#or for negative wage I guess

[lactose-intolerant-piano]

Y’all like I don’t enjoy working in tech but it’s a major self confidence boost to just be able to say IM WORTH 50 BUCKS AN HOUR how dare you waste my time / demand my free labor etc

[storiedhistories]

[On mobile, but part of the reason I've been so quiet here lately is because I'm trying to find a new place to live. Tbh, I'm getting pretty discouraged with finding a new apartment. I've had so many issues with my current place, and they're raising the rent since I'm currently month-to-month (my lease just expired on the 14th), and I'm NOT staying here for another year.

The guy keeps trying to get me to sign another lease or to tell him how long I'm going to be month-to-month, and I'm just like "The whole POINT of month-to-month is that I don't fucking know how long it's going to be. I have some big shit happening that I don't know when will happen; that's the other reason to BE month-to-month."

I'm so tired of either making too much or not enough for most apartments, and I just want to be DONE.]

[three--rings]

One thing I haven't seen a lot of talk about in the fandom so far is about the financials of this season.

It took us two whole months to get a confirmation of renewal from Max, and I talked at the time that I think there was probably a lot of heated negotiations going on at the time with contracts and that's why it took as long as it did.

I think we see a huge number of indications of the compromises that were made in order for S2 to be made. One obvious one that has been talked about is being making in in NZ instead of LA, to save $.

But there's also the eight episodes instead of ten. And then the cast aspect. One downside of moving overseas was having to fly out and house the cast, not just pay day wages.

We knew immediately about Guz Khan not coming back, losing Ivan as a character. At the time I was sad but I thought it had the air of a pretty harshly practical call. If you went through the main recurring cast and said okay which character will affect the fewest things, has the least character interactions of anyone? It would be Ivan. (With the only competition being The Swede IMO, but he's Stede's crew and therefore a little more central.)

And then this season started and we got first The Swede sidelined and taken out of major scenes. And then I noticed that different members of the crew were simply absent for long stretches, like Wee John isn't around for ep 5 at all. And then Buttons takes flight.

Lucius and Pete aren't at the party for most of it. Fang isn't in the torture scene. Roach and Fang aren't in the bar. Etc. SCHEDULING IS HAPPENING.

The new characters are almost entirely played by NZ local actors, which is great, but also...cheaper.

In other words there are big signs that they did everything possible to give us a giant cast of almost everyone we love from S1, and cool new characters, in the most economical way possible.

And I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful we got S2, and it looks great, and it's well written, I'm having a blast, and we get to spend more time with this awesome cast.

But I also kinda think it needs to be said that the cost-cutting shows. That it shouldn't have been only 8 episodes, the pacing is off. That we miss every time someone from the ensemble isn't on screen.

That despite what they've put on screen looking very good, there's far less costuming budget, there's less elaborate sets, and it's a little disappointing. And it's clear it's not a lack of will or talent or vision but blatantly lack of money.

Look, streaming networks want brilliant shows that people love (that will get them to subscribe) but they very don't want to pay anyone to make them. That's like, the whole moment we're having right now.

Max puts out promos about how great it is to not have unions messing shit up in NZ. Well I have friends who are union costumers in LA and guess what union costumers did amazing last season. This season, well, I guess Stede got three whole shirts, so that's cool.

So I dunno. It's just stuff I think about. I'm not trying to be negative about the show in any way. I'm extremely happy with this season; I love it more than well, possibly any show I've ever been in fandom for.

But I see you, Max. You're cheap. You weren't that cheap when you were called HBO.

[phoenixyfriend]

Time for some tracts:

"How do we create jobs?" You raise the minimum wage, because if people don't need to work three jobs to make rent, those other two jobs will mysteriously open up.

"How do we support small businesses?" You raise the minimum wage, staggered to the biggest corporations first.

"How do we reduce homelessness?" You raise the minimum wage.

"How do we make sure raising the minimum wage doesn't negatively impact prices or--?"

Prices are already rising faster than wages are, this is playing catch up.

Put a cap on CEO salaries and bonuses, they can't earn more than 100 times more than their lowest paid workers. Current US ratio is 342, which is insane. (This list is mostly about the US.)

Hit corporations first, give small businesses time to adjust. McDonald's and Walmart can afford to raise wages to $20/hr before anyone else does, they have that income.

Drop the weekly hours required for insurance from thirty to fifteen. This will disincentivize employers having everyone work 29hrs a week, partly because working only 14hrs a week is a great way to have undertrained, underpracticed staff. Full time employment becomes the new rule.

Legalize salary transparency for all positions; NYC's new law is a good start.

Legislation that prevents companies from selling at American prices while paying American wages abroad. Did you know that McDonald's costs as much or more in Serbia, where the minimum wage is about $2/hr? Did you know that a lot of foreign products, like makeup, are a solid 20% more expensive? Did you know that Starbucks prices are equivalent? Did you know that these companies charge American prices while paying their employees local wages? At a more extreme example, luxury goods made in sweatshops are something we all know are a problem, from Apple iPhones to Forever 21 blouses, often involving child labor too. So a requirement to match the cost-to-wage ratio (either drop your prices or raise your wages when producing or selling abroad) would be great.

Not directly a minimum wage thing but still important:

Enact fees and caps on rent and housing. A good plan would probably be to have it in direct ratio to mortgage (or estimated building value, if it's already paid off), property tax, and estimated fees. This isn't going to work everywhere, since housing prices themselves are insanely high, but hey--people will be able to afford those difficult rent costs if they're earning more.

