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I made some new ESC icons. Kicked Tix out since I was only using him at ESC time - perhaps Barei and Subwoolfer will be more multipurpose. And also deleted a few other icons that I rarely use. We'll see if I decide to reupload them later.

Also want to make a few others - mostly Poli Genova and Dami Im - but I wasn't able to find good screencaps, so I'll have to take those myself. That'll take more time.

I have a hugeass gallery of icons saved... It's interesting to see how my tastes have changed over the years.

+ Had a three-day weekend due to the stat holiday. Didn't get anywhere near as much rest as I would have liked, buuuuut it was still nice!

+ I'm super tired. I don't even know why. There's no reason for it! (Self, you know why: you spent Friday and Saturday running around, and then you spent most of today cleaning like a maniac.) ...Anyway, upside, I spent some of today talking to Tik, and later on I did get to relax, and watched not one but two horror movies this evening (which weren't as terrible as I expected), so overall it's All Good. :V

+ There are two Little Libraries in my town; one within walking distance, and one that I need to drive to. So, yesterday I went to take a look at the farther one. It's slightly larger; had a pretty good selection, too. Anyway - I'm glad that I know where it is now. It'll be nice to return the books I take from Nearby Library to the Second Library when I'm finished with them - so that they don't go to the same place twice.

+ Pride YMM - I forgot to mention in the entry about the board meeting, but just remembered - they're working on becoming a Registered Charity. Hopefully will happen next year. This is really exciting news, because it'll likely mean it'll be easier to get funding. Also, donations, probably (I know I'm more likely to donate to registered orgs 'cause you can claim it on taxes etc). Anyway, they need to rewrite some of their bylaws first, but it sounds like they have a clear roadmap. Wish I could help, but ha, definitely not my area of expertise.

+ Spent today reading through some stuff about Polish grammar. I now feel as if my brains have turned into sludge. Cases sure are a thing, eh. On the upside, I do feel a bit more confident in the possibility that I can learn how to read Polish eventually. Speak it? No, aside from canned tourist phrases - but then again I can't speak Norwegian either (I can read Norwegian, but not speak it). Anyway... I didn't absorb much of it, but since we're just getting started, I'm not too fussed about that. It did clarify some things that I stumbled over when poking at it on Duolingo, so that was helpful. Can't remember the specifics, but it was case-related, which is not a surprise in hindsight.

+ It's so damn dry over here. In retaliation I've slathered myself in as much moisturiser as possible, and now I feel like a shea-scented slug. There's just no way to win, is there. :V

+ My thoughts on DW's beta inbox and post entry page are "Ew, it looks different". I'll get used to it eventually (and will have to, since it's due to go out of beta soon...ish), and functionally everything seems to be working fine for me, but. It sure does look different. :V

+ I hope you all had a good weekend!

Came across this blog post about Twitter users moving to Mastodon (and then a lot of them having a difficult experience with Mastodon): Why did the #TwitterMigration fail?

Thought it was interesting. I'm unlikely to use Mastodon for a whole lot of the reasons outlined in the post. I gave it a look for half a second, and thought, "Nah". I can see why some people might like it, but it's not for me.

Right now I'm kind of thinking, though - some of the same stuff might apply to attempts at moving from Tumblr to DW. I see it happen a lot, and it rarely sticks. I wouldn't be surprised if the reasons for that are similar: harder to find things due to the format, smaller amount of stuff going on, more tinkering required, etc. Though there is a major difference - with Twitter and Mastodon, you're going from one microblogging system to another. With Tumblr and Dreamwidth, you're going from an image-based microblogging site to a text-based longform journal site. That's gotta' be quite a change for someone who's not used to it.

It's also why Tumblr fandom is unlikely to jump from there to here. I've seen some stir-ups and attempts recently due to some UI changes Tumblr is experimenting with, but as always, I'm like... "Good luck, and I'll believe it when I see it".

So how about Dreamwidth's fetching backend, eh?

I suppose I don't mind all that much - at a few points, it did give me motivation to go do something else.

(I say, as I write this entry instead of doing the dishes. But at one point, I solemnly swear I did some writing, too!)

All jokes aside, at least they're aware of the issue.

If you're looking for nonfandom icons, I suggest taking a look at fancylittleboxes!

There are some fandom icons on that comm as well, but the nonfandom ones beat them out by a large number.

I'm not familiar with the user who makes them; I just really like his work a lot. His sense of style really works for me.

MAN you know, I was thinking about an idea for a DW comm. But I don't want to moderate it, I just want it to exist. So I can post to it. Maybe. Eventually. Once every 2.5 years. And the concept of moderating it is like, "ew how about no, ugh work, no thank you".

Because moderating is a lot of work. Even if it's a low-key thing! Because like, not only do you have to deal with any issues that might come up, and hand-hold anybody who doesn't understand how stuff works, you also (and to some degree, more Importantly?) have to be super proactive about Posting Stuff and Encouraging Things if you want to have any level of activity and make the place look like it isn't dead.

I remember back when I was running a prompt fest, I would get people coming to me like, "Posting is open, but nobody's posting??"

And I'd be like "Yes, it looks like nobody has finished their submission yet; but if you're done, you can post it! :)!"

And after the first two times that happened I just. Made sure to finish my own assignment ahead of time before posting opened. So I could post it first. Because people don't want to post when there's nobody else posting, I guess.

And DW comms in general (and LJ comms to a degree, to be fair) is one big "nobody wants to post when nobody else is posting, so nobody posts".

WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO the thing I was Going to say, which is, DW comm mods, being a mod is hard, I Appreciate You.

(Even if I don't post to your comm :V )

I find it very surprising when I hear about people from Twitter moving to Dreamwidth. It's nice to have more people around, but they're very different sites! Microblogging vs longform journaling; a lot of text on both, but very different.

I think of Dreamwidth as falling into the "personal diary site" niche. Open Diary -> Livejournal -> Dreamwidth was a natural progression for me, from one diary site to another.

I know a lot of people used LJ/DW for fandom, but to this day I still don't think of either of them that way - or at least not primarily.

Potentially useful: A guide for requesting art in exchanges by chacusha.

It's a pretty thorough run-down of what kind of information is helpful in art requests. Details that are useful for a fic writer aren't necessarily something that an artist can use.

Of course, since it's just one artist's thoughts on the thing, it's a 'your mileage may vary' post, but most of the things on this list are suggestions I've seen in other discussions.

I don't do fanart, but I enjoy it a lot, so I do request it most of the time in applicable exchanges. Usually I don't have much difficulty figuring out what to request, but it'll be helpful to have a list of things to keep in mind so I can up my chances of receiving an art gift. ;V

recthething is a new fanwork reccing comm. You can post recs, and you can ask for recs. Multifandom, all pairings/ratings/etc welcome, all fanwork mediums OK.

It doesn't have the restrictions that some other reccing comms have. For example, WIPS are OK, the work doesn't have to be recent, and you can rec work by your friends.

I'm going to have to see about crossposting some things over there.

Signups for mini_wrimo are open now.

It's a writing fest in November, in which you commit to writing every day, and then report your progress to the comm every day. You set your own wordcount goal - it doesn't have to be the same as NaNoWriMo's huge-ass 50K goal. 100 words per day is fine.

Might be of interest to some of you? :)

I've done this in the past, and I liked the whole "accountability, yay!" angle. But I realized that trying to slap down a certain amount of words every day is Not For Me, even if it's only 100 words. I'm way too tired after work to manage that.