We just released episode 190, our fifteenth (!) “Ask Fansplaining Anything.” RPF, fandom platforms, and a special guest answer from on the potential legality of fanfic in libraries. Listen or read a full transcript: fansplaining.com/episodes/190-a
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![Screenshot of text reading: [Accessibility] has to be something that everyone keeps in the forefront of their mind, because like I said, [disability] affects everybody. If it doesn’t affect you now, don’t worry, it will one day, when you get old and your body falls apart. So it’s something that people just need to care more about, and putting captions in and alt text and stuff like that is something that takes an extra minute or two out of your day, but to make it seem like it’s the end of the world to request that and that I’m ruining everybody’s fun, oh no! Like, OK, deal with it. Cope. How much fun am I missing out on in my daily life because I can’t do X, Y, Z? Oh, you didn’t get to do this thing. Too bad.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkH6aFMXEBgs3Du?format=png&name=medium)
![Screenshot of text reading: I thought [recent horror films leaning into actual diagnoses and conditions] would be really cool, because you know, there’s a lot about the disabled experience that really lends itself to horror, whether it’s the body horror of physical disability, reality not quite matching perception, the ostracization that comes with living in an ableist society. Most of these have…not really hit the mark. A lot of times what you end up with, though, is either a wildly inaccurate picture of the actual disability, which is actually worse than just saying there’s a crazy person that escaped from a mental asylum and wants to drill teenagers with a literal drill, or something more inspirational of ‘Aww, the disability was a superpower the whole time.’ And that kinda sucks, because that’s not really how it works.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FkCoCW9XgAAZvQa?format=png&name=medium)
![Screenshot of text reading: Even though I’ve made AMVs/fanvids in the past, they’re often inaccessible to me [as a deaf person] when made by other people—not always, because I can look up the lyrics, but if the vid artist doesn’t note the song information then I’m out of luck. (And if the lyrics just aren't available online, then...) Sharing TikToks is the same problem unless they’re hard captioned. I’ve defaulted to blocking posters of fancams on Twitter, because in my experience, they never list this information and it’s just a waste of my time and bandwidth. They could post a gif for the same effect without being as annoying.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fj9lSE1XEAIdR6J?format=png&name=medium)
![Screenshot of text reading: My favorite thing ever, going to conventions, was suddenly a lot more complicated [by fibromyalgia]. … I don’t use a wheelchair, I use the Segway. … it looks similar to an e-scooter, but it’s not. For me this is a mobility device … [Cosplaying at a con] I incorporated my Segway into it … and a security guard tried to prohibit me from moving around the convention hall, because I was on my Segway. And I started arguing with them, I explained to them that I had a disability and that this was my mobility device. They did not know what that meant, they continued to try to stop me. Another superior of that person came over and was equally kind of aggressive towards me, because at this point I was upset, of course. ... [It was ] one of the most notable instances I remember of times when because I look young and because I don’t have any outward physical appearance of disability, people assumed I was trying to get away with something.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FjuQ6yMX0AAcnw_?format=png&name=medium)
![Screenshot of text reading: [When I suddenly collapsed at a con] I ended up finding another cosplayer ... he pushed me around without complaint, defended me from some pretty awful con sellers who were very unhappy that I was parked in front of their stand, which I wasn’t, I was parked multiple feet away. But he managed to turn what had been a really scary situation into something that just made me really happy, and it provided me a lot of courage, strength, and just calmness whenever I, a few years later, had to switch to using a wheelchair full time. And it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, because I already knew that I had had a friend out there somewhere who wanted to help me regardless of whether I was in a chair or not, and regardless of how long they had known me for.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fjou3EvXkAAeedr?format=png&name=medium)
![Screenshot of text reading: I found a lot of amazing authors [in the Sherlock fandom], and a lot of amazing fic, but I also found a lot of harmful stereotypes about drug users. ... The idea of a loved one kidnapping a drug user, locking them up in their apartment or whatever until they detox, the idea that this is for their own good; the idea that a character needs to refuse medically necessary pain medication; you know, casually using the word ‘junkie.’ And I guess I would say, like, I know that these are tropes and stereotypes that are all over pop culture, and have been for decades, so what I would want would be that people would be aware, and then they could tag things properly, and then I wouldn’t necessarily stumble into things that were untagged.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FjTcNH9WYAAlJUd?format=png&name=large)
![ELM: And I feel like this is a theme that we see, I’m hearing throughout your answers, and in our other guests as well, this kind of idea of, like, making things accessible, you know, not just easier, but doable, period, for sometimes just a few people, but some portion of fans, like, “ruins” the experience of other fans. And I feel like we see this not just in the IRL spaces that we’re talking about now, but, like, we certainly see it in online spaces, too. And I’m wondering—I mean, it’s not your responsibility to tell non-disabled fans how to fix themselves. But, you know, like, I don’t know—what would you say to those people, who are like, “This is ruining my concert, or whatever, if I don’t have the, you know, freedom to—”
VG: Cope.
ELM: Yeah! [laughs] Yeah? Just deal with it.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FjD7QpYXgAAPMmP?format=jpg&name=large)
