts and sort out what's useful here and what's redundant. To that end, I'm going to sort them into what I think of as the categories of Dreamwidth posts I make.
These are the categories of posts I think I make about Dreamwidth; I may discover more in my organizing tomorrow, but I think this is a good start.
1) Love Letters to Dreamwidth
Any time Tumblr seems to be in danger, and sometimes for unrelated reasons, I write a post about why I love Dreamwidth and why I think a lot of people would also love it here. These are posts about that.
2) Links to Dreamwidth guides
Anywhere I collect links to guides other people have written about Dreamwidth. I'll probably just collect the direct links for those, rather than my reblogs of them, though I may also round all those links up into a single post for people to reblog on Tumblr.
3) Dreamwidth guides I've written myself
Sometimes I answer questions about how to do Dreamwidth; this is that
4) Dreamwidth cultural guides
There's some pretty significant cultural differences between Dreamwidth and Tumblr, and I talk about them in these posts. I certainly don't expect Dreamwidth to stay 100% the same with a huge influx of new users who bring their own experiences and posting styles from elseweb, but some of these differences stem from the technological side of things (such as no native reblogging feature, and tags being strictly organizational), so I figure that's important to know.
Okay, bed time now, I promise.
I post a fair amount about Dreamwidth on Tumblr every time things look like they're going to shit there, because I love Dreamwidth and want more people to come hang out here, and I want to archive those posts over here. Tomorrow, I'm planning to go through my various Dreamwidth posts and sort out what's useful here and what's redundant. To that end, I'm going to sort them into what I think of as the categories of Dreamwidth posts I make.
These are the categories of posts I think I make about Dreamwidth; I may discover more in my organizing tomorrow, but I think this is a good start.
1) Love Letters to Dreamwidth
Any time Tumblr seems to be in danger, and sometimes for unrelated reasons, I write a post about why I love Dreamwidth and why I think a lot of people would also love it here. These are posts about that.
2) Links to Dreamwidth guides
Anywhere I collect links to guides other people have written about Dreamwidth. I'll probably just collect the direct links for those, rather than my reblogs of them, though I may also round all those links up into a single post for people to reblog on Tumblr.
3) Dreamwidth guides I've written myself
Sometimes I answer questions about how to do Dreamwidth; this is that
4) Dreamwidth cultural guides
There's some pretty significant cultural differences between Dreamwidth and Tumblr, and I talk about them in these posts. I certainly don't expect Dreamwidth to stay 100% the same with a huge influx of new users who bring their own experiences and posting styles from elseweb, but some of these differences stem from the technological side of things (such as no native reblogging feature, and tags being strictly organizational), so I figure that's important to know.
Okay, bed time now, I promise.
Tags:
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Me: *makes a post on Tumblr titled "What to post about on Dreamwith"*
Me: *notices ten minutes later that it's on my dash right under a post that's been reblogged by gimmick blogtrochaic-mutant-ninja-tetrameter, and that the title scans*
Me: Gosh it'd be swell if the person who runs that gimmick blog noticed...
Me: *notices ten minutes later that it's on my dash right under a post that's been reblogged by gimmick blog
Me: Gosh it'd be swell if the person who runs that gimmick blog noticed...
Putting together a post for Tumblr, but I figure I'll probably want to back it up here, so I'm typing it here first to make copy-pasting easier 😂
[Edit] Now rebloggable on Tumblr! [/Edit]
[Edit 2] Added a few more things to this version! I'll be copy-pasting it tonewcomers, the_great_tumblr_purge, and the new Dreamwidth Sharing community on Tumblr shortly. [/edit]
----
There's a question that may be on a lot of minds right now, that some people may be afraid to ask. Or you might not even think to ask it until after you're in deep enough that you'll feel silly for doing so. So let's get it out of the way ASAP.
"But what do I even post on Dreamwidth? Don't all posts there need to be super long and thoughtful?"
Not even a little bit! As with any social media site, posting is the blood that keeps social interactions going. Comments are also vital, but they don't happen without posts to comment on. Unfortunately, with the (I'm sorry to say) sub-par image hosting interface on Dreamwidth (that will hopefully be fixed someday, but probably is at least several years out, I'm even sorrier to say), people who are used to an image-heavy social media site might be a bit daunted by Dreamwidth's text-heavy interface. So here's some ideas of things you can post:
Shitposts. It is entirely fine, okay, and even wonderful to make shitposts on Dreamwidth! Since Dreamwidth isn't a content aggregation site and doesn't have built-in reblogging, you probably shouldn't expect them to go very far (unless a member of metaquotes sees them and wants to share), but they're still welcome 👍
GIPs, or, Gratuitous Icon Posts! Free users get a total of 15 icons to use like reaction images and gifs, and sometimes when you upload one, you just want to share it with everyone right away! That's when you make a Gratuitous Icon Post. You can literally just make a post using that icon, and then put GIP in the text field, and boom! You're done.
