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The next session of the Crowdfunding Creative Jam will run January 14-15. The theme is "Disabled People (visibly and invisibly disabled)" based on a previous poll. Mark the time on your calendar so you can leave and/or claim prompts.

What is a Creative Jam?

It's kind of like a jam session in music, only with all kinds of creative material, and online. (See previous sessions featuring "Inner Worlds" and "Misfits" to see prompts and the works they inspired.) This is a chance for writers, artists, fans, and other creative people to trade ideas and create stories, poems, artwork, music or whatever else they want. If you don't think that there's enough fiction, art, etc. with disabled characters, or that disabilities aren't portrayed very well, then ask for something more awesome. If you like to write, draw, or otherwise render people with disabilities, then drop by and look for inspiration among the other prompts. Some of the material gets posted free, and some is usually available for sale, depending on the individual creators' choices.

Want to do some advance planning for this Creative Jam?

Torn World has a number of disabled characters including Rai (owned by me, blind), Marai (adoptable, deaf), Kalitelm (adoptable, dwarfism & club feet), and Ularki (adoptable, mentally disabled).

Here are some articles:
"Blind Characters: A Process of Awareness"
"Deaf Characters: Behind the Fiction"
"Depiction of Intellectual Disability in Fiction"
"On the handling of disabled characters"
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Fiction"
"Writing About Disability"
"Writing Characters with Mental Illness"
"Writing My First Wheelchair Bound Character Has Been Enlightening"
"Writing Realistic Disabled Characters"

"1001 Drawings"
"Disability & Art"
"The Disability Paradox: Ghettoisation of the Visual"

"Fantastic Films, Fantastic Bodies"
"Media Representation of Disabled People"
"Movies with Characters with Disabilities"
"Top 10 TV Shows with a Disabled Character"

"Famous Disabled People in History"
"Well Known People with Disabilities"

Also, I'm open to having other folks host the Crowdfunding Creative Jam in future sessions. If you'd like to volunteer, please let me know and we'll discuss which month(s) you want. The aforementioned poll listed a bunch of themes that people were interested in writing about, so you can pick one of those.

Current Mood: busy

terajk

Title: Stars
Author:

terajk
Rating/Content notes: T, cartoon violence, ableism, sexism
Fandom: Ranma 1/2
Characters: Ryoga, Ranma, Akane
Wordcount: 1150 words
Summary: The one where Ranma and Ryoga talk disability--awkwardly. (Although Ranma cheats.)

At DW | AO3

sasha_feather

I am updating the Access Fandom Wiki, kindly hosted by Geek Feminism.

I made some changes to the best practices page, check it out if you like.

sasha_feather

This Ain't Livin': No Disability at the Final Frontier: Science Fiction, Cures, and Eliminationism

sasha_feather

"The microphone is one of the single-most powerful social tools for its potential to amplify a movement." --Marlon Lima, Capital City Hues (Madison WI)

sasha_feather

Just in case, like me, you don't read your DW update unless you have insomnia.

From the update written by denise:

Accessibility Win: Comment Hierarchy

As of the last code push, some of you may have already noticed a major accessibility improvement: explicit comment hierarchy indicators. This is thanks to an incredibly well-thought-out suggestion by

jesse_the_k and heroic development work by

allen. You can now go to the Display tab of Account Settings and check "Display Explicit Comment Hierarchy Indicators (site scheme only)".

If you turn on this option, when viewing comment pages in any site skin, comments will then display an outline-style explicit numbering of comment threads, allowing people who access the site via screenreader and non-graphical browser to see the relationships of comments inside a comment thread. (It will look sort of like a content outline: 0, 1, 1a, 1b, 1b1, 1b2, 1c, 1c1, etc.)

This is a major accessibility win -- one of my screenreader-using friends didn't realize until after using LJ and then DW for about five years how sighted people were figuring out which comments were replies to which -- and one I'm really, really proud of. It took us a while to figure out the best way to do it --

jesse_the_k submitted the suggestion in February of 2010 -- but it just goes to show, once we file a bug for something, it will get added; we won't just give up on it.

