#mod rot

-🧚🏻‍♂️🧚🏻‍♀️

Hi asker,

My first instinct is intelligent insects – ants, bees, spiders. A service animal has to have intelligence and skills to be trained and whatnot. "Smart" here I'm going to use to mean like, problem-solving, communicating, etc, at a degree higher than, say, a fly who's just trying to get to some fruit and therefore would not be an effective service animal.

Bees are very smart, and research shows they can even do some basic math. They have complex communication with each other and they do a lot of cool things like give each other directions; they're about 1-2cm if they're honeybees for example but largely they'll be a good size next to fairies. They can also fly, which if fairies can fly, would seem like a pretty good thing for a service bug to do.

Ants are strong and work hard and collaborate a lot. They're adaptable and social, good traits for a service bug. Size wise, the largest species is 6cm which is about fairy-size but mostly they're significantly smaller. The main drawback would be that not all ants can fly, but a flying ant could be a good choice for non-mobility tasks.

Spiders... well spiders are so variable that this really depends, but in general spiders are pretty smart. Jumping spiders are the smartest. They have strong senses in general, but especially excellent eyesight, and they plan different ways of attacking prey depending on what works best, meaning they can problem-solve. The main drawback on spiders is that most spiders are not social, which is probably important. However, there are some social spiders.

Dragonflies are extremely efficient predators, which makes them pretty smart. They can tailor their attacks very well and are super, super precise – they basically never miss. They come in many sizes too so some could be too big to help fairies but some are quite small and could work effectively.

Something else that might work is very small birds. They might be better for something like mobility assistance, in the way that large dogs or miniature ponies can do that for humans. Small birds are, generally speaking, pretty smart as well as social, and can in that way also fill the role of "service dog" for fairies.

The smallest bird in the world is a bee hummingbird (5.5cm average). Hummingbirds in general are quite intelligent (they can recognize people, which is neat, and have big memories) and quite small, although this one is the smallest of them all.

Esmeraldas woodstar (6.4cm), Calliope hummingbird (7cm), and Costa's hummingbird (7.4) are the next smallest birds and also all hummingirds, so the above applies as well.

A bonus for birds, is, of course, that they can also fly. The main con is that even the smallest ones are basically the size of a fairy and that's kind of big – even big service dogs are usually a significant amount smaller than their handler.

Also, I liked your ask! I really love fantasy and picturing fairies with service animals made me smile.

Hope this helps,

mod sparrow

Hello asker,

A service animal will need different skills depending on the tasks they do. Mobility animals need to be larger than for example diabetes alert animals. Guide animals also need to be relatively large.

I would reccomend researching a bit more into why specific dogs and dog breeds are chosen to help you figure out what you're looking for!

-Mod Patch

Hello, thank you for your ask!

For mental illnesses, service dogs are usually trained to provide comfort, prevent self harming behaviors (though limited to things like hitting ones head with their hands or banging their head), and can even act as a weighted blanket. Insects such as bees might work best, since they're social and intelligent enough to train. Anything more specific requiers more context to decide a better fit.

For fighting my first thought would defiantly be insects like ants and termites that already have species specialized for battle. Like Mod Sparrow said, not only are ants highly intelligent social animals but there are species that have developed large jaws, venom, chemical sprays and even rudimentary surgery (though these ants aren't particularly large and wouldn't help as mobility aids). The only potential downside (besides arial battle not being possible for a lot of species) is that they communicate through pheromones, and the faries would have to learn to make and be able to deploy them as needed to signal to the ants.

As for generally disabled fairies, I'd would also recommend doing more research on what the fairy needs from a service animal before deciding. Would it help with vision? Medical alert? Hearing? Retrieving items? Mobility? And for mobility you'd also have to think of how the animal would help, like if the fairy would be using it for support while flying or need them to fly the fairy, and if the fairy is riding it that then goes into issues power chair have such as support level, smoothness while traveling, padding, etc. Looking into what dogs are trained to do in these cases will defiantly help your search for small animals who can specialize.

If you need any more specific help, feel free to ask again!

Hi! We've got a couple of asks like these over the past few days and I wanted to try and clear it up rq. Firstly, thank you all for being so kind and patient with us! It means a lot to see so many people wishing us and the blog well. Secondly, everything is okay! One of our hardest working mods Tri got quite busy this week and unfortunately the queue managed to fall behind. Posts may be sparse or a little off schedule for a second, but we're trying to catch up with our draft and queue! Thank y'all again for being patient with us. Hope to be back on schedule soon!

♥️🥩 Hannibal x Will 🥩♥️

Hallo!

Natürlich geht jede Person anders damit um, und ich glaube, dass wenn mehrere Mods ihre Erfahrungen beitragen, eine kleine nützliche Sammlung zustande kommen kann.

