#dreamwidth culture

[bisexualbaker]

Dreamwidth Alternatives to Talking in the Tags

(Originally posted on Dreamwidth so I would have less editing to do when cross-posting.)

There's a number of technological and cultural shifts Tumblr users would have to make when switching to Dreamwidth; image hosting (and the lack thereof) is probably the biggest technological switch, but the one I anticipate giving people the most trouble is tagging.

On Tumblr, you can add pretty much whatever you want to the tags, in any order you want; there is no limit to them, and they're essentially used as a secondary comment system.

Not so for Dreamwidth! Dreamwidth has a hard limit on the number of tags any journal or community can register; it's 1,000 for free users, 1,500 for basic paid accounts, and 2,000 for premium paid accounts, and they're basically entirely for organizational purposes. One of the ways that Dreamwidth's code reflects this is that it lists tags alphabetically in posts, not in the order that they were written or added. If you want to include a stream of consciousness in your tags and have them make sense, your best bet is to find a way to make them alphabetical. There's also a hard limit of 40 characters per tag for everyone, regardless of account type (paid or free).

There are other organizational options, Memories chief among them, but it's not really possible to opt out of tags being organizational and switch them to being communication. So what, if anything, can you do instead?

(Here's where the post gets long.)

The first option, and most popular all the way back to Dreamwidth's predecessor, is icons! Free accounts get 15 icon slots for images of up to 100x100 pixels, and up to (IIRC) 60kb in size. Supported file types are .jpg, .png, and .gif—so yes, this means your icons can be animated! If you have the perfect reaction gif to go with a post or comment you want to make, as long as it's the right size, you can include a tiny version of it with your post or comment!

Icons also come with an extra nifty feature: Keywords. While this is, in part, to help you select which icon you want to use from your drop-down menu, the keywords are also visible as alt text, and you can have multiple keyword options for the same icon. So if you want to add a little bit of subtext to what you're saying, you can have some additional interesting content for those who go looking.

For example, you can replicate the very popular Supernatural Current Events meme via icon form: Make a gif where the first part is Castiel confessing his love, and the second part is Dean looking constipated and saying, for example, "Today's top headlines are..." Then for keywords you can use "Supernatural", "Queerbaiting", and "Current Events". You can then choose whichever keywords you want to use for the post or comment that you're making. Just talking about Supernatural stuff? "Supernatural" is a fine keyword. Complaining about media dangling representation in front of fans only to yank it away and go No Homo (etc)? "Queerbaiting" is a fantastic choice. Want to announce some breaking news? "Current Events" is your contender. And all three of those keywords will show the same icon.

Each of these options add a little bit more nuance and subtext to the icon you're using, and, in my opinion, increase the fun factor accordingly.

.

Another fun thing to do is play with titles. While titles can be used straightforwardly, as they are in this post, they can also be used to add a little bit of off-the-wall commentary. Want to include a note that is relevant to the post but doesn't quite fit in the body? Is it something you might put in the tags on Tumblr? Consider putting it in the title!

This works both for posts and for comments. Doubly for comments in fact, aside from contexts where the field is used for organizational purposes, such as fic memes and the like; mostly because the title field is so rarely used otherwise in comments. People do use it on Dreamwidth, and some people do so often, but the majority of Dreamwidth users leave the title field blank most of the time. If you've got something to say that is really more on the margins of the rest of the comment, the subject line is somewhere you can consider putting it.

One final option that I can't say I've seen people using, but is certainly possible: The edit field. When you edit a comment, you can type in the reason you're editing it in a field that shows up at the bottom. Mostly it's reasons like "I forgot to close a tag" or "I thought of something else to add to the comment" or "I found that link I was talking about", but you could use it to add Tumblr-tag-like commentary to your own comments. Caveats that this is only an option for comments (editing posts doesn't have that same field) and that you can't edit a comment that someone has replied to. The latter portion is to try and keep communication honest and clear, though there might also be technological reasons for it.

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The final option is post-specific (can't be done with comments) and are what Dreamwidth refers to as "Currents": Your Current Mood, Music, and Location.

Mood has a drop-down list of pre-selected mood options, some of which make more sense than others (how is "recumbent" a mood?). If you pick one of those moods, you may also get an associated image from one of Dreamwidth's provided/server supported Mood Themes; these are small and simple, and can be animated, but frequently aren't. You can check the available ones out here. If you have a paid account, you can also upload a custom mood theme, which you can make yourself or may be able to find made by someone else. Making them can take a while, but it can also be very rewarding to find or create just the right image for every mood in the menu.

That's not all, though! An important thing about Mood is that you can also input a custom mood. Not to be confused with a custom mood theme, a custom mood is an area where you can ignore the pre-selected drop-down menu of moods and fill in your own, such as "over the moon", "sick of this shit", or "what the actual fuck". (Like Tumblr tags, moods are typically not capitalized.) Just using the Custom Mood field will not give you an extra image to use for your mood, but it can be combined with the Mood drop-down menu to display alternate text for the selected mood. For example, you can select "ecstatic" as your mood and input "over the moon" as your custom mood text, and the "ecstatic" image will show up with fresh text.

The Custom Mood field only allows up to 30 characters, but there's still a lot of potential for fun combinations.

The second "Currents" field is Music, but honestly it can just be whatever you're listening to. Your teeth grinding as the government makes yet another ill-informed decision? Your cat purring and taking away your worries? Your heartbeat going a mile a minute in the middle of a horror movie? The rain outside? You can even go abstract and claim to hear the sound of silence, and not in a Simon and Garfunkel way. Or the whooshing of a point as it sails past the heads of people who willfully misunderstand.

You don't even have to limit yourself to sounds, real or imaginary, you can just put text; same way with Mood and Location (next). Whatever you put in that field will be listed as Music in your post, but that doesn't mean it is.

The Music field has room for 74 characters.

Last is the Location field. There's some pretty important stuff to know about this one, so I'll just copy-paste from Dreamwidth's FAQ about Currents:

The location text area is linked to Google Maps. Whatever you fill in here will appear as a link to a map of that location when viewed on the entry. The field does not auto-detect your location: you must make a deliberate choice to type it in. If you add a ZIP code or street address the map link may pinpoint your location to others, so think carefully about your privacy and comfort level before specifying a physical location. You can also choose a non-specific location such as a city or country, or a descriptive phrase like "at home" or "in the library".

So yes, you can put your literal GPS location in the Location section! I don't personally recommend it for safety reasons, but it's an option.

You can also lie about your location and input the coordinates for anywhere in the world. You can go fantastical and claim to be in Narnia or in a galaxy far, far away, or you can say that you're surfing the waves of your own imagination. You can say that you're lost in grief or drowning in cookies. Or you can just continue whatever train of thought you were going with from Mood and Music. Just know that it can and will attempt to connect with an actual real-world location if you input one.

As with the other two fields in "Currents", it's up to you what you put there, but the Location field allows you a whole 80 characters to do is.

Also, despite the order they're listed in the post window, they show up in the order of Mood, Location, Music in your actual post, so keep that in mind as well!

So there you have it. Dreamwidth may not have "talking in the tags" the way Tumblr does, but it does have some other forms of communication that you can still have fun with.

(Side note: You might also be able to do fun stuff similar to the "Currents" options with the Age Restriction section, but I haven't tried that one, and honestly it might be heavily dependent on the registered age of who's viewing it. If you're making a fun joke that you don't want people to miss out on, maybe stick to the other options.)

[necrotic-nephilim]

Sorry if this might be a rude question but why don’t you just make a seperate account for your nsfw fics?

not rude, it's a valid question! tbh it's a combination of a couple reasons.

i started posting anonymous dead dove batcest fics long before i had the balls to make a tumblr. at first i was content to just leave them unassociated with each other because i didn't really care about them being tied to me. i made this blog to actually show solidarity to my partner who wanted to make a sideblog for Sandman comic stuff so we could cheerlead each other and be brave together, since i've wanted to make a batcest sideblog but i've been nervous about actually having to get it going. (mal ik you're reading this go be brave and actually make your blog so i can cheerlead you damnit-) only did it dawn on me then that i should probably mention the fics i've written on the blog after like, three of them were posted anonymously. and it would've annoyed me to have half of them anonymous and half of them not, because notifications for them would've gone in different places. i could go back and take my fics off anon if i wanted to, but i can't switch the account they're on without taking them down entirely and that'd fuck over people who have them bookmarked already.

which, ties into my second reason, if i made an entire second ao3 account it'd be harder for me to see notifications, reply to stuff, and post things for both accounts because i'd have to constantly switch. and honestly i'd be terrified of accidentally posting on the wrong one on a brain fog day. posting fics is always the most tedious part of writing them for me lol. it's easier for me to stay logged into one account and have all of my stuff in one place for me and just use the anonymous collection when i feel like it. if ao3 pseuds worked like tumblr blogs, where you can't see all my side blogs but i can, i would've used pseuds, but since you can see all pseuds on an ao3, i felt it was a moot point.

and the last reason is i just feel more comfortable being anonymous on ao3 because of the rise in anti culture. on tumblr it's very easy for me to just filter that out and find the people i want to follow and block the people i don't. i don't mind getting hate, on tumblr or on ao3. but i think, for whatever reason you want to blame it on, there's been a massive boom of antis on ao3 who are very entitled about how they read on ao3. i tag extensively, but i just feel safer from getting targeted attacks if everything i write on ao3 isn't attached to one profile. if people like a fic i wrote, want to find more i always link my tumblr in the notes, but if an anti wants to get huffy with me, they can't easily track down my other things. they definitely could if they wanted to, but being anonymous on ao3 just makes me feel more secluded, in a weird way. it's like saying "if you want you can come find me but on here i'm just a weird faceless guy throwing stuff in the void". i've used ao3's anon feature a lot, actually, i used to be a hydra trash party dumpster kid back when that was in it's prime.

