Announcing: Festibility! Please Signal Boost!

[sasha_feather]

Announcing access_fandom’s first Fanworks Festival, Festibility!

What: Hosted by access_fandom, Festibility is a fandom festival accepting all kinds of fanworks (fic, meta, art, icons, podfic, vids, recs, picspams, drabble sets etc) about disabled characters. Works can focus on canonically disabled characters or canonically able-bodied characters that you reimagine as disabled. Pieces can be as long or short as you like.

When: July 15 to September 15, 2010 (for those who work best under deadlines). Yes, this starts one week from today!

How: We’ll make a post soliciting prompts from you tomorrow! Prompts can be general or fandom-specific. Feel free to respond to prompts with commentfic, or use them for longer works posted during the festival posting period. You don’t have to claim particular prompts to post, and claiming a prompt does not mean you’ve committed to posting a fanwork filling it. You can also post fanworks without filling any prompt--basically, anything goes!

ETA: Here is the prompts post!

Who: For Festibility, your mods are kaz, lightgetsin, sasha_feather, and were_duck. Any and everyone is welcome to participate!

We will also host a beta pool of folks willing to check other folks’ fanworks for portrayals of disability. This is entirely volunteer and optional, though we ask that participants make a strong effort and do their research in order to create positive and affirming portrayals of characters with disabilities. Your mods will do our best to provide resources to help you reach this goal!

Please note that you can post links to fanworks or recs in this community at any time. The end date of this festival is when your mods will stop cheerleading; it does not mean that you have to stop posting. This is intended to be a low-pressure festival.

Please watch this community for more information. Leave comments here or contact one of the mods listed above with any questions or concerns.



Canonically Disabled Characters in Fandom-- A starter list

Felix Gaeta (Battlestar: Galactica)
Professor Xavier (X-Men)
Scott Summers (X-Men)
Logan and Max (Dark Angel
Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood)
John Locke (Lost)
Oracle
Daredevil
Artie (Glee)
Jake Sully (James Cameron’s Avatar)
Geordi LaForge (ST: TNG)
Capt. Christopher Pike (Star Trek: TOS/reboot)
Kerry Weaver (ER)
Greg House (House)
Monk (Monk)
Dr. Gabriel Fife (Private Practice)
Dr. Al Robbins (CSI)
Joe Dawson (Highlander)
Toph Bei Fong (A:TLA)
Johnny Smith (Dead Zone)
John Watson (Sherlock Holmes 2010)
Thakur Baldev Singh (Sholay)
Alex Krycek (X-Files)
Xander Harris (Buffy)
Augustus Hill (Oz)
Joey Lucas (West Wing; a prominent guest star)
President Bartlet (West Wing)
Pete Thornton (MacGyver)
Riddick (Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick)
Toothless (How To Train Your Dragon)

ETA from comments:
Kevin (Joan of Arcadia)
Miles Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan series)
Diana Reid (Criminal Minds)
Scott Macintyre (American Idol)
Cassandra Cain from Batman (DCU comics)
Aquaman
Lex Luthor lost a hand in some continuities
Slade Wilson (DCU comics)
Edward Elric (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Gobber (How to Train Your Dragon)
River Tam (Firefly and Serenity)
Sarah Connor (Terminator 2 and Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Roland (Saved!)
Teo (Avatar: the last airbender)
Lireal (Garth Nix books)

Please see comments for more! Lots of great suggestions!

Comments

[rhivolution]

John Lumic is the new!skool inventor of Cybermen. Am I remembering that episode wrong, or was part of his MO in inventing them linked to his disability? I should just bust out the DVD if I can find it.

(My personal canon for the Tenth Doctor involves him having bipolar disorder, though that's a matter of interpretation for others.)

[stonebender]

Lincoln Rhyme from The Bone Collector

[vividoceantides]

Spoilers through Echoes of Honor: She doesn't have an arm throughout Echoes (I can't recall if she loses it between books or at the end of Honor Among Enemies) and she loses an eye early on in the series, whose replacement gets burned out -- yes, she ends up with prosthetic replacements for both, but while temporary, it is definitely a disability, particularly during Echoes, which she spends without one arm and without one eye. In addition, I think that she has a fairly severe case of PTSD.

From that series, I would also suggest Emily Alexander should be added to the list.

[jadelennox]

Ah, thanks. I stopped reading at a certain point and I didn't realize things changed.

[regicidaldwarf]

She's a fairly minor character, but Joey Lucas from The West Wing is deaf.

Also, from Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint 'verse [spoilers] (skip) Richard St Vier goes blind in later books.

