#i'm possibly the one who showed her to rtc fandom

[theangelcatalogue]

Me cause I'm possibly the one and only who showed Daphne Satine Jane for this fandom:

[cpvnksabm]

i think sometimes rtc fans (fic writers especially) who are aware they aren't disability experts will try to "play it safe" and avoid depicting anything that could end up being offensive or inaccurate, because they'd rather not handle something at all than risk handling it badly. i understand this approach, and don't get me wrong, it's a good thing to want to avoid offending people - and it's also a good thing to be aware of when you don't know enough about something to write about it.

but it's upsetting when ricky is sidelined or excluded because people don't know how to depict him. and "include ricky but avoid going into detail about his disability" isn't a perfect solution either - for shorter fics it tends to work fine, but in longer fics, it becomes noticeable when something hasn't been mentioned. ricky's disability would realistically affect his life in many ways, such that if you're depicting him realistically for an extended period it's likely it will be relevant at some point.

on top of that, sometimes the "play it safe, don't do anything that could be problematic" approach extends to people removing parts of canon* that they think may be problematic. and i'm in favour of improving/ignoring the shitty parts of canon, but this needs to be done carefully and with a good understanding of what specifically needs improving and why, because sometimes it's a fine line between "removing the shitty parts of canon" and "erasing disability representation". there are some issues where, even if canon was flawed in its depiction of something, erasing/ignoring it is actually worse.

*when i say canon i mean the 2016-2018 script. i feel we've all agreed that the ableist 2022 script changes are non-canon for obvious reasons

one example of this is ocean's canonical ableism, and how often it's just ignored by the fandom. i think sometimes people are unsure how to handle it respectfully, or feel like it shouldn't have been in the musical in the first place. and different disabled people have different opinions on how well it was handled in canon, i have mixed feelings myself, but regardless of if it was handled well or not, i don't think making her some sort of Perfect Disability Ally Who Loves Ricky in fanworks is a good solution. because as a disabled person, i don't see ocean's ableism as something trivial that can be easily removed, and when people do casually remove it, i find it to be dismissive & minimizing of a real problem. it makes me uncomfortable.

which is funny because i'm sure, at least some of the time, people go with this depiction of ocean because they don't want to risk making any disabled people uncomfortable by depicting ableism!

basically what i'm trying to say here is: when you're depicting a disabled character, you have to make a lot of choices about how to depict them. and if you're scared of accidentally handling something badly, you might try to set it up so you don't have to make a choice on how to depict it, because it just isn't relevant - because ocean was never ableist in your headcanon, or because ricky's disability never impacts him in the story you're trying to tell, or because ricky barely appears in your fanworks anyway.

but choosing not to make a choice is still a choice. when you can't decide how to handle ocean's ableism, so you just don't acknowledge it - that's a choice! when you can't decide how ricky's disability would affect him beyond what we see in canon, so you just avoid going into detail about it, that's a choice. and sometimes the choices that you see as "playing it safe" and "not offending anyone" are, in fact, making some readers uncomfortable - disability representation is very rarely something as simple as "go with the safe option that cant possibly offend anyone", and avoiding showing disability is not a good approach.

and to be clear i am absolutely not saying i think everyone should have to go into full detail on how ricky's disability (& ableism) affects him in every fic. that would create its own set of problems. i think it's important for able-bodied people to be aware that some stories about the disabled perspective are not their story to tell.

but there's a lot of middle ground between "fic entirely focused on depicting disabled experiences in detail" and "ricky's disability is barely mentioned, his backstory is edited to remove ableism references, ocean is his best friend who was never ableist"! having some exploration of ricky's disability as background info or side details can really elevate representation - some of my favourite rtc fics ever are ones where, even if ricky's disability is never plot-important, it was always handled with care and there were clearly no points where the author could have forgotten he was disabled.

i don't have an easy solution here that makes this simple. but i do have some important advice:

just because something can be depicted badly doesn't mean it's always inherently wrong to depict it. there's a big difference between, for example, "the rtc writers could have done a better job handling ocean's ableism in the musical" and "ableism should never be shown in fiction, it was wrong for them to show it on-stage and we must never show it in-fic". there is really no need to entirely avoid something just because it could be done badly.

as i said at the start, it is a good idea to be aware of when you don't know enough about something to write about it accurately. but this doesn't mean you can never write about it, it means you can learn! research is super important and super helpful, and a lot of strictly factual stuff (i.e. the effects of neuromuscular disorders) can be found on a quick google search. writing advice specifically can be harder to find, since it's more opinion-based, but i find you can find a lot of general posts on tumblr and other social media

If you've tried doing research but there's something you don't understand, or you want to depict a really specific situation that nobody has made a general post about - you can ask! my asks are open for this exact subject! another knowledgeable person in the fandom, @icepoptroll , also has asks open and has given me permission to @ them

if you ever DO accidentally come across as ableist or just misinformed... it's not the end of the world. you can receive criticism, and you can listen to that criticism. this happens to everyone because nobody is perfect. you can apologise if necessary, you can go back and edit your own work to make it more respectful if you see a need to do so! while cyberbullying & harassment in fandoms does happen sometimes, most people aren't looking to "cancel" you, and most people will be understanding when you make mistakes.

so if you tend to sideline ricky, or write around his disability, because you're not sure how to tackle it and you're afraid of getting it wrong - please reconsider. there are things you can do to better equip yourself! ricky doesn't have to be a main character, nor does disability have to be the main subject of a fic, but it shouldn't be ignored entirely.

go forth and be brave in your depictions! thanks for reading!