Here’s a thing about antisemitism.

Right now, a popular post I made about religion is being reposted by a dark subset of people who are literally asserting that all Jews are reptilian overlords, baby killers, ritual child murderers, satan worshipers, and animal abusers. Some are literally saying things like “we need to have a holy war to cleanse these people.” I have reported and blocked over 100 accounts for this, and I’ve seen their bios, their profile pics, and their pages. And here’s the thing.

They’re right wing, and they’re left wing. They’re men, and women, and trans, and nonbinary. Some have their preferred pronouns in their header, and some have deus vult or 14/88. They will have a post about meaningful gun reform right before a post about killing Jews for blood libel. Which it turns out people definitely still believe in today. They are from America and Germany, but also Ireland and Kazakstan, dozens of countries. They have swatzika tattoos, and cross tattoos, and bisexual pride flag tattoos. They are white, but they are also black, asian, latinx, mixed race. They are Evangelical, they are Catholic, they are atheists, they are all religions. They are all ages. They share the same viral posts you share, they laugh at the same memes you laugh at (although they do have a strange love of frogs). They work manual labor jobs in rural areas, driving trucks, but they also wear suits and live in the city and work in politics. They are diverse. They are “woke.”

I’m just so disgusted by what I’ve seen today.

The thing about anti-Semitism is that it can be transferred to just about any ideology: jews are communists or they’re bourgeois, they want to stay separate, they want to assimilate, they want to maintain their own boundaries but still take a part in community affairs.

It really stinks, and please feel free to stop by anytime for some Jewish solidarity.

And anyone can stop by anytime for any solidarity about any form of hate.

The fine results of sixty years of demonizing Israel’s governmental policies.

Hey you know what? I think you probably mean well, but no, antisemitism is not about Israel, and saying that it is gives antisemites a lot of ammunition (“I don’t hate Jews; I just have a problem with the Israeli government!”).

The modern State of Israel was founded in 1948. That, as far as antisemitism is concerned, is so modern that it barely even registers on the timeline of brutal antisemitic violence and genocide.

Let me walk you through a timeline, focusing only on some of the largest, most violent antisemitic purges:

Sixty years?! Sixty years is nothing.

Antisemitism is one of the oldest forms of bigotry that still exists, and it exists in largely the same form that it always has. Non-Jews persecute Jews because we refuse to assimilate, because we emphasize literacy and education, and because we are an ethnic minority. These thousands of years of violent murder, torture, expulsion, exile, and degradation have nothing whatsoever to do with the modern State of Israel.

Antisemitism, much like the original post highlighted, transcends modern politics. It transcends most modern cultural divides.

Antisemitism is religious bigotry and racial hatred all rolled into one, and virtually no group on Earth has clean hands.

How the FUCK is this list so long. What the fuck. What the Fuck. How is there SO MUCH HATRED for them what the Actual Fuck

like what did Jewish people ever do to you????? like seriously???? like I understand animosity. I have some strong personal hatred for individuals and some disdain for a group of people (billionaires) but even if someone did do something to me, that is absolutely not grounds for maiming or irreparably harming or killing them, much less killing their family, their friends, their friends’ families, and anyone else that shares a particular association with them!!!! like what the actual shit?????

edit: I will however gladly throw the FUCK down with anyone who wants to hurt jewish people for being jewish

Hi!

A lot of it is/was motivated by money. Yes, even the holocaust.

The justification for hating is classically based in the Christian religion, but antisemitism is now definitely also political. It’s about blaming everything on us and having a scapegoat.

But the motivation? Money. Pogroms, expulsions, killings, all of these were and are forms of real estate and property liquidation.

If anyone who is unfamiliar with historical and modern antisemitism and how it functions and wants to educate themselves as an ally, I recomend reading the book Why the Jews?. Some of the language is a bit outdated but it’s a short and informative introduction to the topic. It is an emotionally difficult read though, so keep that in mind before cracking it open

I’m gonna add on that the origins of left wing antisemitism, the whole thing they try to gaslight with the explination of “I’m not antisemitic, I’m just antizionist” has a direct line connecting it to Stalin and Russian Orthodox/Tsarist antisemitism.

Stalin had hoped that the freshly created state of Israel, which was a very left leaning nation when it was reconstituted, would side with the Soviet/Communist bloc. When it didn’t he felt personally slighted, and so started trying to take that petty grudge out on Russian/Soviet Jews. That whole Doctors Plot conspiracy was actually just an excuse to added Jewish doctors to the list of dead in Stalin’s purges. Thankfully he died before it could be fully started, but it started the ball rolling. His hatred of Israel tapped into the latant Russian antisemitism left over from the Tsarist period and twisted it from the recent antisemitism that birthed that conspiracy book Protocols of the Elders of Zion and into a whole gaslighting thing of “we are just opposing a settler/colonial state, not just blindly hating Jews for fake reasons again.” This led to various levels of Soviet/Russian antisemitism, ranging from passing over Jews for various jobs in various fields to outright denying Soviet Jews the ability to even visit Israel (the Refuseniks).

And so that soon became party line for many left leaning groups around the world, never really realizing that all Zionism is is just an indigenous people that have been targeted and hated and oppressed for millennia living with security and autonomy in their indigenous homeland. The fact that western society focuses so much on Ashkenazi Jews (Jews that went to central/Eastern Europe in the diaspora after Rome expelled us after we failed to expel their occupation of Ancient Israel and so have become white-passing over the near 2,000 years in Europe) as what all Jews look like doesn’t help either. Cause that ignores Jews of color, such as all of those that got ethnically cleansed or expelled from Arab lands, who make up two thirds of Israel’s population.

Left wing antisemitism that’s hidden behind “antizionism” is definitely another link in the chain of baseless hatred directed at us. 60 years is definitely enough time to have another “reason” to hate us. Stalin was a master manipulator, and he took the leftover Tsarist era antisemitism and twisted it into the beginnings of what we recently saw in UK Labour under Jeremey Corbyn and in the US with people like Linda Sarsour. To ignore what it is is to let it continue.

What the fuck did Jewish people do to receive any of this hatred?? I know that there had been Christian propaganda written about jewish people throughout history. But why? Why did that happen?

Historically, our homeland was a VERY important trade route, connecting Africa, Asia, and Europe. Control trade, and you control food imports, and you control empires. That’s why Rome invaded. (Actually, it’s also why Greece/Macedonia, Medeo-Persia, Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt invaded. Its been a very strategic land to control since the dawn of civilization. Location location location.)

The two largest religions in the world (Xianity, Islam) are later derivations of OUR religion. That makes that piece of land MORE attractive to them, because controlling it gives them a sense of religious authority.

A big reason that Xianity as a (technically heretical) sect of Judaism split off and became their OWN religion is that VERY early Xians and mainstream Jews were allied during a revolt against the Romans (who again, wanted that land because location location location). The job of Mashiach in Judaism is to free Israel and establish a safe home for Jews there, and to establish world peace. (Jesus obviously did not accomplish this, hence the need for a “second coming.”) Because the leader of this revolt looked like he was about to succeed in DOING THOSE THINGS, most Jews said “hey, maybe THIS guy, Bar Kokvah, is the Mashiach!” Xians DID NOT LIKE THIS, because they thought that their dead guy (who again, did not accomplish the things) was the Mashiach. So we already didnt LIKE each other because they were heretics, but it boiled over when…

They betrayed Jews at a crucial point, thousands died, and the revolution failed. Jews got mad and said “you can’t be part of our synagogues anymore because you BETRAYED US AND WE DIED,” and Xians said “fine, we hated you anyway because you didnt accept our weird Mithras cult” and ran directly to the Mommy, the remainders of Roman Empire, and said “can we be the state religion now?” Mommy Byzantium, seeing an oppprtunity, said yes, Xianity separated from Judaism and rose to POWER, and held a bunch of official meetings and added things to their own writings (even they will admit this). They added theology that is 100% not compatible with Judaism, and they also outlawed Jewish practices and shit talked Jews a lot. Many verses in their books before ecumenical councils are also antisemitic. The Byzantine royal family (at this point, all that’s left of actual Rome) had sensed a shift in religion and power, and capitalized on this new and upcoming religion by making themselves very important figures in it, solidifying their political power through divine authority. (Later, Germans and Italians would say “hey, that’s not a bad idea, and copied them, creating the Holy Roman Empire, famously neither holy, nor Roman, nor an actual empire. Popes did not like this, and constantly tried to squash the HRE and Byzantine Empire, and I guess ultimately they did, but they also lost all political power in the process.)