Trustbusting monopolies and megacorps like Amazon, Disney, Walmart, Google, Verizon, etc.

Tax the rich. I know this is incredibly basic but tax the fucking rich, please.

Fund the IRS to full power again. They are a skeleton crew that cannot audit the megarich due to lack of manpower, and that's where most of the taxes are being evaded.

Universal healthcare. This is so basic but oh my god we need universal healthcare. You can still have private practitioners and individual insurance! But a national healthcare system means people aren't going to die for a weird mole.

More government-funded college grants. One of the great issues in the US is the lack of healthcare workers. This has many elements, and while burnout is a big one, the massive financial costs of medical school and training are a major barrier to entry. While there are many industries where this is true, the medical field is one of the most impacted, and one of the most necessary to the success of a society. Lowering those financial barriers can only help the healthcare crisis by providing more medical professionals who are less prone to burnout because they don't need to work as many hours.

And even if those grants aren't total, guess what! That higher minimum wage we were talking about is a great way to ensure students have less debt coming out the other side if they're working their way through college.

------------------

Linda P requested something either really interesting or really silly and this is... definitely more of a tract on a topic of interest (the minimum wage and other ways business and government are both being impeded by corporate greed) than on a topic of Silly. Hope it's still good!

[woman-respecter]

anon i’m not posting ur ask bc it may piss some people off BUT to answer your question i think beyond just being ineffectual, the most counterproductive shit is:

1. the blatant antisemitism. while i think antisemitism is pervasive in society, a large percentage of peope (at least in america) know that its wrong, and can recognize it when its at its most obvious. had they kept their antisemitism on the down low i don’t think it would have been caught by many gentiles, but when its as obvious as screaming “go back to poland” (yes i will not shut up about this specific thing) or shooting at jewish elementary schools, people recognize it. and this turns normal people who realize that antisemitism=bad and makes it easy to “villainize” (for lack of a better word) their movement. of course this may help bring fringe people who are just looking to be antisemitic, but it alienates most well-adjusted people, which includes most of those who contribute to society so its by far a net negative

2. denouncing israeli leftists/peace activists etc. these are the people who can actually make the biggest difference here, but instead of allying with them they at best ignore and at worst villainize them. organizations such as standing together and women wage peace do a lot of good trying to find solutions and help palestinians (remeber how standing together helped aid get to gaza) but are fucking put on the bds list. it’s ridiculous. how the hell is harassing jewish students more helpful than supporting actual people in the region who actually understand what is going on and can actually do something. if they really cared about human lives and peace (which i guess they don’t based on that post i screenshotted earlier lol) they would be doing everything they can to assist these orgs but instead they make things harder for them. i guess it’s because its very important to paint an “us vs them” narrative and to do this they must paint all israelis as evil so recognizing standing together etc destroys that

[fluffer5]

How Protective Terrans Are

So... I might've dropped a few trauma bomb in my previous entries... but we won't further open those particular can of worms *smiles brightly while throwing the proverbial can at the traum-- ehem, garbage disposal*.

Anyways, this is my 5th entry to Humans Are Space Orcs! For today's human documentary, we're going to talk about what adult Terrans can and will do to you if you touch their young, family, close friends, pets, or special mementos given to them by a special someone (which doesn't have to be from a dead anybody or a romantic somebody). We all know people wouldn't hesitate to throw hands just to keep their people or stuff safe.

So, let's refer to my list, cuz it's easier to do lol. Again, I've used movies, series, podcasts, and a writer's angst-filled mind to type this. Should I warn the rest of you for further reading? I guess I should (I was so used to reading things without the warning that I'm sometimes confused of the TW tag on some stuff lol).

TW: Gore, violence, theoretical bodily harm even though I censored most of it, death, stabby people, bullying, the insanity train.

Kill the threat. Bit of an extreme one for the first thing to pop in my head, yes? But it is true. Wars were waged for lesser things. See this news article for one example: "Mom fatally shot home intruder to defend kids, she says". This one was published on August 18, 2022. In 2012, cuz I'm too lazy to search recent ones, there's another news articles featuring the same thing but focuses on a mother shooting an intruder to protect her 3-month-old baby. In 2015, an 11-year-old boy also shot an intruder trying to defend his 4-year-old sister from possible harm. I could go on and on about this but in countries where guns are not accessible, the next possible thing to use in defense would've been something sturdy and blunt or something extremely sharp. Actually, if we were in a time wherein tribes or kingdoms exist instead of cities, I can surely say that killing their young would definitely put you and your family in said people's sh*t list.

Fight the threat. Whether is be physically punching them on the face of the place where the sun doesn't shine, nobody cares as long as the deed of letting them know their place is done. Exhibit A that a lot of us know would be bullies ganging up on a younger sibling in school. We know that younger sibling are the proverbial pain in the *ss of older siblings. It's a love-hate relationship between them. But it's also an unsaid rule that only the older siblings can threaten or push around younger siblings. Anyone else touching them aside from the close family ties should be prepared to taste someone's fist. Or feet. Or the pavement. You get the gist of it. Though as long as the child in question can take care of the bullying on their own (which I did in my experience) then the parents or older sibling would gladly back off until the time they notice that things are going too far. Though, sadly, some kids prefer not to talk about their problems which leads to behavioral issues in the future, sorta trying to get attention from their elders but in a negative way.

