This meme is inescapable on French insta so I'm posting it here for all to enjoy
I don't speak French so thank you to the many, many, many people in the notes going "Wait that's not 'can it' that's 'Shut the fuck up'"
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This is good advice, but also why this picture?
It’s hard for two horses to be intimate when there’s an erupting volcano nearby. What’s not clicking
Imagine being the only person alive who can say this
buzz aldrin and neil armstrong liked to do a thing where they’d tell unfunny jokes at parties about being on the moon and when people were confused they’d go “guess you had to have been there”
[ID: tweet from Linn LeBlanc reads: Where were you 49 years [ago] today when @/TheRealBuzz and Neil Armstrong made those historic first steps onto the Moon. Attached is a color photo of an astronaut on the moon. Buzz Aldrin quote tweets it and replies: I was on the Moon! #Apollo11 /]
One of the best letters I’ve ever seen just popped up on my Facebook memories. Still makes me laugh.
As today is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it’s a great time to revisit Dinah from Devon’s memory of this historic event. And yes, still makes me laugh.
Today is the 54th anniversary of the moon landing, but Dinah’s diary entry is still absolutely magnificent.
A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)
Disclaimer: Though I have been using a cane for 6 years, I am not a doctor, nor am I by any means an expert. This guide is true to my experience, but there are as many ways to use a cane as there are cane users!
This guide will not include: White canes for blindness, crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs as I have no personal experience with these.
This is meant to be a general guide to get you started and avoid some common mishaps/misconceptions, but you absolutely should continue to do your own research outside of this guide!
![[Image text] Arm bends a little. Cane height at hip joint. Many canes have adjustable height. Cane sits within the natural center of balance. Causes stress on: Triceps, upper back, wrist (pressure) fingers (grip). Helps with: Joints (lower back, hip, knee, ankle, foot), weakness, balance, pain.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/0c8731401f496885dc8d4309a7dbe7ee/f831b3159e1d7635-e7/s1280x1920/c0727e182d1199164b0d14b8aa97a1d0951103ac.jpg)
ALTThe biggest recurring problem I've seen is using the cane on the wrong side. The cane goes on the opposite side of the pain! If your character has even-sided pain or needs it for balance/weakness, then use the cane in the non-dominant hand to keep the dominant hand free. Some cane users also switch sides to give their arm a rest!
A cane takes about 20% of your weight off the opposite leg. It should fit within your natural gait and become something of an extension of your body. If you need more weight off than 20%, then crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair is needed.
Putting more pressure on the cane, using it on the wrong side, or having it at the wrong height will make it less effective, and can cause long term damage to your body from improper pressure and posture. (Hugh Laurie genuinely hurt his body from years of using a cane wrong on House!)
(an animated GIF of a cane matching the natural walking gait. It turns red when pressure is placed on it.)
When going up and down stairs, there is an ideal standard: You want to use the handrail and the cane at the same time, or prioritize the handrail if it's only on one side. When going up stairs you lead with your good leg and follow with the cane and hurt leg together. When going down stairs you lead with the cane, then the good leg, and THEN the leg that needs help.
Realistically though, many people don't move out of the way for cane users to access the railing, many stairs don't have railings, and many are wet, rusty, or generally not ideal to grip.
In these cases, if you have a friend nearby, holding on to them is a good idea. Or, take it one step at a time carefully if you're alone.
Now we come to a very common mistake I see... Using fashion canes for medical use!
![[Image text] 4 Major Handle Shapes (significant variation and uses). Tourist/Crook/Hook. Classic shape, fashion and medical, easy to hook on things (arm, door, chair, etc), generally solid wood (stronger, heavier). Offset. Newer design, not a fashion handle, only handle for quad-bases, generally better balance, usually aluminum (light + cheap), soft handle, adjustable (rattles/clicks when swinging). Derby/Fritz/Anatomical/Contour. Classic medical shape, many fashion variants, some fashion + medical, varies in many ways, sometimes contoured to hand, comes in foldable styles, many aluminum styles, many customizable styles. Knob/Decorative. Fashion exclusive, knob shape hurts the hand after prolonged pressure (especially with designs), tend to be heavy, "sword canes" have the same issues.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/102d2e5f13a88817eaa44974bc5a7486/f831b3159e1d7635-e2/s1280x1920/48b743c42fa427d9ba0668932749d84216a6c1d0.jpg)
ALT(These are 4 broad shapes, but there is INCREDIBLE variation in cane handles. Research heavily what will be best for your character's specific needs!)
