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Had this conversation with someone who chose to no longer be at my table after meeting a blind NPC
(files.catbox.moe)
Another player who was at the table during the incident sent me this meme after the problem player in question (they had a history) left the group chat.
Felt like sharing it here because I'm sure more people should keep this kind of thing in mind.
I'll echo the words of my friend, who is a permanent wheelchair user:
"Yes, I identify with my disability as part of who I am, but I would still take a cure without hesitation"
Yes, people with disabilities identify with their disability, so even in a fantasy setting I can see how their disability would be part of their character.
But every disabled person I know would figuratively leap at the opportunity to reverse their disability with magic. It is also basically impossible to use a wheelchair while holding something like a wand or a staff or a fireball in one hand, so if there's enough magic around to push a wheelchair, there's probably enough to make your legs work. That's why somebody has a good reason not to expect a wheelchair in a fantasy world. I can see how somebody who doesn't really know any disabled people would panic at the idea of a wheelchair being part of the narrative or something like that, and I can sympathize with it.
Cochlear implants are frowned upon by some in the Deaf community.
I went to a NTID school, the community there does not consider themselves to have a "disability" literally. To them, it's just a language.
There's a lot of cultural stuff there that I'm certainly not qualified to comment on.
What is? Being deaf isn't a language. Sign language absolutely is a language, or to be more accurate, it's a whole class of languages, because ASL is as different from AusLan or BSL as English is from Spanish or German.
And like any language, it's more than just a set of definitions and rules of grammar. It carries culture.
Yeah exactly, for them it's about the culture, in which language is a huge factor.