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Nintendo releasing a 1st party wheelchair basketball-meets-rocket league game and announcing it in the switch 2 direct was not on my bingo card but I’m hyped for it!

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Trying to organise dates and times for moving stuff between 3 people (me, my partner and my mum) who all have raging time blindness issues, with the help of 2 other time-blind people (my sister and her partner) is a fun experience, 10/10 would recommend /sarcasm

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I finally have a date for when I’m moving!

My partner and I were supposed to move into my parent’s farm long term in January, but mum told us at the last minute she still needed to clean out the old furniture she had stored in there and replace the flooring in the little granny flat we were going to stay in. It was supposed to take a week but the builder who was doing the flooring disappeared on her for 8 weeks 🤦 so we’ve just been in this awkward half packed state since last year lol.

It’s finally sorted though and going in this week, so we are officially moving in 2 weeks time!

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I’ve probably said this before, I don’t remember, but I’d be way more likely to put in the effort to use and stick to using my prosthetics if they didn’t have to be so damn boring.

Half my hometown already thinks I’m demonic for being queer, let me have fun with it and give me goat leg prosthetics! Or dragon legs, or legs with those digitigrade stilts built in.

But nooooo, it’s “not safe” and “not good for my spine” so instead I get stuck with legs that look mostly normal and can only wear a narrow range of shoes. Bah! Buzzkills…

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Mirage is the second of the two characters I’m playing in a one-on-one Pathfinder 2e campaign my partner and I were planning. Mirage is a dragon-blooded merfolk ranger, and chitters is their “faithful” mount. Mirage doesn’t really fit the typical ranger archetype, they were a prince (though very far from the throne) cast out over a disagreement with their mother. The Queen disowned them, exiled them from the kingdom and only allowed them to take their mount Chitters before chasing them out of their kingdom. Like many nobility, mirage enjoyed hunting for sport, and was quite good at it, but they quickly learned that the hunting trips they went on, surrounded by royal attendants, are very different from living out in the wilderness and having to hunt enough to feed both you, and a very grumpy wyvern that was not particularly keen to be taken from his life of luxury. [ID: A digital, cell-shaded illustration of two characters. One, named chitters, is a light green-teal wyvern, standing on it’s back legs and using it’s wings as front legs. It’s tail ends in two articulated stingers and on it’s back is a saddle and attached to it’s horns are a pair of reins. Chitters is looking back at it’s rider, Mirage, annoyed. Mirage is a merfolk with the head and claws of a dragon. They have blue, slightly iridescent scales covering most of their body with a yellow underbelly and fins, both at the end of their tail and on either side of their head. they wear simple clothing made out of kelp, adorned with pearls. They are sitting side-saddle on chitters with one hand resting on the front of the saddle and the other holding a very large pearl which they are admiring. /End ID]

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My partner and I have been planning to do a one-on-one pathfinder 2e campaign, partially to test out some new homebrew mechanics he’s been wanting to trial before he uses them with our very chaotic group, but also to help me practice character dialogue that actually sounds different from character to character (which has been a bit of a reoccurring issue I’ve noticed in some of my comic scripts lately 😅). Because of that, I’m going to be playing two characters while he GMs, and this is my first one, Sarneir! They were inspired by Armanite demons in DnD 5e but mechanically, I’m playing them as a Nephilim/Centaur Champion! [ID: A digital, cell-shaded illustration of a demonic centaur-like creature. They have red scales all over their body, four split-toed hooves, a long, devil-like tail ending in a sharp, jaggered blade on their “horse half”, and on their more “human” half, they have two human-like arms with clawed fingers. Their head is long like a horse’s and covered in black spikes and horns, with large, black tusks protruding from their mouth. They are holding a bronze tower shield in one hand, and a kukri in the other. Their armour is a simple bronze breastplate with a red gem at it’s top where the shoulder straps attach, and a leather “skirt” made out of panels that sits right at the joint of their humanoid torso and horse-like body. /End ID]

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Kev

Kev is one of 6 main characters in the wheelchair basketball comic I’m working on. He’s is a retired wheelchair rugby player - hence why his chair looks so different to the other characters I’ve drawn so far - and when his wife (who’s art is coming soon) started a wheelchair basketball team, but was struggling to get the numbers to actually play, he signed up too. Personality wise, Kev is the team’s jokey uncle and is meant to be a direct foil to the more serious characters on the team, like Ruby. He’s already done the whole “serious athlete thing” and while he enjoys the game, at the end of the day, just there to have fun and support his wife, and remind the younger members to not get too wrapped up in it all. He’s a quad amputee (through the palms on his hands, above the knee on his legs) and is missing a good chunk of his tail too, making him a low-pointer on the court. Low point players are those who’s disabilities impact their ability to play more severally, and they usually play in more defensive and supportive rolls than high-point players. [ID: a digital illustration of a grey-ish green anthropomorphic crocodile in a red basketball singlet with the number 14 on it. He is a quad amputee, missing all of his fingers and both legs above the knee, and is sitting in a silver wheelchair rugby chair with red wheels, holding a basketball in his lap. The background is an abstract orange stained-glass pattern. /End ID]

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Why is physical media like DVD’s still region locked in 2025? I mean I know why (capitalism) but I thought we left that behind in the 2010’s?

