For the most part they seem to be pretty interchangeable, but some people do prefer one over the other. There are also many of us who actually do not prefer any term like that at all, and actually just prefer “blind,“ as a much more straightforward, functional definition that doesn’t feel as clunky. For me, personally, “visually impaired“ and similar terms come with too many implications of visual strain and all of the terrible school officials that forced that terminology on me, when nowadays I can just ignore my eyes and be a lot happier, no matter how much residual vision I have. It feels too much like being called a broken sighted person, so I am much happier being a full and complete blind person.
A little bit of clarification:
Personally, I do not like any of those terms like “low vision“ or “visually impaired“ or “optically precluded“ or what have you, because frankly, most of those terms were created by sighted people, the sighted people who categorize and label is based on how much residual vision we have, creating a twisted hierarchy of “normal“ and “functional“ entirely based on how much vision we have left, something that is entirely false and incredibly damaging to every blind person’s psyche.
It does not, and I repeat it absolutely does NOT matter how much residual vision you have in the slightest. Every single blind or low vision person is capable of the exact same things, and more vision does not make you better or better off or more capable and less vision does not make you worse and worse off or less capable at all. A totally blind person can do everything just as efficiently and effectively as somebody who barely even crosses the threshold into legal blindness, because with the right skills, tools, confidence, and resources, any level of blindness can be reduced to no more than a mirror inconvenience, and that is entirely true.
So frankly, I don’t believe in the visual hierarchy, and while I used to use terms like “visually impaired“ as my primary identification when I was younger, those days were very much the days fraught with internalized ableism and painfully low self-esteem and a desperate desire to cling onto whatever vision I had left, thinking more was better no matter what. I didn’t know a lick of braille, I never left the house by myself and refused to go out at night, I used ridiculous magnification system after ridiculous magnification system to read at a crawling 30 words per minute, but I thought because I “didn’t need a cane“ that I was fine and wasn’t “really blind“ and would never be like those REAL blind people. They were pitiful and I wasn’t pitiful. And more often than not, it seems most other people who use those terms tend to also be using them with similar motivations to my younger self, and it is an incredibly common story.
This isn’t to say that people are not allowed to use the language they want, because people can have all sorts of reasons for choosing the words they do, and they may not be choosing them out of internalized ableism and may have completely different motives. And even if they are using those terms because of internalized ableism, that is a journey that they will need to take for themselves and they may not be ready for the word “blind“ and it is not a journey you can force the ending you think it should have on too. Everyone is at different places, and part of being a community is taking everyone where they are and allowing them to grow at their own pace.
But I, personally, am not fond of those terms, and will not typically use them on this blog and I’m not especially comfortable being referred to with them. I have residual vision, as many blind people do, but I am a very capable blind person who is no better than any other blind person with any less vision than me. I am not fond of using terms created by uneducated sighted “professionals,“ and I am not comfortable reinforcing the visual hierarchy, so I much prefer to remain universally with blindness in all areas of life.
Whut? Optically precluded!? Is an actual term that people use?! What silly terms will non-disabled people come up with next!
For deafness, someone once told me they had seen the term “audiologically incapacitated” which I think is one of the more silly terms I’ve seen for deafness.
www.paypal.me/calebcinaedHello loves, I have a very good chance of getting this wheelchair on Sunday afternoon for the amazing price of $260 which I currently don’t have. I can’t afford to pass this up, so if you’re able to donate, I would greatly appreciate it! My hips, knees, and ankles will thank you too!
Forced Safe Mode just went live. Go into your account settings to check for the changes.
I literally just had to do this because it hid a drawing of a cat from me. It was a really good drawing.
Even if you’ve already turned off this nonsense before, it is probably turned back on again. I checked mine a week ago, when I first saw a resurgence of these posts and it was off. Today it was on.
Sometimes I think back on the time I spent working as a barista, and it seems SO STRANGE to me that “coffee shop AU” has become synonymous with narratives that are low on conflict, high on wholesome romance. During the year I spent working at a coffee shop:
A coworker of mine took a bunch of psychedelics, walked through some strangers’ plate-glass door, and threatened them with a bowie knife, leading to his arrest and imprisonment (and, needless to say, a late opening for the coffee shop that morning).
Another coworker, an ex-military type with a young wife and a new baby, decided to smoke up for the first time ever with two other mutual coworkers, in the back of one of their trucks; and ended up having a three-way with them which ended his marriage.
I had a nervous breakdown, stopped being able to eat food or hold conversations, and ended up sleeping on my coworker’s couch for three weeks before she finally called my parents to come collect me.
Multiple store managers were fired for embezzlement. (Reminder: this was within the space of a single year.)
Yet another coworker, who was seventeen at the time, started dog-sitting for a couple of regulars in their (I’m guessing) early 50s, and ended up in an ongoing creepy and incidentally illegal ~relationship~ with them both.
Various employees discovered, in the course of cleaning the bathrooms: couples fucking in the bathrooms; junkies passed out in the bathrooms; drunks puking in the bathrooms; both adults and children weeping in the bathrooms; a woman bleeding all over the bathroom from a gash in her throat (??); a dude standing in the middle of the bathroom floor and pissing in the opposite direction from the toilet, so that when the employee opened the unlocked door she got piss all over her (????).
The owner of the bridal shop across the street was exposed as both abusive toward her employees and also cooking the books, which led to my coffee shop taking on a couple of untrained and weirdly conservative bridal shop workers for a few months while the bridal shop was shuttered and sold to new owners. Later the larcenous former bridal shop owner came down with some horrible disease which caused her to lose both her hands.
