#AI-based contact centers

[precallai]

How AI-Based Contact Centers Are Transforming Healthcare Support

Introduction

In recent years, the healthcare industry has undergone a technological revolution, and one of the most transformative innovations is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into contact centers. AI-based contact centers are redefining how healthcare organizations interact with patients, manage inquiries, and deliver timely support. These advanced systems offer a powerful combination of automation, data-driven insights, and personalized communication that can significantly enhance patient experiences and operational efficiency.

The Need for Smarter Healthcare Support

Healthcare is a complex and sensitive industry where timely and accurate information can be a matter of life and death. Traditional contact centers, which rely heavily on human agents, often struggle to keep up with increasing patient volumes, regulatory complexities, and the need for 24/7 support. Long wait times, inconsistent service, and data management issues have plagued these systems for years.

With growing patient expectations and the increasing demand for telehealth and remote care services, the need for smarter, more efficient support systems is more pressing than ever. Enter AI-powered contact centers.

What Are AI-Based Contact Centers?

AI-based contact centers leverage technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), voice recognition, and predictive analytics to automate and enhance customer interactions. These systems can understand, interpret, and respond to voice or text-based communications in real time.

Key components of AI-based contact centers include:

AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants for first-level support

Voice recognition and speech analytics for real-time call routing and analysis

Predictive analytics for understanding patient behavior and anticipating needs

Intelligent routing systems that connect patients with the most appropriate resource

Automation tools for appointment scheduling, billing inquiries, and follow-ups

Benefits of AI Contact Centers in Healthcare

1. Improved Patient Access and Experience

AI-based contact centers provide 24/7 access to information, helping patients get answers to their questions at any time—without needing to wait for business hours or a human representative. Virtual agents can handle common inquiries like clinic hours, prescription refills, and appointment scheduling, allowing human agents to focus on more complex or sensitive issues.

For example, a patient can interact with a virtual assistant to reschedule an appointment or request lab results, improving the overall experience and reducing frustration.

2. Reduced Wait Times and Operational Efficiency

One of the most noticeable impacts of AI in healthcare contact centers is the dramatic reduction in wait times. Automated systems can simultaneously handle thousands of interactions, eliminating bottlenecks. This scalability is particularly important during public health emergencies, seasonal flu outbreaks, or vaccine rollouts when call volumes surge.

AI also streamlines internal workflows by automating routine tasks, reducing the burden on healthcare staff and allowing them to focus on patient care.

3. Personalized Patient Engagement

AI systems can analyze a patient’s previous interactions, medical history, and preferences to deliver personalized support. Whether it’s reminding a diabetic patient to check their blood sugar or notifying a patient about a needed screening, AI enables proactive outreach based on individual health profiles.

Such personalized engagement improves patient adherence to treatment plans and fosters a stronger relationship between patients and healthcare providers.

4. Enhanced Data Management and Compliance

Managing patient data securely and in compliance with regulations like HIPAA is a major challenge in healthcare. AI-based systems are designed to handle data with high accuracy and security. They can automatically log interactions, detect anomalies, and ensure that sensitive information is stored and transmitted safely.

Additionally, AI can help monitor calls and messages for compliance breaches, flagging any potential risks for review and helping organizations maintain regulatory standards.

5. Better Resource Allocation

AI contact centers can intelligently route calls and messages based on urgency, subject matter, and patient history. For instance, a patient calling about chest pain can be prioritized over someone calling for a routine appointment. This ensures that critical issues are addressed quickly while reducing the workload on clinical staff.

Moreover, analytics generated by AI tools help administrators identify peak call times, common issues, and areas for improvement, allowing for better planning and resource deployment.

Real-World Applications

Several healthcare providers and organizations have already implemented AI-powered contact centers with impressive results:

Cleveland Clinic uses AI to streamline appointment scheduling and answer general health questions through virtual assistants, significantly reducing call center volume.

Kaiser Permanente has incorporated AI chatbots into their patient portals to assist with FAQs, prescription management, and test results, freeing up human agents for more nuanced care coordination.

UK’s National Health Service (NHS) piloted AI tools to manage COVID-19-related inquiries, which played a critical role in triaging patient needs and distributing information during the pandemic.

Challenges and Considerations

While AI-based contact centers offer significant benefits, they also come with challenges:

Privacy and Security: Protecting patient data is paramount. AI systems must comply with strict healthcare regulations and implement robust cybersecurity measures.

Accuracy and Reliability: AI tools must be trained on diverse and representative data sets to avoid errors, miscommunication, or bias.

Human Touch: Not all patient interactions can or should be handled by machines. Ensuring a seamless hand-off from AI to human agents is crucial for maintaining trust and empathy in care delivery.

Cost and Implementation: While long-term cost savings are significant, the upfront investment in AI infrastructure can be substantial, particularly for smaller healthcare providers.

The Future of AI in Healthcare Support

As AI technologies continue to advance, the future of AI-based contact centers in healthcare looks promising. Integration with electronic health records (EHRs), wearable devices, and remote monitoring systems will enable even deeper personalization and automation.

Voice-enabled AI assistants may soon conduct basic triage, schedule follow-ups, or assist clinicians in documenting patient visits. Predictive analytics will become increasingly sophisticated, allowing providers to proactively intervene before a patient’s condition worsens.

Moreover, AI’s role in multilingual support and accessibility for people with disabilities could make healthcare more inclusive and equitable.

Conclusion

AI-based contact centers are not just a technological upgrade—they represent a fundamental shift in how healthcare organizations interact with patients. By improving access, efficiency, personalization, and compliance, these systems have the potential to dramatically enhance both patient outcomes and healthcare delivery.

As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve, organizations that embrace AI-powered communication will be better positioned to meet rising patient expectations and navigate the challenges of modern care. The future of healthcare support is not just smarter—it’s more human, more responsive, and more connected than ever before.

[talonabraxas]

“This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It’s like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everything. When you tune in to that flow, you will feel it in your own heart—not your physical heart or your emotional heart, but your spiritual heart, the place you point to in your chest when you say, “I am.” ― Ram Dass

Solar Logos Talon Abraxas The Solar Logos is inherently the Avatar Christos Matrix, which is the fourth triad of intelligence that holds the higher frequency bands of the 10th, 11th and 12th dimensions in our Universal Time Matrix. The triadic identity of the Avatar Matrix is required to link into the Soul Matrix in order to directly ascend back into the Universal Mind and Cosmic Logos. This level of consciousness embodiment is now possible from within any section of the time matrix. The Avatar Christos is the energetic reality of experiencing Unity with God, embodying the Unity Logos as an intelligent consciousness field, where enlightened extra-dimensional contact begins for working in Universal Service for the Cosmic Sovereign Law of One. Tri-Matrix of Maharata Solar Logos Mind

The complete tri-matrix identity of the 10D-11D-12D Avatar layers merge into the three levels of frequency of the Universal Christos field, which make up the Krystic Mind, the Buddhic Mind and the Nirvanic Mind. This unified trinity mind matrix is the blueprint record for the Christos Tribal Shield, and is how the entire human race can connect their inner Christos with the Maharata Christos Tribal Shield. To activate the diamond sun template of the human race, the quickest method is through the activation of the Christos Tribal Shield recorded in the Albion that holds the entire human race divine Christos blueprint, which represents the natural order of each consciousness body as it manifested identities throughout the timelines. Universal Gates

The most powerful Universal Gates in our system which relate to controlling the operational functions in our time matrix are those located in the Cradle of Lyra; 12D Aramatena, 11D Aveyon, and 10D Vega, along with the 8D Orion Gates. The Lyran gates were destroyed during the Lyran Wars, which destroyed the architecture for the Solar Logos Christ Body in this Universal system, and then the Black Hole Entities went to Orion in order to secure the 8D Metagalactic Core as a military base and AI command control center for themselves. Fourth Harmonic Universe

For human beings, these consciousness bodies exist throughout the densities and are aspects of the higher self and Lightbody. These aspects are called the Stations of Identity. The fourth Harmonic Universe is the Solar Logos.In the Fourth Harmonic Universe in 10D-11D-12D exists the three layers of the Christos Avatar Matrix. The 11D Layer is the Buddhic Body. In the Fourth Harmonic Universe in 10D-11D-12D the future earth blueprint in its crystalline form in the exists the three layers of the Aramatena or Aurora Earth Matrix.

Galactic Wars

With the onset of the Galactic Wars, there was utter destruction of the Solar Stargate architecture that formed the triadic identity of the Solar Logos, which is the highest emanation of the Source system that powers the eternal Soul and Spirit throughout the lower dimensions. This is similar to saying the eternal Soul of the Sun was disconnected from its lower dimensional Soul matrices, which were evolving in the lowest density of the phantom areas with artificial timelines being used by the NAA. Further, these lunar forces were abusing alien technology and broadcasting Mind Control programing in order to gain full control over the Earth. Without the Solar Logos, the Sun and its many Soul matrices would eventually expire and not fully ascend into the next Universe. The Solar Logos has the Source power to resurrect Solar Consciousness forms by rebirthing Soul matrices from within the Diamond Sun template of the Cosmic Christos Consciousness. Without the Solar Logos, and with the utter destruction of the Diamond Sun template, the Souls would continue to descend and fragment. Conflict to Control Solar Christ DNA

When the Cradle of Lyra was destroyed in the Lyran Wars with the invading Orion Groups, this caused the destruction of the Solar Logos, the Cosmic Christos, the Avatar Matrix level of consciousness in our Universe. These Galactic Wars damaged the Universal portals exiting out of this time matrix, and destroyed the Lyran DNA which was the original embodiment of the Silicate Matrix, the Diamond Sun DNA that enabled the capacity to live as an eternal Krystal Avatar human being. Universal 12th Gate Destruction, Fall of Nibiru and Tiamat

The Lyran War timeline holds the cellular memory of the collective shadow bodies and all of the fragmentation and disintegration that occurred during the destruction of the 12th Lyran Universal Stargate. As a result of the destruction of the 12D Universal Stargate, the planets Nibiru and Tiamat were partially exploded and then captured and forced into inorganic orbits around the Sun, which removed them from their Capstone Nodus position in the Universal Tree of Life or Kathara Grid.

