just some reminders for people who are writing IDs:
do not put judgements in your ids. do not say “it needs to be noted the character looks extra adorable here” do not say “an ugly person” or “a hilarious meme” or anything like that. we don’t need you to tell us how to feel about something.
do put descriptive words and adjectives. “a crudely drawn image” or “a painting of a scarlet colored apple” or “a person with large hands”. we do need you to tell us descriptors so we have context.
do not type words incorrectly. do write words exactly as they appear in the image.
let me say that again: EXACTLY as they appear. is the word capitalized? capitalize it. is the word “yes” written with 3 s’s? write it in the description as “yesss” not as “yesssss” or “yes”. are the words in all caps? write them in all caps, or write “text in all caps says” and then include a lowercase version. is a word misspelled? spell it exactly the same way. if the image says “washning mashing” it should not be written as “washing machine”*
*you can definitely say “the words ‘washing machine’ are misspelled as 'washning mashing’,” just make sure that you do include the exact transcription in your description
disabled people, people with screen readers, and ANYONE else who uses IDs to interpret images deserves to interpret the image as accurately as possible, and its important to transcribe and describe things properly and without judgements added.
Manually Writing Image Descriptions with Alt Text on Tumblr (Desktop)
Just so people are aware, you can add image descriptions via the alt text, but only from creating your image as a “text post”, because you need access to the HTML view feature. To edit the HTML of your text post, you need to click on the Settings icon in the upper righthand corner and choose “HTML”.
I usually just locate the image path url and then add in: alt=“[put your image description here]”
You can double check to see if an image has alt text by right clicking page (not the image) > Inspect and viewing the HTML.
And in the Inspect view, you’ll can see if an image has a description after the “alt” tag.
[Image Description: A drawing of the Stardew Valley farm at dusk. The sky is a pale orange fading into blue, with some stars and a crescent moon. The farmer is walking out of the fields holding a crate full of crops, towards the house where several other full crates are sitting on the ground. There are a few chests lined up against the side of the house, and there is also a cat sitting there as well. In the distance there are more fields, a barn, a mill, and trees, and jagged mountains even further away. The other three images in the post are close-ups of the farmer, the smoke billowing out of the farmhouse’s chimney, and the cat. End Image Description.]
Bored and stuck at home? Missing Critical Role? Why not spend an hour with other Critters looking at fanart and writing image descriptions! We do this every Thursday from 5-6pm PST. Today’s Thursday, so come say hi tonight and maybe describe an image or two!
Check under the read more for answers to common questions.
What is the CR Fanart Project?
We are a project dedicated to describing the fanart that Critical Role compiles every week into a gallery. Whenever a gallery is completely described and edited, we send it off to the CR team. They put those descriptions in the alt-text for each image on the website. You can find all of the galleries we have worked on, both in-progress and finished, right here!
How does this work?
Every week, Critical Role publishes a gallery of fanart on their website. We at CR Fanart Project then make a google doc for describing the gallery. Once a gallery is completely described, it is edited and sent off to the CR team.
Who writes these descriptions?
Volunteers like you! This is entirely a labor of love from the Critter community.
How do I help?
Click here to go to our master google doc for the project. From there, you can select which gallery you would like to work on. Once you open the google doc for a particular gallery, you will see at the top a link to the gallery on the Critical Role website. The images in the gallery are numbered (which you can see by clicking on an image). The docs are also numbered, so the description for an image goes next to the corresponding number in the google doc. From there you can start writing!
We try to work on the most recent galleries first, but you can choose whichever you would like. Any help at all is appreciated!
How do I write image descriptions?
One of our mods, JD (keplercryptids), has a great post about it here!
It is a weekly hour-long event where people can work all together on describing the latest fanart galleries! This event is on Thursdays from 5-6pm PST.For the duration of the hour, whoever wants to join works on writing descriptions for one of the galleries. When we finish one, we’ll move on to the next. This is a great way to make big bursts of progress on the galleries - plus it’s more fun to work all together!
Can I work on describing the galleries outside of the weekly hour?
Absolutely! We appreciate anybody working on the galleries at any hour.
