Me: "Damn people are REALLY BAD at knowing when to tag their eyestrain art/images...either that or they just don't care about photosenitive epileptic people like me. I feel really sad now."
Person: "But Allison, what if they just don't know or understand what qualifies as eyestrain and what doesn't?"
Me: "You know what? That could be a factor...While it is always better to be safe rather than sorry (so YES people should always tag eyestrain even if they're unsure if it "counts" or not) maybe you've got a point?"
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!!!
Full eyestrain AF page link
"But Allison! How were you able to screenshot that example if you're so sensitive to eyestrain?"
I dimmed the HELL out of my computer screen and looked away while taking the screenshot and did the same when putting it into this post, that's how lol. BUT YEAH ANYWAYS!!! Once again:
PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!!! THIS IS ABOUT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF OTHERS!!!
Can everyone who makes video content do a Deaf bitch a favor? Watch your shit with the captions on and the sound off, and then do another round of editing to fix things including but not limited to:
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.
This post brought to you by the fifth video tutorial I could not follow because the bad, auto-generated captions covered what I was trying to watch today.
Not deaf, but the words spoken and the words shown aren't matching is a pet peeve of mine. Also, I had a feeling it would also hinder those who needed captions for *anything.*
"This week I discovered the same pattern, executed by Google. Google Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking."
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise t
pretty sure I did the chrome//flags thing a while ago, but also i switched to firefox, which is not without the occasional bullshit, but is vastly less bullshitty than chrome.
This is why I treat genai "features" like the invasive blackberry bushes they are: cut, root, burn, and vigilantly watch for new shoots to uproot. I'm 54 years old and the world got by fine without genai for most of my lifetime.
tags via@KKglinka #psa#having read the article#it's not clickbait#chrome is reaching#across all chromium browsers#to link a prepatory structure#this malware packet#will therefore occur#with all chromium browsers#it has nothing to do#with the actual ai interface#instead chrome is either#using your personal computer#as part of a cloud server#the way bitcoin malware works#or it's recording your own#actions on the computer#with a continuously active#background module#either way#that's malware#a 4gig trojan virus
The Hypocrisy of "Don't Like, Don't Read" When They Won't Let You Scroll in Peace
PROSHITS DNI!
There is a specific kind of irony that only exists in online fandom, and it's embodied by the proshipper who preaches "don't like, don't read" while making it functionally impossible to avoid their content. For a community that claims to value freedom above all else, they sure do spend a lot of energy forcing their work into spaces explicitly marked as off-limits.
Let's talk about tagging, or rather, the deliberate refusal to do it properly. Fandom runs on tagging. It's the basic courtesy that allows a 14-year-old looking for fluffy fanart to avoid stumbling onto explicit adult content. It's the entire reason the "don't like, don't read" philosophy can even function. But too many proshippers treat tagging like a suggestion rather than a boundary-respecting necessity. They'll use vague tags. They'll hide problematic content under cutesy euphemisms. They'll create entirely new tags specifically to evade the block functions that antis and minors use to protect themselves. This isn't creative freedom. This is actively sabotaging the tools people use to consent to what they see.
And when they get blocked? When an anti curates their own space and excludes them? The response is often block evasion. New blogs. New accounts. A relentless determination to force their way back into a space that explicitly rejected them. This isn't engagement. This is harassment with extra steps.
Then there's the invasion of anti spaces. Proshippers will wander into tags like "anti proship" or "antis dni" and act shocked—shocked—that the people there don't want to see proship content. They'll reblog anti posts to mock them. They'll flood the tags with their own content specifically to trigger the people filtering those tags. They deliberately cross the line and then cry censorship when they're met with resistance.
And here's the killer: these are the same people who plaster "DNI IF YOU'RE AN ANTI" all over their own blogs. They demand that antis respect their boundaries. They demand that antis stay out of their spaces. They insist that consent matters. But the moment the roles are reversed? Suddenly boundaries are "censorship." Suddenly curated spaces are "echo chambers." Suddenly the rules only apply when they're the ones being protected.
You cannot claim to care about consent and then deliberately circumvent every tool designed to secure it. You cannot preach "your kink is not my kink and that's okay" while shoving your kink down the throats of people who have explicitly said it's not okay. The refusal to tag properly, the block evasion, the tag invasion—these aren't acts of creative defiance. They are acts of targeted harassment dressed up in the language of freedom.
If you truly believe in "don't like, don't read," then you have to accept that "don't read" means allowing people the space to not read. You have to tag honestly. You have to accept blocks. You have to stay out of tags that aren't for you. Otherwise, you're not a defender of free expression. You're just a hypocrite who can't stand that someone, somewhere, doesn't want to see what you're making.
actually a coworker of mine said something interesting about this. I was saying that I truly can’t help how easily I cry, and I hate when people assume I do it on purpose.
and he paused for a second and then said, “when you’ve been taught from a young age that crying is weak and you should train yourself never to cry for any reason, you assume that everyone else has trained themselves too, so anyone who cries has to be doing it on purpose. it took me a long time to realize that wasn’t true.”
listen we’re never gonna run out of ways the patriarchy hurts all of us.
