2x01 Is An Objectively Hilarious Episode When You Think About It Cause Buck Hated Eddie For What? Maybe

Lmaoooo!! <3 <3 <3!

Anytime I see those “God that rep from two years ago was so bad” posts, I think about Gravity Falls.

I think about the fact that Alex Hirsch wanted the cupid character (who appeared in ONE episode) to have the MLM/WLW symbols on his necklace, but Disney shot it down because it was seen as inappropriate for a kid’s show.

I think about the sheriff characters, who’s “relationship” was used as a running gag to laugh at. Who’s kiss in the last scene at the end of the series damn near made people go INSANE. These were two characters who were no one’s favorites and who served as comedy relief, but it was still seen as a huge win for rep because it happened at all.

I think about the fact that Gravity Falls, a show where dead animals speak in tongues as blood drips from their eyes, couldn’t have anywhere near the amount of rep that the creators wanted to add because it “wasn’t for kids”

And now we have men getting married to their husbands and women getting married to their wives on screen. We have boys with boyfriends and girls with girlfriends and characters that are purposely gnc or androgynous. We have characters with pride pins or flags in their rooms. We have cartoons like Blues Clues that have been around for AGES making entire videos dedicated to pride for kids.

Just… things get better. Representation gets better because people fight to make it happen. We can’t act like they were “basically nothing” because without them we would HAVE nothing.

Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

I think one of the big strengths of fanfiction as a medium is that it can, on average, assume the reader has a way higher degree of familiarity with canon than like…canon can. If you’re in the Star Wars AO3 tag you probably like Star Wars enough to remember more things about it than the average Star Wars-enjoying-ten-year-old. Which makes it way easier for fanwriter a to get to the juicy stuff and really engage with the worldbuilding or minor characters without having to spell out like. Who Wedge Antilles is for everyone who forgot or never noticed him in the first place. You could write a book about Wedge in the old EU because EU readers could also be assumed to be serious fans, but you can’t make a new canon Disney+ show about him. Those cost money to make and are intended for a broader audience.

And all this means that like. A good fic writer can and often will surpass canon when it comes to like. Thematic resonance and stuff, because they can really dig into something. Star Trek 2009 gave Kirk a new, more generic tragic backstory because it couldn’t expect the average moviegoer to be familiar with Kirk’s old, way more interesting tragic backstory. (Frankly, I’m not sure jj abrams knew about TOS Kirk’s backstory) whereas I have read a LOT of well-written, interesting, deeply resonant fanfic examinations of Tarsus IV, and what it means for Kirk’s character that he’s a genocide survivor. Star Trek 2009 answers the question “why did Kirk cheat on the kobayashi maru?” With “‘cause his dad crashed a spaceship when he was a baby.” A close examination of TOS canon implies the answer is “because he lived through a real-life Kobayashi that did have a win option, but which wasn’t taken.” BUT—and this is significant—even the TOS canon movies can’t really assume knowledge of the full TOS tv show, so that implication is never examined or made explicit. Instead it’s fanfic (and maybe spin off novels? Idk I’ve only read 2 trek books, if there’s one out there that covers this that would be really cool) where we get dives into that thread, where Kirk gets a commendation for original thinking because he can look a testing board in the eye and say “I’ve seen what happens when someone is entrenched in this kind of thinking, and I cannot let it happen to me. I understand the lesson, but it’s not hypothetical anymore and it never will be. I did what I had to do.” And that’s interesting! That’s meaningful! That can’t happen in a summer blockbuster. But it can happen in fic, easily, and that’s a strength of fic, I think.

i think that the "i do not control the ____" memes are generally tame and do not lend enough credence to the genuine absurdity of the original line that is

Point

“It’s honest work”

#Sign Laungague #ASL #Learning Sign Launguage!!

Hi, I’m Wynter, I’m Deaf and fluent in ASL (American Sign Language). I get a lot of people telling me they want to learn to sign, but not knowing exactly where to start. So, I am here to provide that!

Let’s start off with some basics, though. ASL does NOT follow English grammar (Signed Exact English/SEE does, but it is not ASL), it only uses English words and a lot of the communication with singing is done via facial expression and body language. Basically, it goes in the order of time > topic > comment. For example, “ I am going to pet dogs next week” would be “next week dogs me pet”, but there are quite a few variants and every person who signs will have a different way of doing this. Sort of how people who speak English in different parts of America have an accent and different ways to sign things. The most important thing to note about ASL is that *American* Sign Language is not universal. Most languages have their own form of SL and a lot of the word signs/alphabets are not at all the same. Another note, learning SEE may seem easier at first, but it can actually make the transition to ASL grammar that much more difficult. An example of differing signs is BSL (British Sign Language) vs ASL. 

