#coming into spaces as a professional

[flowercrowncrip]

Hi Echo! For the ask game, how about #19: What community, if any, is the best at accommodating your disability?

For me it’s the local queer organisation that has been supporting me since I came out and that I now work for. I’ve known many of these people since I was 15 and they are like my family at this point. They are all extremely passionate about making sure that everyone’s needs are met, including mine, but they never make a big thing of it or expect me to be grateful like most places do. Accessibility is always thought about from the start, even if it’s more expensive or inconvenient they will do everything they can to include me and other disabled people.

They also don’t put all the responsibility for ensuring accessibility on me which I really appreciate. If I’m going into a new school or we’re taking a group of young people on residential we’ll have a chat about what I’ll need from that space and agree who will be contacting the venue about what in advance. It frees up a lot of my energy to spend doing more important parts of my job like actually supporting the young people I work with.

My favourite story about this was that the organisation was invited to a drag bingo night raising money for a Pride event. The venue being used wasn’t accessible, and the person they contacted (my boss’s boss) basically told the organisers that no one from our team would go unless they changed venue to one with wheelchair access. The organisers agreed to change the venue and we all had a great night out.

For me that’s such a good example of ally hood that got tangible results. It was completely inconceivable to my colleagues that they would go to an event that I couldn’t access, and I had no idea about this conversation until after the event so it took the burden of advocacy off my shoulders.

[earthmixsclowderofcats]

Okay so I actually watched this a while ago but let's share my thoughts because, let's be unwell together

So, the thing is their first kiss is actually kinda awkward. And I put no fault of that on the actors, as we've established their chemistry is just going off at all times. But I believe this was also MaxNat's first real kiss, since he had just turned 18.

So it makes sense that it would be a bit awkward. i think that for whatever the reason for the slight awkwardness, it really works well for the characters.

Yi is so desperately in love with Diao and he also wants nothing to do with him, and we know it's from regret and guilt, but it's almost as if he's scared.

To begin

You can see his eyes are still open, while Diao's are entirely shut.

But then Diao pushes further into him and Yi allows himself to break ever so slightly. He allows himself to be selfish. He turns into the kiss more and fully grasps Diao's head and neck where before you can see his hand sort of reticently hovering.

This is interesting because you can see him both giving in and holding back. He pushes Diao down, he lets himself get in that dominant position, but you can still see the polite distance between their bodies. They're not too close. And you can see that Yi is unsure of where to put his hands. His hands travel up and down but never stay anywhere. Not until he grabs onto not Diao, but his sweater. There's still that distance, that half measure.

Meanwhile, Diao is just laying back blissed out for all of this. Or maybe in shock. But he's certainly not objecting.

And then, it's so interesting, because you can actually see the "oh fuck" moment register in Yi's head. Where he feels like he's made a mistake and crossed a boundary. That he has somehow taken advantage of the situation.

That is a man realizing that this is an official, defining, Before and After moment happening right then and there.

And Diao still has his eyes closed, looking blissed out, instinctually reaching for more even as the other man pulls away.

Then he finally opens his eyes.

And when they look at each other that's the exact moment Yi decides to nope out of that situation. And you can see that he has this sort of hungry, awkward, guilt about him.

So he leaves because feelings are scary and Diao is left there like this.

Confused and horny. (Also all the other emotional stuff)

[findmeinthefallair]

I should be able to answer the asks that I haven't forgotten about, in the next few days! In between furnishing the new place and starting classes.

[excavatinglizard]

Kira is truly just. I feel like she was a character tailor made for my interests. Every Kira episode has me shaking trek writers like 'THIS IS IT. THIS IS WHAT IT'S ABOUT'.

[beggars-opera]

I don't normally advocate for murder but I will make an exception for our board president

[sapphire-weapon]

It's mostly your 'nemesis' friend who apparently studied psychology who insists that the Resident Evil characters should clearly have PTSD. One time, people including him even went as far as saying that Leon would have erectile issues because of his trauma. So you see, maybe that's why I don't mind when people imagine the RE characters having a family life, because on the other hand, there are folks imagining them with erectile dysfunction lmao

So. Let's talk.

I get a lot of people running to me complaining about @highball66, and I ignore most of them and toss the occasional meme on others. But this one genuinely pisses me off, because it's not just video game memes anymore. Him perpetuating this can very easily lead to real harm of real people, as young people in particular come to believe that they must have trauma in order to be heard or be believed or be seen as valid -- because that's what's supposed to happen, right? So if I don't develop PTSD, then I guess what happened to me wasn't really that bad.

