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xp_logs(backdated) Artie meets with Alani to work on her ASL, covering a variety of topics to test her skills.
Artie dropped into a chair in the coffee shop and waved a hello to Alani. "Sorry I'm late, I was -- it was a work thing." He let the text run across the table toward her.
Perking up at the text, Alani flashed him a smile. "Oh, don't you worry I'm happy to wait for you." A beat as she realized what she said aloud. "That came off flirtier than I intended, I just mean, you're doing me a favor, and I am going to shut my mouth now, because I will keep putting my foot there." She laughed at herself before making eye contact and beginning, hands coming up to be fully in view on the table. 'I'm slow. Start small?"
He gave her a practiced smirk and raised one eyebrow. "You're fine," Artie replied, slowly, carefully. He wasn't interested but there was no point making things weird. Weirder. Sometimes it was easier to just let it wash past him than let Alani dig herself into a hole she wasn't going to recover from. "You been practicing?"
Sighing and allowing herself to relax, she nodded, glad that he'd very politely ignored the first words out of her mouth. "Yes, new student at the center is hearing impaired and is running circles around me." Brows knit, as she focused on not moving mechanically, always the hardest part when making an actual conversation. "Good kid, always wants to talk about Spider-Man."
"You know, he's kind of a jerk, right? Spider-Man?"
"Did not know, but I'm not surprised," she raised her shoulders in a shrug. "Never meet your heroes, but I'm not telling the kid that." Motioning to him, she let herself grin again. "And you? What have you been up to?"
Artie quirked a smile. "Everything. You know how it is. " The reason for the trip, everything else wasn't a conversation for the coffee shop but the trip itself, yeah. "So, language practice. I'm going to describe a trip I took a while back to you when we went to Burning Man, show you how to be more visual. This isn't English and you can't just treat a signed language like a spoken one."
“Of course.” Alani nodded and, while the smile remained, her expression took a serious edge as she focused on his hands. Forcing herself to relax, both of her hands raised and the simple signs she knew came next. “Ready.”
Artie smiled broadly. "Okay, so, I need you to imagine. You're standing on a dry lake. It's huge, flat and goes forever out to the sides. There's almost too much sky overhead and no clouds. There's dust, everywhere. It drifts up into your eyes and mouth. It's cold, too, when you're out of the sun or in the wind and the wind never stops. That's where we were."
She couldn't help but grimace at the mental imagery he was setting and, though she opened her mouth to verbally respond, nodded after a moment, hands more fluid as she signed an affirmative. "Alright. From now on just ASL?" She'd slowed again, though she tried not to become stilted.
Artie shrugged. "If you want. I'm happy to do language practice but only if you put the effort in."
That earned him a raised brow. Taking a moment to shake out her hands and pop her knuckles, Alani rolled her eyes but stopped herself from sticking her tongue out to keep with the imagination exercise that had been set. "I'm serious, thank you. Cannot improve without a good teacher." No, that wasn't the right sign, teacher actually meant teacher and she didn't want to conflate what she meant with the sign in her head. "Partner?"
"Partner." Artie nodded. "Tell me... um. Tell me about the flood?"
Her shoulders dropped, face falling in turn as she broke eye contact. That was hard, for a number of reasons. Then was of course the moment she realized the rudeness in her manner, and she looked up again. "Hard to say," the first word signed tapped only once to show she meant the difficulty but a determination was behind the movements. "Like home but worse. Too many people, too few resource." While the point of 'home' had brought a slight smile to her face it vanished quickly as she tried to describe the flood.
Artie nodded. "I should have picked a different topic." He tapped the table for a moment and looked around, all inspiration gone. "I have ... nothing. I'm sorry. There's work but nothing I want to describe. I did some image analysis for a job. Tagging and facial ID But it's too heavy for this and I don't know you'd have the vocab. How about.... What are your Thanksgiving plans?”
A laugh bubbled out, though Alani fought to not let it, trying desperately to keep the mental situation placed in mind but failing. Schooling her expression the best she could, as she began to sign. “Same thing each year. Volunteer all the time. Homework and sleep after. You?” She cocked her head a touch as she asked, hopeful that her hands were smoothing the longer they worked.
"I don't know. I don't really do the holidays. I tend to work Thanksgiving and spend Christmas on an island someplace. So, I'll be manning our desk."
“Sounds fun.” She signed with a laugh. “Better than nothing.” A pause as she thought about what she was trying to ask before starting again. “ASL is your first language?” She hoped she hadn’t accidentally used ‘sentence’ instead of ‘language’ despite the common mistake.
