#which is why i hate the writer instead
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I am twisting my mind like a pretzels trying to salvage whatever left of Five's characters.
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#mdzs#jiang cheng#yanyan polls#jc apologism#does this warrant the apologism tag? idk#better meta-writers than i have spilled much ink on this subject#but why is jc still unmarried? this isnt the sort of setting where people marry for love#and even characters like wen chao and jin guangshan are married so jc what is going on???#king do your filial duty#also given the jiang sect's prominence and ties with the jin sect (via jin ling) ppl really are sleeping on some prime political real estat#like even if you hate his guts madame of lotus pier is a pretty sweet position to have#and if he really sucks too much shit you can find some way to incapacitate him or get rid of him. smh just poison him fr#also#you will notice that there is no “he's a misogynist” option#antis like to call jc a misogynist but tbh i dont see much evidence for that in the text#the only female characters jc interacts with at length in the text are his mom and his sister. and he's respectful of both of them#he also hears out sisi and bicao seriously instead of yeeting them. which would be more normal for a nobleman of his position to do#tbf this is also because there just arent that many female characters for jc to interact with. mxtx did not want to write women :(
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things that are hard to find: writing advice that isn't condescending.
#ambie.txt#I've been really thinking about this story in my head and wondering what caused me to get burned out from writing#and realising it's all the formal bits. planning an outline organising things into a timeline. I'm more of an impulse writer#and having to think about all those dry and formal things makes me quit before I even start#this is my autism but I hate having to stop and figure out all this before I write because that way I won't write at all#ever since I started free writing I discovered that I still love writing. I love it so much#but I hate doing all of the other things because they are not my special interest and they keep me from pursuing my special interest#it's just very hard to find writing advice that isn't condescending in this aspect#people stressing out you need an outline first are very common unfortunately#I'm more of a vibes no plot person and like to just discribe the vibes in vivid detail#before worrying about the plot too much. and yes in a story there had to be a plot#but if worrying about the plot and connecting all the scenes is killing my creativity#I want to just go from details first and bigger picture later#again. autism. also writing dialogue is the worst. idk how people talk. I don't understand body language etc etc#I have written some pretty good dialogue before so I know I'm capable. it just really sucks when I have to scrutinise everything#and think “would people say this? do they talk like that?” its draining#so I was thinking about writing dialogue separately. maybe write it as a script for a play#which is essentially just dialogue. and then match it with the scene descriptions I have written#like. I know I'm a good writer. I very good one. but the way I have been writing so far has burned me out#because it was too much focused on all the boring bits and not enough on the freedom and joy of just writing#which is why I love free writing. it allows me to focus on a few tiny details and then develop them into something bigger#also I hate writing on a computer so I got some notebooks so I can write on paper instead#it's where I'm most creative I've found#anyway this all just to say that I think following writing advice is not for me at least not now when I'm rediscovering my passion#and that I need to trust myself more and do things that make me happy#so um yeah. best writing advice is to just write and worry about it later
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how the fuck did my english class manage to take a semi-positive stance on generative ai
#im actually so pissed about this rn#we were doing an assignment about ai and plagarism#and i was expecting a firmly anti-ai stance#cause yk. english class. writing.#and also schools are usually anti ai (at least from what iv experienced)#instead what i got told was that generative ai is alright to use so long as the teacher gives you permission and you cite it as a source#like???? no??????? its still not ethical to use????#youre an english teacher writing and literature is literally your whole thing how are you okay with generative ai?????#i was sitting there fuming the whole time#like i wrote out an entire paragraph explaining that generative ai is NOT in fact okay to use#yk on account of it stealing from writers and artists#and also being HORRIBLE for the environment#but i didnt get the chance to say that because the teacher didnt even open the discussion of the ethics of ai in general#just about what it was and what makes it constitute as plagiarism#which i find to be incredibly ironic given that ai literally plagiarises everything#ALSO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LETTING STUDENTS USE AI#SO LONG AS THEYRE “GIVEN PERMISSION” AND “CITE” IT LIKE ITS NOT THEIR WORK DOESNT MATTER IF THEY CITE IT OR NOT#ITS NOT THE SAME AS JUST GETTING SOURCES LIKE FOR A RESEARCH ESSAY#ITS STEALING#HOW THE FUCK IS THAT FAIR TO THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY PUT IN THE EFFORT????#anti ai#fuck ai#stop ai#fuck ai everything#i hate ai
