#Image desciption

[blauelster]

We did learn History that's why we're Criticising Israel

[Id:"A Tumblr Post of inklingm8 saying "Why can't people learn jewish and Israeli History before criticising our Right to our homeland"."Id end]

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Just this evening, Windows™ forced a reboot while I was in the middle of a puzzle game, and when I logged back in, the options were: "Complete setting up your computer" (with features I never wanted) and "remind me in three days"

Don't remind me!

Let me say "no." And let it stick!!

I'm fed up with "maybe later".

[cepheusgalaxy]

Easy IDs to do for beginners

[Plain text: Easy IDs to do for beginners /end PT.]

Disability Pride Month is here! And as so I think it'd be neat to incentive people to describe more images, as advocacy for acessibility.

But I get it that describing images (visual stuff) with *your own words* may seem a bit challenging, specially if you've never done that before, so I decided to gather some easy things you can describe to start!

1 - Text transcripts

What is a text transcrip? A text transcript is when you have an image whose only component is text, and you take the text from it and write it out for the people who for whatever reason can't acess the image themselves (like if they are blind and use a text-to-speech device to read what's on the screen for them and therefore can't recognize the text of an image, people with low vision that can't see average-sized text and configure theirs to display text in a bigger font, which doesn't work on images and it's too tiny for them to read...). An example of text transcript:

[ID: Text: An adult frog has a stout body, protruding eyes, anteriotly-attached tongue, limbs folded underneat, and no tail (the tail of tailed frogs is an) /end ID.]

(this is from the Wikipedia page on frogs.)

Text transcripts are easy to do because you only have to take the already existing text from an image and type it out. For longer text-only images, you can also use a text recognition AI tool, such as Google Lens, to select the text from you and then you just have to copy and paste it into the description.

2 - Memes

Despiste what you may think, most memes (specially 1-panel memes) are incredibly easy to describe, because they come from a well-known template. Take this one for an example:

[ID: The "Epic Handshake" meme. One of the people in the handshake is labelled "black people", and the other is labelled "tall people". The place where they shake hands has the caption "constantly being asked if you play basketball". /end ID.]

They are easy to describe because despiste having many elements, you can easily sum it all up in a few words, like "the loss meme", "the is this a pigeon meme", the "bernie sanders" meme, and so on. When you describe memes, you don't have to worry about every single detail, (@lierdumoa explains this better on this post) but only about 'what makes this meme funny?' If you are describing one, just describe which is the meme you're talking about, and how it differs from its template, like the captions or anyone's face that may have been edited in.

3 - One Single Thing

Images with "one single thing" are, I think, the easiest thing to describe on the world. When you describe things, what you're supposed to do is "describe what you see". If there's only one thing to see, then you can easily describe it! Quick example:

[ID: A banana. /end ID.]

See?

You could also describe this image as "a single yellow banana in a plain white background", but this extra information is not exactly important. One knows a banana is yellow. That is not unusual, and neither that nor the color of the background change anything in the image. So in these types of descriptions, you can keep things very short and simple, and deliver your message just as well.

An exception would be something like this:

[ID: A blue banana. /end ID.]

In this case, where there is something unusual about the object, describing it will be more useful. When you say "banana", one would assume the banana is yellow, so to clarify, you say that this specific banana is blue.

When you have other situations where your One Single Thing is unusual in some way, like a giant cat, a blue banana, or a rotten slice of bread, pointing out what their unusual characteristic is is the best way to go.

3.5 - A famous character of person

This one is actually similar to the One Single Thing type of ID. When you are describing, say, a random person or an oc, you'd want to describe things like their clothes, their hair color, etc., but in the case of an already well-known figure, like Naruto or Madonna, just saying their names delivers the message very well. Like this for example:

[ID: Taylor Swift, singing. /end ID.]

or

[ID: Alastor from Hazbin Hotel, leaning on his desk to pick up a cup. /end ID.]

In both of these cases, you technically could describe them as "a blonde woman with light skin...", "a cartoon character with animal ears and a suit..." but you will be more straight to the point if you just say "Taylor Swift" and "Alastor". In these cases, it's usually very useful to describe what they're doing as well, like "singing" and "leaning on his desk to pick up a cup", or whatever else.

An extra tip I can give you to describing characters in specific, is to point out if they are wearing anything different. With most cartoon characters, they usually have a signature outfit and hairstyle, that one would expect them to be in. So, similarly to the blue banana case, if they are wearing a different thing than they usually do, it comes in handy to state that in your description. Like this:

[ID: Sakura from Naruto wearing a nurse outfit. /end ID.]

Sakura's usual outfit is not a nurse one, so since she is wearing one, pointing it out is very helpful.

The last tip I have for describing characters is pointing out which franchise they are from. For example, if I just said "Sakura", you'd probably assume it was this one, since she is famous, but you wouldn't be able to be sure, because how many Sakuras are out there? So, saying "Emma from the X-Men" and "Emma from The Promised Neverland" is gonna be very helpful.

Helpful resources and final considerations:

A masterpost I did with many tutorials and tips for doing image descriptions in general

Why are image descriptions important (even for sighted people)?

