#fictional disability

[cripplecharacters]

hello! (sorry if You answered that before) what are Your thoughts on magical fantasy eyes and visual impairment?

for example, in my story, most characters are demons and angels, so most of them don't have human eyes. one of my characters is a blind demon with fire in their sockets rather than eyeballs. they aren't the only demon with this type of eyes and they aren't the only blind character in the story, but i was wondering if that can fall into the trope of "blank blind eyes" even if in the setting their eyes are considered normal looking.

thank You for Your time!

Hey,

The "blank/white/milky eyes" trope's biggest problem is that it makes people think that that's how blind people always look like. This has real world implications, like with how they might be harassed and accused of "faking" because their eyes aren't white or "blank". That's a major issue.

Even on this blog, I regularly see people being surprised that blind eyes aren't automatically white. People genuinely believe this trope. But that kind of "look" is only present in very specific conditions that cause blindness, not in blindness as a whole. People also often seem to think that "blindness" is just one single condition, but that's a whole other issue.

With this out of the way: you are dealing with a pretty explicitly non-human creature, with an impossible appearance when it comes to the eyes. No one will (I hope) look at your character and conclude that "that's how blind people look like, they have fire in sockets". Especially considering that, as you said, this is a "species" characteristic and there are sighted demons who look the same. In my opinion, it sounds okay.

It's good that you have multiple blind characters. If that's not the case yet, I'd recommend giving them average looking eyes to balance it out. Especially if they're humans, re: everything above.

I heavily recommend you check out blindbeta's blog, as they have made posts about this trope in the past.

If any blind followers want to share their opinions, feel free to.

mod Sasza

[newbornwhumperfly]

Fears ask game, for Sarai: are you afraid of pain? When and how?

gosh, oof, this is so good, @much-ado-about-whumping...👀🥺👀

~

Sarai laughs in response, the husk of it smoke and honey filling the space. 

“Well? Yeah. And no. It’s…a little hard to explain but, for me, there’s…a valley of peaks and ditches and the ditches are never really lower than a certain elevation above sea level, you know?” Her broad, soft hands gesture as she speaks, purple nail polish glittering under the lamplight, vines and flowers in acrylic swirls dancing as her fingers emphasize dips and swells, mapping the geography of her metaphor. “So, the times when I’m really scared shitless about pain is when the peak stretches a long-ass time.” 

She laughs once more and the strain of smoke…thick in her accent, a little burr roughening the edges of her words, the sweetness bleeding away. “That’s the worst. I know it will end and the ditch will come and…when I’m at a peak, I don’t know that. But it will come.” She plays with a gleaming charm dangling from the handle of her cane, twisting it round and round, a little moon that spins in orbit of a golden ring. “But…that’s not really the worst.” She catches her lip with her teeth, letting herself sit in the pause, and presses on. 

“Having whatever the fuck I have makes it hard to think and when you can’t think, you’re not…always going to offer, uh, the best possible care. Thus…” Her glimmering hand gestures around her to the cramped space of a military clinic office, the peeling paint on the edges of the walls, the bleak limit of its scope. A sigh spills from Sarai’s lungs and the deep shadows under her eyes, the paint of the day peeling off, are lit up by the glimmer of her gestures. 

“I just want to…help people, as many as possible, people who otherwise wouldn’t get helped. Pain complicates that. And it’s, uh, fucking hard, frankly. A lot of the time, it feels agonizing to…even want to try.”

She spins the moon in its cradle of gold once more and watches the reflections of light bounce off the walls, the desk, the cane, the calendar on the wall, her carefully compiled charts in their colorful binders. When she looks up again, that light has somehow got caught in her eyes, gleaming and refracting defiantly. She grins as the seven-out-of-ten fear rolls through her, as so many fears do every single day. That feeling is her home and she’s adorned it with glitter and silk and steel rails.

“Guess I’m gonna have to keep giving a shit, aren’t I?”

~

thank you for this beautiful question! 💖💖💖

ask comes from this prompt! 💖

[cripplecharacters]

A character in a sci-fi story I am working on is an android, a human brain controlling a large many-armed crane. Because her limbs are built too weak to lift her whole body, she moves via a track mounted on the ceiling. She is able to move more freely in lower gravity, but can't use that very often. Her mobility limitations are treated as important, but she still has many interests outside of her disability and leads a fulfilling life. I know that fully fictional disabilities are sometimes viewed as being worse representation, and I understand why, so I wanted to check if this character concept needs more work?

Hi there, thanks for your question!

I think this is a neat concept for a character, and I personally am a fan of seeing more non-human characters in speculative fiction who are physically disabled. I think there's a lot of storytelling potential in considering the ways non-human characters would experience disability differently from human characters and how that might look.

It's true that inventing fictional disabilities can potentially be bad representation, but that tends to hold more weight in a real-world setting and with human characters who could just as easily have been written with a real-life disability. As you've already established, your premise is science fiction and far enough away from the real world that I don't see a problem with it. And as an android, this character probably wouldn't experience the same kinds of disabilities that a flesh-and-blood human would, so I don't have a problem with writers getting a little more creative on that front.

Other physically disabled people are welcome to offer their thoughts!

-Mod Faelan

[tomroguery]

The default refusal of mobility aids by fictional characters is getting really tedious. Why would EVERYONE prefer to move slower and less securely? Everyone?

I've got places to be. When it's my time for mobility aids, I hope I'm not so silly.

[lastresovejas]

Does anyone know any essays about peoples tales on disability in mass effect

[disabilityinkidlit]

I'm writing a story about angels and in my story, some angels in particular have weak or broken wings that prevent them from flying. Angels with damaged wings are particularly looked down upon by society, and I was wondering if this falls into the "fictional illness" trope?

I think so, yes.

That said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that trope. In nearly any SF/F setting, you’re going to end up with those sorts of situations. That’s great! Embrace your worldbuilding, explore the ramifications, dig deep into your themes.

As far as I’m concerned, the “fictional illness/disability” trope only becomes a problem when:

It’s handled without any insight into real-life disability parallels. I wrote about this on SF Signal a few months ago—”Minding Your Metaphors.” In other words, if your fictional disability is portrayed in a way that would fall into unfortunate tropes if it were an actual disability, it’s a problem.

It replaces any portrayals of real-life disabilities. Just because there may be angels with damaged wings doesn’t mean the story can’t feature people with damaged legs and/or neurodivergent minds as well.

Does that help?

- corinneduyvis