Thorns

Pondering contacting local Australian politicians

2025-05-30T06:38:11Z

This post on tumblr suggested contacting local politicians whenever you're in the mood to shout at someone online for being wrong on the internet, and it occurred to me that might actually work for me, if only as a way to divert my occasional FIGHT ME mood away from getting me in trouble. I've tried contacting politicians before when I was feeling like Being Productive and it felt overwhelming and depressing.

I haven't actually done it yet but I looked up some information! So I'll summarise what I've found here for anyone who might find it useful, further advice/info definitely appreciated!
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Your New Favourite Youtubers Part 2

2023-12-08T13:49:31Z

More queer youtube essays!

Part 1

Part 3

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Your New Favourite (queer) Youtubers: First ten videos

2023-12-07T01:38:14Z

I've been going through the Your New Favourite Youtubers list by Kat that hbomberguy linked to in a recent video, in an effort to support good queer youtube essayists. It's been interesting enough I thought I'd write some short reviews for anyone who finds the sheer number of videos overwhelming.

I used rich text so I could cut and paste the links, which has made the formatting a MESS, sorry.

Part 2

Part 3

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Breadtube: Left-wing Youtubers

2020-08-05T09:41:31Z

scytale asked about Breadtube in a comment thread, and I thought I might as well make a proper post. Made with the help of Cam, who is way more into this stuff than me.

So! Breadtube is a subculture of progressive Youtube accounts, often making videos about pop culture but also history/philosophy etc. Breadtube.tv has a little more context and a long list of channels.

I've heard it criticised a lot for being very white/male etc, and since I just watch what I'm recced, my recs have that problem too. Cam recced me some more diverse channels he's heard good things about, who I've linked and will have to check out.
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Characters that are or "feel" non binary to me

2020-05-12T10:32:45Z

Reading this post by a non-binary person about allegorical vs literal representation got me thinking about my own complex feelings about various characters that either are or feel non-binary, and I was curious to poke at my preferences and compare notes with other non binary folk.
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Links: Sexual Assault and other Triggery Topics

2019-03-09T06:06:17Z

And this is the last of my links posts for a while!

Content note: rape
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Links: Race and Culture

2019-03-06T20:30:23Z

Who identifies as a person of colour in Australia?

Yiddish and diasporic Judaism

Facebook Fueled Anti-Refugee Attacks in Germany, New Research Suggests

Colonialist narratives in farming games I actually think they're more talking about survival/exploration games, which are a slightly different genre. A lot of this does apply to farming games too, though.

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Links: Disability, Chronic Illness, and Abuse

2019-03-04T06:29:38Z

The Disabled Gaming Resource

Do Some Trauma Survivors Cope by Overworking?

The Consequences of Untreated Pain

Treatment Overview from the American Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Society

The world of estranged parents' forums: The Missing Missing Reason Understanding the behaviour of toxic/abusive people

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Links: Queer issues

2019-02-28T02:29:19Z

We are not the same – on Raphael, Jughead and Aro/Ace representation

stop pitting detransitoners against happily transitioned people

Physician, know thy own queer history
"A reflection on current sex-negative and exclusionary trends in LGBTQ+ discourse as the unfortunate consequence of 20 years of campaigning for same-sex marriage and legal gender transition, and therefore a focus on respectability politics and neglect of sex positivity and sex education" I think I linked to the dreamwidth post because of the comments.

Issues with "women and nonbinary" submission calls

The History of Homosexuality in Japan: Part 1

Non binary characters in Japanese media

When making inclusion resources for women and nonbinary folk, please consider including trans men Note that not all trans men feel this way! But it's a point of view worth noting.

(yes I did come across some of these researching Hakuoki fic, shh)

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Links: Representation and Media

2019-02-26T00:23:52Z

The Story is a Spell. The Story is a Curse.
It matters who writes us.

Shock and Care: an essay about art, politics and responsibility

Otaku Blog And Proud
A Japanese woman's complex feelings on Japanese media.

