R.S. Benedict
Welcome to Rite Gud, the podcast that helps you write good. I’m R.S. Benedict. In this episode, we’re talking about physical disabilities. How do we portray them in fiction? How should we portray them? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? We are joined by James McPherson. James, thank you for coming on. Could you start off by telling us about yourself a little bit?
James McPherson
Yeah, sure. So my name is yes, James McPherson of course. And I’m a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. And I’ve been published in a few places. So ellipses seen Nadia magazine wishbone words for fiction. And I was published for nonfiction in manifesto risk based around like disability under pandemic and thinking about how we should be going back to things which which was called not going back to normal. And I also do first reading or a slush pile reading for sees the press. So yeah, that’s pretty much it for me. And I should I should also mention, sorry, the point of being on this as well, of course, is I am physically disabled, I have progressive multiple sclerosis. So I have you know, the sort of writing and reading background plus the disability.
R.S. Benedict
Right, so you know what you’re talking about? You’re not just some guy. Well,
James McPherson
I guess I am some guy as well of course, yeah. See by have like the you know, I’m, you know, I’m day by day and taking things with disability, of course. And yeah, for I mean, for the past eight weeks, I’ve been learning how to use a wheelchair as like a full time wheelchair user, trying to get a grip, literally on the world upside and trying to come to terms with how that looks for me. So as I’m reading about things, and writing as I go along, and thinking about my day to day life, as well as trying to put everything together and making making like a new life for myself, essentially, really?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. All right. So eventually, what we want to talk about in this episode is handling disabilities, physical disabilities, we’re going to focus on the physical just because mental issues, that’s a huge topic, and we cannot fold all of this together under one episode, like That’s enormous. And in this episode, we want to eventually start talking about how we deal with this in speculative fiction. But let’s start off in the real world talking about disability in real life, or at least in mimetic fiction fiction, based on a realistic setting. So what are some physical realities you might need to consider when you’re writing about disability?
James McPherson
I think one thing is to really kind of consider what model of disability that you’re thinking of, first of all, and how we like like, if you take a step back from the right and and really think about how you think about disability yourself. So these are kind of things that I’ve been like picking up myself over, like the past decade or so and trying to figure out how about I think about disability, but like, some of the ways that disability has been sort of muddled over the years, over like, last few centuries, we have, like the moral model, which was really saying that, like people with disabilities are cursed or like, this is because of their sins that this has happened to them, you know, so if you’re like an addict, or if you have, you know, if you catch the plague, you know, you know, back in the time, the Black Death, for instance, then you have sinned in because you’ve not been loyal to God and so on. This is this is your punishment from God, it kind of goes like, wrapped in 19th century, but then also things like, like the AIDS epidemic, obesity and addictions, right, you know, for all those things people can be like, you know, for obviously, it’s affected queer people, by a large, large percentage of belief. So it just means that people were like, well, because of your behavior, this is what you deserve. And those kind of attitudes I feel can really pervade society. The more kind of subtle model that’s maybe not fantastic is like a medical model, which is thinking about disability as something that needs to be solved. So are the people with disabilities are not complete, and we need to find ways to make them complete? And then perhaps thinking about them as productive units within society, if that makes sense. You know, like, if you have a disability, then that means well, it looks like you won’t be working as hard as the coworker next to you, who is the quote unquote, perfect person. So then how do we fix you, you know, Robert, so it becomes like a problem that has to be solved. And so the other model, I feel, is, it’s not an ideal model. It’s not it’s not like a perfect model. But the social model of disability is really considering the disability as something that people are affected by but then it It’s really not that they are affected by the disability itself, but we’re going to think about how they’re affected by the disability in society. So it’s an attempt to try and figure out how the environment around you is affect you day to day. So for instance, if you’re like a wheelchair user like I myself and trying to become, then when I leave my house, there is my front door is essentially one lunch ramp so I can get into the wheelchair, get down the ramp out my front door and outside. But then there might be things out in the wider world that really stops me from getting where I need to go to. So for instance, stairs, I can’t obviously use stairs. But then stairs are like something about construction, you know, somewhere along the line, someone has said, we can have one build, and then we could put like, basically another floor on top, and then have something that leads up to it. So you would think first think of as being stairs, but then if we have an elevator, then people in wheelchairs can get up there. So trying to think about disability as like as a wider issue that affects society and how we put everything together really, right,
R.S. Benedict
right. And something that didn’t occur to me, but I can’t remember who brought it up is we have a way of thinking of certain things as disabilities and certain things that kind of our disabilities, but we don’t think of him like that. Like, obviously, we think of a wheelchair as assistive tech. Yeah, or adaptive technology. But we kind of don’t think of eyeglasses, yes, the same way, even though they are like a pair of glasses is it’s equivalent to like a hearing aid. It’s you can’t see you have a visual impairment. And here’s a piece of technology that you’re using to correct it or to be able to manage your life yes, with this, but somehow we don’t think of wearing glasses as a disability in the same way we might think of as maybe using a hearing aid. Yes,
James McPherson
exactly. Yeah. And I think that’s really trying to think of it that way. One phrase, it’s not so much a slur as it is like, it’s just one of the things that people say is that people in wheelchairs can be referred to as being wheelchair bound. Right, which is the backwards way of thinking about things. So I mean, for the last few years, I’ve really become more than anything bound by MS by multiple sclerosis. And the wheelchair is a tool for me to access the wider world. So I’m not bound by the chair, I’m bound by the things around me that stops me getting from A to B, essentially, I mean, the joke I was thinking about my head is that like, if you’re like a regular person, you probably wear pants when you go outside, right, but you’re not bound by your pants. Like we don’t think we don’t think oh, it’s Oh, it’s such a shame that Raquel has to wear pants when she goes outside. It’s, it’s really, it’s really inspiring. When she gets her pants on in the morning goes outside, it’s, you know, really proud of her. We don’t think of it that way at all. But we all wear pants, you know, it’s something or you know, are other items of clothing. I
R.S. Benedict
mean, I do think of my bra in that way a little bit. But
James McPherson
that’s it. Yeah, yeah. But I did see, I did see a tweet from someone a while back online, where they said, they put out the idea, and I don’t know how I feel about it. But it’s an interesting one is that cars can be considered as like mobility aids, because you get into the car, and it takes you to the place and you can’t necessarily get to the place without the car. And it’s like, huh, so yes, yeah. It’s just I think it’s just when you think start to think of things like that, because I’m really started to grow fonder my wheelchair and I see it as like a tool or like, a smaller vehicle that I get around in, like, it turns out, like going down a hill in a wheelchair can be like, Great fun, you know, you’re not, I’m not bound by like pain or anything anymore. And also, I can go really fast in it and just fly down hills. So it feels really good to use this tool. Nice. Whereas I do have when I’m going out in a boat, I have so many people that asked me if I need help, or if I’m stuck or anything where it’s like, like no, like the wheelchair like solves that issue. It might seem to you in that moment, I am stuck or something. But no, I like this is the thing to help me with things. All
R.S. Benedict
right, I’m gonna guess most of our listeners know this. But I think a lot of people don’t or take some time to realize a lot of times disability isn’t exactly a binary, like, you’re completely blind and can see nothing or you have great vision or, like I think there’s a perception people will see a wheelchair user walking and go like you’re faking, but the reality is, yes.
