Friday, August 29th, 2025 12:26 pm
I really did not expect this 31P31D to be taken over by this Wicker Man project. But it’s coming shockingly smoothly. Of course that doesn’t mean it won’t need editing, but honestly it’s still a very nice creative feeling, so I’m just going with it. This is scene eleven, and like all the others I’ve posted immediately follows the previous.

Day #29 - The Cemetery )
Thursday, August 28th, 2025 12:36 pm
This scene of The Wicker Man was tricky to write. I didn’t love the original version because I didn’t think it fit into the logic behind the scheme the locals were running. I had to come up with an adaptation that fit the logic I was using, such that once you go back after the ending, you can figure out what they’re trying to accomplish by the things they say. Tougher than I thought it would be, I think it worked out.

Day #28 - The Continuity of All Things )
Wednesday, August 27th, 2025 11:20 am
Scene nine of The Wicker Man remake! I almost didn’t adapt this scene, as I struggled how to translate the consequences of it to the particular idiom and logic I’m using here. But once I figured it out, I decided it was too iconic to cut.

Day #27 - The Schoolhouse )
Tuesday, August 26th, 2025 12:24 am

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.

Tuesday, August 26th, 2025 08:50 am
Scene eight of the Wicker Man remake! Another fairly original scene, meant to both advance the detective story, develop characters relationships, and establish some important information. I find myself consistently concerned that the themes are not really coming through, at least not to the degree that I want. Of course, that’s a classic “later draft” issue, where you tweak things to make it more precise to what you’re trying to convey, and I should be grateful these first drafts are coming so easily. But it’s hard not to fixate on what I know I want, but haven’t quite nailed yet.

Day #26 - Lost Girls )
Monday, August 25th, 2025 09:16 am
Continuing on strong with The Wicker Man remake! I still can’t believe the momentum I’ve got on this. So here is scene seven, another fairly original scene. I’m reasonably happy with it, but I think it needs a little refining to manifest my chosen themes.

Day #25 - Dogs in the Night )
Sunday, August 24th, 2025 09:41 am
Scene six of my Wicker Man remake! This is another scene that deviates from the original and reflects my own interpretation of the story, which I’m finding is mainly showing up in my depictions of the characters. I like what this one adds, though I’m concerned that in keeping some things vague I may not be conveying to the audience exactly what I want.

Day #24 - Willow )
Saturday, August 23rd, 2025 10:04 am
More Wicker Man! With this, scene five, I build directly from the last scene I posted. I have done an unusually good job this time around writing this script in sequence, which is something I can’t often do. Maybe because I’ve already got a structural template from the original script. But I feel like I am doing a half-decent job capturing the significant stuff from the original while inflecting it in the thematic direction I want.

Day #23 - Night Dance )
Friday, August 22nd, 2025 11:28 am
Taking a little break from posting scenes from my Wicker Man remake, since I'm trying to do that one in sequence and I'm currently working on a scene I'm struggling to hammer out a bit. This is going back to Lacuna, which is coming out very out of order like most of my writing does, and tries to expand on a theme I'm trying to include as character work.

Day #22 - Broke Up )
Thursday, August 21st, 2025 08:33 pm
Scene four of my Wicker Man remake idea. This scene is the first one I think that truly adds something rather than just iterating on the original. I’m not sure it has all the layers and nuances I want— it’s kind of in that place where I can’t tell if I’m being too obvious or not clear enough. But I’m overall pretty happy with how it came out.

I always loved the name Rowan.

Day #21 - Rowan )
Wednesday, August 20th, 2025 10:35 am
Scene three of my Wicker Man remake idea. I was quite surprised at how much I’ve wanted to work on this, but the feeling of creative flow is one of the best things ever, so I’m going with it as long as it lasts.

This scene is the first one that I feel like I’m really able to start inflecting the original story with the main theme I’d like to inject— the idea that the cult is an excuse to instrumentalize and consume women. I’m hoping to introduce it slowly but I think here’s a good place to start making it perceptible. That way, I can move away from the idea that the problem is the pagan-ness— instead, the problem will be patriarchy. THE PROBLEM IS ALWAYS PATRIARCHY!

Day #20 - The Inn )
Tuesday, August 19th, 2025 09:53 am
I’m surprised to report how inspired I’ve felt on the idea of writing a Wicker Man remake, and have done a fair bit of work on it already. I like the idea of working in the idea that (minor spoilers for The Wicker Man) the Summerisle cult is basically an excuse to instrumentalize and consume women, which I am going to endeavor to weave throughout my adaptation.

This scene immediately follows the opening I posted yesterday, #18 - “Summerisle”. Its main purpose is to lay a lot of groundwork in as natural conversation as possible. Exposition is never easy to work in, and often boring, but I’m also trying do a little planting that will payoff later.

Day #19 - Morrison )
Monday, August 18th, 2025 08:47 am
Now this one came as a surprise. I’ve been interested in horror lately, and I’ve been wanting to try a bit of my own— Lacuna is a recent bit of experimentation in the genre. But I’ve been watching some horror films recently to get inspired, and found myself intrigued by 1973’s The Wicker Man, which I’ve never actually seen until now. It’s a bit hokey in its datedness, but overall I enjoyed it and thought it was an effective film. My friend Jonathan asked me recently if I could think of films I think I could have done my own version of, and given how legendarily mocked the 2006 remake is, it struck me that I might have an interesting idea for my own reinterpretation. So here’s an opening scene for that idea.

Day #18 - Summerisle )
Sunday, August 17th, 2025 09:23 am
Another little piece of The Show, my MCU fanfic in the Forever Captain series about Steve Rogers's life post his retirement to the midcentury in Endgame. The thing I try to do with a lot of these stories is explore the impact being a time-traveling super-soldier has on Steve psychologically and emotionally. Like, what is it like to have lived out of time in the future and the past? What is it like to not know if your foreknowledge means your actions have no ability to affect the course of the timeline, or way too much? What is it like to age more slowly than everyone you love? How much does it separate you from others when they cannot possibly know what you've been through? What was it like to have the weight of the world on your shoulders? Those questions are ripe for drama, and I do my best even in this story, which is primarily supposed to be comedic, to make them feel present in my exploration of the character. I'm afraid that, like the last scene I did for this story in this year's challenge, #9 - Singing and Dancing, this is a bit insubstantial. But I think you can see me gesturing to the impact it's had on Steve to have lived such a singular life.

Day #17 - Intermission )
Saturday, August 16th, 2025 09:36 am
Well, I stopped being able to write Lacuna scenes in the order they would probably occur. The challenging bit is that the scenes where they’re playing the video game, I really need to think through the imagery and how to manifest the ideas that I want to convey, but it’s very tough to figure that stuff out in time to get a coherent daily scene of it together. I hopefully will get some together before the end of the month, but I’m not there yet.

So this scene is not the next in the sequence, but a later part of the interview between Amy and Twist, trying to subtly build on the themes of the story and the specific nature of the horror.

Day #16 - Collaborator )