cy-cyborg

[cy-cyborg]

I just had the horrible realisation that there is a very good chance Tik Tok is going to go the way of Facebook now that the Americans were gone.

I was at least looking forward to seeing more local content - as in, content from my country, maybe my state - but It’s only been a day and I’m already seeing people I know irl. One of them is my dad, I don’t want my dad to see my videos, I already had to explain what furries and NSFW were last week in the same conversation. he’s an old farmer, me being trans already broke his brain, don’t think he can handle much more 😂.

This is too local. this is the last thing I wanted lol. I’m pretty sure one of my cousins followed me too…

[cy-cyborg]

I'm opening up my commissions! I specialise in:

Dragons

animals

Furries

D&D/TTRPG characters (any kind!)

Headshots/icons from $50 AUD ($31 USD - as of 18th January) Full body from $75 AUD ($47 USD)

See my full pricing/get a quote:

[cy-cyborg]

They were so loud my mum had to put earplugs in to go when she went horse riding in the bush. I'd still take that than noisy neighbours though! Also, meet Dante! My partner @jessequinones Fursona!

[ID: A digital comic with 4 panels, all featuring 2 chibi-style characters, Nix, a purple, anthropomorphic dragon with a yellow underbelly and Dante, an undead anthropomorphic dragon with dark grey-ish purple scales on his body, a dark purple underbelly and a bone-white skull for a face.

Panel 1: in the first panel, the two are sitting in the car, happily chatting. Nix says" "I think you're going to enjoy my parent's farm over Christmas! This time of year the wildlife is really active, it's so pretty!" Under the panel are the words "Cicada Season" in their own mini-panel.

Panel 2: The conversation continues, with Dante saying: "I bet! Personally I'm just looking forward to getting some peace and quiet without having neighbours so close to our window, like at home…" A chirping sound begins appearing around them, indicated with the word chiiiiiiirp appearing in the corners of the panel, but the two haven't noticed yet.

Panel 3: The chirping intensifies, with the sound effect text being repeated and lengthened. The two finally notice, with Dante asking: "Hey, do you hear that?" and Nix replying with: "yeah, it's just the cicadas. I did hear they were going to be louder than usual this year…"

Panel 4: The final panel has the words "later that night" in the top corner and shows the two in bed, looking exhausted with bags under their eyes. "CHIIIIIIIIIIIRP" is written in big red text all around them, indicating the sound has become incredibly loud. Dante remarks: "So much for peace and quiet" /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

I found some of my old game dev tutorials from uni over Christmas and it got me thinking about some ideas for a game. I really wanted to try making something with a customisable player character, so I've built a kind of early prototype version of them in blender to see how they might look (style-wise) and what kind of customisation options I can pull off. I'm planning to make the actual game in ue5 so a lot of this will need to be redone but like I said, this is a prototype.

[Video Description: A silent screen recording of a cartoony elf character with pale skin and purple eyes, inside the 3D modeling program, blender. The video shows the different mouth shape options for the character, including different expressions, eyebrow shapes, and different iris, sclera and hair colours, though the hair colour only shows up on the eyebrows. /End Video Description]

[cy-cyborg]

Wanting to draw or write a canonical amputee character just being cozy with his lover, and since he would take his prosthetics off for cuddling: Where do you actually put those when they are off? On the floor (but aren't too to expensive to be on the floor)? On the table/shelf? On the couch beside him?

if it's a leg, the floor is fine. they're expensive, but they're durable, and you don't want to put your dirty shoes on the table or on your couch (it's way harder to get shoes off on a prosthetic foot). Honestly, they're at greater risk if you try to lean them against something or put them up, they can handle being on the dirty ground, they're built for that, but they're not really built to deal with falling off things. They also tend to be really top-heavy, so they will fall if you try to stand them up most of the time.

[cy-cyborg]

Hey, I was curious, since it's Disability Pride Month, and you live in Australia. How does Australia treat their disabled people when you got people like Peter Singer in charge of things?

eeeehhh....

This is very late (sorry) and I'm a bit bias right now since I'm in the middle of a fight with centrelink (our welfare system) but... not great, but not in the ways I think people expect when they hear Australians talking about it.

There's a lot I'm very thankful for. I likely would have bankrupted my parents as a kid in a place like America where the system is very privatised. That was never a concern for us here, at least it never used to be, but we're moving in that direction too. But others were never so lucky.