It's actually genuinely disgusting.

So I sent a little birdie out to see what our friend here has been up to since the last time I checked on him, well over a year ago now.

And... My, my. He's certainly gotten audacious during the time in which I've stepped back from posting regular, fresh RE content. His egotistical lies have gotten completely out of hand without me there to act as a check on his bullshit.

Since he's making actually harmful claims now, let's knock him down a peg or two. Just for fun. For sport, even.

Just in the last month alone, he's:

❌ Claimed that DSC Leon's character design "made homophobes mad as hell 'cause he looked like a woman."

That never happened. I know because I was there when DSC was announced, marketed, and released. And just to make sure I wasn't crazy or misremembering, I asked around to about half a dozen people in my age group (mid-to-late 30s) who were all very into Resident Evil back in 2008 and 2009, and not a single one of us remembers anyone ever complaining about Leon's character design in that game.

And Mr. Ball High himself was about six years old at this time (for reference, I was 19), so it isn't as though his experience was different... because he had no experience. Because he was six.

❌ Claimed that Leon's character design was based on River Phoenix and cited a mysterious "Mr. Baba" who he claimed was "RE2's lead character designer" for that information.

Hey, wasn't Leon supposed to be canonically Italian? I guess River Phoenix is Italian now. Or maybe it's just the case that almost literally everything this guy says is absolute bullshit.

This claim is not only not true, but the basis for him saying that isn't rooted in reality. The only possible "Mr. Baba" that exists is a man dubiously named Keiichi Baba. I say "dubiously" because it's entirely possible that that's not his real name, because the PSX era was one in which some members of Japanese dev staffs were using fake names in the game credits in order to avoid poaching or headhunting by other publishers and studios as a matter of policy. This was a practice that continued until the mid 00s. Ergo, it's very likely that "Baba" is not this man's actual last name.

Regardless, Keiichi Baba is credited as a publicist for OG RE2 -- not an artist, let alone a character designer -- let alone a lead character designer!

But here's where it gets interesting.

There is an artist that goes by the name Keiichi Baba. But he's a painter and mixed media artist who debuted in the year 2018. And there's absolutely no evidence he ever worked on any Resident Evil game ever, much less OG RE2.

These are the actual character designers credited in OG RE2:

I don't know how these wires got crossed, but there is no "Mr. Baba" who was a lead character designer for OG RE2.

And there's no quote from any Capcom employee ever about Leon being based off of River Phoenix. In fact, the only person I see mention it at all is a random person on the GameFAQs forums back in 2019.

Good job, Billysan. Look at what you did.

The unfortunately boring and uninteresting reality is that Leon was just based off of every single 90s heartthrob in western media -- all of them amalgamated together to create the unholy union that was Leon Kennedy. More specifically, Leon is what you get when you put Josh Hartnett, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Nick Carter into a blender and then put them in an oven to bake for about 2 years' dev time.

But if you want to get even more specific and point to any one particular person for Leon's design, it's actually a mix of Chris's original RE1 actor and Leonardo DiCaprio. This was Leon's very first character concept ever drawn, and Mikami ordered his design changed specifically because he looked too much like Chris.

Fast forward three years, and Steve Burnside also got a character design change from the original Code Veronica into Code Veronica X, because he looked too much like Leon -- and, also, too much like Leonardo DiCaprio.

So. There you go. Leon is actually the blasphemous spawn of Chris Redfield and Leonardo DiCaprio.

You're welcome for that mental image.

❌ Claimed that Chris "reads the sheet music in RE0."

Chris isn't in RE0, and he doesn't read the sheet music in RE1, either. Because he can't. That's why you need to go get Rebecca and make her do it. It's, like, an actual whole gameplay contrivance and puzzle. I don't even know why this has to be said.

Oh, that's right, it's because he never played the games, so gameplay never makes it into any of his hot takes, headcanons, or analyses of anything, nvm. I forgot.

❌ Has been very sneaky with his wording on things, claiming that he "[has] some information about RE9 and the next remakes" -- as though he's an insider or has close ties to an insider. Everything he says, though, is ripped straight from Dusk Golem's Twitter account. But he doesn't credit DG. He just... has... the information.

