#my beautiful ramblings

[muzzledmikey]

sometimes im like "wow holy shit im being really fucking annoying. i should stop talking" and then i pull out my magic 8 ball and it says "youve always been annoying and your friends chose to talk you anyways. youll be fine" and im like wow thanks magic 8 ball. and then the ogre attacks me

[goldensunset]

advice i think we should tell children is that when adults say stuff like ‘now that i’m an adult i get really excited about stuff like coffee tables and bathrooms and rugs etc’ they don’t mean ‘and now i don’t care about blorbo and squimbus from my childhood tv shows anymore’ bc your average adult still loves all the same pop culture stuff they always did; they just have a greater appreciation for the mundane as well. growing up just means you can enjoy life twice as much now. you can get really excited about a new stuffed animal AND about a new kitchen sponge. peace and love

[preciouspeppermintts]

What actually happened before Shadow Milk starts his redemption arc :

[reasonsforhope]

"For most people, a rat is at best an unwelcome guest, and at worst, the target of immediate extermination. But in a field clinic in Tanzania, rats are colleagues—heroes even.

Far from a trash bin-dwelling NYC street rat, the African giant pouched rat is docile, intelligent, easier to train than some dogs, and for East Africans, the performer of lifesaving tuberculosis diagnoses every day.

400,000 new cases of tuberculosis (TB) were estimated to have been prevented by these rats, whose sense of smell would make a bloodhound take notice. As [TB is] the number-one killer among infectious diseases worldwide, many of those 400,000 can be translated into lives saved.

“Not only are we saving people’s lives, but we’re also changing these perspectives and raising awareness and appreciation for something as lowly as a rat,” said Cindy Fast, a behavioral neuroscientist who coaches the rodents for the nonprofit APOPO.

“Because our rats are our colleagues, and we really do see them as heroes.”

APOPO uses giant pouched rats to sniff out traces of TB in the saliva of patients. In parts of Tanzania, a saliva smear test under a microscope by a human may only be 20-40% effective at detecting TB.

By contrast, a giant pouched rat like Ms. Carolina, a now-retired service rat who worked for APOPO for 7 years, raised the rates of detection on TB samples by 40% in the clinic where she worked.

Pictured: An APOPO employee with one of their trained rats

It would take 4 days for scientists to analyze the number of samples that Carolina could screen in 20 minutes. For that reason, when Carolina retired last November, a party was thrown at the clinic in her honor, and she was given a cake.

TB is sometimes thought of as a thing of the past—a disease for which doctors used to prescribe “dry air,” leading a modern sense of humor to muse at the antiquated, pre-antibiotic medical advice.

But it remains the number-one cause of death globally from a single infectious pathogen, and Tefera Agizew, a physician and APOPO’s head of tuberculosis, told National Geographic that once people see what the nonprofit’s rodents can do to slow the spread, they “fall in love with them.”

3,000 times in her career did Carolina detect one of the six volatile compounds that can be used to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and she got a hero’s send-off to a special compound to live out the rest of her days with her closet friend and sniffer colleague Gilbert, in a shaded enclosure dubbed “Rat Florida.”

“We’ve made special little rat-friendly carrot cakes with little peanuts and things on it that the rat would enjoy,” Fast said. “Then we all stand around and we clap, and we give three cheers, hip hip hooray for the hero, and celebrate together. It’s really a touching moment.”

APOPO has made headlines for its use of these rats in other lifesaving tasks as well: landmine clearance.

One of the world’s great underreported scourges (a lot like TB, coincidentally) is landmine contamination. There are 110 million landmines or unexploded bombs in the ground right now in about 67 countries, covering thousands of square miles in potential danger. Thousands of civilians are killed or injured by these weapons every year.

GNN reported on APOPO’s demining efforts using pouched rats back in 2020. One rat named Magawa alone identified 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance across an area the size of 20 football fields.

If at the start of this story you didn’t like rats, maybe Magawa and Carolina will have changed your mind."

