Deafawareness - Blog Posts

Have been tasked with coming up with my asl name and I should not have been handed this kind of power.

Knowing myself, I'll probably end up giving myself a name that could very well be tumblr username.

And yes, I am taking suggestions

i got my tongue pierced (go with me on this) and i can talk for about five minutes before it starts to get irritated and sore, so i stop talking. except i live a fairly busy life and cant just stop talking and multiple times, during the day (i am on day 1 of the piercing and not doing very well tbh) i have remarked - both to my family and myself - that if i knew sign language it would make my life easier.

Sign language could make everyones lives easier, deaf or not. Communicating across a room, keeping a secret, trying to plan a surprise, including deaf people in a large conversation where there's no time to repeat it to them (if they can lip read), hell even cheating on a test would be easier! as a language, it's possibly one of the only ones that would genuinly make everybodies life easier to know. It should at least be an option to learn in schools, if not mandatory.

reblog if you think sign language should be taught as a language in schools.

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As a Deaf person, I appreciate this person’s want to offer some form of representation of the Deaf community despite them being hearing themself. However, I don’t believe it’s correct to do so without having the most basic knowledge on the language we use to communicate. It’s easy to know when the author doesn’t know anything about the culture they’re trying to write. Like OP mentioned, it’s not to be fluent in sign language, but it’d be nice to actually delve into your character enough that you learn a little bit. Otherwise, this lack of investment makes the Deaf reader feel very used and/or like you didn’t really bother getting to know us as a community to begin with — a feeling we know all too well. We’re so much more than what people think, I guarantee you’ll be surprised.

Something I think could be helpful is to ask yourself why you want to write a Deaf character?

Anyway, I wish you and anyone else who wants to write Deaf characters well.

I have a question, if it's not too much of a bother. I'm a hearing writer who describes tones and voices more than anything, maybe. I have a character who is deafened near the end of my story and learns sign language to communicate. I've read posts saying that instead of describing a loud voice, for example, I should talk about exaggerated movements in sign. Now, I don't understand sign (the particular character learns BSL). How do I do the description anyway? Thanks, Luna 💛

Hi! I answered this ages ago but Tumblr is a piece of shit and didn’t upload the answer (•ˋ _ ˊ•) But anyhow, take two: 

Don’t worry about the description until you’re ready to edit your manuscript over with a fine tooth comb, or you’ll never get anything written. Being a hearing writer, you’ll be used to sounds, and that’s okay! I’ll come back to the actual craft in a moment, but before I do, your ask has a few points in that I’d like to address. 

Firstly, make sure you understand at least some sign. I’m not saying that you need to learn to speak the language fluently or anything, but it would be awesome if you could do some research into the basics such as grammar and facial punctuation. Once you’ve got those straight in your head, it ought to be easier to describe the signed dialogue in a more natural way. 

Secondly, I highly doubt your character is 100% Deaf. That is incredibly rare. It’s more likely that your character will have a limited amount of residual hearing–ie, they can hear noises that are low-pitched and high-volume, but the sound is “murky” or unclear. So while some background sounds could filter through to them, others wouldn’t even register. Whether they can hear human speech or not depends on the levels of hearing loss. (I talk a bit about the levels of Deafness in this post; you should do some further research yourself)

As for the craft itself, here’s the method I use for editing: 

Find all of the instances where you’ve described a sound and highlight them (either by hand or with something like Word’s highlighter tool)

You could also use the Find or Search tool to hunt down any sound descriptors by searching for hearing buzzwords like heard, sound, loud, quiet, noise etc

Some of these descriptions won’t even be necessary, which is a normal part of editing whether you’re writing a Deaf character or not

But once you’ve found the necessary descriptors, see if there is something that they can be replaced with

For example, instead of “The leaves on the trees whispered in the wind” you could write about the source of the sound: “She could see the tree branches shiver in the rising wind out of the corner of her eye.” 

Or maybe focus on another sense–there are four left, after all!

Sight, taste, smell and touch will all be compensating for the lack of sound. Use them. 

It’ll take some re-training, but you’ll get there eventually. Practise and experimenting is key

And for dialogue, here is a list of what you’ll want to be taking note of: 

facial expressions

body language

proxemics (ie, does one character move nearer to the other or away?) 

tics or non-sign actions (fiddling with clothes, tugging hair, shifting weight from foot to foot etc)

Hope this helps!

TW RANT, ABLEISM

You probably don't know about it but I'm hard of hearing, i was abused in elementary school for eight years.

My whole family thinks that i was "bullied" bc of jealousy of my grades but i know that it just simply never happend.

Those kids abused me because I am different. They hated me, my teachers treated me differently (that was unfair, i only needed some help and not judgment), all of my classmates were gossping how my disability can make them sick. When a boy was diagnosed with ADHD - it was my fault (how? I have no idea).

Nobody told them that their words hurt me deeply, that they made me cry almost every day. Nobody helped me. Nobody believed me. I was the only disabled kid at school (well, idk if ADHD is a disability so...).

Library was my safe space and they banned me from my fucking safe space. They made me talk to people who hated me for existing. When I was in kindergarden my mouth wouldn't shut up but at school I was too afraid to speak when i wasnt asked.

And yet nobody thought that kid that once couldn't shut up is so quiet is very suspicious.

That wasn't bullying, that was straight up abuse

As a person who wears hearing aids I really want to clear some mistakes that appears while writing deaf!clint :) (idk if that sentence makes any sense lol)

1. You can sleep with hearing aid, it's not that uncomfortable as you read in those fics. You can sleep comfortable because everything depends how your head is lying on a pillow. You can press your ear to the pillow and still sleep — but only if that weird noise doesn't bother you bc if it does, it can be uncomfortable. People (including me) don't sleep with them just because it is not Eco friendly. Like if you have hearing aid with batteries, you have to buy more of them bc usually batteries rest for a week when you turn off them at night and turn on at day. And if you have hearing aid that you have to charge — they last for only 21 hours and then you have to charge them. The best option is just charging hearing aid at night.

2. Technically there is no hearing aids for adults that have a fun color BUT if you have a small ear you can use the child one (well, you have to change the program and the child aid doesn't have that many options but it is a possibility). Also you can buy stickers for hearing aids to make them more unique :D

3. There is a lot of companies that makes hearing aids but the most popular are Phonak and Oticon. I have the Phonak one and I'm very happy with it.

4. They're fucking EXPENSIVE. In Poland one hearing aid is for like 6000 polish zloty (that's my mom's salary lol) but the goverment helps people with buying them so i didn't have pay 12000 polish zloty. I paid only like 2000 polish zloty for two? And my hearing aid ISN'T like the best quality — the best one is like for 12000 polish zloty for one hearing aid!!!!

5. There are two kinds of the part you out directly in your ear — one of them is totally build up and with the other one you can feel the wind in your ear (I have to admit that I almost cried when i felt the wind in my ears for the first time lol)

6. I've talked with other deaf people and we all agreed that when you are used to hearing aid, not wearing it can make you anxious. Like I wish I was joking but I'm not.

7. Fucking wind. Like when the day is very windy you don't hear anything bc of the wind.

8. If you are born deaf (just like me for example) there is a high possibility that for some people your voice will sound weird. Maybe bc your voice can be a little bit higher? Idk tbh.

9. Yes, we can meet ableism. There are people that think that they can be ableists bc they don't see the hearing aids.

I think that's all. Hope that helps!!!