In Australia, if your disability doesn't fit neatly into a box, or it's anything to do with mental health or the brain, it's a lot harder to get help and the support you need. It can also be a very dehumanising system at times too (right before all the ask replies, I wrote like... 2 or 3 big posts about my experience on that front). Centrelink is... especially bad, and it hasn't really kept up with modern times (increased cost of living, the fact you can't really live off one income any more). I don't think anyone I know likes dealing with them lol.

We have things like the NDIS, which were a good idea in theory but every government seems to go out of it's way to make it worse every election. There's a lot of fear-mongering born out of stuff taken out of context about it too (e.g. "disabled people are using your taxpayer money to pay for sex workers and holidays" was a recent example).

It's a very mixed bag, honestly. Hard to summarise it in one post without delving into the politics which I just don't have the spoons for. Its far from the worst place to be as a disabled person, but it's very, very far from perfect.

[cy-cyborg]

So, what do bare stumps look like? I imagine they would be different for different types of amputees (congenital vs traumatic, for one)

It's very much buried now lol, but if you search the tag "writing disability with cy cyborg" there should be a post where I did some illustrations to show what they look like. For the most part, they just look like the limb normally, but it ends early lol, sometimes with a little scar at the end. Big scars only show up when fire or gangrene were involved usually (that's a bit of an oversimplification, but it works as a general rule of thumb)

[cy-cyborg]

Hey not sure if this has been asked yet but what are some common stereotypes about your disability that you'd like to see addressed in writing?

The biggest one for my amputations would probably be the stereotype that a prosthetic just magically fixes everything. It's a frustratingly common belief that I've had to explain to so many people, including government systems who assumed me getting a prosthetic means I don't need assistance any more, and unfortunately, fiction is very fond of perpetuating that one through the "perfect prosthetic" trope.

[cy-cyborg]

I was playing Tavern Talk, and this character appeared. I thought the concept for their prosthetic is pretty cool! But I was curious about your opinion. The character's name is Una btw.

they look like they're a crocheter? is that the right word? someone who does crochet lol. I wouldn't think that was the most practical way to address crocheting with one hand but I don't crochet, so I'm not too sure lol. If they're not into crochet, that's an odd design for a prosthetic, but i appreciate the deviation from "hand, but metal" and "pirate hook" at least, and bonus points for them having a proper socket (so many people give their amputees sockets that are way too tiny, they should go most of the way up to the next major joint!).

Overall it's a pretty cool design!

I couldn't see if alt text was included in the image so in case it's not:

[ID: A screenshot of Una from the game Tavern Talk. They are a mostly human looking creature with blue skin and pale yellow spots shaped like stars on their face and left arm. They have white locs, decorated with green, gold and pink beads, a matching necklace a dark blue shirt covered in jellyfish. They are missing their right arm below the elbow and are wearing a prosthetic with a metal socket and what appears to be a crochet needle in place of their hand. /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

How do you feel about non-amputee disabled people writing amputees or playing them in ttrpgs? My DM and I have been working on a character that represents the way my dynamic disability limits my dexterity and stamina, and the chronic pain that comes with it, without dealing with the complex diagnostic process that I’ve endured and that wouldn’t fit well in the world of the story. He suggested building the character as an amputee, which I think fits what I’m going for in a lot of ways, but obviously that is not my disability. Do you have any dos and don’ts for getting it right? Or do you think it’s a path we should avoid?

You're totally fine!

For TTRPG games, as long as it's just a game between you and your friends, I honestly don't really care what people do at the table so long as you're not going out of your way to be a dick lol. If were to share the campaign (e.g. streaming it, animating it in a story time etc) that's a bit different, but if it's just a personal game, just do your best to avoid tropes you know are bad and don't stress too much. I do understand the people who say they don't like it when non-disabled people play disabled characters (which you wouldn't fall into anyway), but at the end of the day, what you do at your table really isn't my business and it doesn't effect me.

Writing is a bit different, since part of the point is usually to share it, but even then, in theory, I don't have any issues with non-amputees writing amputee characters, just make sure to do your research and get a sensitivity reader (or a consultant at least). I'll admit, I'm usually a bit more cautious of someone writing a character who doesn't have that disability, because too many people don't put in the work, but I don't think we solve that problem is by saying "only people with [insert disability here] should write characters with [insert disability here]" you know? The one exception to that, for me, would be if the story is about that disability specifically. Like, if you were writing a book where the main plot is someone loosing their leg and learning to live with that, then yeah, that should probably be left to someone who has that lived experience, or at least something very similar.

Apologies if that was a bit ramblly lol, what you described is fine imo

[cy-cyborg]

Hi there!!