The handle is the contact point for all the weight you're putting on your cane, and that pressure is being put onto your hand, wrist, and shoulder. So the shape is very important for long term use!
Knob handles (and very decorative handles) are not used for medical use for this reason. It adds extra stress to the body and can damage your hand to put constant pressure onto these painful shapes.
The weight of a cane is also incredibly important, as a heavier cane will cause wear on your body much faster. When you're using it all day, it gets heavy fast! If your character struggles with weakness, then they won't want a heavy cane if they can help it!
This is also part of why sword canes aren't usually very viable for medical use (along with them usually being knob handles) is that swords are extra weight!
However, a small knife or perhaps a retractable blade hidden within the base might be viable even for weak characters.
![[Image text] 4 Major base shapes (significant variation and uses). Adjustable base. Aluminum, standard modern medical, adjustable height, rubber base, wears down over time. Tripod/ quad base. If you need extra balance. Terrain attachment (varies, this is for ice). Removable, helps stop slipping on ice/snow/sand/etc, some canes have a retractable tip for ice. Classic base. Non-adjustable, custom only, modern standard still has a rubber base.](https://64.media.tumblr.com/78d350cfac4077376b7ce521a9a7d929/f831b3159e1d7635-ab/s1280x1920/3f62aebc781579ce8cd629c161dc1cc0e422532d.jpg)
ALTBases have a lot of variability as well, and the modern standard is generally adjustable bases. Adjustable canes are very handy if your character regularly changes shoe height, for instance (gotta keep the height at your hip!)
Canes help on most terrain with their standard base and structure. But for some terrain, you might want a different base, or to forego the cane entirely! This article covers it pretty well.
Many cane users decorate their canes! Stickers are incredibly common, and painting canes is relatively common as well! You'll also see people replacing the standard wrist strap with a personalized one, or even adding a small charm to the ring the strap connects to. (nothing too large, or it gets annoying as the cane is swinging around everywhere)
ALT(my canes, for reference)
If your character uses a cane full time, then they might also have multiple canes that look different aesthetically to match their outfits!
When it comes to practical things outside of the cane, you reasonably only have one hand available while it's being used. Many people will hook their cane onto their arm or let it dangle on the strap (if they have one) while using their cane arm, but it's often significantly less convenient than 2 hands. But, if you need 2 hands, then it's either setting the cane down or letting it hang!
For this reason, optimizing one handed use is ideal! Keeping bags/items on the side of your free hand helps keep your items accessible.
When sitting, the cane either leans against a wall or table, goes under the chair, or hooks onto the back of the chair. (It often falls when hanging off of a chair, in my experience)
When getting up, the user will either use their cane to help them balance/support as they stand, or get up and then grab their cane. This depends on what it's being used for (balance vs pain when walking, for instance!)
That's everything I can think of for now. Thank you for reading my long-but-absolutely-not-comprehensive list of things to keep in mind when writing or drawing a cane user!
Happy disability pride month! Go forth and make more characters use canes!!!
i hate how capitalism and 2010s-20s minimalistic designs took away creative and colorful designs. i miss how mcdonald’s used to look when it had the red tile roof and when they had chairs in the dining room molded after their characters. i miss when storefronts would have colorful cartoon art on the walls and windows. i miss how hot topic used to look, when it looked like it’d be scary to walk into when you were a kid but after you got in and saw all the invader zim merchandise it was okay. or how malls used to have so much color, from the tiles to the walls to the ceiling. i hate the bland minimalism we have now. i hate the beige and silver design that every store has now. i hate it.
In case you are wondering "how did we get here exactly?" Let me outline some things.
Playgrounds and play areas in fast food and malls required more employees to keep them clean. People (fairly) didn't want to do that work for minimum wage on top of their normal restaurant duties, and stores wouldn't hire enough people to not have to split work between the kitchen and cleaning. So the play areas were closed off and then torn down.
Then, apple came in with their empty white box stores, and suddenly everyone wanted to look like them (because they had a massive hit product that was also a status symbol and people want to feel like they have status even if they don't) or like a luxury brand store (again, false status). Bright white, extra white LED lights everywhere (nice in some ways, but blinding in others), fewer items stocked on shelves and then in general in stores. Apple had that design in part because they had relatively few products to display relative to store size, same with luxury brands. It makes more sense for each item to be on a pedestal when you only sell a handful of products. It doesn't when you have dozens of products.
