A sideblog for promoting fan works featuring characters with Type 1 Diabetes. Browse the AO3 collection, T1D in Fandom, for a more comprehensive fic list. Want to chill? Join the discord!
-Tag Page is Here. Currently under construction. Note: if you would prefer to not see a specific type of post, filter the tag as indicated.
-Fanfic Collections
Type 1 Diabetes in Fandom AO3 and FFN (300+ stories)
Type 2 Diabetes in Fandom AO3 (7 stories)
Reactive Hypoglycemia in Fandom AO3 (40+ stories)
-How to Find Fanfics with Type 1 Diabetes in Fandom: A Comprehensive Guide to Navigating the AO3 Collection
-How to Write Type 1 Diabetes: Resources
-Fandom Masterlist (last edited September 23rd, 2022)
-Fic Rec Lists (posted on Fridays)
Star Wars
Diabetic Peter Parker
Diabetic Tony Stark
Marvel misc
Supernatural (TV 2005)
Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Harry Potter
Teen Wolf (TV)
Diabetic Tim Drake
DC misc
Merlin (TV)
Stacey McGill #1
-Other Fic Lists
Femslash with T1D
My Fanfics with T1D Masterlist (last updated 12/11/22)
-Collection Stats:
100 fics celebration post
150 fics celebration post
250 fics celebration/stats post
-Collaborative List of Characters Who Canonically Have T1D. Feel free to reblog and add more if you know them!
-Original Works with T1D!Characters, rec posts
Diabetes in Fiction website (NOT run by me but very good)
Let Me List the Ways by Sarah White (YA novel)
Purple Hearts (2022) Netflix original (movie)
Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez (MG novels)
Swamp Thing: Twin Branches by Maggie Steifvater (DC graphic novel)
The Truth According to Blue by Eve Yohalem (MG novel) (review TBD)
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Also please feel free to send questions; searches for specific fics, characters, etc with T1D; or tag me when posting a fic with T1D rep.
Had a medic shift at a festival recently. People came up to me panicking, telling me that a diabetic person with a cognitive disability had just walked to the drinks stall and started drinking pure lemonade syrup. Surely this was suicidal? Should they call an ambulance???
I walked up to the person, asked them why they're eating so much sugar. Their answer: "blood sugar too low". They were self-medicating a hypo. They knew what they were doing. I hung around a bit to make sure they were okay and watched them monitor their own blood sugar by the book.
Please folks, talk to people before you assume that you know better. People with disabilities. People with psychosis, mania or hallucinations. Neuroatypical people who communicate through cards or writing tools. Try to communicate before jumping to conclusions. Most people understand more than you think about their own needs.
Don't just go to a medic or other form of help behind someones back. That's really not okay and can get people in real trouble. Bypassing someone's autonomy like that is a huge call to make. It shouldn't be the first thing you do.
EDIT: For the record, for the people in the notes: I later had a conversation with the people who came up to me and learned that they were not ignorant about how diabetes works. They knew what a hypo was, they knew that medicating it involves eating sugary foods. If the person had not had a cognitive disability, they probably would have interpreted the situation correctly.
But because the person had a cognitive disability, they saw them drinking pure lemonade syrup and assumed that this person was ignorantly putting their own life in danger. They did not see self-medication because they assumed the person wasn't capable of self-medication. And worse, they then assumed that there would be no point communicating with that person about it and talked to me instead.
Understanding diabetes is valuable and more people should learn about it, but this story is not about ignorance, it's about the ableism of assuming other people's capabilities and bypassing their autonomy.
Where to Start Your Research When Writing a Disabled Character
[large text: Where to Start Your Research When Writing a Disabled Character]
So you have decided that you want to make a disabled character! Awesome. But what's next? What information should you decide on at the early phrase of making the character?
This post will only talk about the disability part of the character creation process. Obviously, a disabled character needs a personality, interests, and backstory as every other one. But by including their disability early in the process, you can actually get it to have a deeper effect on the character - disability shouldn't be their whole life, but it should impact it. That's what disabilities do.
If you don't know what disability you would want to give them in the first place;
[large text: If you don't know what disability you would want to give them in the first place;]
Start broad. Is it sensory, mobility related, cognitive, developmental, autoimmune, neurodegenerative; maybe multiple of these, or maybe something else completely? Pick one and see what disabilities it encompasses; see if anything works for your character. Or...
If you have a specific symptom or aid in mind, see what could cause them. Don't assume or guess; not every wheelchair user is vaguely paralyzed below the waist with no other symptoms, not everyone with extensive scarring got it via physical trauma. Or...
Consider which disabilities are common in real life. Cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, stroke, cataracts, diabetes, intellectual disability, neuropathy, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, thyroid disorders, autism, dwarfism, arthritis, cancers, brain damage, just to name a few.
Decide what specific type of condition they will have. If you're thinking about them having albinism, will it be ocular, oculocutaneous, or one of the rare syndrome-types? If you want to give them spinal muscular atrophy, which of the many possible onsets will they have? If they have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which one out of the 13 different types do they have? Is their amputation below, or above the knee (it's a major difference)? Not all conditions will have subtypes, but it's worth looking into to not be surprised later. This will help you with further research.
If you're really struggling with figuring out what exact disability would make sense for your character, you can send an ask. Just make sure that you have tried the above and put actual specifics in your ask to give us something to work with. You can also check out our "disabled character ideas" tag.
Here are some ideas for a character using crutches.
Here are some ideas for a character with a facial difference (obligatory link: what is a facial difference?).
If you already know what disability your character is going to have;
[large text: If you already know what disability your character is going to have;]
Start by reading about the onset and cause of the condition. It could be acquired, congenital, progressive, potentially multiple of these. They could be caused by an illness, trauma, or something else entirely. Is your character a congenital amputee, or is it acquired? If acquired - how recently? Has it been a week, or 10 years? What caused them to become disabled - did they have meningitis, or was it an accident? Again, check what your options are - there are going to be more diverse than you expect.
Read about the symptoms. Do not assume or guess what they are. You will almost definitely discover something new. Example: a lot of people making a character with albinism don't realize that it has other symptoms than just lack of melanin, like nystagmus, visual impairment, and photophobia. Decide what your character experiences, to what degree, how frequently, and what do they do (or don't do) to deal with it.
Don't give your character only the most "acceptable" symptoms of their disability and ignore everything else. Example: many writers will omit the topic of incontinence in their para- and tetraplegic characters, even though it's extremely common. Don't shy away from aspects of disability that aren't romanticized.