James McPherson
And I would agree with that completely in my own instance, because I still have a fair amount of strength to stand up and almost a walk. I mean, I can use crutches. I use a four wheeled walker when I’m in sight. But the wheelchair just makes everything so much easier. It just it doesn’t do so much to solve the issue. It just kind of eases everything up for me really. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
And also there’s for some people, there are conditions where some days your nervous system works and some days it just does not.
James McPherson
Yeah, that can be a major thing with conditions like MS, where some people can be what they call relapsing remitting, which is where the attacks of MS can come on and then go away after time. So sometimes They’ll need something like, perhaps they will need something like a wheelchair. Sometimes they won’t. Right. But yeah, it’s definitely not a binary thing. And I think that I think one thing I did want to see was that when we think about disabilities and disabled people, it’s going to happen to almost everyone, you know, listen to this podcast is, like, sooner or later, you’re going to become disabled, unless you’re extremely lucky. And you live to like the age of 100. And you go to a trip to the Grand Canyon, and your your van flies off and you Edina and a bowl of fire like down at the bottom, the Grand Canyon or whatever, and you know, you’re just dead, immediately, you’re gonna you’re going to struggle to struggle somewhere in your life, there is going to be disabilities that come up sooner or later. Really, yeah,
R.S. Benedict
even if you take great care, your health ship breaks, yes. And
James McPherson
that absolutely happened to me, because on paper, there is no real reason why I have MS. Like, it’s just something that appears for people, there seems to be like a genetic disposition for some people to pick it up. But it’s not like a thing that’s been passed down from my parents or anything, it just sort of happened. And, and the things I could perhaps have done better for my health when I was younger, but there is no clear cause and effect for myself. Which is not to say that people who are disabled because of the past actions are any less, but really, just to say that, yeah, obviously, like, as you get older, you come to meet people who have just had strange things happen to them over time, you know, like, any sort of physical accident, or it could happen at any point, really, which is not to scare anyone or anything, really. But it’s just to say, like, really should think about these things going forward, if that makes sense.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, maybe instead of thinking of disabled people, or able bodied just you’re temporarily able bodied?
James McPherson
I guess so. Yes. Yeah. I think you can still see people. But yeah, there is no just like, there’s not just two categories. It’s not able disabled, we’re always going to have somewhere on the I guess the spectrum of things really?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, yeah. So in a previous discussion, you mentioned that when you have a physical disability or mobility issues, moving is harder and requires way more consideration that doing something that I don’t really think much about stepping up onto the curb after crossing the street. But for someone who maybe is in a wheelchair, it might require a little bit more like planning. Yes,
James McPherson
yeah, I definitely feel that way. Because it’s something I’ve really came to learn like in these past few months. But it’s something that I’ve had to come to terms with over like, the last 10 years, as my disability has progressed. It started off late 2013, where I seem to walk like I was drunk sometimes. So I was I was kind of like, well, I need to be careful where I put my feet. And then that progressed and progressed till I started to use like walking stick. And then so think things like you know, traffic lights, and so on become harder and harder. So in where I am just now is that like learning to use the wheelchair means that I’m coming up to the side of a curb and stopping and making sure the curb I’m going to go off is fine. And then looking across the road and making sure the one or the other side is fine. And making sure the road is fine. So there is there is a significant amount of planning on my day to day when I’m going somewhere new. Yeah, I
R.S. Benedict
remember a friend when she was, I think seven months pregnant, just describing the work of getting off the couch as like a multi step process requiring a lot of planning and thinking and multiple phases. Just because I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to call pregnancy a disability. I don’t know. But your body is doing something it doesn’t normally do. And that makes it harder to function. Right?
James McPherson
Yeah. And, like I can sort of see what you mean with that. Yes, absolutely. Yes.
R.S. Benedict
Okay, just because I remember you mentioning, or should we? I’m not sure if we should save this to the end. You read a recently, very popular, highly praised short sci fi story in which the main character is a wheelchair user. And the author describes this character ascending the curb in his wheelchair. And it’s not really treated as a big deal. Yes.
