#like we are getting representation but at what cost?!

[bumblecrisp]

the problem i have with arcane viktor isn’t that he’s no longer the machine herald we know from league, it’s that it is no longer a story ABOUT viktor. it’s a story about the arcane. ok does that make sense. stick with me here

viktor in s2 is taken over by the arcane. transformed by it. changed by it physically and mentally. it literally cleaves his mind in two to realize its form in his body. right? and that’s great! that’s genuinely really cool! BUT.

old lore viktor is taken over by OBSESSION. his own desire for improvement, for perfection, his hunger for progress. that is IMPORTANT. it is important to his character, it is very very important to me that we understand that viktor in s1 is by all appearances progressing along that path. viktor is dying, viktor is out of time, viktor is DESPERATE. he wants to save his own life, but crucially not as a selfish act. he sees himself as a VESSEL FOR PROGRESS. ok? that is so so important. viktor does not value his life as a human life, he only needs to remain alive so he can be a VESSEL FOR PROGRESS. i am dancing around yelling and waving my arms. this is SO crucial to his character and its like . so poorly handled in s2 it makes me INSANE i mean neurodivergent. i get that they were trying to do some evangelion thing but AAAAAARGGGGH they’re so WRONG about him.

ok? ok? do you see where i’m going. viktor is a desperate desperate man with a brilliant mind and shaking hands and he is working and he is working and he is out of time and he is going to do whatever the fuck it takes to give himself the chance to save his people. he is going to replace his flesh with silver and steel for sinew and platinum in his veins and he is going to tear out his own heart and replace it with a machine just for a little more time. he is absolutely selfless, and he is extraordinarily arrogant. ok? ok?

he is exceptional. he is a zaunite prodigy. he is the only hope.

he is a genius. he is a genius. it has to be him. his gears are softly turning and he is going to save his people. no matter what cost. no matter what cost. he is going to save his people no matter what cost.

and that is lost, in s2! it is so important to me. one of my favourite champion stories. and it’s gone. poof. what they have in s2 is just echoes. one-off lines about uniting the people, tossing out a “glorious evolution” to humour the old fans. it’s heartbreaking! he’s gone! the thing arcane fans don’t understand is that this isn’t just a rushed storyline, it’s a fundamental change to his character! don’t even get me STARTED on the whole thing with skye. the POINT!!! is that he makes SACRIFICES in the name of progress - himself! others! it’s all necessary evils for the greater good! they are so wrong about him im gonna lose it!!!!!!!!!

s1 viktor was beautiful, perfect, a wonderful WONDERFUL representation of the human he used to be, everything was in place, and then the whole character was sacrificed for a narrative tool to force a piltover/zaun reconciliation speedrun so they could keep it to nine episodes. it’s genuinely heartbreaking.

anyway. i should probably stop yelling at the wind and go write some fanfiction huh

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Need asoiaf fans to be disabused from the notion that anyone “deserves” the Iron Throne. Not a single person deserves it, doesn’t matter how good they are. And I’d take it a step further and say that no one deserves to be king or queen or lord. We shouldn’t be equating kingship/queenship with a happy ending. This series does so much to criticize this awful system so it’s particularly jarring that people will go “I want my fave to get their happy ending and sit on the iron throne”. That’s…kind of antithetical to what the series has shown us so far I think.

[mysteriousboo]

Boop of the day!

Do you have a favorite manga?

Personally it's Bungo Stray Dogs. It's kind of a fanfiction based on real author and their work like Fyodor Dostoevsky got the ability Crime and Punishment. They have power based on one of their work. We mainly follow the Armed Detective Agency in Yokohoma. My fav character here is Fyodor ! (I also love Dazai)

Boop back!!

I have seen some of the bungou stray dogs the anime!! It's good!! My favorite manga is prolly hunter x hunter, which sounds like a basic ass answer but hunter x hunter is just *chef's kiss*!!!

Another manga that i enjoyed reading is Kanojo ni Naritai Kimi to Boku!! It was recommended to me by a friend and it's so good!! It's like heartstopper, but WAY better because the creator isn't xenophobic!! plus, the creator also didn't grow up in queer friendly spaces, unlike Alice oseman(*eye roll*), so it's a lot better to read!! because the majority of the population also grows up in a more of a non-queer friendly environment!! It's hits harder to me on an emotional level, unlike heartstopper!!

[cleoselene]

here I am, trying to get people to care about a Senate race that is only 4 points apart at the moment but the national media refuses to act like it's competitive

look, I am under NO illusions about what Florida is. I am not here to tell you it's full of the best most well-meaning people who by-golly-goshdarn-shucks have the misfortune of living under Republicans, because that picture of the South is pretty rosy for reals. It's gotten more deeply Southern culturally in the last two decades especially. The Florida of my teen years when Lawton Chiles was governor feels like a very distant memory.

But look: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a GREAT candidate. You know how Tim Walz is being praised for representing a quintessential midwesterner? Mucarsel-Powell is a quintessential Floridian, in that she's an immigrant and a Latina and she's very smart and accomplished. That is the best of Florida that so rarely gets represented, or gets twisted in representation to ghouls like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz whose families are Cuban conservative. Rick Scott is one of the most unpopular members of the Senate.

Ron Desantis has gone too far in this state, warping our education, our human rights, our very freedom of speech, and he's done NOTHING to fix runaway housing and home insurance costs in a state that is acutely aware of climate change.

Abortion is on the ballot. So is legal weed. I am by no means saying I think Harris will carry the state, but there's SO MUCH that is really important on the ballot for me beyond that AND including it. But it's one of those funky years where turnout for the good guys will probably be higher because of the ballot initiatives and there's a lot of angry moderates in this state pissed about what Desantis did to education. So. Please consider sharing and spreading the word that there's a really important and more to the point: COMPETITIVE senate race in Florida. But if we ignore it, neglect it, don't spread the buzz and don't donate, then Florida just becomes another self-fulfilling prophecy.

[ms-demeanor]

On insurance: I still live with my parents and don't know a lot yet about the sorts of things adults usually have to spend money on. I've always been skeptical of things like insurance and credit cards because it seems to me they wouldn't be selling that if they didn't expect to make money from it. I talked to my cousin a while ago about credit cards and basically came to the conclusion that they do that because they're betting on the customer getting sloppy and letting their debts stack up, and the way you beat that and get money from credit card companies is just by being careful.

I'm a little more confused about insurance though because it seems much more straightforwardly like a gamble they will simply not take if it won't pay off for them. Like, you don't go to a casino because every game they play at a casino is one they've done the math on and have determined that statistically most people will lose money on most of the time. Is insurance not kinda the same? Where they estimate the risk and then charge you an amount calculated to make sure it probably won't be worth it for you?

I know if you have a car you legally need car insurance so everyone knows you can pay for another car if you crash into someone, and I gather that here in the US at least health insurance companies have some kinda deal with hospitals so that the prices go down or something, and there's a reason I don't fully understand why not having health insurance is Really Bad. But we get to pet insurance, or like when I buy a concert ticket and it offers ticket insurance in case I can't make it to the show, and surely if they thought they were gonna lose money on that they just wouldn't sell it, right? Or they'd raise the price of it until it became worth the risk that something bad actually will happen? Wouldn't it only be worth it to buy insurance if you know something the insurance company doesn't?

So the deal is that most people don't use their insurance much, and often insurance companies will incentivize doing things that will make you use your insurance less.

So, for example, you can get a discount on car insurance if you have multiple cars because people who insure multiple cars are more likely to be responsible drivers (the ability to pay for multiple cars stands in as a representation of responsibility here). The longer you go without an accident, the lower your premiums get because that means that you are not costing your insurance company anything but you are paying into the system. The car insurance company's goal is to have the most responsible, safest drivers who never get into car accidents because they can predict (roughly) how much they're going to have to pay out to their customers and they want the number they pay out to be lower than what's paid in. So they try to discourage irresponsible drivers by raising their rates and encourage responsible drivers by giving them discounts.