Don't just... make them abled "because magic". If they're Deaf, don't give them some ability that will make them into an essentially hearing person. Don't give your blind character some "cheat" so that they can see, give them a cane. Don't give an amputee prosthetics that work better than meat limbs. To have a disabled character you need to have a character that's actually disabled. There's no way around it.
Think about complications your character could experience within the story. If your character wears their prosthetic a lot, they might start to experience skin breakdown or pain. Someone who uses a wheelchair a lot has a risk of pressure sores. Glowing and Flickering Fantasy Item might cause problems for someone photophobic or photosensitive. What do they do when that happens, or how do they prevent that from happening?
Look out for comorbidities. It's rare for disabled people to only have one medical condition and nothing else. Disabilities like to show up in pairs. Or dozens.
If relevant, consider mobility aids, assistive devices, and disability aids. Wheelchairs, canes, rollators, braces, AAC, walkers, nasal cannulas, crutches, white canes, feeding tubes, braillers, ostomy bags, insulin pumps, service dogs, trach tubes, hearing aids, orthoses, splints... the list is basically endless, and there's a lot of everyday things that might count as a disability aid as well - even just a hat could be one for someone whose disability requires them to stay out of the sun. Make sure that it's actually based on symptoms, not just your assumptions - most blind people don't wear sunglasses, not all people with SCI use a wheelchair, upper limb prosthetics aren't nearly as useful as you think. Decide which ones your character could have, how often they would use them, and if they switch between different aids.
Basically all of the above aids will have subtypes or variants. There is a lot of options. Does your character use an active manual wheelchair, a powerchair, or a generic hospital wheelchair? Are they using high-, or low-tech AAC? What would be available to them? Does it change over the course of their story, or their life in general?
If relevant, think about what treatment your character might receive. Do they need medication? Physical therapy? Occupational therapy? Orientation and mobility training? Speech therapy? Do they have access to it, and why or why not?
What is your character's support system? Do they have a carer; if yes, then what do they help your character with and what kind of relationship do they have? Is your character happy about it or not at all?
How did their life change after becoming disabled? If your character goes from being an extreme athlete to suddenly being a full-time wheelchair user, it will have an effect - are they going to stop doing sports at all, are they going to just do extreme wheelchair sports now, or are they going to try out wheelchair table tennis instead? Do they know and respect their new limitations? Did they have to get a different job or had to make their house accessible? Do they have support in this transition, or are they on their own - do they wish they had that support?
What about *other* characters? Your character isn't going to be the only disabled person in existence. Do they know other disabled people? Do they have a community? If your character manages their disability with something that's only available to them, what about all the other people with the same disability?
What is the society that your character lives in like? Is the architecture accessible? How do they treat disabled people? Are abled characters knowledgeable about disabilities? How many people speak the local sign language(s)? Are accessible bathrooms common, or does your character have to go home every few hours? Is there access to prosthetists and ocularists, or what do they do when their prosthetic leg or eye requires the routine check-up?
Know the tropes. If a burn survivor character is an evil mask-wearer, if a powerchair user is a constantly rude and ungrateful to everyone villain, if an amputee is a genius mechanic who fixes their own prosthetics, you have A Trope. Not all tropes are made equal; some are actively harmful to real people, while others are just annoying or boring by the nature of having been done to death. During the character creation process, research what tropes might apply and just try to trace your logic. Does your blind character see the future because it's a common superpower in their world, or are you doing the ancient "Blind Seer" trope?
Remember, that not all of the above questions will come up in your writing, but to know which ones won't you need to know the answers to them first. Even if you don't decide to explicitly name your character's condition, you will be aware of what they might function like. You will be able to add more depth to your character if you decide that they have T6 spina bifida, rather than if you made them into an ambiguous wheelchair user with ambiguous symptoms and ambiguous needs. Embrace research as part of your process and your characters will be better representation, sure, but they will also make more sense and seem more like actual people; same with the world that they are a part of.
This post exists to help you establish the basics of your character's disability so that you can do research on your own and answer some of the most common ("what are symptoms of x?") questions by yourself. If you have these things already established, it will also be easier for us to answer any possible questions you might have - e.g. "what would a character with complete high-level paraplegia do in a world where the modern kind of wheelchair has not been invented yet?" is more concise than just "how do I write a character with paralysis?" - I think it's more helpful for askers as well; a vague answer won't be of much help.
The eco fash and eugenicist leftists (yes, whether you admit it or not, you exist) aren't going to like this but I rank the invention of plastic as one of the top 5 best inventions to ever happen to medicine, along with soap, insulin, vaccines, and rehydration salt fluids
Absolutely! People who want to eliminate plastic production in its entirety ignore how it is used in *countless* ways medically. You know how surgical instruments stay sterile? Plastic packaging to keep them that way. How subdermal implants can be lightweight and comfortable as the body moves (to the point of being unnoticeable) and still disperse the medication for even years before needing to be changed out? Plastic bodies! Do you know what many modern stitches are? Plastic! Bc it has the ability to be fully sterilized and stretchable enough to move without snapping or tearing the skin while keeping the wound closed and in a position to heal.
If you wanna go after plastic: go after the consumer culture that puts ridiculous amounts of kids toys in dumps and clothes made by fast fashion. But this is a strong case of the ironic "all generalizations are bad" truism. I am all for reducing plastic waste and it's damage on the environment, but don't even *look* at the medical industry, let alone blame it until youve "solved" about ten other industries, cos this one improves and saves lives.
I'm on record as a plastic-hater but ALWAYS with the caveat that it's important for medicine
really I think it's gone way too far in all other areas like clothing, but obviously medicine is a whole other ballpark (hell, even in my own life- I wear contact lenses, which were theorized before the invention of plastics but never practical, and my glasses would have broken so many times over the years if the lenses were still actual glass)
someday hopefully medical plastic will be made from not-oil, but please understand that my criticism of plastic NEVER includes the medical field
hello physically disabled person reading this. it is not your fault that your medical supplies are made from a lot of single use plastic and you can continue using them guilt free. your health comes first. thank you for existing.
if your insulin pump has lithium batteries and the tubing is plastic,
if your ostomy bags, incontinence supplies, and sanitary wipes are single-use,
if your joint replacement, bone plate, pins & screws, or spinal hardware is cobalt & chrome,
if your meds come in a plastic container you can’t recycle or reuse for sterility,
you are still innocent. you didn’t choose this particular life. we all must do what we can to survive and that includes using technology and consuming resources. it is only human and we all do it.
some people out there own several yachts and don’t ever consider the impact it has on the world. there’s nothing to be gained by beating yourself up for doing the bare minimum for a comfortable, livable, safe & long life.
