#disable representation

[o4o41]

TMNT body parts

[saszor]

[ID in alt]

Tutorial on drawing characters/OCs who have some sort of facial paralysis. It doesn't cover all possible variants because I was using mirror as my main reference lawl

Keep in mind that this is an introductory drawing tutorial and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People 👍

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

[abigails-ear]

Only been watching The Pitt for a few days but Mel King is THE best autistic character ever written in a medical drama. She doesn't "make connections no one else can" or "just see things differently" or any other Savant with Special Abilities stereotypical bullshit, she's a resident physician who's exactly as intelligent and capable as any other resident physician in the same year. She hates unnecessary yelling because it's loud and annoying, not because she's completely incapable of handling conflict. She usually keeps her stimming subtle enough to hide but sometimes she can't. She loves having a furry critter to pet. She accommodates an autistic patient by lowering the lights and closing the doors because she understands the sensory nightmare of an active medical setting. She speaks in a straightforward and honest way but she isn't an overtly rude inconsiderate asshole. She misses some jokes and takes things too literally on occasion but she does have a sense of humor and she is funny. She speaks up against misinformation and parent panic about autism and other developmental disabilities. She has emotions. She looks at a video of a lava lamp on her phone to chill. Doctor Mel King you have my entire heart

[writing2changetheworld]

The Rollettes are in a Lady Gaga music video! This is huge! This is amazing!

[cowsabungus]

Make pride accessible for everyone!!!!

I made a post about this last year and the year before, and thought if I did it this way it gives people and orgs something to work towards. Often people forget that disabled people aren't just wheelchair users, and even those who are, need more than just that ramp!

My first ever pride, not only as a wheelchair but my first ever EVER pride, I went in expecting to feel at home.

Obviously I wasn't, I'm disabled, so why should I?

Instead there was just a ridiculous amount of uneven flooring, a steep ramp to the disabled toilet, no sanitary towel bin in the disabled toilet (???) no allowances to be let out of the festival to fetch things from my car, no where quiet and organisers who seemed genuinely surprised to see a wheelchair user!

My next pride, three years later, I was a seller, and while they had sorted their toilet problem (still no sanitary towel bin???), the hill to get in wouod have been genuinely impossible for me to get to if I hadn't been driving to get my stall in anyway, even with someone pushing me, no quiet areas, plenty of kerbs for me to get stuck at and again, genuine surprise.

Why is it so surprising to consider disabled people might be at pride? Not only do queer disabled people exist, but parents and family of queer kids and people, vendors and even entertainers!

Making pride accessible is crucial!

ID available in Alt Text

[osokasstuff]

you don't have a personal responsibility to break stereotypes about your demographics. you don't have to be the perfect representation. you don't have to be a good representation. you are allowed to exist as you are, even if it somehow fits into stereotypes.

you're allowed to have your experiences, hobbies, expressions, traits, problems, symptoms, etc. even if they're stereotyped. you are not a living stereotype. you are a person. a person who happens to have some traits. you're not making the world less diverse. your existence already contributes to diversity.

[cy-cyborg]

Free Manual Wheelchair Reference Models

ID: A banner with grey 3D models of 5 kinds of manual wheelchairs in a line in front of the disability pride flag and text that reads "Manual Wheelchair References" /End ID

For disability pride month, I decided to release a pack of 3D manual wheelchair models.

The pack includes 5 wheelchairs:

2 Active urban-style chairs (one of which includes a smart drive)

1 off-road active chair

1 children's wheelchair

and 1 standard "hospital" wheelchair).

All the wheelchairs are based off either wheelchairs I or friends of mine have used

Downloadable here!

or on the Clip Studio Paint Asset Store (ID 2097442) (there's been an issue with the CSP version, but the models in the download folder can be imported into clip studio paint until I can fix it)

More info about the download contents below:

The first download link includes the original .Blend file with all 5 chairs, as well as individual .obj or .fbx files the chairs (All but 1 have an .obj file, as they're only meshes. The chair with the smart drive is rigged, which is why it has an .Fbx file instead so it will retain that information) as well as a "read me" file that explains in more depth what kind of disability/character/lifestyle each chair is made for (These are just what I had in mind when I designed them, they are usable by other characters who don't fit the suggestions for the most part!) I wanted to include the Read Me contents in the CSP Asset Store listing, but CS said it was too long lol.

Also, as the title says, these files are free to use! While it's not mandatory, I would appreciate credit if you use them (or even just a tag so I can see the cool art you make with them!!)

I actually made these ages ago, the original plan was to use them in a series of posts then release the pack, but I never got around to making the series and so they've just been sitting here. I took a day off from art fight attacks to clean them all up and get them ready to post. If you experience any issues, let me know and I'll try to fix it up.

I had a couple more that were supposed to be in the pack including a sports (basketball/Tennis) wheelchair and some different styles of wheelchair, but I think the files corrupted so once I fix (or remake) them, I'll probably make a second pack.

If you have any issues, please let me know!

