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blindbeta · 7 months ago

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Hello, I hope you are well. The main character of a book I'm writing is blind and I want to make sure I'm not being disrespectful.

He's had both retinopathy of prematurity (stage one) and recurring glaucoma that have left him with 20/200 vision, photosensitivity, and trouble processing visual information. He can see pretty well for a range of around six feet, eight if he really focuses (which he rarely does because doing it too much will give him a massive headache and exhaust him.) He doesn't have a cane, as he's spent his entire life in the house (long story short, he's adopted and his birth parents kind of want him dead) and he doesn't need it when he already knows where all of the obstacles are, but he does have a guide dog (she's mostly for his mobility issues and physical disability, but she can also do guide dog stuff.) When the story begins and he has to leave home and go into an unfamiliar situation (boarding school when he used to be homeschooled,) he couldn't bring his dog with him and didn't know a cane was an option, so one of his friends, the only one who already knew he was blind, has been subtly guiding him. He hides his blindness at first, not sure if revealing the information could put him in danger, but eventually the other characters find out. They do initially get kind of protective, but they quickly find out to not do that because if they tell him he can't do something, he'll do it anyway just to prove them wrong. He really wants to be independent and hates it when people assume they know his limits better than he does and they try to tell him what he can and can't do despite his objections.

(The character also has Williams Syndrome, epilepsy, intellectual disability, PTSD, IED, and a major injury that renders one of his legs near useless. He uses a modified cane in place of his leg as a weight-bearing limb because working with crutches wasn't possible with old breaks in his arms.)

He's transgender and in a relationship with three other characters (all aware of each other and all fine with polyamory,) two guys and a girl. One of the guys has some trauma-sourced physical disability, CPTSD, and kleptomania, and the girl has NPD and CPTSD. They all love each other very much and all put in the effort to make their relationship work. He also has two sisters who are also blind (all three of them were premature and the glaucoma is genetic,) one who's completely blind and one who has a little bit of light vision, and there are a few other blind and low-vision characters.

Here's the problem, it's his magic. I kind of added in the blind detail after deciding his magic, and I'm worried it could accidentally count as erasing. He can shapeshift like his older sister, but neither of them use it to fix their eyes because it's a massively complicated change and because they've been blind their entire lives and their brains wouldn't really know what to do with enhanced vision. And then he has an energy ability. He's always been scared of the energy ability because he nearly killed his adopted dad with it, but one of the other characters, not knowing he's blind, recommended trapeze to help him get used to using it, because he can sense things through sensing the kinetic energy. This is only used to help him get used to his power and he only uses it for trapeze (he saw it and fell in love with it before anyone could tell him not to. With a bit of adaptive technology for his leg and small, humming sound devices, each at a different pitch, on every trapeze platform, he actually does really well at it,) but does it count as negating his blindness? He can't really see with it, it's closer to hearing a projectile coming close but not being able to hear exactly how far away it is.

(These are more minor details, but there are also other details in the story about his blindness- his adopted parents got him a Braille printer and translated a few books for him, and then his younger sibling decided he liked typing on the Braille printer and started translating a bunch, so he knows how to read Braille and has a massive collection of Braille books because they're easier for him to read. He also uses voice-to-text and text-to-voice on his phone and laptop. One of his friends gets him a bunch of talking technology, like a clock that tells him the time when he presses a button, and some things like oven rack covers and colour-coded kitchen utensils, and another friend takes notes for him using those 3D ink pens so that he can easily translate them to Braille and have his own notes to study.)

Thank you for running your blog, your posts have been a great help

Photophobia, Service Dog for Someone Who Can’t Leave Home, Multiple Disabilities, Choosing Accommodations and Assistive Technology, Giving Gifts to a Blind Person, and General Blindness Stuff

This post is a big one. If you are not the asker, feel free to use the big text titles to explored the subjects that interest you. Additionally, please forgive any lingering typos in this post. I did my best to address them all, however they may still occur due to the length of this post.

I tried to address as much as I could in your ask. Please let me know if you have more questions.

