icaruswritessometimes

[icaruswritessometimes]

AITA for realizing that my best friend is actually a ghost and not telling him because i'm worried that if he realizes he's dead he'll finally be able to accept it and fully pass on and i won't be able to hang out with him anymore?

#agh !!!!

[icaruswritessometimes]

i love when a character has something terrible happen to them and as a result they see themself as, essentially if not literally, a ghost. and so that means they only can (and have to) do what ghosts do, ie get revenge and then cease to exist. easy as that. but then halfway through this ghost vengeance they realize hey actually i might still be a human person. with human needs. that’s incredibly inconvenient, considering how much i’ve invested in this whole ghost thing

[icaruswritessometimes]

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 !!

#flammability

[icaruswritessometimes]

“denied the catharsis of punishment” is an underappreciated but hugely effective narrative consequence imo 

#gah

[icaruswritessometimes]

i love deleting things . its like. bye. lol

#me @ my writing #this is genuine it feels so good to delete it all and start over idk

[icaruswritessometimes]

are they… you know… [trying to die for each other while adamantly refusing to acknowledge their feelings] soulmates?

#viv and castor #viv may get renamed imminently bceause of setting change #sorry to viv fans #flammability

[icaruswritessometimes]

You have a reputation for being a Master Thief. You don’t understand why, you’ve never even borrowed anything without permission, let alone stolen anything.

#flammability #jack

[icaruswritessometimes]

nobody on earth is funnier than the winners of the bulwer-lytton fiction contest

#the detective's office one is really good actually and i want to read that book

[icaruswritessometimes]

Goldie Williams, Arrested For Vagrancy & Refused to Unfold Her Arms and Stop Making This Face For Her 1898 Mugshot. (Omaha, Nebraska)

#flammability #jack

[icaruswritessometimes]

AND I have to come up with a title 🧍🏼

#EVERY TIME #and i never even like the one i end up on #urgh

[icaruswritessometimes]

While I was in inpatient the main group therapy guy (who looks weirdly like Mads Mikkelsen) asked me what I aimed to do with my writing and I said, "Make people suffer. Some good, cathartic suffering." Which I've struggled with recently because I felt like that was a kind of malicious goal (since, like my friend Dirk said once, I always need to do the math so that I = bad). And he was very pleased with that answer. He said that it was a good thing, that I was introducing children to suffering and the ways that people process suffering in a healthy space (since it's not real) and that makes children feel (and he pointed to the word "safe" on the whiteboard). He told me I was a suffering person who could reach out through my suffering to help others with theirs, and that was good, that was important, it was transformative, and I was protecting children.

I just sat there fighting back tears and quietly said "Oh...I never thought of it like that."

[icaruswritessometimes]

i think "guy who thinks another guy is his sworn enemy but the other guy is just normal about it" is one of the better and funnier tropes ever

#flammability

[icaruswritessometimes]

alright i’ll bite. what are your (wrong and incorrect <3) batfam hair headcanons

uhhh okso. goddamn this is gonna be long, here is a cut for your health and safety <3

bruces hair has been 100% the same 100% of his life. maybe he had it like a little longer for like a year when he was 20 but that was IT. back to default right afterwards. hes like the settings ur videogame character is on when u open up customization

dick is fortunately a bit more interesting. he had the cute floppy little boy haircut until he was in like his mid teens and then he was like imma grow it out and he did. by the time discowing era rolled around it was LONG long, and he did in fact have a short but traumatic (mainly to bruce, poor man) period with a mullet. post-discowing he figured out what to do with it and settled into a style around shoulder length with lotsa layers so it does that 80s shag surfer rockstar thing. he was later a firm supporter of the covid era shag/wolf cut revival. looks fucking stunning, no doubt he is the supermodel of the fam. chefs kiss

jasons hair is curly (!! i am very particular about this! he has curls) and was pretty short before he met bruce, for easy keeping, and that obviously all the same length sorta look where u can tell it was buzzed at some point. when he’s robin obviously hes got the heart bangs and is just adorable all around. the one thing ur right about is that it gets long when he’s in zombie mode and they shave it in the league. i think in his red hood era he learns to cut his own hair and experiments with lotsa fun stuff like punk hairstyles and shaved sides and at one point a little mini mullet which he somehow pulls off. once or twice he probably bleaches the not-white-streak parts of his hair to try to make it blend in, and goes thru all the weird growing out stages after that. its an all around fun time, and he pulls off way more weird hairstyles than he has any right to tbh