Threaten the threat. I see this as the tamer version of protection actually lol. I don't know about other countries but in my country, the smart kids in school can threaten your life as a student. We have the usual bling-bling kids with the money and huzzah but they don't last long in the face of being a social pariah at school. They can throw money all they want but the smart kids wouldn't be threatened at all cuz they hold the key to higher GPA. Even the teachers complain about them nerds but action speaks loud and their compilation of evidence speaks louder lol. You'd be lucky if the nerd assigned to you has the patience of a saint cuz if not... well, I've had to stop fights from breaking out from simple arguments. Not just in school though. If you've got connection in higher places then that could also be a way to threaten someone (it does happen in real life so it isn't far-fetched). Though it is more effective to threaten the threat if you're in the same place as them. Another thing would be holding blackmail on said person (though that only works if they're not an immediate threat). If you have enough social influence, well, you can destroy their entire life without touching them even once.

Torture the threat. A friend says I'm too kind for ending their lives easily. Well, watching too many action and horror films prepared me for this part lol. I don't know which one would be done but interrogators have done the worst to get information from their victim. Too gory for this though and I don't know how many kids or emotional teens are in here so I have to censor a ton of the juicy details. Let's say it would be a bit similar to Saw, Jigsaw, and war interrogations. Chemicals, acids, peeled skin, salt, knives, and hammers might also be in place. Just know that it would be a bloody, unforgiving event that would take place in that particular room with that unfortunate victim.

Play the long game. Another said killing them quickly was... well... too quick XD. This one centers heavily on having money and patience. Know who the threat is, where they live, who they interact with, and what makes them tick. For this to work, you need to give up who you were before and settle on anonymity. This is... a bit more drastic than torture but works well if you have too much hate in your chest or the deed done was something you can never forgive. It's more on watching them physically suffer with their injury or doing the threatening on their family (gets messy very fast), but since this threat had amassed A LOT of enemies, they won't exactly know who did the evil deed on them. Shoot them on their legs, feet, and shoulder. Their spine if you're a good shot and know where to hit. Places that aren't close to their vital organs but would render them disabled. You'll let them live, but it will be a life of pain and agony.

Talk to the threat. The most peaceful type and probably the most boring out of this chaotic list > v <. This should be the first thing we do and not escalate to violence if some of us can help it. Again, your patience and wit will be tested here. If your threat is minor (like another child), then talking to their guardian would help with keeping the problem from going through a rollercoaster ride. Sometimes that doesn't work and the problem turns into an adult fight.

In summary, you have 2 kinds of Terrans. One would shoot before asking; the other would talk before shooting. Which is why you should never step on this particular deathworld if you were thinking about making Terran slaves or using our young in experimentation. We haven't given chase on aliens yet. Don't make yourselves the first intergalactic specie the Terrans would obliterate.

Meanwhile in a fast approaching spacecraft...

This alien reading this How To Deal With Terrans manual : Why did we want to go to this deathworld again?

Another alien turning yellow from anxiety : To befriend them and learn about the resident Terrans?

Yet another alien wilting as they feel faint from the information : Oh, thank the stars we won't be terrorizing them.

The alien commander whose frills are flaring in alarm as they read through the unredacted version of the manual : They will torture and skin us for taking their young and their pets?!

This particular scientist whose skins are changing colors in excitement : See? I told you their famous quote of "If predator not friend, why friend shape?" also applies to them!

[kbspangler]

We're going to start this by saying that—as much as we might want to—we will NOT yeet this person straight into the sun. They're asking questions which…make sense? I guess? In context? Especially for the Webtoons platform?

I mean, I'm so mad I had to get up and walk away for a while before writing, but.

(All of this was originally posted on a thread over on my Bluesky and I finished it before realizing that "webtoon" isn't capitalized so perhaps the researcher means it as a generic term like "webcomics," in which case some of the strongest pro-labor arguments don't apply at all and fuck everything forever, but let's resume.)

A well-known problem with the Webtoons platform is that "successful" comics which pay the artists a wage for their work require brutal labor to meet a regular update schedule.

It's not just comic panels, it's a vertically scrolling art display.

So the obvious answer is "Sod off, fancy lad" but they are actually asking questions which might address real problems: specifically, can a comics artist publishing on Webtoons improve their workflow so they aren't constantly broken by their job?

The researcher is also active in South Korea, where there's a known secondary layer of problems with South Korean comics creators publishing on the Webtoons platform, including pooled labor, contractual obligations, and monetization of time and original IP.

So the researcher is asking questions which might have value!

Meanwhile, Dr. Beer and myself are shouting "GOD I'M SO ANGRY" at each other in chat, because "might have value" is distinct and separate from what the researcher is proposing.

What the researcher is proposing MIGHT be along the lines of what @tkingfisher did when she tested Midjourney's storytelling capabilities and made an AI-generated comic. I don't think it is, tho. Could be wrong, but the phrasing indicates I'm not.

"…expedite their workflow…" How?

"…explore new creative ideas…" How?

"…produce higher-quality artwork…" HOW?!

The phrasing implies using an AI engine to generate some, if not all, of the comic. The researcher might be approaching comics creators to learn if they've considered any of these possible uses for AI, thus resolving the "How?"

The framing is positive, very much a "Have you considered what AI can do FOR you, to HELP you?"

The framing does not appear to take into account the negative aspects of using AI to make comics: Theft. Copyright. The intentional decisions artists make versus AI-derivative images.

Above all, the emotional attachment that comics creators have for the craft of telling their stories through art.

Which is why @alepresser and I have been shouting at each other for at least an hour about *waves hands* all of this, the idea that making comics somehow needs to be fixed, that AI is just another digital tool that can help us rather than something which strips the love away.

p.s.: please read our comics. We love making them. We hope you enjoy them.