Photophobia, Health Care, and General Advice for Writing About Blindness

I can see how staying in the house all the time might lead to an even bigger increase in photophobia when venturing outside. Even if he has a backyard he can use safely, I imagine being in the outside world regularly would exacerbate his photophobia. If you plan to give him sunglasses, be sure to connect them to the photophobia and have him remove them on occasion, such as when indoors. This post might be relevant.

I’m assuming he has access to reliable medical care, considering all his conditions. Blindness generally requires regular optometrist visits, particularly for glaucoma. Same for epilepsy. He may also want psychotherapy treatment for PTSD, adoption and childhood trauma, and managing other symptoms that come with his disabilities. Since he has access to a computer, virtual therapy and virtual check-ups are possible. That said, certain testing or treatment cannot be conducted virtually. I am not familiar with weight-bearing prosthetics, but he will need to be fitted for that as well and have access to help with up-keeping it. You probably don’t need to spend a lot of time on this subject, although considering it may add realism or relatability to your story. If he takes medication for epilepsy, pain management, or if he’s on testosterone, access to medication should be considered as well, both at home and the boarding school.

For his difficulty processing visual information, he might benefit from using a screen-reader, audio descriptions, and audiobooks. He might like the tactile sensation of Braille since you mentioned Braille books. So a Braille display might be more beneficial than a Braille printer and more effective considering cost and physical space. He can get Braille books from plenty of programs, so he won’t go without, supplemented with audiobooks and the Braille display as he gets older. I have seen Braille printers at schools. Not so much in homes. Although I suppose people with access to Braille printing at school would not have much need for them at home. This might be different if he and his siblings are homeschooled.

I suggest considering what options he and his siblings prefer and why. What makes sense for their home, finances, school needs, reading needs, writing needs, and personal preferences?

For school work, slate and stylus or computers are also options.

Braille literacy is declining. I’m honestly happy to see Braille mentioned at all. These are just extra topics to consider.

You also mentioned he can see about 6 to 8 feet in front of him. I think you’re on the right track with mentioning that he doesn’t try to strain himself. A lot of blind people with residual vision are expected to use and even rely on it. Because seeing is effort for us, this can be exhausting or even painful. Eye strain is real thing. Feeling tired from using your eyes a lot, such as for reading or navigating dim, unfamiliar spaces, can cause eye strain.

Other than that, I suggest focusing less on his exact level of vision and more on using techniques to make his life easier. More on how blindness influences and enriches his life. Maybe he uses lamps instead of harsh over-head lights. Maybe he has his screen-reader read an article to him instead of having to stare at his phone. Maybe he cuddles his guide dog when it rains and his old breaks are aching. Or maybe he has brightly colored kitchen stuff to increase contrast while he cuts veggies or bakes muffins for his family.

Needs for a Service Dogs: O&M Skills and Getting Out of the House

I can also see how the lifestyle and limited mobility, exercise, and access to healthcare would influence his other disabilities, including his mobility concerns. Having a service dog who can act as a guide as well as provide stability sounds helpful. Although I wonder how training with his service dog would go, given that 1) he would need to have proficient O&M skills, including cane skills, before getting a guide dog and 2) guide dog applications require not only training with new guides, but also routes that are traversed regularly.

The Samsung Guide Dog School in Japan lists this requirement here which reads:

“There should be a daily destination to maintain activity.

School → Student, Working place → Worker or Self employment

Other social activity → Homemaker, Freelancer”

Guide Dogs of America also lists a similar requirement in this list of qualifications here which reads as follows:

Are you legally blind?

At least 18 years of age or older?

Have you completed orientation and mobility training?

Are you physically able to walk one or two miles a day?

Do you have three or more routes you walk on a regular basis?

Financially able to appropriately care for a guide dog?

Additionally, this section refers to the necessary O&M skills, particularly navigating and cane skills I mentioned earlier: “Orientation and mobility is training that visually impaired individuals receive that helps them confidently navigate the world. O&M focuses on things like sensory awareness, spatial concepts, relationships which exist between objects in the environment, searching skills, independent movement, sighted guide, protective techniques and cane skills. Every potential GDA student must submit an O&M evaluation before being accepted into our program.”

