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attackfishWriting my current chapterfic, Children of Mars, is becoming a didactic exercise. The writing itself is as much a pleasure as ever, and has even gained a sense of catharsis, but when it comes time to post, I want to just save it to my computer and never let one more idiot reader anywhere near it. Now I know not all of you dear readers are idiots, and one of the things I like best about writing fanfiction is the social framework and critique of fandom (yeah, I write for the comments, such a bad girl) and I have never felt this way about posting a fic before. Before I have always written about able-bodied characters.
My writing Snape with a disability along with werewolfism is part protest at the way characters with disabilities were portrayed in the books I read as a child and part personal expression of myself as a writer with disabilities. We don’t have the same disability, in the story Snape uses crutches, whereas I’m oxygen dependent and have an immune disease, but we share a certain status as people with disabilities, or (good God) disabled people. It’s wonderful, and freeing, and it makes me feel so much better after bad days.
But once I post, it seems like so many of the reviews I receive are “teachable moments” and that’s not so wonderful.
Some of you have been saying you can’t wrap your heads around Snape as disabled. That isn’t because of anything inherent in either Snape as a character or disability, but in cultural narratives that paint people with disabilities as either weak, or more insidiously as plucky, happy symbols of Good, like the damsel in distress in action movies, not a character so much as an object. Snape will never be a tragic, passive, stoic cripple (a word that I see a lot in reviews and makes me throw up a little in my mouth each time). He will never be helpless. He is and always will be a snarky git. So many of the reviews talk about how horrible all of the other characters are to him. Well, he’s horrible to them. Besides which if anyone, even Lily, especially Lily, were suddenly to treat him like a helpless incompetent child who can’t protect himself or do a thing on his own, he would hex them all into oblivion. When people do that to me, I wish I could.
When I was a kid, books about people with disabilities seemed to end one of two ways. Either the pure, good, tragic cripple died, or the pure, good, tragic cripple was cured. Okay, there were also villains whose disabilities were a symbolic sign of their inner corruption, but I’m not even going to touch that one. Such endings are incredibly disheartening for me, growing up, because I didn’t want to die, and I was never going to be miraculously cured. I had to carve out a happy ending of my own that included my disability. For those of you who keep saying you want Snape’s leg repaired at the end, you are tapping into that same disenfranchising cultural narrative. Stop it. Stop it now. Don’t make me get out my squirt bottle of wrathful smiting. Whatever ending I write (and I will spoil this, if nothing else) Snape and his disability will be around at the end, along with their happy ending.
One thing I didn’t mention about the perfect tragic cripple trope is that they are always portrayed as lacking any sort of sexuality at all. They neither have sexual feelings or are appropriate objects of desire for other characters. What. The. Hell. Okay, okay, there is one type of character with disabilities allowed to lust, the disabled villain. Of course their sexuality is always portrayed as deviant, and threatening, and further sign of their evil. Now, no one has sent me a comment with this bit of fail in it, as Snape hasn’t done any more than engage in some canon unrequited Lily love, but I’m waiting, When the situation calls for them, I’ll get these too. I have no doubt.
All of this makes me feel even more queasy as I write this, and I get no catharsis or enjoyment from it. It shouldn’t be my job, but because I will continue writing characters with disabilities, not just in fic but in original works as well, I have put myself in the position of teaching by example, so for my own peace of mind, I must also teach directly. I’m sure those characters will get similar sorts of reviews, sometimes, if I’m lucky, from reviewers and writers I respect. When I send my stories out into the world, the knowledge that people will read my characters differently because of their disabilities will always be there.
Snape is not tragic. He is not a poor crippled boy to be protected and treated nicely by the noble heroes. He is the hero. He will fight against and work with his disability, but ultimately, he will do it on his own, like all of us must do at the end of the day.
I’m sure I didn’t cover everything in this post, and a lot of you will be rolling your eyes going “yes, we know all this” and this is really basic realize people with disabilities are people stuff, but I keep getting comments where I have to reiterate this. All of you dear readers who do know all this, thank you, and no fear all, I’m still writing Children of Mars and other fanfics.
