singelisilverslippers replied to your post

[dragonlady7]

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singelisilverslippers replied to your post “singelisilverslippers replied to your post “you just shake it until…”

i mean, hats off to you, i feel like i’m gifted with these lovely little plot bunnies that i just keep embroidering in my brain until i can go there in an instant and i know the shades of mood, the turns of phrase, the emotional beats, etc. am i capable of writing ANY of them down? nope. i’m sure whatever you choose to work on next is going to be magnificent!

At the moment it feels like all I really want to do is immerse myself in a world where people live differently from here and like, I get it, but that is not really telling a story other people can follow along to, right? Argh.

girderednerve replied to your post “you just shake it until it starts rattling and eventually something…”

also extremely enthused about the viking one (!!!), and i hope your other obligations go well

Thanks! 

I was only sort of interested in the vikings one until I was like, oh, make it gay? hm that could be fun, and then suddenly I was like (ok I work next to a… it’s sort of a daycare and sort of OT I think and specifically focused on making art? for adults with brain injuries and developmental disabilities so I think about super-disabled people kind of a lot because I have to walk past picture-windowed rooms [the windows are decorated with their art and it is fantastic] full of them having fun every morning between the parking lot and my office and I know, it’s delightful and I’m lucky and it means i think about this stuff a lot) wait there are never super-disabled people in Fantasy Viking stories but we know from archaeology that despite the custom of exposing unwanted infants real Viking-age Norse routinely cared for disabled children and adults well past the point of them being “””useful””” in society and so obviously there’d be disabled people and then suddenly the brother existed more or less fully-formed and is probably going to be the key to the whole story somehow. 

But, he does mean I have to do research, because walking past some disabled people five times a week doesn’t mean I know jack or shit about a nonverbal autistic man in a premodern society and what sorts of accommodations his loving sister would be able to acquire in an unsupportive vs supportive environment. But like, there’s most of my setting structure, right there, because to answer those questions I need to give such pivotal details. It’s like, the whole handle to the story. (Because, obvi, her old home wasn’t that supportive and she had to fight and advocate for him all the time, and the new home, whence she’s been kidnapped by these savages, wins her over by being a lot more supportive and maybe the Marauder With A Heart Of Gold has a similarly-disabled relative or neighbor or something, and instantly gets what his deal is and is like oh well obviously I’m not going to swordfight this strangely-behaving man because I see what the deal is here and what’s more I know how to act like a reasonable person and not yell at him, so calm down alarmingly-buff lady with the forge hammer and let’s talk this over because you look hella useful and also hot.) (And then later she can be like listen my nonverbal friend who I’ve figured out how to communicate with, your sister has a real mean temper but I think she’s hot and i know you can tell me what she really wants in life, and he’s like, I vibe with you, sword lady, we’re gonna make this happen.)

Comments

[buttonsbeadslace]

Holy shit B that all sounds fantastic. I am very excited to read this, and also if you want any help with that research re: autism, or just someone to bounce ideas off of, I definitely volunteer.

[dragonlady7]

Oh my gosh yes please!!!! I don't even know where to start. I just basically want-- well, I mean, I want a lot of things, and he's already got some good character beats in my head, but the fundamental part of it is a "fuck you" to people who think disabled people don't exist in subsistence-farming cultures. Like, sure, I want him to be I guess able-bodied enough to be """useful""" sometimes or whatever, because I want him and his sister to get to have that kind of team relationship, but the main point is that he's profoundly, undeniably neuroatypical, to a disabling degree where he couldn't live on his own, but then none of the characters can live on their own, it's why humans exist in social groups. And he does have some degree of technically-advanced skill with the iron smelting-- it's not like he's some kind of Rain Man character, he's just experienced at working with his sister and making a technically-difficult product. So there'd be some ableism, in the initial setup-- the settlement where they are at the beginning, she's had to kind of use that to bargain for him not being cast out as unproductive, because they're shitheads there. But the second settlement won't be like that and it's the reason she winds up happy there, because they can both be happy there.
Like, I know it's not subtle, but. I haven't read anything like it so I want to write it.