James McPherson
Yeah. I feel we could sort of jump towards life. That’s fine. Sure. So I don’t know if we want to name the story because I feel that we talk about this offer quite quite often. If
R.S. Benedict
you want to name it, go ahead. If you don’t want to, then that’s fine. Yeah, yeah,
James McPherson
I will. I will protect their name if that’s fine. But and it’s not just because like, like, I just don’t want to criticize someone directly. But the lane in the story was really very simple. And it was just the character wheels themselves up the carob. And I was kind of like, I was reading the story and I was like, is it like, is the reader not going to take this any forever? And I felt that it was fine, but I out, there was a lot of potential there that could have been unlocked, if that makes sense, right? One thing I was thinking about when because then I came across them Mark Bell’s substack, which is a fantastic resource for writing of any sort. And one thing he said was that you should always remember that many verbs contain other verbs. And these verbs are nesting dolls made of stacked actions. And that really made me think about things. So like, if you’re opening a door, like how many verbs do you use to open that door? Right? Like when a character is opening that door? If that makes sense? Like, are they taking their time to get their hands on the handle and turn the handle and pull the door open? Or are we just like bypassing that completely, because obviously may not be relevant to the story. And so when we have a wheelchair user that suddenly just goes up the curb and continues on, I feel that is like, a lot unsaid there. Because that says to me, that they’re very adept at using the wheelchair. But also that the Caribs that they’re going up are great, like there’s not any problems with them clearing that curb at all. When I leave my house, I have a set route where I go to to get to like the main road that I want to get to usually. And it involves like a non obvious route, because there are several curves, I find myself completely stuck out, and has meant people have had to come up to come up to me off the street and help me. So I feel it seems like it almost seems like a lot of about the world that this character is in the curves that are easy for them to navigate. I’m just
R.S. Benedict
thinking of like Northeastern winter to where you get a shitload of snow melting snow puddles, just ice all over the sidewalks and the curbs get really fucked out. Yeah,
James McPherson
so it’s been a long time since I’ve been in the United States, but I found like the sidewalks and so on. Were not fantastic when I was walking on them when I was an able bodied person. So I don’t know how I feel about it now. Like I know a lot of areas just simply do not have sidewalks. They just non existent. Things like that. It makes me feel like this is a society that accepts disabilities. But then, if we if we don’t see that for everyone in the story, I really don’t know. It feels like a bit of an oversight. Really?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, yeah. And I think another reality to consider if you’re maybe writing disability is the reality of human sexuality, there does seem to be a tendency to portray people with disabilities as almost childlike or very sexless. I’m not saying that you’re obligated to include a sex scene for the character, but it is a little weird sometimes when the the person with a disability is always just sort of in the background on partner kind of got nothing going on. And while other characters do,
James McPherson
yes. And I personally would say I completely understand the tendency for that, because that happens to me very often. Where in so my, I was diagnosed with MS when I was, I think, I think it was 24. And the the conversations I was having with people like before 24 And after are like night and day sometimes because I don’t get asked about you know, like I may see in any girls, I mean going out so I may meet a mercy and anyone, it simply it’s just not conversations that people have with me anymore. And even before I say you use the wheelchair, there was a perception that I have some sort of horrific ailment that means I am just suddenly sexless. That’s not to say this happens with every single person, but I clearly feel there’s a difference between before diagnosis and afterwards about how I am perceived. So I completely see why, why people write that way. Because there’s a lot of internal ableism there, I suppose. Right?
R.S. Benedict
So let’s talk about some of the social and economic realities of physical disability when is I mean, maybe it’s harder to hold down a job but does that mean that it’s not necessarily that you can’t do the work but for some reason, at least pre COVID We designed a lot of our workspaces in ways that or rather hostile
James McPherson
Yes, yeah. And I would completely agree with that. I also remember before I had the diagnosis for MS, you know, my physical mobility was going down so I found myself having to like apply for jobs that were not physically demanded. Like Previously I’ve worked in like shops and bars and things like that, but after that, I was like, okay, maybe I shouldn’t be applying for these jobs anymore because I knew that these places were not disability friendly at all. And I feel as as something that does massively grow unsaid and I mean, in terms of like things like work and economic reality and things in the UK, for like for people like myself are they have really become like over the last 10 years have become extremely decimal. Remember the the body I think it was like the UN looked at like how many people they believe were going to be dying of like poverty and like things like that, like in the in the UK, and they realized they had the figures wrong by like an additional fee into 45,000 people had died between 2012 and 2019. Jesus and that’s directly because of it. austerity cuts. So things to like public services, benefits have been slashed. I can talk about disability benefit myself where the process is absolutely barbaric. It’s It’s inhuman, which involves filling out a series of forms, or not even not even filling out the forms you need to get, you need to call the Department for Work and Pensions, who will then set the set on the phone with you for an hour felt like fill out a form, then they will send you a form in the post. At that point, they will reject you like almost automatically from receiving any sort of benefits, then you’ll have to take them to a tribunal. Other tribunal, you will be sort of judged by an independent contractor. No, you know, so not even someone from the government. And then they will decide if you’re disabled enough to get money or not. So I did all the I was denied. I had I had a friend helped me again, appeal it, we didn’t quite take them to court, they almost went that we essentially. And I remember, like this person sitting in the room and talking to me and asking me, you know, a barrage of questions. And then at the end of the assessment, they thanked me and stood at the door. And as I left the door, I could I could feel them at the back of me like watching me leave because they were watching how I walked to decide like if I was disabled or not disabled enough. And this is me talking to someone with like MRI scans and a series of experts to say yes, you definitely have a disability, and still not being I wouldn’t say automatically given anything, but they can’t look at things and be like, Oh, yes, you have a disability. Here’s some money because of the economic realities that’s simply denied and cut as much as possible.
R.S. Benedict
Man, that sucks. I remember a friend of mine, going through something kind of similar. His girlfriend’s mother was in a coma, and they were trying to get disability for her. But the requirement or something was that she had to come into the office for a hearing and it’s like, she’s in a coma. We cannot Yes, we can’t drag a fucking coma patient into your office. That’s insane.
James McPherson
Yes. And from my perspective, as someone you know, as a reasonably intelligent young man, I’m able to like complete forearms and speak to people and so on. But if a person is like non variable, or has learned disabilities, or mental disabilities and so on, or simply cannot get to the point of the appointments, then they will they it’s very possible they will be denied and lead to so much death and destitution. Really. The one book I did read on that is like, it’s very particularly to the UK and the subject. It was a by Francis Ryan called crippled. And as a must be about 300 pages long, but I read it in like one second because I didn’t want to read that book anymore. Because the individual cases that she goes through and the people she speak to, it’s absolutely brutal. What’s been done to people across the UK, which is not to say other countries don’t have it as hard. This is me just like speaking from my own personal experience. Really?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. All right. So another consideration when we’re dealing just with the reality of physical disabilities, that shit costs money. Yes. And benefits are not very good. They’re really they’re not great. They’re not great.
James McPherson
Yes. Yeah. I mean, in terms of myself, like I’ve had access to physiotherapy through the NHS, God bless them. NHS has absolute incredible, but also wildly underfunded. They’re to the point they’re trying to break the system, essentially. So physiotherapy can be like, for me, it was like 10 sessions, and then they were like, okay, and get out of here, basically, because like they have ever patients to speak to. So I’ve done to like private physiotherapy, which has also been fantastic. But it’s like, cost me money. I can’t walk well, so that means I don’t have ways to get there quickly. So I had to get a taxi. So there’s a taxi back and forth and physiotherapy. I’ve tried a million different treatments as well like oxygen therapy. I don’t know if you remember the multi suit I was trying on earlier this year.
