#how to write disability

[inkskinned]

i hate to say it because i'm neurodivergent and a chronic-pain-haver but like... sometimes stuff is going to be hard and that's okay.

it's okay if you don't understand something the first few times it's explained to you. it's okay if you have to google every word in a sentence. it's okay if you need to spend a few hours learning the context behind a complicated situation. it's okay if you need to read something, think about it, and then come back to re-read it.

i get it. giving up is easier, and we are all broken down and also broke as hell. nobody has the time, nobody has the fucking energy. that is how they win, though. that is why you feel this way. it is so much easier, and that is why you must resist the impetus to shut down. fight through the desire you've been taught to "tl;dr".

embrace when a book is confusing for you. accept not all media will be transparent and glittery and in the genre you love. question why you need everything to be lily-white and soft. i get it. i also sometimes choose the escapism, the fantasy-romance. there's no shame in that. but every day i still try to make myself think about something, to actually process and challenge myself. it is hard, often, because of my neurodivergence. but i fight that urge, because i think it's fucking important.

especially right now. the more they convince you not to think, the easier it will be to feed you misinformation. the more we accept a message without criticism, the more power they will have over that message. the more you choose convenience, the more they will make propaganda convenient to you.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Pike telling the audience "I'm Christian by the way" was absolutely unnecessary after he said "They're not hard to understand - They're monsters through and through and we've got to kill as many of them as we can" to Starfleet about an alien species he barely knows anything about. The final frontier indeed. I know the Gorn are The Monster Aliens because I'm watching a television show, but in a universe where aliens are common and usually people-like it's a bit historically sickening to see our Main White Christian Good Guy say with his whole chest "These aliens are not people, they're Things we have to kill and if we don't kill them they'll kill us and destroy our utopian society and impregnate our women. We can't talk to them, there's no alternative solution, we HAVE to kill them all." and have that presented as righteous and correct. Because I'm watching a television show, I know that Pike is correct when he says that in the canon of SNW the Gorn are monsters who can't be reasoned with and aren't people - because they were written by someone to be that way. However, if I'm a higher up in-universe listening to Pike say this I think I'd actually be kinda horrified by this guy and not trust him at all as the captain of a ship whose mission is apparently to seek out strange new worlds. He reads in-universe as evil. It is an evil thing to do. On any other trek show the guy who, in 'aliens and science rules!' world where everyone you know is some manner of alien, says "We should just kill these guys, they're monsters so it literally doesn't even matter" would be treated as being in the wrong - either ignorant/fearful, having a hidden agenda, or being plain evil. Because in this world aliens are people? Some are enemies of the Federation, some are 'The Bad Guys' but they're mostly all portrayed as being people who it would be bad for the Good Guys to want to kill indiscriminately. "The Federation teaches that if we can find a way to empathize with an enemy then they can one day become our friends. They're wrong." ^ This is how the Gorn are introduced to the audience by La'An in season 1 and it's a sentiment Pike mirrors in season 3. It's never proven wrong. SNW tells us that this is a correct attitude to take. The Gorn are said to be "the boogeyman" in season 1 - they're mostly the thing of rumors. We see they're capable of complex thinking. They're intelligent enough to hide their presence, set up traps, develop coded language so others can't understand them, build and fly ships, but they're ALSO just monsters who can't be reasoned with and only want to kill. Interesting how a species of monstruous killing machines have ships. Having advanced ships implies to me...idk...that they built them? That they have some knowledge of science, engineering, astrometrics, etc.? I know, because I'm watching a tv show, that the Gorn are intelligent because it's scarier for them to be and they have ships because they have to be an ongoing threat. But again, if I'm a person in-universe it would read as suspicious to me, worthy of question, if I'm being told this is the one species we're all just gonna be okay with killing remorselessly. It would seem contradictory to me that this species is both extremely intelligent and completely unreasonable. That they're both pure monster and capable of enormous scientific achievement. "Earlier today, we were reminded of the cost of exploration. What it means to chart the stars, to push the boundaries of what is known and what is possible. When we seek out the unknown, we will find things that challenge us. That frighten us. But we do not back down. We do not give in to fear. And I believe today will not be our last mission, but our finest hour." This is also from season 1, it's Pike, and he's talking about escaping from the Gorn not killing them but wow does this ring hollow as hell when his heel turn towards absolutely just killing them is treated as equally heroic if not more so. I half expect him to start talking about manifest destiny next season.