Xians also then decided that they would blame Jews for killing Jesus forever, and would constantly murder and punish them for it, even though A) according to Xianity Jesus HAD TO DIE for them to be “saved,” so really they shouldn’t be mad about it and B) Jews literally DID NOT have the authority to sentence people to death, especially by crucifixion, literally ONLY Rome could do that.

Then, Xians decided that they needed to control Ye Holee Lande™, so they slaughtered a bunch of Jews and Muslims to get it and promptly lost it again, but they didn’t stop trying to get it back, and they killed thousands on all sides in the process.

Jews at this point have no homeland, having been kicked around by Romans, Xians, and Muslims. The latter of whom actually usually treated us way better than Xians, in general, especially in Al-Andalus, which you might unfortunately know now as “Spain,” because a bunch of important Xian families married and united their armies and killed all the Jews and Muslims there and said “this is our country now, get out and/or we will kill you.” They erased a powerful and prosperous Emirate of universities, poets, scholars, artists, musicians, and theologians, which had flourished all through the Dark Ages in Xian lands. (They then promptly sailed to the Americas, so that they could forcibly convert, rape, steal from, and murder those people too. )

But anyway, no homeland, which means that we often lived in OTHER peoples countries and didn’t get to participate in society or government. General xenophobia turned people against these Jewish “outsiders.” Painting us as dangerous, disloyal, christ killers, immigrants, was an easy way to create fear and fighting and keep the poor poor and the rich in power. (We see this today all the time. Think about it with other groups. I’m sure you can think of how leaders in your country have exploited public fear and xenophobia to stay in power.)

Xians, who had by this time been stealing and mistranslating our holy books for >1000 years, saw a verse that said “Jews may not charge other Jews unfair interest rates.” But Xians are “uncomfortable when we are not about me,” so THEY decided that this meant “Xians are not allowed to charge other Xians ANY INTEREST AT ALL.” But that would have made their economy collapse. So they had an idea. “What if we make it illegal for Jews to own any property or land or normal businesses, BUT, we let them run banking guilds, and THEY can charge US interest, and the economy will work.” It was a great idea for everybody but Jews, because the side effect was that A) poor people suddenly saw JEWS as the ones taxing them and taking their money when really it was the Kings, and B) whenever Jews got too successful, the government would kill them all (or kick them out, if it was a nice day), and poof - all that money (and land they were renting) was “liquidated” and could go to the government. (This was a super easy score for the Church, largely synonymous with the government for many centuries, because the idea that Jews are greedy money grubbing thieves is baked into the literal text of the New Testament, so they didnt even need to be creative to get people to accept this lie.)

This trope of Jews running things and making money off everyone and being greedy eventually led to a conspiracy theory that we wanted to/did already secretly dominate the Entire World, which is where the Elders of Zion/Illuminati/Lizard people/“Global Elite” trope comes from. That’s why you get FUCK-OFF RIDICULOUS things like DC councilmen saying “well we all know Jews control the weather and cause natural disasters to make money off them” from. Yes, that really happened. (And then, they made him go on an apology tour of the DC Holocaust Museum, where he played games on his phone and stormed out halfway through. Yes really.)

Again, because xenophobia, lots of other nasty aspects of Jew hatred popped up. The formula goes: Jews killed Christ -> Satan is the enemy of Christ -> Jews are in league with Satan -> Jews are witches and evil. This isnt even a stretch for them, because this kind of language is ALSO literally found in the Xian bible. A particularly nasty and pervasive part of this cycle was the idea that Jews (in a perverted version of holy communion, because Catholics and Xians view of witchcraft was just “upsidedown/backwards Xianity”) was the idea that Jews kidnapped Xian babies and used their blood to make bread. That one got a LOT of Jews killed.

Even the Holocaust is fundamentally part of this whole pattern. Post WWI Germany owed MASSIVE unpayable debts to the world for their role in the great war. They were bankrupt, disunified, and unstable. Hitler used fear and propaganda to rise to power by appealing to a base who were economically suffering and already super racist and xenophobic (like… many modern politicians… do the math…) and then the Holocaust itself was again, super super about real estate and property liquidation. (Bonus, they were invading the rest of Europe, so they ALSO got to steal art and money and national treasures from conquered governments, not JUST Jews.) Nazis really liked shiny things, and they really liked taking them to Berlin.

Later, Russia, who got to Berlin, also admitted to really linking shiny things, having made off with a LOT of international treasures and pretending they didnt have them for decades. They still have them, and they basically announced “there’s nothing you girls can do about it.” They also killed millions of Jews during the USSR days, made our religion illegal, and the current Russian government and Orthodox Church officially blames Jews for the revolution and murder of the Romanovs. Yes really. Let me say, unequivocally, fuck Russia.

There you have it, a VERY BREIF overview of antisemitism.

I should add, a VERY BRIEF history of antisemitism IN EUROPE, because I’m too exhausted to even get into the rest of the world right now, but it’s really a continuation of those same themes and cycles.

Compare to the list above if you’re curious about specific historical events you can google to learn more.

i really fucking hate how many ppl here are like “what did jews do???????” as if bigotry is a punishment for an ancient crime. we existed. that’s what we did. and that was, and still is, a crime punishable by death.

spot on @king-shit-thembo​ thank you

I shared this earlier but the part that I can’t stop thinking about is:

After all the expulsions, where do we go? Each time we are forced to leave somewhere, the expelling nation doesn’t really care what happens next. Where do we go though?

Most of these events aren’t even 20 years apart. Nobody has time to mourn or establish themselves anywhere safely before being fucking yeeted again.

And how are Jews supposed to keep themselves safe? I’m not sharing this to excuse any Israeli violence, so don’t come at me. I’m just literally asking, based on our history, how on earth are Jews supposed to trust anyone to consider our best interests while they advocate for whatever adjacent issues are entangled with us… when literally nobody ever has? It’s so much. It’s overwhelming.

The fact that leftists now basically only talk about Ashkenazim because they “look white” (and there are plenty of black and brown Ashkenazim as well but obviously these people don’t understand that lol)

holds very little water when u realize that 70% of Israel is Arab, sephardic and Mizrahi AKA very much not white. Most Israelis today if I put an Arab and Israeli side by side without talking and dressed the same you couldn’t tell which was which.

So this idea that they are only angry with privileged Jews and thus its fine to spew Nazi blood libel is entirely fucking made up. Even these populations were ethnically cleansed from places like Russia. Most Jews who live in the middle East are in fact middle eastern Jews, believe it or not.

And yes a lot of these Jews harbor deep distrust of Arabs because they remember the abuse and mistreatment that resulted in them being expelled from their homes, their families murdered, etc.

Here is a fun thought experiment. For every antisemite who wants to claim that Israeli Jews have no right to live in their homeland and should go back to where they came from, look at how often those people actually advocate for countries like Yemen and Iraq to repatriate their Jewish populations.

It’s zero. Zero times. Also, look at their actual behavior toward Israeli Jews who actually have left Israel and moved to Europe and America. Most get death threats regularly so obviously they really don’t mean it when they say they want Israelis to go back “where they came from” because when they do leave its still not good enough, they must be punished for the actions of a country they don’t live in.