A GIRL AND HER FED: science fiction with a healthy side of the supernatural

SIDE QUESTED: queer fantasy YA with a sassy vulture

[theheirofthesharingan]

This is going to be a strange question, I think. I'm in the Naruto fandom peripherally. Kind of on again-off again, but I've always loved Itachi. I'm in another fandom as well, but I've run up against a similar issue in adoring controversial figures in the works. With your other asks, you come across as very much put-together. Seen it all twenty years ago kind of thing. So I was hoping for some advice.

How do you handle a fandom that treats a favored character poorly? It's not just the weird hatred, but it delves a little deeper. Like in fanworks that display the character as being a pedo even though it's not just unsubstantiated in canon, but pretty antithetical to the character himself. I can block and mute people on AO3 and other areas, but I guess it just gets to me. I know it shouldn't. Maybe I'm hoping for a coping mechanism or something.

Thank you for your time!

I think the deeper the love for the character is, the more it will piss you off. And the only way to survive this is that we grow a thicker skin. Even then, it can get under your skin, so I totally understand how you feel. I've always been drawn towards unpopular characters or the characters who were hated in the fandoms, so it's been hard for me to get into those fandoms, and if I did, staying in them was painful. Although, I've been active in only one fandom before Naruto, and it was exhausting there too.

The best way to deal with it would be that you ignore all the negative content on the characters and discuss things in your own little circle. When you write fics or create art, expect that circle to be your main audience. Everything else positive is just bonus. I avoid googling stuff about Naruto because I end up disliking most of the nonsense that's available on the characters. I haven't seen Itachi's portrayal as a pedo anywhere (are people writing that shit too about him, huh?), but I'm aware there are fics in which he's portrayed as a cold/abusive/manipulative person, which is completely not his canon personality. If there are people who believe those things, no way they're not writing anything like that in their fics, too.

And another thing he's a victim of (other than having a cancerous fanbase that measures his goodness as a person and a character based on his strength and skills instead of his complexity - which any sane fans of his would find disturbing) is all the misinformation about him. Why did they choose him to spread hate so much with all this. It's just so weird. These people aren't as intelligent as they think they are. And for me, it's super hard to take them seriously, because how do I take into account the opinions of the people who lack critical thinking and reading comprehension?

Sometimes I feel the foundation of the fandoms isn't love for the characters, but hypocrisy because so many feelings are involved and people don't realize when they're falling into this trap. They love one character for one thing in one fandom and then end up hating another character for the same thing in the same (or another) fandom.

For example, Itachi is an irredeemable criminal for killing people (after being groomed for years by adults around him) because he's pro-Konoha. But killing people if you're against the system is totally okay and characters like Madara/Pain/Obito shouldn't be antagonized for waging wars and dragging millions of innocent people into their ambitions more than Itachi ever did. Their manipulation, slow poisoning of the people's minds they influenced to achieve their goals is completely alright, solely because they're just trying to change the system. Similarly, Sasuke is "emo and edgy" for not being the sunshine after all the horrors he lived through and then wanting to destroy Konoha, but Obito waging war on the world makes him a "broken hero." These two species live on two different planes - one is dominant on Tumblr and the other on Insta (and both are probably on other platforms too, idk).

I guess it all will always be there. And so will the people who mischaracterize Itachi, Sasuke, and other characters. You can control some things but not everything. I've been in the fandom for a year or so, and I'm still ignorant about most of the things here other than ships. Basically this:

I might have gone off the tangent and I hope you got some answer you were looking for.

[crystallizsch]

hi ian i come bearing angst fuel for the yuusha as twsted elsa (maybe an idea for her possible overblot idk she kinda reads to me as someone whod preemptively isolate in the case she feels...blotty)

(also seeing that art of her playing violin totally didnt fuck me up im still nursing my bruised heart 🥴🥴💕💕)

https://youtu.be/NDldNaEZTt8?si=Wm71pgTltuJLjFvk

^^this is from the frozen musical where they gave a song to elsa to explore her emotional turmoil and it just fleshed out her character so much more than the orig movie (ok i havent seen frozen 2 oops) but just this section here:

Is everyone in danger as long as I'm alive?

Was I a monster from the start?

How did I end up with this frozen heart?

Bringing destruction to the stage

Caught in a war that I was never meant to wage

anyways lmao i jus think the song is neat i think yuushas neat (i wanna see more of her ahehehe i love seeing infodumps abt ur yuus)

-diodellet

(throwback to this “what if yuu had magic” ask where i had a ✨realization✨ and this more recent yuusha lore drop that i gave zero elaboration on 🙃)

very rough ob yuu design??? idk i came up with it on the spot ;;; and it’s kinda based on disney’s concept art of elsa when she was supposed to be the villain.

evil ice queen vibes :3

also i know the ob monster is supposed to be based on the villain— which is elsa in this case— but lowkey. an ice monster is way cooler.

also also i just realized after i drew this i couldve done a grim/yuu tandem overblot ough 🤧🤧 (next time I'll do that instead if i ever go back to this concept)

(read more below because it got SO long)

AAH anyways hi hi dio!!! when i saw your ask i went —

— with this entire post

AAGH HOW MANY MORE UNINTENTIONAL CONNECTIONS ARE GOING TO BE BETWEEN FROZEN AND YUUSHA

i guess watching the movie everyday when it came out when you’re like 9 does something to your brain chemistry (and still haunts you at least a decade later) 💀

but anyways the angst ;;; overblot yuu ;;;;; my brain is rotting and the worms have taken over

also i didn’t even know that there was a frozen broadway musical so im gonna have to check it out later 🏃💨💨💨

