Recommendation: nothing and everything - Hamlets vid
Mar. 20th, 2026 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petra[VID] nothing and everything (0 words) by hartknyx
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Hamlet (Hamlet)
Additional Tags: Good Friend Horatio (Hamlet), Canon-Typical Violence, Suicidal Thoughts, Mental Health Issues, Lighter than it sounds, emo kid hamlet
Summary:
Hamlet + Green Day = FUCKING INSPIRED. I howled with laughter at the song choice before clicking, and the vid lives up to it.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Hamlet (Hamlet)
Additional Tags: Good Friend Horatio (Hamlet), Canon-Typical Violence, Suicidal Thoughts, Mental Health Issues, Lighter than it sounds, emo kid hamlet
Summary:
do you have the time to listen to me whine?
*Hamlet + Green Day = FUCKING INSPIRED. I howled with laughter at the song choice before clicking, and the vid lives up to it.
Fist my bump!
Mar. 20th, 2026 10:06 pmshadowhiveThe last few days my focus has again been off, mostly because of the damn sawing/drilling outside starting up again. (When will it end?) along with post gig tiredness,
Last night I did end up watching Ready Or Not cause of the sequel being out. What amused me though was I got the blu ray cause it wasn’t available anywhere (and discounted) but then last night I found it was both on tv (on film 4) as well as on Disney+. Ah well.
I did enjoy it though, it was mostly a fun time with incompetent rich people getting outsmarted and dying. I. Hopefully I can see the new one soon, though I’m not sure when (causa Megacon then 5sos). I did consider seeing it today as my usual two film thing but decided not to.
Today I went to see Project Hail Mary. I was gonna go in the morning to avoid more sawing, but I woke later than expected (15 minutes before I’d have had to leave) and just didn’t feel up to going right away. I was thinking of just going another morning, but did decide to see it on the second showing (part to get out cause I got riled up by mum being bitchy).
Trailers were mostly films I’d already decided I’m seeing: The Odyssey, The Mandalorian And Grogu, Super Mario Galaxy, plus a Supergirl one which I’d not seen. There was also a Hunger Games trailer and, bar going ‘is that him from the Long Walk?’ I’m eh about it. I’ve not seen the films and I dunno how they’ve gone on so long. But then again maybe if I saw them I’d see why? I dunno.
Anyway!
Before I go into thoughts, beware these will be slightly spoilery, especially since this is a new film (but I’m trying to keep it just with stuff seen in trailers). But! BeforeI get to thoughts I’ll simply say this: if you’re thinking of going to see this, go see it. I know it’s long (over 2 and a half hours) but it is so worth it.
Honestly it’s one of those films that’ll be the top ones of the year (joining Iron Lung, Cold Storage and Kangaroo).
But onto thoughts, which are under this.
( Read more... )
Gonna snug now, then tomorrow it’s the seapeekay randomathon tomorrow. I might do a music post but we’ll see if my brain can fic some too.
Last night I did end up watching Ready Or Not cause of the sequel being out. What amused me though was I got the blu ray cause it wasn’t available anywhere (and discounted) but then last night I found it was both on tv (on film 4) as well as on Disney+. Ah well.
I did enjoy it though, it was mostly a fun time with incompetent rich people getting outsmarted and dying. I. Hopefully I can see the new one soon, though I’m not sure when (causa Megacon then 5sos). I did consider seeing it today as my usual two film thing but decided not to.
Today I went to see Project Hail Mary. I was gonna go in the morning to avoid more sawing, but I woke later than expected (15 minutes before I’d have had to leave) and just didn’t feel up to going right away. I was thinking of just going another morning, but did decide to see it on the second showing (part to get out cause I got riled up by mum being bitchy).
Trailers were mostly films I’d already decided I’m seeing: The Odyssey, The Mandalorian And Grogu, Super Mario Galaxy, plus a Supergirl one which I’d not seen. There was also a Hunger Games trailer and, bar going ‘is that him from the Long Walk?’ I’m eh about it. I’ve not seen the films and I dunno how they’ve gone on so long. But then again maybe if I saw them I’d see why? I dunno.
Anyway!
