*sighs eternally*

Depictions of autistic characters in media almost always fall into the "insanely rude but somehow tolerated" -type, or more rarely into the "innocently pure sweet cinnamon roll who's oblivious about everything uwu"-cathegory, but I think it would be great to have a character somewhere who is very clearly on the spectrum, and also this dude fucks. Like, a lot. You start out assuming that this guy's remarks about how much he regularly gets laid are some sort of a self-deprecating, sarcastic joke, but as the story goes on and you get to know the characters better, it becomes evident that not only are women drawn to him everywhere he goes, clearly the ladies also keep coming back for seconds.

And when someone wonders how in the fuck does he do that when he literally can't look people in the eyes he just goes "they are enthralled by my pure animal energy and unfathomble autism" and isn't joking. And when asked why nobody else has managed to replicate that he just goes "skill issue." And throws out the note that a woman just handed to him - with her number clearly written on it - right in front of her because talking to two people at once is overwhelming and he is not in the mood for that now.

hey so like…remember when i made that addition to a post about disabled barbie dolls and all the new disabled dolls that mattel has released? y’all…they just announced a new fashionista doll with Down syndrome

im genuinely so emotional over this. this representation is incredible and the fact that she’s a fashionista means she’ll be relatively affordable and easily accessible through multiple retailers. i love disability inclusion so much

i may have teared up over this…nbd

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.”

“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.

Some options for other disabilities and aids:

“Jack had an unusual pair of sticks, unlike anything Jill had seen before; they were much like canes, but rather than ending in a knot or handle they continued up into a pair of bracelets, held together round his wrists by a cunning slide mechanism. They kept him, she noted, quite sure of foot even on the steep ground.” (wrist braces; cerebral palsy)

“Fandir wore a ring around her ear. It looked something like a fancy collar, its edges tipped outward as though forming a funnel, and when she was spoken to she turned it in the direction of the speaker.” (hearing aid, based off antique “hearing trumpets”)

“Victor’s left arm was a marvel of the modern age–held together with a thousand miniscule steel plates and ten thousand tiny gears, wearing a small brazier, much like a jacket cuff, to fire the steam that moved its mechanical fingers.” (prosthetic arm, steampunk)

“Sasha carried one of the most unusual canes Mara had ever seen: it was longer than might be considered useful to someone her size, and hollow, its walls so thin it surely couldn’t hold her weight. Mara watched as Sasha swept the cane ahead of her. At first she thought Sasha was merely clearing a path, but then the cane struck a large rock, and Sasha neatly sidestepped it having never been told it was there. Ah, that solved the mystery, Mara thought: the hollow stick vibrated in Sasha’s hands when it struck, and its sound told her what danger she might face.” (white cane, blindness)

“Sibatyn clapped his hands over his eyes. ‘Here,’ said Yanit, ‘put your scarf over your eyes and take my arm. I can lead you until the lightning is over.’“ (avoiding flashing lights, photosensitive epilepsy)

“‘She grows quite ill on bread, even Rosie’s best,’ Sam lamented. ‘Can’t keep a bit of weight on her. It isn’t proper, for a hobbit.’ Gandalf nodded. ‘Have you considered, perhaps, feeding her on Elf-bread? She may take well to grains not often found in the Shire.’“ (special diet, Celiac disease, food allergies)

I literally had to think harder about what disabilities I wanted to represent here than I did about how to represent them. It isn’t hard. You have no excuse.

OP is spot on. Also, thank you @prismatic-bell for including the food intolerances/allergies one – that’s pretty much exactly how I handled it in my series. As with all of these, and indeed with many other forms of representation that sometimes get pushback in SFF, it’s just a matter of wording it in genre-friendly terms. Sometimes I get the feeling some people forget that’s an option, or it doesn’t occur to them. But obviously there is also often ablism and assumptions at play.

(I heard Gandalf’s lines in Sir Ian’s voice so that was fun :P )

So, I really like doing Picrews but I'm also Black, SO! I decided to compile a list of picrews and dolls that had a wide range of skin tones, option for Black facial features and Black hair options THAT MAKE SENSE. If you find anymore please add on! These are my favs to go back to 😁

Djarn Charater maker

Smile Maker

Icon Maker-Star Wars

Icon Maker by Magenta Girl

Adorable Character

Vintage Western Girl

BAYDEWS AVATER MAKER

Specs Maker

Hummm Girl

Girl Maker

Poicon Maker

Aloha! Sushicore Icon

Space Princess

In an effort to share a little black and queer history during this turbulent Pride month, here’s a comic about one of my favorite musicians, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

https://www.everythingisgoingtobeokcomic.com/sister-rosetta-tharpe/

I almost included this tidbit, but then I got lazy bc I didn’t want to draw a bus, but now I kinda wish I had.

When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genre’s subversion of traditional femininity. We weren’t just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.

That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.

#it’s so so important to remember that representation is not one-size-fits-all#what is empowering to one person might be exhausting and oppressive to someone else#some people need stories about having the strength to save themselves#some people need stories about being considered worthy of being saved#some people need inspiration for their independence while others need validation that they don’t have to be able to do everything themselves#before you lash out against something PLEASE stop to consider:#is this inadequate and/or damaging representation?#or is it just something I don’t personally relate to? [X]

Filipino Pixar characters!

FILIPINO PIXAR CHARACTERS!

