#blind character

Mayra meets her new guide dog💝🦮

Hey! 😊👋

I recently read a headcanon post about Ominis’ blindness by the lovely @libellule-ao3 and it struck a very personal and appreciative chord with me. Her headcanons debunk multiple ‘myths’ about blindness and are so…I can't think of the word, but I just appreciate it so much, for..a reason I'm about to share, haha;;.

In an…odd sort of way, I was actually hoping to keep this a secret, but…the HL community here has been so warm and kind to me that I think I feel comfortable enough to share this without fear of judgement, or people seeing me differently.

The reason why I wanted to initially keep it a secret was because I was scared - even more than I am in real life, because ..well, actually in real life, it's something about me you'd immediately see - because.. I'm a guide dog user. I'm severely sight-impaired, legally blind - but not fully blind.

It's..quite sad that a lot of people still don't really know this, but blindness is a very wide spectrum.

Sight is not ‘all or nothing’, and blindness is not ‘just blackness’. It can be due to a variety of conditions - glaucoma and cataracts are only two, and are notably most common in older people - but there are so many different conditions which can cause your sight to be affected, reduced, or distorted in so many different ways.

Some might be blind from birth, and others might lose their sight over time, and even this in itself is a big difference, because someone blind from birth doesn't know life with sight, but someone who has lost it over time will likely remember it and grieve it to some extent.

Some people can perceive light and darkness, some can discern colour or shapes, some might be able to see ‘alright’, but their field of view would be affected by a sense of fogginess, or be "out of focus', or they might have dark blotches or patches covering some parts - some also might not have peripheral vision (side/edges of your view), or depth perception (knowing how far away/close something or someone is).

A lot of people don't really know this either, but ninety percent of the time, if someone says that they are blind, they more likely than not do have some level/aspect of sight which is useful to them.

For me, I was born extremely premature, and so I had a condition called ‘retinopathy of prematurity’, which means that my eyes weren't even fully developed in the womb.

Doctors were able to save some sight in one eye, but the other is totally blind. A fun fact that sometimes confuses people is that I can see my nose, all the time. It's just..there 😅

In my ‘good’ eye, I have relatively reasonable sight, but I don't have any peripheral vision or depth perception.

In everyday scenarios this means that I'm very prone to tripping or bumping into things quite literally because I didn't see them in time. Outside, kerbs on pavements are tricky, as well as gaps on the train or bus (I struggle to work out how big/far it is.), and things like stairs can be scary too. If I'm standing at the top of stairs looking down, it just looks like a flat floor with lines across it. That's why those yellow neon strips on stairs in public places are so important. And I cling to the rail for dear life, haha;:.

Now as a young adult at uni I'm a guide dog user and it's helped me so much in ways I didn't even realise I needed assistance in, but my whole life I've always been aware that I'm different.

I'm stared at, people point and whisper about me when I walk by, people ignore that my dog is a service dog and pet her when she's working and it can be extremely stressful just to go about my day. I'm an oddity, but I shouldn't be, because there just needs to be more awareness. Awareness is easy for one person to share, but it can be difficult for others to remember these things when it comes to things like writing, or movies, or the media in general.

…I just want to highlight a couple of things.

People with a visual impairment do not have superhuman abilities in their other senses. Please. This is a severely outdated and almost…hurtful trope.

We don't have magnified senses. We RELY on them more. It's not that they are better, we just NEED them in order to help us when sight can't.

This means that realistically, for example, if I've got an ear infection or ear wax build-up, I struggle to hear the beepy thing that alerts me when to cross a road at the lights, or even hear people's voices if they are trying to give me directions - or if I've got a blocked nose from a cold or hay fever, I wouldn't be able to smell - say if there was a fire somewhere - the smoke.

Also…this is an awkward one as I see it so much with Ominis fanart but.. people with visual impairments do not touch people's faces to know what they ‘look’ like.

Now, I know - I know, I know - that this is a very, very common trope in media, literature, everywhere. I know, and I understand the appeal. I know people think it's romantic and intimate…but I'm sorry, it's .. it's just not true.

I can only speak for myself, of course, and what I've heard from visually impaired friends, but it just seems ..a sort of silly, unnatural thing to do. It seems almost violating to another's personal space, and uncomfortable, even if you do know that person.

A common thing I have noticed as well with visually impaired people (but this of course does not apply to everyone) is that touch is the sense we are most reserved and guarded about.

