Challenge promotion: Festibility and a list of Chromatic Disabled Characters

[dark_administrator]

A challenge festival that your mods were too disorganised to promote before, though they really should have:

Festibility is a fandom festival organised by access_fandom 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.

Posting dates are July 15 to September 15, 2010, and there is an optional Festibility prompt post you can use for inspiration, as well as a beta pool to help out.

See that banner up there? eruthros has done an awesome job of designing banners with a multitude of chromatic characters in them. Far too often the dominant media around us ignores intersectionality - a token character is either chromatic, or disabled, or GLBTQ. We at dark_agenda would love to support more frequent and positive representation of disabled characters, and to talk about intersectionality while we are at it.

So we're putting together a list of chromatic disabled characters here, for the Dark Agenda version of this challenge. Please do consider posting your fanfiction to the Festibility collection at AO3, because then you can tag it with "dark agenda challenge", and we can add it to our collection as well.

Chromatic Characters from Chromatic Created Sources:

• Ekalavya - Mahabharat (forced self-amputation of thumb)
  
• Dhritarashtra - Mahabharat (blind)
  
• Thakur Baldev Singh - Sholay (forced amputation of both hands)
  
• Iqbal - Iqbal (deaf)
  
• Ishaan Awasthi - Taare Zameen Par (dyslexia)
  
• Rajan Damodran - Taare Zameen Par (paraplegic, requires crutches)
  
• Rizwan Khan - My Name is Khan (autistic)
  
• Joseph Braganza - Khamoshi: the Musical (deaf)
  
• Flavy Braganza - Khamoshi: the Musical
  
• Michelle McNally - Black (deaf and blind)
  
• Debraj Sahai - Black (Alzhiemer's patient)
  
• Fai - Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles
  
• Seishirou - Tokyo Babylon, X
  
• Subaru Sumeragi - Tokyo Babylon, X
  
• Iron Crutch Li/鐵拐李 - 8 Avatar (walks with a stick)

Chromatic Characters from RPF Sources:

• Mondo Guerra - Project Runway (Season 8) (HIV positive)

Chromatic Characters from White Created Sources:

• Cassandra Cain from Batman - DCU comics - Batverse
  
• Alberto Reyes - DCU Comics - Blue Beetle (walks with a cane)
  
• Maya Lopez/Echo - Marvel Comics (deaf)
  
• Nick Fury - Marvel comics - Ultimates!verse and Iron Man films
  
• Alicia Masters - Fantastic Four films and the animated television series Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes (blind)
  
• Susannah Dean - The Dark Tower by Stephen King
  
• Motholeli - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series
  
• Angel Dumat Shumar - Rent (HIV positive)
  
• Mimi Marquez - Rent (HIV positive)
  
• Tom Collins - Rent (HIV Positive)
  
• Riddick - Pitch Black, Chronicles of Riddick
  
• Fa Zhou - Disney's Mulan (war injured, uses a cane)
  
• Toph Bei Fong - Avatar: The Last Airbender (blind)
  
• Teo - Avatar: the Last Airbender (uses a wheelchair)
  
• Max - Dark Angel
  
• Frank Pembleton - Homicide: Life on the Street
  
• Marissa Clark - Early Edition (blind)
  
• Butchie - The Wire (blind)
  
• Kevin Blake - Eureka (autistic)
  
• Abed Nadir - Community (socially diagnosed as autistic)
  
• Geordi LaForge - Star Trek: The Next Generation (blind)
  
• Pierre Chang - Lost (lost an arm)
  
• Hugo "Hurley" Reyes - Lost (institutionalized; struggles with chronic depression and other mental illnesses)
  
• Monet St. Croix - Marvel comics - Generation X (autistic)
  
• Misty Knight - Marvel comics (prosthetic arm)

Also, a reminder about chromaticvision: they are wrapping up their July mini-challenge for recs of fics features chromatic characters. Many of you have old recs written for this comm, or other places (A:tLA fans, I'm looking at you!), so just copy and paste them at this thread over here. Any chance to get more readers to stories that deserve them needs to be taken up!