i also used to be vaguely popular on a different tumblr blog and my main ao3 and while i think it'd definitely be cool if i got a decent chunk of followers on this blog too, i don't really miss having fanfiction do so well i got targetted hate on all of my fics from the same people, i had my fics stolen, etc. it was really exhausting for me. i have 120+ works on ao3, not counting what's anonymous, and that level of exposure tires me, even when i use my main ao3 to post things that aren't trashy. it's just a weird feeling knowing so many people are subscribed to you on ao3 and what if you post something they won't like because you jumped fandoms again, or you're posting something niche, or you don't think it fills enough fandom tropes to be well-liked. i used to obsessively think like that, and it made me not write the things i wanted to because i cared about numbers. and i don't want to slide back into that hole. writing on anonymous is mostly to remind myself i wrote this for me, and if other people like it, they can come find me, but i don't have to perform like that anymore. if i get a really weird fucked up idea, i can write the really weird fucked up idea. at the end of the day, just makes me more comfortable! but i get it's a super confusing set up from an outsider perspective so, i really don't mind the question, thank you for asking!!

[shiverandqueeef]

okiedokie finally getting around to setting up a dreamwidth account. I've put it off forever bc the site format in unfamiliar to me and therefore scary and bad lmao. But the deeper i go into researching fandom history, the more i've come to realize just how warped my concept of fandom is. I consume fandom content, but do I contribute? Is there a sense of community? Is dreamwidth a reasonable solution to the gradual though no less violent metamorphosis of fandom from a space for communal creativity into a culture of content consumption? Am I just a 30 year old nostalgic for a fandom culture in which i never participated, standing on my front lawn with rose-tinted glasses and shaking my fist at the clouds? who can never be sure *shrugs*

either way, it's past time i learned how to navigate dreamwidth without having a minor anxiety attack lmao

[stick-by-me]

Beam me up-!

New follower sticker for: @yourownbestfriend!

[theficlistpodcast]

Too niche? 😂 I’ve been seeing Dreamwidth crop up in author’s notes and fandom spaces for the first time in a LONG time, and it’s bringing back some, uh, interesting memories.

[zagreus-eats-your-bread]

anyone here on dreamwidth and have some pointers for me? or like a guide post? bc the interface is so fucking confusing how do i do anything

[arowitharrows]

These are some links to recourses on different topics, mostly things I want to be able to find again so I'm collecting them here. Please be aware that many of these articles include discussions of queerphobia, racism or abuse. I can't put warnings on every link, so proceed with caution. This is not meant to be a complete or final list, I will most likely be editing it as time goes by.

Aspec terminology / Flags

Queerplatonic coining post on dreamwidth (x)

Sunset aroace flag original post (x)

A History Of Words Used To Describe People That Are Not Asexual (x)

Discussions of aphobia

Note: I am still waiting for the day when aphobia can be discussed without aromanticism being treated as a subcategory of asexuality.

Stonewall report on asexual discrimination, UK 2023 (x)

Scientific America article on medical stigma against asexuality, USA 2023 (x)

Article about the religious right attacking sexless marriage, USA (x)

Podcast about the religious right attacking platonic marriages and general analysis about why the religious right hate asexuality (and aromanticism), USA part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4

Amatonormativity

Website of Elizabeth Brake, the coiner of the term Amatonormativity (x)

Amatonormativity in the law: an introduction, USA 2022 (x)

Opinion: I grew up in a culture that embraced physical touch. Then I came to America, Ethiopia 2023(x)

'I Dont Want To be a Playa No More': An Exploration of the Denigrating effects of 'Player' as a Stereotype Against African American Polyamorous Men (x)

Romance is not the only type of Black love that matters by Sherronda J. Brown, USA 2018 (x)

Relationship Anarchy

Relationship Anarchy, Occupy intimacy!, Spain 2020 (x) also available in Spanish and catalan

The short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy (x)

Tumblr post with multiple links about relationship anarchy (x)

Marriage and being Single

Ted talk: how romance and capitalism could destroy our future, 2014 (x)

The escalating costs of being single in America, USA 2021 (x)

Unmarried equality, many articles about discrimination against single people. USA focused (x)

No Shelter for Singles: The Perceived Legitimacy of Marital Status Discrimination, USA 2011 (x)

Loveless Aro

I Am Not Voldemort: An Essay on Love and Amatonormativity (x)

Aroworlds loveless Aro friendly fiction collection (x)

Loveless Aro experiences and explanations (post0 aurea article post 1 post 2 post 3 post 4 post 5 post 6)

[honestlyvan]

ALAN WAKE 2 ANNOTATED: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT WEIRD FINNISH GUY SAYING

(This post is also available on Dreamwidth)

Preamble: What is this?

There’s a lot of Finnish shit in Alan Wake 2. I speak Finnish. I’m really annoyed about how wrong about some of the things that are in Finnish in the game people actually are. @drdarling is an Ahti fan. We’re mutually annoyed about how wrong about Ahti people are, because in general the trend is people thinking Ahti is spooky and mysterious because they don’t know what he’s saying, rather than thinking he’s spooky and mysterious because of the things he’s saying.

So Autumn went through the entire game, transcribing Ahti’s dialogue, and I went through the transcript, translating everything untranslated in the game, and providing cultural context for the rest of it (with some saves from @saikkunen, @rhpurasu-blog, and my mum), because truly this dude is not nearly as cryptic as people make him out to be, and is actually twice as weird as people think he is as a result.

Disclaimer: Finnish is very regional, and even with people from all over pitching in, some of the shit Ahti says might still be idioms we’re not familiar with. If you’re a Finnish person reading this going “HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS”, trust me that I had many moments like that while putting this together, and please leave a comment so I can add your insight :D

This post is going to go through all of Initiation, followed by all of Return. There's unmarked spoilers past the cut -- enter at your own risk.

INITIATION 1: LATE NIGHT

First meeting with Ahti as Alan:

Ah, (no niin) there you are, Tom. Not so much evil that not a bit of good as well. Not one without the other. Good to see you.

“No niin” -- utterance, roughly the same as “alright” or “now then”. “No” is a common filler word like “well.”

“Not so much evil that not a bit of good as well.” – “ei niin paljon pahaa ettei jotain hyvääkin”, a common Finnish turn of phrase. Broadly has the same meaning as “silver linings.”

Alan asks Ahti to point him towards the exit:

(No totta helvetissä.) Of course, Tom. The work will instruct its maker. I was gonna get something from the basement for you, but you can get it yourself now. The more cooks the worse the soup.

“No totta helvetissä” – “(in Hell), of course”, a variation on the phrase “totta kai”, meaning “certainly” or “of course”

“The work will instructs its maker” – “työ tekijäänsä opettaa”, common proverb. “You learn things by doing them.”

“The more cooks the worse the soup” – “mitä useampi kokki, sitä huonompi soppa”, common proverb, same as “too many cooks spoils the broth”

Alan asks Ahti what Ahti wants him to get from the basement and clarifies that his name is Alan, not Tom:

(No joo, mutta katopa kun) a man’s a man but a man with a tool makes two, Tom. (Eikö niin?) And a man with a tool can build his own exit. It’s in a shoebox in the basement where you left it. Safe as in the Lord’s purse. Here’s the key.

“No joo, mutta katopa kun” – “see, here’s the thing (with that) is”

“a man’s a man but a man with a tool makes two” – this may be an obscure saying, my whole gaggle of Finnish friends were equally stumped by it. Entirely possible it’s just those little shits from Espoo fucking with us, entirely possible that it’s a variation on a saying that we’re just not picking up on.

“Eikö niin?” – “isn’t it so?”/”Right?” a filler phrase. (It is very common for people to say this right after saying something that makes no fucking sense.)

“Safe as in the Lord’s purse.” – idiomatic, comes from the Bible (1 Samuel 25:29)

Alan asks Ahti if they have met before:

You remember Ahti. The janitor. You can’t be lost if you don’t worry about where you are headed. So don’t worry Tom, the sun will shine even into a heap of twigs. Just remember to turn on the lights. It won’t take long when you get to work.

“You remember Ahti. The janitor.” – the intonation of this line implies to me that in Finnish he’d be using emphatic -han/-hän for it

“You can’t be lost if you don’t worry about where you are headed.” – may be an obscure saying, none of us recognised it.

“the sun will shine even into a heap of twigs” – “paistaa se päivä risukasaankin”, everyone has their little successes, “every dog has its day”

“It won’t take long when you get to work” – “ei mene kauaa kunhan pääsee alkuun”, “as long as you get started it won’t take long (for the matter to resolve)”

Alan asks Ahti if he knows a way to escape The Dark Place:

He who moans about his troubles, is the prisoner of his troubles. It’s not easy to get out. But don’t you worry, Tom, the home is still there, where the heart is. I often think about it when I mop the floor and look into the puddle. Water is the memory of the world. Water finds its way.

“He who moans about his troubles, is the prisoner of his troubles.“ – “Joka murheistaan valittaa, on murheidensa vanki”, common proverb. Finnish people love telling other people to stop complaining.

