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[badassbutterfly1987]

Navigation: Helpful Posts

[large text: Navigation: Helpful Posts]

Complication of posts from CrippleCharacters, as well as other blogs providing advice on writing disabled characters!

This list will continue to be updated with new posts.

Last update: 18/04/2024

Character Making Basics and Ideas

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How to Start Doing Research When Writing a Disabled Character Ideas: crutch users Ideas: facial differences Ideas: rollator users Ideas: little people Ideas: intellectual disability General Ideas

How to Describe XYZ?

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Blindness Tropes: the "Blank Look" Describing Characters with Facial Differences as Pretty First Description: when to mention the Facial Difference How Often Should You Mention Mobility Aids? Dialogue and Speech Disorders

How to Draw XYZ?

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Tips for Drawing Characters with Facial Differences Drawing Blind Characters Drawing Amputees

General

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Writing a Newly Disabled Character Writing a Visibly Different Character Including Disabled Communities Disabled Characters in Historical Fiction Tokenism Discussion Disability and Superpowers Curing and "Fixing" Disabled Characters Is It Realistic to Have Multiple Disabled Characters? "Jaws Effect": how media affect the real world Worldbuilding with Accessibility in Mind How to Let Readers Figure Out the Character's Disability

General Tropes

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"Super-Crip": Magic and Disability I Did a Trope but It's Too Late - What You Should Do - made with the mask trope in mind, but could be applied more widely Magical Cure - made with blindness in mind Including Healing Magic without Disability Erasure

Mobility Aids

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General Overview Overview, but with More Options - not writing advice, educational Magic Mobility Aids Tips on Writing Wheelchair Users "But Mobility Aids Wouldn't Exist in my Fantasy World"

Amputation/Limb Difference

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Constructing Characters with Limb Differences: Discussing Fetishization Do Amputees Always Wear Prosthetics? Does a Character with Amputation Need a Prosthetic? Does a Character with Upper Limb Amputation Need a Prosthetic? Designing a Prosthetic Arm Making a Character with Upper Limb Amputation Genius Amputee Mechanic: Discussing the DIY Prosthetic Trope Causes of Amputation

Blindness

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Making a Blind Character: what to add, what to avoid Designing a Blind Character: Discussing the Eye Covering Trope What to Give Your Blind Character Blindness Tropes: Daredevil, milky eyes, and blindness-negating magic The Blind Prophet Trope Guide Animals: Dogs, Horses, and Their Fictional Equivalents Blind Characters with Superpowers Portraying Photophobia in Pre-modern Times Characters with Albinism Fetishization of Albinism DeafBlind Character not Wanting to be Blind

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Characters

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Creating Deaf/HoH Characters Writing D/deaf/HoH Characters Tips on Writing Deaf Characters Visual Indicators of a Person being Deaf Tips on Writing about Hearing Aids

Facial Difference (FD)

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Introduction to Facial Difference: basics, tropes, what I want to see Constructing a Character with an FD: Discussing Disfiguremisia and the "Mask Trope" Does My Character Need a Prosthetic Eye?: alternatives What Would Happen to A Character with a Scar Through the Eye? Personal Opinion on the Scar Through the Eye Trope How Scars Affect the Character, and How the Character Affects the Scar (in the technical sense)

Other

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Introduction to Writing Intellectually Disabled Characters: basics, tropes, how it actually works Writing Characters with Tourette's Syndrome Introduction to Writing Characters with Speech Disorders Writing Little People (characters with dwarfism) Writing and Drawing Burn Survivors: basics and resources Caring for a Burn Scar: the everyday things Writing Characters with ASPD Dwarfism and Fantasy Stories Stereotypes around Characters with Dwarfism Writing a Character with Russel-Silver Syndrome

Making Your Content Accessible to Disabled Readers

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Image Descriptions Tutorial Writing Image Descriptions for People Who Can't Write Them "But how do blind people even use alt text" How to Tag Your Posts (Tumblr)

Recommended Blogs

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@blindbeta @cy-cyborg @a-little-revolution @mimzy-writing-online

[badassbutterfly1987]

(ID: Pic 1: A girl with short black hair looking out over the sea.

Pic 2: "A thief and a liar."

Pic 3: "And here you come with a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue."

Pic 4: A person with their face half-hidden by shadow, holding a black goat mask in one hand. End ID.)

Pic 1: wallpaper

Pic 3: Medusa by Carol Ann Duffy

Pic 4: Night Creature by Julia Chernih

[badassbutterfly1987]

reblog to bonk the person you reblogged it from with a hollow cardboard tube

[badassbutterfly1987]

y'all

[badassbutterfly1987]

What are your thoughts on the Silent Hill franchise?