Steal some prompts from sunshine_challenge, snowflake_challenge, or thefridayfive. While you can also do any of these challenges in real time, there's nothing stopping you from doing them whenever you want, and The Friday Five has a huge number of back-posts to dig through. Just go back a few pages on the main community page, pick a day with questions you like the look of, and post those (with your answers) to your journal!
Another good place to steal some prompts is Questions and Questionnaires for 3weeks4dreamwidth; Three Weeks for Dreamwidth is the annual celebration of Dreamwidth's birthday, and a lot of people come up with fun things to do for it that you can do at any time.
Check out allbingo as well! While a lot of the bingo cards are made with fests in mind, there's no reason you can't pick or make a random bingo card and use the squares to come up with topics to post about. Money says the community would be down to celebrate a posting bingo with you, too!
Do you have a pet? Or more than one? Post about what they're doing right this second. Someone's bound to be interested in that!
To-do lists. Not only can it be helpful to have these actually written out, some of your followers may chime in to root for you to do them!
Media reviews in three sentences or less. Of course you can make them longer if you want, but if you're just looking to get a quick post out, this one might be pretty fun.
Something you're looking forward to! It doesn't have to be a big thing, even something like, "I can't wait for my next afternoon nap!" or "I just bought a new book and I'm really looking forward to reading it!" or "I wanna go home so I can pet my dog so bad!" Any of those would be a fine post.
Three (or more) Things Make a List: If you've got at least three things you've been meaning to post about, but don't have a lot to say about any of them, jumble them all together in the same post! Pretty sure this tradition dates back farther than Dreamwidth, though damned if I could say where it started.
Reoccurring posts are great for if you want to share something regularly and prompt discussion. Just come up with a few quick lines that you can copy-paste and share whenever, and boom! Solid posting strategy right there. There's a number of communities where this approach is fairly common, in addition to individual users.
It may not seem like these ideas have a lot in common, but one thing they're all good for is starting a conversation with your followers. And that's at least half the fun of Dreamwidth, IMO.
There's more ideas out there, but these should at least get you started. And if you keep it up, you'll have the hang of Dreamwidth in no time 😉
(With thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ysabetwordsmith for some of these suggestions 💖)
[Edit] Now rebloggable on Tumblr! [/Edit]
[Edit 2] Added a few more things to this version! I'll be copy-pasting it to
newcomers, the_great_tumblr_purge, and the new Dreamwidth Sharing community on Tumblr shortly. [/edit]----
There's a question that may be on a lot of minds right now, that some people may be afraid to ask. Or you might not even think to ask it until after you're in deep enough that you'll feel silly for doing so. So let's get it out of the way ASAP.
"But what do I even post on Dreamwidth? Don't all posts there need to be super long and thoughtful?"
Not even a little bit! As with any social media site, posting is the blood that keeps social interactions going. Comments are also vital, but they don't happen without posts to comment on. Unfortunately, with the (I'm sorry to say) sub-par image hosting interface on Dreamwidth (that will hopefully be fixed someday, but probably is at least several years out, I'm even sorrier to say), people who are used to an image-heavy social media site might be a bit daunted by Dreamwidth's text-heavy interface. So here's some ideas of things you can post:
metaquotes sees them and wants to share), but they're still welcome 👍sunshine_challenge, snowflake_challenge, or thefridayfive. While you can also do any of these challenges in real time, there's nothing stopping you from doing them whenever you want, and The Friday Five has a huge number of back-posts to dig through. Just go back a few pages on the main community page, pick a day with questions you like the look of, and post those (with your answers) to your journal!3weeks4dreamwidth; Three Weeks for Dreamwidth is the annual celebration of Dreamwidth's birthday, and a lot of people come up with fun things to do for it that you can do at any time.allbingo as well! While a lot of the bingo cards are made with fests in mind, there's no reason you can't pick or make a random bingo card and use the squares to come up with topics to post about. Money says the community would be down to celebrate a posting bingo with you, too!It may not seem like these ideas have a lot in common, but one thing they're all good for is starting a conversation with your followers. And that's at least half the fun of Dreamwidth, IMO.
There's more ideas out there, but these should at least get you started. And if you keep it up, you'll have the hang of Dreamwidth in no time 😉
(With thanks to
ysabetwordsmith for some of these suggestions 💖)
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