Nevermore Fans Long For Period-Accurate Suffering
A new trend is rising in the Nevermore fandom as the popular webcomic becomes subject to criticism about the story being less than accurate in a manner of ways. A small but vocal minority of fans have taken care to bring to the forefront all of the ways in which Nevermore historically falls short- including, they say, in its depictions of disability, racism, and historical prejudice.
"All the disabilities we see don't actually do anything or change how the characters interact with the world," said critical fan Hex22. as he skimmed Episode 67 on a reread. Flipping idly to Episode 109, he added, "Nothing we see truly shows how dismal and grim it is to be a disabled person. The characters never actually suffer due to their disability! The fact that they can be happy at all is really spitting in the audience's face."
Turning to Episode 114 to prove a point, he gestured to Eulalie. "See? She's doing normal things that everyone does, such as adhering to strict rules and expectations for how things should go, having even those friends in her life consider her uncanny or strange, and having a meltdown where she physically lashes out at one of said close friends. She doesn't act autistic at all- she's not robotic, nonverbal, or a burden on society. She needs to have unfavorable traits and not be just quirky!"
"And don't even get me started on Lenore, Pluto, and Prospero," said Hex as he pulled up Episode 71.
Reporters were genuinely interested in Hex's critique and wanted to know if the fan's solution could involve providing Eulalie with an AAC device. But Hex was adamant- absolutely not.
"Don't be ridiculous," said Hex as he looked at Episode 66. "A cursory search shows that while AAC devices were invented in the 1950s, they didn't become popular until the 1980s. She needs to deal with it like anyone would do back then, which is to say she needs to have been diagnosed with "mental defect" and bribed to "behave" by use of token economies."
"In short," Hex said, "I want her to be TRAUMATIZED, and it's ableist that Red and Flynn refuse to show Eulalie broken, battered, and suffering at all times. In fact, I'd say by not making Lenore, Prospero, Annabel Lee, and Pluto all suffering constantly due to their disabilities, they've gone past casual ableism and into conservative hate content and disability porn slop."
The reporters of this story, themselves autistic, left content that Hex made sure at least some autistic people were suffering enough to make readers happy- mostly due to the fact that they suffered a lot reporting this story.