And a few tips about formatting:

Putting "id" and "end id" at the start and at the end of your description is gonna help the people reading it to know where the description starts and where it ends, so they don't read, say, your caption, and think you are still talking about your description

Customized fonts, colored text, italics, bold text or tiny text aren't things you should do your ID in. Most customized fonts are pretty hard to understand, and most text-to-speech devices can't recognize them. Tiny text is hard to see for people who need big fonts, and italized text faces the same issue because it makes the words smaller. Full lines or paragraphs of colored text can cause eyestrain when people try to read them, and bolded text makes the edges of the words too close together and can make it even harder to read for people who have trouble reading already.

And that's it! Happy describing, folks!

[citrusella-flugpucker]

https://www.tumblr.com/can-i-make-image-descriptions/704588725997404160/general-guide-for-image-descriptions?source=share

Hi! Thanks for sending this, and I imagine I can figure out how you decided to send it to my blog! (Specifically (this parenthetical is for my followers' benefit, not yours, since I know where you found me), I replied to someone on a post calling out some users' behavior in requesting image descriptions (can link the post if needed but am avoiding at present for de-escalatory reasons), explaining why I thought someone who writes image descriptions themselves would still advocate for others to write them (and why not everyone who doesn't ALWAYS provide them is necessarily ableist--they can be, of course, but there are myriad reasons someone might not). Other people in the post's replies reported also getting sent this link, so this anon is probably monitoring the replies of that post and contacting everyone who gives it a note of any type.)

I know all of the guidance the post you've linked here shares, so I thought I'd elaborate more on my personal philosophy regarding image descriptions.

...I love creating accessibility where I can manage to do so! I was a longtime contributor to community captions on YouTube before the feature was shuttered, and I do my best caption or transcript my own content or to provide alt text where my posts contain images (I know there have been a handful of times I've forgotten to do so, though, especially on the alt side of things). Heck, I'm thinking of creating a zine (as in a physical one, to distribute locally) and trying to figure out how to offer it in braille and described!

I actually recently attended a panel hosted by the Longmore Institute on Disability at SFSU where blind/low-vision/partially-sighted people (and the attendees) were given three different audio descriptions of a comic produced with different description philosophies (one described like a movie's video description track, one the artist's extremely detailed sort of description intended for editors, and one a hypothetical narrative-like (i.e. written like book prose) description). The panel was a discussion and Q&A regarding what they liked best, some thoughts on best practices, and some ideas specific to art and comics. One thing I found striking was one of the panelists thought it'd be an interesting idea if it were possible to have multiple granularities of description available to choose between, kind of like how sighted users can zoom in on something or look closer at the detail. (This is only tangentially related to your ask, but I just think it was a really cool panel so I decided to take the opportunity to gush about it. Hope that's okay. XD)

Here's what happens when an image or video is not mine, is undescribed and/or untranscripted, and it crosses my dash:

I give the first reblog I see of it, by the person I've followed, a like. That was my introduction to the post in question, after all!

I open the notes and start looking for an existing description of the image(s) in the post (or transcript, if it's a video) that I deem satisfactory. If I find one, I reblog that version. Sometimes a description exists in the notes and I deliberately avoid it because I think it's so bad as to be about as useful as not providing one. Usually in such a case there is more than one description I can choose from, thankfully. (This was not the case a few years ago, when image description was... like... less cool or something.)

If I don't find one and I'm up for doing it myself, I do it myself. (I am more likely to be up for doing it myself right now if an adequate description would be fairly simple/short. More on that later.)

If I'm not up for doing it myself and it's a video with open captions, I may be likely to still reblog it. (I do understand that this can still present inaccessible content for deafblind people especially (and also hearing blind people as well, but to a lesser extent).)

If I'm not up for doing it myself and it's a video without captions or an undescribed image, I consider whether or not I want to reblog it. Sometimes I still do. (I understand that this is bad for visual accessibility.)

Those last two bullet points sound TERRIBLE! I'm deliberately choosing inaccessibility when I led with saying I love it?! Hypocrisy!

But here's the thing: I do things this way because in the past those last two bullet points used to be "I don't reblog it until I am up for doing it myself". Yeah, I made a full-on resolution that I was going to make sure all my posts were fully accessible! Great!

...But then it started to actively be a problem, because my workflow went like this:

See post

No description on post or in notes

Draft post to describe later instead of reblogging immediately

Forget draft (my disability makes this distressingly easy to do in Tumblr's last few layouts, more on that in a sec, but you should know I currently have 3292 drafts for all sorts of reasons (mostly not description, I'd imagine), that date back to before I graduated college eight years ago)

Never reblog post

Repeat

Mutuals wonder why I never reblog things anymore

...Which started to actively make my life worse because it was basically like I wasn't on Tumblr anymore.

Which in some ways I'm sure to some sounds like the "I can excuse racism" meme:

...But, like, I mean it was actively interfering with my mental health to a degree, because one axis of my online social life had basically been reduced to nothing. And it wasn't making anything more accessible, when I was completely forgetting to follow through like that.