R.S. Benedict
I remember that. Yeah, we were kind of joking. You’ve got a Gundam? Yeah, the Gundam Yeah,
James McPherson
which is basically a suit, they gives you electric shocks across your body to try and stimulate the muscles. All of that costs money as well. And I think the main one for me is I mean, I’m able to work full time with a desk job. But then I also means that I’m spending a large amount of time trying to figure all of these things out as well. And how I put this together, you know, so you have, you know, make sure you have the money make sure you spend the time on the physiotherapy. And then on top of that, you know, try and write some stories occasionally if I get lucky, but um, yeah, it’s become, it becomes very hard to write.
R.S. Benedict
And I’m also thinking about assistive devices. Oftentimes, if you have insurance, maybe it doesn’t cover them or it only covers the really shitty one or it only covers a small amount of it or doesn’t cover it at all. And there are a lot of devices other than just wheelchair and crutches like a hand control adapters in your car. If you are a person whose legs don’t work, but this is America, you need to fucking drive there’s a device you can put in your car so that you can operate the gas with your hands, but you gotta get that installed and it is expensive. Buying it getting the installation is not cheap or getting like a decent pair of hearing aids. Might not be cheap. Eat or so on and so forth.
James McPherson
Yeah, or Motability cars as well. But you’d like cars that are built from the ground up to allow people with disabilities to use them as well. Yeah, those kinds of things can be funded on the NHS to the degree. I do remember a few years back that kind of changed things. And then this suddenly started stripping the cars away from people and things like that. So it does become harder and harder. Yes. And I think to jump on to the other point was about housing as well, which is, you know, so some of the things that previously may have been fine for you become a lot harder. Yeah, I live in Edinburgh, which is a city that’s in the past has been constructed almost solely of like tenement buildings, which means, you know, high staircases. So you need to make sure that you’re able to get up in those stairs. And if you can’t, well, these buildings are far too old for elevators. So you really kind of stuck.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, yeah. So you’re limited in what apartments, what places you can live in, you’ll want to, you’ll need a place with a decent elevator and an entry ramp, or at least to be on the first floor. And that means you’re limited in what you can get. And an apartment like that might be in high demand. So it might cost a little bit more money or something. Yes. So there’s a heck of a whole lot of financial stuff going on. And that is another thing to consider when you’re maybe consider when you’re writing a character with a disability when you’re writing about disability. So let’s switch. Or let’s transition from the total real world into media into writing and talk about the way disability in general, both in mimetic fiction, and in speculative fiction is portrayed. There’s often these two extremes in the way it’s portrayed. It’s either as this inherently completely tragic thing, or as what people tend to call inspiration. Porn.
James McPherson
Yes. Yeah. Like the last few days, I have been looking through a good few examples and trying to figure out, you know, what we can talk about here? And I think some, like one interesting one of inspiration porn that I wasn’t I never thought about before was Forrest Gump. Oh, yeah. At the start of the film, he uses like, leg braces, like braces, yeah, to help him walk. And then he suddenly he’s, I think he’s chased by the bullies down the street. And at that point, there’s like a miracle and the light races fly off, and he takes off down the street. So it’s like a thing. Yeah. Whereas like, like, there’s a southern redemption, and he’s able to overcome the physical disability just because he tries hard enough. And which is not a thing that if you have a disability in real life that you can often do, like, yeah, I feel like things like, like, ms for me has been an extremely harsh teacher, where there’s been times where I’ve really tried to push myself to do something, you know, physically, and it’s like, no, you cannot do that. Like, that’s the end of it. You can’t do what other people can do. So the idea that you can just push through a disability, and you’ll be fine as ableist, I guess. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
And there’s also an unfortunate tendency to portray a lot of characters with disabilities as sort of side characters who are there to teach the main character a valuable lesson about like, believing in yourself, which is, which is kind of unfair as sort of, you’re making another person’s whole issue, just to serve as an inspiration to someone else, and not as meeting them on their own ground or seeing them as a full person on their own, I guess.
James McPherson
Yes, yeah. I think that is something that happens to me as well, which I always feel very mixed about is like, if I ever post something online and talk about my disability and how I’m doing with it, and if there is like small successes, people are gonna be like, Oh, hey, that’s great to hear. And sometimes people do say, that inspires me. And I’m like, well, that’s fine. It’s not the reason I’m doing this thing. It’s just just just to get by, you know, in most cases, really, more than anything.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. Yeah. So that can be a little frustrating and objectifying. And then on the other hand, the idea of, oh my god, you know, this person’s got a disability. This is like, obviously, having limited mobility is not going to be fun. I, I think it’s it’s fair to say that but treating the life as inherently like, sad. My life is over. might as well die is yes. Obviously kind of cruel. Yeah,
James McPherson
yeah. If we jump ahead slightly, there was one example I was going to talk about in Avatar sure if that’s fine. Okay. And that all applies. And we can talk about a few things there. Because that is one I checked out recently. So like, I watched it back in 2009 when it first came out in the cinema, but I came back with it like obviously, like fresh eyes to date, like disabled eyes and like looking at how it looks now. And it has a really interesting start to it, which is quite strange, but like, it’s interesting to think about. So like at the start of it, we get the idea that the main character Jake Sullivan, who is played by an extremely with an actor, he’s he’s very, very willing. He’s not charismatic at all, just as a side point. And we learn that He was a former Marine and he’s been paralyzed. So he’s a paraplegic. So we see him like in the bar, and he’s using a wheelchair and to be honest, he, he gets around with the wheelchair great. He’s, he’s doing really well. He’s like, he’s like bouncing a shot in his head, well bounce around in the wheelchair, and, and everybody thinks he’s really cool. And one thing he says, at the start of it is that you have been erased. And he says, they can fix a spine, but not in this economy. So it’s made clear that there are solutions to his problems. But society doesn’t want to fix them. And which was kind of like what we were talking about earlier with the social model of disability where it’s not so much that you’re disabled by, you know, your disability, it’s the, it’s the society that you’re surrounded by. And he says, as well, I don’t need to pity me, but strong prey on the weak. He then that he sees a man beaten up a woman in a bar. And he does something I found quite interesting, but I felt like I’ve quite enjoyed it is that he manages to