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ratdacted · 15 days

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Writing Blind & Visually Impaired Characters

A while back, someone asked me if I could share some of the resources I use. I figured maybe other people might find it useful as well! ^_^ Due to computer switches I could only trawl through the last ~5 years of research, but it’s still a fair collection.

(Obligatory disclaimer: I am not visually impaired! I just try to listen to people who are. The vast majority of these are written by and/or for people with visual impairments.)

Vocab

American Printing House key definitions — Wayback machine

Blogs, posts, essays, and speeches by folk with visual impairments

General sites:

Mimzy Writing Online (masterpost for writing blind characters) — Wayback machine

Where’s Your Dog — Wayback machine

Albinism Up Close — Wayback machine

Specific posts:

Why blindfolding yourself is misleading:

NFB member John Pere’s video & transcript — Wayback machine

Graduate researcher Arielle Silverman’s video & transcript — Wayback machine

Blind physician — Wayback machine

Missing eye / monocular vision — Wayback machine

Driving with albinism — Wayback machine (chronological series of posts, next post link is at the bottom)

Posts of unknown/mixed authorship

Writing blind characters (tumblr thread) — Wayback machine

Sighted guidance

How to Be a Sighted Guide by Vision Loss Resources — Wayback machine

Long cane use

Care and Feeding of the White Cane: Instructions in Cane Travel for Blind People by Thomas Bickford, hosted on the NFB website — Wayback machine

Orientation and Mobility

This is the term for specific training around navigating the world with a visual impairment. It will be a useful search term for you.

Additionally, I have purchased the O&M training course Step By Step that was published by the American Printing House. The actual video training modules are incredibly clunky to navigate through, and personally I’ve never had the patience. I’m also not comfortable redistributing their whole product like that.

But… the pdf study guides from the program are useful on their own, and those I will share! (Especially since they used to be available for free on the APH website. >_>;)

These are from the second edition.

O&M Training study guides (Internet Archive access)

Careers

American Printing House career connect — Wayback machine

Cooking

NFB: Suggestions for the Blind Cook — Wayback machine

APH: Safe Cooking Techniques — Wayback machine

BBC: Article about a blind Master Chef contestant — Wayback machine

Visualization tools

For remnant sight and color blindness.

Visual acuity simulator — Wayback machine (icons at the top switch between vision charts & illustrative photos, bar at the bottom adjusts acuity)

Color blindness simulator — Wayback machine

Thinking about disability

These aren’t specifically about visual impairment, and include other physical disabilities as well as autism.

But they’re important voices to hear, and can be useful for framing your understanding and general approach.

"Don't Mourn For Us" by Jim Sinclair — Wayback machine

“Confessions of a Bitter Cripple" by Elizabeth Barnes — Wayback machine

"If you can do X, why can't you do Y?" by Mel Baggs — Wayback machine

People can adapt to and accommodate for more than you might think (tumblr thread) — Wayback machine

And finally, some related tags on my personal blog: Disability | Disability rights | Writing resources: disability | Accessibility

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ratdacted · 15 days

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Writing Blind/Low Vision Characters

Time for another one of these I have decided! As always, this is based on personal experience with blind low vision people, classwork, and research. I do wear glasses, but I am not blind/low vision and this is not my lived experience. Please feel free to question, correct, and comment, as long as you are respectful! Thanks so much for reading :) On to the good stuff!

Vocab

Blind describes a person who has very little to no vision. This can be written with a lowercase or capital b (blind or Blind). Blind does not always mean no vision. It is medically defined as having vision of less than 20/200 in the better eye. Someone can be able to distinguish color, light and dark, or shapes, and still be blind.

blind refers to the medical condition of having little to no vision.

Blind (note the capital b) refers to the sociocultural experience of being a nonseeing person in a predominantly vision-based society. This distinction is newer and less common than with the Deaf community, but is becoming more popular, particularly with DeafBlind people. As always, the important thing is respecting what people identify as and want to be called

Visually impaired is a term that covers the spectrum of vision differences.

The term does not include disorders that affect one or more of the “basic psychological processes.” What this means is that though vision or the use of visual information may be impaired, if the nature of that impairment is not related to the structure of the eye, it would not be described as “visual impairment.” Examples include perceptual disabilities, brain injuries, or dyslexia.

B/VI is an acronym, standing for Blind/Visually Impaired, that can be used to refer to the community as a whole.

Low vision describes a person who is not fully blind, but whose level of vision is significantly impaired. More technically, this refers to vision that cannot be corrected through medical or surgical procedures, or conventional eyeglasses.

Legally blind (in the USA) refers to an individual whose vision is affected beyond what glasses can correct. This is a bit difficult to describe in writing but: If the strongest prescription possible cannot bring that person’s vision up to 20/20, they are legally blind. This is not the same as having no vision.