Health insurance companies often do the same thing: I recently got a gift card from my health insurance company because I had a visit from a nurse who interviewed me about my overall health and made sure I had stable blood pressure and access to medications. It is literally cheaper for my insurance company to give me a $100 giftcard and hire a nurse to visit me than it is for me to go to my doctor's office a couple of times, so they try to make sure that their customers are getting preventative care and are seeing inexpensive medical professionals regularly so that they don't have to suddenly see very expensive professionals after a long time without care.

Insurance in the US has many, many, many problems and should be replaced with socialized healthcare for a huge number of reasons but right now, because it is an insurance-based system, you need to have insurance.

We're going to use Large Bastard as an example.

Large Bastard had insurance when he had his heart attack and when he needed multiple organs transplanted. He didn't *want* to be paying for insurance, because he thought he was healthy enough to get by, but I insisted. His premium is four hundred dollars a month, and his out of pocket maximum is eight thousand dollars a year. That means that every year, he pays about $5000 whether he uses his insurance or not, and if he DOES need to use the insurance, he pays the first $8k worth of care, so every year his insurance has the possibility of costing him thirteen thousand dollars.

The bill for his bypass surgery was a quarter million dollars.

The bill for his transplant was over one and a half million dollars.

His medication each month is around six hundred dollars. He needs to have multiple biopsies - which are surgeries - each year, and each one costs about twenty thousand dollars.

Without health insurance, he would very likely be dead, or we would be *even more* incapable of paying for his healthcare than we are right now. He almost ditched his insurance because he was a healthy-seeming 40-year-old and he didn't think he'd get sick. And then he proceeded to be the sickest human being I've ever known personally who did not actually die.

Health insurance costs a lot of money. It costs less money for people who are young and who are expected to be healthy. But the thing is, everybody pays into health insurance, and very, very few people end up using as much money for their medical expenses as Large Bastard did. There are a few thousand transplants in the US ever year, but there are hundreds of millions of people paying for insurance.

This ends up balancing out (sort of) so that people who pay for insurance get a much lower cost on care if they need it, hospitals get paid for the care they provide, and the insurance company makes enough money to continue to exist. Part of the reason that people don't like this scheme is because "insurance company" could feasibly be replaced by "government" and it would cost less and provide a better standard of care, but again, with things as they are now, you need to have insurance. Insurance companies are large entities that are able to negotiate down costs with the providers they work with, you are not. If you get hit by a car you may be able to get your medical bills significantly reduced through a number of means, but you're very unlikely to get your bills lower than the cost of insurance and a copay.

Because of the Affordable Care Act, which is flawed but which did a LOT of good, medical insurance companies cannot refuse to treat you because of preexisting conditions and also cannot jack up your premiums to intolerable rates - since Large Bastard got sick, he has had the standard price increases you'd expect from aging, but nothing like the gouging you might expect from an insurance company deciding you're not worth it.

Pet insurance works on the same model. Millions of people pay for the insurance, thousands of people end up needing it, a few hundred end up needing a LOT of it, and the insurance companies are able to make more money than they hand out, so they continue to exist. This is part of why it's less expensive to get pet insurance for younger animals - people who sign up puppies and kittens are likely to be paying for a very long time and are likely to provide a lot of preventative care for their animals, so they're a good bet for the insurer. Animals signed up when they are older are more likely to have health problems (and pet insurance CAN turn animals away for preexisting conditions) and are going to cost the insurance companies more, so they cost more to enroll (and animals over a certain age or with certain conditions may be denied entirely).

This weighing risk/reward is called actuarial science, and the insurance industry is built on it.

But yeah it's kind of betting. The insurance company says "I'll insure ten thousand dogs and I'm going to bet that only a hundred of them will need surgery at some point in the next year" and if they're correct, they make money and the dogs who need surgery get their surgery paid for out of the premiums from the nine thousand nine hundred dogs who didn't need surgery.

Your assessment of credit is correct: credit card companies expect that you will end up carrying a balance, and that balance will accrue interest, and the interest is how they make the money.

And it is EASY to fuck up financially as an adult. REALLY EASY. But you are still likely to need a good credit score so you will need a credit history. That means that the correct way to use a credit card is to have a card, but not carry a balance.

To do this, never buy anything on the card that you can't afford. In order to avoid needing the card for emergencies, start an emergency fund that is at least 3 months of your total pay *before* you get a credit card. That seems like a *lot* of savings to have, but from the perspective of someone who has had plenty of mess-ups, it's a lot easier to build up a $10k emergency fund than it is to pay off a $10k credit card debt.

If you don't understand how interest works on credit cards, or why a 10k savings is different than a 10k debt, here are some examples working with $10k of debt, 23% interest (an average-ish rate for people with average credit), and various payments.

With that debt and that interest, here's how much it costs and how long it would take to pay off with $200 as the monthly payment:

Fourteen years, and it would cost you about twenty four thousand dollars in interest, for a total amount paid of about thirty four thousand dollars.

To save $10k at $200 a month would take four years and two months.

Here's the same debt at $300 a month:

4.5 Years and it costs about six grand (again, just in interest - sixteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at three hundred dollars a month would take just under three years.

Here's the same debt at $400 a month:

3 years, about $4000 dollars (fourteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at $400 a month takes just over two years.

The thing is, with all of these models you're going to end up paying one way or another. Insurance vs out of pocket is you weighing the risk of losing a fair amount of money by signing up but not using the system, or potentially losing a catastrophic amount of money by not signing up.

For credit cards they really only work if you know you're never going to need them for an emergency, because an emergency is what you're not going to be able to pay off right away. I didn't have an emergency fund when Large Bastard had his heart attack and needed surgery, or when we moved between states suddenly, or when we moved between states suddenly AGAIN and needed to pay storage costs, or when Large Bastard needed a transplant, or when Tiny Bastard got in a fight with my MiL's dog, and the fact that I didn't have an emergency fund is still costing me a lot of money.

So, young folks out there: what's the takeaway?

Get insurance. Get the best deal possible, which usually ends up being the one you sign up for early. You may think you can let it ride without insurance, but man in the six months between when I graduate college (and lost my school insurance) and when care kicked in after 90 days at my job I got electrocuted and needed to go to the ER. If that hadn't been a worker's comp payout I would have had thousands of dollars in bills. Something could happen. You could break your leg, you could get hit by a car, you could suddenly find out that you actually have heart disease at twenty, you could develop cancer. Have insurance, you need insurance. You legally need car insurance in the US, and you financially need health insurance. If you have a pet, I think it's a good idea for them to have pet insurance.

Credit cards are not for emergencies, they are not for fun, they are not for buying things that are just ever so slightly out of your budget, they are for taking advantage of the credit card company and managing to get by in a system that demands you have a credit score. ONLY put purchases on your credit card that you already have cash for. Before you get a credit card, build up an emergency savings so that you aren't tempted to put emergency charges on your card.

If you DO end up with an interest-bearing debt, pay it off as fast as possible because letting it linger costs you a LOT of money in the long run.

Stay the fuck away from tobacco and nicotine products they are fucking terrible for you, they are fucking expensive, and they are not worth it put the vapes down put the zyns down put the cigarettes down I will begin manifesting in your house physically i swear to fuck. Knock that shit off and put the cash that you'd be spending on nicotine into a savings account.

Take care, sorry everything sucks, I promise that in some ways it actually sucks less than it did before and we're working on trying to make it suck even less but it's taking a while.