Slash and sex scenes

MM Romance Readership Survey: Results

(Really wishing dreamwidth had a queue/delayed posting right now)

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Links: General Politics and Current Affairs

2019-02-25T14:50:46Z

My list of links to post was getting ridiculous, so I have come up with a hopefully more workable system, and will try to divide the backlog into digestible chunks.

"Current" here means, uh, 2017 in some cases >.>
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Thoughts I had as a "straight cis woman" who was really bi, ace, and genderfluid

2018-06-13T04:02:18Z

I've seen a few posts along these lines for being a lesbian/binary trans etc (see for example this post) and found it really interesting to compare and contrast. So here's my own experiences, both for understanding myself and for anyone struggling with similar thoughts who might find it useful.

Note: just because I had these thoughts and later realised I was bi etc doesn't mean anyone having similar thoughts necessarily has the same orientation/gender as me. In the other direction, if you're bi/ace/genderfluid and haven't had these thoughts that doesn't make either of us wrong. Human experience is varied and complex.

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Big ol' link spam

2017-02-08T14:25:02Z

This has been building for like 8 months, which means I look back on the me who collected some of these with weary nostalgia. But here we are.
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Advantages of being "confined" to a (power) wheelchair

2013-04-20T22:25:38Z

Articles like ReWalk: A Plea for Common Sense remind me how little ablebodied people understand the sheer joy a good wheelchair can bring. Mostly because the alternative for someone like me is not being able to move, but there are some advantages even over being an able bodied person.

A lot of this would apply to manual wheelchairs too but I've never used one myself.

Crush the feet of your enemies. Or don't, and feel magnanimous in your mercy.
"Run" with the wind in your hair, or for a bus, without breaking a sweat or getting tired.
Unsettle "more radical than thou" able bodied activists with your very presence.
Be an unsettling centre of attention in general. Works well with goth/macabre/alternative clothing choices.
Never bump your head on low ceilings (admittedly this has never been an issue for me)
Have a comfy chair wherever you go. Fantastic for queues.
Put heavy loads on the back or next to you and not have to carry the weight yourself.
Wear gorgeous but impractical shoes you can't walk in.
Work to fight against stereotypes about disabled people and poor awareness of accessibility simply by going out in public and doing your thing.

Any others, fellow wheelies?

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Disability in Speculative Fiction: Monsters, mutants and muggles

2010-05-02T13:50:06Z

This is a somewhat expanded version of the presentation I made about Disability in Science fiction.

Note: Don't take my word for any of this! I'm still figuring this stuff out. Corrections and other input very much welcome!

I've reached a point where I Just Can't Think About It Any More, I may edit again later. Make sure to check to out the comments for other people's additions.

The fantasy examples are very much tacked on, I'm sure there's fantasy specific tropes I'm missing, plus links to the relevant Disability Tropes. Mental illness and cognitive impairments are underrepresented too.
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The whiteness of Australian junk mail

2010-04-20T04:07:57Z

This is obviously not a scientific study, but I hadn't emptied my mailbox for a while and I decided to look at the ethnic makeup of the models used in the unsolicited mail that had built up. My theory: Australian advertisements are incredibly white dominated, with a few Asian people and the odd exoticised person of African descent for pseudo-American coolness. Indigenous people only show up in tourism ads, you're more likely to see people pretending to be American Indian etc. This theory is moderately supported by the junk mail.
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The Myth of Civilisation as a a single narrative with rises and falls

2010-03-24T04:33:52Z

This keeps coming up in speculative fiction and it bugs me. I'm not a historian, and I know it's wrong (and the more history I learn, the more obviously wrong it becomes). If there's some actual historian debunking this narrative somewhere I can link to I would be very grateful!

EDIT: So apparently this was named and described in 1931: Whig history. And yet people still use it! (Well, that isn't exactly what I'm talking about. But it's certainly close)
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Brief Summary of racist Australian government policies over the last 50 years

2010-01-24T02:39:04Z

Someone on debunkingwhite said they hadn't heard of the White Australia policy, and I started a "brief" post about it and it expanded into this...