With these qualifications in mind, consider these questions and how your story can explain them. He may not need to walk exactly one or two miles a day, nor does he need to go far with his guide dog. Even walking to a general store, the vet clinic, and a neighbor’s house would work. As I explained in my post about canes and guide dogs, financial concerns also vary as well, with some schools covering all veterinary care and others only covering some food for when the dog and handler leave training. You can get flexible with whatever fits his situation best as long as the general outline is there regarding training, routes, exercise, and care for the dog.

Some things about training to consider are:

How did he get the service dog and train with her if he can’t leave the house? If he needs to stay inside for safety reasons, a program that allows him to go away and train with his service dog might actually be to his benefit. Or he could choose a program that includes training in his own home and community, depending on if it is safe enough from the people who want him dead. While a lot of programs that I can find include training at a specific location which the guide dog handler travels to, there are some programs in which trainers go to the handler instead. For example, Sadi the Blind Lady discusses this type of training with her guide dog in this video here.

As for development of cane skills, he would need to spend at least some time outside, such as when learning to cross the street safely. This would also require at least some exploration outside even with an instructor meeting him at his house. Traveling to other indoor areas to practice navigating is important as well. For example, my indoor cane skills involve finding and using escalators, elevators, stairs, and ramps safely. Finding landmarks is also a useful skill. He can use some of his residual vision for all of these tasks, along with his cane.

Exercise and routes for guide dogs are also important. These are big dogs that need at least some time outside. Most programs want a handler walking a few routes daily or a few times a week.

I can’t speak for other types of services the dog in question is trained to do, but I know that some guide dogs are also able to provide stabilization for DeafBlind handlers.

My suggestion for all these concerns would be to either come up with a reason he is safe in his general community or an area around his home rather than only inside. This might allow him to learn O&M skills, train with his guide dog, and go on short walks.

I am imagining a quiet village or perhaps a community that is secluded. Perhaps he lives in the mountains or the forest. Even a rural area could give him a little more freedom to leave his house without risk.

One last point I wanted to mention is that the requirements I listed above suggest handlers should be 18 or older. However, some schools accept 16 and older. Some accept handlers as young as 13. I’m less concerned about the more common age requirement so long as service dogs are portrayed accurately.

The Boarding School and Mobility Aids

The boarding school should allow the service dog, as service dogs can go anywhere. I also feel that him not knowing a cane is an option is confusing, especially given that cane skills are a prerequisite for guide dogs. Forgoing a cane and his dog also reduces his independence both as a blind person and someone with mobility issues. This, coupled with a drastic change in living situation, lifestyle, and amount of socialization, could be challenging. If used for plot reasons, this could be effective for creating emotional and physical struggles. However, it may be quite a lot for what sounds like a story already filled with different problems to face.

In my opinion, going into an unfamiliar situation without his usual mobility aids would probably cause additional strain. Instead of having a familiar dog by his side, he would go into this situation with no source of familiarity. Therefore, a guide dog there might help him in several areas, while also leaving his blindness less obvious than it might be if he used a cane. This is because canes are meant to be indicative of visual impairment in addition to mobility tools. Service dogs, on the other hand, can be utilized for multiple purposes, as is true with your character’s dog. This means that if your character does not want to disclose his blindness, which he is not required to do, he can explain that the dog is a service dog trained to provide assistance for various disabilities. As far as other characters know, these tasks could be anything from stabilization, medical alert, retrieval, or psychiatric support.

This post on service animals might be of some use.

This post I made about mobility aids might also be helpful.

The Spectrum of Blindness

I like that you have a few other blind characters, displaying the spectrum of blindness and different experiences. I wonder what mobility aids the other characters use.

Boarding School Accommodations and Assistive Technology

If he isn’t sharing about his blindness, how does he do schoolwork? I mention this because of little things that come up in classrooms, such as print being too small on exams, teachers writing on the boards without verbalizing, or students needing extra time. Eye strain can also be a concern in classroom settings. If he can talk with his teachers about accommodations he may need in order to do his schoolwork, this might help. He doesn’t necessarily need to let anyone else know unless he chooses to.

