![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terajkWelcome to the People with Disabilities (PWD) Being Awesome Commentfic Fest!
I love people with disabilities doing awesome things. In the spirit of Festibility at
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
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.
Filled: Friends Don't Let Friends Kick Their Butts (G)
Date: 2011-04-26 10:04 pm (UTC)This is all Zuko’s fault.
Okay, maybe she should’ve said her name instead of just “It’s me”--she forgets that seeing people don’t recognize voices like she can. But still, who lights random people on fire for no reason? Does she go around throwing rocks at people all over the place?
“Well, actually...” Katara would say, even though she hadn’t asked. Katara does that, sometimes: pops into her head and argues, because Katara has so many opinions that real life can’t hold them all. And, okay, Toph is like that, too. Sometimes.
It had been Katara’s opinion (in real life) that Aang was doing so well in his training that he should have a reward. For once, Toph had to agree; he didn’t hesitate to stop boulders with his body now, and his stances were getting so Earthbendery that she could find him better when they fought. She might even have to stop calling him “Twinkletoes” soon. The plan had been to let Aang watch his earthbending and waterbending teachers fight--as a form of study and all.
“But I see you guys fight all the time!” he’d told them.
“Not argue, Toph had said. “Fight. Like this.” She’d punched Katara in the arm.
“Oh, thank you, Toph. But I love you more.” Katara had punched her back, harder.
Now Katara was asking if she really wanted to do this, because, well, you know.
Toph puffs her bangs out of her face; she’d rather get her feet burned again than not do this. “I can wipe the floor with you any day of the week,” she says.
,
“Just try it,” Katara says, and Toph is relieved that the tiptoeing, the carefulness, is out of her voice now. She’s already her parents’ dress-up doll; she doesn’t need to be Katara’s, too. Toph cracks her knuckles.
Perhaps she’ll start with an earth-crack; those are quick and catch even experienced Earthbenders off-guard. Katara’s weight pulls her northwest. But that weight doesn’t have the satisfying thump she expects. Soon she is blasted with cold and wet, because, like fire (stupid Zuko), water doesn’t always come from the ground. Spitting and gasping for breath, Toph doesn’t know what to do. Katara’s water-waves have never come so totally out of nowhere before.
Actually, Toph does know what to do. She can be fragile and helpless and confused, like she was before the Badgermoles showed her how to interact with the world. But she won’t do that, because she is the Avatar’s teacher and Katara’s friend, most of all. Friends don’t let friends kick their butts without a fight.
She puts her weight on the left side of her left foot, where there’s fewest bits of knitted scar tissue. She feels the half-circle Katara’s standing at the end of, the shape she imagines is the arc of a flying boulder. She pulls one to her hands and lets it go.
It doesn’t thump where it should have.
Katara makes a noise then, and Toph steps sideways, twists her body slightly. But such small movements don’t dodge water-waves, and Katara’s attack hits her in the ear.
This sucks. Toph bets Aang is asleep by now, or asking Momo what the point of this fight was, or wondering why he’d asked her to be his earthbending teacher at all. She listens to herself breathe...and then wonders if that’s part of the problem. Pushing all that water around must take something out of you, right? For a moment, Toph wills herself to stop breathing, and listens.
There it is, like the jerking of an injured bird’s wings in her palm.
Follow the bird, she tells the earth as she stomps. There’s a thump, a squeak of surprise.
Toph smiles, and she hears Katara laugh.
Re: Filled: Friends Don't Let Friends Kick Their Butts (G)
Date: 2011-04-27 03:50 am (UTC)There is no part of this quotation which is not awesome. And true. Awesomely true about both of them.
OH TOPH.
Learning how to adapt physical limitations. So many hearts.
But pull quotes can't explain why I think this is so perfect. She doesn't bend like others do -- she doesn't even perceive bending the way sighted viewers of the show perceive her bending. She doesn't have that visual frame of reference. And sometimes this means that her opponents have an advantage, a way of bending which she can't counter. And sometimes, because she is so awesome, she figures out how to counter it.
And then you cap it all off with this. BFF awesomeness.
So. Much. Love.
Re: Filled: Friends Don't Let Friends Kick Their Butts (G)
Date: 2011-04-27 04:39 am (UTC)She doesn't bend like others do -- she doesn't even perceive bending the way sighted viewers of the show perceive her bending. She doesn't have that visual frame of reference.
YES--and this is something that's really intimidating to me about writing Toph. I think space and feeling or weight are woven deeply into her perceptions, which is the opposite of how I am. So thank you for nudging me out of my comfort zone and allowing me to play around with it.
So. Much. Love.
<3 <3 <3 I'm so glad. I had lots of fun writing this, and hoped it did the prompt justice.
Re: Filled: Friends Don't Let Friends Kick Their Butts (G)
Date: 2011-04-28 09:10 am (UTC)Re: Filled: Friends Don't Let Friends Kick Their Butts (G)
Date: 2011-04-28 11:49 pm (UTC)I haven't written much Toph, and I've never written Katara before, so I was glad to be shoved (nicely!) to do it.
I love the way that you deal with Toph's limitations without ever making her weak
Toph makes for DAMN SURE I don't make her weak--one of the many things I love about her :D :D
Re: Filled: Friends Don't Let Friends Kick Their Butts (G)
Date: 2011-04-29 05:00 am (UTC)Re: Filled: Friends Don't Let Friends Kick Their Butts (G)
Date: 2011-05-01 07:51 pm (UTC)Re: Filled: Friends Don't Let Friends Kick Their Butts (G)
Date: 2011-05-11 12:05 am (UTC)