[cupparosielee]

LADS I DON'T THINK YOU REALISE HOW AMAZING SHIRLEY ANNE BINGHAM IS

Doctor Who, one of the biggest TV shows in the country, just showed an ambulatory wheelchair user getting out of her wheelchair to transfer to a desk chair. They showed a disabled person getting up out of her wheelchair. On national television.

AND THEY EVEN BUILT IT INTO THE SCRIPT!!!

They don't just mention it in passing, they write it into a tirade of hate which is explicitly written to be extreme, unfair, and absolutely wrong.

This is huge.

[scullysconstant]

# so here for badass disabled character representation

[cripplecharacters]

Writing a Schizophrenic Character: Everything But Hallucinations

Plain text: Writing a Schizophrenic character: Everything But Hallucinations

Hey! Mod Bert here. 

So: you’ve decided to write a character with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (there are other disorders on the schizophrenia spectrum but I will be focusing on these for today)

You’ve done it, you have their hallucinations and maybe even delusions picked out. Maybe they are one of many who experience auditory hallucinations or maybe they also have visual hallucinations or a combination. Maybe they have olfactory hallucinations as well. They may have persecutory delusions or delusions of reference or something like Cotard’s delusion or clinical lycanthropy. Awesome, you’ve done it!

What, I hear you say? What do you mean that’s only 2 of the 5 components needed to be diagnosed with schizophrenia? What do you mean, you don’t need to hallucinate at all to be schizophrenic?

What Goes Into a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia

Plain Text: What goes into a diagnosis of schizophrenia

Not a lot of people realize there’s more to schizophrenia and schizoaffective than just hallucinations or delusions. There are 5 diagnostic criterias that are needed for schizophrenia, and only 2 of the 5 are needed for a month, with larger symptoms happening for six months or more. Let’s get into it.

Delusions

Hallucinations

Disorganized speech or thinking*

Disorganized or unusual motor behavior (catatonia)*

Negative symptoms (avolition, anhedonia, flat affect)*

I’m going to focus on disorganized speech/thinking, catatonia, and negative symptoms.

Disorganized Speech/Thinking

Plain Text: Disorganized Speech/Thinking

Schizophrenia and related disorders are often called “thought disorders” for a reason. Speech and thinking can be extremely affected, and for people like me this can be one of the first and most striking examples of an episode coming. Some people will always have disorganized symptoms that will flare during episodes. A myth is that schizophrenia can be indistinguishable with medicine: most people will have some level of symptoms even during moments of peace or “remission”. More on remission later. 

So, disorganized speech. Some examples are: word salad (schizoaphasia), thought blocking, poverty of speech (alogia), pressurized speech, clanging, and echolalia.

Word salad: a combination of words that do not make sense together. Often called schizoaphasia for its similarity to jargon in Wernicke’s aphasia, this is instead a disconnection with the brain and not due to damage to the language part of the brain.

(Example: the salad would be yellow in the fat cow).

Thought blocking: A severe loss of thought, often paired with connecting two trains of thought that are not connected

(Example: I went to the………Do you like grapes?)

Poverty of speech: A lack of organic responses to speech or organically speaking, it can be severe enough that a person only responds to questions or in one word responses. Can also happen in severe depression.

(Example: Person A: Did you do anything fun today?

Person B: Yes.

Person A: Oh, what did you do?

Person B: Store

Person A: How was it?

Person B: Fun)

Pressurized speech: A sort of frenzied way of speaking associated with psychosis or mania.

Clanging: Connecting phrases together because of what they sound like instead of meaning

(Example: I went bent tent rent).

Echolalia: Repeating word’s and phrases. Commonly also associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder. 

(Example: Person A: I went to the store.

Person B: To the store.)

These are not the only examples but they are some ones I thought I'd highlight, either because they’re well known or I have experience with them, or because they’re famously thought of with other disorders as well and I wanted to point out how things overlap.

Personal experience: I had severe alogia for the duration of my last and worst episode. People thought I was mad at them because of the clipped way I spoke and the lack of really speaking. It got me in a lot of trouble. I didn’t realize what I was saying was different or weird (I have the least insight when it comes to my speaking patterns affected by my schizoaffective, meaning I can’t hear any difference and all of this is from repeated conversations with my mom, who was my caretaker for a bit and knows the most about my speech and what it means). The best solution was talking with people and being honest and educating myself and others. I don’t know about others, but I couldn’t have used AAC at that time.

Catatonia

Plain text: Catatonia

Fun fact: catatonia means unusual motor behaviors! Any unusual motor behaviors mean catatonia. This includes what we think of when we think of catatonia in schizophrenia (inability to move) as well as the opposite (being unable to stop moving) as well as strange movements and ways of holding and moving the body! Catatonia in the DSM-5 includes 3 or more of these 12 behaviors:

-Agitation unrelated to external stimuli

-Catalepsy

-Echolalia

-Echopraxia

-Grimacing

-Mannerism

-Mutism

-Negativism

-Posturing

-Stereotypy

-Stupor

-waxy flexibility

I have some experiences with catatonia-like symptoms but since they were never identified as such I’ll skip those for now. I will say that catatonia is a symptom that can happen in many disorders besides schizophrenia as well.

