(no subject)
I need to stop listening to and reading stories about disability unless they come vetted. Or at the very least, I need to make sure that I know what I'm getting into and that I have the energy to cope, neither of which happened today.
I ran into a podfic recording of a story about temporary blindness and deafness which established that "This is hard and I hate it, but my people still love me!" before reversing the condition without further commentary. And really writers, I'm not asking you to butcher characterisation, because I'd be happy with an author's note saying "So look, this is how the character would react! But I feel it's also important to add that disability becomes a part of your life in a way that being able-bodied is or was a part of your life. That disability, acquired or present since birth, actually tends to suck the hardest when you have to deal with negative attitudes like the character's. and hey, aren't assistive devices, guide animals, and languages like braille and sign-language awesome? There's more than one way to do things well and to do things right and would have discovered that over time."
I feel like I'm still over-simplifying. How do I pack a lesson it took me four years to learn into a few sentences?
And while sometimes I have to blame the canon for the supercrip (which is to say, a character whose disability becomes their superpower, or the cause for them to develop a superpower which "replaces" and ameliorates the lost sense [it's almost always a sense in these cases, but not always]), that doesn't mean I have to like it when fic writers play into it and make it seem even more magical and sparkly.
Also, I am done mollifying people when they tell me my food allergies suck. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, but two weeks ago someone apologized to me for saying something along those lines. Because it was rude and unhelpful, she said. And because she was right, it's opened this whole door in my mind, this whole new way of approaching people about it. I'm not sure what the appropriate response to "I have really extensive food allergies!" is yet, but I'll let you know when I do. Because "That's awful!" really isn't it.
This entry was also posted at http://cantarina.dreamwidth.org/23035.html. (comments:
)
I ran into a podfic recording of a story about temporary blindness and deafness which established that "This is hard and I hate it, but my people still love me!" before reversing the condition without further commentary. And really writers, I'm not asking you to butcher characterisation, because I'd be happy with an author's note saying "So look, this is how the character would react! But I feel it's also important to add that disability becomes a part of your life in a way that being able-bodied is or was a part of your life. That disability, acquired or present since birth, actually tends to suck the hardest when you have to deal with negative attitudes like the character's. and hey, aren't assistive devices, guide animals, and languages like braille and sign-language awesome? There's more than one way to do things well and to do things right and would have discovered that over time."
I feel like I'm still over-simplifying. How do I pack a lesson it took me four years to learn into a few sentences?
And while sometimes I have to blame the canon for the supercrip (which is to say, a character whose disability becomes their superpower, or the cause for them to develop a superpower which "replaces" and ameliorates the lost sense [it's almost always a sense in these cases, but not always]), that doesn't mean I have to like it when fic writers play into it and make it seem even more magical and sparkly.
Also, I am done mollifying people when they tell me my food allergies suck. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, but two weeks ago someone apologized to me for saying something along those lines. Because it was rude and unhelpful, she said. And because she was right, it's opened this whole door in my mind, this whole new way of approaching people about it. I'm not sure what the appropriate response to "I have really extensive food allergies!" is yet, but I'll let you know when I do. Because "That's awful!" really isn't it.
This entry was also posted at http://cantarina.dreamwidth.org/23035.html. (comments:
)