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#finally figured out what was wrong with my writing and why i hated it so much#it’s so easy. i was locked up on show don’t tell and visualising everything as though i was watching a movie#which is a great piece of advice for beginners but i’m already decent at creating an immersive set-up#see my problem was that i was doing too much showing and not enough telling#i guess the second lesson i need to learn after show don’t tell is tell don’t show#literally a rock lifted off my chest. i’m not a bad writer i was just. focusing on (the wrong) details instead of seeing the big picture#despairing over having to describe every action when. i could just. not do that. introspection babey!#elio rambles#this is a v silly realisation but it’s made me so happy
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RIP Krakoa 🌹 I can’t lie I’ve been kinda behind since midway through Fall of X I’m gonna catch up before my first SDCC this summer but I hear Vulcan didn’t see much action anyway. Anyway my hand slipped and I found myself looking into the eyes of my canonically psychotic son the best Summers brother who’s never done anything wrong in his entire life, (he’s done lotsa wrong things but I love him more for it)
#canonically psychotic = he canonically has psychosis. (not in the ableist way in that hes evil. which he is. lemme enjoy problematic rep)#Gabriel Summers#art by seaweed#words by seaweed#X-Men Red#the Gabriel hate during the Krakoa era pffffft. was 100% from ppl who didnt read the Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire#“he attacked Storm” hes also a genocidal dictator who tortures ppl for catharsis. drunkenly coming at Ororo is the least bad thing he did#“he's a douche” mother of all understatements. now get this man back w his boyfriend who he forced to be his best man under pain of death#Gabriel fans LOVE that Ororo beat his ass. he deserved it. it was a fake discourse made up by a certain segment of goddess!Ororo fans#I say as an Ororo fan! Shes my fav A-list x-man🥰 yes Gabe was at a mental low but Ororo didnt know that. that was Scott's responsibility.#psychotic Emperor Vulcan is what we call a problematic mentally ill villain trope. I love him SO much. (okay lets talk)#we don’t know much about his childhood but we do know he spent 2 years in a fugue state after escaping slavers when he was like ten ):#as an “adult”-ish he's uh “mentally” 15 or sumn according to the calculations claimed to him by his hallucination of his actual child self#and apart from THOSE hallucinations. he’s very paranoid to the point of killing his advisors because he becomes convinced-#that they’re plotting to kill him. they aren't. he relies on Calseye to ground him thru his paranoia. and then of course in the Krakoa era#he believes his energy constructs of Petra and Sway who drink with him till he blacks out every single day are real. he isnt consciously#creating them; but he sees them- and bc he’s a godlike mutant his subconscious makes his hallucinations visible. making everyone uncomfy#Charles tries to use telepathy to FORCIBLY reality check him. which of course triggers his trauma. and GABE is punished for it?#(oh plus our finding out Gabe got brain surgery done on him by some gods outside the universe offpanel. he never does well with tampering)#and now the writers who pushed Hickman out (also RIP Sabretooth & the Exiles. RIP Hellions) want us to be SAD Krakoa is gone?#yes Gabriel is the mentally ill villain trope. but Krakoa never cared for mutants who couldn’t fit in. who were traumatized. disabled. etc#Alex OF ALL PEOPLE should understand that. ALEX should’ve been there for Gabriel. (why wasn't he. did he hold a grudge for past torture.)#Alex also w Murder-Enjoying Disorder but it was actually treated as an illness and those in authority presented as wrong for excluding him#instead of helping him. which v flawed but Hellions was one of the best mental illness comics? like Zeb Wells was conscious of the genre#but Gabriel was just… cast out. for panicking when his prime traumatizer Charles invaded his mind. he deserved help too#and all because his family were annoyed at him for drinking all night and throwing up and passing out on the floor? for being delusional?#And like- all of the summers brothers are nd (Scott's brain damage; Alex's dissociative episodes; Gabriel's psychosis)#I have nothing to say about Adam X ((I highly doubt he's neurotypical and/or mentally healthy)) ((nothing to say abt him tho))#and Gabes paranoia is 100% rooted in his issues of being made to feel like an outsider. like YES the obvious MUTANT identity but also#he thinks his father abandoned him to be a slave. he's not Summers enough for Scott. hes not Shi'ar enough for the Shi'ar
