terajk | 3WFDW: The People with Disabilities Being Awesome Commentfic Fest

Welcome to the People with Disabilities (PWD) Being Awesome Commentfic Fest!

I love people with disabilities doing awesome things. In the spirit of Festibility at

access_fandom I thought: "What better time to celebrate people with disabilities being awesome than

three_weeks_for_dw ?" (In the shower this morning, because I am the best planner ever.)

How it works:

This is a multi-fandom fest celebrating characters with disabilities doing awesome things! Prompts can be from any fandom, and can feature canonically, non-canonically or supernaturally disabled characters. (Are Remus Lupin and Sookie Stackhouse awesome PWD? You betcha!) You can interpret an undiagnosed character as a PWD, or reimagine someone as one.

ETA 4/28: No restrictions on rating. Sorry that was unclear!

But what do you mean by "being awesome?"

I mean a lot of things: Saving the world, going on adventures, facing off against ableism, hanging out with friends, struggling with changes in identity. A prompt/story doesn't have to be happy to be awesome.

Prompting:

Prompts should have the following format:

Fandom, character/paring, prompt.

For crossovers: Fandom 1/Fandom 2, character/pairing, prompt.

You can leave as many prompts as you like. Also, please use respectful language in your prompt.

Filling Prompts:

If you fill a prompt, either post your story as a reply to the prompt-comment, or post a link to your story as a reply to the prompt if it's hosted elsewhere (say, your journal). Also, prompts may be filled more than once.

ETA: You may also fill your own prompts, if you wish.

Warnings:

You may use "Choose Not to Warn" or "No Warnings Apply," or use warnings/content notes for any triggering material.

Questions?:

Feel free to ask me questions! I've never, ever run a fest before (I'll plan this better next year, I swear), so I probably left stuff out.

Current Mood: ecstatic

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sholio

Thank you so much! I'd originally conceived this story to be about Michael taking on some sort of terrifying magical creature, but I realized as I started writing it that it says so much more, really, that after everything that he's faced, the sort of terrors that haunt other people would be something he could shrug off. And yet, he's not invulnerable either, and he knows all too well just how vulnerable he can be.

I ♥ Michael so much. :)

From:

sholio

Thank you so much! :) I really adore Michael and his family - it's SO hard to pick favorite characters in that series, but he's definitely on the short list of four or five "favorites" that I really can't choose between. And, yeah - to the kids, Daddy is still invincible, no matter what.

From:

jadelennox

oh, marvelous. This is one of those stories where I started copying out sections I wanted to quote back in praise, and then I just couldn't, because it ended up being almost the entire thing. You have such an excellent sense, not just of Simon and Alys, but of these tiny peripheral characters.

the sort of brotherly affection beneath it that makes him understand his former self, he thinks, and why he chose to spend time around this man, "I'll remember for the both of us, eh? I'll send you some holos."

This. The whole story is this.

From:

Tales of the Abyss, Luke, He might be coming apart at the seams, but the world still needs a savior.

From:

the_antichris

This is awesome!

From:

ladyjane

Are slave-fics okay?

From:

terajk

Yup!

From:

brightknightie

I followed the

hl_flash link to your "Fight Another Day" on my lunch break, and enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing!

I appreciate how you used this change to cut to the core of Duncan's character -- his identity and his honor -- and to contrast his understanding with his friends'. Duncan's striving for fairness and justice isn't, as Methos and Amanda sometimes seem to think, a privilege of his superior skill, a luxury he can indulge because he's the best; it's the heart without which there is no life.

I liked the use of four centuries to unlearn as a bigger challenge than starting from scratch would be, and the blade tossed to a hand not there to receive it.

If this had been a longer and wider sort of piece, I would have loved to have gotten to share Duncan ruminating on now being in the position in which he put Xavier, and also on Joe, particularly, whether this unusual shared status makes it harder or easier for them to connect, when it first happens.

Again, thanks.

From:

terajk

He wonders, sometimes, what it would be like to spend his life distracted by irrelevant things. It would be a short life, he’s sure.

He should probably be ashamed of exploiting their weakness—a martial artist doesn’t pick on the weak—and they are pathetic about it. Even his beloved calls him a “master of hidden weapons,” as if being seen is essential to a weapon’s existence. He is a master of weapons: knives and bombs and roped hooks all snug against his body, at all times. (His opponents always, always pause to look at the training potty, opening themselves up for a conking).

It is this childlike trust, this mistaking a tool to know something exists for actual existence, that makes them say, “Put your glasses on, stupid”—and he does, when he wants. But to think he needs them is their weakness. He doesn’t need Ranma’s face to thwack him with an iron ball; he doesn’t need the curve of Shampoo’s jaw to drown in the Ang Jiu of her eyes.

From:

sholio

Thank you very much! :) Yeah, there's a lot to explore with this idea, really -- I was trying to keep it short and (relatively) simple, but there are a ton of angles to look at it from.

it's the heart without which there is no life.

Yes, this. That is the core of Duncan for me. His sense of honor and justice is not something he can put on and take off like an overcoat. It's the deepest essence of who he is.

