waderockett
Wade Rockett
(he/him) Writer and tabletop roleplaying game designer
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Last week, just a mere six days ago,
I skeeted (that’s Bluesky for “posted”) at Mike McMahan on a lighthearted reply to someone who had missed First Contact Day, riffing on my initial suggestion not to worry because there’s always Second Contact Day. My impromptu message to Mike asked if he would object to using the anniversary date of Star Trek: Lower Decks series premiere episode “Second Contact” as the date for a fandom celebration date, which coincidentally also shares another important date in Star Trek history- Lucille Ball’s birthday, who many Trekkies know gave Star Trek its first second chance.
And to that silly inquiry, Mike gave his very serious and important and legally binding emoji blessing.
And then today the news broke that Lower Decks would be ending after a fifth season.
News which seemed to catch even some of the creatives with the show off guard (a now deleted skeet that mentioned dismay may have been a clue to that end) [quick edit to update: after i posted this i saw Jack Quaid’s instagram post which basically made it clear that this was unexpected and for him, at least, they wanted to continue, but Paramount instead chose not to renew] But whatever happened, in light of that news, and how most likely Mike already knew the fate of the show when he replied in support of fans celebrating Star Trek through Lower Decks, the idea of a Second Contact Day means that much more now.
Lower Deckers, let’s stick together
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I’ve been feeling the pull of blogging again, and LiveJournal was in my opinion the best hosted blogging platform to ever exist. I created a Dreamwidth account and spent half my night just playing with site templates and layout—just like the fun old days. This guide is very helpful!
A Tumblr User’s Guide to Dreamwidth
I’m sure by now, some of you may have heard of the site Dreamwidth when some people talk about Livejournal and old sites they wish they had. Maybe you’ve become a bit curious about how this place works or why people are so interested in it anyway. To answer that, I’m going to give you a little primer on Dreamwidth and what you need to know when converting from Tumblr!
So what is Dreamwidth?
Dreamwidth is a Livejournal code fork and like Livejournal it is an old social networking blog. How is that different from Tumblr? Well to clarify, Tumblr is a content aggregation site, not a content creation site. This means that Tumblr’s purpose is to spread things for other people to see, and these things do not even have to be something you made. It is not intended for feedback and communication, it is only intended to be looked at. That’s why any comment and communication features are so lackluster, the creators genuinely did not want it to work like a blog, and they continue to fight that. (2022 edit: this has since changed and comment features are now much more robust on Tumblr than they used to be, but still limited.)
Dreamwidth is a blog with features centered around content and comment management. How you use it is up to you, but it is a more or less static site with each post self contained, no reblogs or sharing apart from manually linking to the post themselves and the only things you see on your feed are the blogs and communities you’ve personally added to your watch. While the format is well suited for medium to long-posts, you’re never obligated to post at any specific length. Post as little or as much as you want with as little or as much content as you want. Comments are threaded which makes them easy to keep up with, and easy to read and it is possible to edit or delete your comments.
Dreamwidth is, above all else, a site dedicated to freedom of expression and is one of the few places left that genuinely cares about that.
Dreamwidth Terms You Should Know
Cutting
You’ll see this term used a lot, and it’s a really important feature of the blog. Cutting is like the ‘read more’ feature you can find on tumblr. The difference is that you can choose exactly which portion of the entry is behind a cut and which one isn’t. You can also have more than one cut if you like! This is especially useful for long, informative posts to help people jump to the exact spot they want.
Cuts can also have their own titles, so you can inform people briefly of what’s behind the cut in the link itself. Good knowledge of how cuts work is super important and super helpful!
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=88
Access Filters
A term you’ll see show up when composing an entry is what access filter is applied to the post you’re about to make, (sometimes this is referred to as ‘locking’ the post). When you create a post you are given the choice to either make the entry public, make it available to only those who have general access to your blog or choose a specific access filter which you have a pre-determined group of people on a list that are the only ones permitted to see those posts. You can set up as many access filters as you want and change them at any time, and none of the members are notified of these changes so you don’t need to worry about that when making changes. You can even make a post entirely private so that only you can see it, and you can modify the access settings on any entry at any time.
