Wheelchairs and Shotguns: Handicapped Other in Supernatural Fandom

[chasingtides]

So there have been some posts hanging about in metafandom about the Other, specifically the Other of colour and fantasy/science fiction. I have not participated because I inevitably get bogged down in the "the writer just can't win" aspect of it all. (Note: This doesn't just apply to characters of colour. I often feel the same way about most discussions of Other characters, including the Other categories into which I fall: women, queers, the handicapped.)

That being said, this meta is actually about another type of Other (I tie myself up in knots) and fandom, specifically Supernatural. Now, I've been knocking about fandom for most of my life at this point - and god, what a strange thing to think of, really - and I haven't been in a fandom that loves to beat on its characters like Supernatural fans do. (I'm sure they exist, but I haven't been in them.)

Now, as a disabled person, I face a conundrum. (Do I have to have a spiel on how this is the view of one person with a neurological condition and how I don't represent everyone everywhere who has any imaginable disability? I really hope I don't.)

On one hand, this means that disabilities are getting more face time than in anything else I've really experienced. I grew up without having any media role models - other than Professor Xavier - who had a disability that I can remember. (Oracle - from Batman - was paralysed by the Joker back in '88, but I didn't do Bat comics when I was a kid. Also, why only comic heroes?) Currently on television, I've got House and... somebody on ER (a show I don't watch)? In World War Z, there's a guy in a wheelchair who fights zombies - and I think I text messaged my whole contact list when I got to that part of the book. So, seeing a fandom that wants to grapple with disabilities should be really, really cool.

On the other hand, there are sometimes where I feel like reading The Secret Garden would make me feel better about being disabled than reading stuff coming from this fandom.

Before I get to fanfiction, there was a Supernatural episode this season that I saw as dealing with both disability and disability discrimination. I talked about it with a friend and was so happy. In Yellow Fever (4.06), the ghost was, in life, a man named Luther Garland. He was viewed by his coworkers and community as monstrous and different and ended up being road-hauled for it. As far as I could tell from context, he appeared to be mentally disabled in life. He was killed for it. It was brutal and painful and extreme, but I could relate to it, on some levels.

The discussions I saw online talked about it as a racial issue. While I can see that, Luther was persecuted and killed because he was different, because he was monstrous, because he had difficulty communicating in the same way as other people, because he looked different (and not the color of his skin which was the same as his brother's), because he acted different. I discussed the ability issue privately with a few friends, but I haven't brought it up until now. I felt - and still feel - that it is an unwelcome thing to say.

(I'm also not going touch panic as a disability and fearful hallucinations... yes. Not touching.)

Why do I feel this way?

Perhaps it is what I see in the fanfiction and discussions of the fanfiction. This is probably going to be an immensely unpopular thing to say, but it bothers me.

I am going to paraphrase (to protect both the perpetrators, but also myself from looking them up):

"I love it when Sam's a cripple so Dean has to take care of him."

Okay, I used "cripple" for a reason that I'll deal with immediately and then move on to the meat of the issue. I've seen this kind of thing a couple of times and I generally try to point out that these are Not Okay Thing to Say. I'm not playing Other Olympics here, but would you say, "I love it when Sam's a faggot" to express your love of gay!Sam? No? Then why would you use language like this? I call myself a cripple, yes, but I also call myself a half-dyke and dyke and a bitch and a cunt. This doesn't mean that I'd be okay with a stranger on the street calling me a crippled half-dyke cunt. Words mean things and they can be deeply insulting. Think before you type.

Second, let's say that this hypothetical statement was written in a review for a fic where Sam, I don't know, is in a wheelchair. What on earth makes you think that Dean would have to take care of him? People with disabilities have a wide range of caring needs and I won't make light of that, but if Sam's been paralysed and has proper therapy and time to heal and learn his body, he won't need Dean to take care of him. This applies to a lot of disabilities. (Fandom, why on earth would they need carers for most of the things you do - they're primarily injury related and if you did a little research, you would learn a lot.)

This attitude - coupled with the type of language used - is insulting. Disability is suddenly not just another way of living, but - I don't even know, something that makes people need coddling. That's infuriating.

I'm speaking as a person who once hit someone with her pocketbook when he tried to push my wheelchair (a stranger, without telling me). I've hit people with my cane when they try to grab my arm (I'd rather be in trouble for smacking them lightly than to end up falling on top of a stranger). I've been told that I can't do things because I'm too disabled - too fragile, too prone to breaking, too incapable of handling my own life. (Yes, I shop for my own groceries, drive my own car, take my own classes, work my own job.)