Me being against proship is not : "censor, take down, no one should be allowed to talk about this"
Me being against proship is: "people aren't going to like you if you romanticize pedophilia. I am allowed to not want to be around you, cut you out of my life, whatever, because you romanticize disgusting, serious, awful things that happen to real people. And I'm not the only one who will"
okay. so. this is going to feel a little bit like a call-out, but in a “i have done this and will probably do it again” way, not a “you specifically are the problem” way.
because.....:
most writers don’t under-describe.
they don’t.
they over-describe, just… not the parts that actually matter.
and that’s where everything starts to feel off in a way that’s hard to explain but very easy to feel.
like you read a paragraph and go:
“this is technically fine. why am i bored.”
let me show you the pattern.
you will spend:
5 lines describing the curtains
3 lines describing the exact shade of the wallpaper
2 lines describing the way light hits the floorboards
and then when your character is:
about to lie
about to confess something
about to make a decision that will literally alter the trajectory of the story
you give it:
“she hesitated.”
and then you MOVE ON??
be serious for a second.
this is what i mean when i say you’re over-describing the wrong things.
it’s not that description is bad. i love description. i want to eat description. i want to live inside it.
but description has a job.
and its job is not “make the scene look pretty.”
its job is:
direct the reader’s attention to what matters emotionally.
so if you are describing something in detail, i need you to ask:
“why this. why right now.”
because if the answer is:
“i pictured it really clearly in my head”
i regret to inform you that your reader does not care. gently. respectfully. they do not care.
they care about:
what your character wants
what is getting in the way
what this moment means
everything else is background noise unless you make it matter.
here’s where it gets a little uncomfortable:
you are probably avoiding describing the things that feel harder to articulate.
like:
the exact shape of someone’s hesitation
the difference between anger and hurt in a single line of dialogue
the way attraction feels when it’s inconvenient
the moment a character realizes something they don’t want to know
that’s the stuff you skim past.
because it’s messy. and specific. and requires you to make choices.
so instead, you describe the room.
because the room is safe.
the room will not expose you.
the room will not force you to decide what your character is actually feeling.
and i get it. i really do.
but also: that’s why your scenes feel flat.
not because nothing is happening.
but because the important thing is happening off-screen.
let’s fix it. practically. no vague advice. i don’t do vague advice.
next time you’re writing a scene, do this:
pick one moment where something shifts.
not physically. emotionally.
a realization. a decision. a change in power. a crack in composure.
and then instead of writing:
“she hesitated”
you stay there.
you stretch it.
you get uncomfortably specific.
what kind of hesitation?
is it:
the kind where she already knows the answer and is stalling
the kind where she’s hoping someone interrupts
the kind where saying it out loud will make it real
what does it feel like in her body?
what does she notice in the room because she’s hesitating?
(see how now the description has a job. it’s not random anymore. yay)
this is the shift:
description should orbit emotion.
not replace it.
not distract from it.
not hide it.
orbit it.
another thing. and i’m going to say this very gently because i know how attached we get to our sentences:
if you can cut a description and nothing changes about how the reader understands the scene?
it was never doing anything.
it was just sitting there. looking pretty. contributing nothing to the emotional experience.
and we do not keep freeloaders in this house.
this doesn’t mean your writing has to be minimal.
it means your writing has to be intentional.
you can describe everything if you want.
but then everything you describe needs to be pulling weight.
it needs to be revealing character, or building tension, or reinforcing mood in a way that actually connects to what’s happening internally.
otherwise it’s just… decorative.
and decoration is not story.
so next time you feel like your scene is “missing something”
before you add more description
ask yourself:
am i avoiding the part that actually matters?
and then go write that part.
even if it’s harder.
especially if it’s harder.
anyway. that’s your gentle (not gentle) reminder for today.
go make your characters feel things on the page instead of hiding behind the wallpaper.
i’m watching you.
(in a supportive way. mostly.)
I HAVE DIGITAL PRODUCTS!!!
if you're writing dark academia feel free to check out this packet filled with all the juicy prompts to spark ideas!
A gothic prompt pack for writers who love cursed universities, secret societies, and scholarly rot.✎ Write the Darkness ✎A 75-prompt horror
need help with your opening pages?! i have a free ebook for you all (aesthetic, cohesive and actually informative! it's free! but tips are highly appreciated!)
✦ A free (and actually helpful) guide to leveling up your first 10 pages ✦If you're unsure whether your opening is ✨doing enough✨ to hook re
jbbartram-illu
stormborns
yousharknotpass
2087
izzy806
titsay
theartofmadeline
discoholicmusic