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=21
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=22
Paid Accounts
Dreamwidth does have paid accounts. The entire site is ad-free and they support themselves entirely on those people that purchase paid accounts. The free accounts give you more than you need to enjoy and interact with the site, but paid accounts give you extra features such as the ability to add custom mood icons, journal customization options and more user pics.
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=4
Sticky Posts
You can sticky 1-5 entries on your Dreamwidth, this can be useful to use as a means of introducing people to your journal and what to expect.
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=199
Formatting
Most of Dreamwidth uses HTML to format it’s posts, which can be unfamiliar to those used to WYSIWYG text editing most places have these days. But they do offer an in-between, Markdown. Under the title there is a dropdown menu, and from the formatting it allows you to use Markdown to format your posts which may be more familiar for some of you than HTML and it also allows you to use @ username syntax when referring to other users.
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=260
General Dreamwidth Etiquette
Tags
You will find that on Dreamwidth no one ‘talks in tags’. This is because each journal keeps a record of every single tag used on a page both yourself and everyone else can see and has a limit to the total amount of tags you can use. Tags in Dreamwidth are seen as a means of organization, not as a means of subtext, you’ll have to add the subtext in text formatting separately. You can of course, edit/rename and delete any of the tags in the list at any time so you’re never stuck with the tags you’ve used if you ever change your mind.
Images
While this is a holdover from the old days when bandwidth was not as accessible as it is now, generally speaking, images posted are kept around 800px in width if posted without a cut. This is to prevent stretching and just general friends page tidy-ness. Similarly, when posting several images, they are either done by way of small thumbnails, or they are posted behind a cut.
(Personally, I use a CSS script ‘img { max-width: 100%; height: auto; }’ in my layout so that everything is automatically re-sized to the size of the container it’s in.)
Cutting
It is seen common etiquette to cut overly-long entries or entries that contain a large number of images, or entries that could contain sensitive information. This was both to keep the friend reading list trim and tidy, as well as warn people before they read potentially triggering material or something just generally distressing (especially in the case of images). Of course it may be worth it to set up an access group if you find yourself talking about a subject some of your audience has conflict with but cuts are always a good choice when you’re not quite sure.
Response Speed
As a note, Dreamwidth and other blogging systems are naturally slower than Tumblr. This is not a bad thing! But don’t be surprised if some people don’t comment on an entry till a week later. People on Dreamwidth are far more likely to pay attention to entries and read all their backlog so there isn’t a need to constantly remind or repost the same thing. Dreamwidth’s generally slower pace can be jarring to some people, but you’ll find it has it’s own benefits even if it doesn’t offer instant gratification.
Comment Subjects
You’ll notice when replying to an entry there will be an option to add a subject to your comment, this is not a requirement, only an option. In general, this is rarely used and can sometimes be considered disruptive if it is filled out without serving any specific purpose. Ways it is more often used are for specific community activities, specific content warnings, meta data or something otherwise specific to the format. Be aware that comment subjects work similarly to email subjects in such that replying to any comment with content in the subject line will copy the subject line into your own comment with “re:” prefacing it.
Userpics
Many of you have not grown up with the ability to change the icon you can use at any time but it’s something that’s been an essential part of communication with DW and other lj-likes. All accounts get 15 userpics that you can use on your account, they’re 100x100 images and you can choose between any of them when you make a post or comment. They can be used to display mood, expressions, fandoms, events, in-jokes, all sorts of things and can be used to help convey tone or mood in the post/comment you’re trying to make. (a lot of people even made <3 or THIS icons and reply with a blank comment with just the icon to convey a ‘like’ of sorts) It’s not perfect by any means, but thoughtful userpic choices can help a lot in trying to convey what you want when text alone can be difficult to interpret.
Q&A
Can I make multiple journals on the same account?
No. While this is a feature many RPers would like, and it has been talked about, there is no system that creates Parent/Child journal accounts. If you want a second journal, you would have to make a whole new account, and log in and log out whenever you want to change.
