#look it's not a post complaining about computer problems!

[ageless-aislynn]

As somebody who didn't realize just how RIDICULOUSLY rigid I am in how I write... I'm finally beginning to make some actual progress on "15 Minutes" ch7 using the methods cobbled together from the advice of several awesome friends. 💖

A Tumblr draft is my home base (thank you to @sarnakhwritesthings who recognized my need for practically continual autosaving).

At the end of a writing session, I update the Tumblr draft to AO3 for extra safekeeping.

I use Editpad to give me a word count (thank you to @authortobenamedlater for that one). I might could use Editpad also for writing but I haven't stopped to see its save options, etc. But it definitely came in clutch to let me know that I've got 2,159 words entered so far!

That's putting this chapter on course to be about 4k words? 👀 But I've had people tell me they'd rather read long chapters so, hey, we'll go for it! Unless that's too big for the Tumblr draft? Oh, better check on that one. 🤔

There's a decent cut-off point before the cliffhanger ending of ch7 so I miiiight end up splitting it so that I have a little more time to get currently numbered chapter 8 (still in hand-written form) a little further along ready to post. We'll see!

It's just nice to be doing something other than researching computer repairs. *whispers* It hasn't blue screened or frozen/locked up today and has been on for nearly 10 hours. *pats it gently* I know you're a good computer, Georgette! You just need for those old bad conflicts to leave you alone!

I'm also not sure when I named this computer Georgette but at some point I just started referring to her by that name. 🤷‍♀️

Peace, out, frens. 🤗💖

[sauce-salad-bowl]

drabble idea where sans is an author underground and reader is just a video game character okay send blog post it’s under there 🤝🤝

This is embarrassing. He doesn’t even know what to write. Sans scoots away from the empty document on his computer, face buried deep in his hands. Maybe he should just cut his losses and go to sleep. Again.

But he doesn’t go to sleep. He mopes for a minute, then glances back at his computer and sighs, pulling himself closer again. Instead of agonizing over the blank page, he opens the UnderNet.

Scrolling will totally help him forget his problems.

And it does, for a few minutes.

He leaves five or twelve comments on Papyrus’ page, swipes through a few videos, only to quickly stumble onto another drawing of you. The caption says:

‘miss this game sm. who’s ur fave character? ^.^’ His thumb hovers over the keypad for a moment, then he ‘likes’ it.

It was a few years ago from now when he was getting coffee with Alphys, and she was gabbing to him about the things she had found in Waterfall. He was surprised when she handed him a copy of a video game he had never seen before.

“keep it, alph. you’ll appreciate it more than me.” Sans tried to respectfully decline, honestly thinking he’d be too lazy to play.

But Alphys insisted, her claw tapping the package. “I found a b-bunch of copies, actually. I-I’ve been trying to p-pass them around, get a bunch of p-people i-into it.”

“and how many you got so far?” he asked, placing his skull in his palm.

“Uhm, Undyne! A-and Asgore, for a f-few minutes…” She pushed the game towards him on the table. “And th-they both liked it! C-Can you just try it out?”

Sans shrugged and took the game from her, doubting that he would. But he could give it to Papyrus, maybe he’d get a kick out of it. He glanced at the cover, decorated with humans in odd-looking outfits. You didn’t stick out to him, not at first.

The video game ended up on the bookstand, under his quantum physics/joke textbook, for weeks. He was a busy guy, okay?

It would’ve sat there longer too, had Undyne not been over soon after. She grabbed the dusty case and insisted that they all play, waving it around wildly.

“It’s got swords and chainsaws, awesome characters, and a totally badass story! We’ve gotta take turns between levels!” Her eye had sparkled, and Papyrus had squealed at the thought, and that was how Sans found himself on the couch, sandwiched between them and watching them play.

It was a simple RPG adventure. And honestly, it didn’t seem like anything crazy to him, so he was content with just watching. But of course after a while his brother was shoving a controller in his hand and insisting he have a turn.

“alright, alright. ulna’t get your radius in a twist.”

“OH MY GOD, SANS. JUST PLAY.”

He snorted, but complied, actually enjoying solving some of the puzzles. He thought the art style was neat, too. And the NPCs were kind of interesting.

Especially you.

You were a loyal companion to Sans’ character, and he immediately noticed how… endeared he was by you. Your dialogue genuinely made him laugh out loud— he was definitely stealing some of your material. And your character just had this… aura, no, mystery about you, like you knew something more than he did.

Maybe this game was cooler than he thought.

Sans found himself quickly exhausting your dialogue options. He was just curious about what you had to say. When Undyne started to complain, he blinked, and handed the controller to her. He’d gotten distracted.

It’s only really spiraled from there. After playing the whole thing through right after Undyne left, he’s been a fan of the game ever since.

But if someone really asked him about it, he’s not sure what he would say. He liked it, but not much else. Because he wants to seem casual about it. He is casual about it.

That’s why he’s here now, a few years later, struggling to get down thoughts about you onto his keyboard. Super casual indeed.

He sucks in a breath, finally opening the document page again. You didn’t just fascinate him. He thought about you constantly, more than he’d like to admit. He found himself seeking you out outside your game, which worked well since it became pretty popular on UnderNet. He’s read his fair share of theories about you, only half of which he agrees with.

He wasn’t sure at all what to make of it, but he knew he liked thinking about you a lot. Sans had a lot of time for daydreaming as a sentry, since no humans ever actually came through. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t imagine you, shuffling past him in the snowy forrest.

Can he write about that? Sans puts down a few sentences, but it doesn’t really go anywhere, so he deletes it.

It’s not like he hasn’t tried with, y’know, real people. But he’s found that it’s a lot of effort to make relationships work. Sans has had a few great ones, but things always just sort of fizzled out. He hasn’t given up on it, but there are only so many folks down here. And he has a funny habit of finding his way back to you.

Is his little crush odd? Uh, yeah, maybe. But when his chest swells at the thought of you, or he thinks of a joke he just wishes he could tell you, he has to admit that he’s never really felt like this before.

He startles at the sound of pots banging downstairs. Papyrus, probably starting on dinner. For some reason, he wonders if you’d like his brother’s cooking. He pictures you at the table, eating and laughing with them in their living room. It’s sweet, but he shakes his head. Still underground. Not quite what he wanted.

When he thinks about what would really make him happy, he sees himself on the surface. The sun is hot against his face, and there’s a sky that somehow never stops. And when he looks, the hand entwined with his is yours.

Suddenly, he knows what he wants to write about.

+++++

hi what’d you think?? i was sitting in bed and gardening, and this idea that i’ve had for a while kept bugging me, so i opened my drafts and had to expel. i’ve had writers block all day so im hype that i actually came up with something, even if it’s not what i planned on writing.

uh i hope it makes sense?? its late where i am, cant tell if it makes sense!! im going to bed 🛌

[communistkenobi]

it’s sometimes frustrating when people respond to posts lamenting like, the fact that every news article is paywalled or every social media site is overrun by reactionaries or that all recipe websites are impossible to use because they’re covered in malicious ads or etc with “here’s a site that gets rid of those paywalls!” “install this recipe-unfucker browser extension on your computer!” “just join [obscure social media site that no one uses] or [dead forum]!” like I get the intent, I don’t take it as like malicious derailing or anything, and I even understanding wanting to spread resources to people esp adblocker resources. but this pattern of response in the aggregate feels like it’s fundamentally missing the point on some level - it is infuriating that you can’t spend an hour on social media without being reminded that the world viscerally hates you and wants you dead for the crime of being a minority, it is infuriating that you’re constantly condescended to about the “dangers of disinformation” by the same professional class that paywalls every single piece of data from the public, it is infuriating that the internet is rapidly approaching a point of total unusability for the express purpose of further lining a billionaire’s pockets, and no browser extension or obscure discord clone is going to fix that. These are structural problems and I think people are using these things as examples to complain about these structures, and it sometimes feels like people are missing that point when they post a link to a mozilla-only browser extension. it feels like unwanted advice to a problem that is already unsolveable via individual solutions. often it borders on patronising, as if people aren’t aware they can log off tumblr and post on a Web 2.0 forum that 1000 people collectively use or haven’t heard of the concept of an adblocker. but again like what else are you supposed to do the next time you want to look up a chili recipe or watch cat videos online or read the news. sucks ass

[savannagonemad]

equations

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fluff ✨

se-mi x fem!reader

wordcount: 2.3k

author's note: a bit of a shorter one! wanted to get something else before i started touring some colleges. i hope you like this fluff story, i tried to focus more on the emotional aspect for this one! my requests are always open if there's something special you'd like to see 💚💚

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"like, what the hell is any of this?" se-mi whined, staring down at her homework.

you glanced over at your roommate for the eighth time this hour. she had been loudly complaining about her math homework ever since she had gotten to your shared dorm.

"sem, you good over there?" you asked. she was making it sound like the paper was asking her to create a black hole.

"no, i'm not good," se-mi complained. "look at this shit."

se-mi made no effort to show you the paper, so you had to get up and walk over to her yourself. you looked down at the paper. it all seemed fine to you, which was probably because you were majoring in math.

"i don't even know how to pronounce half of these words," se-mi said, getting a giggle out of you. se-mi glared at you.

"sorry," you apologized, reading the paper over her shoulder. "why don't you skip this one and do some that you know how to do first?"

se-mi nodded and flipped through the pages, looking for familiar problems that were covered in class that she remembered. there weren't any.

"did you take notes?" you asked her, trying to be helpful without doing her homework for her. she nodded and pulled her incredibly unorganized bag out from under her desk, searching through it.

"did a bomb go off in there or something? jeez sem," you teased. she gave you a look.

"i've been meaning to clean it out," she said as she pulled out a paper that was absolutely from high school and set it aside. apparently she'd been 'meaning to' for a while now.

eventually she found her math notebook and flipped it open to today's notes. you looked over her shoulder at them and blinked a few times. you thought maybe se-mi was taking a hieroglyphics class in the same notebook as her math class.

"this does not help," se-mi muttered, tossing the notebook on the floor.

you gave se-mi a pitiful look and came up with a new idea.

"does your professor post lectures online?" you asked. se-mi nodded and pulled her laptop off her bed, firing it up.

"welcome, se-mi." the screen displayed. se-mi rolled her eyes at the familiar message she had read hundreds of times.

"skip the formalities already," se-mi said as the screen turned blue.

"installing updates. 0% complete. 2 hours remaining."

