#fandom ableism

[anistarrose]

enjoying a character acquiring a disability in a "fascinated by how they might adapt and what disability aids they might use as well as how they gradually unlearn internalized ableism" way when the rest of the fandom enjoys it in a "purely tragedy/angst fuel synonymous with the character suffering" way is like. how you actually arrive at the level of suffering that the rest of the fandom thinks is caused by just existing with a disability

[ID from alt: text in front of the disability pride flag that says: "put an image description or alt text or both on the images you add to posts about disability or i will burn with the rage of a thousand suns. i'm literally providing an example with this image if you don't know how to do it." End ID.]

[gay-jewish-bucky]

including disabilities from the source material, no matter the universe, should be the default, not the rare exception

fluff isn't ruined by incluing disability

smut isn't ruined by including disability

happy endings aren't ruined by including disability

escapist fantasies aren't ruined by including disability

including disability doesn't require a phd in disability studies

including disability doesn't require a focus on suffering and tragedy

including disability can be as simple as, at minimum, a good faith choice to periodically note how a character interacts with their immediate environment and/or other characters

it's that easy, no emotional labour required

[the-shark-well]

if you describe a character being disabled as "angst" and make them able-bodied for "wholesme fix-it AUs" I will kill you.

[puppydogdennis]

hey @kenziexoxoxo since you're just going to ignore my ask i'm going to have to go public. it was extremely fucked up of you to call jack abbot a cripple, a word i am positive you cannot reclaim and one that is extremely incredibly offensive when not used by an actual disabled person. beyond that, the context is also demeaning and makes no sense; here's a direct quote since she's trying to pretend it never happened and hoping nobody notices:

robby was trying to make sure she didn't fall [while] walking[,] as the cripple was no help with his one good leg

you're telling me this man who spends his time on a swat team when he isn't leading an entire emergency department—with all the physical demands that come with that—is not only "no help," but a useless cripple when it comes to *checks notes* helping guide someone somewhere?*

multiple people commented on your post explaining that you cannot use this word and that it is highly offensive, and you deleted all their comments and restricted who can comment further. i sent an ask saying it was messed up and that you should apologize, and you ignored it.

this is how ableism is perpetuated. this is how it is spread. i am making this post to try to help stop it. please take a moment to reflect on why you thought it was okay to use this word disparagingly in reference to a canon disabled character and apologize. don't try to pretend it didn't happen, and certainly don't try to silence disabled people who were attempting to educate you on why what you did was messed up

*edit: i said this was a toddler earlier, but it was the y/n character

[ciderjacks]

every time I make a post about Tenna I get one million tags that are some variation of “he’s MANIPULATIVE and CRAZY” and I hate it bc first of all he literally isn’t, for all Tenna’s flaws I genuinely wouldn’t describe him as manipulative. Pushy, desperate, arrogant- but not manipulative. But also like. Other significantly more flawed characters don’t get this. It feels like if a character is written to be mentally ill or disabled, then people constantly need to “hold them accountable” in ways they never do otherwise and it’s always weird to me.

[this-is-deformimisia]

Tw for Harry Potter

I used to be a Harry Potter kid. I have nostalgia for the series just as much as a hate it. Its honestly kinda a weird feeling but I digress. Obvs I dont support JKR and I dont support the series at all, no matter how important it was to me as a kid. The series is icky and I think I recotnized that even as a kid

I remember little ol me reading the books and feeling kinda bummed about Hagrid, cause while I was excited for the rep I didnt like that they made him the reckless bumbling idiot. I felt like he deserved better :( second book only really made that worse (side note, but I had other gripes not just with Hagrid. I always felt kinda icky reading about Crabbe and Goyle an Neville too cause they reminded me of me and some of my friends in my special ed class getting taken advantage by people pretending to be friends because they thought it was funny to fuck with us)

Then the fourth book came and I kinda didnt like the series as much anymore. Between Umbridge being described as ‘toadlike,’ Hagrid being a halfgiant (which could have been a cool exploration of culture, racism against mixed folks, as well as deformimisia but no…) and then they had Moody and I was excited because this was another disfigured person in a teaching role and I really liked Lupin and hoped this guy stuck around

