Imagining Criminal Minds

We know many of you have seen NaNoWriMo's recent statements on generative AI...

Well, we have too—and that's why we've made the decision to retract our sponsorship of NaNo.

Your support and belief in human creativity, transparency and collaboration mean everything to us, and we're committed to staying true to that. Thank you all! 💙

You can read our full statement here.

Besides being online and collaborative like GDocs, a few things I've liked about it so far:

It has a drafts feature, which you can use to track and merge revisions to your doc OR you can use them as sub-documents to store things like your bible--character info, notes, scenes, whatever OR you can break down your story into chapters

Strictly anti-AI, and wanting you to own your writing 100%

Has a built in writing timer, and a focus mode (Strips away the UI)

Aaaaaand….!! What's that...?

Oh yeah, snippet sharing:

and a built in export to AO3

I’ve seen a lot of fanfic writers ask for tips to write Deaf characters so I thought I would write some out to help make authentic.  Also feel free to send ask for any questions! 

Deaf characters exist on a spectrum- it’s rare to have no residual hearing.

Deaf characters can’t magically hear perfect with assistive devices. Hearing aids are in the name- an aid.  They make it easier to pick up some sounds.  They are also expensive and a lot of insurance won’t cover.  

ASL- American Sign Language.  Deaf characters raised by hearing family might not have access to ASL until later in life.  Percentage of Deaf kids educated in fluent ASL is low.

ASL has own grammar and syntax totally different from English,  But! It is okay to write ASL in spoken English grammar, especially if you don’t know ASL.  We know what you mean!

Avoid Deaf and hearing characters signing and speaking long sentences at the same time. It’s called Sim-Com and ASL users who can do it are rare because sentence structures are totally different.  It would be like trying to write a sentence in English at the exact same time (word for word) as someone speaks it in French.   Sim-com usually used with SEE and still hard for fluent ASL Deaf to follow.

Deaf characters can be dizzy!  Many many Deaf have tinnitus and vertigo.  Comes with many hearing loss conditions.  Vertigo can also be triggered by flashing lights, heavy bass sounds.  (very annoying in the car when driving and someone has loud, shake your car bass)

Deaf characters can also can have balance problems from inner ear issues.

Deaf characters can enjoy music!  Many ways to enjoy music besides hearing all of it.

Lip reading is hard.  You need to start at the beginning of the conversation, need constant context, and when you lose the thread it’s hard to get back.  Many many words look the same on lips that sound totally different.  Avoid magic lipreading in characters.

Character doesn’t need to have a Deaf accent.

Deaf character doesn’t need to talk loud.  Many Deaf talk very soft because they feel vibrations before the vibrations make audible noise.

Deaf characters can be very fluent in written English and great writers but still have very poor sentence skills when being casual in texting or conversation (like me!)  Hard to go from ASL to English brain, and makes you tired.

Deaf characters can use ASL Slang!  ASL has colloquial signs that have no direct English translation but we use all the time (peh peh, train go sorry, champ, etc etc)   Here are some examples!

hotch: is the bau on fire? 

derek: …no? 

hotch: then it’s not an emergency *hangs up* 

emily: well? what did he say? what do we do about the man who’s holding reid hostage? 

derek: apparently it’s not an emergency 

This website has a whole page dedicated to physcial descriptors of certain emotions, including tiredness and exhaustion!

Decision making and focus also deteriorate. After five days of no sleep, punching myself in the throat in order to restore my lost voice seemed perfectly reasonable (and, for what it's worth, did work.) You can physically still accomplish strenuous tasks--I could still carry 100+ lb loads without significantly more strain than normal--but maintaining focus on the tasks is harder. Your body wants to relax and sleep, so to carry a heavy load, you have to actively force yourself to maintain your grip. Doing things like counting large quantities is near impossible, because you repeatedly loose focus and second-guess what you've done already. You stagger and stumble as you walk, if microsleep is setting in strongly enough to catch you as you're walking.

There have been lots of new followers in the last several months! Woohoo! Please take a few moments and familiarize yourself with the FAQ and the Guidelines. 