Because then their “well this is all about Zio Europeans” wouldn’t make any sense if they actually acknowledged how many Israelis are in Israel because they quite literally have nowhere else to go. In the 30s Nazis told European Jews to go back where they came from, too. Israel. So the real question is simple: where do these people think Jews came from and where do they expect them to go?

And you can’t say Europe because Europeans already decided Jews aren’t from Europe. And you can’t say Yemen, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, turkey, etc etc etc etc, either.

Palestinians used to hit up Vietnam and ask how they expelled the Americans and give them advice, and many of these ppl still talk about Algeria as a successful ward against the French and they 100% fail to understand the most basic tenet of this conflict and refuse to listen to the dude who gave them the answers to their face.

“the Americans went back to America. The French went back to France. Jews have nowhere else to go. You will not expel them.”

Because that long list of antisemitic events starts before the founding of Israel, it doesn’t even encapsulate what could be considered the beginning of protracted Israel/Palestine warfare (or less charitably, the beginning of “Israeli aggression” towards surrounding Arab countries).

Have you heard of the Naqba? 700,000 Arabs expelled and/or emigrated from Israel when the state was abandoned by England founded?

Yeah, a main reason all those Arabs left is because on the literal first day of Israeli Independence, SIX POWERFUL SURROUNDING ARAB NATIONS launched a full-scale invasion of Israel, with the intention to wipe it off the map and claim all it’s territory for themselves (remember, this is *after* the Palestinian authorities rejected the creation of an independent Palestinian state, precisely because it wouldn’t allow them to claim all of Israel for themselves).

At the same time, those six Arab nations forcibly expelled their entire Jewish populations, over 800,000 people total. (The only reason this isn’t considered a “Naqba” in its own right is because Israel offered citizenship to those 800,000 refugees; conversely, the surrounding Arab nations refuse citizenship to Palestinian refugees, because they recognized that a massive refugee population “caused by Israel” was a good political football.)

So these six nations launch a war of annihilation against the Jews in the middle east, which at this point is the vast majority of the remaining Jewish population of the world. And thank G-d, they fucking lost. Embarrassingly.

In fact, when repelling Egyptian forces, Israel actually gained some land! Including Gaza. But annexing land in warfare is kind of a no-no in the modern day, so they gave the captured land back to Egypt. …Except, except, Egypt didn’t want Gaza back. They refused it. Gaza was full of Palestinian refugees, so Egypt said, hey free political football! This is your responsibility now, Israel.

And the region has been in basically constant conflict ever since.

looking at pictures of aisha tyler on google and pinterest like it’s an enrichment activity for me (she’s so pretty i literally can’t)

Mind if I add some of my faves?

@gaelic-symphony your turn!

Some of my favorite Tara Lewis pics!

Hopping on the Aisha appreciation train bc yes ma'am

looking at pictures of aisha tyler on google and pinterest like it’s an enrichment activity for me (she’s so pretty i literally can’t)

Mind if I add some of my faves?

@gaelic-symphony your turn!

Some of my favorite Tara Lewis pics!

It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?

#friendly reminder that I once put my statistics degree to good use and did some calculations about ship ratios#and yes considering the gender ratios of characters#the prevalence of gay ships is completely predictable (via sarahtonin42)

I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to ‘explain’ the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course we’re gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.

Totally.

A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While it’s true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.

(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)

Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other “selfcest”-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:

Possible F/F ships: 3 Possible F/M ships: 27 Possible M/M ships: 36

TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66

Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, we’d reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.

The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom - and let’s be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women - for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?

YES YES YES HOLY SHIT YES FUCKING THANK YOU!

Also food for thought: the obvious correction to a lack of non-male representation in a story is to add more non-males. Female Original Characters are often decried as self-insertion or Mary Sues, particular if romance or sex is a primary focus.

I really appreciate when tumblr commentary is of the quality I might see at an academic conference. No joke.

This doesn’t even account  for the disparity in the amount of screen time/dialogue male characters to get in comparison to female characters, and how much time other characters spend talking about male characters even when they aren’t onscreen. This all leads to male characters ending up more fully developed, and more nuanced than female characters. The more an audience feels like they know a character, the more likely an audience is to care about a character. More network television writers are men. Male writers tend to understand men better than women, statistically speaking. Female characters are more likely to be written by men who don’t understand women vary well. 

But it’s easier to blame the collateral damage than solve the root problem.

Yay, mathy arguments. :)

This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I don’t think it’s the sole reason, but I think it’s a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.

In some of my shipping-related stats, I found that shows with more major female characters lead to more femslash (also more het).  (e.g. femslash in female-heavy media; femslash deep dive) I’ve never actually tried to do an analysis to pin down how much of fandom’s M/M preference is explained by the predominance of male characters in the source media, but I’m periodically tempted to try to do so.

All great points. Another thing I notice is that many shows are built around the idea that the team or the partner is the most important thing in the universe. Watch any buddy cop show, and half of the episodes have a character on a date that is inevitably interrupted because The Job comes first… except “The Job” actually means “My Partner”.

When it’s a male-female buddy show, all of the failed relationships are usually, canonically, because the leads belong together. (Look at early Bones: she dates that guy who is his old friend and clearly a stand-in for him. They break up because *coughcoughhandwave*. That stuff happens constantly.) Male-male buddy shows write the central relationship the exact same way except that they expect us to read it as platonic.

Long before it becomes canon, the potential ship of Mulder/Scully or Booth/Bones or whatever lead male/female couple consumes the fandom. It’s not about the genders involved. Rizzoli/Isles was like this too.

If canon tells us that no other relationship has ever measured up to this one, why should we keep them apart? Don’t like slash of your shows, prissy writers? Then stop writing all of your leads locked in epic One True Love romance novel relationships with their same-sex coworkers. Give them warm, funny, interesting love interests, not cardboard cutouts…

And then we will ship an OT3.

I’m going to bring up (invent?) the concept of subjectification.

As in, people gravitate to the characters given the most depth, complexity, and satisfying interactions for their shipping needs, because those characters are most human, and we want the realest characters to play with.

In a lot of media, the most depth gets handed to male characters.

And, oftentimes, even when the screentime and depth and interactions are granted equally well to female characters, there can be a level of, for lack of a better word, dis-authenticity to those female characters: they are pared down, washed out, or otherwise made slightly less themselves than they could be, in the interest of making them decorative, or likeable, or “good,” or keeping them from upstaging or emasculating their male companions, or just that the writer whose job it is to write them doesn’t know how to write women the way they write men.

And you get the characterization equivalent of that comparison chart where so many animated female characters have the same facial features because the animators and designers are so worried about not letting them be ugly.

When you have a group that’s allowed to be themselves, warts and all, and another group that has to be decorative at all costs, the impression given on some level is that the decorative quality is making up for a shortcoming. That they wouldn’t be enough in their own right.

And sometimes that cost is authenticity. The interesting, striking, awe-inspiring, bold and glorious unapologetic selfhood that draws the viewer most particularly to those characters who are unapologetic in their particular existence, standing clear of the generic and bland and unchallenging “safe” appearances.

It is authenticity, not beauty, which powers subjectification. The love for a character, not because they are perfect, but because they are them.

They can be pretty, sure. They can be sweet. But being pretty and sweet is not a replacement, and too many female characters have been written by writers who think it is, while the interest—in appearance, in personality, in interactions, in plot development—goes to the men.

And when that happens, well. Surprise, surprise, that’s where the shipping goes.

Yeah I don’t really ship but I do write a fair amount of fanfic, and in most franchises working with the female characters is a chore.

You have to do so much of the work yourself, because the canon left them unfinished, with huge gaps or unexplored contradictions that you have to somehow resolve. Every female character you decide to integrate into your fanwork in some major role constitutes an undertaking in her own right as you patch together an understanding of her sufficient to model a consistent set of reactions and priorities &c.