"two hours?!" se-mi hissed. you giggled and se-mi swatted at your arm. "are they downloading the entire internet or something?"

you sat back down on your bed and watched as se-mi stared at her computer, hoping that somehow the time would magically go down. after a few minutes, you took pity on her.

"sem," you called out. she turned to face you, hoping you would have a solution. "your computer is going to take a long time to do all those updates, why don't we do something in the meantime?"

"it beats sitting here waiting, i guess," she said. "you want to get dinner or something?"

"sounds good to me. there's a pizza place that recently opened up and it's so good, wanna go there?" you asked. you had discovered the restaurant while you were exploring the area around campus, and they undoubtedly had the best pizza in town with a great view to go with it.

"sure, it's a date," se-mi said, looking at you teasingly. you playfully rolled your eyes at her and stood up, grabbing your keys and money. se-mi got her shoes on and nodded at you, and you both left your dorm room and headed for the elevator down the hall. you pressed the button and waited for the elevator to arrive.

"so, what's this magical new pizza place?" se-mi asked, looking over at you.

"it's a surprise," you said simply, grinning at her.

"yeah? that's no fun," she responded, nudging you with her shoulder.

you didn't say anything else so you could keep it a secret. you wanted to surprise her with this restaurant so she could have the same sort of experience that you had when you first found it. se-mi shook her head at you in mock disbelief, but didn't say anything further.

after a moment, the elevator opened with a ding, and you and se-mi stepped inside. you and se-mi simultaneously fixed your hair using the mirror along the back wall of the elevator as the doors slid closed. you pressed the button for the ground floor, and the elevator began moving. you turned back to the mirror to tweak your hair some more, but se-mi hand on your shoulder stopped you.

"hey, you look fine, hm?" she affirmed you. you smiled slightly and looked over yourself in the mirror.

"really?" you asked. something about being with se-mi made you more self-conscious and made you want to loom your very best.

"yeah. i actually find hobbits pretty cute, so you fit right in," she said, covering her mouth with her hand to stop herself from laughing at her own joke.

"se-mi!" you chided, but laughed as well. she always knew what to say. you sighed and turned away from the mirror. se-mi apparently liked how you looked, so there wasn't a need to adjust yourself further.

the elevator dinged at you and the doors slid open, letting both of you out. you two quietly trekked through the lobby and out the front door, walking to your car. the two of you got in and you pulled out of the parking lot, beginning to drive to the restaurant.

"sooo, y/n," se-mi started. you looked at her briefly in the mirror, and she was staring directly back at you. "is this a date?"

you coughed out of surprise and almost jerked the steering wheel. a blush rose to your face.

"say again?" you asked, not sure if you heard correctly.

"i told you this was a date before we left, and you didn't object. so are we on a date or not?" se-mi elaborated, clearly enjoying your suddenly flustered demeanor.

"i- i don't know? i guess? if you want it to be?" you stumbled over your words, trying to focus on driving and not the fact your friend basically just asked you out on a date. how was she being so casual about this?

"well, that settles it. we're on a date." se-mi smiled at you, clearly proud of herself. you were at a loss for words, which was fine with you. you didn't want to embarrass yourself any more than you just did.

a few more silent minutes passed as you drove. se-mi got bored of the silence and began humming to herself, which made you smile slightly. she had a tendency to express herself with the little things like that, and you found it kind of cute. which made the fact that you two were apparently on a date even more surprising. you felt your blush beginning to deepen, and you kicked yourself mentally for it.

se-mi definitely noticed and was having fun with it, 'accidentally' bumping your arm a few times and subtly changing the melody of her humming to songs she knew you like.

"i'm going to crash and it's going to be your fault," you said after a minute. se-mi just smirked.

"sorry, am i distracting you?" she asked, not-so-subtly resting her hand on your leg.

"a bit," you said, trying to focus on the road. you turned down a side path made of dirt and rocks, taking the two of you through the somewhat hidden road. se-mi noticed this and looked around, not recognizing the area.

"where are we going again?" she asked, intrigued. she whined at you when you didn't respond, this time causing you to smile. with how much she'd been poking at you and teasing you on the ride here, it was kind of a taste of her own medicine.

eventually, the road opened up into a parking lot attached to a restaurant building.

"this place is awfully hidden," se-mi observed. "how'd you find out about it?"

"i was just driving around and taking random roads, then i stumbled upon it," you told her, getting out of the car. se-mi also out and began to walk with you towards the restaurant. in typical se-mi fashion, she interlocked her arm with yours, causing you to give her a flustered glare. she looked back at you innocently in response.

"you're unbelievable," you said, shaking your head.

"what'd i do?" she asked, feigning ignorance.

you rolled your eyes, but stepped a bit closer to her. she smiled as you did, the two of you making your way inside the restaurant.

as you both walked inside, se-mi realized why you liked this place. it was super clean, and it smelled absolutely incredible. there were a few customers inside, none of which paid any attention to you. you went up to the counter where a worker was attending and began to place your orders. you ordered [whatever kind of pizza you like] and se-mi kept it simple with pepperoni. after you had placed your orders, the worker asked if it would be for here or to go.

"to go, please," you told them, much to se-mi's surprise. you paid for the food and went over to the side to wait for your orders to be made.

"you didn't have to pay for me," se-mi said, leaning against you casually like she had been doing it for years.

"i wanted to," you said simply.

"well, i appreciate it," she responded. "and why did you make it a to-go order?"

"it's a secret," you said. se-mi pouted at your simple answers.

"you have too many secrets," she complained.

you didn't say anything further, so she resigned herself to pouting. when that didn't work, she elected to simply lean against you. you felt her arm slip around your waist as she held onto you, which made a blush rise to your cheeks for the second time tonight. you knew she would engage in her typical shenanigans if you mentioned it, so you stayed quiet.

the conversation fell quiet, and you and se-mi just enjoyed each other's presence. pretty soon, your pizzas were ready. you stepped forward, out of se-mi's grasp. se-mi whined in complaint and quickly made her way back to your side. you thanked the worker for the pizzas, and they nodded towards the two of you.

"you two are cute together," they said cheerfully.

"oh, no, we aren't- i'm not-" you stammered, suddenly flustered again. today was really not your day. fortunately for you, se-mi swooped in to your rescue.

"thank you!" she said, giving them a friendly smile. "don't mind my girlfriend here, she's shy."

se-mi's words just caused you to hide your face in your hand, unsure how else to react. se-mi took her pizza from you and locked her arm with yours again.

"c'mon love, let's go," she said, leading you outside. as soon as you were out of the building, you looked over at her with a glare.

"sem, what are you doing? you can't just tell people things like that-"

"you're hot when you're embarrassed," se-mi said, cutting you off. before you could even register what she said, she hit you with a follow-up statement. "now, why'd you get it to-go?"

"oh, there's a place i wanted to go with you- wait, did you just call me hot?" you began leading se-mi to a path through the trees nearby.

"i don't remember calling you hot," she said.

"you are the most impossible girl sometimes, sem," you said, but you couldn't help but smile at her antics. she made a noise of agreement which only served as further proof of your statement.

eventually, the path opened to a small clearing on a hill. there was a bench that overlooked a beautiful lake, and the sun was beginning to set which cast a mesmerizing effect on the water. se-mi's words left her for a moment as she overlooked the lake. she sat down on the bench as you did the same, and you just took in the scenery for a few minutes.

"it's beautiful," se-mi eventually said. you nodded at her, proud of yourself.

the two of you opened your pizza boxes and began eating, basking in the beauty of the nature surrounding you and in each other's presence. a sense of serenity overcame you as the only sounds you could hear were the rustling of the leaves and the breathing of se-mi.

after you both finished eating, you set your respective pizza boxes next to you and looked out across the lake. you felt se-mi slip her hand into yours, and you absolutely didn't resist. you held her hand tightly, and she leaned her head on your shoulder.

"y/n," se-mi started, her voice soft. you turned your head and looked at her.

"hm?"

"i love you..." she whispered. you felt your heart skip a beat as you processed her words. a smile rose to your face, and you rested your head against hers.

"i love you too, sem," you affirmed. se-mi sighed happily as a warm feeling passed through her, all of her worries gone for the moment. you felt the same way.

both of you sat in comfortable silence as se-mi cuddled closer to you, the physical contact saying all the words for you. a sudden burst of confidence overcame you, and you softly kissed the top of se-mi's head, drawing an adorable noise of appreciation from her. se-mi could be chaotic and unpredictable at times, but she sure was cute.

you thought back to when she openly called you her girlfriend. you didn't have a problem with that.

you and your new girlfriend happily cuddled with each other as you watched the way the water reflected the setting sun. both of you thought it was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the person who you were with.

as the sun dipped below the horizon, you realized something. you had come here to show se-mi a beautiful view, but somehow, she had become the most breathtaking part of it all.

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💚✨ did you like this fic? if so, click here to go to my masterlist and read others like it! ✨💚

[mimez-meme]

Tenya iida headcanons‼️🥳

Owns all social media that his class has to monitor them and make sure their posting ‘appropriate’ stuff or nothing mean.

Linked to the last hc, has twitter. He has a fan acc of his brother to show his support and he will correct anyone who gets any info wrong about tensei

Likes comics and wants to make one of his own one day and he has written his own little book, but it isn’t published or anything it’s just on his computer. (The book can be about anything you guys think he would write about.)

He makes sure to get to class early to leave little compliments or motivation quotes on the board for the students to see when they arrive

Struggles to tell the difference between platonic and romantic feelings, once thought he had a crush on ochako but he didn’t (or did, depends if you ship them)

Straight ally but demiromantic. Makes sure to show his support the best he can.

Use to have imaginary friends when younger, people lowkey thought he was crazy. He still sometimes thinks about them, but knows their fake obv.

Has a friend from childhood who moved away, they still have contact with eachother and iida loves to send letters to them. He sometimes complains to them about his class.. not in a bad way tho ofc.

Has a pet lizard named lizzy

tried to learn French for aoyama and when he tried to speak French with him he accidentally said something inappropriate and he still can’t stop thinking about it.

