The Inspiration Challenge ▸ Create content for a creator who inspires you!  tagged by notahumanperson to create a piece of content for a creator who inspires me!

Tropical Boys for @sanhwaiting 💜  hi megan 💜 i hope you know that i admire you and the amazing work you do! you are so talented and your gifs are always,always so beautiful i’m so, so glad we became mutuals and get to know each other you are the sweetest kindest person ever i love you and  i hope you always find happiness and peace in your life 💜 

MILE PHAKPHUM & APO NATTAWIN as Kinn and Porsche in KinnPorsche: The Series (2022)

kinn beckoning porsche ⇢ how it started vs. how it’s going.

Don’t you forget. Your life is mine. I can do whatever I want. Promise me. No matter what happens, you must return to me.

i mean 👀

[as requested]

<<this one will be without mark + haechan since they were in the first one>>

renjun

jeno

jaemin

chenle

jisung

west wing wallpapers!

hate to break it to you buddy, but no one gets a say in what tv show I decide to hyperfixate on and no one knows when it’ll end, least of all me.

Writing Deaf Characters | Speech is Speech

Before I get going, I’m 75% deaf, as some of you know, semi-reliant on hearing aids and lip reading. My first languages were Makaton sign and then BSL. I now use spoken English.

There are a lot of issues I find with how deaf people are represented in books, when represented at all. I would love to see more deaf and hard of hearing characters in the books I read- without having to read books specifically about deaf/HoH people- but when I find them, they’re grossly undercharacterized or stereotyped. Authors write them in a way that sets signing language characters apart from speaking characters as if they are inferior, and this makes my blood boil.

Some technicalties

I’ll keep this brief.

Remember that sign language is a language, equal to the spoken word

Therefore, treat it as such. Use quotation speech marks and dialogue tags. You only need to explicitly state that this character uses signed language once, and then let your modifiers and description do the rest.  It isn’t a form of “sub-speech" or “making hand actions”- sign language is a language all on its own: it has its own grammar rules, syntactical structures, punctuation, patterns, idioms and colloquialisms. For example, “what is your name?” becomes “Your name what?” with the facial expression forming punctuation in the same way that spoken English uses alterations of prosodic tone (inflections). There is even pidgin sign; a language phenomenon usually associated with spoken language.

In the same way that you would describe a spoken-English character’s tone of voice, you would describe a signed-English speaker’s facial expressions and the way that they sign- keeping in mind that these things are our language’s equivalent of verbal inflection.

So please, none of that use of “special speech marks” or italicised speech for sign. If your viewpoint character doesn’t understand signed speech, then you take the same approach that would be used for any other language they don’t understand, like French or Thai. E.g “He said something in rapid sign language, face wrinkling in obvious disgust.” is a good way of conveying this. The proof that you’ve done this well is in whether or not you can switch “sign language” for French or something else, and it would read the same.

Don’t be afraid to describe how things are said, either. Sign language is such a beautiful and expressive way of talking, and to see a writer do it justice would be truly fabulous. Putting this into practise:

This is part one of two, for the sake of readability and keeping the information simple as I can. Part two- writing the deaf characters themselves- is coming up over the weekend. See you then and best luck with your writing until that point :D

This is part of my weekly advice theme. Each week I look at what you’ve asked me to help with, and write a post or series of posts for it. Next week: settings and character development (including heroes, anti-heroes, villains, and every other kind of character).

"Susan."

She turned on reluctant feet. Peter stopped ahead of her. Aslan still stood in the shade of the colonnade.

"Yes, Aslan."

"Walk with me a while more."

Susan looked at her brother. His eyes were just as watery as hers and even more when he refused the tears to fall. Peter ahead and Aslan behind; she was stuck in between. She couldn't go back and she couldn't go forward. Why couldn't she just be left alone? Alone to let the words sink in: into Narnia you twice were called and into Narnia you shall not return. Alone to cry in a lonely pleasure garden and alone to smoothe the wrinkles from her dress--but the Lion's face was firm, and lovely, and lovable. She loved the black eyes that bore into hers so much she could feel her heart crack.