[felassan]

David Gaider on Zevran, under a cut for length:

"I was going to skip over Zevran, honestly, as I felt like I didn't have a lot to tell in the way of stories about him... but I know he still has some (ardent) fans. Plus, on reflection, I thought maybe I DO have a few things to say. 😅 Sooo we'll see how this goes. Zevran came along much later in the DAO process, as we were trying to round out the cast of party members. Alistair and Morrigan were well underway (as "main" characters, they were concepted very early) and I'd just started to consider who our Rogue followers might be when... things changed, a bit. See, BioWare had released a game not long beforehand called Jade Empire. It had included some same-sex options in its romances - not obscured like the way Juhani's "romance" had been hinted at in KotOR, but explicit. To this day, I have no idea who on the Jade Empire team was behind it, or why. More to the point, the same-sex options had received a lot of attention and praise - almost universal praise, in fact. In 2005, everyone was just pleasantly surprised. And I don't recall if I went to James and asked about it or if he came to me to suggest DAO should include it. The latter, I think."

"You might ask "Aren't you gay, Dave? Weren't you already pushing for this?" And the answer to that is, emphatically, "no, not at all". It might seem odd looking through the lens of 2024, but there was no talk of 'representation' or 'diversity'. Not at any level where we were aware of it, anyhow. Today, fans argue about how MUCH representation to include and whether it's done well enough... the idea that, less than twenty years ago, it being included *at all* was very much in doubt feels so far away. But, back then, I'd always assumed my private life and my work in games would never meet. So I think it was James who brought it up, because I remember being startled. Pleasantly so, of course. Now I had to look at our two rogues and figure out how this would apply. I sketched out the female of the two (who was taken on by Sheryl Chee) and then looked at the male - he who became Zevran. I'd been reading about the CIA and one thing that stuck with me was how they'd (allegedly) recruit gay men as assassins because they rarely had familial ties. Zevran wasn't going to be gay (bisexuality wasn't a question of representation, but a cost-benefit compromise) but that was the inspiration."

"Then there was the question of how "flamboyantly" I was writing this character, whether that might be too stereotypical? I don't remember how it arose, but I had too many "flamboyant" friends to do anything other than double down. This character was gonna be Zorro the goddamn Gay Blade, that's what. So that's how Zevran happened. Fun, a bit nihilistic, maybe a bit too overtly flirty for today's audience but very confidently *sexual*. Everything I'm not, so I'll admit it was an interesting exploration to dig down and find that voice somewhere inside. He was the anti-Alistair, and I needed that. Casting him was difficult. Caroline always tried to go for authentic accents, when we could, but for some reason this was getting us nowhere. I think back, and I suspect it's because I hadn't yet learned the lesson to not use terms in casting descriptions I thought were universal... but were not. What do I mean by that? Well, there was one write-up that said "drow elf". Now, I know what a drow elf is. It wasn't even important to the description, but the director saw the word "elf", and you know what we got back? A Keebler elf. Like a leprachaun, high and sweet and cutsie. Can you imagine?"

"In this case, I think it was the use of the word "assassin". Combine that with the sorts of roles many Hispanic actors in LA probably are asked to play, and all the auditions we were getting were 150% dark, mean, and gritty. 🫠 So we widened the casting call a bit, and this led us to Jon Curry. I knew Jon wasn't Hispanic, but what I wasn't prepared for when I flew down to meet the DAO actors was that he's this extremely tall, extremely Nordic looking dude who just happened to do the most amazing Antonio Banderas impression. Watching THAT man channel Zevran was... more than a bit surreal. 😅 And he had fun with it. As soon as we gave him the go ahead to play the fun and flirtiness to the hilt, that's exactly what he did. Over the few days where we found Zevran's voice, it totally supplied me with something I could hold in my head when I went back to Edmonton and finished writing him. Zevran was funny enough that the fans liked him. The only part of the reception I thought odd was the occasional comment by a male player who felt "tricked" into having sex with Zevran. "You mean... that part where he invites you to his tent for a sensual massage?" "Yes! I was expecting a massage!" "He literally says the massage is sensual." "Well he wasn't clear enough!" This is where I first came to the conclusion that a certain number of our players just don't know how to people. And that maybe an adjustment to the way we approached the messaging (or massaging lol) of romance was in order. If I could go back, would I change anything? Maybe I'd remind the systems team Zevran should really be able to pick a lock. And maybe not allow him to die. We had no idea we'd need to import these choices into the future - we kinda thought DAO was "one and done". Not so much, as it turned out. 😁"

[source thread]

David Gaider: "there's something to be said about how Zevran flirted and even had sex with you because he thought that's all he had to offer... not just you, but anyone. And when he realized you wanted something deeper, suddenly he was on unsteady ground and it truly unsettled him. It was fun to explore." [source]

User: "So David - besides loving the fact that the third image you picked is a gay sex scene - what happened in DA2(DAE - come on) with Zevrans design?" David Gaider: "Check the ALT text. It wasn’t a custom sculpt, so that’s as close as they could get it. Which… was not close." [source]

User: "Just to make sure I fully understand: the director (was it the voice director?) saw the word "elf" and thought you were looking for someone high, sweet, and cutesie?" David Gaider: "Yeah, this was from back before we managed VO in-house. The voice director in this case just didn’t have an association with “elf” like some familiar with fantasy would." [source]

[lucysarah-c]

"Those are my fries, and those are yours,"

"Come on! Does it really make a difference if I take just one?" You retorted.

"Settled accounts keep old friends," he mumbled, mouth half full of food.

You giggled as he took off the top bun from his burger, piled on a bunch of fries, and took a huge bite. The scene was downright chaotic, and you burst out laughing. Levi, who normally cared about appearances, was wolfing down the McDonald's meal with an intensity that didn’t quite match the polished image he’d shown earlier, even though that suit probably cost a fortune.

Ketchup stuck to the corner of his mouth as he raised an eyebrow, silently questioning what was so funny. Once he'd swallowed, he muttered, "Eat before the fries get cold. They taste horrible like that."

You couldn't help but reflect on how the night had gone. The House of CB dress you'd bought and saved for a special occasion, the hair you had done at the salon, the makeup you practiced to mimic the subtle but lovely glam of the latest Bridgerton season—none of that had been planned for you to end up in your boyfriend's car, surrounded by a ridiculous amount of fast food from a drive-thru at 11 p.m.

The empty parking lot outside, with snow accumulating, could have been eerie if you weren’t sitting next to Levi. Fries slathered in extra cheddar sauce were scattered everywhere, and Levi shoveled them into his mouth without a care. No lights, no music, but it didn't matter—you felt safe with him, though neither of you was keen on tempting fate by keeping the car lights on in the middle of nowhere.

Taking a bite of your own burger, you chuckled again. "I don't think I've ever seen you this hungry."

Levi paused mid-chew to take a swig of his Coke. "Tch, those posh assholes. They dragged me around for hours—hours! Examples of this, representation of that, and handshakes with whoever. From 3 p.m.! They didn’t even let me grab a sandwich at the reception. Finally, they serve dinner at 10—TEN!" he grumbled, the delay clearly having been the final straw. "And what did they serve? One shrimp, a tiny cube of cheese, and some grass they picked from outside and called a gourmet dinner."

"Rich people don’t eat much; that’s why," you teased. "It’s fancy to have tiny portions on huge plates."

"That’s because they’re all on Ozempic, buying up medicine that people actually need. Fuck them," he muttered.

On any other occasion, Levi would’ve cursed you for eating in his car, but tonight he made an exception. "How are my ice creams?"

Levi glanced outside where the ice creams were stored in the cold air to keep from melting. Processing your words, he turned back to you. "My ice creams? You mean ours."

"Oh, Levi, aren’t you going to gift me one? What kind of gentleman are you?" you teased.