The current situation is a direct result of 211 years of racism and anti-racism starting with colonisation, and a full history of race relations in Australia would take volumes. Specifically, I'm missing all the work by non-white Australians to fight (and in many cases overturn) these laws, I recommend Timeline of Significant Moments in the Indigenous Struggle in south east Australia. And of course the Australian population have done and are doing many horribly racist things (individually and as a group) that weren't government mandated, and Australian government officials have said and done many racist things that weren't explicitly part of broader policy, though in both cases it's not always easy to draw the line. See my australia+race/culture bookmarks.
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Prompts!

2009-12-21T03:34:49Z

Avatar the last Airbender: Zuko juggling fireballs
Reliquary: Alcolla, Yakuv, and Hakelda having pizza
Supernatural: Portrait of John Winchester

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More prompts

2009-12-10T03:43:53Z

Note: something is up with DA today, I keep being redirected to a sex museum page (?!)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Kendra stakes a vampire (drawn while my tablet was broken)
Stargate SG1: Teal'c and Bra'tac and
Teal'c and Drey'auc having a relaxing holiday where no-one is trying to kill anyone else (I somehow read it as the first when it should have been the latter)
Harry Potter: Cho is a wizarding lawyer

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Thinking about polls

2009-10-11T02:17:40Z

Some stuff I've figured out while designing polls online (specifically on lj clones). This is not about Real Scientific Polls, which one hopes are designed with Real Scientific Ethics etc in mind. I'm still figuring this stuff out, so please tell me what I've missed/screwed up etc.

I guess overall the most important thing I've learned: Never make people feel excluded, even if it messes with your data a bit. You're not doing Proper Research here anyway. And unless your poll is on a locked post and you know your flist really well, don't assume everyone taking it cisgendered/American/Western/straight/young/etc.

Specifically, unless it's a joke question always have an "other" option, and where possible use checkboxes. That way people who fall between the cracks of your questions (and there'll always be someone) have a better chance of finding an answer that better describes them.
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Disability Tropes by Disability

2009-08-18T10:09:50Z

I've been pondering the portrayal of disabled people in fiction, and to that end have sorted the Disability Tropes at TV Tropes into categories. It got so long I decided to separate it out from my fledgeling draft post, and anyway I think it's interesting in and of itself.

( Warning, contains Tv Tropes links!! )

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Mindblowing SF by everyone else

2009-08-05T03:31:12Z

The latest furore to hit the fannish blogosphere is that The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF consists entirely of stories by white men. Called on this, the editor said the emphasis was on stories that took unusual scientific concepts and developed them in even more unusual ways...with women the stories concentrate far more on people, life, society and not the hard-scientific concepts I was looking for..

This has understandably pissed people off, and there has been much listing of female (and to a lesser extent POC) authors who write "mindblowing" stuff.

But I thought it might be worth being more specific. So: what are some "mindblowing" individual stories (novels or short stories etc(*)) by someone who isn't a white man (ie women, POC, trans writers etc) that "takes unusual scientific concepts and develops them in even more unusual ways". (They can also concentrate on people, life, society)

Off the top of my head:

Bellwether, by Connie Willis, about trends and chaos theory.
Many short stories by Ted Chiang, specifically Seventy Two Letters, a hard sci-fi story set in an alternate Victorian London about homunculi and golems and how they relate to the laws of thermodynamics.
Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia Butler: The aliens have a really fascinating biology. Her shorts stories are apparently amazing too.

Mindblowing but with really squishy sciences like linguistics and sociology:

"The Sparrow" by Maria Doria Russell. I hated this book but the linguistics was pretty awesome.
"Where once the sweet birds sang" by Kate Wilhelm. On the cultural effects of a society of clones.
Sleepless series by Nancy Kress: the sociological effects of having a genuinely superior subset of society.

See also the first few comments to this (very good) post.

I was feeling bad about not being able to think of many, but there's very few authors I consider really mindblowing science-wise, I bet I wouldn't agree with the stories picked for the original anthology.

(*)I'd say "Only short stories" but I personally don't like short stories so wouldn't have much to list :D

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