Protecting squee since 2002

I just heard from my sister that my grandmother on my mom's side of the family has fallen into a coma and it doesn't look good. :( I've known for a few weeks now that my grandmother was dying but I've been kind of trying not to think about it and distract myself because it's hard being thousands of miles away and being unable to do anything beyond calling to say hi.

I'm going to have to look and see if there are any tickets for sell. I get the feeling I'm going to have to fly down to San Antonio sometime this upcoming week or next week. :(

Assuming, I can find an open seat.

I'm going to focus on homework now.


http://amalthia.dreamwidth.org/589339.html#comments

Their latest antic? They're not quite excommunicating a congressman (a Kennedy, no less), but they are, apparently, forbidding him to take communion because he's pro-choice.

( Linkophobes can click here to read. )

I do not know what to make of the story this article is reporting on (apart from boggling at the money that some people earn), but the writer, Peter Stanford, what the hell? Is this suppose to be funny, am I missing something. Maybe my sense of humour is broken.

---

''IS IT the 'dumb blonde' hearing you're looking for, sir?'' someone asks as I wander the corridors of Victory House, home of the London Central Employment Tribunal. Just as he is pointing out the right door, a procession topped by various shades of blonde goes through it.

( It is hard to imagine him, as Ms Wimmer has alleged, cavorting in front of her with a lap-dancer in a Paris burlesque club. )

Source

http://elke-tanzer.insanejournal.com/121033.html

Of all of the things I never, ever, ever expected to say in this lifetime...

(Read more ...)

Supernatural Meta

Supernatural Thoughts by faye_dartmouth I thought faye did an excellent job of detailing a bit of what's happening in SPN. If you're having a blast with season 4 and 5 I do not recommend this meta. For me it appealed because while I still watch the show I still miss season 1 and 2 of SPN and this post did a great job of articulating some of what I miss.


Harry Potter

Theft of Assets, Destruction of Property by helenish (Draco/Neville) INSTANT REC!!!! I could not stop reading once I started! I loved the plot, character voices, and I really loved the ending. :)


Merlin

The Knights Have a Thousand Eyes by stakeaclaim INSTANT REC!!! I loved the plot, character voices, and mostly I just loved seeing Merlin and author from the outsider pov and this had some funny moments!


Shadows of Truth by cat_77 (Gen) I had a blast reading this story. I loved the character voices, the action, plot, and how everyone pulled together. Good adventure story.


Different perceptions by gonrie (Gen) I loved seeing Arthur and Merlin's friendship from multiple povs.


Star Trek Reboot

Terminal Point by posyvanilla (Kirk/Spock) I liked the plot and character voices.


Repeat Offender by seperis (Kirk/Spock) I really liked the character voices and the plot.


Supernatural

A Surprise or Two by dreamlittleyo (Sam/Dean) This was very hot and her evilSam was perfectly ruthless.


Mistaken for Strangers by bellatemple (Gen) I really liked the original character and it had good character moments.




http://amalthia.dreamwidth.org/589274.html#comments

Happy Birthday, cereta!

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 700 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic (fic series, fic universe), lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

gakked from alixtii

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

Is the term Redneck considered offensive? Because I use that term quite loosely describe a lot of guys in the south, especially in Texas and someone pointed out to me recently that it's considered offensive. So it was kind of a surprise to me because I'd always considered it a descriptor for anyone that likes fishing/hunting, beer, and big trucks. And may or may not be uneducated.

EDIT: the masses have spoken! :)

Based on the responses it's safe to conclude that yes using "Redneck" can be offensive so I should only use it with good friends and family, or if I really want to insult someone. Thanks everyone who responded!


http://amalthia.dreamwidth.org/588975.html#comments

http://elke-tanzer.insanejournal.com/120603.html

Speaking just as myself, and not in my role as volunteer tag wuzzle wrangler...

(Read more ...)

Remember the 8yo in Arizona who was gang raped?

Her parents have been arrested on Child abuse charges

( For the linkphobic )

It won't help the little girl get over what was done to her, but I can't help but feel just a tiny bit glad that this happened.