Could we do more than one hour a week?
We are definitely interested in the idea of doing more than one hour a week, but for now we’ll start off small. If things go well, maybe we’ll add another time!
Could we do the hour at a different time/day?
Go ahead and send feedback about when you would like it to be! We tried picking a time that would work for the most people, but if enough people favor a different time slot then we may consider changing it.
Hi Critters! Thanks to everyone who’s been joining in our weekly describing hour. We’re still going every Thursday from 5-6pm PST. Today’s Thursday, so come say hi tonight and maybe describe an image or two!
This week we’ll be working on the 11/18: Love and Loss gallery. If we finish that one, we’ll move on to the next! Join in if you can, and spread the word!
Check under the read more for answers to common questions.
What is the CR Fanart Project?
We are a project dedicated to describing the fanart that Critical Role compiles every week into a gallery. Whenever a gallery is completely described and edited, we send it off to the CR team. They put those descriptions in the alt-text for each image on the website. You can find all of the galleries we have worked on, both in-progress and finished, right here!
How does this work?
Every week, Critical Role publishes a gallery of fanart on their website. We at CR Fanart Project then make a google doc for describing the gallery. Once a gallery is completely described, it is edited and sent off to the CR team.
Who writes these descriptions?
Volunteers like you! This is entirely a labor of love from the Critter community.
How do I help?
Click here to go to our master google doc for the project. From there, you can select which gallery you would like to work on. Once you open the google doc for a particular gallery, you will see at the top a link to the gallery on the Critical Role website. The images in the gallery are numbered (which you can see by clicking on an image). The docs are also numbered, so the description for an image goes next to the corresponding number in the google doc. From there you can start writing!
We try to work on the most recent galleries first, but you can choose whichever you would like. Any help at all is appreciated!
How do I write image descriptions?
One of our mods, JD (keplercryptids), has a great post about it here!
It is a weekly hour-long event where people can work all together on describing the latest fanart galleries! This event is on Thursdays from 5-6pm PST.For the duration of the hour, whoever wants to join works on writing descriptions for one of the galleries. When we finish one, we’ll move on to the next. This is a great way to make big bursts of progress on the galleries - plus it’s more fun to work all together!
Can I work on describing the galleries outside of the weekly hour?
Absolutely! We appreciate anybody working on the galleries at any hour.
Could we do more than one hour a week?
We are definitely interested in the idea of doing more than one hour a week, but for now we’ll start off small. If things go well, maybe we’ll add another time!
Could we do the hour at a different time/day?
Go ahead and send feedback about when you would like it to be! We tried picking a time that would work for the most people, but if enough people favor a different time slot then we may consider changing it.
Hi Critters! Thanks to everyone who’s been joining in our weekly describing hour. We’re still going every Thursday from 5-6pm PST. Today’s Thursday, so come say hi tonight and maybe describe an image or two!
Check under the read more for answers to common questions.
What is the CR Fanart Project?
We are a project dedicated to describing the fanart that Critical Role compiles every week into a gallery. Whenever a gallery is completely described and edited, we send it off to the CR team. They put those descriptions in the alt-text for each image on the website. You can find all of the galleries we have worked on, both in-progress and finished, right here!
How does this work?
Every week, Critical Role publishes a gallery of fanart on their website. We at CR Fanart Project then make a google doc for describing the gallery. Once a gallery is completely described, it is edited and sent off to the CR team.
Who writes these descriptions?
Volunteers like you! This is entirely a labor of love from the Critter community.
How do I help?
Click here to go to our master google doc for the project. From there, you can select which gallery you would like to work on. Once you open the google doc for a particular gallery, you will see at the top a link to the gallery on the Critical Role website. The images in the gallery are numbered (which you can see by clicking on an image). The docs are also numbered, so the description for an image goes next to the corresponding number in the google doc. From there you can start writing!
We try to work on the most recent galleries first, but you can choose whichever you would like. Any help at all is appreciated!
How do I write image descriptions?
One of our mods, JD (keplercryptids), has a great post about it here!