So, yes, my life experience is colouring how I react to people acting this way about disability. But this pervading attitude grates at me, bother me, makes me angry.

Somehow disability - whether temporary or permanent - makes our characters more cuddly. Now, I'm all for understanding that characters aren't perfect and are mere mortals, but in my opinion, the show does this (Hell, damnation, and death tend to clinch that for me). But there is this feeling that - there's a fierce joy at giving them disabilities - of doing things that the authors don't understand or research, things that affect real people. While I like disabled characters, the enthusiasm combined with a lack of understanding or any apparent desire to understand shakes me to my core. The authors and the readers don't bother to try to understand what it means to have a disability - to need to choose between exercising or going grocery shopping today, to choose between pain meds and watching the news, to wait for interminable hours in doctors' offices, but to also live lives and work jobs and have families and hobbies and interests.

I could go into detail on not understanding mental disabilities, but I'm going to shut up before my head explodes.

It's wounding. We're people, too.

(And someday, I will write a meta on sexism and the Supernatural fandom and then the part of fandom that hasn't ostracised me after this will lynch me.)

Comments

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Wow. Wow.

Since I come at this from the other direction, I want to grump about the subject. I get my literary rocks off on some stuff that intersects with this (forced helplessness type stuff) and seeing it brought to the level of "I love when Sam's a cripple so Dean can take care of him" makes me spit in rage. I can see the "I love breaking characters and having them in the care of another," I can, but it's not a disability issue and... just... ngyaaaaah. Being in a wheelchair isn't broken. Disabled characters fall far outside the extreme hurt/comfort kink since they're not really hurt and in need of comforting. Or even the forced d/s stuff. (Oddly, I do like fic about disabilities, but it's more learning to cope than the hurt/comfort people seem to go for. But that's neither here nor there.)

The whole "makes them more cuddly" thing is weird, since the actual interest (at least for me) comes from the power dynamic and the person in the forced helplessness position doesn't generally become cuddly. If someone really did become helpless after being paralyzed from the waist down (as these people seem to be suggesting) I can't imagine them feeling anything but resentment. Which is the interesting part! And come on, it's freaking Supernatural. There are better ways to hobble a character, ones that don't even require any amount of research.

Gah people can't even do fucking kinks right.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I think these people just don't comprehend disability very well. (I love - in the sense that I stare in bafflement at - the fics where the love interest is the one pushing them through physical therapy - if they get it - or is the one who caused the accident that hurt them - gun shot wounds, car accidents, etc - and there's no resentment. I didn't know my physical therapists as a kid and I fucking hated them - and my parents and doctors and everyone when they were having me do things that hurt. When I was learning to walk again in high school after surgery on my foot, I was the pissiest person. From anecdotal experience, this is normal - you are angry, resentful, hurt, and unhappy when things start and then, sometimes after you are used to it.)

I think part of the cuddly bit is that Sam and Dean are not cuddly at all in canon. They are prickly, angry, carry guns, and Dean's got amazing levels of macho, while Sam's got equally amazing levels of resentment in early seasons and secrets in later ones. These are men who do not cuddle. Somehow, making one of them helpless necessitates physical contact that does not normally occur. Then that progresses to cuddles. It is a strange form of hurt/comfort.

[theladyscribe]

Thank you for this post. I'm currently working on a lengthy J2 AU where the boys are baseball players, and Jensen is forced to retire due to a knee injury. Though a knee injury is hardly an extreme handicap, eight years after the fact it still gives him trouble. I'm taking this as a reminder that he still has to deal with the consequences - and that I need to pay attention to what those consequences might actually be.

Your example of the "when Sam is a cripple" comment is interesting. I think that many times, readers (and writers) get caught up in the hurt/comfort aspect of debilitating injuries and forget that these are real disabilities that happen to real people. It doesn't excuse anyone from researching what they write (or from being sensitive to the fact that their readers may suffer from the very disabilities they write about), but I do think that it is a trope that is used to magnify the caregiving part of the boys' relationship.

That said, there is absolutely no excuse for shoddy research or blatant ignorance of disabilities in the real world.

[maccaj.livejournal.com]

for what it's worth, as a gimp, a writer of hurt/comfort fic, and a reader of it - I *completely* agree with this post.