INITIATION 4: WE SING

After the musical sequence, when you walk past Ahti in the studio:

My Swedish brothers, (perkele). (Ai että nyt on kyllä joo). (Lattoi pojat jenkkakoneet soimaan, saatana).

“Perkele” – “(by) the Devil”, one of the most common Finnish swear words.

“Ai että nyt on kyllä joo” – Untranslatable, can be approximated as “now we’re talking”, “that’s more like it”, or “a hell of a thing”. I love this phrase because it means fuck-all even in Finnish, and conveys a sense of deep appreciation regardless.

“Lattoi pojat jenkkakoneet soimaan, saatana” – literally “Those boys really made the jenkka machine ring, (by) Satan.” “Jenkkakone” refers to the band, playing a song for people to dance “jenkka”, a fast-paced folk dance to. (Addition from @sluiba: jenkkakone is a colloquial term for a jukebox, nowadays more commonly used to refer to audio equipment more broadly e.g. speakers; so he's basically saying, "those boys really turned it up to eleven".)

INITIATION 7: MASKS

When Alan runs into the janitor’s closet:

Hurry, Tom! Here is the light at the end of the tunnel. (Jumalauta), that held you close, Tom. (Ei muuta kun) onwards, said the granny in the snow. When the panic is biggest, the help is also near.

“Jumalauta” – “god help us/you”, a common swear word

“that held you close” – “otti läheltä”, meaning about the same as “a close call”. A more literal translation would be “that took close”.

“Ei muuta kun” – “nothing else to do about it, but”

“onwards, said the granny in the snow.” – “eteenpäin, sanoi mummo lumessa”, a common turn of phrase, an motivational expression of perseverance and sisu

“When the panic is biggest, the help is also near” – “kun hätä on suurin, on apukin lähellä”, a common turn of phrase, broadly means the same thing as “there is light at the end of the tunnel”, can be thought of as a more optimistic companion to “things will get worse before they get better”

(I like this block of dialogue a lot because it demonstrates that a lot of Ahti’s Finnish is just filler words and a tonal component to what he is actually saying.)

Alan mentions that Door didn’t seem happy to see him this time:

Fearing the master is the root of wisdom. But don’t let the game get you down. He is playing his role. Maybe put him in your films, Tom, like you have put me. (Perkele! Sehän olisikin).

“Fearing the master is the root of wisdom.” – “herran pelko on viisauden alku”, the fear of the lord (or rather, The Lord) is the beginning of wisdom. It’s an interesting choice to omit the reference to the Christian god, because it’s preserved in other phrases.

“Perkele! Sehän olisikin” – “(by) the Devil! Wouldn’t that be something.”

Alan asks what films Ahti is talking about:

I’m a fan of your masterworks. There is “Tom the Poet”, my favorite. And “Yötön Yö” is the most famous one, of course. And is it true what I hear, that it’s coming back to cinemas soon? Is there a bottom to this rumor?

“Is there a bottom to this rumor?” – “olla pohjaa”, to have a bottom, means “to have a factual basis”.

Alan says he needs to get back to his apartment, asks if Ahti can help:

Well-planned is half-done. You asked me to make sure you won’t forget the… (mikä se valokuva oli) light pictures, the photos that your artist wife took. They are waiting in the shoebox in the basement. What you leave behind, you find in front of you.

“Well-planned is half-done” – “hyvin suunniteltu on puoliksi tehty”, a common turn of phrase. What it says on the tin.

“mikä se valokuva oli” – “what was the word for ‘valokuva’ again”, a relatable bilingual moment. The Finnish word for photograph is literally just a compound word that directly translates to “light picture”.

“What you leave behind, you find in front of you.” – “minkä taakseen jättää, sen edestään löytää”, what goes around comes around.

He also has incidental dialogue, if you hang around after the conversation

I am looking forward to seeing “Yötön Yö” in the cinema, but first I work. And the work won’t end even when you do it (perkele). (No ei siinä), one potato at a time. Just remember, Tom - the brave will eat the pea soup.

“No ei siinä” – “well, nothing else to it”

“the work won’t end even when you do it” – “ei työ tekemällä lopu”, common proverb, warning against rushing and working too hard (because you won’t run out of work through hard work)

“one potato at a time” – “yksi peruna kerrallaan”. This one is so funny to me because he could have just said “one thing at a time”, since that phrase translates literally, and instead he says this just so sound slightly more Finnish.

“the brave will eat the pea soup” – “rohkea rokan syö”, a common proverb, used the same way as “fortune favours the bold”

RETURN 5: OLD GODS

At Valhalla Nursing Home, after Rose tells Ahti that he doesn’t need to clean, this is his home, and threatens to take his mop away even though she knows he would just find it again:

(Kyllä, kyllä mutta) once after being told no. Why rest, when you are born to work. (Eikö niin?)

“Kyllä, kyllä mutta” – “yeah, yeah, but”, exactly as “yeah yeah whatever” as you’d think it is.

“once after being told no.” – “kerta kiellon päälle”, a common idiom, to do something one last time before stopping for good. “One for the road”

“Why rest, when you are born to work” – possibly an obscure saying, the version I grew up with is “why rest when you are born to work hard (like a farmhand)”.

Rose tells Ahti to go pick a song from the jukebox, as a treat:

Yes box, holiday. Just thinking about it makes my dance foot waggle. (Kyllä näin on).

“Yes box, holiday” – This is a reference to Pirkka-Pekka Petelius, a Finnish sketch comedian from the Eighties. “Jees” is a loanword from the English “yes”, meaning “good, decent, alright”. The original append was far more vulgar, translating more properly to “yes box, dick face”

“makes my dance foot waggle” – “tanssijalka vipattamaan”, a common turn of phrase, means “makes you want to dance/makes you start dancing” depending on the context.

“Kyllä näin on.” – “That’s the way it is”, common filler phrase.

Saga introduces herself:

(No eipä siinä). Name won’t make the man worse, even a Swedish name. I’m Ahti.

“No eipä siinä” – filler phrase, same as “No ei siinä”

“Name won’t make the man worse” – “ei nimi miestä pahenna”, a common proverb, similar in meaning as “don’t judge a book by its cover”

Saga asks if there’s anything good on the jukebox:

We try to do good, but only prime comes out. Music from my Swedish brothers, Old Gods of Asgard. My pals, the (perkeleen) vikings, (perkele).

“We try to do good, but only prime comes out.” – “Hyvää koitetaan tehä mut priimaa tuloo”. This is a very specifically Bothnian turn of phrase, he’s just bragging about the Old Gods making good music.

“(perkeleen) vikings” – “Perkele” being used as an adjective for emphasis.

Saga asks where to find the Andersons:

You can never know where. Only a seaman can know that, but even the seaman can’t know everything.

“Only a seaman can know that” – this is also an honest to god pop culture reference, to a song called “Vain merimies voi tietää” (“Only the sailor knows”) by Tapio Rautavaara.

Saga asks if Ahti was in the band:

(Minäkö?) No no. (Perkele, saatana, en ollu en). Not so much sweet that it fills the whole stomach. But we have shared a stage or two.

“Minäkö? Perkele, saatana, en ollu en.” – “Me? (Perkele, saatana), absolutely not.” “Me” in the interrogative has a slightly dismissive/diminutive vibe in Finnish.

“Not so much sweet that it fills the whole stomach.” – “ei makiaa mahan täydeltä”, a classic turn of phrase about not overindulging.

Ahti’s incidental dialogue, hanging out by the jukebox as Saga:

Rain is coming down like from the ass of Esteri. (Vaikka vettähän ne kyllä lupasikin, että…)

“Rain is coming down like from the ass of Esteri” – “vettä tulee kuin Esterin perseestä”, same as “raining cats and dogs”

“Vaikka vettähän ne kyllä lupasikin, että…” – “Although (they, the weather forecast) did promise it would rain, so…”

Rushing is not good for you and hurry is not an honor. (Lietkö olet tämmöistä kuullut.)

“Rushing is not good for you and hurry is not an honor” – “ei ole hoppu hyväksi eikä kiire kunniaksi”, a very common idiom. What it says on the tin.

“Lietkö olet tämmöistä kuullut” – “I wonder if you’ve heard (of) such a thing”, he’s just making fun of Saga for being “hasty.”

(Joo näinhän se menee, että…) the lazy man gets sweaty when he eats and gets chilly when he works. (Se oli kyllä hyvin sanottu.) The song revives the soul.

“Joo näinhän se menee, että” – a filler phrase, similar meaning as saying “as they say”.

“the lazy man gets sweaty when he eats and gets chilly when he works” – “hiki laiskan syödessä, vilu työtä tehdessä”, a common proverb excoriating people for laziness.

“Se oli kyllä hyvin sanottu” – “That was well said”. This whole exchange comes across as Ahti trying to impart some words of wisdom to Saga.

After the power goes out, Ahti has dialogue upstairs:

No use crying in the dark place. What has been, has gone. But trouble doesn’t look like this! You can go to the basement and check the generator. But look out - you can never know in which tree the devil sits.

“No use crying in the dark place.” – This is most likely a deliberate play on words from Ahti. The relevant Finnish proverb is “ei auta itku markkinoilla” (there’s no use crying at the marketplace) which means it’s pointless to waste time feeling sorry for yourself.

“What has been, has gone.” – “ollutta ja mennyttä”, usually this phrase is used the same way as “water under the bridge”

“But trouble doesn’t look like this!” – “ei hätä ole tämän näköinen”, common turn of phrase communicating that the situation is not as bad as it seems.