Doesn’t really understand emojis, he mostly just uses ‘<3’ ‘:)’ ect. Once when delivering sad news to someone by text he used ‘😹’ thinking it was crying. He learnt it wasn’t and apologised to that same person whenever he remembers about it

Pulls bitches. But he doesn’t necessary want to be in a relationship along with being a hero. However he does have a mini crush on momo but is in denial (I’m an iidamomo shipper leave me alone😓✊🏻)

Photogenic. he doesn’t even know he is, but he looks good without even trying🙏

Vegetarian

Daily phone time is atleast 30mins-an hour

Has a random obsession with jelly fishes. He knows so many facts about them. He just finds them interesting and pretty. Sometimes he would be like to his friends “this jelly fish reminds me of you!” Via message normally

Loves pugs. He owns one.✊🏻

Use to get called sonic a lot as a kid and still now but he didn’t know who sonic was, denki forced iida to watch a sonic movie and now he lowkey likes them, he watches sonic in his free time.. no one knows.

Sees special and amazing traits in all his classmates. He observes them the best he can so he can help them. Always knows how to compliment them and comfort them.

As a kid he found his quirk to be quite boring and nothing special but his brother helped him to see the amazing part of his quirk.

Mild-dyslexia, mild- ocd

Doesn’t really have a type, mostly goes for personality not looks.

Once didn’t do up his top button to be ‘ rebellious’ but no one noticed😕

Not the best at reading the room unless it’s really obvious

HATES wasps, bees or any ‘loud’ insect. He doesn’t know why but he does.

Fear of being abandoned and small spaces

Didn’t learn how to drive a car until he was 25

Has a projector in his dorm

Always feels ashamed of having problems. People have it worse. Are they even considered problems? It’s hard for him to open up, he normally hates to, especially if he knows the person he’s opening up to or is offering to talk has it worse.

Struggles to sleep due to his quirk, and he just struggles. He sometimes has nightmares about loosing his brother, friends and the first time he, izuku, todoroki, momo, Kiri met AFO

Views todoroki as a brother. (If that make sense..)

Grew up watching mr bean (just hear me out on him being a mr bean kid and even having me beans teddy irl🙏)

Doesn’t like going to graveyards or any religious place like a church beacuse he gets an off putting feeling, he feels like he’s being disrespectful yk? And he doesn’t like thinking about death. (He respects religions don’t get him wrong! This headcanon is lowkey based on me except I like going to graveyards)

Brings hand sanitiser with him no matter what

Present mic and Shouta use to look after iida sometimes when he was younger since in my au tensei and then are friends. Iida has a very vivid memory of Shouta and zashi kissing infront of him and a vivid memory of hizashi offering him beer😭

Listens to motivation music, I did have a song in mind but I forgot 😭🙏 and he listens romance music.. also once went to jirou for help on music.

Watched the titanic and cried.

Loves sunsets, always goes out and sees them, takes photos, invites people to just look at the sky with him. He finds it relaxing and a way to appreciate nature

Likes tea and biscuits, hot chocolate but doesn’t like coffee and not a massive fizzy drink fan, only really likes orange fanta

Basically knows all the drama. People usually come to him to just complain or talk about drama and he always overhears stuff without meaning to

Has all the wimpy kids books but no one knows

Fav animals are jelly fishes and seals.. he like sea animals if you couldn’t tell.

Has the NASTIEST side eye

MASSIVE gentlemen, he treats all girls/women with respect.

Fantastic listener however he can be distracted like if someone was doing something bad behind you or in his view he will pay attention to that person until he can’t hold it in anymore and tells them off as you were talking he but then apologises.

Not fully Japanese he’s 25% Swedish, 10% Greek

Is mei’s personal ‘test doll’ (nothing romantic 😭)

Everyone always asks him for piggy back rides and he doesn’t understand why. He’s only given piggy back rides to children, uraraka and people who need it like injured people. He figured it was because he can run fast and he wants people to experience it.

Has central heterochromia

Gets cold easily and always overdresses for winter

Likes decision games but most of the time picks the wrong decisions..and he like murder mystery games, he’s good but not the best

(Sorry if any spelling mistakes)

[thepringlesofblood]

Murderbot Citations

I'm writing a giant research paper on the murderbot diaries and how Wells contrasts utopia & dystopia in her worldbuilding to deepen both sets of lore. So, I have made a LOT of citations.

Like, a LOT of citations. I can't even begin to describe. and it has been a royal pain getting them all on the computer, formatted correctly, with page # and book attached.

So. I decided to publish my giant list of citations online in case anyone else wants to do posts/papers/projects on the murderbot diaries and needs formatted, direct quotes with page numbers attached. (Also to feel like all this work has been for more than just my own academic needs.)

TLDR: A compilation of quotes from The Murderbot Diaries with page numbers attached, ready to be adjusted to the citation style of your choice & used as in-text citations where you see fit to put them. Enjoy!

ASR = All Systems Red

AC = Artificial Condition

RP = Rogue Protocol

ES = Exit Strategy

NE = Network Effect

FT = Fugitive Telemetry

SC = System Collapse

I use 'mb' as shorthand for murderbot

It's mostly ASR, with some NE and FT thrown in, but I put all the abbreviations in case I wind up coming back and putting more citations here

My list is organized according to how I'm writing the paper (all ones about surveillance here, all the ones about contract slavery there, etc.), so the page numbers are not in order, and there might be a repeat or two, but they are in book order. some of them might be repeated bc I had them formatted in lists like "all quotes related to ___) and some quotes relate to multiple things.

if you're looking specifically for gender-related mb quotes, @worldsentwined made a wonderful post collecting them a while back. I also have a few other murderbot posts that have quotes in them that might not be here, including a reblog where a bunch of lovely people added extra citations onto my original post. I hope you find what you're looking for!

All Systems Red

“I had been on contracts where the clients would have told me to put the bleeding human down to go get the stuff.” (15) ASR

“There were groans and general complaining about having to pay high prices for shitty equipment. (I don’t take it personally.)” (31) ASR crossover w slavery

“My education modules were such cheap crap;” (34) ASR

“I’m not refundable.” (49) ASR

“(You had to check everything out and log any problems immediately when you took delivery or the company wasn’t liable.)” (52) ASR

“It was all company equipment though, per contract, and all subject to the same malfunctions as the crap they’d dumped on us.” (58) ASR

““The company could be bribed to conceal the existence of several hundred survey teams on this planet.” Survey teams, whole cities, lost colonies, traveling circuses, as long as they thought they could get away with it. I just didn’t see how they could get away with making a client survey team—two client survey teams—vanish. Or why they’d want to. There were too many bond companies out there, too many competitors. Dead clients were terrible for business. “I don’t think the company would collude with one set of clients to kill two other sets of clients. You purchased a bond agreement that the company would guarantee your safety or pay compensation in the event of your death or injury. Even if the company couldn’t be held liable or partially liable for your deaths, they would still have to make the payment to your heirs. DeltFall was a large operation. The death payout for them alone will be huge.” And the company hated to spend money.” (90) ASR

“The organic parts mostly sleep, but not always. You know something’s happening. They were trying to purge my memory. We’re too expensive to destroy.” (116) ASR

“The company required this as a security feature if you wanted your base to be anywhere without open terrain around it. It cost extra, and if you didn’t want it, it cost even more to guarantee your bond.” (124) ASR

“Okay, the problem is, I’ve mentioned this before, the company is cheap. When it comes to something like a beacon that just has to launch once if there’s an emergency, send a transmission through the wormhole, and then never gets retrieved, they’re very cheap.” (137) ASR

“I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction…. “Your contract allows—” “Shut up,” Mensah snapped.” (139) ASR

“…we’re cheaply produced and we suck. Nobody would hire one of us for non-murdering purposes unless they had to.” (34) ASR

“In a smart world, I should go alone, but with the governor module I had to be within a hundred meters of at least one of the clients at all times, or it would fry me.” (37) ASR

“I walked out a little way, past a couple of the lakes, almost expecting to see something under the surface. Dead bodies, maybe. I’d seen plenty of those (and caused plenty of those) on past contracts, but this one had been dead-body-lacking, so far. It made for a nice change.” (44) ASR

“This is how we fight: throw ourselves at each other and see whose parts give out first.” (69) ASR

““Dr. Mensah,” I said, “this is a violation of security priority and I am contractually obligated to record this for report to the company—” It was in the buffer and the rest of my brain was empty.” (73) ASR

“The DeltFall SecUnits hadn’t been rogues, they had been inserted with combat override modules. The modules allow personal control over a SecUnit, turn it from a mostly autonomous construct into a gun puppet. The feed would be cut off, control would be over the comm, but functionality would depend on how complex the orders were. “Kill the humans” isn’t a complex order.” (75) ASR

““Because if the company wanted to sabotage you, they would have poisoned your supplies using the recycling systems. The company is more likely to kill you by accident.”” (81) ASR

“I said, “I did not hack my governor module to kill my clients. My governor module malfunctioned because the stupid company only buys the cheapest possible components. It malfunctioned and I lost control of my systems and I killed them. The company retrieved me and installed a new governor module. I hacked it so it wouldn’t happen again.” (81) ASR

"“Do they really expect to get away with this?” Ratthi turned to me, like he was expecting an answer.” (105)

““They may believe the company and whoever your beneficiaries are won’t look any further than the rogue SecUnits. But they can’t make two whole survey teams disappear unless their corporate or political entity doesn’t care about them. Does DeltFall’s care? Does yours?” (105) ASR

“Freehold meant it had been terraformed and colonized but wasn’t affiliated with any corporate confederations. Basically freehold generally meant shitshow so I hadn’t been expecting much from them. But they were surprisingly easy to work for.” (26) ASR

“The other good thing about my hacked governor module is that I could ignore the governor’s instructions to defend the stupid company.” (48) ASR

“I had a moment to feel betrayed, which was stupid. Volescu was my client, and I’d saved his life because that was my job, not because I liked him.” (79-80) ASR

“One saw me and Ratthi and said, “Again, this is irregular. Purging the unit’s memory before it changes hands isn’t just a policy, it’s best for the—” (143) ASR

“Maybe it would work out. This was what I was supposed to want. This was what everything had always told me I was supposed to want. Supposed to want.” (147) ASR

“Murderbots aren’t allowed to ride with the humans and I had to have verbal permission to enter. With my cracked governor there was nothing to stop me, but not letting anybody, especially the people who held my contract, know that I was a free agent was kind of important. Like, not having my organic components destroyed and the rest of me cut up for parts important.” (14) ASR

“I’m always supposed to speak respectfully to the clients, even when they’re about to accidentally commit suicide. HubSystem could log it and it could trigger punishment through the governor module.” (15) ASR

“…if it monitored the governor module and my feed like it was supposed to, it could lead to a lot of awkward questions and me being stripped for parts.” (31) ASR