The dudes just get handed to you. Even the ones whose canon is a mess have properly developed character cores.

That you don’t have to unearth and piece together like some sort of volunteer archeologist coming up with theories way more complex than the available artifacts truly support.

Guys read this this is an amazing breakdown of it

To @whetstonefires’s point, military sci-fi is on the extreme end of that problem for the most part, with casts that skew extremely heavily toward male, with female characters usually being ancillary to the story, if they even exist.

And like, it’s not that it’s not worthwhile to do! It is; it’s meaningful and can be deeply rewarding. It’s valuable to draw attention to the disparities and encourage people to self-reflect a little.

But refusing to acknowledge that a lot of external norms are conspiring to make Engaging With Female Characters more work, in service of an insistence that any struggle people face with this is always out of a lack of moral purity or other personal flaw, is deeply counterproductive.

Increasing the amount of guilt and shame people experience when they try to center female cast is not gonna increase the rate at which these works are produced! Let alone how genuine and nuanced and interesting they are.

Acknowledge that it’s a thing done uphill a lot of the time, and let people who do it anyway take pride in that. I think over the long haul that does a lot more good.

From the site: All images courtesy Carol Rossetti and used with permission. You can find more illustrations, as well as more languages, on her Facebook page.

Oooh. I reblogged a partial version of this recently but I didn’t know how many more there were! I LOVE these!

OK SO THERE ARE TONS MORE OF THESE OF THE ARTISTS FB PAGE. GUYS THESE ARE AWESOME.

LOOK

AT

THESE

LETS APPLAUD CAROL ROSSETTI EVERYONE

  LOOK

Um, these are like the best thing ever.

I wish i got nice things like that. Everyone is always judging me based on my choices.

Everyone needs to see this! Spread this post!!!

A few of these I absolutely needed to save to remember at times

I’ll send it again because this is wonderful

My favorite thing about this is how there’s diversity in the women even when it isn’t relevant. There are more fat women than just the illustrations regarding body image. There are multiple women in wheelchairs even when the text isn’t focusing on it. there are so many different races and ethnicity even when that’s not what the words are focusing on. One of them doesn’t have a left arm and it isn’t the focus. It’s beautiful, showing the overlap between all these things.

I already reblogged this, but reblogging it again, because it makes me so happy.

a bunch of people in the notes had interpreted my post as "the doom is near". Well, yes and no.

I mean, tumblr has been at the brink of closing since... 2018 at last? Maybe even before? So it's not this is a new situation.

So do I think tumblr is going to close next month? No, I don't think so. Could it happen? sure. But I don't think so.

I really hope the changes Staff will do in the next few months will get this site to a better financial situation, but if that don't happen, I don't think Automattic would close the site right away. Instead, they would start moving people to profitable projects and leave tumblr with a skeleton crew, with the site being online but a without much, if any, new developments, bugs that take a long time to be fixed and ... well, less efficient moderation. If we get to that point, what happens after that is terra incognita: Maybe it could close after a while, maybe it could keep like that forever, maybe Automattic finds someone else to sell the site to. The timing? it depends a lot of the whimsy of a handful of rich white dudes. Staff may have three months to get more money in before the company decides to start pulling resources out. Or six. Or two years. It's hard to tell, since it's all mostly about the vibes the top brass feel at each point.

People have GOT to get used to the idea of paying for the sites they use all the time. if it's free, it's usually because they're selling ads and/or your data. In a few cases it's because the site operates as a non-profit, has a legion of volunteers, and works their asses off to get enough donations to cover everything. For small platforms/sites and in rare cases these days, it's because there's One Guy In Kansas paying for the servers and he or a handful of volunteers do all the site upkeep.

The internet is NOT free. Servers cost money. Unless you think everyone should have to keep exchanging their privacy plus the privacy of literally everyone they know so big platforms can stay totally free to users, you will have to accept that you will need to pay to use the websites you like, like this one. There's really no other option for large platforms. Federated setups have all the same drawbacks as Ye Olde Forums do. Including the fact that they are not free either! Someone has to pay for the goddamn servers!

You have to understand that the era of Everything Online Is Free is quickly coming to an end. If a hell of a lot more people don't get on board with the idea of actually paying for the shit they use literally everyday, we're all gonna give up more and more privacy and see more and more intrusive ads. The enshittification will continue to accelerate.

if you like being here on Tumblr dot com but think giving them money is bad unless they do certain things, I dunno what to tell you, other than the site has to still be up for them to make the changes you want. And that once this site is gone, it's extremely unlikely a replacement will come along.

For real, if you've been assuming a New Tumblr to crop up after a few months, you shouldn't be. Because, again, the free and easy money all the tech companies were getting 10-15 years ago is gone. They'll have to have a solid plan for turning a profit or they'll never get a new platform off the ground. And we have ample evidence at this point that it's hard as hell to even break even on a big platform let alone turn a profit.

"What about non-profits?" AO3 is an anomaly being a massive platform successfully running as a non-profit. They have a legion of volunteers and work their asses off fundraising every year to keep the servers up. All their financials are open to the public and people still act they're evil money-grubbing assholes, LOL. The only actual social media platform being run by a non-profit that I know of is Co-host. They're going through growing pains and the features are sparse at the moment. It's worth a look and I hope they do well, but I doubt it'll ever be anywhere as big as Tumblr.

All of this is painful to hear, and encourages me to remind people:

Nothing lasts forever. (And @neil-gaiman will forgive me, I'm sure, for not attaching the currently topically inevitable image...which is more about the eternal verities than the unhappy side effects of capitalism.)

If you've got data posted here—images, text, video, whatever—that you value and you don't want to find one day (who knows when) are suddenly just gone beyond retrieval: Archive it. Start now.

I've been engaged in this for a while. And also have been noodging @petermorwood about this for months, nay years, to get him to store his long weapons threads on his own website. You, too, should be storing your most valuable data in some space or place that doesn't depend on a platform to keep it alive.

Community can't be stored, obviously. The ongoing realtime exchange of serious stuff and goofery here is irreproducible and irreplaceable. No one here wants to lose it. But there's no point in pretending that what we have here is never going to end. People on other platforms have already been deeply hurt by changes that have simply destroyed years of their data without warning (such as over on what used to be Twitter: all image and video data uploaded before 2014 was recently simply made inaccessible overnight, without warning).

If there's stuff here that you value: look around and find a way to to store it away that works for you. Make a plan, and start gradually enacting it. Get proactive about protecting what matters to you... because you cannot depend on platforms, any platforms, to forever stay the way they've always been. Their priorities are not your priorities. They will change, and not necessarily in line with your preferences.

Tl:dr; Don't panic. But start planning.

Build your lifeboats.

Here make yourself with this picrew and tag 3 or more friends

@b-yg0ld @blue00phoenix @lucifers-golden-bitch-apparently @deadsimp6 @hydexstudixs

(<- is very much Over It)

<33 @thegroundsofbrooklyn @fandomtrashcollector @dustyy-angel @spookysplatter @newmsies

I love this!!!!! Thanks for the tag <3

No pressure tags: @raggedy-albert @pealeii @aceofspades-sml @spinningerster @baura-bear

Cute cute cute

If any of y’all want to: @ftm-megamind @sizzleitupwithmaria @slingshotsandrosarybeads

ty for the tag !!!!!!

non obligatory tags: @toffyrats @noxexistant @races-stupid-cigar

it me! thank you for the tag <3

pressure-free taggin @zappedbyzabka (i cannot for the life of me find ur side blog) @emmedoesntdomath @alfie-0nly @hellosammy19 @fecklessfriggingdisappointments

i love this so much- thank you for the tag!

if you guys want to do it:

@needtobemedicated @sparkedblaze @caw-salem

I honestly CANNOT tell you how long I’ve waited to be tagged in one of these

Feat a tired boi post-work with no sleep

Full pressure tagging-> @lavender-gamer @caw-salem

Non pressure tagging-> @newmsies

Got tagged in this twice so I guess I have no choice :p

Uhhh,,,,,, @lavender-gamer :p aaand… @blackbird-brewster if y’all wanna

Thanks for the tag! That was so cute 🥰 I'm just a tired disabled dude.

