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

[lightgetsin]

An addition to the list: Kevin from Joan of Arcadia.

...And I feel like I'm going to keep coming up with more.

[lilacsigil]

Yay, I'm so excited!

[sasha_feather]

Oh, of course Kevin! Please do keep adding to the list.

[sasha_feather]

Yay!

[lightgetsin]

Oh, and Miles Vorkosigan from the Vorkosigan books. Hello, LGI, welcome to your own fandom.

Diana Reid from Criminal Minds.
Scott Macintyre from American Idol.
Cassandra Cain from Batman (DCU)
Aquaman from Aquaman
Lex Luthor lost a hand in, um, some continuities
Slade Wilson from DCU (apparently I have been informed his daughter also put out her own eye to be like her daddy. *eyebrows*)

[lightgetsin]

Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist

I'm just going to keep right on failing to remember characters with disabilities I've actually written.

[cypher]

Also from How to Train Your Dragon: Gobber and [spoilers] (skip) post-movie Hiccup, either or both of whom would be awesome to have fic for!

[rhivolution]

Brill idea! Not to be a pain, but I see that Monk, Sookie, and Johnny Smith are on there--is there a requirement that a canon character have a canonically defined condition? I'm just thinking of say, River Tam or Sarah Connor in T2, where a mental health condition is an aspect of the character but is never particularly specified.

(...must talk myself out of writing an OCD someone.)

[rhivolution]

For anyone reading, to clarify Sarah Connor, I don't mean the alleged condition that the state of California used to commit her to hospital; I was referring to her fairly clear case of PTSD.

[were_duck]

Good points! The list is by no means meant to be inclusive or even exhaustive. We'll add River and Sarah to the list whenever sasha has a minute to edit the post!

[sasha_feather]

There are very few requirements for this fest! You can write whatever you want, however you want. I would agree that River is pretty clearly disabled and it doesn't matter how (although, because I'm a pedant, I think Simon describes her as having schizophrenia in one episode). I would love to see fic about Sarah Connor in this fest! Sookie's disability is a magical one, as are several others on that list. Diagnosis is not so important in my particular worldview. I would like to see you write a character with OCD! If you want to.

[rhivolution]

Thanks, both you and were_duck!

I'd like to write, but I'm still trying to finish my Racebending fic, and I have My Big Fat Hetero Wedding coming up. Hopefully I'll find time for at least a ficlet!

[staranise]

OMG, now I need fic about Diana Reid.

[staranise]

Is previously-written stuff okay?

Another character: Roland from Saved!

[boosette]

Teo from Avatar: tla
Lirael from Garth Nix's Lirael and Abhorsen (Spoiler, click to skip.)Lirael loses a hand at the very end of the series. So fic featuring her would have to be post-series rather than fill-in-the-blank.

[milleniumrex]

Oh, this sounds like a fantastic idea!

I know Disability fic (giving a canon non-disabled character a disability) is kind of a thorny issue, but I always loved those rare fics that are actually about the character's adjustment and how they and the people around them react, as opposed to the disability just being an excuse for H/C. I'm definitely going to be participating in this.

(Also, How To Train Your Dragon for the MIfing win. :D)

[starlady]

Awesome!

And for the character list: T'Pol from Star Trek: Enterprise.

[ct]

Bud Roberts, from JAG.

Also, fyi, it's Kerry Weaver, not Carrie.

[naraht]

I notice you haven't got any historical figures on the list yet. Do you accept RPF?

[damned_colonial]

Yay!

Also, moar characters!

William Bush (Hornblower bookverse)
Archie Kennedy (Hornblower movieverse)
Midshipman Blakeney (Master and Commander movie)
Long John Silver (Treasure Island)
Captain Hook (Peter Pan)
Paul Milner (Foyle's War)
Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy Sayers' mysteries)
Marvin (HHGTTG)

Why yes, those are all Yuletide fandoms, I think ;)

Also, you might want to just say "John Watson (Sherlock Holmes)" rather than specify the movie as he's also disabled in the books.

[dragovianknight]

Norton Drake from the tv series War of the Worlds.

[damned_colonial]

Any of the major characters from Being Human (but especially George and Annie) could be considered as having magical disabilities. But I wonder a bit about that... both George and Annie really seem to be portrayed in that sort of way, I think, but Mitchell's vampirism is shown kind of differently. And now I'm wondering whether vampirism/being a werewolf/etc are disabilities for the purpose of the challenge? Do you want to go there?

[ahouseforrain]

Toph Bei Fong from Avatar the Last Airbender is blind

[milleniumrex]

Also, she's an obscure character, but Mattie Johnson from JAG, Harm's foster daughter. Towards the end of the series she suffered a spinal injury that may have left her paralyzed from the neck down, but sadly the series ended before the effects of her injury could really be explored.

[ghost_lingering]

Also, Al, Izumi, and ... shoot, how do you do grey on grey text? I can't find it in the FAQ. There are several other characters from FMA that totally fit, but I don't want to spoil anyone.