[dragonlady7]

and even, like, he and his sister are on their own at the first settlement, so if he can't speak, the two of them have figured out a communications shorthand on their own, but it's not super advanced and it only works for routine stuff or if they're really on the same wavelength-- there are def gonna be times where this homebrew solution breaks down and they both get really frustrated.
but at the other settlement where they have another girl who's nonverbal (maybe more than one? maybe there's a kid and an old person just kind of sprinkled into the community and maybe like a younger traumatized guy who goes nonverbal sometimes too, that kind of thing?), she's been taught to read and write and they've come up with a great communication strategy for her so she can say anything she wants to anyone and have them understand-- like, if not everybody can read, maybe she's got some items with symbols on them that everyone gets so she can at least convey a gist, or like a more universal sign language, or something, at least she's got a chance to express herself if she's up to it, and everyone there just treats her like a person, and it blows the sister and brother's mind and they actually teach him to read and ok it's not like he's miracle-cured but he gets to have, like, dialogue in scenes after that instead of his sister guessing and interpreting what he's probably trying to convey.
i don't know literally anything about communication technology though, or how that would work.


(ooh if there's a sign language you could work it in early by having the raiders using it and the POV woman is like wtf what are you doing and they're like talking without words, and she's like... you can... do that... and they teach her brother the sign for something basic and suddenly he has a Word and they're like... what is this miracle)

And it's not the central focus of the plot or anything, but I just feel like it'd add shitloads of texture to the whole thing. oh gosh maybe the POV woman has this childhood belief that someday she's gonna find the Magical Cure for What's Wrong With Her Brother and then after a while at the new settlement she brings up her Long-Held Dream again and Love Interest is like... cured from what, and she looks and he's having a fantastic conversation with a friend and laughing and laughing and she's like... oh. Or is that too on-the-nose???

[buttonsbeadslace]

It is pretty on-the-nose, but I can still imagine it happening lol. I could definitely see her having some feelings to work through, if she's been advocating for him and protecting him for all these years and he suddenly doesn't need her as much. Overall I think you've got a lot of great ideas here, and yes, 100%- so what if a disabled person can't live alone, nobody can Truly live alone, at least not without making their life so much harder than it has to be. People need other people.

I really like the idea that there are at least some areas in this setting where people regularly use a sign language as well as spoken language, because that's something that has happened at least a few times in the real world, but it's so rarely talked about.

It also makes a lot of sense that this guy and his sister would have a basic "home sign" system they created between themselves for communicating basic things, assuming he has the, like, hand dexterity to be able to form signs consistently. That's another thing to think about, if you want to have several non-speaking characters, is the variety of different... ways? reasons? that someone might have trouble speaking. Some of the non-speaking autistic people I know of have significant trouble getting their bodies to do what they want, in general, not just when it comes to speaking. (Like Rhema and Ido Kedar.) But then there are also people for whom the problem is something specific to talking out loud, and writing or speaking sign language isn't difficult. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there is no limit to the number of oddly specific things the human brain can be weird about.

Oh, Mel Baggs' old blog might be interesting to you, they've written a ton of stuff about communication and not thinking in words, but it is kind of a lot to dive into.

Re: items with symbols on them, she certainly could use something like that. "Pointing at symbols on a board" is still basically how current communication tech works anyway. I can't remember hearing about any examples of that being used in history, which is honestly weird, since it's such a simple idea. The state of the art currently is apps like Proloquo2Go that let you make your own custom sets of words and symbols, and then speak the words out loud for you with a pre-recorded voice, but it's still basically a page of words and pictures that you point to.

[dragonlady7]

I meant to write a whole response to this and never did, but just so you know those links were absolutely fascinating and I am going to read a lot more about this and this is all a fantastic starting place. Thank you so much!!!!!!!!