She gave one more shaky look to Peter and joined Aslan back among the colonnettes.

They walked the full length of the colonnade. Susan felt chilly in the shade, though it was already midsummer. She wished she had brought a shawl. She wished she'd worn longer sleeves, wished she'd worn the war dress she took from her own ruinous home and its ruinous, forgotten vault. Aslan led her through the shade of the courtyard to Miraz's lower gardens. Wide, circular swaths of soil marked the former homes of sleeping trees who'd awoken and walked away, walked away to seek Him. Still shaded, still cold, and still Aslan said nothing.

Why bring her here at all? her mind screamed. If she could let herself think it, she'd call it unkind. Feel it, call it cruel. But that was forbidden. Forbidden for the sake of His lovely face. But why? Oh, why couldn't He have left her alone?

"Susan."

His voice startled her, low against the dumb, twittering birds and deep as the slow rumblings of the sea. Susan's hands were shaking.

"Yes, Aslan."

"Your heart is heavy with many sorrows," He said. "Recount to me your sufferings."

She said nothing for a long time. "We're sad about leaving, Sir. Peter and I."

"I did not ask about your brother," said Aslan, stern but kind. "Give me your heart."

"I suppose I'm sad, then." She couldn't help but be a little angry; she clenched her muscles to keep the tremor from her voice. "But that's all that's to be said. We're not coming back and that's decided."

Aslan lay down in the grass. Susan had no choice but kneel with him. The grass was damp; surely it'd leave stains. A shame for such a fine dress. But it didn't matter anyway. Not now.

Susan waited until her legs fell asleep. Aslan was silent. Fidgeting, she watched the garden: the dumb birds in their nests and bathing in magnificent fountains carved with crow faces; dumb squirrels that chased each other across the remaining trees; honey bees and carpenter bees among vivid delphiniums and the last of spring's forget-me-nots. Everything seemed so loud in her ears, animals and water and buzzing wings, and her own broken, thudding heart, and her own shaky breaths, and she could no longer swallow the lump in her throat.

And even now the Lion was silent.

"Oh, Aslan!" she cried. "This isn't--this might not be because of me?"

"Say more."

"I mean-- we're not coming back, Peter and I; it's not... not because you might be angry at me?"

"What have you done, Daughter of Eve, for which I might be angry with you?"

"I--" Suddenly Susan felt she hadn't planned this far. She clenched her jaw and gripped her skirt until she could feel her nails through the fabric and into her palm. Anything to get herself under control. One deep breath, two. "Lucy told us to follow her and I didn't believe her. And then it turned out she was right all along. I... I haven't ruined it for us, have I? Because I didn't listen to her? It's not Peter's fault, you know," she added hastily, tripping over her words. "It was Trumpkin and I who took us the wrong way. Don't keep Peter out on my account, please--"

"I asked for your heart, not for his. What now, Daughter of Eve, did your sister tell you?"

"She told us to follow her." Susan paused. "Or... she told us to follow you."

"Why did you refuse, Daughter of Eve?"

"Because--" She blinked. "Because no one else had seen you! And no one had seen you in Narnia in a thousand years."

She heard the scorn in her voice; her cheeks heated up and she looked down in shame.

"So you believed, Daughter of Eve, that neither had your sister seen me?"

"I... I thought she believed she saw you."

"You yourself-- why did you disbelieve?"

"Because--I--because it didn't make any sense!" she fumed. "Why would you appear to her and not to any of us?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Susan didn't respond; Aslan didn't press her. Garden noise resumed once more, plaintive and ignorant and overwhelmingly loud until deep breaths wouldn't calm her, until her hands were so numbed that her nails couldn't hurt them and grinding her teeth couldn't keep her tears from falling, until all she could hear was Aslan's slow purr, until Susan wept.

"Daughter of Eve," He said again, softly, softly. "Recount to me your sufferings."

