#media accessibility

[jellyfishinajamjar]

Man something needs to be said for media access in Warhammer. I’m making a medic themed loyalist Death Guard chapter, so my thoughts was ‘oh, I should probably read Flight of the Einstein, cause that’s basically my chapter’s founding myth’. Except it’s not for sale. Anywhere. You can buy a paper back on Amazon for 200 bucks or get an ebook or get fucked. Those are your options

So often in 40K you’ll read some cool bit of lore in a wiki article and you go ‘that sounds fucking awesome where can I read that?’ And then you look it up and it’s from an anthology book made available only in a limited run at the 2018 Horus Heresy Weekener convention and now its only available from GW as an mp3 file for $26.99 (yeah, I’m that pissed off that I can’t read The Ancient Awakens by Graham McNeil that I googled what fucking convention the paperback was exclusive to, it’s a good fucking story. Or it would be if I could FUCKING READ IT)

So yeah, it blows that I can’t get these books without a time machine. I want to have a library of books not some tablet that has books. I want to be able to loan them to my friends, I want to build a timeline on a shelf so I can judge when something happens in relation to the rest of the setting, I want to have annotated copies and be able to reference a piece of lore I half remembered cause I thought of a new idea for an army based on it. But no, for the vast majority of Warhammer fiction, unless it’s new or really popular it’s audio book, 200 buck scalper copy, or a pirated pdf. I want paper in my hands I want to look at my shelf and see all the good times I had reading I want to get contact memories touching old paper and remembering where I was in my life when I first read it I want physical paperback books. James Workshop please I’m willing to pay like an extra twenty bucks to get it made to order please. Please don’t let all this good writing languish in inaccessibility I want to give you money in exchange for goods James please

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[shinesurge]

happy pride instead of throwing money in the garbage buying crappy pride shit from target or pining away for mainstream franchises that only give you table scraps when it's convenient please consider directly supporting literally any of the queer indie shit being made accessible online by queer indie creators ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ your money OR your fanwork OR whatever form of support you feel compelled to offer will be so so much more impactful; marvel movies will keep coming out no matter what, but making cool fanart for that queer webcomic you've been checking in on for years could reach new readers to help the artist make rent so they can keep posting! It all helps!! Please Consider It.

[shesnake]

hello here's my little Armand essay. spoilers for season 2 and content warnings for discussions of racism, csa, intimate partner violence.

[rinzdets]

gorty be like

[brinconvenient]

I’m sorry... WHAT?!

Seriously: When do you ever just sit and think about the fact that Ian Katz of the Guardian (recently boycotted for its transphobia) and the BBC (routinely protested for its transphobia) was married to Justine Roberts of Mumsnet (a primary radicalizing hub for UK transphobia) for twenty-five years? Most people don’t! I didn’t, until I heard it from the poet Roz Kaveney during an interview. It got trimmed from that piece, and I have been trying to wedge it into different pieces ever since, to no avail. Sometimes, when I talk to other trans people, I will mention that a top Guardian and/or BBC editor was married to the founder of Mumsnet; almost always, when I mention this, I will find out that they didn’t know.

Here’s something else that happens when I tell a trans person that Ian Katz (Channel 4, BBC Newsnight, the Guardian) was married to Justine Roberts (Mumsnet) for 25 years. They will, without fail, make the following noise: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Then they’ll inhale a little, and then they’ll do a controlled little exhale. Then they’ll say yeah, that explains it. Or, yeah. That makes total sense.

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[godlesshasideas]

Write more characters with physical disabilities. Write more characters with mental disabilities. Write characters with neurodivergence (more than one specific type too). Write characters with mobility aids. Write characters who have good and bad health days. Write characters who are chronically in pain, but don't express it every second. Write characters who were born with a disability. Write characters who developed one. Write characters who have adapted to the world around them because the world won't adapt for them. Write about their strengths and weaknesses due to their disability. Write about accessibility. Write about inaccessibility. Make it realistic.

Don't make the disability magically disappear or be cured (or at least be mindful of how you write that). Don't make it their entire personality but also don't skip over it. Don't use stereotypes (and that's not just with disabilities). Don't make the character actively hate their disability; they're allowed to be upset but most people with disabilities have learned to accept it as part of their life and accept it as part of their identity.

