[@SleepingSilence]

This is all good points! I had thought about them having a journal to write with, or more accurately, there is another character in the group that carries around a notebook to draw in frequently, so they would have access to something to write with. Gestures, body language, and the like work really well, and I think that can get me a long way. I shy away from sign language because of how hard it would be to accurately articulate them, and because in my admittedly bare bones research for selective mutism, many people with this disorder mentioned how sign language was helpful, but often times they couldn't muster that either. No other character in the roleplay would reasonably know sign language either, and a big part of this character is that they never had the resources to learn proper coping mechanisms like that. They've essentially been raw dogging this.

I totally get what you mean about falling into tropes. While I was writing this character, the hardest part I found was sort of falling into that idea of 'shocking excellence'. Like, oh, they can't speak and struggle to express themself, but you turn around and they've solved the puzzle. You'd never know it, but they're actually the best saxophone player you'd ever meet. At the same time, the sort of pity party, damsel in distress, is something I absolutely want to avoid. Ultimately, I tried to make them sort of just average at most things that don't require talking, while also giving them some skills they excel in (in this case being shooting guns and painting cubist art, both of which are pretty niche for this otherwise light hearted rp).