It was a moment before Susan could speak clearly again. "I thought... Surely you'd appear to us, if... if you still wanted us to. If you still wanted us."

"Hmm."

He let her cry a few minutes more.

"Dear heart," He breathed. "Fear holds you fast in its grip; it need not. Show me your hands. Lay your worries at my feet."

She held out her shaking hands. They were dotted with red crescents. Aslan lowered His great head and licked her palms. The crescents disappeared; her skin felt clean and fresh and new such as no worldly bath would suffice. Susan sobbed.

"You have pierced your hands with many wounds. You need not again; hands and feet have already bled for you, and have risen up again."

When Susan dared to meet His gaze she saw the large tears lining His large eyes. With another sob that wracked her chest she wrapped her arms around his neck. His mane dried her tears as they flowed; she had not lain with Him like this since He lay dead on the Stone Table. Oh, and she had not wept like this in years, and the Lion weeping with her, and the willows swaying.

"I'm sorry."

"Do not scorn your tears, Dear One, for they are blessed; they shall be returned to you."

"I don't want to leave like this. I don't want to leave you."

"Susan." She felt the vibrations from deep within His chest. "Though you depart out of Narnia one thousand times, though you be apart from me for one thousand years, I will never be apart from you."

"But what if I never see you again?" she cried. Her head was wet with Aslan's tears.

"You will. From the Giants who dwell in the Northern Waste to the Crown Prince of Archenland, from the lowest slave in Tashbaan to the Tisroc and the Tisroc's household, from the powers that war in your own world to the school children that torment you in their ignorance--all will see me as I Am." His voice had grown, and grown, and grown to that of a king of the world-- it shrank again to a murmur.

"You are no exception, Susan Pevensie."

"What if--what if I still can't see you?" she whispered. "If I don't want to see you?"

"You will." He kissed her forehead. "Let us remain like this for a while, until your tears are spent, as you remained with me before the night of the Stone Table."

Susan lay with Him until she fell asleep. There is no such pillow as the tufts of a lion's mane, much less of a Lion the size of a war horse, and she slept more soundly than she had in over a year. When she awoke, she felt like she'd slept for hours, though the sun was still the same height in the sky. Her eyes didn't burn. Aslan hadn't moved a muscle.

"Aslan," she said quietly. "I... I think I'm ready now."

"It is well, child." He waited for her to sit up. "I will walk with you again. But now, let us walk in the sun."

Lucy Pevensie can be found dancing in the most strange of ways, using steps nobody has ever been taught. Yet somehow, as her classmates watch, her movements always seem to fit the music, Lucy’s feet never faltering. Her classmates find themselves mesmerised every time, hardly able to figure out what Lucy is truly doing. Lucy stops dancing with giggles, her face too bright in the dimmed light. Her classmates quickly look away. 

Edmund Pevensie can climb into the rafters of the gym hall without breaking a sweat. His classmates stare and Edmund sits among the rafters with a satisfied smirk, his legs swinging high above heads. His teacher scolds him, but his classmates dare him to climb the side of the dorms one night and Edmund indulges himself. There is something in the curve of his smile as he looks down at them that makes their eyes focus on anything but him.

Susan Pevensie excels in her swimming lessons, and her classmates insist that there is something strange about her whenever she is in the water. Some girls whisper about mermaids, while others try to catch her out in cheating somehow. They never manage, and Susan comes out of the water with a sharp smile and never seeming out of breath. Her eyes spark with something unattainable and her classmates don’t look directly at her. 

Peter Pevensie doesn’t follow the fencing rules, and everybody know it’s cheating. The teacher tells him off and Peter smiles unapologetically. His classmates are curious and dare him to fight them behind the gym at night. They watch his movement, his steps, the way his quips seem to sound lower than his voice can possibly be. Peter looks strange in the darkness, larger, broader, and his classmates can’t bring themselves to meet his eyes.

*kicks down your door* it’s incomprehensible meme time 

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A page of history is worth a pound of logic. x