denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

(no subject)

Aug. 31st, 2025 08:26 pm
thisbluespirit: (viyony)
[personal profile] thisbluespirit
I forgot I hadn't quite brought my [community profile] rainbowfic posting up to date, so here's the last one I wrote before summer:

Name: Singled Out
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #29 (Pleasure); Beet Red #29 (Wear it well)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 3726
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minor injury.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Leion Valerno, Kadia Barra, Seahra Jadinor, Kettah Jadinor.
Summary: Leion is being frivolous, Viyony has a question, and Kadia is behaving strangely yet again...

Daily Check-In: Day 31

Aug. 31st, 2025 02:48 pm
miscellaneous_section: A knight in the middle of chanting a poem for the spell of Fear. (Default)
[personal profile] miscellaneous_section posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Good afternoon everyone!

It's the end of August, and September is just right around the corner to start fresh.

And so, have you written anything today?
  • Yes
  • No
  • I've thought about it here and there.
  • I'm taking a break.
  • I'm too busy right now to write.
paranoidangel: PA (PA)
[personal profile] paranoidangel

There was a time when escape rooms were all the rage. I've loved escape rooms games on the computer/phone where you have to solve puzzles to eventually get the key to the room, so I really wanted to do one. But somehow all my friends did one before I even knew they existed and didn't want to do another one. I did an online one during lockdown, but there were so many people it was hard to contribute.

But this summer I finally did an escape room! I did it with my eight year old nephew. It was like the computer games, although I sort of wasn't expecting it to be, I'm not sure why.

We actually had three small rooms and had to get to the last one. A few things:

  • It was during a heatwave and although the 'office' had air con, the room didn't. Although considering it was an airless room with no windows it wasn't as hot as you might expect.
  • The lighting was low and there were a lot of combination padlocks to open. Which shone off the combinations and I couldn't see them. Fortunately my nephew could, so he had to open all the padlocks.
  • There were a couple of things that required you to be above a certain height and I could only just reach. I did consider asking for a step stool...
  • At the start we were told to ring the bell to get a clue and we wouldn't be given a clue if we didn't ring the bell. But at the end we got pretty much told what to do. Which was fine because we wouldn't have escaped otherwise - we could have done with another half an hour really.
  • When we get out we were told that it was impressive we escaped because that room we did was best for 5-6 people because there was so much to do. Yet it didn't say that on their website.

Overall I enjoyed it, although it felt like the hour went so quickly. I prefer solving puzzles with no time limit, but I can see how that would be hard to run when people could be in there for hours. My nephew also enjoyed it and is up for another one. Next time I'll ask them what's good for two people when the tallest is 5 foot 1.

I'll give it 8/10.

Mirrored from my blog.

Check In: Day 30

Aug. 30th, 2025 05:13 pm
glitteringstars: (ttrpg)
[personal profile] glitteringstars posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Hello! Happy Saturday!

How's writing been today?

Discussion question: What's a fandom you enjoy reading fics for but will never write for?
yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
It’s time to start thinking about Yuletide! Here is our schedule for this year. Please note that the time of some deadlines has changed from last year. This may mean the date in UTC has also changed, or that the date relative to your own time zone may have changed.


2025 Schedule

Monday 15 to Friday 26 September: Nominations (end 9pm UTC 26 September)
Tuesday 14 to Friday 24 October: Sign-ups (end 9pm UTC 24 October)
Sunday 26 October: Assignments out (may be earlier)
Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC)
Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC)
Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)

Please check back closer to the time if you want to be sure about deadlines! Deadlines in other timezones may be closer than they appear. If your region has a seasonal time shift during the above dates, your relationship to the deadline will also change. We recommend using timeanddate.com to check when each deadline is for you before it occurs.

New Year's Resolutions

We just sent an email to everyone who took part in Yuletide 2024 and who needs to complete a New Year's Resolution story before signing up again.

We use the email that's associated with your AO3 account. This is a good time to check what that email is! If you have any doubts about whether you received it, you're welcome to check your status with us by emailing yuletideadmin@gmail.com. Please include your AO3 name.

Who needs to complete a New Year's Resolution

If you took part in Yuletide and defaulted after the default deadline, or you submitted an incomplete story at the posting deadline, or you defaulted in Yuletide twice in a row, we generally ask you to complete a New Year’s Resolution story before you sign up again.

See the rules for defaulting on AO3

If you defaulted in a previous year, we will not have sent you a new reminder. We issued a general amnesty for ordinary defaults before the 2023 round, but if you were told you needed to complete a NYR due to turning in a placeholder story or a similar problem, you are probably still on our NYR list. Please check with us if you aren’t sure!

