cooltmoney95

[cooltmoney95]

Unironically I think we might run into another video game crash like back in the day

[cooltmoney95]

Eurovision is the absolute easiest thing in the world to boycott. It's not food owned by one of 5 food conglomerates. It's not tech that corporations have made essential. There's no "support the devs" logic to be even considered. It's literally just noise that is forgotten in a week.

This year it's noise that will be forgotten in a week that is actively supporting one state that's committing genocide to another state they're actively suppressing any discussion about.

[cooltmoney95]

Gonna need yall to stop putting Biden is Just As Bad propaganda on my dash. Had to unfollow someone because I don’t want to a start a fight with them over it, but I’m about to bite the next person who puts that shit in front of me.

If you don’t like Biden, vote in your god damn local and mid term elections for third party or further left candidates so that we get better democratic candidates for future elections. But this one is already fucking decided, and I’m NOT ending up under a Trump led dictatorship because yall value protecting your personal sense of moral purity over the collective good. Whether it offends your personal morals to vote for Biden is IRRELEVANT in the face of the alternative.

This isn’t a lesser of two evils situation. One guy sucks. The other guy is LITERALLY PLANNING TO OVERTHROW OUR DEMOCRACY AND INSTALL HIMSELF AS A PUTIN STYLE DICTATOR.

PLEASE look up Project 2025 and stop acting like abstaining is some kind of personal ethical decision!

[cooltmoney95]

Writing ASL: Techniques to Write Signed Dialogue

Hey, guys! I've been reading a lot of DC Batfamily fanfiction lately, and in doing so I realized how little I see of ASL being represented in written text (love you, Cass!). I wanted to briefly talk about tactics to writing American Sign Language (ASL), and ways that these techniques can help improve your writing in more general contexts!

SOME THINGS BEFORE WE GET STARTED

I will be discussing everything in terms of ASL! If you have a character who uses Chinese Sign Language or even British Sign Language, the same rules will not necessarily apply! Don't be afraid to do some extra research on them.

Do not let this dissuade you from writing a character who signs ASL! This is by no means the end-all be-all to writing ASL dialogue, and I do not intend this post to insinuate that by writing ASL the same way you write English you are deeply offending the Deaf community. If this is something you're interested in though, I highly recommend experimenting with the way you write it! Above all, have fun with your writing.

Related to 2nd rule, but still very important: not everyone will agree that sign language should be treated/written any differently than English. This is a totally valid and understandable stance to take! I do not hope to invalidate this stance by making this post, but rather to introduce an interested audience to how ASL operates in the modern world, and how that can be translated into text.

ADDRESSING SOME MISCONCEPTIONS

ASL is the same as English, just with gestures instead of words.

Actually, no! There is a language that exists that is like that: it's called Signing Exact English, and it's an artificial language; i.e., it did not come about naturally. All languages came from a need to communicate with others, and ASL is no different! It is a language all on it's own, and there is no perfect 1:1 way to translate it to English, just as any spoken language.

2. But everyone who signs ASL knows how to read English, don't they?

No, actually! Because it's a completely different language, people who sign ASL and read English can be considered bilingual: they now know two languages. In fact, fingerspelling a word to a Deaf person in search for the correct sign does not usually work, and is far from the preferred method of conversing with Deaf people.

3. Because ASL does not use as many signs as we do words to articulate a point, it must be an inferior language.

Nope! ASL utilizes 5 complex parameters in order to conversate with others: hand shape, palm orientation, movement, location, and expression. English relies on words to get these points across: while we may say "He's very cute," ASL will sign, "He cute!" with repeated hand movement and an exaggerated facial expression to do what the "very" accomplishes in the English version: add emphasis. Using only ASL gloss can seem infantilizing because words are unable to portray what the other four parameters are doing in a signed sentence.

4. Being deaf is just a medical disability. There's nothing more to it.

Fun fact: there is a difference between being deaf and being Deaf. You just said the same thing twice? But I didn't! To be deaf with a lowercase 'd' is to be unable to hear, while being Deaf with an uppercase is to be heavily involved in the Deaf community and culture. Deaf people are often born deaf, or they become deaf at a young age. Because of this, they attend schools for the Deaf, where they are immersed in an entirely different culture from our own. While your family may mourn the loss of your grandfather's hearing, Deaf parents often celebrate discovering that their newborn is also deaf; they get to share and enjoy their unique culture with their loved one, which is a wonderful thing!