Before I go into thoughts, beware these will be slightly spoilery, especially since this is a new film (but I’m trying to keep it just with stuff seen in trailers). But! BeforeI get to thoughts I’ll simply say this: if you’re thinking of going to see this, go see it. I know it’s long (over 2 and a half hours) but it is so worth it.
Honestly it’s one of those films that’ll be the top ones of the year (joining Iron Lung, Cold Storage and Kangaroo).
But onto thoughts, which are under this.
( Read more... )
Gonna snug now, then tomorrow it’s the seapeekay randomathon tomorrow. I might do a music post but we’ll see if my brain can fic some too.
Keeping It Together
Mar. 20th, 2026 05:54 pmyourlibrarian1) My response to the meta prompt at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
marchmetamatterschallenge, "Do you think it's more likely that meta would be preserved and read if it were regularly included in other fanwork challenges? Would you take part if you had the chance?"
I do, and that's because I feel that challenges, fests, and other group activities help extend the life of the given fandom. ( Read more... )
2) I watched the Sally Ride documentary and had mixed feelings about it. ( Read more... )
3) I tried out Happiness, a New Zealand comedy about a director returning to his hometown community theater group. I'm liking it more as it goes on, though the way so many characters are turned up to 10 is a little much for me. What I am liking quite a lot are the musical numbers themselves. If more kids learned history like this, they might remember it.
4) I took a survey which explored how much people trust the wisdom of crowds vs AI. I clearly didn't do it the way they had planned. ( Read more... )
5) Delighted by the arrival of spring, wish it didn't feel like the arrival of summer.
marchmetamatterschallenge, "Do you think it's more likely that meta would be preserved and read if it were regularly included in other fanwork challenges? Would you take part if you had the chance?"I do, and that's because I feel that challenges, fests, and other group activities help extend the life of the given fandom. ( Read more... )
2) I watched the Sally Ride documentary and had mixed feelings about it. ( Read more... )
3) I tried out Happiness, a New Zealand comedy about a director returning to his hometown community theater group. I'm liking it more as it goes on, though the way so many characters are turned up to 10 is a little much for me. What I am liking quite a lot are the musical numbers themselves. If more kids learned history like this, they might remember it.
4) I took a survey which explored how much people trust the wisdom of crowds vs AI. I clearly didn't do it the way they had planned. ( Read more... )
5) Delighted by the arrival of spring, wish it didn't feel like the arrival of summer.
Poll #34391 Kudos Footer-566
This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 2
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 2
Want to leave a Kudos?
Amazing HR stories (massive rec for OpalApparition)
Mar. 21st, 2026 11:31 ammificApogee by OpalApparition - where Commander Shane Hollander and Flight Engineer Ilya Rozanov are stranded on the International Space Station and have to survive a solar storm. It's an amazing mix of hard science, detailed knowledge of the ISS, space program history, intense action/adventure, gripping drama, an incredibly repressed Shane, pining, jealous Ilya, incendiary sex in microgravity, and romance. The writing is extremely good - gripping, fluent, with great descriptive detail. It's the best complete AU in the fandom I've read so far. (50,348 words)
I'm very into everything by OpalApparition, especially Wolfbird - a regularly updating WIP featuring professional dom Ilya and extremely uptight hockey star Shane. Although the way they meet is a BDSM club, in fact the fic's largely not about that (although there are several extremely hot scenes). It's more about the two characters, as despite his in-control dom role at the club, Ilya's actually a complex mess, an illegal overstayer with a ruined knee after a disaster very early in his NHL career, and Shane is the profoundly repressed hockey-robot star he'd be if he'd never met Ilya as a teen. It's addictive, and, as above, beautifully written. (currently 170,925 words)
I'm very into everything by OpalApparition, especially Wolfbird - a regularly updating WIP featuring professional dom Ilya and extremely uptight hockey star Shane. Although the way they meet is a BDSM club, in fact the fic's largely not about that (although there are several extremely hot scenes). It's more about the two characters, as despite his in-control dom role at the club, Ilya's actually a complex mess, an illegal overstayer with a ruined knee after a disaster very early in his NHL career, and Shane is the profoundly repressed hockey-robot star he'd be if he'd never met Ilya as a teen. It's addictive, and, as above, beautifully written. (currently 170,925 words)
The Friday Five: Journal History
Mar. 20th, 2026 04:14 pmjesse_the_kFrom that reliable source of journal prompts, thefridayfive
1) What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?