Conversely, you could also show the difficulties of not having accommodations or not having them fulfilled properly. The frustration, confusion, and helplessness often felt in these situations could be relatable to readers. Eventually, he could receive accommodations and advocate for himself, displaying the difference accommodations make. These can take the form of teachers and friends helping him in ways he would like to be assisted.

Accommodations put blind students on an even playing field. As long as you don’t normalize not having them, you’re probably good going either route. I wanted to include my thoughts here just in case, as you only mentioned a friend taking notes for him.

About note taking with a 3D pen—I’m not sure if that would work for notes. 3D pens are fun to use for drawings and art, but the ones I used weren’t very reliable, plus there is the size of the letters to consider. 3D letters are meant to be tactile, which means they would need to be larger than usual. This means reading an entire page of notes might be challenging.

He might be better off using other options, such as large print, for notes, particularly notes for maths or other materials written on the board that are not said out loud by the teacher. In this case, the notes his friend takes might be supplemental, with him taking his own notes by listening. He has a few options for this, including Braille, a laptop, or recording lectures. Since you mentioned he has a laptop with a screen-reader, he can probably use that with headphones. Refreshable Braille displays and note takers are also options, although they cost money. Typically they are provided by schools, governments, or scholarships.

When choosing assistive technology, consider his personality, his level of vision, how comfortable and knowledgeable he is with Braille, and how comfortable or uncomfortable he is with potentially standing out in some way. I’m not sure if at this point he’s still hiding his blindness or being open about it, but if he wants to hide it or avoid standing out among his peers, he might choose something like large print, a laptop, having a friend help take notes, or a combination thereof. Of course, if he has trouble processing visual information, large print might not be an option. In this case, a laptop with a screen-reader would allow him to take his own notes as well as read any that are emailed to him. If you go with him hiding his blindness, a laptop is probably the best option.

If he is comfortable with others knowing about his blindness, he might be more likely to use a Braille note-taker with headphones. He can also use a combination approach depending on his needs as well. For example, maybe he also records lectures because he is a slow note-taker or he gets distracted easily.

So far, you have a good use of assistive technology and Braille so far. I do wonder how he and his siblings learned Braille. Did an instructor come to their home to teach them as part of their homeschooling?

Some Thoughts About His Friends Helping Him

Other characters assuming his limits is pretty true to my own experience, as well as the reverse, such as people assuming he can do things that are actually hard for him because they can’t relate to his amount of vision. Vision can also change depending on environmental factors, lighting, fatigue, stress, eye strain, or anxiety.

While I don’t have a problem with friends making the mistake of being overly protective of blind friends, I think it is important that the behavior is also addressed and changed. His friends are not more knowledgeable about what is safe for him than he is. They are not more knowledgeable about what he can do than he is. [Bolded for emphasis.]

I also wonder, why hide his blindness and not other disabilities? Is it because blindness is a bit easier to hide than the others?

Consider how his various disabilities interact with each other. For example, blind people and people with cognitive disabilities are often infantilized, which can make advocacy difficult.

Lastly, you mentioned his friend subtly guiding him, of which I feel wary. If he asks his friend to do so, that would give him more agency, if you weren’t already alluding to that.

Oh, and another point I wanted to mention is that you have a lot of disabilities represented, some of which are highly stigmatized. Consider finding a few sensitivity readers for those as well, such as CPTSD, cognitive disability, and NPD, or at least the things you don’t already have personal experience with. @sensitivityreaders is a good place to start, as well as conducting general searches on tumblr and twitter.

@cripplecharacters is also a great resource for writing disabilities. Check out their master-posts for sure.