So I stopped doing that and started letting myself reblog things again, so that I can have some connection to others on this site. XP

There are myriad reasons that someone might not be able to consistently provide image descriptions, but for me, writing an image description requires me to interact with a post in a very specific way, which is a way shared with the following activities:

Writing and timing closed captions

Writing transcripts

Actively monitoring edits and performing admin functions on the handful of wikis I admin (particularly ones without other active admins)

Probably other stuff, IDK, but it's a really weird analytical approach that I don't use for too awful much else

All of these are presently being affected by the fact I've been in disability-related burnout since February of 2020.

I don't provide image descriptions (or transcripts) as often as I used to.

I uploaded a minute-long video to YouTube last week and, as I always do with my content, manually created a caption file for it to avoid CRAPtions; even with YouTube's automatic speech to text and timing, I took twice as long to correct and accurately time the video as I used to take to do a full video of that length back when I was community contributing captions in 2019/2020.

I mostly only wiki admin in the sense that I'm not letting the wikis burn down. A few times for an especially important edit that required admin functions (or AWB to do a lot of little edits faster) I've put together the time and energy to try to get it done.

I cannot get my brain to do it. This is even though I can spend the same amount of time doing something else that I might have used to image describe, because whatever that something else is usually doesn't require the same headspace/skill I need to use to describe.

I'm not going to branch out to the other ways this burnout is affecting me (for instance, at my actual literal paid job), but the fact I've been in it for four years now should... say something. XP I'm slowly digging out, but I'm not there yet.

I'm not going to be like some others I've seen and stamp my foot and refuse to provide descriptions for anyone now because you did this. That would just make things bad for other people. I'd love to provide them more! But I'm not currently in a place where I can do that.

I do understand that by not providing one when one does not exist, I am not doing anything to make the post more accessible, and that I might be presenting some of my followers with content they are unable to access. However, my own current access needs regarding trying to nurse myself out of disability burnout are in direct conflict with being able to regularly provide them. I'd love for that to be over, so that I'm at least describing more often, even if I still occasionally don't describe things.

But in the meantime: If you care about access needs, I'd hope you care about mine, too.

Lastly:

If you meant this link to be for actual information, I regret to inform you (again) that I already know all of the information in it. I've been trying to look at more advanced resources, talk/listen to blind people discuss the topic, attend things about image description (like that panel I mentioned), because useful and understandable image description is very important to me even if it's very difficult for me to do right now, and I'd like to learn all I can. At this point, I need more advanced resources than what you've provided.

If you meant this to be some sort of "own" for the people who gave a note to the post you probably were monitoring to see my reply: [Velma voice] You stop that. Sending it to everyone, regardless of what they said on the post, gives off an air of "look, it's so easy, you're just not trying hard enough!" and makes it seem like you didn't actually read what they said in some cases (like mine, where I shared a very short version of this explanation in the replies where I basically said "image describing good, more people should do it, brain making it hard right now").

For people who agree with the cause of spreading the act of describing images so it's not all on a handful of people, that might not result in anything bad happening (though you might be preaching to the choir, i.e. telling them something they already know). But if someone's less wholeheartedly on the description train, the fact you're sending this to everyone unprompted might come off a bit condescending, and might actually backfire into having them decide not to image describe. (Which is not a course of action I agree with. I think it's silly to purposely choose inaccessibility because a few people were condescending, weird, or jerky about it to you. But it is a possibility, you may or may not be aware.)

TL;DR: Thanks for the link but it's too surface-level for me. I love providing descriptions but some things are making it hard for me right now. I want those things to get better but until they do I'm probably going to be at a lower describing rate than usual. Sorry!

EDIT: Mutual dared me to add a jokey longpost tag I was originally considering tagging this post with so it's now the first tag on the post, lol

[duskgryphon]

rhovahl’s now officially up on artfight :] albeit he’s missing some art and stuff because of server issues but!!

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

[Image Description: the Shrek/Donkey/Puss "They don't even have Dental" meme. The usual text has been replaced with "Benoit Blanc hasn't even been on a train yet." Description ends]

Now I want to reread Lord Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers.

... I wonder how that fandom's doing...

I also think that all the "um okay knives out & glass onion were good. Wrap it up now" posts are so funny. You're tripping if you think there's not going to be at least five Benoit Blanc films lol

[staticblitz]

Fluffy Boy Cuddles

Some old self-ship art I did, I rly need to draw these two again some time ;w;

[Image desciption in alt text] Please reblog! It really helps me out 💙

[thrwne]

To be fair, if you only look at season 1 title desciption & still images. It sounds like Sara is actually cheating on Matthias with Erik, which is not actually the case.

So there is still a chance 😂

Trust me, Erik and Olivia will be a thing 🥲

[turtleations]

Interview with SEIJI KIMURA (Ex-Zeppet Store vocals and guitar, currently active with solo-unit hurdy gurdy) (summarized)

Published in the hide BIBLE (by Akemi Oshima) 2008

Note: Just like with INA's interview, I am keeping the honorifics on all names as Kimura used them (i.e. hide is referred to as hide-san throughout the interview).

Note 2: As with the two previous long interviews, this is very, very close to an actual translation. Many of the things I give you here are Kimura’s exact words, just moved from first to third person. The prompts and questions of the interviewer are actual translations.

Note 3: On the name "Seiji Kumura": Usually, when written in roman letters, I found the name transcribed as "Seizi Kimura". I am using "Seiji" because this is was the book uses. I also have it in the title in the order given name - family name, even though on all other interviews I keep the Japanese order of names, because, again, this is what the book does.

