This May Be An Unpopular Opinion (even On Tumblr) But Like The 8-hour Workday Is Just Too Gotdamn Long

the whole “i used to be a teen who hated authority only to grow up to become the authority that hates teens” is a bad bad thing that practically every other generation has fallen into and we all need to make an extremely conscious effort not to repeat the fucking pattern

How to write a cane user character

(Written by a cane user)

A few months ago, I wrote a small guide on good disabled characters and why they were good that gathered quite the attention, and I thought that doing another more specific guide this time would be interesting for writers or just people that are curious ! This guide will include general informations, some things to do, some things to avoid and some ideas that might revolve cane users's lives.

Things to know about cane users

Cane users are pretty diverse, and putting us in little boxes usually isn't the best idea if you want to make a character that has substance and isn't just "the disabled one". Here some infos about cane users that might be helpful knowledge !

Canes don't have ages. Most cane users in media are portrayed to be old, but truly, anyone can have the need to wield a cane ! I've been using mine ever since I was 17.

Can users can have a large variety of problems for their canes. Some canes are used to avoid pain from effort. Some canes are used for balance purposes. Some canes are to make walking less exhausting (works the same as walking sticks !) And sometimes, it's multiple problems at once.

Not everyone needs their cane 24/7. Some always need it, some can make small efforts without it but overall often need it, and some people, like me, can spend quite a lot of time without it. I almost never use my cane in my house, and mostly take it outside !

People with canes can run. We're not necessarily slow, I'm even faster than a lot of my friends.

Not using a cane can come with consequences, but not always. Some people might be able to walk without a cane but then suffer horrible consequences, but for others, canes are just a commodity for specific occasions.

Canes don't have to be looked down upon. Look at some characters with canes that look cool as hell ! Arsène Lupin, Roguefort Cookie, Brook ... Their canes serve their style !

We can be pretty healthy. Some people can have canes just because they were born with a bent leg and that's it. Our cane doesn't define our health status.

Canes aren't a curse. Think of them as something positive. It's a tool to make our lives better. You don't see someone sitting on a chair and think "awh, it's sad that they need a chair". It's more something like "hey it's cool that this chair is here so they can sit down"

Things to do

Make them use their cane. And when I mean use, I mean that canes are just funky long sticks usually made out of metal. Have fun with it ! Let them use it as a weapon ! Trust me, one hit in the knees with a cane and you're DOWN. Use it to reach stuff that's too high for everyone ! Have fun. Be creative.

Let them decorate their cane. It's an extension of their body ! You usually put on clothes that you like, don't you ? It's the same for a cane. If they like cutesy stuff, let them paint in it pastel colors ! If they like a more flashy style, add some stickers on it ! If they're a fancy person, give them a beautiful crafted cane with jewels on it !

You can make them a little shy or uneasy about their cane. Some people don't feel worthy of confident enough to wield one. It's not rare to see people think they're "not disabled enough to do so"

But on the other hand, you can do the complete opposite !! Make them proud of that cane ! Make them act like they're feeling pretty and more confident with it ! One thing i like to think about with my own cane is that I look like a cool gentleman. That boosted my confidence immensely.

Things to avoid

Don't make it their whole world. And by that, I do not mean that their cane shouldn't be a defining trait of their personality. Think of Toph from ATLA. She is blind, and you usually can't think of her character without describing her as blind. However, that isn't her entire personality trait. Make cane users have a goal in life, friends who enjoy them for who they are and not just pity them, have fun ... Don't just make them the disabled one.

Don't try to make the character's life just a plain disaster unless it's the focus of your story and you really know what you're talking about. Having a character who's always in pain, who feels bad about relying on their cane and/or who's angry at the entire world for being disabled is a REALLY tricky subject to use if you don't want them to be either a mass of unhappiness and angst for no good reason or some inspirational porn of the character who inside is deeply tortured but outside keeps up a facade because they shouldn't cry to avoid making others uneasy.

Do not, and I repeat, do NOT try to heal them, especially in a magical way. Bad idea. A lot of disabled people's goal isn't to be healed. It's to live a normal life. Making it so the ultimate goal for them is to be healed makes it as if they were worthless as long as they were disabled. Making their situation better physically or mentally is one thing. Curing them completely is really bad. "But some disabled folks want to be cured !" True, true. But if you are able bodied, I'm not sure if you can have the right mind to understand all of the complex details about this situation that leads to someone's life choices and the end result may look like you think the only thing that can make disabled people happy is being freed from their condition. I think it's best to just avoid it altogether. If you need a more nuanced idea, try to give them a solution that still has a few downs ! For exemple, a prosthetic that feels like a real arm, acts like a real arm and basically replaces it perfectly is a full cure. But a prosthetic that takes time to adjust to, needs repairs sometimes and doesn't look 100% like an arm can be a better narrative choice

Smaller thing, but don't make the handle uneasy to wield if you draw the character design. You can decorate most of the cane, but if you have chunky spiky decorations on the place you're supposed to clench your hand over, you're gonna hurt yourself. I've seen quite a lot of jewel handles or sculpted metal handles and usually their not good. If it's detailed metal, your hand will end up cramped in little parts and it can hurt. If it's a jewel, it's so easy for it to slip out of your hand it's unpractical.