(also dont worry frozen 2 is a nice watch for the most part but the way they concluded the characters did not feel 100% satisfying to me 😭 BUT i love some of the songs tho ;;; kristoff’s goofy 80s ballad song is one of them specifically, i need everyone to listen to it)

hfgnnfhfgv anyways thank you so much i’m chugging that angst fuel as i expand more on a possible ob yuusha with another infodump 💪💪💪

⚠️⚠️⚠️ ALSO IM SORRY BUT mentions of taking one’s own life so please proceed with caution ⚠️⚠️⚠️

i had to reread what my initial thoughts about it bc it was months ago??? and after rereading im just like, huh what was i on— (just that feeling when you just cringe at your old posts ;; but idk i think the insanity/cringe sometimes can loop back into being a genius and the cycle just continues)

anyways i’ve been on and off writing yuusha’s bio and overblot yuu was just at the back of my mind chilling but i didn’t really do anything with it.

but now that i have the opportunity,,,, im gonna go on the magicless route this time bc i feel like I've said all what i thought if it was an overblot due to her own magic.

so uh from what i gather overblots are a mix of overuse of magic + intense negative emotion.

since it’s magicless yuu, i guess the one of the general headcanons around the fandom is that they’ve been too exposed to overblots and then intense negative emotions suddenly just triggered their overblot.

uh anyways onto the elsa parts

Is everyone in danger as long as I'm alive? Was I a monster from the start? How did I end up with this frozen heart? Bringing destruction to the stage Caught in a war that I was never meant to wage

THE LYRICS ARE SO GOOD ;;; i really love how some broadway interpretations expand on the source material

and yeah you're right 🤧🤧🤧— yuusha would try to hide and escape, especially as she overblots bc she would try to avoid hurting people (and like elsa, it'd only hurt others more trying to escape bc of probably how she leaves destruction in her wake trying to make others stay away from her 😔)

(this is a small tangent but i remember thinking about an overblot kalim and i imagine him to be similar, like he would not hurt anyone intentionally in his overblot.)

anyways so the way it would go is that i imagine her friends got fatally injured either because a) she feels that she’s too “useless” without magic to help and wasn’t able to do anything OR b) her attempts at helping to try and prove that she can help without magic made everything worse.

and then she just goes into a guilty spiral then boom — overblot.

ALSO in the song, the way elsa briefly contemplated taking her own life but then realizing there’s no guarantee that would solve anything hnghgh (<- another unintentional parallel to my yuusha lore because that’s actually how she ended up in twst except she did NOT have the latter realization)

there’s this “yuu is dead” theory i’m just using and that the black carriage actually just caught yuusha’s soul after she took her own life from all the burden.

also some bonus angst context for that violin post :3

yuusha back in her homeworld is raised and known to be a gifted musician. people can feel the life and soul in her music but when people interact with her, they are usually met with an ice-cold (heh) personality.

the dead family member was the one who taught her music and the only one who was kind to her.

there’s always an expectation from her family to perform well and to keep up appearances as to not be a humiliation since anything she does can reflect on her entire family. (also hi, slight yuusha/jamil parallels maybe???)

the way she presents herself also stemmed from an incident as a child when she went apeshit on another kid bc she was defending a friend.

so from then on she was taught taught to conceal don’t feel those emotions — which just unfortunately extended to any positive ones, not just negative ones like rage.

so when she is brought to twst, there’s no memory of her being forced to hold back her emotions so she’s just unapologetically affectionate and open with everyone bc that’s how she really is.

but every now and then, memories of her breaking down haunt her in her dreams or as subtle reminders in the waking world.

then yuusha just goes on her day like she just wasn't reminded of her past.

(unnecessarily tragic lore my beloved, but anyway—)

another extremely brief tangent and bonus -> the two songs i had on loop while drawing pre-twst yuusha

lindsey stirling my beloved i love her music

the songs are such a vibe

her instrumentals in “lose you now” especially makes me feel some sort of way 😖

[squishysquib]

Illegal immigration has a negative effect on minimum wage. It affects the safety, the culture so while I do think those protesters overreacted I can see why they're angry.

their “protest” was for the death of three girls (alice, elsie, and bebe) caused by a british man. born and raised in the uk. nothing to do with illegal immigration. 99% of immigrants in this country have the right to be here (including one of the victims, alice, who was a portuguese girl) so why are they being attacked? why are mosques being destroyed? (the killer is not even muslim btw.)

also I didn’t even mention illegal immigration on my post?? what about “english people have no right to be racist” prompted you to jump to the defence of these people? even if these immigrants you hate so much came here illegally, NO ONE deserves the right to be racially discriminated against.

“it affects the safety” - again the reason for the “protest” is caused by a british man who happened to be black. he was rumoured to be an immigrant but he was confirmed to be born in wales. WHITE people are ruining the safety of THEIR OWN COUNTRY because of RUMOURS. listen to yourself. how r immigrants the problem when the far right is destroying this place from the inside?

