Deafosphere
Where truth gets lost in translation
Derrick Reid is Deaf but that's not his problem.
His problem is that no one in the publishing world gives a damn about what he actually wants to say. For 5 years, Derrick's been working on his masterpiece, a 3000 page punch to the gut called The Silence Within. Not some sob story. A brutal, unflinching look at Deaf culture - Deaf people as they are, not some cute, sanitized version for the hearing masses. It's dense. It's real.
It's got stories within stories, generations of Deaf families, a gritty epic about identity, language, and the way the world treats you like you're invisible unless you're convenient.
But the publishing world? They don't care about real. They care about money. They want a bestseller, not some "literary doorstop." Every meeting with a literary agent, every rejection email, it's the same old crap.
"Derrick, you've got talent but can you make it more... inspiring?”
"Derrick, can you give us a Deaf hero who overcomes their disability?"
"Derrick, we need something the hearing reader will feel good about."
In other words, they want Deaf Inspiration Porn. Cue the vomit.
But Derrick is broke. His bills are stacking up. And honestly? He's getting tired. Tired of the grind. Tired of fighting to be heard - ironically, in a world that's deaf to the Deaf.
So, one night, after downing half a bottle of mezcal, and watching some mediocre Netflix movie where a Deaf kid learns how to dance through the magic of Cochlear Implants and good vibes, Derrick has an idea. A sick, twisted, genius idea.
He's going to write exactly what they want.
Enter "Miracle Ears." It's everything Derrick hates, wrapped in a shiny bow for the hearing folks to eat up. The plot?
A Deaf kid, let's call him Johnny Silent, overcomes his tragic, silent world by undergoing a revolutionary brainstem surgery called the Sonic Link. This procedure rewires brain pathways, allowing Johnny to “hear” vibrations in a way no hearing aid or implant can replicate - something truly miraculous and completely unattainable for most Deaf people, including Derrick. The surgery becomes a media sensation, and Johnny quickly rises to fame as a YouTube sensation, and winning America's heart.
There's a meet-cute with a hearing girl who doesn't understand ASL but learns to "hear" him through the power of love. There's an evil Deaf community leader who hates progress and technology and tries to keep Johnny from reaching his dreams. By the end, Johnny stands on a stage at TEDx, holding up a model of the surgery apparatus, saying "This saved my life.”
It's absolute garbage. And Derrick knows it.
The joke is, nobody else does. Not his agent. Not the publishers. Definitely not the public. Everyone loves it. The book gets picked up by a big publisher, plastered with a cover featuring a smiling kid, hands outstretched to the sky, and a tagline like "hear the miracle within." The hearing world really eats it up like it's the second coming of Helen Keller. Derrick? He's rolling in the money. He's doing interviews.
He's the Deaf voice America has been waiting for, and he hates every second of it.
Each interview is a nightmare. Each question a reminder of the world's obsession with "fixing" Deaf people.
"How did it feel to write such an inspiring story?"
"What does it mean for you, as a Deaf man, to help the world see your struggle?"
Derrick wants to scream. Or laugh. Or both. But he smiles. He says the lines. He sells the lie. And each time, a little piece of his soul dies. But the kicker?
He starts to like it.
The money. The attention. The way people look at him now, like he's finally someone worth listening to. Deep down, he knows it's a trap. but he keeps walking into it. Success tastes way too good. He tells himself he'll get out. He'll publish The Silence Within next, on his own terms, with his own money. But it's a lie, and he knows it. Because now Derrick is Johnny Silent. He's the miracle boy. The puppet.
And the world keeps applauding.
But not everyone.
The Deaf community? They see RIGHT through it. They see Johnny Silent for what it is: pure, unfiltered Deaf inspiration porn. Deaf Social Media goes batshit. There’s fiery ASL vlogs ripping Miracle Ears apart, calling it “the most damaging thing to Deaf culture since AGB invented the telephone!” Comments sections a bloodbath. Deaf activists rage that Derrick, their supposed advocate, sold them out for mainstream acceptance, painting Deafness not as a culture but a tragedy to be “cure” for the comfort of the hearing.
Derrick Reid is sinking deeper into the quicksand he created.
Trapped by the success of Miracle Ears.
The money keeps rolling in. The invitation keep piling up. Book tours. It all feels like a gilded cage. What started as a sick joke has consumed him. He should feel on top of the world, but instead, he feels like he’s sinking.
He spends his nights staring at the blinking cursor on his laptop, the sequel looming like a shadow. Johnny Silent’s Next Chapter. That’s the working title, straight from his publisher. It makes Derrick’s stomach churn. He scrolls through emails, skimming invitations and praise, barely reading the words anymore.
