(no subject)

[kradeelav]

it genuinely never occurred to me how closely 'old" overlaps quite solidly and quietly with various facets of disabled.

my knuckles and tendons therabouts - while pretty minor in the scheme of frankenstein body woes - are far more similar visually to my 101-year-old grandmother's own than most folks my age. outsized joints with a side of arthritis-ish like issues, blah blah. (i remember a kid once, a long time ago during some kind of fundraising gala event ask innocently why they looked weird, lol. i'm pretty sure it was just that peculiar kid-like foot-in-mouth naivety and not outright malice - and the funny thing is i was likewise so head-tiltingly confused that that of all things would be a possibility to point out what with all my other quirks being generally more obvious. walker, height, ear implant, etc. ) 

i bring knuckles up specifically because it has been hella weird actually being able to use my body (and similar parts of lived life) as drawing reference (and fic reference with YRMR) for once? not bad-weird....  but yeah this is what you think it's about and a part of me cringes so hard (endearingly?) at the connection lol.

but it's a connection. i think it's a bit too cheesy/on-the-nose to go 'aww krad discovers self love through ojisan thirst' (lol again), but it is definitely humorous about how ... much shit.... i have to reluctantly admit i see in a different light after... well.... describing things in fic and art, let's put it that way. feelings about my body for the past three decades has been pretty much 100% 'keep the annoying shit to a minimum simmer as much as possible' functional efficiency mindset. seeing it in any other light (even through the second-hand-eyes of a different character in a different situation) is... a "huh" moment for sure.

loosely tangential, i was swirling around some thoughts about how 'old/frail' is another one of those traits (much like queer, marginalized, disabled, kinky, survivalistic-oriented) that more often than not ends on the "villain" pile of visual/visible character traits versus your generally younger/"in the prime of their life" protagonist (forgive me, magneto's been on the mind too), and there is an absurdly fascinating web of reasons why that trait's a go to.

Comments

[bleodswean]

Poetic gazing. Nice!

I've oftentimes wondered why / how those traits have become villainized. Speaking from an evolutionary pov. Where are these historical baddies who bore such distinction? Outside of fiction...I mean when we look at fairy tales as psychologically educational, then surely it follows that these traits have been cast this way for reason(s). But what?

[kradeelav]

Ooooh that's an absolutely fascinating angle on thinking about those proto-archetypes. almost like a storytelling version of how dead bloodless skin always gets an instinctive revulsion from humanity (and so monsters are usually encoded with similar looks).

speaking of that, there's some fantastic literature that goes into monster theory that dovetails with this - saved an old post from tumblr that you might appreciate: https://kradeelav.dreamwidth.org/25221.html

[cmdonovann]

oh my god this is so real though. i have started developing a tendency to give my characters (well, any characters that i write, really) certain aspects of my specific disabilities, and seeing other people thirst over the way i write/draw these characters has been. wow. really interesting. it's like, "oh, you think this very visibly autistic and disabled man i'm drawing is hot? you would fuck this freak? wow. (looks at self, very visibly autistic and disabled) huh. cool i guess? nice?" like i legitimately have trouble responding to it (in a good way!) and it's wild. anyway. (handshake emoji) same hat!!

[kradeelav]

clasps your hand in so much solidarity ..... same hat same hat :D