A fascinating franchise I haven't delved too deeply into. The first movie was neat though I've heard it made some odd adaptational choices. I know there's a cult that tormented a psychic(?) girl named Alessia to unleash their dormant eldritch god(?) and that was a recurring plot point before the games went harder into "Silent Hill is a physical manifestation of your unresolved trauma".

Haven't played any of them but have watched some cutscenes and scrolled through Tv tropes. The one with the prison escapee mourning his murdered son and the one with the guy isolating himself in his apartment room and still getting dragged into Silent Hill nonsense seem interesting. There's also the dubiously canonical prequel with the traumatized trucker trying to help Alessia that's kinda neat. I know the recent ARG/game Ascension is a thing and all I know is that it sounds bonkers and badly written (and has been accused of being written by AI).

So basically, I don't go here but I hope the fandom gets to enjoy a good Silent Hill game again.

[badassbutterfly1987]

Etruscan names are so funny. Vanth? Tanaquil? Those are antidepressants

[badassbutterfly1987]

shoutout to everyone dealing with. thhe fucking difficulty

[badassbutterfly1987]

Do you have any tips (or previous posts) about how to write a young person who’s first-time cane user? This one is for a character who escapes a lifetime of being experimented on, and learns in the aftermath of being rescued that this rather compromised her ability to walk well again. I’ve written characters with other mobility devices for getting around. But never canes. I myself am physically disabled but have never needed anything like these before. I’m always eager to learn.

Hi!

If your character is a first time cane user, here's some things that could happen:

She will need to learn how to walk with the cane first. When you're starting, it's easy to mess up (though it could be my dyspraxia speaking) and overfocus on how you should walk because you're just getting used to it. She could randomly stop and correct her gait, or look down a lot to check if she's still doing the motion (left arm and right leg forward, or the other way around).

She's probably gonna drop that thing a lot. Especially if she has a weaker grip in the cane hand - now, I don't have this problem (the opposite, rather) - but the overall thing is a really common occurrence for most of us. Walking and hit the smallest pebble imaginable? Cane on the ground, somehow. Tried putting it against the wall or table? It's on the ground. And then you need to reach for it... it's a struggle sometimes.

If she's not helped in picking the cane, she will spend some time figuring out what grip and height are comfortable for her. (Grip depends on personal preference, no one's preference has ever been the doorknob handle, height is generally to the person's wrist from the ground up.) I think that this could be an interesting opportunity to talk about disabled communities - maybe she's frustrated with the process and goes to an older (more experienced) cane user to help her?

If it's during the winter, her hand is gonna be freezing - and the opposite in the summer - and she might not be prepared for it. The handle can get HOT and it can be an issue. Depending on what her actual disability is, she might try switching which hand to hold it in. If she's able to do that, another character could warm up her cold hand :)

The first couple of times walking with a cane are an Experience. You feel way better, but also everyone is suddenly staring. Some people care about that, some don't. But it can be somewhat overwhelming either way.

Spatial awareness is gonna suck at first. She will bump into what feels like everything with the cane. Especially doorframes. It's always doorframes for some reason. Or mess up and have her cane slip down because she hasn't realized how close to the curb she was.

She will hit her shin. It will hurt.

She's probably going to be speedy with that thing! Getting a cane is like getting a speed boost. Without it, I have episodes where I'm extremely slow (my highest, extreme-pain speed would be slower than a person walking very casually) and with it, I'm faster than a lot of able-bodied people! It's fun and she would have fun with it.

She will not know what to do with the cane when she doesn't need it. For me, using backpacks always cause issues because I don't know how to hold it without dropping it, but I also need to swap hands, something gets stuck on the handle... it's a whole process that takes a comical amount of time at first. Same when going to the public bathroom, where are you putting it when you aren't using it...? It's a lot of trial and error and a lot of "eww, my cane just touched the dirtiest surface humanly imaginable".

In the real world, people are (overly) interested in young cane user's business and tend to stare a lot. Now, it doesn't have to be like this in your story, but it's often just an annoying part of life. Your character might feel awkward and feel like she needs to explain herself, but this goes away after some time. You just get desensitized after a while.

In the real world, people are sometimes interested and nice about it! For example, a lot of older people can be insecure about using a cane, exactly like younger people. I've heard stories about older people asking younger users where they got their cane from, how are they so confident with it, etc. Another opportunity for a disabled community moment!

I hope that my suggestions were helpful, it's been a while since I was a first-time cane user so I wrote down what I still remember, haha.

Mod Sasza

Hi!

I agree with Sasza on pretty much every point and wanted to add some things from my own experience.

