Ask me anything!

No, seriously, anything. Start a conversation, I’m up for it.

Pesterchum - pester me!

I have started fooling around on Pesterchum, the one backed by an IRC server apparently named mindfang. If you see me online, I would love to be pestered. My handles:

meddlingGeminiform (basically me)

meddlingGymnosperm (an OC kudzu player of SGrove. Yes, kudzu like the plant, you animalcentrist)

cufflinkConnoisseur (also basically me, an adult with a cufflink fetish typing terse phone chats on Chumdroid during my commute)

What I mean to put on this blog

I like connecting with people, which Tumblr is terrible at. I’m still inherently loyal to the LiveJournal format, which tells you how old I am. This Tumblr exists because that’s where the Homestuck fan interaction is. If interaction means scrolling through pages and pages of amazing fan art, I’ll just have to take that one for the team.

But every time I scroll through, grabbing a couple of gems a day for my collection, I see a certain number of people being wrong on the Internet. I allow myself to say something about it as long as I keep at least a 1:1 ratio of leaving people compliments.

I’d prefer to just engage on random plotline theories and cool art. I don’t want to pick fights. But I have a powerful compulsion to let people know when what they’re doing is hurting people, so if I’m bugging and fussing and meddling at you or anyone else, that’s where I’m coming from.

If I’ve pissed you off

If I step on your feelings or say something fucked-up in my ignorance, I have a track record of apologizing gracefully if you are generous enough to tell me so. I try not to make the same mistakes repeatedly, so you can look forward to all new mistakes!

Justice and where I’m coming from

My *isms

I’m genderqueer. I have trouble getting acknowledgement in face-to-face interactions as anything other than female. I encourage you to start using the gender neutral singular ‘they’ for people online who haven’t told you their gender, or for people you casually meet who are giving off mixed or unclear gender signals.

I’m poly, kinky, omnisexual, and generally opinionated about people being able to express their sexuality and relationship status safely and without reprisal. To be clear, that includes asexuals, not just people on the extremely sexually active end of the spectrum. It also includes people you personally don’t find attractive.

I have well-managed Bipolar type II. Yeah, okay, I’ll just go get the Appleberry Blast glasses right now. I almost flunked out of college due to the depressive end of my disease, and I have trouble conceiving of what state I was in before I got good meds. Several years are more blur than clear memory.

I still have significant struggles with anxiety and motivation, and I’ll probably be looking for better ways to manage those my entire life. I have strong feelings on the health care industry and the way society perceives mental health.

Ways in which I have it good and I know it

I’m both culturally and visually white. I’m third generation educated middle class American. I have an advanced degree, a voluminous vocabulary, and a tech job. I am physically able in all the ways my society expects. I am within the size and shape range that is defined as mainstream attractive for women in my culture.

Unless I work really hard at it I get all the social perks afforded to a “cute girl”. I have a mens’ haircut, bind down, and wear ties to work, and I still get called ‘sir’ or ‘he’ by a stranger maaaaaybe once a month. As someone who is genderqueer and interested in having different pronouns on different days, I find this frustrating, but it’s also a huge wallop of visual cis privilege, and I know how many luxuries that’s bundled with.

Most of my political reading in the last three years has been for issues that I don’t personally experience. Racism in all its thousand forms, gay men calling bullshit on dehumanizing stereotypes in slash, fat activism, autism activism, accessibility issues, you name it I’ve probably been reading up on it. Does that make me an expert or an insider? Hell no.

tl;dr, I’m the only one who will ever read this last line, so a summary here won’t help.  Go ahead, I dare you to prove me wrong in the Ask box.