“you can never know in which tree the devil sits.” – “ei sitä koskaan tiedä missä puussa piru istuu”, common proverb. The word used for devil, “piru”, refers to a folk devil or an evil spirit rather than a capital-letter Devil the way “Saatana” and “Perkele” do.

Ahti jumpscare at the Spiral door:

Getting in is forbidden, for your own safety. Time is long for those who wait. But in the end, stand the thanks.

“Time is long for those who wait” – “odottavan aika on pitkä”, common turn of phrase. Same meaning as “time is slow for those who wait”.

“in the end, stand the thanks.” – “lopussa kiitos seisoo”, common turn of phrase. Similar meaning as “good things come to those who wait.” The word for “thanks” can also be used to mean “reward”.

Saga asks Ahti is he knows anything about the Cult of the Tree:

Yes, yes! He who reaches for a spruce tree will stumble into a juniper. Blum was one of them. He has kicked empty. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. But I like his shoes.

“He who reaches for a spruce tree will stumble into a juniper.” – “joka kuuseen kurkottaa se katajaan kapsahtaa”, a common proverb about (edited by suggestion from Sluiba again) the dangers of excessive ambition and greed.

“He has kicked empty.” – “potkaissut tyhjää”, common idiom, "kicked the bucket"

Saga asks Ahti how he knows Blum was in the Cult:

A fox never runs out of tricks. Tease a crazy man and he will show his ways. Blum liked to talk.

“A fox never runs out of tricks “ – “ei ketulta keinot lopu”, proverb. Foxes are traditionally tricksters in Finnish folklore.

“Tease a crazy man and he will show his ways “ – “härnää hullua, saat tapansa tietää”, proverb. In essence, “fuck around and find out.”

Saga asks Ahti if he knows where Anger’s Remorse is, after finding the empty record sleeve:

The matter is not my business, (mutta niin, sanotaanko vaikka, että) but she who steals a needle, steals a nail. Wonders of the modern world - music captured on vinyl, on tape. What will they come up with next? (Mitähän ne vielä keksii) I’m a man of the old union.

“mutta niin, sanotaanko vaikka, että” – “but, yeah, let’s just say”

“but she who steals a needle, steals a nail.” – “Joka varastaa neulan, varastaa naulan”, an old proverb. I’d like to note that Finnish does not have gendered pronouns, so Ahti is deliberately giving a hint here. (Addition from @sluiba: "[the proverb] suggests that someone unscrupulous enough to steal small things will likely also steal something bigger.")

“Mitähän ne vielä keksii” – “what (else) are they going to come up with”

“I’m a man of the old union.” – “Vanhan liiton mies”, a biblical reference to the covenant in the Old Testament. He’s basically calling himself older than Christ. The phrase itself is used to mean "old-fashioned" in a positive sense.

Weird idle dialogue in Ahti’s room after this:

There are pieces of george on the floor everywhere. The black stuff. Shitty thing. Very bad. I need to clean it all away. (Perkele, kun sotketaan joka paikka)!

“pieces of george” – very sneaky, he’s saying it look like someone threw up (yrjötä, the name “Yrjö” being a Finnish form of George) on the floor.

“Perkele, kun sotketaan joka paikka” – “(Perkele), what a mess they’ve made of everything!”

(Kulkaapa nyt, mikä…) (Mitäs, mikä paikka tämä on?) (Voi helvetti soikoon). Where am I? (Tämä ei ole minun koti). This is not my home. (Minä haluan…) I want to go home now. What is this place? (Ei saatana. Ei saatana!) How did I get here? I’m lost… lost at sea. No lighthouse anywhere, and a storm is coming. (Voi jumalauta).

“Kulkaapa nyt, mikä… Mitäs, mikä paikka tämä on?” – “listen here, what… Where, what is this place?”

“Voi helvetti soikoon” – cursing, literally translates to “oh, how Hell rings (like a bell)”

“Tämä ei ole minun koti. Minä haluan…” – “This is not my home. I want…”

RETURN 8: DEERFEST

Alan goes to the Spiral Door in the Dark Place and sees Ahti there:

We loop around, and come together, Tom. I have put everything ready for the visitors. I’ll come to wash the floor of your room next. All you need is water and Vileda. Water is the oldest balm. Water finds its way. What water brings, it takes away. It can be clean or dirty, it can give life or drown it.

“We loop around, and come together” – “ympäri käydään, yhteen tullaan”, a common turn of phrase. “What goes around comes around.”

“All you need is water and Vileda.” – Vileda is a popular cleaning supplies brand. He’s quoting an advertisement.

“Water is the oldest balm.” – “vesi vanhin voitehista”, from Kalevala. What it says on the tin.

Alan asks if Ahti can help him find his way one last time:

Now there’s a devil in the fish trap. Don’t be spooked by it so that shit won’t start beating your underpants. Okay, I’ll get the door open for you, Tom. There you go. The matter is a steak. Now comes the end of the rhyme.”

“there’s a devil in the fish trap” – “olla piru merrassa”, an idiom. It means that there’s unfortunate consequences for something you did, similar to “a devil to pay”

“Don’t be spooked by it so that shit won’t start beating your underpants” – “älä säiky ettei lyö paskat housuihin”, would be more properly translated as “so that shit doesn’t drop hard into your pants”. Means the same thing as it does in English.

“The matter is a steak.” – “asia on pihvi”, idiom meaning that something has been exhaustively dealt with, the way you make steak out of a cow.

“Now comes the end of the rhyme” – “tuli lorun loppu”, idiom with a similar meaning and implication as “end of the line”, the expected end of the current circumstances.

And that’s a wrap! If there’s interest, and if I can get an assist from Autumn again, I might go back to Control and do the same thing for Ahti there. The point is to do justice to our collective weird uncle from the Remedy Connected Universe. Hope you had fun and learned something new :D

[kuwdora]

A Vidding Primer

A guide written for @wren-of-the-woods who asked for advice about how to start vidding! This is far from comprehensive and I tried not to make it too dense because it's a big subject. I still wanted to share a variety of topics about getting into vidding because it's a hobby and art that is near and dear to my heart.

First Piece of Advice

watch a lot of vids and rewatch vids multiple times. Seek out vids on YouTube, AO3, Watch the TikTok and Twitter/X vids that show up on tumblr or wherever you’re browsing. They all have distinct styles and tools/techniques they use to make their vids and edits. Rewatch the vids and ask yourself what you like or dislike about them. The song, the editing, the source. That can give you a good starting point about how you might want to approach making your own fanvids. The TikTok style of 30 and 40 second edits are very different what you find on YouTube. YouTube editors tend to use a full song and a lot more effects and a lot more overlapping dialogue. Whereas the fanvids - Vids - from people who came into vidding in the mid 2000s/2010s have their own culture, different ways they approach song choice, clip choices and narrative. I also suggest watching vids for shows/films you’re not familiar with as well as your fandom favorites. You can learn a lot about how vidders try to tell a story even when you might not grasp the context behind certain scenes but you can still follow along with the emotional arc of the vid.

Second Piece of Advice

Have fun and enjoy yourself. Everyone starts a new hobby as a newbie. It can be a lot of effort to make 30 seconds or a 3 minute vid, but it’s such a unique type of fanwork that is fun to watch and fun to make. It can also be migraine inducing because of all the learning and technical issues along the way. But!! omg when you make a clip fall on the perfect beat with your blorbo crying that perfect tear or you find an idea and sources for the bestest perfect lyrics of the song, it’s a magnificent high. It can make you feel like a god. At least that’s how I feel a lot of times!

There are about 10 steps* to creating** a fanvid/edit:

• select your platform and software (phone/computer video editors) • gather your video and audio files • create a new project in your video editor • import audio into the editor • import the video into the software and mute audio tracks that contain your video’s audio • review, label and cut up the video into shorter clips - this step is known as ‘clipping’ in vidding parlance, but it’s also optional. Some people pull in movies and scrub through the whole film and just pull it directly onto the timeline • move the various video clips around on the timeline to match the audio track you’ve chosen for your project, add video effects and additional dialogue if you like • export the finished timeline • upload the video to a streaming platform and/or downloadable service • share your project!!! posting to ao3 and/or social media or share on discord, etc * there are a lot more steps involved with each of these steps. What what software to use, where to find video, how to deal with copyright blocks on Youtube, etc. Some of that will be covered in the links below but is not comprehensive. That would require separate posts and links and I don’t want to drop an encyclopedia on you right now! I’m happy to provide more resources that I can curate if you want more direction and pointers to resources and amazing vidders.

** like any hobby, there can and will be a learning curve and frustrations. Blank page for a writer, blank timeline for a vidder. Is anything you put down is any good, self esteem and confusion about what actually makes sense is part and parcel for any creative work. Once you're in the vidding process and committed, as long as you're enjoying yourself you gotta just keep going to get it done.

Getting Started Vidding

My knowledge and background and learning how to vid from people on livejournal and dreamwidth from 2007. I don’t have any experience in editing with a phone but if that’s something you’re interested in, YouTube will be a place for you to start finding tutorials for various apps and tools. Probably discord communities, too. Vidding Workshop - a great how-to/guide when you're starting out. This is on dreamwidth from the WisCon vidparty in 2014. Some of the tech discussions might be a little outdated but there’s a ton of relevant information. It covers technical subjects as well as developing vid ideas and actually getting started. If you have any questions about what you’re reading you can leave an anonymous comment and ask - some of these vidders responding inthe threads are still active. You can find them on AO3/YouTube, tumblr, discord and actually leave them questions about their vids. Many vidders are more than thrilled to talk about their vids and answer questions. Vexcercises - this is a dreamwidth community for short-form vid excercises. This is a very structured way of introducing vid concepts and constraints so that you can produce a vidlet. I highly recommend you check this out and participate! There’s even an AO3 collection so you can check out how people have done the different exercises, too.