find a way to attack the game, stop him from hitting the woman, and like, knocks him over. And then like, sort of like gets on top of him. So he’s kind of using the environment and what he has to get around that. We also see him like watching football, like, you know, like soccer. And he seems sad about it. So he’s kind of looking at the TV. And he’s like, that couldn’t be me, like back in the day. The there’s a few other points ECM on the spacecraft go into Pandora where he’s going to become the avatar. And he’s moving free island on the spacecraft, because it’s zero gravity. And I was kind of like, well, why can’t you just be like that all the time, really, and just stay on the spacecraft. So really, what I was looking at is that he feels tragic about where he’s came from the he used to be like an operate man. And now he’s in a wheelchair. And so he and he wants to get back to like the marine life and so on. So he joins the avatar program because his twin brother used to have the avatar. So he’s genetically similar enough to his twin brother to use the avatar and like in swap over to the avatar body. And he’s told by this Colonel guy is named Colonel queer, rich, that you give me what I need. And I’ll see it too, that you get your legs back your real legs. And Jake Sullivan kind of looks kind of looks at me, he’s like, like, as if this is a good thing. Like, oh, like, we’ll make sure you get your legs back. The thing I found really funny is the the colonel is telling him this from a giant mech is literally in like our Warhammer 40,000 mech. The light was like 20 feet tall. So he’s able to move around in the world, and this gigantic mech that helps him navigate everything. And I’m just like, Just give him the fucking neck like you have the technology, you’re literally in the end the technology right now. Just give him to it, and like, He will be fine. But yeah, so we kind of see it as an inspiration, like Jake is able to overcome his disability by getting into the avatar body. And there’s a really great in scene where he gets into the avatar body for the first time. And he promptly runs out of the laboratory and runs outside, and he’s running over all the fields. And the music’s really happy and the camera zooms in on his feet. And we see that he’s, you know, he’s moving his feet and like how great that is. And from there, the film just kind of forgets about his disability. And you know, he because he’s avatar No, and you saw he’s running around being like a marine as he used to be. And that’s that, and then at the end of the film, once the, you know, kill all the humans or whatever, like the God of the Navi, like, transfers into the avatar body permanently. So he’s able to discard his weak, crippled body for like, the 10 foot tall, blue body instead,
R.S. Benedict
right, right. Now I remember you drew an interesting parallel to this movie. And the fact that it was at Israel was really touting that it’s doing this great job of creating adaptive technology or something like that.
James McPherson
Yeah, the company that I was thinking about, I think it’s called Auto Bach. And it’s human mobility products of just Google that just No, sorry, but the the best in Germany, actually, but I’m sure, I might be thinking of a different company, sorry. But Israel also deals with what’s called HSCT. And that is our procedure where because MS is an autoimmune immune disorder, they can basically uninstall your immune system and give you a new one. Well, it’s quite similar to like cancer treatment, where they just blast your body with like stuff that then deletes the immune system, the take the stem cells before that, and then give you the stem cells back and then give you all like all your shots for your leader like to make sure you don’t die of like tuberculosis or whatever. And one of the places that you can go to for that is Israel, and I’ve seen documentaries of people going to Israel for this treatment and stuff. And so even back then, it was years ago when I was watching that documentary. I was kind of like, you know, thinking thinking about like, Would I go for this and like, obviously, like I would not want to buy I feel for a lot of people like the temptation could be like to To tie in to a lot of different things, obviously with current events, of course,
R.S. Benedict
yeah, it kind of makes me think a little bit of the Starship Troopers adaptation, the Paul Verhoeven movie, I never read the book. But it’s very deliberately a point that the society has amazing adaptive technology, they have terrific prosthetics, if you get an arm chopped off, they can give you a robot arm, that works just fine. But they only give it to you if you’re an active military service. And they’re only giving it to you not to improve your quality of life, but so that you can serve the war effort. Like at the beginning of the movie, there’s this character, he’s working as a teacher, and he’s an amputee because he was in a military veteran, and he only has one hand, and then later, he reappears, inactive military service, with a robot hand. So it’s like, yeah, we’ll give you that, but only if you’re willing to kill for it. And elsewhere, we have a scene where the main character meets a guy who is a triple amputee, who’s like, basically working a civilian desk job. And he doesn’t have any prosthetics because he can type on a computer with his one hand, so yeah, we’re not giving you anything. Fuck you. Yeah. And it’s it’s this beautiful way of showing just how fucking cruel the society is that they could help you they could, they could give him feet that worked just fine, but they’re not going to because he doesn’t quote unquote, need it. Yeah,
James McPherson
there’s also the of course, the extra conceit the the reason that they need this technology in the first place is because they’ve gone to the alien planet to fight aliens. And then they’d been horrendously crippled in the war effort for it, though. So yeah, so it’s all like the entire disability from like, start to finish is like based around society, you’re crippled, you know, you lose your legs or whatever. And then this is a fight people give it back to you. If this society deems you as worthy enough for it
R.S. Benedict
right? And it’s this just awful, cruel thing. It’s, it’s, it’s terrific. I fucking love that movie. I love that trash movie. Iraq’s but we’re getting ahead a little bit. Another tendency, I think we’re moving a little bit more toward genre fiction and genre film is disability as a mark of evil, right? I mean, mentally ill people are so often portrayed. I know. I’m going off on slightly a tangent but mentally ill people are so often portrayed as inherently dangerous, inherently violent, even though people with mental illness are often more often victims and villains because you’re an easy target, unfortunately. And there’s a real tendency I’ve noticed in like, every horror movie or thriller is the evil person with albinism, right? Like people with albinism are never just like, kind of funny or goofy or normal. They’re either like psychic, or they’re serial killers. Yeah.
James McPherson
And that’s the perception of disfigurement as a as a microbial as you said, Yes. Yes. I think to touch on one very briefly is Dr. Her with the Daleks were like I don’t know how much you know, but they are led by a mad scientist called Dr. Ross. And he is horrifically disfigured as well in the face. All the other dialects of the race are, have been disfigured in a nuclear war to the point where they have to use like 14 mobility aids. And there’s a lot of jokes about them not being able to climb stairs and stuff on and so on. So, yeah, I guess that would be tied into disability as a mark of evil, though, that they are so disabled, that they have to resort entire life sort of life support machines from birth, essentially, right.