Hurt/comfort can be fun and emotional and very well done, and disability is one of the more obvious routes to take when writing a hurt/comfort fic... but writing it *well*, or hell, even *discussing* it intelligently, means undeerstanding that gimps are not helpless, less-than, or always-and-forever in need of ablebodied folks. That's the core issue that I think a lot of able-bodied h/c writer and h/c lovers miss, because culturally, we *are* (largely) represented as helpless, less-than, or at best, bitter, emotionally broken, and stubborn - (e.g. House. And I do adore House... but it also troubles me that House is pretty much the most *positive* disabled character portrayed on television.

I won't even get started on the whole ABs playing crips when plenty of very talented crip actors would kill for a job thing, or the fact that we'll see a well-adjusted, congenitally disabled regular when hell freezes over (although Joey Lucas on The West Wing was very well done while it lasted).

I think we'll know when we're actually headed toward cultural equality when well-adjusted disabled characters start showing up on our tv screens - similar to how Bill Cosby et al opened the door for black actors to be a cultural norm.

[maccaj.livejournal.com]

quoting myself, cause as usual I can't get it right the first time:

I think we'll know when we're actually headed toward cultural equality when well-adjusted disabled characters start showing up on our tv screens - similar to how Bill Cosby et al opened the door for black actors to be a cultural norm.

What I meant by this is "when disabled actors (congenitally or otherwise, but genuinely disabled) play a regular role that incorporates said disability without being the focus of the role."... in contrast to House, whom, while fairly realistic, is also utterly misanthropic and emotionally broken, and is also played by the fantastic, but very much ablebodied, Hugh Laurie.

The only *regular* role I've seen that approximates a truly realistic disabled character, played by a disabled actor, without focusing on disability, is Joey Lucas (played utterly brilliantly by Marlee Matlin). We need more of *that* for the cultural views of our society to truly change, because like it or not, television is both a mirror of and one of the largest influences on our culture.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I love reading hurt/comfort, too, but this attitude gets to me.

I agree that this is just a symptom of our culture treating disabled folk as something less than able bodied folk - both physically and emotionally, mentally and culturally. It's not just in the media - I had a guy break up with me once when he realised I was disabled, because it meant that eventually I would hurt him. (No, I cannot explain that in any way.)

House bothers me on many levels - his Vicodin popping the most obvious one that pops out at me, but also his inability to form real relationships - though I love watching him. I think that it's that he's bitter and stubborn, but he refuses to be totally broken and helpless, as so many disabled characters are.

The fact that I struggled to think of a disabled characters shows the absolute lack of cultural equality. Barring World War Z, I can't think of a book that I've recently read that had a character who was disabled and wasn't a plot point. (If you can bear horror, World War Z is worth reading. It is both incredibly well written and the disabled man is one of the most emotionally resilient characters in the book - he just takes life as it is and fights zombies from his chair and defends his friends and family. I wish every disabled character could be written like his - well adjusted, friendly, and ready to kick-ass.)

[samidha.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. This is a meta I wanted to write, but didn't have the energy to (thank you, depression). I am going to link it later.

*hugs you*

[maccaj.livejournal.com]

oh yeah... the media is, as I said, both a mirror of and an influence on what goes on in the real world, which I think is part of why seeing so few disabled characters (and even fewer well done ones) bothers me so much... essentially, it takes the existing cultural perception that disabled people's lives are all about disability, and reenforces that perception, which then continues to be the predominant and accepted thought in the real world, which is further reflected by media, etc.

I had to quit watching House for a while when the whole "House takes Vicodin and that makes him a druggie and a liar and a thief" storyline came up... it felt like it was equating the use of the pain meds with addiction and the behaviors that come with that, instead of ever touching on the idea that some of us have a physical dependence on pain meds - i.e., don't take them for fun, wouldn't steal/lie to get them, and so on. And again, it goes back to the issue that if we had more disabled characters - particularly *actual* disabled actors playing disabled characters - that plotline could more easily be read as "House is a liar and a thief and manipulative because he is *House*; disablility did not *make* him that way." Which I think is what the writers were aiming at, but they never expressed it as such in that storyline (which is strange, because in S1 "Detox," they *did* address it). But since we don't have many disabled characters, the association people walk away with is, "Even if they're professionally successful, disabled people are broken, and if they use pain meds, it's because they're addicted and chasing a high, and they will lie and steal to feed their habit."

