Dear Readers,

I bought my first white cane on Amazon in the winter of 2021. I was 38 years old. By that point, I'd already gotten used to shoulder-checking things—doorways, counters, the occasional innocent bystander. It was just part of life. But with the cane, that never happens anymore.

I've spent my whole life overcoming my visual impairment. The editor's desk here at the Arcade has huge monitors on arms that I can swing around to meet different use cases. I learned how to navigate mostly by keyboard, reducing the times I needed to look at the screen. Life threw me a problem, and I found a way around it. I was taught to see those tools but to always hide my disability, for fear that people would judge me for it.

For me, adapting always means learning new tools. The cane was just another example in a long line of "shit I invented because I needed it to exist or ope, can't see to do the things I love anymore." Learning how to swing a cane around gave me newfound confidence to go out on walks, knowing I wouldn't trip or run into anything on the way.

But if the cane excited me, the state of blind technology let me down in a huge way. One thing that bothers me deeply is just how behind accessibility technology is. The problem isn't the talent; there are brilliant blind and low-vision technologists out there. The problem isn't the tech itself; we have the processing power and tools to make accessible experiences for everyone.

Maybe, I think, maybe the problem is that we don't encourage blind and disabled people to overcome. We teach them to need.

I don't mean that literally. We teach blind people how to survive in a sighted world, but we don't often teach them how to thrive in one. We teach an order that is still sight first:

  • "This audio description will speak the things you can't see."
  • "This app reads for you."
  • "I'll* help you* with the menu; i know you can't see it.."

Look, you get the idea. We don't teach the sighted world how to design for accessibility from the ground up to ensure our inclusion. Companies patch over the gaps with expensive tools or mothballed "braille menus" that help us "get by" rather than building systems that don't exclude in the first place.

And that's not even getting into queer and trans exclusion in this handwaves everything falling apart world, or the needs of other disabled people, but I digress.

Experiences like this are why I want to write Toonpunk. I want to create blind-first content. Queer-but-still-inclusive games. Entertainment that anyone can access. Not just because it's only good for people like me, but because the tooling required to make blind-first content creates new experiences for everyone, regardless of their sight. I may not have all the same tools as you, but I can still create, design, and delight in ways that don't rely on sight alone.

And I guarantee you, I have one of if not the most interesting life stories to tell. It's not even close, and I will prove that to you in Toonpunk.

Look, what I'm trying to say is that my solutions will, by default, be unique and worth sharing. What happens when you release Max Arcade on an impossible problem? You get an impossible solution.

I'm tired of playing by the rules of people who want to erase us—whether "us" means the disabled, the trans, the marginalized, the Troons and targets of a ridicule and shame that wants us to go away. Well, if they're going to call us Troons and oversensitive freaks, then dammit, I'm going to own it.

So if they think we're freaks? Good. Let's build a world where freaks like us thrive, where our voices aren't just heard but impossible to ignore. Let's make some goddamn noise.

I'm a Toon. I don't care who knows it!

With ink-stained hands and an open heart,
Max Arcade, Editor-in-Chief, Toonpunk