[banging on kalderos and kawalis]

Pixar short film “Float” written and directed by Fil-Am Bobby Rubio is going to have Filipino lead characters!

Salamat Kuya Bobby!

I can’t believe Into the Spiderverse casually made Peter Parker canonically Jewish. I feel valid in this chili’s tonight.

in case you missed it, bc I did, when Peter says that he “got married”, the animation to go with it shows him stomping on a glass: 

which is what you do for a jewish wedding 

I love my people so much

Undertale made me realized years ago exactly how easy it is to include gay characters in videogames and I haven’t been the same since then

Trans characters too cause switching pronouns for characters? Explicitely using they/them for some of them? Having transgender ghosts and using them inhabiting a new body as a metaphor for transitioning? It was brilliant, and it was something that while it wasn’t the main focus of the story, it was well handled and a nice addition to the plot.

And again, gay characters that express their attraction towards the same gender explicitely! The fact that the only way to get the true happy ending in the story can be achieved by getting together Alphys and Undyne and making Alphys face her mistakes and accept herself so she wouldn’t be so miserable!! It’s good, it’s refreshing, and it makes me so mad that not many games (or any media, really) reaxhes Undertale’s level on this matter. I’m not calling Undertale a paragon of LGBT rep, it’s not! I’m saying it created a standard and that many much bigger videogames don’t even get close to it.

Writing LGBT characters that aren’t miserable for being who they are, caricatures or victims of homo/transphobic violence is EASY. Deciding to let LGBT people be happy in your content is EASY.

I’m lovin it.

This post fails to include the entire context and point of this stunt, which was to protest the lack of Asian representation in US media and advertising. And the legit HEIST including fake McDonalds uniforms that they had to pull off to get it up

(Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/blogs-trending-45402404)

Honestly, the word “playersexual” is important when it comes to discussing LGBT representation in video games, and people who call it an erasure of bi/pansexuality are missing the point.

When someone says an NPC is playersexual, they’re not saying “this character is not bi/pansexual.” What they’re saying is “The confirmation we get of this character’s bi/pansexuality can only be found by playing multiple playthroughs.”

Because of this, not only we will never get that confirmation if we only play one playthrough, it also ties bi/pansexuality solely to the player’s romantic option benefits. Their bi/pansexual identity only exists so that the player can romance them, and nothing more.

Really, the difference between a bi/pansexual character and a playersexual character is that a character’s bi/pansexuality will be discussed independent from the player character’s romance ambitions. That’s still pretty rare in video games, and people who use the word “playersexual” are saying they want more.

“In an incredibly bold move, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced last week that, beginning in 2019,works that do not demonstrate inclusivity in their production practices will no longer be eligible for its annual awards, the BAFTAs, often considered the U.K. equivalent of the Oscars. Eligible projects must showcase this in two of the following ways, as the BBC reported: On-screen characters and themes, senior roles and crew, industry training and career progression, and audience access and appeal to underrepresented audiences.” 

The angry whites in the comments really tell me that this was a necessary and good decision to combat the overpowering whiteness of film. Representation, on and off screen, matters.

i’ve always wanted to do a piece that celebrates asia for it’s diversity and richness, and I finally got around to doing it 🙂

prints / twitter / ig

I just realized that in the last couple of years that some cartoons have had specifically Filipino characters as regulars and not just as joke side characters.

In fact all three of the above characters are only revealed to be Filipino after noticing some clues or finding out about their backgrounds. They are not defined by their cultural backgrounds.

Being Filipino I really do appreciate this subtle level of representation in cartoons these days.

Something about Rebecca Sugar coming out as a nonbinary woman is a huge surprise but it also makes so much sense in retrospect. The Gems aren’t nonbinary because they’re aliens or because she wanted to look Woke or whatever….she was literally just representing her own gender identity this whole time, even if she admittedly did make it subtle (except Stevonnie, she said the fandom knows they’re very obviously nb) but I think making subtle representation for a group you belong to is very very different from a cis creator who just wants to throw the nb community a bone but not quite commit to it, if that makes sense

since this post doesn’t link to it, here’s the interview where she discusses this; that part of the discussion starts at about 10 minutes in.

Transcript of the relevant segment:

Rebecca Sugar: One of the things that’s very important to me about the show is that the Gems are all nonbinary women. […] They’re coded female, which is very important […] I was really excited […] to make a show about a young boy who is looking up to these female-coded characters.

Interviewer: I’m sorry, when you say they’re “coded female” what do you mean by that “coded”?

Rebecca Sugar: They appear to be female. They’re a little more representative of nonbinary women. They wouldn’t think of themselves as women, but they’re fine with being interpreted that way amongst humans. And I am also a nonbinary woman, which, it’s been really great to express myself through these characters, because it’s very much how I have felt throughout my life.

I’d also like to point out that a number of the crew throughout the show’s production have identified as LGBT+ identities, including nonbinary. It’s not my place to name them (since they spoke about it on their blog and not public interviews), but my point is that SU’s themes of identity and expression has always come from a personal place among its crew.

“And I think when you have suicide rates going up, when you have the bullying, when you have maybe even the drug usage because people are not feeling comfortable being their unique selves, because of the societal norms and the pressures of conforming or because they feel like they have to erase parts of them because they’re not socially accepted, I felt like through my truth it could help other people walk in their truth and breathe a little easier.”

Janelle Monáe: I’m A Proud Queer Woman