It is a weekly hour-long event where people can work all together on describing the latest fanart galleries! This event is on Thursdays from 5-6pm PST.For the duration of the hour, whoever wants to join works on writing descriptions for one of the galleries. When we finish one, we’ll move on to the next. This is a great way to make big bursts of progress on the galleries - plus it’s more fun to work all together!
Can I work on describing the galleries outside of the weekly hour?
Absolutely! We appreciate anybody working on the galleries at any hour.
Could we do more than one hour a week?
We are definitely interested in the idea of doing more than one hour a week, but for now we’ll start off small. If things go well, maybe we’ll add another time!
Could we do the hour at a different time/day?
Go ahead and send feedback about when you would like it to be! We tried picking a time that would work for the most people, but if enough people favor a different time slot then we may consider changing it.
Hi Critters! Thanks to everyone who’s been joining in our weekly describing hour. We’re still going every Thursday from 5-6pm PST. Today’s Thursday, so come say hi tonight and maybe describe an image or two!
Check under the read more for answers to common questions.
What is the CR Fanart Project?
We are a project dedicated to describing the fanart that Critical Role compiles every week into a gallery. Whenever a gallery is completely described and edited, we send it off to the CR team. They put those descriptions in the alt-text for each image on the website. You can find all of the galleries we have worked on, both in-progress and finished, right here!
How does this work?
Every week, Critical Role publishes a gallery of fanart on their website. We at CR Fanart Project then make a google doc for describing the gallery. Once a gallery is completely described, it is edited and sent off to the CR team.
Who writes these descriptions?
Volunteers like you! This is entirely a labor of love from the Critter community.
How do I help?
Click here to go to our master google doc for the project. From there, you can select which gallery you would like to work on. Once you open the google doc for a particular gallery, you will see at the top a link to the gallery on the Critical Role website. The images in the gallery are numbered (which you can see by clicking on an image). The docs are also numbered, so the description for an image goes next to the corresponding number in the google doc. From there you can start writing!
We try to work on the most recent galleries first, but you can choose whichever you would like. Any help at all is appreciated!
How do I write image descriptions?
One of our mods, JD (keplercryptids), has a great post about it here!
It is a weekly hour-long event where people can work all together on describing the latest fanart galleries! This event is on Thursdays from 5-6pm PST.For the duration of the hour, whoever wants to join works on writing descriptions for one of the galleries. When we finish one, we’ll move on to the next. This is a great way to make big bursts of progress on the galleries - plus it’s more fun to work all together!
Can I work on describing the galleries outside of the weekly hour?
Absolutely! We appreciate anybody working on the galleries at any hour.
Could we do more than one hour a week?
We are definitely interested in the idea of doing more than one hour a week, but for now we’ll start off small. If things go well, maybe we’ll add another time!
Could we do the hour at a different time/day?
Go ahead and send feedback about when you would like it to be! We tried picking a time that would work for the most people, but if enough people favor a different time slot then we may consider changing it.
Hi Critters! Thanks to everyone who’s been joining in our weekly describing hour. We’re still going every Thursday from 5-6pm PST. Today’s Thursday, so come say hi tonight and maybe describe an image or two!
Check under the read more for answers to common questions.
What is the CR Fanart Project?
We are a project dedicated to describing the fanart that Critical Role compiles every week into a gallery. Whenever a gallery is completely described and edited, we send it off to the CR team. They put those descriptions in the alt-text for each image on the website. You can find all of the galleries we have worked on, both in-progress and finished, right here!
How does this work?
Every week, Critical Role publishes a gallery of fanart on their website. We at CR Fanart Project then make a google doc for describing the gallery. Once a gallery is completely described, it is edited and sent off to the CR team.
Who writes these descriptions?
Volunteers like you! This is entirely a labor of love from the Critter community.
How do I help?
Click here to go to our master google doc for the project. From there, you can select which gallery you would like to work on. Once you open the google doc for a particular gallery, you will see at the top a link to the gallery on the Critical Role website. The images in the gallery are numbered (which you can see by clicking on an image). The docs are also numbered, so the description for an image goes next to the corresponding number in the google doc. From there you can start writing!
