#limb difference representation

[cripplecharacters]

hi! im writing a story that takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting, specifically one where resources and raw materials are scarce. the main character is a below the knee amputee and their prosthetic leg wasn't made with the same kind of Precision as one in our world would be made with (if that makes sense). for example, they have issues with balance and have to do daily maintenance to keep it functional. my question is, would this even be a possible outcome? like, would someone be able to use a prosthetic that was jury rigged from other parts? (If you've seen the Fallout TV show, a fair amount of background wastelanders are in the same position, if that gives you a better idea)

Hello,

Yes, that can be done. In fact, technically all prosthetics counted as this back in the day, before prosthetics became an established science and standards for how they were built and what was used to make them became a thing and they made official prosthetic parts. Prosthetics were made of random bits and bobs and things left over from other projects for a very long time and they were serviceable enough. It's perfectly realistic for someone to take a branch and carve it down into a peg for a peg leg, they did that for centuries.

Yes, it's absolutely possible and it's been done before, it was standard for a long time. Don't worry.

Mod Aaron

[dailycrippledcharacters]

Burt (Bottle Rocket Astronaut)

[Image Description: Official art. Burt, a 2D animated pigeon. He is primarily blue with orange feet and an orange beak. One of his wings is much smaller than the other. End ID.]

Burt has limited mobility due to a limb difference.

[cripplecharacters]

sooo same anon who sent the "should i feel bad about giving my character a robot arm even though im gonna change that after learning its ableist" ask (if you dont wanna answer that thats fine because this is an update)

- so design changes: i just scrapped the robot arm altogether, and there is a normal arm in place

- i bring this up in a server

- person asks why

- i explain the whole "its inconvenient and expensive" thing

- everyone else says thats personal opinion

please help. im still gonna go ahead with the change, but damn.

Hi!

We're here to help people learn. Nobody is a bad person for not knowing a trope. But I feel this reaction isn't exactly the right one.

It is true that upper limb prosthetics are expensive, inconvenient, and often unhelpful. The solution for that isn't to get rid of the disability--it's to get rid of the prosthetic.

Many people give their characters Cool Robot Arms. The problem isn't inherently the prosthetic, it's that the robot arm functions exactly as well as, or even better than, a flesh arm, which erases the character's disability. Replacing your magic prosthetic with a flesh hand does not solve the central problem of erasure--having no disabled character instead of a trope-y one is not better representation.

Please make a one-armed character, without a functionally-flesh prosthetic. Even if you get some things wrong, there are resources to be more accurate (like this blog) and imperfect representation is better than no representation at all.

Mod Rock

[cripplecharacters]

Hello. This is perhaps very weird, but my character is an amputee who lost his arm, and I'm wondering about his way of sleeping. Can he sleep on his stump, or would it be uncomfortable? Would he use a firm mattress, because a softer one would be harder to stand from?

Thank you very much!

Hello,

Interesting question! To my knowledge, he could sleep on his stump and it wouldn't be any more uncomfortable than sleeping on your arm, unless the bone of his stump would make it uncomfortable. But sleeping on your arm in general can be uncomfortable if sleeping on your side. Often, people who sleep on their sides don't sleep with their arm between their side and the bed, they sleep with their side on the bed and their arm positioned either in front of or behind them, though that could just be a matter of personal taste.

As for his mattress, getting up isn't his main issue. He needs a mattress that's good for his back and keeps his back and other major joints, like the hips, aligned to avoid putting stress on the joints and waking up sore. A harder mattress keeps the joints and spine in line, but if he sleeps only on his side and rarely on his back or front, it can cause pain because it doesn't sink enough to properly accommodate the shoulders and hips. If he's purely a side-sleeper, he'll be best with something between soft and medium-firm. Or he could have a hard mattress and use a memory foam pad to try to avoid this. Firmness is not going to be a major problem when getting up. That's mostly core muscles and maybe the legs, and you can get by using one arm to help get up. If his core muscles are weaker, he can use a bedrail, transfer pole, grab bar, or a foam wedge under his pillow and upper body to help.

Yes, he can sleep on his stump and it would likely only be as uncomfortable as sleeping on his other arm, no, he does not need to use a hard mattress, just needs to get one that's good for his back, hips, and shoulders and then add assistive devices if he needs them.

Mod Aaron

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! Do you have any ideas for poses with the same vibes as crossed arms, but for a character with an above the elbow amputation?

Hello,

Cock the hips by straightening one leg and bending the knee of the other leg, putting most weight on the straight leg. Then put the remaining hand on the hip, either normally or as a closed fist. Have the facial expression match the emotion meant to be conveyed. Look up body language and facial expressions associated with the emotions you're trying to convey and use those. If you need tips specific to a certain emotion or effect, I can help you out

Mod Aaron

[cripplecharacters]

I was trying to draw a character when I made a "mistake" and messed up what I intended to be her left hand and eye. I decided to keep it and rewrite her as a girl with a congenital limb and facial difference. However, she was originally written with histrionic personality disorder, and I don't want to accidentally recreate any psychological stereotype about people with limb/facial differences that I'm not aware of. She's a side character who makes bad decisions a bit, but isn't a villain.

Hey!

It's completely fine. Personality disorder doesn't make someone evil or abusive, all they intrinsically make someone into is a person with a personality disorder. It's a morally neutral characteristic.

If you aren't portraying symptoms of HPD as making someone violent or inherently unpleasant to be around or whatever else in that taste, you're good. Obviously having a PD isn't all (or even mostly) sunshine and rainbows and puppies, but the symptoms are usually much harder to deal with for the person having them than for anyone else, and definitely don't make someone commit mass murder (somehow one of the most common tropes for characters with facial differences). Besides, HPD is probably also one of the personality disorders I would least expect a character with a facial difference to have. In the rare instance that a character is implied to have both a FD and a PD, the latter is usually a poorly researched (and almost always rather offensive) portrayal of someone with antisocial personality disorder.

If you're worried you can always have another character, even a minor one (if her disabilities are congenital then you can mention she has a family member with something similar), with either a PD or a limb/facial difference, but not both at the same time. So even if a reader were to somehow take away that visibly disabled people are all mentally ill (?) there's a character who has a facial difference or was born without fingers and doesn't appear to have a personality disorder (putting aside the fact that you can't always tell that someone does or doesn't have a specific, or any, mental illness). At the same time there's literally nothing wrong with having a character who has both. I think it would only be strange if she's the only mentally ill character and her entire character arc is focusing on how miserable it is while everyone else is happy and abled, but that would be a weird characterization choice regardless of her physical disabilities.

Hope this helps,

mod Sasza