I've seen enough! No more pansy little attempts at understanding, says the Star Trek Captain. Now? It's time to kill. For our women, our children, our society, it's time to kill.

[cripplecharacters]

Navigation: Helpful Posts - specific disabilities

[large text: Navigation: Helpful Posts - specific disabilities]

This is the long-awaited sequel to the first post that unfortunately hit the link limit. This part will focus on posts for specific disabilities, while the general topics will stay in the original post. If you can't find any posts on the disability you're looking for, please check out the "Other" section in the first post.

This list will of course continue to be updated.

Last update: 12/01/2025

Amputation/Limb Difference

[large text: Amputation/Limb Difference]

- Constructing Characters with Limb Differences: Discussing Fetishization - Do Amputees Always Wear Prosthetics? - Does a Character with Amputation Need a Prosthetic? - Does a Character with Upper Limb Amputation Need a Prosthetic? - Designing a Prosthetic Arm - Making a Character with Upper Limb Amputation - Genius Amputee Mechanic: Discussing the DIY Prosthetic Trope - Causes of Amputation - Limb Differences as a Spectrum - The "Perfect Prosthetic" - Can you walk on Stumps? (Sometimes)

Blind Characters

[large text: Blind Characters]

- Making a Blind Character: what to add, what to avoid - Designing a Blind Character: Discussing the Eye Covering Trope - What to Give Your Blind Character - Blindness Tropes: Daredevil, milky eyes, and blindness-negating magic - The Blind Prophet Trope - Guide Animals: Dogs, Horses, and Their Fictional Equivalents - Blind Characters with Superpowers - Echolocation and Sound Powers - Yeah Another One about Superpowers - Portraying Photophobia in Pre-modern Times (not blindness specific) - Options for Managing Photophobia + Explanation of it being a Spectrum (also not blindness specific) - Characters with Albinism - Fetishization of Albinism - Going Blind from an Accident - Writing Characters with One Eye - More on Monocular Vision - Writing a Blind Kitty (+possible accommodations) - Different types of White Canes

Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HoH) Characters

[large text: Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HoH) Characters]

- Creating Deaf/HoH Characters - Writing D/deaf/HoH Characters - Another Guide on Writing D/deaf Characters - Tips on Writing Deaf Characters - Visual Indicators of a Person being Deaf - Tips on Writing about Hearing Aids - Deaf Character Unable to Sign - Sign Language with Limb Difference - Writing Out Sign Language (+book recommendations) - Cultural Deafness Primer

DeafBlind Characters

[large text: DeafBlind Characters]

- How DeafBlind People Learn Language - DeafBlind Character not Wanting to be Blind - On Access and Protactile [not writing advice, just a piece of great writing; greatly recommended if you know nothing about DeafBlindness]

Facial Difference (FD)

[large text: Facial Difference (FD)]

- Introduction to Facial Difference: basics, tropes, what I want to see - Constructing a Character with an FD: Discussing Disfiguremisia and the "Mask Trope" - Does My Character Need a Prosthetic Eye?: alternatives - What Would Happen to A Character with a Scar Through the Eye? - What Would Happen to a Character with a Burn on the Eye? - How Scars Affect the Character, and How the Character Affects the Scar (in the technical sense) - Should your Character with Scars Hate their Scars? - Including Characters with Treacher Collins Syndrome in a pre-Surgical Setting - Basic Information on Vitiligo - Harmful Vitiligo Tropes/Stereotypes - Animalistic Characters with Vitiligo - Animalistic Characters with Facial Differences in general - Stigmatization of Strabismus in Visual Media - How to be Normal about the Real Life Equivalents of your OC with a Scar Over His Eye - Tips for portraying a Character with Strabismus - When is Putting your Facially Different Character in a Mask OK?

Intellectual Disability

[large text: Intellectual Disability]

- Introduction to Writing Intellectually Disabled Characters: basics, tropes, how it actually works - Down Syndrome and Historical Fiction - Combat and Disability: intellectually disabled characters - Basic Tips for Writing Characters with Down Syndrome - Intellectually Disabled Characters in Horror - Writing Guide for Profoundly Intellectually Disabled Characters

[can-of-pringles]

Recently I watched this tiktok about writing disabled characters and one of the tips was that your character's disability needs to have a plot point/purpose in the story.