This is the BSL finger alphabet:

And this is the American one:

So while there is a small bit of crossover, it is very, very different! Don’t get me wrong, a lot of times signers will understand each other at least a little bit, but it does need to be noted that signs can differ by language, country, region, and sometimes person. 

Now, onto what you came for…

Alphabet:

ASL Alphabet 

ASL ABC’S (NON-CC VIDEO)

The ASL Alphabet

Deaf Culture:

*Note: if you are going to be attending Deaf events, please make sure you familiarise yourself with our culture!

American Deaf Culture

What is Deaf Culture? 

The Importance of Deaf Culture 

Deaf Culture vs Hearing Culture (NON-CC VIDEO)

Finger spelling:

American Sign Language Finger Spelling 

Sign Word List for Finger Spelling 

Learn ASL: The Finger Spelling Alphabet for Beginners (CC VIDEO)

ASL Finger Spelling Word Printer (gives you the finger spelling equivalent to what you type)!

Finger Spelling Practice

Sign Language Translator

Grammar: 

ASL Grammar 

The Basic Structure 

Learn ASL Grammar (CC VIDEO)

Learn:

*Note: The best way to learn is through Deaf people/other signers!

Lifeprint 

SignLanguage101 

The ASL App 

100 First Signs (Lifeprint)

Misc:

A Day Through a Deaf Person’s Eyes (CC VIDEO)

Deaftube 

What Questions Annoy Deaf People? (CC VIDEO)

Things Not to Say to a Deaf Person (CC VIDEO)

Why I Don’t Sound Deaf (CC VIDEO)

13 Things my Hearing Friends Should Know (CC VIDEO)

National Association of the Deaf

If you want a safe place to learn sign language (including ASL), I have created a Discord called Sign Language Learners! Come join and learn with other learners, Deaf/HoH people, and those curious kids who just want to know how the Deaf communicate.

Abled people have seriously skewed the meaning of “recovery” and i am Not About That. 

Whenever I hear the word mentioned (both on this site and in real life), the conversational subtext is usually “when will you/they recover enough to meet the standards of abled society?” As if I, a nuerodivergent person living with chronic pain will one day get up and fit seamlessly into a society not made to accommodate me. (Or as if I have any interest in doing so, which,, HAH. Nope!) I’m basically resigned to hearing this from abled people by now, but I’ve noticed fellow spoonies getting frustrated about not being able to do stuff that Abled Society says they should and falling into the pit of “when I’m recovered I’ll meet those standards”. That is not okay!!

For one, chronically ill and disabled people’s lives fit a different pattern than abled people. There is no magical point where all our symptoms vanish and we return to mainstream society — the hint is in the keyword “chronic”. It means that our condition or illness is a) going to stick around for a long, indeterminable length of time, possible lifelong, or b) recurs frequently or consistently. For example, my autism will never go away and I am completely fine with that, but fluctuating circumstances may mean that I manage the traits better at some times than others. My RLS will never go away either, but unlike autism it isn’t constant — I can have weeks, even months, with no symptoms and then suffer for the next six months straight. If I say that I’m recovering, what I mean is “I just had a symptomatic flare-up that knocked me off my feet but I’m managing the fallout better and getting back to my version of normal” NOT “i am now Fully Functioning and able to do bed-linen laundry without pain and suddenly capable of stuff i couldn’t do before.”

Secondly, recovery is a personal experience that nobody else can define. I’ve said it already but boy is it worth reiterating: recovery for chronically ill/disabled folks means getting back to OUR individual version of normal, not ANYONE ELSE’S version of normal. This definition is particularly important when talking about anyone who used to be (more) abled because in those cases, recovery can mean finding a NEW version of normal. 

If someone is in remission for a disease — let’s say cancer, since that’s a Big Thing — they could end up symptom-free, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve recovered. Cancer (both the illness and the treatment of it) puts a huge about of trauma on both the body AND the mind, and they may need to adjust their lifestyle because of that. Expecting your life to go back to 100% normal after an illness/accident is harmful to your mental and physical health and I am SICK of abled society encouraging it. 

Recovery means understanding what your body and mind needs and learning how to provide it so you can live comfortably/manage your symptoms; NOT so that abled people approve of how you live your life! Just remember that 

#FOOD #!!!

I just discovered foodtimeline.org, which is exactly what it sounds like: centuries worth of information about FOOD.  If you are writing something historical and you want a starting point for figuring out what people should be eating, this might be a good place?