Artie waved a hand. "It's ...complicated," he said finally. "I'm hearing, so I always had English. But I can't speak orally. So I had home sign, images..." He shrugged and set up a small image, flat on the table, where Alani could see but onlookers couldn't. The Morlock tunnels, from a small child's perspective, even though he wasn't visible himself.. The child was clearly involved in a conversation with an older woman, who was talking back while the child responded in small, crude stick figures and images, hovering just beyond his hands. "ASL is my first expressive language. I couldn't read when I came to the mansion and images have meanings that are too flexible when you're working with someone who can't read and maybe doesn't know English visual and narrative conventions. I read a lot of comics when I was a kid. Watched a lot of cartoons. That helped me truly learn to communicate visually." He paused, aware Alani might not have followed that and added, "But yeah, ASL is my first expressive language."
When he stopped signing, Alani’s brows had furrowed in focus, eyes flicking across his hands to decipher what was being said. She wasn’t entirely sure that she understood everything but the images helped immensely. And that… explained a lot. She nodded after a moment. “Makes sense, communication is important to development. Thank you for helping me, I didn’t say that, but it means a lot to me.”
Artie shrugged uncomfortably. "I like having people I can talk to, without equipment, without powers," he said finally. "It's useful." Understatement much? He elaborated slightly. "I can pretend to talk, operate in the world but it's work. It's nice to be able to just use a language where I'm on equal footing."
"Of course." That earned a quick affirmation of understanding, remaining hyper-focused on his signing. "That is entirely understandable. Especially as you worked so hard to learn and communicate in ASL. Does it bother you?" A pause as she tried to figure the sign for it, before instead signing, "To pretend to be speaking?"
I only pretend for work. I can't do what I do if people believe that I can't talk. Everyone else? Eh. I'd rather never use a speech synthesizer but I don't have a lot of choices. And the ones I have are custom built to take projected input. I'm not just sitting there tapping away."
A slow nod, she could empathize. Understand fully where he was coming from? No, likely never. But his approach made sense and worked for him. "Thank you for explaining. I'm too curious for my own good maybe, but I like to learn more. To try and understand, so I can be better." That made sense right? "And I want to be able to speak with people-" Another pause as she wondered if the movement, or lack thereof, of her middle and ring fingers was correct, she hoped. "Makes my own work a lot easier."
He nodded. "Practice makes competent."
“Competent.” She repeated the sign with a grin. “I’ll take it.”
Artie dropped into a chair in the coffee shop and waved a hello to Alani. "Sorry I'm late, I was -- it was a work thing." He let the text run across the table toward her.
Perking up at the text, Alani flashed him a smile. "Oh, don't you worry I'm happy to wait for you." A beat as she realized what she said aloud. "That came off flirtier than I intended, I just mean, you're doing me a favor, and I am going to shut my mouth now, because I will keep putting my foot there." She laughed at herself before making eye contact and beginning, hands coming up to be fully in view on the table. 'I'm slow. Start small?"
He gave her a practiced smirk and raised one eyebrow. "You're fine," Artie replied, slowly, carefully. He wasn't interested but there was no point making things weird. Weirder. Sometimes it was easier to just let it wash past him than let Alani dig herself into a hole she wasn't going to recover from. "You been practicing?"
Sighing and allowing herself to relax, she nodded, glad that he'd very politely ignored the first words out of her mouth. "Yes, new student at the center is hearing impaired and is running circles around me." Brows knit, as she focused on not moving mechanically, always the hardest part when making an actual conversation. "Good kid, always wants to talk about Spider-Man."
"You know, he's kind of a jerk, right? Spider-Man?"
"Did not know, but I'm not surprised," she raised her shoulders in a shrug. "Never meet your heroes, but I'm not telling the kid that." Motioning to him, she let herself grin again. "And you? What have you been up to?"
Artie quirked a smile. "Everything. You know how it is. " The reason for the trip, everything else wasn't a conversation for the coffee shop but the trip itself, yeah. "So, language practice. I'm going to describe a trip I took a while back to you when we went to Burning Man, show you how to be more visual. This isn't English and you can't just treat a signed language like a spoken one."
“Of course.” Alani nodded and, while the smile remained, her expression took a serious edge as she focused on his hands. Forcing herself to relax, both of her hands raised and the simple signs she knew came next. “Ready.”
Artie smiled broadly. "Okay, so, I need you to imagine. You're standing on a dry lake. It's huge, flat and goes forever out to the sides. There's almost too much sky overhead and no clouds. There's dust, everywhere. It drifts up into your eyes and mouth. It's cold, too, when you're out of the sun or in the wind and the wind never stops. That's where we were."