Can I reblog other people’s entries?
No. Everyone’s blog and posts are static, there is no way to share another’s post on your own blog other than manually linking their post.
How can I meet people if I can’t reblog?
Meeting people on Dreamwidth does take more work, it’s not as easy to stumble across new blogs casually in the day without putting effort into it. Communities are a large social component of Dreamwidth and there are communities for just about any fandom, hobby, craft type and even small niches, and you can start your own communities at any time. There is also an 'interest’ section in every user profile, which can be used to help find people of similar interests. And then there’s always meeting people through friends of friends in the comments of one’s entires. This post in particular has a much more through break down on socialization and how to find people
https://bisexualbaker.tumblr.com/post/147873750806/how-the-heck-do-i-find-cool-stuff-and-people-on
Where can I host my images?
This is of course, the biggest pitfall in Dreamwidth. As it stands right now, there is a small image hosting option however it only can store up to 500MB in size. For anything significant you would have to either have a paid account or use a third party storage service.
Services with the most permissive TOS, such as permitting sexually explicit content, are FreeImage Host, PostImage, and FileGarden. (file garden can also host things such as video and audio)
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=248
Hopefully this has provided the base amount of information you may need to start a Dreamwidth account. It’s very different from Tumblr in the way it’s used but it’s not completely different, but it’s not intended to be a 'replacement’, it’s just another service you can use if it fits your needs. Personally, I’m of the opinion that everyone needs at least one quite, static place they can hash out their thoughts on without fear of making a mistake, and Dreamwidth is very good for that kind of thing.
Can I edit my blog style?
Absolutely you can! You can change the whole thing if you know it’s cosmetic system. There are communities that are dedicated to offering all sorts of themes for your blog but you can make any yourself if you have the know how to do it. You can even use styles from other LJ forks with the right conversion, but only if they’re using the S2 system.
https://tessisamess.insanejournal.com/78160.html
Tess is a mess makes amazing journal layouts and has a conversion guide that allows you to use InsaneJournal themes on Dreamwidth.There is so much that goes into making layouts and I cannot offer any guide so you’ll have to dig up the rest on your own if you want to make anything from scratch.
For anything I don’t cover This Post is also a good primer for Dreamwidth.
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From “City of Death,” part two. One of the most famous scenes in all of Doctor Who.
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Back in the 80s my friend Tamara was a cool, funny, and sweet rock 'n' roll chick at my high school in Las Vegas. Now she's a disabled caregiver facing homelessness for herself and her elderly mom, who has dementia. If you can donate or share the link, anything helps.
#caregiverlife#disability#disabled#dementia#fundraising#fundraiser#donate if you can#donations#las vegas#henderson#nevada#elder care#senior assistance#homeless#poverty#caregiving#elderly care#assisted living#memory care#ankylosing spondylitis#atrial fibrillation#colitis#chronic illness
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That educational representation of an exploitative profession, is on to something!
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Ronan the accuser would be the biggest shit stirrer as a housemate.
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Christine Jorgensen at the Silver Slipper, November 1955
“Christine Jorgensen, who was once a GI in the United States Army, is well on her way to achieving a new attendance record at the Silver Slipper where she appears four times nightly, seven days a week. Billed as "the world's most unique personality," the star is supported at the popular spot by the entire Silver Slipper Stock Company.” Review-Journal, 12/2/55
Photos by UPI, and Las Vegas News Bureau
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POV: Warren Zevon Buys You a Burrito in Echo Park
youtube
#warren zevon#echo park#Alvarado#los angeles#1970s#burrito#Carmelita#sunset blvd#sunset and Alvarado#burrito king#southern california#Youtube
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The Exorcist (1973) dir. William Friedkin
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The story of Lucía y Los Alfileres.