-via Good News Network, March 31, 2025

[mittenscatgod]

hey is there any particular Qi story you wish existed but can't/don't want to write for some reason. Asking for a friend

yeah im always thinking about his friendship with mint and his relationship with his parents. depending on how long my fic gets through the 'story' of the assistant and qi that exists in my head (my barely uncontained lust) they might wind up meeting qis parents and grandfather but as a person hes very focused on the present moment and doesnt like talking much about himself which leads to questions about his upbringing.

he describes himself as a child as 'aloof' (which i think is jsut qi code for being a normal kid not focused on scientific achievement) and we see him smiling in his pictures. it seems like he's had a pretty positive upbringing with two parents who really love eachother, but he sort of... talks down to them? sometimes in a way thats almost classist (he refers to his parents work area [or their home? idk] as a 'fishing-shack') and rude (criticizing their enjoyment of their profession in a way he doesnt understand or "unoptimized") and its like. the way he talks about his grandfather and the way he talks about his parents are very different. Mint never brings up his mom and dad, but brings up his grandpa. so, like, whats going on there? were his parents absent a lot on fishing trips?

chances are he has a good relationship with his parents. hes canonically confirmed to write them AT LEAST about events important to his life (he mentions telling them when he starts dating you, his 3.14%) so it doesnt seem unhealthy. and he is generally pretty tone deaf and i dont really think hes fully cognizant of the nuances of him talking down on his parents. i doubt its one of active resentment but like dude its so unsexy of you the way you talk about your mom and dad im bone dry over here

i think about qi and mint reflecting on their shared childhood semi frequently as suggested by some of their reflections on it in fwb:mwrm. qi goes through a lot of changes through his canonical 'character arc' and he starts putting more effort into his social responsibilities and it makes me wonder like...

-Mint is very family oriented in portia, having had none growing up in the orphanage and craving the opportunity to start one, where as qi seems to be pretty flippant about his up until he gets married and has a family of his own. does that ever create any difficulties between them? Would Qi talk about his parents the same way infront of mint?

-When do you think Qi really changed his mindset from aloofness to his now very progress oriented track of mind? did it impact their relationship at all?

-Mint and Qi both confirm that they remember the old creations they made together. how does seeing qi realize some of what they'd discussed change their relationship?

i like their friendship. i see them like distant siblings i guess. i can't see myself writing anything devoted to it outside of fwb but i feel like qi has a lot of intricacies that people dont pay attention to. his relationship with mint is clearly very important to him even if he has an ...interesting way of showing it (mint breaks his equipment and he's barely mad, bronco touches his equipment and he'll 'never forgive him') and thus the builders/his partners relationship with mint is probably also pretty important. and mints relationship with his kid if he ever has one ('uncle mint' is a VERY cute idea).

i also love the idea of him going to a festival with the builder. any of them. ohhhhh i just know he'd fucking love winning at the prophunt one

[bizarrelittlemew]

i can't wait to be 30+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 40+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 50+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 60+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 70+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 80+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 90+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to look back on my life and know that i loved things deeply and passionately and was inspired to create and was part of communities with incredible people from all over the world brought together by the stories that touched us

[qu0rky]

y’all love to throw around the “you look like a sculpture/painting” comment but i’ve never seen someone fit this description as well as Assad Zaman. He’s like if a renaissance painting made a wish to become human. Botticelli personally had a hand in his creation. His tits fat and his whimsy plentiful. He’s got the “sad kicked puppy dog sorrowful little cosmic joke” look DOWN like it’s nobody’s business. The antithesis to iphone face. Stone tablet face. Perfect man, honestly.

[stemiwithme]

i love heather collins so fucking much. she starts her day off at work with morning sickness and dana is the one person who knows she’s pregnant. she shows dana a stroller she’s been wanting for a while and uses the money she won from BETTING ON A STOLEN AMBULANCE!!! (objectively hilarious) to finally splurge and get it. she alludes to having miscarried before (“not until i pass twelve weeks. not this time.”) and it’s so obvious how hopeful she is and how badly she doesn’t want to do anything to jinx it (see: testicular torsion case and the way she opens up to the mom). and then we see her have a few small stomach cramps and she brushes them off so quick but. she knows. and we know. and amidst all of this she helps a teenage girl get the abortion she wants and needs because she’s a damn good doctor. and immediately afterwards goes to the bathroom and confirms that she is indeed miscarrying. and then the 6 year old girl comes in after drowning and they can’t save her and you can see how close she is to crumbling but she steels herself and carries on because there are patients that need her. and THENNN she has to work the case with the surrogate mom !!! and the delivery gets dicey and the baby’s apgar is only 3 and the mom starts hemorrhaging and her mask starts to slip and robby sees it and he knows and they make it their mission to ensure that this mother and child make it out in one piece. and they fucking pull it off. and then she finally lets herself really cry in the ambulance bay. and it’s just so heartbreaking and raw and real. i have so much love for heather collins she is such an incredible character and she deserves the world

[newtype-gunslinger]

tucking him in

[killl-ka]

Give me a sassy Sun. An immature one. A Sun who acts on impulse. A Sun which is easily annoyed, bitter and petty. Give me a Sun who's a perfectionist at heart, but can't do nothing about it. Give me an abandoned Sun, we don't know for how long the daycare is closed. With chipped paint and rusting joints. A Sun that fantasizes about getting violent towards human staff.