Avoiding Erasing Blindness Wth Shapeshifting and Energy Abilities, Plus Blind Person Learning Trapeze

The shapeshifting and energy stuff don’t seem like erasing blindness as far as you have described them here. Since one of your characters also has difficulty processing visual information with his residual vision, that means that the overwhelm would double for him. This isn’t even considering his photosensitivity. Additionally, eyes are complex structures, so messing about with them is probably not advisable if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Also, disclaimer, I know nothing about trapeze. The set-up your have sounds plausible to me, especially if you throw in magic. My main concerns are about possible light sensitivity from spotlights or light changes, as well as his stability problems making trapeze more arduous for him.

A quick search online brought up two blind trapeze artists: Sarah Houbolt and Rachael Storey.

As long as you can make trapeze accessible for him, you’re probably fine. Relying on audio and energy cues sounds like a good way to do that, as well as following regular procedures for training and safety. If anymore more familiar with trapeze can help, feel free to do in the notes and OP can contact you.

His Friends Getting Him Blindness Stuff Feels Off to Me

You mentioned that his friends get him stuff for cooking. Is he also cooking for himself at the boarding school?

A talking alarm clock and a Braille watch might be useful for school.

My only concern about his friends getting him such tools is that sighted people usually don’t know what is available, let alone where to order these items. Doing so could show that they paid attention and were proactive about doing their own research. However, what tools help can depend on the person and it might be important to establish that he expressed wanting certain items already.

Some blind people enjoy receiving blindness stuff as gifts. It shows the giver put extra consideration into choosing it. However, some blind people are sensitive about receiving items that specifically relate to blindness, unless they communicated wanting it beforehand as a gift option. Personally, unless I specifically asked for something Blindness Stuff TM, I would feel strange if a friend showed up with a talking alarm clock and gave it to me. This might be because I would rather something more personal, less utilitarian. Also, when sighted people talk about accessibility tools with me, I have usually already heard about it, didn’t want it, or already have it. The exceptions to this are if I, for example, want money to go toward something like an expensive Braille display. Or one of my blind friends gives me something I’ve been talking about for a while. With the exception of Braille cards or considering general accessibility where possible, none of my blind friends have gifted me Blindness Stuff.

@askablindperson made a video about giving blind people gifts that might also be useful. It captured some of my awkward feelings related to receiving blindness stuff. Link here.

My last suggestion for increasing general accessibility is to watch blind content creators, such as on this list linked here.

Closing

There is quite a lot to chew on in your ask. I tried to address everything. Please read any notes that might be added with anything I missed. I would also highly suggest a few sensitivity readers for the blindness and guide dog aspects.

I hope this helps.

#blind #blind characters #writing blind characters #disability #accessibility #ableism #white canes #guide animals #service dogs #scheduled post #giving blind people gifts

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marypsue · 8 years ago

Text

Duskfall 1 / 2

Part Two || on AO3

...

I’d never given much thought to how I would die.

If I had, though, this wouldn’t have been my first choice. In fact, it probably wouldn’t have even made the top ten.

It wasn’t until the van began to slide towards me that I realised I’d always had some vague, romantic notion of dying in a way that meant something - perhaps in the place of someone I loved. There wasn’t enough time to resign myself to the reality - that I was about to die alone, too young, before I’d really had a chance to have a life.

In my last, helpless seconds, I found myself dwelling not on how my death would devastate my poor mother, or on how my father would no doubt blame himself. All I could think was that this wouldn’t be happening if I’d never come to Forks at all.

The van’s brakes squealed uselessly as it filled my vision.

...

In the state of Washington, on the tip of the Olympic Peninsula, there is a small logging town named Forks. This town is unremarkable in every way, except for one. Forks, Washington receives more rainfall, on average, than any other place in the continental United States. This small town is nearly permanently overcast, smothered under a constant blanket of grey cloud.

It was Forks from which my mother, seventeen years ago, had escaped with me in tow, leaving my father behind. And it was to Forks that I had now exiled myself.

I had come from Phoenix, Arizona, a city so different from Forks in every way that it might as well have been on another planet. I hadn’t wanted to leave. The year I’d turned fourteen, I’d put my foot down and refused to spend any more summers in Forks with my father, Charlie, and I hadn’t been back since. Forks was a cold, wet, dim, green purgatory from which I felt lucky to have escaped. Despite my sickly pallor and general aversion to all things athletic, sunny, sporty Phoenix was where I belonged.