Nibiru and Tiamat’s planetary crystal core were connected to the twinned suns of the Universal Elaysa-Melchizedek Logos, through the Cradle of Lyra in the triple stars of Aramatena, Aveyon and Vega, which were universal gates that led out of the time matrix. The Universal 12th Gate of Aramatena was once the 12D capstone for pre-fall Nibiru which held the Nirvanic mind frequency bands of the Solar Logos. When Aramatena was destroyed, it allowed for the easy capture of Nibiru which became outfitted by the invaders as a Battlestar.

Many of the Founders with organic Emerald Sun DNA body parts that functioned as Capstones for supporting the lower dimensions, which included the sapphire architecture of the 10th gate Holy Mother as the Tiamat Logos, were made vulnerable for attack and capture with the blueprint schematics being uploaded into AI technology and being in enemy hands. Covenant of Paliador

In their infinite love for creation the original Diamond Sun races, the Paliadorians, established the Covenant of Paliador millions of years ago to reclaim the fragmented Souls as a result of the Taran Explosion. The Covenant of Paliador encompasses a massive scope of locating lost souls, transiting consciousness, collecting and recovering Soul fragments that need bodies, routing attachments and consciousness units that need to be recovered, in order to return them to the possibility of continuing evolution through the Cosmic Time Matrix. The Paliadorians hold the access into the Universal Stargates and the many internal portal structures that exist inside every planet in our Solar System. These portals, such as the Trinity Gates, will serve as the transit gate exit for many of the Soul groups that will move through them for their continued evolution and learning in the next planetary schema. In order to heal the Soul groups that suffered fragmentation and digressed into the phantom realms, it would be necessary to completely rebuild the Diamond Sun architecture for the Solar Logos in our Universal Time Matrix. Solar Stargate Damage

The damage incurred to the Solar Stargate system and Sun Disc Network disconnected the Avatar Christ Matrix spiritual-communication links inside the planetary Core Manifestation Template, plummeting the Earth into the darkest age. This damage to the core template and its subsequent disconnection from the Solar Logos generated a Closed System of finite energy supply that prevented planetary ascension and terminated communication with the extradimensional Diamond Sun families. The NAA groups took advantage of the closed system and the fragmented Souls of Tara as they were reseeded back into the Earth timelines to reclaim their lost Soul parts. As a result of the planetary grid damage, they had lost their Soul memories and many were recycled repeatedly into the lower dimensional bands of the 3D earth timelines, unable to heal their Soul Matrix, evolve or ascend as their consciousness body was stuck in time. Aton Solar Disk

The Aton Solar Disk becomes an embodied shield in the ascending Starseeded and human Lightbody, into the solar sacrum and RA Center of the Krystallah Double Diamond Sun DNA Template during the Ascension Cycle as part of the restoration of the Solar Sacrum in the gender center. This disk when activated into the 10-11-12D Solar Logos base shield, underneath the feet on the horizontals, aligns with the 10D Solar Star above the head, which continues to repattern into the higher crown center. As this is restored through the personal Lightbody of an ascending male or female, the crown is shifted into the organic North star, which is leading home back into the God Worlds. Avala Constellation, Nine Holy Stars

The Avala Constellation is a 9 Sun-Star Constellation, accessed behind the Pegasus constellation in Lyra. From the Great Square of Pegasus, move slightly northeast to locate Vega and the Lyra (Constellation). Avala was connected by the Albion Lightbody during the Cosmic Energy Cycle openings during December of 2022, as the Elaysa-Melchizedek Twinned Suns appeared to highlight the parallel Ecousha Matrix, where the 22D, 23D and 24D three fold Sapphire-Ruby-Emerald Crystal Diamond Eye of God was revealed. As these Solar Reisha-Rishi founders were accessing these layers from the 24D Elaysian and 24D Melchizedek Reconnections to that eye of god, they ventured upon King Arthur's Star Body which appeared as Earth's Body inside the Solar Logos, feeling to be in the Parallels of Ecousha Matrix matters in the Universal Time Matrix parallels. This appeared to reveal guardian host founders to see or feel the Avala Star Constellation and to have that access from the merging and hierogamic union of the Elaysa-Melchizedek Suns happening at that time.

[snowwhite-andtheknight]

Obiyuki AU Bingo: June & July Community Boards

Both our community boards are live! June's board is currently posting Now through 6/30, and posting for July's board will start posting on 7/1-- which is also when the center square will be revealed, as the winner of our optional PvP challenge in June will be picking the AU used in that space!

Reminder: the PvP challenge can be joined at any time, and your previously filled squares will be added to your point count! Also, if you would like to keep up to date with where the boards are at-- or just hang out with other obiyuki fandom members-- you can come join our Obiyuki Discord!

Post Dates: June: Jun 1st- 30th July: Jul 1st - Jul 31st Tag: #obiyukibingo25 Medias: Fic, art, edits or playlists

[PLEASE READ ALL GUIDELINES BEFORE POSTING YOUR WORKS]

Guidelines:

All work must be your own (eg. no plagiarizing other sources, tracing, pose stealing, AI art/writing etc)

The main pairing is Obi x Shirayuki

Fics, art, edits, and playlists are all valid works for this challenge

(If you create other forms of works please contact the comm and we will be happy to work out eligibility)

Must follow the AU prompt

Must be tagged #obiyukibingo25 within the first five tags

With Tumblr’s tagging system on the fritz, please also @ the Obiyuki comm in your entry

No works entered through the submission box will be accepted for this challenge

Works must be posted to Tumblr to be eligible as fills! The post may redirect elsewhere (AO3, ffnet, deviant art, youtube, etc) but we need a Tumblr post to reblog our progress on the board!

Please label with your AU!

All NSFW content must be tagged and under a Read More!

You may post more than one entry per prompt, but it will only count for that square

If someone else fills a square, you are still welcome to submit a fill for that prompt– it won’t count towards a further bingo, but it will count toward your personal stats!

One entry, no matter how many AUs it is applicable for, may only count as one square

Fics must be over 500 words to count as a fill

Art does not have to be a full colored finished piece, but at least a finished sketch

Playlists must be over 8 songs.

Be nice

Play hard

Can I base my work off of other fanworks? (aka, make fanart of a fanfic, write fanfic based on fanart, make an edit of a fanfic or write a fanfic for a playlist, etc)

This is absolutely welcome! If your medium is the same (making a fanfic of a fanfic, or fanart inspired by fanart), please check with the creator of the original fanwork, but otherwise just credit the work that inspired you.

What works are considered valid entries?

Fic, art, edits & playlists. Please note, we are looking for transformative works; please do not simply palette swap characters from the AU source, or find & replace names in their plot. Reimagine what an AU would look like with AnS character in it!

[lostintransist]

In And Of Itself | Part 3

Inking Me Into The Spaces You've Yet To Fill

Part 1 | AO3 And a special shout out to @ms-sasa for this special story!

Dr. Van Pelt, who insisted Simon call her Lucy, had been surprised by the heaviness of the memories tackled in the mental session. They broke it down, naming feelings, and sensations and going over the advice you had given him. Lucy educated him on how PTSD functions in the body and gave him an understanding of what happened in his internal session. It was the reason that his appointments with her were scheduled soon after the AI scrambling his neurons. In Lucy’s words, ‘it’s better to get it all labeled as it comes out of the closet than trying to figure out what it is later.’

“I’m surprised Simon. A man like you is slow to trust,” Lucy commented as she made a note on her electronic table.

He let out a grunt, feet spread wide and arms folded across his chest.

“Don’t trust it, but,” Simon bent forward and plucked a pain fidget from the basket at his feet. “It’s easier.”

“Easier how?” Lucy shifted in her seat, tucking a blanket across her lap.

Simon folded his arms, the small cylinder, and bumped points nipping at his palm, as he contemplated how to put the words in place.

“I didn’t have to decide what we started with.”

“To make sure I’m understanding right, you liked not having to choose what you worked through?” Lucy is watching him as he nods once. She starts writing.

Staring at his tattoo sleeve he wondered where he could incorporate Johnny, sliding him between the guns and the skulls didn’t feel right. Simon toed his way back from that thought, knowing the pain of that loss would cripple him again if he breathed too near it. Though, Johnny would love being inked into his skin. A memory surfaced.

Simon had sat on the center seat of the couch, quietly being consumed by wonder and the tickling of happiness. Johnny had just agreed to move in. The flush of the toilet did nothing to pull him from the rip current thoughts that pulled him from the shore of his body. The life vest settled on him with the weight of his lover’s body.

The seat of Johnny’s jeans sat firmly against the button of Simon’s. He looked up into the face he loved so much it made his heart ache.

“With me?” The words from his mouth tasted of Scotland.

“Yeah, I’m with you Johnny.”

“Ye lookin’ like ya love me, Si.”

“I do,” Simon let his eyes shift over his lover’s face, “If I could crack my chest open and tuck you behind my heart I would do it without thinkin’.”

