#caffeinated-frog

I am a horror writer and I like writing otherworldly horror, ghosts and alternate dimensions and the like. I thought it would be interesting to have a schizospectrum character where rather than their neurodivergence being tragic or horrific, their experiences make them uniquely suited to navigating their situation. For example, experiences with hallucinations or delusions make them better able to tell when something isn’t real, (like the phone camera trick etc), or flat affect meaning they don’t give away what they’re feeling for a creature that uses emotions against you. I don’t want to frame it as all-positive of course, but I thought such a reversal of the “scary schizophrenic person” trope would be interesting! Is this harmful or playing into superpower stereotypes? Thanks ever so much :]

I kind of like that, although you have the possibility like you said of acting like this is a superpower when it should be completely morally neutral. I think showing positive and negative aspects will fix that problem, though, and overall, I think it makes an interesting point of a world like that and creates a psychotic character in horror and thriller without them being the killer. I like it!

P.S. thank you! Your blog has been so helpful to me 💛

Hello beautiful asker!

We have a post on body horror right there! I would just do your research very thoroughly (read Sasza's part, he worded it much better than me). Characters transforming into something non-human is such a cool concept and cool to explore. And while this isn't our area, I would also research stuff like identity, race, body dysphoria, dysmorphia, Ethnicity, queerness, on their intersectionality with body horror, outside of disability and such. It's really interesting and it all intersects in such a fascinating way!

~ Mod Virus 🌸

Hey,

I think that as long as you're making sure you're not passing off symptoms of disabilities as said body horror, you're fine. If there's no connection between the two, then it won't be offensive to physically/visibly disabled people.

With that said, there's an incredible number of conditions that can be disabling (literally thousands). So to avoid including any of them as "body horror" or "gore" or what have you, you will need to do research.

There are disabilities that involve extra fingers (polydactyly), extra limbs (polymelia), extra eyes (diprosopus), and other things that involve what's widely considered "body horror" by the genre. Yes, they're very rare (except for polydactyly) but they're still very much real; the Witches movie tried to pretend that limb difference was just some magical scary thing rather than an actually existing disability and it was horrible.

That doesn't mean you can't do it, just don't mimic it 1:1. Put the eyes on their neck, or make their fingers come out of their mouth, whatever. Things that don't happen to visibly disabled people, including the ones that die from complications of their disabilities—I think it's incredibly cruel of the horror genre to treat many of them as some sort of "evil creature inspo" because of severe congenital conditions.

That's just my view on it, I hope it makes sense. Good luck with your writing.

I am creating a Deaf character who exists in a somewhat futuristic world. She is an inventor and likes to create things, and I thought it would be cool if she made some of her own aids and devices that would be helpful in her daily life. I do not want to fall into the stereotype of erasing disabilities with tech, obviously no CI that makes you hearing or anything of the sort. I already have some ideas, for example a video phone that can hover or follow them so her hands are free to sign. What aids would help a Deaf person that are not possible with current technology? I’m sure there are many things that would be helpful that I simply would not think of. Many thanks to you all!

Hi!

I think the floating device is a great idea! It's really annoying to hold a phone at the right angle while signing one handed, especially while also moving.

Personally, the thing I would most want to see is widespread access to sign language interpretation. Currently we have online translation services between written languages--with good translation and video production technology, maybe your world could have online sign language translators as well! (Or, if it's the character herself making these aids, maybe she programs a virtual translator herself.) Related to that, a virtual assistant that can do video and typed input and output would be great.