brightly_lit | Entries tagged with community-related

I joined lj shortly after its inception, and was there in some form for over a decade. In that time, eagerly trying to get better at social media, I watched closely and noticed some patterns, things that worked and things that didn't, and made note of them.

Eventually, I made my own comm, applying what I'd learned, and it seemed to work well--that comm enjoyed a lot of engagement and fun in its heyday. In conversation with

vriddy on another thread, I realized I never wrote down any of these thoughts or observations anywhere. Since I went to all the trouble of thinking these thoughts, and they worked pretty well in practice, I went ahead and wrote them down here. I'm sure I forgot a few things, but I tried to remember all the ideas I applied to my own comm. In any case, I hope these observations might be helpful for someone here in creating or making changes to their own dreamwidth community. Please feel free to add any other observations or ideas for how to successfully run a dreamwidth community in the comments.

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That's all I can think of (as if this post isn't long enough!). This was fun--I went back to my old comm for reference for this post and had a good time remembering all the fun we had there. Fandom community is such an important, beautiful thing. I'm really hoping to find that here, too--I like what I've experienced of it so far.

May anyone who sees this have great success with your comms.

Originally posted by

milly_gal at Pimp Post! Spread the word!

spn_themes

Enjoy reccing those fics that stay with you long after you've finished reading? Want to know what BigBangs you should be reading?

spn_themes is revamping and we're looking for new Reccers to carry on the proud tradition of sharing their favourite stories. If any one is interested you can contact/pm any of the Mods;

firesign10,

theatregirl7299 and

milly_gal.

Please pimp, spread the word :D

Art by

eprimacol

Originally posted by

milly_gal at Self Rec Saturdays

brightly_lit very kindly suggested I make this a weekly thing over at

amilliondays because, as she said, "Aw, man, I love this idea! Our own works do (or at least should!) make us happy, so why SHOULDN'T we post about them??" and she's completely right, isn't she? How many of us have found an old story we wrote that may well be full of errors but still makes us smile gleefully, or laugh out loud? How many of us have dug through our old art portfolios and found a picture we'd forgotten we created and just *had* to share it with the rest of the flist? Well I think it's about time we celebrated our own achievements. They don't have to be pieces that got a lot of traffic, or artwork that was in all honesty a Van-Gogh in the making, just something that made you smile, made you proud to have created it!

So, Saturday is the day for posting your happy making endeavours over at

amilliondays and I hope to see some pieces that y'all love and want shown off to the world (our little world anyway!)

Pimp this out ladies! :)

Today's Top 5 at

spn_bunker was really inspiring, like, REALLY inspiring. I loved the way s_c phrased today's post, because I so strongly believe in that, that only light can drive out darkness, and only love can drive away hate, as MLK Jr. so wisely said in that quote that's been making the rounds.

Because the world is as dark as it's ever been in my lifetime. I take comfort in looking back over history and seeing that dark times occur with regularity in this world. In just the last century, my country and others went through the civil rights movement, and the world faced WWII and the Cold War. Though I'm sure WWII seemed like the end of days as it was happening, the world survived it, along with the Cold War, and we were better off after the turmoil of the civil rights movement, all of which gives me some hope that we'll be better off after these dark days are passed ... or at least that the world will survive.

Still, knowing that doesn't make it less dark to live through, except for the hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. I know we're always wishing there were some way to make things better. Sometimes it seems like there's nothing we can do, but the Top 5 post today, along with y'all's 100 Days of Happiness Memes you've been doing that I've been so enjoying (and at last have been inspired to participate in, myself), made me think of something we could do, however small, to create a haven of happiness and good stuff here in our corner of fandom. With more light in our own lives, we spread light to others, and the world gets just a bit brighter.