Apologies if you've answered this already, I only just found your blog, but, if you're comfortable with it, I was wondering if you could explain some about the differences in above vs below the knee amputations and the different challenges that may accompany the disability. If you don't want to, completely okay and I hope you have a lovely day regarless

Cheers

So, speaking very very generally, the more of the leg you loose, the harder it is to use a prosthetic. There's a few reasons for this, but the simplest is that the bigger the prosthetic needs to be, the heavier it gets and the less muscle you have left in your real leg left to move it.

but when you go up so high that you loose an extra joint, you get some extra problems. You see, your hips, knees and ankles all work together to do the movements needed to walk, and deal with the pressure and fources of your feet hitting the ground/keeping you upright. As an able bodied person, you probably wouldn't notice how much pressure and fource that actually creates, because all those joints help to spread it out evenly. But when you loose a joint, those extra forces get passed to the next joint in the chain to deal with. You loose your ankle, all that extra pressure gets sent to your knee, you loose your knee, the added pressure that should be getting dealt with by the knee and ankle are now entirely dealt with by the hip.

Then there's the movement from those joints itself. while a knee can only move two directions (it bends and straightens), when it does that is actually pretty varied and harder for a machine (the prosthetic) to mimic. Mechanical prosthetics require extra movement from your hip to kind of "flick" the knee forward to get it to straighten, which isn't a very natural movement and is pretty tough on the body after a while. Newer legs have microprocessors (essentially, mini-computers) in them which tries to predict how you would naturally bend the knee, but humans aren't very predictable so it's hard to get something that's 100% perfect, so even they can be kind of tough to use until you get used to it.

That computer, though, doesn't come for free, so above knee prosthetics are WAY more expensive than below-knee ones (usually). My below knee leg cost $5,000 AUD, but my above knee one cost $120,000, and that was just because of the knee joint. I also have to send my knee away for maintenance and repairs, which I never had to do with the below-knee ones.

Honestly, the biggest differences are from the prosthetics, it doesn't change much if you're not using them. Though, some above knee amputees are also at a higher risk for more severe/longer lasting phantom pain, since there's a pretty giant neural pathway in your upper leg. That's not really a hard and fast rule though, everyone reacts to phantom pain differently.

[cy-cyborg]

Hi there! I just read your post about Toph Beifong as a disabled blind character. You mentioned her blindness in regards to libraries, which made me think about Starflight from Wings of Fire, and then a paragraph later you mentioned Starflight in relation to that. Have you any thoughts about Starflight as a disabled and blind librarian? I haven't read the books in many years so I have no idea if he was a decent or dumpster fire of a disabled character, but I remember after his blinding his friends started coming up with ways to emboss scrolls so he could read with his paws, which I remember thinking was super neat for dragons and really thoughtful when I was kid and knew absolutely nothing about disability representation.

So I can only talk about this from a generic disability point of view since I'm not blind, but from what I remember (it's also been a while since I read the books lol, and I never finished the second series), what we see of Starflight after his injury is decent. The main problem I remember is that we kind of... don't see him much after he looses his sight. I do like that Sutherland made sure to show that he doesn't have to give up on his love of books and reading, that he's still interested in academics and that he is accommodated without question (as far as I recall), and that he's not the only blind character in the cast.

But he's injured at the end of his book (4), the next book (5) just happens to be focused on Sunny who has split off from the group, then the next series starts and the focus in on an entirely different group of characters. None of that is bad, just unfortunate timing. We do see him in the second series, but he's a background character, which is fine, and we get a decent amount of information about him, especially in moon's book (6), but it was a bit of a shame. I don't think that was done with the intent of writing him out of the action though, so it's not something I'd hold against the story too harshly.

Of course, if you want to know how good he is as blind representation specifically, you'd be better off asking someone who's blind. Like I said, I can really only comment from a kind of generic disability rep standpoint, and the "disabling injury to write the character out of the action"/"character can't do thing they love any more because of an acquired disability" tropes are both common for a lot of different disabilities.

[cy-cyborg]

I'm having a debate with a friend, Mirabel is disabled codded right?

you definitely can read her that way, yeah! though I don't think it was intended.

I think the intended metaphor with Mirabel was just supposed to be that she was the black sheep in a family with high standards/that expects a lot, and being the only one still there that didn't meet them. The way they chose to depict that (using a family with powers, and giving Mirabel none) being literally one of the go-to ways of explaining the social model of disability was probably just a coincidence, but I don't think it's an unreasonable connection to make.

[cy-cyborg]

🐉✨👍

there aren't enough dragon emojis. they should make a few more

fully agree!! We need more 🐲

[cy-cyborg]

Hi, I saw your rant-post about amputee representation and you brought up cyborgs/cyberpunk again.

