There's sirens in my head
Aug. 24th, 2010 09:33 pm28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
Ahahaha. Ha. Um.
Okay, so from the beginning: there's Tim in Ragnarok, the vampire with Aspergers who died in the last stages of consumption. So he's skinny, gawky and awkward. I still love the idea of a vampire who isn't slithery-smooth and seductive, who stumbles over words and flails his hands and mostly convinces people that he's stupid. This was written before I started having word trouble (Topamax booo) and man, do I feel him so much now. SO MUCH.
Then I cut John Winchester's leg off in the first chapter of Bastard Saints. And Andrew had seizures and chronic pain and a much-shortened life expectancy because srsly, fallen angels wear out human bodies. This was written at the beginning of my struggles with migraines and chronic pain; it probably showed.
Right now, there's AKB!Jeremy with his bipolar disorder and his undiagnosed PTSD, and there's AKB!Misha with his aphasia and his damaged knee/femur from the car accident that put his first master in a coma. My mom had bipolar disorder and it's caused me to do a lot of research and struggling to understand what it put her through, combined with PT calling Jeremy "manic" in an earlier scene and Jeremy playing bipolar Billy on SFU. (Poor PT almost immediately got an email from me going "OMG IS JEREMY BIPOLAR?" and she was like "... no, that was not my intent, but AWESOME," and so it goes.) Misha's disabilities stem from, well, a lot of what my wife and I are dealing with now: loss of mobility, loss of words, loss of privilege. Misha is so clever, so silver-tongued, that I thought it'd be interesting to see him without it.
Ahahaha. Ha. Um.
Okay, so from the beginning: there's Tim in Ragnarok, the vampire with Aspergers who died in the last stages of consumption. So he's skinny, gawky and awkward. I still love the idea of a vampire who isn't slithery-smooth and seductive, who stumbles over words and flails his hands and mostly convinces people that he's stupid. This was written before I started having word trouble (Topamax booo) and man, do I feel him so much now. SO MUCH.
Then I cut John Winchester's leg off in the first chapter of Bastard Saints. And Andrew had seizures and chronic pain and a much-shortened life expectancy because srsly, fallen angels wear out human bodies. This was written at the beginning of my struggles with migraines and chronic pain; it probably showed.
Right now, there's AKB!Jeremy with his bipolar disorder and his undiagnosed PTSD, and there's AKB!Misha with his aphasia and his damaged knee/femur from the car accident that put his first master in a coma. My mom had bipolar disorder and it's caused me to do a lot of research and struggling to understand what it put her through, combined with PT calling Jeremy "manic" in an earlier scene and Jeremy playing bipolar Billy on SFU. (Poor PT almost immediately got an email from me going "OMG IS JEREMY BIPOLAR?" and she was like "... no, that was not my intent, but AWESOME," and so it goes.) Misha's disabilities stem from, well, a lot of what my wife and I are dealing with now: loss of mobility, loss of words, loss of privilege. Misha is so clever, so silver-tongued, that I thought it'd be interesting to see him without it.