ThatEdgyPanther

[large text: Navigation: Helpful Posts]

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

This post covers the general topics - for posts on specific disabilities, please see our pinned post.

Last update: 05/12/2025

Basics and Ideas

[large text: Basics and Ideas]

- How to Start Doing Research When Writing a Disabled Character - Facial Differences that Would Be Cool to Actually See Represented - How to Do Historical Research - Our "Disabled Character Ideas" Tag - Our "Character Inspo" Tag - Am I a Bad Person for Not Knowing Something? - How to do Sensitivity Reading (as the reader)

How to Describe XYZ?

[large text: How to Describe XYZ?]

- Blindness Tropes: the "Blank Look" - Describing Characters with Facial Differences as Pretty - Difference between Fetishization and Being Seen as Beautiful - First Description: when to mention the Facial Difference - How Often Should You Mention Mobility Aids? - Dialogue and Speech Disorders - Sign Language in Dialogue - Words for Residual Limbs (stumps) - Describing a Limp - Words to Use instead of "Walk" for Wheelchair Users - How to not Describe Facial Differences as "Scary"

How to Draw XYZ?

[large text: How to Draw XYZ?]

- Tips for Drawing Characters with Facial Differences - Annoying Tropes in Art Re:Facial Differences - Drawing Blind Characters - Drawing Amputees - How to Draw (and not draw) Characters with Vitiligo - Drawing Cane Users - Drawing Characters with Down Syndrome - Drawing Characters with Cleft Lip - Drawing Burn Survivors

General

[large text: General]

- What's Off-Limits for Non-disabled Writers? - Writing a Newly Disabled Character - Writing a Visibly Different Character - The Accident - Including Disabled Communities - Disabled Characters in Historical Fiction - Coming up with Fictional Disabilities - 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 - Worldbuilding with Disability in Mind - How to Let Readers Figure Out the Character's Disability - Does the Disability Need to Have a "Purpose"? - Including Ableism in the Story - Casual Representation vs Fetishization (with albinism as an example) - Including Body Horror without doing an Ableism

General Tropes

[large text: General Tropes]

- "Super-Crip": Magic and Disability - Abled Characters Pretending to be Disabled - 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 - Why is the Cure Trope Bad? - Disabled Character Recovering, but without Disability Erasure - Doing a Scary Disability Reveal without Doing an Ableism - Killing off a Disabled Character without Doing an Ableism - Writing a Disabled Villain without Doing an Ableism - What is Fetishization of Disability, and what Isn't - Not All Sign Language Users are Mute and American - Please Consider Making Your Signing Character Deaf - "Sad Disabled Person" - The Disability Backstory Reveal

Mobility Aids

[large text: Mobility Aids]

- General Overview - Overview, but with More Options - not writing advice, educational - More Detailed Look at Crutches and Canes - Magic Mobility Aids - Writing Wheelchair Users - Writing a New Cane User - "But Mobility Aids Wouldn't Exist in my Fantasy World" - Basic Information on Service Animals - Should My Non-Modern Wheelchair User use XYZ instead of a Wheelchair? - Fidgeting with Wheelchairs - Pet Peeves for Cane User Characters - Wheelchair user trying to navigate Inaccessibility - Walkers and Rollators

Other Disabilities

[large text: Other Disabilities]

- Writing Characters with Tourette's Syndrome - Introduction to Writing Characters with Speech Disorders - Writing Little People (characters with dwarfism) - Dwarfism and Fantasy Stories - Stereotypes around Characters with Dwarfism - Writing Characters with ASPD - Writing a Character with Russel-Silver Syndrome - Complex Dissociative Disorders Terminology: A Basic Primer - Portraying Psychosis + Review of Jinx from Arcane - Difference between "Nonverbal" and "Nonspeaking" - Stereotypes and Tropes around Characters with Gigantism - Writing Guide for Characters with Schizophrenia - Everything Except Hallucinations - Writing Guide for Characters with Psychosis - Hallucinations and Delusions - Stereotypes to Avoid for Characters with OCD

Making Your Content Accessible to Disabled Readers

[large text: Making Your Content Accessible to Disabled Readers]

- Why add alt text? - 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) - ScreenReaders and Color Text (Tumblr) - FanFiction Accessibility

Recommended Blogs/Sources

[large text: Recommended Blogs/Sources]

Tsunami old sketch

New Friend!