Johnny’s hand drifted up Simon’s left arm, shifting the sleeve of his shirt out of the way. He pressed a kiss to the top of the tattoo that curled over the edge of the shoulder.

“Could keep me in your flesh, inking me into the spaces you’ve yet to fill.”

Simon’s fingers settled into the base of the mohawk, directing Johnny’s kisses to his lips instead.

Lucy said his name, ripping him from the memory.

“How is life going outside of work? You mentioned that you are base duty until you’re a bit further along in this process.”

“Nothing happens.”

“No one smiles at you at the grocery store? Do you do anything for fun?” Lucy is watching him again, looking for his body to respond even if he doesn’t.

“I order my groceries. I read a bit, haunting the library nearest me for new titles. Don’t talk to anyone outside of work,” Simon squeezed hard on the fidget still in his hand.

The spikes held firm against his grip, centering him with the firing of his nerves.

“Now, I know you’re going to hate this but you’re a good soldier and good at following orders.” Lucy tucked her stylus into the case of her tablet case, “Join a club, hire someone to teach you a new skill, something. You need regular contact with people who aren’t related to work. I know your paranoid anxieties will make this a challenge, so your homework is to identify an activity you are okay doing and report back.”

Simon focused on breathing as he kept his teeth from clenching. He had broken a molar last year due to the bad habit. The base dentist had been able to remove it and connected him to an oral surgeon to get a fake tooth installed but Simon hadn’t followed up after the harrowing experience of getting a post drilled into his jaw. He should probably go back and get that tooth installed.

“Any activity?” He forced air in and out of his nose to keep from getting lightheaded.

Lucy’s eyes narrowed as she tilted her head in a ‘you better be fucking with me’ way.

Simon sighed through his nose, “Fine.”

He knew what she meant and knew there would be more homework if he tried to sidestep the order by joining a gun club or something familiar.

“Good,” Lucy stands, setting down her blanket and tablet and walking him to the door. She hardly comes up to his elbow but Simon is sure that this woman could do some serious damage to him if she ever felt so inclined. “Same time next week?”

“Can’t keep my job if I miss it,” he shrugged one shoulder.

Lucy snorted, “Have a good week, Simon.”

He liked his therapist. She did good work and handed him tools instead of asking ‘And how does that make you feel’ until the collective sounds made less sense than the braying of an ass.

You had been right. Simon woke and every speck of him ached. He reacted more quickly to innocuous comments and needed to take more breaks from, well, everything. It took five days for his body to settle into the normal of not holding onto the guilt he expunged in the last session. The sand of guilt no longer filled the space in his head, all the bits that were left rattled around like coins in a mason jar. It sounded like change.

In and Of Itself Masterlist | Masterlist | AO3 | Taglist

[destiel-gift-exchange]

Welcome to the 2024 Destiel Gift Exchange!

This is a 3-round gift exchange, with the first round being art only, the second round being fics only, and the third being a mix of both! The match-ups are randomly generated, and there are 2 check-ins in each round before the final deadline.

Discord

Sign-up form

The schedule and rules are below the cut

Schedule

Art Exchange

Fic Exchange

Entry form opens - July 11th

Entry form closes - July 28th

Artist match-ups go out - August 2nd

1st check-in (sketch completed) - August 16th

2nd check-in (partial coloring completed) - August 30th

Final art due - September 13th

Mixed Exchange (both art and fics)

Entry form opens - July 11th

Entry form closes - September 8th

Match-ups go out - September 13th

1st check-in (40% written) - September 27th

2nd check-in (80% written) - October 11th

Final fic due - October 25th

Rules

Entry form opens - July 11th

Entry form closes - November 10th

Match-ups go out - November 15th

1st check-in (40% written/sketch completed) - November 29th

2nd check-in (80% written/partial coloring completed) - December 13th

Final fic/art due - December 27th

General

All characters depicted in sexual situations must be over the age of 18, and all partners being sent explicit fics/art must be over 18 as well. All explicit art progress updates must be posted in ⁠#nsfw-progress-updates in the discord and all explicit fic snippets must be posted in ⁠#nsfw-snippets

All fics/art must center around Destiel. Crossovers and other ships are allowed, but Destiel must be the focus of the fic/art.

You may participate as any combination of writer, artist, and/or beta and in as many of the rounds as you want to. However, please keep in mind your own limits and do not sign up for more than you can reasonably and assuredly commit to.

Treat other event participants and the mod team with kindness and courtesy. Respect others’ boundaries, ideas, interpretations, and preferences.

Be in regular contact with your partner. Let them know if you’re going to be offline for a significant period of time. If you’re having issues getting in touch with your partner, please contact one of the mods.

All fics/art must not be previously posted in any form, but you can use your non-posted WIPs or ideas. Sequels or spin-offs of existing fics are allowed.

Let both the moderators and your partner know ahead of time if you can’t make one of the check-ins or the final deadline.

DO NOT USE AI

Fics should be posted to ao3, added to the event collection, and marked as a gift to your partner if they have an ao3 account. If they don't, put their tumblr in the description. Art should be posted to tumblr, tag the event tumblr, and tag your partner's tumblr

Writers

The minimum word count required for a fic is 1,500

The amount of progress required for check-ins is determined by the total estimated length of your fic, not the minimum word count. For example, if you expect your fic to be around 50,000 words you should have 20,000 written by the 40% check-in.

Having a beta reader is not required, but if you don’t have a beta but you want one, make a post in #⁠find-a-beta in the discord with your estimated word count, fic rating, and what you want the beta to do.

Artists

Artists will create at least one piece of art for their partner. You can create more if you have finished one and have enough time to complete a second piece.

All visual art forms are welcome, whether digital or traditional, 2-d or 3-d, video or image. Photo based art must be more than a filter application, text overlay, or a collage to be accepted: the photos must be significantly altered in order to create a unique image.

Art should be at least 500px wide. There is no max size, but be mindful of final file sizes.

[zkbigbang]

ZKBB 2024 Basic Guidelines

What is a Big Bang?

A Big Bang is a collaborative event where writers are paired with artists and beta readers to write and edit a long fic with accompanying fanart within a specific period of time. In a traditional Big Bang, writers come up with their own story idea, and artists and betas bid for places on writers’ teams based on the story ideas submitted.

What are the story requirements for this Big Bang?

All stories should be centered around Zuko and Katara and their relationship.

Oneshots should meet a minimum word count of 6,000 words when completed, and multichapters should meet a minimum word count of 10,000 words before the end of the event.

Stories must be rated G or T on AO3

Big Bang fics must be new, standalone works. No continuations of existing series or published WIPs are allowed.

Story ideas should be secret before the start of the event to allow for fair, anonymous project bidding.

What are the roles and expectations for this Big Bang?

Writers will be expected to come up with their own story ideas, meet word count checkpoints throughout the event, share their progress with their team, and communicate with their team and the mods as needed.

Artists will be expected to create at least one finished piece of art for their project(s). Any type of art is welcome. Artists will be asked to meet several checkpoints throughout the event, and should share their progress with their teams as the event continues.

Betas will be expected to work closely with the writer and provide advice and feedback as the story is written. All beta readers should be able to provide SPaG feedback, and may be asked to provide additional support with plot and other creative decisions.

Other information

All participants are required to be active in our event Discord server. Work space within the event server will be provided for every team, and separate servers for individual projects are not allowed.

Members who are inactive for three consecutive weeks may be dropped from their project(s) or the event as a whole.

Members who miss formal check-ins (see our event schedule for dates) or fall behind on their progress will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Members are welcome to announce their participation in the Big Bang, but should not discuss specifics about their project(s) publicly until after posting begins (or for writers, after the reveal date).

Use of any AI text or image generators is not welcome in the Big Bang.

Additional role-specific information will be posted over the next few days! Feel free to contact us with any questions.

[mariacallous]

On paper, the first candidate looked perfect. Thomas was from rural Tennessee and had studied computer science at the University of Missouri. His résumé said he’d been a professional programmer for eight years, and he’d breezed through a preliminary coding test. All of this was excellent news for Thomas’ prospective boss, Simon Wijckmans, founder of the web security startup C.Side. The 27-year-old Belgian was based in London but was looking for ambitious, fully remote coders.

Thomas had an Anglo-Saxon surname, so Wijckmans was surprised when he clicked into his Google Meet and found himself speaking with a heavily accented young man of Asian origin. Thomas had set a generic image of an office as his background. His internet connection was laggy—odd for a professional coder—and his end of the call was noisy. To Wijckmans, Thomas sounded like he was sitting in a large, crowded space, maybe a dorm or a call center.

Wijckmans fired off his interview questions, and Thomas’ responses were solid enough. But Wijckmans noticed that Thomas seemed most interested in asking about his salary. He didn’t come across as curious about the actual work or about how the company operated or even about benefits like startup stock or health coverage. Odd, thought Wijckmans. The conversation came to a close, and he got ready for the next interview in his queue.

Once again, the applicant said they were based in the US, had an Anglo name, and appeared to be a young Asian man with a thick, non-American accent. He used a basic virtual background, was on a terrible internet connection, and had a single-minded focus on salary. This candidate, though, was wearing glasses. In the lenses, Wijckmans spotted the reflection of multiple screens, and he could make out a white chatbox with messages scrolling by. “He was clearly either chatting with somebody or on some AI tool,” Wijckmans remembers.

On high alert, Wijckmans grabbed screenshots and took notes. After the call ended, he went back over the job applications. He found that his company’s listings were being flooded with applicants just like these: an opening for a full-stack developer got more than 500 applications in a day, far more than usual. And when he looked more deeply into the applicants’ coding tests, he saw that many candidates appeared to have used a virtual private network, or VPN, which allows you to mask your computer’s true location.