And yet, it was Forks where I was now dying.

I had no one to blame but myself, of course. I’d chosen to move to Forks, rather than play the third wheel to my mother and her new boyfriend as they travelled across the country for his baseball training camps. Renee had protested, but I knew they’d both be happier without me tagging along. And Charlie had been more than glad to have me stay with him. He’d never been one to cling, but he’d hung around like a lost puppy at first, until I’d convinced him that I wasn’t going to evaporate in the middle of the night.

And I’d chosen to start at Forks High School in mid-March, rather than waiting until the start of the next semester. I’d thought that the social consequences would be worth not shooting myself in the foot academically.

I shouldn’t have been worried about my grades - my high school in Phoenix was at least a grade ahead of Forks’. I should have been more worried about my peers.

More specifically, I should have been more worried about a bunch of seventeen-year-olds driving on sheer ice during the one freak snowstorm Forks had seen all winter. The snow had been worse than the rain - cold, in addition to wet - but at least it had broken up the monotony. For the span of a few minutes, I’d even foolishly allowed myself to be charmed by the sight of huge, feathery clumps of snow drifting slowly from the (as always, overcast) sky.

That had turned out to be my last mistake.

I hadn’t seen the van pulling into the parking lot. I hadn’t seen its driver try to stop, hadn’t seen it start to slide on the ice. I hadn’t noticed it until it was too late to move.

Later, Dr. Cullen would explain that I’d been pinned between the van and the bed of my ancient truck, a ‘welcome-home’ gift from Charlie that had been the one bright spot in my exile. The crash had shattered my pelvis and severed my spine in two places. If I’d lived, I never would have walked again.

I didn’t know that, of course. I was a little preoccupied with being unconscious.

“They’re going to notice.”

The voice was what drew me from the stupor I had been drifting in, watching the ceiling swim overhead and quietly contemplating my own imminent death. I had been wondering, I realised, how long I had been dying for. How much longer it would take.

The voice spoke again, tugging me a little closer to the surface of consciousness, and for the first time I felt a twinge of pain from somewhere in my abdomen, around my waist. I tried to raise my head, to see what the damage was, but a kind of sleepy heaviness overwhelmed me. I focused, instead, on the voice. Words were still too difficult to pin down, but I thought I recognised the cadence, the pitch. However, my mind, full of fog as it was, couldn’t quite seem to close the gap between the voice and who it belonged to.

“This isn’t the nineteenth century, Carlisle. Someone will ask questions when she’s declared dead and no one can find her body.”

Somewhere in the room beyond my vision of pale, greenish ceiling, something was beeping incessantly. I wished that someone would shut it up, but I couldn’t seem to form the words to ask. Just drawing breath to try took a monumental effort.

Another voice, this one radiating calm and composure, entered the conversation. “Unless she receives three major organ transplants within the next hour, she is as good as dead. And you know as well as I the chances of that happening.”

I wished that the strange heaviness that made it impossible to move would at least let me breathe a frustrated sigh. At least now I had a timeline for how long I could expect this dying thing to take.

The first voice spoke again, and this time a terrifying coldness came over it, sending chills down my back even through the warm and dreamy haze that had settled over me. “Then perhaps we shouldn’t interfere.”

“Edward,” the second voice said, sternly, and my sluggish brain finally gave a jolt of comprehension. Edward. Of course. I recognised the voice from my very first biology class. Edward Cullen, the boy who’d been so repulsed by my existence that he’d fled the entire school and never come back.

I tried to summon a groan of exasperation. Really, it was just my luck.

“You can’t save them all, Carlisle.”

“My boy, I know that better than anyone.” I was pretty sure I wasn’t imagining a tinge of sorrow in the second voice, the one belonging to ‘Carlisle’. “But don’t I owe it to her to at least try?”