Note 4: The desciption in the title is from 2008. Zeppet Store did in fact reunite in 2011.

Kimura-san, after hide-san passed away, you were asked to speak in various places, weren’t you?

Immediately after hide-san’s death, Kimura wasn’t in a situation to talk about anything. He was doing a live radio-broadcast at the time, and about three days after the funeral, there was a broadcast from a satellite studio in Sendai. Numerous listeners gathered there at that time because everyone wanted to hear about hide-san, and it was very hard to speak in all that.

This is going back in time, but when how did you first meet hide-san?

A year earlier, the indies label UNDER FLOWER RECORDS had made 1000 copies of Zeppet’s album “Snap, Slide, Sandpit”, but since they did no lives and were overall unknown, those didn’t sell well. Among the acquaintances of their drummer Yanagida was a stylist who knew hide-san. According to tales from the office, that person passed the CD to a bunch of people, and one copy ended up at HEADWAX.

The CD just happened to end up in hide-san’s office?

Yes. Hide-san was living in LA at the time, but it seems that after he returned to Japan, he took a selection of the CDs scattered around the office home to listen to them. One of them was Zeppet’s, but since it was all sung in English, he didn’t think it was from a Japanese band at first. When he learned that it was from a band near Shimokita, he said “We have to do something with this” and contacted them. At the time, HEADWAX was associated with a band called DEEP, and it was at their one-man live that Zeppet Store met him for the first time. They knew they were to meet him that day, but the band members still questioned it, wondering if this was for real, when the elevator doors opened and hide-san was standing there.

Was he there by coincidence?

No, it was like he had been waiting for them. He was sitting there on his own, going, “Yo!” and they were very surprised.

While you knew X JAPAN, there was no similarity between their music and yours, was there?

None whatsoever. Zeppet Store couldn’t believe it when they heard that hide-san had taken an interest in them. Since their musical activities and their field were so different, it seemed very strange. Until they met him for real, they were sceptic and took that talk with a grain of salt when someone told them about it. It was only when they were drinking with hide-san after the live and he kept talking about their songs and their lyrics that they were thought, “Hey, this guy was really listening to us!”

What image did you have of hide-san after meeting him in person?

Before, Kimura did not know him at all. Even X JAPAN he only knew as far as “Kurenai” and such. They were on TV often, but the only impression he had of hide-san was that he had an existence completely separated from his own. When he heard about hide-san’s interest in them, he borrowed his solo CD from a co-worker, listening to his music properly for the first time.

Did you think it would be rude not to?

Yes, but frankly, in the beginning, he didn’t quite get it. It was completely divorced from X JAPAN, and while Kimura thought that hide-san was the kind of person to be doing appropriately interesting stuff, it was so different from what Kimura listened to that he didn’t know what to make of it.

What impression did you have when you met hide-san for the first time?

It was at the afterparty of a DEEP-live, when hide-san went directly to the members of Zeppet without even talking to those of DEEP, to chat with them on his own. They were drinking and Kimura was lacking confidence in it all, but seeing the earnest look in hide’s eyes, he ended up thinking, “This is a grown man I can trust completely.” It made him happy that hide-san cared about and spoke passionately with them, and he gave the impression of really loving music. At that time, they didn’t talk about business at all, and with hide-san endlessly asking about their lyrics and melodies, the impression changed to that of one single-minded about music. Until then, Kimura had thought him just a scary young man.

After that, did you sign up with hide-san’s label at once?

That fateful album came out in ‘94, they met in ‘95, but with hide-san living in LA, they couldn’t often talk directly. So, they started talking business with the representatives of HEADWAX. They talked about recording a demo tape with all their new songs of that time, but when that tape was done,　it was deemed so good that all those recordings ended up as the final version. Since the songs were all in English, the idea quickly changed to releasing it in the US, and they eventually did so with the album “716”. They met hide-san again when they went to LA.

For the second time?

The second time, yes.

Had it been hide-san’s idea to do a proper recording on the demo tape?

 Yes. Since Zeppet were amateurs, they didn’t really understand the meaning of demo tapes. Since they were now in a studio much more splendid than what they had worked in before, they reworked their lyrics, fixed the arrangements, and recorded it all giving their best.

And suddenly, you debuted in the US.

Yes. Because they released the demo tape like it was a competition, three companies put their hands up for it. They picked the one with the most favorable conditions. Since they would come out specifically in the US, it was decided that they should do some promotion, and while they only gave three concerts, they stayed over there for about a month.

That’s amazing! (laughs)

It was mostly sightseeing. In LA they did serious promotion: Went on the radio, gave interviews, appeared on TV, had a live at the “Viper Room” run by Johnny Depp, and more. They were put in charge of an event by an organization like the Japanese JASRAC [Japanese Society for the Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers]. Because there are a lot of Japanese people in San Francisco, they  interviewed with the local newspaper and gave a concert, but next they went to Seattle and there was nothing (laughing). So they went to have fun at the club night after night.

What was meeting hide-san for the second time like?