Wijckmans didn’t know it yet, but he’d stumbled onto the edges of an audacious, global cybercrime operation. He’d unwittingly made contact with an army of seemingly unassuming IT workers, deployed to work remotely for American and European companies under false identities, all to bankroll the government of North Korea.

With a little help from some friends on the ground, of course.

christina chapman was living in a trailer in Brook Park, Minnesota, a hamlet north of Minneapolis, when she got a note from a recruiter that changed her life. A bubbly 44-year-old with curly red hair and glasses, she loved her dogs and her mom and posting social justice content on TikTok. In her spare time she listened to K-pop, enjoyed Renaissance fairs, and got into cosplay. Chapman was also, according to her sparse online résumé, learning to code online.

It was March 2020 when she clicked on the message in her LinkedIn account. A foreign company was looking for somebody to “be the US face” of the business. The company needed help finding remote employment for overseas workers. Chapman signed on. It’s unclear how fast her workload grew, but by October 2022 she could afford a move from chilly Minnesota to a low-slung, four-bedroom house in Litchfield Park, Arizona. It wasn’t fancy—a suburban corner lot with a few thin trees—but it was a big upgrade over the trailer.

Chapman then started documenting more of her life on TikTok and YouTube, mostly talking about her diet, fitness, or mental health. In one chatty video, shared in June 2023, she described grabbing breakfast on the go—an açaí bowl and a smoothie— because work was so busy. “My clients are going crazy!” she complained. In the background, the camera caught a glimpse of metal racks holding at least a dozen open laptops covered in sticky notes. A few months later, federal investigators raided Chapman’s home, seized the laptops, and eventually filed charges alleging that she had spent three years aiding the “illicit revenue generation efforts” of the government of North Korea.

For maybe a decade, North Korean intelligence services have been training young IT workers and sending them abroad in teams, often to China or Russia. From these bases, they scour the web for job listings all over, usually in software engineering, and usually with Western companies. They favor roles that are fully remote, with solid wages, good access to data and systems, and few responsibilities. Over time they began applying for these jobs using stolen or fake identities and relying on members of their criminal teams to provide fictional references; some have even started using AI to pass coding tests, video interviews, and background checks.

But if an applicant lands a job offer, the syndicate needs somebody on the ground in the country the applicant claims to live in. A fake employee, after all, can’t use the addresses or bank accounts linked to their stolen IDs, and they can’t dial in to a company’s networks from overseas without instantly triggering suspicion. That’s where someone like Christina Chapman comes in.

As the “facilitator” for hundreds of North Korea–linked jobs, Chapman signed fraudulent documents and handled some of the fake workers’ salaries. She would often receive their paychecks in one of her bank accounts, take a cut, and wire the rest overseas: Federal prosecutors say Chapman was promised as much as 30 percent of the money that passed through her hands.

Her most important job, though, was tending the “laptop farm.” After being hired, a fake worker will typically ask for their company computer to be sent to a different address than the one on record—usually with some tale about a last-minute move or needing to stay with a sick relative. The new address, of course, belongs to the facilitator, in this case Chapman. Sometimes the facilitator forwards the laptop to an address overseas, but more commonly that person holds onto it and installs software that allows it to be controlled remotely. Then the fake employee can connect to their machine from anywhere in the world while appearing to be in the US. (“You know how to install Anydesk?” one North Korean operative asked Chapman in 2022. “I do it practically EVERYDAY!” she replied.)

In messages with her handlers, Chapman discussed sending government forms like the I-9, which attests that a person is legally able to work in the US. (“I did my best to copy your signature,” she wrote. “Haha. Thank you,” came the response.) She also did basic tech troubleshooting and dialed into meetings on a worker’s behalf, sometimes on short notice, as in this conversation from November 2023:

Worker: We are going to have laptop setup meeting in 20 mins. Can you join Teams meeting and follow what IT guy say? Because it will require to restart laptop multiple times and I can not handle that. You can mute and just follow what they say ...

Chapman: Who do I say I am?

Worker: You don’t have to say, I will be joining there too.

Chapman: I just typed in the name Daniel. If they ask WHY you are using two devices, just say the microphone on your laptop doesn’t work right ... Most IT people are fine with that explanation.

Sometimes, she got jumpy. “I hope you guys can find other people to do your physical I9s,” she wrote to her bosses in 2023, according to court documents. “I will SEND them for you, but have someone else do the paperwork. I can go to FEDERAL PRISON for falsifying federal documents.” Michael Barnhart, an investigator at cybersecurity company DTEX and a leading expert on the North Korean IT worker threat, says Chapman’s involvement followed a standard pattern—from an innocuous initial contact on LinkedIn to escalating requests. “Little by little, the asks get bigger and bigger,” he says. “Then by the end of the day, you’re asking the facilitator to go to a government facility to pick up an actual government ID.”

By the time investigators raided Chapman’s home, she was housing several dozen laptops, each with a sticky note indicating the fake worker’s identity and employer. Some of the North Korean operatives worked multiple jobs; some had been toiling quietly for years. Prosecutors said at least 300 employers had been pulled into this single scheme, including “a top-five national television network and media company, a premier Silicon Valley technology company, an aerospace and defense manufacturer, an iconic American car manufacturer, a high-end retail store, and one of the most recognizable media and entertainment companies in the world.” Chapman, they alleged, had helped pass along at least $17 million. She pleaded guilty in February 2025 to charges relating to wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering and is awaiting sentencing.

Chapman’s case is just one of several North Korean fake-worker prosecutions making their way through US courts. A Ukrainian named Oleksandr Didenko has been accused of setting up a freelancing website to connect fake IT workers with stolen identities. Prosecutors say at least one worker was linked to Chapman’s laptop farm and that Didenko also has ties to operations in San Diego and Virginia. Didenko was arrested in Poland last year and was extradited to the United States. In Tennessee, 38-year-old Matthew Knoot is due to stand trial for his alleged role in a scheme that investigators say sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to accounts linked to North Korea via his laptop farm in Nashville. (Knoot has pleaded not guilty.) And in January 2025, Florida prosecutors filed charges against two American citizens, Erick Ntekereze Prince and Emanuel Ashtor, as well as a Mexican accomplice and two North Koreans. (None of the defendants’ lawyers in these cases responded to requests for comment.) The indictments claim that Prince and Ashtor had spent six years running a string of fake staffing companies that placed North Koreans in at least 64 businesses.

before the hermit kingdom had its laptop farms, it had a single confirmed internet connection, at least as far as the outside world could tell. As recently as 2010, that one link to the web was reserved for use by high-ranking officials. Then, in 2011, 27-year-old Kim Jong Un succeeded his father as the country’s dictator. Secretly educated in Switzerland and said to be an avid gamer, the younger Kim made IT a national priority. In 2012, he urged some schools to “pay special attention to intensifying their computer education” to create new possibilities for the government and military. Computer science is now on some high school curricula, while college students can take courses on information security, robotics, and engineering.

The most promising students are taught hacking techniques and foreign languages that can make them more effective operatives. Staff from government agencies including the Reconnaissance General Bureau— the nation’s clandestine intelligence service—recruit the highest-scoring graduates of top schools like Kim Chaek University of Technology (described by many as “the MIT of North Korea”) or the prestigious University of Sciences in Pyongsong. They are promised good wages and unfettered access to the internet—the real internet, not the intranet available to well-off North Koreans, which consists of a mere handful of heavily censored North Korean websites.

The earliest cyberattacks launched by Pyongyang were simple affairs: defacing websites with political messages or launching denial-of-service attacks to shut down US websites. They soon grew more audacious. In 2014, North Korean hackers famously stole and leaked confidential information from Sony’s film studio. Then they targeted financial institutions: Fraudulent trades pulled more than $81 million from the Bank of Bangladesh’s accounts at the New York Federal Reserve. After that, North Korean hackers moved into ransomware—the WannaCry attack in 2017 locked hundreds of thousands of Windows computers in 150 countries and demanded payments in bitcoin. While the amount of revenue the attack generated is up for debate—some say it earned just $140,000 in payouts—it wreaked much wider damage as companies worked to upgrade their systems and security, costing as much as $4 billion, according to one estimate.

Governments responded with more sanctions and stronger security measures, and the regime pivoted, dialing back on ransomware in favor of quieter schemes. It turns out these are also more lucrative: Today, the most valuable tool in North Korea’s cybercrime armory is cryptocurrency theft. In 2022, hackers stole more than $600 million worth of the cryptocurrency ether by attacking the blockchain game Axie Infinity; in February of this year, they robbed the Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit of $1.5 billion worth of digital currency. The IT pretender scam, meanwhile, seems to have been growing slowly until the pandemic dramatically expanded the number of remote jobs, and Pyongyang saw the perfect opportunity.

In 2024, according to a recent report from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the number of people working in North Korea’s cyber divisions—which includes pretenders, crypto thieves, and military hackers—stood at 8,400, up from 6,800 two years earlier. Some of these workers are based in the country, but many are stationed overseas in China, Russia, Pakistan, or elsewhere. They are relatively well compensated, but their posting is hardly cushy.

Teams of 10 to 20 young men live and work out of a single apartment, sleeping four or five to a room and grinding up to 14 hours a day at weird hours to correspond with their remote job’s time zone. They have quotas of illicit earnings they are expected to meet. Their movements are tightly controlled, as are those of their relatives, who are effectively held hostage to prevent defections. “You don’t have any freedom,” says Hyun-Seung Lee, a North Korean defector who lives in Washington, DC, and says some of his old friends were part of such operations. “You’re not allowed to leave the apartment unless you need to purchase something, like grocery shopping, and that is arranged by the team leader. Two or three people must go together so there’s no opportunity for them to explore.”

