klausinamarink - Tumblr blog

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there needs to be a gender neutral word for niece/nephew that a) doesnt make explicit reference to them being your siblings kid b) doesnt sound fucking stupid

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They fight monsters and kiss!

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goat fight. non-negotiable.

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bro u knocked over his drink

read this fic that goes with this art!!

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I haven’t been on tumblr in years and I’m surprised that you still post. Holy shit.

A year in your world is but a day in mine, you're just a flicker, sparking impermanently against the endless eruptions of a star.

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2023 -> 2024

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Hello my fellow dykes, we have officially become visible ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

All sillies aside, please consider donating to Emily Gwen or sharing this if you can! Link

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🚗💕 making memories

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People are getting really really fascist about peaceful protesters and it’s getting scary lol

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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

[klausinamarink]

married steddie but they don't live a super lavish life. they're dirt poor, living in a small house at the end of a dead end road that they rent off one of wayne's buddies. steve's a manager at walmart along with robin. eddie's main job is welding but he also does tattooing on the side, so they host a lot of tattoo parties for their friends every other weekend.

there's music and beer and laughing. eddie always asks steve, "you want a new one, baby?" bc all of steve's tattoos have been done by eddie. he won’t let anyone else near him with a gun. eddie doesn’t give him giant ones, only ones that take up a small-ish patch of skin.

inevitably, there's always teasing from their friends. "we gotta pay for ours, how come you ain't charging him, huh?"

to which steve answers, after snagging eddie's beer from his hand and taking a swig and winking, "oh, don't worry, i'll pay him later tonight."

their friends hoot and holler at eddie's flustered grin as steve smacks a kiss to his cheek.

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Sometimes I see a respected mutual in my notes and remember they follow me and I'm like. Should I apologize for what I'm doing here. But they did choose to be in my house

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i’ll put out a couple more ficlets today but i may have to put the rest on hold for a while. I just have a lot more stuff to do in fandom and irl

birthday fics are still coming. just having writer’s block trying to finish and edit them

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And what about Steve holding Eddie's face in his hands and getting emotional and poetic about how in love he is and how beautiful he finds it and how he loves that he's the one who's able to find the beauty in Eddie, someone so many people see as ugly or scary, how he's the one able to show him that he deserves to be seen that way? How about Steve gushing to him about how honoured he is to be the one to get to do that?

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Eddie: stuck having to stare at this mfers lips and hope he get the hit to fuCKING KISS ME-

Steve: my tits are down here Munson

Eddie: what

Steve: what