R.S. Benedict
There’s also a tendency to portray disfigurement or disability as a mark of evil or a sign of evil. Yeah,
James McPherson
I think another thing I kind of noticed when I was going through different examples, and so on, as their idea that if you’re disabled physically, you have to find a different way to compensate it like mentally. So just to run through some examples I did come across, this seems to be a really common thing in comic books. So you have Daredevil who loses his eyesight. And then he gains like, there’s also something a bit like with chemicals or something. And so he gains like, stronger like sense of hearing. And then so he’s able to use a sense of hearing to compensate for the loss of his sight. You have Professor X of X Men, who’s physically disabled in a wheelchair, but he has like mental power, so that’s fine. There’s Barbara Gordon, who is also sometimes known as bad girl. And she’s paralyzed by the Joker. But it’s also okay, because she also has like a fantastic memory and Hakoda belly, so she becomes Oracle. And so even though she can’t walk anymore, it’s fine because she’s able to use her mind and overcome the physical disabilities and still prove her worth as a I guess, as a functional unit within society. I think no one asked would be a really like to see just disabled characters that are allowed to be idiots, you know, just like they don’t like not to say they don’t have any redeeming characters, but it’d be just nice if there was like, a guy in a wheelchair, who’s like also on like, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or something that just Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
who just wants to smoke weed?
James McPherson
Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
yeah. Was there a character a little bit like that? And there’s this really great Charlize Theron movie called Young Adult and Patton Oswald plays a pathetic guy who was in love with her in high school and he’s got a disability right now he works. He works with crutches because he was really just got the shit kicked out of him when he was younger. And there’s the scene where he who’s sort of, he’s Patton Oswald, so he’s sort of a loser just because he’s Patton Oswald. Not because he’s disabled but it that’s, that’s who he is meets the like, high functioning alpha male inspiration. Poor wheelchair guy, and it’s just like, I fucking hate that guy. Yeah, fucking hate him. Yeah, yeah. Smile, smile, smile. Fuck you. It’s great. It’s so
James McPherson
I was going to touch very briefly on Game of Thrones. Okay, yeah,
R.S. Benedict
let’s talk about that.
James McPherson
You have Brian Stark, who may as well be a comic book character in the same way. He’s thrown up a window and paralyzed. And then as far as like foresight and ability to change bodies in like to inhabit his wealth and so on become apparent. So again, you have a thing where he’s like, he’s physically disabled, but he’s also got this other thing going. So it’s fine. I think as well, if we look at Tyrion as disabled. And I think definitions of dwarfism as being a disability are kind of contested in some places. But I’ve right, I think if we look at him as being as having a body, that’s not a typical, Ray, still able to, again, he’s known as having like a sharp time, he’s able to talk his way out of problems and so on. It’s like, same kind of thing.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, yeah. Before we go too much into just going into more examples, I think we should take a minute to talk about why it’s worth considering how we deal with disability in speculative fiction, like, okay, so real world accuracy is kind of silly to think about when you’re writing a story with like space aliens and dragons and giant robots and shit, but it is worth discussing it with consideration and care, right, like, so. Are you Oh, there won’t be any disability because we’ll just magically fix it all, or we’ll just futuristically cure it all. Like feels a little pat and cheap. To me.
James McPherson
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Like an example of that could be like, I don’t want to go too much, and examples again, but Yennefer in The Witcher, who is born with significant physical disabilities, and she has something of a hunchback and her jaws shape. And so she has this cure, she has like a magic ritual she goes through, and then she comes up with the upper side, and she’s absolutely beautiful. And don’t say that she then becomes infertile. And so then she has to find ways to, you know, to try and have children after that. But like her disability is kind of brushed aside. It’s really, she has something that she struggles with, and she goes through a magic ritual, and then she’s all fine. And I feel it’s fine to do. But I think that my main issue with it along with, like representation and not getting to see a disabled person do something is really that we lose out on a sense of struggle, I think, which I feel I like personally, I always want to see in something I always want to see like a character struggle with things really. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
And now there was another thing you brought up it I think, an example of was it a video game where it seems to take place in sort of a 17th century inspired sort of pirate setting. And there’s a character who is using a very modern type wheelchair on an olden times pirate ship, and it’s kind of
James McPherson
like, what I don’t bring that up myself. No, but that’s interesting. Okay,
R.S. Benedict
someone brought this up in the discord. I’m so sorry for not creating the proper groups. No, no, it’s
James McPherson
fine. I have looked at Dungeons and Dragons add on for wheelchairs. Yeah. So you have like, like a set of rules about how wheelchairs would work in dungeons of dragons, and so on, which I think is really interesting to think about. Of course, it does bring up the concerns about whether like a dungeon would be wheelchair accessible. Maybe it would be you know, maybe we just have to think about scenarios, which are more than just the basic ones that we used to think about. I know there’s like additional rules, like you can add on like magic to the wheelchair, so the wheelchair can like fly up parts and things like that. But then obviously, that’s offset by you’re having to spend more on your character, like more money to get them to these items and so on. But I think I think it’s definitely worth considering and whether it’s the right thing for the environment. Yeah, I would personally like the thing about our devices like can they use like other creatures to get around or something like that? Or
R.S. Benedict
like a symbiotic relationship with a little weird little horse type thing? Or? Yes,
James McPherson
yeah, yeah, I’m all for weird horses and stories really like little horses that you can go around on that will be pretty sick. Yeah. But it’s just thinking about, like, I think from my own perspective, again, it’s really that when I started to use the wheelchair, and I was like, well hang on a minute, my arm still work. It’s just my legs I have the issues with so what can I use to get myself around with my arms and then a wheelchair became the obvious thing to pick up on? Really?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. What do you think granted, this is not your specific issue of Star Trek TNG, Geordi, LaForge his visor,
James McPherson
and what respect you mean like, like,
R.S. Benedict
oh, just as like a way of handling a disability in speculative fiction. Like we have a character who’s blind, but he has this visor that allows him to see although his vision through the visor is very, very different from like a sort of out For each person’s vision,
James McPherson
I think it’s interesting because it just means that the character is given a different perspective and things really where they have. They have a device that helps them to see. But then it’s not what they see, like what they see is not like different perspective,
R.S. Benedict
there are a couple episodes where they show it and it almost seems like almost an infrared vision but not sort of what a normal human eye would perceive. I don’t know. Yeah, it gets interesting.
