Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, Or Blind Characters

Resources For Writing Deaf, Mute, or Blind Characters

 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

“The Month I Suddenly Went Deaf”

What It’s Like Going Deaf In Your Thirties

9 Women Share What It Feels Like To Lose Your Hearing

What It’s Like Being a Deaf Teenager (video)

Parenting With Sign Language (video)

Deaf Teen Talks About Losing His Hearing To Meningitis (video)

Things Not To Say To A Deaf Person (video)

Deaf Kids Shining in High School (video)

I recently discovered the youtube channel of the amazing Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, a vintage-loving, lesbian, happily married queen, who talks about her deafness in many of her videos.  I can’t recommend her enough.

Black Deaf Culture Through the Lens of Black Deaf History

Black Deaf History

Video: How to Sign in BASL (Black American Sign Language)

Mute Characters

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:

Things Not To Say To A Blind Person (video)

What It’s Like to Go Blind (video)

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.

As does Molly Burke, “a typical sushi and makeup loving millennial girl who just so happens to be blind.”

And Alyssa Irene, who talks about her experience going blind and life as a blind person.

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.

Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye

4 Ways Life Looks Shockingly Different With One Eye

Learning to Live With One Eye

Adapting to the Loss of an Eye

Adapting to Eye Loss and Monocular Vision

Monocular Depth Perception

Deaf-Blind Characters

What Is It Like To Be Deafblind?

Going Deaf and Blind in a City of Noise and Lights

Deaf and Blind by 30

Sarita is Blind, Deaf, and Employed (video)

Deaf and Blind:  Being Me (video)

Born Deaf and Blind, This Eritrean American Graduated Harvard Law School (video)

A Day of a Deaf Blind Person

Lesser Known Things About Being Deafblind

How the Deaf-Blind Communicate

Early Interactions With Children Who Are Deaf-Blind

Raising a DeafBlind Baby

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

I hope this helps, and happy writing!  <3

Artist friends, let me just tell you a thing. FUCK Wacom. Fuck Wacom and their planned obsolescence, fuck Wacom and their broken drivers, fuck Wacom and their over-priced tablets. For years we’ve dealt with them with no alternatives but let me tell you a thing.

I recently found out my Intuos 4′s Pen had broken and rather than spend £60-89 for a new one I decided to get a new tablet. Now, I could get the new “Intuos” (which is just the re-branded Bamboo) and i was going to until I found this beast.

This is the Huion  H610, it has almost twice the drawing space of the low-end Intuos and double the pressure levels. The one and only negative is that the pen requires a battery.

Not only that, it is larger than my Intuos 4 which I paid £150 for back in the day. Know how much this cost? £55. The same as the basic Intuos.

I am in LOVE with this thing. Let’s compare this with the lowest of the low end Wacom Intuos line.

                             Intuos          Huion

Active Area:     6 by 3.7 in    10" x 6.25"

Pressure Levels:  1024            2048

Hard Input Res:  2540 LPI      4000 LPI

Express Keys:          4                   8

Not to mention the Intuos is HIDEOUS with buttons that are in incredibly awkward places.

The fact that a £55 matches and exceeds the £150 Intuos 4 I bought years ago speaks worlds. And do you know what the very final nail in the coffin is?

THE DRIVERS. ACTUALLY. WORK.

It’s time Wacom had some real competition in the market, if you’re looking for a new tablet please consider a Huion over a Wacom. I used to be a Wacom fanboy too but now?

Here is the H610 on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

All I can find is good reviews on this thing and people doing the same thing I am doing, trying to convince people it’s worth it. So… You have the information, use it as you will.

https://nappy.co/ - Stock photo website with brown and black people. 

https://angelicadass.com/photography/humanae/ - Good reference for skin colors but searching her name and the project in image search gives you more results. 

https://www.earthsworld.com/ - Pictures of people at county fairs. 

https://x6ud.github.io/#/ - Let’s you move a 3d head and when you search it shows you references of animals heads at that angle.

http://referenceangle.com/ - Let’s you move a 3d head and when you search it shows you references of human heads at that angle.

this is by far the best explanation of how asexuality and sexual attraction works

Is there a website to look up models or people  to draw, with gender, ethnicity, and age filters. (if possible)?

 For example if a wanted to make a cartoon character realistic and use a real person for reference or to edit the photo to look like them?

I’ve been just googling  white 20s male, black female 40s etc. (can’t find any good references for kids either)  and been sifting through the results.

Reblog if you genuinely support asexuals

It terrifies me that there’s so much raging passion in the lgbt+ community that insist on marginalizing asexuals and implying that asexuals don’t deserve to have safe spaces. There’s still so much acephobia so I just wanna know which blogs are genuinely supportive and a safe space for asexuals