We try to work on the most recent galleries first, but you can choose whichever you would like. Any help at all is appreciated!
How do I write image descriptions?
One of our mods, JD (keplercryptids), has a great post about it here!
It is a weekly hour-long event where people can work all together on describing the latest fanart galleries! This event is on Thursdays from 5-6pm PST.For the duration of the hour, whoever wants to join works on writing descriptions for one of the galleries. When we finish one, we’ll move on to the next. This is a great way to make big bursts of progress on the galleries - plus it’s more fun to work all together!
Can I work on describing the galleries outside of the weekly hour?
Absolutely! We appreciate anybody working on the galleries at any hour.
Could we do more than one hour a week?
We are definitely interested in the idea of doing more than one hour a week, but for now we’ll start off small. If things go well, maybe we’ll add another time!
Could we do the hour at a different time/day?
Go ahead and send feedback about when you would like it to be! We tried picking a time that would work for the most people, but if enough people favor a different time slot then we may consider changing it.
Hi Critters! Critical Role may be starting an hour earlier today, but we’ll be going at the same time as always from 5-6pm PST. Come join us for the hour before the live show and describe a few images!
Check under the read more for answers to common questions.
What is the CR Fanart Project?
We are a project dedicated to describing the fanart that Critical Role compiles every week into a gallery. Whenever a gallery is completely described and edited, we send it off to the CR team. They put those descriptions in the alt-text for each image on the website. You can find all of the galleries we have worked on, both in-progress and finished, right here!
How does this work?
Every week, Critical Role publishes a gallery of fanart on their website. We at CR Fanart Project then make a google doc for describing the gallery. Once a gallery is completely described, it is edited and sent off to the CR team.
Who writes these descriptions?
Volunteers like you! This is entirely a labor of love from the Critter community.
How do I help?
Click here to go to our master google doc for the project. From there, you can select which gallery you would like to work on. Once you open the google doc for a particular gallery, you will see at the top a link to the gallery on the Critical Role website. The images in the gallery are numbered (which you can see by clicking on an image). The docs are also numbered, so the description for an image goes next to the corresponding number in the google doc. From there you can start writing!
We try to work on the most recent galleries first, but you can choose whichever you would like. Any help at all is appreciated!
How do I write image descriptions?
One of our mods, JD (keplercryptids), has a great post about it here!
It is a weekly hour-long event where people can work all together on describing the latest fanart galleries! This event is on Thursdays from 5-6pm PST.For the duration of the hour, whoever wants to join works on writing descriptions for one of the galleries. When we finish one, we’ll move on to the next. This is a great way to make big bursts of progress on the galleries - plus it’s more fun to work all together!
Can I work on describing the galleries outside of the weekly hour?
Absolutely! We appreciate anybody working on the galleries at any hour.
Could we do more than one hour a week?
We are definitely interested in the idea of doing more than one hour a week, but for now we’ll start off small. If things go well, maybe we’ll add another time!
Could we do the hour at a different time/day?
Go ahead and send feedback about when you would like it to be! We tried picking a time that would work for the most people, but if enough people favor a different time slot then we may consider changing it.
Hi Critters! Thanks to everyone who’s been joining in our weekly describing hour. We’re still going every Thursday from 5-6pm PST. Today’s Thursday, so come say hi tonight and maybe describe an image or two!
Check under the read more for answers to common questions.
What is the CR Fanart Project?
We are a project dedicated to describing the fanart that Critical Role compiles every week into a gallery. Whenever a gallery is completely described and edited, we send it off to the CR team. They put those descriptions in the alt-text for each image on the website. You can find all of the galleries we have worked on, both in-progress and finished, right here!
How does this work?
Every week, Critical Role publishes a gallery of fanart on their website. We at CR Fanart Project then make a google doc for describing the gallery. Once a gallery is completely described, it is edited and sent off to the CR team.
Who writes these descriptions?
Volunteers like you! This is entirely a labor of love from the Critter community.
How do I help?
Click here to go to our master google doc for the project. From there, you can select which gallery you would like to work on. Once you open the google doc for a particular gallery, you will see at the top a link to the gallery on the Critical Role website. The images in the gallery are numbered (which you can see by clicking on an image). The docs are also numbered, so the description for an image goes next to the corresponding number in the google doc. From there you can start writing!