Ich persönlich habe mich in der Oberstufe irgendwann mal damit abgefunden, dass ich nicht dazu gemacht bin, bei meinen AltersgenossInnen “dazuzugehören”. Trotzdem werfe ich mir selbst schon mein Leben lang vor, wie komisch und asozial ich doch bin (und bei mir gehörte Mobbing leider auch zur Tagesordnung)

Meine Autismus-Diagnose letzten Sommer und meine Therapiesitzungen haben mir geholfen zu akzeptieren, dass mein Anderssein keine Charakterschwäche ist. Dass ich so bin, weil ich eben so bin. Wer mich ohne Grund ausschließt, hat mich wirklich nicht verdient.

Aber wie viele andere, habe ich immer noch Probleme damit, mich selbst so zu akzeptieren, vor allem jetzt da mein Anderssein einen Namen hat. Und es ist auch okay, wenn es ein längerer Prozess ist. Wichtig ist, dass man ihn beginnt.

Meine autistische Identität zu akzeptieren war ein guter Anfang: ich bin anders, ich darf anders sein. Wer mich nicht so toleriert, ist selber Schuld. Ich habe begonnen, mich mit anderen AutistInnen im Internet anzufreunden,über meine Erfahrungen zu bloggen, und mich auch “IRL”  so zu akzeptieren. Ich verwende nicht mehr all meine Kraft um meine autistischen Züge zu unterdrücken. Ich stimme in der Öffentlichkeit wenn ich es brauche, trage Kopfhörer und Sonnenbrillen und kommuniziere mit den Leuten auf meiner Uni, die für Barrierefreies Studieren zuständig sind. Wenn man merkt, dass einem diese Dinge helfen, und dass man Hilfe verdient, ist schon ein großer Schritt gemacht.

- Mod Rot

Hey!

Ich hab lange überlegt, ob ich zu der Frage etwas schreiben soll oder nicht, da ich nie direkt gemobbt wurde.

Mir war jedoch schon immer klar, dass ich anders bin. Auch wenn ich nie beschreiben konnte, wie genau. Und wenn ich versucht habe, dann kam immer die Antwort: “Nein, du bist nicht anders”

Und ich weiß, dass es immer lieb gemeint war, aber es nur dazu geführt, dass ich mich ich mich nur noch ferner von allen gefühlt habe.

Meine Weise damit umzugehen, war es mich von allem zurück zu ziehen. Ich habe aufgehört zu versuchen mich zu erklären, da mir von vorne rein klar war, dass ich nicht verstanden werde. Ich habe aufgehört Emotionen nach außen hin zu zeigen. Anstatt anderen die Chance zu geben mich auszuschließen, habe ich mich selbst isoliert. Und für eine lange Zeit war ich ok damit.

Bis ich zum ersten mal Leute getroffen habe, die mich wirklich verstanden haben.

Interessanterweise war das auch die Zeit in meinem Leben in dem ich zum ersten Mal aus meinen voherigen sozialen Zirkel gekommen bin und in ein Umfeld in dem mich keiner kannte (Austauschjahr in Kanada). Zum einen war die Umstellung Angst einflösend, zum anderen hat es ein Gedanke geschafft mir endlich den Mut zu geben ich selbst zu sein und nicht zu versuchen im Hintergrund zu verschwinden.

Die Leute kennen mich nicht, das heißt sie haben auch noch keine Vorstellung davon, wer ich bin und damit keine Anforderungen. Und wenn sie nicht mögen, dann ist das ihr Problem. Und ich muss sie nie wieder sehen, wenn ich nicht will.

Es hat mich eine lange Zeit gebraucht, bis ich das Gefühl hatte, dass ich ich selbst sein kann und dass ich überhaupt weiß, wer genau ich bin.

Am meisten haben mir dabei meine Freunde geholfen. Ohne ihr ehrliches Interesse, ihr Verständnis und ihre Unterstützung hätte ich es nie geschafft. Und besonders andere autistische Freunde, die ich gemacht habe, haben mir unglaublich dabei geholfen zu verstehen, dass ich nicht alleine bin und dass nichts daran falsch ist, wie ich bin.

Also mein Tip an dich: Versuch dich so gut wie möglich mit Leuten zu umgeben, die dich akzeptieren und dich darin unterstützen dein authentisches Ich zu werden.

Ok das ist jetzt etwas länger geworden als erwartet XD

Hello, thank you for your ask! Please note I’m not a historian, just someone who’s done a lot of research. If anyone on Tumblr wants to add anything they know about the subject that I didn’t cover, feel free!

I’m going to start with the terrain before I get into the wheelchairs, and to start, a wheelchair can definently get over dirt and cobblestone. Even back before paved roads people needed smooth roads in order to transport carts, and even Rome had very well maintained cobbled roads in 300 A.D. to make transport as efficient as possible. There are, of course, uneaven or poorly maintained cobblestone paths, and those would certainly be an issue. If your story takes place in an area with uneaven stone roads, I’d recommend looking into manual hiking wheelchairs for design inspiration. Dirt paths shouldn’t pose as much of an issue either, unless they’re like covered in roots, plants, mounds, etc, but a well traveled dirt path should be packed well enough to not be an issue. Mud can pose an issue, but even dirt roads with hard-packed dirt from heavy foot traffic should have much more shallow puddles and less loose mud than regular loose dirt would. If your character likes in a particularly wet/rainy area I’d recommend looking into beach wheelchairs and manual all-terrain wheelchairs. Otherwise, your character should be fine on ancient roads! Now, onto ancient chairs.

