MetaMetaMeta on the TableTableTable

Wednesday, someone pointed me at Cory Doctorow's new book, Little Brother. Which, like (AFAIK) all of his books, is available online as a free download, complete with a cluster of formatted versions sent in by readers. I promptly downloaded the eReader version, and started reading it on my lunch break. (And now I'm all twitchy 'cos my computer at home is trying to download something large that's screwing up my bandwidth; I hope it's some program update I forgot to disable.)

Anyway. So, as a result of reading Mr. Doctorow's excellent book about terrorism & security & the lack thereof caused by increasing restrictions on human behavior, two things have occurred:

1. I have been thinking a lot about computers, technology, security systems in general, and
2. I am falling-over exhausted, 'cos Wednesday night, we have a meeting I couldn't read through, and I stayed up afterwards until 3 am to finish the book. (I wake up at 6:20. Every day.)

So this weeks prompts are (1) Late, (2) A bit on the whimsical side, 'cos I'm a bit loopy from lack of sleep, and (3) Security-related.

( Stay alert! Trust no one! Keep your laser handy! )

Yesterday was Blog Against Disablism Day, and there's a nice roundup of BADD posts. (Yesterday was also Beltane, and the day Cora Anderson--one of the founders of the Feri tradition of religious witchcraft--finally let go of life and went to join Victor, who died six years ago. Forgive me if I was a bit too distracted to create metaprompts.)

Disability-related Prompts:

Canon Prompts: Does your canon have disabilities? Does it treat them as shameful situations, and convenient plot devices, or as part of having a well-rounded set of characters? Are disabilities all shown as two types: the plucky survivor in the wheelchair, or the wise-but-sorrowful "pillow angel*" who can't get out of bed? (Occasionally, there's also the informative asshole who can't get out of bed.) Does canon deal with cognitive or communicative disabilities, or just mobility-related ones? (Did anyone every actually believe Geordie LaForge was "disabled?") If your canon has disabilities, do they show up in stereotypical or minority patterns: is it always an Asian woman in a wheelchair, always a white male who's blind, always a special-needs educator or activist who shows up in the courthouse?

Fandom Prompts: Got a rec list of stories dealing with disabilities? painless_j's lists have a whole subsection of disability lists; there's a lot of "after the war, Harry was disabled" stories. Do you ever consider putting disabilities in your stories, or do you only write about healthy people? Do disabilities in stories squick you? (Or do some of them?) Have you read/written/drawn any where the disability was, itself, a turn-on?

Meta Prompts: Do essays about disablism and disabilities "harsh the squee?" If you deal with real-world disabilities, either in yourself or loved ones, does that affect how you relate to fandom? Away from online fandom, into fannish spaces: Are the conventions you attend (if any) accessible? Is there programming relevant to disabled needs; is there a way for a blind or deaf or person-in-wheelchair to attend the majority of the programming? (I don't say "all," because I assume nobody is interested in "all" the programming at an event--hence multiple tracks in multiple rooms.) Is the vendor room accessible?

Eventually, I'll do a set of "religion" prompts. If I'm not careful, I'll do several of them, plus a few posts of religious-fannish meta. Since I don't have the energy for that at the moment, I thought I'd ease into it kinda obliquely.

( Mostly about astrology and tarot, because those are the easiest topics to bring in. Maybe some other time I'll poke at psychic abilities. )

Meta prompts with the hope of inspiring nifty meta between now and next Thursday. (Or, y'know, whenever.) Late, 'cos I just finished watching Sweeney Todd. OoOooooh... yah. Like that.

So... job and career-related prompts:

( If he weren't busy being a savior, what would he be? )

As always, any of these are available; so is the general concept of "jobs in fandom," or any other meta topic. (Picky, we ain't. Got nothing to say about jobs per se, but want to talk about money in your canon of choice? Bring it on; we're happy to read.)