Survey about future disability big bang

[katiemariie]

In the coming months, I'm planning on hosting a big bang challenge dedicated to characters with disabilities. That is, characters with canonical (or arguably canonical) disabilities. No disability AUs here. Rather than give able-bodied characters disabilities and imagine "what if?" this challenge would put the focus on actually disabled characters and what it's like for them to do various plotty (or porny) things while disabled. This challenge is about giving disabled characters the attention they didn't get in canon. For participants working on original fic, this challenge is about making room for disabled characters in their canon.

Before this gets started, I'd like to gauge interest, and, more importantly, see how I can make this big bang more successful, accessible, and engaging than big bangs of the past. And for that I need folks to please answer this short survey.

If you have any questions/thoughts/ideas, I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Comments

[jackandahat]

I don't know that much about how Big Bangs work, but this sounds interesting!

Question: Does it matter if canon doesn't specify the exact nature of a character's disability? The one I'm thinking of uses a wheelchair or leg brace and cane to get around and has stated he hurt his leg in the war, but there's no further detail given. So I've seen fic writers come up with different explanations as to the exact nature of his disability.

[katiemariie]

Big Bangs are longfic challenges, usually arranged around a common theme (like, a fandom or a pairing or genre). Authors sign up, write a rough draft of a longfic, then send it in to the mod. The mod then sets up "claims" for the stories based on their summaries. Artists/fanmixers/other creative types choose a story (or two or three) to read and create art/fanmixes/what-have-you based on that story. On a date assigned by the mod, the author and their artist/fanmixer/etc. post their creations.

Because disability remains such a taboo topic (especially mental disabilities), I'd say it isn't necessary for the canon to explicitly state how a character is disabled. A lot of fictional texts aren't willing to go into the nature of a wheelchair user's disability beyond saying, "He fell down." Fic is an opportunity to flesh out the portrayal of that character and their disability.

[jackandahat]

*nods* That's not something I've done before, and I have the "What if I drop out?" nerves, but...10k isn't that much fic, not if it's over months and months, and for something like this that matters... hmm.

"A lot of fictional texts aren't willing to go into the nature of a wheelchair user's disability beyond saying, "He fell down." "

Very true - and to be fair on this canon... none of the characters get that much story. (It's the Danger Days stuff, if that means anything to you. If not, it's a fictional world My Chemical Romance created for their most recent album. In universe there's a DJ who shows up in the videos and as a promo, hosted a radio show where he played the album in full. So he's technically a minor character but gets more speaking time than any of the main ones - and in the main videos we see him in a wheelchair, in the promo he's seated and playing around with his cane. So he's very clearly disabled.

(Uh. It's possible I have many feelings about this character because he appeared just as I was dealing with being a disabled person and realising that most authors/filmmakers/etc didn't think there was a place for "people like me" in the post-apocalyptic stories I love. Then this universe showed up howed up and it was just "Here's this guy, doing his job" - and disabled.)

[wynkat]

this sounds very cool! I have a character in mind that would work, but my own participation will depend on how my hands are doing - beyond that, I would love to participate in something like this.

[denyce]

I'd be interested. I recently posted a kink piece (for darkangel_bb) a few months ago focusing on Logan. Atm, I'm going through some rl difficulties so if due dates were later in 2013 I'd probably be able to participate. My thoughts it'd probably be either a sequel to You're Fired! or a crossover idea I have for Logan Cale/Dean Winchester.... hmmm will have to think on it ;)

[sasha_feather]

What an awesome idea! :D

[gehayi]

I'd love to do this, as there's a character in my favorite fandom who becomes disabled in the course of the series...and the author just skips over it. There's no period of adjustment for the man, no learning to deal with physical limitations, with pain or with previously simple things now being difficult, no coping with people's assumptions about what you can or can't do, no mourning for what was and adaptation to what is. The author just ignores all of the above, which drives me nuts. Given sufficient time, health and heat--there's so much I could do with this fellow's situation.

[fizzyblogic]

This is an excellent idea! And I would love to take part; the only thing with big bangs is the deadline. I have a really, really unpredictable/usually bad chronic illness (three, actually) so I don't sign up for writing challenges any more because I can't make deadlines. But if it's long enough away, I'd definitely have a go! My main fandom right now has several characters with disabilities, four of them main characters, but there's one that's had no attention that I've been thinking about how to characterise. This could poke me into thinking up something awesome for him.

[automaticdoor]

Would a character with mental health issues qualify? Let me clarify: in my canon, one character has had recurring substance abuse issues and has been institutionalized; she arguably has general anxiety disorder. Would this be appropriate for this fest?

[katiemariie]

Yeah, totally! Mental illness (including addiction) definitely qualifies as a disability.

[cantarina]

I'm a podficcer who doesn't do well with large word counts and tight deadlines; what I suspect I'd try to do is to participate unofficially with either one story or more likely, an anthology of 10k+ worth of words of shorter ones otherwise relevant to the challenge.

[chordatesrock]

I have some questions about the specific disabilities you're thinking of allowing.

Do you accept fics featuring characters with fantastic disabilities? I.e., disabilities like lycanthropy or baleful polymorphism?

What about fics where the character isn't disabled for the whole fic, because the character acquires a disability during the fic or is cured during the fic?

What about fics where the disability is implied by canon, but never portrayed at all? For instance, if, halfway through the third installment of a series, the main character mentions that something has made him feel better, in a context that implies that he means less affected by a certain unpleasant magic, but before that never mentioned that the unpleasant magic thing was causing any kind of pain or was even detectable, would interpreting that as the character having had chronic pain count as a canon disability?

What about disability AUs with characters who were disabled in canon? Either adding to the disabilities (so they have the canon one and more) or different disabilities instead of the ones they have canonically?

It does sound like a good idea! :)

[katiemariie]

Do you accept fics featuring characters with fantastic disabilities? I.e., disabilities like lycanthropy or baleful polymorphism?
Yes, as long as these fics explore/address to some degree what it's like to have a fantastic disability or to be disabled in a fantastic setting.

What about fics where the character isn't disabled for the whole fic, because the character acquires a disability during the fic or is cured during the fic?
I'd like to have the characters be disabled throughout the entire fic with exceptions being made for characters who canonically acquire their disabilities after they are born and/or end up being cured in the canon. In such cases, the character should be disabled for most of the fic.

What about fics where the disability is implied by canon, but never portrayed at all?
Yep, but I'd encourage author's to think about the role the implied disability has in the character's arch and characterization as well as how the disability was implied. Was it just one reference that could refer to a (very) temporary or one-off physiological/mental issue? Or a reference that illuminates a bit of how the character is portrayed? Or multiple references that make up (at least partially) the fabric of the character and/or their plot? For example, Captain Kirk mentions that Dr. McCoy gave him a sleeping pill last week--which is likely a one-time thing (not a disability) given Kirk never really talks about or is shown having sleeping problems outside that one reference. However, although the word "Asperger's" is only mentioned once in reference to Sherlock (from the BBC program) and Abed (from Community), being on the autism spectrum is a considerable part of their characters. I hope this makes sense.

What about disability AUs with characters who were disabled in canon? Either adding to the disabilities (so they have the canon one and more) or different disabilities instead of the ones they have canonically?
No.

Hope this helps!