Kimura’s got an entire mountain of memories of that second time in LA. One time, hide-san took them to a Japanese restaurant he often went to, and as they went back to the hotel in two cars, music by Zeppet was played on the radio of the car hide-san was in. The car suddenly stopped, and hide-san said, “It’s on!” while crying.

Crying?

Yes. They were drunk, but all the band members and hide-san sat in the car, motionless, for four minutes, and hide-san was crying. And then he fell asleep, with an extremely happy expression on his face. They delivered him home like this.

Did you talk a lot when you were in LA?

They did. Hide-san came to see them live in LA, and after the concert was over, he said, “If you ever win an award, you can say, “Thank you, hide”. That’s enough.” At just that time, hide-san was starting zilch, and Kimura thinks that releasing an album in the US had been his dream as well. It seemed like the fact that he got this small indies band in his employment to debut there first made him very proud and happy.

You said you had three lives; did hide-san come to see all of them?

No, just the one in LA. It seems like he wanted to come to the others, but his own schedule made that impossible. Since there had been no opportunity for him to see them in Japan, LA was the first time he got to watch them perform. Anyway, in Japan, they were a band with roughly fifteen people in the audience. Fifteen was the biggest crowd they had ever assembled. At their worst, it was three.

And then you suddenly gave concerts in the US.

It was like a dream. Until then, they had only had stages of around 20 minutes. Now there were 40 minutes, and that they came out for encores also started in LA.

Did hide-san say anything about his thoughts on your live?

There was only one negative thing Kimura got: That he did not convey enough strong emotions with his eyes. “You have to put a bit more power into your eyes,” he was told. “Don’t make eyes like Mogutan,” hide said and called him Mogutan [Character from “Manga Hajimete Monagatari”, an educational program for children that ran from 1978 until 1984] for a while. Aside from that, he didn’t say anything. He liked Zeppet as it was and didn’t feel the need to interfere with Kimura’s handling of it. He said he was not a producer, just a collector who liked Zeppet, so as long as he could get their work out into the world, he was satisfied. Hide-san didn’t say anything about their musicianship or their visuals. In fact, it was a bit anti-climatic.

Weren’t there any songs he didn’t like?

There weren’t. Their first two albums – the one that got them to meet hide-san and the one after that – were in English, but their debut was made in Japanese. Since he had been singing exclusively in English until then, Kimura was very anxious about that and wondered what hide-san thought about it, but hide-san only said, “It made me cry.” Afterwards, Kimura was called alone to the Sendai concert of the PSYENCE-tour to perform there on his own. He took the Shinkansen to Sendai and performed their single “Koe” before the encore. Since he came alone and didn’t bring anything, hide-san said, “Use my guitar”, and let him borrow it.

Your impressions of that time

It had been just before hide debut, and Kimura realized what it meant to give music his own color. hide-san’s thought process was unpredictable. Kimura thinks his way of thinking must have changed somewhere along the way to keep up with hide-san’s. When they they had someone from the audience come up on stage and dance during the song called “Beauty & Stupid”, Kimura asked hide-san, “Please let me dance as well” and was allowed on stage. Since he didn’t have a personality like that, something must have changed. The tour was stimulating like that. While he was dancing in female clothes wearing a wig, it was pointed out during the MC that “Kimura, who was singing yesterday, is dancing over there.” Later, during the afterparty, DIE-san sang and played “Koe” on the keyboard and the members of hide-san’s band were crying. Inada-san (INA) was wailing. At that moment, Kimura thought, “I’m lucky to debut among people like these.” In the end, Kimura couldn’t keep going with them due to some sudden developments, but it was fun, that year, shocking as it had been.

Zeppet’s activities then?

They also went on tour. When they did their tour starting with their second single, they were also in a place where hide-san was scheduled to be. They saw his live in Sapporo.

Did your impression regarding hide-san change?

Kimura thought that if you know him better, hide-san is a pretty kind person. Even if he raged when drunk, he would always say, “I’m sorry” the next day. While irrational things made him angry, he was never angry at the members of Zeppet. No matter how drunk he was, he always supported them. He took them to a lot of bars, and later they heard from the staff that he paid for everything with his own money. He was like the embodiment of kindness. To Kimura, he was a music-loving, mischievous older brother.

You were taught many things.

Drinking until morning was one of them, that was something Kimura did not know before being dragged around. He liked alcohol, but wasn’t tough enough to keep going all night. He was taught to go through two or three places and finish it off by eating ramen. Then, when moving on, the walked with a skip to their steps (laughing).

What do you mean?

It was a silly thing, but he liked silly things, and he enjoyed being in that circle. It seemed unbelievable to him, a plain guy who had just debuted, should be friends with these flashy people and be on good terms with them.

Were you ever given advice?

Hide-san never told them to do things in a specific way, but at the time of their major debut, he said, “If you’re active in Japan, wouldn’t it be better to do so in Japanese?” Also, they were often told that bands that do not have a concert at the end of the year are not bands at all.

At the end of the ear? On New Year’s Eve?

They were told to “do that, no matter what.”

What were things you consulted with him about?