“I had worked for some contracts that would have kept me standing here the entire day and night cycle, just on the off chance they wanted me to do something and didn’t want to bother using the feed to call me.” (33) ASR

“I don’t know why I was dancing around the word. Maybe because I thought she didn’t want to hear it. She’d just shot a heavily armed SecUnit with a mining drill to get me back; presumably she wanted to keep me.” (76) ASR

“Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name?” I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.” “It calls itself ‘Murderbot,’” Gurathin said." (82) ASR

“To them, talking to me was like talking to a hopper or a piece of mining equipment.” (127) ASR

“I know I said SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other, but I wished it wasn’t one of the DeltFall units. It was in there somewhere, trapped in its own head, maybe aware, maybe not. Not that it matters. None of us had a choice.” (132) ASR

“Guardian was a nicer word than owner.” (148) ASR

“I’ve purchased your contract.” (145) ASR

“He said, “Good news! Dr. Mensah has permanently bought your contract! You’re coming home with us!” (141) ASR

“I’m off inventory.” They had told me that and maybe it was true.” (145) ASR

“SecSystem records everything, even inside the sleeping cabins, and I see everything.” (30) ASR

“I was supposed to check their personal logs periodically in case they were plotting to defraud the company or murder each other or something…” (57) ASR

“One of the reasons the bond company requires it, besides slapping more expensive markups on their clients, is that I was recording all their conversations all the time, though I wasn’t monitoring anything I didn’t need to do a half-assed version of my job. But the company would access all those recordings and data mine them for anything they could sell. No, they don’t tell people that. Yes, everyone does know it. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.” (27-28) ASR

“Now they knew their murderbot didn’t want to be around them any more than they wanted to be around it. I’d given a tiny piece of myself away. That can’t happen. I have too much to hide, and letting one piece go means the rest isn’t as protected.” (33-34) ASR

“No one would be shooting at me because they didn’t shoot people there. Mensah didn’t need a bodyguard there; nobody did. It sounded like a great place to live, if you were a human or augmented human.” (146) ASR

“If there’s a chance we can save lives, we have to take it,” Pin-Lee agreed.” (57) ASR

“They were the first clients I’d had who hadn’t had any previous experience with SecUnits” (40) ASR

““You have to think of it as a person,” Pin-Lee said to Gurathin.” (95) ASR

“”It is a person,” Arada insisted.” “I do think of it as a person,” Gurathin said. “An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.” “Then stop being mean to it,” Ratthi told him. “That might help.”” (96) ASR

“Overse added, “It doesn’t want to interact with humans. And why should it? You know how constructs are treated, especially in corporate-political environments.”” (107) ASR

“”You know, in Preservation-controlled territory, bots are considered full citizens. A construct would fall under the same category.” He said this in the tone of giving me a hint. Whatever. Bots who are “full citizens” still have to have a human or augmented human guardian appointed, usually their employer; I’d seen it on the news feeds.” (112) ASR

“Ratthi smiled at the console. “Because Dr. Mensah is our political entity.” He made a little gesture, turning his hand palm up. “We’re from Preservation Alliance, one of the non-corporate system entities. Dr. Mensah is the current admin director on the steering committee. It’s an elected position, with a limited term. But one of the principles of our home is that our admins must also continue their regular work, whatever it is. Her regular work required this survey, so here she is, and here we are.”” (111) ASR

“Ratthi came over to see if I was all right, and I asked him to tell me about Preservation and how Mensah lived there. He said when she wasn’t doing admin work, she lived on a farm outside the capital city, with two marital partners, plus her sister and brother and their three marital partners, and a bunch of relatives and kids who Ratthi had lost count of.” (147) ASR

“Ratthi sighed. “Oh, yes, they know. You would not believe what we had to pay to guarantee the bond on the survey. These corporate arseholes are robbers.”” (112) ASR

““Because the scanners suck corporation balls,” Pin-Lee muttered.” (42) ASR

“Of course I need you. I have no experience in anything like this. None of us do. Sometimes humans can’t help but let emotion bleed through into the feed. She was furious and frightened, not at me, at the people who would do this, kill like this,” (107-108) ASR

“I said, “This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it.” It’s an automatic reaction triggered by catastrophic malfunction. Also, I really didn’t want them to try to move me because it hurt bad enough the way it was. “Your contract allows—” “Shut up,” Mensah snapped. “You shut the fuck up. We’re not leaving you.”” (139) ASR

"I had flashes off and on. The inside of the little hopper, my humans talking, Arada holding my hand." (140) ASR

“We had a problem at the hatch of the big hopper where Mensah wanted to get in last and I wanted to get in last. As a compromise, I grabbed her around the waist and swung us both up into the hatch as the ramp pulled in after us. I set her on her feet and she said, “Thank you, SecUnit,” while the others stared.” (99) ASR

““I know you’re more comfortable with keeping your helmet opaque, but the situation has changed. We need to see you.”” (103) ASR

““It’s usually better if humans think of me as a robot,” I said.” (103) ASR

““Maybe, under normal circumstances.” She was looking a little off to one side, not trying to make eye contact, which I appreciated. “But this situation is different. It would be better if they could think of you as a person who is trying to help. Because that’s how I think of you.” My insides melted. That’s the only way I could describe it. After a minute, when I had my expression under control, I cleared the face plate and had it and the helmet fold back into my armor. She said, “Thank you,” and I followed her up into the hopper.” (104) ASR

“They were saying things like I didn’t even know it had a face.” (21) ASR

“Arada and Pin-Lee didn’t try to talk to me, and Ratthi actually looked away when I eased past him to get to the cockpit. They were all so careful not to look at me or talk to me directly that as soon as we were in the air I did a quick spot check through HubSystem’s records of their conversations.” (39) ASR

“They had talked it over and all agreed not to “push me any further than I wanted to go” and they were all so nice and it was just excruciating.” (40) ASR

“That was when I realized they weren’t ignoring the possibility of sabotage.” (43) ASR

“This is why I didn’t want to come. I’ve got four perfectly good humans here and I didn’t want them to get killed by whatever took out DeltFall. It’s not like I cared about them personally, but it would look bad on my record, and my record was already pretty terrible.” (60) ASR

“It was nice having a human smart enough to work with like this.” (67) ASR

“I do a half-assed job sometimes, okay, most of the time, but Pin-Lee had checked, too, and she was thorough.” (71) ASR

“It was starting to occur to me that Dr. Mensah might actually be an intrepid galactic explorer, even if she didn’t look like the ones on the entertainment feed.” (73) ASR

“I hoped they hadn’t been stupid about it, too soft-hearted to kill me.” (77) ASR

“My clients are the best clients.” (78) ASR

“But I think the fact that the Unit has been acting to preserve our lives, to take care of us, while it was a free agent, gives us even more reason to trust it.”” (80) ASR

“Overse sounded mad. “It told us about the combat module, it told us to kill it. Why the hell would it do that if it wanted to hurt us?”” (81) ASR

“Before anyone else could move, Mensah said, calm and even, “SecUnit, I’d appreciate it if you put Gurathin down, please.” She’s a really good commander. I’m going to hack her file and put that in. If she’d gotten angry, shouted, let the others panic, I don’t know what would have happened.” (84-85) ASR

“She continued, “I would like you to remain part of our group, at least until we get off this planet and back to a place of safety. At that point, we can discuss what you’d like to do. But I swear to you, I won’t tell the company, or anyone outside this room, anything about you or the broken module.”” (86) ASR

“Of course she had to say that. What else could she do. I tried to decide whether to believe it or not, or whether it mattered, when I was hit by a wave of I don’t care. And I really didn’t. I said, “Okay.”” (86) ASR

““We have to shut it down, or it’s going to kill us.” Then he winced and looked at me. “Sorry, I meant HubSystem.”” (86-87) ASR

“Then Arada came up and patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry. This must be very upsetting. After what that other Unit did to you . . . Are you all right?” That was too much attention. I turned around and walked into the corner, facing away from them.” (87) ASR

“I should keep my mouth shut, keep them thinking of me as their normal obedient SecUnit, stop reminding them what I was. But I wanted them to be careful.” (92) ASR

““If a strange survey group landed here, all friendly, saying they had just arrived, and oh, we’ve had an equipment failure or our MedSystem’s down and we need help, you would let them in. Even if I told you not to, that it was against company safety protocol, you’d do it.” Not that I’m bitter, or anything. A lot of the company’s rules are stupid or just there to increase profit, but some of them are there for a good reason.” (92-93) ASR

[I cited this whole conversation bc I wasn't sure exactly what bits I wanted to use. apologies for the giant block text.]

“Ratthi’s expression was troubled. “But surely . . . It’s clear you have feelings—”” (54)

“She looked up, frowning. “Ratthi, what are you doing?” Ratthi shifted guiltily. “I know Mensah asked us not to, but—” He waved a hand. “You saw it.” Overse pulled her interface off. “You’re upsetting it,” she said, teeth gritted. “That’s my point!” He gestured in frustration. “The practice is disgusting, it’s horrible, it’s slavery. This is no more a machine than Gurathin is—” Exasperated, Overse said, “And you don’t think it knows that?” I’m supposed to let the clients do and say whatever they want to me and with an intact governor module I wouldn’t have a choice.” (54) ASR

“I’m also not supposed to snitch on clients to anybody except the company, but it was either that or jump out the hatch. I sent the conversation into the feed tagged for Mensah. From the cockpit, she shouted, “Ratthi! We talked about this!” I slid out of the seat and went to the back of the hopper, as far away as I could get, facing the supply lockers and the head. It was a mistake; it wasn’t a normal thing for a SecUnit with an intact governor module to do, but they didn’t notice. “I’ll apologize,” Ratthi was saying. “No, just leave it alone,” Mensah told him. “That would just make it worse,” Overse added.” (55) ASR

Network Effect

“Humans in the Preservation alliance didn't have to sign up for contract labor and get shipped off to mines or whatever for 80 to 90 percent of their lifespans. There was some strange system where they all got their food and shelter and education and medical for free, no matter what job they did.” (35-36) NE

“...it was a natural mistake on Arada’s part. In Preservation culture asking payment for anything considered necessary for living (food, power sources, education, the feed, etc.) was considered outrageous, but asking payment for life-saving help was right up there with cannibalism.” (201) NE

“There were "free" bots wandering around on Preservation, though they had guardians who were technically supposed to keep track of them.” (27) NE