We try to work on the most recent galleries first, but you can choose whichever you would like. Any help at all is appreciated!
How do I write image descriptions?
One of our mods, JD (keplercryptids), has a great post about it here!
It is a weekly hour-long event where people can work all together on describing the latest fanart galleries! This event is on Thursdays from 5-6pm PST.For the duration of the hour, whoever wants to join works on writing descriptions for one of the galleries. When we finish one, we’ll move on to the next. This is a great way to make big bursts of progress on the galleries - plus it’s more fun to work all together!
Can I work on describing the galleries outside of the weekly hour?
Absolutely! We appreciate anybody working on the galleries at any hour.
Could we do more than one hour a week?
We are definitely interested in the idea of doing more than one hour a week, but for now we’ll start off small. If things go well, maybe we’ll add another time!
Could we do the hour at a different time/day?
Go ahead and send feedback about when you would like it to be! We tried picking a time that would work for the most people, but if enough people favor a different time slot then we may consider changing it.
Travis McElroy bought some high heels recently and has been posting about them on all of his social media. Here’s a thank you he posted on Twitter (June 29, 2019)
[id: four tweets from Travis McElroy that say:
I think it’s worth saying that while I’m really glad y’all like my new boots, I wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing them (let alone showing them publicly!) if it weren’t for all the people long before me who have pushed the boundaries of traditional gender norms.
Long story short, a lot of people have fought a lot harder than me before now so that I can feel just a little more comfortable expressing myself. I stand in the shadow of giants and am so grateful to them.
Even though I don’t belong in the LGBTQIA+ community, I have spent this Pride month reflecting on the fact that them fighting for their rights and right to simply be who they are has given everyone more room to be themselves. I am forever grateful.
Thank you for those who fight, march, stand up or simply exist. I know you didn’t do it for me, but I owe you so much and will always support you and return the favor whenever I can.]
[id: a sketchy drawing of Taako and Kravitz from the waist up. The drawing is hued red mostly, with a light red circle behind them and the under sketch the same red. The lineart is a dark teal. Taako has a large wizard hat with flowers on it and two short braids on the back of his head. Kravitz has dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail at the back of his head. Kravitz is holding Taako’s waist as he leans backwards, and Taako has his arms looped around Kravitz’s neck. They are both smiling at each other and sticking out their tongues.]
[Image description: A drawing of Lup holding Taako’s hand across the table, putting her other hand in her cest. She looks sad and looks at Taako with fondness but Taako looks worried and sad. She says “And … I love him, Taako, with all my heart. But you are my heart… You know that, right?”]
oh yeah, in celebration of 2019, i feel like it is important to note that 2019 is the last year that chara falling into the underground can happen….
you know what that means yall, gotta go dive into a hole in a mountain this year or never
[id: a screenshot of part of the Undertale introduction. It’s a mostly black screen, with gold tinted pixel art in the upper middle depicting a mountain. Below the image, in white pixelated letters, is written “MT. EBOTT - 201X”]
[id: three drawings of business cards on red, green, and purple backgrounds. The first is on tan paper, with dramatic red lettering that reads “The Lady Flame” with flames underneath. Under that is “Aubrey Little, Magician for hire”. The next is on a teal-tinted background of the forest, with white letters that say “Monongahela National Forest” in a handrawn font. In the corner, in the same font, is “Park Ranger - Duck Newton - ‘It’s a nickname’”. In the top right hand corner are the silhouettes of 3 pine trees. The last business card is a dark purple, with “The Cryptonomica - Edmund 'Ned’ Chicane” written in the middle in big white letters. Below it are two open eyes; the sclera is a dark black and the iris are two white diamonds.]
Today is Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD). You can read more about it here (link) and even see events going on.
Accessibility is crucial, and there’s a lot of different types of accessibility.
In this post, I want to talk about two types: Color Contrast and Image Descriptions.
