#i keep forgetting that I've used gravity falls as an example recently

[harper-collins]

Jan 13: Albeit

conj: even though: although

"Dipper enjoyed the forest and the way he could hide in there for hours, albeit it could get difficult to see your surroundings sometimes,"

First Previous Next

[anistarrose]

Hey Anon! I've actually been meaning to make a post of my own about this for Disability Pride Month, but I'm happy to post a fanart-centric version here! There's no universally accepted "perfect" way to write IDs, and no universally perfect level of detail to include, but here are some starting points:

Basic intro, slightly emphasizing fanart (OP's blog has tons of described fanart if you want to learn by example)

Another intro, for more general topics with fanart included (and misc. examples linked)

Guide for describing art in general, from the Cooper-Hewitt museum (some of these examples get slightly longer than I would advise for most simple fanart, and it's generally geared towards describing art created by someone else, but it's a good read nonetheless)

One thing I strongly suggest is to be consistent about what features you describe — for example, with respect to skin tone, hair texture, body type, etc, you generally want to do it either all the time or none of the type, so not to risk implying that any one type of the above is the "default" to be presumed when no info is given.

That said, there's also variability here in terms of what you're describing: if you're describing art of animated, comic, etc, characters that have consistent canon designs that you're adhering to, you might reasonably decide you need less overall detail about character design in your descriptions.

On the other hand, if you're describing characters from books, podcasts, or anything else that sparks a lot of different fan designs, then details like skin tone might be more important — likewise, if the character has a canon design but you're departing from it a lot, that could be worth specifying.

(You'll notice that when I describe The Adventure Zone, I try to always indicate skin tone/body type, but when I describe Gravity Falls/The Owl House, I rarely do unless it's a departure from canon. Different people will do this differently, though, and that doesn't mean anyone is objectively wrong.)

On that note, when I'm describing fanart, I run through a mental heuristic that's a little different depending on fandom (for reasons related to the above), but basically I try to address the following, in flexible but approximate order:

characters

source material

mood and, if applicable, prominent colors

(see: "Blind People Still Like to Know About Color")

character design traits like those mentioned above

if applicable, dialogue/other text

background (though sometimes I admittedly forget this one, and sometimes simple backgrounds can be rolled into mood/color)

In terms of formatting: stuff like italics, caps lock, and tumblr's small text can be difficult for screen readers, so it's best to avoid them. Don't add jokes or subjective judgements like "cute" or "ugly," but do indicate where the ID starts and ends, and do add occasional line breaks to keep the image from becoming a wall of text.

(The reason for that last part is that sometimes people with trouble interpreting images, and people who are low vision but don't necessarily use screen readers, will read IDs for help with some or all of an image, and walls of text aren't super accessible in that regard.)

I also very recently joined the People's Accessibility Discord server, which helps crowdsource IDs, including for fanart! If you're getting started, you could always ask for help in there.

Lastly, I just want to give two more links that aren't necessarily related to fanart, but are just all-around useful: this guide for describing screenshotted tags, and this document full of templates for describing common memes!

Your desire to make your art more accessible is super appreciated, Anon, and I want to assure you that artist describing your own work, you're already at a great starting point to write some wonderful descriptions! You know better than anyone else what the important details of your work are, what expressions and emotions the characters are conveying, and the mood it's setting — and for all those reasons, I love seeing more artist-described stuff!

sorry if you'd already been asked this/aren't the person I should go for for this, but any tips for writing image IDs for fanart? I want to make my work more accessible but I'm not fully sure what's helpful and what's unnessasary/overkill/actually makes the experience worse.

I am by no means an expert at this (and often, regrettably forget to add image IDs/alt to my own posts, though I am working to be more consistent.)

@anistarrose has a great list of resources on this here! I have found the links on that page to be a great starting point.

[magicalgirlagency]

Honestly I don't know if it was Madoka that's made recent kids' shows darker (well, maybe it did for SU? idk). At first I thought it was more due to Gravity Falls and/or Adventure Time because I know those shows get really dark later on. Oddly enough even though there are shows I've seen that are much darker than Steven Universe for some reason it's only Steven that feels like Madoka again. Like sure with some other shows I'm like "oh holy crap thats fucked up" but with Steven?Straightup Madoka.

It's complicated, but I think I can give my 2 cents on the matter...

While MadoMagi did certainly contribuited to the popularization of Tragical Girls (Raising Project, Yuki Yuna, Magical Girl Site, Daybreak Illusion and SpecOps Asuka), it didn't got people thinking about how fucked up it is to rely on minors to do the dirty work and clean up the adults' messes.

I mean, nothing has changed; I still keep seeing children/teenagers getting into the most traumatic experiences ever. BNHA, JJK, and KnY, for example, are high-grossing shounen series with teenaged MCs witnessing the most horrendous shit ever, and actively have their joy and energy sucked right out of their bodies in the process.

As for Steven Universe, well, I wouldn't say it's "straight up Madoka", despite the similarities that they may share. At first, it was marketed as some spiritual successor to famous series such as Sailor Moon and DragonBall, having the strong potential of going down as one of the most memorable cartoons in TV history with its heroines with diverse body types and actual queer relationships...

...but the truth is way more complicated than that.

You see, Steven Universe is one of those series that didn't knew which demographic to be aimed at. It wanted to be child-friendly with SatAm-esque scenarios and a Monster-of-the-Day/Week routine, but it wanted to be serious and appeal to older audiences with the Gem War, the Diamond Authority, the Cluster, etc...