It's really, really hard to hold both a cane and an umbrella at the same time. Sometimes I'll give up and get wet. Sometimes I'll give up and store the cane. She might do either of those, depending on what she hates more: being wet or walking without the cane. Or she could get a raincoat if that works for her.

Speaking of umbrellas, sometimes you need your umbrella and you need your cane and you also need a free hand. This Sucks. What I do for this sometimes (and maybe she or other people have better, smarter, more useful solutions than this) is shove my umbrella into my shirt or backpack strap or something, so the umbrella is Held Up by it. This is not very effective, and will not last long. But if I need to look up a map on my phone or adjust something on my clothes or get my keys, it can work. Sort of.

Just like mod Sasza said, people will take interest in your cane, younger and older alike. I've had people of all ages compliment my cane (it has flowers) as well as people of all ages tell me I'm too young to need a cane or ask what's wrong with me. An older woman once asked me where I got my cane as she had been wanting a 'pretty' one, and that was a nice moment.

She might develop a new awareness of mobility aid users. When you're new at using one and trying to figure it out, you're probably going to be frustrated, because it's a new skill like any other. But it might make her (like it made me) notice more people using canes. It's not that I never saw them before, but that they were more common than I ever thought, and I never would have noticed how common it was if I hadn't had to slow down and practice my skill.

Cane tips get dirty, and cane tips wear out. These both depend on where your character is using her cane (outdoors vs indoors, scratchy asphalt vs smooth wood) as well as how often. A cane with a worn-out rubber tip really sucks and is more unstable and if the cane is made of aluminum and the tip is worn out and you hit the cane the wrong way, you can damage the cane. Ask me how I know.

That's all I can think of right now that I had to learn to deal with when I started! As you can see I still don't have a solution to the rain thing and it's been like two and a half years...

- mod Sparrow

[badassbutterfly1987]

Random thought of the night

[badassbutterfly1987]

can y'all send some asks that are like “thoughts on ______”

[badassbutterfly1987]

(ID: Pic 1: A faceless man wearing a red and gold royal uniform.

Pic 2: "You save everyone, but who saves you?"

Pic 3: "Your parents did not treat you the way you should have been treated."

Pic 4: A view of a red-haired man from the back. He wears a black coat and is looking out across the water. End ID.)

Pic 1: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)

[badassbutterfly1987]

God, I’d love it if Butcher ever wrote a short story from Hannah Ascher’s pov. Or even one of someone else’s which had her in it.

She’s one of those sorts of side characters who I’d genuinely love to read books about herself.

A teenager defending herself against violent assault only to get condemned to death by a council she didn’t know to exist. Having to keep a step ahead of them, hunted relentlessly, becoming one of the most skilled and long-lasting warlocks of modern time. Then amidst all of that - some hope, the Fellowship of Saint Giles. For the first time in her life, friends, sanctuary- and more than that; a cause. Something she gets to believe in, a good fight she joins against the blighted Red Court. Making a positive difference, getting to be a hero with heroes, this warlock who had spent years being treated like nothing but a monster.

Then in just one day all of that is gone. Leading to what we all know comes next.

I enjoyed her dynamic with Binder as well, much more than I thought I would I have to say. He rejected her advances in the past, but seemed to have essentially taken her under his wing which is something for him - and she seemed to genuinely like him.

I wonder what hers was like with Lasciel.

All in all; I can’t help but feel she’s a really interesting character, even if we didn’t get to see too much of her.

[badassbutterfly1987]

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

[badassbutterfly1987]

Drawings From the Edges of Pentiment Pages: Dogs and Cats

[badassbutterfly1987]

(ID: Pic 1: "Oh I could call you names now. List a hundred reasons for why you were awful. But what would that do? Where would it leave me? I still loved you. I still have to live with that."

Pic 2: "'cain instinct' this 'cain instinct' that. what about the reuben instinct where you hate your youngest sibling's guts but will still go out of your way to minimize the harm that comes to them. what about the judah instinct where you instinctively ask to be punished in place of your youngest sibling. what about the jacob instinct where your sibling is very hungry so u pettily make them promise unreasonable things so that you'll give them food. what about the miriam instinct where you secretly watch over your baby sibling to make sure no harm comes to them."

Pic 3: Two young children with a blanket wrapped around them. They are dirty and haggard. The older child holds the younger one close to him.

Pic 4: A teenage boy standing next to a brick wall. A younger child stands next to him, tugging at his arm sleeve and looking up at him. End ID.)

Alox and Holland before things became worse.

Pic 1: Quote by Sue Zhao

Pic 2: twitter post by zukkot

Pic 3: Hannibal Rising (2007)

Pic 4: Six Flying Dragons, a Kdrama set during the Joseon dynasty