If you had options, you would use them. Medical supplies aren't a threat to the environment anyway. Most waste is corporate waste and if society wanted to make your shit reusable and recyclable (when appropriate) they would. You can't save everyone else before you save yourself. Use the stuff. Make a better world another way.
ID: A thumbnail showing Neve from Dragon Age: The Veilguard from the shoulders up. Neve has brown skin, brown eyes and long, strait black hair. The image fades to a purple background and white text reads "Disability Tropes: Let me tell you my story" /End ID
In a lot of stories that feature a disabled character, especially a visibly disabled one, if they don't acquire their disability throughout the course of the story itself, there will inevitably be some kind of reveal about how they got it. Sometimes it will be a simple "I was born with it" like with Toph in Avatar the Last Airbender and other times it will get an entire, dedicated flashback episode or more, like Ed (and Al) in Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood.
In a lot of cases, authors and creators treat the story of how a character became disabled as some inevitable story beat that has to happen at some point. Disabled characters are rarely allowed to just be, they always have to explain why they look the way they do and how it happened.
James Cameron's Avatar is a pretty good example of this, in my opinion. Jake Sully is a wheelchair user due to a spinal injury, and we're told in the literal first line of narration that he was injured during military service. It's brief, but the fact that it's the literal opening line, before we know anything about him, his name or even the fact he's in a wheelchair yet, makes it a stand-out example to me of it feeling like an expected, inevitable thing. We have a disabled character, we have to explain how that happened, let's just get it over with.
Other stories leave it until later on, and in a lot of these cases, it's almost always treated like a big emotional reveal. Fizzeroli from Helluva Boss, Zuko from Avatar the last Airbender, Rivet from Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Ed and Al from Full metal alchemist (both the manga and the Brotherhood anime) all have these big emotional reveals relating to their disabilities and disabling events. While I think it's handled decently in all these examples, you can see just how common it is.
It's also often used as a marker to show just how close the disabled character is to someone else.
Neve from Dragon Age The Veilguard is a stand-out example of this, and the inspiration for this post even existing. She is a sarcastic, closed-off person at the start of the game, and she won't tell you how she became an amputee until your approval rating with her is high enough. For Neve, it's quite literally used as a marker by the game to signify your friendship with her is good, and when you do get it, it feels... very forced, at least to me. It feels like, "Congratulations, you're now friends with the disabled person, so they must tell you how it happened, because that's just what's expected. Obviously, there is no better way to show how close you are to disabled people than telling you about their history with their disability."
I love Veilguard, and I do think Neve's disability was, overall, handled fine (not perfectly, but better than most games at least) but her cutscene where she tells you how she lost her leg really stood out to me, specifically because I didn't get it during my first playthrough. And honestly, I preferred it that way.
It was so nice to have a disabled character who's disability wasn't just brushed off like it is for so many amputees, it mattered, it was acknowledged in-game both directly and subtly, but she still didn't feel the need to explain how it happened or why she has it. She was allowed to just be disabled without having to explain herself, something that is pretty rare in media.
When you're visibly disabled, you're expected to explain how "it" happened all the time, often to complete strangers; which is part of why I find it so weird when it's used as a way to show trust and vulnerability in media. When I am with other disabled people or even my friends who were already knowledgeable about disability before we met, it rarely comes up. I've known some of my disabled friends for 10-15 years, and to this day, I don't know how a lot of them became disabled. I never felt the need to ask. It didn't matter. Their disabilities themselves did, but how they got them? 90% of the time, not really.
When I first played through The Veilguard, My character's relationship with Neve felt pretty reminiscent of those relationships with my real-life disabled friends in that regard. It was so nice to see a disabled character in media who was allowed that same chance to just be, that same chance I got with my friends. But in reality, it wasn't that. The fact I didn't know what happened was just a sign she just didn't trust my character. It was the sadness that came after learning she does tell you about it that made me realise how common this trope is, and how much I just desperately wanted a disabled character who just is disabled. Where it's not connected to some tragic backstory (or a tragic event in the story itself), or even brought up. They're just allowed to exist as they are without explanation.
So, if you're writing a disabled character, ask yourself: Does the audience really need to know how your character became disabled? Why does it matter to the audience? What does it add?
However, if your answer is no, they don't need to know, this doesn't mean that you as the author or creator shouldn't know how it happened.
How a character acquired their disability can impact things further down the line that might effect your story, even if you don't spell it out. An amputee who lost their arm in a fire will have a very different experience to someone who elected to get their arm amputated to stop the spread of an infection. Their stumps will look different, they may need different features on their prosthetic, the burn survivor will take longer to heal initially, may have to be more cautious about taking care of their skin even when it's healed and may experience more intense phantom pain, while the infection survivor may have a smoother initial recovery but run into more problems and complications down the line like chronic but mild re-occurring infections from the irritation of the prosthetic on skin.
If a character's disabling event was traumatic, it may influence their behaviour throughout the story in subtle ways that might not need to be spelled out, but can still influence the situations the character finds themselves in.
However, sometimes, the answer will genuinely be yes, it is important for the audience to know how it happened. Full Metal Alchemist is a good example of this. Ed lost his arm and leg because he tried to break the most important law of alchemy, equivalent exchange, when he tried to resurrect his mother. But a human soul isn't as easily valued and replaced as the components of the body, which resulted in the exchange being unbalanced and more needing to be taken. First it tried to take Al's, body but Ed saved him by sacrificing his arm and leg to at least keep his soul there. This law of equivalent exchange and the value of the soul vs the body is a core theme of the story. Showing the horrific way that attempt goes wrong and the consequences for doing something like human resurrection is pretty important in setting up the stakes for the series' plot, as well as it's moral message.
It doesn't always need to be for some big, important reason like in FMA, but it is a good example of what I mean.
If you are going to bring up how your character became disabled, here are some things to consider:
Timing
A lot of the time in media, creators and authors will hold off on telling us how a character became disabled and often make the actual reveal into this big emotional scene, but like I mentioned before, this is very, very far from how the real-life version of these kinds of conversations usually go.
In my experience, it will be the first thing someone asks me. That's not an exaggeration, people will often ask me, "What happened?" "What's wrong with you?" "What happened to your legs?" before I even tell them my name, if I even get the chance to. I suppose you could make the argument James Cameron's Avatar was trying to make some kind of comment or commentary about that with Jake's opening narration about his spinal injury story, but even if that is the case, I think there's better ways that could have been handled.