Tag you're it: @gaelic-symphony @phantomhag-666 @doctor-whothefuckknows

You know... I had an experience about two months ago that I didn't talk about publicly, but I've been turning it over and over in my mind lately and I guess I'm finally able to put my unease into words.

So there's a podcast I'd been enjoying and right after I got caught up, they announced that they were planning on doing a live show. It's gonna be near me and on the day before my birthday and I thought -- hey, it's fate.

But... as many of you know, I'm disabled. For me, getting to a show like that has a lot of steps. One of those steps involved emailing the podcasters to ask about accessibility for the venue.

The response I got back was very quick and very brief. Essentially, it told me to contact the venue because they had no idea if it was accessible or not.

It was a bucket of cold water, and I had a hard time articulating at the time quite why it was so disheartening, but... I think I get it a little more now.

This is a podcast that has loudly spoken about inclusivity and diversity and all that jazz, but... I mean, it's easy to say that, isn't it? But just talking the talk without walking the walk isn't enough. That's like saying "sure, we will happily welcome you in our house -- if you can figure out how to unlock the door."

And friends, my lock-picking set is pretty good by this point. I've been scouting out locations for decades. I've had to research every goddamn classroom, field trip, and assigned bookstore that I've ever had in an academic setting. I've had to research every movie theater, theme park, and menu for every outing with friends or dates. I spend a long time painstakingly charting out accessible public transportation and potential places to sit down every time I leave the house.

Because when I was in college, my professors never made sure their lesson plans were accessible. (And I often had to argue with them to get the subpar accommodations I got.) Because my friends don't always know to get movie tickets for the accessible rows. Because my dates sometimes leave me on fucking read when I ask if we can go to a restaurant that doesn't keep its restrooms down a flight of stairs.

I had one professor who ever did research to see if I could do all the coursework she had planned, and who came up with alternate plans when she realized that I could not. Only one. It was a medical history and ethics class, and my professor sounded bewildered as she realized how difficult it is to plan your life when you're disabled.

This woman was straight-up one of the most thoughtful, philosophical, and ethical professors I've ever had, one who was incredibly devoted to diversity and inclusion -- and she'd never thought about it before, that the hospital archives she wanted us to visit were up a flight of stairs. That the medical museum full of disabled bodies she wanted us to visit only had a code-locked back entrance and an old freight elevator for their disabled guests who were still breathing.

And that's the crux of it, isn't it? It's easy to theoretically accept the existence of people who aren't like you. It's a lot harder to actively create a space in which they can exist by your side.

Because here's what I did before I contacted the podcasters. I googled the venue. I researched the neighborhood and contacted a friend who lives in the area to help me figure out if there were any accessible public transportation routes near there. (There aren't.) I planned for over an hour to figure out how close I could get before I had to shell out for an uber for the last leg of the trip.

Then I read through the venue's website. I looked through their main pages, through their FAQs to see if there was any mention of accessibility. No dice. I download their packet for clients and find out that, while the base building is accessible, the way that chairs/tables are set up for individual functions can make it inaccessible. So it's really up to who's hosting the show there.

So then and only then I contacted the podcasters. I asked if the floor plan was accessible. I asked if all the seats were accessible, or only some, and whether it was open seating or not. Would I need to show up early to get an accessible seat, or maybe make a reservation?

And... well, I got the one-sentence reply back that I described above. And that... god, it was really disheartening. I realized that they never even asked if their venues were accessible when they were booking the shows. I realized that they were unwilling to put in the work to learn the answers to questions that disabled attendees might have. I realized that they didn't care to find out if the building was accessible.

They didn't know and they didn't care. That, I think, is what took the wind out of my sails when they emailed me back. It's what made me decide that... yeah, I didn't really want to go through the trouble of finding an accessible route to the venue. I didn't want to have to pay an arm and a leg to hire a car to take me the last part of the journey. I didn't want to make myself frantic trying to figure out if I could do all that and still make the last train home.

If they didn't care, I guess I didn't either.

If they'd apologized and said that the only venue they could get was inaccessible, I actually would have understood. I know that small shows don't always get their pick of venues. I get it. I even would have understood if they'd been like "oh dang, I actually don't know -- but I'll find out."

But to be told that they didn't know and didn't intend to find out... oof. That one stung.

Because.... this is the thing. This is the thing. I may be good at it by now, but I'm so tired of picking locks. I'm tired of doing all the legwork because no one ever thinks to help me. I'm tired of feeling like an afterthought at best, or at worst utterly unwelcome.

If you truly want to be inclusive, you need to stop telling people that you're happy to have them -- if they can manage to unlock the door. You need to fucking open it yourself and welcome them in.

What brought all this back to me now, you may be asking? Well... I guess it's just what I was thinking to myself as I was tidying up my phone.

Today I'm deleting podcasts.

I used to be a superfan of a particular YouTube channel. I watched every episode over and over again. I signed up as their patron and paid them more than I could reasonably afford, an amount I had to budget for, so that I could watch their patron-exclusive live streams and hang out and chat with them. The channel was run by a couple of abled cis white guys, very privileged, but they were different! They were proof, to me, that the most privileged people can still be compassionate and make a difference in the world. They laughed at homophobes and transphobes. They told off people who left toxic comments. They talked endlessly about how empathy is the most important human trait. Every year they'd participate in a charity run to benefit a group helping disabled kids.

But their videos weren't subtitled. They were multiple people talking in very different accents over a noisy background, and I missed a lot of what they said. So during one livestream, when the guy I was watching had been bragging for ten solid minutes about how the money they were getting from patreon allowed them to rent and remodel a fancy new studio and buy all new equipment and make the best videos they could possibly make, I asked, hey, what about subtitles? A lot of your fans struggle to understand your videos without them. Like me. I miss a lot. Surely you can invest some of that money to commission some good subtitles?

His answer felt like a punch to the gut. They hadn't really looked into it despite regular comments from viewers asking for them, because it seemed like kind of a hassle. It'd be expensive, and they'd have to spend the time checking them and fixing them, and was it really worth it? He was pretty sure most people didn't need them anyway.

Shut up and go be disabled somewhere else. That's what I heard.

I thought, okay, maybe springing that on him during a live stream wasn't fair. I sent them a message directly (via patreon, where they could see how much money I was giving them), thanking them for being so thoughtful and considerate, for caring about people less privileged than themselves. I laid out in brief the reasons why subtitles are important and asked them to please try to prioritize them. That I appreciated that they raised money for a disability charity but this was something they could do directly for their fans. They never responded.

When a new series was released on their YouTube channel, the audio was so poorly mixed that I couldn't understand a word they said. While the video was still in patron-only early access, I left a comment saying please, if you won't put subtitles on the videos, can you at least be careful about the audio mixing? I can't understand anything and I won't be able to watch this series.

They hid the comment from public view.

Shut up and go be disabled somewhere else.

It's so easy to say you care. It's so easy to say everyone should care. And it's absolutely devastating how often it turns out that's all someone is willing to do. The moment it would take actual effort, suddenly it's weeeelll you know, we have limited time, we have a limited budget, we have to be efficient with our resources, we can't devote any energy for such a "small" portion of our fanbase, it wouldn't be fair to the rest of them. You're Asking Too Much. Hey, we do a charity fun run once a year and get our photos taken and get lots of praise and pats on the back for being Good People. Surely that's enough.

I dropped my patronage and stopped watching their videos. They won't even notice, I'm sure. But after all the love and promotion and money I'd given them, I feel like my heart is broken. They never cared. They were never different. And I'm so tired of that happening over and over again.

