mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-06-10 09:39 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2022-06-10 09:39 pm
Entry tags:
An utterly unneeded whinge:
First day back at work.
I did hit a wall around 2:00 or so, and just... felt ready to faceplant onto my desk. I made it, though. Just have to get through the weekend, and then I can spend my "weekend" asleep, lol.
-
Ever get just... *really* deeply annoyed by something that's 98% well-meaning and fine, but that 2% just bugs you?
There's a perfectly fine and reasonable and well-intentioned post that came across my dash a few times today on tumblr, with some writing advice in regards to blind characters. Someone talking about things they'd like to see more often and things they're sick of seeing. Cool! Great!
But there was *one* point that they had that just *bugged* me, and it keeps annoying me! I'm not going to respond to the post, because it's completely unnecessary to do so, and I don't want to be derailing or fight about it or anything.
But... one of the things they'd like to see less of is blindness caused by trauma/accident. And great! I am 100% in favor of that point - that is almost always playing into disability-as-tragedy, which is super common and often handled poorly and feeds into a lot of really ableist narratives. It's at least something that requires thought behind it.
BUT. Part of their "why you shouldn't do that" is that "The WHO states that the most common causes of blindness are uncorrected refractive errors and cataracts, not accidents!" (The implication being that those would be better causes for your character's blindness.)
Except... "uncorrected refractive errors" just means... the person needs glasses. It literally means that they're either nearsighted or farsighted, or possibly have an issue like astigmatism. That is all that means. "Uncorrected" means that it's not being treated with glasses/contacts/laser surgery.
It's true that globally that is a leading cause of blindness! Not everyone does have access to eye care and corrective lenses. I would be functionally blind if I did not have access to glasses.
That just seems like... a really weird thing to put in an "advice on writing blindness" post. In some settings that's a reasonable thing to keep in mind - historical, post-apocalyptic, some third-world fantasy, the real-world locations where this is an issue, etc., because you could have a character in that position.
But the post itself was primarily talking about no- or very-low-vision characters and the way that near or total blindness is treated, not just technically-blind-but-correctable vision. (And the post also mentioned wanting fewer instances of characters being "cured" of their blindness, which is also fair, but really drives home that they aren't talking about someone who just needs glasses.) If you're creating a character who is completely blind, "uncorrected refractive error" is very rarely going to be a reasonable cause.
It makes it sound like they threw in that factoid about the WHO statistics without knowing what "uncorrected refractive error" actually means, which makes me side-eye the whole post.
I'm vaguely wondering if now there'll be a handful of writeblrs uncritically taking the "advice" of the post, who start talking about the "refractive errors" that caused their character's blindness.
It's a silly thing to be so annoyed about, but as far as I saw *no one* mentioned it in the notes on the post, and as someone with "corrected refractive error" that would otherwise leave me blind it bothered me!
I did hit a wall around 2:00 or so, and just... felt ready to faceplant onto my desk. I made it, though. Just have to get through the weekend, and then I can spend my "weekend" asleep, lol.
-
Ever get just... *really* deeply annoyed by something that's 98% well-meaning and fine, but that 2% just bugs you?
There's a perfectly fine and reasonable and well-intentioned post that came across my dash a few times today on tumblr, with some writing advice in regards to blind characters. Someone talking about things they'd like to see more often and things they're sick of seeing. Cool! Great!
But there was *one* point that they had that just *bugged* me, and it keeps annoying me! I'm not going to respond to the post, because it's completely unnecessary to do so, and I don't want to be derailing or fight about it or anything.
But... one of the things they'd like to see less of is blindness caused by trauma/accident. And great! I am 100% in favor of that point - that is almost always playing into disability-as-tragedy, which is super common and often handled poorly and feeds into a lot of really ableist narratives. It's at least something that requires thought behind it.
BUT. Part of their "why you shouldn't do that" is that "The WHO states that the most common causes of blindness are uncorrected refractive errors and cataracts, not accidents!" (The implication being that those would be better causes for your character's blindness.)
Except... "uncorrected refractive errors" just means... the person needs glasses. It literally means that they're either nearsighted or farsighted, or possibly have an issue like astigmatism. That is all that means. "Uncorrected" means that it's not being treated with glasses/contacts/laser surgery.
It's true that globally that is a leading cause of blindness! Not everyone does have access to eye care and corrective lenses. I would be functionally blind if I did not have access to glasses.
That just seems like... a really weird thing to put in an "advice on writing blindness" post. In some settings that's a reasonable thing to keep in mind - historical, post-apocalyptic, some third-world fantasy, the real-world locations where this is an issue, etc., because you could have a character in that position.
But the post itself was primarily talking about no- or very-low-vision characters and the way that near or total blindness is treated, not just technically-blind-but-correctable vision. (And the post also mentioned wanting fewer instances of characters being "cured" of their blindness, which is also fair, but really drives home that they aren't talking about someone who just needs glasses.) If you're creating a character who is completely blind, "uncorrected refractive error" is very rarely going to be a reasonable cause.
It makes it sound like they threw in that factoid about the WHO statistics without knowing what "uncorrected refractive error" actually means, which makes me side-eye the whole post.
I'm vaguely wondering if now there'll be a handful of writeblrs uncritically taking the "advice" of the post, who start talking about the "refractive errors" that caused their character's blindness.
It's a silly thing to be so annoyed about, but as far as I saw *no one* mentioned it in the notes on the post, and as someone with "corrected refractive error" that would otherwise leave me blind it bothered me!