"Right now, I’d bite your arm off if it weren’t for the fact that McDonald’s is still open," he replied with a smirk.

You laughed again. It had been the government holiday party, and you’d been so excited to attend, ready to rub elbows with high society. One of the older women had even told you, "You should've asked for a brand to sponsor your dress, coming as Levi’s plus-one!" Erwin had insisted that Levi attend as a representative of the Ackerman family, much to your boyfriend's dismay. Uri had agreed, probably because any option was better than Kenny for a formal event.

"Erwin will kill you when he finds out," you said, remembering how Levi had messaged you to sneak out. You’d never imagined he’d drag you through a bathroom window, across the estate grounds, and into his car for a McDonald’s run. "What about Uri? I ran into him during dinner. He was so nice!"

Levi hummed in approval, acknowledging that the old man had always been a saint in his eyes. The only one capable of dealing with Kenny for so many years.

Suddenly, Levi's phone lit up, its ringtone breaking the quiet. "Fuck!" you panicked.

"Don’t answer. If we do, they’ll know I’m reachable," Levi said, ignoring the calls.

Message after message flooded his phone—texts from Uri, Traute, and Erwin: Where are you? Levi, answer the phone ASAP. Come back here this instant.

The calls came in one after another.

"They won’t stop," you muttered. "Maybe we should just tell them—"

"No. They’d send the national guard to drag me back to that snob-filled hell," Levi spat. Despite not picking up, both of you whispered as if the unanswered calls could somehow hear.

At some point, the whole situation became hilarious. You found yourself resting your head on his shoulder, chuckling as the phone buzzed incessantly. Levi kept refusing to answer, and in the midst of it all, you shared sloppy kisses in the darkened car.

"I’ve got an idea…" you said, a mischievous glint in your eye. Levi looked at you, confused, the noise from the phone distracting from the moment you were building.

Casually, you swiped up on the screen and answered. "Levi? Where are—"

With a fake gasp and an exaggerated tone, you moaned, "Ah, Lev—Yes!"

Levi had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as he realized what you were doing. "Play along," you whispered. And before you knew it, he began thumping the side door, mimicking the sound of… well, thrusts.

"Harder!" you managed between giggles before the call abruptly ended, leaving both of you in hysterics.

"Well, they’re definitely not calling anymore," Levi shook his head, still grinning, knowing full well this prank wouldn’t go unpunished.

"You can always say we were busy working on the Ackerman heir they keep asking for," you teased.

Levi grimaced, entertained by the thought. "I mean…" His hand slid up your thigh, the mood shifting as his touch grew more insistent. "We could actually be doing that."

Your hips began to move slightly over his lap. A quick glance at the clock—the only light inside the car—showed 12:05 a.m. Finally past midnight. "Whatever the birthday boy wants," you purred.

—

"He picked up? What did he say, sir?" Traute asked irritably in the event staff area, where they were waiting to bring out the enormous, decorated cake for the final part of the evening.

Uri chuckled, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. "I think he’s already celebrating. Let’s just carry on."

(No idea what this is, the idea just pop up in my mind)

Link to my masterlist and my other works if you feel like checking them out. Tags!: @nube55 @justkon @notgoodforlife @nmlkys @humanitys-strongest-bamf @quillinhand @thoreeo @darkstarlight82 @aomi04 @levisbrat25 @fxnnyackerman @secretmoneybearvoid @trashblackrainbow @l3visthighs @hannieslovebot @flxrartsstuff @feelingsandemotionsnotexplored @starrylevi @rithty @mariaace @ackrmntea @emilyyyy-08 @levisfavoriteteashop @katestrophes @katharinasdiaryy @ackermanswifee @levistealeaf @an-ever-angry-bi @youre-ackermine @searriously @blackdxggr @storiesofsung @abiatackerman @braunsbabe @moonchild-12345 @galactict3a @lemonsupernova @hyuckwon-my-husbands @heyitsd1yaa @sydneyyuu @love-for-faeries-go-burrrr @mandaax @sugacor3 @r0ckst4rjk @vegetasgirl2799 @catiwinky @pinksaiyans @sparklykeylime Wanna join my tag list? Here!

[visionsofmagic]

◜ mk1 men when you meet with their evil versions [+bonus]◞

▸ characters: raiden, johnny cage,  kuai liang, tomas & [+bonus} bi han: meeting with his good version ◂ ▸wc: 2.7k

▸ tags&notes: drabble, fluff, hurt/comfort, spicy, flirting, touching, gentle, rough, lots of usage of version & timeline words (like in the game, lol), dilemma, betrayal, angst (a little bit), humor, use of y/n, pet names, no specification of gender (as I remember), well, ‘s all I guess? (lol, this is the mixed tags I have ever wrote, but, it’s a drabble, so… enjoy!◂ ▸ m.

RAIDEN can be one of the most precious men you have met, and falling for him is the rightest thing that has happened to you – however, contrary to how a loving boyfriend he is in your timeline, he’s the opposite one when it comes to his another version you have come across.

everything about his evil, the version seems all the same and different at the same time as he makes his way towards you, having the red color on unlike what your raiden wear normally. the only thing that reminds of him is the hat that covers his face from you until he slowly raises his head, eyes glowing red while looking at you from above. the danger is radiating from his presence, giving you a cold chill down your spine, making you crawl back step by step because of being on your ass, sitting on the ground after the fight has begun between you and the other timeline.

“oh,” he says, a smirk appears on his pretty face – not the one your raiden has, the one that is the representation of the most beautiful flower in the entire world, no, this one gives the feeling of an ivy full of poison. “y/n?” gulping, you remember the words that left liu kang’s mouth about how raiden once lost himself and sought the power to protect the earthrealm at any cost. 

you stop when your back touches a wall, leaving no place to run either when raiden kneels before you, red lightning traveling on his body that looks so powerful that you find yourself getting weak – not only because of the aura he has unlike the one the raiden you know has, but also because how it seems that he pulls you closer to him. somehow, he makes you lose all logical sides of your brain with the way he looks down at you; prevailing.

“raiden?” you ask, sounding soft which earns a smirk from him as he holds you by the chin.

“oh my love, you’re so soft – so fragile. it seems your raiden doesn’t give you enough – he is still weak. with that power, he can’t protect you, but I can,” his fingers move from your chin to your cheek, and lightning under his skin tickles yours. “come with me. I will protect you and the earthrealm from any danger out there.”

“I can’t –“ you utter, sounding not so sure of the decision but your heart knows the best – and that is to stay beside your raiden, the one who has you completely, not the one seeking power even though he needs to end his friends’ life or even another timeline to accomplish it. “I will never leave my raiden’s side.”

“how loyal,” he says, both irritated by the fact that your bond with the raiden in your timeline can’t be broken and proud of how loyal you’re for your love. “I wish we met in my timeline.”

with his confession, he leaves you behind, going to fight with others – how ironic, he comes here to end any life form yet he shows mercy when it comes to you. whatever it is that makes him do that, doesn’t matter, you say to yourself as you get up and go to help your raiden, hoping he will never turn evil.

JOHNNY CAGE in your own timeline is flirtatious and teasing enough – or as you thought until you see his evil version from another timeline after the great fight has begun. you can’t distinguish him from your johnny – but the moment his eyes find you, admiring how you easily defeat one his companions on the way to the top, he whistles playfully.

when you turn to see him, ready to make a moral lesson about how he shouldn’t be humoristic in a fight for death and life, you see his eyes scanning your body from head to toe shamelessly. realization hits you like a ball in the face; he’s not your johnny. he doesn’t care about anything in the world, well, your johnny didn’t either before meeting with you. 

acknowledging that you see the danger when he winks at you, eyes finally directed to your face. “well, hello cutie. aren’t you such a beauty who will make aphrodite jealous?” he leaves a chuckle when you roll your eyes. without positioning a fight stance, you begin to walk towards him so that you can pass by his side – you can’t stand a version of johnny who is cockier and open-mouthed.

