#tayscreams

[dannyphannypack]

tumblr users on april 3

[dannyphannypack]

some people go to college to make more money. i go to college to write more danny phantom fanfiction. we are not the same

[dannyphannypack]

i think i forgot to post this after halloween … anyway, behold mine costume

[dannyphannypack]

i’m in a car for 6 hours this dannypocalypse, so to compensate i hid dannys around my house and harassed my roommates

here’s the sheet i made if you’d like to print them for yourself:

[dannyphannypack]

college is supposed to be a new start for danny: one in which his “work” life and personal life stay strictly separate. but when danny moves into his new gotham university dorm for the upcoming semester, his hopes are dashed. gotham is overflowing with lost souls, and they won’t leave him alone long enough for him to finish his damn physics homework.

when mr. and mrs. wayne offer him refuge in their old study, danny thinks he’d be stupid not to take it. he wasn’t expecting their house to still be inhabited, but whatever. he can blend into the background. he’ll do anything for some peace and quiet.

now if only he can convince martha to stop trying to out him to the rest of the family.

[dannyphannypack]

dpxdc fics

[dannyphannypack]

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. :)

[dannyphannypack]

DP PHANDOM !!!

hello! my name's taylor, and i'm a senior soon to be finishing my undergraduate degree in english & creative writing. last semester (because i hate myself), i decided i just had to graduate with honors. that means, this semester, i'm completing an independent honors study. what beautifully linguistic academic topic have i chosen for this project, you ask?

danny phantom. i sent in a request to do an honors study on danny phantom. more specifically, to "examine the impact of fan communities via interviews with popular fanfiction authors within the danny phantom fandom..." to be honest, i didn't think it'd even get approved. like, it had to go through the chair of the english department?? …and yet, here we are.

my job, now, is to choose popular authors to reach out to for a potential interview, but i worry that the way i lean toward the horror subgenre of dp fanfic may be a misrepresentation of what "popular" means now, meant a decade ago, even meant at the inception of the phandom, when we primarily ran on long-gone forums.

therefore, i'm asking YOU what your favorite danny phantom fanfictions are! long, short, crossovers, aus—send me the fanficiton that got you into the fandom, whose trope you've seen copied time and time again, whose plot had you laying awake at night (or straight up skipping school, like i used to do in highschool...oops). I'm talking the Phantom of Truth duology, I'm talking A Snapping Sound, I'm talking that fuckass dpxdc fanfic with the wax ducky that every dpxdc fic easter-eggs into their plot (just kidding, love you If You Give a Bat a Burger). SEND IT IN USING THE GOOGLE FORMS LINK BELOW! i'll pick the top-named authors to reach out to about an interview.

GOOGLE FORMS LINK

in conclusion,

(oh, & please rb so i can hear from as many people as possible)

💚💚💚