I like how they find the one black teabagger and focus on him.

dodificus posts a fanfic recommendation just about every day. She's pretty heavy on SPN, but she also recommends J2, SGA, and other slashy goodness. I also really dig dodificus' podfic. NB: Australian reader. Warning: her recordings from the first year or so are very quiet.

cimorene posts a picture of women's sneakers or boots every day. Also, she posts plebefic headers, which are the weird, funny, or o_O headers collected on fanfiction around the web. You can read more about both of those projects on her profile. Additionally, she posts about life with her wife and the animals, two cats and a dog.

holiday_wishes is a comm for collecting all of those fucking wishlists. Post your wishlists there, and don't clog my reading page.

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

( Cut for triggery WTFery )

That headline is ridiculous. The article is not much better.

*quiet rage*

ETA: Forgot the link, had to hunt through my browser history for it.

Also, I'm still trying to figure out that line about "alleged abuse victims" -- what, the priests are convicted as pedophiles, but that doesn't mean the victims are telling the truth?

I was kind of surprised this hadn't hit Unfunnybusiness yet...

( Cut for triggers. )

Kelly Services called to let me know that the potential gig has been made manifest. It's in C'ville -- long-ass drive, but an 80-mile daily commute still beats 130-mile daily commute -- and it would likely be 20-30 hours a week working for one of the local government's non-profits. Specifically, I'd be grant-writing and grant-tracking, with research and general winged monkey duties thrown in. That 20-30 hours a week has the possibility to going to a permanent, full-time job...if a) the new boss and I click and b) she decides she even wants to create this position. It pays more and, even if it goes full-time, will still be 250 miles less to drive each week. (That's basically equivalent knocking two full days' drives off my current gig.)

It's that "...if" in there about whether she's going to make this an official position or not that gave me pause when Kelly Services told me this woman wanted me to work tomorrow, then again on Monday and Tuesday of next week. I asked for a bit to think about it and, after looking at numbers and talking to a close friend, a new acquaintance, and my therapist, I decided to call back with my counter-offer: I'll meet with her and work for her for a half-day tomorrow (8 to noon) then shag ass to my current gig, and we'll all assess on Friday about what everyone thinks. I explained that as much as I loathe the HelpDeskThisIsKimberley gig, I can't just up and quit it for a job which may or may not pan out. I can, however, drive 40 miles to C'ville to be there at 8, work four hours, then drive 105 miles the other direction to HelpDeskThisIsKimberley, work eight hours, and finally crawl that 65 miles back home at 11. I can do this once, maybe twice, but I cannot and will not do that to myself daily. It's either going to be that job or the HelpDeskThisIsKimberley job until something better comes along.

(I write this out for my sake because, despite the seemingly inherent no-shit factor here, I do have an urge to try to do this while still working at the tea shop and also volunteering at the museum. I feel obligated to, in fact, because of my debts and other financial concerns. I can't do it, though. I can't and I won't. I don't have to punish myself that way for having been unemployed so long during a recession.)

I would love it if this works out. This will half my current gas expenses, drop my current food bill, and allow me not just improved quality of life but an actual life again. It would also HUGELY reduce my stress. Dear christ. Even if HelpDeskThisIsKimberley didn't have such an epic commute, being screamed at daily for most of eight hours is killing me. To go from such a demoralizing job to a gig where I can bring my passions (even if the job itself isn't what I'm personally passionate about) and do grant stuff, research, and winged monkey work for someone would be just marvelous.

Tomorrow will be exhausting and getting through Friday will probably be its own kind of hell, but I'm off from all jobs on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday is my dad's birthday. It's his first since he died and I'm struggling a lot right now. I go into the grocery store, see pecans, and instantly I'm crying because pecans were Dad's favorite treat and he'll never enjoy them again. That sort of thing. So, I'll be out of touch all day Saturday because I need to be and I want to be. Sunday, I'll be seeing some friends in a play and possibly even socialize beyond that. Come Monday? I dunno. Maybe I'm at the new job. Maybe I'm at the tea shop. I just don't know yet, but at least it's not a stress-making unknown. Just have to make it through the next two days and then I'll have the downtime I need.

This is the first negative opinion piece on the Twilight series I've seen on a mainstream newspaper (well at least one that's local), possibly I've been living under a rock, but it made me very happy.

You know how hard it is when your flist is going on and on about a series you can't stand? Well, OK, you can just scroll on by, but now it's society which is going on and on about it, the advertising is driving me a bit insane, I can't wait until people move onto the next big thing.

Warning, spoilers in article.
----
When I was growing up, my literary heroine was Josephine March from Little Women. Jo was a lanky tomboy with no interest in frocks or gentlemen. While her sisters flirted and fretted about their noses, Jo scribbled in the attic, dreaming of becoming a writer. She chopped off her hair, threw snowballs and lived with gusto at a time when gusto was extremely unladylike.