How to fulfil the requirement

Stories written for the purpose of re-qualifying for Yuletide must be posted to the New Year's Resolutions 2025 collection before you sign up to Yuletide 2025. They must be over 1,000 words, written for a specific person's past Yuletide prompt, and given to that person. You can write for any Yuletide 2024 prompt, or you can choose an older Yuletide prompt as long as the fandom in which you write is small enough to still qualify for Yuletide (that is, there are fewer than 1,000 fics on AO3 that are in English, complete, and over 1,000 words long).

Purpose of New Year's Resolutions

The NYR system exists for several reasons:
  • It's an incentive to encourage people either to default early, or, to push on through and post something

  • It works as a warm-up, or as practice, or as a way of proving to yourself you can finish a story to a prompt

  • It's a contribution to the project of getting more stories written in tiny fandoms

  • It's a way of ensuring that past prompts don't get entirely forgotten.


If you had to default in a past year, we are aware that this may have been for a carefully-considered reason or in a difficult time. Needing to complete a NYR does not mean we think you're terrible. Even members of the mod team have needed to write NYRs in the past. We hope you use it as an opportunity to write something you enjoy.

People are also welcome to write NYR stories just for fun! The collection will stay open for late fills until Yuletide 2025 sign-ups close (approx Oct 24).

2024 prompts



Prompts for Yuletide 2010-2024 can be found through the relevant individual collections and the NYR collections (see the Yuletide parent collection).

Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits | Discord


Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

Volunteers for September

Aug. 30th, 2025 02:15 pm
lilly_c: Kathryn smiling playing with her hair Chakotay stood behind her both wearing casual clothes and a faded heart in top left corner against a black background (Default)
[personal profile] lilly_c posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
I'm not available during week 4 for taking check ins as I'll be on holiday.

Week 1: 7th to 13th
Week 2: 14th to 20th
Week 3: 21st to 27th
Week 4: 28th to 4th

September sign up

Aug. 30th, 2025 02:14 pm
lilly_c: Kathryn smiling playing with her hair Chakotay stood behind her both wearing casual clothes and a faded heart in top left corner against a black background (Default)
[personal profile] lilly_c posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
It's time to sign up for the September WIP challenge! Some people join the challenge mid month, or comment on check-in posts without signing up, which is fine -- I'm glad there's a way for the challenge to be useful in a variety of ways. For those of you who find the commitment of signing up useful, please leave a comment with the below information.

Sign-ups will be open until the end of September.


    Level of challenge: 1 chapter, 1000 words, 1 fic finished, whatever you like
    Fandom(s) involved: if you know at this point
    What you're looking for from the challenge: this could be as vague or specific as you like: someone to be accountable to, someone to remind you to write, someone to bounce ideas off, etc.
    What you could offer other participants yourself: ditto!
    How people should contact you: DW message, e-mail, IM etc.
    Time zone: useful for seeing who might be up for a writing session at a time convenient to you


Copypaste below:



The post for hosting the daily check-in is here and thanks to everyone who helps out with this. If you're interested in helping out and there are still slots available the post remains open until the last week of the month and we generally run our week Sunday to Saturday, I'm happy to chat via PM on DW for anyone who might need it.

If you have ever completed a fic through this challenge we have a collection on AO3 and on SquidgeWorld both collections are open and unmoderated. Should there be an issue with adding a work, let me know and I'll see if there's a fix for it.

Check In: Day 29

Aug. 29th, 2025 03:05 pm
glitteringstars: (writing)
[personal profile] glitteringstars posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Hi all! Congrats to making it to Friday!

How has writing gone today?

Not a discussion question, but borrowing from other check-ins: What's your writing goal for this weekend? Do you plan on having daily word counts? Set aside time for brainstorming or editing? Focus on recuperation or general life events?

Check In: Day 28

Aug. 28th, 2025 06:36 pm
glitteringstars: (writing)
[personal profile] glitteringstars posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Helloooooo! Happy Thursday! We're almost through this week~

How did writing go today?

-Amazing!
-Okay!
-Got a bit done!
-Got some editing done!
-Got some brainstorming done!
-Too busy/Rest!

Discussion question: Because of my recent obsession with a new item of jewelry, I must ask, has anything you've ever gotten or bought inspired the creation of an OC or an interpretation of a cannon character?

Fic: Revisions (A Fatal Inversion)

Aug. 27th, 2025 09:31 pm
thisbluespirit: (jeremy northam)
[personal profile] thisbluespirit
I was feeling a bit better yesterday and typed up this, which I've had in my notebook since spring, for A Fatal Inversion. It of course ended up less shippier than planned and maybe even darker than canon warrants, idk. But it was where my brain went when I rewatched it. (The first time around it's a sort of reverse murder mystery; the second it's an intense character study of the fallout in those involved.)

