Yahoogroups is thwarting ![[personal profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) elynross, see details if you are on the Yuletide pinch hit mailing list!
ETA: There's a new mailing list now for pinch hitters!
ETA again: You do not have to be signed up for Yuletide to pinch hit for it; you only need an account on the AO3, which you can get an invite for quite easily if you don't already have one.
In other news, WRAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGLING.
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1021687.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
May we all find joy and wisdom in both the darkness and the light.
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1021338.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
 |
|
I uploaded my Yuletide fic last night, and edited it a few times today to fix things that snuck past me and my betas. Woo hoo!
The upload deadline approacheth... countdown is visable at http://yuletidetreasure.org/ and instructions for uploading (as well as all the latest news) are available at ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif) yuletide_admin. As of right now, 685 stories have been uploaded, which is a bit scary since there are 2162 participants this year and the upload deadline is like a 28 hours away right now.
I'm also keeping an eye on the pinch-hit mailing list, because apparently I am that silly and insomiac this week.
And because I am procrastinating about RL holiday errands, I am poking around in our wranglers' spreadsheets tidying things. Oh, this is fun, but homg so much yet to do once we can wrangle again!
In that spirit, and because I am ridiculously optimistic about our ability, strength and stamina over the coming days and weeks, I bring sharable icons for we (not so) few (there are like 80 of us now), we happy few, we band of AO3 wranglers during Yuletide 2009.
For now:
For later:
  
If any of the coders or testers or systems folks would like similar icons, please let me know how you'd like them captioned, because I'd love to make icons for you fabulous folks, too. <3 <3 <3
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1021174.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
Somehow I'm not in my usual holiday mood this year. December is zooming by at a truly ridiculously fast pace, and I haven't had time to do most of my usual things beforehand. Also I am physically ill and feel like crap. Bleh.
Two things I found myself reading this morning, both resulting from zvi's signal boost:
marina about Russophobia and who is Russian. And branchandroot While we're at it...
thete1 "I know it's racist, Te, but the special effects look awesome!"
(Full disclosure: I was trying to learn how to date again around the time of the Transformers film this past summer. That's how I ended up seeing it, along with Wolverine and a couple other films. I'm not proud of this fact, but there it is. And only one of the many reasons that one particular guy from last summer and I are not seeing each other any more is that I tried talking about why the Transformers films were problematic... I'll leave it to your imagination as to how spectacularly well that went. *eyeroll*)
Short summary of something that could turn into a huge tl;dr post, because holy crap this year has sucked: If I wasn't angry, I wasn't paying attention.
Here, have more links:
http://www.racebending.com/v3/featured/the-last-airbender-primer/
http://www.racebending.com/v3/featured/the-last-airbender-film-cast-in-60-seconds/
http://www.racebending.com/v3/featured/do-children-see-race/
http://www.racebending.com/v3/featured/yellow-face-a-documentary-on-the-last-airbender-film/
http://www.racebending.com/v3/interviews/sdcc/
I'm thinking I may need to get my hands on DVDs of the Avatar: The Last Airbender tv series, because I haven't seen it. I will not be seeing the Avatar movie. ETA: To clarify, I will not be seeing EITHER of the movies; see comments below.
In completely, completely unrelated news, I've now got a draft of my Yuletide story that doesn't make me cringe, so at least I'm on the ball about something.
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1020844.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
By way of temve and jamie:
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/the-new-facebook-privacy-settings-a-how-to/?em
http://gawker.com/5427077/the-valleywag-guide-to-restoring-your-privacy-on-facebook
http://dotrights.org/what-does-facebooks-privacy-transition-mean-you
For the record? I really, really, really, really, really, really, really dislike Facebook. But I'm there with my RL identity helping family members stay in touch with each other, and attempting to teach them about online privacy and security issues. The whole site leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I feel like I'm being online-stalked by most of my high school graduating class most of whom apparently couldn't be bothered to Google for me for nearly twenty years. Ugh. The things I do for my extended family...
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1020419.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
I've just made the following as a post in my LJ:
---
LiveJournal is removing the Unspecified option for the gender field. That's right: you get to be male or female. Period. That's it.
Details here: http://synecdochic.dreamwidth.org/366609.html
This journal has been, in my user profile, "Unspecified" gender for a long time, because gender is not binary. If/when I am unable to decline to state my gender, or if/when I am forced to declare my gender along a binary division, here on LJ, I will be deleting this journal.
I have Dreamwidth invite codes for anyone who wants them, just provide me with the email address you want the code sent to. There is also http://dw-codesharing.dreamwidth.org/ as well, which does not require you to provide your email address to anyone.
---
Dreamwidth, I adore you. <3
ETA: And now I've added the following to my LJ post:
---
ETA: The code has now been rolled back and will not be pushed with the next codepush.
