#Cause uuuuh we do be disordered

[circulars-reasoning]

this isnt like, a complaint or anything, and im not saying its bad, i am simply pointing out a silly goofy:

ive noticed that alot of the people against tulpa terminology (which im for transitioning away from) suggest the use of the word "thoughtform", which afaik originates from chaos magick practices in the late 20th century. obviously, its fine to use as a word, its a apt descriptor, but i DO find it funny that willowmancy/willowgenic systems just cant escape being called something spirituality related. woe, spiritual related name ge upon ye

Yeah that's also not great, unfortunately -- but thoughtform thankfully isn't really appropriative in the same way the term tulpa is.

I personally really like willowmancy/willogenic or paramancy/paragenic as terms, with the specific created form being a Willow or a Para. I think that's really cool.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 5, Poll 3

Please be civil in the notes. We will block people if we feel it is necessary. A character being canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included. This is not a competition of who is better representation.

Check out the other polls in this round here.

Ianthe Tridentarius-The Locked Tomb

Qualifications:

she's a lesbian and one of her arms has been cut off twice. As in, it was cut off once, a replacement one was stuck, but she didn't like it so it didn't work properly and she tried to cut it off. as a favour, someone else cut off that arm and grew her a new one which is just bones. it doesn't have the same strength of her old arm because it doesn't have any meat on it

amputee lesbian

canon WLW/lesbian (in love with Harrowhark) and loses her hand at the end of book one. In book two, she gets a fancy bone-prosthetic.

Propaganda:

she's had her right arm cut off twice. after the first time she was given a replacement, which she hated and didn't work right. she tried to cut it off, failed, so her crush grew her a new one out of her own bones in the closest thing we've had to a sex scene so far in the series. she had the bones gilded. she's such a lesbian for this woman, absolutely obsessed. "ohhh do up the back of my sexy evening dress for me ;)", and her crush just does it from a distance with bone arms because she's also a weird lesbian. Ianthe's competition for her crush's affections are two corpses and she's losing to both of them

she’s evil lesbian with a golden bone arm

If you like morally corrupt girlbosses, she's your gal! Ianthe is very powerful, ambitious and determined- unfortuantely she's also a bit unhinged and happy to side with god, who in this universe is a war criminal. Ianthe gets her power and influence at the cost of others, but her popularity in the fandom proves we love awful women and will defend them until the end of days even if they're objectively terrible people.

Anything Else?:

Ianthe is such a shit and I love her for that. a quote from the author: "I don't think Ianthe is nice to anyone, if she is I'll go back and fix it" (Submitter 1)

Eda Clawthorne-The Owl House

Qualifications:

She has a magical chronic disorder which has flare-ups, is mitigated by taking medication (potions), and has similar side effects to many real disorders such as fatigue, greying hair, and physical impairment (drains magic, a natural ability of *most witches). Unlike in other stories however, her condition is NOT ever completely cured. It does evolve and become more manageable over the course of the story, but she still experiences symptoms from it. Eda also loses one of her arms later in the story. She does get a replacement hook, but it is never shown whether she has a functional prosthetic or not. Most likely, she only has one fully functioning arm after this. As for being queer, she is in a relationship with a nonbinary person and is all but confirmed bisexual (has a secret box with the bi flag on it seriously why else would she have this). Also the owl house has a Lot of queer characters in it and I mean. just look at her. I would be surprised if she wasn't queer somehow.

Bisexual, and has a curse that affects her day to day life

Bi & lost arm and has a chronic illness metaphorically

Propaganda:

Has canonically dated both men and a non-binary person. Her curse affects her ability to use magic (and at one point outright stops it), which is very important in witch life. Said curse also causes her body parts to fall off sometimes. Many have said her curse is like a metaphor for depression but really it's more like a magic version of a physical disability (although I wouldn't be surprised if she actually also had depression).

Uuuuh she’s great and stuff idk I can’t propaganda well sorry

[worst--jeanist]

using sign language in facfiction

so i’ve been reading ~*fanfiction*~ again and i’ve noticed that with the popularity of d/Deaf and hard of hearing characters and headcanons, there’s also a LOT of mistakes being made. whether its from misinformation, lack of research, or simple oversight, I think it’s important to keep some things in mind.

ive got a simple list type thing below for things to consider when using sign language in fanfiction

**Big Honkin’ Disclaimer!!!*** I am not d/Deaf of hard of hearing! I’m an outsider of the community, but I’ve been taking courses in ASL and Deaf Studies for four years now, and I want to spread what I know to other people who might be interested!! Also, i’m keeping it under the cut so updates can be seen cause i’m SO cure i missed a lot!!

1.) ASL is not universal

ASL stands for American Sign Language and is primarily used by Americans, Canadians (except Quebec). Some other countries have adopted it, including many African countries, and some costal Asian countries, but it remains large exclusive to America and Canada. 