As someone who's disabled, let me explain why I don't agree.

Now obviously if you want to add that plot aspect go ahead (within reason and respectfully) but I don't think it should be required.

Because it's not accurate. In real life, there's not a plot point/purpose of me being disabled. It's simply just how I exist. My disabilities don't serve a purpose. It's just how I am.

And I think that implying that disabilities need to serve a purpose goes down that slippery slope of "your disability is only acceptable if it benefits something somehow" or "this disabled person is only valid because their disability can help others in some way, be exploited maybe"

You wouldn't say this about any other trait. Or at least perhaps you shouldn't. People who have certain traits or other aspects of them are literally just existing, not to serve a plot point.

[aroaceleovaldez]

not to complain about the show again but genuinely I think people should be WAY more pissed off that s2 cast an abled actor as a character with Down syndrome - particularly a character whose entire arc and narrative presence is focused on the fact that he has Down syndrome and how Percy has internalized ableism and how Percy unravels that (and also chewing out Annabeth for her ableism).

Like. Tyson has down syndrome. This is a very core part of his character, because like I've said before: the entirety of the first series is centered around and hinges on disabled stories and themes. If you are having an abled actor cast as Tyson you have already failed step one. Cause either you are actively erasing Tyson having Down syndrome or you are having an abled actor try to portray Down syndrome and neither of those things are okay.

[taro-pdf]

Humans are Space Orcs: Disability in Aliens and Humans

All language is Universal Interplanetary Language unless otherwise specified. Written like a play.

[Kell, human, in the staff break room of a planet-sized spacecraft where they work as a technician. An alien walks in and jumps. Kell doesn't notice.]

Alien, under their breath: what the fuck since when did we have a human on board?? I thought we employed fynta as security…

[Kell turns around and sees them. They wave. The alien stares. Kell puts down their cup and types something on their watch.]

Kell (text to speech, aka TTS): hey, what's up? can I help you?

Alien, under breath: jfdklas;jdjdfls what am I supposed to say to a human???

Kell (TTS): Kell, human, they/them, I've been on board three orbits and I haven't hurt anyone yet. I you can relax.

Alien: Um, Neka, sateen, he/him. And you relax can as well. Human voices aren't harmful to my species.

Kell (TTS): kind of you to offer, but I don't speak, and I can't hear either. My glasses are transcribing your words for me.

Neka aka alien: Oh neat!

[Kell looks at him in suprise.]

Neka: I mean, a lot of my species is deaf. Our world's pretty loud, and hearing is a recessive gene. My parents sent me up for adoption when they realized I wouldn't be able to do anything on-planet because the noise literally hurts, but at least they did't operate to "fix" me.

Kell (TTS): My parents tried to "fix" my hearing but it didn't work out. I can speak with my hands though. [signs in ASL, then types] like that. It's one of the human sign languages.

Neka: WHAT I speak a sign too! [signs in Sateen] You probably don't know that one, but I can do a bit of Universal Traders' Sign as well. it cool I have something in common with one of the scariest species in galaxy!

Kell (traders' sign): Nice to meet you. I promise not all humans are the fighting machines we are said to be.

Neka (traders'): It's been to long since I spoke anything close to my first language. um... you're the first human i've see off a security team and not holding weapons... can you tell me about like everything about humans? I've heard so much.

Kell (traders'): Of course! A lot of it is exaggerated, but there's always some humans who live up to the stories. Let me tell you about them.

[bunnieswithknives]

Why does your sam design have a cleft lip if i may ask? It's a very unique feature and it's very fun to draw I'm just curious.

I just thought it would be fitting for a game that's basically about not judging people for how they look.

Also because I thought it would be really fun to give Sam a recognizable feature that could stick around even after they transformed. For that of all things to ultimately be their visual connection back to their humanity. Not that I've actually got around to finalizing a Failed Ritual design like I first imagined it for, but I put a little nod to it in my animatic! I thought it was cute to imply that the Visitor noticed and found it pleasant enough to think about

[godlesshasideas]

Write more characters with physical disabilities. Write more characters with mental disabilities. Write characters with neurodivergence (more than one specific type too). Write characters with mobility aids. Write characters who have good and bad health days. Write characters who are chronically in pain, but don't express it every second. Write characters who were born with a disability. Write characters who developed one. Write characters who have adapted to the world around them because the world won't adapt for them. Write about their strengths and weaknesses due to their disability. Write about accessibility. Write about inaccessibility. Make it realistic.

