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[ivorysorrows]

Whgskl. Okay.

PSA to all you fantasy writers because I have just had a truly frustrating twenty minutes talking to someone about this: it’s okay to put mobility aids in your novel and have them just be ordinary.

Like. Super okay.

I don’t give a shit if it’s high fantasy, low fantasy or somewhere between the lovechild of Tolkein meets My Immortal. It’s okay to use mobility devices in your narrative. It’s okay to use the word “wheelchair”. You don’t have to remake the fucking wheel. It’s already been done for you.

And no, it doesn’t detract from the “realism” of your fictional universe in which you get to set the standard for realism. Please don’t try to use that as a reason for not using these things.

There is no reason to lock the disabled people in your narrative into towers because “that’s the way it was”, least of all in your novel about dragons and mermaids and other made up creatures. There is no historical realism here. You are in charge. You get to decide what that means.

Also:

“Depiction of Chinese philosopher Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680. The artist may have been thinking of methods of transport common in his own day.”

“The earliest records of wheeled furniture are an inscription found on a stone slate in China and a child’s bed depicted in a frieze on a Greek vase, both dating between the 6th and 5th century BCE.[2][3][4][5]The first records of wheeled seats being used for transporting disabled people date to three centuries later in China; the Chinese used early wheelbarrows to move people as well as heavy objects. A distinction between the two functions was not made for another several hundred years, around 525 CE, when images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people begin to occur in Chinese art.[5]”

“In 1655, Stephan Farffler, a 22 year old paraplegic watchmaker, built the world’s first self-propelling chair on a three-wheel chassis using a system of cranks and cogwheels.[6][3] However, the device had an appearance of a hand bike more than a wheelchair since the design included hand cranks mounted at the front wheel.[2]

The invalid carriage or Bath chair brought the technology into more common use from around 1760.[7]

In 1887, wheelchairs (“rolling chairs”) were introduced to Atlantic City so invalid tourists could rent them to enjoy the Boardwalk. Soon, many healthy tourists also rented the decorated “rolling chairs” and servants to push them as a show of decadence and treatment they could never experience at home.[8]

In 1933 Harry C. Jennings, Sr. and his disabled friend Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first lightweight, steel, folding, portable wheelchair.[9] Everest had previously broken his back in a mining accident. Everest and Jennings saw the business potential of the invention and went on to become the first mass-market manufacturers of wheelchairs. Their “X-brace” design is still in common use, albeit with updated materials and other improvements. The X-brace idea came to Harry from the men’s folding “camp chairs / stools”, rotated 90 degrees, that Harry and Herbert used in the outdoors and at the mines.[citation needed]

“But Joy, how do I describe this contraption in a fantasy setting that wont make it seem out of place?”

“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince FancyPants McElferson propelled forwards using his arms to direct the motion of the chair.”

“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince EvenFancierPants McElferson used to get about, pushed along by one of his companions or one of his many attending servants.”

“But it’s a high realm magical fantas—”

“It was a floating chair, the hum of magical energy keeping it off the ground casting a faint glow against the cobblestones as {CHARACTER} guided it round with expert ease, gliding back and forth.”

“But it’s a stempunk nov—”

“Unlike other wheelchairs he’d seen before, this one appeared to be self propelling, powered by the gasket of steam at the back, and directed by the use of a rudder like toggle in the front.”

Give. Disabled. Characters. In. Fantasy. Novels. Mobility. Aids.

If you can spend 60 pages telling me the history of your world in innate detail down to the formation of how magical rocks were formed, you can god damn write three lines in passing about a wheelchair.

Signed, your editor who doesn’t have time for this ableist fantasy realm shit.

[ivorysorrows]

Peter Ferguson (Canadian, 1968) - The Grotto at St. Michel (n.d.)

[ivorysorrows]

last night my partner held a somber little passover seder to show me what it’s about and when they got to the part where they were supposed to open the door for elijah they paused, frowned, and said “oh. huh. there is a clown.” and I looked out. and sure enough. there was a clown.

[ivorysorrows]

LE FIGARO-MODES. .A LA VILLE. AU THÉÂTRE. ARTS DÉCORATIFS. Numéro 1. 1er Janvier 1903.

Étude de bijoux. Aquarelles originales, par R.LALIQUE.

[ivorysorrows]

speechless. the pose. the expression. this should be a painting.

[ivorysorrows]

Satanic Pandemonium (1975) | dir. Gilberto Martínez Solares

[ivorysorrows]

Divine

[ivorysorrows]

can we like…get rid of the so-called leather and rubber “pride flags” ? it’s honestly ridiculous and offensive to the lgbtq community. those aren’t pride flags. 

[ivorysorrows]

[ivorysorrows]

Either people need to learn how to tell the difference between an “I’m sorry” that takes direct responsibility and an “I’m sorry” that signifies sympathy, or I’m gonna start responding to unfortunate information with a solemn nod and a “Sympies,” because I am tired of receiving a “Why? It wasn’t your fault” every time I try to vocalize compassion.

[ivorysorrows]

My Missing Wedding Ring Finger – A bittersweet comic about queer identity as exorcism.

cw: implied violence, comphet.

[ivorysorrows]

summer house.

find me on instagram!

[ivorysorrows]

The birth of Snake Venus

[ivorysorrows]

Tristan Dyer as Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein, The Royal Ballet © 2019 ROH || Frankenstein, Steven McRae as The Creature, Federico Bonelli as Victor Frankenstein, Royal Ballet 2016 || Wei Wang as The Creature and Federico Bonelli as Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein, The Royal Ballet 2019 ROH

Photographs by Andrej Uspenski

[ivorysorrows]

Every time I'm busy all the theaters are playing those made up artsy movies that insecure people talk about to make fun of "film snobs" that just end up sounding really cool and whenever I'm free it's all shit like a Winnie the Pooh Slasher Movie and a Goonies reboot

[ivorysorrows]

I AM BECOME A BLADE | WOMEN WITH DAGGERS

The Love Witch (2016) Courage, Anxiety and Despair: Watching the Battle by James Sant Alexa Demie for Wonderland Vivienne Westwood AW 2020 Olivia Cooke in House of the Dragon (2022 -) Medea by Alphonse Mucha Medea by William Wetmore Story Katie Mcgrath in Merlin s3 promo The Death of Lucretia by Joos van Cleve Judith with the Head of Holophernes by Fede Galizia Rekha in Deedar-E-Yaar (1982) Vanessa Hudgens Gaultier FW 2008 Lucretia by Rembrandt van Rijn   The Field Guide to Evil: Cobbler's Lot (2018)

[ivorysorrows]

Another image set from Suzanne Treister’s brilliant “Fictional Videogame Stills”(1991, 1992) created with Deluxe Paint II on an Amiga computer.