2:43pm May 26, 2015

@ people who say don’t make characters who are disabled “unless there’s a reason for it.”

reillymouse:

Y’all do realize that in real-life disabled people just…exist, right?

Most of us do not come with a Matt Murdoch origin story. We’re just here, the way we are. Real life doesn’t give us a reason.

When you say this, you’re basically saying that unless you can justify our existence, our stories don’t deserve to be told.

It’s funny, because most fellow writers I know are on a constant quest for some kind of accuracy. But that shit? It ain’t accurate. It’s not truthful to have disabled people only exist when they can serve a purpose, or you can give them a backstory angsty enough to fuel their story arc, or whatever else. That’s not how life works.

Sometimes the guy working at the supermarket just happens to only have one arm. Sometimes a girl in your LGBT group just happens to be in a wheelchair. Sometimes the person next to you in class just happens to be autistic. Shouldn’t fiction reflect that?

Why can’t the reason just be “I want to tell a story about a disabled person”?

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