Thread by @mustangsart

Okay! This is a fun one, so strap in:

Cyberpunk as a genre deals with prosthetics and cyberware used to make people 'more than human', but they lose their humanity along the way, becoming more machine than person. A really big example of this outside of the Cyberpunk brand- 1/10

https://twitter.com/bragrman/status/1325265991828271104

but within the cyberpunk genre is Shadowrun, in which there is an actual address of this concept in a mechanic form 'Humanity' - the more cyberware one gets, the less human they are perceived to be.
Now, why is this an issue?
Cyberpunk, both brand and genre, hasn't ever- 2/10

truly accounted for disabled people despite having prosthetics be a part of its culture. You're probably thinking 'well, if cyberpunk has prosthetics, it must have thought of disabled people!' and that's where you're wrong.
Cyberware and prosthetics, both in genre and- 3/10

games are seen as 'aesthetic choices', they are commodities to flaunt one's wealth rather than have practical use. They are designed to hack into mainframes, fire weapons, let a person run at impossibly high speeds, etc.
It doesn't accommodate for the average disabled- 4/10

person who just simply wants a prosthetic or mobility aid to help them get on with their everyday. They want a leg so they can walk easier, not so they can jump from building to building. They want an arm to help make carrying the shopping less of a hassle, not so they- 5/10

can shoot autofire out of it.
Cyberpunk as a genre is about the *fetishisation* and *dehumanising* of people who get augmentations without accounting for the fact that there are disabled people who *need* those augmentations and shouldn't be seen as less than human or- 6/10

fetishised for wanted a piece of cyberware to help them with chronic pain or mobility. That's where the problem is.
Cyberpunk never accounted for disabled people's potential needs, only that abled people would want to 'look cool'. And absolutely, the topic of dehumanisation- 7/10

and fetishising can still be brought up in cyberpunk, but it needs to specify that there is a difference between an amputee getting a prosthetic for mobility purposes and an able-bodied person getting an augment so they have a weapon to hurt other people or fight with. It- 8/10

needs to be more specific and address that it was a genre created with little thought into the lived disabled experience so that it can move forward as both game and genre.

And for anyone about to hop in and say that I'm 'being too critical of cyberpunk' or that I- 9/10

'don't understand cyberpunk', you should shut up and sit down because I worked on @RTalsorianGames' Cyberpunk RED and am disabled myself. 10/10

And I want to point out that @RTalsorianGames have been discussing, reaching out, and learning more about all the inherent issues with the genre and game which is great to see!!

If you enjoyed this thread, you might also enjoy another thread from me on Disability & Villains, specifically looking at Darth Maul in context of Star Wars: The Clone Wars!

https://twitter.com/mustangsart/status/1324840329644789761?s=20