The Process of Vidding

Watch Me Edit - @limblogs put together a fantastic playlist of YouTube editors who will show you beginning to end how they made their vid. A lot of these editors appear to be using Sony Vegas but the general process of vidding end-to-end will be similar with other nonlinear editors like DaVinci Resolve, Premiere, etc. It’s a great way to actually see the vid come together if you don’t know what that even looks like. Every vidder will develop their own workflow and approach (which might even change from vid to vid), but it’s useful to see in video how people actually DO the thing. @limblogs also created a handy YouTube playlist some vidders from Bradcpu’s Vidder Profiles (Fanlore page). These profiles are basically like a director’s DVD commentary on their vidding process, featuring the vidders talking over their own vids! So cool. Phenomnal insights from these vidders about how they choose song, use effects, think about their narratives.

Self Rec: I recently did a vidding textpost series called: do it for the process - a naked vid draft: What (Yennefer of Vengerberg). How I Edit by @vimesbootstheory is another textpost about their vidding process. Self rec: Here’s my text interview: Vidder Profile - Kuwdora 2011. I talk about my process with a lot of specific examples from my previous work and lots of screenshots. This profile is over a decade old but a lot of this still holds true for me today! videlicet - this is an incredible vidding zine that @limblogs put togegther with a lot of amazing contributors. These articles and discuss about specific vids and aspects of vidding. It’s really detailed and a fantastic piece of vidding culture. I highly reading recommend the Demystifying Vidding article by lim and the A History of Vidding by @meeedeee and…pretty much every article in the zine!

Doing the vidding!

I recommend joining exchanges and watching vids that come out of exchanges and checking out fannish cons that have vidshows and discords to get more exposure to vidders and vids. Many people have joined @festivids (AO3 collection here) and made their very first vid, it's a very fun and great way to get into vidding. It’s not quite festivids season right now but time flies and it will be time to nominate sources and do sign-ups in the blink of an eye. Follow @festivids and check out the AO3 collection and see what people are making. Join the Vexcercises community and make some short vids and share them on your tumblr or on discord or somewhere and bask in the thrill of making your first fanvids. Check out who reblogged the vidder ask game - go and read other vidders responses and ask some new-to-you vidders questions. Everyone has their own take on process and tech and everything. It's great to hear and see what a lot people are doing and making.

Final Advice - talking about vids and doing the vidding

• watch vids • rewatch vids • leave a comment and ask a question about something you saw in their vid! • Again: find someone’s AO3 page of fanvids and ask them something about their vid in a comment or send them asks on tumblr (people usually have the same alias or link to their tumblr or dreamwidth pages somewhere.) • YouTube can be a valuable resource for tutorials so if you don't know something, there is likely someone who has made a tutorial about how to use a cross dissolve transition or anything else you might want to replicate in a video that you've seen in a vid. • start making a vid, scream and cry, ask for help, and keep going until you get it done. Celebrate and bask in your completed vid and share it with everyone! • Follow vidders on tumblr that you find from the vidder ask game • Check out the vidding discord for community and questions and vid recs and news about vidding exchanges and cons. • Have fun!

Hope this helps you get started! Thank you so much for the ask! Let me know if you have more questions and I can help you out or send you to cool vidders who have great advice and suggestions. And please send me your vid if you make one!

[lindwurmkai]

hey, have you heard that pillowfort has ✨ drafts ✨ now? (as in, the ability to save your posts as drafts.) they're still working on the queue feature (update: it's done!), but drafts are a big step forward!

in case you missed it so far, pillowfort is like a cross between tumblr and dreamwidth/livejournal, with a simplified dashboard reminiscent of old school tumblr and some classic livejournal features such as communities, threaded comments, and the ability to make individual posts followers-only or mutuals-only.

what are communities? basically, central hubs for posts about any subject you want that, unlike hashtags, can be moderated. they may have rules, such as "[subject matter] must be tagged" for example. you can post directly to a community or reblog existing posts to it!

since the site is currently experiencing some financial trouble, i thought i'd help out by spreading the word once again.

edit: the fundraiser was a success! crisis averted! i knew we could do it :D

why you should give pillowfort a chance:

no ads

no venture capitalist funding

no spying on the users

completely free to use except for optional premium features

nsfw is allowed except for sexual depictions of minors. if you're unsure what exactly that means, their tos may help

communities and the privacy controls mentioned above are excellent features

great community, low drama compared to other websites (so far)

the site's features themselves encourage genuine connection and good-faith conversation over endless "discourse"

every blog can automatically be filtered by original posts only or reblogs only

reasons not to join:

if you enjoy algorithmic social media. there is no algorithm at all

if you want to post or look at machine-generated art. they're still finalising the wording and personally i hope some exception will be made for models trained on ethically sourced images, but basically an anti-AI rule is in the works (update: finished!)

if you cannot live without reblog additions (reblogging with comment). all discussions on a pillowfort post take place in the comments section, and only your own followers see your tags. this has its pros and cons for sure! a similar feature to scratch that itch may be implemented in the future, but it will never be exactly like on tumblr.

if you need everything to be an app. the website works fine in a mobile browser and a progressive web app will hopefully be released soon (basically it's like an app in your browser and on mobile these can be added to the homescreen like real apps i think? they have push notifications!), but there's not going to be a native app available through official app stores due to the restrictions of those stores.

other factors to consider:

yes, the userbase is still small. depending on your interests, activity may be very slow. but we can change that! and on the plus side, reblogging your post to a community is a good way to easily get more eyes on it; way more effective than simply adding tags imo

the site culture is a bit different than on tumblr. many people read everything that's been posted since the last time they were online and don't follow more users/communities than they can keep up with. it's still somewhat lacking in shitposts and heavy on "essays" but don't be afraid to post whatever 😅

there are no blog themes like we have them on tumblr as yet, but you can customise your blog's colours and use html/insert links and images in your blog description

likes literally do nothing except to let OP know you enjoyed their post. you can't look at a list of all your likes. beware!

the staff is small and development is slow. some highly anticipated planned features other than the aforementioned queue include: - multi-account management - dashboard filters/reading lists - post bookmarking (since likes don't work that way) but we don't know how soon any of those will be implemented.

there is a user-developed browser extension (well, a userscript) called tassel available that adds additional features much like tumblr's beloved xkit :)

✨ okay, so how do i sign up? ✨

if you're interested but confused by the sign-up process or still under the impression that you need to pay to sign up (false), i'll put some clarifications and invite codes under the read more below. plus a note on donating, premium features, the paypal issue etc.

in a nutshell:

it's free

signing up without an invite code is possible, but you may have to wait a short while - supposedly less than an hour atm. just submit your email to the waitlist

if you don't feel like waiting, you can either use an invite code from an existing user or pay $5 to sign up instantly

every user gets plenty of invite codes and we're all willing to hand them out at the drop of a hat. they're really not hard to come by

some invites to get you started (just click the link):

invite 1 ▪ invite 2 ▪ invite 3 ▪ invite 4 ▪ invite 5

invite 6 ▪ invite 7 ▪ invite 8 ▪ invite 9 ▪ invite 10

invite 11 ▪ invite 12 ▪ invite 13 ▪ invite 14 ▪ invite 15

invite 16 ▪ invite 17 ▪ invite 18 ▪ invite 19 ▪ invite 20

i'll try to periodically check if any have been used and cross those out.

...paypal issue?

ok so paypal doesn't like working with sites that allow nsfw. as a result, you need a credit card in order to donate to pillowfort, buy one of those insta-registration keys, or subscribe to premium features*. i personally happen to have a credit card and would be willing to help out anyone who trusts me enough to send the money to me via paypal, but i realise chances are only my friends will do this.

some users are currently organising various activities for the purpose of letting people who only have paypal contribute to the site's survival. it's not super relevant for new users and won't get you access to premium features, but i thought i'd mention it anyway in case someone loves the concept of the site so much they want to support it immediately. a fundraising community has been created to collect posts of that nature!

*premium features are strictly limited to two categories of things:

fun little extras that no one truly needs

higher image upload limits, because obviously big images take up bandwidth and are therefore a reason for increased costs

you will never need to pay for vital accessibility features or anything of the sort. :)

[bisexualbaker]

Dreamwidth and Lurking

In (I think) the notes on my "Why is everyone recommending Dreamwidth as a Tumblr alternative?" post, someone asked if it was possible to lurk on Dreamwidth. My first instinct was to automatically reply with "yes", since wasn't lurking just kinda. Hanging out and reading someone's posts and generally not letting them know you're there in any way? But getting the question at all made me stop and think for a minute, because if that's all that lurking is, then why would someone feel the need to ask the question in the first place? Does that mean that lurking means something different on Tumblr than I'm used to?

This lead to my initial question post, and, a few days after that, my All About Lurking Poll, which wrapped up yesterday. I personally found the results fascinating, and while the answer that got the most votes out of the 2808 responses was "You do not interact in any way with the poster(s); you can only read", other answers together made up more than 50% of the responses.