( Bella has become a poster girl for the gender roles Jo and Anne rejected more than 100 years ago )

Source

Mother calls the police to her home to help her control her 10-year-old... again. Mother repeatedly tells the cop he can tase her daughter. After a brief struggle, the cop does. According to the police chief, tasing the girl was preferable to picking her up because "They can slip from you and fall on the ground."

Link

( Text for the linkphobic. )


ETA: The officer's report on The Smoking Gun, link courtesy of heuradys.

Syfy greenlit American version of Being Human Auugh! Real nightmares. Chances of this being good? 50:1. Chances of this turning into fandom's new black? 5:1. I'm not deeply attached to Annie being black in this story (in some ways, in the American context, I think Irish Mitchell being translated to some sort of not-white situation may make more sense [actually, having given two seconds of thought, I think I might go for African-American Mitchell {although not WWI era in that case, either aged up to the Civil War or down to WW II/Korea} and Annie as a child of immigrants]) but if they are all white I will throw a shit fit. I will probably want to punch fandom in the face all the time regardless.

Tim Gunn on ProjRun 6 & 7 This makes me 10000% more likely to tune in to season 7. I was seriously considering giving it up completely, seeing just how horrible season 6 was and how much the pre-promotion on s6 insisted that nothing had changed when, clearly, everything had changed in a terrible, terrible way. One thing I don't remember, though, is Victoria Hong (season 4) being a terrible person.

Stephen Colbert rants about the sanctity of heterosexual burial Awesome (via justacat)

Manpain chart So, so, so apt. Also, don't forget to watch NCIS: LA tonight! (via cofax7)

Local Bookstores, Social Hubs, and Mutualization Since we don't need bookstores to buy books, bookstores are going to have to do something else to get money

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

So…in this season of NaNo and Yuletide, I know that many of my dearest readers are looking for pleasant ways to procrastinate.

Lo, this very night, I have discovered a fabulous way to do it: American Sign Language interpreted songs on youtube.

I have been watching a bazillion ASL interpreted songs on Youtube. Quality is extremely variable, as one should expect in what is, most of the time, a labor (or whim) of love at somebody's desk or somebody's high school foreign language final. However, there are some people doing full on music videos, using all of the fading and layering and special effects that a girl could want.

( Some videos! )

Fandom: Being Human
Characters: George, Annie, Mitchell, Nina
Summary: There are nine requisites for contented living: health enough to make work a pleasure; wealth enough to support your needs; strength enough to battle with difficulties and forsake them; grace enough to confess your sins and overcome them; patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished; charity enough to see some good in your neighbor; love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others; faith enough to make real the things of God; hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future. attributed to Goethe
Length: 2174 words
A/N: For rydra_wong
Warning Statement

A Place in This World

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

I'm surprised this hasn't made it over here yet:

Universal's UK 'Couples Retreat' Poster Brings Cries of Racism by Removing Black Actors

The excuse?

In response to outrage over the move, a Universal spokesman said the altered poster aimed "to simplify the poster to actors who are most [recognizable] in international markets."

Universal "issued a statement regretting any offense it caused, and the studio has scrapped all plans to use the modified poster in other overseas markets" but this makes it sound like the problem is with the people who took offense.

Thinks crew members of NBC's Heroes. It all started when Jim Martin (assistant to show creator Tim Kring and himself a writer on the show) engaged in conversation with (former, now disgruntled) fans about the show, and in the process uttered such gems as "Anyone who thinks they can do better... I dare you. Go ahead. :) I'd love to see it." and "If you think that Racism and Sexism are thematically integrated in HEROES then you may want to check your intelligence before worrying about it being insulted." That post has since been deleted, but a kind mouse saved it and shared it with us in wank_report. In his follow-up post about the whole mess, he whined about how he liked the internet better when it wasn't so self-righteous, and left us with even more gems as "Look up the diversity programs for writers in tv. Ask anyone in the tv world. There is a distinct disadvantage to be a white male when trying to be a staff writer." and "I'm fully aware of what you are referencing, but I don't think its a problem on Heroes and I don't think white privilege is an issue in Hollywood at this point."

Sounds bad enough, right?

