i’ve stopped trash talking comic sans after learning the font is actually one of the only dyslexia-friendly fonts that come standard with most computers and i advocate for others doing the same
In the event that you would like to continue hating Comic Sans, other dyslexia-friendly alternatives include Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic and Trebuchet.
thank
Random fact: Verdana is one of the few fonts which was specifically designed to be as easy to read as possible, even at smaller type sizes. It was designed this way for use on screen, but the same principles apply in print too. This is part of why some Universities use Verdana as their default font for documents.
“In the event that you would like to continue hating Comic Sans” is one of the best things I’ve ever read on this website
Century Gothic and Trebuchet are both quite handsome typefaces.
I’m partial to Century Gothic as well. It’s serif, but not boring.
There’s also a dyslexic font designed especially for dyslexic people to read.
You can install on your tablets, laptops and browers etc, so not only can you change things like documents into it, you can change websites into that font as well!
I’m sure you’re bright enough to do a google search, but since I’m dumb enough to forget to post a link, here it is. Better late than never
I default to arial for this reason, but I will now be defaulting to verdana or dyslexie. nice.
I don’t think I have dyslexia but that dyslexie font was the easiest fucking thing to read ever. Books should be written in that shit.
ALSO!!!
For computer reading, when you mix up lines of text, there’s a web browser app called Beeline Reader. It looks like this
The colors are also customizable, to an extent and while I don’t have dyslexia, I have adhd which makes reading large amounts of text harder and this helps A LOT.
This is dope. I freaking love how much more accessible this information is nowadays.
for our dyslexic ravens.
I always thought I was a decent reader, but holy crap that BeeLine made reading enjoyable lol
PSA to all you fantasy writers because I have just had a truly frustrating twenty minutes talking to someone about this: it’s okay to put mobility aids in your novel and have them just be ordinary.
Like. Super okay.
I don’t give a shit if it’s high fantasy, low fantasy or somewhere between the lovechild of Tolkein meets My Immortal. It’s okay to use mobility devices in your narrative. It’s okay to use the word “wheelchair”. You don’t have to remake the fucking wheel. It’s already been done for you.
And no, it doesn’t detract from the “realism” of your fictional universe in which you get to set the standard for realism. Please don’t try to use that as a reason for not using these things.
There is no reason to lock the disabled people in your narrative into towers because “that’s the way it was”, least of all in your novel about dragons and mermaids and other made up creatures. There is no historical realism here. You are in charge. You get to decide what that means.
Also:
“Depiction of Chinese philosopher Confucius in a wheelchair, dating to ca. 1680. The artist may have been thinking of methods of transport common in his own day.”
“The earliest records of wheeled furniture are an inscription found on a stone slate in China and a child’s bed depicted in a frieze on a Greek vase, both dating between the 6th and 5th century BCE.[2][3][4][5]The first records of wheeled seats being used for transporting disabled people date to three centuries later in China; the Chinese used early wheelbarrows to move people as well as heavy objects. A distinction between the two functions was not made for another several hundred years, around 525 CE, when images of wheeled chairs made specifically to carry people begin to occur in Chinese art.[5]”
“In 1655,Stephan Farffler, a 22 year old paraplegic watchmaker, built the world’s first self-propelling chair on a three-wheel chassis using a system of cranks and cogwheels.[6][3] However, the device had an appearance of a hand bike more than a wheelchair since the design included hand cranks mounted at the front wheel.[2]
The invalid carriage or Bath chair brought the technology into more common use from around 1760.[7]
In 1887, wheelchairs (“rolling chairs”) were introduced to Atlantic City so invalid tourists could rent them to enjoy the Boardwalk. Soon, many healthy tourists also rented the decorated “rolling chairs” and servants to push them as a show of decadence and treatment they could never experience at home.[8]
In 1933 Harry C. Jennings, Sr. and his disabled friend Herbert Everest, both mechanical engineers, invented the first lightweight, steel, folding, portable wheelchair.[9] Everest had previously broken his back in a mining accident. Everest and Jennings saw the business potential of the invention and went on to become the first mass-market manufacturers of wheelchairs. Their “X-brace” design is still in common use, albeit with updated materials and other improvements. The X-brace idea came to Harry from the men’s folding “camp chairs / stools”, rotated 90 degrees, that Harry and Herbert used in the outdoors and at the mines.[citation needed]
“But Joy, how do I describe this contraption in a fantasy setting that wont make it seem out of place?”
“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince FancyPants McElferson propelled forwards using his arms to direct the motion of the chair.”
“It was a chair on wheels, which Prince EvenFancierPants McElferson used to get about, pushed along by one of his companions or one of his many attending servants.”
“But it’s a high realm magical fantas—”
“It was a floating chair, the hum of magical energy keeping it off the ground casting a faint glow against the cobblestones as {CHARACTER} guided it round with expert ease, gliding back and forth.”
“But it’s a stempunk nov—”
“Unlike other wheelchairs he’d seen before, this one appeared to be self propelling, powered by the gasket of steam at the back, and directed by the use of a rudder like toggle in the front.”
Give. Disabled. Characters. In. Fantasy. Novels. Mobility. Aids.
If you can spend 60 pages telling me the history of your world in innate detail down to the formation of how magical rocks were formed, you can god damn write three lines in passing about a wheelchair.
Signed, your editor who doesn’t have time for this ableist fantasy realm shit.
If your fantasy setting is having trouble with things like “What other cultures exist in this universe and how do they get on?” or “How do diabled people live?” or “How’s gender work here?” without sounding like Your Conservative Aunt Edna That You Really Wish You Didn’t Have To Be Nice To At Thanksgiving, it’s a good sign that you need to go back, not to the drawing board, but to yourself and your real world, and think real hard about how you’re handling those things in real life.