“Plus, it was Preservation and there were no scanning drones, no armed human security, just some on-call human medics with bot assistants and “rangers” who mainly enforced environmental regulations and yelled at humans and augmented humans to get out of the way of the ground vehicles.” (24) NE

"Over the comm loudspeaker, Dr. Ratthi said, 'It is a person!'" (16) NE

“Even the individual humans’ feed signatures only contained info about sexual availability and gender presentation, which I didn’t give a damn about.” (13) NE

“If this went wrong I was going to feel really stupid. The Targets would finally show up and be all “What the hell was it trying to do to itself?”“ (305-306) NE

“That’s one of the reasons Me 1.0 misses its armor.” (293) NE

“You and Amena were right. 2.0 was a person. It wasn’t like a baby, but it was a person.” (340) NE

“The damage to its organic tissue and support structure is easily repaired.” (132) NE

“- because it thought you were dead. It was so upset I thought-Oh, hey, you’re here” (227) NE

“Amena’s voice said “No, it doesn’t like to be touched!”“ (335) NE

““No, it says it’s fine,” I heard her relaying to the others on our comm. “Well, yes, it’s furious,”” (12) NE

"It's not aliens, 2.0 said. We knew it wasn't aliens, I told it. It countered, We were seventy-two percent sure it wasn't aliens. That was an outdated assessment but I didn't need to argue with myself right now." (314) NE

Fugitive Telemetry

“Preservation had two economies, one a complicated barter system for planetary residents and one currency-based for visitors and for dealing with other polities. Most of the humans here didn’t really understand how important hard currency was in the Corporation Rim but the council did, and Mensah said the port took in enough in various fees to keep the station from being a drain on the planet’s resources.” (79) FT

“The Preservation Alliance has a weird thing about food and medical care and other thing humans need to survive being free and available anywhere.” (35) FT

“The employment contracts for Preservation citizens were pretty simple, because their planetary legal code had so many in-built protections already. (For example, humans and augmented humans can’t sign away their rights to their labor or bodily autonomy in perpetuity; that’s like, straight-up illegal.)” (12) FT

“Preservation has high safety standards so we passed through two air walls before we got to the cargo ship’s hatch.” (70) FT

“Right now Aylen and the other officers were explaining to their individual Targets what rights they had as detainees in Preservation Alliance territory. (It was a lot of rights. I was pretty sure it was more rights than a human who hadn’t been detained by Station Security had in the Corporation Rim.)” (85-86) FT

“As part of the rights thing, Aylen had told Target Five the scanner would be on, which I thought was playing way too fair,” (89-90) FT

“Station Security was only allowed to keep the Lalow for one Preservation day-cycle before they either had to charge the crew with something or let them go.” (106) FT

“You need a surveillance audit.” (145) “Some of those systems are under privacy lock, we’d need a judge-advocate to release their access records,” (146) FT [these are together bc its a line of dialogue from mb, a huge monologue about what a surveillance audit is, and then Indah's response, which is the thing I care about for my paper]

“Most of the station’s clothing supply came from the planet, where human hand-made clothing and textiles were so popular there was hardly any recycler-produced fabric. (I told you Preservation is weird.)” (22) FT

“The colony ship hadn’t just been left to rot; the humans liked it too much for that…Pieces of clear protective material had been placed over the occasional drawings on the bulkheads, and on the pieces of paper stuck to them and covered with scribbled handwriting and faded print. Feed markers had been installed by Station Historical/Environment Management with translations into Preservation Standard Nomenclature.” (123) FT

“…you’re on a giant spaceship that has been meticulously preserved as a historical artifact. If they still had intact lunch menus from however many years ago, the chances were good they still had the safety equipment.” (125) FT

“Station Security isn’t armed except with those extendable batons (they don’t even deliver shocks, they’re just for hitting/holding off aggressive intoxicated humans) and the officers are only issued energy weapons when there’s actually an energy-weapon-involved emergency.” (72) FT

“…they were here to assess the damage to the transport and try to repair it. (Apparently on Preservation this would be free? Gurathin said it fell under what they called a traveler’s aid rule. In the Corporation Rim, the transport would have had tp sit there damaged and racking up fines until its owner or an owner’s rep arrived.)” (55-56) FT

another "couldn't decide so the whole dang thing is here"

"For a name, I could use the local feed address that was hard coded into my neural interfaces. It wasn’t my real name, but it was what the systems I interfaced with called me. If I used it, the humans and augmented humans I encountered would think of me as a bot. Or I could use the name Rin. I liked it, and there were some humans outside the Corporation Rim who thought it was actually my name. I could use it, and the humans on the Station wouldn’t have to think about what I was, a construct made of cloned human tissue, augments, anxiety, depression, and unfocused rage, a killing machine for whichever humans rented me, until I made a mistake and got my brain destroyed by my governor module." (28) “I posted a feed ID with the name SecUnit, gender = not applicable, and no other information.” (29)

[rosaharazu]

I Woke Up at 1AM at where I live so I'm Ranting (Chapter 4 Spoilers)

I wonder if The Doctor serves as somewhat of a caretaker for the remains of Playtime Co.

Like, really think about it.

This ex-man originally probably didn't even have a body when he was first lobotomized into a tv head or a computer head. He's not like the other experiments.

He's a literal machine and not a toy like the others. An adult and not a kid.

He can't really do much in the grand scheme of things. When the Hour of Joy happens, he was free, and has control over what's left of the facility with the Prototype's permission.

He's practically just the security.

He probably doesn't have a physical form anymore, so in the 10 years of absence of humans, he created the mannequins with TV heads to have some sort of defence as well as maintaining the control of the remains of Playtime Co.

One thing I liked about the mannequins is that they're great in number and chases you regardless of the dark or light. Like, they can actually tore you from limb to limb with that number.

I know most complain how he was a letdown as a villain (he still succeeds in terms of aura and voice), but I wonder if he was meant to be portrayed as completely helpless on his part if it means in a physical way.

Like, think narratively for once.

And like, Playtime Co. has shut down since the Hour of Joy. It's impractical for him to do any more experiments because there are no more orphans to conduct experiments on. Even if he did, he doesn't have the manpower.

He can only serve as The Prototype's other "Eye" with what's left of him. And like, ironic. Because the Prototype used to be under his control, and now the tables are turned.

ALL he can do is monitor the entire facility with the Omni-Hand. And THAT'S IT.

So when The Player comes, we see how he's trying to break us because he KNOWS he is futile against defeat. He KNOWS the chances of him dying are HIGH. He KNOWS he's useless against a human. Which is why he talks a whole lot lol.

He lashes out almost desperately as his defeat was nearing, and when it happens...

And he accepts that.

"You saved no one."

A final attempt at breaking The Player.

As well as another post have it, how no one cared enough to save him.

And I just realised as of writing this, I don't think The Doctor even mentioned about working with the Prototype. It's like they work together but nott??? Am I missing any lines? Help, it's 2AM now.

I'm no expert, I promise. But I just....can't see any problems with C4??

Maybe it's because I don't expect much from a horror game, thus being able to enjoy whatever it was able to offer. And maybe I just love looking games on the brighter side.

Yes, Pianosauras deserves his own section, but like, with that kind of playing features "A piano with a jointed tail", What can he do? At best a chase scene, but like...???

Idk anymore

Maybe Pianosauras would have more purpose if it was Chapter 2 and at the Game Station.

Maybe there was or is some drama in the Dev's part, but I have no access, nor the will to watch a 25th length video regardless of its topic unless it catches my attention span.

Thanks for reading this far. This is just my opinion, I humbly remind you. Do let me know what you think.

EDIT : SO I JUST WATCHED A VID AND OH MY GOSH DOCTOR AND PROTOTYPE DO WORK WITH EACH OTHER

I LOVE HOW IT'S LIKE, "We need each other" thing. "You can threaten me and I can do the same". HUMAN AND ROBOT. Like, oh wow, we really missed that tape before getting the Omni-Hand.

[seeveekat]

Oh my god you bitches on this website love to complain about everything.

Yall complain about the Dems doing NOTHING and when someone does you say its not good enough.

"Its performative" YEAH NO FUCKING SHIT! MOST POLITICAL STUNTS ARE.

ANY THING A POLITICIAN WILL DO WILL BE PERFORMATIVE!

But he actually had people looking at C-SPAN for once and listening

He called out both the right AND the Left in his speech.

A speech, mind you, that lasted 25 hours with no food OR BATHROOM BREAKS. Something i know a lot of y'all can't do.

Not to mention he took the record from a WHITE SUPERMICIST THAT TALKED FOR 24 HOURS TO OPPSE CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE 60S

I know you bitches love talking about how much you hat white supremacy (even though, again, yall hate talking about black issues here and ignore it as much as you can. Y'all hated when BLM was trending and complained about it so much, but suddenly, they are single issue voters on non-black issues but thats another rant post for another day🙄)

You ignore history being made because its not *your* perfect politician doing it. You cant fathom collaborating with anyone thats your perfect flavor of leftist. (But will platform and have empathy for a republican in a heart beat)

Do i like him? No. And he shouldn't have worn the Isreal pin. But come ON!

If its not Bernie sanders you guys really dont care or listen (even though Sanders has his own problems and dont get me started on Stine or De La Cruz)

No wonder Trump is in office.

You have no sense of actually working together. You just want to sit on your ass and complain from behind your computer and share change.org petitions that go nowhere.

