I was talking about how creative flaws can add new dimensions to a character today and so I thought I'd tell you about my favorite character of all time, Tamikia Starchaser, a blind phoenix.

Tamikia was my first furry character. While I was fascinated by the many different kinds of furry I noticed every furry character was flawless. Most where in peek physical condition and even those that where smaller or fater where still perfect. Now there is nothing wrong with that but I beleave that flaws are just as important in what makes someone an individual as anything else so that struck me as kind of "vanilla". Thus, I decided to play something different, an idea I had been playing with a while, that of a blind (but astute) character. Thus, Tamikia.

I liked haveing a character that learned to overcome her weakness and turn it into a strength. She might seem helpless to others while in reality she's a very strong woman in both body and mind. During the creation process, I started to balk however. Roleplaying is fun, so if my character has a special challenge like blindness, am I saying being blind is fun? Could this be distasteful?

But the more I thought about it, I realized that role-playing is not only for fun but also to learn. And most of the things our characters go through we would not go through ourselves. Hence, we also learn as we role-play. And "seeing" how it would be to be without sight was something I had not really contemplated before. Tamikia might not be just a vehicle for enjoyment, but one for insight as well.

I posted her story and statistics on an RP bulletin board to see what others thought. I didn't like the response. Instead of offering ideas of how she might work with her blindness much of the resulting posts revolved around how to heal it -- a lot of people thought she should not be blind.

That turned me off big time. Healing her imperfections would only take away what made her special. A flaw in her design set her part from other characters and introduced a creative challenge a sighted character would not. As for game mechanics, I reasoned that since she was blind from birth, a simple healing spell wouldn't work since she never saw anyway. It was just the way her body had always been.

And from the reading I've done, I know that becoming suddenly sighted is not the miracle most people think it would be, if you have been blind from birth or early childhood. In fact, only a handful of such cases have been recorded, and most of them end sadly -- the person cannot adapt, gets lost in their own house which seems suddenly so foreign, and sometimes even suicides. So, I'd not only rule out curative spells but also ones that could allow her temporary vision such as clairvoyance. Tamikia simply does not know how to see, even if she were suddenly granted the ability.

As for Tamikia, she didn't need healed. She's the best I ever had.