So when it comes to the question of whether it's possible to lurk on Dreamwidth, it depends heavily on what you consider lurking to be! I'll be covering the first four options, which should between them cover at least most of the rest of the poll answers.

Option one: "You do not interact in any way with the poster; you can only read"

Generally possible! I had five different Tumblr accounts each open to their own tabs before I broke down and got my own account to condense them down. Given how many tabs I have open as a result of that decision, for reading or reblogging later, that backfired a bit, but the intent was there!

I did it for at least five LiveJournalers back in the day that I was too intimidated to add to my friends list (basically the equivalent of Following on Tumblr), only that was also before tabs, and I hated having extra windows open, so I would cycle through the links in the search bar.

That said, there are some people who have their journals set to "Access Only"; they have posts that only people with a Dreamwidth account who they have granted the ability to access these "Locked" posts will be able to see. It's a privacy feature that's very beloved at Dreamwidth, and it means that anyone without an account, or without access, can only see posts that are shared publicly.

I want to add that I'm not actually sure how Dreamwidth works on other RSS Readers, which I'm sure would simplify things somewhat, but I do know that you can subscribe to RSS accounts through Dreamwidth! If someone wants to chime in with more details, I would welcome them!

Option two: You can follow the poster, but not interact any farther than that

Yes! I've got any number of "ghosts" following me, who have Dreamwidth accounts and who have subscribed to my account, but who haven't granted me access and who don't comment on my posts.

Aside from the above-mentioned RSS Feed idea, the easiest way to do this is to create a Dreamwidth account and, well, subscribe to someone whose updates you want to see! It's basically the same as following on Tumblr, with a few functional differences; and for the purposes of this poll answer, it may as well be exactly the same.

As an important note, you don't actually have to grant anyone access to your locked posts in order to subscribe to them! On LiveJournal, these features were connected (you could only follow an account by adding them to your "Friends List", and this would grant them access to all of your locked posts, IIRC), but Dreamwidth made a point of separating them. This allows greater privacy for everyone involved. Dreamwidth went one step further, and created "Access Filters", so a given journal owner could make a post that only a certain subset of people could see, but that's a post for a different time.

Option Three: You can follow the poster and like their posts, but not reblog

Unfortunately, this is where things fall apart for anyone who likes this answer best: Dreamwidth has no "Like" function. The closest you can come here is to create an actual comment, and only include an emoji in the text. This is probably a little bit more interactive than a lot of people are interested in when it comes to lurking, and understandably so!

If you want to read about why Dreamwidth doesn't have a "Likes" system, site co-owner/co-founder Denise talks about that in a comment on an official news post right over here. (Full disclosure, I'm soc_puppet on Dreamwidth, so that's me replying to her comment there.)

Option Four: You can follow the poster and reblog their posts, but not like them

Almost no one picked this option 😂 I can understand why, since reblogging is a higher-interaction function than liking, and if you're reblogging already, you might as well go for the lower-interaction function as well.

That said, the answer for this is surprisingly: Yes! You can do this form of lurking!

Reblogging is not a native function of Dreamwidth, though, so it takes a bit more work to do it. If you want to reblog things, you need to learn how from this post. I'm still used to the old way of signal boosting from LiveJournal, so it's not something I ever installed myself, or really intend to install. But if you're looking for a way to reblog stuff on Dreamwidth, this is your answer!

Ironically, I'm pretty sure this script makes the Dreamwidth equivalent of reblogging lower-interaction than the Dreamwidth equivalent of liking. I'm reasonably sure that the person you reblogged from with this script doesn't actually get any sort of notification of your reblog, so you can add just about anything in the tags, or even in your own reblog, and it's very unlikely that they'll see any of it.

What about Asks, anonymous or otherwise, and DMs?

Dreamwidth doesn't really have an Ask function. A lot of Dreamwidth users have a pinned introduction post, and some of them doubtlessly use it to welcome questions from the public, but Tumblr's Ask function is pretty unique. There may be communities with an equivalent feature or interaction (such as posting questions to a community, which may or may not have moderated posts), but it's not something you can generally do with individually owned journals. But Asks aren't something that everyone on Tumblr has enabled either, anonymous or otherwise.

Dreamwidth does have a Private Message feature, but as on Tumblr, a journal's owner has control over who can send them a message.

So that's it!

That's all I can think of to tell you about Dreamwidth and lurking, and lurking on Dreamwidth. If you have any questions I didn't already cover, feel free to ask, and I'll do my best to answer them!

[ksadvent]

Not to disturb your summer vibes, but September is here (*screams, part in delight, part in shock*) and this means: K/S Sign-Up is happening!

Schedule for 2024:

Sign-ups and prompt posts: September 1 - 30 Prompt claims and creation period: September 1 - November 20 Works due: November 20 Works revealed (gradually): Dec 1 - 31 The time for all these steps is: 11:59 AM UTC. A quick refresher of our FAQs and rules: FAQs:

Advent Calendar? Is this a Christian event? Do I have to create an X-mas-themed work?

No, K/S Advent Calendar is not a Christian (or, generally, religious) event. There's no denying that the concept of such an annual fannish event in December has its roots in the wide-spread, originally German Lutheran custom of advent calendars (which first appeared in the 19th century), and we do keep the term "advent" in the name, but it is important to us that this fest itself is not tied to any specific religion or culture. December comes with a multitude of holidays, traditions, and days of significance around the world (see this list on Wikipedia, for example), be they secular or religious or even fictional (e.g. Festivus or Hogswatch); all of them can be explored for this fest, as can the topics of end-of-year, New Year, winter, and family gatherings. This is a very wide and varied theme, and we hope there's something for everyone in it, creators and readers alike.

Why does this event take place throughout the whole month of December? Advent calendars have 24 doors.

Because it's fun and we think there can be no better way to end the year (and start the new one) than with the delight that is Kirk/Spock. (Also, not all advent calendars have 24 doors.)

Do I have to be on Dreamwidth or Tumblr in order to take part in this fest?

No, a DW account is not required. We have a community on Dreamwidth and a blog on Tumblr for announcements and discussion, but schedules and important admin posts will always be publicly visible. The only account you really need for this fest is an AO3 account. You are, of course, encouraged to post/link to your work anywhere you like to after its reveal; so if you prefer to share your art, for example, on Twitter or Tumblr for greater exposure, then you can crosspost it there as soon as your work is revealed.

Is this a fic exchange?

No. K/S Advent Calendar is a prompt meme, that means participants will not get matched one-on-one and assigned to a gift recipient as is the case in exchanges. So no one is guaranteed a "gift", but there's also much less pressure on participants. Members sign up and post prompts until the defined deadline (see the schedule). Prompts can be claimed by anyone who has an account on the AO3, and the resulting fanworks need to be posted to the collection until the deadline according to schedule. If you need more detailed information on how a prompt meme works (e.g. how to edit your prompts, where to find your claimed prompts etc), please see this section in the AO3 FAQ.

Do I need to be signed up to claim & fill a prompt? What if I missed the sign-up phase?

Admittedly, the term "sign-up" is a tiny bit misleading. The "sign-up" form is for submitting your prompts; if you would like to claim & fill prompts without submitting a prompt yourself, then you do not need to go through the "sign-up" form. Just browse the list of prompts other fans submitted and use the "claim" button to pick whatever tickles your muse. When you claim a prompt it shows up under "My claims" on the collection profile and under "Claims" on your own dashboard. Use the "fulfil" button to post your work, please. Rules:

1. K/S Advent Calendar is an event for adults as some prompts or fanworks might be mature or explicit. By taking part you confirm that you are 18 or older.

2. The theme of this fest is very wide: December comes with a multitude of holidays, traditions, and days of significance around the world, be they secular or religious or even fictional (e.g. Festivus or Hogswatch); all of them can be explored for this fest, as can the topics of end-of-year, New Year, winter, and family gatherings. The focus of your work should be on the pairing Kirk/Spock or Kirk & Spock. Slash (romantic and/or sexual relationship) and gen (friendship) are equally welcome. K/S has many layers and aspects, and this fest is a celebration of them all. No other pairings will be accepted (mentioning side pairings of other characters is fine, but the focus must be on K/S). If a prompt does not touch the theme of the fest at all, it is up to the person who fills the prompt to include the theme. So if you want to have more say in how this should happen, give a few pointers in your prompt. Otherwise the creator has free rein, barring any DNWs. (So if someone prompts, for example, "spanking in the mirrorverse", without any further details, then someone who claims this prompt will have to include the theme somehow. Maybe it's spanking al fresco, on a snowy planet? Or maybe it's 12 Days of X-mas spanking? Or maybe it's a family gathering on Vulcan that entails ancient customs – and whips and paddles (so, basically canon props)? And there are so many other ways the theme could be included.

3. When we say K/S, we mean: both TOS (series and movies) and reboot; Discovery and Strange New Worlds content is also welcome (let's hope we'll get some K/S-worthy material from these series one day). No RPF, please. AUs and mirror universe are welcome.

4. Crossovers between different Trek franchises or between Trek and other media are permitted if the individual prompt states this or actively invites them.

5. All ratings are welcome in this fest. However, when you fill a prompt please stick to the preferred rating of the prompter (if stated in the prompt).

6. All genres welcome, including darker subjects if the prompter asks for them (as long as DNWs are respected). Use the AO3 warnings if applicable.

7. Prompts can be filled by more than one person. You can even fill the same prompt multiple times – the "fulfil" button will show up on the prompt you claimed even if you have already used it for posting a work before.

