Reference Library

Challenge #13

TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.

I kind of did this in Challenge 12! I listed communities and websites that I'm grateful for.

One other community space I must mention is Best Bar. They know who they are and where we hang out. They've been very supportive of me the past few years and I'm very grateful for that.

But really: Dreamwidth is one of my internet homes, and there's all sorts of great communities here! It's about time I post my list of DW community recs again. It was last posted in 2024, after all. Some of these may be dormant now but I'll include them anyway because I loved the idea of the community. HERE WE GO!!


nacramamo is National Craft-Making Month, and is gearing up now to kick off in October. The challenge is to work on some kind of craft every day for 31 days.

100words is a drabble community for fiction of all kinds. They post weekly challenges there.

birdfeeding covers everything to do with birdfeeding, gardening for wildlife, and related topics.

crowdfunding connects creators, patrons, and fans of cyberfunded creativity. Watch for the mid-month Creative Jam with a new theme each time.

reddit_refugees offers resources for newcomers to Dreamwidth.

snowflake_challenge runs in January, and is a way to celebrate fandom and meet interesting people on Dreamwidth. There's also sunshine_challenge that runs in the summer, but I'm less familiar with that one.

Newly added to the list since I last posted this:

allkindsofdolls is what it says on the tin. If you love dolls, check it out.

ladiesbingo is a bingo challenge to make works focused on the relationship between women, whether gen, femslash, or familial. I'm currently having great fun trying to fill my bingo board!

getyourwordsout is a writing challenge community where you can challenge yourself by wordcount of number of days written per month.

10trueloves is a writing challenge where you pair a character with ten others (IIRC, they don't have to be romantic pairings, but I'm not sure; check the comm for more info!)

1character is a writing challenge where you choose a character and prompt set, then write one line sentences to fill each prompt.

everykindofcraft is what it says it is.

inspiredby posts writing prompts monthly.

makezines is for folks doing just that!

threesentenceficathon is happening RIGHT NOW. People leave prompts, other write short fills of 3 sentences or longer.

The past list of community recs:

communal_creators is a community for creative types! A mini-round for time pledges will be happening this spring. ANY kind of creativity is welcome! We have people writing (both fic and original), knitting, crochet, vidding, storyboarding, baking, making websites... if it's creative, you're welcome here.

ffprompts posts monthly prompts for the Final Fantasy video game franchise. As a big fan of this series, I'd love to see more fills for the prompts happening!

addme_fandom is a place to find friends who share your fannish obsessions.

lyricaltitles is a bingo fest for fanfiction and original fiction centering around using songs for inspiration!

fan_flashworks is a multifandom comm that posts one prompt for the week you use to write a short fanfic.

c_ent is for Chinese Entertainment, and comes highly recommended by a few people.

booknook posts a weekly Read-in-Progress check-in posts on Wednesdays.

reference_library is a place to gather helpful links and share them, run by senmut.

sweetandshort is a low-pressure community for creating small fanworks / original works each week.

moodthemeinayear is what it says on the tin: the folks there are working on creating custom Dreamwidth mood themes over the course of a year.

1word1day posts a vocabulary word a day!

finalfantasy - of course this would be here, if you know me. It's been very slow there lately, but I'd love to see more activity there.

awesomeers - they make a post for each day of the week in which they challenge the members to comment with Just One Thing you did today that you're proud of accomplishing. Of course you are free to post more than one thing if you'd like! I love the idea of this community, though I haven't been very active in it lately. I hope to change that, if only to congratulate other people. Also: we celebrate all accomplishments there, so something as simple as "I got out of bed" would be acceptable!

do_it - A community for posting to-do lists to make yourself accountable to others.

readingtogether - has seen some activity the past few months. It's not like a normal book club where everyone reads the same thing - instead everyone reads their own thing and posts their progress.

justcreate - has weekly check in posts where you can update everyone on your creative progress. All kinds of creativity are celebrated there, including fiber arts, drawing, writing, and more.

get_knitted - is similar to justcreate but posts daily check-ins. The folks there are GREAT about commenting on each other's comments. It's not just for knitting, either - there are people there who do scrapbooking and jigsaw puzzles.

drawesome - has drawing challenges. I haven't taken part yet because I am a very sucky drawer, but I hope to start there in the future.

genprompt_bingo - for the writers! They generate bingo cards of prompts, with all the prompts being gen. You can, of course, write a shippy fic from the prompt; it's just the prompts themselves aren't meant to be shippy. I'm currently working on a bingo for my last card, wish me luck!

allbingo - They do all sorts of bingos, mostly writing-related but I think they've had some crafting ones as well. There's new challenges monthly!

agonyaunt - critiques letters to advice columnists and the answers the letter writers get. I love this community because it is filled with smart people that I am learning a lot from. I'm a person of a certain age, and I know because of the timeframe I grew up in I have a lot of inherit biases and whatnot. I try to be above those biases, but sometimes I don't recognize them. Reading the other commenters to agonyaunt helps me recognize those biases and better myself.

holiday_wishes - active in the last two months of the year. People post their holiday wish lists there, and others fill them! I really was blessed one year - I got a bunch of cards, some yarn, some chocolate, and some other sweet treats. ♥ I couldn't do much in return but I did send back cards to everyone who sent me things.

thisfinecrew is a social justice community focused on the USA. It doesn't get as much action as it once did but there are still informative posts there once in a while. thissterlingcrew is the UK equivalent.