Don't make the disability magically disappear or be cured (or at least be mindful of how you write that). Don't make it their entire personality but also don't skip over it. Don't use stereotypes (and that's not just with disabilities). Don't make the character actively hate their disability; they're allowed to be upset but most people with disabilities have learned to accept it as part of their life and accept it as part of their identity.

[alienaiver]

kuroo fluff, disabled reader, 461 words

//

"you never let me peel your oranges."

"huh?" you look up at kuroo, whos standing by the counter, underlip jutted out in a pout. your hand stop the work on the orange in front of you.

"why dont you let me do it?"

"huh?" you repeat, and then he sighs dramatically, pushing his hip off of the counter to walk up behind you and massage your shoulders. you hum in appreciation.

"am i bad at peeling them?" he asks, silently like hes afraid of the answer. you giggle as you tilt your head to make more room for the hands working your sore muscles.

"well, i am a bit particular about how much of the whites i want off."

kuroo hums before his hands slows to a stop and he rests his head on top of yours. you smile, knowing the same pout is still on his lips. "is there a specific reason you want to?"

"i dont particularly want to."

you snort, "why, then, is my prince complaining about the work i keep from him?"

kuroo sighs before he noses your hair, inhaling your scent.

"i read that its a love language. if i do it, it shows how much i love you. and your hands work like shit, so i should, shouldnt i?"

you breathe out through your nose, half a laugh and half a sigh. its amusing to have such an intelligent boyfriend with zero context awareness in some situations.

you start to seperate the pieces and sort them onto your napkin. the ones with seeds goes to the right, the seedless to the left. he lifts his head again to reach for your hands, intertwining your fingers.

"when i leave clothes on the floor, you pick them up for me simply because you know bending down is painful. you take out the trash because sparing my hands the making of the knot and carrying them out is nothing to you," you squeeze his hands before you continue, your eyes closed, "the vegetables are yours to cut as i handle the stuff without knives. you really want to peel my oranges, too? when you get my waterbottle and my blanket every night. take off my socks and massage my shoulders?"

kuroo shrugs, nuzzling into the crevice of your neck. you imagine that hes blushing, hiding his embarrassment, "id do anything for you."

you smile, tilting your head so that your mouth reaches his hairline, "you already do."

"but the oranges..." he whimpers, pouting.

you laugh, and plant a kiss where you can reach him, "let me peel you one, yeah?"

his weight sort of collapses on top of your head and shoulders, his hands letting go of yours to wrap around you, hugging you tightly.

"alright."

[crimeronan]

musing on horror fiction and disability.

i've seen a lot of interesting discussion recently on whether or not disability horror is Okay (TM). the most common conclusion (from people who, like, care about ableism) is that disabled protags should Exist, but their disability shouldn't be the source of the horror, and should perhaps even help them survive. and there's been a lot of good horror fiction written around this specific concept!

it's a pretty sensible starting point because, like. disability Actually Exists. you don't want to write a story where the point is to gawk at an actual subsection of your readers n go "wow, GOD, that would suck!! how scary!! so glad it's not me!! okay byeeee"

On The Other Hand, though. when i write horror, i DEFINITELY plot using chronic illness and other disability-related stuff as a key source. so i'm musing on that.

people who already Know my horror work are gonna say "yeah, because you're writing from experience!! so you do it Right!!"

and if we're gonna set Rules (TM) on what narratives are or aren't done "right," then... yeah, i agree. i know what i'm doing and i will not stop doing it anytime soon, regardless of where the Discourse (TM) falls. but i'm trying to figure out what, specifically, makes it Right. you know??

so.

i think some of it is about knowing Why the thing is scary. the Why is what makes horror effective in the first place, anyway! if you know the Why, then you can lean into & manipulate your audience's feelings!

and sometimes the Why is just. shitty.

like, psycho is scary because crazy men in dresses with DID might kill you in the shower. split is scary for similar reasons. i'm trying to remember bad horror about physical disabilities but my mind is protecting me. let's just say, like, the whole subgenre about haunted hospitals with scary disabled patients. the PATIENTS are going to hurt you??? the PATIENTS??!!?!

but the Why re: disability isn't Always othering or cruel or inaccurate, imo.

