#viktormiuke

I was going to do a redraw of this but I just lost motivation so I'm going to let it for another day!

I'm thinking about creating a disability art challenge (like inktober, mermay, etc) where every day of July would have a prompt such as "developmental disability", "personality", "mobility aids", "caregiver" and so on!

(Lemme know if this already exists)

What do y'all think about that? Should I do it? If so, could I tag the blog and say you really inspired me to do that?

My main goal with this is for people to show their disabled characters and stories, and highlight those that don't usually get brought up that much, and that disabilities occur in all sorts of ways. Like my character Hector that was born Deaf because his mom had rubella and his girlfriend with Usher syndrome will have different experiences. And same for character with schizoaffective disorder than someone with brief psychitic disorder and all that.

Hello!

I'm not familiar with anything like that already existing and it sounds great ! Feel free to tag us of course we'll try to share it :-)

My only advice would be to make sure you're getting the prompts from all sides of the disability spectrum (from invisible low/no-support to very visible very high-needs) since when making lists like that it can be easy to just go all in one direction by accident. Buy it sounds like you're already well aware of how vast The Spectrum is !

I'd also release the prompt list early since a lot of disabled artists can't draw that fast / that frequently.

Good luck! Sounds fun :-)

NO NO NO YOU HAVE THE WRONG IDEA, FRIEND!! I know you're joking but this is still important to me - I never mean to tell anyone not to be creative!

Warriors isn't bad bc its cats are unrealistic, not even close! Erin Hunter doesn't ruin the magic of their series by making a yellow cat with red legs or whatever. It's okay! It's fun!! There are things in Warriors that are actually bad, like the racism, and those Actual Problems don't get cute quirky videos poking fun at.

The genetically accurate videos are frustrating to make because I made them frustrating, because I set myself arbitrary rules, rules that are designed to be frustrating in a way that my monkey brain loves solving like a puzzle.

It's like Wordle, right?? The English language just happens to have a fuckton of 5-letter words. There's nothing bad about that in day-to-day life, that's just an aspect of language that's, at most, a funfact.

But someone decided to put arbitrary rules on 5-letter words to restrict them. And now folks are screaming into their phones, shaking them, arguing with each other...and it's FUN! And folks who don't like doing that, well, they don't have to!

Again I know you're joking, this is mostly for folks seeing the ask/reading along <33 Pls pls be creative & do whatever you want, not just bc it's better for yourself not to get hung up in details that don't matter, but bc IT'S MORE FUN FOR US TOO. Quite frankly if Warriors had intentionally accurate genetics, I wouldn't have had any fun puzzles to chew on!

I have a story about metamorph cats and dogs, and in the world, there are lots of different "human subspecies" and the most common are the ones with animal features. And I was having some thoughts about "what else do these characters have in common with those animals?"

For instance, I was thinking about a Corgi character that has achondroplasia, a totally white cat that is prone to skin cancer and deafness, a Dalmatian with kidney problems, so on. All of those things happen in real life to those animals, and I think it would be nice to showcase the things that people don't think about when making "animal hybrid" characters.

Do any those things fall into harmful tropes? Something that might be important to say is that the actual personality of the characters don't have much to do with their species and everybody is unique (it only happens to some major stuff like Siberian Huskies being very talkative and Greyhounds being fast runners).

I also have completly "boring human" characters that also have physical disabilities and the same goes for animal characters that have disabilities that are not associated with the species/breed at all.

Hi!

I don't think it's a problem at all to give anthropomorphic animals real disabilities that those animals often have. In fact, it's weirder when people ignore it entirely--to take one example from your list, around half of white cats (and nearly all that have blue eyes) are deaf, so if you're writing a character that is a white cat, I'd expect that character and/or someone in their family to have hearing loss, and I definitely expect some sort of Deaf culture from a group of white cats.

Domesticated animals especially, since they were bred for specific traits and "high" pedigree pets tend to be fairly inbred, have fairly predictable characteristics, both in terms of personality and common disabilities. It's not ableist to accurately represent that.

I am creating a fictional south american country, where most of my stories take place. It's called Nauramá and it's heavily inspired by Brazil (cause I love it here). I am also making a fictional indigenous language that is spoken by the mojority of the inhabitants, called Yēra'mai.

So, I was thinking if I should make a fictional sign language for the country as well? I really want to, but since I do not primarily use SL I felt like getting a second opinion! I don’t want to step where I shouldn't.

In this case I would not come up with every single possible word or phrase because I am just a guy and I'm not doing that to do the spoken/written language lol. The main reason I wanted to do this is because I have a good number of characters that use SL and most of them are very important characters and/or very frenquent in the stories, and I don't think it would make much sense if they were using LIBRAS or ASL or something (even tho portuguese and english are also recognized as official languages, nauramenos, Yēra'mai and people with those heritages are very proud of their culture).

Hi!

I definitely think establishing the existence of a local sign language is a good idea, especially if your indigenous group has a high Deaf population.

However, making signs themselves can get a little difficult. This is in part because describing sign language gets very clunky and hard to follow. Signs have many parameters, which you can think of as a parallel to grammatical characteristics and spelling of a word, except they are visuospatial. Describing a sign in a written work takes time that can distract from the actual message.

