#blind!vlad

[icedghostlatte-art]

It was weird.

"V-Man!"

That man was completely blind... and yet. I could feel like he could see me.

I was right.

— Ectolocation AU

[icedghostlatte-art]

Ectolocation Doodle Dump

[thebootybitchdragon]

So what if Vlad was blind?

-realizes I am treading onto thin ice, so I must say here that i’m uneducated about the condition but i’m just tossing out nonsesical headcanons so i’m not gonna spend hours researching anything-

Vlad was blinded by the Proto Portal, a fact that he is very, very upset and self conscious about. he hates now needy it makes him. hates how much he never realized he needed his sight until its gone. he hates hearing the doctors and nurses entering his isolation room and not being able to see them, not knowing who they are. his paranoia anxiety worsens because he fears that he wouldn’t be able to tell if he was in danger of being hurt or murdered because he couldn’t see his attacker. he’d just hear their footsteps, and assume it was a caregiver until it was too late. he hates not being able to know where anything was, how the world around him has been ripped away and rendered to nothing but mocking sound and desperate (pathetic) touches. He doesn’t think it can get worse.

it does.

he hates trying to learn to use a cane. he recognizes that he probably needs a seeing eye dog, but he hates dogs. he doesn't want one. he’s forced to get one anyway. he hates needing to rely on the animal and the fancy stick to get around. he hates everything. he feels like his sense of independence has been taken and he hates that he’ll never get it back. he hates the fact that he can’t read because he doesn’t understand braile. he tries to learn, but the more he does the more frustrated he becomes. its no surprise he begins to hate Jack with every fiber of his being.

But then the ghost powers develop, and he can see again.

it’s not the same. it’s not even similar. but it’s something. he feels like he’s seeing everything through a pair of night goggles with weird filters over top of the lenses. he doesn’t see the light, he sees the shadows. it’s not quite an inverse or negative, but somethings it feels like it is. He sees wavelengths previously unavailable to him, the slower “darker” ones. He can’t explain the kinds of colors they make, and he needs to make new names for them. Velra, Nip, and ghith are three of his favorites. everything in his mock-vision wavers and pulses, seemingly liquified yet still seeming confusingly solid.

He can only see in his ghost form. Returning human turns the entire world off like the heavy dropping of a velvet curtain. it’s unpleasant. Unsurprisingly, he hates it. Eventually, over long tiring hours, he is able to tap into his powers just enough to be able to use his ghostsight in his human form. he would weep for joy if he wasn’t one who never cried.

it takes him years to realize that his sight is not truly sight. it’s a sense that he can’t explain, a blend of sound, temperature and a bizarre innate knowing. his ghost form produces this weird sense as a kind of vision-thing because its the easiest. it uses some of the same areas of the brain so why not tap into those long-destroyed nerves and make new connections between the neurons? Ghosts are creatures of adaption. the lack of perception is a fatal flaw to a ghost, so his body fixed it. amazingly so.

His perception was not limited to what was in front of him. he could perceive all around him to a certain extent. He often calls it “feeling” but its not quick true, just a world trying to describe something that can’t be understood by any but himself. he knows where the coffee table is without ever turning towards it. he knows when a curtain falls behind him. he knows when he’s about to be hit by an ectoblast or a fist. his ghostsight is the best thing about his ghostly status. While he doesn’t realize it, he develops a silent fear of loosing his sight again, and often obsesses over making sure that he can always see. its the first thing he checks when he wakes up.

When Danny begins to fight him, he doesn’t understand how Vlad is able to be aware of where he is and what he’s doing. Jack told him that Vlad had been blinded, and while the revelation that that was no longer true at the Reunion, it stood to be reasoned that Vlad would have had some residual damage to his sight. but he didn’t seem to, his sight seemed superhuman if anything. it confused him at first, then grew into irritation. he could never sneak up on the older halfa. the fights were obviously onesided, made worse when he realized that Vlad toyed with him.

But then the Ectoacne came back.

The disease ravaged Vlad’s body while Danny was dicking around with time. he lost his grasp on his ghostsight. in his semi-delirious state of waking up and being drugged up on as much medicine as the Fenton’s were able to pump into to keep him stable, he forgot he was blind. forgot his powers were just like a special set of magical glasses. he freaked and panicked, screaming and thrashing in anguish as his old friends tried to calm him down. they didn’t understand, they didn’t understand anything about Vlad’s sight condition. Vlad’s condition worsens due to his “reloss” of sight, due to his fear and anguish coupled with the Acne disease. he simply wears himself out.

When Danny returns with the antidote and Vlad returns to his full health, the Fenton’s realize that Vlad seems to be able to see again after Vlad walks around objects he’d have no other way of knowing were there. They confront him, he his answers concern them. “Must have been the acne, just like before.” “You said that you fixed your sight with surgery, Vlad.” “Part of it came back after the Acne was cured last time, the rest was fixed.” “Then why did you claim you were completely blind in the lab? surely some of your sight should have remained.” “The acne could have temporarily taken it.” “Sam and Tucker didn’t show any signs of being blinded.....” “My acne was stronger because it was a relapse, the children’s cases could have not be as severe.” “But it wasn’t the acne that blinded you the first time, it was portal.....”

Vlad eventually tap dances out of Maddie’s questioning sating that he felt exhausted and wanted to go home, leaving both Fenton’s with more questions than answers.

When Vlad’s ghost half is finally revealed, it all makes sense to them. they correctly reason that he’d been using his powers for his sight. the revelation leaves a bitter taste in their mouths. Yes, Vlad might have regained his ability to see, but he was still very much physically blind. he never healed. he still bore the damage that they’d done to him, in so many ways.

When he is abandoned in space, Vlad is left in near blackness once again. the sun and everything is so dim in space because of the sheer amount of other dark light he sees. he can’t see any of the stars. eventually, he needs to stop seeing in order to save his energy in his attempt to preserve his life. he is left in the dark, unable to know where anything is because there is nothing to touch in space. nothing to hear. its worse than in the hospital.

It’s a fate worse than death.

Although the flip side is that he doesn't have to endure it for long, since he’s going to die after a few days anyway. Halfas are still half human, after all.