Oh, wait, no, nevermind. He stated like five months ago that he doesn't claim to be a leaker and mentioned DG once. Because that's enough, right? Surely no one will have missed (or forgotten) that he said that and get the wrong idea.

This isn't a super big deal, but it's just more evidence of our Ball friend here placing himself as an authority over information that's not his, without giving his readers the courtesy of a disclaimer that these leaks are still unverified -- nor does he grant them the ability to check the source and come to their own conclusions. It's so fucking dishonest, dude.

❌ Claimed that Leon is on anti-depressants.

No. He's not.

Actually, you know what. This is funny, so I'll meme this one.

❌ Tried to defame me personally by claiming that I start and encourage ship wars and encourage my followers to send death threats.

Anyone who's familiar with my blog will tell you that I've been canceled and disowned by my own fucking ship community three separate fucking times because I refused to back them up on ship war shit and even publicly condemned, shunned, shamed, and humiliated them repeatedly for bad behavior such as rumor-mongering, personal attacks, and doxxing. I am constantly screaming at my anons to go outside and stop acting like unhinged, obsessive fucking lunatics over how other people choose to play with their barbies.

In fact, I would probably have a hell of a lot more followers if I put on my best Customer Service voice and took a "stern but loving mother" approach to my anons.

But no. I'm not your goddamn mom, I don't want to be your goddamn mom, and you guys are fucking unhinged. You're immature, petty, self-absorbed assholes. You treat other people in this fandom like shit for the dumbest fucking reasons, and I will tell you that to your face.

Because I respect you enough to be honest with you. And I love you. But fuck you guys sometimes, seriously.

But Balltap McGee over here doesn't respect you and is rarely ever honest with you as a result. He feels threatened by the fact that I've been in this fandom since before he was born, by the fact that I actually play the games myself and know more than he does because I'm not enslaved by what the Wikipedia says, by the fact that I'm genuinely smarter than him and have more life experience to draw on when I talk about shit, and now -- seemingly -- by the fact that I have insider friends who know things about RE9 and he doesn't.

So he lies to you.

Constantly.

❌ Tried to position himself as an authority/expert on both physical and mental health.

He's 23.

In the time that I've been unfortunate enough to be aware of his existence, he's claimed that he:

went to school for film history

studied psychology

is in med school

The wording of the first two leads one to believe that he got a degree in those fields. That's quite a resume for a 23-year-old. That's, like, some Rebecca Chambers shit.

But it's pretty obvious to me that he got just some sort of liberal arts undergrad -- during which time, he may have taken a class or two on film history and psychology -- and then used that liberal arts degree to get into med school.

This is who you're holding up as an informational authority, RE fandom? This self-aggrandizing liar?

Do better. Love yourselves more.

He ain't it, guys.

[ashmcgivern]

And with that, I think it's worth mentioning I am currently looking for work! If anyone has any leads on opportunities I'd greatly appreciate a heads up or forwarding my information along. I prefer TAG gigs cuz I need healthcare hours, but I'll work on whatever I'm fit for. :]!

[andtheirmoonlight]

‘I'm so sorry for what happened to you!’ says a part of what happened to me.

‘I'm so sorry for what those people did to you!’ — you’re not ‘those people’, you are you, and you're doing the ‘what’ right now.

‘Omg people can be so horrible!’ — yes, you can be, and so lacking in self-awareness.

When you were trained to think of everything in black and white, you start seeing yourself as a ‘good person’ and start believing that everything you as a ‘good person’ do or have the potential to do is always good, and that you are never the villain. But humans do not work that way.

[elftwink]

have to work on a project today and an unrelated thing happened that just made me so so so so so mad (just some irl personal stuff), which normally derails my entire day because i find it so hard to come out of the angry/upset state and tend to just circle back and obsess over whatever triggered it but! today after 20 minutes of that i had a council meeting about it (<- what i call my decision making process) the outcome of which was putting it aside (!!!) for later when i could actually talk about it and resolve it (!!!) & in the meantime we could just do other stuff.

local man exuberant and jubilated to achieve feats of basic emotional self-regulation and was seen excitedly telling reporters he "never thought this day would come" and began giving a thank you speech to nobody in particular. more on this story as it develops

[th3houseofleaves]

my BODY is MY CREATION!

call me god, call me frankenstein, call me sculptor, call me creator because i am taking what i am owed i am shaping creating making myself over in the image of adam, i will rid myself of this extra rib called longing and i will be bloody and pure and new as i am born again in the body i forged for myself.