I’ve been trying to buy as many of my comfort shows as possible as physical media, both because I can’t afford all the subscriptions anymore but also because where I’m moving has even worse internet than where I am now, so streaming might not actually be an option all the time. I’ve found most of them but Steven Universe is the only one left I’m struggling with. It’s apparently very difficult to get the physical dvd/bluerays in Australia. Apparently we just never got a physical release here. So I went to go buy it from an American seller because there were no other options I could find (if I wanted it in English) and noticed that there was a tiny warning at the bottom of the listing saying the disks were region locked and wouldn’t play on most Australian dvd players or PCs. I double checked and yeah, nothing I own can read it. Well my pc disk drive can technically do it, but there’s a limit to how many times I can change the region settings, and considering most of my DVD’s are region 4 (and this is region 1) it’s not really practical. That’s even more aggravating though because it means it has the capability built in and it’s artificially locked off…

And just…why? I want to access the show legally and give you money, why are you making it harder?? And yeah, there are ways around it, but man I just want to watch my silly kids show about gay space rocks while I do my work.

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Ruby

It’s been a while since I shared anything from my comics, so I did this between commissions!

Ruby is one of the 6 main characters in my wheelchair basketball comic I’m working on (and honestly, she’s one of my favourites)! She’s an Eastern Quoll who comes from a family of athletic high-achievers and Olympians, and is under a lot of pressure to live up to their expectations in a world that doesn’t see her as equal to her other athlete relatives. 

Ruby is a high-pointer, meaning that, on paper at least, her disability has less impact on her ability to play - though not necessarily on her day-to-day life. This is an especially important distinction to make for Ruby in particular, as her disability (EDS) does impact her daily life and does impact how she plays, but not in a way that neatly fits into wheelchair basketball’s points-based classification system, which causes some…issues for her later in the series.

[Image Description: A digital illustration of a fluffy orange, anthropomorphic quoll woman with white spots on her head, shoulders and legs and a red basketball singlet, sitting in a red high-pointer’s basketball wheelchair. She is holding a basketball to her chest that is obscuring the number on her singlet, and snarling slightly. /End ID]

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Please remember I am trans/nonbinary, my pronouns are xe/they.

I am starting to get genuinely annoyed with people’s shocked or doubtful reactions to hearing I want to have kids in the near-ish future. And I don’t mean strangers. Strangers say weird things to me all the time lol. I mean my family, my doctors, people who have known me for decades.

My mum in particular has made several comments now ranging from just genuine shock at the mention my partner and I are planning for kids during a conversation about plans for the future (I’ve literally talked about wanting kids to her since I was a kid) to outright saying during a casual conversation that “they (referring to doctors) probably wouldn’t let me carry to term”. Over Christmas my partner also told mum that we had some news we wanted to share in person, and her first reaction was “Cy’s not pregnant are they?” My partner said no and she responded with “oh thank god!”

My sister and dad have also made similar comments. Dad has brought up valid concerns (mainly about some genetic stuff that caused complications for my mum) sprinkled with the same ableism my mum always goes to. My sister I’m willing to give a bit more leniency, since she’s the only family member I talk about my transition with and she admitted recently she thought i was already medically transitioning and she thought that made you infertile so she just assumed kids were off the table. Neither of those things are true but her doubts at least aren’t tied to my disability, just bad info.

But it’s the doctors (and other healthcare professionals) that are the most frustrating. It’s not one or two. It’s nearly every doctor. Every nurse. Every medical technician. If the subject comes up, they all have something to say about it.

I don’t want to go into pregnancy blind, I know I would be at higher risk than the average pregnant person and I want to know what those risks are before I agree to them. I want to know what recourses are available. I want to know how me being in a wheelchair will change the process of things like giving birth. I want make sure the local hospital is equip to deal with that and I won’t be having to educate people while I’m in labour or if I’m better off going somewhere else.

