Leverage had a lot of well-researched things to say about the real world, but the one I always come back to, from The Double Blind Job:

Sophie: These are not small fines. Last year, my department handled a case where the company had to pay out $2.5 billion.

Hoffman: Oh, yeah. Everybody heard about that. But what the news didn’t tell you is that that company made $16 billion on the same drug. That fine was 14% of the profit. 14%. That’s like tipping your waiter.

#mood

The excluded tags filter on Ao3 is such a fucking lifesaver. I love it so much.

Do I know what I want to read? No. Do I know what I DON'T want to read? Absolutely. God bless

My likes are simple, but my dislikes are numerous and varied.

oh we won, this is gonna be a cinematic event

reblog if you are full of transgender and homosexuality

This act of puppy kicking evil to make conditions worse for the strikers will cost more than actually paying the strikers fair wages lololol never tell me CEOs are experts at good business decisions ever again.

CEOs are useless. Useless!

#I think a certain someone watched Mean Girls (2004) a lot

What able bodied authors think I, an amputee and a wheelchair user, would want in a scifi setting:

• Tech that can regenerate my old meat legs.
• Robot legs that work just like meat legs and are functionally just meat legs but robot
• Literally anything that would mean I don't have to use a wheelchair.
• If I do need to use a wheelchair, make it fly or able to "walk me" upstairs

What I actually want:

• Prosthetic covers that can change colour because I'm too indecisive to pick one colour/pattern for the next 5+ years.
• A leg that I can turn off (seriously, my above knee prosthetic has no off switch... just... why?)
• A leg that won't have to get refitted every time I gain or loose weight.
• A wheelchair that I can teleport to me and legs I can teleport away when I'm too tierd to keep walking. And vice versa.
• In that same vein, legs I can teleport on instead of having to fiddle around with the sockets for half an hour.
• Prosthetic feet that don't require me to wear shoes. F*ck shoes.
• Actually accessible architecture, which means when I do want to use my wheelchair, it's not an issue.
• Prosthetic legs with dragon-claw feet instead of boring human feet or just digigrade prosthetics that are just as functional as normal human-shaped ones.
• A manual wheelchair with the option to lift my seat up like those scissor-lift things so I'm not eye-level with everyone's butt on public transport/so I can reach the top shelf by myself.
• A prosthetic foot that lights up when it hits the ground like those children's shoes.

Ambulatory wheelchair user + chronic pain additions:

• Temperature controlled seat
• Android that brings my chair to me and is such a bro
• Hovers smoothly over bumpy road and stairs and makes a woooowooooowoooo sound when it does
• Chair wheels that light up when spun and charge my chair so it can be driven via joystick after a while of manual use
• Alerts on my phone if the chair is being moved without my knowledge
• Integrated GPS and the ability to dial emergency numbers
• And autopilot to take me home if I get tipsy <3

A few more things to possibly tack on! (Ambulatory aid user here, I use a wheelchair, canes, crutches)

For wheelchairs:

• An auto-balancer for doing wheelies when I go up/down a big bump. (hypothetically you could even go down stairs if you had enough balance like that, but ay yikes I would be Nervous, haha)
• BETTER POWER ASSISTS OH MY LORD. the current ones I know of are super heavy and have a bunch of tech issues
• A seat you can adjust yourself without having to get out of the chair, for if you're doing something more active versus just chilling/relaxing (the best body positioning for really active movement vs just sitting is different, at least in my experience)
• Literally, some sort of alarm system that discourages people from trying to push me without asking, or like... push handles that only manifest when I want them to.
• Variable shock absorption - if I could make it super shock-absorby over rough terrain, but then "harden" it somehow on smoother terrain, that would be really efficient!
• How about wheel gearing? Like on a bicycle. Add in a push-motion-reverser thingy (look up Rowheels to see what I'm talking about) and I'd love that.

For crutches/canes:

• SHOCK ABSORPTION. Crutches and canes are hard!!
• On that note, multi-terrain tips!!
• A magnetic crutch cuff that can detach from the crutch if needed so I can reach across a counter and not accidentally kneecap someone with the stick.
• Better collapsibility.
• Have fun with the scifi aspect. Have your character tinker and add a load of gadgetry into their aids (and that goes for wheelchairs and crutches/canes). I don't know. Stick a grappling hook function into it. Have them be usable as defense weaponry. Have a cloaking device built into the crutches/canes themselves for stealth. I dunno. Use your imagination!!

And finally, if you've got a cool idea, feel free to run it by someone who actually uses whatever aid you're writing about to get an opinion! (With permission, please, don't just barge into a random person's inbox. I myself am totally open to questions like that, and I know @cripplecharacters is a good resource!)

when u snuggle ur stuffed animals the love gets storred in the stuffing for later and then when u hug them later u feel the love come back out its like a spomge

Endless List of Characters I Love - Cyrus Goodman

"Who am I today? Who will I turn out to be? I don't know yet. All I really know is that I have people in my life who love me as I am... whatever that is.

Verba Mystica

Hopping back on the sketch train with Reggie! Love this dork and all two brain cells that he has

I live within bus distance of the Universal picket line for the writer’s strike, so I like to go down there when I can to march with em in solidarity. They are all extremely cool people, and since many of them are older than me, I have been treated to a lot of free advice on Adult Life from more experienced adults. 10/10.

It’s also extremely funny to hear them talk shit about studios/executives that they’ve had to put up with, because they’re no longer required to pretend Oh, They’re All Such Lovely People, We’re So Lucky To Work For Them.

- “Dick Wolf insists on having an a personal office at every studio where his shows are worked on. He never goes to half of them, and when he does, he’s not usually there long. It’s just supposed to be left empty for him in case he MIGHT show up.”

“I took a bunch of coffee creamers from there just before we called the strike.”

“Honestly, that sounds fair?”

“I like to think of it as payment for all the extra work I had to do for free.”

- “Never work for Netflix if you can avoid it.”

“Oh my God, RIGHT? It’s a nightmare!”

“That is the most exploited I’ve ever been, and I’ve been doing this for a while so that says a LOT.”

- “Do they ever acknowledge how many laws the cops break during a single episode of any of those SVU spinoffs?”

“We’re not even allowed to use the phrase ‘Bad apples’ because it makes them uncomfortable.”

- “Humor does not exist in the Dick Wolf-verse, so we’re only allowed to include one joke per episode. Sometimes I like to play a little game where I see if I can get away with sneaking in a second.”

“Has that ever worked?”

“I think once we got in a subtle pun.”