#blind representation

[micoz-field-of-dreamz]

yall have no idea how good this is for blind representation????? i mean im not blind myself but they got BRAILLE and you can SEE HIM FEELING AROUND⁉️ brawl stars has to be one of the only games with inclusivity AND listens to their fans

[animentality]

Ok serious question time, because this bothers me, and people with disabilities are especially welcome to answer this one, because I am genuinely not sure...

Can I have an MC who is not blind, but perpetually blindfolded for specific magical reasons, and not be appropriating blind perspectives/ stories?

I know that technically. No, they're not blind.

But they are functionally blind, for story reasons. But does it matter that they can technically take it off, but with the understanding it has serious repercussions? Is that the trope people hate, where a magical power takes away a disability?

But they technically don't have a disability??

But also they kind of do???

Weigh in, people, because I can write around it, either way, I just want to know the politically correct thing to do here. I can definitely delete that idea completely, I actually already have a revision idea in my back pocket, but let me know...

feel free to weigh in with more detail in replies.

[theomenmedia]

Big news for #AvatarTheLastAirbender fans! Meet Miya Cech, the new Toph! #TophBeifong #AvatarSeason2 #Netflix #LiveAction #Earthbender

Link to the full story: https://www.theomenmedia.com/post/meet-miya-cech-the-new-face-of-toph-in-avatar-the-last-airbender-season-2

[johannepetereric]

I got a deaf character who can only hear at a certain low pitch but not yelling, I got three OCs who hears like the average person with their hearing aids but is just white noise (or nothing) without them, I got another one who has to yell to hear herself and others (which is what I suspect the (partially) deaf Bakugo HC means).

And two wheelchair user OCs, one of whom is also partially-deaf while and another is half-blind.

Peeps, I’m awakening to the “stockpile your disabled OCs and write in different types even if they don’t exist (yet)” mentality. I’m getting into a “If a Picrew gives me the options of hearing aids or a wheelchair for my OC(s), try taking them and running with it 👍” thing lately.

Anyone else doing this?

[sickz6mbie]

[justfinishedreading]

The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be-Wife, volume 1 by Iwatobineko

I used to read a hell of a lot of yaoi manga and hardly any shoujo manga, but yaoi plotlines have now started to feel very repetitive, and with the discovery of mangas like Sweat and Soap and A Silent Voice, A Bride’s Story and even The Way of the Househusband I’ve developed a renewed interest in hetero love stories, in particular those told in unique ways.

The Invisible Man and His Soon-to-Be-Wife is set in a modern fantasy land, one filled with elves and dark elves, animal-human hybrids, cyclops, aliens, regular humans and probably a whole bunch of other odd creatures not yet introduced. There’s no clear lore but all the characters interact easily with each other so their world feels real enough.

This is the story of a blind woman falling in love with an invisible man, it seems like a perfect match as both persons complement each other: he doesn’t need to be worried that his invisibility prevents her from seeing him because she can’t see anyway, and because she is blind she is used to “seeing” in a different way, she can sense when he is the room, by sound, by smell and by other tiny perceptions. She can see him in a way that no one else is able to because they rely too much on vision. From her side she doesn’t have to feel like she is missing out on anything, she can’t see him on a visual level but neither can anyone else.

They are quite a sweet couple together, I was a little worried by age difference, he dresses like a dapper gentleman and runs his own detective agency so it makes it feel like he is a little older, but we don’t really know his age, I’m going to go with early 30s. She on the other hand comes across a bit young, young looking, shy, with not much romantic experience, but towards the end of the volume she starts to dress in a more sophisticated way, because of her inexperience she may have initially come across as young but as she grows in confidence she looks like she could be in her mid 20s.

The only thing I didn’t like about the manga was actually an aesthetic choice, the cover has a very classy colour palette, which I really like, however the inside has one additional colour to the traditional manga black and white, and of all the colours they could have chosen they went with this vibrant greenish teal colour, it doesn’t go with the cover at all. I really hope they try different colours for the interior in future volumes.

Other than that I look forward to continuing this couple’s story.