INTRODUCING christopher "kit" warren an original character based in the dc comics universe. he is portrayed by jordan gonzalez.

christopher "kit" warren is the civilian identity of the vigilante known as PORTAL, a twenty-six year old meta-human with the ability to warp or teleport short distances (safely). outside of hero work, he's an independent video game developer and graphic designer, though the latter job is more for bringing in a semi steady flow of income rather than a job he does for pleasure. ideally, he'd love to have more time to work on games but he knows that that's not feasible at this point; both for the lack of income and because of his commitment to protect his community. being a hero comes first to him.

kit is originally from star city but moved away in his early twenties. his birth parents died when he was just a baby, his godfather, cole carpenter, took him in and raised him. his home life was fairly chill, he was well taken care of and never went without necessities but it was incredibly clear that cole wasn't prepared to raise a child. he still had growing up to do when he took kit in, since he was only in his early twenties and still hadn't even decided what he wanted to do in life. and while cole did his best, he was more of an older brother figure rather than the parental figure that kit needed.

that being said kit wouldn't change a single thing. he loves cole so much. that's his only real family. plus, there were perks to growing up with a young parent — rules tended to be lax, he had an easier time getting his way if he needed, and, once he was older, he could have fun spending time with his godfather doing things that they'd both enjoy. (one thing they would do together regularly was training at the gym where cole works. it started off as easy stuff, where kit was trying to mirror what cole was doing and gradually became more serious and branched off into kit begging cole to let him seriously train to become a fighter like he was. cole caved fairly fast.)

growing up he, like so many other children, loved superheroes. he'd play pretend with the other kids in his neighborhood and they'd all have their own hero identity (no one ever volunteered to be the villain, it was always more fun to be the good guys because they got all the perks). if anyone asked him during that time, he would've proudly told them that he wanted to be a hero when he grew up, he wanted to save people just like the heroes on the news. it wouldn't be until he was a little older that he'd realise his childish daydream could be reality. (his meta abilities would first manifest when he was around nine or ten, thus paving the way for his eventual decision to become a hero.)

being a meta was only a shock to kit himself, his godfather knew there was a chance he'd be one since both his parents were. the only thing he wouldn't have been able to predict was kit's abilities, which were nothing like his parents'. having a superpower was cool as hell to kit but it was terrible for cole; he now had to wrangle a superpowered child, who wasn't easily convinced that he shouldn't show off his power, and who was capable of evading him without putting much effort into it.

shortly after his abilities first manifested, kit came out to his godfather which caused cole to become more protective of him. he enrolled kit into self defense classes, alongside the training he was already doing with kit, to make sure that kit was able to defend himself when he was on his own. he wasn't about to lose his kid because some asshole didn't approve of his identity.

cole had no way of knowing that kit was going to use those skills when he would sneak out at night, taking his first steps as a hero in his neighborhood. he should've expected it, he really should've, given how serious kit was about becoming a hero but it still nearly gave him a heart attack when he found out. not even because kit told him, no he saw something, when he was reading the news, about a new meta hero that popped up in star city... who appeared to be pretty young (there was questions about how safe it is for a kid to be fighting crime)... and who could seemingly teleport.... and he didn't have to be a genius to figure out that that was HIS idiot teenage wannabe hero. needless to say kit was grounded for a couple weeks after cole found out and they had to have a long discussion about safety and why he shouldn't keep going out, even though cole knew that it wouldn't stop kit from going out. unfortunately.

as he got older he got cockier. he'd investigate riskier cases, he'd patrol outside of his neighborhood, and he stopped trying to stay under the radar of other heroes and vigilantes that happened to be in star city.

at twenty-six years old he's a fairly well established vigilante (& if the whole no metas in gotham fanon rule thing exists, than he's pretty regularly breaking that rule because? he doesn't give a shit about what batman says. he can't stop him.)

additional link: pinterest.

(edit insp.)