There was a regular universally referred to as “Sketchy Steve,” who came in at 7am for a three-shot latte with room for Seagrams 7, and dealt drugs to all us baristas. I actually, at one point (I cannot believe I was this stupid), went inside Sketchy Steve’s house, and allowed him to spend like half an hour showing me his collection of découpaged outlet plates and also soliciting me for sex while I uncomfortably yet studiously declined.
Right before I started, the store manager had walked off the job in the middle of a shift, and ¾ of the employees had walked out after him. None of them ever returned.
Like, working on the front lines of food service was the most operatically sordid professional experience I have ever had, and one of the most surreal; and it is hilarious to me that THAT, of all jobs, is the one that has come to stand for soft-focus domestic romance in fandom circles.
This is the Coffee Shop AU we deserve.
Two of my managers got fired for having an affair with each other. There was this guy I never really talked to, so one time I see him and ask how his weekend was. He says “I wanted to drop some acid but I couldn’t find any.” Never saw him again.
I had a friend whose manager used to sit in the backroom doing lines of coke before opening at 7am. It was and I quote ‘the only way to deal with this shit’.
My own manager, who was heavily pregnant at the time, told an asshole customer to take their latte and shove it up their arse, before walking out and promptly going into labor.
We had homeless people sleeping in our dumpsters who used to throw the trash back out at us when we opened the lid.
I have myself uttered the phrase “M’am, I am the manager” after they dumped a cream cake over my head because it wasn’t what they ordered except it was. They even pointed at it first and said “that one”.
I had a customer piss themselves out of defiance when we asked them to leave. Then when the police were called they did it again, like some vengeful piss camel.
I’m telling you friends, I have stood at the precipice of hell, I have stared into the void and plummeted into the depths of humanity and it tips less than 20%.
Found it. The origins of everyone starting to send me the phrase Vengeful Piss Camel instead of Crucifix Nail Nipples for a short time. Amazing. I do not miss catering.
Tales from the world of discount retail:
One of the ASMs told us in casual conversation while setting up Easter merch that he used to be a stripper. He happened to be holding giant bunny figurines. I was holding mugs with Jesus themed phrasing on them. He then told me I should listen to more Sia. He was correct.
A boyfriend and girlfriend work together. For two months I thought they were brother and sister. He does not deserve her.
One woman compulsively lies about everything. EVERYTHING. We have no clue when she’s telling the truth. It’s great entertainment.
One woman’s family collectively makes up the law enforcement for an entire county. She also has three degrees and a PhD and is hilariously anti-Trump.
One of the young men working there just… Straight up disappears? Like we’ll lose him for hours and then he’ll just show up again? Amazing.
There is a teenage girl working there who is abjectly the worst at customer service and still somehow has a job. Despite multiple customer complaints.
The manager never leaves the store. We’ll think he’ll be gone and then he’ll just wheel out another display to be set up. “Didn’t you go home?” No. He’s been here the whole time. He never left. He never leaves. This is not a retail Gothic post my manager is just some sort of fae creature capable of blinking in and out of this dimension.
So lately I’ve been seeing a post called “Don’t get a Dory” going around. I get it. The intentions of this post are good! But saying things like saltwater fish suffer in captivity, and that all saltwater fish are wild caught, is dangerous and incorrect. Skimming through the reblogs on that post, I have seen several people ask if they should start buying sw fish with the intent of either “donating” them to zoos/aquariums or releasing them into the wild. LET’S STOP RIGHT THERE. What makes you think that zoos/aquariums want those fish? You’d just be stuck with sw fish you are not prepared or knowledgeable enough to keep. Those fish die. Let’s say you release those fish into the wild. What makes you think that the ocean is one single habitat type? You release a Dory and that fish dies and potentially takes wild fish with it by introducing disease and parasites that native fish/inverts aren’t equipped to handle. If by some miracle you release a fish that can survive in the waterway you release it in, it has the potential to reproduce and drive out native species. Ever hear of the invasive lionfish epidemic in the Atlantic?
Let’s move on to another point I see brought up often: That “Finding Nemo” increased demand for clownfish. This is true! But it also increased motivations to breed clownfish in captivity. Most clownfish for sale are now aquacultured and have zero impact on reefs in the wild. We have now bred yellow tangs in captivity and I have no doubt that we will figure out how to breed blue hippo tangs as well in the near future. The biggest problems I have with these films are that Disney made aquarium products. These tank kits were inappropriate for even simple and easy fish like bettas, much less “nemos” and “dorys”.
I’ve also seen people say that saltwater fish do not belong in homes. WHY? Are you against people keeping freshwater fish? Without professional and hobbyist aquarists, we would not have captive populations of fish and corals. Owning fish is extremely important to conservation and continuing to be able to enjoy these animals in a climate that is changing.
As long as you do your research and keep them properly, saltwater fish are excellent pets. Blue hippo tangs (and tangs in general) are very long lived, intelligent, and personable fish. I’ve known blue tangs in hobbyist tanks that were in their twenties. IMO, chain pet stores should not carry saltwater fish because they often do not allow their employees to deny sales to people who will neglect or abuse those fish. And the employees are also often uneducated and not hobbyists themselves. That being said, condemning an entire industry and hobby just causes misguided instances where people will unknowingly introduce invasive species and harm wildlife with the best intentions. Not unlike the bison incident that has made headlines recently.
In short, if you find yourself wanting to rescue fish from the evils of the pet industry, EDUCATE yourself on the benefits of captivity and why hobbyist propagation of fish and coral species is so important.
This is such a good post, especially the part about hobbyists efforts to grow and conserve corals in captivity, which may one day in the future be the saving grace of all corals.
They have actually successfully bred blue hippo tangs in captivity! There haven’t been many yet but the first ones were born sometime last year so hopefully soon we start getting some captive bred ones available!
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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