“it affects the culture” - is this a bad thing? multiculturalism has been in the uk for years. like i said before, if the british didn’t want that then why did they take over so many fucking countries? british culture as we know it today is built on diversity and some people can’t accept that apparently.

the way that this is an anonymous ask tells me everything i need to know. if you’re too afraid to share your url then a part of you knows that you’re wrong. respectfully, get the fuck off of my blog. i want to post about nintendo games, i dont want to waste my time educating ignorant people like you that purposefully miss the point.

you lot ALWAYS bring up illegal immigration but when you turn your nose up at a brown person on the street you don’t check their passport. you don’t ask for their birth certificate to see if they were born in the uk. when people like you see people like me, you automatically think we don’t belong here. racists don’t see documents - they don’t even see PEOPLE - they see the difference in colour. and that is the mindset of these protesters. they are not protesting against illegal immigration, they are carrying out racially motivated riots.

this is NOT a politics account and i will delete any other asks referencing my rant. sorry for wanting to feel safe in the country i live in i guess.

tldr: the protesters have no right to be angry or riot because they are using the deaths of three innocent girls as an excuse to be racist. i bet most of them don’t even know their names.

[dvandom]

The Myth of High Theft and Who It Serves

(I thought I'd seen a post here on the topic, or maybe Bluesky, but I guess it was facebook and I am NOT wading through the last day or two of stuff there to check.)

So, if you shop at certain stores, in certain neighborhoods, you'll have noticed that a lot of stuff is getting locked up lately. So, if you want cosmetics or razor blades or whatever, you need to talk to an (overworked) employee and wait for them to unlock the case or the peg and carry it back to a register to ring you up, not letting the merch touch your hands until you've paid for it.

I've been seeing people post about how this is "backfiring" on stores, costing them business, some chuckling about how the corporation has bought into their own "theft is rampant" propaganda and hurting itself in its confusion.

Nope. Working As Intended.

"Cities are cesspools of crime" is a handy piece of propaganda that the corporations are using to do something they already wanted to do, and avoid negative PR for doing it.

Are cities crime-ridden? Not to the extent propaganda would have you believe, and when it comes to petty theft, probably no worse than rural areas. But the corporations aren't really worried about losses due to theft.

They're worried about losses due to having to spend more money to keep urban locations open.

Y'see, cities often have higher minimum wages than the national minimum. Still not a living wage, but less wage theft is permitted within city limits. Companies resent having to pay urban wage-earners more than exurban or rural.

Additionally, cities do tend to have a higher cost of living, so the salaried professionals (such as pharmacists at CVS or Walgreens) have to be paid more to convince them to work in the city, whether moving in or having a long commute.

There's also higher costs on other things, like rent or property tax or whatever, depending on whether the corporation owns the location or leases it.

All together, urban locations have higher costs than non-urban locations, and even if they do enough volume to make a profit, corporations hate paying more for things.

But...they can't use that as a reason to shut down a location that's actually profitable, even if the profit margins are slim. "Major company pulls out, leaving service desert in city," is bad PR. They need to have a counterargument that's more sellable than "we don't like how much it costs to run this location."

Enter the Crime Excuse.

We've already seen a number of urban locations closed on the grounds that "We cannot in good conscience expose our employees to all the CRIME at that location, so we're shutting it down and offering employees positions at our other locations." Of course, those offers are kinda useless for anyone who doesn't own a car and can't commute out to the suburbs where the new positions are, but the press rarely digs too deep on this sort of thing. "Crime forces business to shutter" is a nice sexy story, the media stays happy and doesn't generally go beyond the story they've been fed.

Of course, a lot of expensive to operate (but still profitable) locations don't have high enough crime levels to sell this version of the story. So, instead, the corporation cites "shrinkage" (not specifying what part of that is actual theft, as opposed to "broken in transit," or "expired on the shelf" or whatever else gets bundled into "shrinkage") as a reason to increase anti-theft measures.

And gosh-golly-gee, sales slump because people react negatively to having to spend several minutes waiting for the lone checker to go unlock the cosmetics cabinet, or react negatively to the checker having to go help someone unlock a peg instead of letting them buy their stuff...and soon enough the location is no longer profitable anymore, and can be shut down on those grounds.

The goal of a modern corporation is not to make as much money as possible, it's to have the highest profit margin possible. They will cheerfully kill off underperforming locations or divisions so that the ratio of profit to expenditure goes brrrrr.

[voxofthevoid]

either 4 or 35! big fan of teen gojo crying🙌🙌

You have very good taste! 35 has been answered here, so let's go with 4:

04. you were born with a steady flame (we burn away)

Role reversal AU where teen!Gojou wages war on his teacher’s dick and sanity and doesn’t mind much when it backfires.

This one has a 3.5k outline and even titled chapters. It literally just needs to be written. Will I though. Will I...

This starts as Gojou acquiring a praise kink because Yuuji pats him on the head and calls him a good boy, and then he goes about trying to get Yuuji to praise him in increasingly deranged ways, culminating in the following scene:

Satoru asks for a kiss, and Yuuji confusedly goes, aren't you too old for that (confusing Satoru in turn) and then kisses him on the top of his head or forehead, and Satoru registers the misunderstanding even as he's turning his mouth to kiss Y. Escalate into makeout before Yuuji snaps out of it and asks what the hell Satoru is doing.

Satoru's response leading to him saying it's not just him who's affected—nudging Yuuji's hard-on. Yuuji tries to play it off as just physical stimulation, and Satoru makes a show of being/looking hurt and asking if he's just a body to Yuuji then. And Yuuji falls for it hook, line, and sinker, denying that Satoru would ever be just that to him, and Satoru hammers in the nail saying, "So you do want me," and Yuuji realizes he just got played.