[meowthplushie]

posting this bc of the absolute shitshow i've been seeing on social media lately: do not follow me if you're a pedophile or zoophile. do not follow me if you think pedophiles and zoophiles deserve a "safe space and community". they don't need an echo chamber. they absolutely don't need to keep telling each other to create and share harmful content and make themselves worse + more dangerous in the name of "art liberation" and "no censorship". fuck all the way off

[dadbodbensisko-moved]

ok we as a society need to talk about a wrath of khan au where everything is the same but saavik is a spirk baby and kirk and spock (mostly kirk) spend the whole movie smothering and embarrassing her

[dykeredhood]

Do I have to outwardly love x because she’s the lesbian singer in vogue rn

[theinfinitedivides]

btw building on my last post a funeral is not the time and place to serve c*nt. that being said that is Do Young's default setting so when he shows up to his de facto mother-in-law's funeral he will do so and bring the c*ntservers of the gang (read: Oh Jae) with him. boyfriend/wife meet cute ig

[trashbinbackyard]

failure future ghost guilt hate for ivana and an immortal

Girl wins and fails. (I rolled a d4 for the immortals bc I couldn’t choose and it landed on 2 so angsty Maya ahoy!)

failure: What's your OC's greatest failure? Have they been able to move past it? Does anyone else know about it?

Probably an incident with a target, where she couldn’t get the guy fast enough and civilian people lost their lives. She managed to get her target but too late in her opinion. It’s a source of shame for her and no matter how much she tries to move past it, she goes to bed knowing people died because she wasn’t good enough yet. Orion would know as he was her boss back then, and anyone who stumbles on the case files

Not keeping closer contact with her friends after Nayden’s coronation. Their merry band sort of scattered into the four winds soon after and Lucas was her only friend left. If she knew what would become of her she would’ve clung to them tooth and nail but it’s too late now, they’re long dead

future: What's the worst possible future for your OC? Are they taking steps to avoid that outcome? Are they even aware it's a possibility?

The worst outcome she sees for herself is growing old and cynical like Orion, loved by none and hated by many, there’s an inkling of pity she feels for him but she will die before she admits it. She wants to avoid it, but she can see herself slipping into the same patterns as he did, so it takes active work and thought to not end up like him. She tries her best to upkeep the bonds she already has and be open to new ones aka Carmina and her family

As the years go on and on and on she becomes more isolated and jaded. She’s seen how Dimos’ mind has completely broken and she fears the same thing will happen to her eventually, even if Dimos is younger than her. She tries to find comfort in the fleeting moments with mortals and get closer to the other immortals who share her fears of the future. 

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

Orion. She took so much abuse from him yet she never stopped respecting him. It was some sort of sick admiration and warning tale. And now that he’s gone and she’s stepped into his shoes she can feel the pressure he was under. But she also doesn’t have an astonishingly failed relationship and hatred for any and all things living so she has that to one up the ghost of Orion

Out of everyone she lost, Lana, her sister. Way back when, she was supposed to take care of Maya when their mother refused, she was supposed to keep her safe. She failed, but got another chance years after. She didn’t get to say goodbye to her, for all Lana knew she died in the woods being ambushed by bandits and Maya knows Lana felt so guilty about it, that she failed her again.

guilt: What is your OC guilty about? How do they handle their guilt? Do they try to avoid guilt, or do they accept it?

Guilty about treating her team harshly. She has that streak of perfectionism and expects everyone to be just as detail oriented and punctual as she is. She comes off as ruthless, she admits it. She justifies it by thinking it’ll keep everyone sharp.

She feels guilty for thinking bad thoughts about Lucas, Lucien, Viessa and Dimos. They’re her only threads to the world she once knew and her lifelines. They should get along great right? But sometimes they frustrate her so much she isolates herself from them. And eventually feels bad about it and comes back with her tail between her legs

hate: What does your OC hate? Why? How do they act towards the object of their hatred?

Most of the police department, organized criminals. The little guys, the thieves, the scammers and the sort who do it just to get by she knows the systems have failed them. But the big dogs like Ipes she despises.

As much as she loves Lucas, or the being that once was Lucas, she despises him. Gods do not understand how mortals aren’t meant to experience eternity, estrangement from the world is sometimes too much to bear, everything she knew and loved is long gone, trapped with company she didn’t choose. She still carries out his will, for there is not much else to do. And she will become his voice in the coming ages. It’s complicated, is what I’m saying. As well as bad parents, and two who abuse their power, but she can now deal with them herself and guardian of the lost

[gilbirda]

loving contest shows where the first eliminated are like "i built my whole personality around this 1 thing, and i came here to win" and then they go home immediately.

like no shade and i know that to even get to compete you passed a bunch of prerequisites, but honey.... you KNOW the drill. You cannot pretend you are the shit just because you are xyz.