Dude, who even knows.

22nd January 2021

Post reblogged from Madam Hyperthatcher, You Lack Ambition with 38 notes

iteratedextras:

candleprism:

Existing complaint: SFF often has physically disabled people get cured or killed by the end of the story, which can convey the idea that being disabled is inherently a state of unsatisfactory tension which needs to be resolved.

I don’t know if I have the things in my head to know how to think about this complaint. Comparing to nearsightedness, which is inconvenient but not normally treated that way, is one tool I have for it. Also after writing out the above there’s also something like standard representation issues, although I have a hard time understanding those too.

I’m pretty confident the complaint has merit, but I’m not really sure why, and arguments that assume* that all the inconvenience of not being able to walk comes from society are hard to believe.

I’d appreciate help figuring out what to think about this, and to what extent if any and in what ways it’s not good to have removal-of-disability as a plot point.

Concept: Willingly remaining in wheelchair and rejecting cyberlegs perceived as Amish-like.

I remember some SFF things – maybe the McCaffrey Ship who Sang stuff? that were like “what if you could be integrated with machines in an ultimate way, but you had to give up your bodily senses and mobility in exchange?” and the initial adopters were disproportionately disabled

Which was an interesting point re: “if yuo coludnt’ see the skey r touch anutther person… wolud u still be huuman?” like, there exist people like that already and as far as they’re concerned they are

  1. iamthelowercase reblogged this from intimate-mirror
  2. alexanderrm reblogged this from moral-autism
  3. moral-autism reblogged this from alexanderrm and added:
    I think it’s possible to treat disabilities as a thing people might prefer not to have while also not treating them as a...
  4. telebisou reblogged this from kontextmaschine and added:
    ableism is at the heart of many genre conventions, and it’s difficult to convey, even if you’re ready with the words,...
  5. kontextmaschine reblogged this from iteratedextras and added:
    I remember some SFF things – maybe the McCaffrey Ship who Sang stuff? that were like “what if you could be integrated...
  6. iteratedextras reblogged this from intimate-mirror and added:
    Concept: Willingly remaining in wheelchair and rejecting cyberlegs perceived as Amish-like.
  7. intimate-mirror said: @degenerate-perturbation thank you for all your reasonable thoughts! I definitely agree about the interestingness.
  8. degenerate-perturbation said: Also as a writer imo its just kind of disappointing and lazy when a character is cured of a disability because most of the time its just a More Interesting narrative when they have to live with it, or become disabled over the course of a story–entirely aside from questions of Representation. Not to mention truer to life in most cases, and a more novel simulated experience for most readers.
  9. degenerate-perturbation said: So in the strictly utilitarian sense, it’s good for all these types of sff disability stories to exist, because different people need and want different things and thats fine. The bad thing is when there are Only cure narratives floating around and no option to just read about disabled characters on their own terms (and ofc fantastical in-universe disabilities count too )
  10. degenerate-perturbation said: Ofc, many disabled people Do like cure narratives, because the fantasy of just being magically cured can be a source of escapism!
  11. degenerate-perturbation said: If I’m a real life disabled person and I want to read sff and see people like myself in those stories, it doesn’t help me for all people like myself be rendered nonexistent in stories
  12. intimate-mirror posted this