Deinfluencing in general can be a huge force for good. It helps to ensure that bad faith products don't go unchallenged. This is an example of attempted deinfluencing, but this isn't based in fact, which is necessary for deinfluencing to be that force for good.

In this case, there are no EU laws against live streaming. But I assume the point here is around data collection. Here's the data we collect: Username, Age, IP location. If you consent, we share this with our partner, and you are able to use Live. If you don't consent, we don't share it, obviously, and you don't use Live.

We will be rolling Live out internationally, and we are currently in the process of getting a DPA (data processing agreement) with our partner to ensure we are 100% in compliance with laws in any regions we open Live up to. We take user data very seriously, and that is partly why we're not more financially successful. It's a conscious choice we've made, and it's financially penalized us, and we have no regrets.

wish i could paint this on the walls of the dashboard for more people to understand. (emphasis mine.)

@zingring @cyle Here’s the thing, though.

Why Live?

@iheartvelma, these are all good questions, and I think answering them will help clear up some misconceptions, broaden some ideas, and some are just good data points. So let's dive in! I'm going to give a broad answer, and then go in order and reply bullet-style, so I am sure I cover it all.

Why Live - There's two reasons from my own POV. One is that live streaming is a new feature space and it can provide revenue. We really need to explore it, from a financial perspective. The second reason is that I personally think that there's a conception around live streaming being a face-forward, influencer experience, which it doesn't have to be. I think about how Tumblr users are the only users in the entire wide world who can take the idea of live streaming, and make it into something really, truly interesting and wild. Did you know a condition of implementing Live with our partner is that users never have to show their faces? Typically, you need to show your face to verify your age, but we said a flat no to that. That's how we can have Aquarium of the Pacific stream their Jelly Cam every monday. Jelly fish don't have faces (... I don't think). We've seen how other platforms use Live, and it's fine (but honestly, it's not for me, and I think you'll agree, it's not for Tumblr). So the challenge to Tumblr users is: how do we own live streaming and make it something that is unlike anywhere else, something exciting, funny, dumb, supportive of self-expression, etc etc etc? If anyone can turn the concept of live streaming on its head, it's Tumblr users. Y'all are amazing.

Whew, that got a bit long, thank you for hanging with me through that! I appreciate that you took the time to detail your concerns - you didn't have to do that, but you did and it shows you care about Tumblr. Thank you. I hope I've alleviated some of those concerns, or given you some more to think about at least.

@zingring That’s all very heartening to hear. (I know some Automatticians, and they are lovely people.)

I guess the thing with Live is that it just appeared more or less without warning and didn’t seem like it was organically Tumblr-ish. (We all know how users react to change - I do UX and product stuff myself.)

To your point, I get it, and yeah, I can see how live streaming can be a plus if there is organic uptake. It’s fantastic that anonymity is part of the deal, so thanks for clarifying.

I haven’t looked at the Live tools yet, but I’m a big supporter of having a native Tumblr Creator Studio experience - a suite of tools for 2D graphics, looping video, linear video / audio editing, livestreaming / podcasting, etc. (A Tumblr-Bandcamp partnership would be cool.)

As many have noted, graphics are heavy (and GIFs are very heavy vs video equivalents). I wonder how much storage could be freed up by archiving files that haven’t been accessed in ages, and doing some sort of deduplication sweep to repoint GIF URLs to a single canonical (optimized) version, maybe use hashing to detect duplicate uploads…

And of course, like every web host, ask heavy file uploaders / higher traffic blogs to pay for more space and bandwidth? I think tiered subscriptions aren’t unfair, especially if there’s a free-rider issue - ie a minority of heavy-file, frequent / popular “pro” posters takes advantage of the fact that it’s not metered right now.

If we had dashboard tools to show us the “weight” of our sites and see if we’re hitting a bandwidth cap, it might help users stay on budget…

Alternately this leads us to ads, which I’m not against (though I pay for Ad-Free), but maybe it’s time to think about opt-in native ads in one’s own blog.

Instead of an algorithmic auction marketplace like Google, maybe we can have a “matchmaking” model where we can offset the cost of our hosting (and maybe get some rev share?) by allowing us to pick from a list of advertisers or products we personally like / approve of. (This can be a step towards sponsorship models, too.)

Alternately, it could be the public media model - where particular content creators get funding from a revamped Tip Jar… at which point Tumblr becomes a broadcaster / aggregator?

Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful reply - I really appreciate it.

@iheartvelma - thank you for the feedback on the debut of live... I agree. I have some regrets. Our conversation (and some internal conversations) have got me thinking about neat things we (Tumblr) could be doing to better show how live can be anything. We haven't done that yet, and we should have done it sooner.

To your other suggestions - yeah, lots of good ideas here! Some we've talked about in some capacity, and some we haven't. I'll share internally.

Thanks again for such a thoughtful reply and taking the time to engage.

You know those aesthetic image posts that float around tumblr? I'm . . . starting to see a lot on my dash that are obviously ai-generated. Are non-artists having trouble telling the difference between AI images and real photos, or are people starting to stop care about the stolen art that gets fed into those programs?

I have no actual art training, so I want it known that if I ever DO reblog some ai stuff please let me know. It was unintentional and I would like to know. Thanks~

Yeah, I figure this is the case for most people. I’m going to put up a guide to spotting AI images after work!

I think people know by now how to tell if an image of a person is AI-generated. Count the fingers, count the knuckles, check the pupils, yadda yadda. I've seen several posts circulating about what to look for. However, I think people are a LOT less educated about backgrounds, and about the specific distinctions between human error and AI error. So that's what I'm going to cover.

Now, don't feel bad if you've reblogged or liked any of the images I'm about to show you guys. This is just what's crossed my blog, so it's what I have to work with. (Actually, thanks for providing the examples!)

I also generated a few images from crAIyon purely for demonstrational purposes, because I didn't have anything on-hand to show my thoughts.

Firstly — Keep in mind that AI has a difficult time replicating "simple" styles. Think colorless line-drawings, cartoony pieces with thick lines, and pixel art.

Looks unsettling, right?

Why is this? Well, when a human makes art, we're more prone to under-detailing by mistake than over-detailing, because adding detail in the first place place is more effort. A skilled artist should be good able to capture an idea with minimal, evocative shape language.

But when an AI makes art, it is the opposite. An AI doesn't understand what it's looking at, not in the way that you or I do. All it can do is search for and replicate patterns in the noise of pixels. As a result, it is prone to mushing together features in ways that a human artist . . . wouldn't intentionally think to do.

It also over-details, replicating what it knows over and over again because it doesn't know when it's supposed to stop. Blank spaces can confuse it! It likes having detail to work with! Detail Is Data!

Again, this is why we count fingers.

These general principles still apply when we're looking at styles that an AI is better equipped to imitate. So . . .

Secondly — AI's tendency to over-render details makes it easier for it to pick up heavily detailed styles, especially if the style will still hold up when certain details are indistinct or merge together unexpectedly.

Scrutinize images that utilize a painterly, heavily-rendered, or photo-realistic style. Such as this one.

Thirdly — An AI piece that looks pretty good from a distance falls apart up close.

The above image looks almost like a photograph, but there is architecture here that you wouldn't find in a real room, and mistakes that you wouldn't find in the work of an artist that is THIS good at rendering. Or most beginner artists, even.

Can you see what falls apart here? Hint; we're counting fingers again.

Check the window panes. Isn't the angle that they all meet up at a little off? Why are the panes sized so inconsistently? Why doesn't the view outside of them all line up into a cohesive background?

Count the furniture legs. Why does the farther-back case have a third leg? Why does the leg on the closer case vanish so strangely behind the flowery details?

Examine the curtain(?) fabric at the top of the window. What on earth IS that frilly stuff?