Review by Book Hamster

[atthequillsmercy]

Lenni Reviews: "Love’s in Sight!" Vol. 7, by Uoyama

(Image Source) *This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review. There’s been an accident at the train station where a young person with a cane was hurt. Yukiko and her friends scramble to fins out who it was, thinking it could be someone from their school. The whole incident drives Morio to learn more about what he can do to protect Yukiko. After what is more exposition heavy…

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[cripplecharacters]

What's your opinion on a character's disability staying even when they're shapeshifting? I accidentally gave one of my physically disabled characters shapeshifting powers (he was a shapeshifter before I made him disabled,) and I know getting rid of disability through shapeshifting is bad, so I was thinking I'd have him retain his disability in different forms. Like, if he's turned into a cat, he still has his blindness, old broken bones, and chronic pain, he's just now a cat with those things. Would it be erasure to include things like turning into a worm, which has no painful bones or spinal cord, to make his chronic pain bearable while he waits for pain medication to kick in? Being a worm is obviously not a viable long-term solution, he does not like being it, and it's only a temporary measure to sort of fix one very specific problem (very bad pain day but ibuprofen taking what feels like years to kick in,) but should I scrap that?

Hello gorgeous asker!

Anon I'm absolutely in love with every part of this ask. Perfect, amazing, please don't scrap any part of this. Turning into a worm as a temporary chronic pain relief is my new favorite thing and is very relatable. The character still retaining his disabilities when shapeshifting; even more perfect. Beautiful, excellent, keep writing anon, this sounds so delightful.

~ Mod Virus 🌸

[pep-the-artemis]

Colour blindness in Murder Drones

can we talk about how colour blindness is very common in Murder Drones.

In all the POV shots, the only character who see's colours is Doll while Uzi, N, and Kenzie Day are all colourblind (specifically cone monochromacy). We also know Alice isn't colourblind since she identified Nori's yellow eyes.

So when Uzi's eye(s) turn yellow or bleeds blood instead of oil; no one points it out because most characters wouldn't be able to tell.

Edit. if you look in the reblogs, I've done a lot more investigating and found N is colour blind but not Uzi. Check it out.

[thedyingwriter]

I can never be an actor. Because how tf do you look at each other like this one moment and go back to nothing irl???

like i would combust into flames if someone looked at me like that.

[cybertron-smash-or-pass]

Cyberverse Perceptor

[boxheadpaint]

ahhh I forgot about ableism. I forgot about that

[alpaca-clouds]

On Writing Disabilities

When it comes to writing minorities we usually talk a lot about LGBTQ* and BI_PoC, but the topic that usually gets overlooked are disabilities. While at this point we might see some version of characters with autism, and ADHD. Usually in a way that the characters are a bit "oddballs", though, not in the way of characters being non-verbal and rarely only involving symptoms like meltdowns and such.

And in general... It annoys me. Especially in western media.

During the last two or three years Japanese media has incresingly started to include a lot more disability representation, even among main characters. This mostly happens in slice of life anime and manga, but it generally is a nice change of pace. But there is also stuff like Witch Hat Atelier, that goes stronger into disabilities in a fantasy world.

Now, there is some representation in western media. I mean, Dragon Prince comes to mind with aunt Amaya, and some of the background characters in Miraculous Ladybug have some disabilities. However, I cannot think of a single piece of visual media at the very least with a disabled main character. At least not within all the scifi/fantasy stuff I am consuming.

And even when it comes to side characters, it is not very common. Same with books. And maybe there is a good reason for this, because it really turns out that a lot of abled people suck at imagining disabilities, because when they think about a disability, they will usually think about what they would do if they became suddenly disabled in a very specific way.

The issues with that are somewhat multifold.

One part s, that a lot of abled people misunderstand disabilities in general. This basically boils down to binary thinking. Either something works 100% or it does not work at all. This is why abled people will act as if they have found you cheating when you stand up from your wheelchair. They do not realize that most people who sit in a wheelchair are not in fact paraplegic, but sit in the wheelchair for other reasons. When I need the wheelchair, I need it, because my blood oxygen levels are too low, and I am very, very dizzy on that day, so without the wheelchair I would not be able to move around without falling over. I can however stand up for a moment to fetch something, or I can get up and easily transfer into my bed or a toilet. Other people sit in a wheelchair because of chronic pain, or fits of weakness, or cramps or... the reasons are endless, really. Many people who sit in a wheelchair do not use the wheelchair every day. I am by now down to 2-3 days a month. But on those days I either stay in bed or need to use the wheelchair.

And the same goes with other disabilities. People hear "deaf" and think the people hear nothing. Most people who are labled deaf are in fact hard of hearing. They hear something, just not enough to function like a normal hearing person. Most legally blind people are able to see something. Some see in little flecks, some see just very blurry, some see on one eye and not the other... It goes on like this. But most times when abled people write about this, they do not depict it this way. Because they do not understand disability.