At the moment ICM is always open to accept your ideas! There are three methods of contact: 1) the Ask box, 2) the Submit page and 3) the email ( [email protected] ) ! [We are only closed if A) there’s a message, B) the Submit and Ask pages are nonexistent/closed, and C) the featured post says closed. This time is not now.]

Ideas CAN be sent in pertaining to the final season! :) They MUST begin with “spoiler warning” as I haven’t seen it yet. They will always have the tags “spoiler,” “spoilers” and “S15.”

Please be familiar with the Submission Guidelines as you send in an idea. If your idea breaks any of the rules it will not be published and you will not be notified. Also please read the FAQ before you ask a question. If your question is answered in the FAQ, can be found via an internet search, or is clearly visible on ICM’s content, your question will not be answered. Do you need help finding a specific post on ICM? Here’s a handy guide on How to Maneuver the Blog. If you are using the app please follow the instructions at the top of the blog and search for “links” for your links page. 

Will the new characters be added to the banner? Yes, someday!

***ICM is best viewed in anything BUT the app.***

BAU Elite 7 x Netflix

took a long time for me to make this haha, enjoy!

my birthday special edit!

a special thank you to: @scandinavian-punk , @joodeduarte , @honeyharreh and @andromedasstarship for joining in :) 

bau social media series masterlist

Moreid - Dumb and Dumber

JJ - Lucy

Hotchniss - Mr and Mrs. Smith

Rossi - The Chef Show

Morcia - When Harry Met Sally

elite 7 movie/tv show posters

Microsoft has a DRM-locked ebook store that isn’t making enough money, so they’re shutting it down and taking away every book that every one of its customers acquired effective July 1.

Customers will receive refunds.

This puts the difference between DRM-locked media and unencumbered media into sharp contrast. I have bought a lot of MP3s over the years, thousands of them, and many of the retailers I purchased from are long gone, but I still have the MP3s. Likewise, I have bought many books from long-defunct booksellers and even defunct publishers, but I still own those books.

When I was a bookseller, nothing I could do would result in your losing the book that I sold you. If I regretted selling you a book, I didn’t get to break into your house and steal it, even if I left you a cash refund for the price you paid.

People sometimes treat me like my decision not to sell my books through Amazon’s Audible is irrational (Audible will not let writers or publisher opt to sell their books without DRM), but if you think Amazon is immune to this kind of shenanigans, you are sadly mistaken. My books matter a lot to me. I just paid $8,000 to have a container full of books shipped from a storage locker in the UK to our home in LA so I can be closer to them. The idea that the books I buy can be relegated to some kind of fucking software license is the most grotesque and awful thing I can imagine: if the publishing industry deliberately set out to destroy any sense of intrinsic, civilization-supporting value in literary works, they could not have done a better job.

Cailbre d/l:

https://calibre-ebook.com/download

How to use cailbre to remove DRM:

There have been lots of new followers in the last several months! Woohoo! Please take a few moments and familiarize yourself with the FAQ and the Guidelines. 

At the moment ICM is always open to accept your ideas! There are three methods of contact: 1) the Ask box, 2) the Submit page and 3) the email ( [email protected] ) ! [We are only closed if A) there’s a message, B) the Submit and Ask pages are nonexistent/closed, and C) the featured post says closed. This time is not now.]

Ideas CAN be sent in pertaining to the final season! :) They MUST begin with “spoiler warning” as I haven’t seen it yet. They will always have the tags “spoiler,” “spoilers” and “S15.”

Please be familiar with the Submission Guidelines as you send in an idea. If your idea breaks any of the rules it will not be published and you will not be notified. Also please read the FAQ before you ask a question. If your question is answered in the FAQ, can be found via an internet search, or is clearly visible on ICM’s content, your question will not be answered. Do you need help finding a specific post on ICM? Here’s a handy guide on How to Maneuver the Blog. If you are using the app please follow the instructions at the top of the blog and search for “links” for your links page. 

Will the new characters be added to the banner? Yes, someday!

***ICM is best viewed in anything BUT the app.***