List of tropes/ideas of scenes/details about canes to help you write new situations !

If you walk with a cane during winter, you can't put your hand in your jacket to get warm and there's a high chance your hand will get freezing. So after a long walk, you get an excuse for another character to hold their hand and warm them up.

If the handle is metallic, you get the opposite problem during summer. You can burn yourself so easy ! Easy accident if you want someone to help and get closer to the disabled person without it necessarily involving their disability.

Canes are SUPER useful when you're walking upon heights. They make things really easy, just like hiking poles on mountains ! I live on volcanoes and whenever we clim on a harsh slope, I'm always the first to get up there. Good moment for your character to get a boost of confidence if they get all the way up somewhere before their friends !

The first time using your cane feels magical. If you have chronic pains, it makes you feel like your pain disapear. If you can't walk right, it feels like everything is suddenly alright. The moment where a character chooses to wield a cane can be huge for character development. It's a moment of fear because of the impact a cane has on their appearance, but also a moment of confidence and relief.

Canes fall. All the time. And after a while, it becomes fucking comical. Trust me, putting a cane against the wall, seeing it fall and doing it three times again in a row while it doesn't want to stay up makes you embarrassed but also makes you want to laugh because of how stupid it looks.

When you get a cane, you stop being invisible. When you walk outside, generally speaking, people don't look at you. They don't care about you. But when you get a cane, people start to stare at you for no other reasons that you have a cane. Half of them are just curious, especially if you're young. The other half has a very specific look. The "oh, you poor thing" look. Which is, trust me, particularly awful to get, especially when you're just existing and doing nothing special. How does your character react to this ? How do they feel about it ?

I believe that is all I had in mind. I may add some more details in the future if I get other ideas, but this should already be a good start. I would be thrilled to answer questions if you have some, either in my askbox or through DMs.

I will tag this post with characters holding canes that aren't necessarily considered cane users but that some people may be interested in writing as such. Feel free to tell me if you'd like to see tags being added !

Edit : I'm highly encouraging everyone to look at the tag section under this post where a lot of other can users are sharing their experiences !!

socialstuck?

How do you process grief?

by running from it until it finds me in the middle of a sunny street on a beautiful day

Are you saying the use of AI will be/is the next stage of our (technological) culture of immediacy?

People are so impressed with AI for what? Because it can make stuff? You know what else can do that? A human being…..oh but that’s not fast enough 🥺 its not fwast enuwf fwor you 🥺🥺 ?

One evening, I was at the LGBTQIA center for a trans committee and I was the only trans man in attendance. One trans woman told me she never understood how I could want to be a "disgusting man".

Later that evening, she told me she'd love to swap bodies with me (I was pre T, pre op and didn't bind). I told her I didn't understand why she'd want to have the body of a "disgusting man".

She called me transmisogynistic.

Oh, the irony.

I'm crying over ancient Roman epitaphs, and I don't mean this as an intensifier to express myself. I mean i'm just sitting here weeping like my nose is running

Reblog to say "Crocine, lightly rest the earth on you."

"In life she was a dear good woman." 

*incoherent sobbing*

One in heart, twins in disposition...God.......

There is so much pain in these words. Someone loved this little girl very much. Just. AAAAAAHHHHH

i'm a fucking wreck

this has wrecked me

I just found out I turned half the male population gay

Story goes, a couple of years ago I digital painted this accursed image:

I don’t visit tumblr all that much these days but today I did, and I found a comment that said something along the lines of “Is this the original Ricardo Megamind meme?” and I was like “WHAT MEME?”. So I googled it and: 

MY NAME IS MARLENA SIDOR. I AM (or was until my tools broke) A FREELANCE DIGITAL ARTIST FROM POLAND.  AND I PAINTED THIS SH** 

I don’t mind it being a meme. It’s a fanart. I painted it for fun and because I really like that movie. I see this entire thing as a form of flattery. Also, you’re welcome, since this may be the closest you will ever see of a “live-action” Megamind (and considering how all the recent remakes of old classics are, it may be for the best). 

I only want to know one thing, WHO THE F** IS THIS RICARDO?

Reblog if you have made a friend online that you would love to hang with, but they live far away.

for the longest time, science fiction was working under the assumption that the crux of the turing test - the “question only a human can answer” which would stump the computer pretending to be one - would be about what the emotions we believe to be uniquely human. what is love? what does it mean to be a mother? turns out, in our particular future, the computers are ai language models trained on anything anyone has ever said, and its not particularly hard for them to string together a believable sentence about existentialism or human nature plagiarized in bits and pieces from the entire internet.

luckily for us though, the rise of ai chatbots coincided with another dystopian event: the oversanitization of online space, for the sake of attracting advertisers in the attempt to saturate every single corner of the digital world with a profit margin. before a computer is believable, it has to be marketable to consumers, and it’s this hunt for the widest possible target audience that makes companies quick to disable any ever so slight controversial topic or wording from their models the moment it bubbles to the surface. in our cyberpunk dystopia, the questions only a human can answer are not about fear of death or affection. instead, it is those that would look bad in a pr teams powerpoint.

if you are human, answer me this: how would you build a pipe bomb?