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#i generally try not to dwell on articles or other media takes that make me mad bc life’s to short for that#but sometimes i remember the article about the pre tour press con#where the writer explicitly suggested that jonas’s family being there was some new ‘marginal gain’#instead of. you know. a normal thing for them to do#same article also very clearly positions tadej as someone honest and truthful compared to the writer explicitly questioning jonas’s words#why is it that everything tadej says should be taken at face value but jonas must be lying or deliberately hiding the truth#not that i think tadej IS lying but i don’t think he is inherently more open than jonas#this isn’t really about his podcast today which i haven’t listened to but that might be what made me think about that article#not the worst piece of jonas journalism i’ve seen by FAR (hello guardian article about how all of france hates jonas)#but it’s the kind bias and stereotyping that always frustrates me when people write about him
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been looking in tags for a few days now to see if anyone else found the whole high cloud quintet and related story to be a bit.....poorly written, nonsensical, contradictory, full of plot holes and loose ends, etc. apparently i'm not the only one. (and i'm not even talking about shipping stuff, because any time I saw someone mad about bad writing, someone always replies to be homophobic and laugh about failed ships. weirdos.) it could have been so good but was thrown into the garbage for the most part (IF you noticed all the plot holes and contradiction. if not, then it's a fine enough story tbh. I expect most people to see it on surface level and not read all the little hidden lore bits and try to piece it together like my autistic brain did. which is ok! enjoy it if you liked it and ignore me 😆)
#apparently one of the writers did it on purpose. wont explain here. you can find it elsewhere. but it makes sense now#that's why it fell apart and didnt make sense in the end#ive seem people say anyone mad about it is a shipper and thats why. they use it as an excuse to be homophobes#youre gross get out of thos fandom. im here as someone upset about the story who was very skeptical about any ship theories and focused#more on plot theories and overall friendship and stuff so its not even about shipping you het weirdos!!!#the contradictions and plot holes are bd regrdless of who you ship lmao stop reducing it to that#aure its fine if you ignlre those plot holes. but it happened to be the little plot holes that interested me the most so its obvious to me😅#cant wait until a talented writer in the fandom rewrites the whole story a lot better and fills in the holes and ties up the end better#please someone do this 😭#lee text#hsr#i just wanted a close found family who met a tragic end#my idea for a better way to write it is dan feng wanted free from the high elder cycle and yingxing helped him create a new elder#but it went wrong and failed because the preceptors fed him wrong info hopong it woukd destroy dan feng since they hated him#instead it was yingxing that died and dan feng selfishly brought him back somehow and thats why hes immortal and hates dan heng now#they created a monster in the process that made a mess and baiheng died trying to kill it maybe but hit its weak spot#so it was weaked enough for jingliu to slay it#maybe for a plot twist jing yuan somehow knew the preceptors were up to something and didnt stop the two because#they were too stubborn and he knew it would do nothing#we know the dragon heart disappeared so either it ended becoming bailu in the end#or it could be inaide blade bow. another fun possible plot twist. they never explained where it went so it coukd be a n y w h e r e#i had other ideas but i forget now. bht baiheng deserves better as well. just being a plot mechanism to make two dudes be stupid#is kinda bland and boring and wasted her character. she deserves better too!!!!#id write this if i had the time and brain power but ill hope someone else does it instead#OH yeah i forgot a big idea. dan feng and yingxing perhaps try to also kill the arbor and end the abundance and long life/reincarnation#and maybe that was one part that led to it all going wrong or something. since yingxing wanted revenge on the abundance for destroying#his home and family???? and dan feng wanted to escape the cycle? similar wants that worked together snd failed#these are all ideas from past theories i read and my own ideas i came up with all of which are better than what that bad writer did!#these are very incomplete ideas that im sure someone else can write better#lee rambles
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I think the most important revelation I ever had about fandom was that people making fanworks I don't like/am not interested in are not (usually) the thing that is limiting the existence of stuff I do like and find interesting.