Volunteered for WisCon in 2007, clearly LJ was where everything was Happening. Took me a year to figure out the culture. Moved to DW on 1 May 2009.
2) How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?
79! Most are evidently dormant. (DW comms never die.)
3) Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?
I love the questions and answers at little_details, where writers seek specifics about an infinite assortment of facts: paint manufacturing, historical Chinese tornadoes, NZ slang for three examples.
4) How did you pick your user name?
It’s a riff on my wallet name which I’ve been using it since 2001.
5) If you could change your user name, would you?
Nope.
My Darling Dreadful Thing, by Johanna van Veen
Mar. 20th, 2026 01:53 pmrachelmanija
This spooky ghost story has a central pairing that I feel like I may have requested as an original work: Widow/Female Fake Psychic/Ghost of a Female Bog Body.
My Darling Dreadful Thing is set in the Netherlands in the 1950s, which is a selling point all by itself as I love unusual settings. Roos is a young woman whose abusive fake psychic mother forces her to participate in her fake seances. But though Roos does not communicate with the spirits sought by the desperate, grieving customers, she actually does have a spirit companion, a bog body whom Roos has bound to her and named Ruth.
Roos is delighted when Agnes, a biracial (Indonesian/Dutch) widow, takes her as a companion and spirits her away to her neglected Gothic mansion in the middle of nowhere. The mansion is otherwise occupied only by Agnes's sister-in-law, Willamine, who is dying of tuberculosis, and has a marvellously bizarre Gothic history. Roos falls hard in love with Agnes, with whom she has a surprising amount in common.
But this whole story is being told in retrospect, as a series of interviews Roos is having with a psychiatrist who is trying to determine whether she's mentally fit to stand trial for murder. Something very bad happened at the mansion...
( Read more... )
Very enjoyable, very gothic, very atmospheric. I'm excited to read van Veen's other two books. I looked her up to see if she's actually from the Netherlands (yes) and learned that she's one of a set of non-identical triplet sisters! I don't think I've ever read a book by a triplet before.
Mixed Media
Mar. 20th, 2026 12:58 pmyourlibrarian posting in common_nature
My partner was out for a walk given the unusually warm weather we've been having. He texted me excitedly that he thought the swan might be back. (Some of you may remember we got a weeklong visit from one last year).
Then as he came closer he realized the swan seemed unmoving and stiff...
( Read more... )
Birdfeeding
Mar. 20th, 2026 01:03 pmysabetwordsmithToday is mostly sunny and quite warm. It's already 78°F outside. 0_o
I fed the birds. I've only seen a few sparrows and house finches, but lots of birds are singing all around the yard. I suspect they're more interested in foraging.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I sowed 3 troughs with 'Sugar Ann' snap peas and 3 with 'Avalanche' snow peas. I put 2 peas in each end of a trough, leaving the middle open to plant other things. That makes 24 pea plants. These are bush types and did well last year.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I sowed one trough with 'Lovely Lettuce Mesclun Blend' and one with 'Thumbelina Baby Ball' carrots. I plan to sow more of those 2 weeks later.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I trimmed a few spray bits of brush in the parking lot, and followed up with weed spray. My partner Doug is trying to find someone to come install a load of gravel.
A large flock of several dozen blackbirds has gathered high in the trees.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I watered the six troughs on the benches of the new picnic table garden.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I used the last partial bag of compost & manure to spread a little over the eight big pots atop the new picnic table garden. So I'm out of that and nearly out of the American Countryside potting mix.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I put topsoil in four of the big pots atop the new picnic table. They're not completely full yet; there's room to add a bit of potting soil.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I put topsoil in the other four of the big pots. I still have a partial bag left.
I am done for the night.
I fed the birds. I've only seen a few sparrows and house finches, but lots of birds are singing all around the yard. I suspect they're more interested in foraging.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I sowed 3 troughs with 'Sugar Ann' snap peas and 3 with 'Avalanche' snow peas. I put 2 peas in each end of a trough, leaving the middle open to plant other things. That makes 24 pea plants. These are bush types and did well last year.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I sowed one trough with 'Lovely Lettuce Mesclun Blend' and one with 'Thumbelina Baby Ball' carrots. I plan to sow more of those 2 weeks later.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I trimmed a few spray bits of brush in the parking lot, and followed up with weed spray. My partner Doug is trying to find someone to come install a load of gravel.
