Welcome

Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.

As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.

Deaf Characters:

Deaf characters masterpost

Deaf dialogue thread

Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)

A deaf author’s advice on deaf characters

Dialogue between deaf characters

Mute

Life as a Mute

My Silent Summer:  Life as a Mute

What It’s Like Being Mute

21 People Reveal What It’s Really Like To Be Mute

I am a 20 year old Mute, ask me anything at all!

Blind Characters:

The 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make About Blind Characters.

@referenceforwriters masterpost of resources for writing/playing blind characters.

The youtube channel of the wonderful Tommy Edison, a man blind from birth with great insight into the depiction of blind people and their lives.

An Absolute Write thread on the depiction of blind characters, with lots of different viewpoints and some great tips.

And finally, this short, handy masterpost of resources for writing blind characters.

If you have any more resources to add, let me know!  I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.

Deep voice clip: “COME.”

Dude: *starts laughing* “Thanks-”

DVC: “COME.”

Dude: *laughs harder*

DVC: “COME. COME.”

Dude: *laughs even harder* “Only one of you had to do it for it, for it-!”

DVC: “COME.”

Dude: *squeak-laughs* “Thanks, ‘preciate it.” *chuckles a bit more*

A soundbyte of Kirby’s victory dance plays in response to the superchat.

Dude: “Hoo, fuck.”

The superchat is read in a feminine text-to-speech voice: “Come.”

It’s been five months since I animated anything for fun, and I’m so happy I got to animate something that I wrote. Thank you to @themornal and @8edhead for providing the voice work for this clip, you guys knocked it out of the park and I couldn’t be more happy with how it turned out. 

Volume/headphone warning.

Wanted to try and pay homage to perhaps the best tweet in existence. Any and all credit goes to Patricia Lockwood for the original post and picture. And, of course, to darling, affronted Miette.

Some cultures lack names For a color, you see. Hence good old Homer And his “wine-dark sea.”

A usage so quaint, A phrasing so old, For verses of romance Is sheer fucking gold.

Words are in flux And meanings they drift But the word purple You’ve given short shrift.

The concept of purple, My friends, is old And refers to a pigment once precious as gold.

By crushing up molluscs From the wine-dark sea You make a dye: Imperial decree

Meant that in Rome, to wear purpura was a privilege reserved

For only the emperor!

The word ‘purple’, for clothes so fancy, Entered English By the ninth century

.

Why then are voilets Not purple in song? The dye from this mollusc, known for so long

Is almost magenta; More red than blue. The concept of purple is old, and yet new.

The dye is red, So this might be true: Roses are purple And violets are blue

English is not a tongue neat.

Words are alive, and flexible, they jibe

And from our sick brains they meet:

Rhyming with purple to the lexicon burgle,

And remember there’s more than just herbal

We can color–empurple,

(Alternatively impurple )

And we can also enrage! Bepurple!

You can’t ride a horse without a good curple

Or you’ll fall and then walk with a hirple.

Don’t forget plurals, for varied are purples,

and besprinkle–that’s called disperple.

Even rarer are names

Although that seems strange,

Recall Burkel, Myrtle, and Urkel!

Watch out for the gods

Like Akkadian Nergal

You don’t want your blood to go curdle!

A husky is curtal,

And if unspayed is fertile,

But never as much as a gerbil.

With clothes we have kirtle

And don’t forget girdle

Or how babies will gurgle