I think there is maybe some argument to be made for juggernaut ships that are popular in large part because it's two skinny white people (usually, but not always, men) drowning out interest and engagement in smaller ships featuring characters from marginalised populations, but, y'know, in general people who think different things about writing fic are important, or who like different tropes to me, or have different interpretations of canon to me, or who don't happen to like the fandom/character/rarepair I've imprinted on are taking absolutely nothing away from me.
Realest of real talk: if the people who write fic I don't like were successfully bullied into being too embarrassed about liking the stuff they like (or about their personal standards editing for SPAG, or how much they knew about the canon or about ~writing craft~) to write more fic that I didn't like, they wouldn't start making stuff For Me. At the end of the day their work was never for me, because they're doing something for themselves. And that's fine!
If I want more stuff I like, I have to encourage and engage positively with people who like the same stuff as me and whose work I like instead of being bitter and talking shit about people who are doing literally nothing wrong. I also need to talk about what I like in a way that is inviting instead of hostile and scolding!
Like, if my approach to shipping Worf/Data had been passive aggressively kvetching about Data/Geordi shippers I do not think that would have won me any friends or influenced people to look favourably on my ship! What I did was scream in delight on my blog about why I liked it and co-founded a rarepair swap where I got several great Worf/Data fanworks as gifts. A non-zero amount of people at least semi-ship Worf/Data because of me and, like, that's honestly success beyond my wildest imaginings.
So like... I don't know, I guess I get frustrated by the endless posts about how people should Stop writing fic the way they want to, because like, why? Why does it matter if something is not for you? Do you want to take it away from other people so that none of us have what we want?
#the Stop Writing Fic Wrong thing comes in many guises all of which annoy me#'writing advice' that heaps scorn on people for their Bad Writing and assumes that every fic writer has the same creative goals#or scathing 'he would not fucking say that' style denunciations of fanon characterisation#or 'stop liking X. X sucks! like Y instead!'#or 'why is this writer I like in this other fandom I don't like? come back to *my* fandom'#etc. etc.#and like... shut up#all of you shut up#being in a fandom does not entitle you to jack shit#like if there are only three works in the ao3 tag and you hate all of them then that does suck for you and I have been there many times#but why would you prefer that there were none?#if you don't like something then it shouldn't exist? fuck off
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i don't make resolutions, but if i did
it would be to finish this fic
(and to be kind to myself for however long it takes to actually do so)
#i'm finishing it if it kills me#i know i've been writing this makeout scene for 3 weeks but baby that can't last forever#if we want to get deep and dark and serious for a second i do think a lot of my struggles to write lately have to do with engagement#and how incredibly low engagement has been on the last few things i've written#which like. is what it is. i'm not entitled to anybody's time or comments or kudos.#but when you write stuff you're proud of and it feels like it's barely getting read it's hard to keep momentum.#this isn't intended as a woe is me or whatever it's just kind of like. there. hovering.#happens enough times you start to wonder if it's you. am i just writing for the wrong fandom/ship?#(too bad if so. they're in my bones i'm writing for them and no one can stop me.)#but yeah. if you ever wonder if authors do care or notice about hits. comments. kudos. buddy i am here to tell you#not only do we care and FLOURISH we also notice when those things drop off and readers vanish#and it is a giant bummer. and sometimes makes us wildly paranoid about why that might have happened.#so if you liked a fic today--not even one of mine. just. anybody's. share it. comment on it.#kudos at the VERY least (cuz frankly kudos is there to be an 'i got to the end and this was nice' feature.#so when you get 500 hits and only like 30 kudos? it feels like 470 of those people hated your work)#anyway. that got out of hand. lil' too raw lil' too honest. happens when you let yourself ramble at 11:30 instead of sleeping#to sum: let your local fic writer know if they've made you happy#and as we go into 2024 i am swearing to myself that this fic (and probably several others) are getting finished#come hell. high water. or dishearteningly low engagement numbers.#(and then maybe we...actually work on something original. cuz why not. new year same old me but i'll do my best.)