Last Updated: 07 Nov. 2010.

Comments

[allchildren]

Geordi LaForge - ST: TNG - blind

[dark_administrator]

Added, thanks!

[gloss]

In the comics, it's only Ultimates!Nick Fury who is chromatic; original flavor is not.

[dark_administrator]

Edited to reflect this info, thanks!

[jadelennox]

YOU GUYS ROCK.

I noticed when I was tagging my Festibility story about Abed that it was the first story I'd written when I got to use both my "character of color" and my "disabled character" tags about the same character.

[dark_administrator]

Also Muslim character! Let's keep eid_ka_chand in mind...

[dharmavati]

Dhritarashtra - Mahabharatha (blind)
Ishaan Awasthi - Taare Zameen Par (dyslexia)
Rajan Damodran - Taare Zameen Par (paraplegic, requires crutches)
Rizwan Khan - My Name is Khan (autistic)

[dark_administrator]

Thank you, added!

[sasha_feather]

Thank you for this!

Frank Pembleton - Homicide: Life on the Street

[dark_administrator]

Thank you for running the challenge! And added.

[lilacsigil]

Maya Lopez/Echo (Marvel Comics) - deaf (not Deaf AFAIK)

[dark_administrator]

Added, thanks!

[wordsatourbacks]

Marissa Clark - Early Edition (blind)

[dark_administrator]

Added, thanks!

[trascendenza]

8 Avatar - Iron Crutch Li/鐵拐李 (walks with a stick). It's a show from China and the character is one of the Eight Immortals, so chromatic source.

[dark_administrator]

Added, thanks!

[amaliedageek]

Kevin Blake, Eureka (autistic until this season)

[dark_administrator]

Added, thanks!

[rydra_wong]

Butchie -- The Wire (blind)

[dark_administrator]

Added, thanks!

[amaliedageek]

Alicia Masters, Fantastic Four films and the animated television series Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, (blind)

[dark_administrator]

Added, thanks!

[duckgirlie]

Tom Collins - Rent (HIV Positive)

[dark_administrator]

Added, thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

In addition to Angel Dumott Schunard and Tom Collins, Mimi Marquez (from Rent) was also HIV-positive.

[(Anonymous)]

Monet St. Croix from Generation X. She was the first autistic character I'd ever encountered in media. I only add a qualifier cause I think they semi-retconned this by having her actually be a pair of psychically merged twins (?!) only one of whom was actually autistic? I don't know I bailed before then.

[dark_administrator]

Added her to the list, thanks!

[snowynight]

Misty Knight - Marvel comics. She has a prosthetic arm

[dark_administrator]

Added her to the list, thanks!

[duckgirlie]

Is this purely fictional fandoms, or are you including RPF fandoms as well?

[dark_administrator]

Hi, sorry for the late response, but yes, we are including RPF fandoms.

[duckgirlie]

Cool. Mondo Guerra from Project Runway Season 8 is HIV Positive.

[dark_administrator]

Thank you -- Mondo Guerra has been added to the list!

[(Anonymous)]

Teo - Avatar: the Last Airbender (crippled)

I have no physical disabilities and certainly am not a wheelchair user myself so please take this with a grain of salt, but I know that "crippled" is ableist language and can be immensely triggering for some people who use wheelchairs, as well as for other PWD. If that word is used here for reclamation purposes then I certainly understand and it is not my place to say anything, but if it's not, could you consider changing "crippled" to "uses a wheelchair"?

[dark_administrator]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention! We've corrected the problematic language and would like to apologize to any community members who were hurt by the word.

[(Anonymous)]

Dr. Junito Vargas from Noah's Arc (chromatic source) is HIV positive.

[allchildren]

I just noticed this list lacks one of the characters in the Festibility banner - Felix Gaeta from BSG; lost a leg.

Additionally, Octavia Butler's Fledgling features Shori, who is an amnesiac, and her Earthseed duology features Lauren Olamina, who has a (fictional) disability called hyperempathy, causing her to share the pain of others.