“woah woah,” he stops in front of you, hands on his chest, smirking, “already going, baby? c’mon, there is no man who deserves your attention as I do – not even your johnny if there is one.”

crossing your arms, a weary expression lightens your face up – still, you can feel the heat rushing to your body because of his flirty manner and words. johnny cage will be able to make you giggle with his demeanor with every version of him, won’t he?

“what do you want? a fight? then do it with someone else.” a dismissive hand movement makes him close the gap between you, eyes shining at your words.

“why pretty? can’t hit my handsome face? I bet you love seeing it.”

“u-huh,” you say, smiling as you put a hand on his shoulder, winking at him when he gets excited at the action. “you’re right I can’t hit my boyfriend’s pretty face,” you show his back, “but he can.”

when he turns around after you take a few steps back to leave enough room for your boyfriend to hit his own-self’s face with a strong punch, you chuckle. it’s a sight that will never leave your mind. 

“hey pretty,” your johnny says, gripping you by the waist and pulling you closer. chest to chest, he puts a kiss on your lips, acting like there’s no battle happening around you, taking the taste of you that he missed so much even though he had you before this hell. “you missed me so much that you began to chat with cheaper versions of me?”

“of course not. no one can be like you baby.”

“oh hell yeah!” he chuckles, taking you by the hand, “then, let’s kick some ass, well,” he takes a quick look around before turning to you, “our ass.”

KUAI LIANG of your timeline can’t be looking as dangerous as his evil version even when he has a venomous fire radiating directed to the enemies. your boyfriend tends to have a tender side in him, especially for you. he’s the fire itself – using it to burn the ones who deserve it, and for warming you at any cost, in any place because he loves you so much that he can’t let himself go all wide beside you.

however, his evil version is nothing similar to him – maybe in a few situations but not on the battlefield in which no single soul can escape from the wrath scorpion has.

watching him from afar, for a moment, you can’t help but feel both power flowing through his armored body within the flames rising on the outline of his build, and hatred. 

he mesmerizes you in aspects it shouldn’t have – how can you feel a connection between an evil version of kuai liang when you’re destined to protect your own realm, fighting right beside your boyfriend? guilt rushing to you as scorpion becomes aware of your existence, looking at you after he takes down an ally – your wide eyes that do not leave him is the impulse of it. 

“hmm,” he says, slowly approaching you – you try to move, you really do but you simply can’t, not when every step he takes towards you sends a jolt of excitement and fear to your core, alerting you to either run so fast or stay still and you choose the second option without realizing it until he stops in front of you. “liked what you see, princess?” 

he flirts, teases, and even sounds as if your kuai liang except he has a bloodcurdling tone in his voice. 

when you don’t respond, eyes scanning his suit – looks like he came from straight hell, or he’s the hell, he scoffs, gloved hand replaces under your chin, pulling you closer to him as you rise on your toes to reach his height, hands finding his chest not to fall. “isn’t my version in this timeline enough for you that you eyeing me too? maybe he’s not good at satisfying you.”

heat rising within you, you can’t stop looking at his eyes – burning with flames, magically, yet seeming real as the blood covering his suit. you want to feel disgusted, but you’re far away from having such emotion. 

when he lowers his head, closer to you, you hear kuai liang’s voice behind you – taking you from daydreaming to reality, making you realize you let his evil version do whatever he wants with you. “y/n!”

with such speed, you get away from him, ready to stay in fighting style when your kuai liang covers your body like a shield, standing between you and his evil version.

“you should go,” he says, taking a look at your face as he prepares himself to battle with an armored scorpion whose eyes never leave yours, still attempting to capture you. attempt fails when you shake your head negatively when kuai liang adds, “I will deal with him.”

“no,” you sound certain, standing beside your boyfriend, an assuring smile on your face, “we will fight together.”

evil version only chuckles at that, darkly, and with that, “if it’s what you wish, my love.”

“not yours. mine. and I will make sure to show you that.”

TOMAS’ determination is visible through his movements, unlike the one yours has, his eyes bright with such madness that your heart begins to pound in fear, not knowing whether he sees you as a treat or not – yet, he should, in the end, you’re not his partner in his timeline and he’s here to fight, not spare you just because his soft version gives his heart to you.

“tomas –“ the words leave your mouth, no particular control on it since it just splits out of you easily, to get a reaction from tomas – a good one.

“not your tomas,” he utters, playing with his karambit knife to show the readiness he has, waiting for the exact moment to attack you or defend himself if you take a sudden move, yet, you two agree upon a thing even without knowing it; neither he or you’re brave enough to hurt another, not when you have the love of his version in your timeline – his reason is unknown though. “I am better.”

“maybe you’re, maybe you’re not. it doesn’t matter,” you say, trying to find a feature that has hints of goodness in it by watching him raise one of his eyebrows, clearly curious about the rest of your speech. “for me, my tomas is the best, and he will remain as one.”

he chuckles, “is that so?” he’s more excited than you expect him to be. arms unite on his chest, making him look more dominant than you used to see. “I wonder what he does for you to say that – believe that.”

“he’s not hurting me,” he shuts you down – the thing your tomas will never do, he’s such a gentleman.

“I am not hurting you either,” seeing your relaxed body, he shakes his head, and with a smoke pump, he disappears in sight only to appear behind you, hands hugging you from behind, caging you inside his arms – tight enough to not let you go yet tenderness can be felt as well. he whispers into your ear from his mask, chin touching your shoulder as you take deep breaths because of the proximity you begin to share. other than your boyfriend tomas, you don’t get close with people and since he’s tomas but a more evil version from somewhere else, it feels odd – and excitement mixing within. “but I can’t promise for the future. if you just let me –“

when his fingers find your neck, you push him back, turning around, you take a defense stance, furrowing both at yourself and him – how could he? your tomas would never do things that make you comfortable even in the moments it feels breathtaking. “I should make you regret even suggesting such a thing!”

“no need love,” the time stops for a second, and the heart and soul find the ultimate medicine in the voice of your lover, tomas, whose fingertips touch your upper arms gently, traveling from there until they reach your wrists – his chest touches your back and the remaining marks of his evil version, the ones give you danger, fading away. “at the end of the day, he will not be able to utter any other inappropriate words with you,” staying beside you, he smiles at you – angelic. when he turns to his version, he looks deadly – you have never seen him like this, and from the way he stands, you believe he is determined to make him regret for your sake. “when I am done with him, he will never have the courage to show his face in here.”

“such bigger words from my weaker version,” the other tomas says.

shielding you, tomas bite him back, “I will show you how powerful I can be for my goddess.”

BI HAN’s betrayal still eats you alive, the marks of it have its ghost on your skin and soul; broken pieces, and a wound on the cheek that you got from one of his ice blades he threw to kuai liang whom you intended to protect at any cost, not wanting him to get into a fight with his older brother.

you believed it wasn’t bi han who was speaking – it was his madness that needed to be calmed down – you tried though, you really did but the moment you got hurt, you saw the guilt and concern in his brown eyes before they turned to pure fury as he sought of obedience from all of you.

the brief moment created a bloom in your chest for a spell but it vanished as it came, taking hope into the deepest part of your heart as you watched bi han and kuai liang fight, wishing there wouldn’t be a miscommunication among you all, however, you knew bi han’s obsession with power for lin kuei got more dominant than he felt for you.

it was sad – to see bi han, your bi han, go away from you slowly, not understanding why you don’t agree to be on his side, he feels his own betrayal coming from you – before the fight, he said how he was wounded at your choice – didn’t you love him? he asked and his broken voice now fills your mind as you look at your hands – then, a movement catch your eyes as you wait for the big fight.