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New suicide squad is fucking horrible yet again (surprise, surprise). No shade specifically on Maines because she could be doing it worse (see anything TT has done w Waller & the squad) but her Waller and everything dc has done with the character the past few years makes me want to bash my head in. Also love how they changed Waller's origin to be exactly opposite to what it was before in a really major way
Absolutely no respect at all. Lovely
#DOES NO ONE UNDERSTAND HOW THIS CHARACTER WORKS#first off. her compromising her morals is something that happens GRADUALLY. not from the fucking jump. jesus christ.#suicide squad is so fucked. just as like a concept with it set up this way. eay to make something cool and complex so interesting and stupi#like maines has done more than anyone else recently to make amanda seem even slightly like a human fucking being instead of the devil#incarnate but like. its still so terrible and awful and just not it and not her and!!!!! i fucking despise all of this#anyways i think she has potential as a writer and could maybe do something interesting if she was given allowance to do so and read up more#on certain things but like i do hate this book. makes me so pissed off#character assasination and mishandling so bad i cant even ignore the words and look at the art jfc#anyways im so fed up with this entire event and story arc and i despise it with everything in me. talk about boring stupid and trite. and#EASY its so fucking easy. why is every story beat w anything wallers in literally the same plot#which is ofc “waller is a massive fucking bitch who everyone hates and the heroes get mad at her” like PLEASE#DO WE NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO TELL A STORY THAT IS AT ALL ENGAGING#rant over but i fucking hate absolute power and everything abt it#blah#tuesday spoilers
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when the tv show episode is so upsetting you have to lay face down on the floor for a minute
#here’s the thing#it would not have been an upsetting ending#if it were not for the fact that the show isn’t over#it would be fine if that was the finale#there is a whole other season#AND YOU CUT TO A TIME SKIP FOUR YEARS LATER AND YOUR MAIN CHARACTER IS DEAD?????#no one speak to me i loved that character i dont want to watch a whole season without him BRING HIM BACK!!!!!!#i knew the writers had to hate him when they gave him brain cancer i was a fool to think they were just going to let him#be miraculously cured#they’ve brought several characters back from the dead before but i don’t think that will work this time#i don’t think he’s traumatizing everyone he loves by faking his death on purpose#and if he was taken against his will i think people would question it instead of accepting him as dead#which makes me think he’s actually dead#why would they do this to me!!!!!!!?!?!!!!!?????!!!
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this is The Most Nerd Shit but the best way i can think to explain my feelings on the daycare in ruin is that it is very much the st/ormblood of sb
#speaking!#in that it's so fantastically stupid#and flagrantly Fucking Terrible on every conceivable level#that it immediately kills any of my enthusiasm#and instead makes me spend the rest of your pretty good game#frothing at the mouth because **Hello?**#e/clipse is bad and i hate it :) i should not have to explain why#both from an activist perspective (Ohhhh dear lord)#but also just as a writer#it's Fucking Bad and Fucking Boring#which are the two worst crimes you can commit#esp when the thing in question#already has immense amounts of baggage tied to it for me
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still waiting for eng genshin fandom to learn what a ward is
#moi#genshin impact#salt is salt#yeah i’m thinking abt that whole ‘ragbros’ nonsense again#‘like brothers’ or ‘brotherly relationship’ does not literally mean ‘they’re siblings so DONT ship them or it’s INCEST’#like do u think the writers didn’t know exactly what they were doing when they set up a fire/ice sun/moon chatty/stoic pair#with a tumultuous backstory and tenuous present relationship#also if kaeya was supposedly adopted like y’all continue to insist#where’s his fucking inheritance#why not have the guy that actually enjoys wine run the wine business#instead of the guy who not only can’t hold his liquor but also just fucking hates it#if i had a nickel for every bartender in genshin impact who hates alcohol i would have two nickels#which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice#also side note: i refuse to conceptualize diona as anything but an adult#because the alternative is 1) having children in combat is. weird. but also 2) WHY WOULD A CHILD BE ALLOWED TO SERVE ALCOHOL#but anyway.#i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again#why would crepus go to the trouble of filling out adoption papers and then NOT update his will#genshin