My new latest illustration, this one featuring my oc Daylight meeting Makucha the leopard.

The half baked traditions inspired by indigenous communities thrown into many xenofiction stories is also disappointing and iffy.

Minke whales breaching: I will launch myself out of this ocean like a f***ing surface-to-air missile to seek and destroy my enemies

TLK 32nd Anniversary Special

Starting of the showcase with a 2021 sketch of Simba I drew for a friend's birthday because I thought it was fitting for the occasion

Here's some proof but still really kept-under-wraps sketches that Vitani's Guard's finale is still being developed. I decided to sketch Vitani in an exaggerated version of my motivation lately.

This Askari preview is not how the illustrations are going to look, this is a cave painting depiction of the big bads we're gonna encounter in this new series.

I want Vitani's Guard and Askari: Secrets of the Roar to be posted within June at all. I'll see what I can do tbh

TLK/Zootopia is of course still going! It's just... I need to post those drawings I'm always teasing with as well as some new art.

Bored and feeling nostalgic so I did @kikirise's warrior cat challenge!

TPB: This was a hard one but I went with Yellowfang! She was always my favourite as a kid and I thought between her, Cinderpelt and Cloudtail, she'd be the most fun to design! Don't think I need to explain why I love her, she has a great dynamic with Fireheart and Cinderpelt and her backstory and death were tragic. I'm glad she got to live the last few moons of her life in relative joy.

TNP: Had to remind myself I'm dealing with canon here and not the rewrites since I'm currently reading a really good TNP rewrite by @mothdapple where I really love all the characters. In canon, my favourite is Mothwing. I think the idea of a medicine cat who rejects StarClan is really cool and her relationships with Hawkfrost, Leafpool and Willowshine were all really interesting. I also have a bit of a soft spot for warriors turned med cats haha

POT: Breezepelt my beloved! I have a soft spot for 'problematic' characters like him. It was refreshing to see a character who wasn't some perfect victim and was allowed to act out. He was a great contrast to the three and is one of the few truly sympathetic antagonists in warriors.

OOTS: When I started OOTS, I had already seen people complaining about Dovewing online and went in expecting to dislike her and want Hollyleaf back. I was pleasantly surprised to find that she was nothing like the internet had made her out to be! As someone who had high expectations placed on them from a young age, I found Dovewing very relatable. I like that she tried to maintain the friendships she made on the beaver journey and genuinely wanted to help the other clans (unlike certain other prophecy cats.) I'm so glad the fandom's come around to her now.

AVOS: This is one of the worst arcs imo... but it's also my favourite. It was the first arc I read while the books were actively coming out rather than being able to read the whole arc at once like I had for the previous ones. I struggled to choose one character as my favourite since I'm attached to quite a few but I settled on Darktail. I love a good villain and he gave us some of the most chilling scenes in the series. I'm... Quite scared for his super edition but I will remain cautiously optimistic.

TBC and ASC: I struggled to get attached to any characters in these arcs. I liked Snowtuft and the other dark forest cats in TBC and I enjoy manipulative antagonists like Curlfeather so they are my picks, however i feel that Curlfeather could have used some more exploration of her motives and goals. She's still the best character in ASC though imo.

DOTC: everyone in DOTC fucking sucks. I used to love it but now... maybe it's the overuse of the clan founders but it's difficult for me to like any of them now following recent books. One Eye was cool, threatening, beat up one of the worst characters in the arc and killed the other worst character in the arc so he gets my pick. He died far too quickly, he should have got to tear Clear Sky's throat out.