Deafblind or DeafBlind refers to an individual with any combination of vision and Deaf gain/hearing loss, ranging from mild to profound Deaf gain/hearing loss and from low vision to total blindness.

Visual acuity refers to clarity of vision and is the source of numbers like 20/20, 20/30, etc. This is another one that’s weird to describe so stick with me. My vision is about 20/40 (last I went to the eye doctor lol) which means that I see at 20 feet what someone with 20/20 vision sees at 20 feet. The top number is always 20, and refers to the 20/20 standard, while the lower number describes the visual acuity of the person in question. If their visual acuity is 20/10, that means they see at ten feet what a person with 20/20 vision would see at 20 feet. If they see at 20 feet what a person with 20/20 vision would see at 200 feet, they are medically considered blind.

Visual functioning is (basically) a measure of how well a person can use visual information in completing tasks. This is assessed a number of different ways.

Residual vision is another way of referring to the functional vision of a person with low vision or blindness.

I’m not going to go through all the different kinds of blindness and eye conditions, because that would take too long, and this is already a pretty long vocab section. But there are lots of different kinds of conditions and disabilities affecting eyes and vision! Please explore them :)

Blind Culture?

Is there Blind culture in the same way that there is Deaf culture? Difficult to say. It’s an ongoing debate, and I’m going to briefly address each side, and then leave it up to you to research further how this might affect your character and your story.

Historically, the blind community have rejected the idea that blind individuals have a shared culture. The reasons for this are very well outlined in this letter, which I highly recommend reading. To summarize it here: Blind people are not isolated from sighted people in the same way that Deaf people have been historically isolated from hearing people. The reason for this is generally acknowledged to be the lack of, or existence of, a language barrier. Blind people use the same language as the sighted people around them, while Deaf people have used signed language as opposed to spoken language. Where no language barrier exists, this position argues, no separate culture forms or needs to form.

On the other hand - there are certainly experiences that are shared by people across the visually impaired spectrum that fully sighted people do not have. Blind or low vision people access and interpret the world in different ways. There is, analogous to Deaf communities, a history of blind or low vision children being educated separately from sighted children, and of discrimination throughout the lifespan that has isolated visually impaired people from sighted society.

What does all of this mean? It means that there is less consensus about what it means to be visually impaired, and what values or traditions unite that experience. It means that there is less of a framework for how your visually impaired character might relate to other visually impaired characters or their broader community. I highly encourage further exploration within your own story, as well as making sure that whatever choices you’re making about the character’s relationship to their vision is grounded in conscious choice and research. Just because there are no easy answers about a collective blind culture does not mean that a blind character can be written the same as a sighted character but without the vision.

Assistive Technology

Assistive technology (as a reminder, this is not specific to visual impairments) refers to pretty much anything used to make the lives of disabled people easier.

Official American government definition is: “Any item, piece of equipment or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of children with disabilities. The term does not include a medical device that is surgically implanted, or the replacement of such device.”

Braille is a tactile system of writing in which raised dots represent letters, numbers, and punctuation. More on this later.

A screen reader is a software program that either reads written text on a screen aloud, or produces a Braille display.

Speech-to-text programs are software programs that…convert speech to text.

Text-to-speech or TTS are programs that convert written text into spoken speech. These were also commonly used on landline phones by d/Deaf people before text messaging became commonplace.

Seeing Eye dogs are service dogs that are trained to help their blind owners move and navigate independently.

White canes are white canes with a red stripe. These are both navigational tools for B/VI people, and used to communicate to others that the person carrying it is B/VI. Accordingly, it is illegal in some US states to carry a white cane if you are not visually impaired. Only 2-8% of B/VI people actually use them, though, and it requires dedicated practice to use them effectively. They are designed to vibrate differently when they come in contact with different types of surfaces, and proper practice can help cane users distinguish between different obstacles.

Braille and the Braille Literacy Crisis

Braille, as mentioned before, is a tactile way of writing, which helps B/VI people read and write effectively. I’m not going to do an exhaustive explanation, but essentially, a different combination of raised dots represents each letter of the written alphabet. The sentence I’m writing, rewritten in Braille, would have the exact same words and structure, but would be expressed in raised dots. There are abbreviated forms that are less commonly used and may be used by more skilled readers or those reading texts with specialized, space-saving abbreviations.

Less than 10 percent of legally blind in the US can read Braille, and only 10 percent of legally blind children are currently learning it. This is a huge problem. Over 70% of blind adults are unemployed, and up to 50% of blind students drop out of high school. There is a strong, scientifically supported link between literacy and employment.

Technology should supplement literacy, not replace it. Screen readers and text-to-speech are great tools, but are not an adequate replacement for literacy.

Reading English text is not always the best possible method of reading. The misguided belief that reading Braille is isolating and stigmatizing leads many to push reading text over reading Braille, even when this is inappropriate or even impossible. Some children achieve higher levels of literacy through reading Braille.

