how to use dreamwidth: basics

2024-05-19T06:39:20Z

just a little guide to help ppl find their way around dreamwidth! bc it's a really rad website and an even more rad space for fandom, if somewhat intimidating if you don't know how to navigate it!

disclaimer: not writing this guide as a dreamwidth veteran or anything; i've only been using it actively for a few months after having been a livejournal regular in the early 2000s. there's a lot of carryover there, like enough that i could find my way around and feel confident explaining the basics in guide form, but if you ARE a dreamwidth veteran and have better advice/anything to add, please feel free to let me know! c:

but let's get started with the most basic of basics!

this is what you'll see in the upper right of the main page after making an account. the hexmix indicates your username (if you click on it it will take you to your journal) while the little meeple-looking icon indicates that this is your username specific to dreamwidth (clicking on THAT will take you to your profile). different icons will indicate usernames on different sites, and you'll sometimes see some linking to livejournal or ao3. [NOTE: you can achieve this in your own posts by using Markdown, which i am not going to get into but which you can read more about here.]

under your user name are several other links that i'll get into in a little more as well, namely Post and Reading Page.

( let's learn about postin'! )

now, onto that Reading Page link. this will take you to a page that shows the most recent posts (in chronological order) from all the journals/communities you have subscribed to. it'll be blank if you haven't subscribed to any, so let's look at how to find some rad communities to follow!

( how to find communities/journals on dreamwdith )

for now i'm just going to end with the difference between Subscribe, Access, and Join:

( more info on that here! )

but that's it for the basics! hopefully that helped make things a little less intimidating! please please please let me know if you have any questions or would like further clarification on anything! i'm happy to help if i can c:

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how to use dreamwidth: basics