Another mistake that AI will make is drawing lines and merging details that a human artist would never think of as connected. See the lines crawling up the walls? See how some of the flower petals glop together at hard angles in some places? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

You can see more strange architecture in the outdoor setting of this image.

A lot of the AI's mistakes are almost art nouveau! We recognize that buildings are consistently angular, for stability reasons. An AI does not. (Also look at the trees in the background, and how they tend to warp and distort around the outline of the treehouse. They kinda melt into each other at some points. It's wild.)

Fourthly — An AI will replicate any carelessness that was introduced into its original data set.

Obviously, this means that AIs will make fake watermarks, but everybody already knows that. What I need you guys to look out for is something else. It's called artifacting.

Artifacting is defined as "the introduction of a visible or audible anomaly during the processing or transmission of digital data." To put it in layman's terms, you know how an image gets crunchy and pixelated if you save it as a jpg? Yeah. That. An AI with lots of crusty, crunchy jpgs fed into it will produce crunchy images.

Look at the floor at the bottom of our original example image;

See the speckles all along the glass panels, table legs, and flowers in shadow? Artifacted to hell and back! This shit is crunchier than my spine after spending half a day hunched over my laptop.

Again, legitimate art and photography may have artifacting too just because of file formatting reasons. But most artists don't intentionally artifact their own images, and furthermore, the artifacting will not be baked into the very composition of the image itself. The speckles will instead gather most notably on flat colors at the border of different color patches and/or outlines.

Cronchy memes; funny. Cronchy AI art; shitty jpg art theft caught red-handed.

That's probably all the lessons I can impart in one post. Class dismissed! As homework a bonus, consider these two sister images to our original flower room. Can you spot any signs of AI generation?

@wolven-writer I hope this helps!

All of this.

My biggest tip is to also look at decorative patterns. Since AI's don't know what they're actually making, things like a relief pattern on a throne or etchings on a piece of weapon will just be messy noise with no rhyme or reason to it.

Even though portraits often result in less artefacts since there's less variables for the AI to try and process, the overly crisp, highly rendered style can be easy to pick out after a while.

All I'm saying is, if a fic refers to characters by their physical attributes instead of their names or pronouns ("he smiled at the older" "the blonde laughed") when we know who the character is, and ESPECIALLY if the descriptions include "ravenette" or "cyanette" or other ridiculous words--

I'm clicking out of that fic so fast my AO3 history won't even register I've been there.

I am glad you asked. :D

First, if a writer is using the characters' names every sentence -- they're already off to a bad start. Not every sentence needs to clarify which character it applies to, unless you're writing a "See Jane Run" book, lol.

Overall a good rule of thumb is a) don't repeat unnecessary information, and b) only write things that carry the scene.

So for starters, your readers should know who's in the scene, and you can trust them to have at least a little bit of intuition: not every bit of dialog needs to have a tag ("he said/she whispered" etc.) Now, that established: you do use names when doing otherwise would leave it unclear who's doing or saying things. Example:

It's clear who says what, and if we had just used "he" it wouldn't have been, but we also didn't have to dialog-tag every line. (ALSO. "Said" is not a bad word. Ignore all advice that tells you never to use "said." "Said" is an invisible word and unless you're putting a dialog tag on every line [which you Do Not Need To Do] people won't even notice it. Unlike "shrieked," "whispered," "hissed," "ranted," "whined," etc. Use those words when they'll have punch and impact. Not every dang line.)

But this isn't always how it needs to go.

For example. Let's say I'm writing about a strawberry-blonde elf named Diana and a human bard with black hair named Jerome. I could say:

Okay there are.... several issues here. First off, we don't need to clarify that Diana said the thing after we had her doing an action. Trust your readers! They'll know that a "she" here logically refers to Diane, as they know that "he replied" refers to Jerome.

Next, please strike "referring to characters by eye or hair color" from any lists. This is not good. It's not relevant 99% of the time (we'll get to exceptions in a moment) and also, pet peeve: "ravenette" does not mean black-haired. If you've gotta say it, just say black-haired. Ravenette means "a raven, diminuative" or maaaaaaybe "like a raven." Unless you're imitating an 1800s gothic poet, don't do this.

Physical descriptions used as character indicators/pseudo pronouns are clunky and take up space without telling us anything new. They distance the reader from the character by taking us out of the story and back into exposition land, and they generally repeat information we already know. We can tell our readers in chapter one that Diana has strawberry-blonde hair, and then we don't need to refer to her as "the strawberry-blonde" a hundred more times because our readers already know this. Just call her Diana. Or "she." (Unless it's relevant to the moment -- if she's not our POV character and we need to contrast her to, say, a black-haired beauty at the ball through someone else's eyes, that's one thing. But still, don't continually refer to her by something as shallow as her hair color.)

Exception: visual descriptions are valid to use as character-indicators when we or the characters do not know who that person is. For example, if Diana had been kidnapped by bandits.

Ooooh look! Now we know the boss-man's name. From here on out, we probably should refer to him as either "Gorm" or "the bandit leader" -- not "the tall man" (and never just "the taller." Or "the older," "the younger," etc. That's a side note, but a lot of fics do that too. If you're going to use a comparative adjective, you at least still have to tell us what noun it refers to.)

Also -- did you notice how we never said Diana's name there either? She's the viewpoint character, so unless another person comes along that we need to clarify with, we can usually get away with just saying "she." The reader knows who they're reading about.

When you DO have two or more characters with the same pronouns in a scene, you gotta get creative. Again, readers are intuitive -- they can follow pretty well who's doing what as long as you make it clear. Generally speaking, if you establish which character is doing the thing, you can then use just the pronoun until you switch to a new character. For example:

There's never a confusion that Peony offers Diana her own hand -- not somehow Diana's hand. We don't question that Diana is the one wrinkling her nose, or that they're her pants and not Peony's. Or that Peony sweeps her own hair out of her own eyes. Sometimes you'll have lines where it's a little more confusing, but if it feels awkward in the sentence, always consider if you can re-structure it another way. Like,

Okay, that last line there? That one gets confusing, with all those "her"s. We COULD change it to "Diana reached for her, grabbing the back of Peony's tunic and yanking her down onto the horse." That takes care of a lot of them. Or, we could improve things even further by breaking apart the action, elaborating on things, and just generally stretching out the words so that it's clearer which "she/her" is being referenced at any given time. It's your story! Take advantage of all the room you've got -- there will never be a time when you simply cannot rearrange things to make it clearer for your readers.

It does takes effort. And sometimes a bit of verbal slight of hand. You may have to restructure sentences to avoid repetitive phrases and give yourself a good pace. (That's a large part of rewriting and editing.)

However, like the word "said," pronouns are invisible words. Names are not -- they jump out and say HI THIS IS ME. Use them sparingly -- they have power.

One final exception! Fantasy race and job titles. Again, you don't do this with your POV characters unless you're trying to remind the readers of something, but it IS acceptable to sometimes refer to, say, "the elf," or "the detective," or "the werewolf," or "the duke." Use them sparingly, but this is one exception -- mainly because it tells/reminds us of an important fact about the character. (You might also use, say, "her older sister," or "his father," etc, because that also communicates information about the characters and who they are to each other. But. Again. Use sparingly.)

...okay, I've rambled enough, but hopefully this is somewhat useful/helpful to someone out there.

Again! Read good books! Watch how professional writers do it! Imitate, imitate, imitate! The best writing teachers in the world are good writers.

Happy writing!

wait okay no hold up this says it so much faster and clearer than any of my rambling above: identifying characters by their visual attributes tells us WHAT they are, but not WHO they are.

There. Boom. Short answer. Much clearer, much better. Thank you, tumblr user djtangerine.

yea this is why your exceptions work too! if the narrator only knows a character as “that blond guy” then calling them “the blond guy” isn’t jarring to the reader.