Avatar aside, for some reason, non-disabled people think my disabling event is a great topic for casual small talk. I've been stopped on the street by passers-by, I've been asked in line at the grocery store while going through the checkouts or as something to fill the silence while I fill out forms, I've been asked on the bus and on the train by other passengers, including in the quiet carriages, I've been stopped and asked mid-workout at the gym, during job interviews as an ice-breaker (and yes, I'm aware that's illegal but it still happens very frequently), even once while I was crossing the street, by someone going in the opposite direction. They just yelled it out and expected me to yell back while navigating crowds in one of Sydney's busiest intersections. And I'm not alone in this, pretty much every visibly disabled person experiences this, or something similar.
Because of that, very few disabled people could keep it a secret to reveal, even if they wanted to, because if you refuse to answer these people, it makes an even bigger scene and most of us just want to get on with our day. For people like myself who initially didn't mind talking about "what happened," the sheer frequency at which I get asked this, before anything else, has made me hate being asked. I am used to it though. It annoys me, but I've found it's easier to just say "I got sick as a baby" and move on. I still don't mind talking about it on my own terms or to little kids, since they often don't know any better, but I despise being asked by adults who should know not to start a conversation with "hey total stranger, tell me about the potentially most traumatic thing that's happened to you as small-talk". Unfortunately, the reality is that very few people actually know that though.
This is even worse for people who's disabling event is more traumatic and actually is a touchy subject for them because unfortunately, these kinds of people don't tend to accept "I don't want to talk about it" as an answer. So a lot of the folks I know who fall into this category also just get used to being asked and telling people the spark-notes version, no matter how uncomfortable it makes them. Eventually, a lot of us just become numb to it either way.
And I'll be honest, As much as this annoys me when it happens in real life, I'd love to see it reflected more in media with visibly disabled characters, because at least you can do something with the absurdity of it all, and it is a common part of the visibly disabled experience that's overlooked a lot. It also gives you a good excuse to bring it up, without the big, tragic backstory scene that can derail the pacing if you're not careful, and be used to tell us a bit about the character through how they react to it. Also, maybe if it shows up enough in popular media and is actually called out, people will stop doing it as often. That might be wishful thinking, but I can dream haha.
Speaking from experience though, I recognise this can be a bit harder to pull-off than it sounds, because the whole point is that these conversations are weird, jarring and out-of-place. I'd love to see more people try it, but it can be hard to get it right depending on your story's pacing, so do so carefully. Something else to consider is that if you do use this approach, you don't actually have to tell us what happened to them. Some people I know, especially those who are more on the laid-back/jokey side, will just make stuff up to mess with people. This is something I've done with some of my webcomic protagonists, I never intend to tell the audience what happened to them, because the "how" isn't really relevant to their stories but I wanted to have some fun with people's nosiness.
The other way this usually tends to go in my experience is that it's eventually brought up extremely casually.
Like I mentioned before, I have disabled friends I've known for years and I genuinely have no idea how they became disabled, and they also didn't know how I became disabled, because it just doesn't matter. There were some exceptions though. I knew some of their stories because they were public figures, and that's the first thing they always get asked about in interviews with non-disabled reporters when they're first getting their name out there. Outside of that, only a few of them very casually mentioned "after my accident" or "after I got sick" if it was tangentially relevant to the topic at hand, but it was very rare that the topic ever came up directly even if we were close. It wasn't because we didn't trust each other enough or didn't like each other, it's just that it didn't matter for most of us.
The difference between situations like what I was just describing, and, for example, the scene we got with Neve in Dragon Age, is that, it was pretty obvious that that scene was there to tell us what happened, even if Neve herself just mentioned it pretty randomly. In this case, it was less of how the characters were acting, and more how the whole thing was set up and framed. That whole scene's reason to exist was to tell us Neve's backstory. It happens during a conversation about coffee and insomnia, but it's pretty clear that's all filler. There's not really new information about her in that scene outside of her disabling event story, it doesn't tell us anything else we don't already know.
A scene depicting a situation like what I'm describing though would have it be just part of another conversation that's equally as important to the plot or characters, or ideally even more so. If you want to bring it up casually, actually do it casually and don't make it the central focus of the scene. In Dragon Age The Veilguard's case, this could have happened during one of the group scenes where they're discussing how to move forward. As an example, maybe they needed to go to a new area in Minrathos for something, and Neve mentions that the group needs to be careful, a mage she was chasing ambushed her in that part of the city once, and she came away with "a new accessory", with another character agreeing and the group continuing the planning from there. I still would prefer it not be brought up at all mind you, but I feel like that would have been a better way to bring it up casually like they were clearly trying to do. and don't tie it to her approval of the player character either.
The reactions
Another thing to consider carefully is other characters' reactions to the disabled character talking about this. Real-life people tend to get weird whenever I tell them how I became disabled, and I suppose media mimics that pretty well, but it would be nice to see some more non-disabled characters react in ways that aren't either getting really uncomfortable, telling the person that they're an inspiration, or getting all sulky and sad about it.
In real life, when I do bring the subject up to people, especially if I do it casually, you don't need to stop what we're talking about to "check if I'm ok" or comfort me or derail whatever we're talking about. If I bring it up casually, it's because I want you to treat it casually. If your character in your story is bringing it up casually, they will probably want the same, so don't make everyone else stop and go quiet in response. This goes the other way too, if the character does bring it up and is trying to be serious, make the other characters react accordingly, but I don't tend to see that as often.
Of course, sometimes the point is that characters react poorly, but if that's the angle you're going for, actually point that out. Have your disabled character call it out as being kind of weird and uncomfortable, and don't just sweep it under the rug. Or have someone else point it out. I know I've said you don't need to spell it out for people all the time, but when you're going with a stereotype or playing into a trope, especially one like this that a lot of people don't understand as being a problem, it does need to be addressed.
Other character's reactions is an especially important thing to keep in mind for anyone writing for or creating video games, specifically where the player can choose how their character will react to a someone telling them this. A lot of the time, there are few to no good ways for a player to choose to respond to the disabled character's story when it is an option.
Conclusion
A lot of the time, real-life non-disabled people feel entitled to know what happened to us, and to some extent, I think this is why this trope is so common. I don't think this is intentional, or even a conscious thought on the behalf of people in real-life or creators, but many are so used to getting that explanation, that when it's not provided, it feels weird to them.
