Visually Impaired Character Daily

Your daily dose of visually impaired characters. Sidebar image is a woman walking with a white cane.

[beif0ngs]

TOPH + PROVING MEN WRONG

[arofili]

[Image description: A gifset by @beif0ngs​ featuring Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Content warning for ableism expressed by antagonistic characters.

The first gif depicts Toph’s father holding her hand as she scowls. Her father says “My daughter is blind. She’s blind and tiny and helpless and fragile. She cannot help you.” Below this are three more gifs depicting Toph proving him wrong: one showing her throwing a giant rock at some large men with the caption “single-handedly takes down 7 grown-ass earthbenders in a ring,” another showing her effortlessly dodging a projectile zooming by an inch from her face with the caption “and completely wipes the floor with them without breaking a sweat,” and a final gif showing her father and another man watching her in the stands as the other man says “She’s the greatest earthbender I’ve ever seen!” All these gifs are brown-tinted.

In a column beside this first set of gifs is another one, this time tinted blue. The first gif shows a man who has kidnapped Toph telling her, “You might think you’re the greatest earthbender in the world, but even YOU can’t bend metal.” Below this are three more gifs of Toph proving him wrong: one showing her as she uses her sonic powers to sense rock particles in a metal door with the caption “discovers metal bending,” another showing her as with great effort she bends and crumples the metal door with the caption “bends fucking metal,” and a final gif showing her standing on top of the toppled cage she has escaped from and yelling “I am the greatest earthbender in the world! Don’t you two dunderheads ever forget it!” End image description.]

Toph + proving ableist men wrong!!

[icekirbys]

tiny daforge for apology of no art until I get back to my flat

[kinkyfuckeryoftas]

[ID: cartoon style drawing of Geordi Laforge and Data from Star Trek TNG. Geordi is a black man, smiling and waving. He has a visor over his eyes that assists him since he is visually impaired. Data is taller, with silver-white skin and yellow eyes, looking at Geordi with his mouth in an O shape. They are both wearing black and yellow Starfleet uniforms.]

[panstarry]

my piece for the @atlazine!! 🌱🌿🍃

[keplercryptids]

[image description: a drawing of Toph Beifong, lying on her back in some lush grass within a forest. Toph is smiling with her eyes closed, her arms spread on either side of her. Soft sunlight is shining through the treetops above onto her.]

[booty-voyages]

Someone: Star Trek is set in the future, why would disabilities exist? me, a disabled trekkie remembering that tng had a disabled character in the main cast, had an episode about a ‘genetic utopia’ in which that disabled character finds a solution to their problem BECAUSE he’s disabled, and that star trek has shown multiple people with some kind of disability: in the grand future, disabilities are ACCOMMODATED for, not erased.

[everysongineverykey]

some dumb bitch: in star trek all the disabilities would’ve either been cured at birth or wiped out long ago

me, thinking about geordi, julian, tilly, barclay, etc: oh, haven’t you heard?

[tope-con-hewwo]

Ableists: why wouldn’t they cure disabilities at birth?

Me, knows that eugenics is strictly against the code of the United Federation Of Planets: lol fake nerd boy

[ashenwaste]

actually discord sucks shit and they should fix their accessibility lmao

[ashenwaste]

https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360032435152-Discord-Accessibility-for-blind-users

upvote this so maybe we can get a response. I sent an individual ticket but I doubt they’re going to respond.

Discord Accessibility for blind users

Hi all, I'm a blind discord user but the app have many accessibility issues with screen readers. Last summer, some improvements made about

[ashenwaste]

like you could be performative in your activism or you can try and make a change and comment and upvote this. go ham, send them a support ticket, just do something LOL

I am not blind or low vision but I occasionally use a screen reader in case of bad pain. This shit screws you over and makes it hard to communicate. this is from nine months ago and there’s been no response at all. It’s stupid AF

[kinkyfuckeryoftas]

Some things about blind and visually impaired people:

Most blind people aren’t completely blind, legally blind (in the US) just means your vision is unable to be better than 20/200 (which is basically that they see something twenty feet away with the same acuity that someone with 20/20 vision sees at 200 feet), or less than 10% field of vision. Vision doesnt just go dark- some people can have a ‘pinhole’ of vision, or clouding, or spots that ‘dont work’, or nystagmus, or so many different ways of vision not working properly. 

there’s no such thing as ‘looking blind’

Blind people can still use computers and cell phones, they use magnifying tools or screen readers (like Voiceover on your iphone) and voice commands (like siri)

Some blind people use canes to ‘see’ what’s in front of them, and/or to signal to the people around them that they cannot see well

if you see someone with a white cane looking like they are going to cross the road, you’re legally required to let them, even if it’s not at a crosswalk. (US link)

Dont touch people without their consent like ever this isn’t a blind people thing just don’t do it. You can ask if a blind person needs help but if they say no– just go about your business

If you see an image description (usually in brackets like this [] that describe what is in an image) on tumblr or any other website, don’t delete it. the screen readers mentioned above will tell the VI/blind user what it says. These descriptions can also help people with processing issues or that have a hard time ‘reading faces’

Blind people use different tools. Some blind people wear dark glasses because they are photosensitive or because they are embarrassed about how their eyes look, some people don’t because it doesnt matter to them or because they can see more when theyre not wearing glasses. Some blind people can read braille, some can read large print, some just use audio. 

[salemwitchtrials-deactivated202]

image descriptions are so sexy accessibility is hot as fuck

[daily-toph]

day 1234

[id: Animation of Toph moving through an Earthbending form. She strikes one foot forward and then twists to one side to strike with both arms, wearing a determined expression.]

