Do you have disabled characters?

[carodoodles]

Yay so glad to see many disability representation on here! You guys rock for having disabled characters in your stories

[Amirai]

I have one in my comic Shards: The Shattered World, but she's a ways off from showing up as the comic only has a few pages so far.

I haven't decided what her disability is yet, but it involves needing a wheelchair most of the time. She can walk a little, but not very much at all before she has to stop. I feel those who are not paralyzed but still need a wheelchair are some of the least represented people of the disabled community, with writers too often using the disabled person standing as a way to shock the audience about that 'terrible faker.'

I loathe that trope. People in wheelchairs have enough suspicion directed their way already and those examples don't help. I feel that there needs to be more examples of non-paralyzed characters who still actually need wheelchairs to promote awareness that disability is not a binary state, there are many levels in between.

I feel strongly about this, being disabled myself. Sorry for the mini-rant. ^^

[carodoodles]

oh yeah totally understandable! My deafblind friends have similar problem where people saw them using cane then saw them reading a book or something and would flip out at them. :/ We definitely need more and better representation of lesser known disabled people without stereotypical tropes.

[getsuart]

Why not, after all? There are all kind of people, it's nice to give them some spotlights

[talissacosta1]

Not main characters, but End. ( http://tapastic.com/series/4266 ) is gonna have a blind character, and a character with a prosthetic leg. Like... The ones that I already have more story and design planned are these two. I guess it is important to say that they are dead (they all are, the story is about after life)

... And Vincent (one main character in End.) has memory problems, he has a hard time learning how to use new technology, and has to take notes on everybody's names and faces, a map of how to get to his own room. I don't know if it counts.

[mjmassey]

In Vatican Assassins, one of the main characters is deaf from birth and communicates in sign language. It's been a great way to practice drawing hands!

[Kura]

A good amount of them, however unless it's a physical trait I really don't like listing them under labels, it's just... uncomfortable for me. I struggle enough dealing with disabilities in real life (with both myself and family members), so including them in my stories can sometimes get very difficult because it just hits too close to home.

If people can spot these ques in my characters and relate that's cool, but I don't often do the "They are like this BECAUSE OF DIAGNOSES---" thing unless it directly relates to the plot / dialog in the story. It's the same as it is in real life, I don't like being introduced by my disabilities or sexuality before I'm actually introduced as a person.

[VermillionWorks]

Daniel has a horrible case of vampirism which leaves him unable to keep food down, feel physical touch, has a severe allergy to sunlight, has regular shakes and is also clinically dead with black, tarry blood. It's also changed him mentally and he seems to have something akin to a supernatural form of Dissosiative Identity Disorder. His only treatment is regular intake of human life to ease the shakes and dead feeling.
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......very, very sorry, I had to. XD

[sleepingmarlons2]

well I have one, her name is healer... she is dumb check it out here http://tapastic.com/episode/177496

[Jelw]

I haven't decided what her disability is yet, but it involves needing a wheelchair most of the time. She can walk a little, but not very much at all before she has to stop. I feel those who are not paralyzed but still need a wheelchair are some of the least represented people of the disabled community, with writers too often using the disabled person standing as a way to shock the audience about that 'terrible faker.'

Oh god I agree with this so much! While I myself am able-bodies, my best friend has a condition "POTS" meaning they have times where they are perfectly able to walk, but others where they cannot. My friend usually just always uses a wheelchair when going out because of the fear of being accused of being a "faker" and such and because people treat you better when they think you can't leave a wheelchair, apparently. :,(

[SpavVy]

I have a couple but I can't name off who because spoilers. >.<
But I have characters that have the following...

PTSD

Selective Mutism

A character that is completely blind

One character I have seems to show some signs of Reactive Attachment Disorder especially during her childhood years which I did completely by accident before I knew about the disorder xD but due to her past I seemed to have done a good job in making her current behavior pretty accurate although RAD is considered vary rare.

[ratique]

In Devil's Acres there will be a character that is very much disabled. I am not sure how to call her disability, but I think "vegetative state" describes it pretty closely. I don't like that word though, I prefer the German description for it: Wachkoma. Which means "Waking coma" translated.

I am really looking forward to working with that character, she is great!

[williamjbowles]

I don't know if this really counts as disabled, but Gunther from Outcast Kingdom is headless. Clearly, it's not a real world disability, but he can't talk, smell things, taste food-- or even eat. But he can see and hear, somehow. So... kind of?

[VaoMamago]

No, why should I? Tell me a reason

[Kamikaze]

We have a disabled character as one of our leading dudes in Kamikaze. His name is Toshi, and he's our main characters father. He can't see normally, and frankly he's fine with that. He's a writer, an amazing cook, and an awesome dad, but sometimes it's hard for other characters to expect much out of him, because all they see is his disability. The good news is, Toshi's a lot more capable than anyone gives him credit for. Ultimately, he's a dad, and his blindness has never impeded his ability to love his little girl. <3

[erwil]

I like this! I've got a mute character as well, and from previous experience in RP I'm slightly concerned if I can portray her properly.. She's an urchin so she doesn't have Echo's writing skills. I'm considering doing some studies in sign language to make it a little easier. But expressions and body language are probably going to have to fill her world in for the most part.

[carodoodles]

@erwil Mmhm good idea to study sign language. You could have your character do home sign if that character's world doesn't really have sign language or something. (Before 1500s, most deaf in the world used home sign or if there's few deafies in local, they use their own sign language)

Here are links to American Sign Language, ASL: aslpro and lifeprint . I’m not a HUGE fan of youtube videos because you don’t often know that person’s credibility. Lmk if your world is based on different part of the world because not all countries use same sign language. Good luck! And feel free to ask me any questions. I'm deaf but I am also selective mute (I have voice but I just don't like to use it)

Oh and check out Strays by Samantha Whitten- they have a mute character, Feral, who writes in different language that other character, Meela, doesn't know so they had to communicate through gestures, sometimes one word here and there in Meela's language. They wrote that mute character Feral very well! :3

[carodoodles]

More representation in comics for disabled people is really great. Did you know that we disabled people are the largest minority in the world. And often disabled people are ignored in stories, or we have disabled characters that are boring 2D with horrible stereotypes. A lot of disabled people are perceived very negatively, mostly because a lot of people know very little about disability. That leads to more oppression (or ableism, which is oppression against disabled people) toward us.

[Mineu]

I have a character in my comic who is disabled but I can't say who that is because of spoilers xD
But yeah, I think is pretty interesting to have disabled characters in a story but also it's a challenge (I'm usually afraid of not being able to represent them well ) so I think doing a lot of research is definitely a must.

[erwil]

Ooh that's excellent! Thank you ever so much! ^o^ And yeah, I get what you mean about the videos.. I'm not on the know enough about it to trust them either.
I like the idea of home sign of some kind, it'd make sense for the character in question for sure!

And gosh, I actually completely forgot Feral was one. I've been following the comic for ages and kind of took it as something normal since they've portrayed him so well!