The State of My Work || TG Captions & Image Sourcing

 

So, for a while, it’s been on my mind that captioners don’t always provide sources, credits, or reference to the models, photographers, and origins of the photos they caption. While it bugged me, I had this mentality of “well, what can I really do?” because images online move through circulation so much.  

Obviously, this isn’t an excuse; if you can’t source an image, you just shouldn’t use it. Of course, I never thought about that, because I’ve always assumed that people are here for my writing, and the images are just second. I’ve seen recently, though, that it’s just not true.

I asked all of you whether you preferred real or anime images, hoping it would be tied, or perhaps irrelevant. From those who voted for anime drawings vs real photos, it was clear the majority of you felt that real images are preferred. The issue therein lies with the higher difficulty of sourcing photos compared to artwork, as artwork typically has an artist mark, while photography doesn’t always. Drawn images are easier to track.

Why do I bring this all up? Well, the simple fact is that I have no desire to create captions anymore without sourcing the images. It’s wrong, and I can’t continue to do it in good conscience with how large my blog has gotten, and my desire to do things like set up a Patreon. Because of this fact, from this point going forward, every caption I post will be royalty free or sourced in the description. That source will typically be in the form of a link to either the original site the image came from or, when the former isn’t available, a link to the Twitter, Instagram, or personal webpage for the model depicted. In the instance of a piece of artwork like an anime piece, I will link to the artist’s page.

This comes from my desire to bring higher quality captions and stories. Something that is difficult to do without spending money. Because of this, I desire to start a Patreon, but I cannot profit on this until I provide proper sourcing. At least, not in good conscience.

The Patreon Project is a while down the line, and likely won’t be instituted until after my blog has reached the 1 Million landmark, which is rapidly approaching, as we are sitting at a hearty 960k views.

What does this Mean for me?

It will be a weight off my conscience, more than anything. It’ll allow me to focus more on the quality of the work i put out

What does this mean for the captions?

Not much, really. Assuming you come for the story, it will likely remain unchanged. The images I use will likely be more generic, since most will be royalty free sourced, or anime when I need a more “specific” image theme. It’ll be less photographs overall, however, and you will likely see more artwork sources. Eventually, at some point, I will be able to run render software that will remove my need to rely on third party sources.

What does this mean for us viewers?

Close to nothing, really. Your experience will be almost unchanged. The biggest thing you’ll encounter is that if you do have requests for captions from me, and you provide an image, I will also need you to provide the original uploaded source for the image.

What will happen to past captions?

Currently, I’m not entirely sure. I will have to go through them, and do what I can to source the images. Any image that cannot be sourced will either have to be removed or replaced, and then be reuploaded. It’ll be a long job, but it’s the product of my past, and I have to face the consequences.

For the time being, any aid you viewers can provide in sourcing either the images I’ve used or the models in them would be greatly appreciated. Cleaning up stolen content is a community effort, and should be treated as such.

As Always, Love you All

Keira Williams