The US government estimates that a typical team of pretenders can earn up to $3 million each year for Pyongyang. Experts say the money is pumped into everything from Kim Jong Un’s personal slush fund to the country’s nuclear weapons program. A few million dollars may seem small next to the flashy crypto heists— but with so many teams operating in obscurity, the fraud is effective precisely because it is so mundane.

in the summer of 2022, a major multinational company hired a remote engineer to work on website development. “He would dial in to meetings, he would participate in discussions,” an executive at the company told me on condition of anonymity. “His manager said he was considered the most productive member of the team.”

One day, his coworkers organized a surprise to celebrate his birthday. Colleagues gathered on a video call to congratulate him, only to be startled by his response—but it’s not my birthday. After nearly a year at the company, the worker had apparently forgotten the birth date listed in his records. It was enough to spark suspicion, and soon afterward the security team discovered that he was running remote access tools on his work computer, and he was let go. It was only later, when federal investigators discovered one of his pay stubs at Christina Chapman’s laptop farm in Arizona, that the company connected the dots and realized it had employed a foreign agent for nearly a year.

For many pretenders, the goal is simply to earn a good salary to send back to Pyongyang, not so much to steal money or data. “We’ve seen long-tail operations where they were going 10, 12, 18 months working in some of these organizations,” says Adam Meyers, a senior vice president for counter adversary operations at the security company CrowdStrike. Sometimes, though, North Korean operatives last just a few days— enough time to download huge amounts of company data or plant malicious software in a company’s systems before abruptly quitting. That code could alter financial data or manipulate security information. Or these seeds could lay dormant for months, even years.

“The potential risk from even one minute of access to systems is almost unlimited for an individual company,” says Declan Cummings, the head of engineering at software company Cinder. Experts say that attacks are ramping up not just in the US but also in Germany, France, Britain, Japan and other countries. They urge companies to do rigorous due diligence: speak directly to references, watch for candidates making sudden changes of address, use reputable online screening tools, and conduct a physical interview or in-person ID verification.

But none of these methods are foolproof, and AI tools are constantly weakening them. ChatGPT and the like give almost anyone the capacity to answer esoteric questions in real time with unearned confidence, and their fluency with coding threatens to make programming tests irrelevant. AI video filters and deepfakes can also add to the subterfuge.

At an onboarding call, for instance, many HR representatives now ask new employees to hold their ID up to the camera for closer inspection. “But the fraudsters have a neat trick there,” says Donal Greene, a biometrics expert at the online background check provider Certn. They take a green-colored card the exact shape and size of an identity card—a mini green screen—and, using deepfake technology, project the image of an ID onto it. “They can actually move it and show the reflection,” says Greene. “It’s very sophisticated.” North Korean agents have even been known to send look-alikes to pick up a physical ID card from an office or to take a drug test required by prospective employers.

Even security experts can be fooled. In July 2024, Knowbe4, a Florida-based company that offers security training, discovered that a new hire known as “Kyle” was actually a foreign agent. “He interviewed great,” says Brian Jack, KnowBe4’s chief information security officer. “He was on camera, his résumé was right, his background check cleared, his ID cleared verification. We didn’t have any reason to suspect this wasn’t a valid candidate.” But when his facilitator—the US-based individual giving him cover—tried to install malware on Kyle’s company computer, the security team caught on and shut him out.

Back in london, Simon Wijckmans couldn’t let go of the idea that somebody had tried to fool him. He’d just read about the Knowbe4 case, which deepened his suspicions. He conducted background checks and discovered that some of his candidates were definitely using stolen identities. And, he found, some of them were linked to known North Korean operations. So Wijckmans decided to wage a little counter exercise of his own, and he invited me to observe.

I dial in to Google Meet at 3 am Pacific time, tired and bleary. We deliberately picked this offensively early hour because it’s 6 am in Miami, where the candidate, “Harry,” claims to be.

Harry joins the call, looking pretty fresh-faced. He’s maybe in his late twenties, with short, straight, black hair. Everything about him seems deliberately nonspecific: He wears a plain black crewneck sweater and speaks into an off-brand headset. “I just woke up early today for this interview, no problem,” he says. “I know that working with UK hours is kind of a requirement, so I can get my working hours to yours, so no problem with it.”

So far, everything matches the hallmarks of a fake worker. Harry’s virtual background is one of the default options provided by Google Meet, and his connection is a touch slow. His English is good but heavily accented, even though he tells us he was born in New York and grew up in Brooklyn. Wijckmans starts with some typical interview questions, and Harry keeps glancing off to his right as he responds. He talks about various coding languages and name-drops the frameworks he’s familiar with. Wijckmans starts asking some deeper technical questions. Harry pauses. He looks confused. “Can I rejoin the meeting?” he asks. “I have a problem with my microphone.” Wijckman nods, and Harry disappears.

A couple of minutes pass, and I start to fret that we’ve scared him away, but then he pops back into the meeting. His connection isn’t much better, but his answers are clearer. Maybe he restarted his chatbot, or got a coworker to coach him. The call runs a few more minutes and we say goodbye.

Our next applicant calls himself “Nic.” On his résumé he’s got a link to a personal website, but this guy doesn’t look much like the profile photo on the site. This is his second interview with Wijckmans, and we are certain that he’s faking it: He’s one of the applicants who failed the background check after his first call, although he doesn’t know that.

Nic’s English is worse than Harry’s: When he’s asked what time it is, he tells us it’s “six and past” before correcting himself and saying “quarter to seven.” Where does he live? “I’m in Ohio for now,” he beams, like a kid who got something right in a pop quiz.

Several minutes in, though, his answers become nonsensical. Simon asks him a question about web security. “Political leaders ... government officials or the agencies responsible for border security,” Nic says. “They’re responsible for monitoring and also securing the borders, so we can employ the personnel to patrol the borders and also check the documents and enforce the immigration laws.”

I’m swapping messages with Wijckmans on the back channel we’ve set up when it dawns on us: Whatever AI bot Nic seems to be using must have misinterpreted a mention of “Border Gateway Protocol”—a system for sending traffic across the internet—with national borders, and started spewing verbiage about immigration enforcement. “What a waste of time,” Wijckmans messages me. We wrap up the conversation abruptly.

I try to put myself in the seat of a hiring manager or screener who’s under pressure. The fraudsters’ words may not have always made sense, but their test scores and résumés looked solid, and their technical-sounding guff might be enough to fool an uninformed recruiter. I suspect at least one of them could have made it to the next step in some unsuspecting company’s hiring process.

Wijckmans tells me he has a plan if he comes across another pretender. He has created a web page that looks like a standard coding assessment, which he’ll send to fake candidates. As soon as they hit the button to start the test, their browser will spawn dozens of pop-up pages that bounce around the screen, all of them featuring information on how to defect from North Korea. Then loud music plays—a rickroll, “The Star-Spangled Banner”—before the computer starts downloading random files and emits an ear-splitting beep. “Just a little payback,” he says.

Wijckman’s stunt is not going to stop the pretenders, of course. But maybe it will irritate them for a moment. Then they’ll get back to work, signing on from some hacking sweatshop in China or through a laptop farm in the US, and join the next team meeting—a quiet, camera-off chat with coworkers just like me or you.

[planet-gay-comic]

The Minoan Civilization: A Surprisingly Modern Society

The Minoan civilization, which flourished on the island of Crete, is renowned for its advanced and, for its time, unusually liberal society. Although our knowledge of the Minoans is incomplete due to limited written sources and primarily based on archaeological finds, a picture emerges of a culture that, from around 2700 to 1450 BC, exhibited remarkable openness, equality, and joie de vivre.

Equality and Tolerance

Current archaeological and anthropological studies often highlight the Minoans' liberal attitude. Researchers like Nanno Marinatos have examined the religious and social structures of the Minoans and found that this society exhibited an unusually high level of gender equality for its time. Women actively participated in public life, possibly held leadership positions such as priestesses, and enjoyed similar rights to men in the private sphere.

Regarding sexuality, the Minoans also appear to have adopted a tolerant attitude. Artistic depictions of intimate relationships between same-sex individuals suggest that such relationships were accepted in Minoan society. Although the interpretation of these depictions is debated among scholars, there are numerous indications that the Minoans had a more open stance towards various forms of love and romance, including same-sex relationships. The portrayal of homoerotic scenes in art and a relaxed attitude towards sexuality indicate that such relationships were accepted and respected in Minoan society.

Katherine A. Schwab: Her work on Minoan frescoes and the analysis of the scenes depicted provide insights into the social dynamics and possible homoerotic aspects of Minoan culture. Current archaeological and anthropological studies often emphasize the Minoans' liberal attitude. Researchers like Nanno Marinatos have examined the religious and social structures of the Minoans and found that this society exhibited remarkable openness and tolerance towards various lifestyles.

Cultural and Social Freedom

Minoan culture was characterized by its artistic flourishing and a preference for the beautiful and pleasurable. The Minoans were masters in the art of fresco painting, ceramics, and architecture. Their palaces, such as the famous Palace of Knossos, were not only political and economic centers but also places of art and culture.

The Minoans lived in close contact with nature, as reflected in their frescoes, which often depicted dolphins, lilies, and other natural motifs. This deep connection with the natural environment is also evident in their appreciation of water, which likely played a significant role in ritual purification and bathing practices.

Festivals, dances, and athletic competitions were integral parts of social life. These events provided not only entertainment but also strengthened the Minoan community and identity through shared experiences.