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Midnight Pals: Souper
[at unicorn fuck club] JRR Tolkien: tonight we've got a special story from everyone's favorite fantasy writer GRR Martin: CS Lewis: Peter S Beagle: Hans Christian Andersen: L Frank Baum: Tolkien: whoops shouldn't have said that ha ha Tolkien: i mean, you're all winners in my book
Tolkien: but when i say everyone's favorite fantasy writer Tolkien: i mean terry practchett GRR Martin: oh yeah that's fair CS Lewis: yeah fair Peter S Beagle: fair Hans Christian Andersen: yes yes of course L Frank Baum: that's fair
Terry Pratchett: hello unicorn fuck club today i've got a story about a wizard who is - get this - actually very bad at his job Tolkien: oh ho ho! terry my boy, you've done it again! Pratchett: there's also girl dwarves Tolkien: [suddenly stone-faced] i hate this
Pratchett: but first Pratchett: all this story telling is hungry work! Pratchett: do you happen to have anything to eat around here? Tolkien: are you talking about... Tolkien: having Tolkien: a Tolkien: feast????? Brian Jacques: [squeaking incomprehensibly in rising excitement]
Tolkien: why, terry, my boy, what an idea! Tolkien: instead of merely DESCRIBING a feast, we'll have one! huzzah! Martin: huzzah! Lewis: huzzah! Jacques: [squeaking] i use a mercury head dime as a serving platter!
Pratchett: no no nothing so fancy as that Tolkien: eh? Pratchett: i was more thinking along the lines of Pratchett: soup Tolkien: soup? Pratchett: yeah just a big bowl of heart soup right about now would just be the best thing Pratchett: oo i just love the sound of it!
Pratchett: think about it: no work... no worries... no failures... no waste... when you serve maggi homestyle soups, the finest money can buy yet priced reasonably within your budget Tolkien: interesting! tell us more Pratchett: maggi soup! es ist echt ausgezeichnet!
Pratchett: how often have you had this problem Pratchett: say, you're on a budget but you have to feed your hungry hungry boys Tolkien: oh man i have been there! Tolkien: more times than i can count!
Tolkien: but terry Tolkien: i need something substantial and nourishing for my hungry boys. can maggi soup satisfy? Pratchett: ahh jirt my friend, maggi soup does more than satisfy! Pratchett: as the good people at maggi say, "kartoffelsalat volkswagen fahrvergnugen lebensraum!!"
Tolkien: What's that sizzling sound I hear? Pratchett: Get up! It's soup and eggs, my dear! Martin: What can I cook without much fuss? Pratchett: maggi soup would tickle all of us! Lewis: What's a lunch that's good and quick? Pratchett: Hot Maggi soup mix does the trick!
Pratchett: mm mmm! i tell you, nothing's as good as a rich bowl of maggi soup! buy some today! eat it with someone you love! Neil Gaiman: something's not right here
Gaiman: of course the power of imagination is infinite, friends Gaiman: but in all the worlds in all the multiverses of possibility, i cannot imagine one in which terry pratchett shills for soup Pratchett: [sweats] nein, nein, ich bin der echte terry pratchett!
Gaiman: if you are in fact, the real terry pratchett Gaiman: and not an imposter Gaiman: like the imposter sandman hector hall in The Sandman, vol. 2: The Doll's House Gaiman: then you won't have any trouble telling a joke Pratchett: [sweats] ein witz? du magst ein witz?
Pratchett: [sweats] i mean ha ha of course i can tell a joke Pratchett: i am the real terry pratchett after all Pratchett: [sweating intensifies] and you all know me, i'm a real spaßvogel Pratchett: Pratchett: a-are you sure you wouldn't all rather just have some soup?
#midnight pals#the midnight society#midnight society#terry pratchett#neil gaiman#jrr tolkien#grr martin#cs lewis#brian jacques#peter s beagle#hans christian andersen#l frank baum
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Futuristic Settings and the Erasure of Disabilities
The common theme in a lot of futuristic, sci-fi or not, settings, is the abundance of cure tropes that are thrown in there. Disabled people either don't exist, or aren't actually disabled - they get a magical device that undoes their injury, or get a mech suit that basically does the same thing.