A few years ago, Ruben Martinez and Raquel Gutierrez wrote a play about the history of Los Angeles as shaped by people of color. They asked me and Allison Wolfe to stand in for Maria Talavera and her daughter, Lucía Norman. The two women were political activists and anarchists during the 1910’s and 1920’s, who at one particular rally defended themselves from male policemen attempting to arrest them by stabbing them with the only weapons they had at hand, the long pins (called alfileres in Spanish) used to secure their hats.
During that filming I took time to research the women. I found a few newspaper articles, in particular about Lucía who had slapped a male witness and rushed a line of policemen in court. She seemed to have a healthy disrespect for male authority except for the great love and respect she had for her stepfather, Ricardo Flores Magón.
Last summer when I moved to Mexico City, I was sitting at the kitchen table with my friend, Sara Norman. She asked me about my move and I told her I wanted to be closer to my family and find out more about my Mexican ancestors. Sara understood, she said she had recently found out that she had a great aunt who was an anarchist. She started to say her name but I jumped in excitedly: “LUCÍA NORMAN IS YOUR GREAT AUNT?”
“You’ve heard of her?” Sara responded. I told Sara about the play and how Lucía had been part of Los Angeles history. At that very moment we decided we wanted to make sure Lucía’s name was not forgotten. We told the story to our friend Violeta and we all decided to form a band and call it Lucía y Los Alfileres.
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“La tía abuela Lucía Norman fue adoptada por Ricardo Flores Magón y lo defendió durante toda su vida, aunque murió bien joven siempre fue anarquista de corazón. Junto con su jefita ahí andaban duro y dale tratando de liberar a los presos políticos y arriesgando sus vidas para promover las ideas del PLM, haciendo periodismo y activísimo social transnacional y anarcosindicalista, que bonitas señoritas rebeldes!” Reposted from @proto_plot
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Robot X, Jack Kirby
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1961: young Johnny Storm takes LSD before boarding an experimental rocket built by his sister's fiancé Reed Richards. Everything that happens in the comics after that is his acid trip.
#fantastic four#johnny storm#ben grimm#susan storm#reed richards#jack kirby#stan lee#1960s#lsd#acid trip#60s comics#silver age comics#marvel#marvel comics
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When I was a kid, I regularly lost reading privileges for "having an attitude" and "acting out".
It wasn't as simple as being told not to read during other activities- one of the first times it happened, I remember being six years old, watching my stepfather pull fistfuls of books off my bookshelf and throw them to the floor in a heaping mess while I cried and asked him to stop.
It was weird. Every other adult I knew described me as exceptionally well-behaved, but at home, it was the opposite, and it was blamed on "learning bad habits from that shit you're reading".
Because I couldn't read at home, I spent all my free time at school in the library, reading with my friends.
When I grew up and moved away, I realized that my family life was toxic and abusive, and the "attitudes" I was being punished for were standing up for myself, standing up for my younger siblings, and resisting actual, real-life psychological abuse. Because I'd learned from what I'd read that my family wasn't normal, not like my parents said it was, and in my stories, the heroes were the people who spoke out when it was hard to.
It is insane to me that there are students right now who can't access books. It is insane that books are being outlawed. It is perverse that we are stealing away an entire generation's ability to contextualize their lives, to learn about the world around them, to develop critical thinking skills and express themselves and feel connected to the world or escape from it, whatever and whenever and however they need.
That is not how you raise a compassionate, thoughtful, powerful society.
That's how you process cattle.
It's fucking disgusting.
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My copy of Even Death Can Die, a collection of one-GM, one-player adventures for the CTHULHU CONFIDENTIAL TTRPG came! I love this game—I ran it over Zoom for a few friends during lockdown.
#cthullhu#cosmic horror#one gm one player#TTRPG#gumshoe#gumshoe one-2-one#pelgrane press#robin laws#Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan#Ruth Tillman#Chris Spivey#roleplaying game#tabletop rpg
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It just struck me that somewhere there’s someone whose favorite Britney Spears song is “The Joy of Pepsi” and they listen to it in their car.
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W*I*T*C*H: We Intend To Create Havoc, by Jane Harman (aka Terry Harknett). New English Library, 1971. Via @PulpLibrarian on Twitter.
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