A large flock of several dozen blackbirds has gathered high in the trees.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I watered the six troughs on the benches of the new picnic table garden.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I used the last partial bag of compost & manure to spread a little over the eight big pots atop the new picnic table garden. So I'm out of that and nearly out of the American Countryside potting mix.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I put topsoil in four of the big pots atop the new picnic table. They're not completely full yet; there's room to add a bit of potting soil.
EDIT 3/20/26 -- I put topsoil in the other four of the big pots. I still have a partial bag left.
I am done for the night.
foulard
Mar. 20th, 2026 07:27 amprettygoodwordfoulard (foo-LARD, fuh-LARD) - n., a lightweight twill- or plain-woven fabric of silk or silk-and-cotton, usually having a small printed design; a piece of clothing, especially a necktie or scarf, made of this fabric.
Including head scarf:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
Taken from French in the 1820s, where it had both meanings -- in contemporary French foulard mostly means a headscarf or neckerchief -- but there the trail runs cold and is officially declared origin unknown.
And that ends an undeclared theme week of words related to clothing in some way, but really was five words that happened to pile up together randomly.
---L.
Including head scarf:
Thanks, WikiMedia!
Taken from French in the 1820s, where it had both meanings -- in contemporary French foulard mostly means a headscarf or neckerchief -- but there the trail runs cold and is officially declared origin unknown.
And that ends an undeclared theme week of words related to clothing in some way, but really was five words that happened to pile up together randomly.
---L.
Captain America: The Undertaker's Children by rosepetalfall
Mar. 20th, 2026 03:18 ambeatrice_otter posting in fancakeFandom: MCU
Pairings/Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers
Rating: Gen
Length: 15k
Creator Links:![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
rosepetalfall
Theme: siblings, family
Summary: Bucky’s dad always says what they do is important.
“We give people the dignity they deserved in life,” he says, seriously.
Uncle Danny laughs at that. “Jimmy-kid,” he says, “your old man has got some real trumped up notions of what it is we do. Death ain’t beautiful. We just help create the illusion that it can be.”
Reccer's Notes: This is a really interesting look at Bucky's life before the war, and his family, and all the things that shaped him. The OCs are very well drawn and I love the details and thematic resonance of the family business.
Fanwork Links: The Undertaker's Children
Pairings/Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers
Rating: Gen
Length: 15k
Creator Links:
Theme: siblings, family
Summary: Bucky’s dad always says what they do is important.
“We give people the dignity they deserved in life,” he says, seriously.
Uncle Danny laughs at that. “Jimmy-kid,” he says, “your old man has got some real trumped up notions of what it is we do. Death ain’t beautiful. We just help create the illusion that it can be.”
Reccer's Notes: This is a really interesting look at Bucky's life before the war, and his family, and all the things that shaped him. The OCs are very well drawn and I love the details and thematic resonance of the family business.
Fanwork Links: The Undertaker's Children
Les Mis: Some Friendlier Sky by AMarguerite
Mar. 20th, 2026 02:46 ambeatrice_otter posting in fancakeFandom: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Pairings/Characters: Cosette/Courfeyrac
Rating: teen
Length: 125k
Creator Links:AMarguerite
Theme: siblings, humor, novel-length, epic works, old fandoms, book fandoms, small fandoms, AU, fork in the road, family, everybody lives, crack, female friendship, fixit, happy endings, just plain fun, politics, rare pairings,
Summary: Courfeyrac falls through the roof of no. 7 Rue de l'Homme Armé, taking down not only the ceiling, but the carefully built walls Valjean has constructed around himself and Cosette. Wacky hijinks ensue.