For [community profile] genprompt_bingo, [community profile] allbingo, [community profile] 100fandoms & [community profile] 100ships, because if I'm going to write super obscure fic that probably won't make sense if you don't know canon, I might as well make it count!


Revisions (1529 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: A Fatal Inversion (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rufus Fletcher/Adam Verne-Smith
Characters: Adam Verne-Smith, Rufus Fletcher (A Fatal Inversion)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Dark, references to murder, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Flashbacks, Community: 100fandoms, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: allbingo, Community: 100ships, Pre-Canon, Past Trauma
Summary: Adam and Rufus try to resume their friendship where they left off. It's not the best idea.


Tomorrow I go to have my eye test, so no doubt I'll be around a bit less again, although I'll try to post the last AU_gust bits still if I can - they add up to a bingo line for [community profile] allbingo and it would be a first if I actually got it completed within the month, lol. (We'll see).

Check In: Day 27

Aug. 27th, 2025 12:07 pm
glitteringstars: (flowers)
[personal profile] glitteringstars posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Helloooooo!

How has writing gone today?

-Amazing!
-Pretty good!
-Okay!
-Did some editing!
-Did some brainstorming!
-Too busy/rest day!

Today's discussion question: What's your favorite piece of fan-created media?

Check In: Day 26

Aug. 26th, 2025 08:16 pm
glitteringstars: (cat screaming)
[personal profile] glitteringstars posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Hello! Happy(ish) Tuesday!

How did writing go today?

-Amazing!
-Pretty good!
-Moving along!
-Mostly brainstormed!
-Mostly edited!
-Rested!
-Too busy!

Discussion question of the day: What's a piece of media you keep returning to?

Ficlet: Green For Danger (B7)

Aug. 26th, 2025 09:49 pm
thisbluespirit: (b7 - jenna)
[personal profile] thisbluespirit
I managed to post one of the other AU-gust ficlets I did - this one for the prompt "Dragons" for B7. (Also for [community profile] 100_women prompt #68 fire & [community profile] allbingo Crime Classics square "Green For Danger.")

Green For Danger (751 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jenna Stannis, Roj Blake, Kerr Avon, Liberator (Blake's 7), Zen (Blake's 7)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Ficlet, AU-gust | August Writing Challenge, Community: allbingo, Episode: s01e02 Space Fall, Community: 100_women, Liberator/Zen is a dragon, Alternate Universe - Fantasy
Summary: There's freedom or death waiting at the end of this tunnel...
denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.

Check In: Day 25

Aug. 25th, 2025 01:03 pm
glitteringstars: (writing)
[personal profile] glitteringstars posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Hello and Happy Monday!

How did writing go today?

-Awesome!
-Pretty good!
-Chugging along!
-Mostly edited!
-Mostly brainstormed!
-Too busy/rest day!

Today's discussion question: Out of all your stories, which do you think will be best for a Muppet adaption? 

justmarriedmod: (Default)
[personal profile] justmarriedmod posting in [community profile] yuletide
[community profile] justmarriedexchange is a marriage-themed multifandom exchange for marriage tropes of all kinds: convenient, accidental, undercover, arranged, forced, and so on. The requirements are 1500 words for fic, clean lineart on unlined paper for art, and a complete recording of 1500 words or 10 minutes for podfic.

We have some post-deadline pinch hits, currently due August 29th 11:59PM UTC (countdown), or negotiable.

PH 48 - Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), 黄金の太陽 | Golden Sun Series, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)

PH 49 - Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, 鸣潮 | Wuthering Waves (Video Game), Limbus Company (Video Game)

If you might be interested in one of these pinch hits, you can find more details or claim the pinch hit at the post here. Thank you very much!

Round 153 Has Ended!

Aug. 24th, 2025 07:00 pm
xandromedovna: purple unicorn with rainbow mane and text "usurpationcorn is pleased" (usurpationcorn)
[personal profile] xandromedovna posting in [community profile] fic_rush
Somehow this Round is already over! Excited to hear about what all you got done this weekend, and as always here's a shout out to our fantastic Mod Squad:

[personal profile] xandromedovna, WerebunniesBane
[personal profile] lullabymoon, Supreme Yarn Botherer, who was co-Champion Usurper with a dead tie!
[personal profile] thedarlingone, Rainbow Fairy Godpenguin
[personal profile] lilly_c, Clumsy Rhino
[personal profile] glinda, Supreme Tea Temptress

And of course, the tender embrace of the Void

Round 153, Hour 48

Aug. 24th, 2025 06:02 pm
xandromedovna: impressionistic photo of a moonlit lake (Default)
[personal profile] xandromedovna posting in [community profile] fic_rush_48
Last call for fics and all! Don't forget to save your work and let's finish strong!

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dbskyler

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