Then there’s Mo Rivers. Viral vlogs. Angry tweets. A rising storm of Deaf voices calling Derrick a sellout.
“This is the guy who represents us?” she signs in one video, her expression sharp as glass. “White Deaf Boy sold out our culture for clout.”
The comments flood in. Deaf viewers praise her courage. Hearing viewers chime in, confused, unsure who to believe. Derrick watches the video from his hotel room, the glow of the screen like a searchlight finding him in the dark.
He leans back in his chair, cracking his knuckles, trying to shake the image of Mo’s face out of his head. “Gatekeeper,” he mutters to himself. That’s what she is, right? A relic of the “old Deaf world,” clinging to outdated notions of culture. The hearing public loves that angle, and Derrick leans into it during interviews.
“Mo’s yelling from another era,” Derrick tells one reporter, forcing a smile. “They’re stuck in the past, while I’m trying to build a bridge to the future.”
The reporter nods, scribbling notes, eating up every word. Derrick knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s painting himself as the progressive hero, the revolutionary who dares to challenge the Deaf community’s status quo. And it’s working. For now.
He’s their golden boy, their miracle, their success story. And Mo? Mo’s just another angry, bitter Deaf activist who doesn’t get it. But every time he sees Mo’s videos, her hands flying through the air with brutal precision, he feels the foundation cracking beneath him.
The public loves it — Derrick, the lone hero, fighting against his “backwards” community. Mo becomes Miracle Ears’ villain, and Derrick spins the narrative for the cameras, even though he know she’s right.
The more Mo fights, the more Miracle Ears sells. Mo leads protests outside of Derrick’s book signings, schools that adopts Miracle Ears, and any venue hosting his TED talks. The signs they hold up scream things like “DEAF GAIN, NOT DEAF SHAME!” and “DERRICK REID SPEAKS FOR YOU, NOT US” The Deaf community’s outrage grows, but the hearing world? They don’t care. The protests only drive the book’s popularity. They turn Mo’s resistance into proof that Derrick’s message is “revolutionary.” The more Mo fights, the more Derrick wins.
It’s a perverse cycle. Derrick became the hearing world’s mouthpiece for what Deafness “should” be while his own people burn him in effigy. His name is signed with disdain in Deaf circles, ASL students are warned against him in classrooms and Deaf media outlets refuse to bring him up without a scathing critique. Yet every steps he takes into this nightmare, the louder the applause.
Derrick sits in a hotel room, staring at the blinking cursor on his laptop. He’s supposed to be writing the sequel to Miracle Ears. It’s already sold a million pre-orders. They want to know what happens next to Johnny Silent. Derrick wonders the same thing.
In hotel rooms, between media appearances, Derrick watches Mo’s furious videos on social media, his heart pounding. He doesn’t feel like a hero. He feels like the villain of his own story. But no matter how much money or fame he gains, there’s that constant gnawing in the back of his mind. He’s betrayed his own, abandoning The Silence Within and publishing Miracle Ears, he sees the zeroes on his bank account, basks in the cheers of the audience, and remembers how the world didn’t want him. They wanted Johnny Silent.
Meanwhile Mo Rivers is gearing up for something big - a national campaign to expose Derrick for the fraud he’s become. It’s only a matter of time before their paths collide in some public showdown. Derrick knows it’s coming and he doesn’t know if he’ll fight back or just let Mo bury him for once and all.
The world keeps applauding, and Derrick keeps sinking.
Everything’s gone corporate. Miracle Ears isn’t just a book anymore. It’s a brand. A franchise. It’s a deaf-kid-gets-his-life-back fairy tale sold in Wal-Mart. Netflix special. Reese’s Book Club. And Derrick? He’s cashing checks faster than he can spend them.
Meanwhile, The Silence Within, his real work, his soul, gathers dust. Forgotten. Or so he thinks.
That is, until Mo Rivers gets her hands on it.
Nobody knows how Mo got the manuscript. A leak from an agent? A well-placed bribe? Maybe Derrick’s own guilt slipped it into Mo’s hands. Doesn’t matter. What matters is, Mo’s not keeping it to herself. She’s got a plan. A big one.
One night, out of nowhere, Mo goes live on Instagram. Facebook. TikTok. Every platform that matters. Every Deaf person with a smartphone gets the notification. And Mo? She’s sitting there, eyes locked on the camera, with a copy of The Silence Within in her lap. A thick, battered manuscript that Derrick thought would never see the light of the day.