My writing Snape with a disability along with werewolfism is part protest at the way characters with disabilities were portrayed in the books I read as a child and part personal expression of myself as a writer with disabilities. We don’t have the same disability, in the story Snape uses crutches, whereas I’m oxygen dependent and have an immune disease, but we share a certain status as people with disabilities, or (good God) disabled people. It’s wonderful, and freeing, and it makes me feel so much better after bad days.
But once I post, it seems like so many of the reviews I receive are “teachable moments” and that’s not so wonderful.
Some of you have been saying you can’t wrap your heads around Snape as disabled. That isn’t because of anything inherent in either Snape as a character or disability, but in cultural narratives that paint people with disabilities as either weak, or more insidiously as plucky, happy symbols of Good, like the damsel in distress in action movies, not a character so much as an object. Snape will never be a tragic, passive, stoic cripple (a word that I see a lot in reviews and makes me throw up a little in my mouth each time). He will never be helpless. He is and always will be a snarky git. So many of the reviews talk about how horrible all of the other characters are to him. Well, he’s horrible to them. Besides which if anyone, even Lily, especially Lily, were suddenly to treat him like a helpless incompetent child who can’t protect himself or do a thing on his own, he would hex them all into oblivion. When people do that to me, I wish I could.
When I was a kid, books about people with disabilities seemed to end one of two ways. Either the pure, good, tragic cripple died, or the pure, good, tragic cripple was cured. Okay, there were also villains whose disabilities were a symbolic sign of their inner corruption, but I’m not even going to touch that one. Such endings are incredibly disheartening for me, growing up, because I didn’t want to die, and I was never going to be miraculously cured. I had to carve out a happy ending of my own that included my disability. For those of you who keep saying you want Snape’s leg repaired at the end, you are tapping into that same disenfranchising cultural narrative. Stop it. Stop it now. Don’t make me get out my squirt bottle of wrathful smiting. Whatever ending I write (and I will spoil this, if nothing else) Snape and his disability will be around at the end, along with their happy ending.
One thing I didn’t mention about the perfect tragic cripple trope is that they are always portrayed as lacking any sort of sexuality at all. They neither have sexual feelings or are appropriate objects of desire for other characters. What. The. Hell. Okay, okay, there is one type of character with disabilities allowed to lust, the disabled villain. Of course their sexuality is always portrayed as deviant, and threatening, and further sign of their evil. Now, no one has sent me a comment with this bit of fail in it, as Snape hasn’t done any more than engage in some canon unrequited Lily love, but I’m waiting, When the situation calls for them, I’ll get these too. I have no doubt.
All of this makes me feel even more queasy as I write this, and I get no catharsis or enjoyment from it. It shouldn’t be my job, but because I will continue writing characters with disabilities, not just in fic but in original works as well, I have put myself in the position of teaching by example, so for my own peace of mind, I must also teach directly. I’m sure those characters will get similar sorts of reviews, sometimes, if I’m lucky, from reviewers and writers I respect. When I send my stories out into the world, the knowledge that people will read my characters differently because of their disabilities will always be there.
Snape is not tragic. He is not a poor crippled boy to be protected and treated nicely by the noble heroes. He is the hero. He will fight against and work with his disability, but ultimately, he will do it on his own, like all of us must do at the end of the day.