“who did this to you?” someone asks – not someone, a voice says, and when his fingertips touch your chin, lifting your head up from where you sit, you see eyes that resemble your bi han. he’s from another timeline, probably in which he doesn’t seek power like the way your bi han does.

tears appear in your eyes, and to hide them, you fend off his gentle touch, not letting him touch the wound directly, “it doesn’t matter anymore.” 

he stays silent, realizing it is bi han, in your realm and he sighs, touching you once again even if you keep as distant as possible you can, not wanting to cry in the middle of a battle area where people go and come as they wait for the upcoming fight. “I am sorry,” he says, and for a moment, you hear the voice of your bi han before coming to your senses.

“it wasn’t you – so, you’re not responsible for saying sorry.”

“but you need it,” he convinces, holding you by the cheek, covering the wound with his palm as if he gives healing through the touch, “and I am here to give it to you.”

you smile, not caring that tears flow into your cheeks, and to his hand – he knows you, not better than your bi han does, but enough to make you sense the comfort you seek within him. “stop talking or I will begin to believe I can beat the bi han’s possession.”

he smiles under his mask, and it reaches his eyes – he looks innocence incarnate. “you will. believe me when I say it, pretty,” he caresses your skin, the free hand positions on your shoulder, giving it a squeeze, “he will learn that there is no greater need except – you, his beloved one.”

💙

[ghostfingies]

the "it was all a dream" scene was not representation, it was not vindication for nandermo shippers, it was the creators POINTING AND LAUGHING AT US. it was "ha ha silly gays, is this what you want?? are you happy now you got your stupid unrealistic gay porn ship?? hahaha theyre in bed together isnt that so FUNNY! here's a laugh track!! this is all you're ever going to get!! we will always see queer relationships as a punchline!!" like yeah ok we got to see a meagre cheek kiss but at what cost? that was straight up homophobic.

[velvetvexations]

It really bothers me how the response to the whole dropout thing is being framed. Let's face it, most people aren't saying 'you're wrong for wanting more transfem rep on dropout' like it's being framed. I agree that it would be good to see more transfems on dropout! That's not the issue with the discourse. My main issues with it are:

-it being framed as TME/TMA, which among other issues, essentially implies that cis men and cis women are adequate representation for transmasc and transneutral people who were afab. Their own gender doesn't need to be represented, anyone who is not 'TMA' counts as representation for 'TMEs'

-it's based on appearance and speculation about the cast members agab. We literally do not know most of these people's agab. You cannot always reliably tell what gender someone was assigned at birth. Not to mention, agab is not the be-all-end-all of what oppression you face and how you'll be perceived. Intersex people exist. You can be afab but then go through a masculinizing puberty. You can be amab and go through a femininizing puberty. Many intersex people are assigned one at birth and then discover that they are intersex later when they don't develop in the way that's expected of someone with their agab.

-Misrepresenting the data. This was entirely unnecessary and makes it hard to take the argument in good faith. If you just counted each cast member once, it would still show that there's less representation for transfems than transmascs, and it would be more accurate. But counting it by appearance, they massively inflated the numbers of 'TMEs' since Ally Beardsley alone shows up hundreds of times. That's not a sensible way to compare the data. They very clearly picked which way to present the data to make it as extreme and attention grabbing as possible, at the cost of accurately representing the data in question. And I believe intentionally representing things in a way that is less accurate just to get people to agree with you is wrong. If you have a good point, you shouldnt have to misrepresent the data to make it. And they DIDNT HAVE TO. There IS less transfem rep. The point could have been made while still being accurate, it just wouldn't have been as attention grabbing and gotten all of those outage reblogs. But if this is really about representation and not getting attention on tumblr, that shouldn't matter, right?

I also just... don't think this is an effective way to to about it? It seems like it's more about finding another way to be praised for complaining about 'TMEs' than it is about actually improving the representation. Like, if you want better representation, why not do something about it other than posting on tumblr? You could write to dropout and let them know how much trans representation means to you and that you'd love to see more transfems on their shows. I suspect a few messages like that would do a lot more good than all of this discourse. Lets be real, when has tumblr discourse EVER brought about real, meaningful change?

We did get someone to stop taking bones from a graveyard once, ten years ago.

Thank you for all of this anon, it's very well said.

[squidprinceofwinterfell]

The way that The Boys portrays sex (especially in season 4) is soooo transparently rooted in bad messaging. For such a "liberal" show, it is committed to portraying any sex acts that are considered off the beaten path (fetishes, anal, even casual sex) as something only the depraved, villainous characters would be interested in and it's a clear reflection of their morals.

The Tek Knight dungeon episode alone lampoons BDSM roleplay, tickle fetishes, and food/fart fetishes. They're all shown as either downright laughable, or GROSS and DEPRAVED sex acts that any decent person (in this case, Hughie, the audience stand-in) would be disgusted/appalled by. The poor way the show has dealt with Hughie's repeated sexual assaults this season is another post all by itself.

The villainous shifter character, who has stolen Annie's likeness and identity, brags about doing "butt stuff" with Hughie, which apparently the morally righteous, Christian Annie would never do. Compare that to the Deep, for example, who was so bored by the monogamous relationship with his wife in season 3 that he fucked an octopus. Now he has a casual sexual relationship with Sister Sage, where it's stated multiple times that they do anal. What does it say about people who enjoy anal sex if three antagonists (one of whom has sexually assaulted multiple women and partakes in beastiality) are their only representation? What's next? Are we going to learn that Hughie and Annie only have sex missionary style, in the dark, to show that they're the good guys?

The morally grey/downright bad characters are portrayed as enjoying casual sex, sometimes with multiple partners (Sage with the Deep and New Noir, Ashley with Cameron Coleman and Adam Bourke, the Deep with Sage, Coleman's wife, and his octopus lover, etc). This may not be bad by itself, but when the Boys are all in/were in/want to be in loving, committed relationships (Hughie/Annie, Frenchie/Kimiko, MM/Monique, even Butcher/Becca), it certainly implies there's something bad about casual sex if only the bad guys are doing it. Don't even get me STARTED on Herogasm.

Now, I don't think the show is doing this on purpose necessarily. I think it stems from a combination of things - The Boys has set itself up as a show that is raunchy and shocking, and therefore it must one-up itself every season no matter the cost, and it has a rather juvenile attitude that sex, especially "freaky" sex is always funny.

It's unfortunate that so many people who partake in the fetishes and sexual acts that were skewered on the show felt singled out and made fun of for something that is, frankly, not a big deal and not a reflection on their moral character at all. I hope that going forward, The Boys treats its sex scenes with more care and really considers the message it's inadvertently sending but after this season, I don't have much faith left.

[moonlightsapphic]

Look, I just need you guys to understand how important queer coming-of-age forbidden romances on internationally accessible platforms like Netflix is, especially to youth in countries where homosexuality still hasn't been legally decriminalised or socially accepted.

That was a mouthful, so let me explain. You, a white American adult with a liberal family, may not relate to a fictional anxious teen Swedish prince grappling with strict familial and societal expectations versus his first love. You may not find anything special in a bunch of queer British teens discovering themselves and figuring out complex relationships that are honestly rather simplistic, in retrospect. It might be a little too trite for you. Like, just a little vanilla without any extra drama. Perhaps corny—cringe, even. Too wholesome.

But you know what that is to me, a desi queer young adult? It's representation, in an unlikely place. My country certainly isn't making movies or shows where I see my secret relationship between me and my girlfriend portrayed. I don't see that happening in the next couple of decades, either, sadly. But you know who’s telling our stories? Alice Oseman. Lisa Ambjörn, Lars Beckung and Camilla Holter. Through fictional storylines that might seem kind of boring to you, I am finally able watch my lived experiences play out on screen.

