Urban fantasy wheelchair features?

[illuminist]

Hi folks! I'm brainstorming a paraplegic character (gunshot wound in the past) in an urban fantasy setting. The tech level is modern (smartphones, wifi, etc) and the character has terrakinesis abilities: mentally lifting rocks, shaping and warping metal, transmuting one substance to another.

Do you have any ideas on what features would be cool to have in a fantasy wheelchair? Currently I'm thinking of a floating office chair that responds to mental commands, but I'd love to hear suggestions. Thanks!

Comments

[hitokage]

Top of mind: something that shocks the hell out of random unauthorized persons just grabbing the chair (or some other effective deterrent/badge of dishonor)

[full_metal_ox]

Amen. Not exactly the same range of experience, but I’ve frequently had Good Samaritan ambushers yank my granny cart from my grasp in an attempt to help—excuse me, that’s serving in part as a balancing aid!

[bee]

On this same vein: Spikes on the back that keep people from touching or even approaching from behind! Also some kind of alarm system that keeps people from fucking touching it while the person is out of the chair. I frequently prefer to 'park' and move to a seat when I'm sitting in one place, as I only need my chair because I can't walk or stand for more than a minute or so and you can't rely on there being a public bench around these days.

Echoing someone further down this thread, storage that cannot be reached by anyone but me. Bags or pockets down to either side of the seat on the inside, where I can keep my usual bag contents. Also, since this is fantasy, some way to push carts, strollers etc while being in a chair. This is a real life problem and I've only seen ONE wheelchair that allowed a wheelchair user to push their baby in a stroller that faced them! That's so important! But critically, I want to be able to push a full-sized shopping cart while using a wheelchair! None of this tiny little cart nonsense, as though I use less groceries than a normal person!

Also, rain shelter. If it's this kind of setting, why not have the wheelchair double as a regular form of transport? I've often thought it would be so easy if my wheelchair could smoothly transform into my minivan!

Have you done any looking around about what variety there already is in wheelchairs? There's the GRIT, there's dancing and other sport wheelchairs, and handcycles, and standing chairs, and all kinds of things. But aside from the actual chair itself, have you considered what the world does FOR chair users? For example, I avoid flying bc those aisles are so narrow and I don't like how they force you to put your wheelchair in cargo where they will freely break the shit out of it and not care.

It's all well and good to design a cool chair that does cool things, but like 99% of my problems come from the fact that society just does not design itself around people that need to sit down and do that (whatever 'that' is). The stairs or escalator are right there, the elevator or ramp is miles away. It makes us have to tire ourselves out because we're travelling two or three times as much distance than using the stairs would be. It feels like punishment. And it's especially insulting when you consider we often don't have as much energy as walkers, even when we have a chair, so making us go that far severely limits whether we can do whatever we're trying to get over there to do. So... more than just the chair, think about what the world looks like for someone in a chair, in your world.