When it came to writing lyrics, they consulted hide-san on how to put them down in Japanese. Kimura asked, for example, if it was okay to write the song in Japanese and have only the hook in English. hide told him to just write it the way he likes it and see what happens. They were talking about their second single, “TO BE FREE”, and Kimura was told that it wouldn’t be any problem at all. Then, Inada-san taught them various recording techniques. Like how to make the core sound of the guitar stronger. When hide-san was drunk, he talked a lot, but those were just trivial stories. There was talk about music for about the first 30 minutes, after that it’s all silly but fun stories. He did get passionate talking to guitarist Gomi about effectors, though. Gomi-kun was using a guitar called “Jaguar” at the time, and hide-san ordered a guitar with the exact same shape from Fernandez, which had been, again, extremely cool. The song he used it for, saying he was influenced by Zeppet in this, was “Flame”. That hide-san had been so open about having being influenced by them made them extremely happy. At the time of recording “Flame”, hide-san said, “Please lend me your drums”, and so Zeppet Store’s Yanagida beat the drums for that song on the album. There had been plans for a Zeppet Store concert around that time, but then Yanagida went to LA, and Kimura gave a concert on his own for maybe the second time in his life. Now he does that all the time, though (laughing). Then, however, he was like, “Curse you!” towards Yanagida.

He just had to go to LA on his own. (laughs)

The finished song was amazing again. It had a melody Kimura had not heard before, and it was interesting that hide-san said, “I was influenced by Zeppet and this is the result.” Also, Zeppet had a song called “Flake”, and it made Kimura happy that even the title was similar to one of theirs.

Did you watch an X JAPAN live at that time?

They bothered them at the 1996 end-of-year concert. Hide-san wore a green costume and gave off the kind of fashionable, cool air that had led to PSYENCE. After that, they went to the afterparty, and there was a year-end party from the office as well, it was magnificent. The following year, Zeppet, as per hide-san’s advice, also gave an end-of-year concert.

Did you also hang out with hide-san in Japan?

Yes. At that time, hide often went to a bar called “Rally” in Nishiabazu, and since he also took Kimura along, Kimura also ended up going there on his own.

Huh? Until then, you weren’t the type for that, were you?

Not at all. That, too, is clearly hide-san’s influence. One day, Kimura was drinking on his own when hide-san happened to come into the bar. Except, he was walking on crutches. Kimura had heard rumors that hide had broken his foot in Atami, but the people from the office didn’t tell them anything so they wouldn’t worry. Due to his injury, hide-san was not allowed to drink alcohol. It was not often that you saw him not drinking in a place like that, but having a strong sense of service towards those around him, he still stayed with Kimura for two hours and kept him company without drinking. During this time, he was regaling Kimura with wild, hilarious stories from the past until Kimura was rolling with laughter. “I want to meet Kimura’s girlfriend. Let’s call her, so you can introduce us!” So Kimura called his girlfriend of the time and the three of them kept drinking together. When hide-san got drunk, he would always talk about how useless he was. He liked to make fun of himself. It surprised Kimura how a rockstar like hide-san would look down on himself like that. The truth is, Kimura took after that trait and starts by talking shit about himself when drunk.

Hide-san could tell funny stories, couldn’t he?

No matter what kind of story, if hide-san was telling it, you ended up roaring with laughter. He had mastered the art of conversation. In any case, it was extremely funny. The next time they were drinking together, Kimura passed hide-san a cassette with hurdy gurdy [Kimura’s solo unit] music and asked him to listen to it. Then, it was used, without anyone telling him, in LEMONed’s catalogue video (laughing). About forty seconds of it, and the sound was bad, because it was from a cassette. Just letting it flow at its own convenience. Kimura was happy.

Was it rare for people to drink with hide-san?

It was more like a general trend, they were never alone at the time. The moment hide-san aimed for the counter, Kimura was at his side. Since they couldn’t really talk among all those people, those moments were his chance. They requested their favorite music and talked about bands like KISS, POLICE, or QUEEN. It was a wonderful time.

Kimura-san, what did hide-san mean to you?

Even though the things they did and their music were different, he is somehow still a mark Kimura is aiming for. He would probably get angry if he said that, though. As a human being, Kimura loved him, as a man he respected him, and even now he has yet to meet another person with this passion towards the music they are doing. When Kimura lost his way in regard to music during some part of his life, it was hide-san who helped him find it again. If he hadn’t met hide-san, he would probably be doing some other work now. If you think about it like that, hide-san was his benefactor. Although Kimura can’t surpass him, a small ambition to try still exists somewhere.

What did hide-san do as your benefactor?

Kimura loved music and had always wanted to do it, but he didn’t think he could make a living out of it. When he met hide-san, he was twenty-eight years old and pretty late to making his debut as a newbie. As he reached that age, he had given up on a lot of things in his life. He was facing the decision of whether to continue making music while working part-time, or find full employment and become a self-sufficient member of society. It was a time of great worries. Then he met hide-san and his way of thinking changed: He decided that he could trust this person and that he would follow him as far as possible. At that time, Kimura was jobbing at a pachinko parlor, and if he did not become a full employee, he would have to give that up. If he did become one, he could make it to manager. Also, it came with a nice salary – more than double than what he would make as an office worker. Since he was living at the pachinko mansion, quitting that job would also mean giving up his room. His life would change drastically, he’d have to move out, and while he wondered if he could really do this, he was also aware that a chance like the one hide-san offered him would not come again, and so he decided to follow him.