Reccer's Notes: This fic is madcap and fun in all the best ways. The shenanigans and hijinks are wonderful ... and at the core of those shenanigans and hijinks are Courfreyac and his siblings, as they draw Cosette into a quirky but loving family. (And also try to get everyone safely through cholera and a failed revolution.) I love all of the distinct and interesting characters, both canon and OC. I love the shenanigans. I love that Cosette gets a chance to truly blossom and form friendships. It's wonderful
Fanwork Links: Some Friendlier Sky
Pairings/Characters: Cosette/Courfeyrac
Rating: teen
Length: 125k
Creator Links:
Theme: siblings, humor, novel-length, epic works, old fandoms, book fandoms, small fandoms, AU, fork in the road, family, everybody lives, crack, female friendship, fixit, happy endings, just plain fun, politics, rare pairings,
Summary: Courfeyrac falls through the roof of no. 7 Rue de l'Homme Armé, taking down not only the ceiling, but the carefully built walls Valjean has constructed around himself and Cosette. Wacky hijinks ensue.
Reccer's Notes: This fic is madcap and fun in all the best ways. The shenanigans and hijinks are wonderful ... and at the core of those shenanigans and hijinks are Courfreyac and his siblings, as they draw Cosette into a quirky but loving family. (And also try to get everyone safely through cholera and a failed revolution.) I love all of the distinct and interesting characters, both canon and OC. I love the shenanigans. I love that Cosette gets a chance to truly blossom and form friendships. It's wonderful
Fanwork Links: Some Friendlier Sky
Tags:
- fandom: les miserables,
- length: 80.000 & more words,
- theme: au,
- theme: au: fork in the road,
- theme: book fandoms,
- theme: crack,
- theme: epic works,
- theme: everybody lives/nobody dies aus,
- theme: family,
- theme: female friendship,
- theme: fix-it,
- theme: happy endings,
- theme: humor,
- theme: just plain fun,
- theme: novel-length fic,
- theme: old fandoms,
- theme: politics,
- theme: rare pairings,
- theme: siblings,
- theme: small fandoms
Ballet Shoes: With Love, Posy by Deepdarkwaters
Mar. 20th, 2026 02:43 ambeatrice_otter posting in fancakeFandom: Ballet Shoes
Characters/Pairings: Posy Fossil
Rating: General
Length: 5203 words
Author Links:
Theme: siblings, family, female characters, gen, book fandoms, old fandoms, small fandoms, future fic
Summary: "There was a terrific row when Nana found out I'd only written one letter so she's sent me to write to you all properly, only I don't have anything left to say now and I do think it's silly to have to copy out the same letter twice." Posy Fossil's letters to her sisters from ballet school in Czechoslovakia, 1936-1938.
Reccer's Notes: Ballet Shoes is a delightful story about three sisters in 1930s Britain, their guardian, and their nanny. At the end of the story, one goes off to Hollywood under a studio contract, one goes to live by an aerodrome to learn to fly, and the youngest (Posy) goes to Czechoslovakia to be trained as a ballet dancer. Posy, the youngest, loves her sisters but is also self-centered and focused on her dancing. This is the first time she's ever been away from her sisters since she was a baby, and the letters trace that relationship even as they're hundreds and thousands of miles apart. But no matter how far apart they are, no matter how different their lives are, they still love one another.deepdarkwaters captures Posy's character, and her relationship with her sisters, perfectly.
Story Links: With Love, Posy
Characters/Pairings: Posy Fossil
Rating: General
Length: 5203 words
Author Links:
Theme: siblings, family, female characters, gen, book fandoms, old fandoms, small fandoms, future fic
Summary: "There was a terrific row when Nana found out I'd only written one letter so she's sent me to write to you all properly, only I don't have anything left to say now and I do think it's silly to have to copy out the same letter twice." Posy Fossil's letters to her sisters from ballet school in Czechoslovakia, 1936-1938.
Reccer's Notes: Ballet Shoes is a delightful story about three sisters in 1930s Britain, their guardian, and their nanny. At the end of the story, one goes off to Hollywood under a studio contract, one goes to live by an aerodrome to learn to fly, and the youngest (Posy) goes to Czechoslovakia to be trained as a ballet dancer. Posy, the youngest, loves her sisters but is also self-centered and focused on her dancing. This is the first time she's ever been away from her sisters since she was a baby, and the letters trace that relationship even as they're hundreds and thousands of miles apart. But no matter how far apart they are, no matter how different their lives are, they still love one another.
deepdarkwaters captures Posy's character, and her relationship with her sisters, perfectly.Story Links: With Love, Posy
Dreamwidth and Icons
Mar. 20th, 2026 06:47 amsoc_puppet posting in the_great_tumblr_purgeBuckle in, everyone, this is going to be a long one!
