Don't tell me women are not the stuff of heroes.

This shows up all over the place, it has been the basis for attacking so many fictional ladies I love and plenty of whom I am not fond but am increasingly tempted to like out of spite, it has shown up in almost every fandom I've been in and plenty that I've unsuccessfully tried to avoid - I am out of subject line space, you guys, and I didn't even get through half the girls I could list off the top of my head - and this showed up on my Tumblr dash and unleashed a storm of rage that I cannot even handle.

If I see one more person criticizing a sexist (or possibly-sexist-depending-on-how-you-read-it) story by bashing the female characters rather than talking about the writers or the narrative, I am actually going to set something on fire with my mind.

This has been a post. Normal programming will resume shortly. I'm going to go breathe slowly for a while now.

Dear Half the Fucking Internet:

Just because you have the RIGHT to do something, it doesn't mean that you SHOULD.

You have the right to dance around the Antarctic wearing nothing but a standard swimsuit. This does not make it a good idea.

You have the right to attempt to glue yourself to the ceiling with bubble gum (assuming it is your own ceiling and bubble gum.) This does not mean it is a decision that will end well.

You have the right to say bigoted, potentially hurtful things. That doesn't mean you aren't an asshole for doing so.

And on a similar note, the next time someone brings up the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, I'm going to scream. One, the world is not the United States. Second, said amendment begins "Congress shall make no law..." Not only does it have no effect on the citizens of other countries, it has no effect on the actions of individuals. If a U.S.A. citizen says "You cannot say that in my house," or "You cannot say that at my party," or "You cannot say that on my journal," or "You cannot say that in an online community I maintain," then guess what? You can scream about censorship and ethical rights, and I may even agree with you, but that amendment only limits the actions of the government.)

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Okay. Fanfolks? Breaking news.

There is some fantastic stuff posted at Fanficton.Net.

Can we just be clear on that? I have found so much great stuff there. I do not have time to hunt down links, but ask me in the comments and I'll provide them Thursday or this weekend. Yeah, there is a lot of complete and irredeemable crap, but there is a ton of fabulous stuff as well, and - this is the important part - being posted at Fanfiction.Net does not mean it's automatically bad.

Can we acknowledge this, please?

My commentary on the latest Facebook/Twitter connect scandal:

I understand the issues with cross-posting screened comments and comments in friends-only entries. That is not okay. People have those set to private for a reason, and violating that, especially to other sites, is very bad. I didn't get truly worked up about it because I make it a policy that a) I post no information online that I don't want seen by anyone who cares, and b) I do my level best to arrange all my accounts so that any of my real-life associates could strike up a long-term association with online!me without every connecting this identity with offline!me (unless they know me very, very well, in which case I've probably eagerly linked them here anyway.) However, I understand that plenty of other people don't have either of those policies; I understand that for many of them, friends-only accounts and posts are or were their safe spaces. I am fully behind respect for their privacy.

But some people are saying that even comments on public entries shouldn't be cross-posted.

Let me repeat that: They think they should have complete control over who links to public entries.

Does anyone else think that these people need to check their definitions of the word public? Public means exposed to general view. On every update page, right next to the post button, it says "Show this entry to: everyone." If you choose to make a public post, it means that you have freely chosen the option to display your post to everyone interested or bored enough to click on a link. This is not hidden in any way, shape, or form. What did you think "everyone" meant, exactly?

The nature of a public post, anywhere, means that the poster loses control of who does and does not see it. This has been true since long before LJ, or the Internet. Even before the cross-posting feature, any LJ friend who chose could manually post the link to a public entry on Facebook or Twitter (or Myspace, or YouTube, or DreamWidth, or the Official Forum for the Discussion of Toys Made in Northeastern Kansas Between 1892 and 1930) if they wanted to. Any stranger could stumble upon a public post and repost it at any of those sites, if they wanted to. And they would be well within their rights to do so, because by choosing to post something publicly, you have already chosen who can see it. You have chosen to allow everyone to see it.

If you don't want everyone to see it, don't post it in a manner that explicitly makes it available to everyone. I can and will get behind a demand to keep private things private, but learn what "public" means.

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The fact that the thing will quite probably curl up and die if I add any more software to it. Just last two more years, baby...

And aside from that, make programs stop freezing! (Although it actually does do remarkably well, given that it is not designed for the kind of (ab)use I subject it to. When I got it, I was only going to use it for word processing and minor internet use. And then iTunes. And then I discovered fandom, and AMV making, and now the computer meant for light student use is running Sony Vegas and has several gigs of video files and usually three to five programs running at once, and I've already had to fork over the cash to fix it twice, and I'm told that it's not worth fixing a third time.

I lost another post. A rather in-depth rant on romantic urban fantasy and all the things that could be done to make it better.

I am NOT HAPPY.

Also, note to self: NEVER write anything but a short grr-post in the handy LJ window. Always write it in Word, and save it. ALWAYS.