Religion and Spirituality

Religion played a central role in the lives of the Minoans, and their spiritual practices reflected their liberal values. The Minoan religion was matriarchal, with goddesses such as the Snake Goddess being central figures. The worship of goddesses is often associated with the high status of women in society, as they symbolized aspects such as female fertility and the power of nature.

Rituals and religious ceremonies were opportunities for the community to gather, celebrate, and express their connection with nature and the divine. These rituals, often accompanied by music and dance, emphasized harmony and unity with the environment.

The Minoan civilization was, in many ways, a fascinating and progressive culture, whose societal structure differed from many other ancient cultures. Their values of equality, cultural freedom, and spiritual connectedness remain relevant and inspiring today. The Minoans show us that progressive societal forms were not only a phenomenon of modernity but also existed in antiquity.

Text supported by GPT-4o, Gemini AI

Base images generated with DALL-E, overworked with SD-1.5/SDXL inpainting and composing.

[solar-acheron-zine]

Hello! This is Solar Acheron's FAQ page. - Submissions are open!

Submission guidelines - Designer/illustrator applications are closed.

What is this zine exactly?

Solar Acheron is a small-scale, chill zine meant to be an anthology of various works by writers of any experience level. It’s free to be printed by anyone. The theme is based in Greek mythology, so works must be inspired by or based off of existing Greek myths or stories. Artwork submissions are also accepted (see guidelines and more below).

----

What are the guidelines for writer's submissions?

Writing must be centered on a Greek myth-inspired narrative, and have to be non-fandom (no Percy Jackson, sorry :c). However, you can be as creative as you want with this, so you can totally write stories that, for example, take place in a modern setting, or explore relationships or happenings that aren't featured in actual myths. As long as the story is centered on a character, storyline or a setting derived from, clearly inspired by or accurate to a Greek myth (however obscure), it is definitely up for consideration!

Works can totally be previously published ones (whether on social media, AO3, blogs etc. or in publications, as long as you have the rights to them!).

As for word limit, there is a limit of 1600 words per work, and 4000 words for all works submitted.

What are the guidelines for artist's submissions?

Art must also be inspired by Greek myths. All forms of art (which can be printed) are welcome, however since this zine will be printable you must keep in mind that your work may be printed in greyscale, and so should be greyscale-friendly. You can submit photos of physical works, but please make sure they are high quality and/or scanned. The standard format for the zine is A5, so I heavily recommend making works that fit easily in it.

Works that feature both writing and art (comics, digital/physical collages, illustrated writing etc) are super encouraged!!!! I love these. There is a limit of 6 pages for full page works.

What is the policy on NSFW works?

Works cannot heavily feature NSFW, sorry. Nudity, foul language, violence and ludity are allowed, since they are featured in the myths to begin with, given they are not excessive. This is to ensure that authors of all ages can participate in this project safely.

-- AI IS STRICTLY NOT ALLOWED! --

----

What is the application process?

The application process applies only to those seeking to have their writing illustrated or to illustrate someone else's writing, and to editorial designers.

Submissions are spontaneous and should be sent to solaracheron@gmail.com. Before sending works in, please read the guidelines!

Is there anything I need to do before sending my work in?

Nope! Unless you have any specific questions or doubts, you can send your work in directly.

How many submissions will be accepted?

I'm happy to accept the maximum amount of works, but this depends immensely on the number of submissions. There can be up to 4 accepted works per author. As for art submissions, I don't want them to exceed the number of written works, so this will depend on how many stories and poems are submitted. You can of course send in works for both artist and writer.

Submissions will be judged more on creativity and overall story, rather than style, so artists and writers of any levels are encouraged to participate!

How can I apply to be an editorial designer?

Editorial designers must reply to the applications form, and will be contacted separately. You will have to provide at least a few examples of your graphic design (you do not have to be a professional).

----

Is the zine free, what are the rights and how will it be published?

The zine will be published as a PDF free and accessible to everyone.

As with a regular zine, anyone is free to print and distribute the zine as they wish. All contributors will keep 100% of the rights to their work.

----

Applications will open on the 17th of September, close on October 16th, and submissions will close entirely November 18th. Everyone who has sent in contributions will be notified as to whether their work will be included in this edition by November 24th. There is no exact projected date for publication yet, but hopefully the zine will be published before February.

Any other questions? Send an ask!

[partisan-by-default]

By corporate America's (sometimes dubious) telling, AI is basically the answer to everything, including customer service. Businesses say it's the way to unlock efficiencies and improve customer "journeys" so people can solve their problems and get what they need on their own, and fast. The bigger, though less advertised, focus is how AI can save companies money and cut costs, whether by helping human assistants or, in likelier scenarios, reducing the need for human assistants at all. Corporations have long seen contact centers as cost centers, and ones they're constantly looking for ways to reduce.

"It's a lot of work, and it's expensive to think about customer experience and design your AI in a way that's going to be an enjoyable experience," said Michelle Schroeder, the senior vice president of marketing at PolyAI, which creates AI-based voice assistants. "And most companies that are thinking about cost cutting and the AI revolution are not really thinking about the customer."

Simply put, the AI still doesn't work that well. Many of these chatbots and virtual support agents are not ready for prime time. People don't want to use them, but they have to anyway.

"Companies are operating in the dark, in some sense. They have this idea that this technology is going to provide them with cost savings," said Michelle Kinch, an assistant professor of business administration at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "They don't exactly know how to deploy it."

[precallai]

Inside the AI Based Contact Center with Tools Tech and Trends

Introduction

The evolution of customer service has entered a new era with the rise of the AI based contact center. No longer just a support line, today’s contact centers are intelligent, data-driven hubs that utilize artificial intelligence to deliver personalized, efficient, and scalable customer interactions. As businesses race to stay ahead of the curve, understanding the essential tools, technologies, and emerging trends that power AI-driven contact centers becomes crucial. This article explores how AI is transforming contact centers and what lies ahead for this innovative landscape.

The Rise of the AI Based Contact Center

Traditional contact centers, though essential, have long suffered from inefficiencies such as long wait times, inconsistent service, and high operational costs. AI-based contact centers are solving these issues by automating routine tasks, predicting customer needs, and delivering omnichannel support.

AI technology, such as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and robotic process automation (RPA), is now integrated into contact center platforms to enhance agent productivity and customer satisfaction.

Essential Tools Driving AI Based Contact Centers

1. AI-Powered Chatbots and Virtual Agents

Chatbots are the most visible AI tool in contact centers. These virtual assistants handle customer queries instantly and are available 24/7. Advanced bots can handle complex conversations using NLP and deep learning, reducing human intervention for repetitive inquiries.

2. Intelligent Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems

Modern IVR systems use voice recognition and AI to route calls more accurately. Unlike traditional menu-based IVRs, intelligent IVRs can interpret natural language, making customer interactions smoother and faster.

3. Speech Analytics Tools

AI-driven speech analytics tools analyze live or recorded conversations in real time. They extract keywords, sentiments, and emotional cues, offering insights into customer satisfaction, agent performance, and compliance issues.

4. Workforce Optimization (WFO) Platforms

AI helps optimize staffing through forecasting and scheduling tools that predict call volumes and agent availability. These platforms improve efficiency and reduce costs by aligning workforce resources with demand.

5. CRM Integration and Predictive Analytics

By integrating AI with CRM systems, contact centers gain predictive capabilities. AI analyzes customer data to forecast needs, recommend next-best actions, and personalize interactions, leading to higher engagement and retention.

Core Technologies Enabling AI Based Contact Centers

1. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

NLP allows machines to understand, interpret, and respond in human language. This is the backbone of AI-based communication, enabling features like voice recognition, sentiment detection, and conversational AI.

2. Machine Learning and Deep Learning

These technologies enable AI systems to learn from past interactions and improve over time. They are used to personalize customer interactions, detect fraud, and optimize call routing.

3. Cloud Computing

Cloud platforms provide the infrastructure for scalability and flexibility. AI contact centers hosted in the cloud offer remote access, fast deployment, and seamless integration with third-party applications.

4. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

RPA automates repetitive tasks such as data entry, ticket generation, and follow-ups. This frees up human agents to focus on more complex customer issues, improving efficiency.

Emerging Trends in AI Based Contact Centers

1. Hyper-Personalization

AI is pushing personalization to new heights by leveraging real-time data, purchase history, and browsing behavior. Contact centers can now offer customized solutions and product recommendations during live interactions.

2. Omnichannel AI Integration

Customers expect consistent service across channels—phone, email, chat, social media, and more. AI tools unify customer data across platforms, enabling seamless, context-aware conversations.

3. Emotion AI and Sentiment Analysis

Emotion AI goes beyond words to analyze voice tone, pace, and volume to determine a caller's emotional state. This data helps agents adapt their responses or triggers escalations when needed.

4. Agent Assist Tools

AI now works hand-in-hand with human agents by suggesting responses, summarizing calls, and providing real-time knowledge base access. These agent assist tools enhance productivity and reduce training time.

5. AI Ethics and Transparency

As AI becomes more prevalent, companies are increasingly focused on responsible AI usage. Transparency in how decisions are made, data privacy, and eliminating bias are emerging priorities for AI implementation.

Benefits of Adopting an AI Based Contact Center

Businesses that adopt AI-based contact centers experience a variety of benefits:

Improved Customer Satisfaction: Faster, more accurate responses enhance the overall experience.

Cost Reduction: Automation reduces reliance on large human teams for repetitive tasks.

Increased Scalability: AI can handle spikes in volume without compromising service quality.