But no! Turns out that was just the start of a downwards spiral of fail, and it turns out that the fail reached new startling depths when Foz McDermott, a coordinating producer and writer of the show and perpetual bringer of anti-PC and misogyny fail, decided to use his own blog to reply to a particular comment that was left on Jim Martin's blog. He starts charmingly:

“The idea that white privilege isn’t a problem in Hollywood at this point is an idea coming from a privileged standpoint.”

Holy crap lady… if you are indeed a lady… that is hilarious. In a business that is scared of and run by pussy organizations that are so scared of being sued about everything, being OVERLY PC is the actual problem. Being a white male in the business of Hollywood is NOT easy. There are programs and incentives to help everyone except white males.

( no, it doesn't get better from there )

I've personally been fuming about Heroes for months, but when it sinks so low, I'm not sure I can do much else than laugh.

http://elke-tanzer.insanejournal.com/118677.html

The current tag cloud of common tags on AOOO: http://archiveofourown.org/tags

(Read more ...)

facetofcathy explains how she is using An Archive of Our Own's tags and warnings system.

If you've felt confused about what to do where, this might help you out a lot.

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

What makes me really sad, and well, thinky about this is all the times I've been groped on the train, probably a dozen or so times. I usually moved away really quickly, or on one memorable occasion I elbowed a guy in the stomach. But it nevered occured to me, at the time, or any time since, to take it to the authorities, or even talk to the rail staff.

And the reason being? I don't know, I just accept that these things happen, I just accept it would be useless to make a fuss about it. In my mind, being groped on peak-hour commuting time is like spilling coke all over your dress, it happens, it sucks, you move on. Every woman knows when they are being groped. So I call bullshit on the Judges.
----
Last April, the Supreme Court reversed a Tokyo High Court decision that found Masahiro Nakura, a professor of medicine at the Self-Defense Forces University, guilty of being a chikan (groper) after he was charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old high school girl on the Odakyu train line in 2006. A majority of the judges said they thought the girl's statement was "unreliable."

( article behind cut )
Source

http://elke-tanzer.insanejournal.com/118482.html

I can't believe I just sent the questions I've just sent to AO3 Support asking for help using the archive, because it kicked an error message. Apparently the characters and/or pairings for one of my doppelganger-based moresome non-con fics startled or confused the software.

(Read more ...)

I asked Vera for these words, and then I put this off because I had some lame idea about responding in the form of fanfic, and I put them in the Post an Entry page to save them, and they've been pissing me off every time I go to post about something else, so now you will get my brief and off the cuff responses to each of these words.

Forrest

Okay, first of all, can we all just agree that Robert Sean Leonard Leonard Roberts (whoops) is just another fine young brother who should have more TV work? Where are you, boo? I miss you.

Anyway, Forrest was the character — pretty, standard English, upper middle class, supergayalot for a white guy fandom was already interested in — who made it clear to me that that thing where fans avoided writing about black characters was not just in my head.

dykes

I am a dyke, I like dykes. I prefer the term dyke to lesbian because dyke is more about digging chicks. The difference in song if you will, between Jill Sobule's I Kissed A Girl and Katy Perry's I Kissed a Girl.

Just for reference, I abhor the term gay woman. I would rather be called a homosexual lady or queer miss, and I hate jejune titles like lady and miss. Look if I want to get all ~allied~ with cocksucking boys and girls who go both ways, let's all be queers together. Gay women is totally one of those compound words where the default is manly and then you modify it with woman and just AARGH. No. Don't. Stop.

I am a dyke.

functionality

Vera, m'love, what? I … like to explain how things work? I mean, okay, I do. I like to understand computers and websites and stuff up to, like, a power user level. (Yeah, the S2 work is rapidly approaching being above the paygrade I actually want to take on.) And then I like to tell other people what is going on, because they totally need that information. Also, it's fun. Also, I enjoy being right.

So. Functionality. Yeah.

icepick

Sister Icepick of Tolerance is my Unitarian Jihad Name. I hit the Unitarian Jihad Name Generator like twenty times before it gave me a name I liked. I like the name because it is sharp, and also because you can kill the X Files alien clones with icepicks. (I know you can kill regular human beings with icepicks, but the clones were tougher.)