8. Participants can fill as many prompts as they want to. You can even fill your own prompt.

9. Please list your DNWs (Do-Not-Wants) in the prompt if you want to avoid certain types of content, e.g. rape or character death or specific tropes. When you submit several prompts, please state your DNWs for each. We kindly ask you to not abuse the DNW system: keep it short and simple, and don't box in your creator. When you fill a prompt, please respect the DNWs listed in the request.

10. All types of fanworks are welcome in this fest: fic, poetry, filks, art, vids, podfic etc. Made a giant cake with life-size Kirk and Spock marzipan figures? Post the photos.

11. Minimum word count for written fanworks is 100 words (exception: poems have no minimum word count). There is no maximum word count. Minimum for art: a doodle or clean sketch (on unlined paper, if you use traditional media); manips are permitted. No banner or icon art, please, unless it accompanies a work of fiction or a podfic. No AI-generated works, be it fic or art, will be accepted!

12. Fanworks in languages other than English are allowed: As this is not a one-on-one gift exchange, but a prompt fest, fanworks in languages other than English are absolutely permitted and welcome! Each prompt can inspire a wide variety of fanworks, and as long as you respect the DNWs and the maximum rating of the chosen prompt, it’s all fine!

13. For K/S Advent Calendar, the works will be gradually revealed, at least one per day, hopefully even more than one if there are enough submissions. There is no anon period, but we ask you to not blabber about your work on social media before it appears in the collection. As soon as your work is revealed, you can link or re-post it anywhere you want to. While your work is in the queue and waiting for its scheduled day to go live, it will be marked as "awaiting approval by the mod". Fear not, this is just part of how the gradual reveal that is key for an advent calendar works. Please note that the AO3 keeps the date on which you submitted your work as publication date. When your K/S advent work gets revealed, you can/should update its publication date to its reveal date. Otherwise a work revealed on Dec 20, for example, might carry the publication date Oct 5. Which is not the end of the world and happens in AO3 prompt memes and fic exchanges often, but updating the date will also make your work appear among the recent ones when people search for a pairing or fandom tag. We mods can't do that for you, by the way; updating the publication date of a work is something only its creator can do.

14. Works posted to the collection must be new (created for this fest and unpublished) and complete. No WIPs or placeholder uploads! If you post a work with more than one chapter, it must be complete before the due date.

15. We allow extra works to be posted to the collection: If nothing among the submitted prompts tickles your muse, and if you missed the chance of submitting a prompt that you could have filled yourself, then you can still take part in K/S Advent Calendar by posting the work directly to the collection, without using any "claim" or "fulfil" button. Make sure to put the correct collection name into the appropriate field during the posting process (e.g. for 2024 the collection name is "KS_AdventCalendar2024", without the quote marks), so that the work stays unrevealed until it goes live. We think of these extra works as treats for the whole community. However, please do have a good look at the list of prompts before you choose to take this road. There are such lovely prompts waiting for creators to pick them, and this should take priority over treats.

16. Last but not least: Be courteous to the other participants, act in good faith and assume good faith. For all questions, please contact the mod (DW, Tumblr-Ask, or email: kirkspockmod+ksadvent@gmail.com). We are happy to help!

[olderthannetfic]

No.

As always, you should be more cautious when making mainstream art (if you get to be a Hollywood director, for example) than when making niche stuff.

As for which fiction inspires people to do what, the evidence is pretty murky. I'm sure FINR's Dreamwidth will have some links somewhere that someone who is not me can find. Let's not waste our time on freaking out about Japan. There are some well-publicized problems, but it's also a favorite subject of melodramatic reporting in English.

--

Also...

When someone does cite sources, that doesn't automatically mean the sources say what they claim or that the sources are any good. I waded through the twitter thread you sent, and the first source cited is:

Sluzhevsky, Megan, "The Costs of Lolicon: Japan’s Pedophilia Trade" (2022). Senior Theses. 96.

This is an undergrad thesis, so basically worthless. Sorry, not sorry. (I wrote an undergrad thesis myself. It was also worthless.)

The abstract is:

This thesis investigates Japan’s normalization of pedophilia via the proliferation of popular culture and media. This analysis will begin by looking at historical examples of pedophilia, specifically focusing on chigo in Medieval Japanese Buddhism, wakashu in Edo Period pleasure quarters, and the spread of soft power diplomacy after World War II. This phenomenon will also be viewed in the modern context by discussing lolicon in Japanese media and advertising, idol culture in the Japanese music industry, the JK business, and “real” child pornography. The ways that Japan benefits from this culture economically and politically will also be investigated. Finally, this thesis will take into consideration the opinions of those who do not see these media forms as morally reprehensible, and consider the ways this phenomenon may or may not endanger children in real life.

Chigo?! Wakashu? Fucking really?!

It might be a good paper. You can read it if you really want to. But the abstract is not inspiring a lot of confidence. Wakashu, for example, were often young, but it's a social category that has no modern equivalent, and it's not strictly bound by age. To roll this role for young men into hand-wringing about modern lolicon, not even shotacon? What?

The second citation is by a law student. It's a 2011/2012 article. It doesn't seem like it was peer reviewed, but I'm not sure.

[cleolinda]

The happenings, Tumblr edition

Obviously I am not happy about the prospect of Tumblr going into sunset "guess we'll just let it die" mode (or possibly "Let's sell it to fuck knows who!!"), if that is indeed what is happening. My clinical anxiety needs a lot of things. This is not one of them.

I've been using Tumblr as my primary hangout for pretty much exactly a year now. I am tired of watching platforms enshittify and crumble. Why does this keep happening to us. I am weary.

At the same time, yeah, Twitter is dogshit now, but a year after it got taken over, it is there still. There were some problems on Reddit, but it's thoroughly still there. There was time to figure out some migration for all the good it did.

I worked on essay-type posts and recaps all this year to figure out approximately how many spoons I have and how much I can expect to post a month, before I actually got the Patreon running in October. A solid 1-2 Long Posts a month, it seems like, and maybe more frequently if I do shorter posts. And Tumblr has great opportunities to just keep reblogging and sharing things, sometimes adding comments, so I feel like I'm active even when I'm stuck trying to finish a post of my own.

So now, fuck me, I guess

So I have the Patreon as a way to say, hey, I'm here no matter what else happens, sign up for the ~*free*~ weekend linkspam/check-in, here's what I posted wherever this week, I'll put up some early or extra stuff if you'd like to upgrade to a fancy tier someday. It is truly most important to me for people to just know where I am; you don't have to commit to the $1 or $5 tiers.

But I also want a way to post my writing publicly, so people can, you know, see it. So I'm gonna start mirroring my own longer posts on Dreamwidth, I guess. That's the place I know to go back to.

Hopefully Dreamwidth does not go also down in flames!!!!

I've started archiving some of my work (also from LJ and Twitter) as PDFs in Dropbox. Mostly as a safeguard for myself, but I'll make it a public link on the Patreon.

I would really like to keep up with where people are going, what sites people are going to try to migrate to next, and I'll pass that info on as I get it.

All that said, I think most of us will stay on Tumblr as long as we can, if only for the very unique shoot-the-shit culture it has. Like, people aren't leaving it so much as preparing for the future.

[end-otw-racism]

End OTW Racism Link Round-Up: Week 1!

We are now in week two of our action demanding that OTW live up to its commitments to address racist harassment & abuse, which ends May 31st! There was a lot of great discussion during the first week, so we wanted to post a round-up of some of the longer-form discussion/analysis that people have been sharing (we're going with posts on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, and other sites, as well as Twitter threads that are longer than three tweets). These are posts that we think would be helpful to consider as fandom engages in the necessary conversations about these issues.

If we've missed something you've written, we'll be doing another round-up of week two, so it's not too late! You can either submit it on tumblr, tweet at us, or email us at endotwracism [at] gmail [dot] com. We do reserve the right to only share posts that are in line with the intent of the campaign and that we believe are adding to the conversation.

Tumblr

beatrice-otter: Why AO3 needs to be accountable for reducing fandom racism in its internal culture and the archive [link]

pretty-weird-ideas: End OTW Racism and the “Fed” Accusations [link]

aretethegreattelleroftales: You don’t understand what EndOTWRacism is asking for here, and because you clearly do not understand it, you should have known better than to speak on it. [link]

vex-verlain: In response to the reactions I’ve seen to #EndOTWRacism [link]

unrealromance: I don’t really understand how people don’t know the difference between ‘whoops I’ve fallen into a racist trope’ and 'I am literally writing hate speech that is unveiled, mask off’. [link]

pretty-weird-ideas: Codification of a Living Document as a solution to Harassment on OTW [link]

indifferentvincent: RE: End OTW Racism Derailment [link]

elumish: In light of some of the backlash to the End OTW Racism protest, and particularly the concern that an anti-harassment policy would lead to abuse of reporting mechanisms or censorship of unpopular authors/ships… [link]

seepunkrun: How to Find and Attend OTW Board Meetings [link]

indifferentvincent: The people who use the excuse of saying ao3 is an ‘archive’ and so 'must preserve’ the most vile, intentionally racist fics just sound like the most privileged motherfuckers on the planet to me. [link]

spacebeyonce & pretty-weird-ideas: wow this is such a normal and rational thing to say about having a diversity consultant to help ao3 fix their bullshit. [link]

indifferentvincent: I have to assume this is in regards to my promotion of the end-otw-racism call to action, because I don’t know what else it could be referencing. [link]

princeescaluswords: Writing Doesn’t Happen in a Void [link]

mousieta: There is a place, a magic place, a giant, ever growing park filled with sandboxes of every color and shape imaginable. [link]