“Don’t you owe it to her not to condemn her to an eternity of suffering just so that you and Esme can pair me off?” Edward snapped, and I felt a wave of heat beginning, slowly, to rise up my chest towards my face. The sudden, overwhelming feeling that I shouldn’t be hearing this conversation overtook me, but I couldn’t seem to get my arms to work to come up and cover my ears. “Remember Rosalie? Don’t put us all through that again.”

“Your concerns are noted,” ‘Carlisle’ said lightly. “But I do consider more than your romantic prospects in these cases, you know. She’s still so young, she has so much more life ahead of her - to let her die like this would not only be cruelty, it would be an injustice. Besides, wasn’t she your -”

It was about then that I was distracted by a throb of pounding pain from my abdomen. Suddenly, my voice decided to work. I managed a decent yelp, and the two voices shut up instantly.

“She’s awake - you didn’t tell me she’d be awake.”

“She’s not supposed to be.”

Something cold flooded through the back of my hand, spreading quickly up my arm, and the ceiling began to swim again, the pain slowly dissolving along with the rest of my body. As my vision started to dim, I saw a beautiful face - the kind of face Botticelli might have dreamed of, the kind of face that would have made Michaelangelo weep - lean into my line of sight, and smile.

Then a tidal wave of sleep dragged me under.

...

When I woke up, I was on fire.

There were no words to describe the pain, even if I'd been able to speak them. It would have been like trying to describe a sunset to a person who's been blind all their life. No matter what I said, it would never quite measure up to the real thing.

When the burning finally faded enough that I could focus on anything other than how much I hurt, the ceiling had changed. Rather than the pale, antiseptic hospital green I’d seen before, this was a pleasant shade of warm white, welcoming and soft.

It took a moment for me to make sure all my limbs were where I remembered them being.

When I finally managed to sit up, I discovered that the large, elegantly furnished room I'd found myself in was occupied. I vaguely recognised some of the alabaster faces gathered around my bedside, but in this strange setting, I couldn't place where I knew them from. Most of them - three girls, three boys - appeared young, not much older than me, but there was something in the way all of them held themselves, something in their beautiful amber eyes, that made them all seem much, much older. The thought whispered through my head that, apart from their clothing, none of them would have seemed particularly out of place in a sepia photograph.

“What happened?” I managed to ask, shuddering at the rasp of my own voice. My throat ached, stung, like I’d swallowed an entire bottle of hot sauce and chased it with sand.

The apparent oldest of the boys, the one all the others seemed to turn towards without even realising they were doing so, pushed himself up from the armchair he'd settled into and approached my sickbed. He flashed me a dazzling smile, his sparkling white teeth only the palest shade lighter than his marble-fine skin. I had to stuff down the urge to reach out and run my hand along his forearm where the rolled-back sleeve of his button-down shirt exposed it, to see if it was really as smooth and unblemished as it looked.

Now that I was looking, I realised that all of them had the same colouration, as though they'd never seen sunlight, and the same tawny, almost golden eyes. And, of course, they were all breathtakingly beautiful. Despite their apparent physical differences, they almost looked like they were all related.

It finally occurred to me where I'd seen them - at least, most of them - before. I'd been struck, before, by how beautiful, how otherworldly, the Cullen siblings - foster-siblings, but no one would know it to look at them - appeared against the drab, mundane background of the cafeteria of Forks High School. Even without anything so ordinary as a high school cafeteria to contrast against, I still found myself fascinated, by the play of light on Rosalie Hale's cascade of golden hair, by the swanlike arch of Alice's slender throat, by the sculpted angles of Jasper Hale's marble face.

Edward, I noticed, was conspicuously absent.

The one woman I didn't recognise, I decided, must be the siblings' foster mother, Esme. Which meant that the man who'd approached me had to be Dr. Cullen. Neither of them, strangely, looked much older than their charges.

In fact, everything about this was strange. Where was I? Why was I here? Was the conversation I'd overheard between Dr. Cullen and Edward - could it possibly have been real? How else could I have come to be here? A multitude of questions rushed forward to the front of my mind, but they all crashed up against each other before they could make it to my tongue.

I couldn't, I realised, hear my own heartbeat.

Despite the burning rasp in my throat, I managed to choke out, "Am I dead?"