sometimes being sick Is Scary. not gonna get too deep into it here, but like. it just is. it just fuckin' is. it's scary both internally and externally. the loss of control is scary. the loss of ability itself is scary; the consequences for that loss of ability are also scary. the loss of autonomy is scary. it's scary when doctors don't know what's wrong, and it's scary when they do. it's scary to undergo treatment, and it's scary not to have access to treatment. it's scary not to know what the future holds. it's all fucking scary!!

so like. the "why" in "why is it scary," for me at least, often boils down to "because it is Real."

disability is coming for everyone who's blessed with old age. disability is coming for a wide swath of much younger people, too. it is happening. that's a scary thing for people to reckon with on a personal level, and so it just seems sensible to me for this to crop up in horror.

what is scary about being sick?? take your pick. but for the love of god, ground it in truth.

then the Other thing is: i think you Have to know your audience. and i think you Have to assume a good portion of your audience Will share the disability in question.

i write my horror FOR chronically ill people. i don't really care about anyone else or anybody else's opinions.

and that's part of why stuff like psycho sucks -- the othering. the takeaway is "people like you are frightening and dangerous." another example that's not actually horror, but which Does hurt my feelings, is a little life by hanya yanagihara -- that book is engineered to tell all the disabled rape victims in the audience that the only sensible course for their lives is suicide.

but then, like. the episodes of the magnus archives dealing with hospitals and psychosis and addiction are Fucking Brilliant. because they're taking the Very Real Horror of those Very Real Experiences and telling the audience, "no, you're not crazy. that was fucked up. it was fucked up that it happened and it's fucked up that it still happens and you are right to feel violated. that's the horror here"

and like. that is!! SUCH an enormous comfort!! at least for some of us!!

so. i write about how being sick is fucked up. and i do it for the people who want someone to tell them, yeah, it sucks, it hurts, and it's fucked up.

not everybody wants this! many disabled people want The Exact Opposite of this in their horror stories. which is why the "disabled horror protag beats the slasher villain to death with their prosthetic leg" stuff rocks.

but different people want different things from their fiction.

for example, on a purely personal level, i can't Stand fluffy escapist fiction about no-ableism worlds where the disabled protags are all perfectly cared for n happy. it just makes me unhappy and upset about the world i'm currently living in.

but that specific genre is a lifeline for other people!!

so. anyway.

i don't know if any of this makes sense.

i will conclude by saying that i'm remembering something hank green said about how he only takes cancer advice from fellow cancer patients. his example was that if someone tells them weed helped with their chemo pain, he's like, thank you, that's great to know!! but if someone tells him to do weed for cancer bc they're.... just a stoner.... then he's like, "uh.... i do not care."

in that vein, i always always Always find it really valuable to hear from other people with the same kind of autoimmune diseases and degenerative illnesses i have/write -- those perspectives on horror/representation/visibility are Wonderful. (even when disagreeing with me!)

but if people's feedback amounts to "well, being sick Doesn't suck for me, so you should be more careful about writing sickness that sucks"

.....i'm like. well. i.... don't think this conversation is about you. i don't think i was talking to you.

maybe sometimes what's scary is being told you're hurting your own community by having. the Wrong Feelings.

[moonhibs]

Au where Julian is a child of divorce

[cripplecharacters]

Does Your Scarred Character Have to Hate Themself?

[large text: Does Your Scarred Character Have to Hate Themself?]

(TLDR: No.)

A frequent topic that shows up around facial differences is the self-hatred, self-disgust, self-insert-negative-emotion that we must surely experience. I want to ask* writers without FDs - why? Why do you feel about us in such a way that that's the most common way of depicting us?

*- rhetorical question. I promise I know the answer, but I'm not sure if writers do.

It's frankly worrying to me. Is it really that common to assume that disabled people have this internal, never-ending hatred for themselves? The overwhelming majority of us don't. We hate inaccessibility, when people stare, or some symptoms when they get in the way, or how expensive being disabled is, but I find the concept of us being so completely disturbed by our own disabilities extremely strange. It’s “tragedy porn” intersecting “most basic ableism”.

“But trauma!”

[large text: “But trauma!”]

Trauma of what! People with facial differences don't have some sort of default trauma that we come with like it’s a factory setting. We are a group of people with tens of thousands of stories and experiences.