She couldn't help but grimace at the mental imagery he was setting and, though she opened her mouth to verbally respond, nodded after a moment, hands more fluid as she signed an affirmative. "Alright. From now on just ASL?" She'd slowed again, though she tried not to become stilted.
Artie shrugged. "If you want. I'm happy to do language practice but only if you put the effort in."
That earned him a raised brow. Taking a moment to shake out her hands and pop her knuckles, Alani rolled her eyes but stopped herself from sticking her tongue out to keep with the imagination exercise that had been set. "I'm serious, thank you. Cannot improve without a good teacher." No, that wasn't the right sign, teacher actually meant teacher and she didn't want to conflate what she meant with the sign in her head. "Partner?"
"Partner." Artie nodded. "Tell me... um. Tell me about the flood?"
Her shoulders dropped, face falling in turn as she broke eye contact. That was hard, for a number of reasons. Then was of course the moment she realized the rudeness in her manner, and she looked up again. "Hard to say," the first word signed tapped only once to show she meant the difficulty but a determination was behind the movements. "Like home but worse. Too many people, too few resource." While the point of 'home' had brought a slight smile to her face it vanished quickly as she tried to describe the flood.
Artie nodded. "I should have picked a different topic." He tapped the table for a moment and looked around, all inspiration gone. "I have ... nothing. I'm sorry. There's work but nothing I want to describe. I did some image analysis for a job. Tagging and facial ID But it's too heavy for this and I don't know you'd have the vocab. How about.... What are your Thanksgiving plans?”
A laugh bubbled out, though Alani fought to not let it, trying desperately to keep the mental situation placed in mind but failing. Schooling her expression the best she could, as she began to sign. “Same thing each year. Volunteer all the time. Homework and sleep after. You?” She cocked her head a touch as she asked, hopeful that her hands were smoothing the longer they worked.
"I don't know. I don't really do the holidays. I tend to work Thanksgiving and spend Christmas on an island someplace. So, I'll be manning our desk."
“Sounds fun.” She signed with a laugh. “Better than nothing.” A pause as she thought about what she was trying to ask before starting again. “ASL is your first language?” She hoped she hadn’t accidentally used ‘sentence’ instead of ‘language’ despite the common mistake.
Artie waved a hand. "It's ...complicated," he said finally. "I'm hearing, so I always had English. But I can't speak orally. So I had home sign, images..." He shrugged and set up a small image, flat on the table, where Alani could see but onlookers couldn't. The Morlock tunnels, from a small child's perspective, even though he wasn't visible himself.. The child was clearly involved in a conversation with an older woman, who was talking back while the child responded in small, crude stick figures and images, hovering just beyond his hands. "ASL is my first expressive language. I couldn't read when I came to the mansion and images have meanings that are too flexible when you're working with someone who can't read and maybe doesn't know English visual and narrative conventions. I read a lot of comics when I was a kid. Watched a lot of cartoons. That helped me truly learn to communicate visually." He paused, aware Alani might not have followed that and added, "But yeah, ASL is my first expressive language."
When he stopped signing, Alani’s brows had furrowed in focus, eyes flicking across his hands to decipher what was being said. She wasn’t entirely sure that she understood everything but the images helped immensely. And that… explained a lot. She nodded after a moment. “Makes sense, communication is important to development. Thank you for helping me, I didn’t say that, but it means a lot to me.”
Artie shrugged uncomfortably. "I like having people I can talk to, without equipment, without powers," he said finally. "It's useful." Understatement much? He elaborated slightly. "I can pretend to talk, operate in the world but it's work. It's nice to be able to just use a language where I'm on equal footing."
"Of course." That earned a quick affirmation of understanding, remaining hyper-focused on his signing. "That is entirely understandable. Especially as you worked so hard to learn and communicate in ASL. Does it bother you?" A pause as she tried to figure the sign for it, before instead signing, "To pretend to be speaking?"
I only pretend for work. I can't do what I do if people believe that I can't talk. Everyone else? Eh. I'd rather never use a speech synthesizer but I don't have a lot of choices. And the ones I have are custom built to take projected input. I'm not just sitting there tapping away."
A slow nod, she could empathize. Understand fully where he was coming from? No, likely never. But his approach made sense and worked for him. "Thank you for explaining. I'm too curious for my own good maybe, but I like to learn more. To try and understand, so I can be better." That made sense right? "And I want to be able to speak with people-" Another pause as she wondered if the movement, or lack thereof, of her middle and ring fingers was correct, she hoped. "Makes my own work a lot easier."
He nodded. "Practice makes competent."
“Competent.” She repeated the sign with a grin. “I’ll take it.”