YOU MENTIONED ASL GLOSS. WHAT IS THAT?

ASL gloss is the written approximation of ASL, using English words as "labels" for each sign. ASL IS NOT A WRITTEN LANGUAGE, so this is not the correct way to write it (there is no correct way!): rather, it is a tool used most commonly in classrooms to help students remember signs, and to help with sentence structure.

IF THERE'S NO CORRECT WAY TO WRITE IN ASL, THEN HOW DO I DO IT?

A most astute observation! The short answer: it's up to you. There is no right or wrong way to do it. The longer answer? Researching the culture and history, understanding sign structure, and experimenting with description of the 5 parameters are all fun ways you can take your ASL dialogue to the next level. Here are 3 easy ways you can utilize immediately to make dialogue more similar to the way your character is signing:

Sign languages are never as wordy as spoken ones. Here's an example: "Sign languages are never wordy. Spoken? Wordy." Experiment with how much you can get rid of without the meaning of the sentence being lost (and without making ASL sound goo-goo-ga-ga-y; that is to say, infantilizing).

Emotion is your friend. ASL is a very emotive language! If we were to take that sentence and get rid of the unnecessary, we could get something like "ASL emotive!" The way we add emphasis is by increasing the hand motion, opening the mouth, and maybe even moving the eyebrows. It can be rather intuitive: if you mean to say very easy, you would sign EASY in a flippant manner; if you mean to say so handsome, you would sign handsome and open your mouth or fan your face as if you were hot. Think about a game of Charades: how do you move your mouth and eyebrows to "act out" the word? How are you moving your body as your teammates get closer? There are grammar rules you can certainly look up if you would like to be more technical, too, but this is a good place to start!

Practice describing gestures and action. ASL utilizes three dimensional space in a lot of fun and interesting ways. Even without knowing what a specific sign is, describing body language can be a big help in deciphering the "mood" of a sentence. Are they signing fluidly (calm) or sharply (angry)? Are their signs big (excited) or small (timid)? Are they signing rushedly (impatient) or slowly? Messily (sad) or pointedly (annoyed)? Consider what you can make come across without directly addressing it in dialogue! Something ese about ASL is that English speakers who are learning it tend to think the speakers a little nosy: they are more than able to pick up on the unsaid, and they aren't afraid to ask about it.

Above all, don't be afraid to ask questions, do research or accept advice! New languages can be big and scary things, but don't let that make you shy away. Again, there is nothing wrong with deciding to write ASL the same as you write your English. I've personally found that experimenting with ASL dialogue in stories has aided me in becoming more aware of how to describe everything, from sappy emotional moments to action-packed fighting scenes. Writing ASL has helped me think about new ways to improve my description in more everyday contexts, and I hope it can be a big help to you as well, both in learning about Deaf culture and in pursuing your future writing endeavors. :)

P.S: I am quite literally only dipping my toes into the language and culture. I cannot emphasize how important it is to do your own research if it's someting you're interested in!

P.P.S: I want to apologize for my earlier P.S! What I meant by “I am … dipping my toes into the language and culture” was in direct regards to the post; what I should have said is “this post is only dipping its toes into the language and culture.” While I am not Deaf myself, I am a sophomore in college minoring in ASL and Deaf Culture, and I am steadily losing my hearing. Of course, that does not make me an authority figure on the topic, which is why I strongly encourage you to do your own research, ask your own questions, and consult any Deaf friends, family, or online peers you may have.

#reblogging for reference

[cooltmoney95]

Gazans who have contacted me and their gofundmes haven't moved at all.

Kenda abuzaid

Yasser and yaseen Abu jabal

Ahmed Al aklouk

Please reblog and help them out if you can 🙏

[cooltmoney95]

[cooltmoney95]

Tara Strong got fired from the upcoming indie cartoon "Boxtown" for her disgustingly racist comments about Palestinians and now she's going on multiple different interviews trying to slander the show's crew and calling them antisemites. (Video after the tweet)

If you'd like to support Boxtown and its crew on their future endeavors follow their social medias below:

[cooltmoney95]

IMPORTANT: PLEASE SHARE AND DONATE IF YOU CAN! REBROGS VERY VERY APPRECIATED.