That decision required courage.

So it did. If Kimura remembers it now, he wonders how that was even something to think twice about, but back then, he agonized about it a lot.

He was someone who changed your life, wasn’t he?

If Kimura hadn’t met hide-san, he wouldn’t be the person he is today. He wouldn’t have stood in the Ajinomoto-Stadium. He would probably have continued to do music but would have performed in front of an audience of maybe fifteen to twenty people. Through meeting hide-san and being recognized by him, Kimura became an adult. Hide-san was his patron.

What would you want to tell young fans about hide-san?

They can learn about his music from CDs and DVDs, but the plain, unadorned part of hide-san is not talked about much, so Kimura would like to tell them about him as just a guy. He was made of kindness, extremely thoughtful. Even though he was the main act, he never lost sight of those around him. He showed great consideration for the staff and even gave attention to people like Kimura, who had a completely different view on things. “Kimura-san looks bored, so let’s entertain him” he’d say to the staff. Kimura thinks he was massively tolerant of other people’s faults. He could be troublesome when drunk, but everyone understood that that was just the flipside of all the affection, and no one around Kimura ever said a single bad word about him. Of the people who had even a little bit to do with hide-san, no one really said anything bad. Kimura got the strong impression that he was someone who was loved by those around him no matter what. There is no one else like that. The impression he left was that of a person who wasn’t perfect, but good.

That no one got angry with him even when he was acting irrationally is amazing. Simply put, it speaks of virtue.

Really. When Zeppet was DJing at the LEMONed Club Event, hide-san unexpectedly came to visit. Since there would have been an uproar if he had been discovered, they went drinking together in the back, and because Zeppet Store’s second single had just come out, talk inevitably turned to the band. At this point, hide-san asked a staff member, “Are you promoting it properly?”, showing a glimpse of being the head of their company in a business context. When the staff member said, “I have no idea,” he lost it. So he hit the wall hard enough for it to break and for blood to flow.

……

 Of course he couldn’t hit his own staff member at his own event. Instead, he raged wihtou involving other people and chased a taxi, that’s all. Hide-san liked chasing taxis, it seems. He liked running, too.

Did you see him run a lot?

He did. Running, rolling… He never failed to do something funny. On hide-san’s birthday, Sugizo-san and J-san of Luna Sea came by. J-san had brought a 1-sho [1,8 litres] bottle of Japanese sake that hide-san liked, putting it on the table with a “Happy Birthday!” And hide-san just said, “I appreciate it, J, but I quit drinking Japanese sake. When I drink it, I flip out.” That got him the admiration of his close friends. Hide-san introduced Kimura to Sugizo-kun and J-kun and really, a lot of other people. Even though hide-san is already gone, Kimura still meets people through him. While it’s not just people hide-san introduced him to directly, he became friends with kyo-chan through hide-san, who came to stay the night at Kimura’s just the other day.  

He had a gift for connecting people with each other, didn’t he?

At the time of Kimura’s debut, most of his fans knew him through hide-san, and even now, it’s thanks to hide that he can connect with his fans. Kimura Seiji is someone living his life in hide-san’s protection and is thus inseparable from him. Even now, the memorial portrait of hide-san in the room where Kimura makes his music is properly decorated. For a while, it was right in the center, but he eventually moved it back some because it was awkward like that. Even now there are probably people who mistake hide-san for LEMONed’s producer. But that is far from the truth. Hide-san always said that he was just a simple collector who wanted to release the things that were good. He approached it with the basic mindset that good things didn’t need to be tampered with, Kimura and the others had complete freedom. They only got four singles and one album delivered through hide-san. For the last single, they had to overcome the fact that their guitarist Gomi-kun, whom hide-san had loved, had quit, but they still got extremely high praise for it. Hide-san called them specifically to tell them that he had cried about a hundred times. It’s because of memories like this that Kimura is still taking singing seriously. Because even until today, there’s been no one else to say such things to him.

Hide-san was also gifted at giving praise.

Hide-san’s praise really became Kimura’s stepping stone. That he could just go for it, thinking, “Next, I’ll write another good song” was also hide-san’s power. That single became the last song of his that hide-san listened to. Even though that is what it is, Kimura wanted him to listen to many more songs.

Is there anything you would like to say to hide-san today?

Even now, Kimura still asks hide-san how to deal with it when he has a problem. But now, he has to find the answer himself. He received that strength, and now, by asking, he feels that he is growing up a little. To speak plainly, hide-san’s meaning to him exceeds family. He is so important that inside Kimura, he has the status of a god, even if it seems strange to say it like that. Kimura is truly grateful that he got to meet hide-san, because of that one CD that happened to end up in his hands.

[cepheusgalaxy]

[Image description] A screenshot of a tumblr post by @ certifiedwerewolf "I love it when a character has a reputation for being a certain way and then you actually take the time to look at them, really look at them, and it turns out not only is everyone wrong about them, they're wrong about them in exaclty the way that the character wants them to be wrong about them. Like congratulations! It was an act and you fell for it!" The sreenshot is of light mode, and it says that the post was posted 6 days ago. [end]

OP turned off reblogs

[badgertracksart]

question! ur portfolio post was so helpful but im stuck at deciding whats the best site to use to make a good portfolio 0: im currently using wix but...i havent heard the Best things about wix.. whats the best option in your opinion?