I can't think of many disabled characters in media either. Even fewer *main* characters (in written material or movies) or recurring roles (in TV). Of those, only one is played by a disabled person. Add that to the fact that most of the time, even if disability isn't a plot point per se, it's usually an subtle indicator of someone who's either superhuman, evil, broken in some non-visible way, or some combination, and it can get really frustrating.

And wow, World War Z sounds interesting. I'll check it out... I love written horror stuff, I'm just a big wuss when it comes to TV and movies - plus my startle reflex has gotten markedly worse as I've gotten older, so sudden sounds/movements have me plastered to the ceiling. ;) Written horror is awesome, though.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I had issues with that plotline. Between better meds, I have been addicted to certain meds - and it was miserable wanting more and knowing I shouldn't and couldn't and the whole hell that came with it. It was breaking because I needed them, was dependent, *and* was addicted. I couldn't watch that storyline.

I also hate the trope that disabled = evil (seriously? can we just get rid of that or at least have them fighting a disabled hero?). Although, as for the superpower one, I have a friend who points out that even if we had superpowers, wouldn't they, too, be affected by our disabilities? I am really tempted to play with that someday in a piece of original fiction.

World War Z is one of the best true horror pieces I've seen come out in recent years - it was truly frightening and he managed to take zombies and still make them real and believable. The characters are real, frightening and heartbreaking.

[maccaj.livejournal.com]

yeah, I hear you. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever did go back and watch that particular storyline... I'm pretty sure I just waited till it was over, read some summaries on TWoP to make sure I hadn't missed any germane character development and then cautiously went back to the show. That plotline definitely took the shine off the show for me, though... I can't get into it as much as I once was.

Amen to the getting rid of disabled = evil stereotype. And I love that original fic idea.

Sounds awesome!

[a_starfish]

RE: the paraphrase
I like to read about the character's being broken in any way possible and how it affects them and how they get through it and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. I know things happen to real people, I have first and second hand experience of it but as long as it's written using logic/research/knowledge/sensitivity I'm fine with that. I don't read the fics that have the 'breaking them so someone can take care of them for the rest of lives', that's too much for me, never seen a well written one. Because whatever ability they have they'd damn well fight to use it and not need to be taken care of. The characters still need to be the characters whatever happens, you stick them in Antartica they'll still be Winchesters they'll just also happen to be really effing cold. It's when people don't do that it gets Weird and perpetuates myths and ignorance.

I'm curious to know, have you read any of roque_clasique's Drive 'verse?

[static-pixie.livejournal.com]

I mean, the reason I think a lot of people saw Luther's death as being more a parallel to racism was because of the James Byrd, jr. dragging death. Like, I dunno, it could be because I am who I am (like you are who you are) but I was watching the episode with a black friend and we both kind of gasped when we heard how he was killed and my blood just froze because that's all I could think of. Plus like you said, a lot of it was his appearance and having people fear you because of what you look like is something I think pretty much every black man who has any kind of stature faces. Or even doesn't have stature. So I think it was those two things combined and the fact that they really emphasized the looks thing rather than his being mentally handicapped, though I can totally see how my perspective, like yours, is probably tainted a lot by my own experiences.

That said, I admit that fandom perspective on disability isn't something I've ever really thought about, but I think it is telling that in nearly all of the fics I've read where one of the boys ends up having a physical disability, it is Sam, the one who is generally taken care of anyway. But you're right, actually; thinking about all of the fics I've read where Sam has ended up with a physical disability, even the ones where the author is pretty good (I think, though I can't be sure) about having him go through physical therapy and maintain his independence afterward, it's always mellowed him out so much as a character. In general I read for Dean, so I think that's part of why I never picked up on it, but it's true, people don't think to write about the every day complications Sam may go through or any of the frustrations that Sam may feel or anything despite the fact that it does make him really OOC. He just accepts everything with this perfect grace, if it's not just used as a way to stop the boys from hunting. Thank you for pointing this out, actually, because I was about to comment and say that I'd read a lot of fics that handled it well but then realized that wasn't really true given what you were saying. I think. Unless I've totally misread you...

[inalasahl]

Currently on television, I've got House and... somebody on ER (a show I don't watch)?
the coroner on CSI (Doc Robbins), too

[yourlibrarian]

This attitude - coupled with the type of language used - is insulting.