At your more "middle class" stores, part of shift to stocking less is false scarcity - they want people to feel like they have to buy an item now or risk not getting it, and so people can't wait for discounts. Part of it is that with the new displays that hold fewer items but make things look more "boutique," keeping the shelves stocked and things moved from the back requires more employees than they are willing to pay. My local target, which is undergoing renovations to better fit their "Target Boutique" look, has had chronically empty shelves in some areas due to understocking and not having enough staff to replenish stock in all areas. Now they've added more self checkouts so they can cut back on cashiers and move those jobs to stock. Some places that haven't gone as "minimalist", like Walmart, have also shifted their employment focus from cashiers and stock to mainly stock by switching to primarily self checkout in efforts to maximize profits by reducing labor costs.
Part of getting rid of fun, unique designs was also reducing costs to make profit rather than innovating or drawing more customers to increase revenue. Custom molded seats with several different designs cost more than a minimalist set of identical chairs. Anything that children can play with or play on will break eventually and need to be replaced, so it's cheaper to just not have those things and not have to spend money on them. Unique roofing and siding costs more money to replace, so it was swapped for generic stock. If it can't be pressure washed or painted over, then it's also out because those are the cheapest ways to clean or refresh the storefront. Fountains break down, so rip them out or don't have them to begin with. Landscaping requires maintenance, so just leave it plain concrete and don't bother with planters. If there are plants, they will be knock-out roses, box hedges, and maybe some small cheap annuals because the former require next to no maintenance and are disease, pest, and pollution resistant, and the later just get replaced with other cheap annuals the next season. In the name of profit, everything looks bland and repetitive.
In the 90s and early 2000s, the middle class has more spending power to balance out the costs of fun and family friendly things in public spaces, but also percent profit hadn't needed to grow as much for a company to call itself successful. Because total profit isn't what matters, what matter is percentage profit growth. When you want your profits to grow exponentially, you have to minimize costs exponentially also - which, eventually, will lead to a collapse because there is a minimum you have to spend to operate and have people willing to work and want to pay for your product.
(There is also a back-and-forth relationship between residential and commercial design, outside of just where mandated by towns, where commercial mimics residential in an effort to feel "homey" and "inviting" and then people go "ew, that house has the same exterior as the mcdonalds. I don't want my house to match fast food," so the housing shifts to something else, and then the commercial design shifts again, and this goes on forever and no one learns to just make the businesses unique because that would impact their profit growth)
The "boutique" look of stores also serves another purpose. By having some items scattered in various sections (accessories being mixed in with the clothing sections rather than in a separate accessories/jewelry section, some pet goods are in the pet section, others are in seasonal or sport or housewares, etc.) you force people to walk through areas they normally wouldn't in order to find a specific item they are looking for. If I want a sun hat for my beach trip, I can't just go to hats, get the one i want, and then be done. I have to walk through swimwear where they've also placed some beach towels and pool floats and water bottles, because they hope I will impulse buy the other things if I'm there for only one of them. This is the same reason the grocery store keeps getting seemingly arbitrarily rearranged every 6 months. It is arbitrary, and it's because they want people who have a routine of shopping for their staples and know exactly where they are, thus overlooking other items, to have to look at the shelves more closely again, which makes them more likely to make impulse purchases.
Anyway, as usual, the question of "why does shit suck and why is nothing as fun as it used to be" is answered by "capitalism."
one more point to add: the more generic and rote something is, the broader the "market appeal." branding and aesthetics that have personality and communicate a specific meaning or mood? someone, somewhere won't like that. someone might think it's too "kitsch" or "distracting" or xyz. you might even lose a customer. we can't have that, it's too risky! make it as bland and devoid of unique personality as possible. there, that's better: sure, maybe nobody likes it, but nobody is going to make it a sticking point for their spending either. you have the market research to prove it after all.
now imagine you're a multi-billion dollar conglomerate that owns a dozen or three different chains. it only makes sense to extend this to all of them, right? it's just good business.
maximizing profits means minimizing risks, and any statement you make is a risk. so don't say anything. bland, utilitarian, and familiar: there's no risk in that. endless minimalism. endless nothing. endless cash.