“Trauma of experiencing ableism/disfiguremisia” - that's better, at least this means something. If you're writing a story about this, please get a sensitivity reader with a facial difference. You can assume how we feel all you want, but in my experience these assumptions are often bizarre and unrealistic. Or just end up writing the same “disability so sad” sob story that everyone has seen a billion times. If you want to write about disfiguremisia, you need to understand the nuance and have more than just the basic level knowledge (which 99% of people don’t have either). If you can’t do that, don’t write about it. Simple as that.

“Trauma of the accident” - thankfully, the accident is an event and a facial difference is a disability. If you want to connect these two like they're one and the same, you're almost surely going to demonize disability. People with traumatic spinal cord injuries, acquired amputees, people with TBI, people with acquired facial differences - we participate in our communities, we have hobbies, we date, we play with our dogs. Disability isn't a death sentence. Media who make it feel like it is certainly don't help people who do suddenly become disabled, don't you think?

Here's a post by @blindbeta about blind characters becoming blind through trauma that’s better made than anything I could hope to write here. I heavily recommend giving it a read.

And, I can't stress this enough - most of us didn't have “the accident”, most of us are born like this. "Traumatic scars" isn't the only facial difference that exists, far from it, it's only one of thousands. It's 99% of our representation and "representation". If you want to make a character with FD - please consider that we aren't a monolith. Just like not all physical disabilities are "wheelchair user with paralysis and somehow no other symptoms", not all facial differences are "traumatic scar with somehow no nerve damage".

The overrepresentation of it is incredibly telling, and sometimes - or very frequently - feels like the writer doesn’t actually even want to deal with us. They want to use our disability as a way to cheap drama, moral metaphors, tragic backstories. Not to represent us as living people who are much more similar to you than you apparently think.

Now, I do have enough awareness to know that that's a big part of the appeal. “Horrific Thing #2456 happens” and boom, instant drama. Of course, it's a reasonable response that they would hide their disability for years, avoid talking about it in any way, and magically change their personality to be mean and reclusive, or at least be constantly soooo sad about how much it sucks to be disabled, right?

Do I really need to say that having your character becoming disabled be the worst thing ever is ableism 101? We have been talking about this for so long at this point. Writing about the process of adapting to a specific disability is better left to people who have actual experience in it.

To give an example that will hopefully resonate more with Tumblr users, I will use the fact that I'm also gay. It's not perfect by any means but probably much more familiar territory.

Imagine, let's say, a character. He's gay. The story he's in is supposedly progressive, certainly not trying to be homophobic. The character has experienced an incident, maybe an act of aggression or a hate crime, that happened because he’s gay, which was traumatic. Happens IRL, sure. So of course the character starts hating being gay. He talks about how gross and disgusting it is, he never lets anyone know that he could be “one of them”, certainly not take a stance against homophobia. You can't mention him without mentioning the accident, they're seemingly fused together. No gay love, joy, even basic happiness, he would actually choose to be straight in a heartbeat if given the option to and complains that he can't. This is shown as a neutral, obvious thing that a gay man would do, no one comments on it. He stays like this the whole time, unless there’s a plot twist in the last 10 pages where the world is now magically perfect ("we fixed discrimination, yay!"). This is the only LGBT character in the story.

Keep in mind that there are people similar to this in real life, living with extreme internalized homophobia.

Reading comprehension quiz time: Is this, in your opinion, realistic and thoughtful representation? How does it feel when written by a cishet writer, versus a gay writer who is recalling his experiences? Do you think that it's reasonable for the majority of media representation to be like this, or very close to it? How would it affect younger gay people who might already be uncomfortable with being queer? Are gay men the target audience, or are they not even considered as a group of people who read books? Is this helping or damaging the general public's idea of how it is to be gay? Why or why not?

The Masterpiece

[large text: The Masterpiece]

From 13 to 19 of May, we are celebrating Face Equality week (what a coincidence!). It’s important to me in general - and I wish it was more important to abled people, but I digress - especially its theme for this year.

“My Face is a Masterpiece”

Great statement, it represents the community well, I do enjoy how bold it is. Very cool stuff, I love the work our advocates are doing.

But why do I bring this up?

Well, to very non-subtly show that we aren’t a self-hating group of people. We are a community, a community saying “our faces are beautiful, look!”, we are saying “treat us equally, and do it now!”. Our activism isn’t about self-disgust. It’s about fighting your-disgust. 

Why can’t writers keep up? Why are you still stuck decades behind?