Yes, it is. Although it's also ironic that the example of the disabled individual came from the episode it did given its unpleasant title, which smacks of treating minorities as socially disabled.

and then the part of fandom that hasn't ostracised me after this will lynch me.

Hopefully not! They're good issues to raise.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

See when I first saw the title Yellow Fever, I'd been hoping that it would actually be about yellow fever, a very real and very serious disease. I always figured that the title was in reference to how debilitating and deadly the ghost sickness was, much like yellow fever, a potentially deadly disease for which there is no cure.

IDK. It might be because I'm a huge history buff and am big on learning about the huge health crises of yesteryear (plagues and cholera and yellow fever and malaria and influenza intrigue me like nothing else). Among these, yellow fever was an incredibly important and deadly serious disease and still is. The last major US outbreak was in 1905, but there are still outbreaks in other countries (it's a primarily tropical disease) and according to the CDC, "Case-fatality rates from severe disease range from 15% to more than 50%."

[doro-chan.livejournal.com]

You summed up very well why I generally don't feel comfortable with reading fics about disabled characters. Or, well, most illnesses, really. I'm suffering from depression and anxiety attacks myself, and am the only non-diabetic in my family. I also used to be friends with a girl who was slowly going blind. So I actually do know a bit about coping with these kinds of disabilities.

And what I can say from personal experience is this: It doesn't make you more cuddly, and if anything it makes you more determined than before to live your life on your own, relying on others only if you absolutely have to. It might turn you into a cynic (well, it did with my brother and me), it might make you hate the world (where the real problem lies, in my experience), but it doesn't have to either. My friend who will by now be blind was one of the most positive persons I knew back then.

Fics generally ignore this. They approach the problem from the point of view of an author who just doesn't understand that being disabled in some way is not the end of the world and who also disregards the very human ability to adapt to situations like these. "Healthy" people only seem to view a disability as some kind of lack, while the disabled people I came into contact with viewed it more like a simple difference in abilities, like, say, the ability to understand math (or not), just on a different scale.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

Yes. I don't know if I'm more cynical now than I would be if I wasn't disabled - I've been disabled most of my life and for almost all that I can remember. However, I like to think that it's a positive cynicism: muttering, "Yeah, just hit the crip trying to cross the street," when I'm on the crosswalk and can't go fast enough to get out of the way for the green light.

But yes - I think you've hit the nail on the head. The disabled or ill people in fic never go on to live their lives. They never learn to adapt and learn to live around their disability. (For example, I know I don't have the greatest endurance, so I don't work the whole day, go to the gym, and then go grocery shopping. I manage because something like grocery shopping is a big deal. That kind of thing is never covered.)

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

Also, could you clarify how Yellow Fever = socially disabled? I'm currently pretty tired and overworked, but can't figure the connection.

[sophie-448.livejournal.com]

Hi, I don't know you, but you're kind of my hero right now. I do not understand the sort of fetishised fascination that some of our fandom seems to have for disabled characters. Thank you so much for putting this out there.

[lembeau.livejournal.com]

What on earth makes you think that Dean would have to take care of him? People with disabilities have a wide range of caring needs and I won't make light of that, but if Sam's been paralysed and has proper therapy and time to heal and learn his body, he won't need Dean to take care of him. This applies to a lot of disabilities. (Fandom, why on earth would they need carers for most of the things you do - they're primarily injury related and if you did a little research, you would learn a lot.)

This attitude - coupled with the type of language used - is insulting. Disability is suddenly not just another way of living, but - I don't even know, something that makes people need coddling. That's infuriating.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. Thank you for this. You've put into words some of the problems I've had with fandom.

I hurt my back, badly, 2 years ago, which resulted in my spine curving, my left leg going numb at all times, lots of pain and a limp. I couldn't lift anything, I couldn't stand or walk for more than 3 mins at a time. I couldn't do what I used to be able to before, go out with friends, or sit through a movie, play with my baby nephew. And yet through all of that, I went on, by myself. I worked and went to school. I found ways to grocery shop. It meant having to wait until a friend could carry the heavy things, or going 3 times a week. I allotted myself a bunch of extra time to get (limp then rest, repeat) from point A to point B. I laughed and called myself a cripple, but despite all of that I wasn't crippled by my injury, even when the pain was at its worst because I coped and I lived through it and with it. At times I may have wished I had someone taking care of me. But I didn't and still don't. Chances are I probably would've bitten their heads off.