And then they deliberately made him really scary and went through all the trouble to show just how creepy he was… and I know that they had the whole “hes really not that bad” moment with Neville but the whole “torturing and killing a spider” thing was still really gross and I know it wasn’t really Moody but it still hurt because thats how they portrayed him and continued to portray him what little times he showed up

I found the scenes and descriptions of Voldemort over all really disheartening cause he was painted as being inhuman… you could make the argument he was meant to be portrayed as more snakelike and yeah I can see it in some instances but a lot of other stuff is just inexcusable

As much as the series is nostalgic just cause I read it as a kid, it also feels really icky. It felt icky then I think I was just desensitized. It hurts seeing yourself in a book and on a screen being portrayed as a monster and I think it gave me some really bad internalized deformimisia and disfiguremisia :(

This is deformimisia.

Yeah, Harry Potter is filled to the brim with problematic things, and ableism is definitely one. Literally every character who has disabled traits gets mocked, demonized, or infantilized for it.

I wish people would drop HP already. JKR is using her money to donate literally THOUSANDS of euros to anti-trans organizations, and her books are all ableist, antisemitic, gender essentialist, transphobic, exorsexist, and varsexist.

[cowboyrooftops]

In light of worst Jack Abbot takes I’ve seen I am absolutely centering more of my writing to actually include his disability in a way that isn’t just ‘oh yeah and he’s missing a leg’ type of dismissive-ness.

Im getting a bit ranty please excuse me

I feel I’m not going to articulate myself well but bear with me. A character is not their disability and it shouldn’t be their one defining trait. As well, a character has their disability and it can’t be ignored or turned into a one-note moment for plot purposes. I think about characters who are disabled but can still ‘do everything a “normal” person can’, because it’s not really a reflection of what it is to be disabled. I also think of characters who only serve to ‘be’ their disability, like it was a last minute add on slapped into their character outline to increase diversity.

I could count on one hand the number of physically disabled characters I’ve seen who’ve actually been real, fleshed out characters who’s disabilities are included without consuming their personality.

I am not an amputee, I cannot speak to the specific representation (and effects of it being ignored). I am at least a little qualified to talk about seeing disabled rep as a whole and how fandom engages with it (for context, when I was six I hit a car while sledding, leaving me with brain damage that causes severe migraines/disorganized speech and chronic pain that has caused me to drop out of competitions in my sport and eventually my sport entirely).

It’s just so fucking nice man. I fucking love Abbot because it feels like proof that I can exist like that, I can do things I want to do and I can accept I have limits at the same time. No inspirational - porn bullshit about him being disabled and being successful ‘against the odds’.

I love the way they reveal it at the end of season 1. There’s no grand story explaining what happened, his prosthetic doesn’t break suddenly during shift, it’s not a background detail either, it’s not revealed through some ableist joke. It just is. Only Victoria reacts a little, mainly because she just didn’t know. Everyone else in the park sees it as normal because it is normal.

Stay nuanced stay mystified stay mad

[book3zuko]

crazy how jack is/was celebrated as an autistic representation character and then for the rest of his existence in the fandom he’s exclusively been infantilized, both literally and figuratively, and dumbed down into an unimportant accessory who only exists for the sake of the other characters with absolutely none of the personhood or autonomy or personality or independence or complexities or the canon traits that originally coded him as autistic. crazy how IN THE SHOW ITSELF he shows blatant annoyance at being coddled or treated like he’s helpless or can’t be trusted to make the right decisions himself, and then throughout all of fandom he’s intentionally made to be helpless and coddled and lacking any autonomy altogether for the sake of some hetslop version of one of the most popular queer ships OAT.* he expresses a want for romantic and sexual experiences and yet he’s always the token “aro-ace bean” who’s too precious to be corrupted by sex. this isn’t even subtext you had to squint to understand! it’s beyond the surface level! but then again by his debut episode nobody could read the subtitle of Asmodeus saying he isn’t a child, so i once again have to wonder if im asking too much of this fandom even though ive seen much more effort and brainpower being put into changing other characters misperceptions and know it is possible. i don’t know if you guys know this, but autistic people are very much used to our representation largely being pitiable children or sexless man-children who only exist as plot devices for everybody around them, and we really don’t need any more of it thx