Better Insights: Data analytics uncover trends and customer behaviors for better strategy.

Challenges in AI Based Contact Center Implementation

Despite the advantages, there are challenges to be aware of:

High Initial Investment: Setting up AI tools can be capital intensive.

Integration Complexities: Integrating AI with legacy systems may require customization.

Change Management: Staff may resist AI adoption due to fear of replacement or complexity.

Data Security and Compliance: AI systems must adhere to data protection regulations like GDPR or HIPAA.

Future Outlook of AI Based Contact Centers

The future of AI-based contact centers is promising. As technology matures, we can expect deeper personalization, more intuitive bots, and stronger collaboration between human agents and AI. Voice AI will become more empathetic and context-aware, while backend analytics will drive strategic decision-making.

By 2030, many experts predict that AI will handle the majority of customer interactions, with human agents stepping in only for high-level concerns. This hybrid model will redefine efficiency and service quality in the contact center industry.

Conclusion

The AI based contact center is transforming how businesses interact with customers. With powerful tools, cutting-edge technologies, and evolving trends, organizations are reimagining the contact center as a strategic asset rather than a cost center. By investing in AI, companies can enhance customer experiences, improve operational efficiency, and stay competitive in an increasingly digital marketplace. The time to explore and adopt AI contact center solutions is now—because the future of customer support is already here.

[sceneboyshavethebestpssy]

Intro post

My name is Valentine, I'm 20 years old

He/him | mlm t4t ambiamorous

This is an nsft account centered around t4t mlm (trans for trans + men love men) minors will be blocked.

my lovely pet/boyfriend is @hisprettylamb / @hisprettypup <33

Everything I'm into is consensual

11/7/24 <3 | 4/8/25 💉

^I'm okay with being mutuals!! just please do not contact me directly through dms

DNI LIST:

Fujoshis, proshippers, fudanshis, bigots, detrasitioners, transphobes, homophobes, cishet, racists, sh/ed accounts, ai "artists"/ai art supporters, misogynists, terfs, chasers, mental health demonizers (r/bpdlovedones type of people), FAT FETISHERS, eating disorder fetishists

If you don't like me or the content I post, please just block me. It's unlikely that I'll debate you, you'll just get blocked and possibly reported depending on what you say.

I block freely

scene is music-based <3

I don't always read intro posts or go to someone's profile before I interact

[themattress]

Untitled Kairi Post II

Kingdom Hearts II is Kairi's other good game. It's (sadly enough) where she peaked.

However, many fans were and still are disappointed in KH2 Kairi. Is that reasonable?

…..Yes and no.

I feel that Kairi’s role in Nomura’s base story for KH2 is really good, barring one factor. She starts remembering Sora and even makes contact with his heart via Roxas which causes her to send her poem out to sea, she befriends Pluto and goes through a Dark Corridor to Twilight Town where she befriends Hayner, Pence and Olette, she gets kidnapped by Organization XIII and held captive in the Castle That Never Was, is rescued by Namine (the other half of herself) and reunites with Riku and in turn reunites him with Sora, is given a weapon and is able to fight as part of the heroic party, she saves Namine from fading through reassimilating her into her heart, and ultimately her poem inspiring pure feelings in Sora allows him to open the Door to Light and bring himself and Riku home after all hope seemed to be lost; he even is finally able to return her good luck charm to her as promised in KH1.

The one factor that needed to be altered was the kidnapping part. It still had to happen, but it preferably should have happened a good while after showcasing her stay in Twilight Town and fleshing out her character. The scene where she goes to Twilight Town should have happened much earlier, and we could constantly cut back to her after completing each world (maybe even have a playable moment or two with her). Do that and everything’s perfect.

However, not only was this factor not altered, but three glaring problems also transpired.

First of all, notice a pattern in all of Kairi’s major scenes?

WE GET IT. Kairi really, really likes Sora; she’s his love interest. That was a huge part of her character in KH1, but there (as I just got done analyzing) Kairi still had a backstory and feelings on matters that were unrelated to Sora and an inner life and an actual character arc that progressed from beginning to end…all of this despite Sora being the one whom she primarily interacted with! And it’s terrible that KH2 isn’t affording her the same treatment when at the same time it gives her so many other characters to interact with like Selphie, Pluto, Hayner, Pence, Olette, Namine, King Mickey, Axel and Saix. The best she gets is with Riku:

Secondly, she gets a weapon. Did it have to be a Keyblade, and did that Keyblade have to be so flowery? No, but whatever. It’s a weapon, and she can fight with it. She says so herself!

She does so against a horde of Heartless - in a cutscene. Where we only see her take out two enemies and then the remainder of the fight largely happens offscreen. Afterwards, we never see the goddamn thing again! Not even when it clearly is supposed to be there:

Come ON! We needed way more than that! And hey, game developers, couldn’t you have given Kairi a non-party battle AI? You gave one for Axel who wasn’t even supposed to make it that far into the story; so why not Kairi? It makes this whole pay-off underwhelming to many.

Third and finally, what is she doing when not fighting or having a scene centered around how much she cares for Sora? Mainly just idly standing in the back row of the party and saying “Sora!”, “Riku!”, or both. Now, this point isn’t quite as bad as the others since this is shared with Donald and Goofy rather than be exclusive to her, and the game also has several screens where you can talk to Kairi and she has text boxes with dialogue that actually showcases more of her personality beyond just being Sora’s love interest. She reminds you of her knowledge of nautical superstitions, is perceptive enough to recognize the Proof of Existence chamber as a graveyard, says she doesn’t like being left out of adventuring, says that she wants to get more skilled as Sora and Riku in combat so that they get hurt less, and outright puts her foot down and tells Sora in non-negotiable terms that from now on where he goes she goes too (please ignore Nomura totally ruining this in the games past KH2, ‘kay?)

So, that’s why people are often hard on KH2 Kairi. BUT I still say that she still deserves credit for the things done right with her, namely the important plot-relevant actions she undertakes, the fact that she gets to forge connections with so many other characters at all, the fact that she even has a weapon and gets to fight competently with it, those aforementioned text boxes, and her still getting some measure of character development through learning that “waiting isn’t good enough” (again, ignore Nomura’s post-KH2 fuckery!) Plus - her attitude!

And this leads me to my final point, which is….

Kairi in the Kingdom Hearts II manga doesn’t get kidnapped until after quite a while spent in Twilight Town and even receives a focus chapter while being held captive, her relationships with other characters are fleshed out beyond her just talking about Sora with them, she has much more impressive showcasing of her combat skills and is even outright acknowledged as possibly a fiercer fighter than Sora and Riku, she displays her character the whole way through and not just in optionally viewable text boxes, and on top of all this her facial expression are always on point, which isn’t even something that can be said of other characters in the manga! She’s got all of the game upsides, and none of the downsides.

[tssfanzine]

FAQ

!! Here you will find the FaQ with more information about this fanzine project! See Event Info and Schedule for more !!

If you have a question not answered by any of these posts, feel free to send us an ask!

----

What is a fanzine? - In short it's a fan magazine! Something that members in a fandom work on together to create for other members of the fandom! The fanzine will be formatted like a book, with everyone in collaboration to make different pages via art or writing!

What will this project entail? - This project requires at least 1 page from everyone who is contributing, with the option to work on more. The first 7 pages will be page spreads (a double page) centered around each of the sides and C!Thomas. You can collaborate with someone or work on your own.

How will pages be assigned? - The first seven pages are on a first come first serve basis. Artists and writers will be assigned to work on these together. After that, you can choose to add as many single pages or page spreads as you want (we are calling these 'Individual pages' for the sake of consistancy)! At the first check in, we will share a form for people to submit their ideas for individual pages - this is just so that we can get an idea of formatting and page count in advance!

Is it required to work on one of the first 7 pages to participate? - Nope! If you just want to work on your own individual page or pages, you can!

Can I work on multiple pages? - Yes! However please take care of yourself and only sign up for how many pages you feel you can reasonably do for this event! The amount you estimate you might do in the sign up for is NOT set in stone as a requirement!!

What kind of content can I contribute? - You can contribute fanart, fanfic, collages, etc... You have creative freedom to do what you want in accordance with the rules. Whatever you create must be able to be made into a PDF and potentially printed (i.e, no gifs, videos, moving images etc). No AI generated content is allowed.

What do the 'Individual pages' entail? - The individual pages are an opportunity to promote your own art and writing! You can put anything in here! Snippets from your latest WIPs, art of your aus or character designs, pretty much whatever you want, so long as it's TS oriented and follows the rules! These pages may also include content from other TS works, such as Roleslaying with Roman, My Roommate is Hades, Cartoon Therapy, or TS Shorts.

Can I collaborate on individual pages? - Yes! If you wish to work together with another participant you are more than welcome! You can arrange this amongst yourselves and will be able to list this on the forms.

Do I have to use my own aus for individual pages? - Yes, you have to use your own aus. Unfortunately, it's too difficult to verify permission from the original writer/artist to use their work, so we request that all aus featured are your own.

Can I use AI? - No. We have a strict anti-AI policy for this event. All works most be created by you, if we discover that AI images or writing have been used, it will not be included in the final PDF. Is the schedule set in stone? - No! We're willing to push back the deadlines based on feedback and where everyone is with their page(s)! We are also willing to give extensions if you contact us! This is our first time running something like this, so live feedback on the schedule is appreciated!

Will I be able to drop out? - Of course! If you no longer feel up to the event you are more than welcome to drop out, we want you to be happy and healthy! We only ask that you let us know before you leave! Please try not to leave it too late, especailly if you were working on one of the side's pages, so we are able to find a replacement.

