#me when a character cracks their back: rep for chronic back pain so true | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whumpinggrounds · 1 year

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hi, excuse me, but I've just read your post on overused disability tropes you posted this late February and I thought it'd ask about one part of it- disability superpowers.

now, I don't disagree that superpowers that essentially eliminate the disability of a character aren't exactly great. take Daredevil, for example. in later issues he even gets the ability to discern the color of objects, somehow- which'd give him functionally better vision than my red-green colorblind, near-sighted brother who works as an astronomer! but what about the "opposite" of that idea: powers or abilities that specifically take advantage of certain aspects of a disability to function.

to give an example of what I'm referring to, there's this idea for a character I've been rotating in my mind for fun: there's this guy, I'd say mid-to-late twenties, somewhat hotheaded, lives in what any casual observer in our society would compare to Hell since the heat helps with his chronic pain. Say that, through some space rock falling on the corpse of his long dead ancestor or whatever, he gained the ability to essentially squeeze himself and whatever he's carrying through "cracks", such as the spaces between tiles in a mosaic or the center of the bathroom door from The Shining, and shoot out of another crack not unlike a portal, with one catch: squeezing through a crack pretty much rips apart his everything and builds it back up at the destination (fluids such as stomach acid don't spill out and come right back to where they were beforehand, since this is already a fantastic scenario and the alternative is Not Fun) which as you can imagine is. not exactly comfortable.

say he was still able to use this ability since he'd have higher pain tolerance (and prescription painkillers) compared to an able-bodied person. would that be an iffy concept?

of course, care would be taken to make sure the character part of the character is also good rep. I'd want him to be interesting!

although I should say that I'm able-bodied, and as such i apologize for any details i might've added or failed to add due to this. hope this ask finds you well!

Hi! Sorry I'm getting to you late; took kind of a break from Tumblr and am just getting back.

First thing I'll say is that I do not want to be in the business of telling people what they should or shouldn't write, or what they should or shouldn't read/watch/enjoy. My only goal is to give people tips and more generally, things to think about to help them critically create or consume media.

In terms of superpowers that exist because a person is disabled - I think it's a really cool idea! Disabled people can have abilities that abled people don't; that is a real life thing that does happen. To give one example, simultaneous communication (talking and listening at the same time) is pretty much impossible in spoken language, which is why it doesn't occur in any spoken language that linguists are aware of. In signed languages, this is not true, and information can be both sent and received at the same time. Or real-life Paralympian and double amputee Oscar Pistorius, who was initially prevented from competing in events for nondisabled runners because his prosthetics were thought to give him an unfair advantage. (No one come for me for talking about Pistorius, I'm really only talking about his running ability, not endorsing him as a person.)

As you've described, the trouble with disabled superheroes comes when their superpowers completely cancel out or negate their disability. This renders them both unrealistic representation (not always bad) and excuses writers and creators from having to properly represent the lived experiences of the community they're choosing to tell stories about (pretty bad, in my opinion). So, finally, we approach your question: Is it bad representation to write about a character whose increased pain tolerance, due to chronic pain, allows him to take advantage of a superpower that is extremely painful?

No, I don't think so!

You can stop here :)

I'm going to keep writing though, even though I dragged you through like three unnecessary paragraphs to get to this point.

As someone who has struggled with chronic pain, and knows and loves a lot of people who struggle with chronic pain, I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea. I think the experience of having increased pain tolerance and pain coping mechanisms is actually very realistic for a character with chronic pain! I'm including a few bonus thoughts here, which you can absolutely skip if you don't want to read them, but that might help flesh out the intersection between this character's chronic pain and his power-related pain.

What does each type of pain feel like, and how intense is it? If he's having a bad pain day, is he still able to use his powers? What effect does that much pain have on his mind and body? If he carries others with him, do they feel pain too, and what is their reaction and tolerance to that pain? What kind of coping mechanisms does he use besides having a high pain tolerance, and what does he do when these methods are not effective?

I am linking my own writing about my own chronic pain; feel free to use that as a resource! Or not! Thanks for the question, and happy writing :)

#disability writing guide #disability asks #disabled superheroes #writing disabled characters #chronic pain #writing chronic pain #writing disability

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