3weeks4dreamwidth is a thing in which people post/interact more on Dreamwidth, to show love for the platform. ♥

your_favourites is an icon making community that migrated over from LiveJournal. Looks like they have themes for members to create icons for, and then take a vote for best icon. I've joined it in hopes of finding more icons to add to my own journal.

addme and findingfriends are communities to help you find people to add to your Dreamwidth circles. The latter has a set questionnaire to use, and asks that if you use it elsewhere you include a link back to the community.

journalsandplanners - what it says on the tin: for those who use a journal or planner to organize their lives. There's also bujo for bullet journalers.

anime_manga has seen some activity lately!

fandomtrumpshate raises money for charity by creating fanworks.

getting_started is a community with resources for those new to Dreamwidth.

indie_games sometimes sees activity, and in the past, we did a play-together of A Short Hike which was really fun.

common_nature is a photo community to share nature pics from your area, and has been active recently.

followfriday recommends people/communities to follow each Friday.

iconthat is another icon challenge community.

signalboost is for getting the word out to others about people needing help in some way.

twitter_refugees is for folks migrating to Dreamwidth from Twitter.

bnha_fans is for fans of Boku no Hero Academia. It's modded by vriddy who I got to know during a snowflake_challenge!

comment_bingo is a bingo challenge community for commenting on all those fanfics you read.

womansplace is a community that holds dual purpose: 1) Celebrate characters who identify as women or who are aligned with womanhood in transformative fan works. Events include community recs, a prompt fest, and a vid exchange. 2) Raise funds via a vid auction

kittens_and_spitefic's goal is to prompt fan content by acting like a total troll and pretending to bash what you want to see up one side and down the other. Commenters then engage with the supposed "troll" by spamming them with cat (and other animal) macros and/or content that caters to everything the original poster professes to hate.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I think that's it! If there's any interesting communities you know about that I've missed, feel free to drop them in the comments! And also feel free to share this post, I'll make it public so you can pass it around.

Folks! The last time I worked on this was April of 2024. I kept putting it off because I was too busy playing the game. But I've been toying around with my Neocities site again, and that made me want to get back to this.

This is incredibly long because I've faithfully transcribed ALL the dialogue that happens during this part of the game (with the exception of a mini-game and some dialogue choices; I only have the answer for one choice, not both. I'll fix that later.) Get a drink and something yummy, then get cozy because you'll be reading a while.

Previous posts in this series:

* A Realm Reborn recap
* Patches 2.1-2.55 reflection
* Heavensward Recap
* Post-HW Recap
* Stormblood Recap!
* The Crystal Tower synopsis
* Post-Stormblood Recap
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 1
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 2: Holminster Switch and the Aftermath.
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 3: Il Mheg, the Faerie Kingdom
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 4: Meeting Emet-Selch and the Night’s Blessed
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 5: Yx’Maja, in the Rak’tika Greatwood
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 6: Rak'tika Lightwarden & a History Lesson
* Shadowbringers Recap Part 7: Return to the Crystarium

Recap from last time! SPOILERS for Shadowbringers

During our last recap, Vauthry had sicced his sin eaters on Lakeland. The battle was fierce and there were quite a few casualties. The Scions regroup in the Crystarium’s Ocular to discuss future plans, all in agreement not to give up the fight.

Alphinaud has had no luck finding the Lightwarden of Kholusia, while Alisaie has heard a few rumors about Amh Araeng’s Lightwarden but dare not investigate on her own. Still, Alisaie’s information is not concrete, leading Minfilia to suggest traveling to Nabaath Araeng to call back the original Minfilia, as her powers would allow the Scions to easily find the remaining Lightwardens.

Thancred is dead set against this course of action, but Minfilia is persistent.

Sensing your concern, Minfilia reaffirms her commitment to her chosen course of action, and asks that you trust her judgment with an earnestness worthy of her namesake. She then departs—presumably to make her preparations before joining Thancred at the gates.

After a short wait, Minfilia arrives at the appointed place and declares her readiness to depart. But before proceeding, you give her one last opportunity to abandon her chosen course. Her emphatic reply leaves little room for argument, however, so the group turns its attention to the question of how best to pass through Amh Araeng unnoticed. At Alisaie’s suggestion, you decide to split up—sending her, Alphinaud, and Y’shtola to the east to distract the Eulmoran Army while the rest of you take the western route to Nabaath Araeng.

As you near the gate to Amh Araeng, you realize you are not the only one contemplating the ordeals that may lie ahead. Hearing Thancred’s quiet plea for assistance in protecting Minfilia, his trepidation could not be more obvious.

You speak with Hardyss, who grants you passage through the gate—perhaps against her better judgment.

( MORE SPOILERS WITHIN! )