Talk:Disability in Fanworks

Re: disability fic definition

The current definition is:

Disability fic is a fanfic genre in which a character has a disablity (either a canonical disability or in an AU presupposing one) or becomes disabled during the story. Disability fic is often hurt/comfort.

However, one qualification of disability fic is that the disability itself has a role in the story. In particular, the physical and mental recovery and rehabilitation and the lifestyle changes necessitated (in diet, living environment, adaptive technologies, etc.) are key elements of disability fic. Painless_j states this as her first requirement for a fic on her disability lists: - first of all: actual state of disability should play a part, there should not be just mentioning that a character is disabled or injured, nor only a process of inflicting it. (http://painless-j.net/2007/08/30/themed-list-disability/)

Painless_j's 'rules' were quoted by kestrell in her essay Reading in the Dark (http://kestrell.livejournal.com/150847.html) to illustrate the point that disability fic deals with ordinary lives and realities:

Painless_J, a blogger on LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/~painless_j is one fan fic reader/writer who has compiled many lists of recommended stories, and the number of disability fics and commentaries are long enough to require the list to be divided up due to space restrictions. Some commentary on defining disability and some explanation of why such definitions are necessary is also provided.

[beginning of excerpt] - NO short-termed magic-caused suffering, like spare limbs, transformations etc; however a magicaly-induced serious disability fits; - Lycanthropy doesn't fit. In spite of the fact that it certainly can be seen as a case of disability in the magical world, it doesn't exist in ours, and here we are speaking of our disabilities in the wizarding world. Besides, every other fic with Lupin would do. So, this is an exeption; - NO torture. I’m interested in the state of disability and how it influences life and character, not in BDSM or torture as a process; - NO long-term illnesses like pneumonia or flu (or Polka-Dot Plague); - Death in the ‘natural’ way i.e. only because of age, although it’s a very interesting plot, won’t do. [end of excerpt]

What is interesting about this definition is ***how it frames the ordinary as the primary desirable characteristic of disability fics***.

(emphasis *** mine)

She goes on to say, "Disability fan fic allows for a "just the facts" attitude toward disability: it speaks the "unspeakable." It indulges in an act of telling which thumbs its nose at "real world" taboos against telling while simultaneously allowing for a certain distance, a certain "safety buffer," which lets both the writer and the reader establish some boundaries around the intimate details. This is the traditional storytelling space, but put to a rather radical use as a means of relating what is not only a personal experience but a political experience."

.....

Jadelennox was quoted as saying, What I haven't seen much of (and I admit I'm not all that well-read) is stories where the disability is just there.

These stories are not disability fic. The opening of her essay talks about Four Weddings and a Funeral: Can I tell you why I will always love Four Weddings and a Funeral? Because there's a Deaf character, and he's just ... Deaf. There's no Big Issue about his disability, though some humorous plot points arise from it. He's just a guy, and one of the things about him is that he doesn't hear, and one is that he signs, and one is that he's cute, and one is that he's smart. In a similar vein, there are stories about characters with disabilities both canon (House, for example) and non-canon where the disability is not focussed on. These are 'stories about characters who just happen to be disabled' and not 'disability fic'. They are, indeed, hard to find, because they are often not archived as 'disability fic'.

....

The two main list sites for disability fic are http://www.familie3.com/disability_in_fanfiction/ and http://www.geocities.com/disability_fanfic/welcome

And apologies again! I'm a very incoherent person....

busaikko 15:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

When I made this stub I went for an inclusive definition. Actually I more or less I paraphrased the definition that that disability_fanfic site gives, so I probably should have cited, but the site had a typo in its definition, and that looked weird to me. It says here [1]:

"This is a website does exactly what it says on the label. We list disabilityfic. This isn't a rec site, just an (ever growing) list of fanfics which fit a certain criteria, stories in which a cannon character has or acquires a disability."