[kittywonkers]

oc facts because i can't draw (mostly for tevino project, jam n jeepney, and weirdos because they're my predominant projects for this blog)

ni cannot fly on her staff with clyde because the weight of two is far too heavy, but when they go to the moon in chapter 5, after figuring out the lesser gravity the first thing they try out is flying together. it was lots of fun

clyde is unsurprisingly fond of oranges

clyde used to try carving wood with his sword while bored, but he dropped it when he accidentally used his magic while doing so and lit a tree on fire

ni is autistic, that has surprisingly been canon throughout her entire lifespan as an oc

she's also french and has an adoration for cheesecake

mitski thinks punching solves all problems, she is getting over this slowly

mitski can absolutely shred an electric guitar. yes those exist in tevino

rinamu lost their gender to a really mean fairy, they're still trying to get it back

rinamu's favorite spell is a party popper summon, they can blast a ton of confetti and sparkles out of their hand with a loud noise and they use it to scare people (or to harrass low level enemies)

cass' favorite drink is actually called mitski. yes, she named the child she found in the forest after her favorite brand of alcohol

jam and jeepney really love this one burger chain called gorilla burger and they will personally fight anyone who disrespects it

jam is a super mega geek and has lots of video game merchandise, jeepney very much enjoys her ramblings

jam sometimes wakes up to jeepney out of the bed and sleeping somewhere very odd. notable examples are on the floor, in the closet, and curled up inside the freezer

cabana has a habit of visiting mexican restaurants, eating a ton of the free tortilla chips, and then leaving before she's asked to order

(for the weirdos facts, just disregard most of the designs shown in the roblox post because they've been changed a lot. a LOT. also gorb and temp are perma dead now, gorb is just gone and temp has been replaced by a crude drawing of a bunny named scribbs)

eco is not a fish, she is an alien from another planet sent to earth to save the ecosystem!!! her fish tail is because her planet has a lot of water (it looks like all those weird frutiger aero images with the computers and hills and water and flying fish)

mr moneypants is actually very fiscally unintelligent, he just forgot that he is a spirit of material prosperity and therefore has infinite money so he pins his wealth on his investments (which are very stupid and also the reason why sean and binnie haven't gone bankrupt from their shitty products)

pringles' full name is princess pringles prismatica "mary sue" catwolfmaster lucifer wucifer the awesome powerful and very pretty the third the fourth, she paid to have it like that

retro always complains about having to leave his games whenever the group goes out to do something fun, but they never force him to come with them, he does it out of his own will. says a lot about who he really is teehee

skybox sam goes by THEY/THEM!!!!!!

halfster and pringles used to have giga beef, with halfster being a cartoonishly evil villain and pringles kicking his butt every tuesday, but they've mellowed out. kinda. halfster is still sorta evil

scribbs comes from an alternate dimension filled with approximately 19 other scribbs and nothing else

sean and binnie met in college, sean was writing an essay on his computer and he said he loved it because writing was much easier on it and then the computer said it loved him too. lots of screaming after that

[thebreakfastgenie]

this is one (1) redeemable voucher to complain about AO3's tagging system (if you like)

Thanks for the voucher!

I probably should have phrased that post differently because upon reflection what I hate is more downstream of AO3's tagging system. The system itself does what it's supposed to do: it organizes the archive. Of course, users get cutesy with it (and I'm guilty of this myself) and other users will use inaccurate tags on purpose to get more attention (this is not acceptable behavior), but neither of those things are the system's fault.

But because the tagging system is so robust and fics are tagged based on tropes, this culture has developed of hyper-curated, trope-based reading habits. This didn't exist before AO3 because it just wasn't possible to filter fics to that extent. Some of my favorite fic reading experiences have been fics that I stumbled across by mistake because I didn't know what they were or because I had to comb through broader categories.

And this is where I start sounding like Ted Gup. Ted Gup wrote this essay in the late 90s called The End of Serendipity about how computers being so efficient at retrieving information was going to bring about the end of people stumbling upon topics they wouldn't have otherwise explored. I had to read and respond to this essay in English class in middle school and I raked Ted Gup over the coals, because I was writing on my laptop with dozens of open tabs. I still think I was right to point out Ted Gup's failure to foresee the wiki walk, but now that I'm older and technology has developed more over the last fifteen years, I'm starting to think he had something of a point.

I was thinking about this in a fanfiction and fandom context because I recalled a post I reblogged recently saying (paraphrased) "I have nothing against shipping but some of you are too focused on shipping to the exclusion of everything else." I agree with that post, but for me part of the problem isn't even the focus on shipping, it's that the shipping content is often so formulaic. Fandom talks a big game about diversity and creativity in fanworks, but a lot of the actual output I see is incredibly formulaic. In my opinion that's related to the extreme focus on tropes. Tropes are great, but if you're only looking at fic as a list of tropes you're taking a very narrow view. I don't know what the direction of causality is here, if there even is one, but I think the tagging system and the way the tagging system is used facilitate this reductive trope-based outlook.

I'm from the fanfiction.net era and I find the character and relationship tagging on AO3 useful, but I don't really care for the additional tags. I had to train myself to even read them. I prefer to select fics based on titles and summaries, because those are created by the author. Obviously writing a summary is very different than writing a story (and in fact it's a different skill and it's hard!) but a summary is still written by the author, so it gives me some sense of their writing style. When authors actually include an excerpt in the summary it does that even more. Tags can be useful in conjunction with a summary, because well-selected tags make me curious how all the elements listed in the tags fit together. But I don't want to sort by Enemies to Lovers or whatever.

I don't expect everyone to read like I do, this is nothing more than one crank's ramblings about my personal dissatisfaction with the current state of fandom. Maybe it resonates with someone, and if it does they're welcome to reblog it, but I'm not trying to do social commentary here. Maybe it doesn't, and that's okay too.

I also don't know if the trope focus on booktok and in the traditional publishing world comes out of fanfiction or not but it's even more distressing to me there and I think it bothers me in the fanfiction sphere because of the possibility that fanfiction is contributing to that trend.

[sleepingpillscosmos]

congratulations on your milestone! can i request

"you're..extremely red" "shut up" "like actually vermillion" "go to hell"

and

warming their hands by slipping them up the other's shirt and onto their back/stomach

for nanami please thank you <3

COLD MORNINGS — kento nanami

pairing: kento nanami x fem!reader.

warnings/content: nanami and reader live together. I think nothing else, let me know if I forgot anything.

wc: 1k.

requested: yes, by anon.

a/n: thank you so much! here it is the first of the event requests! I actually didn't resolve the problem with my computer, but I wanted to post so bad that I wrote with my phone [it was hell lol]. hope you enjoy!

prompts: "you're..extremely red" "shut up" "like actually vermillion" "go to hell" and warming their hands by slipping them up the other's shirt and onto their back/stomach.

Your eyes slowly opened once the cool breeze of the morning hit your skin, making it shiver. Still half asleep, you reached with your hand the side of the bed of your partner, searching for his warmth, but the only things you found were the still slightly warm covers of the bed. When you realized that Nanami wasn't still in bed with you, even if today was his free day, you puffed, pressing your head deeper in your pillow and covering yourself better with the covers, trying to fall asleep again. You even moved on the other side of the bed, but neither that worked.

You opened your eyes and looked at the clock on the bedside table, reading 9:00 am on the display. You puffed again. You remained on Nanami's side of the bed looking at the ceiling a little longer, until you heard some noise from the kitchen. You smiled and decided to get up.

You made your way out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where you saw Nanami in front of the stove, cooking your favorite breakfast and sipping his usual black coffee. You approached him, and once you were behind him, you wrapped your arms around his waist. Kento, who heard you coming out of the bedroom and all the way to the kitchen, put his mug on the counter beside him and turned off the stove, then he turned to face you.

"Good morning dear." he reached your cheek with one of his hands, using his thumb to gently stroke your cheek, while the other hand rested on your hip. You mirrored his little smile, pressing your cheek harder into his palm, "Morning.".

"Did you sleep well?" he asked as he passed his hand through your hair, trying to fix the bird nest you had on your head. You nodded, sliding your arms around his waist again and resting your head on his chest, "Even though you weren't in bed with me when I woke up.".

He smiled softly at your complain, placing a kiss on top of your head, "Sorry.".

"It's not a problem, but it's your day off and you should have taken the opportunity to sleep more and get some rest." you said closing your eyes, enjoying the warmth of Nanami's embrace.

"I tried to, but I couldn't fall asleep again." he explained, "So I came here to make breakfast for us.".

You sighed contently. A long time passed since you could enjoy an entire day with Nanami, without having to worry about curses and such, so, even if he wasn't in bed to keep you warm this morning, you were more than happy.

Nanami could feel that your hands were cold through his shirt, so he interrupted the hug to take your hands in his to warm them. You stopped his movements with a frown on your face, tightening the embrace and burying your head deeper in his chest.

"Love, you literally have two popsicles instead of your hands." he stated tryingagain to pull away, but you stopped him for the second time, "they'll fall off if you don't let me warm them.".

You sighed, the last thing you wanted to do was leave his warmth, so after some seconds, you came up with something that could warm your hands while remaining embraced with your partner.

You slowly moved your hands, slipping them up Kento's shirt, and resting them on his muscular back. Your action made him shiver, not only because of your really cold hands, but also because to him it felt such an intimate gesture. Immediately, he felt his neck and face getting warmer.

You felt Nanami slightly tense at the contact of your hands with the skin of his back. You lifted your head to look at him, expecting to find an annoyed expression, but what you actually saw confused you.

"You're.. extremely red." you said, still a little confused, "Shut up.".

"Like actually vermillion." you teased him a little after realising the reason of his sudden blush.

"Go to hell" Kento rolled his eyes, interrupting your embrace to occupy himself with something else, trying to make the blush go away. He started to set the table for the both of you, while you watched him from your place leaned on the counter, with an amused expression on your face.

You moved again once Nanami was putting your meal on your plates. You hugged him from behind, and slipped your hands up his shirt once again.

"Stop that." he said firmly.

He didn't really want you to stop, he loved the feeling of your gentle touch on his skin. It was something uncommon for him, a feeling that only you could make him experience. But he wasn't ready for your teasing at 9 am on his day off.

"What? Why? You're the one who told me that my hands were falling off because they were too cold." you decided to play dumb, just to mess with him a little.

"You're unsufferable" he sighed, moving to put the plates on the table before taking a mug to pour you some coffee.

"You know, red looks really good on you" you said, trying not to laugh. Nanami looked at you annoyed. "Especially this beautiful and intense shade of red.".

"I'm throwing away your breakfast." he answered sternly. You grinned, "We both know you're not going to. You hate wasting food.".

"Well, then I'm going to eat mine and yours too." your eyes widened, the grin on your face was quickly replaced by a panicked expression.

Nanami turned his back to you, moving towards the table, smiling softly once he felt your arms warp around him, while you hurriedly muttered some apologises, which where muffled by his shirt, trying to convince him to not eat your breakfast.

[mitigatedchaos]

Okay, I'm not generally one for dogwhistle-based thinking, but why is your favorite rap song by "a Dutch drum and bass group" called "Black Sun Empire"? On further Googling the official explanation is that it is a Star Wars reference, but this seems dubious to me at best

Dawn of a Dark Day feat. UK hip hop group Foreign Beggars is an excellent example of something that's quite rare: cyberpunk rap that's actually good.

descend to synapse chill factor sixty microverse entered so black, it's slipstream dip both the headlights melt into background

I've never found another track like it.

I'm going to assume that you're not a long-term reader, or it would be obvious why someone who posted fake discourse about parents cryogenically freezing their children would like this song.