Tbh I just stumbled upon your blog yesterday because I wanted to see what thoughts people on tumblr have about writing cyborgs, you know prompts, ideas, anything really and then I found your posts about amputee and realised that it's much deeper than just "okay what do other people think how to care about cybernetic enhancements?" but more like okay, I need to be careful in how I write this side character so I won't cause harm.

And yeah. I don't know if you answer asks like this but I was wondering since you mentioned it now again, how you wish the cyberpunk genre would represent amputees? Like what kind of issues should not be just "fixed" by tech no matter how advanced it is?

I would really like to try and represent my amputee character in a good way. I'm just a bit insecure on how to proceed.

Thanks!

Hey, I'm glad to hear that I made you think!

I have a post and video on my page (somewhere under all these asks lol) about the "prefect prosthetic" trope, which is a good place to start! Mainly, you want to focus on making something about the cybernetics different to the real thing, outside of just appearances. You don't want it to just be "arm, but shiny metal" - something about the way it functions should change.

For cyberpunk in particular though, I HIGHLY suggest looking at some of the shitty behaviour the irl prosthetic component manufacturers already do. Things like forcing amputees to have their logos on their bodies (and penalising us if we try to cover/remove them by voiding the warranty), which can actually be a problem for amputees wanting to go into jobs like acting or modelling, because you have a brand logo on you. Things like my prosthetic leg collecting data about me and my activity levels, which can be used against me to prove I'm not "using it enough" to warrant getting it fixed/replaced by insurance (in Australia, we have the NDIS but they work off the same principles) - that's also deeply unnerving to think about in general and you could take that a lot further in a cyberpunk setting. Also not making prosthetics for certain body types despite the tech being available, because there's "no demand for it" but they're the reason there's no demand. e.g. many companies don't make prosthetic leg components for people above a specific weight, because "people who are that big don't usually use prosthetics" but we don't use prosthetics because none of the existing components are safe for us to use, so we can't use them, which means there's no demand, so they don't make them and it becomes a weird cycle. this has contributed to MASSIVE issues with eating disorders in amputee circles as people desperately try to force themselves into the "acceptable" weight window so they don't loose the ability to walk.

Also, if you're going to tackle the "how much of your body can you replace with robotics before you stop being human/stop being you" question, be sure to tread carefully and remember that there are already real people who you might be (unintentionally) discussing the humanity of.

[cy-cyborg]

Do you have other family members who are disabled or are you the only one? Is it lonely being the only one?

I do, and did, but it's not quite that black and white, and I still ended up believing I was alone for most of my childhood.

My mum and dad are both textbook examples of undiagnosed ADHD/Autism, and so were their parents, but my sister and I were the first ones to actually look into it and my parents have the mentality of "that's not autism/ADHD, everyone I know struggles with/does that" and don't really want to hear anything different lol. My grandparents, bar one, were all the same.

My great grandfather was missing part of his hand. I think he lost it in WW2 but he wasn't keen to talk about it, so I never really asked. By the time I understood I was disabled, he'd already passed away.

The other grandparent I mentioned who was the exception was... there's some family drama there but we were no contact with him until he died, so I know basically nothing about him.

My sister is also AUDHD and had some minor physical disabilities, as did a lot of my school friends, but all of them were diagnosed later in life, mostly in our 20's.

I was friends with my next door neighbour who was a wheelchair user with downs syndrome (I think?) but there was a pretty significant age difference between us, so we were never really close. I also didn't really make the connection that we were part of the same community until I was a teenager, our disabilities just seemed so different and a lot of the adults in my life kept saying that I "wasn't like him" so in my mind it didn't count. I know better now of course.

My nan also lost her leg later in life, but that wasn't until I was an adult.

It is a bit sad looking back, because that community was there, but I listened to the wrong people and ended up cut off from it anyway. By the time I was a teenager though, I started finding others and understanding that what I was being told was wrong.

[cy-cyborg]

hello! in the story i'm writing, two disabled characters (let's call them A and B) start dating each other, but at one point B realises that they don't actually want a romantic relationship and break up with A. the two remain as platonic friends, and both A and B stay single until the end of the story.

obviously there are other disabled characters who stay in relationships until the end of the story, but i couldn't help but wonder if it came off as ableist ever since i read your post about disabled most characters in media not having love interests due to ableism.

So long as you've got other disabled characters who stay in a relationship by the end, you're fine! Life happens, not every relationship can work out, regardless of disability.

The tropes I was talking about in that post were mainly focused on stories where every other character pairs up except the disabled character/characters.