"umm hi big brother Eli, may I let your owl please?" Little girl said it sweetly.
"Pet? Of course you can! As long as you promise to be gentle with her."
"Brooke loves when you gently stroke her feathers here. Also take in mind that owls are very smart so be careful and hope that you make a good first impression as she will remember this for the rest of her life. Owls are also-" Eli now continues to ramble about bird facts.
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i would really love to see more people like me in the media i consume, and i really would've loved to see people like me in the media that i consumed as a kid.
like. i'm lifelong disabled, i've always been disabled, i've only gotten worse. but when i see disabled kid characters, they have helicopter parents (like Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle). i didn't. i was largely neglected beyond my basic needs because i was a "good kid, just lazy". so i wasn't taught how to do basic things, and i was very socially stunted. i got my socialization through video games, books, and cartoons. and i'm forever weird because of it (not that it's the worst, i like having a unique personality for sure. but i'd like to see more weird poorly socialized kids, too, that aren't like... bullies or something -- and the fact poorly socialized or socially disabled characters are often coded as bullies or creeps of some kind could be a rant in itself).
when i see disabled characters in general, especially ones in wheelchairs like me, they're all skinny. i'm not. i'm fat. like very fat. muscular, sure, i could punch like a kangaroo i bet, but i'm 300+ lbs. because it's hard to exercise when your walking/standing are so limited. and it's hard to cook healthy food, too, leading to eating shit microwavable junk. but all the wheelchair-using characters i know, minus Franklin from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, are skinny. in general, there's too many skinny people in media, and we need more variation in body types and builds, but focusing on disabled characters for this one.
when i see amputee characters get a prosthetic, they have no issues. they don't ever deal with poorly fit prosthetics, or blisters, or pain. if they deal with anything at all, it's usually a sight gag (which could be done well, it IS funny when i get my fake foot caught under stuff sometimes, but it often isn't done well at all). they don't deal with any internalized ableism, and i think the only times i saw a disabled character deal with outright malicious ableism was Walt Jr. in Breaking Bad season 1 (who was genuinely an amazing disabled character imo, one of the best I've ever seen) and Patty in Dinner in America. I understand the argument that nobody wants to witness ableism... and self-hating disabled characters also suck... but I feel like we're being so dishonest when we write things to be perfect and always work out and there's never any problems, and it leads to non-disabled people not being aware of the problematic things they do or say or think. i remember as a disabled kid being really frustrated when shown disabled characters that were so well-off in terms of how other people treated them and how easy it was to "fix" their disabilities... it made me feel broken or wrong that I WAS so frustrated and confused and in pain and mistreated. It's why characters like Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump, and John Locke from LOST, and Bran Stark + Tyrion Lannister + Jaime Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones meant so much to me and were so magnetic. (I could write a whole different rant about disabled rep in ASOIAF/GOT btw... I love you Davos Seaworth) ... Being disabled can suck. People can mistreat you. You sometimes have to be forced to adapt when you shouldn't have to. You have to, at times, confront that some of your dreams are impossible to achieve, or that you can no longer do something that you love, and learn to accept it (but there's often a lot of bitterness and rage before you get to the point of that acceptance).
What about how PTSD and depression are shown? See, I don't relate to the wilting flower brooding archetype that feels so common. If I spend all day in bed, it's usually more for pain than it is because of mental health. What about psychotics shown in a positive light? I'm not a threat to you because of my paranoia or hallucinations, and neither are my psychotic friends. What about OCD, shown in ways other than counting and germaphobia? What about autism, shown in ways other than robotic apaths? What about BPD, shown in a way other than abuse?
Let's move away from disabled characters into queer ones. Because I don't see a lot of queer characters like me, either. I am transmasc nonbinary, and I identify as a lesbian, and also on the ace spectrum (demi or grey, idk, shit's hard). Where are my fat dykes? Transmascs in general, but also transmascs that still enjoy makeup? I love makeup... I love the pageantry of it -- esp tradgoth or punk makeup or corpse paint. It's amazing how many transmasc nonbinary people I know in real life that engage with femininity compared to how nonexistent they are in any media. God forbid you have a character that takes testosterone but still calls themself a lesbian. God forbid you have a lesbian that leans more butch that ISN'T a sex-hound or a villain or a joke character. God forbid you have an ace character that isn't treated like a robot. Authentic queerness feels incredibly rare. I know it's because they're going for either sanitized queerness that is accessible for straight people, or for softcore porn also for straight people, but fuck, man. It sucks. The closest thing to representation I've ever seen in regards to my queerness was Al from Little Evil -- a masc person of indeterminate gender identity with a wife. And Al rocked. Even if that character was largely a comedic relief, their identity itself didn't feel like the joke, just a point of mild confusion for the main character. The next best representation I've seen was Aziraphale and Crowley from the Good Omens show, which are good and feel very authentic and real. Next best after that is probably the entire cast of the What We Do in the Shadows show... I know so many Laszlos and Nandors and Guillermos and Nadjas in real life, they feel like pretty authentic queer characters actually. None that I, in particular, relate to, other than maybe Guillermo at best, but it's nice to see my friends on TV, too.
I know that a character exactly like me is a bit too much to wish for. But I just want something. I like to feel seen. I like to feel present. I like to feel like people like me are worth having on TV and in movies and in video games. I would've really liked to see any of that as a really confused, lonely kid that was trapped inside because of my health and sentenced to read/watch/play hours and hours and hours and hours of media that did not contain any piece of me within them. It worsened my loneliness more than ever needed.
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Patreon Tier Highlight:
Graphologist!
A mid tier $$ at $25, see completed pages before the doodles are even edited! See minicomics before they’re ready to be uploaded, scratch pages with concepts I want to digitize, scrapped doodles, studies, concept art, a little bit of everything! Literally hundreds of pages of backlog going back through 2020 currently, all tagged fandom-specific so you can find what you’re looking for! Definitely the biggest bang for your buck, with all the lower non-art tiers as well! You can even see a few examples right here!
Also the Vargases have already surpassed 100-page appearances, so that’s a thing
That’s, to reiterate, One Hundred Pages, not 100 individual images, that they appear on, so take that as you will lol
(Patreon) (ko-fi)
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