In fandom, you’re likely to come across Japanese Sign Language for Anime, British Sign Language for BBC shows, French Sign Language for some cartoons, etc. etc. Basically, what I’m saying is that if your thing takes place anywhere besides America, look up what kind of sign language they use, and I would recommend even looking up some basic signs to get yourself acquainted with it.

Note: I can’t say for certain because I absolutely do not know if it’s the case with other sign languages, but at least in American Sign Language, sentence structure is very different from it’s spoken language. In English, we might say “I went over to Clarissa’s house yesterday”, but in ASL, it would translate more directly to “Yesterday Clarissa’s house I go.” Whether or not you choose to write in this word order is up to you. Another option might be to simply sum up what they said like:

Jane asked Sarah, “What did you do yesterday?”  Sarah responded that she went to Clarissa’s house.

I, personally, find this the least jarring way to read Deaf characters in print, but that’s just me. It also could avoid a lot of missteps if you’re not familiar enough with the language, especially foreign sign languages!

2.) There are other ways to communicate with deaf and hard of hearing people.

I’ve deadass read fics where character’s S/Os will learn sign language in like. A week. And yeah some basic signs could be picked up in that time, but likely not. Instead of jumping right to “And then his husband learn sign language for him!”, maybe they started somewhere else.

Writing/texting back and forth is a SUPER COMMON AND VERY CONVENIENT way of communicating with a deaf person if you don’t like sign language. I’ve yet to stumble upon a fic where someone is writing cute notes to their S/O like c’MON THAT’S LOST POTENTIAL!!

Gestures go a long way! A lot of signs were born from common gestures, like the sign for “telephone” or “drink”. It’s entirely possible to communicate gesturally to someone without knowing a lick of sign language.

There’s... kind of a lot to say in the way of interpreters so I uuuuh. Okay, as far as fanfic is concerned, the interpreter (Note: the word is “interpreter”, not “translator”) is likely a friend or child because I don’t know who’s writing in RID certified interpreters into their slashfic. But it’s very important that the character is talking to the deaf character and not the interpreter. If that character doesn’t know that, let them learn! It’s fun to read about people knowing things!

Lip-reading and speech-reading is very very difficult and often super inaccurate!!! Especially if the character didn’t grow up deaf or hard of hearing, it’s very difficult to have a conversation with a deaf person who is lipreading. Try it for yourself, it’s SUPER difficult. Hard of hearing characters might have an easier time since residual hearing plays a big part in it but it really rustles my jimmies when deaf/hoh characters are like “haha just talk to me normally, i can read lips :)” when in reality its more like “okay so i can kinda read lips cut can you sit on the other side of me cause there’s more like and also speak slower but don’t over annunciate and also please speak up and can you talk a bit more with your hands so i can get a sense of what you’re talking about and wait im sorry what’s the context again?” followed by many many :can you repeat that?” “what was that again???” JUST BELIEVE ME it’s difficult.

Also remember that a lot of deaf people can’t speak. Also remember that some deaf people can. Also remember that some deaf people don’t “sound” deaf. That’s a whole other can of worms.

 3.) Not all sign language users are d/Deaf.

In an attempt to keep this sign language centric, I want to point out that some other people who use ASL actually might have perfectly function hearing and even speaking mouthparts! Some of these people include autistic people, especially children, people who are mute, people with speech processing disorders, and even people with audio processing disorders. And that’s only the groups of people I can come up with off the top of my head. There are all kinds of people use use sign language, gesture language, etc. in their daily lives. 

4.) Not all d/Deaf people use sign language.

A sad reality is that many many institutions don’t favor the deaf. There are adults who were born deaf and never learned sign language because they weren’t taught it in schools or because they were taught ~*oralism*~ which was heavily pioneered by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone and husband to a deaf woman. Not entirely relevant, but interesting. Oralism is the practice of forcing speech and lip-reading onto deaf people, where classes were spent teaching deaf people to speak rather than to sign. In some oralist schools, sign language is even flat-out banned. 

A YouTuber that I really love, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, talks about how her school would provide a BSL interpreter, but not BSL lessons while she was going deaf. And that is a sad reality. In some American school systems, deaf children simply sit through class and kind of. Hope that they get whats going on because their school won’t teach them sign language. And, just as sadly, a V A S T majority of hearing parents to deaf children simply won’t learn sign for their kids and instead enforce oralist ideals on them at home. 

5.) *blink-182 voice* All the small things

-pls stop saying you “speak” sign language. you use sign language. I know it sounds a little weird but trust me, speaking sign language sounds even more physically impossible

-hearing aids are not a cure all. Someone isn’t just suddenly hearing because they have hearing aids

-same with cochlear implants but i aint never seen that one in a fanfic. look into it tho it’s a rly interesting debate

I’m gonna be updating this as people have any questions, but i think this is some pretty basic stuff to get started with!