Color Contrast
If you make any kind of visual content where you have text on a background (like an infographic or flyer), please check the color contrast here (link). This will tell you whether the contrast passes WCAG guidelines (more about that here: link). WCAG is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and it’s designed to make sure web content is accessible.
Color contrast is one small part of that, and their guidelines include checking for things like colorblindness. If you’re not sure what color you’re using, you can check out this color picker (link) and/or use an extension/add-on (like this: link) to select a color from a web page.
Image Descriptions
Image Descriptions are just what they sound like: a description of an image. There are lots of reasons why image descriptions are helpful and lots of different types of people who benefit from them.
If you’re a visual content creator, please start describing your images. You’re the person who knows best what you created, and you’re the one who created it.
If you see someone else’s image and it doesn’t have a description, please check the reblogs with comments and see if someone has already described it. If they have, please reblog that version.
If there’s not a description, please take the time to write one if you have spoons. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Anything is better than nothing. There’s lots of guides out there, but my fav is this one from @keplercryptids(link).
We Can All Contribute
Even if you don’t make content yourself, and even if you don’t have spoons to write image descriptions, you can still make a difference by choosing not to reblog images without descriptions. I know it means missing out on reblogging some really cool stuff. But by taking that stance, you’re making your blog an accessible place, and that makes a huge difference.
here’s a list of blogs to follow in case any of my followers would like to make their blogs more accessible! this post will be broken up into two parts: (1) blogs specifically dedicated to making image descriptions and/or transcriptions, and (2) blogs run by people who make a habit of writing descriptions!
[id: a stim board of ten elegant blue and gold gifs. They are full of glinting gold metal and soft starry night skies. It has the feel of looking up at your ceiling of glow in the dark stars and feeling like you could catch a star if you tried hard enough.]
Tadaaaa! I executive produced (lol cue the DUN DUN Dick Wolf sound effect) a pair of multivoice podfics for the Out of the Auditary podfic fest, and here is the second one: branch 2 of the evaporated milk discourse shitpost, which features an academic paper and discussion of the elemental properties of milk. Come check it out, it was waaaaaay too fun organizing this.
It’s about 13 minutes long, and the transcript is available at the AO3 post!
[image description: podfic cover featuring a beaker, a box of dry milk, and a small can of evaporated milk surrounding a mound of white, powdered milk. On the left is a column of podficcer credits. The beaker has the text “The Science Side of Tumblr.” The box has been edited to read “Evaporated (?) Dry Milk” with a popout label of “shitpost!” The can has been labeled “Evaporated Milk” and the popout labels read “Fun Podfic!” and “Multivoice.” /end ID]
So many thanks to the folks in the tumblr thread for their permission to record their words and include them in the transcript, and so many thanks to the podficcers who participated, and special shoutout to Rindle and @DevilWithABirdDress for editing and semperfiona for making the cover! Tagging everyone under the cut to save your dashes <3
It’s here! I executive produced (lol cue the DUN DUN Dick Wolf sound effect) a pair of multivoice podfics for the Out of the Auditary podfic fest, and here is the first one: branch 1 of the evaporated milk discourse shitpost, which features a Shakespearean iambic pentameter recast of a significant chunk of the thread. Come check it out, it was waaaaaay too fun organizing this.
It’s about 15 minutes long, and the transcript is available at the AO3 post!
[image description: podfic cover featuring a metal tankard, a box of dry milk, and a small can of evaporated milk surrounding a mound of white, powdered milk. On the left is a column of podficcer credits. The tankard has the text “The Theatrical Side of Tumblr.” The box has been edited to read “Evaporated (?) Dry Milk” with a popout label of “shitpost!” The can has been labeled “Evaporated Milk” and the popout labels read “Fun Podfic!” and “Multivoice.” /end ID]
So many thanks to the folks in the tumblr thread for their permission to record their words and include them in the transcript, and so many thanks to the podficcers who participated, and special shoutout to Rindle and @DevilWithABirdDress for editing and semperfiona for making the cover! Tagging everyone under the cut to save your dashes <3
[image description: a black and white cat labeled “local media” shoving its mouth around the opening of a bath spout labeled “easily proven police press releases” /end ID]
My usual retort to people who don’t want “universal healthcare/education/basic income/etc.” under the pretense that “the rich shouldn’t have access to it” is that it’s cheaper to just give it to everyone no-question-asked than to try and judge every single case just to exclude a tiny minority of them.