[saavikam77]

This is such a great idea for a fest! \O/

A few additions (all DC Comics):

Hartley Rathaway (Pied Piper); deaf, with special implants
Harvey Dent (Two-Face); severe facial scaring and MPD
Victor Fries (Mr. Freeze); condition requires a cold-suit
Bruce Wayne (Batman); unspecified mental illnesses & PTSD, body scarring from injuries (body scarring also affects the former Robins: Dick, Jason, and Tim)
Jonah Hex; severe facial scarring

Also:

Raymond Babbitt from Rainman

[milleniumrex]

It would also be interesting to see fic around the period that Bruce Wayne was a paraplegic, after Bane. He got a magical cure in the end, but I believe that was after he rehabbed to near-normal function - the magical cure was just so he'd be able to be Batman again easily.

And speaking of Jonah Hex, there's his partner/lover Tallulah Black, who's also scarred and is missing an eye, although her scarring isn't as extreme as his.

[saavikam77]

I was thinking about that, re: Bruce, too! Wasn't sure if it'd count since it was such a short time, but fic about that time would definitely be interesting.

And I didn't know about Tallulah, since I haven't really read any Jonah Hex comics. Thanks!

[softestbullet]

Izumi Curtis (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Lan Fan (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Paninya (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (If anyone is wondering: major depression)
Abed Nadir (Community)

[reason_says]

Parker has actually been diagnosed (by Word Of God) with Asperger's, along which lines I'm also suggesting Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds.

[pocketmouse]

I can't remember if he was ill or aging or what. I was largely too busy trying to figure out what they were saying when they cyberized his chair and kept him in it when they upgraded him.

(and oh god, yes, so many of the Doctors can be read as being aneurotypical. and that's just from the human POV! Timelord POV must be quite interesting.)

[passerine]

Arguably Benedict from Chronicles of Amber as well, at least during the time he is missing a hand?

[cesy]

Regina Morrow from Sweet Valley High.

[trialia]

Barret's canonically disabled? Did I miss something, or is this a thing from one of the other FFVII games?

Re: also you are totally the awesomest people

[trialia]

True. Also, there's Ista's perceived chronic mental illness. I thought of mentioning Tien, who is said by LMB to be sociopathic, but I don't know.

[shirasade]

Has anyone mentioned Bobby Goren from L&O: Criminal Intent yet?

[trialia]

James Watson, Sanctuary - he is approximately 150 years old, and stays alive by using a contraption he came up with that looks/acts like a sort of calliper frame - when it fails, he dies...

John Druitt, also Sanctuary - unspecified mental illness (he is Jack the Ripper) that is later explained as having a specific (fictional) cause, but the real-life Druitt, upon whom the character is loosely based, suffered from familial mental illness of some sort - I think major depression? - and committed suicide.

You could, I suppose, count Sméagol/Gollum from LotR - he would be classed as having DID, I think? Of a sort?

Author Rosemary Sutcliff had Still's disease and used a wheelchair throughout most of her life, for anyone who fancies RPF... Marcus Flavius Aquila, hero of The Eagle of the Ninth, is invalided out of the Roman army due to a lasting injury, but I can't recall why or whether it was permanent.

[trialia]

I think you're the first. Can't imagine why he didn't occur to me before!

[laeria]

Oh yes! And Corwin was temporarily blind.

What are your thoughts on Brand-as-clinically-depressed?

[toujours_nigel]

Harry Potter
Alastor Moody (lost an eye and a leg), Frank and Alice Longbottom (tortured to insanity), Remus Lupin (lycanthropy, if that is being accepted, since it does hinder his usual movements, and puts him entirely out once a month), (and, possibly, Sirius Black, Bellatrix Lestrange.)

The King's General
Honor Harris.

A Song of Ice and Fire
Jaime Lannister, (has his sword hand cut off).

[laceblade]

He has a gun for an arm?

[trialia]

Heh, I always interpreted that as an added ability, but now you say it, I can see how it could be otherwise. It's been a long time since I've played the original VII, as it's my least favourite of the series. Hence my forgetting.

[passerine]

Almost but not quite. Canonical description is much closer to bipolar than to unipolar depression, and that is generally how I wrote him in my primary version of the Amberverse. (He was a major part of it because, short version, Fiona was my real Big Bad and was blackmailing Brand into fronting for her.)

Also two more people dealing with missing-body-part issues: Jurt and Coral. Canonically, Coral is fairly traumatized by the loss of her eye and what it was replaced with.

I think that Amber is a particularly interesting setting to write about disability in, because the standard abilities are so far beyond the human norm, and yet they cannot/do not simply serve to negate disabilities, physical or otherwise.

[passerine]

It is. Source of my icon and indirect source of my username (it's another word for Sparrow, who is, well, basically me).

[toujours_nigel]

Mahabharata

Ekalavya (was an archer and had his right thumb chopped off; learned archery without it well enough to be a formidable warrior again)