Probably the best cyberpunk/post-cyberpunk anime is 2002's Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex. Some songs from that series have rap segments, but they don't really add to the music, such as with Origa feat. Heartsdales - Player.

Origa sounds amazing, but everyone who has ever heard one of the tracks featuring her already knows that.

The problem for Heartsdales is that it's usually much easier for a man to pose as tough and intimidating than it is for a woman, and even then, proper intimidation is subtle and depends on a connection to a background of power, or the ability to convincingly fake that connection.

What makes Dawn of a Dark Day so unique is that it's clearly from the perspective of a team of cyborg combat operatives, or following them very closely. It's also abstract enough that it doesn't fall into Ren Faire/Steampunk dorkiness. That's a fine line to tread, and it takes actual talent.

In real life, we don't sing songs about computer hacking, even though computer hacking is one of the most sci-fi elements of the current era.

Imagine a song about a combat cyborg team in the style of a whaling song, talking about cleaning ports and hacking mainframes. This would be much more understandable to contemporary outsider audiences than a line like, "cyberbrain circus - brace for the kickback."

In the cyberpunk world, the cyborg combat team would talk using the actual professional jargon from their field, which would be more specific to their time and place. For example, contemporary computer programmers would complain about Java, a specific programming language, about which they would have specific complaints (such as preferring dynamic typing, or Java being too verbose).

Thus, a whaling-style song, "dust the ports and hack the servers," which doesn't require knowing the specifics, would be something either written from an outsider's perspective, probably as a joke, or written from an insider's perspective, also probably as a joke.

To hit the right band, then, requires writing something from the perspective of an insider (even though insiders would not tend to write songs), that's intelligible to people from our world with some background knowledge of genre, that hits on the sci-fi elements related to the genre (rather than just being a generic love song), without making them overpowering, by baking them into the assumptions of the text.

To use a non-musical example, the original special collector's edition Mass Effect hoodie (left) is subtle and was popular for a while, while some subsequent designs by third parties (right) were much louder.

The design on the left is appropriate for a wide variety of social environments, while the design on the right would require a higher degree of social aptitude to get away with wearing wear in many social environments, and would be more suitable for a video game club or anime convention.

This is part of the general thing where being "cool" is about making things look effortless, and not looking like a tryhard.

Particularly, for the hoodie on the right, there's a mismatch between style and substance, in which it is trying to "borrow" power from a fictional suit of armor from a video game. (This mismatch is the general reason that trying to lean too hard on fiction is cringe; there's not enough substance relative to what someone is trying to do with it.)

Some of you may remember an Indiegogo campaign for a samurai armor hoodie. I'm not saying that everything should be understated. Sometimes, artistically, you're better off committing to the bit.

Now, back to music.

The band Gunship are not a rap outfit, but seem to have been quite successful with a lot of their sci-fi-themed content, such as this video with 3.9 million views:

They do a good job at finding the balance.

Another musical act, Perturbator, got 5.4 million views with a music video about rogue sentient androids (Perturbator - Sentient, which contains nudity).

The successor series for Standalone Complex, SAC_2045, has the song Millennium Parade - Fly With Me, which is better as rap music than the rap segment of Origa - Player, but isn't cyberpunk-themed directly.

Cyberpunk 2077 has, for example, Konrad OldMoney feat. Taelor Yung - Day of Dead, which is great for an action scene, but also isn't directly cyberpunk:

No Save Point, also from 2077, has a great line, "When a fortune cookie tells me I'm fucked, I just shrug," and ain't that Night City for you? They put some work in on this one, but I don't vibe with it as much musically.

Anyhow, that's why Dawn of a Dark Day is my favorite.

If you'd like, I can explain some of the recent politics of dog-whistles tomorrow or the day after.

[mellosdrawings]

Hey uhh I gotta say I love your twst art (esp. Jamil!!) but the font you use (or is it your handwriting?) is really hard to read, because the E is missing the vertical line, and it gets pushed into other letters, and the H looks like a U or and N so a lot of words get sort of mixed up. Idk if this makes sense, but is it possible for you to change it? If it's your handwriting, I'm sorry for complaining about it. And yeah I am going to make the effort to read the text no matter what bc like I said, I enjoy the art, but I just wanted you to know this, since I think I might not be the only one struggling with this. Thanks!

Yeah I know I have a shitty handwriting, I'm sorry :') Changed it several times because people couldn't read it, then changed to writing in all caps and people still can't read it TwT That's my curse.

I'll try to use an actual font starting from now (posts in queue not comprised, but the ones I'll add next will be with fonts)

ALL PREVIOUS ARTWORKS HAVE JUST BEEN UPDATED WITH TRANSCRIPTS IN THE ALT TEXT.

The things I do for you guys, I swear <3

(Just so you know, for the lol, I'm also terrible at writing on a computer. I keep missing letters and words and the only reason I'm slightly legible is because my autocorrect is doing the work of the Gods. It seems I really have a problem with writing.)

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Non BL Fan watches Only Friends

Hey. Yeah so I'm still on this. So when Only Friends ended, it left kinda of a bitter taste in my mouth. I liked a lot of things about it but by the end it really didn’t leave a good impression. There’s been a lot written about it, about expectations, and branded pairs, and how fandom may have played a role in this, and how the writing maybe because of that kinda took a turn midway through the show. And it kept bugging me that these opinions were also rooted in our understanding of this type of media, and everything that comes with it. Be it branded pairs, all the bls that came before or the industry as a whole. But I couldn't really have any perspective because I'm part of the problem. I'm too close. So, the only way for me to kinda get over this was to get someone far removed from this to watch it. And here is where my friend Neely comes in. They're not a bl watcher. The only bl they ever watched was Choco Milk Shake which I think we can all agree would not influence their viewing of Only Friends. They are however the only person who I talk to about bl, or the only person who has the patience to listen to me, whenever I’m feeling particularly annoyed about something or just wanna share a good moment. I immediately sent them the olive oil scene (with only a tiny bit of context) because it was so beautiful that I needed to scream with someone about it. So anyway, I asked them to watch the show. They knew a couple of things about it, because I complained to them about it at the time, but they has no reference for it so, I don’t think that I influenced the viewing that much. Also they're pretty unbiased about everything.

So last night they watched the first 4 episodes and I’d like to share their thoughts with everyone who like me might be curious. Because they're the best person ever, he wrote a whole text about it so I could share. Also we're almost at the end of the year and this might be the thing that finally closes this chapter for me. This is what they had to say after watching the first 4 episodes.

(I'll be adding my own thoughts in purple)

After 4 episodes, mostly I think it's really predictable plot wise for anyone who's watched a general TV western series, like a Netflix production, which I was maybe surprised. The ways to cause drama and plot advancement are very similar. Of cpurse this is me saying this based on the other BL I watched (Choco Milk Shake) which felt much more out of the expected canon.

Just to get this out of the way: they're all toxic and terrible people, to the extent I find it very hard to connect to any of them. Just in the exposure parts of ep1 there's all of them being horrible to Ray for being drunk – even though they also are? - and to top it up later on they're all drunk, and the woman (sorry I should know her name but it's not like they're giving her any storyline or screen time (aside from, I almost forgot, randomly spraining her ankle 😂) for me to remember) I thought that the fact that this was obvious to them from the beginning was very interesting because I maybe gave them more rope in the beginning to expand on her because I thought she was gonna get more later. she's even drunker it seems but they all fall on Ray only; they literally complain he wants another drink and judgementally go "ewww more drinks don't you think it's enough" and dig into his drinking, he leaves, and then they continue drinking? This got even darker to me when the suicide attempt is revealed, and from then it became really hard to consider them friends? Maybe Mew and Ray but the dynamics of that are anyway weird. This is something I myself struggled with all through the show, like how are these people even friends? and I understand the point illustrated by @bengiyo in this post but I still couldn’t get over that. And maybe that’s just the way I see friendships that these people looked even worse in my eyes. Like I cannot compute them treating Ray like that, even if they're done of his drinking, when they know where he's at emotionally. It also doesn't feel they ever tried to help him so I don't think they have the right to be done, just feels like they don't care.

Top, toxic from day one with this challenge attitude towards fucking the virgin; and the gross way he speaks about it with Boston. It's a big no from me to both of them. It's not even them hooking up for me, Top is just kinda sleazy, manipulative, hyper entitled, I do not take anything he says as truth because he just feels so double faced to me. Even just these episodes he's already shown so many cracks: hiding the hook up with Boston (which I'm beginning to feel was more than a hook up?), the whole random drug dealing thing, how he objectifies Mew like a virgin-trophy when talking to Boston, how he manipulates him and also his weird jealousy and control. Ok, this is where I admit I was completely wrong. I thought that way of seeing Top was very influenced by the promotional material and the way the crew and actors talked about the character. And yet, without any prior knowledge he immediately disliked him. I was not expecting that to be honest. And in this case maybe I just wanted the character to go in a different direction so I kept not seeing the pretty obvious red flags. I mean I saw them but tried really hard to look behind them. My bad. Although we could both agree that he’s gorgeous.

I don't like Mew, but I don't think it's the characters fault or how it's written. It's just the troupe of character writing, especially in gay shows, that I can't stand. It's kinda cancer vibes (astrology lol). A bit not necessarily overt but a general sense of holier than thou cause he's a virgin and "has standards". I don't think he's leading Ray on, I think he actually kinda communicates well he just wants friendship. He could be clearer but also this is TV, so we need slight unclearness for drama purposes lol, but I'm not mad about that. Miss communication is the bane of my existence but it apparently makes for compelling television. Or not.

But generally this hot fuck everyone guy falling for the kinda dorky virgin is so dull to me, this virgin is always this weird insert of purity, more often than not an insert where the writer in one way or another projects himself into, to be able to judge the rest of the community, the moral compass (read: normative in terms of society expectations, also kinda mildly Christian coded, like girl next door in the village), and I do always find it a bit queerphobic. I'm not saying there aren't queers like that and that they shouldn't be represented, but the very intense and obvious writing decisions to position him as this moral center (also visually he's always wearing whites and pastels? Virgin mew, Virgin Mary! Lol) that makes all the other characters, often queer, seem kinda dirty and mean and unprincipled. I have nothing to add here because I agree with them on most of this, and I also think that it was never a coincidence to have a virgin in the middle of this group, to serve as the barometer of right and wrong. Cause he's the pure one so he must know what's right. I disliked mew almost instantly when the show started, because I always thought he was just a terrible friend and that’s the greatest sin of all. A small note that I think it's hilariously dumb that he's been protecting his Virginity for all this time and so like "omg it's hard for me, omg I go slow, omg I have a check list" and then it's like "you drop coke I drop pants", virginity done lol. This was just funny and accurate.