But this tweet thread? This right there? That’s a damn powerful argument. Something that can actually convince people emotionally, more than my cynical, it’s-cheaper-that-way, pragmatic approach.
I’ll keep it, and I’ll re-use it, because it’s with thread like this that you change the world, one opinion at a time.
The number of people I know, myself included, who stayed in the closet because they feared the lose of financial support from their parent is crazy.
My partner grew up poor. Her parents didn’t have shit. But they managed to financially abuse her in this exact manner just by refusing to provide documentation that they were poor. No parental income documentation? No FAFSA. No FAFSA? None of the need-based aid she was 100% qualified for. No aid? No college for her poor ass.
So no, this “but what if a person who didn’t need the help got it” rhetoric will not just harm the children of the rich, even the marginalized and estranged children of the rich. It harms everyone whose parents don’t want them to succeed.
I dropped out of the prestigious college I started at because I lost my financial aid when my parents got an unexpected one-time windfall and refused to give most of it to the school. I don’t blame them, really, but I struggled for another year to afford a state school, then got knocked up and dropped out and never really went back because school just kept getting more expensive.
I know people who did not go until they were in their mid 20s because their parents just wouldn’t do the FAFSA and they couldn’t get aid without it.
I went to the school I picked because of the financial aid I could get that first year. If I’d picked almost any other school, I would have qualified for a full ride, merit-based, because I was a national merit scholar coming out of high school with a 3.87 in mostly ap classes, scads of activities, etc.
I sometimes think if I had to give advice to my younger self I’d tell them to start at the state school even if there were people from the home town there. I’d have met my husband 10 years earlier and finished my degree, maybe, you know?
It’s probably worth noting one of the known side-effects of long-term, persistent poverty situations is a decline in executive function capacity. Or in other words, it may be that in a lot of these cases where people were “poor enough” to get financial assistance, but where their parents “didn’t bother”, “refused” or “wouldn’t do it” with regards to filling out the forms, what we were actually seeing in those parents was a group of people who looked at the forms (which no doubt require things like “putting down your full income for multiple years” or “listing all your assets at current market value”, looking up details of past tax filings and tax returns over a multi-year period, providing payslips as evidence, providing bank statements, and so on) and just went “I do not know where to even start with these, and there’s no way I can fill them out”. That isn’t malice. It’s the cognitive consequence of living for years pay-cheque to pay-cheque, with very little margin for error on anything, and no cognitive resources available for anything other than worrying about whether the money will stretch far enough this week, this fortnight, or this month.
The malice, if there is any involved, is the impersonal malice of a system which first grinds people into poverty, then expects them to function at the same cognitive level as the most wealthy of the wealthy (who in all likelihood hand all the paperwork to their accountants and say “figure out how to get Bratleigh through college at minimum cost to me, would you?”).
(I have a certain amount of sympathy. I’m autistic, which is a disorder which diminishes executive functioning capacity; my joke is my mental executive spends a lot of their time out on the golf course. I could get funding through the NDIS to help deal with the side effects of my disability… if I could just assemble the necessary executive function to be able to fill out all the paperwork, collate all the necessary evidence, submit an application, and argue it through the bureaucracy. For some strange reason - can’t think why - I have a bit of trouble with this. Bureaucracy is designed to be navigable by bureaucrats - as in, bureaucrats are the ones who design them, and thus they think it’s all pretty straightforward, because this is what they do for a living. The rest of us have to figure it out from first principles).
Returning back to the main theme of the thread: one of the benefits of universal free tertiary education (which is something the baby boomers had in my country, although they’d pulled the ladder up behind them by the time I graduated high school) is it provides so many more options to so many more people - and it also costs less to administer than any stringently means-tested scheme for funding tertiary students. In the same way, a decent universal basic income will make a huge difference for the people at the bottom of the heap (enabling a lot of the mental calculus of poverty to be if not actually avoided, at least greatly diminished) even as it barely counts as a drop in the bucket to the wealthy. The 1% are more likely to notice a universal basic income as an increase in their taxes than an increase in their income - but then, they can afford it.
