A Mighty Octopus

We all know that feeling, we think our image descriptions are not good enough. We think they’re too short and insignificant. We wonder if it’s worth it posting one at all, but it’s always worth it. And here is why:

Even if an image description doesn’t mention everything in the image, it tells you a million things which aren’t in the image.

If your description is [ID: Reaction image of a nodding woman. /end ID] it tells you one million things. Such as: The image is not a tweet adding further information or context, it’s not a screenshot of a Snopes article debunking the post, it’s not someone disagreeing.

Those six little words, that nodding woman, it might not seem like a lot. It might seem like you can skip right over it, like it’s not worth mentioning - but it is.

An image could always be a wall of text explaining why OP is wrong, and simply knowing that’s not the case is super useful. Knowing that it’s just a reaction image, just a meme, just a photograph, is super useful.

Some general info on screen readers and accessibility:

Accessible censoring of words (Please don't use * and $)

IDs in the main body vs alt text

using both alt text and main body IDs (with examples)

Common accessibility issues for screen readers, large text + some ID tips

Start ID/ End ID tags explained

I love my screen reader

An ask about emoji and capitalization (spoiler: emoji are fine)

Accessibility of formatting and Purpose of Plain Text (spoiler: bold and italics are fine)

Using colored text in image descriptions

How tags are read

Inaccessibility of gradient text

Zalgo text is inaccessible

My #accessibility review tag

Posts aimed at screen reader users:

How to open a link in a new tab using VoiceOver

Some general info on what a screen reader is

Burning Eyes on AO3 (An introduction to VoiceOver through a fictional story, starring Zuko and Toph from atla)

Posts about writing:

The abled saviour trope

Writing Sokka from atla as disabled

I occasionally update this list, but I have a bunch more posts on my blog, so feel free to browse or use the search function.

My asks are always open (including anon), so feel free to ask, but I am very slow at responding so it might be easier and faster to look up accessibility related questions online.

I say this as someone who sells pottery, and many people who see my art assume I am using art as an outlet to “express myself.”

I am not.

I use art to challenge myself. A lot of what I do is the equivalent of doing a hard sudoko or a half marathon, answering the question of “can I do this?”

I use art to question things and explore ideas. Finding physical synthesis between concepts and working out a design to its end state.

I use art to make money. I make some things just because I suspect they’ll sell well, and I keep making them when they do.

This idea that an artist is “putting themselves out there” every time they create is not only stupid, but harmful, and it kills critique and analysis.

Yes every creative work is influenced by its creator, but the most preliminary step of analysis is to define the purpose of a work of art (functional, narrative, entertainment, persuasive, decorative, ceremonial, etc.) and a vanishingly small percentage of that is self-expression. Even then, it’s generally tied to the self’s relationship with something else—perception, society, etc.

It’s very tiresome to have people assume they know you because they like (or dislike) your art, to make assumptions about who you are and how you approach the world. It’s nothing new— people called the Impressionists insane and the Fauvists degenerate. And now people are expected to hand out their identities and traumas to prove they have the right to explore certain subjects.

Captions cover the spot on the screen you put the information I need

The dialogue is captioned but not the song you have playing that the dialogue is responding to

You only captioned the person on the screen, not the person off screen who is also talking

No captioning of critical sound effects (alarms, bells, dogs barking, etc)

Speakers are not labelled at moments where it is not clear on the screen who is talking.

Captions cover the spot on the screen that you put the information I need!

Other d/Deaf people welcome to add.

killing a rich couple to steal $100k worth of jewellery and watches in order to escape poverty?

❌ bad, wrong, you're a murderous scum and should go to prison for life (we'll be praying for your soul)

joining the military to help kill and maim foreign people, in order to escape poverty?

As a white person raised in a white supremacist society, you’re gonna fuck up sometimes. That’s just a fact. But racialized people often aren’t able/comfortable speaking up when y’all do some shit because of the power imbalance/not feeling up to educating when you may be resistant/don’t think the “fight” will be Worth It.

Show initiative without making it A Struggle or playing the white guilt card. Show you actually care about them, their struggles, and the way you interact with them BEFORE they have to have a bigger Conversation with you, beyond when they need to yell about someone else being racist.

Even close friends or partners are not necessarily safe. I have had partners dismiss accusations of racism just off hand, I have had partners treat me like a repository for knowledge on Muslim cultural practices despite the fact that *my family has been Christian since Jesus,* hell I have had a partner say I was overplaying my pain at the genocide to get sympathy.

IF YOU ARE WHITE YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP OR YOU ARE JUST PUTTING MORE LABOR AND DANGER ON YOUR RACIALIZED FRIENDS FOR YOUR FUCKING COMFORT

- poll

1. seemingly obvious answer 35%

2. not obvious answer 12%

4. I'm bald 54%

- reblog

Africa 12%

I dont knowwwwwwww 75%

im bald 13%

- reblog

damn its starting to get a little chilly here

- reblogs

Something really fucked up happened to me and I don't know what to do

- Reblogs

while realism means--exactly that, adherence to the specific logics of actual reality and its physics, logistics, etc.

There's a particular recurring discussion of "realism" in media that goes something like this: "okay, but realistically the heroes would always win because they'd just shoot the villain while they're monologuing" – while refusing to acknowledge the obvious follow-up question: "wait, but if monologuing reliably gets you shot, where do all the monologuing villains come from?"

i.e., what we're really discussing is not a milieu which has adhered to some notional model of "realism" ab initio, but one which was apparently governed by the conventional tropes of its genre right up until the moment the character the person framing the scenario wants to win walks into the room, whereupon "realism" asserts itself.

Heck, there were folks doing this song and dance in the notes of the post this one is following up on, trotting out hypotheticals like "in a realistic fantasy setting the twelve-year-old chosen one would always lose because experience trumps skill and the power of friendship isn't real", implicitly taking it as given that in a milieu where this is true, people would still be handing out magic swords to twelve-year-olds.

grounded: serious thought is given to how the evil wizard's army is managing the logistics of feeding a dragon, even if that doesn't come up directly on the page