It’ll do you and your writing a literal world of good.
Okay but like
Do we have to limit ourselves to wheelchairs?
Or could we have like, different kinds of mobility aids? Like we don’t have to remake the fucking wheel, but what if we want to? Like a world with cool magic should have tons of magical ways to help people get around. Same thing with technology. Like sure wheelchairs are cool but so is a guy with like, a fully controllable robot leg suit, or a paraplegic wizard who just flies around sitting on a magic cloud they’ve made solid with their spells.
Absolutely not! I used the example of wheelchairs because the person I was talking to decided to tell me that mobility aids were historically inaccurate and therefore had no place in their historical fantasy novel setting. So I went the entire hell out of my way to drag them behind historically accurate wheelchairs. I actually have another post circulating at the moment that talks about the use of other aids and how magic and other things could work as a mobility aid. I just switched to mobile so I can’t link, but if you scroll my blog you’ll find it.
This is all I’ve been talking about today because it’s all anyone will let me talk about lol.
Do you think it’s ok to say “rolling chair” or “wheeled chair” to sound slightly more old-timey and avoid the tiffany problem
Yep. Another old timey accurate term was “bath chair”. If that helps.
yep another old
timey accurate term was
“bath chair” if that helps
^Haiku^bot^9. I detect haikus with 5-7-5 format. Sometimes I make mistakes.
Just for once I’d like to tell the gate agents and flight attendants that my folding wheelchair is going into the onboard closet and not have them tell me there’s “no room”. Bitch that’s a wheelchair closet, not a “your bags” closet. Move your damn bags where they belong.
Ok, so according to my friendly aviation expert, this is a Big Fucking Deal. In fact, if an airline argues with you about putting your wheelchair in the wheelchair closet or even suggests there may not be room, unless there is already anotherpassenger’swheelchair in that closet, they have violatedfederallaw.
CFR Title 14, Chapter II, Subchapter D, Part 382, Subpart E, Section 382.67, Subsection (e)
“As a carrier, you must never request or suggest that a passenger not stow his or her wheelchair in the cabin to accommodate other passengers (e.g., informing a passenger that stowing his or her wheelchair in the cabin will require other passengers to be removed from the flight), or for any other non-safety related reason (e.g., that it is easier for the carrier if the wheelchair is stowed in the cargo compartment).”
This is hugely important because it means that if this happens to you, you should report their asses to the DOT. Why? Because these statistics are published every year for every airline, and the airline gets a huge ass fine for every violation. If we want to see change, we need to make airlines literally pay every time they treat us this way.
@annieelainey you should share this with your followers! This is important info!!
To my mutuals on wheels, print out the law before you fly and whip it out at the gate if they don’t accomodate your wheels.
Thanks a lot for posting this, bro! Flying while crippled is already difficult enough without people pulling this kind of shit. Also, make sure that if there is a piece of your wheelchair or something important missing off of it, that you make a big fucking deal out of it! I’ve had pieces fall off of my wheelchair and nearly lost a decoration I had on it that meant a lot to me because people were careless with my chair. Don’t let them mistreat your wheelchair.
Non-wheelchair folks:
Now that you know, speak up.
You never know when you’re going to see someone who needs an ally.
I was actually looking for this post the other day for someone who was worried about flying with their chair. I can’t remember your username, but here! this is the thing I was talking about!
people are STILL OUT HERE IN 2018 W BLACK TEXT ON DARK PURPLE AND DARK BLUE BACKGROUNDS. WHY.
lads, literally the very first rule of web design is READABILITY.
you have to have contrast between your background and your text.
like…….you pretty much can’t have a dark background if you have black text because it’s super difficult to read; if i have to highlight and puzzle out what your text says because it’s two shades different than your background? i and 95% of people looking at your page are going to hit that back button REAL fast
Can we make readability the second rule and ACCESSIBILITY the first?
Because if your font is tiny, I don’t care how good the color-contrast is. I’m hitting that back button so fast, your whole damn page won’t have time to load, 99% of the time. The other 1%, your content has got to be something I’m DESPERATE to read – and I need to be able to use Chrome’s “zoom” function to see your damn text.
p.s. Do you have any idea how many artsy-ass themes DON’T support “zoom”? If your theme has columns, there’s a damn good chance zoom doesn’t work. So either change your theme to have a font that people can read, make sure your theme supports zoom, or be prepared for a whole lot of people to nope right the fuck away.
Fuck man I’ve literally never even thought about this (which sounds so stupid when I type it out but that ‘s the insidiousness of abelism isn’t it? If we aren’t he ones affected we don’t think about it) but that’s ridiculous. Getting a brail menu made up can’t be that difficult. (And if it is, it shouldn’t be.) The big chain restaurants, certainly, have no excuse for not doing this. They can afford to put in that effort, can afford those extra printing costs without question. And they should be doing it, without question. But they won’t unless we say something.
So how about the next time you go into a restaurant, you ask them if they have a brail menu. Tell them you’re “checking for a friend” or whatever, I don’t care. Just ask them. Start making posts and tweets. Heck, tweet at the restaurants if they’ve got twitter accounts. If enough people ask, if enough pressure gets placed, they’ll see there’s a demand. They’ll see there’s a need, an obligation to provide a basic fucking menu that everyone can access. And maybe they’ll take steps to meet it. We can hope right?
Because the fact that this isn’t already standard practice is fucking appalling.
[ Image is a screenshot of a tweeted photo. It features a woman’s hands while reading a Braille menu. The tweet says, “My sister has been in this world 18 yrs and today is the first time she has been offered a menu at a restaurant. ]
wupacing 