So I created this comm, which I hope you join! It's a place where you can share your 100 Days of Happiness posts, or just jump in and post any old thing you stumble across that made you happy that day, whether or not you're doing the meme. I also thought it would be lots of fun to do a Throwback Thursday event (I just love the weekly events at the Bunker, so I couldn't resist doing them in this new comm, too), where you post things that used to be Your Thing when you were younger, even if you can't imagine ever having been into it now; and then also a Future Tuesday event, where you post things you hope to have in the future that you think would make you really happy. I adore seeing your 100 Days of Happiness posts, and I thought it would be great to have them all in one place. Plus, who knows, maybe we'll make some new lj friends there. Here it is:

amilliondays

I called it a million days because, well, a) 100days, 1000days, and 10000days were already taken, and anyway, b) I don't want our good days to stop after the hundred run out!

And please spread the word!

Dear Women of Letters who are denizens of

spn_bunker,

I love you. I love you anyway, but this post and all its comments fill me with such great adoration for the people you are. Thank you for telling the stories of the libraries that helped shape you.

<3 <3 <3

Sign-ups May 10-24 - Click the banner for details!

SUMMERGEN IS HAPPENING, and I get to mod! ~~*evil cackle*~~ Only two days left to fill out the form--signups close Friday evening. Summergen is glorious--all gen fic, all summer long, only 1,000 word minimum, some of the greatest writers in fandom participating, anonymous until the end, working from a prompt set we do our best to cater to your preferences--it's so fun!! You can participate, or you can just join/follow the comm and read all the wonderful stories that come out of it.

Any o' yous guys out there who have been thinking about trying an exchange, or who write gen fic, I highly recommend this exchange. Lo all those months ago when I first dipped a toe into reading fic, the fic rec page I found had a ton of fics from summergen, which was my first glimmer of a desire to become a part of fandom, so truly, I have summergen to thank for bringing me to you and all this fandom wonder.

Here, a beautiful pic for you to whet your appetite for Sam and Dean in the summertime ...

clickety-click on the pretty pic!

A fanwork challenge to show both sides of the story:

Show us how! Bi-Bro Challenge at the Bunker to try to kick these stupid fandom wars out the door. Yay for the undying love of our beloved Winchester brothers!!

Day 15

In your own space, create your own challenge. What’s something you want to see more people doing in fandom? Is there something fun you’ve tried that you think other people would enjoy if they gave it a go? Dare your friends to try it out, and have fun with it.

Goodie, I will take this opportunity to promote Tricycle Man, the project I first introduced in this post, which has already evolved into something amazing thanks to the great ideas from the wonderful people who have been participating in the process of manifesting this shared world.

That said, building the world is an ongoing process, accomplished through fanworks, and ANYONE IS INVITED to participate!!

We deliberately designed the world so that just about any kind of story would fit within its framework, so if you have any ideas that don't fit into one of your usual fandoms, this may just be the place! I would love to see this core world gradually expand infinitely out in every direction through the participation of anyone who feels the urge to do so.

Also, if you've been thinking of branching out into original fiction but don't know where to start, this may be the place. If you don't want to write original stories or create original characters, that's just fine--you can still contribute to the canon using any of the available characters (settings, themes, etc.) from the existing stories in this world. If you want to try to create an original character and you feel unsure about your footing, this is a safe, supportive place to try it out, with a bunch of kind, cool people who not only will cheer you on but who are also more than willing to help if you have any questions or concerns.

I would love to see more of you join, because those of us participating have really been getting a lot out of it.

As for why it's called Tricycle Man? Just an off-hand (slightly dirty) joking idea that got out of hand ....

And ... phew! I'm done with the Snowflake Challenge at last!!

Title: Chimera
Author:

brightly_lit
World: Tricycle Man
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,200
Genre: gen, slice of life
Summary: Orphaned at 12, Lisa nonetheless has every reason to believe the apocalypse was only an improvement in her life.

Chimera:

1 an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
2 an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially: an unrealizable dream

Lisa dragged her wagon toward market beside the Chanel Channel, so called because somebody had somehow programmed it to give off perpetual scent. Fortunately, it smelled a lot better than Chanel, more like flowers ... which was nice, because you hardly smelled flowers anymore, since the apocalypse.