Yuuji snaps and grabs Satoru by the jaw or throat and pins him to the desk. Asks (mocking or eerily serious) it was for being good that Satoru wanted a reward, right? “And I'm the reward, I guess.” Satoru nods warily. Yuuji: "Then there's nothing for me to worry about, is there?" Satoru is confused, and Yuuji goes on to give a full reason-you-suck speech, except he doesn't really seem to mind that Satoru's "arrogant, callous, crass, selfish, even cruel, with a burgeoning god complex." And Satoru is there being more turned on than pissed off by this, thinking he's apparently got layers like an onion.

Yuuji finishes his speech saying he doesn't really mind; he finds a certain nostalgic charm to it. Says he used to know someone like Satoru—no, much, much worse. “Do you know what I did to him?” Satoru rasps a negative, and Yuuji says he ate him piece by piece, and when he tried to bite back, he devoured him whole. Satoru makes the connection and says it's an honor to be compared to the King of Curses, says Yuuji can eat him too any time he wants. Yuuji shows a curious lack of reaction, staring down at Satoru with a blank expression that makes Satoru keenly aware of the heavy, calloused hand wrapped around his throat. Eventually, Yuuji says "we'll see, won't we" and leaves Satoru there on the desk, turned on and with two extra kinks.

[howlingday]

Just Business

Meanwhile, in a once-sleepy town across Remnant in a location not too dissimilar to the American Mid-West

Cinder: More snarling, Number Six! At this rate, you couldn't scare a cat with a spray bottle!

Cinder: Grimm Number 10! Stop slacking! What are we even paying you for!

Grimm: We better get overtime for this!

Cinder: Shut up, Number Four! You get paid minimum wage just like everyone else here! (Mutters) Including me...

Cinder: (Shouts) NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Cinder: I want this whole town catatonic before lunch!

Grimm: Uh, excuse me, Boss-

Cinder: WHAT IS IT?! Can't you see I'm micromanaging here?!

Grimm: Um... I just don't get it. Exactly what are we doing here?

Grimm: I mean, we're not supposed to do any real damage. All we're doing is scaring people and not even eating them! What exactly is our motivation here?

Cinder: (Sighs) I normally don't take two-bit Grimm aside to explain things to them, but for you I'll make an exception...

Cinder: Do you remember what it was like before Salem came around?

Grimm: Yeah. We could only get humans if they were dumb enough to wander out all alone.

Cinder: Right. And now things are much different, aren't they?

Grimm: I guess so. Now we're getting more humans, but now we have a magic human and her cronies bossing us around. Weirder is how she calls us "employees" with "salaries" and is turning the Grimm into a "business". But we're not really doing anything, are we?

Cinder: Right, but she's the boss, which mean whatever she says goes!

Cinder: She says scare this oddly wholesome town and by Salem, that is what we're going to do! Got it?

Grimm: I guess that explains our motivation, but why are we scaring the town?

Cinder: To build enough negative emotions to build her power to become strong enough to destroy Remnant. And especially stop any pesky silver-eyed warriors, like the girl in the red hood.

Cinder: Is it clear now?

Grimm: Um... Yeah, I guess.

Cinder: Good! (Extends hand, Incinerates) YOU'RE FIRED!

Cinder: NOW! WAS ANYONE ELSE SLEEPING THROUGH THAT EXTENSIVELY LONG BRIEFING I GAVE BEFORE WE ARRIVED?!

Grimm: Nope!

Grimm: Nuh-uh!

Grimm: Heck no!

Grimm: Perish the thought!

THEN GET BACK TO WORK!.

[calisources]

COBRA KAI MISC QUOTES (2018 - PRESENT )

Pain does not exist in this dojo. 

That’s just black paint on a wall. 

We are basically karate cousins.

Never mind your past mistakes, don’t let them determine your future. 

I may not always win, but I never quit a fight. 

Kicks get chicks. 

When negative feelings overwhelm you, look for the good within yourself. 

Change that ring tone. Get some Guns N’ Roses or something. 

The best defense is more offense. 

Strike First, Strike Hard, No Mercy

Let’s go, Hot Wheels.

Back in my day if we want to tease someone, we do it to their face.

Failure, it never tastes good.

Everyone’s got a sob story. That doesn’t give you the right to be a bully.

Guess the garbage doesn’t fall far from the truck.

Stop drinking the butter!

If your enemy insists on war, then you take away their ability to wage it.

When do I get the cool karate pajamas? 

Defeat does not exist.

If you have hate in your heart, then you have already lost.

Fish sticks are dope. 

Sometimes the scars you can’t see are the ones that hurt the most.

A true Cobra feels no sympathy for its meals.

No one wants to do business with a bully.

Cobra Kai never dies. 

Make sure all that defense doesn’t turn you into a cream puff.

Karate is not a phase, it’s a way of life. You can leave it for awhile, but it never leaves you.

To be Cobra Kai, you have to have a killer instinct.

The humans response to danger is fight or flight, but an eagle’s response is fight and flight.

I don’t trust anyone. I am using Cobra Kai to get what I want.

Instead of using your speed to run away from your enemies, use it to run at them.

How are you gonna do that? They strike first, and you strike firster?

You’re not a sensei, you’re a conman.

You mess with a cobra, you get the fangs.

It’s time to put the past behind us.

I am Cobra Kai.

At Cobra Kai, we believe anyone can be a winner. All you need is the right teacher.

Look at that line. You’d think he was giving away Teslas or something.

They show no mercy, we show them no mercy!

Nice ascot.

First train mind. Then train body.

We are way past the time for white flags, (name).

Dork to door service? Never thought I’d see the day.

I was ready to let this go. And you just kept getting in my way.

