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Playing Characters with Disabilities


Josie
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Playing Characters with Disabilities  

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I feel the results of this poll are pretty clear: characters with disabilities aren't underrepresented at all, just under-noticed. This has pros and cons: that it's not being noticed can mean a diminished social awareness, but it can also mean that characters are being portrayed as more than their issues and that people aren't being dehumanized, and it can also be a social statement that we see people with disabilities as still equal with those who do not have them, which is excellent!

 

Why do you think disabled characters are so uncommon?


Honestly I don't see it as uncommon at all. I see many characters who have anxiety issues, or serious mental illnesses. There's a lot of characters who really need to have some therapy sessions.  I don't see a lot of characters who have chronic illnesses and conditions like diabetes, asthma, migranes, IBS, etc. I'm not sure I've ever seen a character who is physically disabled needing a crutch or wheelchair.

 

Why do people shy away from plotting and posting with disabled characters?

 

It's more time consuming to research the disabilities, to read patient stories, and to have a good enough understanding to respectfully play them.

 

There's also a difficulty in playing them, putting them in situations whether it's a coffee shop or a ball, and relating them to other characters in meaningful ways that creates interesting enough drama to write.

 

If you've played one before, what made you decide to play them? What was your experience with them like? How did other people react to the character? What challenges did you face? Was the experience rewarding for you? How so?

 

I've played many. I've experienced all the degrees of secrecy from outright telling the player plotting, to writing it on an app, to implying it on an app, to writing the character developing the problem. I've had chronic physical problems to serious mental disorders to unresolved trauma of various degrees.

 

I never had any issues with players or changed feelings. One player was able to figure out that my character was developing a medical disorder and that was fun. I felt like I was writing an episode of House, MD dropping hints with symptoms and my partner researching what was wrong. On a similar note I also once wrote with a character as an ER patient laying on the table and we did a lot of medical research on what was wrong and what procedures would be done to fix them, and we had fun being as medically accurate as we could. I think it was the learning of new things to apply that was most fun. A lot of us roleplayers have done it all before and it can get sort of tedious; a new thing to learn and investigate is novel and neat.

 

I felt like the only challenges I faced were in additional research for my character. Sure, some players couldn't think of any plots but that's no different than normal no matter what.

 

Edited by xexes
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A relaxed, dark and gritty roleplay based on Disney's Zootopia. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 3/31/2017 at 1:53 AM, Gothams Reckoning said:

Why do you think disabled characters are so uncommon?

I think many people find it hard to relate to characters who are perceived as vastly different from themselves. When I was younger, my characters didn't have a lot of diversity, because I didn't really understand culture and I was unwilling to put forth the effort to learn.

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