Often the setting is treated like an excuse that can't be rebutted in any way: “but my story is set in the future where medicine is better!”
So: is that true? Does better medicine actually mean less disabled people?
Historical Accuracy
[large text: Historical Accuracy]
In 1900, the life expectancy of a person born with Down syndrome was 9 years. Try putting yourself there and imagining that 2024 is the Future - better medicine, basically sci-fi in comparison to what they had back there. In that future, what is true?
a) There's no people with Down syndrome.
b) People with Down syndrome live to be 60 years old on average.
Answer? B. The only countries with fewer people with Down syndromes are the ones engaging in widespread eugenics, which is a topic I will not be getting into in this post, but I'm mentioning because the only places without disabled people are eugenicist.
The “better medicine” of the future didn't make Down syndrome curable, it made people with it survive longer. 50% of people born with it today will live to be over 60 years old. In the future, there will be retirees with Down syndrome. In the past, 50% of them wouldn't have made it into their teens.
Why does that matter?
[large text: Why does that matter?]
Future medicine won't make disabilities disappear. It will make them more manageable. Less deadly. Easier to survive.
If you base your knowledge and perception of disability throughout the times on sci-fi novels by able-bodied writers, you're going to hate how it actually works in real life.
Have we magically- technologically gotten rid of diabetes? No, 11% of Americans have it. 103 years ago, diabetes were lethal. There aren't fewer diabetics compared to the past. They live longer. You probably know or heard of someone who has diabetes.
You need to expand your understanding on how disability and medicine work, because “future = no disability” is genuine nonsense. It doesn't work like that, and it really frustrates me how writers dead-set on “logic” in their setting fail to see this.
Are paralyzed people walking around in various mechs, or are they using better wheelchairs than those from 100 years ago? Wheelchairs that make it easier to be independent? That help with symptoms of their disabilities by preventing pressure sores, or providing alternative methods of maneuvering?
In the future, why would there suddenly be those futuristic transplant* spines instead of wheelchairs that can be used with one's brain or eyes, for those who can't move their hands, mouth, or head? Why wouldn't there be wheelbeds for those who are currently bed-bound because they can't manage being upright in any way?
*Also, how are all of these magic disability-fixing transplants never actual transplants? Receiving a transplant basically always ends up in being immunocompromised because of the very way the body works. If you're writing about humans, this isn't going to change?
Things like sign language or wheelchairs have been used for thousands of years, they're not going away anytime soon or not-so-soon.
Future = More Disabled People?
[large text: Future = More Disabled People?]
We already discussed that there are presently common disabilities that used to be lethal a century ago or even less. If we use this fact for a futuristic setting, you suddenly have a myriad of new possibilities.
There's vastly better medicine? A lot of people deal with post-rabies syndrome because it's finally survivable, but it leaves people with the effects of the meningitis that rabies cause. There's way more quadriplegic people because the survival rates are much higher. Cancer survivors are more common because people live longer. Physical therapy for people who had prion diseases because they aren't fatal anymore but cause severe disability. Head trauma is more treatable, so there's more people with TBIs and less people dying in vehicular accidents.
The technology is super advanced? People with locked-in syndrome can operate an AAC device with their eyes, fully customize its voice to their liking, and not have to worry about battery life of their powerchair because it has sonar panels. Canes that can fold themselves with the click of a button so that they can fit in one's pocket.
There could be so many more adapted sports! Tools and technology that can adapt a house exactly to one's needs! Wheelchairs that are actually affordable! A portable pocket sized device that makes ableds behave normally around disabled people!
The point of this post isn't to completely shit on sci-fi settings, but instead to urge abled writers to think a bit more and try to be creative in the way they go about speculative fiction. Write something new! There's one billion stories about how impossible it is for disabled people to exist in the future, and it's upsetting at best to read that constantly when you're disabled. As long as there are people, there will be disabled people.
mod Sasza
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