But every doctor I’ve tried to discuss the subject with has shut the topic down and hand waved it with “we’ll cross that bridge if we get to it”. Like it’s something I’d obviously want to avoid that I probably don’t need to worry about. Even trying to get my contraceptive replaced, get a fertility test done or even getting a damn pap smear has been a nightmare. why am I fighting to get a Pap smear??? I’m nearly 30 and still haven’t been able to get one because several doctors seem to be under the impression I’m not sexually active, even when I bring my partner into the appointment. If they say it out loud (half the time they dance around the subject) and I correct them, they are genuinely shocked, then tell me we’ll worry about that later. Nurses and other healthcare providers are no better. There’s been several occasions where I haven’t been asked the mandatory “could I be pregnant” question when going for X-rays or CT scans (and I know they were supposed to ask because if I ask to see the paperwork, it’s always there and they’ve just checked “no” without asking), or if I am asked at intake, they say something to the effect of “I know the answer is probably no, but is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

Though I take back what I said earlier, there’s one comment from strangers on this front that pisses me off, and it’s “be thankful you don’t have to deal with being pestered about having kids”.

No, I won’t be thankful when my reproductive health is ignored, my family are telling me constantly they think I shouldn’t have kids or expressing surprise that I’m even “allowed to” and I can’t even get any answers about what it would look like if I DO get pregnant. My heart goes out to the people who are harassed and pressured into having kids, and to the people whose health is ignored for the sake of them being able to have a baby. Both my mother and sister have dealt with that, my mum almost died because they didn’t want to do anything that would prevent her from having more kids she didn’t want after my younger sister was born. But BOTH things are terrible and shouldn’t be happening!

Im not unreasonable, if someone brought up a decent, genuine concern to me that wasn’t just “can someone in a wheelchair even look after a kid” or “I didn’t think someone like you even has sex” I would reconsider. If it was found I would be likely to experience serious complications for myself or the baby, I would reconsider. If I found out I wasn’t going to have the needed supports to raise a kid, I would reconsider. But everyone assumes that’s what I want. If I were infertile, or any of these things were true, I’d reconsider, but I’d be upset about it! I’ve always wanted to be a parent and if that was something that wasn’t actually possible, I would be sad about it.

But my family members talk to me about it in the same way they did when I was 10 and didn’t know where babies came from, doctors are shocked at the idea I’m even sexually active let alone thinking about children. I’m genuinely worried the people in my life other than my partner would treat any fertility issues like a good thing, or be shocked that I’d be upset if kids weren’t actually on the table anymore.

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17th- and 18th-century tiles decorated with representations of disabled people. From Barcelona, Catalonia. Museu d'Història de Barcelona: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

This tiles are "rajoles d'ofici" (meaning "job tiles" in Catalan language), a typical kind of decorated tiles that were very common in Catalonia between the 16th and 19th centuries, and which have become one of the most iconic examples of Catalan folk art. "Job tiles" are called this way because very often they represented people working, but they also represent people taking part in festivities, hobbies, or many other activities from daily life, as well as animals and workplaces. Thousands of these tiles have been preserved, and thanks to them we can see snippets of life a few centuries ago. (You can find more information and examples of these tiles in this previous post.)

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I swear Centrelink’s goal is to just be the most time-wasting government organisation 🤦

I went into the office in person 3 weeks ago to report income from my commissions, which is how I was told to declare the income last time I asked about it.

I explained how the income had been acquired (custom artwork via the internet) and why there was no abn attached (if you’re self employed, you’re supposed to have your own, if you have a normal job, whoever pays you should have one). After explaining it they said I don’t really fit in any category they have, so go home and they’ll call me when they know what to do, but it’s on my file that I tried to report so I won’t get into trouble at least.

A week later, they call and said that I need to register as self-employed, but an abn won’t be needed (yet). All they need is a profit and loss statement and a form. Easy, I did the same form for my partner’s door dash income and it’s pretty simple, and there aren’t exactly a lot of profits or losses for 3 digital-only commissions so that’s also simple. However, they told me on the profit and loss form to include things like electricity and internet costs as losses. I don’t exactly know how to calculate that so I decide to go to a tax agent for help, since what I submit to Centrelink needs to match what I will submit to the ATO later anyway, at least roughly, so it’s easier to do that now and get the more accurate numbers.

It takes a week to get in, the tax agent chats with me for 5 minutes and says she’s not entirely sure why Centrelink is asking me to do this, in the ATO’s eyes I don’t qualify to be a business yet and I wouldn’t qualify by centrelink’s definition yet either. I can register now if I really want to but it won’t be worth it until I’m making a more regular income. She also said she can give me a profit and loss statement but once again, it’s not really worth it and she’d have to charge me more than what I’ve made in total, so she highly suggests I don’t do that, and go back to Centrelink. Also they gave me the wrong form because of course 🙃.

I’m getting really confused at this point, and hear my explanations to each person getting more and more jumbled (which happens when I’m overwhelmed) so I wait until my support worker is there to go back in, since she’s helped me with Centrelink before and is getting good at understanding me when I get overwhelmed lol.