As far as disability tropes go, "let me tell you my story" isn't the worst one out there, not by a long shot, nor am I saying you should never, ever use it. But it is a trope that I think flies under a lot of people's radar and I wanted to talk about it. Of course, do what works for your story and your characters, but I do encourage you to stop and consider how much it's really adding.
i love you so much if you are diabetic, or pre-diabetic. our society treats diabetes so poorly. it's such a readily mocked condition, people often times resort to blaming the individual for having it, even going so far as to pass judgment on the diabetic's character, regardless of what type of diabetes they have.
diabetics are wonderful and deserve to love themselves regardless of whether or not they 'gave' themselves their diabetes. whether or not the person is "unhealthy" whether or not the person eats "right" or knows how to eat in ways that are safer for their body doesn't matter, they still deserve love, respect, and compassion.
diabetes is not a fucking judge of character. diabetics deserve better. diabetics deserve respect. diabetics deserve to be recognized as disabled. diabetics deserve kindness, love, care, compassion, and support. no matter what.
When Shepard went for a check up on her sugar levels things got from good to bad when she got a very bad low. She thought she could wait this one out until her doctor’s appointment was over with. It's the worst mistake of her life. Afterall her diabetes doesn’t care at what time it will best suit her to screw with her life. Being admitted to the ICU is not how she saw this doctor visit going.
Chapter 5: Waking Up
It’s been weeks and there has been no improvement in her daughter’s life. At least things haven’t gotten worse. For that Hannah was honestly very thankful indeed.
Irvin had to go back to work so he couldn’t stay for the light time. He only came to visit his lover at night.
Hannah’s Captain has been relentless over her but she decided she wouldn’t go back to work before her daughter is okay again.
“So what’s the next step?” Hannah asked the doctor.
“We have done all we can for your daughter.”
That answer obviously upsetted Hannah. “There’s nothing…”
The doctor lifted a hand up. “You misunderstood me.”
Hannah frowned in response. “What do you mean?”
“This step is up to her.” He looked down on his datapad. “We’re waiting for her to wake up.”
no matter how hard i try, nothing i write will ever be as fucked up as the stuff somebody who thinks they're creating a Wholesome AU with unexamined beliefs will make.
#my big one here is ‘fluffy’ disability fics#where there is just a loss of autonomy#like sure you’re going to make the disabled character totally dependent on someone else for everything#and it’s only going to be the person they’re romantically tied to#or that they need to be punished for ‘not taking care of themselves’#and like okay there’s ‘I want you physically healthy enough for sex but you figure that out’#and then there’s ‘I control all your medication’#which is just terrifying#or like ‘I’m the only person who can help you with your mobility aids’#and just#no#no no no#independence and bad choices are super important in disability#let your disabled characters be independent from their partners in fiction#or at least don’t tag it as fluffy when you tie them to a partner for their basic needs
[ID: The thumbnail from this artical. It contains a photo of a page from the Wings of Fire Comic, featuring Starflight and Fatespeaker, two black dragons with starry wings flying with a larger group of multicoloured dragons. Fatespeaker is holding Starflight's claw as they fly. A speech bubble from starflight says "…and lots and lots of scrolls… I wish-" and a bubble from fatespeaker saying "We'll find a way to make scrolls you can read, Starflight." Over the photo is text that reads "Disability in Worldbuilding: Thinking beyond your character". /End ID]
When you're writing a story in a fictional setting, worldbuilding is essential, but one area of worldbuilding I see repeatedly ignored is disability. Specifically, how disability is accommodated in a setting. Even when a character in the story is disabled, this stuff is often overlooked, so much so that A LOT of stories simply take the approach of "nothing existed before this character, they (or their allies) invented the accommodation/mobility device/assistive technology themselves".
But just like with any other aspect of worldbuilding, you need to think outside of just your characters if you want your world to feel alive and not like a flat backdrop to your story. So if your story contains a disabled character, or a character becomes disabled during the plot, here are some things to consider about the accommodations and assistive technology they might or might not have:
1. What kind of accommodations and assistive technology already exists in your world for your character's disability?
It can be easy just to think about your character in a vacuum but unless they have a super-setting-specific disability that only exists in that world, there will almost definitely be others in their position (and even if it is specific to your setting, unless there's a specific reason why their disability is unique, there will likely be others), so think about what these other people might have come up with. What came before the modern era? How do designs vary from person-to-person? How dose the solution to the same kind of inaccessibility change based on environment? Their cultural values? How individualistic their society is? How much your character's wider community value individuality vs conformity? For example, A more conformist community might sacrifice functionality to make the mobility aid or accommodation less noticeable, whereas the individualistic society might not care as much about the appearance, or might even sacrifice functionality to make the mobility aid stand out even more in more extreme cases.
2. If something is an issue for your character, it will usually be an issue for others too
If your character has an issue with the existing technology or accommodations and requires something new to be made, there's almost definitely others with that same problem too. This doesn't always mean that problem will be solved, mind you. In real life, things like prosthetics and wheelchairs are custom made, but a lot of their components are mass-produced, which makes it harder to deviate from the base design if a small portion of the users don't find it suitable. In a situation where mass-production doesn't apply though, it's worth taking some time to think how different people might address the same short-comings of the existing assistive technology and accommodations in your setting. If your character makes a big innovation or change, will they share it? How do others in their community (disabled and non-disabled) react to the change? Will people who see them try to copy what they did? this is especially important to consider if your setting has some kind of widely-accessible way of getting information out, like TV's or the internet.
3. Disability aids will often mimic and reference other technology of the culture it's creator comes from
There's a reason why a lot of "invalid chairs" (the predecessor to self-propelled wheelchairs) tended to look like the popular styles of regular chairs of their era with high backs and big, padded seats, even if it wasn't the most practical design. Either that, or they looked like mini-buggies or carriages which also had their drawbacks. It's because people will draw from what they know and what already exists for inspiration, and it's much easier to convince people to use something that they can already kind of understand because it references the shape of something they already know how to use. There's also the fact that it can make sourcing parts easier, especially in time periods and settings where budget would be a serious issue. The more sleek, active frame wheelchairs we have today often use racing bike wheels with small modifications to add the push rims - one of the biggest suppliers for wheelchair wheels in the world, is actually a bike company for this reason.
4. Make sure it fits with the rest of the setting
This is a continuation from 5, and also something I mentioned in my "perfect prosthetic" video a while ago, but make sure the assistive technology matches the technological level in the rest of the setting. For example, you tend to see prosthetics that are way more technologically advanced than everything else in a lot of different genres, but I've also seen sci-fi settings with faster-than-light travel that are still using hospital wheelchairs straight out of the 1950's. Now, the caveat here is that you can create a mis-match, just make sure there is a reason behind it. For example, if your society shuns disabled people or views disability as divine punishment, they're probably not going to put much effort collectively into innovating the technology they need. This doesn't mean individuals won't, but that will have a ripple effect on how people react to seeing that kind of invention in the world, they might look down at people who use them, or maybe even see their creation and use as heresy for defying the will of the gods, which will impact how people react to the character who needs it.
