Iād like to tell a story, if anyone cares to listen
Okay, so this was a few years ago. I was around sixteen, discovering the amazing world of cosplay. I was inexperienced, but eager, and spent about a year scouring secondhand shops and the like to put together a halfway decent costume. I was an absolute noob, still am, but it was fun.
The con I went to was during the summer, a tiny event compared to the mega-cons of the US, but larger than Iād ever seen before. I was overjoyed, because Iād found others like me, utter nerds who liked to broadcast their nerdism to the world.
I happen to have a chronic illness. At that time, I didnāt have my diagnosis, I got diagnosed later that same summer, the reason being that earlier that year, the illness flared up. My knee joints swelled up, it hurt like hell to turn around in bed, for a few days walking was so painful it took me an eternity to move across the room. I had to use crutches for months, including at that con, in cosplay.
The costume Iād chosen was the 11th Doctor. Easily recognizable with his bowtie, fez, suspenders, sonic screwdriver, et cetera. Since I had to use crutches, I made up a story about how the Doctor had suffered an injury from a Cyberman, but that was not going to stop him from saving the universe, right? It wasnāt going to stop me.
But then I got this off-hand comment, probably well-meant, and I donāt even remember who it was or the exact wording. But the message stuck with me.
āHow can you be the Doctor if you canāt run?ā
That hurt. I brushed it off, but it kinda hurt. For months and years after I felt kinda bad about never being able to save the universe alongside one of my favorite characters. I kept wondering about whether the Doctor and his superior technology could cure me, maybe, to fill the plot hole that the self-insert presented. Even today, my fantasies about living in fantasy worlds also include my illness. Either with possible in-world solutions, like magical healing potions or the cure that the human race hasnāt invented yet, or just with a resigned you could never really live there, could you? that would sometimes burst my happy bubble.
This summer, I cosplayed The Penguin, from Batman. Because at least then I wouldnāt have to joke away the limp, the weird walk that I still have. I didnāt feel any better about my limp even then, maybe itās because I donāt feel like my disability should be associated with a villain, so weāll see if I ever pick up my umbrella and top hat for that cosplay again.
The bitterness doesnāt consume me or anything. Life moves on. But I guess that if thereās a morale to this, itās this: Be careful pointing out the inaccuracies that the cosplayer canāt do anything about, whether itās gender, body shape, speech, a disability of any kind. Because weāre probably already painfully aware of it ourselves, thank you very much.
Donāt think I havenāt noticed that Davros remains in the wheelchair, while the Doctor keeps running.
But I still dream of being a hero.
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