open letter to anyone who just blew in from Tumblr

hi! for anyone coming to dreamwidth from tumblr who may have stumbled across my journal, welcome!

you can absolutely approach me via commenting on this post if you need something explained. i have anonymous commenting turned on!

EDIT: Dreamwidth Staff made a post in dw_news addressing people who might be migrating from Tumblr! this is also worth a read! there are SO many communities being recommended in the comments that you should definitely go have a look!

here's some basics for you!

• YES, you can post as long or short as you like, and NO, you don't have to wait until you can craft a big long post. you can use this site similarly to Tumblr if you like. no one's gonna fight you over how casual you are. it's your journal! use it how you feel comfortable!

• YES, you can edit your journal theme's CSS/HTML and customise it how you like

• your READING PAGE is like your dashboard!

• your tags save for later use, so it's wise to use tags on Dreamwidth for actually organising stuff, because you only have 1000 tag slots on a free account

• get familiar with the Privacy tab in your Account Settings! it's massively useful for managing who can see your entries/posts, setting whether IP addresses are logged, from whom you can receive comments and private messages, and whether your journal is to be included in the sitewide search

• Granting Access and using Filters is how you manage who can and can't see your posts. you can set posts as public, as only visible to certain circles of friends, as only visible to one person, etc. and generally customise your journal's access levels post by post. VERY USEFUL if you intend to post private content or if you have sensitive personal issues to discuss that you don't want everyone and their mother to see

• your overall journal AND each individual post have Age Restriction settings! use them wisely!

• Comment Screening can allow only the poster and the commenter to view their thread of replies, and make them invisible to anyone else. if you're a very private person, you could use screening on your personal posts so that if you're discussing something sensitive with someone, to all other eyes it'll look like the journal has no comments on it at all.

• you get 15 free slots for icons that can each be a max of 100x100 pixels in size. you can use these to show what mood you're in when you make a post or comment, and if you're into pretty graphics, there are communities for finding nice icons people have edited into life, and you can totally make your own too. experiment! they're fun! if you need more icon slots there's a subscription system that helps to keep Dreamwidth alive and kicking :^)

SOME USEFUL LINKS

the_great_tumblr_purge - a new community that has sprung up specifically to help Tumblr migrants find their feet! go make good use of it!
addme - a friending community where you make a post talking about what you like and inviting others to become mutuals with you so you can talk about your interests
addme_fandom - the same concept, but with fandom stuff!
fandomcalendar - find events and fun activities that people are setting up to take place to do with fandoms you might be into!
metaquotes - a just-for-fun community where you post funny/quirky/interesting quotes from people here on Dreamwidth. it's a good place to browse :^)
questionoftheday - a daily prompt question to inspire you to make a post when you're stuck for what to write! (you don't have to do it every day - it's a great inspiration safety net, though!)
writtoast - this is a community for casual shitposting that i set up a while back because i know people can be worried that they need to make BIG LONG ELOQUENT POSTS here, when that isn't the case at all! it's quiet now, but anyone can feel free to post there about whatever they want and i'm likely to give it a boost if people seem interested

i'll be adding more links to useful communities as i remember them! if anyone has any good suggestions, please let me know! again, i have anonymous commenting switched on, so don't be shy even if you don't have an account 👍

had a fun dream

last night i had a dream about going to a small group of about 5 nearly-empty cabins in the middle of a pine forest during winter. it was snowing real hard and everything was covered in white and it was cold, but i'd apparently volunteered to go to this place with another few dudes who don't exist irl and i brought all three cats. the cabins were small and only had a bed each, everything was bare except for a light, but with three cats and some friends living nearby i was ready to do whatever it was we were out there to do. forestry? man i dunno. it was cold but i was super comfortable

anyway then it turned into a dream where we got on a spaceship helping out some actual transformers. i think they were mostly non-canon generic kinda transformers but they worked under some version of optimus prime? me and the other cabins-in-the-woods people were sneaking around the ship looking for evidence of betrayal or something and it was exciting and good. we were high tech super spies. and i think i had to chase my cats out of the mission more than once. go home idiots

i don't normally have (or remember??) dreams, much less about my actual interests, so it was rad to finally have one about living in nature AND about transformers in one fell swoop!! nice.