The medieval ages span quite a long time, from the 5th century A.D. to the 14th century, and wheelchairs have been being created for that entire time. While many other disability aids were also being used during that time, I’m going to focus on wheelchairs and wheeled aids so I don’t make this too long, and because that’s what was asked. A quick note is that the first self propelled wheelchair was made by a watchmaker named Stephan Farffler in 1655 [pictured below], so if you want your character(s) to be able to propel themselves you’re going to have to take some creative liberties. [Note: Stephan’s chair was probably very useful for getting over uneaven terrain, with its three wheels and low center of gravity making it harder to tip.]

Records show that Greece was one of the first countries to develop wheeled-aids. The first instance of the Greeks using something similar can be found on a vase from 530 B.C. depicting a child on a bed with wheels being taken outside. Now there isn’t much surviving evidence of ancient Greek mobility aids, but there have been Greek temples found with both stairs and ramps, which imply people were being wheeled into temples fairly often [source]. There have also been vases imagining Triptolemus on a wheeled chair since 400 B.C., though it seems like imaginative work rather than something accessible to the public considering the chair doesn’t look like it could stand upright? But then again I’m not a historian and it’s possible a wealthy disabled person at the time took inspiration for what their chair would look like, or vise versa.

The first record of a wheelchair in China is found on a stone carving from 525 A.D. showing a wealthy man in a custom chair. For those with less money, records show they had been using wheelbarrows to transport disabled people since 200 A.D., and this form was definently more common for the average person who didn’t have money for a custom chair. [I unfortunately couldn’t find artwork depicting someone being carried in a wheelbarrow during this time, every picture I found was from the 1900’s and sooner, but feel free to look them up for inspiration.]

Wheelbarrows were then brought from China to Europe in the 12th century and were also used to transport people, as well as having the design changed.

In 1595 King Phillip II of Spain received the first clearly recorded wheelchair after becoming bedridden with gout. Unlike the other chairs it had the ability to have a reclining headrest and adjustable footrest. This chair was definently designed more for confort than practicality, as the king probably wouldn't need to travel any unkept roads like a poor person would.

Wheelchairs developed way more during the 18-19th centuries, and you can always look there for ideas if you want your character to be more independent.

I hope this was all helpful!

Hello, thank you for your ask!

Most sites list upturned eyes, depressed nose bridges, thin lips and a lack of philtrum as some of the most common physical symptoms.

If you learn better visually, Cleveland Clinic's page about down syndrome does have an illustration showing some common facial features present in DS. And while not a medical source, one of our mods also made a drawing tutorial for common physical symptoms of DS that could help as a visual starting place. Looking up photos of people with down syndrome and seeing what traits they share may also help.

Medical websites such as Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic are reputable and are designed to be readable to the average person. Hopefully once you understand some of the more common physical traits, doing more research to better understand the symptoms will be a bit easier!

Besides eye color and freckles, other similarities you can give them can be hair color, hair texture and eyebrows.

(Also, no need to worry about silly questions! As long as you research before hand, read out pinned post and see if we have any similar asks on out blog that may answer your question before asking you're all good!)

Have a nice day!

btw you guys are doing god's work. thank you for your tireless efforts to make disability representation better and to educate others.

Hello, thank you for your ask!

One of the symptoms of gigantism is muscle weakness, which can make it hard to build muscle mass. I can't say for certain it's impossible for someone with gigantism to gain visible muscle, though the only example I could find was André Roussimoff with conflicting accounts on whether he had gigantism or acromegaly. Acromegaly is a similar condition that, while it does affect muscle mass and cause muscle weakness, doesn't tend to affect muscle size as drastically. People with it don't tend to grow as tall as those with gigantism, though, as it develops after bone plates have fused. From what I could find that might help with their building muscle, as typically those around the 6'8 feet to 7'4 feet (around 2 meters) range had more muscle and fat than who were taller.

I would say to do more research on those with gigantism and acromegaly, see what they realistically look like and try to find accounts of those who were able to build muscle mass (their strength, how difficult it was, how their disability affected that journey, etc.) and go from there. Try to aim for a realistic height and body shape, and question the motives of why you decided to make your character look the way they do. It's very easy to let biases accidentally slip in, so seeing if your character's appearance and disability is played for a joke/surprise, or if their creation was influenced by tropes is important. A larger character who's over 6 feet (1.8 meters) doesn't immediately fall into a negative trope, but they can easily reflect biases if you aren't thoughtful.

I hope this helped!