Also, an icepick is a very cool thing to me, because it's one of the many tools on this Earth which I know is extremely real and practical for some people somewhere who do not live anywhere near the DC Metro region. So it has a fantastic quality, where I will never use an icepick or see an icepick used. or perhaps even meet someone who has touched an icepick (Willow informs me that she is familiar with the usage of icepicks) But I can order one from the Internet if I ever really want one. That is a most excellent balance of fantasy and reality.

threesome

I've known I was poly since I was fifteen. And my first serious sexual experiences were with my first girlfriend and her boyfriend. I don't get monogamy on a bone-deep, fundamental level. I like being in a situation where you can talk about someone you care about with a second person you care about, where you have a resource for understanding the first person, where you can say things like, "I like her right boob" and the other person says, "Yeah, well I like the left one."

And I like to read about relationships like the ones that make sense to me. Don't get me wrong, I grew up in the States, I like reading couples' romances too. But threesomes feel more … reality-based.

---

Okay, and the actual reason I opened this up was to post links to cool flickr photos of pride flags. I'm thinking about doing some themes. ( links to photos )

Remember the swim club in Philadelphia that wouldn't allow African-American and Hispanic children to use their pool? They're back in the news.

PhillyBurbs.com: Embattled swim club headed to bankruptcy
By: CHRISTOPHER RUVO
Burlington County Times

A Lower Moreland, Pa., swim club that made national headlines after being accused of racism for turning away minority day campers plans to file for bankruptcy, according to an e-mail from the club's president to members.

The announcement comes as the Valley Club struggles to cope with mounting debt and the cost of legal proceedings and lawsuits filed by families of children from Creative Steps Day Camp, a summer camp in Northeast Philadelphia whose members are minorities.

"The truth is that the club has struggled to stay out of the red for the last decade," Valley Club President John Duesler Jr. wrote in an e-mail that was posted on a Daily News blog at philly.com. "Our current debt from this year's operation and legal fees exceeds $100,000."

Oops! Looks like they got what was coming to them

In the great tradition of all yuletide matching everywhere ... I was totally not expecting to get matched on that fandom. But it's cool, it will provide me with the opportunity to review the source, which was pretty awesome the first time I experienced it.

(Watch my cage-y verb use, which disguises the medium of the source. Is it a movie? Is it an album? Is it a book? or a PSA? You don't know!)

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

I've seen yuletide pinch hits, but not my yuletide assignment.

(My e-mail address is fine. I got my signup confirmation e-mail with no problem, so it's not that I whackily misspelled my e-mail address.

Also, also I read the part where I'm supposed to wait for eight hours before I start panicking. It just makes me D: D: D: , OK?)

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

• Character of Color
• pegging
• safer sex
• threesome
• alien sex
• worldbuilding
• cunnilingus
• remix
• mpreg

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

Mixing regular expressions and HTML drove this one programmer mad.

I know only enough about regular expressions to know I don't know anything about regular expressions. I know HTML very well. I know Cthulu only to the extent that any sci fi geek is forced to pick up that horror thing osmotically.

That was quite enough info for me to bust a gut.

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

Comcast in talks to buy NBC Universal.

Of the good: NBC would be back to being owned by people in the entertainment* business, instead of GE, which, as far as I can tell, is in the business of being in businesses.

Of the bad: Apparently do not intend to fire Jeff Zucker as first act of business.

*entertainment distribution, anyway. They have a vested interest in people actually desiring to watch the stuff that is shown on their networks, which it is not clear to anyone that NBC actually cares about right now.

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

On an upswing ( spoilers )

Danvers High School Bans the word "Meep" and brings in police to enforce the ban.

The Internet is not amused.

Meep on, brothers and sisters. Meep on.

Okay, so everyone is excited that the Archive of Our Own is moving to Open Beta in about 13 hours. You know how people found out about Open Beta? By subscribing to otw_news. That's the news blog for the Organization for Transformative Works, which is the non-profit organization which sponsors the archive, the Journal of Transformative Works and Culture, the Fanlore wiki, and is filing amicus briefs and public comments on legal issues of concern to fans, around the issues of fair use and free speech.

Another great fannish comm is as_others_see_us. This is a weekly post of references to fanfiction and media fandom in the media, along with the occasional discussion.

Last but not least is the geekfeminism_feed. The Geek Feminism blog is not about media fandom, but it is about geek culture and women, so the areas of interest overlap.

P.S. I have one Archive invite available. First person to private message me for it, gets it. Mischief managed

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

http://elke-tanzer.insanejournal.com/118136.html

I have activated my AO3 account, using http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/ as my OpenID rather than a password. That means I don't have to have a separate password on AO3; instead I can use my Dreamwidth identity to verify that I am who I say I am. ZOMG TECHNOLOGY YAYZ.

