Professional Dumbass

Anyways! HERE'S YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO WHAT CAN COUNT AS EYESTRAIN! I'm pulling this straight from the Artfight rules page about what needs to be labeled and filtered as eyestrain because it's VERY helpful and VERY accurate! I also know not everybody has an AF account and might not always have access to this handy guide, and this is an important resource; That's why I'm sharing it here! (under the cut)

PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!!! THIS IS ABOUT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF OTHERS!!!

Needs Filtering

Large amounts of bright colors, including backgrounds

High contrast bright colors

Chromatic abberation

Optical illusions

Fast-flashing or bright animations

Intense glowing effects

Doesn't Need Filtering

Small amounts of bright colors

Slow flashing animation (under 3/sec)

Minor glowing effects

Image two is a "Visual Guide to Eyestrain Filters" showing example art by lycanthropylive of a simple person with the following color effects, respectively labeled as needing or not needing a filter.

Small amounts of bright colors (person with splashes of magenta and cyan on their hands): no filter needed

High contrast bright colors (person with bright rainbow shirt): filter needed

Bright/neon backgrounds (magenta square behind person): needed

Chromatic abberation or glitch effects (person with glitch effects): needed

Intense glow (cyan/white glow around person and their eyes): needed

Clashing patterns & optical illusions (checkered black/yellow/cyan pattern on leg): needed. End ID]

[Caps transcript:

Here's your handy guide to what can count as eyestrain!

maybe they adopt other people’s practices as ~cool quirky aesthetics~ that come and go like fads. because they love sharing and expressing their own faith in personalized ways! they love trying new things! how could it possibly be disrespectful? things fall in and out of fashion. they have traditions and rituals and symbols but they’re never cemented in place as immutable fixtures of the faith. and that’s a sign of growth, flexibility, and individuality! it seems so strange to just do ONE THING forever, right??

but maybe things that are rich and meaningful in another culture/religion get swallowed up, stripped of the depth of their history and context, decoupled from their origins as they’re passed around, until they’re absorbed into the miasma of “different ways to express your faith in the Change God” that ~someone, somewhere~ came up with.

i think most Vaugardians would ACT like that’s the case. this can't be a REAL problem, can it? everyone is free to choose how and when they change! of course we support people who don't change in these specific ways, too :) isn't that obvious? oh dear, we thought that was obvious! thank you for telling us, so sorry for the misunderstanding, but well, now you know you have nothing to worry about (you were worrying about nothing)!

i think, always, about how Bonnie said they HAD to get their ears pierced when they were younger. how the Vaugardians in the party didn't even consider that earrings might be so standard in their cultural fashion norms BECAUSE earrings are directly linked to their bonding customs. which of course just about everyone does eventually, and even if they don't, it's just fashion, right? :) it doesn't really mean anything nasty or insidious. (if earrings were really just accessories, why wouldn't children be given the choice of what to do with their bodies? why would they have to get them?)

Mirabelle is neither sheltered nor naive. she has the biggest social network out of the entire party, she has taken over a hundred classes, she loves reading and studying and learning. but she didn't even know that other people like her existed. their voices aren't heard, their stories aren't known. that's pretty telling!!!

how many other customs, turns of phrase, story tropes, etc. are constantly and subtly reinforcing the pressures that Mirabelle was feeling, just in ways that are invisible to people who are raised into them? people who have the privilege to be supported and validated by them instead of minimized and dismissed?

i think Vaugardians would be plenty eager to change things and accommodate the Savior of Vaugarde on a surface level, but they would struggle to identify deeper structural causes that need addressing in the long term. the relaxed and lackadaisical attitude resulting in not taking people's concerns seriously, or seeing it as an individual problem rather than a collective issue that's worth spending the time and effort to thoroughly understand. (obviously people can just choose not to wear earrings anymore when they grow up! but isn't it still easier to just give everyone piercings when they're young?) even followers of a religion that prides itself on its capacity for Change aren't immune to stubbornness or being stuck in their limited worldview. we see that with how the party treats Siffrin and his beliefs, and that's certainly not resolved the second they become aware of a problem existing.