As a reminder: Dreamwidth really cares about making the site accessible for you all. If you have an accessibility need that isn't being met, we want to hear about it. Because accessibility needs are different for everybody, and sometimes mutually-exclusive, we might not be able to fix the issue perfectly, but we will do our best to figure out a solution that will work for you. To notify us, you can post an entry to

dw_accessibility, or contact the accessibility team project coordinator,

rb.

sasha_feather

John Foliot: Not the Blog Post I was going to write today

Warning for moving images and migraine triggers. The post is about a 3-D moving Captcha.

So that you don't have to click the link, I've cut and pasted the article below. There are hyperlinks in the post that do not appear here.

( Read more... )

sasha_feather

mariness: The Hotel Rant

Mariness writes about a bad hotel situation at World Fantasy Con in San Diego.

boundbooks

The 21 October 2011 post at

dw_news has a section about a change in Dreamwidth's code that I thought would be very relevant for this community:

As of the last code push, some of you may have already noticed a major accessibility improvement: explicit comment hierarchy indicators...You can now go to the Display tab of Account Settings and check "Display Explicit Comment Hierarchy Indicators (site scheme only)".

If you turn on this option, when viewing comment pages in any site skin, comments will then display an outline-style explicit numbering of comment threads, allowing people who access the site via screenreader and non-graphical browser to see the relationships of comments inside a comment thread. (It will look sort of like a content outline: 0, 1, 1a, 1b, 1b1, 1b2, 1c, 1c1, etc.)

This is a major accessibility win -- one of my screenreader-using friends didn't realize until after using LJ and then DW for about five years how sighted people were figuring out which comments were replies to which...

The news post also mentioned general accessibility needs on DW:

If you have an accessibility need that isn't being met, we want to hear about it. Because accessibility needs are different for everybody, and sometimes mutually-exclusive, we might not be able to fix the issue perfectly, but we will do our best to figure out a solution that will work for you. To notify us, you can post an entry to dw_accessibility, or contact the accessibility team project coordinator, rb.

zizi_west

Greetings -- just boosting the signal re: this announcement. The essay collection seems to be academically oriented, but the notice does state that "Contributions are welcomed from both academic- and arts-based researchers and practitioners from a wide range of critical perspectives". Visit the website for details.
...

Representations of Disability in Science Fiction (essay collection; abstracts due Nov. 18/11) Contributions are invited for an essay collection on the representations of disability and the disabled body in science fiction. Technology is often characterized as a cure for the disabled body – one that either elides or exacerbates corporeal difference. From block buster films and televised space operas to cyberpunk and hard SF, disabled bodies are often modified and supported by technological interventions. How are dis/ability, medical “breakthroughs,” (bio) technologies, and the body theorized, materialized, and politicized in science fiction? This collection is particularly interested in the ways dis/abled bodies challenge normative discourses of ability, generate novel spaces of embodiment, and proliferate new understandings of human being.( Read more... )

jadelennox

I often see people whose goal is to be helpful and promote good, accessible design stating that one of the most important things when writing accessible HTML is to use and instead of and . While using semantically meaningful tags is important to write semantically correct HTML, it has no effect on accessibility. In practice, no screenreaders distinguish between and or and . Again, it's not a bad thing from a semantically correct HTML point of view, but it won't help your readers with disabilities.

I love the clearly written articles about accessibility at the WebAIM site, which talk in simple terms about not just procedures but principles. I suggest that everyone who cares about making more accessible fandom web resources take some article on that site when you have a free 5 minutes and read it. Any article that interests you. "Writing appropriate alternative text" might be particularly apropos to the questions many people have asked, because alternative text is an art, not a science.

Current Mood: accomplished

zopyrus

Hi everyone,

I recently wrote a comic for

ladiesbigbang and I plan to include a transcript when I post it in November. I want to be as inclusive and helpful as possible, but I'm worried I may miss something by accident. Does anyone have any tips about formatting, and/or what sort of descriptions to include (or what not to include)? Also, if y'all know a better place to ask, I would really appreciate a link!