5. If there really is no existing accommodation in your setting yet, why?
...And don't just stop at "because not many people in my setting are disabled". I mean, you can, but I think it's way more interesting to dig deeper than that! It only takes one or two people to invent a solution to a problem. Keep in mind, they don't have to be the most efficient or practical solutions, especially if you're thinking about this in the context of what was available before your character, nor does it need to be in wide-spread use. It just needs to work for that person and their community. But if there genuinely is no existing assistive technology or accommodations for that disability, think about what stopped people from creating them. Maybe it was a technical barrier that just made it too hard, maybe there's a social stigma against disability, so people don't want to associate with them or help them, or maybe some kind of legal red-tape meant something could be created, but it was banned from use (at least in public). These are all things that happened in the real world!
For example, you didn't really see self-propelled wheelchairs until the 1600's when Stephen Farfler designed his own, called the "manumotive carriage". A big part of why this was the case, was because there was very little in the way of accessibility in wider public spaces, meaning a wheelchair, even a modern one, couldn't go many places unless it was able to handle a lot more than it's modern counterparts would need to, and technology (and society) wasn't really there yet. So, for a lot of people, it was simply more efficient to be pushed or carried by someone else, or pulled by an animal in a kind of carriage or chariot. The manumotive carriage worked for Farfler, but it's design didn't really catch on as a personal "wheelchair" and if I had to guess why, it would probably be because it was quite big and bulky in order to get him over unpaved roads and grass, but this doesn't make it especially practical for getting around tight, enclosed spaces. So for most people, the older methods were simply a better fit. It is, however, thought to have influenced the design of the tricycle and bicycle, which is a great example of how innovations for disabled people often do help non-disabled folks too! (which I'll talk more about in a moment!)
[ID: a black and white drawing of a man sitting in a small car-like device with three wheels, one at the front and two at the back. Above the front wheel is a large box with two hand-cranks, one on either side, that the man is turning /End ID]
In many European cultures, morality was also often tied to disability and specifically attributed it to either being a punishment by gods, or the work of the devil in more Christian regions. "If you were disabled, you or your parents did something to deserve it" is an attitude that has unfortunately, always existed. So when you tie the existence of a vulnerable population to the displeasure of gods or the work of the devil, you get people not wanting anything to do with them at best, resulting in them being shunned from society and their existence becoming a taboo subject. Even into modern times, stigma like this persists, but when a whole culture believes it, it's going to result in a lot of disabled people getting left behind or actively shunned, like what happened in the US with Ugly Laws, or people outright killing them. In this case, disability was not necessarily associated with divine punishment on a cultural level, but rather it was associated with beggars and the poor. The ugly laws aimed to make any displays of such things illegal in public, and unfortunately in many cases, that included the bodies of disabled people themselves. The stigma pushed disabled people out of the public eye, and as a result, the development of anything that would make their quality of life better was not exactly a high priority.
finally, sign languages have been used by d/Deaf people for thousands of years, but in 1880, their use was internationally banned in schools for the Deaf thanks to The Milan Conference in favour of oralist teaching methods, so things like lip-reading and verbal speech, which isn't practical for many people. This had wide-spread impacts on the d/Deaf community. Deaf teachers who primarily used signing to communicate were fired on mass, causing unemployment of d/Deaf people to rise and students caught signing had their hands beaten and caned. As you would expect when you deprive people of language and a way to communicate, the quality of their education globally declined, which further isolated them from the wider community. So in this case, an accommodation was available and widely-used, but it's use was banned in favour of making the population who needed it conform to be more "normal".
So like I said before, you certainly CAN just stop at "This disability just isn't common" but it's so much more interesting to dig deeper than that and actually think about why. The only thing is, if you're going to use any of these kinds of reasonings for why no other examples exist, make sure you actually make it clear why within your story, not just in your world-building document.
6. Consider the Curb Cut Effect
Nothing ever happens in a vacuum in real-life, developments in one kind of technology will often have run-on effects and impact other aspects of life, and this includes disability accommodations and assistive technology. When something created for disabled people helps others, we call it the curb cut effect. Curb cuts, the little ramps you see cut out of some footpaths and sidewalks that lead onto the road, were originally a disability accommodation for wheelchair users so they could cross the street and get onto side-walks easier, but it also helped so many other people, such as mothers with prams, cyclists (if you live somewhere where cyclists are allowed on the footpath), shoppers pushing trollies (carts) and so many others. But curb cuts are not the only example of this. Captions were created for d/Deaf people, and are widely used by non-disabled people, especially if there is a TV in a public place such as gyms and bars. As I mentioned before, Stephen Farfler's manumotive carriage, a mobility aid he made for himself, was the predecessor and inspiration for bicycles and tricycles. A lot of search engines like google use alt-text to help you find image search results, but alt-text's primary job is to describe images and videos to people with screen-readers. Even the screen-reader itself, which works by reading on-screen text and alt-text aloud to a user who is blind, was the origin of modern text-to-speech tools, including the ones you see used on apps like Tik Tok. In my high school, we also had a program called "pathways" where you could opt to spread your classes over two years, so you would only have a few classes every day. It was designed to help disabled students who had to travel for medical treatment, so they wouldn't have as much to catch up on when they came back, but it was also very popular with athlete students who had to travel for sporting commitments, students who worked while studying, or students who's home lives weren't great, and so studying after school wasn't really an option. Even those really corny TV ads you see, selling oddly specific tools to help around the house? most of those were accessibility tools first that found a market in the wider public! All of these are just a few examples of disability accommodations and assistive tech helping other people!
So think about how the assistive technology in your setting has helped to change the world your characters inhabit, beyond just the direct disability applications.
Conclusion
Now, none of these are rules, it's your setting, you can do what you want with it, but they are just some examples of things to think about to get the cogs turning!
History of Wheelchairs - Science Museum
History of Sign Language - Auslan: Now & Then
The Milan Conference of 1880: When Sign Language Was Almost Destroyed, An Unpleasant Setback in Deaf Education - Verywell Health
The History of Disability Book 3: The Ugly Laws, Disability in Public by Susan M. Schweik
— PERSONAGENS PCD: DEFICIÊNCIAS PARA SE CONSIDERAR.