One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.
Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.
The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).
Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.
So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!
( Hold up; what exactly IS an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'? )
( How do I get and upload icons? )
Is that it?
Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.
One last favor before I go...
Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.
As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.
If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post at![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)
Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅
Edit: I've added a clarification about which icons will be kept if you go from a paid account to a free account with more than 15 icons.
One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.
Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.
The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).
Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.
So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!
( Hold up; what exactly IS an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'? )
( How do I get and upload icons? )
Is that it?
Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.
One last favor before I go...
Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.
As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.
If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post at
dw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅
Edit: I've added a clarification about which icons will be kept if you go from a paid account to a free account with more than 15 icons.
Dreamwidth and Icons
Mar. 20th, 2026 01:46 amsoc_puppet posting in newcomersBuckle in, everyone, this is going to be a long one!
One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.
Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.
The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).
Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.
So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!
( Hold up; what exactly IS an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'? )
( How do I get and upload icons? )
Is that it?
Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.
One last favor before I go...
Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.
As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.
If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post atdw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)
Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅
Edit: I've added a clarification about which icons will be kept if you go from a paid account to a free account with more than 15 icons.
One of the things that has made Tumblr wildly popular with fandom is its unlimited image hosting capacity. Content, Tumblr eventually put limits on, but number of total images (rather than images per post) and size of images? Not so much.
Unfortunately, that's one of the big reasons why Tumblr is basically hemorrhaging money: Because data is expensive, and image data is much more so than text data, mainly because it's a lot more data. That number just goes up with gifs and videos, the former especially being a favorite on Tumblr.
The ways to get money to run a social media site on the internet are basically venture capitol (the investors will want their money back someday, somehow), selling user data (doesn't everyone love ads and hate privacy?), and users directly paying for services (in this economy?).
Dreamwidth started from a foundation of prioritizing privacy and user freedom, and that meant that they compromised on image hosting in order for their users to truly be the main focus of this site. A dedicated user base pays to keep Dreamwidth running, and while there's a price rise on the horizon, we've managed to keep Dreamwidth's doors open with just our own money for sixteen years now.
So what does this have to do with icons? Well, with the limited image hosting options in Dreamwidth's budget, they're one of the main ways we use images at all—and Dreamwidth users make the most of them!
( Hold up; what exactly IS an icon? And what do you mean by 'make the most of them'? )
( How do I get and upload icons? )
Is that it?
Well, it's everything I can think of, at any rate! But you might have questions that I haven't covered. This is a great place to ask them! I may not have the answers, but odds are decent that someone here will be able to point you in the right direction.
One last favor before I go...
Dreamwidth users, if you've got favorite icons, show them off in the comments! I think it would be great to be able to share examples of just how fun and creative we can get with this medium, and this seems like the perfect opportunity 😉 Reply to your own comment if you have more than one, or to other people if the icon fits, so it's not just a mass of top-level comments.
As for any newcomers, if this post gets enough comments, you may get a chance to try out another one of Dreamwidth's features; at 50 comments, comment threads will collapse to keep loading time down and limit data transfer costs. Towards the topmost comment, at the bottom of the comment below which everything gets folded up, there's a clickable option to Expand the thread. This will open up and display all of the comments below that for you! The thread will collapse back down if you click away, though.
If this post doesn't get that many comments but you still want to try it out, I'd recommend checking the latest post at
dw_news. (Incidentally, if you have a Paid account, there's an option to expand all the comment threads at once at the top of the comment section. Pretty neat, yeah?)Thanks, everyone, and I hope this post was helpful! I'm going to go collapse for a while now 😅
Edit: I've added a clarification about which icons will be kept if you go from a paid account to a free account with more than 15 icons.
Occurrence.
Mar. 19th, 2026 10:54 pmhannahIn DC, safe and well-fed on ramen, my friend and I waited for the bus to her place. I looked around in the full night of a city I’ve rarely been to, in a neighborhood I’d never visited, and couldn’t shake an odd feeling.