American media has done such a disservice to queer coming-of-age stories. I want to scream this from the rooftops. Y’all, I’m glad to see more out quirky queer side-characters—I can’t get enough of them—but why is it so rarely their story, in sharp focus, about how they found themselves? I want to know how they overcame internalised homophobia. When was the moment they knew? What is the cost they have to pay for being out? For not being out?

And no, I don’t want it to be dramatic. I don’t need to see violence or betrayals or victorious kisses in public, really. I’m happiest with the teenagers behaving like real teenagers. Innocent, vulnerable, nervous. I want it to be heartfelt, and excruciatingly slow, and authentic. I want to see the small wins and the subtle losses. The quiet mental toll of how much you have to give to a queer relationship—especially your first queer relationship—and how hard that can be to separate from your Identity itself.

Give me that "am I gay?" quiz and genuinely crying at 3:00 AM because you're in a rabbit hole about LGBTQ+ rights in a country where you actually don’t want to be gay and you don’t even know if you “count” anyway. Show me that moment where you're going back and forth from forbidding yourself from seeing the one person that sees and understands you and it's to protect your mental and physical well-being but it's driving you insane. Give me ALL THE YOUNG ADULT BI+ AWAKENINGS where one person strolls into your life and changes everything. No, it’s really not the same as most cis-heterosexual insta-love movies out there, even if it looks that way to you. It doesn’t even cut it close.

The happy ending, the acceptance is only what I can dream of, not what I can expect. The wholesomeness is actually radical to me.

No, we’re not past the need for basic star-crossed queer romances. For most countries in the world (including for many white American teenagers!), we need them as much as ever.

[cripplecharacters]

Alright, I'm just gonna bite the bullet. Worst that can happen is I make a fool of myself. I've been working on superhero stories, versions of the same universe since I was in 8th grade and what I want more than anything is to modernize superheroes, create a world where they act for all people's social good and take representation to the highest level I can think of. From your position of expertise, what can I do with the creation of disabled characters that would buck the trend, do some good, and show a good side. The non-prosthetic and non-corrected for disability rep in the genre is basically nil, I have no ideas and nothing to draw on. I guess I just wanna know what disabled audiences might like to see for once in their lives.

Hello!

Disabled superheroes are awesome. There's really few of them but the ones that we do have are often really important to us - you can look at the reactions to Sun-Spider being first introduced to the Spiderverse, back then I couldn't open my fridge without seeing that one panel where she explicitly says she has Ehlers-Danlos.

Here are a few suggestions of what I'd like to see in the superhero genre:

Superheroes with facial differences. Comics love to use us for their ugly disfigured evil villains but not much else unfortunately. I'd kill for a superman type hero who saves people with a smile and a facial difference on his face. Especially for superhero stories that are geared towards kids and teens, we just desperately need something to help with shifting the public perception of people with facial differences from "evil and ugly" to "people that can be awesome". A hero with burn scars, with Treacher Collins syndrome, Bell's palsy, neurofibromatosis... anything.

Superheroes who use disability aids (and still need them when doing their job!). Sun-Spider is an awesome example, she swings from her crutches and has a spider wheelchair. That's cool as hell. But even a less in-your-face aid would be great. A superhero flying above the city with her ankle-foot orthoses visible would go really hard. Also, superheroes who are concerned on how much these things cost and try their best to make sure they're still functional while they save the city.

Heroes with different causes of their disabilities! The vast majority of morally good disabled characters were involved in An Accident or some sort of Attack that disabled them. That's not bad or wrong at all, but I think in media is kind of oversaturated with this specific portrayal when a lot of people have progressive or congenital conditions. We need more stories that show those who were born disabled as heroes equal to those who were born abled and spent most of their lives abled. Superheroes with cerebral palsy, chromosomal disorders, congenital rubella, achondroplasia, all the disabilities that tend to get ignored despite so many people having them. Same for really common chronic illnesses, diabetes or COPD are criminally underrepresented.

Disabled superheroes that aren't saints because of their disability. This is the whole "disabled person can do no wrong" trope that appears sometimes. I'm mentioning it since superheroes are more "perfect" than most characters in other genres, so try to not make it so the disabled ones can do no wrong. Disabled people can still make mistakes that are their fault, make poor decisions, or just simply be angry sometimes.

When there's no active superhero action going on, show the normal human parts of the disabled experience. Depending on the demographic you're writing for it would be different things, but there are some fairly universal concepts like inaccessibility, microaggressions, or just boring things like the prosthetic leg no longer fitting well after the character gained some weight. If your characters are from the US, don't be afraid to mention that their insulin costs are barely affordable with their superhero pay. Show how the common everyday kind of ableism affect them when they're in civilian mode. This will make it much more authentic to disabled readers.

These are my suggestions, and I hope they are helpful. My last advice is to have multiple disabled characters, and in different roles. Maybe a character with late ALS can no longer do superhero fighting, but he can still be a wonderful parent. Maybe the character with Usher syndrome is more interested in the hero than being a hero themselves (disabled heroes in relationships!). Maybe the character with phocomelia can't be a hero yet because she's six, but she can train hard to be one when she's older. Keep it varied, have them come from different life situations and have different goals just like abled characters do.

I hope this helps!

mod Sasza

[coochiequeens]

An update to an older story that’s goods news!

When Jenny Nguyen signed the lease to create her dream bar, she wasn’t sure it would stay open for more than a few months.

But earlier this month, 43-year-old Nguyen’s first-of-its-kind establishment in Portland, Oregon, celebrated its one-year anniversary. Aptly named The Sports Bra, it’s a sports bar where only women athletes appear on the TVs.

Business has been good, despite the niche business model and record inflation sending food and beverage prices soaring. The Sports Bra brought in $944,000 in revenue in the eight months it was open in 2022, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

It was profitable in that first year of business, Nguyen adds.

“It turns out, it’s pretty universal — that feeling of being a women’s sports fan and going into a public place, like a sports bar, and having a difficult time finding a place to show a [women’s] game, especially when there are other men’s sports playing,” Nguyen says.

Initially, she wasn’t sure the idea would work at all. The vast majority of money and attention historically goes to men’s sports only — a big reason why The Sports Bra was reportedly the country’s first bar to only play women’s sports on TV.

It’s also not the kind of thing Nguyen would ordinarily do: She describes herself as “very cautious, risk averse.” But her obsession with women’s sports and frustration with its lack of representation on television screens drove her to empty her life savings — about $27,000 — and give it a try.

“Me, personally, I thought the idea was brilliant and that [it was] what the world needs,” Nguyen says. “But I had no idea that the world would want it. I just wanted to give it a shot.”

How The Sports Bra went from running joke to reality

Nguyen is a lifelong basketball fan who played the sport at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, before tearing her ACL. She’s also a longtime restaurant worker who spent three years as Reed College’s executive chef.

In 2018, Nguyen and a group of friends wanted to watch the NCAA women’s basketball championship game. They went to a mostly empty sports bar and still had to plead with a bartender to switch one of the smallest TVs — which played without sound — from a men’s sport to the women’s championship game, she recalls.

Together, they jumped up and down celebrating “one of the best games I’ve ever seen,” Nguyen says, as a buzzer-beating three-point shot sealed the championship title for Notre Dame. Afterward, she was struck by the normalcy of her situation.

″[We’d] gotten so used to watching a game like that in the way that we did,” she says, adding that they’d only find better viewing conditions “if we had our own place.”

Days later, she channeled her disappointment into a hypothetical: What would she name her bar? “The very first thing that came into my mind was The Sports Bra,” Nguyen says. “And once I thought it, I couldn’t un-think it, you know? It was catchy. I thought it was hilarious.”

