Fanart: Homestuck and "How to Train Your Dragon"

[sqbr]

These all have brief descriptions on the site which should make sense if you're familiar with canon, plus there's more info under the cut.

How to Train your Dragon: Repairs
(This picture is a bit spoilery)

"How to Train your Dragon" is a lovely, entertaining kids film which, while not perfect, has a pretty good portrayal of disability in my opinion.

Homestuck: Terezi as Toph

Homestuck: Tavros as Teo

The webcomic Homestuck is funny, clever and has a terrible depiction of disability.

Tavros is a sweet, nice boy who is a little slow on the uptake and ends up being the butt of many jokes. He was introduced offscreen and people drew him in a wheelchair which inspired the author to make him a paraplegic in canon too.

The inspiration for the Tavros picture was seeing fanart of him dressed as a mermaid for Halloween looking sad and wanting to draw him looking happy and awesome.

It's interesting seeing the repeated motifs with these young teenaged disabled characters. (Spoilers for "How to Train Your Dragon" follow)

Terezi and Toph are both snarky, blunt, kickass blind girls with an extra ability that pretty much completely replaces their sight. Once I'd drawn Tavros as Teo it seemed logical to draw Terezi as Toph as well.

Meanwhile Hiccup, Tavros, and Teo are all plucky young boys with mobility issues who can fly(*). I guess at least for the first two it taps into the same "make up for the disability with an extra special ability of a similar type" thing, which would probably bother me more if it didn't make me happy as someone with mobility issues who (coincidentally) LOVES the idea of being able to fly. Wouldn't mind the odd plucky young disabled girl who could fly, though. EDIT: Also Hiccup is very different to Tavros and Teo since he is in no way defined by his disability, it's just this thing that happened to him quite separately to his being able to fly sometimes.

(*)Teo and Tavros are both paraplegics, Hiccup has an artificial foot (but he can walk on it fine and gets it right at the end of the story). Teo has a hanglider wheelchair, Tavros has a rocket chair, and Hiccup has a pet dragon (who also has a mobility aid, an artificial tail fin that Hiccup made for him)

Comments

[trixie]

Huh. I don't really see Hiccup as having an extra special ability. There is nothing special about him except for his empathy and inability to kill a dragon. He only flies because Toothless lets him ride, and because he's smart and resourceful and basically invented some assistive technology for Toothless, who was disabled first.

I adored this movie for its depiction of disability. And it's not just the dragon and Hiccup who have disabilities, it's also Hiccup's teacher, who is a very respected member of the village whose disability neither keeps him from continuing to be a warrior, nor makes him extra wise. Plus, ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY! That's way cool!

[sqbr]

Very good point *edits post*

And yes, I loved how the disabled characters were just characters who were disabled rather than Disabled Characters (unlike in Avatar and Homestuck) and how normalised and positively portrayed assistive tech is.

[trixie]

I also totally meant to say that I love the drawing! *hearts* Toothless.

[sqbr]

Thankyou! Toothless is adorable :)