soc_puppet: Words "Creative Process" in purple (Creative Process)
Socchan ([personal profile] soc_puppet) wrote2023-08-27 11:01 pm
Entry tags:

Accessibility Buu-chan for 2023

My feelings about AnimeIowa these days are still decidedly mixed. I miss a lot of the people I spent time with on staff, and I enjoyed the work and making the convention a fun place (and more accessible in general), but I'm still hurt over everything that went down. Still, I did offer my services for while I'm off staff in making art for the Accessibility Passes.

This is the art I made for this year. As prompted by [personal profile] chanter1944, it's Buu-chan using a white cane!

Buu-chan the AnimeIowa mascot wearing sunglasses and using a white cane

After going back and forth with the idea for a while, I decided to give Buu-chan dark glasses reflecting the Disability Pride flag instead of a t-shirt this year. I know that not many blind people wear dark glasses, but it can still be useful visual shorthand, even if it's outdated, and I don't think it's offensive. ...In retrospect, I should have actually researched that before making the art. Oh, well. Things to remember for the future. I can always make a new blind Buu in five years or so, do things better. Having multiple versions of a disability represented is better than just one, either way!

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do for next year's art; maybe I'll give Buu-chan a prosthetic? Hearing aids are an option, as well (especially since Buu-chan doesn't have enough fingers to use ASL, and I'm not sure there's a specific sign for "anime" anyway aside from spelling it out). Invisible disabilities are naturally going to be a little harder to depict, of course, but I'll also be trying to find a way to work on those! Oh, maybe I can have him cosplaying a zebra for EDS...? I wonder if other invisible disabilities have mascots like that...
satsuma: a person hiding under a blue quilt (sleep)

[personal profile] satsuma 2023-08-28 06:58 pm (UTC)(link)
(especially since Buu-chan doesn't have enough fingers to use ASL, and I'm not sure there's a specific sign for "anime" anyway aside from spelling it out)

probably not helpful but possibly entertaining: I did try looking up anime in several ASL dictionaries and was baffled by the repeated redirection to pages on how to sign “resin”…evidently anime is also the plural form of gum anima
jesse_the_k: Full explanation: <a href="https://is.gd/DPflag">is.gd/DPflag</a> (disability pride flag)

[personal profile] jesse_the_k 2023-08-29 07:56 pm (UTC)(link)

It's probably why one-hand-only signs like 🤟 are iconic: easier to fit on a badge or a pendant

...and I'm just noticing your fabulous Dreamsheep x Disability Pride icon! (Remembers "dreamsheep" is a thing, visits comm, wallows in your amazing all-the-pride-sheep post, snags half-a-dozen icons.