Dr. Cullen's brilliant smile looked almost apologetic as he said, "The answer to that is somewhere between yes and no."

...

In the end, the Denali agreed to come to us. I couldn't stay in Forks, not with everyone believing I was dead, and even with seven of them, the Cullens still didn't want to risk traveling up the coast alone with a newborn vampire.

A newborn vampire. The most powerful, bloodthirsty, dangerous being in existence.

Me.

It didn't quite seem real, and the endless, oppressive green dark of Forks didn't help me feel any more grounded. It also didn't help that my new eyes could see a thousand different shades of green, the constant monotone gloom of Washington State transforming into a rainbow of light and shadow before my eyes. Forks had always seemed a little otherworldly, a little unreal, but now it was practically bursting with colour and scent and sound and light - an impossible fairyland. I couldn’t imagine seeing the whole world this way.

It was almost unfathomable to think that I didn’t need to imagine it. That I would experience it, firsthand, soon enough.

“Don’t worry,” Alice said, sweetly, reaching up to rest a hand on my shoulder. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Because you...saw it.”

Alice winked, and tapped a finger lightly against her temple. That was another thing I was going to have to get used to. Superpowers.

“And don’t worry about Edward. He’s only avoiding you because -”

Just like that, any hopefulness I might have felt about the whole situation evaporated into the chilly grey pre-dawn air. “Thank you, for the reminder that I’m literally so repulsive that the sight of me drove your, uh, brother away for good.”

Alice let out a little huff that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “It’s got nothing to do with you. He and Carlisle just need to bare their teeth at each other for a while, get it out of their systems.” Her smile turned knowing as she added, “My ‘uh, brother’ finds you anything but repulsive. Trust me.”

I was beginning to learn that a knowing smile from Alice was far worse than a knowing smile from anyone else.

It took a moment for me to find my voice again. “Oh. Great. Because this was all just going too well already.”

Alice’s laughter was bright as delicate silver bells. She patted my shoulder, once, before reaching up to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Don’t worry, we’ll be right there beside you all the way to Alaska. Have fun, make new friends!” she trilled, before pirouetting away.

She didn’t mention that the only reason she and the Cullens would be beside me was because they would be flanking the truck - according to the plan they’d put together over the phone the night before, two driving ahead, two following, and the other three on foot - in case I went berserk on the highway somewhere. I could understand why. The burning in the back of my throat was incessant and insistent, barely calmed at all by the entire doe Emmett had dragged back for me after Carlisle had decided there was too much risk of me meeting hikers in the woods to go - hunting - myself. In a strange way, I found it reassuring. Maybe I hadn’t asked for this new life, but now that I had it, I didn’t really want to start it out by literally biting someone’s head off.

Still, there was no way I was going to make new friends. I approached the huge black mud-spattered pickup truck that pulled into the driveway of the glass-and-steel phantasmagoria that served the Cullens for a house feeling pretty much the same as I imagined someone would walking up to the executioner’s block. So, about the way I’d felt on my first day of school.

This was different, though. At least facing down Forks High School on that first morning, I’d known that, six hours later, I’d be heading back home, to a quiet dinner with Charlie, who probably wouldn’t ask any awkward questions I didn’t want to answer. That I’d call Renee, my mom, that night, endure her prying about whether I met any cute boys, find out how she and Phil were liking Florida, just talk. That I’d be able to go out on the weekend and maybe talk cars with Jacob Black. That, even if I was alone in a sea of new faces, even if everything went terribly and everyone hated me, I still had somewhere to go back to. Still had someone on my side.

Staring at the impossibly beautiful strangers piling out of the truck to take me away to my new life, I realised I’d never been so entirely alone.

#twilight with pride #this is mary's fic tag #I guess this is a fix-it fic #I'm not sure why smeyer decided to locate vampire 'hunger' in the throat rather than the stomach but sure I'll roll with it #I have really gotta do a canon review before I try to finish this puppy #twilight #there isn't anything to hint towards it in this first part but I promise Bella Will Have A Girlfriend before the end of this monstrosity

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