Deficiências que você deveria considerar representar com mais frequência na sua escrita… parte 1, por @cripplecharacters.
Seguindo a nossa série de traduções de guias para escrever personagens PcDs, hoje eu trago mais um guia do cripplecharacters sobre deficiências que deveriam ser consideradas e não são tão representadas na escrita. Não se esqueçam também de dar um like/reblog no guia original, linkado acima.
Devo avisar que esse guia tem muitos links extras, e todos eles vão direcionar para posts em inglês.
Deficiências que Você Deveria Considerar Representar com Mais Frequência na Sua Escrita… parte 1
Embora todas as deficiências não tenham representação suficiente em praticamente todos os tipos de mídia, é difícil não notar uma tendência sobre quais deficiências compõem a maior parte dessa representação. Isso fica especialmente visível quando se tem um blog como este, onde podemos observar quais deficiências escritores sequer consideram incluir em suas histórias, e quais nunca são mencionadas.
Uma em cada quatro pessoas tem deficiência. Com oito bilhões de pessoas vivas, isso significa que há muitas pessoas com deficiência e muitos motivos diferentes pelos quais elas se tornam deficientes — mas essa diversidade raramente é representada, até mesmo neste blog, e quem acompanha há algum tempo provavelmente já percebeu isso.
Sendo direto: existem deficiências além de “amputado” e “usuário de auxílio de mobilidade com deficiência invisível”. Isso significa que é errado escrever sobre essas duas? Não, e não queremos dar a entender isso. Significa que essas duas têm bastante representação de qualidade? Definitivamente não, metade de todos os personagens amputados por aí são escritos por pessoas que nem parecem estar cientes de que estão escrevendo um personagem com deficiência. Significa que, ao decidir o que dar ao seu personagem, você deveria pensar além (ou também! pessoas podem ser, e com frequência são, multiplamente deficientes!) dessas duas? Com certeza. A deficiência é um espectro com milhares de possibilidades.
Esta é, simplesmente, uma lista de deficiências comuns. São apenas algumas delas, já que esta é a parte um de presumivelmente muitas (ou pelo menos três, até agora).
Por “comum”, decidimos arbitrariamente por “~1% ou mais” — ou seja, pelo menos 1 em cada 100 pessoas tem alguma das deficiências listadas abaixo, o que é bastante. Apresentamos: links que você deveria clicar, fontes dos dados que, em sua maioria, são relatórios médicos e difíceis de ler, e explicações rápidas e nada exaustivas para te dar uma noção básica sobre cada uma.
Deficiência intelectual (cerca de 1,5%)
A deficiência intelectual é uma condição sobre a qual já escrevemos bastante antes. É uma deficiência do desenvolvimento que afeta aspectos como raciocínio, linguagem, resolução de problemas e habilidades sociais e de autocuidado. Pode existir sozinha ou fazer parte de outras condições, como Síndrome de Down, deficiência congênita de iodo ou transtornos do espectro alcoólico fetal. Este post aborda muitas informações básicas que podem te ajudar.
Temos uma tag específica para deficiência intelectual que você pode explorar!
Sobreviventes de câncer (5,4% nos EUA, cerca de 0,55% no mundo)
“Sobrevivente de câncer” é um termo bastante autoexplicativo. Existem muitos tipos de câncer e alguns são muito comuns enquanto outros são muito raros, o que torna essa uma categoria bastante diversa. Cada tipo tem taxas de sobrevivência diferentes.
Nem todo sobrevivente terá sintomas incapacitantes, mas eles definitivamente existem. A maioria dos efeitos colaterais de longo prazo estão relacionados à quimioterapia, radiação e outros medicamentos, especialmente em casos ocorridos na infância. Eles podem incluir danos a órgãos, osteoporose, problemas cognitivos, deficiências sensoriais, infertilidade e maior risco de outros cânceres.
Outros efeitos incluem a remoção de áreas afetadas, como olho, baço, seios ou glândula tireoide, com consequências específicas para cada caso.
O câncer e seus tratamentos também podem resultar em TEPT.
Diabete (cerca de 8,5%, ~95% dos casos são tipo 2)
A diabete é um grupo de condições endócrinas que causam hiperglicemia (níveis altos de açúcar no sangue), por diferentes motivos, dependendo do tipo. A maioria das pessoas tem diabete tipo 2, que pode causar fadiga, cicatrização lenta, sede e fome excessivas. Pessoas com diabete usam insulina quando necessário para controlar os níveis de glicose.
Existem muitas complicações relacionadas a diabete, como neuropatia, retinopatia e doença renal crônica, além de muitas deficiências que coexistem com a diabete!
Você pode querer conferir a tag #how to write type 1 diabetes feita por @type1diabetesinfandom!
Perda de visão incapacitante (cerca de 7,5%)
A cegueira e a baixa visão formam um espectro, que vai da cegueira total (cerca de 10% das pessoas legalmente cegas) até a deficiência visual leve.
Pode ser causada por diversos fatores, mas os mais comuns são catarata, erros de refração e glaucoma. Enquanto a catarata causa pupilas opacas (não o olho inteiro!), olhos cegos geralmente parecem normais, com estrabismo ou nistagmo sendo exceções frequentes (mas não sempre).
Traumas não são uma causa comum de cegueira, e acidentes são super-representados na ficção.
Pessoas cegas podem usar bengalas brancas, cães ou cavalos-guia, ou ambos. Soluções assistivas como Braille, leitores de tela ou lupas são essenciais.
Temos uma tag para cegueira e recomendamos os perfis @blindbeta e @mimzy-writing-online!
Psoríase (cerca de 2–4%)
A psoríase é uma condição crônica de pele com múltiplos subtipos. Pode causar coceira intensa, dor, desconforto geral e costuma carregar um forte estigma social. É uma doença autoimune e não contagiosa que afeta as células da pele, formando placas espessas e escamosas.
Frequentemente (30%) leva a uma condição correlata, artrite psoriásica, que causa dor nas articulações, sensibilidade e fadiga, entre outros sintomas.
Sobreviventes de AVC (0,5–1%)
Um sobrevivente de AVC é alguém que sobreviveu a qualquer tipo de acidente vascular cerebral (isquêmico, hemorrágico etc.). Os sintomas variam conforme a região afetada, mas paralisia de um lado do corpo, fala arrastada, problemas de visão e alterações cognitivas são comuns em muitos casos. Quando alguém tem um AVC quando bebê, ou antes de nascer, isso pode resultar em paralisia cerebral, epilepsia e outras deficiências.
Temos uma tag sobre lesão cerebral que você pode consultar!
