#blind!zuko

[muffinlance]

Blindsiding Badgermoles, Chapter 7: Grand Opening

In which Toph's parents experience the Theme of her new investment property.

Latest chapter || Read from the beginning

Story summary:

When Zuko goes blind after the North Pole, Iroh takes his nephew to the quiet city of Gaoling to heal. Enter Toph, who doesn’t need no Fire Nation spies in her town. Especially not stumbly princes making blind kids look bad.

[royaltealovingkookiness]

Do you know fics with blind!Zuko? I'm curious to read this kind of story.

I’ve never read one, though I’ve seen summaries with blind!Zuko. If anyone has one to recommend, please chime in. 

[muffinlance]

And now I remember why I haven't touched Blindsiding Badgermoles in months.

*stares at "outline" which is more like "aftermath of how-much-can-we-fit-in-one-chapter explosion"*

Oh boy.

[muffinlance]

Blindsiding Badgermoles, Chapter 6: Toph gets a Training Buddy, Zuko Gets Anxiety

I stand by that chapter title.

Latest chapter || Read from the beginning

Summary:

When Zuko goes blind after the North Pole, Iroh takes his nephew to the quiet city of Gaoling to heal. Enter Toph, who doesn’t need no Fire Nation spies in her town. Especially not stumbly princes making blind kids look bad.

[muffinlance]

This is about Chapter 12 of towards the sun. I want to say I don't blame you for this inaccuracy, most sighted people don't know this. But it's important to know. BLIND PEOPLE DON'T FEEL FACES!!! That's a stereotype made up by ignorant sighted people. Again I don't blame you for not knowing. Overall I like the story!

THIS

Thank you for sending this ask so that other people can read this, because this is very obviously something I did not know when writing that chapter.

The face touching scene was one I got super positive feedback about... From everyone except my actual blind/low vision readers. And now I cannot stop seeing similar scenes in other fics, because man us sighted people really are obsessed with the touch-the-face trope.

So fellow writers, you heard it here: the touch-the-face thing. Is not actually a thing. So maybe discard that scene from any upcoming drafts you have.

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So I was suddenly reminded of that Blind!Zuko thing you’ve got going, and how you mentioned that alterations in ninja-ing would need to occur.

Thought #1: My brother, who is pretty much useless if you take off his glasses, took wrestling for a bit in jr high and high school, and they had him learn blind wrestling so his glasses wouldn’t get hopelessly smooshed. The gist of it was, never lose contact with your opponent.

Thought #2: I have a friend who taught me martial arts for bit, and also monologued about martial arts theory because that’s his thing. He also enjoys analyzing the theories and styles that are present in ATLA, but that is tangential. Basically, there are a couple of practices in Tai Chi (the style he knows is Yang Style, which happens to be one of the major influences for Northern Water Tribe bending) called Push Hands and Sticky Hands. I’ve personally only ever done Push Hands, but it’s an exercise where you make contact with your partner and practice sensing the momentum of the stance and their body purely through touch (it’s kind of similar visually to the way that Aang and Katara pass water whips back and forth). Sticky Hands is where you just. stick to them. My friend uses it in sparring a lot, because it makes it easier to react even when you can’t keep up with what the other person is doing. You just latch onto them, get up in their business.

I dunno, the implications of how Zuko’s could use a full-contact art with bending, which is usually relatively distanced, is fascinating to me. I’m definitely not a expert on these things, but I thought you might be able to add these to your list of things to research or poke at when the time came.

Ooo, good info. Gonna have to research those. <3

[muffinlance]

Ooh!! Insight For the Blind!Zuko fic, at the start of last year and I had big brain moment and thought that I could go everywhere barefoot so I could ☆be in touch with my senses☆. I was wrong. The ground has too many TeXTURES and WETNESS and DUST and I HATED it! Also It is so scary bc what if its sharp!! RIP to Toph but I'm different. Apparently, when you cannot see you do not get super senses, you just become vv aware of how ICKY everything feels now you can't see it. Seriously I cried about it

I. I'm stealing this. This is going to be Zuko when Toph tries to bully him into seeing like her. Total disaster, does not want, must go scrub feet with soap, not everyone can be a barefoot gremlin some of us like to be CLEAN.

Let me know if there's a name you'd like to be credited under because this is so exactly perfect.

[muffinlance]

(as a person with deteriorating vision), can people quit making every blind character's eyes white? I know some people do have that, but alot of the time it's just shaky eyes. There's also alot of people where you can't even see the difference in their eyes. Also, I totally agree with you omitting the 'magically sees with bending because it makes writing easier' thing they did with Toph. It furthers the idea that asking for help or asking for someone to describe something to be shameful

Thank you! *scribbles notes*