[femcassidy]

i want you all to know that there is an artist (carmen papalia) who, after he started using a white cane, assembled a 12 foot long white cane and began using it in downtown vancouver. the length of the cane made it functionally useless as a device and the only purpose it served was making him an obstacle for sighted people. dare i say… 2019 goals

[femcassidy]

therapist to sighted patient: long cane isnt real and it cant hurt you

carmen papalia:

[id: a dimly lit photo of carmen papalia using his 12 foot “long cane” piece. he walks casually behind it. the cane takes up the majority of both the photograph and the sidewalk.]

[thevioletsunflower]

Okay I went to a conference where this guy was a keynote and he’s so fucking cool. He’s done a ton of art around disability rights. The twelve-foot cane is really cool, but here are some of my other favourites:

From the series on replacing his cane, this is one where he replaced his cane with a megaphone and would stand at intersections repeating “I can’t see” until somebody would stop and help him cross the street

Another cane replacement, this time replacing it with a high school marching band who would change the music depending on if there was something in the way or not.

A museum intervention where he got people at the MET to go through the museum with their eyes closed and experiencing touching things he’d gotten permission to touch (the floor in this image) and just exploring a visual art museum blind.

The Blind Field Shuffle, in which he has dozens of people form a conga line behind him with their eyes closed and leads them on a blind tour of the city - literally the blind leading the blind.

Wish I could find a better photo, but this is a museum gallery he curated where the works are almost at floor height, making them accessible to children, little people, and people in wheelchairs, but requiring abled people to bend down or sit on the floor in order to see them properly.

In short, this man is amazing and I love his work.

[captainlordauditor]

……okay, that last one is my absolute favorite

[jelrix]

There are canonically blind and visually impaired octolings and inklings

I just got back from a trip in time to play the last two hours of splatfest, when i noticed something.

Tactile pads on the ledge. In fact, they’re everywhere. Ive played nearly 2000 hours in this game and i never really paid attention to them, because for us humans, they’re commonplace.

But in inkopolis? You dont see blind characters. But we know they exist, because there wouldn’t be any point in installing the pads if there was no need for them.

“But Pieeeeee, maybe they’re just for aesthetic purposes? Maybe theyre only in the pancake vs waffle fest?”

They’re in the square too, in their metal american form. In front of the crosswalk.

Plus, according to Wikipedia they are both difficult to install and expensive, so there would be 0 point in them if they werent needed.

Tldr blind & visually impaired cephalokids exist in splatoon canon

[vicharacterdaily]

[Facebook Post:  “Carroll Center for the Blind April 19 We love when our neighbors stop in for a visit! Students from Temple Emanuel of Newton's Makor class came to the Carroll Center for the Blind to teach our residential clients about Passover. During an inclusive, interfaith Seder featuring a braille Haggadah, we learned about different Jewish traditions, foods and songs. Happy Passover!”

Four pictures of various angles of people sitting at a table for the Seder, including a close up of religious text in Braille. The participants are all paying attention and smiling.]

[kinkyfuckeryoftas]

[ID: Reddit post

r/Blind

•Posted by u/oncenightvaler

How The Easter Bunny Treated Me (totally Blind)

Hey Everyone, thought since it was Easter I would drop in and give some advice to parents and friends of blind people on how the Easter Bunny could be silly and visit them.

When I was younger, my parents would stretch long pieces of twine around so I could follow the twine or rope whichever to the nearest Easter egg.

When I got older they got more technical and used an embosser to print out a list of Scavenger Hunt clues and riddles for where the chocolates were hidden.

They also hid Easter eggs just in one room and by then I knew all the familiar places to look so they challenged me to use my search grid patterns to look for the Easter eggs with my fingers.

Easter egg hunting can definitely be stimulating and useful for the blind child, don’t leave them out of traditions, change traditions learn and laugh together.

Eat all the chocolate.]

[crazytom666]

[thingsfortwwings]

[Image: Toph Bei Fong crouching; she’s earthbending, holding some small pebbles and larger rocks in the air, and her hands and feet are dirty.]

[keplercryptids]

if you draw a blind character without an image description, my soul briefly exits my body and gives your soul a wet willy ~

[howluckyihavebeen]

“Whether you realise it or not, I gave you that gold. People don’t take money from Shakäste.”

the mighty nein mood boards (9/?): shakäste

[goblinflasked]

[ID: eight images in a very sepia-toned palette:

close up of a man’s eye with a dark eyebrow and clouding over the cornea

close up of a curly, messy afro style hair on a white background

embellished brown leather belt straps on a white background

thin, reedy, brown wand on a white background

blue and white ice sheet

close up of a statue of Nefertiti on black background

gold chain breaking on black background

hummingbird flapping it’s wings on white background]

[mlwh]

More of our good man,  Shakäste

[vicharacterdaily]

[ID: Shakaste from Critical Role, a black man with a huge, white, beaded afro, and a pointy beard, shown from the shoulders up. He is wearing a green cloak. He starts, facing away, and then turns to face the viewer, white eyes closing for a moment while he raises his fists in front of him, and when he opens his hands, a blue-white fire springs from his fingers, shadows and light playing on his face and hair as his eyes sightless eyes stare directly at the viewer with a deep intensity.]

[nightmarepublicaccess]

friendly reminder that if you personally don’t need captions/image descriptions that are intended for accessibility purposes, please just ignore them. do not delete them. it costs $0.00 and takes 0 seconds to just reblog the post as it is and not 1) make fun of the description in the tags, 2) delete the caption, or 3) do both, all of which i’ve seen at some point.