Her wagon held only a few hand-knit sweaters and some sheep’s milk, but she knew the sweaters would fetch a high enough price that the wagon would be full on her way home. Clothes, like food, were one of the things that you couldn’t create out of rubble or dirt. Well, you could, but your body couldn’t process the food, and the clothes didn’t breathe or bend right, like a sheet of plastic with armholes. So her sweaters were always one of the hottest-selling commodities at the market.

It sucked, being orphaned at twelve, not knowing how you would make your way in this strange, decimated world, but it could have sucked a lot worse, and at least she wasn’t the only one. Everyone was orphaned, in a way--bereft of family, friends, the homes they knew. All they could do was help each other through it and try to figure out what the hell happened.
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I'm behind again on the Snowflake Challenge, but that's because Day 6 coincided so perfectly with something I really wanted to post about anyway that I decided to combine them. So this post will respond to Day 6 and will also introduce an idea for a project I want to launch that I was hoping some of you would be willing to participate in. The big vision is ambitious and ephemeral, but the beginning stage is what we do all the time here: I would simply love if you would be willing to write a fic or contribute some other type of artwork.

To explain ...

Day Six

In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul.

( It inspired me profoundly when I was 15, and again now. )
( ... in the form of a challenge I'm hoping some of you will be interested in .... )All we have to do to start is write a few stories, and then later, maybe a few more, and see what happens. Regardless, we'll have had fun participating in an original project and inspiring each other's stories. Maybe this will just end up being an event at the Bunker, but I'll probably create a new community for it if enough people want to participate. I'm really hoping some of you will! Timeline-wise, the first round of fics (at least a thousand words, I'm thinking) would be due mid-April.

So my first question for you all as I work on creating a shared world for this project is: If you could make a perfect world, what would be different from this one? (Nothing about elves or magic; this has to be completely different from Bordertown, although I think two different kinds of worlds colliding would be one cool possibility ...)

If you have any ideas for a shared world, I would love love love to hear them. I hope some of you want to do this! Even if it was just a little group of friends sharing original stories, I still think that would be totally awesome, because I'd love to see how y'all's minds work outside of the SPN milieu.

Day 2

In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them.

This is the coolest challenge. All right.

Well, first, I have to rec

spn_bunker! It's everything I hoped it would be and more, because all the cool kids hang out there. I LOVES ME MY BUDDIES OVER AT THE BUNKER! New friends are always welcome.

Next, I'll rec

spn_summergen, for personal reasons. The night that started all this fic-writing, delving into fandom, ALL THE EVERYTHING, I typed three simple words into the google: "supernatural fic recs." I found a couple of rec pages that recced pretty good stuff (which I returned to compulsively over the next few weeks, mining pretty much all they had--it's my hope that The Hunt weekly rec post at the Bunker will be a similar resource for others new to fandom and fanfic, so I can give back in that way). In any case, I guess one of these reccers had participated in summergen and thus a great many of her recs came from it one year, so I looked into summergen and thought it seemed like the coolest thing ever. It was totally the wrong time of year for it, so I joined it when I made my lj so I could be sure not to miss out. I participated this past summer, and it was all I hoped. Such a cool, cool challenge. I made some great lj friends there, too, and read some GREAT fics ....

I'm so happy I found this website, which most of you probably already know about, but if you don't, they have gajillions of screencaps from every episode, which has been incredibly useful in modding the Bunker, especially for the early-episode reaction posts. Plus, look at all the pretties!! Pretty, pretty boys .... http://www.homeofthenutty.com/supernatural/screencaps/index.php

Okay, my friends, so I've created a new community, The Bunker, where Men and Women of Letters--and Hunters!--can safely hang out, do "research" on subjects provided by other Men/Women of Letters (i.e., news items/links), or discuss new episodes, link to your reaction posts, "hunt" for good fanfic, etc.! Check it out at

spn_bunker. Depending on how many members we have by tonight, I may post an episode viewing post, but I will definitely make a post later this week where you can link to your episode reaction.

I mourn the departure of

spn_party, so I wanted to create a sort of replacement, only I added my own ideas. I especially miss the weekly free-for-all on Sunday nights, so I'll bring that back. Hope you join!