Blind Character - Blog Posts
Fall Traditions
Summary: Kate and Yelena have invited their friends to go on a day-trip with them. Clint doesn't quite understand how a mace made out of corn is supposed to work.
Pairings: HawkDevil (Clint Barton x Matt Murdock), Bisholova (Kate Bishop x Yelena Belova (QPR))
Word Count: 830
Rating: General Audiences
Tags: Corn Maze, Hedge Maze, Clint Barton has ADHD, Clint Dyslexic Clint Barton, Misunderstandings, AU - No Powers
Written for:
@flufftober : Day 6 - Corn Maze
@marvelrarepairbingo : N4 - Hedge Maze
Once again asking, because all of these are really interesting, and i loved your fics! I'm really interested in 'Blind Hawkeye and Deaf Daredevil' đź‘€
Okay, I can't say too much about that one, because it's part of something else.
But it's pretty much what it says on the tin.
This is a universe something between Comic and MCU canon, Matt and Clint are Vigilantes and work with each other and the other Heroes.
They know each others identities, Matt knows Clint is Deaf and Clint knows Matt's blind. Everything pretty standard until there.
But that's where I'll just let two snippets speak for themselves:
Matt's POV:
When Matt woke up and opened his eyes, the morning sun was shining right into his face and blinding him. He squeezed his eyes shut again and threw an arm over his face with a groan. He lay motionless, cursing the morning light, before noticing something was wrong. It took him a moment to realise that he was not supposed to be able to even see the light, much less his bedroom or the city outside. Slowly, he pulled his arm away and gave himself a moment to adjust to the unfamiliar sensation of light shimmering through his closed eyelids. After a few seconds, he turned away from the window before he dared to open his eyes again. When he did, his brain couldn’t quite translate the new signals yet, and everything just looked like blotches of light and dark and different colours. Matt blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes used to the brightness and focus on his surroundings. Very slowly, things started to make more sense. Blotches turned into shapes, and shadows turned into depth. After a while, Matt was able to recognise his surroundings, even though everything was still a little blurry. Still distracted Matt decided to get up and make some coffee to try to fully wake up before he called anyone. Maybe everything would make a little more sense then. He sat up in bed, pushed the covers off him, and swung his legs out of the bed with a soft thump when his feet hit the ground. Except there was no thump.
Clint's POV:
On the other side of the East River, in Bed-Stuy, a car horn pulled Clint from deep sleep. He jumped internally and opened his eyes at once. When he was greeted with pure darkness instead of the familiar sight of his bedroom ceiling, he started to panic. The car outside honked again, and a few seconds later, people started to shout. Overwhelmed by the noise, Clint grabbed at his ears and tried to rip his hearing aids out. The panic threatened to suffocate him again when he found nothing. The blonde turned and tried to drown out the sounds with his pillow, but it only muffled them and added the rustling of fabric and filling to the mix. Clint began to hyperventilate as memories of the circus, of fights that were loud enough for him to hear even without aids, and of people yelling at him for not understanding them combined with the strange mix of auditory overload and a complete lack of visual signals. Quickly, he spiralled.
From there, a lot of questions have to be answered and problems to be solved and Clint and Matt both have to face a whole new challenge.
But like I said, I don't want to give away too much just yet.
Thank you so much for asking again (and feel free to ask for as many more as you like)
Sound and Color - Masterlist
Sound and Color
The sound and the colors of Leaves : 2467 / General Audiences / Matt and Clint bond over their mutual love for fall and leaves and their disabilities
The sound and the colors of Snow : 3959 / General Audiences / Matt helps Clint get the support he needs and they take a walk through wintery NYC
The sound and colors of Flowers : 2531 / General Audiences / Matt and Clint are working together as the city warms up.
The sound and colors of Sunshine : 3570 / General Audiences / Matt and Clint suffer in the heat and talk about Family.
When writing a blind character, what are some things to avoid?
Ah! So this is definitely a bit of a broad question, but I can give a few basics:
Blind people don’t actually give a shit about touching faces, so please, please stear clear of that. The only exceptions may be the same way sighted lovers may caress each other’s faces and parents may hold a child’s face in an emotional moment, but it’s just like a sighted lover or parent would, nothing more.
Please avoid giving your character a cure. One of the most crushing things as a disabled reader is to finally have a disabled character, but for them to end up with a fantastic magic cure half-way through. It rarely makes for a good story, and often a much better story is that person’s journey in understanding themselves as equal and learning that they aren’t broken and useless and can do whatever they want, overcoming internalized ableism rather than “overcoming the disability.”
Few blind people actually wear sunglasses or eye coverings, so your character probably won’t either if the likelyhood says anything. Chances are they will not be part of that minority, so probably better not to do that.
Something similar can be said for characters with white or cloudy eyes. The vast majority of blind people will not have very abnormal-looking eyes, so chances are your character will not be part of that minority.
Another very similar thing should be noted about the level of vision they will have. Somewhere between 80 and 90% of blind people have some level of remaining vision, weather it be little more than light perception or enough that they were forced to use their eyes a lot growing up and weren’t taught braille or to use a cane because they could get by well enough not to die most of the time.
So these are just the first several things I can think of at the moment, but definitely feel free to ask about more things!
The boyos (Fang and Marcel my ocs)