So I'm not alone in not requiring more than the presence of a disability for it to count.--Ratcreature 15:37, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

ETA: so I suggest that both perspectives should be listed to make it fit with the PPOV, and you could add that some fans have a more specific definition?--Ratcreature 15:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree -- definitely include both definitions, and these are really good citations for the more restrictive definition (and maybe for a section on defenses of disability fic to go with the criticisms of it).--Penknife 15:43, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Heh. It makes me happy that you were leery of quoting a typo *g* However, having read all of the fics in my fandoms on those two list sites, they do not list (again, in my fandoms) many stories dealing with 'characters who happen to have disabilities'. The one site is run by http://disabfic.livejournal.com/profile: perhaps he/she could be asked for an 'expert comment'? *has no idea if that is kosher in wiki-dom* busaikko 15:58, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

That could also be because those kinds just aren't written (hence the criticisms about lack of realism and so on). I mean, I agree that in most disability fic the disability is central, because it is written as a h/c kink or as angst, but for the entry I still think it is good to cover disability fic in a wider sense as well, if only because otherwise we'd need another article to cover "disability in fanfic" for the meta and the discussions about both kinds of fanfic, and that doesn't make sense to me.--Ratcreature 18:47, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going to be troublesome and say that I don't think "disability in fanfic" and "disability fic" are the same thing, either. Even defining disability fic as broadly as possible, I don't think it covers every story including canonically disabled characters. For instance, I've looked at the disability_fanfic site you're citing, and it includes stories in which Wilson has House's canonical disability, but not every story written about House himself ever.

If this is going to be an umbrella article for disability in fanfic (which I think makes sense), I think it needs to be titled "disability in fanfic" with a section for disability fic.--Penknife 19:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind if it is renamed, to be more precise. I just thought that "disability fic" was the most common term people would search for when interested in fanfic featuring disabilities in some way.--Ratcreature 19:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I think my issue is that I don't think "fanfic featuring disabilities" and "fanfic featuring characters who have disabilities" are the same thing. I would be okay with leaving this as "Disability fic" if we revise "Disability fic is a fanfic genre in which a character has a disablity (either a canonical disability or in an AU presupposing one) or becomes disabled during the story." to ""Disability fic is a fanfic genre in which a plot element of the story is a character's disability (either canonical or in an AU presupposing one) or in which a character becomes disabled during the story."

Or if we want this article to include fanfic in which a characters is disabled but that's not relevant to the story's plot, I'd suggest we rename and then redirect "Disability fic" to "Disability in Fanfic#Disability fic."--Penknife 19:38, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I think "Disability fic" does warrant its own page: it's an established genre, and as you say distinct from the larger fields of both "hurt/comfort" and "disability in fanfic". I also think that if there were a page on "Disability in fanfic", it would focus on the pros (in Harry Potter fandom, for example, disabled characters in canon and the magical nature of canon make it an appealing fandom for characters with disabilities: see Christina Papamichael's "Harry Potter and the Curse of Disability" [[2]], kestrell's "Whose Story Is This?": The Radical Act of Telling In Harry Potter Disability Fanfic [[3]], et al) and the cons (the use of disability as a symbol, as mentioned in E.E.Beck's "The old fanfic trivialization discussion, expanded just a bit" [[4]]; or unrealistically portrayed disabilities, as in Milkshake Butterfly's "A House Rant, As Promised" [[5]]. busaikko 23:07, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Recent addition by AuntPip: should this be on the talk page instead? integrated into the article somehow? I'm unsure of how to assist. --Mrs. Potato Head 15:42, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I wondered that. The blog looks like a pro-author's blog; but of course that doesn't mean AuntPip hasn't written fanfiction or otherwise participated in fandom. Espresso Addict 17:20, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

If its function is all about a link to a pro-author blog, and has no obvious fannish connotation, then it needs to be removed or tweaked. --Mrs. Potato Head 17:41, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Rename?

JadedPrism recently proposed renaming the article Apocafic to include a wider range of fanwork types. I'm similarly proposing that this article be renamed to "Disability in Fanworks" to accommodate coverage beyond fic. Disability is a theme explored in fanart (see the examples I added) and probably other formats as well. Night Rain (talk) 06:54, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Adding the attention gardeners flag so this proposal doesn't get lost. I agree with the proposed rename. One thing to note - there is a archive page called Disability in Fanfiction. We might need to add a "You may be looking for" note to both pages. --Auntags (talk) 22:29, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Might be worth renaming that article to "Disability in Fanfiction (archive)" so that "Disability in Fanfiction" can be reclaimed as a redirect to this page. Night Rain (talk) 14:44, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Reading through all the talk above about Disability in Fanworks vs Disability fic as more of a genre (and following other discussions), I think a lot of the content on this page is more Disability in Fanworks, so would agree as well with a rename. Disability fic the genre could then be a headered section on the page? The discussions from much earlier do reflect a certain type of fic genre I remember coming across in the past, so it would fit in as a talking point on a Disability in Fanworks page, especially as I don't think that particular genre is as common as it was in the past?Cookies and chaos (talk) 09:44, 8 February 2024 (UTC)