We go in, relay what the tax agent said and showed them the documents from the ATO that backup what I’m saying said to the person at Centrelink. The worker sighs, apologises and says that I was right the first time, I didn’t need to do any of this and the income should have just been reported when I came in last time. She confirmed that with her supervisor just to be sure and then wrote me a note with a big offical stamp on it to give to any other Centrelink worker who tries to say this is incorrect in the future, because it will happen again due to some vague wording in the rules they have to follow 🤦 she’s left a note in my file about it but people don’t always check so the paper note is a backup.

It took 3 week but I finally declared my commission income once it was all sorted out and hopefully the next time I go back it will be simpler…

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I am begging the FDA to require that companies CANNOT just put "spices" as an ingredient but have to label the spices.

"Spices" can mean "this has some oregano and black pepper in it" or it can mean "this has cumin cayenne and paprika and if you eat this you will be sick in bed in pain for a week" for me.

Seriously, this is an allergy issue and a huge oversight on the part of corporations.

Require detailed labeling of spices used in packaged foods NOW.

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My first public commission from this batch, for cobaltington on Bluesky of their character Lenthrenna! [ID: A digital illustration done in a mostly cell-shaded style with rough linework of a silver anthropomorphic dragon covered in scars, with a curved, blade-like prosthetic leg, leaning on her bow as she looks out over a foggy mountain range, towering over a forested valley. The dragon wears grey metal armour, her blow and the wooden blade of her prosthetic leg are covered in matching runes. /EndID]

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I hate when there's stuff I want to talk about, especially important stuff I feel very strongly about or stuff that I really think needs to be talked about, and I just can't get the words out, written or spoken.

It's not even the case of trying too hard make everything perfect, or not being able to get it out at all (like writer's block or something). Words come out, but when I read/listen to them back they don't really convey what I meant. Rather ironically, I don't know how to explain it properly. I don't know if it's an autism or ADHD thing, a brain injury thing, a more general brain fog/communication difficulty or what, but it's very frustrating. I know more or less what I want to say, why can't I say it?

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If you're Australian, consider coming along to a Rally to Protect Trans Youth near you!

The rallies are to protest the Qld decision to pause puberty blockers as we draw a line in the sand about being used in a political culture war and importing overseas ideology. The Trans Justice Network is gathering across the country for a day of action, it's as accessible and covid-safe and family friendly as possible, with a focus on community and inclusive trans joy. There are also follow up actions planned.

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Awkward

Another little comic I was working on between my last commission that I forgot to post 😅 The advice from the “devil” actually came from my mum and dad, they loved messing with people on my behalf. Unfortunately I didn’t inherit their knack for making stuff up on the spot though… [ID: A comic illustrated in a chibi style containing 8 panels.  Panel 1 depicts two characters at a grocery store. One of the characters is Nix, a purple anthropomorphic dragon in a wheelchair. Nix is an amputee and is not wearing prosthetics. The have a wheelchair trolly in front of them which they are placing an orange into. An anthropomorphic dog in a blue shirt approaches them and says “OMG, what happened to your legs!?”. Panel 2 shows Nix with their head tilted to the side, an awkward sweat drop running down their forehead. The following dialogue appears in a thought bubble “I hate when total strangers ask me this out of the blue… I don’t mind talking about it, but I just never know what to say. If I’m honest, they get all uncomfortable. If I say I don’t want to answer, they get mad and call me rude… I just want to finish my shopping….” As they think, two characters appear on Nix’s shoulder, a red devilish version of themself with tattered clothes and wings, and a gold angelic version with feathery wings in a white robe. Panel 3 shows a close up of Nix’s shoulder angel, they have their head bowed as they say, “They’re just curious, just tell a simplified version, "you got sick as a baby.” That will be enough and you can go on with your day.“ Panel 4 show’s their shoulder devil rolling their eyes and crossing their arms as they say, "Oh please, when has that ever worked? It still ends up uncomfortable even with the "Short and Sweet” version.“ Panel 5 shows them continuing behind to talk, "They just get upset over their own assumptions and stereotypes no matter how you say it, and then half the time, you end up having to comfort them…” Behind them, another thought bubble appears showing how that interaction might go. The dog is crying, saying “That’s so sad, I feel so sorry for you!” and nix awkwardly trying to reassure them, “Oh no, please don’t! It’s ok, I’m not upset by it. please don’t be sad”. The last line is written in smaller text to show it is said softer. Panel 6 shows another close up of the devil as they continue to speak, “They’re going to make it weird no matter what, so i think you should have some fun! Make something up! Something fun, Something dramatic! Like you fought a crocodile or something!” Panel 7 shows nix and the dog again, as Nix sit’s there uncomfortably saying, “Uuuuuuhhhh…..” Panel 8 shows Nix saying “…I took an arrow to the knee…?” The dog’s expression becomes one of frustration, as he asks “Reall?”. In the corner, the devil pops up again, looking disappointed as well, “That’s… Not really what i had in mind…” /End ID]