I only lose if I give up.

Cobra Kai had given him the strength he didn’t even know he had.

Youth is not a liability. It is the greatest power.

Right and wrong, there is no such thing. There are only winners and losers. Cobra Kai builds winners because we are willing to do whatever it takes to come out on top.

[vavuska]

I recently started following a couple of YouTubers who create videos to sensibilize costumers about fake Ads of products you can find on Instagram and Tik Tok.

I will add the links of the two videos I watched. Part of me is disgusted by the waste of money and another one finds it entertaining. Maybe that's because I'm poor and unemployed. Ahah.

Back to the main topic: it seems that great part of those false brands (they have fake web sites, that usually disappear from a while, after scamming and frauding a meaningful number of people, I guess) copy this brand called House Of CB, stealing the modeling shooting of the clothes sold online by House Of CB. To make the scams more legit, those fake brand steals contents from the review section of similar (and least more honest) Amazon Dupes of popular clothing designs. In this section you can find a LOOOT of photo of people who happily post pictures of them wearing the products, the fake brands steals those pictures and use to make their sites look more legit. Another sources of images or videos to use as base for fake Ads of scam brands are the profiles of content creators, fashion vlogger, influencers or regular social media users who share their positive feelings about their new piece of clothing.

The thing I noticed immediately is HOW in this kind of scams the victims are more than one: in the first place we have the online buyers who has small budget and is scammed of their money; the second is the original brand or the designer, who is deprived of their entrances and of their intellectual property; the third is the content creator or regular social media user who sees their reputation and image trashed by the unconsesual association to a fraud.

It's important to notice that this kind of scam involves mainly Fast Fashion products, which are publicized under fake ads and sent to the clueless buyer, who thought to have found a big deal.

This is important, because fast fashion is widely renowned as an exploitative business model resulting in low wages, poor working conditions, a disregard for workers' rights and negative impact in environment such as water pollution and carbon emissions.

So, this kind of scams give a huge contribution to the exploitation of garment workers around the globe and also damage the planet in wich we are all living.

I want to say that those YouTubers were both from USA and I'm from Italy. I didn't see any fake ads during my Instagram and Tik Tok scrolling, I saw only small enterprises and single creators who craft and sew their own stuff and they seemed totally legit to me. Is this because in USA there is a less culture about costumers protection than in Europe?

I can't answer. Just be careful, buy ethically and support small businesses.

Edit: some reddit users report that they have been scammed by a copycat version website of House of CB, though a fake Instagram ad that reported some 'big sale' happening.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments/1by0c6u/the_site_i_just_purchased_from_has_2_different/

[fatphobiabusters]

I was finally able to watch Disney’s new animated short “Reflect,” which is about a fat child who is a ballerina and has negative body image. 

So here are my thoughts:

Wow, when they say “animated short,” they really do mean short. The whole video is about 6 minutes, but the animation doesn’t start until over a minute in and the credits start at around 3:23, so you get more credits than you do actual animation. I guess two minutes of a positive fat protagonist is better than nothing, and is especially better than the usual fat villains, fatphobic stereotypes, and fat comic relief that Disney usually gives us. Hopefully there will be enough positive feedback for this short that the company will start allowing more positive fat characters, especially fat protagonists. A fat Disney princess is sadly still too much to ask, I imagine. But maybe someday.

They showed some concept art and drafts of the animation before its final form, which were of a thin ballerina dealing with negative self image. There was one particular drawing they showed of the thin ballerina looking in the mirror and seeing a fat body.

I am so, so, so glad that they didn’t actually do that for the real animation. Not only are thin people already catered to enough, especially in “body positivity,” but depicting a thin person seeing themself as fat and hating that fat body is extremely fatphobic and only promotes fatphobia. If your aim is “body positivity,” then doing that is the exact opposite of what you’re supposedly wanting to promote. Fat is not a feeling, and a thin person overcoming “feeling fat” by realizing they’re thin only demonizes fat bodies, which are the bodies that need positivity the most. The reason why I put “body positivity” in quotes now is because the movement has been watered down until it now no longer includes fat bodies like it was meant to; it’s at the point that fat people had to create a new movement, fat liberation, to get away from the centering of thin bodies. So I guess making this short all about reassurance of thinness wouldn’t be far off from what “body positivity” has currently become, but it still would not have been good.

I like that they made the fat character a ballerina, as that breaks some stereotypes and shows that fat people can do things that are usually gatekept from us. The character design is good. The main character’s body is not designed in a funny way or made into a joke. The character also does actually look fat instead of midsize or “thick.” The animation itself is nice as well. I will say that making fat peoples’ struggles out to be just negative body image (none of the other characters say anything to the main character either, so it really is just portrayed as an internal problem) is not great. Yes, it is important to have representation about fat people’s body image, but that is all we ever get and it doesn’t address the root of the problem, which is systemic fatphobia. This is another problem with “body positivity,” since the movement is all about body image and not things like fat people experiencing a wage gap and constant medical negligence among the plethora of other things that contribute to our oppression. I guess Disney has to start somewhere, and starting with negative body image is easier and safer than bigger problems, but I almost wish they would have just made an animation with a positive fat protagonist just succeeding or having an adventure. Not even discussing body image instead of making all our positive representation about us not liking our bodies. 

Overall, it was a pretty good animation. The representation wasn’t terrible and hopefully, hopefully, this will mean more positive fat characters and even fat protagonists in the future. And I am forever incredibly grateful that they didn’t go with their original concept of a thin character “feeling fat.”

-Mod Worthy