Is this the only reason I bring it up?

The Call to Celebration

[large text: The Call to Celebration]

FEI, the org behind organizing it, asks a very simple question (emphasis mine):

“Why do we so often see stories about facial difference as a ‘tragedy’, when they should be about triumph?” “Calling all artists, allies, creatives, galleries.  You can rewrite the story to bring about #FaceEquality and celebrate the unique artistry found in every face. Your participation this #FaceEqualityWeek will help to tell the real story, that there is a masterpiece in every face.”

Here. We are calling for you to stop. Directly from the biggest international advocacy alliance group that's out there. If you create, this is for you.

The last argument to not have your character with a facial difference hate themselves? Because we don’t want this. We are tired and frustrated. For me personally, I’m also offended by this kind of assumption. We aren’t tragedies or cheap entertainment for abled people to pity or be horrified by. We are people, and if you can’t internalize that, you have no reason to write about us.

For once, celebrate us. Happy Face Equality Week!

mod Sasza

[everythingwsnormalhere]

there are two corners of the fandom that are weirdly ableist towards mac in two very different ways... sm people either fetishizing their disability to a fucked up degree or being uncomfortable with them expressing sexuality at all (while they dont complain abt other characters, like, man everyone seeing right thru you...), like can yall be normal about one of the few well-written disabled characters in the history of ever pls 😭

[snailfen]

just remembered that every day we inch closer to the evil paper arc and started sweating quite a bit. cartoon gulp sfx

[thousandyearphantombunker]

"we want more mentally ill/disabled characters with ugly symptoms!"

You guys can't handle lapis lazuli tony stark or hank pym! You guys can barely contain your ableism toward the hulk! You guys hate the good doctor for all the wrong reasons! You made fun of his speech patterns and his meltdowns wtf like I'm sorry the only autistic person you've supported have been the perfect non annoying type- but too many of especially as children are like shawn- they talk weird and don't understand what's so offensive about what they said

You guys keep saying Lapis should just be rewritten into a villain! I don't like how the show handled her but like your really gonna make the girl who shows ugly bad symptoms of ptsd into villain? You guys keep trying to make hank into a villain or rewrite his past- god forbid a character have really sevre ugly symptoms that causes them to make decisions that permanently effect the story but have them still be heroes! God forbid Ironman have npd and be a hero! Let's shame MCU Bruce for his mental illness for being unable to do things because of it! God as soon as a character with a mental illness or developmental disorder or low IQ shows actual symptoms and behaviors (ei: acts like how someone with the disorder in question acts- you know the main part of having a fucking disorder) you get pissy and pile on the shame- yeah jen you do control your anger better than bruce- you can also stand better than Charles fucking Xavier! Yeah your smarter than a guy with a low IQ want a cookie?

I'm never gonna be one of those people who tell others to stop writing disabled villains or that writing a character that deals with internalized ableism (disabled people like any group of people can be total prices of shit, and I'm sorry not everyone is content and accepting of their disabilities and some of us take comfort in characters that struggle with being angry because of their problems) but Jesus Christ when a heroic character with ugly symptoms who makes cruel decisions or has 'bratty' or 'immature' moments can we let them stay heroes? Can we let them have a disorder without piling on the shame that we are inferior because we can't do something everyone else can- because that's literally what a disability is! Can they still be heroes?

Do we have to use intellectual/developmental disability as a shorthand for anti intellectualism and being a gross annoying psycho

Do we have to make every heroic character with aspd or npd into a villain or change their disability to autism because it's 'more sympathetic' as if lack of empathy isn't a goddamned symptom of many disabilities like PTSD and autism- You can headcanon tony as having autism- that's cool by me but it's clear some of y'all do it to make him a 'woobie'- which is infantalizing btw but also it's because some of y'all are ableist toward people with npd

I hate that the only acceptable 'ugly symptoms' are things like forgetting to shower or brush your teeth every once in a while or being a bit irritable and not stuff like burning bridges or having explosive outburts

Also it's not a mental illness unless it effects your behavior?

Im not saying that we should just accept and allow mentally ill/intellectually disabled people/characters to get away with bad behaviors unpunished but can they stay heroes? Can they still be respectable?