I’m sure I didn’t cover everything in this post, and a lot of you will be rolling your eyes going “yes, we know all this” and this is really basic realize people with disabilities are people stuff, but I keep getting comments where I have to reiterate this. All of you dear readers who do know all this, thank you, and no fear all, I’m still writing Children of Mars and other fanfics.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 01:59 am (UTC)not sure if you're looking for recs, but
she's written a lot of SG-1, including several major AU series focused on Cameron Mitchell. she writes long and well, and even if it's not really your fandom, you may enjoy her stuff.
one is Broken Wings:
http://www.kekkai.org/synecdochic/sg1/bw.html
the other, Mezzanine, is genderflipped (Cam is female), but also awesome:
http://www.kekkai.org/synecdochic/sg1/mezzanine/index.html
no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 02:10 am (UTC)I am glad to have some company as a fic writer with disabilities, though.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 03:00 am (UTC)(Referred by various folks)
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Date: 2009-10-23 03:47 am (UTC)Out of curiosity (I had a sudden explosion of comments on this in the last few hours) could you tell me if you had a sudden further referral today?
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Date: 2009-10-23 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-10-23 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-23 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 02:28 am (UTC)I found this post interesting. And the fic sounds interesting too.
I am technically and legally disabled, but with one of the "invisible" kinds (bipolar, and have a seizure disorder). I would cheerfully wave goodbye to the seizure disorder in a heartbeat, but I'm not entirely sure I would even know who I was without the bipolar.
no subject
Date: 2009-10-26 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 09:16 pm (UTC)firstly; I am really enjoying the story. Now I know it's on live journal I'll start posting comments there.
secondly; you are so right about the portrayl of disiabilities in popular culture. I was trying to think of exceptions to what you said and all I could come up with is hugh laurie in house (but i've been madly in love with hugh laurie since I saw him in blackadder so maybe I'm baised).
It is partly because it is outside the experience of the general population (myself included). People don't deal well with things they don't know. I had a close family member die recently, I'm reasonably young so it was something that had not happened to most of my friends. A couple of them responded in a very unhelpful ways. I think they just couldn't relate to something like that happening.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-12 09:48 pm (UTC)I need to get back to writing CoM. My novel, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and real life ate my brain for a while, but I'm better now.
ANOTHER BLACKADDER FAN! *squee* part of the reason I have a hard time watching House is that I keep waiting for him to do something silly. (The other reasons I find it impossible to watch are some very problematic ways the show treats sick people) but you're right. House doesn't manage to hit the problems I've listed here. The show Joan of Arcadia has a very good portrayal of Joan's brother, Keven, who when the show starts was recently paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident. He finds himself confronting the changed expectations of his family and society for him, and is sometimes a real shit about it, but is still sympathetic. Other commenters on this post recommended it to me, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Avatar: the last Airbender has both Teo, a minor character who uses a wheelchair, and Toph, a major character who is blind. Both have to deal with the ableist assumptions of their parents, and really rang true to me. Other than that, though, good portrayals are few and far between.
Dealing with disability is out of the experience of the general public, but that's in large part because of the system of prejudice and disadvantage that encourages people with disabilities to either interact as rarely with society as possible or act in certain ways within society. It should be simple logic that anyone, with any sort of personality can have a disability, but because of our cultural narratives, it's not.
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-02-13 04:22 am (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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Date: 2010-03-24 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-24 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-03 07:33 am (UTC)Hurt/comfort fics usually go like this: a guy #1 gets some health problem and his present/future lover/friend/whatever takes care of him. The author is always ready to describe the details of their misery. The guy #1 suffers because of his condition, the guy #2 suffers from seeing guy #1 suffering... The reader feels that if a cure isn't found soon, both of them are definitely going to depress themselves to death. And then there's a cure and everyone gets their fluff and snot in sugar.
I've always had these questions:
- And what if they didn't find a cure? The authors tend to describe only the "sad part" of being disabled. Happiness is always associated with "fixing" and not with learning to live with a certain condition. It's like "a guy can't use his legs - he's sad - he regains partial use of his legs - he's happier" but NEVER like "he learns how to use a wheelchair - he's happier". It especially angers me if the "hurt" character is supposed to have lots of willpower. Well then, dear author, why won't you show it to us? Anyone can be happy if magically cured, but you need guts to fight for happiness if you're disabled.