How do I sign up? - Sign up forms will be posted on June 1st, from then until July 31st you will be able to fill out the google form and join the discord server.

Are there any requirements for signing up? - The only requirement is that you have a Discord! This is required so that we can keep track of everything and you'll be able to collaborate much easier. This event does not require 'auditions' or have a selection process! Anyone can join!

Is there a way to sign up as a backup writer/artist? - Yes, you can sign up to be a backup writer/artist on the first 7 pages, there will be a question on the sign up form indicating that this is the role you want. A backup will jump in if the person previously working on the page steps down.

How will the finished project be created/distributed? - The finished project will be a PDF of all the hard works that everyone who collaborated put in! It will be available for download on the Pinned Post with instructions for printing/binding yourself. - As well as this, there is potential for having a physical copy printed and sent to you as long as you are able to cover printing/shipping costs. This option is not yet confirmed and more information about potential cost/options will be provided closer to the time.

----

[mitskinaturalbang]

MitskiNatural Bang Rules:

Hello all!! Here is a short overview of our bang rules:

You must be 18+ to participate.

You must join our Discord server, even if you don’t talk there. It’s how we will keep in contact with you and post updates. The link will be sent after completion of your Google form. 

Email: mitskinaturalbang@gmail.com

Tumblr: @mitskinatualbang

Twitter: @MitskiNatural

Welcome to the inaugural MitskiNatural multi-ship bang! After reading, you may sign up on our google form for either Author/Artist/Beta.

Here is a link to our complete rules + schedule:

AUTHORS: 

Your objective for this bang is to create brand new fic that centers around a Mitski song. You can base your work on a set of lyrics in the song or the song itself. This is a Multi-Ship bang so the possibilities are endless, so long as a relationship (romantic or platonic) is interwoven into the plot and the lyrics of the song you have chosen are, as well.  

Pick 3 Mitski songs on the google form and include the ship you are writing, we will try our best to get you one of your picks! If you don’t have a preference, we will set you up with one! You will be assigned to an artist who has also picked your same song. You are expected to work and communicate with your artist to bring your interpretation of a Mitski song to life. All works must be beta’d. 

All fic submissions must be a minimum of 3.5k words. It’s up to you whether or not you think you’re capable of doing more by deadline, long fics are welcome! As long as you meet the check-ins on time, the fic can be as long as you want, but in order to start posting in the month of April, we are trying to set a realistic word count for everyone.

While we encourage everyone to write for a multitude of ships within the Supernatrualverse, we do not allow incest or underage explicit content. All graphic sexual content and/or violence if you choose to include it must be involving 18+ characters, just as all participants must be 18+ to participate.

ARTISTS:

Pick 3 Mitski songs on our google form and include your ship preference, we will try our best to get you one of your picks! If you don’t have a preference, we will set you up with a song and author. Authors and artists are expected to work together to bring a shared vision for your mutually chosen song to life!

Artists will be granted one fic in the first round of pairings. After all artists have been assigned one song/partner, artists may opt to be assigned to a second song/partner if there are any left to be claimed. As with many bangs, we imagine that there will be more authors than artists. We would appreciate it if you could spread the word to your artist friends and consider being matched with two authors. Pinch-hitters are welcome!!! 

By participating in the matching process, artists are agreeing to create a minimum of one (1) art piece. Artists may create more art if they’re inspired to and time permits it, but they are not required to do so. Please ensure that if you claim more than one song/pinch-hit, that you have time to create the art for each one. Additional text separators and icons are welcome, but do not count toward the minimum. All artwork MUST be your own original artwork created specifically in response to the claimed song/fic, and may be created using either digital or traditional media (NO AI ART).

GENERAL RULES:

Disqualification is a thing and the mods reserve the right to disqualify you for any of the following reasons: 

—No bullying! If you experience this from your partner, other members (even a mod!!), please DM one of the mods so this can be addressed promptly.

—Racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, hate-speech, transphobia, etc.

—You can’t have the mods blocked, we’re here to work with you.

—Not reading the rules, disregarding rules that you don’t like, and/or failing to follow them. If you’re unsure of a rule or requirement just ask. Seriously. It’s that easy! 

—Failing to submit Mod check-ins/complete the stated requirements for your fic or art. 

—Failing to communicate with your author/artist and work together as a team. If you go missing/ghost and do not communicate with your teammate (or the mods, as needed) you will be disqualified and a pinch hitter will be assigned if one is available.

There simply may not be enough artists/authors to assign a pinch-hitter if there are many dropouts. All attempts will be made to find and assign pinch-hitters.

All uploaded fics should be added to the collection on Ao3 upon posting. The collection will be available to access starting April 2024.

We will promo your fic on Tumblr/Twitter on your posting date. Depending on how many fics we have, we will space posting accordingly. You will need to submit to us your formatted Tumblr post the day before/of your posting date; template information will be provided. 

Thank you so much for joining my little passion project: the MitskiNatural Bang!! 

Please feel free to reach out here or my main blog @rise-like-a-sparrow for any other info or by the contact info provided above!!

[averydavery]

Photo Dump from Indy’s Very Own Popcon!

Just to be clear, this was not my only cosplay for this three day event! However, Saturday (yesterday) was the biggest day with the most events, so I did my best cosplay for it! On Friday I was John Marston and my friend was Arthur Morgan from RDR2, and today I just went in a simple gyaru makeup look!

But that’s not what you’re here for!

Here’s my Black Jack cosplay just a few months late of the 50th anniversary year of the series. I knew that since my face is very round and that I have a button nose I wouldn’t be able to do a “one for one” cosplay look that I think would do him justice. So instead of working against my body, I created a look that embraced it… I call it Drag Jack!

Please understand that this was my first ever time doing this cosplay so I ended up putting the skin patch on the wrong side of the face (it’s actually the correct side of the face the wig just is backwards and I forget to flip it), but also I didn’t do the scar on his chin either because I forgot as well, let alone any other scars on my body. Next time I did this cosplay I’ll make sure to fix it!

Full body shot, even though this was in the convention center bathrooms the tile gives that sterile hospital look so I mess with it.

Head shots, as you can tell I’m not good at choosing locations for my photos. I plan on redoing it with better photos and not gluing my brows, so stay tuned!

I really should’ve Got2Be’d those spike before I left house… the strands are everywhere.

Ai No Hoshi Maid Cafe! They were a lotta fun! If you’re in the Indiana, Ohio, or Kentucky area and plan on going to a con make sure to check if they’ll be there too! Highly recommend, one of the butlers was a fellow Doctor!

This shitty redraw of mine of Black Jack as Trixie Matel inspired this entire look!

Price and Advice for Future BJ Cosplayer’s:

Cost (with tax and shipping): about $73.31

Contacts from Uniqso x2: $28.62

Wig from Ezcosplay: $22.69

Fishnets from Five Below: ~$5

Translucent setting powder from Five Below: ~$3

Red Ribbon from Micheal’s: ~$3

Concealer & Brightner two pack makeup from Marshall’s: ~$5

Face Paint from Party City: $5

Lip/Blush pale pink cream stick from [a target resale/wholesale store that I won’t named for my own privacy reasons]: $1

Black Turtleneck Bodysuit from Target: $0 (I had a gift card, if not it was about ~$12 I think?)

Owned or Borrowed Items, many are optional items

Three different colored (black, white, maroon) gel eyeliner pencils: BORROWED

White Foundation from Sunset Makeup: BORROWED

Chrome Eyeliner: BORROWED

Brown Tights: OWNED

Boots: OWNED

Dickey Collar: OWNED, I cut up a white polo

Wig Styling Suppkies: OWNED

Rest of Makeup: OWNED

Advice for Cosplaying BJ

WET-DRY MAKEUP METHOD!!!! The Wet-Dry method of makeup is used in Drag makeup and many other makeup genres to set face paint or heavy makeup. For Black Jack’s face patch you’re going to want to start with a wet facepaint color and then set it with translucent setting powder so it doesn’t only stay all day, but also looks more matte and not porous. Next time I do this look, I plan to use more so my skin looks a bit flatter.

CREAM CONTOURS!!!! Use a cream based contour to contour your nose, cheekbones, and temples. If you use a powdered contour it will come off VERY easily and it will be hard to get a clean line with. I relied on these cream contours mostly for my nose since, again, I have a button nose so I really wanted to contour that to at least make it look a little thinner and longer.

SAFETY PIN YOUR BOW!!! If you want a bow that looks “cartoony” you won’t get that just by tying a red ribbon around your neck. I sewed and glued my bow then safety pinned it my collar to appear like it was standing up on its own. It’s cute!

WEAR TIGHTS (if you’re doing this specific black jack look lmfao)!!! If I did not wear those tights way too much of my hip would be showing. I’m personally not comfort showing that much of my body, so I wore tights underneath my fishnets. But you do you! I like the darker color since it sorta looks like I’m wearing see through dark tights but matching your skin tone as close as possible can make it seem like you aren’t wearing tights at all even if you actually are! Highly recommend!

DON’T FORGET YOUR EAR!!! This isn’t required but I think it looks nice to put a bit of face paint on your ear to look like the skin patch covers that area as well as your face. It’s a bit more cohesive but also doesn’t matter too much.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE CAMPY!!! Black Jack’s character is over-the-top and exaggerated, so you shouldn’t be afraid to do the same. If I really wanted this to be Drag Jack, I would’ve done an entire drag makeup look and I think that would be PERFECT if someone better than I at that kind of makeup does it! The bigger the bow the better too! Get some props like a kids toy stethoscope or a mask or gloves! Monopoly money too haha!!!