"we want more characters with ugly symptoms"

Yet

You people get offended by low functioning autistic people existing! You get mad at them for being incontinent or nonverbal/making strange noises or having scary anger issues or IQs low enough that they will never be independent you get mad at them for not showing the 'appropriate' reactions to things they may or may not fully understand- you hate people with sensory issues -

You don't want mentally ill/disabled characters- you want characters with the labels of mental disabilities without any of the ugly strange or off putting behaviors mental/intellectual deficiencies/issues cause- you want a romantic tragedy!

You shame people with Alzheimer's for FORGETTING stuff and LOSING SKILLS 'yeah yeah you are superior to your uncle because you can remember stuff but can you remember it's a fucking disease! you people are cruel

Yes you are technically superior to disabled people because you are capable of things we aren't and you have better character and you can control yourself but guess what? Those people you hate for being incapable of that shit have disabilities it's not our faults! It's the fucking definition of a disability! Like yeah it is a skill issue and we're just 'worse' than nondisabled with us lacking self control and having lower IQs and bad mental processing- yeah it is because we're lacking in some capacity that's like the definition disability you can't say you support disabled people and then turn around and say shit about how your better than these people because you can talk or take care of yourself

Hank Pym and Lapis Lazuli should get called out for acting like assholes and pieces of shit but I am firmly against turning one of few heroic characters who actively struggle with psychosis and delusions into another 'psycho' villain and I'm firmly against saying Lapis is just as bad as Jasper and using symptoms of her PTSD as signs she should be rewritten into a villain- I want them to be held accountable not turned into straight up evil guys or dear god washing out their problematic qualities until they're palatable/relatable to a neurotypical audience to make them good guys when they are already good guys!

Can people who do bad things because of their disabilities still be heroes? Can they be allowed to get better or do they have to accept that having ugly symptoms means being the bad guy? Fucking hell this is why I side eye anyone who acts like mental illness/developmental/cognitive or mental etc disabilities are more destigmatized than physical disabilities (trust me they aren't)

Tldr let characters with ugly symptoms be heroes let your characters with mental disorders act like they have a disorder and let said characters be heroes inspite of it!

[nillisaie]

I'm finally getting around to rewatching Hazbin Hotel after not being able to do so (broke and disabled) and wow, I didn't realize how pissed Alastor really was about having to make that commercial

Those claw marks are definitely just freshly made

Though this does have me wondering a bit. I do need to re-watch this scene but I'm not gonna rn and this isn't planned out at all so I hope you don't mind my ramblings, but what was it exactly that caused him to react like this?

Was it just having to film the commercial or was it because Charlie and Vaggie aren't happy with the commercial?

He should have known they wouldn't like it since he made the commercial terrible on purpose. In terms of it being a proper advertisement for the hotel, not production quality. He said it himself that he decided to have some fun with it since he was throwing a tantrum didn't want to film a commercial. Or was he still hoping for at least some applause for his hard work? He literally said in the commercial without saying it that the rooms there are shit. He got the reaction that he should have expected and yet he is still angry about it

Or this could just be him still being pissy about having to film a commercial though I did assume that maybe he'd chill out a bit since he had a week to film this and get over it, but thinking on it some more, he probably didn't chill out. It probably festered even more with each moment that he had to film this commercial and edit it and just deal with everything that has to do with television. I also figured that he had some fun at least since he did say he decided to have fun with it, and I'm sure he did. I like to imagine that he was awfully proud of that it's shit visual gag and he did piss of Angel as well. Not to mention his little drawing of the hotel. It looked like he had fun with that little art project. But overall, I don't think the little fun he had here and there outweighed the fact that he had to film a television commercial for television

I was going to end my ramblings here but now I'm wondering how that conversation went when they decided to make a commercial. Alastor did say that Charlie and Vaggie insisted on a television commercial. How bad did that conversation go exactly? Since Alastor clearly wanted, and probably expected, to make a commercial for the radio. But how insistent were Charlie and Vaggie? It could be possible that they were unintentionally kind of... what's the word... dismissive? Disparaging? Basically implying that no one listens to radio anymore. I doubt they'd do so maliciously, even if Alastor is Alastor. And also how hard did Alastor try to fight back? How long did it take him to just maliciously comply? I kind of suspect that Alastor was trying to "play nice" and Charlie, in her excitement, accidentally just bulldozed the conversation if that's the correct phrase

But yeah, that's enough of my ramblings about this. I don't know if this is anything substantial, I just wanted to try and figure out my Darling's thought process to understand him better ❤️