After seeing some of the reaction to this entire situation from my LJ friendslist, however, I will be deleting this journal later today. elkes_obsession is already gone. I had been committed to trying to do everything I could to keep unbroken links, to retain memories categories, to not delete entries, even though so many things about LJ's ownership bother me. I'd tried to retain the human connections across the multiple sites. But apparently plenty of the folks I've felt I was making the effort for are sick and tired of this sort of thing. I'm getting a 'don't let the door hit your ass on the way out' vibe, and damn, that HURTS. And so now I'm just DONE.
---
So.
elkes_obsession is gone, as it was a navigational tool to organize my views into various LJ communities, and I'd left it up in case others were getting benefit from it.
And elke_tanzer. Created on 2002-04-13 12:36:18 (#527447), watching 515 friends, communities, and feeds. 19,435 comments received, 19,512 comments posted, 2,880 Journal Entries, 204 Tags, 16,918 Memories.
Done.
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1020320.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) elke_tanzer |
| 2009-12-13 16:30 |
| All I can do is offer virtual chocolates. And keep learning. |
| Public |
 uncomfortable |
| gender issues |
|
I'm not the most knowledgeable person around, about a bunch of stuff, yeah. And I try not to talk about stuff I don't know about... if I haven't earned the right to talk I try to Just Shut Up. I'm privileged in some ways and not so privileged in other ways. I sometimes say stupid shit without realizing it's stupid shit and then I try to learn and apologize and never make the same mistake twice. And a lot of the time, for me, it's easier for me to see how something is stupid hurtful shit when it comes out of someone else's mouth or keyboard, because when it comes out of my mouth or my keyboard it didn't immediately sound stupid or hurtful to me.
Stuff I have learned lately (not just from the latest shitstorm going on, but lately in general)...
1. When someone says they prefer a specific gendered or nongendered pronoun, I JUST DO IT. I just need to respect that preference.
1.a. If I screw that up once for someone? Please, anyone, give me a gentle reminder. If I screw that up twice for someone? Please, anyone, KICK ME.
1.b. This is not just related to whether or not I respect the person being referred to, but is also related to whether or not I respect everyone's right to have a personal pronoun preference.
2. If I don't have a clue whether someone prefers a specific gendered or nongendered pronoun, chances are that using 'they' as a singular, or zie and zir, will not piss them off or hurt them.
2.a. (I'm not sure about this, but so far it's holding true...) If I use they, or zie and zir, in reference to someone, and they distinctly do not prefer that, they can easily correct me without too much trauma or drama for either one of us.
2.b. There are folks who prefer they over zie and zir (or sie and hir), and folks who prefer zie and zir (or sie and hir) over they.
2.c. There are folks who do not self-identify as trans* who prefer non-gendered pronouns. There are folks who do not self-identify as cis* who prefer non-gendered pronouns.
3. It is awkward as hell for me to ask if a friend or acquaintance prefers any specific pronoun. That doesn't mean I should ever assume that they prefer she or he or zie. I should NOT ASSUME, even if I know them offline, even if I would probably tend to assume one pronoun is more likely than another based on my own personal history and the name they've chosen to use in any given setting, or any physical characteristic they've presented to me or kept private from me, or any attitude they've said or typed about any topic under the sun.
3.a. Awkward is not necessarily the same as hurtful. And if I can get myself through an awkward situation to prevent myself from hurting someone? If I realize the awkward situation is an option, I'm darned well choosing that rather than knowingly hurting someone.
3.b. It's really easy to be hurtful unintentionally if I don't know what I'm talking about.
So.
All I can do right now? Is offer virtual chocolates, and try not to mess this post up, because I just can't be silent right now. I'm sorry that people suck, and I'm sorry that folks I care about are being hurt, and I'm sorry that I've been unintentionally hurtful in the past.
And I desperately hope that I'm not being unintentionally hurtful now, especially given the current state of the latest shitstorm (which I am trying to avoid, actually).
ETA: And yes, this post is from a me-centric place, because when I tried writing it any other perspective, I came across even to my own eyes as megapreachy and talking about things I haven't earned the right to and ICK ICK ICK. I feel mostly-OK about talking about myself here, so yeah, I did. I wish I could do better, but I feel like this is better than silence, because I can't be silent when something is Not OK By Me.)
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1019761.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
I meant to post this during Thanksgiving weekend, but as usual this year, I'm behind. on. everything.
( Guidelines behind a cut, because you've probably seen them lots of times already... )
( Elke's Holiday Wishlist 2009 )
Hey, also, if you've posted your wishlist, can you please link me to it? Thanks!
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1019139.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
Happy Hannukah to those who celebrate, and may all of our lights be festive!
My favorite of the recent related uploads at Flickr are First Nights Glow and a Frabel Glass dreidel.
This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1019046.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
|
|
|
|
|
busy
calm
optimistic
groggy
frustrated