Personally, I am reluctant to touch or be touched by others, because sometimes when out in public, holding onto someone's arm is my only way of navigating my surroundings, and so almost naturally, I don't easily trust people.

I feel vulnerable very, very easily - sometimes I reluctantly hold onto a friend or family member's arm, even though they're close to me - purely because I don't like that feeling of vulnerability and helplessness.

What I mean to highlight is, for visually impaired people, sometimes touching (and in doing so, trusting) someone is your only way of getting around an unknown area or place, and so generally speaking, it… doesn't make us open to touching others freely. Scenarios like this when I have to trust strangers has actually made me even more reserved about being in close proximity to others. (But again, that's just me)

And so, I suppose, it is a little bit hurtful that again, all blind people are lumped into the same category of needing to touch someone's face to know what they look like.

You don't need to feel someone else's face to know what the structure of a face feels like, since…realistically, you would know what your…own face feels like, right? That's always puzzled me, haha.. but maybe that's just me and my habit of literal-thinking..??

And also, some blind people aren't able to visualise in their mind, so that..wouldn't exactly make sense either..? How would feeling someone's face to ‘see’ them then help if…you're not even able to visualise it?? ;; 😅

~ ~

Alright, so, oof I got a bit sidetracked there - what I was meaning to talk about was OMINIS!!! My love for Ominis!!!

Listen, words…cannot begin to describe how much I love and appreciate Ominis Gaunt as a character.

Not simply because he is a blind/visually impaired ICON - but the way I was cheering and almost crying when I realised how much depth was put into his character - that he wasn't just a ‘token disabled character’. Ominis means something more than his blindness - he has importance and worth, something unfortunately many visually impaired people feel they don't have.

Ominis is relatable, and whilst in-game scenarios don't show his struggles directly, he represents so many real feelings of someone who is blind or visually impaired through some moments we see of him - like in his pure and honest frustration (with others or the world itself), feeling reserved and even cold about meeting new people due to fear of appearing vulnerable, right down to just feeling misunderstood.

Ominis is so dear to my heart! I was internally screaming with joy every time he came on screen!!

I love him. I just love him so much.

My personal headcanon for writing Ominis will show that he has light, darkness and shape/silhouette perception, but not just to emphasise against the unfortunately common belief that blindness just means that you can only see ‘black’ or 'nothingness' - there's actually a reason I chose this in particular, which is tied to a piece of his in-game dialogue I found really, really cute.

Now I know that he has no pupils, and so realistically he would not be able to perceive light, but I was just so fascinated by his playfulness with the first-years in the Slytherin common room where he says that he teased them with the idea that mermaids could be seen in the windows, and I wondered why he might say something like that. Was it just to tease them, or could it be interpreted that he actually could perceive their shapes moving too?

I just found that line of thought fascinating to consider, but that is purely a personal headcanon of mine!

Oh, I can't wait to write Ominis as a character in the upcoming chapters of my fic!!! 😄😄🥰🫶🫶

I feel connected to him in a way I don't think I've ever felt connected to a character before, and I think it's purely because I've never seen a character quite like me - but not only that, he's relatable on so many different levels!! I love his humor, his playfulness, he just…feels like a real character.

I'd love to have a cup of tea with Ominis.

I'd love to just...sit with him, and chat to him about struggles we'd likely share. Things that other people just don't understand.

Tanyl and his long cane/white cane! He rarely uses this, since his vocal echolocation works for him well enough, but in wide open spaces or when he’s overwhelmed, he finds the cane easer:)

First here are some doodles about ' Gamilith an amrâl: A letter for a lover ' by @m1dnight-blu3

I love the idea of Bilbo with a beautiful hat and how Thorin couldn't see his face right because the hat hid him from the height of a dwarf.

And second, I'm definitely doing more later. Bilbo is so pretty ( and with my headcanons about hobbits with tail and how sometimes things grow in their heir like leads or flower ) I can't wait to see that Took vein in action!

Suddenly my name is Thorin Oakenshield or why I'm so in love???

Second, a little doodle of 'The Blind Burglar ' by @domesticgoddesswriter

I LOVE THIS BILBO SO MUCH YOU GUYS DON'T UNDERSTAND HE'S A BURGLAR. A BURGLAR.

I love and I can't wait to see more about his eyes, Yavanna knew what she was doing because damn, I can personally go and say thank u for all.

I also love Dinodas idc and with my hc of tailed hobbits I love how Bilbo probably looks while he's in Mirkwood.

Hogwarts Legacy Comic