From:

sentientcitizen

Jame Alan Gardner's 'League of Peoples' books, any character: "Kids deemed too stupid or too excessively 'broken' for field work? Get their differences fixed. Bright kids are deemed 'broken' just badly enough to make them visibly different from their peers? Get recruited to the Explorer Corps. A character's reaction to finding out that they're not 'broken' badly enough to dodge the draft." AUs, crossovers, etc are all welcome. :)

From:

philomytha

Could I love Alys and Simon more? Apparently the answer to that is yes. ♥

This is marvellous.

From:

axiom_of_stripe

eep, that makes this fight a lot scarier from both sides (even in the middle of such an "oh, ranma" situation like the pig and the duck and akane's cooking)!

From:

axiom_of_stripe

wow, yes. that is mousse, isn't it! (hah, training potty.)

From:

axiom_of_stripe

They're just talismans anyway -- and behind them he can feel the presence of Amanda and Methos and Joe, of all those long days in the dojo, all those long nights in Joe's bar.

aw, duncan! *hearts*

From:

sholio

Thank you! :) *hearts back*

From:

trascendenza

"Terrible idea," his father mutters, half-heartedly throwing one of Abed's shirts into a box. He's moved past the yelling phase and has now entered the quieter, more repetitive phase. He's muttered that exact phrase twenty-two times while they've been packing and Abed's sure there's much more to come. Abed knows it's because his father wants to make it clear that he is not in support of this decision. Or, rather: that he is in anti-support of this decision.

"Terrible idea." Yet, the box of shirts is full. Abed takes it without comment. He would say thank you, but he knows that would bring back the yelling phase, and there's actually something unexpectedly calming about the muttering phase -- it's soothing background noise, the white static of channel 1.

Abed doesn't know what he would do if his father ever thought something was a good idea. That would be disquieting on several fronts, like going to press the right-hand channel-changing button and finding out that instead of it changing channels, it now has the power to transmute televisions sets into large, floppy-eared rabbits. Ultimately pleasant (because who doesn't like large, floppy-eared rabbits?), but initially deeply unnerving.

Abed loads the last box into the trunk of the car and his father shuts it with an air of finality. Abed debates whether this is more of a Moesha coming-of-age moment or a Boy Meets World coming-of-age moment. Initial evaluation would give the latter a better chance of success, but Moesha makes a surprisingly strong case. There's also the surprise contender of Growing Pains, and of course Sister, Sister has to be given its due consideration.

By the time he's decided that the emotional tenor of their relationship calls for the heavy-handed but not entirely oversentimental approach of Step By Step, his father's already in the driver's seat. Abed hurries over just as he starts honking.

Stoicism and silence triggered by overwhelming protectiveness that's too intensely emotional to articulate, Abed thinks, nodding to himself. He can work with this. It's a staple of the genre for a reason.

*

It takes four hours to unpack. If there's supposed to be an awkward period of settling into his new environment, Abed bypasses it; as soon as he sits on the couch and picks up the remote everything clicks into place, literally and metaphorically.

It wasn't that he hated living with his father. He's also pretty sure it wasn't that his father hated living with him. They love each other. It's an established fact. It's just that they're uncomfortable inversions of each other -- when one is waking up, the other's going to bed; when one's eating sugar-encrusted cereal, the other's eating things that required pots, pans and other assorted culinary items to prepare; what one calls important, the other calls a waste of time. There was always an essential disharmony in the setup that couldn't be avoided.

He catches Saved By The Bell mid-episode; Zack is arguing with Mr. Belding, which feels like an appropriate completion of the day's moral trajectory. He chews on a green gummy bear and thinks that things will be different from now on. He will miss the background static; maybe his father will miss Abed's PowerPoint analyses of Lost. Well, probably not. That's okay, though.

The couch is comfortable and he's looking forward to the semester. Maybe it's a sign that he's growing up, but listening to their repartee, he can't help but think that Mr. Belding makes some valid points. The somewhat humanized antagonists are always the most compelling.

From:

thingswithwings

OH OH MY GOSH ABED! I love this - I love the long moment that Abed takes to figure out the exact emotional tenor of his coming of age moment, I love his feelings about his relationship with his dad, I love it all. Thank you so much for filling my prompt! It's all I could've ever hoped for. <3 <3 <3

From:

thingswithwings

This is awesome! The whole premise is brilliant, and then the execution is even better. You really nail Toph's voice; for example, I'm pretty sure she has Friends don’t let friends kick their butts without a fight embroidered on a pillow somewhere. Seriously, awesome.

From:

jadelennox

♥ this.

From:

trascendenza

thank you!

From:

ladyjane

Is there a fic comm for PWD on DW? If not, can we post recs & links here?

I found a great SPN fic where Sam loses part of one leg, some where Sam's S7 hallucinations become worse or never go away, and one where he has Type 1 diabetes. (I don't know if diabetes counts as a disability per se, but it is something that requires lifelong medication and coping skills.)

From:

terajk

Is there a fic comm for PWD on DW?

There's

access_fandom, which focuses on disability in fandom...everything from accessibility at cons to disability in pop culture and fanworks. (They ran Festibility last year, a commentfic fest focusing on characters with disabilities.) I'm sure they'd appreciate your rec (and it does sound fabulous).