Síndrome de Noonan (cerca de 0,1–1% — leve: 1%, grave: 0,1%)
A Síndrome de Noonan é uma deficiência quase nunca mencionada, especialmente na escrita de personagens com deficiência. É uma condição congênita que pode causar cardiomiopatia, dor crônica nas articulações, hipermobilidade, baixa estatura, traços faciais distintos como ptose, autismo e problemas linfáticos diversos. Algumas pessoas podem usar dispositivos de mobilidade devido à dor nas articulações.
Hipertireoidismo (cerca de 1,2%)
É uma condição do sistema endócrino causada pela produção excessiva de hormônios, afetando o metabolismo. Pode resultar em irritabilidade, perda de peso, intolerância ao calor, tremores, mudanças de humor e insônia.
Se não tratado corretamente, pode desencadear uma complicação rara e extremamente perigosa chamada tempestade tireoidiana, potencialmente fatal se não tratada.
Hipotireoidismo (>5%)
Assim como o hipertireoidismo, é uma condição endócrina, mas com sintomas opostos. Devido à baixa produção de hormônios da tireoide, causa fadiga, depressão, queda de cabelo, ganho de peso e sensibilidade ao frio.
É frequentemente comórbido com outras doenças autoimunes, como vitiligo, gastrite autoimune crônica e artrite reumatoide.
Casos extremos podem ser potencialmente fatais por conta de uma condição chamada coma mixedematoso (ou "crise"), que também é rara.
Surdocegueira (cerca de 0,2–2%)
Ser surdocego é frequentemente considerado algo extremamente raro, mas isso não é verdade. Surdocegueira não é um diagnóstico específico — pode ter várias causas, sendo a Síndrome de CHARGE (congênita), Síndrome de Usher (nascem surdos e ficam cegos depois), rubéola congênita e perda sensorial relacionada à idade algumas das causas mais comuns. Surdocegueira também é um espectro, a maioria das pessoas surdocegas não é totalmente surda e cega, e usa diferentes formas de comunicação. Algumas dessas formas podem ser língua de sinais (tátil ou não), protátil, o manual surdocego, fala oral (com ou sem aparelho auditivo), alfabeto Lorm, entre outras. Saiba mais sobre tecnologias assistivas aqui!
Apesar do que muitos meios retratam, ser surdocego não é uma sentença de morte, e a comunidade e cultura surdocegas estão vivas e em crescimento – especialmente com o movimento protátil.
Temos uma tag específica sobre surdocegueira!
Provavelmente vale mencionar que recebemos pouquíssimas perguntas sobre quase todas as deficiências acima, e certamente não é por conta das respostas dos moderadores. Nosso melhor palpite é que escritores simplesmente não percebem quantas opções existem e acabam repetindo as mesmas coisas.
Representar apenas as deficiências “legais” que "não são demais e, ao mesmo tempo, tem um visual/aura/drama associado" não é o que você deveria buscar. Pessoas com deficiência simplesmente existem, e todos nós merecemos sermos representados, incluindo aqueles cuja deficiência não é seu típico "design legal" ou "character inspo", e literalmente todos nós merecemos ter representações boas e bem informadas. Às vezes nós somos apenas pessoas normais, com deficiências que são "chatas" ou "demais", e não servimos para pontos de plots úteis.
mod Sasza
(com agradecimento especial aos mods Sparrow, Rot e Virus pelas contribuições nas pesquisas)
Vou deixar aqui pra vocês alguns links úteis em português que encontrei sobre as condições citadas nesse texto:
When Shepard went for a check up on her sugar levels things got from good to bad when she got a very bad low. She thought she could wait this one out until her doctor’s appointment was over with. It's the worst mistake of her life. Afterall her diabetes doesn’t care at what time it will best suit her to screw with her life. Being admitted to the ICU is not how she saw this doctor visit going.
Chapter 3: Caring
The nurse worked on her IV, exchanging the old bag for a brand new one.
“This will help,” She told Shepard.
But she wasn’t 100% sure if she believed her. This nurse - like the others - was all nice. “Thanks. May I ask your name?”
The human smiled in response. “Of course. I’m Allison.”
“Why did my sugar fall again?”
It was a question Shepard knew deep in her heart Nurse Allison won’t be able to answer but she needed to ask nonetheless.
“This is why we need to keep monitoring you.” Allison responded. “Get some rest.”
Shepard’s eyes felt heavy. A little too heavy for her sake. So she couldn’t help but to agree.
i (type 1 diabetic) was explaining autoimmune diseases to someone and she was like ohh right so yours is the good kind of diabetes where you didn't do it to yourself. to which i objected that's not how type 2 works either. and she said well that's the fat old people disease. and i was like you can't say that, a) not how it works and b) extremely rude. and her defense was her grandparents have type 2 and "did it to themselves" and since they're fat old people she reserves the right to hate on them. i understand hating shitty grandparents but YOU are the shitty one here to hate on them for their medical conditions and weight rather than literally anything else. hello?!
anyway type 2 diabetics i'm sorry about the world. everyone* be kind to type 2s or else
*note to type 1 diabetics especially we need to be better at solidarity and not cling to being the "good ones" at type 2s' expense. what the fuck is a good kind of diabetes anyway
also worth saying diabetes is a complex reaction to a not-yet-fully-understood set of factors and environmental pressures and genetics and it's reductive and fatphobic to say fat=diabetes BUT EVEN SO no matter if someone did incontrovertibly "give themself diabetes" that's not a free pass for dehumanization. shut upppp
hello physically disabled person reading this. it is not your fault that your medical supplies are made from a lot of single use plastic and you can continue using them guilt free. your health comes first. thank you for existing.
if your insulin pump has lithium batteries and the tubing is plastic,
if your ostomy bags, incontinence supplies, and sanitary wipes are single-use,
if your joint replacement, bone plate, pins & screws, or spinal hardware is cobalt & chrome,
if your meds come in a plastic container you can’t recycle or reuse for sterility,
you are still innocent. you didn’t choose this particular life. we all must do what we can to survive and that includes using technology and consuming resources. it is only human and we all do it.
some people out there own several yachts and don’t ever consider the impact it has on the world. there’s nothing to be gained by beating yourself up for doing the bare minimum for a comfortable, livable, safe & long life.
If you had options, you would use them. Medical supplies aren't a threat to the environment anyway. Most waste is corporate waste and if society wanted to make your shit reusable and recyclable (when appropriate) they would. You can't save everyone else before you save yourself. Use the stuff. Make a better world another way.
T1D in Fandom @type1diabetesinfandom - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