I hope you are doing well wherever you are. I am asking you to share this link to help me and my child we are facing a challenge, I am pregnant I cannot do any work and my son is disabled, she is 21 years old! She needs a wheelchair. She has struggled throughout his life. His leg was broken above the knee, when she was 4 years old, without any reason. Maybe it's a situation of brittle bones. We were displaced by the war in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to find shelter. We are looking for $860 to get him a wheelchair.

Make a donation via PayPal.Com /Christine Wambura has organized this fundraiser. Thank you so much for helping and sharing 🙏

[cooltmoney95]

[cooltmoney95]

A reminder that Jazwares CEO - the company behind toy brands like Kellytoy, Squishmallows, Bum Bumz, Hello Kitty, Pokemon (in North America), Nerf, and many others - is a staunch supporter of Israel, with half of their recent intern cohort from Reichman University being called back to fight in the IOF. Not only this, but he and his wife Laura are working with the organization known as Brothers For Life that gives aid to Israeli soldiers, as well as supporting the infamous Canary Mission, which is responsible for doxxing pro-Palestinian students.

Buying new Jazwares products is going towards a CEO who supports genocide, please continue to boycott Jazwares brands and seek out alternative brands or strictly buy from secondhand sources when looking for new gifts for yourself or your loved ones. Do not continue to put money in Jazwares's pockets.

Source

[cooltmoney95]

[cooltmoney95]

Tara Strong got fired from the upcoming indie cartoon "Boxtown" for her disgustingly racist comments about Palestinians and now she's going on multiple different interviews trying to slander the show's crew and calling them antisemites. (Video after the tweet)

If you'd like to support Boxtown and its crew on their future endeavors follow their social medias below:

[cooltmoney95]

Real shit, lune-redd literally got bullied off of Twitter because they designed an older version of Bubbles who was chubby. Just chubby, literally the most innocent shit ever.

This kind of behavior cannot and will not be tolerated in the Powerpuff Girls Fandom, people are allowed to make their own interpretations of the girls being any size, shape, or even race and shouldn't face an online mob for doing so. This kind of phobia and harassment is disgusting and none of this needed to happen over what was essentially fanart.

People are better off lifting up their fellow creators than doing whatever the hell this is, and if people ever try to give ME or my FRIENDS grief over this kind of nonsense I'm not going to hear it. If anything I implore you to go and SUPPORT lune-redd on their tumblr page because they could absolutely use some positive support after that.

Be fucking respectful of other people's creative interpretations and art choices, that's what Craig would want.

-Terra

[cooltmoney95]

I'm making a new donation post since my last one is out of date, and I now have to worry about this month's payments

hi! I'm samira, your local brown lesbian, and I'm broke

I had to quit my job to devote my time to a PTSD recovery program, so I'm trying to get by on disability while also paying off debt and putting money aside to hopefully move out of an unhealthy living situation

long story short, I could really use some help

I owe my bank 560 CAD in payments on my debt, so paying that off is my immediate priority right now

if anyone can help me out, my paypal link is here, or you can dm me for my etransfer information. if you can't donate, sharing is also much appreciated

I've included screenshots for proof (with my personal information cropped out) below the cut

60/560 CAD

edit: this is very urgent, I'm already late to pay it and if I don't soon, there will be an added late fee. please help if you can

the first one is for my credit card, the second is for my line of credit 🙃

[cooltmoney95]

Kyoshi after defeating Xu Ping An

[cooltmoney95]

May 10, 2024 - Hundreds of radical environmentalists and anticapitalists have broken through police lines and fences and stormed the terrain of the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg. They are attempting to stop the planned expansion of the factory, which would mean the destruction of surrounding forest and farmland. The factory also uses immense amounts of water, and all to sell shitty electric cars to give people the idea that personal consumption choices can save the environment from destruction, and make fascist Elon Musk even richer than he already is. The actions in the past days have forced Tesla to temporarily shut down production at the factory. [video]

[cooltmoney95]

appreciation post for musa's long pigtails

#l