Latest answer ever, sorry. Art Station is fine, it had become sort of a standard before it went scorched earth about AI art. But really as far as platforms go it needs to be: 1. clean (ad free), 2. FAST TO LOAD especially on a desktop, 3. comment free (but not desciption free) 4. and an image gallery, that's basically all it should be. Most social media platforms are not that, and don't seem that professional. Having said that I've seen some lovely Tumblr setups that work well, probably wouldn't work now with the login gate. Wix is not the end of the world, but it is a faff, as is Behance. But if your work is a good fit for the position people won't mind as much. Really it could be anything, I've paid for a website since I was a teenager because I like too, and if that's possible for you it widens your options or platforms.

Final point, from the otherside of the thinking sand - When I'm hiring I usually have to do it around my day job of managing an art team, review meetings etc, so I have a few minutes per applicant. Concentrate on ordering your work and easy of navigation (hence the speed thing) I don't need mega res, just to see your thinking, finish/ clarity, how you respond to a brief. I hope that helps!

[lomemarsupial]

this is a desciption i wrote elsewhere i can edit this for youtube in a few or in a while. multi tasking madness occuring.

hello negentropy, I mean, hello this is another preview. "It's A-OK to EMP" is the title. It's spoiling the later finished version of the track. But yet again I don't know how many can be fully finished out. SO I may have fun along the way. This short video was randomly put together the same way most others have been. Digging into the random image archive from my photo adventures. The media collage library.

Song was fun to record. I'm going to need to take about a week somewhere and have percussive tools and toys and just go thru track to track and fill in all the percussion I need for these many songs. If you click my 'reels' or are on youtube the Bright Blue Hill demos also apply to this task. I dont expect this to WORK because my account is shadow banned! unless you prove to me other wise! Its annoying! after a while! maybe I joked about Daarpa or some shtuff! or Cern! God Particle replication this or that. heh!

Antero Alli has passed away, Rip to him, a lovely brain and wonderful gift of studies for tarot, media art, and the 8 Circuit System of Consciousness which is an amazing study. and also so much more. thank you for existing

It's 11/11/2023. I have to add some 'tags' now. Im exhausted, but never tired. support independent artists like literally aye! music/video all rights reserved ltg music

garagerock #songwriting #indieart #musicvideo #creativity #songwriter #rawmusic #rockmusic #electricguitar #psychedelicrock #americanblues #bluesfolk #makingmusic #fingerlakes #lomemarsupial #indiemusic

[for-the-sake-of-color]

Ao3 Art Uploading Tutorial

If you ever saw art added to a fic, a really fance looking line break that turns out to actually be a .jpg, or even a full fledged comic page on ao3 and wondered 'hey how do i make that MINE?' Todays your lucky day!

First we start with your picture, Whatever you would like. It has to be hosted on a website that allows linking directly to an image, what I use at the moment is Imgur. I'm just going to use the most recent thing I already have uploaded there.

Make an account and upload your image to imgur

once you have it uploaded, click on it and copy the direct image link (esencially this is what you would need from any hosting website to show your image on ao3, which tumblr links dont... really do anymore. esencially your best bet is to make sure the link ends in .jpg, and tumblr does .webp so its a kinda no-go. makes it a Bitch to save gifs off the website as well.) (this page can be found at [insertyourusername].imgur.com/all

After you have your direct image link, go to the Chapter text portion of ao3 in either a new chapter or a new post and make sure you're looking at the rich text editor

once you are there, click on the image insert button

and add your link into the pop-up, (image descipt is optional)

and hit save. If you use abserd pixel sizes like I do (print sizes, esencially) it's going to show up HUGE, or if you're using a small size, it's gonna be itty bitty. So instead of having the image displayed by it's actual size, we're going to have it Fit To Screen! just head on over to the HTML editor (dont worry your changes carry between rich text and html)

Dont Know coding? doesnt matter, all you need to worry about is this part right here

and change it so it looks like this

and your image will now fit it's size to whatever screen it is on

Dont forget to fill out the rest of your posing information, and then DONE! hit post!

Congratulations! you have now uploaded your art to Ao3!

[stabbysorrows]

[Image Desciption: reblog by @horodragon with the tags #this is actually and extremely important thing to keep in mind in regards to being anti-death penalty and pro-prison reform #just because i personally think you are the scum of the earth doesnt mean my political stances shouldnt apply to you. End ID]

Me Giving a Pressed Conference: our advocacy for the disabled must include the addict, the imperfect victim, those we despise; the right to autonomy and life cannot devolve into a popularity contest

Reporter I Hate (Not Sexual Tension): Does that include all the attendees of the Bored Ape NFT event who went blind

Me: *Blood streaming from my nostrils and eyes* david, it includes everyone

[vandimandi]

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[its-me-renmimi]

I really shouldn't coin so late at night because I just saw that I absolutely butchered the image ID Vwabisian. I realised I needed to change 1 thing, desciption of some stripes, then saw how badly I'd managed to mangle a sentece... It has been fixed now but damn I'm glad I alread had to look. So sorry to anyone who had to use it. A good reminder to be more careful in future I suppose!