Implications for your writing: Can your character read Braille? Why, or why not? What impact does their illiteracy have on their life?

Rethink

I’ve tried a couple different headings here cuz as always, don’t want to tell people unequivocally not to write things. But these are things you should really think hard about before you include them in your writing.

So, things to rethink:

Overused tropes for B/VI characters:

Blind seer/blind mystic

Innocent, pure, noble, sweet etc.

Bumbling oaf B/VI person

Feeling people’s faces as a way to “know what they look like”

Does not happen in real life, more of a stereotype/sighted person’s fantasy

“Helen Keller didn’t exist” TikTok conspiracy theory (not a writing thing but a pet peeve I can’t not mention)

This is ableist. The only reason people think she wasn’t able to accomplish things is because she was deafblind and that’s fucking bullshit. It is not a cute silly TikTok joke. It’s ableism, and it’s disgusting.

Blindness negating power/ability.

This can be anything from an actual superpower (X-Men) to a technological advance (Star Trek) to a supernatural ability (Avatar: The Last Airbender.)

In real life, this could be having someone with other senses that compensate to an unrealistic degree, or echolocation, which, while it proves successful for some people, is hard, takes a ton of effort, and doesn’t work for everyone.

Resources/Recommendations

Please add recommendations in reblogs and comments! I really haven’t watched a lot of TV or movies that have blind characters, which sucks :/

Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law By Haben Girma is an autobiography of a deafblind woman that is incredibly well written and discusses independence and activism.

The World I Live In by Helen Keller describes life as a deafblind individual and is really powerful and beautiful.

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ratdacted · 3 months

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Shinjuku Boys (1995). Tatsu, a transgender man, jokes with his barber about his changing appearance, and his newly masculine features.

TRANSCRIPT:

BARBER: So you go regularly to the hospital for your hormone injection? TATSU: [nods] BARBER: Does it hurt? TATSU: Not at all. BARBER: You have more facial hair. It must be the hormones. You’ll get a moustache soon. TATSU: I’ll look distinguished! They’ve made quite the difference. I never thought I’d change so much. Most customers say I’m like a man. BARBER: Really? TATSU: [laughing] They say, “You look like a man. You’re not cute.” BARBER: [laughs]

END TRANSCRIPT.

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ratdacted · 3 months

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To The Bus Driver - Jordan Bolton

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ratdacted · 3 months

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*sad italian whimpers*

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ratdacted · 3 months

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elf yuri except one of them is high fantasy and the other is one of santa's

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ratdacted · 3 months

Photo

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ratdacted · 3 months

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He's very handsome but every time I look at him my first thought is "who took your eyebrows, who did this to you".

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ratdacted · 3 months

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has everyone gotten their knee-jerk reactions to palworld out. can i throw my two cents in

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ratdacted · 3 months

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Witchcraft and Cars

A small list of ideas of witchy things that you can do to your car. I hope this inspires you!

Keep a protection satchel in your car

Put road opening oil on the dashboard/outside of car/mirrors/seats/etc. to avoid traffic (not Abre Camino oil)

Put luck oil on the dashboard/outside of car/mirrors/seats/etc. to avoid accidents

Hang charms or spell bags on the rearview mirror

Keep crystals in cup holders/door pockets/glove box/etc.

Make steering wheel covers or mirror covers and enchant them

Making and/or enchanting window shades

Get air fresheners (vent or hanging) that correspond with your intents (scent or shape)

Use essential oils that correspond with your intents

Keeping a worry stone in the car

Keeping lucky things (rabbit feet, feathers, luck charms, etc.) in the car

Playing grounding/visualizing/whatever music that corresponds with your intents for the day

Keep a spell bag in your car to bring it back to you if it’s lost/stolen/towed

Keep a mini broom in your car (for protection and to clean it)

Create sigils to use in your car (drawing them on with writing utensils/water/oil, keeping a piece of paper with them written on it, etc.)

Enchant windows and mirrors to be more aware of the road and conditions

Keep a satchel to remember things (parking permits, your registration and license, your wallet, your keys, etc.)

Enchant coins for prosperity and easy access to parking or tolls

Get car washes to cleanse and purify your car or to banish unwanted energies (spirits, people, luck, etc.)

Keep a grounding spell in your car to always find your way home (never get lost!)

Keep a spare divination tool in your car just in case

Keep a voice recorder in your car to record any spiritual thoughts or ideas you may have and to keep your mind flowing

Enchant your steering wheel to turn easily

Enchant your mirrors to never go out of place

Manifest/pray/etc. in traffic or when having to wait in your car

Use colors from stickers, covers, decor, etc. in your car that correspond with your intent

Enchant your tires to never get stuck, never get you lost, never flat, etc.

Take random drives during slow hours to clear your mind or ground yourself

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