Thwarted Philanthropy

Tetris!
I want to donate to AO3, but their only option is paypal and I utterly refuse to use paypal. I deleted both my accounts. I can't even find a place to submit a question to see if they'll add another payment option. So I guess I won't be donating.

But seriously, fuck paypal.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO [info]clarkward

Procession of one person
We are at Gay Mt Zeddemore drinking roughly 32430482349320943 bottles of wine, and a bottle of rum with a many-tenacled octopus on it. [info]gigantic, [info]cyclogenesis and [info]thediane and I are all that's left. It took me a century to put all those lj user names in, I'm not even lying. Now we are talking about vintage pairings like Gingsberg/Kerouac before we inevitably pass out, and also fandom grudges, and also Doctor Who (which Jessa and I have MAJOR FUCKING OPINION DIFFERENCES ON).

Now we are going to talk about something else before Jessa and I kill each other.

Goodnight LJ.

The fiasco continues

Apples
Originally posted by [info]electricdruid at The fiasco continues

ACTA in a Nutshell –

What is ACTA?  ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. A new intellectual property enforcement treaty being negotiated by the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan, with Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada recently announcing that they will join in as well.

Why should you care about ACTA? Initial reports indicate that the treaty will have a very broad scope and will involve new tools targeting “Internet distribution and information technology.”

What is the goal of ACTA? Reportedly the goal is to create new legal standards of intellectual property enforcement, as well as increased international cooperation, an example of which would be an increase in information sharing between signatory countries’ law enforcement agencies.

Essential ACTA Resources

  • Read more about ACTA here: ACTA Fact Sheet
  • Read the authentic version of the ACTA text as of 15 April 2011, as finalized by participating countries here: ACTA Finalized Text
  • Follow the history of the treaty’s formation here: ACTA history
  • Read letters from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden wherein he challenges the constitutionality of ACTA: Letter 1 | Letter 2 | Read the Administration’s Response to Wyden’s First Letter here: Response
  • Watch a short informative video on ACTA: ACTA Video
  • Watch a lulzy video on ACTA: Lulzy Video

Say NO to ACTA. It is essential to spread awareness and get the word out on ACTA.

Via Tumblr

I can't with the American government.

Apples
Originally posted by [info]musique_style at I can't with the American government.
This post is public; feel free to link people to it, pass it around, etc etc etc.



To read more about this Bill, there's a full article over on Oh No They Didn't-Political, which can be found here.

If you can, please contact your House Representative. If you don't know their number, there's a page on Tumblr that will connect you to them. There's also a link entitled, "Email them", where you can sign the petition.

DemandProgress.org had a petition going, but they turned it in to Congress yesterday--while standing alongside Congressmembers Zoe Lofgren and Darrell Issa... with well over 500,000 signatures.

This bill is holding hearings today. Do you realize what will happen if this passes? Take a second and think about what this means to you on a national level; on a personal level; on an interpersonal...hell, even in regards to something like a fandom.. This bill is big, guys. :(

Edit 11/16; 5:15PM: If this Bill passes, here are some sites that could potentially be blocked off to the American people:

-Facebook
-Livejournal
-Twitter
-The Pirate Bay
-Megaupload
-Megavideo
-Mediafire
-Wordpress
-Almost any forum site
-Tumblr

...Well, that's nice. :|

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Doctor Who finale

SIGNAL BOOST: SAY YES TO GAY YA

QaF-B/J jaw kiss
ETA: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY: http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2011/09/guest-blogger-joanna-stampfel-volpe.html

Originally posted by [info]darkspirited1 at SIGNAL BOOST: SAY YES TO GAY YA
This comes from an article by [info]rachelmanija entitled, Say Yes to Gay YA.
(click the link for the full article)


Our novel Stranger has five viewpoint characters; one, Yuki Nakamura, is
gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki's romance, like the heterosexual ones in
the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing.

An agent from a major agency, one which represents a bestselling YA novel in the same genre as ours, called us.

The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay
character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to
his sexual orientation.


This isn't about that specific agent; we'd gotten other rewrite requests before this one. Previous agents had also offered to take a second look if we did rewrites… including cutting the viewpoint of Yuki, the gay character.


It's time to stand up and demand change. Spread the word everywhere if you are just as angry and outraged by this.

Suits

Suits-Harvey/Mike
Suits has fannishly hooked me. The fandom is just starting to produce some pretty good stories, but I feel like it hasn't hit its stride yet. However, since it's just been renewed for another season, I feel like it's coming.

I always go for the most popular pairing because half the reason I like it is the subtext that makes it a popular pairing, and the Harvey/Mike subtext is there in spades. Also, Gabriel Macht.



One of the things I love best his how genuinely awesome all the female characters are. The writers are clearly in tune with the idea that "strong female characters" doesn't just mean you slap some sass on over a generic character and call it good. Donna, Jessica, and Rachel are different, and yet hands-down awesome, in different ways. Just the fact that I can remember their names off the top of my head without having to look them up is a HUGE improvement over most other shows. USA, thanks for hiring writers who can write characters, because I feel the same way about Fiona in Burn Notice.

Let me just have a DONNA IS THE GREATEST section of the post here:

Video clips that you shouldn't watch if you care about spoilers and you're not up to date on the episodes. )

In conclusion, you should watch Suits.

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Multiple Universes

Take people's guitars
Maybe I'm just being dense, but I don't see how this is new news: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028154.200-when-the-multiverse-and-manyworlds-collide.html

Because Diana Wynne Jones wrote Witch Week an awful long time ago, and it explained the theory better than this scientific article. I guess it's just a new mathematical way of stating it. *nonplussed*

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Vampire Diaries.

Apples
Everybody on the Vampire Diaries is Too Stupid to Live. In which I spew hatred all over it so if you love the show you should probably spare yourself )

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Diana Wynne Jones

Take people's guitars
I've been mourning Diana Wynne Jones for these last few days. It's the kind of mourning you do for a grandmother you didn't know too well, but who was magical the few times you were with her.

I knew it was going to happen, but I still harbored the distant fantasy that I'd get to the UK and maybe meet her before it happened. 76 is not old, but cancer doesn't go by age.

Diana Wynne Jones was an essential part of the growth of my personality and intelligence, as well as my writing. She had the ability to write every character as someone you could understand completely, even if you were as different as could be. When other writers do that, I consider the characters unreliable narrators and can usually see through them. With Diana's characters, they weren't unreliable so much as completely themselves, blind spots and all. I never wanted to scream at them that they were doing something wrong because she so skillfully crafted her plots that even if you could catch your breath in the constant flow of events, you would never see what was coming until the very second the protagonist did, too. Her plots were exhilarating, unpredictable, and incredibly fun. And underneath that, they were layered. Things you missed on the first reading would catch in your brain at the second, and even more revealed themselves in subsequent readings.

Despite only knowing her through her writing, she is my yoda. May her books live on forever.

ETA, I liked this post about DWJ: http://truepenny.livejournal.com/825556.html

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