James McPherson
Yeah, I think I think it’s an interesting way of are showing it because what they could do is they could say, in Star Trek, the technology has advanced to the point where his eyes are fine. And you can just have the doctor without the visor. But then that would just mean that people with a disabilities and wherever that may be, don’t see themselves reflected in the show, right? I think that’s why I feel that again, you can say like, why don’t people in magic environments get rid of wheelchairs? Well, it’s like, well, it’s kind of nice to see people using wheelchairs in those environments, because you see yourself in it. And I think that’s something that I’ve really had to learn myself as like a white sis straight man, is that before I was disabled, I was you know, I fit into all the categories and stuff. So I didn’t really worry about representation so much, to be honest. And it’s only when I’ve had a disability. I’ve been like, hey, there’s a character in this that has a disability. I’m like that character. And I like to see that character being and if I’m playing like a video game, and there’s one character in a wheelchair, I’ll go for the wheelchair every single time. So
R.S. Benedict
in speculative fiction, maybe it is a little silly to think well, that’s, that’s not accurate. Because I mean, okay, we’re dealing with like magic or futuristic technology. So it’s not going to be accurate to our real world. But I do think it is worth considering carefully how you portray this. And oh, will will just completely cure it seems a little too easy or Pat, but I don’t know, maybe using modern tech might feel a little weird to and it might be fun to try and engage with things in ways that are a little more creative, or just a little more considerate. Yeah,
James McPherson
when I was talking about Yennefer, just now in The Witcher, there was also there’s a sort of argument being made for goettl as being disabled, because in the books, Gatto has a horrific injury, I believe it’s to his knee and his elbow. And he has to go through again, through a magic ritual to do to heal his body parts. But the issue is that then that leaves him with severe chronic arthritis afterwards. And means so there is perspective that he is a disabled character. And he struggles with a disability when I was looking at this online and perspectives of this because he doesn’t seem to have those disabilities in the video games. And the video games are set after the books, I was looking at arguments and line people are like he’s been cured of disability, we don’t need to worry about that. We just put it to a side, like I guess so. But it’s also like, it’s nice as a disabled person to see see someone like yourself struggle through things really. So I feel it’s fine for people to pick up on things like that as being like, as a model for themselves. Really?
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, I can definitely see that. So let’s move toward a couple more examples of portrayals of disability and speculative fiction. We’ve talked about Game of Thrones, we’ve talked about avatar, Starship Troopers, you wanted to bring up Kafka’s metamorphosis? Because I mean, it’s a fucking amazing story. Yes.
James McPherson
So again, this is one I’ve looked at with abled eyes and then through, I don’t want to keep saying disabled dies, because that sounds like I have an eye issue, which is not the case. But through like a disabled perspective. And there’s a few points in that there really, really got to me was that right at the start of it when he wakes up in the morning, and he’s been transformed into like, the abomination. And his immediate thoughts are like, like, obviously, you know, what the hell is going on here. But then after that, he’s like, Oh, shit, I need to get up for work, I really, really need to go because I need to get on the train and get on with my job. And when I was reading that for, like, the second time, after my disability really took hold, I really started to identify with that, because, like, with someone with issues with my legs, it just means that I struggle sometimes to get my clothes on in the morning and get out the door and get to work. So when I saw him being like, you know, as the Borg being like, Oh, shit, I need to get to work. I’m like, That’s funny, but it’s also really tragic. And I really see myself in that. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
yeah, it fits really well, for mental issues, too. Like, when you’re just in the throes of just a total mental health crisis going, I gotta, I gotta fucking get to work. You kind of feel like Kafka little like little Gregor, who’s trying to put pants on with his spindly little bug legs. Like, I gotta go to work. Like you’re a bug. Dude, you can’t do this.
James McPherson
Yeah, you have bigger issues to worry about right now. But it’s not the way that he feels at the moment. And it’s not the way I feel about things when it’s like, oh, yeah, I have like a really serious progressive illness. But I also need to get to work and pay the bills like it needs to happen somewhere on Earth. I really, I also feel like the ending is really tragic, where his family gradually discard his humanity. And it happens bit by bit where they stop trying to talk to him and they keep him locked in the room. They throw the apple at him, you know, the Keep him pushed out of the way and then and eventually when he dies, they’re so happy. They’re so happy and their son is dead, because it means they can go outside and so on and live the life again. And I really They don’t know if I was deliberately cafcass part to portray it like that. But I get the feeling that is because I know that he had serious illness sees himself as well.
R.S. Benedict
Oh yeah, he had some really serious mental issues. He had anorexia for a large part of his life, just immense self loathing. And his it sounds like his father was very much an overbearing man. Who, whose standards Kafka did not live up to so. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. So that’s another one. I think we wanted to talk about Fury Road a little bit, because I fucking love that movie. And there’s Yeah, it’s interesting to look at because there’s a lot of different portrayals of disability throughout the movie. I mean, we’ve got obviously Furiosa she has her prosthetic arm. She’s the hero. Yes,
James McPherson
yes. And she gets by fighting with a percentage arm except I think like in the second major scene, where she loses the arm it gets tangled up and she has to fight Max, like in the desert without the arm. Yeah, she she has to find ways to overcome it from there. But apart from that she manages she’s like, I guess she has a positive representation because she manages to get by and like she’s extremely physical. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
But then on the other hand, so many of the bad guys are they also have some sort of disability and are disfigured. There’s very much like I think, sort of pretty quote, unquote, disabilities, and yucky ones, like Immortan, Joe has this breathing mask, he’s got all kinds of shit going on. So does his large adult son named Richard erectus, which is a fucking amazing name, also has some kind of breathing apparatus on his face. So even though he’s this big, strong guy, he still has some kind of breathing issues, some kind of lung issue, he wears what looks like an oxygen mask or something. Yes,
James McPherson
but there’s also the case of smaller Sun porpoise, Colossus. So I kind of looked into his background a little bit. And it turns out much the same trope again, oh, of like, Oh, he’s physically disabled, but he’s also extremely intelligent. So he’s the one that seems to be running the entire show. At the end of the film, as well, we see him like he’s fairly small, because of his disabilities. And the he’s the one that allows Furiosa and the rest of the camp to come up a bit that you never really see him as a physical presence at all. It made me think as well, I mean, like in the grand scheme of things, why he doesn’t have a car. You know, why he does he got and the rates? Yeah, because they’re all using, like, they’re all wild and weird cars. So I don’t see why he couldn’t have a car as well.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah. And it’s like, maybe it’s a commentary on that society, too. I mean, this is a society that worships physical strength. So a guy like a more tanjo probably would not be as affectionate toward, like a physically no frail child, he would be a dick, you know? Yeah,
James McPherson
yeah. And if you have to remember as well, important, Joe’s whole project is to give birth to a son, or a child that is pure, because of because of something that’s happened after the apocalypse, which means people are really prone to mutations, and I guess disabilities. So he has the two sons, he has the smaller, physically disabled son, that is intelligent, and he has the large son, which is who is not intelligent. So he’s trying to breed, you know, the perfect being, which of course, you can look at as the eugenics of like very easily,
R.S. Benedict
right. And there’s that whole theme of the warboys. In that movie, they love engines, they love cars, because machines, unlike human bodies are strong and can be fixed. And I mean, if they break, you can replace parts and they’ll still work and they’re shiny, and they’re not like soft and squishy, and quite as prone to failure and death. So like the highest honor is to become like a vehicle is to become like a car to be shiny and Chrome. And the warboys themselves, they’re all just riddled with tumors.