Then it hit me, and I had to say, “Holy shit.” I’d needed a specific spot for something in a novel, and it’d looked familiar because she’d taken me to a spot just around the corner.
It wasn’t quite deja vu. More likes dream where you know the building already, even though you’ve never been.
Then it hit me, and I had to say, “Holy shit.” I’d needed a specific spot for something in a novel, and it’d looked familiar because she’d taken me to a spot just around the corner.
It wasn’t quite deja vu. More likes dream where you know the building already, even though you’ve never been.
Thursday Recs
Mar. 19th, 2026 07:52 pmsoc_puppet posting in queerly_belovedHello, all! It's time once again for Thursday Recs!
With Tumblr's recent foibles in mind, this week I'm going to recnewcomers; if you're new to Dreamwidth, or even if you've been here a while, there are lots of friendly people there who are willing to help answer questions and figure things out with you. I personally have posted a lot of (rather Tumblr-centric) tutorials about Dreamwidth there. If you know someone who's interested in learning more about Dreamwidth, it's a good place to point them!
Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!
Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!
With Tumblr's recent foibles in mind, this week I'm going to rec
newcomers; if you're new to Dreamwidth, or even if you've been here a while, there are lots of friendly people there who are willing to help answer questions and figure things out with you. I personally have posted a lot of (rather Tumblr-centric) tutorials about Dreamwidth there. If you know someone who's interested in learning more about Dreamwidth, it's a good place to point them!Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!
Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!
fic: boiling over
Mar. 19th, 2026 07:11 pmlirazelFic: boiling over
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Frank Langdon & Samira Mohan
Characters: Samira Mohan, Frank Langdon
Additional Tags: not tagging robby because he doesn’t come off well here, but he’s haunting the narrative, Missing Scene, Post-Episode 10, eldest daughter prodigal son, the kids from robby’s first marriage that he doesn’t care about anymore because he’s got a new family, oh sorry was that snarky?, anyway the senior residents should unionize, let them commiserate over the way robby treats them, my ‘langdon should be the brother of every woman in the ed (except mel)’ agenda, my ‘samira has done nothing wrong and someone needs to acknowledge that’ agenda, another name checked off of langdon’s amends list
Summary:
“How’re you feeling?”
Samira looks up to see Langdon coming through the door of the breakroom, pulling it closed behind him.
“I’m fine,” she says, aiming for wry, though it comes out more terse than she’d hoped.
“By which you mean ‘kind of tingly but also wrung-out’?” Her surprise must show on her face, because he shrugs as he sits down at the chair across the table from her. “I have some experience with panic attacks.”
“You?” It doesn’t fit with how she thinks of him, easy confidence that tilts over into cockiness more than it should. But then, she’s never known him well.
fic: no-fault
Mar. 19th, 2026 07:10 pmlirazelTitle: no-fault
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Melissa “Mel” King/Frank Langdon, Abby Langdon & Frank Langdon, Melissa “Mel” King & Abby Langdon
Characters: Abby Langdon, Frank Langdon, Melissa “Mel” King
Additional Tags: Future Fic, POV Outsider, abby does not deserve this but at least she’s going to get some amusement out of it, ‘just friends’ huh?
Summary:
She tosses the plastic bottle into the buggy just as Tanner says, “…and Mel says that ponies aren’t baby horses, they’re something different. A baby horse is called a colt.”
“That’s right,” Abby says automatically, the words snagging on long-buried memories of Saddle Club and Misty of Chincoteague. And then, a delayed second later: “Who’s Mel?”
Because she usually does listen when he talks, and she thought she knew the names of all of his friends and all of his friends’ siblings and that she and Frank have both trained him well enough that he wouldn’t call an adult by their first name without some kind of title in front of it. But she definitely doesn’t remember hearing about a Mel before. A new kid in class? Or, God, a character from one of the more annoying shows he and Penny watch, the kind whose shrillness and obnoxious flashing make Abby flee the room?
She absolutely isn’t expecting the explanation Tanner gives.
“Daddy’s friend.”
The buggy jerks to a stop, the broken wheel—there’s always a broken wheel—dragging across the linoleum. Penny giggles at the sound it makes, but Abby doesn’t hear her, her mind suddenly gone blank.