tims hair is very very straight and for most of his childhood and early teen years its in a pretty basic short sides long top sorta cut, low maintenance and fine-looking. he dyes it blue once when hes like 14 and that’s the only time he ever does anything intentional and interesting with his hair, because to him it’s pretty much just a chore. when all the red hood shit starts going down theres a period where he goes full what-is-self-care mode for, like, many months and thus his hair grows out enough for like a tiny scruffy ponytail. its like very badly taken care of tho bc my boy doesnt have TIME to shower, bruce, youre not my REAL dad. once jason and damian both mostly stop trying to murder him on sight, he starts taking care of his hair, but i firmly believe that (for a while at least) he decides not to cut it. YES long haired tim. fight me. i think it’s almost always up, in various buns and braids, and dami and the girls (steph and cass, i mean) really love it which tim finds utterly baffling. but my boy needs to be loved more. cass calls his hair beautiful and he turns into a puddle of goo and doesnt stand up for like 2 days

dami keeps his hair short (not buzzed, but short) while in the league, and when he moves to gotham there’s a period of a couple months where he decides to try to be mini bruce. but bruces hair is kinda hard to recreate and looks a bit silly on him, and also every single one of his family members wont stop MUSSING IT so eventually he gives up and learns to tolerate his normal (if spiky) tweenage hair.

steph is our token blonde but we love her. i think she was one of those girls who decided at like 9 that she wanted to grow her hair out REALLY long, and was like moderately successful at it to the chagrin of most adults in her life (because long hair is SO HIGH MAINTENANCE). not long before her tenure as robin she gets sick of it and chops it to like,,,, idk, armpit length? yeeah. and later in her teens she has a whole cycle (or two) of bangs, she flipflops like weekly on whether she likes the way bangs look on her or not. she usually does them herself, and (everyone but her knows) she rocks them every time

cass i think had longer hair when she was doing the assassin gig, mainly ao it could be tied back, but as soon as she had more agency she went “nope” and chopped it to her normal short bob and has kept it that way ever since.

the one other thing u were right about i think is that duke has had the same hair his entire life, that just sounds correct lmao

anyways thats it, totally open to debating with you but just know that i am correct <3

#placing this here for safekeeping #:)

[icaruswritessometimes]

Ok I just need to step up on my soap box real quick.

If you are writing Clark Kent. And you claim in the tags he has a midwestern accent. And then immediately have him say “y’all” you are wrong.

The Midwest does not say y’all. We say you guys.

The southeast to Texas says y’all. Midwest does not.

Things we do say:

“Or no?” As in “do you want to go to the park, or no?” “Do you need gas, or no?”

“Yea, no” means no

“No, yea” means yes

“Yea, no, for sure” means definitely yes

“Come with” we drop the me. As in “I’m going to the store do you want to come with”

“Jeepers cripes”. No really, it’s pretty common.

People still put “the” in front of things. “I saw it on the tv”

“Ya know” or “dontcha know” “I saw it on the tv, ya know.”

It’s pop or soda, honestly kind of depending on how close you are to the Mississippi.

Couches are sofas. Davenports if you’re older.

Ope.

“Unthaw” defrost, or thaw. Yes, I realize unthaw sounds like it should be the opposite of thaw. It is not.

Bubbler, unless you’re wrong.

Really, just go watch a few Charlie Berens videos on YouTube.

But please stop writing midwesterners saying y’all. We say you guys.

#hey. hey #i am literally midwestern and say yall #so shush #this is not law #also ive never heard someone say jeepers cripes #idk what this person is talking about #also bubbler is specifically wisconsin afaik everyone else is normal #and ive never heard unthaw either #and i call it a couch #from your certified minnesotan #so uh

[icaruswritessometimes]

walks out of a closet covered in blood with a goofy lovestruck smile on my face

#me and who

[icaruswritessometimes]

did you ever consider becoming a literary writer rather than a fantasy writer? w

I don't think I ever wanted to be anything more than a storyteller and a writer. Other people can decide where the books get shelved.

#beloved #flammability #gnu terry pratchett

[icaruswritessometimes]

A friendly reminder

You guys can ask anything you want about my OCs. I'll be glad to answer you any question *WINK WINK* :j

#ask game #please.