Thorns

Normally I'd be loathe to be all "LOOK AT MY AWESOMENESS" but it is SO HARD to find not-totally-creepy fanworks about disabled characters that I decided this would be worth doing. Here's some recs to other people's fanworks.

All art has a description, and all comics have transcripts (if I've missed any let me know), and all art is safe for work (not all the fic is, but it's labelled). All characters mentioned are canonically disabled, and I've only included works where the disability feels at least vaguely relevant.

( Pride and Prejudice, Avatar: the Last Airbender, Mass Effect, Homestuck, Misc )

Yvi is asking for suggestions about a non-English language fest on Dreamwidth for people who don't speak English as a native language (including people who learn their culture's language later in life, but not someone like me who learnt a second language at school because it sounded like fun)

I think it sounds like a cool idea, and would be happy enough not posting for a day if that would help. I am wondering if people would prefer comments in English, my dodgy German (as appropriate), or machine translated, or if it would be better for me not to comment at all.

Es ist vielleicht besser fuer alles dass ich werde nicht eine ganz Post auf Deutsch zu schrieben :)

For anyone not subscribed to alias_sqbr: I am in Melbourne for Worldcon! I may at some point be up for visitors (though possibly not :/) and if you see me come up and say hi! (If you want :))


Can Preschoolers Be Depressed? Lots of food for thought for me about my own (utterly miserable) childhood(*) and relationship with my parents (who were great at telling me I was awesome and giving unconditional love, but not so good at encouraging an open discussion of feelings)

Women Are Not Marshmallow Peeps, And Other Reasons There's No 'Chick Lit'

That post about women in maths

Marginalized folks shouldn't always have to be "the bigger persons" A corollary that occurred to me while reading this: a really simple way to be an "ally" (as much as that term makes sense) is to always try to be the bigger person, always give the benefit of the doubt to those you have privilege over in a given context. So, for example, when discussing sexism men should give women the benefit of the doubt and be more patient/polite etc. Not INFINITELY so, but more than normal.

(*)It belatedly occurs to me there's an element of appropriation in this since I've never been diagnosed with a mental illness. But I was definitely one of those sad shy children where the teachers take the parents aside and say "Sophie's a great student, but I worry...". Hmm. Shall ponder when not about to go to sleep.

This is the basic stuff I assume as context when I post. The links are to extra info for the curious, I'm not going to assume people have read them!

I have a lot of social media accounts, almost always under the name sqbr.

Misc
My name is Sean, which isn't my birth name.
I was born near the end of 1979.
I was born and live in Perth, Western Australia.
I'm an atheist, shading into agnostic around the edges.

Social context
I'm afab and genderfluid.
I'm white, a mix of Anglo, Eastern European and Jewish.
I have anxiety and depression.
I have chronic fatigue syndrome to the extent that I can't work, and identify as disabled. (A rundown of my health issues) I also have a lot of food intolerances, use a power wheelchair, and can't walk up stairs without a lot of pain(*).
I'm married to distantcam and biromantic grey asexual.
My parents are well educated lefty artist types working unskilled low-paid jobs, which makes me ambivalent about my class status.

Interests
I'm a science fiction fan, and am involved in local con-going fandom.

I draw a lot, including comics. I also make visual novels (art, writing, and coding). My fanish creative stuff can be seen at my alias_sqbr tumblr and the AO3. I also have Professional Artist And Game Developer stuff that avoid linking to my fannish persona publically but can be seen here if you're on the access list for sqbr or here for alias_sqbr.
I have a Phd in computational mathematics and love science, though I kind of burnt myself out talking about it after working in Science Communication for many years. (My maths page)

Communication

I am sometimes very bad at judging social cues or figuring out what other people are thinking.
I sometimes have difficulty replying to messages.
I have conflict anxiety, but am pretty good with calmly expressed criticism.
I like discussion and expressing my opinions which can sometimes come across as a bit combatitive.
I like most people, and am very happy for random people to join in the conversations on my blog.

I'm very absent minded, so have probably forgotten some stuff :)

(*)These last two are less relevant to my blog and more things I like to mention as often as possible so that people don't invite me for wine and cheese at the top of a flight of stairs.

Is that I sometimes forget to unscreen them :) This is solved automatically when I reply, but not all comments require a reply (eg if people are having a conversation between themselves)

I mean sometimes I WANT a screened comment to stay invisible until I address it, but often I don't.

So, I'm trying to get into the habit of unscreening comments the moment I get them unless I have a particular reason not to. (And so far they've all been unscreened eventually)

But if a comment of yours on a screened post seems stuck in the queue and it was something really innocuous or it's been several days, let me know and I'll either unscreen it or let you know that I'm working on it.

I'm not sure anyone will care but I made a dreamwidth feed for my lj:
http://alias-sqbr-feed.dreamwidth.org/

Thought I'd have a go at crossposting and also give a PSA:

If you want a Dreamwidth account, while you are welcome to join the queue you should also definitely get an OpenID account and validate the email address.

This
(a) Lets you comment, create a Friends reading list and even have icons, the only basic thing you can't do is post blog entries.
(b)Puts you in the running for an invite, and apparently guarantees you one by the 30th (a weekish from now)

For now, if you do get a proper account you can't join it to your OpenID but that functionality apparently is in the works.

nb I do not intend on crossposting much, since that'd just be annoying for people who've friended me both places. I just wanted to try it out :)

Swancon starts tomorrow!

-I will be all quiet-like internet-wise for a few days. I know, how will you cope?

-Both my panels are on Friday ("Casual Anime" and "Hard sf with soft sciences"), and it's only $20 entry for that day, so youse should all come. Yes, even the ones on other continents!

-My cfs means I am going to be keeping my standing/walking to a minimum, so if you want to catch up it'll have to be somewhere nearby with chairs and I may have to bail to go nap (as fashionable as standing in hallways is and all :))

For some reason I'm not getting all my comment notifications (lj has been playing up all day so that may be it)

I can still access my inbox for all the replies to stuff on my own lj, but if you've replied to a comment I made on someone else's lj and I don't reply, assume I'm not ignoring you :)

Anyone else having this problem?

I'd be tempted to wake him up, but then don't think he'd be any mood to fix the email server :)

Blarg. I feel sick, and not in a cfs way(*), I think something I ate at lunch disagreed with me.

(*)Although as always that's piping up too as a result of me feeling run-down