Master List of My Jemily Fics (Updated)

ALL OF MY WORKS ON AO3 || MY WRITING ON TUMBLR UPDATED: 20 November 2022 FLUFF

A Series of Unfortunate Events Summary: How each member of the team found out JJ and Emily were dating

1, 2, 3, 4 (Drabble) Summary: Watching her best friend, JJ, walk up the aisle to marry Will suddenly ignites something within Emily.

The Disposition of Emily Prentiss Summary: When JJ spots a beautiful brunette in a bar she employees Derek and Penelope to help her win over her new crush.

Piccino Merlo Summary: Emily is undercover as Lauren Reynolds and meets a seductive blonde arms dealer

Change Your Mind (Drabble) Summary: JJ and Emily wager their first ‘wife bet’

The Mutt Summary: JJ rescues a dog from traffic and begs Emily to keep her.

Breakfast (Drabble) Summary: Emily finds her hands full of a certain toddler

Love is an Open Door (Drabble) Summary: Henry helps Emily on a secret mission

Nine Years (and Three Days) (Drabble) Summary: Emily and JJ have been celebrating their anniversary on the wrong day

You Spin Me Right Round (Drabble) Summary: JJ comes home to a very drunk, very miserable, Emily

You Picked Me (Drabble) Summary: Emily has a hard time expressing how she feels and the team comes over for Thanksgiving

Imagine Me and You (Drabble) Summary: JJ sees Emily with a baby and gets to wondering

Breathe (Drabble) Summary: Emily comes to the rescue when Henry is sick with a cold

I and Love and You (Drabble) Summary: Emily gets wedding day jitters

Mother’s Day (Drabble) Summary: Henry helps Emily prepare a Mother’s Day surprise

Dreams Do Come True (Drabble) Summary: Emily takes JJ and Henry to Disneyworld for their first family vacation

London Calling (Drabble) Summary: JJ makes a rash decision and calls Emily in a panic

300 (Crack!fic / Drabble) Summary: The 300th episode of Criminal Minds finds Emily and JJ in a precarious situation.

The One Where JJ Reads Fic (Crack!fic/ drabble) Summary: AU where the team is on a reality show about the BAU

FLUFF & FEELS

False Flags and the Art of Misdirection Summary: JJ, Tara, and Emily juggle their attractions to each other after returning from Roswell, New Mexico (A Je T'Emily Fic!)

If I Met You in Five Years (What-Ifs and If-Onlys Series) Summary: After spending years feeling like they’re just one step out of sync with each other, JJ and Emily finally find a perfect alignment. [Reimagining of Season 7 and 12x06 ‘Elliott’s Pond’]

If You’re Gone (What-Ifs and If-Onlys Series) Summary: Established Jemily [Reimagining of 06x18 'Lauren’]

Is There Somewhere Summary: JJ escorts Emily to Paris where they will have one week together

If You Asked Me To (What-Ifs and If-Onlys Series) Summary: JJ goes to Emily’s house after Emily has been suspended by Barnes [Reimaging of 13x15]

All of Me: Summary: JJ and Emily kiss and it makes things a bit complicated between them

Safe & Sound Summary: Tumblr prompt 'If I have to die, dying with you isn’t the worst way to go’

Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop: Summary: (Coffee Shop AU) Emily finally asks out her barista, JJ. But JJ is hiding secrets that might be Emily’s downfall

Speak Now Summary: Rossi and Hotch take bets on which drunken member of their team will make the biggest fool of themselves at JJ and Will’s wedding.

As It Seems Summary: JJ is falling apart and desperately wishes she had someone to talk to.

Come Around to Me Summary: Emily plans to leave for London as JJ plans for her future

The Secret Life of Lauren Reynolds Summary: JJ finds Emily’s passport under her alias, Lauren Reynolds

{Text} Blackbird. Summary: A series of text messages between JJ and Emily exploring their feelings for each other

FEELS

What If It Doesn’t End Well? (What-Ifs and If-Onlys Series) Summary: Emily struggles with her self-worth when the team is called to New Orleans, where they are introduced to Detective LaMontagne [Reimagining of 02x18 'Jones’]

I Will Wait Summary: This couldn’t be how it ended, not like this. JJ had survived so much, it seemed unfair to die alone in a parking garage. It seemed unfair to die at all.

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight Summary: JJ and Emily have a long overdue conversation now that Emily is back in DC and back at the BAU

She Used to Be Mine Summary: A canon-rewrite where JJ wasn’t part of the cover up that Emily had survived after Doyle

Let Me Down Slowly (Drabble): Summary: A story of JJ and Emily navigating their history

the words: Summary: Emily and JJ’s weekly phone call turns into a difficult conversation (Ambiguously S9)

Mercy: Summary: JJ finally works up the courage to tell Emily how she has felt for years (S13)

Wreckage Summary: After the plane crashes on the way home from the case the team must ban together to survive

Into the Light of the Cold, Black Night Summary: An alternate ending to 200

Lights Summary: Emily gets Penelope’s phone call in “Lauren” and comes home

Save Tonight Summary: JJ finally gets the courage to tell Emily how she feels but is she too late?

1000 Times Summary: JJ visits Emily in London, hoping to pick up where they left off

Scars Summary: JJ finally breaks down about her abduction

Ashes and Wine Summary: Emily’s emotional insecurities threaten to tear her relationship with JJ apart

I Will Follow You Into the Dark Summary: JJ tries to piece her life together after a crushing personal loss

Hotel Celiing (Drabble) Summary: It should have been their six month anniversary

FEELS & SMUT

If You Need Me (What-Ifs and If-Onlys Series) Summary: Emily has a night terror and asks JJ to come run through their ritual of comfort

Gravity Summary: Emily returns to the BAU (S11) and JJ tries to not fall into old habits

Luck of the Irish Summary: An alternate version of Lauren

The Call Summary: Emily gets a call from Spencer and becomes worried about JJ’s well being

SMUT

Pray Summary: After Elle leaves the BAU, JJ goes looking for a one-night-stand

Unsubs and Handcuffs Summary: JJ finds herself at the whim of her captor after being bound and gagged.

Coming Home Summary: When Emily returns in It Takes a Village JJ has a hard time restraining herself.

Take it Slow Summary: JJ is nervous about her first time with Emily

Ride (Drabble) Summary: Jemily enjoy a quickie in the car

SMUT & FLUFF

Pandora’s Box Summary: After a drunken confession JJ and Emily take their relationship to the next level

CHAPTER FICS

Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) - Part 1 Summary: (Imagine Me and You AU) JJ realises she has feelings for her personal trainer, Emily — even though she is recently married to her long-time partner Will. A coming out story with lots of wholesome feels.

Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) - Part 2 Summary: Nine months after the end of Part 1, this series follows the interwoven relationships of JJ, Emily and Tara

To Catch an Unsub (BACK IN PROGRESS as of Oct. 2022) Summary: Emily and JJ go under cover in a rural Alabama town to catch an unsub.

A Journey Through the Silent Chasm (3 Part Series) Summary: This three-part series details the journey of JJ’s mental illness and PTSD through her death and, eventually, through the healing of those she left behind.

Caged Summary: When Emily finds out Will has become abusive she helps JJ get out of the situation safely. 

Words Left Unsaid Summary: When Emily’s sister arrives in DC she is faced with traumatizing news and JJ has to face emotions of her past

Summary: Emily and JJ go under cover in a rural Alabama town to catch an unsub.

It Was Always You Summary: As JJ prepares to leave for her new position at the Pentagon, Emily makes a huge confession which changes everything.

Things You Sais (Drabble Collection)

CM FEMSLASH FIC RECS:

[CM Fic Recs: Temily] || [CM Fic Recs: Jemily] || [CM Fic Recs: Other Femslash Pairs]

[My Temily Fanfic Master List] [My Jara Fanfic Master List]

UPDATED: 20 November 2022