As a POC, I only "got" the racial context in Yellow Fever from the way he was killed, but other than that, it was because he appeared to be mentally disabled. And I was a little unhappy that fandom was equating it to race (when there are many other examples of that) and not seeing it as the discrimination it was. Actually I was pissed off at humanity for a while because discrimination and deaths like that happened, by people who claimed they were humans.

Please do a sexism meta! Just because I love my show and fandom it doesn't mean I turn a blind eye to the issues in it.

[erda-3.livejournal.com]

Very interesting post. There have been a couple of times when I thought that, finally a show was going to give me the kind of disabled character I want to see. That was the main attraction to me of Dark Angel, but then I guess the character got popular so they magically got him out of his wheelchair. So disappointing.

Recently Sarah Connor Chronicles had Cameron meeting a librarian who seemed to just, by the way, be in a wheelchair, and I was thinking this wheelchair thing appeared to have no relevance to the story line at all, but then, yeah, they fucked it up.

I'm assuming both these characters were played by AB actors.

If shows can't get it right, why isn't fandom stepping in with a fix it? Isn't that what we do? I think the problem is that we would basically have to do it through OCs because the source is giving us nothing to work with. At least with race and gender issues, some shows have a few characters for us to fix up. With the handicapped, we really have nothing.

Why is this so hard?

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure why they had to "fix" the Dark Angel character - I really liked him in his chair. (And hey, a disabled post-apocalyptic character who is still kicking ass? What's not awesome about that?) So when he magically could walk, I was pretty disappointed, too. He was an AB actor, to my knowledge. (Of course, there's probably an actor or two - or more - out there with an invisible disease or two who just doesn't talk about it, but most of these actors *appear* to be AB.)

I would have no problem with writers perhaps writing an AU where one of the characters had a congenital disability or had an injury-related disability or developed a disability along the way, if they were handled well and not as some bizarre cuddling fetish. I would love to see them encounter a disabled character on the show (although Luther's brother was in a wheelchair in Yellow Fever) - maybe an older hunter who uses a mobility aid (or a young hunter for that matter) or a witness who is deaf or blind? Why can't we write deaf or blind or mobility impaired OCs in our fics?

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I guess I don't have trouble seeing violence as a reaction to disability, which is part of the reason I didn't make the race jump. I was bullied - physically and verbally - on the playground for being "the cripple" so it wasn't a hard jump for me to go from there to Yellow Fever, especially given that a) it's Supernatural and b) they gave a proper background for Frank. (I learned coping techniques for dealing with being beat up on the playground that were generally a combination of learning to fight really dirty and making friends with larger boys who were willing to beat the ever living shit out of the people who beat me up.)

Obviously this is not the case with everyone, but I didn't have a lot of trouble with the idea that the "dickish" and violent Frank, when confronted with a missing wife and a mentally disabled coworker of his wife who clearly had a crush on her, would turn to violence. The road-hauling, yes, is reminisce of many race crimes, but I can also see it as a "logical" step for Frank. (As I said in my original, my position as a pale disabled queer woman obviously colors my perception of the world, just as everyone's life experience colors theirs.)

[pinkphoenix1985.livejournal.com]

excellent meta! and I totally agree with you on all points!

It's wounding. We're people, too. *nods* you're so right!

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Just... it's so weird, since both the boys are more like injured animals, and injured animals don't want to be cuddled! The best way to bring them to that point is through psychological trauma ANYWAY if you want to damage them.

I just don't get the lack of research. If I want to play with something, it means I'm interested, which means I do some cursory research. My general vexation on this subject does come from psychiatric issues and how people play with them, make them twee (guess how much I hate United States of Tara, GUESS GUESS GUESS), or use some sort of psychosis as a plot point, and always an easily diagnosable one from a single episode. "This person is crazy, aren't they aliiiiiieeeen and freaky!" Well, no. Honestly the most disturbing individuals in history have been pretty sane. But of course this covers the issue of crazy versus clinically insane or disordered, since there are lots of crazy people out there who don't have anything medically wrong with them. Why? Because we define crazy as abnormal behavior, but that doesn't make you psychotic (and it's always psychotic or sociopathic) or even a clinical case.

It's all so very romanticised while the people are made into infants one way or another. It's almost like some kind of fetish.

Sorry, I always edit comments to your posts!