And again, they usually will look at it often from the perspective of suddenly loosing something that they have.

And mind you: Yes, most disabilities are not a thing you have at birth. You will gain this disability somehow during the course of your life. But here is the thing: No matter when you acquire your disability, you will get used to it. Sure, it might be a shock at first, and a lot of the depictions by abled people writing disabled people, might work if the character has recently acquired that disability. But it does usually not work for a character who has been disabled for 10+ years, or who has actually been disabled from birth.

Abled people can often not imagine that there are in fact disabled people - especially among those who have been disabled from birth - who do not want to be "healed". And cannot imagine that to some people "healing" is actually horrifying. We often hear tearjerker stories about blind and deaf people being cured and first seeing/hearing their loved ones. The stories we do not hear are the stories of those being "healed" and then finding, that actually they just mentally cannot properly deal with the visual or audio information and find it horrifying and/or painful.

And that is the other issue with writing disabled people: Often disabled people are written just to be healed. And that is just... not optimal.

So, what am I even trying to say?

Honestly, I don't know. Probably: Read actually stuff from the perspective of disabled people. And keep in mind that disabled people will always exist. Like, if you do not have disabled people existing in your fantasy/scifi works, I will always assume you are eugenicist.

[mo-online]

as an indigenous person who loves the fantasy/dystopian genre, we get robbed at least once a generation. we could have had katniss..... WE COULD HAVE HAD FIYERO 💔💔💔 but instead we got one slightly tan guy as a cgi werewolf in 2009

[chicademartinica]

I’m just here to scream uncontrollably over @lurkingshan ‘s incredible list and add something as someone who grew up with a blind grandmother. I love all the points but fam fam fam :

Point 7 : YES ! This man is UNSETTLED when he is told to leave like TO GO WHERE EXACTLY WHAT DO YOU MEAN LEAVE ? YOU ? ALONE ? And it’s sending me fam.

Point 8 : So elegant in his possessiveness .Bruv is better than me because when August asked “May I take over ?” I, Chica, daughter of Jo, said NO HOE YOU MAY NOT to my screen. (Also Day’s lil hand press when he let go I’m catatonic.)

Point 9 : HE STOPPED SMOKING ! Fam if you know me you know I’m a sucker for this. I’m still screaming over King stopping for Uea in Bed Friend. I love this trope I LOVE IT.

Point 11: Sir do you realize that you are all up on that man all the time like I understand that you don’t want to be overheard and that you are guiding him and all BUT YOU ARE ALL UP IN THAT MAN’S FACE SHARING BREATH BACK AND FORTH LIKE HOW ARE YOU NOT DIZZY.

Finally, as a blind woman’s granddaughter, let me share with you that Mhok’s knows how to shadow. How to be present without being intrusive. When to back up and when to step up. Finally he knows, without growing up with it,how to supply Day’s interlocutors with eye contact. People do it instinctively,they look over to you (the “shadow”) because we also communicate with our eyes and they feel that they can’t do it. Day’s professor does it, Gee does it, Day’s friends do it even August’s bitch ass. And Mhok supplies the meaningful eye contact they need because he is perfect back up. That’s why him not telling Day immediately that August was there in the bar. might be a problem.

God, Mhok is already so gone on Day, let me count the ways:

He’s going so above and beyond his caretaker duties, I haven’t checked the contract but I’m pretty sure cute lil dates are not in the job description

Waking him up by leaning over him straight out of the shower I see you sir!

He’s always attuned to Day’s emotions and looking out for his feelings

The way he keeps looking at him and calling him cute with total sincerity

He really likes Day’s snarky sense of humor and finds him funny, he’s always chuckling to himself when he’s talking to Day

He is constantly touching Day, for guidance and reassurance but also because he clearly just wants to

He never wants to leave him and is visibly unsettled when he’s told he can go

He was definitely a little jealous of August throughout their interactions (but keeping a lid on it because he’s respectful)

He has stopped smoking!!

He was so excited for their dinner date and immediately leaned into the excuse to flirt shamelessly

He stands so so close to him like way beyond what is necessary, his face is always right up in Day’s face

Blushing and rubbing his neck and smiling uncontrollably while they sniff flowers together CASE CLOSED TBH

He just keeps spending his entire day with Day morning to night he is not interested in being anywhere else

The way his face just absolutely plummeted and he teared up when Day admitted he has feelings for August, similar to Day I am NOT OKAY THANK YOU FOR ASKING