For years, she joked about it. Then, the fallout from social justice movements like #MeToo and the country’s racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder left her wanting to make a meaningful impact on the world and her community.

Nguyen, who came out as a lesbian at age 17, says she doesn’t always feel welcome at most traditional sports bars. The Sports Bra could help her, and anyone else who’d rarely felt accepted in other sports establishments, feel like she belonged.

“I thought about, if we can even get one kid in here and have them feel like they belong in sports, it’d be worth it,” she says.

Helping other women’s sports bars get started

At first, Nguyen had her savings, and $40,000 in loans cobbled together from friends and family. That would keep The Sports Bra afloat for three months, based on her cost estimates for labor, inventory and other overhead.

In February 2022, she launched a Kickstarter to raise $48,000 — enough money for an extra six-month financial cushion, to build up the sort of regular clientele any bar or restaurant needs to survive long-term.

To Nguyen’s surprise, the campaign raised more than $105,000 in just 30 days, thanks to a viral article in online food publication Eater. “At that moment, when I was looking at that Kickstarter graph, I thought to myself, ‘This might work,’” she says.

But the money, which came from around the country and world, was no guarantee of success. Actual people in Portland still needed to frequent the bar.

Today, there’s often a line out the door. Women’s basketball icons like Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi showed up, for an event sponsored by Buick, earlier this month. Ginny Gilder, co-owner of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, has even waited in line to watch her team play on The Sports Bra’s TVs, Nguyen says.

That’s a far cry from the Kickstarter days, which Nguyen says only happened after she was denied business loans by multiple banks and small business associations. The denials commonly cited the high risk of a unique concept run by a first-time entrepreneur during a pandemic, she adds.

Even the bar’s core concept is a struggle: It’s hard to find enough women’s sporting events to fill up the televisions. Only about 5% of all TV sports coverage focuses on female athletes, according to a 2021 University of Southern California study.

Nguyen says she’s taken to reaching out directly to sports networks and streaming services, some of which have hooked her up with access to more women’s sports content. She also spends an inordinate amount of time “scouring” TV listings, a process she likens to “taking a machete and chopping through a jungle.”

But she’s no longer alone. Another bar specializing in women’s sports has opened in nearby Seattle, and Nguyen says she’s in touch with a handful of other prospective entrepreneurs asking her for advice on opening similar visions in other cities.

“I would love to have as many people experience the feeling people experience when they walk through these doors,” she says. “It feels very selfish to keep it to this one building that holds 40 people at a time.”

[princess-unipeg]

Having watched Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld as soon as it dropped, I can definitely say it lives up to the hype and Netflix should renew it for more seasons. It does feel weird that this dropped during Christmas season and not earlier like around Halloween. This show just vibes more with the spookier season.

JCVSTU definitely surprised me. I mean they killed off Jentry’s great aunt Flora AKA “Gugu” in the very first episode and in the following episode they buried her body in the backyard which makes me wonder if they are even zoned for that.

It was very interesting in how they went about the “isolated and ostracized” main character route by showing how at first Jentry was accepted very quickly by the rest of her peers only to be rejected following the revelation with her role in the town fire that ruined many lives. The vice principal really had it in for her but as soon as other demons came in he quickly turned a 180 and was begging her for protection. Overall they eventually accepted Jentry again. The whole “saving everyone from demons” probably helped eased their opinions on her.

I was also caught off guard that Kit, the cute boy that was presented in the trailer as a love interest, was actually a demon. A Painted Skin which is a creature from Chinese mythology and this was the first time we see it in western animation. The way he died so that he could redeem himself makes me wonder if the opening credits was foreshadowing his reincarnation which would grant him the soul he always wanted.

I really adore the rest of the characters. Especially Jentry’s friends from Korea. It’s a shame that we didn’t get to see more of them. I mean they knew about Jentry’s powers and they accepted her anyway.

That isn’t to say that Stella and Michael aren’t great. They are also amazing for not only forgiving Jentry for the town fire years past but also for fighting by her side when demons started attacking.

I also like what they did with Stella. She’s really sweet even though she was introduced as a love rival which didn’t go anywhere thankfully. She decided on her own to dump Michael since he wasn’t fully sure about their future together. Stella doesn’t blame Jentry for the break up and was very accepting of her even following the revelation that she started the town fire all those years ago. She was a fully realized character which helped the LGBTQAII+ representation she demonstrated at the season finale episode.

Michael Ole was also interesting. As in I actually didn’t expect him to be the childhood friend/love interest. The rise of LGBTQAII+ representation in western animation made me think he was in love with Kit not Jentry. I’m not fully 100% invested in him as a love interest yet. At the end of the season I’m not sure where he and Jentry are relationship wise and I hope more episodes would remedy that.

At the very least I’m invested in Michael character wise. I mean he had future visions which had nothing to do with Jentry and his parents seem to know more than they let on. They should really explore this in season 2.

I enjoyed the decision to have Jentry go back to Korea with her mother. It was when she was at her most happiest after the fire incident. She had friends who accepted her and she thrived. Plus with her portal making abilities she can come and go to Texas as she pleases and keep in constant contact with Michael and Stella. After everything she went through because of those powers, it was nice that she was finally benefiting from them. Really helped saved a fortune in international moving costs.

I’m craving more from this show and Netflix should deliver if it knows what good business is.

[pickypickypeak]

So I FINALLY got the art of wish book which is so so good and? I’m honestly a little surprised that the only things that got leaked online were the starboy and evil amaya concepts when it’s literally filled with gems? Here’s a few but first let me tell you, the art alone makes it worth it. It’s amazing

THE HAMLET! LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE HAMLET!! Apparently in an early draft Asha and her community had left Rosas and started living hidden in the forest so their wishes could be safe from Magnifico. This hidden place was called “The Hamlet” and it still exists in the final movie, though it’s just a part of Rosas and doesn’t have the original lore. I really hope this trope gets reused for a future Disney movie because it’s a really cool concept!

Live action Valentino??

Some Sakina dump because I love her (also meet Tomás)

Oh and you know the wishing tree in the movie? It’s based on Walt Disney’s own actual wishing tree?? Wtf???

Also there’s a whole 2 pages about Dahlia explaining how much effort and care were put into her creation as a character with a disability. They actually had consultants making sure that ANY form of representation felt authentic and positive. They did not just made the cast multi-ethnic, they actually did their research so that any culture was well portrayed, all the way to the littlest details like textures on their clothing or even each character’s way of greeting.

And about the animation not being fully 2D… Haters conveniently forget mentioning that the movie is expressly made to celebrate both the past AND future of WDAS. Then like it or not, but you can’t possibly celebrate all of Disney without CGI animation. CGI is also Disney. Tangled and Frozen and Moana became instant Disney classics. I would die for a traditional animated movie, but when you put it this way, it makes perfect sense to me that they went with hybrid style for this movie specifically. It just feels right.

Also going through these pages… you just feel the love the producers and animators put in every single reference to older classics. Animation techniques were literally inspired by actual frames from Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. So were coloring techniques, lighting, cinematography… There was a breathing effort of paying homages to these movies with tremendous talent in them, while also creating something new. So hate on this movie as much as you want, but mind you calling it “AI-made”. It’s not. It’s made by humans.

Oh, and finally, Starboy. Well, yeah, I fell for it. People literally made it all up. There’s zero indication that he was gonna be Asha’s love interest, let alone be the one singing At All Costs instead of Magnifico. From what the book says (there’s literally two short paragraphs about him, before Star comes in) I think they didn’t even have a plot then, they were just exploring ideas and made some brainstorming sketches deciding how Star could have been. Same with evil Amaya! That one pic that leaked of her with Magnifico is all we got. There’s no indication that it was gonna be “a better movie” because there is no plot for that lol