And here’s the kicker: Mo’s got a voice-appropriate interpreter. Off-screen. Speaking to the hearing world as she signs.
“This,” Mo starts, holding up the manuscript, “is the book Derrick Reid doesn’t want you to read.”
And then, she begins to read. Word for word. Page by page. Derrick’s raw, unfiltered, brutal take on Deaf life. No more “Johnny Silent.” No more inspiration porn. It’s everything Derrick wanted to say, but couldn’t. It’s the truth about Deafness, Deaf culture, the grind, the struggle, the real stories of Deaf people who don’t need saving. Who don’t want to be fixed.
She opens to the first passage, reading Derrick’s words in stark, unfiltered honesty:
"Silence doesn’t weigh a thing, but for the Deaf it’s as real as the shadow cast by a monolith. A thing taken for granted by the hearing, but here, in this community, it’s the hard substance we move through, thick as fog, swallowing our language whole. Every ASL gesture a reach against it, every word signed a defiance of the emptiness imposed from outside."
Then, another passage:
"The hearing world loves us when we stay out of sight or play their inspiration games. If we want to be proud, to be Deaf with a capital D, they call us arrogant. If we sign to each other, they call us secretive, like we’re hiding. But the irony is, they hide from us every day, turning a deaf ear to the reality they refuse to see."
For an hour, Mo reads. In her fierce, precise ASL, punctuated by the voice interpreter, she peels back the curtain on Derrick’s soul. By the time she’s done, the internet is on fire.
#TheSilenceWithin starts trending on multiple platforms within minutes. Hearing people, Deaf people, everyone’s watching, and they’re losing their minds. Mo calls out Derrick directly: “This is what Derrick should have shared with the world. But he didn’t. White Deaf Boy sold you out. For money. For fame. He betrayed us all.”
Deaf forums explode. The Deafosphere feed the fires. Vloggers dissect every word. The hearing world? They’re confused. They loved Miracle Ears, but now they’re starting to wonder if they’ve been lied to. Fans start demanding answers. Comment sections flood with: “Is this true? Why didn’t he publish this?”
The backlash is swift. Miracle Ears sales start to take a dip. Derrick’s phone blows up with calls from his agent, his publisher, his publicist. They all want to know the same thing: DID YOU WRITE THIS?
And Derrick? He’s watching Mo’s livestream on his phone, frozen. His worst nightmare, unraveling in real-time. The truth is out.
His inbox floods with angry messages from Deaf activists, betrayal laced in every word. The hearing fans who worshipped him? They’re confused, lost in the crossfire. Derrick’s entire brand, built on Johnny Silent, is collapsing.
And for a second - a brief, terrifying second - Derrick feels relief.
But it doesn’t last.
Now, the spotlight’s on him. There’s no running from it. The Deaf community is calling for his head. The hearing world wants answers. His publisher is panicking, wondering if this will sink the sequel or somehow turn it into a scandal-fueled bestseller.
And Mo? she’s not done. The livestream ends with a final blow: “Derrick Reid, you’ve got one chance to fix this. Come clean. Publish The Silence Within. Or disappear.”
The internet goes dark. Derrick’s left staring at his phone, his life burning down around him.
And somewhere deep down, past the anger, past the fear, a question gnaws at him: What now?
Does he fight? Does he crawl back into the lie, double down on Johnny Silent? Or does he finally take control of his own story, even if it means burning everything else to the ground?
Because in this moment, Derrick knows: Mo’s won. One way or another, everything’s going to change. And the only question left is—how much of himself is Derrick willing to lose?
He sits alone in his apartment, surrounded by the wreckage of his life. Unopened emails, interview requests, another invitation to speak at a conference. Fan mail from hearing parents, donations to the Johnny Silent Foundation, followers showering him with praise for being “such an inspiration.” Meanwhile, his inbox is full of messages from the Deaf community, the ones who know better, the ones who once called him a hero. Now they call him worse. Sellout. Traitor. Liar.
But here, in his lap, is The Silence Within. All three thousand pages of it. The manuscript no one wanted—until Mo Rivers read excerpts of it, to the world. Derrick turns to his laptop screen, his finger hovering over the “Publish” button. Just one click, and it’s out. The truth of Deaf culture. His truth. The one the world wasn’t ready for. The one that could burn Miracle Ears to the ground, destroy Johnny Silent, and take everything with it.
Or he could do nothing. Leave the file in his drafts. Watch as the fire burns down to embers, let the world forget this scandal and move on. Let Miracle Ears continue, keep playing the part, and become the Deaf hero everyone wants him to be.
His hand hovers over the keyboard. Just one click.
He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and