Twitter

spacebeyonceart: alright so I want to talk about this post I made two years ago now that the #EndOTWRacism ball is finally rolling. [link]

generalfrings: This shit makes me so goddamn angry, yall. [link]

eruthosish: One of the calls of #EndOTWRacism is to improve the AO3's Terms of Service and how the AO3 deals with fanworks that are part of an offsite harassment campaign, so I wanted to share a story about the only time I have ever reported offsite harassment and had Abuse agree with me. [link]

buttonthemdown: They've proven they can move quickly *when they want to*, but the fact the OTW hasn't made an official statement acknowledging their lack of action and pledging to do better sends a signal they don't care about their POC fans. [link] 

Clonehub7567 Seeing the reactionary dismissals of #EndOTWRacism from white fans who pretend to care about racism is reminding me of the backlash i/we got for #UnwhitewashTBB. [link]

hydrochaeris3: ppl who are worried that not participating in the call to action will get them labeled racist..... first of all once again yall are showing that you care more about what others might label you than putting forth tangible effort into caring for a community [link]

m_sketchyart: If you think that #EndOTWRacism is censoring your escapism, here’s a thought to chew on: why is being anti-racist a threat to your escapism? Is true escapism not also leaving racism, antiBlackness, fatphobia, abeism, misogyny, etc out of your escapism? /rh  [link]

lunedraws: Have you wanted to walk the walk and not just talk the talk, re: racism, in one or more of your fandom spaces? This is a concise and timely line of actions we can take. [link]

aliasmarionette: One thing I see a lot in #EndOTWRacism comments which are in favour of the status quo is assumptions about who we mean by fandom, and about the user base of the Archive. [link]

SapphicScholar: New profile photo while participating in the important fan-led campaign to demand that OTW make good on the promises it has already made to address issues it has already acknowledged as problems in the archive—that is, instances of extreme racist harassment and abuse [link]

Fansplaining: Since the endotwracism campaign has begun, we wanted to highlight the timeline they've put together about the OTW's communications re: hiring a diversity consultant since their initial statement of commitment in the summer of 2020. [link]

gwenpendrcgon: ive seen so much backlash over #EndOTWRacism which shouldnt surprise me (also majority of this comes from tumblr is also to be expected) but most if not all backlash received by this event is done is such bad faith and complete wilful ignorance [link]

fiercynonym: so op of the #EndOTWRacism post on reddit dm-ed me and the situation is even more fucked up than i originally knew???  [link]

kitschlet: seeing a lot of people confused about what the OTW can do to address racism [link]

generalfrings: poor AO3 maintaining a 'absurdly heavy site'. all that text! [link]

RukminiPande: Fan scholars should be paying attn to #EndOTWracism. [link]

Saathi1013: The thing to notice about all the assertions that people know who's behind EOTWR is like... Okay, there are a few things, actually [link]

buttonthemdown: If you think that victims of racism need to "develop a thicker skin" you're a fucking racist [link]

mousieta: if i could have people understand one thing abt #endotwracism right now is that This issue matters not because racism makes you feel bad, or uncomfy, or squicky but because racism is actively harming Real Living Breathing Fans right now. [link]

fiercynonym: okay so…you know how OTW has been saying, when asked at meetings, that they have a budget surplus of about USD $1 million? well…manogirl & i did some digging, and it might actually be more than TWO AND A HALF MILLION USD. [link]

runpunkrun: Speaking of OTW Board meetings, if you're interested in attending, here's what you need to know [link] 

Dreamwidth

satsuma: A Chronic Habit of Avoiding Responsibility? #EndOTWRacism [link]

bcgphoenix: I have a lot of feelings about OTW and End OTW Racism as a book conservator/general preservation person, most of which verge into tl;dr territory. [link]

killabeez: Looking at past archive policies [link]

nyctanthes: End OTW Racism (Fannish Fifty #47) [link]

chestnut_pod: Be more democratic, be more autocratic, OTW [link]

Other sites

Lady’s Weblog: End Racism in the OTW [link]

The Rec Center: #384 Final Thoughts [link]

Stitch’s Media Mix: I’m Supporting #EndOTWRacism [link]

[pearwaldorf]

we need to talk about Rahaeli

This is slightly tangential to the dumpster fire that is OTW, but it is something I think is important to also take into consideration.

If you're following the comments on the OTW announcement posts, you may have seen reference to Rahaeli (Twitter) aka synedochic (DW) aka Denise. She is a co-founder of Dreamwidth, where FFA is hosted.

Denise is a Fandom Elder, in both the descriptive and derogatory senses of the term. She's been around forever, since the pre-Livejournal days. She has no hesitations about throwing around that Fandom Elder status, in the same way somebody like Franzeska or astolat or anybody else in the clique that founded OTW would.

Perspective from older fans is absolutely valuable, I want to emphasize. You want people who were there to explain why we are concerned about restrictions on explicit/queer/legal but "morally objectionable" fanwork, or how younger fans embrace purity rhetoric. But it's different the way Fandom Elders wield it, the implicit assumption that because they are older and have Seen Some Shit, they automatically have some sort of wisdom to transmit to the young'uns.

Denise knows a great deal about social media moderation, anti-harassment measures, and the legal obligations surrounding the discovery of CSEM/CSAM* on sites you're responsible for administrating. That expertise is extremely valuable when explaining to people why/how everything with OTW is very very concerning.

She also knows fandom very well, and exactly how to calibrate her words to push buttons. I remember her meltdown about Cohost, another social media site that looked like a viable competitor to Dreamwidth at the time. Here is a summary of it I wrote at the time.

I'd like to get into criticism of the part of that Twitter thread where she throws a random non-sequitur into an already extremely long thread. (I know this is already a long post, please bear with me.)

At this point, she's gone on about OTW, their gross neglect of volunteers, Rebecca Tushnet, and a bunch of other stuff for like three or four screens. They are all things we should rightly be appalled by, so we're on her side for saying things that need to be said. We are probably also getting a little tired and not reading things as closely as we should. I think this is absolutely deliberate.

She then pivots the thread to EndOTWRacism (hereafter EOR) with what seems like an offhand comment about how she doesn't agree with their goals. She wrongly characterizes the end goal of EOR's campaign as a desire to moderate fic on AO3. This is patently false and is explicitly stated on their call for action under What Do We Want. They want AO3 to come up with anti-harassment policies and content policies for abusive and racist fics (what some people would characterize as troll fics), which are clearly written to degrade and harm fans of color**. We are not talking about fics with bigoted stereotypes or racist characterization.

EOR links heavily to work by Stitchmediamix, a well-known and outspoken Black anti-racist advocate in fandom. They write a column about race and fandom for Teen Vogue, and have been the target of incredible amounts of harassment. Denise thinks it's biased and kinda weird EOR does this.

The reason EOR relies so heavily on Stitch's work (and that of Dr. Rukmini Pande) is because very few people actually write about this stuff. It's horrible, thankless work that doesn't get you good attention but needs to be discussed anyways. (Acafandom, such as that which gets published in OTW's journal Transformative Works and Cultures, is racist as fuck, but that's a whole other topic.)

Here we see yet another impossible standard white fans are never held to, the one where non-white (but especially Black) fans must be ideologically pure with no lapses in temper or frustration. Whomst among us would be able to respond with perfect grace every single time they were set upon by racist mobs?

We depart from the Twitter thread here because Denise has made a statement on Dreamwidth about why she included all the stuff about Stitch when she was making a critique of EOR. The summary of the post is basically "A bunch of people told me stuff, I saw screenshots, but I won't even share redacted ones, so just trust me OK?"

I don't know Stitch (we have corresponded exactly once) or follow their work***, but I feel like if there were actual evidence they send harassment towards other fans surely it would have come up on FFA by now. The nonnies don't like them over there, and I suspect anything that proves they have actually done anything of the sort would be like throwing chum to piranhas.

Probably the most galling bit of Denise's post is this:

Under no circumstances should anyone use my writing, my own arguments, or my repetition of the concerns of the fans of color who have reached out to me, as an excuse to engage in racist harassment of Stitch or of anyone involved in the EndOTWRacism protest.

She knows exactly what she's doing. It's like dangling a steak in front of a hungry dog and telling it "Please don't lunge towards it because I'm telling you not to."

The second most galling bit is the way she, a white woman with a great deal of institutional power, justfies pointing even more racist harassment towards a Black fan known for continued anti-racist activism even though it makes their life hell and calls it solidarity.

Fuck that noise. As Dr. Pande says, there are many ways to discuss incidents like this without identifying individuals. Denise could have posted a person's account, in their own words, of their harassment experience. Even in an attempt to demonstrate faux solidarity she denies POC fans a voice.

I am glad Denise can contribute her technical and legal expertise to explaining precisely how the OTW has been negligent in their responsibilities to their volunteers and how they are noncompliant with important laws regarding extremely harmful material. I regret she has undermined this important work with unnecessary detours into racism and incitement of harassment.

I am extremely angry about having to make this post. It's another pile of shit on top of an already giant dumpster fire. But apparently upholding racism and white supremacy is still something people in fandom are going to do, even as an important organization within it burns down around our ears.

--

*There is a difference (cw: duh) between the terms! I did not know this until yesterday.

**I'm not getting into definitions or hair-splitting about this because it's not the point of this post.

***If you are interested in actually reading Stitch's work, here is a great place to start.