I am not talking about Boston right now cause I hate him. And I also hate that they wrote the slut in such a cliche but I do think they did. I remember you saying something people attacking him too much and him being slut-shamed, but he's written as villain quite clearly. Lol I think he's leading mobile phone shop guy on, it's very player manipulation vibe to be always giving him just a bit more to keep him going and the promise of something more open, when we know he just wants to fuck, and especially fuck when he's butt hurt about Top and Mew. And the way he's treating Mew, terrible friend; and also the advances on Top are far from boundary and consent-based lol. But also Top doesn't feel very interested in getting out, he just weirdly stands there silent being licked in the neck, so I blame both on that whole thing. I have to say that I never really read the shower scene like others might have, like obviously Boston was being terrible to Mew in that moment and not respecting Top's boundaries, but I also didn't see Top as helpless in this moment.

I think the only pair that gets away with actually being cute and not toxic and manipulative is Sand and Ray, they're my faves. Yey!! I find them very endearing and with so much chemistry. They're the only characters who honestly genuinely said sorry to each other and had some accountability when they fucked up with each other.

Even tho I'd like a bit more from Sand about the whole "burden to society" comments at the start - they annoyed me so much. The others it's manipulation after manipulation for me, and it doesn't allow me to get into them so it feels like deep lack of chemistry. Top and Mew's relationship feels really really really meh to me. And I don't know why they're friends, also cause very little of them as friends gets shown after ep1. Well they have the school project that keeps them together but other than that really, why? As I explained above I really struggled with the friendship aspect of all this.

But generally, I feel like the editing and writing are very like Mew is amazing and the others are horrible, and we do just get scenes of everyone being shit and Mew not being great but being naive and cutesy with a hint of superiority. Also you're a virgin your not a thumb stone, give your boyfriend a kiss sometimes. I thought this comment was hilarious but also obviously from a non bl watcher because that didn’t register to me, because I’m so used to boyfriends being so shy around kissing in bl that it didn't even cross my mind.

I think I'm slightly meh by all of them but partly is maybe my expectations too - I knew this one specifically was a bit westernized, but I was nurturing this little idea that it would feel a bit different, that some of the ways things were explored would feel different because of the cultural differences, but I do think you could sub all of the actors for white us-americans and the script would fly, you could probably even set it in a progressive state in the us and wouldn't have to re-write much.

So, I might totally be talking out of my ass, but what I'm left thinking is: is there really no culturally specificity to queer community there? is really all queerness and promiscuity in Thailand this performance of the west? Maybe it is, because of different social rules and expectations and freedoms, I really am not knowledgeable enough, but I'm just wondering if it's that or if it's just being made to be more palatable to me. And I think that's fine as a choice for them to know target audience, but I'm left wondering how the actual scene is in Thailand, what the social pressures are there and how they navigate them, specifically at this nexus of queerness and promiscuity. I also don’t know enough about the culture in Thailand to speak about it but I do agree with the point that this show could be made in us tv and they really wouldn’t need to change much. Without knowing anything about the creators of ofts, aside from the fact that they’re queer, they said later that they would compare it to something that Ryan Murphy could produce.

_

After I read this I had a chance to video chat with them briefly , and there were a couple more things that came up that I thought were really interesting. they were asking me about the actors and how well known they were, etc. Because they thought that the characters were purposefully being shown as really flat, and just bad with no redeemable characteristics and that maybe because the fandom already knew them and already liked them, they could do that without needing to waste time making us care for them, by giving us their good sides. Which I never really considered, but as with most things, our prior knowledge might play a part in this too. I know at least for me, I'm not gonna lie, the fact that I like Khaotung definitely made me care for Ray from the start in a way that maybe I wouldn't normally have.

Anyway, they'll continue to watch it and I'll probably post more of thoughts in the future. I also started to rewatch it slowly so I'll definitely keep thinking about this. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. 💜

[hedgiwithapen]

Jaime coming to terms with the fact he has an alien WMD in his spine and the fact he likes Khaji Da when others do not.

(vague movie spoilers here!) Jaime ducked over his textbook again, highlighter in hand. In the study corral beside him, his notebook was a mess of notes. To any of his classmates, it would be gibberish, which Khaji Da claimed was Ideal. 

"I don't think I need to worry about my grades being ruined by someone understanding my notes," he said to Khaji Da in a low voice, highlighting a section of Latin that Khaji Da helpfully provided translations for. 

"You should be more careful, Jaime Reyes," Khaji retorted, bringing up another option for cyphers. Jaime ignored the suggestion. "It's first year, they're all too busy studying to plot against me," he said, scanning the page again. It was nice to have a scholarship that covered everything, even textbooks, so he could buy them--new, even--instead of renting.  It was even worth his Abuela's singing anytime Jenny's name came up.  Acting like this was a telenovela, instead of like it was money for his father's life, made it easier on everyone. 

"Danger," Khaji's alert voice broke through Jaime's concentration.

"Where?" he hissed, wondering if he could make it to the library stacks before suiting up. He hadn't been totally unaware, but Khaji Da's senses were a lot better than his own. 

"Three cubbies down. Brian is posting on his blog."

"Khaji, that's not an emergency. Stop spying on people," Jaime whispered. "Seriously, you can't just hack the library's wifi and, what, see what everyone is looking at? All the time?"

"Of course I can. It's easy." Khaji Da said. "And I don't look at everything. I do not enjoy looking at the porn. Brian is complaining about us."

"Khaji Da, we're going to have a talk about priv--what?"

"He is complaining about Blue Beetle. You. And Me. As if it was our fault about that building yesterday." Khaji Da paused, clearly reading something else. "I can show him a threat to humanity--"

"No," Jaime said, slightly too loudly. The student librarian at the circ desk glanced his way, trying to arch an eyebrow and not particularly succeeding. "Not in the library, Khaji. I mean, not at all. You have to let it go."

"He should not insult you. You are a good hero. I am going to give him a virus."

"Please don't," Jaime said, knowing it was probably too late.

"Too late," Khaji Da confirmed. "You are disappointed."

"Some," Jaime admitted. "Look, you can't just... react like that. Some people won't like us.  That's their problem."

"Yes, it is their problem. Now Brian has no laptop. That is a problem for him."

"That's not what I meant. We can't just attack anyone who doesn't like us."

"I did not! You were very clear that there were to be No Plasma Weapons In The Library. It is rule 47.  I will add a subsection about computer viruses. "

"Thanks. I think," Jaime said, looking back at his notes.

"You left out part of the definition."

"I used shorthand. and your code thingy. I got it. Don't worry."

[trashiis]

Ok this is a bit of a wordy post but bear with me. I've been reading up on the tech literacy discourse and I thought I'd add my two cents, and how it connects to piracy. LONG post under the cut!

I was born in the year 2000, which puts me on the border of being a digital native. I was brought up on tech, but only in my later childhood and teens. I've always considered myself "tech literate," but no more than the usual kid my age.

The first time I ever truly experienced tech illiteracy with my peers was when I was 23, when in one of my college classes a MacOS update rendered the software we used for said class unusable. After a few days a temporary patch was released, which by that point an assignment that utilized the software was due the next day. I followed the patch instructions, which involved navigating to the software files and substituting a designated file with the provided patch. A bit more complicated than a simple update, but the instructions were clear and intuitive enough to easily understand where the file went. The next day, during a class study session, I overheard multiple people come up to the professor complaining that the software wasn't working. After the second person complained with the professor being clueless, I asked the student what MacOS version they were on. Sure enough they were on the latest version, which as we already know is incompatible with the software. I then walked the student through the patching process step-by-step, with them needing to essentially be hand held through the entire process (almost to the point of me doing everything for them). After the patch was implemented, the student thanked me and said "Wow! How did you figure all of this out?" and to me that question was stupid- I just googled "[software] [version] MacOS [version] fix", went to the first result (which was the company website), downloaded the patch zip file, and followed the instructions on the README.txt file. It was so easy, and I couldn't comprehend that this was somehow complicated for other people, especially those my age. I mean we literally grew up using computers. It wasn't until I started learning about tech literacy and learned helplessness that I finally started connecting the dots.

Tech in general is becoming extremely user friendly, almost to a fault. UI and UX simplicity is taking away any critical thinking needed to use any sort of tech. My peers are so used to one-click and/or automatic updates, so the fact that this required slightly more effort than a simple update triggered their learned helplessness. The professor was no help in this case either, since he just extended the due date for those affected with no penalty. I actually ended up making a very detailed (and I mean idiot proof detailed) step by step picture guide with screenshots on how to install the patch for the software for the class. Anyways, back to the main point- How can I blame my peers for not knowing how to install a "complicated" update when they're so used to being spoon-fed simplicity?

But hang on- how was I the exception? I'm just as used to tech simplicity as anyone else, it's not like I'm using anything differently or making things harder for myself on purpose (I'm looking at you, linux users). So why was I the only one who knew how to install this update? It wasn't until I had a discussion many months later with my mom about this tech illiteracy epidemic that I finally thought it through. I acquired problem solving skills through piracy. To start off: not piracy but adjacent- learning to install mods in Minecraft when I was 11 taught me file navigation and what a README.txt file was, as well as the importance of version specificity/compatibility. Figuring out how to play Pokemon roms on the family computer and my iPod touch when I was 12? That's piracy, and it also taught me how to work with different platforms and the art of jailbreaking. Installing custom firmware on my 3ds so I could pirate games when I was 16 taught me how to follow written tech instructions without any visual guidance. Pirating Adobe software on my MacBook in high school taught me about patching files on MacOS. All of this knowledge and inherent googling that came with it made installing the patch for my class software look like a tiny drop in the bucket in terms of complexity.

So why am I saying all of this? Am I suggesting people learn to pirate to become tech literate?

yes.

With everything becoming pay-walled, subscription services running rampant, the proliferation of closed-source "ecosystems" *cough* Apple *cough*, and (arguably) most importantly media preservation, piracy is a skill that will serve you well in the long term. It will teach you critical thinking in the tech sphere, and if enough people learn then we can solve this ever growing epidemic of tech illiteracy. I'm not really sure how to end this post, so if anyone has anything else they'd like to add please feel free to.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.