(Read more ...)

Generally, when I check on my comics-mockery blogs, I don't expect to see unfunny misogynist diatribes. But it was not to be.

( :/ )

I am 10,000% over Callan the woobie. Because the thing is, Callan doesn't act like the socially maladjusted, emotionally incompetent wreck you would assume that someone who was ( spoilery background details ) would be. Heck, he doesn't even particularly act like someone with an inability to form close ties to people, considering his relationships with Hetty and Sam.

Look, I would be down with mad, bad, and dangerous to know G if they actually wanted to go there. I dig crazy characters (does anyone remember the Profitt Arc from Wiseguy? I do, with total fondness. The only times I really liked John Sheppard was when he got all blank-eyed and deep-voiced and psycho vengeful. [Okay, blanker-eyed.])

But they aren't giving G. this terrible backstory in order to play the effects out on him, they're giving him a terrible backstory in order to make you want to pet him and hug him and call him George. And I don't need all of that, I don't need a bad ass to be psychologically ~complicated~ and ~dark~. I love Sam, and his backstory to date has been pretty damn straightforward. Just keep the two of them squabbly and flirty, and I will be totally happy.

P.S. Seriously hot porno Sam/G commentfic. Has some POV issues, spelling issues, but otherwise awesome.

P.P.S. While I'm pointing to commentfic of awesome: White Collar: June/Neal The world needs more of this.

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

Watched ( Glee. )

During Glee, they showed a preview for Avatar. I had been hearing for quite some time that Avatar was going to be an amazing science-fiction extravaganza I should really want to see, but, weirdly, all of this promotional material totally elided over the plot and premise. ( Now I know why. )

Original post at Dreamwidth. Read () comments or reply there using Open ID.

http://elke-tanzer.insanejournal.com/117839.html

(Yes, despite the utter, utter chaos that is my life right now, I have signed up for Yuletide, and signups are now closed and assignments will go out soon-but-probably-not-tonight. Gah!)

(Read more ...)

I wrote up some info about using the styles wizard, because the last big discussion we had on styles showed that a lot of people didn't realize all of the things that you can do just with the wizard. I wrote up this walk through, but, at this point, I can't tell if it (a) makes sense or (b) is useful.

Let me know if there's anything too confusing or that's really unnecessary, let me know if there are any blatant errors. I'll post it to getting_started once I'm satisfied with it, and offer it to the docs team as the basis of a guide. (I don't write for official Dreamwidth docs because the official style guide has some stylistic decisions I can't support.)

---

A good while ago, there was a discussion about how to organize Select Styles. Reading that discussion was pretty disheartening, because so much of what people were asking for is already available with most official styles.

I'm going to walk you through selecting a style, so you can see how you can use the style selector to choose a theme and use the wizard to make a style your own.

( A few introductory notes )

( Picking a layout )

I'm going to use Tabula Rasa as the example for walking through the wizard. As I said above, 95% of the styles implement 95% or more of the options I discuss below. Some of the styles have extra options, a few of the styles have fewer options, and none of this applies to Zesty.

( We're Off to See The Wizard )

That's the basics of what you need to know to modify your style. As you can see, a lot of the ways people would like to search for styles don't apply (e.g. columns, modules available) don't apply, because they are selectable through the wizard or they are standardized for all of the styles.

There is one option people are very interested in which is dependent on style. Unfortunately, we don't have a way to search to tell you where in the entry the style displays the icon. There is a bug to make left or right side of entry something one can select in all approved styles, but it's slow going because the CSS can be fairly complicated and we haven't made people submitting new styles supply this feature.

The other option people expressed interest in searching for was fixed width versus flexible width. All of the official styles are fluid width layouts.

---

One thing people expressed an interest in doing that the style system makes somewhat difficult to do is preserving a particular set of wizard changes. There is a way to (more or less) do that, but it is a hack and requires being a little bit adventurous.

( How to save the Wizard )


( Some vocabulary. )

"Toddler" microwaves a kitten.

Taken from here and rage_free on LJ.

Warning: Graphic animal abuse beneath the cut.

( Read more... )

EDIT: I called the shelter and they said that a burned kitten had come in a few days ago.

Catholic Church gives Washington D.C. an ultimatum over Gay marriage

Text below the cut for the linkphobic -

( Catholic Church gives D.C. ultimatum )