[specialagentartemis]

Genuinely: For people who are angry and frustrated at the limited number of movies and shows available for streaming, at the way streaming services pull or cancel movies and shows at will, at the way every media corporation under the sun is pulling their stuff onto their own streaming service and balkanizing access to things behind a dozen different monthly subscriptions? For people who miss Blockbuster and want to be able to just rent a DVD again?

See if your local library has a DVD collection.

If I want to watch The Mummy (1999) with Brendan Fraser? I can't stream it on Netflix, but I can borrow it from my local library.

If I want to watch The Mummy (1932) with Boris Karloff? I can't stream that pretty much anywhere, but I can borrow it from my local library.

I want to watch Star Wars or Iron Man or my favorite Disney movie but I refuse to sell my soul to pay for Disney+? I can borrow these from my local library.

Do I want to finish watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 or check out Star Trek: Picard but resent that it's all on yet another streaming service I don't want? I can borrow season box sets of DVDs from my local library!

Obviously, available circulating collections vary a lot between library systems. (My hometown's library has all of Star Trek DS9 on DVD, for example, but my college town's library only has TOS, Picard, and Discovery.) And of course it depends on whether things are released in physical media form at all, and you won't be able to keep up with new episodes of new series - it takes a while for many things to come out on DVD.

But there can be a lot of good stuff there too. For example, I missed Nope in theaters, but I still really want to see it. So I have it on hold from my local library. I'm 73rd in line on 50 copies, so it'll be a while.

So check to see what DVD collections your library does have - it might surprise you what you can get access to, for free, in a manner that no greedy corporation can yank away.

And by checking out DVDs, you are telling the library that you use and want them to maintain and grow their AV media collection. Which is an encouragement we could really use these days.

[thevillainsfangirl]

There are some ships that you just know would be 100% canon if they were an M/F ship, and that's mainly what pisses people off the most in these situations.

It isn't just about the ship; it's also very much about the homophobia (whether the creators know it or not) that is preventing the ship from being canon when they otherwise would be.

(Addition.)

[vanhelsingapologist]

Publishing has always been a fucking nightmare, but now it’s a layer of hell. It’s not enough that writers be good at what they do. Writers have to maintain an active social media presence and cultivate a following. Be available.

They have to be conventionally attractive enough to look good enough to see on a screen, aesthetically pleasing, kind, funny, up-to-date on trends, socially aware but not so controversial that they turn off a brand from California from slapping their discount code on a video promoting a book.

They have to do all of this with no media training, with little help from the companies that are supposed to be doing this for them.

Of course, a lot of this isn't possible for say, the 40-something mother of two who teaches English at a school and writes on the side. She’s boxed out of an already complex industry that already has enough walls.

On some level, I think authors have always marketed themselves a little, but we’ve reached such a crazy point where we’re demanding the author become the influencer. Accessibility in publishing has narrowed from an inch to a sliver. And that inch was hard enough to get in as is.

[aromanticduck]

Just to make the distinction between the first two clear:

Option 1 is for people who couldn't follow the plot of a show/film at all without subtitles. (And it should say 'difficulties' - it cut me off)

Option 2 is for people who would miss bits but still get some of it, or who could follow but would have to work really hard to do so.

[shesnake]

we as a society genuinely need movie rental stores back so much

[pygmy--tyrant]

one trc opinion i have that i don't really have an entire explanation for is that i think blue and henry are the only characters with like a normal knowledge of pop culture. like they've seen movies they've heard music. henry definitely more than blue but despite the fact that blue's tastes would be more weird I DO think she knows about more mainstream things. she has heard top 40 radio she has watched a disney channel movie she is capable of making references. everyone else on the other hand? gansey is not aware of anything that came into being this century. adam gives strong 'doesn't listen to music' energy. you ask him what he likes and he's like i don't know. i just don't listen to music. ronan is probably the most perplexing case because we already know he had a weird fucking childhood in which he only read alice in wonderland (and i believe it) and YET in his routine in cdth he has a designated 'movie night'. WHAT movies is he watching! i simply refuse to believe this man is capable of making a Reference. at least not a normal one. he'll just cite whatever irish myth his dad told him about as if everyone else is gonna be like oh you're so right ronan this is JUST like that part in the táin bó cúailnge. am i making any sense tonight ladies. gansey does not know who taylor swift is

[eliyips]

post these ranchers when they least expect it