The staff was amateurish and black-and-white in their approach of nuanced themes, not to mention the irresponsibility and laziness with the amount of fillers and hiatuses. They have bitten more than they could chew, and all became one big neo-liberalistic mess in the end. Steven Universe was more worried about looking visually good than actually telling a good story.

Meanwhile Madoka just straight up lied to its audience. They have used the Magical Girl genre as bait to get a public to watch their anime. I mean, the title is written in a curvy and cutesy font...

And its main heroines are constantly marketed as a team and are always looking as if they were besties (emulating the likes of the Inner Senshi)...

...except that Homura was indifferent to anyone who wasn't Madoka, Mami was devoured right after her debut (and became the target of a 10 year joke that's no longer funny), Kyouko was territorial and aggressive to Sayaka on their first meeting (and both girls became shipping fodder despite having the worst first impression ever), Sayaka was treated like a guinea pig to show the audience how Witches were born, Madoka ascends to Nirvana and stops existing, and Homura becomes a test subject and attempts suicide and becomes a yandere when her plan fails.

Oh, and let's not forget the alternative timeline where Mami loses her composure and kills Kyouko after witnessing Sayaka become Oktavia, and is then killed by Madoka before she could do the same to Homura.

And when these girls are FINALLY seen working together, it's later revealed to be all a fabricated lie.

So much for friendship.

Anyways, so long story short: Steven Universe was highly ambitious in theory, but utterly incompetent in practice. Madoka Magica actively lied to the public with their façade of cuteness and frills. Even though they have their places in pop culture, we must also acknowledge that their executions were made in really bad taste.

[blakelywintersfield]

The Owl House would not have the kind of representation it does now if not for Steven Universe. Alex Hirsch tried having a brief appearance of two old ladies falling in love. Not even kissing. And it was struck down by Disney. Same with the trans symbol appearing on a necklace. This was in 2014. And in Gravity Fall's season finale, he couldn't even have two side characters explicitly say they were together -- it's used as part of a joke and could easily be written off as such (or as non-queer). That's as far as he could get by 2016. The fact that Lumity gets to be canon is a huge fucking break that we wouldn't have gotten five years ago.

And Nickelodeon isn't innocent in this either -- did y'all forget how hard the writers of The Legend of Korra had to fight back in 2014 to have the ending they did where Korra and Asami smile at each other and hold hands? That was their limit! They weren't allowed to show them kiss! Not even a quick peck! It was unallowed! Do you think they would've allowed one of the sisters from The Loud House to be queer or had two husbands with a child back then?

Not to mention the fight to show Bubbleline on screen for years and years, and it was thanks to Rebecca Sugar that we got to see them kiss. Like. All these shows? That you're mentioning right now? Where they've clearly shown portrayals of queer relationships and nonbinary representation? They premiered these specific reveals in the past 5 years. The McBride husbands were introduced in 2016. Luna was shown to have a crush on Sam the year after (and the intention of her being named Sam was to keep her gender vague during the pitch); requited feelings in 2019; and confirmed to be her girlfriend this year. In 2021. The "I'm texting my girlfriend" bit mentioned? 2019.

All these examples being thrown around to snub SU's representation happened extremely recently; all of them happened after Steven Universe showed Ruby and Sapphire embrace and kiss briefly in the first season finale. All of them are possible because of Rebecca Sugar's tireless fight to have more queer representation in children's media.

They faced immense backlash from the studio. They faced backlash from other countries. Not only was Ruby given a man's voice in the Russian dub, they edited her to have a mustache so it wouldn't appear queer. Y'all want to see the list of censorship done to this show that you think did such a milquetoast job of queer representation? It's really fucking long because there were different edits done depending on which of the 30+ countries were censoring them. Sure, not all of those edits are specifically aimed at queer content. But the fact that the UK straight up censored Pearl and Rose Quartz's dance in 2016 because it was "too intimate"? (No inappropriate touching, no kissing, nothing that could be possibly inappropriate for children to witness -- just too queer!)

And, as a final little sidenote before I get off my damn soapbox -- Rebecca Sugar is a nonbinary woman. Perhaps part of her reason for never explicitly stating they were "girlfriends" was because the gems are all nonbinary as well? They prefer to take feminine forms, but they are all still nonbinary in the end, and even binary gender-leaning nonbinary people may not be comfortable with gendered titles like husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend, etc. I'm all for clear representation, but y'all also have a history of erasing nonbinary and mspec sexualities in favor of fitting gay binary ideology (I could get into a whoooooole separate rant on that, especially erasing canonical bisexuality and pansexuality; but I've said enough for now). So like. For all that has been won, you all still have work to do yourselves in unlearning views and opinions that hurt your fellow community members.

10 years ago my 16-year-old baby queer self would never have thought that I'd see... any of this in my lifetime on G-rated media. I thought I'd only be lucky to see non-sexualized queer women, non-stereotyped queer men, and genuine, non-demonizing trans representation in adult media. The strides we have seen in these past 10 years are immense. The implications of yesterday are the reason you have confirmation today. Do not forget your history.

Steven Universe: Eh, I don't really feel like saying "girlfriend" or "wife". Maybe they're together. They have a special connection...

(gets violently shoved aside)

The Loud House/Craig of the Creek/The Owl House: Pfft, amateur. "My GIRLFRIEND Sam and I..." "I'm texting my GIRLFRIEND, mind your business." "Luz's new GF showed her..."