Every time the “the children of rich people shouldn’t have access to subsidized college education!!!!!!!” discourse starts up again I think about the people I knew in my younger days who had to drop out of college due to financial abuse by their wealthy parents.
One of my friends couldn’t get grants and state loans because his dad was rich, thus he didn’t qualify for them. But his dad refused to give him ANY money because he was studying theater and not finance.
I just… think about that a lot. Most people dismiss the idea of financial abuse, if they ever even hear about it. But it’s such a big thing, especially for young people and people who don’t have much of a job history.
One of the big things that keep women and kids from leaving abusive relationships is lack of money. Even if you get out, where will you go? How will you feed yourself? You’ve got nothing but the clothes on your back, whatever you can stuff into a bag or a car trunk.
I know several people who gave up on educational dreams due to lack of funds from their wealthy parents, parents whose wealth prevented them from getting anything but bank loans with excruciatingly high interest rates.
It was the 90s and college was nowhere near as expensive as it is now, but wow was it still not cheap at all. I worked 3 jobs at one point trying to pay for things. I was still constantly broke.
I think about the way wealthy parents can and do abuse their kids kind of a lot. I mean look at the Trumps. You really think there wasn’t some pretty extreme manipulation and abuse going on there? Generationally?
I was reminded that queer kids are affected by this too. I know people who’ve been cut off because they come out as gay or trans or whatever, and I also know people who stayed miserably in the closet out of fear.
[Image ID: an photograph showing an unidentified marcher carrying a sign which reads: “We don’t want your cis kids to be trans, we want your trans kids to survive”. The coloring of the letters reflects the trans flag. End ID.]
obsessed with sokka’s name kinda popping up everywhere in school books years after atla. like yeah ur learning history about the end of the hundred year war? oh right with the avatars amazing team and some non bender named sokka who probably wasn’t all that important. on to gym class where u learn different fighting styles, did you know btw that the first guy to ever train with the kyoshi warriors was some random guy named sokka? oh well. can’t be late for physics where we learn about the invention of the air balloon and the submarine by … sokka? huh okay I guess, on to politics where we learn about all these important decrees over all the different nations which were first proposed by.. ah man, sokka? again? anyway art class now, here look at these paintings made by sokka
What if you didn’t realize it was the same person though? Like you just think that it must’ve been a common name back then. But then you joke with your history teacher that it’s a funny coincidence and they’re just like “no it’s all one guy. All the other sokkas are named after him.” And then you just have to come to terms with the fact that one of the most influential historical figures was basically Just Some Guy.
Also if you want to be an ally to these workers and align yourself with the cause stop blogging about the new movies/trailers because that is literally part of the boycott
[image description: tweet by @ DisneyWalkout on March 18, 2022 that reads: “We’ve been seeing this question alot and want to address it. We have not called for one, but if want to, please do. Just know, the crews of your favorite content would love for you see their work. They put countless hours in to create something they were proud to share.”
this is in reply to a tweet by @ AsexualAutistic that reads: “Are you calling for a boycott?” /end ID]
A list of demands here https://www.whereischapek.com/demands includes a bunch of actions they want The Walt Disney Company to do such as stopping campaign donations to Florida politicians that support the “don’t say gay” bill.
“(1/3) We have been informed that Disneyland Cast Members who do not feel safe to fully walkout tomorrow are being told they cannot even wear pride/trans Mickey pins to show support. Standing in stark contrast to the words of "inclusion” spoken by Chapek today in the town hall.
(2/3) These are the Mickey pins that Disney themselves sells. They want us to feel “safe” but then sell our identities as brands for profit while preventing those same identities from existing in their own company.
This all happening while many sectors of the company have been internally supportive of employees walking out tomorrow. Front-line workers, the most vulnerable of us, not given the respect they deserve is shameful. #DisneyDoBetter#DisneySayTrans#DisneySayGay#WhereIsChapek /end ID]