There are some scenarios where I think describing a sign is appropriate--for example, a completely non-signing character trying to piece together unfamiliar signs, or when emphasizing very specific signs (to be used sparingly). But for the most part, I recommend writing a translation of what is being said, using the language that you are writing the story in.

Compare the following three paragraphs (I am writing using descriptions of ASL signs):

Example 1: She pointed to herself, then made a motion like giving a tight hug, before pointing to him. I love you. Then, her index fingers flew apart--but--and her palm chopped against the other, eyebrows crinkled and mouth open in disgust. You're so irritating.

Example 2: "I love you but--bothersome you," she signed, her mouth slightly open to show her annoyance. "Fish-fish."

Example 3: "I love you, but you are so irritating," she said, rolling her eyes. "Leave me alone!" Her hand flicked in his direction as if to shoo him off as her mouth tightened in annoyance.

The first uses a literal description of the signs. See how much longer it is compared to the others? It also slows the pace of the scene dramatically. This format could work for a short scene if someone is trying to bridge a language barrier, but other than that, I do not want to actually read a book written like this.

The second is written using a modified version of gloss, a method for transcribing sign language. I never recommend writing in gloss, partly because it often makes no sense to non-signers, and partly because even for native signers, it's missing a lot of information that being face to face would provide. (And providing all that would make a long paragraph with many technical details!) Gloss can be more effectively replaced with the descriptors and tone indicators of natural English writing.

For both of the first two methods, since your book is using a fictional sign language that will have its own grammar and acceptable parameters, describing signs or glossing does not provide any additional level of understanding to the work. For a made-up sign language, writing out the signs is like putting a pronunciation guide and a dictionary directly into the scene.

The third is the most natural for all readers to follow, provides the most detail, and allows for something to the scene other than description of what the signs look like. Notice that I don't entirely omit descriptions of signs when it gives some emphasis, but it's only for those specific moments that I rely on describing a sign, or calling attention to the fact that a character is signing rather than speaking.

I absolutely recommend that you think about some signs or concepts that might be important to the culture. Research indigenous sign languages in the areas and cultures you are drawing inspiration from, plus look into Deaf culture and sign language linguistics to get a basis of what the Deaf community in your world might look like.

Most importantly, hire a few people fluent in sign languages and use sign language dictionaries to make sure any signs you do invent aren't slurs in existing languages. (This last one isn't foolproof--for example, the middle finger is an acceptable hand shape in many sign languages, even though it's only used as a rude gesture in ASL. But since you are creating a conlang, you can be a bit more careful.)

To summarize, I think you can write a Deaf culture and population without inventing the signs in their language. But if you are going to create a sign language, look into the linguistic characteristics of signs, get proofreaders, and prioritize the flow and readability of your writing over showcasing your conlang.

I have a character, David, who is a below elbow amuputee. His best friend, Colin, is Deaf (born Deaf and has almost no hearing). Before the amputation, David was an interpreter and helped Colin in mostly hearing spaces and where people didn't know sign language

I was thinking what is the best way for these two to communicate? One of the possibilities I came across was giving David a prosthetic he'd only use for signing. Like, it would be very flexible and made with this purpose in mind, but would not be very useful when grabing things, for example. I did some reasearch and there are a good amount of different types of prosthetics and they change their use from person to person, so I thought that in their world — which is more accessible than ours — should have something along those lines.

And if it’s important, they live in a fictional country with free health care and they both have a good amount of money so they probably could aford it. My main question is if it is way too idealistic?

Hi!

So, a realistic prosthetic would not be suitable for sign language. Sign languages require dexterity and timing that prosthetics (barring magical "perfect prosthetics") cannot replicate. Advanced myoeletric prosthetics are often very heavy and cannot do all the same hand motions as a meat hand.

That being said, it doesn't mean that David can no longer communicate with Colin.

Many sign languages, such as ASL, are understandable one-handed rather than two-handed. It's less clear and you lose some ability to do spatial work, but it's still possible, especially for two characters who know each other well in both a professional and personal capacity.

Anecdotally, I know arm amputees and people with CP affecting their arms who can sign. It takes more effort for them to learn or adapt signs, and sometimes more effort for other people to understand them, but sign languages can absolutely be adapted.

Especially as a below elbow amputee, David will still have a good amount of arm mobility. He can use his nub as a base for signs, acting as a palm or finger as necessary. He will obviously need to adapt signs to his disability, but there is very little reason for him to be unable to sign after his amputation.

Some headcanons for him:

I think his name might be Hans for some reason (tho it'd be funny if was just Bell)

Obviously father-daughter dynamic with Hilda and also sibling dynamic with Johanna

Definitely had loads of black and tux cats

He's achilean aroace-spec (I love projecting)

And here's a fun fact for you: I've made two characters inspired by him

Julian, chemistry teacher to my characters of "Choice" and father figure to the main protagonist Ronan

And Bell, who is a metamorph "Irish Wolfhound mix" and is a firefigther :D

Btw he looks SO MUCH like my chemistry teacher. Like even the eyebags... anyways, if I'd talk about all the similarities of Hilda and my life we'd be here for some time

I can go to my dream college!!! 😼✨️