A General Cane Guide For Writers And Artists (from A Cane User, Writer, And Artist!)

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 in your writing, but you absolutely should continue to do your own research outside of this guide!

This is NOT a medical resource!!! And never tell a real person you think they're using a cane wrong!

The 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 can 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!)

(some people elect to use a cane wrong for their personal situation despite this, everyone is different!)

(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 and the bad leg and follow with the good leg!

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!

(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.

Bases 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)

(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!!!

Also mostly from my civilian AU, here are sports that I can see the batfam do as non professional hobbies. Kinda scared to post this ngl, I feel like some of y'all will not share the vision, but also it's really not that deep

Barbara: Okinawa Kobudo, she's especially proficient with the bo

Dick: juggling (will do it at any given moment, no warning)

Cass: dance, obviously ballet but I could see her doing other dances too, maybe contemporary jazz and acro-stuff, I just want her to have fun and explore all the possibilities.

Jason: maybe my biggest hear me out, figure skating. He has the balance, the flexibility, the creativity and sensitivity. When I used to play the piano, there would be this form of vulnerability and emotional drifting in synch with the music, when you pour your heart into creating and in return feel transformed, which is something that never happens when I write or draw although I love those things. I can definitely see Jason going to ice skate when things are messy in his head and getting into that sort of similar headspace.

Steph: Roller Derby

Tim: skateboarding

Duke: I'm thinking parkour (I see a lot of videos of parkour in sort of indoor gyms with bars and structures that looks really fun and challenging, that's what I'm picturing)

Damian: I don't picture civilian Damian doing that many sports but if I had to choose maybe karate? Open to suggestions

Harper: paintball/ laser tag (she designed the guns. If she likes you they're just lasers).

Kate: general conditioning & athleticism + male gymnastics, because that's an almost completely different discipline and she likes that one better

Bruce: generic conditioning/weight lifting lifting, gotta pick that body in peak condition to carry his colony of children on each arm. He's also proficient in bike football from that one time he went to Germany.

Luke: kite flying (with complex, beautiful kites of he designed himself)

I love this so much but also I have a bold proposal: how about instead of splitting the story at Jason's death we split it at when he first runs from the manor after overhearing Bruce and Alfred's conversation about taking back Robin? That way the first movie is entirely about Jason's time as Robin and it allows space for his characterization while also being purposefully heavy on foreshadowing as described. Probably the main Rogue would be Two Face, and there would be the scene when he chooses not to kill him/saves his life after learning he killed his dad and the Garzonas incident (i believe it shouldn't give an answer but should be put in a way that to Jason it "doesn't matter if I did, Bruce thinks I did it, but that's a complicated element and I'm not sure of anything yet). Then he leaves and finds himself back in Crime Alley, the end and it looks like he's going to live rough for a while in the next movie, get through some growth and character development and become his own hero. And then bam second movie begins with the Death in the family arc. I want that movie to get the mindset and pain so good it tricks people into thinking Jason's actions in UTRH are logical, in a "of course he did that stuff, what else was he supposed to do?" way, and I think the way to do that is to have all these elements from his death, traumatizing rebirth, catatonia and then his training and revenge. I want to never let people forget how young he was when he died and how long he is during UTRH, show how unresponsive he is in catatonia and make it clear when he heals out of it he is not his biological age. I want a death in the family to be the first arc and trigger for the story, not his rebirth because the problem isn't that he came back wrong, the problem is that he died in a way that was so wrong. I want Jason to have flashbacks but also imagery in certain scenes that reminds the viewer of Jason's trauma without him having necessarily a flashback on screen, show the omnipresence of triggers and make the viewer haunted by it the way Jason is, like the world never lets him forget that he died, and film it so that he always looks like he's in danger when he's not wearing his hood, like there's this camera work, music induced tension that something is standing behind him or about to catch him or spying on him etc., the only times he looks safe and powerful are where he's out as Red Hood. And I want, early in the movie, to watch his joy and hope finding out about Sheila, to watch him be the cutest imaginable when he sees her, goes "Mommy? Mommy!" and hugs her, I want to see him shield her body with his own and tell her he loves her. And I want the Jason who crawls out of his grave to be smaller than the angel statue looming over it.

There's a post about wanting a story about Jason's time as Robin. I made a reblog of it so long ago, but I can't stop thinking about it.

I want to watch Jason's flight as Robin, but the entire story he's haunted by the future we all know is going to come.

When he first grabs his tire iron, he has the choice of taking a crowbar instead.

Subtle purples or greens pop up when he's in danger (but not necessarily the Joker).

He frees a bird trapped inside a warehouse.

He rescues a kid who was kidnapped by their mom and returns them to their dad.

So many dead or injured birds

While helping Alfred with gardening, he breaks a nail

Gun magazines at many scenes

Motorcyclists wearing red helmets

Someone's bubbling jacuzzi has a green light on

Duffle bags

He helps hold a bandage to someone's neck until paramedics arrive

Jason reads Frankenstein while at the Manor

An ad proclaims their coffins to be the sturdiest

Just his Robin story being jammed packed with foreshadowing.

It'd also be rad to have Easter Eggs:

Someone makes a comment about assassin kids

When talking to Bruce about something, on the batscreen is a very short file about "One Who is All"

Someone at a gala mentions the Drakes' newest archeology find

Kids at Jason's school chat about meta powers and how cool controlling light is

When visiting the hospital, the nurse introduces herself as Crystal

The buildup of the audience watching Jason, who's unaware of his future, continuously face sign after sign after sign? The irrational hope that maybe someone will notice the universe basically screaming about the future? Nobody notices as more and more signs pop up. It's maddening but so intriguing.

Jason's story of Robin would follow him as he goes from being desperate to survive to thriving. His paranoia that it's too good to be true thrums in his veins, but he learns to ignore it. He's fed, loved, and flies over Gotham every night. There's conflict, sure, but he's figuring out. It's okay.

The signs start out slow and subtle. As he starts to reach towards the end, they get more and more obvious. They occur more often.

Jason doesn't know when it all goes wrong, but he's figured it out before.

We don't see him lose hope until the very end.

EDIT:

Here's the og post I was referencing

Have some magical girl!Jaybin while I scream about part two of chapter 6 of The Protector. This baby is about to get betrayed by a parental figure, brutally tortured, and murdered. At least that will get him out of the ugly colour scheme.

Jason, Constellation of the Robin Classic Transformation:

-Flight

-Enhanced athletics

-Limited Regeneration

-Colour Swirl: raises a colourful wave that rains concussive damage on his opponents, effectively stoning them with colourful magical energy.

-Starlit Labyrinth: While in the streets of Gotham, Jason has the ultimate high ground. He is able of finding the way out of any alley, like a thread only he can see out of a maze, and is capable of creating illusions of alleys and walls to better hide and lure his enemies into dead ends. This leaves him at a disadvantage when travelling in places away from Gotham like say, for example, Ethiopia.

Robin!Dick from the magical girl batfam AU!! This is a Classic transformation and also the ugliest colour scheme I've ever played with I love it so much it makes my eyes burn, shout-out to my cracked free version of Photoshop for being a nightmare to use.

Dick's Classic Constellation of the Robin transformation powers include:

-Flight

-Strength

-Regeneration

-Colour Swirl (send a colourful wave at people to effectively stone them)

-Rocket Somersault: Dick propulses himself high into the sky and lets himself fall into a n-times somersault that basically transforms him into an indestructible rocket launched directly at the enemy.

Chapter six of The Protector has now been split in two for tone consistency (it was super long anyway), so here's the updated chapter count.