- If romance is involved, the attraction usually begins when the guy #1 is still disabled, but a full-blown romance starts only when he's cured. Doesn't it cheapen the idea of their (supposedly) true love? And, once again, what if they didn't find a cure?
- The cure itself. It's usually quick and simple. Why can't someone describe complicated and excruciatingly slow therapy which makes the guy wonder if it's even worth it, but his SuperWillPower makes itself known and he manages to overcome the obstacles?
I think I'm going to look for more data about H/C fics and try to analyse this matter. I can't believe I've never thought about how cheap and unrealistic they are.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-03 03:49 pm (UTC)I need to get back to writing Children of Mars. *Sigh* Avatar: the Last Airbender ate my mind a bout a year back.
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Date: 2011-07-10 02:17 am (UTC)In re to mainstream media portrayals of characters with disabilities, have you seen the TV show, Friday Night Lights? One of the main characters became paralyzed early on and I thought the show did a pretty good job of representing a whole human being with a disability as opposed to a stereotype.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 02:42 am (UTC)It's in my netflix queue, actually, but it keeps getting oushed back in favor of BBC crime dramas.
Clear out of the blue...
Date: 2011-09-29 02:35 am (UTC)In terms of fandoms with awesome portrayals of disabled characters, might I recommend 'Covert Affairs?' Auggie Anderson is one of the main characters, a CIA analyst who was blinded before the start of the series. He is, at no point, plucky, stoic, or god forbid, inspirational. He *is,* however, snarky, funny, charming, cocky, and occasionally kind of a dick. The characters around him do not doubt his competence. He is, occasionally, denied field work, but this is a limitation imposed by his bosses which he constantly works to rectify or subvert.
The actor who portrays him, Chris Gorham, *is* sighted, and I know able-bodied actors portraying disabled characters is a bit of a bugbear of its own. But Chris insists on accuracy, both in his own performance and in the show's handling of his character's condition. He spent time with the Canadian Institute for the Blind to prepare for the role, learning the skills and habits that blind people use to navigate the world, and he portrays them well. Auggie uses real products available to the blind-- a talking watch, a Braille line for his keyboard, specialized stove-tops, an iPhone (Apple's products are apparently very good about accessibility), and more. Even minor things like the ways his hands trace objects and interact with his environment are, to borrow the words of Annie, the main character, "oddly mesmerizing."
And the best part about all of that is that it is simply worked into the background of the show. The other characters treat it as routine. Annie and Auggie walk into the office around the same time. She touches her hand to the back of his, he recognizes her perfume, grabs her arm, and they walk and chat. It's a regular thing. Auggie is brought in for an interrogation by his boss; he enters the unfamiliar room, boss says "You'll never guess what I found today. Chair's right in front of you," Auggie sits down, interrogation continues.
Sorry, I know I gushed a bit there, but as you can probably tell, I *really* like the character, and I think his portrayal is just flat-out awesome. One of a small (but growing!) number of examples of doin' it right. (TOPH!)
Thanks again for writing and sharing this! I hope more and more people starting reading things like this and checking their assumptions at the door.
Re: Clear out of the blue...
Date: 2011-09-29 03:32 am (UTC)I don't like Covert Affairs for reasons that have nothing to do with it's treatment of disability (it just kept breaking my suspension of disbelief) but it's always good to have one more well portrayed character with disabilities.
TOPH IS GOD. THAT IS ALL. THIS IS A TRUTH WHICH CANNOT BE DENYED.
Re: Clear out of the blue...
From:Re: Clear out of the blue...
From:Grateful
Date: 2011-11-17 04:42 pm (UTC)Why? Because people are clueless. We can only understand what fits into our worldview, or what we've been exposed to. We can do all the research we want, but at the end of the day it can be really hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone different. Another race, another gender, someone with a disability, anything. It's posts like yours that make us stop and go "Huh."
So thanks. I came from FF.net and I loved your stories already, but I have a new respect for you for not being afraid to smack poor, unenlightened folks in the face.
Sometimes we need it.
Re: Grateful
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