James McPherson
They don’t have problems with Bloods, but they also have make sure they always have a blood donor and the ones that like the universal donors are higher praise than the non universal donor. So that’s why they make they’re really I’m sure they’re really excited about Max, guys because he’s a universal donor. So they make sure that the prize him more than more than the ones with more unusual types of blood, I guess.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, there’s also that character called the people eater, the mayor of Gastown, who is this like huge, really fat, really monstrous character who’s got like a prosthetic nose and deformed big, Lumpy feet. And his deformities are very much meant to portray him as this negative, like villainous character. And I do get that a lot of these deformities or issues or whatever you want to call it are parallels or references or I don’t know what you want to call it to the kind of ailments that rich people would get like back in the Renaissance, like there was a real outbreak of syphilis among the upper classes in the Renaissance. And one thing that syphilis does is makes your nose rot off your face. So like, a lot of kind of upper class men would wear a prosthetic nose or a mask or something like that to hide it, or gout was a much more common ailments among rich guys like back in the day, so maybe his big kind of fucked up feet. It’s about he has gout,
James McPherson
right? Yeah, yeah. And like none of The good characters in the film are really like few they also obviously has her arm. But that’s not
R.S. Benedict
but she’s pretty she’s not lucky or weird looking. None of their, like, very conventionally attractive. The majority of the good ones even the good word boy. Yeah, he’s got some lumps on him, but he still has a very nice face. Yes,
James McPherson
exactly. Yeah. So he has he’s allowed to fit into the kind of the category have a good Have a good one? Yes. Yeah. The
R.S. Benedict
the disabilities that make you ugly, or, you know, quote unquote, ugly. Obviously, I’m making a judgmental statement. But but this is how the movie is portraying it is the physical disabilities that make you less conventionally sexy. are very clearly a mark of either you’re evil or you’re a victim. Yes, yeah, exactly. Yeah. You’re, you’re one of the like, background extras waiting to be rescued.
James McPherson
Yeah, and of course, then we have like the beauty of Tom Hardy, obviously. So.
R.S. Benedict
Yeah, it’s just a stunning himbo. Yep. You know, you’ve got Charlize Theron. Who’s fucking a total smoke show. You’ve got the supermodel wives. Yeah.
James McPherson
Yeah. Which, which, which are beautiful to make is kind of make a point of eugenics. I
R.S. Benedict
mean, yeah, cuz because of more Tenjo being this is a patriarchal society. So yeah, he is going to be very shallow about his choice of wives. And his choice of wives is partially going to be about the status symbol of like, look how hot my wife is. Yes. Yes. So it is interesting in that, like, you know, you could make a case, this is really a bliss. But on the other hand, you could make a case well, this is social commentary that there is thought behind this other than you yucky. Yeah, and I’m not saying any of this is to say like, this is a bad movie or bad for liking it. I fucking love Fury Road or rocks. Yeah,
James McPherson
absolutely. Yeah. It’s just kind of like a wrinkle to think about more than anything. Yeah,
R.S. Benedict
yeah. It’s a question. I’m not canceling it. And I think that like the choices behind that movie, you could very much make a case that they’re very well considered and thoughtful choices, but it is worth unpacking it. Yeah,
James McPherson
definitely. Yeah, I think it’s worth that kind of thing. Where it’s like, if you really like something we’re like, what can you pick out? What can you choose to do better yourself? Perhaps? I think in my case, like, I’d be quite authentic real and to make Madmax have a physical disability or something myself. And so yeah,
R.S. Benedict
before we go, one last example, is ash from evil dead’s chain saw an example of adapted tech?
James McPherson
Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. I mean, he’s able to use like a physical limitation and and make it really work for himself. Yes.
R.S. Benedict
And he’s not smart, either. He’s not one of the smart magical disabled people. He’s a fucking idiot.
James McPherson
He might be the solution to my issue actually know that. I think about it. Yeah.
R.S. Benedict
He is just a perfect goddamn moron. And also really horny. So like, there’s your sex lessness is the problem that that’s gone to? Yeah, just to total himbo. Alright, so I think we’ve come to the conclusion that the greatest example of character with a disability in speculative fiction is ash from Evil Dead. You cannot disagree with this.
James McPherson
That’s not the conclusion I was I thought we’d come to but I can’t, I can’t deny it. We went through it in a scientific basis and found it so yeah, yeah. It’s
R.S. Benedict
perfect. He’s perfect. So thank you, Bruce Campbell for your service. And we’ve been talking for a little bit over an hour, so Let’s wind it down. Before we go, is there any any final thought you’d like to leave us with?
James McPherson
No, I think my main thing really is to I really want to see people consider disabled people’s moments or their movements moment to moment and really think if you have a character that struggles to put one foot in front of the other. How do you represent that on the page, wherever there’s a good character and a lot like we don’t have to be a morally pure character at all. And like, I’ve been reading the blade itself who is an evil Inquisitor called globcal, who has horrific physical disabilities, but he’s still compelling because we see him move from moment to moment though,
R.S. Benedict
right? And before we go, is there anything of yours that you’d like to plug down kitty cat?
James McPherson
Um, I honestly don’t have much going on at the moment. Obviously learning how to use the wheelchair and so on. That’s been my my main focus in life. But no, we can leave my blue sky in the absolute description if that’s fine. That’s more than enough.
R.S. Benedict
Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on. No problem at all. And thank you all for listening. If you like what you heard, please head to patreon.com/ritegud and subscribe. Until next time, keep writing good.