Here is a little about the comic I wrote (although for my purposes, you definitely don't need to be familiar with canon to help):

Title: The Letter
Fandom: Our Mutual Friend (Charles Dickens)
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Georgiana Podsnap, Mortimer Lightwood, Mr. Podsnap, Sophronia Lammle (cameo). Past and future Georgiana/Sophronia is strongly implied.
Rating: G
Summary: A year after the final pages of Our Mutual Friend, Georgiana finally makes a friend of her own and takes control of her life.
Warnings: The original novel is a minefield of typical Dickens -isms. In particular, warning for extremely problematic portrayals of disabled characters and Jewish characters, none of whom happen to appear in my comic.

Thanks so much--if anyone can take the time to give me some advice, I'd be so grateful.

sasha_feather

From the New York Times:
Putting the Caped Crusader on the Couch

Letter: When Comics Depict Mental Illness

sasha_feather

lauredhel: That Sugar Mott "I've Got Self-Diagnosed Asperger's" Thing On Glee

Contains Clip and Transcript.

kaz: also

me_ya_ri

I recently completed this story and thought that it might be appreciated here. Hope everyone enjoys!

Story: Snapshots
Author:

me_ya_ri
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: DCU
Warning: Canon violence (A Death In The Family), AU, traumatic amnesia, non-canon death of a major supporting character (Joker), parental neglect, loneliness, recovery from life-threatening injuries but not much else.
Word Count: Approx 72,700 words total
Summary: An alternate story based on the question/story posed by

Current Mood: calm

sasha_feather

lightgetsin:

Data

I was recently treated to another round of “disabled people need to just ask for accommodations, then they’d be given them,” with the usual accompaniments of “you shouldn’t be so angry” and “you should be nicer."

So I figured, okay. I know this is bullshit from a lifetime of experience, but let’s gather some data.

Currently at 214 comments.

Dance for me, internets, dance

On alt-tagging your icons.

access_fandom_mods

Hello, this is one of your friendly mods (sasha_feather), and I am posting this on behalf of

selkiechick who is the author of the post.

I have been the Access Services Coordinator for Arisia for a couple of years now, and I feel like I am really starting to learn the job. But I have one real question- what is the best way to reach the general populace. I feel like there are some ways in which we could make the con both more inclusive, but also a better experience for everyone, but it requires a little education. I fell like posting these things to the Access Services page doesn't reach the intended audience.

This last year I sent a great article (written by Kestrell) on how to assist people with disabilities (though really it apples to everyone...) in Clear Ether, the con's Daily Newspaper, as well as a small ad asking people to leave the service dogs alone. This was great, but the newsletter is a one-sheet, and I feel like adding more will make it the access services newsletter...

What are the next best ways to reach out and ask people to do things like, say, cover their food in the elevators, minimize perfume use, and make way for people carrying heavy things and with mobility aids in crowded hallways. Facebook seems like a poor tool, as you can only post snippets. There is a Livejournal group, and I have thought about posting some of these things in the weeks leading up to the con... but will that get lost in the shuffle- or worse, invite trolls and flamewars about inclusion and accessibility?

Are there other at con and pre-con venues I am missing?

Thank you,

Selkiechick

sasha_feather

I'm happy to say that we have moved the Access-Fandom Wiki over to Geek Feminism!

Here is the new link!
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Accessibility

Check it out and feel free to edit in information if you like.

sasha_feather

lauredhel: Ableist Shit of the Day: Top Gear

sasha_feather

Give Batgirl the Chair by Eric Glover.

This is an in-depth article about the controversy surrounding the DCU relaunch of Batgirl.

Op-Ed: Oracle is Stronger than Batgirl will Ever Be by Jill Pantozzi

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Access-Fandom

Crowdfunding Creative Jam

Fic: "Stars" (Ranma 1/2, Ryoga, Ranma, Akane)

Update to the Wiki

One Link 7 Dec 2012

(no subject)

Comment Hierarchy at Dreamwidth

Death to Captchas

Con Report

Explicit Comment Hierarchy Indicators on Dreamwidth

(Academia) Essays on Representations of Disability in Science Fiction

Accessibility myths

Quick Request

(no subject)

2 links: Glee

Snapshots (DCU AU - Gen)

2 Links

On Preaching to the Choir

Wiki now at Geek Feminism

1 link: Top Gear

Links: Barbara Gordon

Profile

January 2012

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