Outside for an afternoon walk.

December 29, 3pm, 50 degrees. Not our usual winter weather

Friday, April 12, 2024

A friendly Reminder:

Look at this goofy fucker pretending to be a writer. GET OUTTA HERE

I GAINED 112!! SHE IS NOT TO BE FEARED

Aurora @ Reykjanes peninsula (Iceland) by Gunnar Gestur Geirmundsson

How your disabled character's allies react to their disability can make or break the representation in your story: Writing Disability Quick Tips

Something I brought up in my big post about Toph Beifong was how the other characters reacted to Toph pointing out that things were not accessible to her and setting boundaries regarding her disability, which were ignored. I had more to say about it than I thought I did, as it turns out (when isn't that the case lol) but I feel like this is an important aspect of disability representation that is all too often over looked.

You can write the best, most accurate portrayal of a specific disability ever put to screen or page, but it won't mean much if all the other characters, specifically those we're supposed to like and empathise with, treat your character terribly for being disabled and having needs relating to said disability, especially if the story justifies their behaviour.

You see this most often with autistic characters and especially autistic-coded characters. The character in question will be given a bunch of autistic traits, most often traits relating to not understanding certain social dynamics or sarcasm, and when they get it wrong, the other characters we are supposed to like jump down their throat, tease them or outright abandon them. Autism isn't the only disability that gets treated this way, but it is one of the more common ones that get this treatment. It doesn't matter if you do everything else right when creating an autistic character if the other "good guys" constantly call them annoying, get angry at them or laugh at them for the very traits that make them autistic, or for advocating for their needs.

Likewise, if you have a leg amputee character who is otherwise done well, but is constantly being criticised by their allies for needing to rest their legs or taking too long to get their prosthetics on, it undermines a lot of the other work you've done. Same goes for having a wheelchair user who is accused of being a bore or a stick in the mud because they point out the places their friends want to go to on a group holiday have no wheelchair access, or a deaf character who is accused of being entitled for wanting their family to learn to sign, or anything else.

This isn't to say you can never have moments like these in your stories, but its important to remember that a) people with the same disability as your character will be in your audience. If you spend a whole season of your TV show shaming your autistic character for real traits that real autistic people have, they're not exactly going to feel welcome and may not want to hang around. b) it's going to very, very heavily impact people's perceptions of your "heros" who do this, especially in they eyes of your audience members who share the character's disability or who have had similar experiences. This isn't like calling someone a mean name or being a bit of a dick when you're sleepy, it's going to take a lot to regain audience appeal for the offending character, and depending on exactly what they do and how frequently they do it, they may not even be able to come back from it at all. And finally, c) there should be a point to it outside of just shaming this character and saying the other guy is an asshole. Like I said before, you're character is criticising real people's real disabilities and the traits or problems that come with them, things that they often have no control over, it shouldn't be used as a cheap, quick way to establish a quirky enemies to lovers dynamic or show that one guy is kind of an ass before his redemption arc. If you really must have your characters do this, be mindful of when and how you use it.

Bavaria / Germany

by Denny Bitte

Mandu (Korean Dumplings) filled with Pork, Garlic Chives & Glass Noodles. 🥟

churro cupcakes

Raspberry Swirl Sweet Rolls

Josselin Castle, France (by yann thierny)

i appreciate the attempts a lot of game devs are making with gender neutral character creation, and i appreciate that it's actually a very difficult task to implement that depending on the game's base code. but it's so funny to me when you hear an uproar because some game has "entirely removed the gender option from character creation!!!!!" so you go to check it out and its just like