Negative Symptoms! Yay!

Plain text: negative symptoms! Yay!

So a positive symptom (Hallucinations or delusions) are symptoms that add something to reality or a person. Negative symptoms are symptoms that take away. There are 5 A’s:

-Alogia (Again, poverty of speech, our favorite)

-Avolition (Lack of energy and motivation)

-Affect (Blunted affect, or a flat way of speaking)

-Anhedonia (Lack of pleasure in things that used to bring you pleasure, often thought of with depression)

-Asociality (Lack of interest in social events and relationships)

There are also often cognitive changes including thinking and memory, information recall, understanding, and acquisition, and so forth. 

Schizophrenia and schizoaffective often (but not always) happen with what’s called a prodromal period. This period can be months to years (mine was a little less than a year) and mainly consists of negative symptoms. Slowly, positive symptoms are added. There are thought to be stages to schizophrenia including prodrome, active phases, and remission.

I’ll talk about that a little for a second because I’m currently in remission and no one knows what that means. I was diagnosed with schizoaffective depressive type in January 2021. As of February 2024, I no longer qualified to be rediagnosed because my symptoms were strongly under control and no longer severe enough to qualify for a diagnosis. They also didn’t distress me or impact my daily life severely. Day to day now I still have mild symptoms and take my antipsychotics (trying to go off them have made it clear that I still have some symptoms I choose to keep medicating) but I haven’t had a delusion in 2 years and been hospitalized in 3. There’s always a possibility of another episode but I work with my team to keep myself one step ahead if that happens.

What I want from a character with schizophrenia

Plain Text: What I want from a character with schizophrenia

Alright the writing advice part. What do I want from a character with schizophrenia or schizoaffective (which is schizophrenia plus either depression or bipolar). 

-Characters with caregivers.

-Characters using coping strategies (recording hallucinations to tell if theyre hallucinations, taking medication, having service animals that greet people so they know if they’re a hallucination, using aids for the cognitive symptoms like sticky notes and organizational tools)

-Characters who know other characters with their disorder, either online or in support group or through running in similar circles

-Characters having autonomy

-Characters who aren’t the killer or horror victim. I know it’s cool to have the schizophrenic protagonist in horror, and I love horror, but I don’t want to read about the horror being symptoms the whole time

-Characters who are in magical scenarios, who are in fantasy and sci-fi. The schizophrenic princess and the schizoaffective robot technician aboard the spaceship.

-Medication and hospitalization treated casually. Sometimes we need higher care. That’s morally neutral

-Characters with negative symptoms and speech symptoms.

-Characters with catatonia! 

-Characters with other disorders as well

-characters with side effects from medicine treated casually

-Characters with cognitive symptoms

Thank you for reading this incredibly long thing! Happy writing!

[disabled-bug]

disabled people when their disability disables them

[saszor]

Overview of some topics when it comes to drawing characters who are burn survivors.

DISCLAIMER. Please keep in mind that this is an introductory overview for drawing some burn scars and has a lot of generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. I'm calling this introductory because I hope to get people to actually do their own research before drawing disabled & visibly different characters rather than just making stuff up. Think of it as a starting point and take it with a grain of salt (especially if you have a very different art style from mine).

Talking about research and learning... don't make your burn survivor characters evil. Burn survivors are normal people and don't deserve to be constantly portrayed in such a way.

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

edit: apparently tum "queerest place on the internet" blr hates disabled people so much that this post got automatically filtered. cool!

second way more important edit: How are people seeing this post where I specifically talk about burn survivors being normal, real people, and still tag this as "TW body horror"? Not a single one of these drawings or pictures is a fresh injury. All of them are healed. How the hell would you feel if someone tagged a photo of you as "trigger warning: gore"?

Disabled people are not your fucking body horror. Grow up.

[kittycommitte]

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

What disabled readers want* from non-disabled sci-fi and fantasy** writers:

Imagine your world where we exist, without being a tragedy, a burden, or (functionally) erased.

Back in 2019, I came up with my own metric for Disability Representation in stories, inspired by the Bechdel-Wallace Test.

I named it the "1,001 Problems Template"

There's a disabled character,

Who wants something,

Beyond Revenge, Cure, or Death,

And personally takes action to achieve it.

I decided to call it a "Template," rather than "test," because I hope that it's a useful tool, and not something to Pass or Fail. 1,001 Problems, because, Yeah. Disability can be a bitch, but characters can have 1,000 other things they're dealing with, too. And you can write a story about any one of them.

The point being: If you can imagine us as part of your make-believe future, and fairy tale past, then it's easier to include us in your real world present.

*With the understanding, of course, that not all readers want the same thing [/standard "Your mileage may vary" disclaimer]

**In other genres, too, while we're at it.

[cowsabungus]

Disability representation!!

I was lazy and used old drawings for this

Anyways much love