In the Court of the Pirate Fairies: A Retro Fantasy Feverdream and Timeless Love Story

It’s been a while, my good readers, and I apologize. My health has been in a death spiral this year and I’ve let a lot of things slip, but I shall try to remedy this where and when able. Anyway, to make it up to you all, I have a special treat from the foggy depths of my subconscious. See, most of my dreams are a nonsensical hodgepodge of ideas, concepts, and archetypes, with ever-changing POVs and mixed up characters wandering through tangled plots (if you could even generously call them that). But sometimes I have vivid, intricate dreams with more or less complete narrative arcs and impeccable costume and art design. Many moons ago I had one such dream and woke up immediately knowing I had to write it down. 

The Invisible Man: speculative fiction and disability

That’s how we roll in sci-fi.

I don’t know if any of you have seen the infographic floating around about representation in science fiction movies or not, but I wanted to talk about an issue I had with it, namely what constitutes a “protagonist with a disability”. I won’t post a link to the infographic here because my intention is not to call it or its creator out. In fact, I applaud them for raising awareness of representation issues. However, I am bothered by the infographic’s problematic take on this specific issue, as well as by this discussion in general (which seems to happen every few years when there is a renewed controversy over Barbara Gordon).