But also give me a Sun that isolates itself in fear of hurting someone. One that wants to be whole with his counterpart in its isolation. One who understands the severity of their situation. Give me a Sun who actually was fond of kids and misses them. The drawings from them that he hides in his room. Give me-

[just-a-space-duck]

So About That Armor…

I regret to inform myself that I like it.

If you haven't seen it:

I'll give you time to take it in. This is a static, (hopefully) eternal text post, so take your time.

Ok so before I go further, you are allowed to have any and all opinions about the armor. Do not listen to me; I am a stranger on the internet who attaches himself to fictional murder cyborgs and treats them like kitty cats.

So first of all, it's weird. And I like it for that. Even if I found it to be the most infuriating piece of costume design ever, I still wouldn't be able to help but respect it for how strange it is.

When it comes to fanworks, adaptations, new installments in a franchise, or even just different takes on the same trope, I love it when creators take things in an unconventional or even seemingly unrelated direction that upon closer inspection still relates to the base or original concept. To get what I mean, think goth interpretations of Rarity or Cosmopoliturtle's Pokémon redesigns. The TV series armor sits alongside these for me, because this was the thought process of the designer, Tommy Arnold:

First of all, it is so funny that The Company would just brand their armor and by extension their secunits, their combat/security products, like Louis Vuitton bags. Also, the logo of The Company strikes a nice balance between being simple enough to be easily reproducible and recognizable, but complex enough to read as a logo and not just a simple shape or pattern. Plus, The Company logo being mostly just concentric Cs, clever there.

But there's also some worldbuilding and character expression in this design.

The Corporation Rim is just capitalism but more. A company slathering everything and everyone they create and own in mountains of logos, even when it's potentially impractical, showcases just how extensive corporatism is in this setting. Additionally, this design could be something of a status marker. Secunits are high end additions and/or alternatives to other security measures. Much like how logos on purses, tennis shoes, and cars serve to tell observers, "I have the fancy, expensive version of [insert category of thing here] ergo I am a very wealthy/powerful/cool person", a secunit covered in corporate logos communicates the high status and access of the client(s).

Now what was one of the first things we learned about Murderbot in the books? It disabled its governor module, the thing preventing it from defying orders and having any level of freedom, but instead of doing what it could to leave The Company, Murderbot just stayed with it and kept doing its intended function. For over four years. What else do we learn in the first book? That it feels most comfortable in the armor because this prevents humans from seeing its face, from treating it more like a person or human rather than a tool or bot. This makes the armor being composed of the logo of the group that both created and hurt Murderbot very symbolic.

Murderbot has internalized the message that it is a dangerous weapon and not a person deserving of care to the point that, at least at the beginning of the series, it shies away from anything that insists that it deserves the same kindness that humans do. It's only ever been taught what the company built it to do, so it doesn't know what to do next once it's obtained some semblance of freedom for itself by disabling its mental shock collar and so keeps doing what it's always done, even though it very much would rather not be in such a situation. Even by the most recent book, System Collapse, Murderbot is still wrestling with the idea that it matters beyond how it can assist others. Murderbot finding comfort hiding behind the very thing that will not let you forget the company that enslaves it, is just juicy theming.

Also, the helmet looking so weird works well with how many humans don't know what secunits look like, with some not even thinking they have human-like faces. If you had no context for this image, you might very well assume this is a fully robot character or even a statue.

I have my own gripes and worries and hopes concerning the upcoming show, but I just couldn’t get this fun bit of character design analysis out of my head. Shouldn’t have watched so much TB Skyen.

[vehemourn]

smth i honestly recommend everyone should do is like. keep a private folder of art u like on ur computer lol. and like. download art u like when u see it. ur gonna lose stuff Forever if u just like it, u know? and like, discord archives arent really enough lol. I have been downloading art since like 2016 & I have a LOT of art that was scrubbed from the internet otherwise, especially due to like. the antics of deviantart & twitter. And on things like twitter theres Barely a way to save art to begin with (bookmarks is Not good enough)

u do kinda lose Credit a lot of the time (unless u save it with it named? which i do sometimes but not always) and often like, it won't be the Perfect HQ or itll have a massive watermark on it. but like. since it's not really for Sharing as much as its for my own personal enjoyment, these things don't really bother me at all... Having a collection of art that i love that I can look at offline & like, On My Computer is so nice. And I back up a lot of it on hard drives when i back up my own art! Again, like, a lot of these pieces this is the Only way i can look at them anymore, and Maybe the only archive OF them.... I've had pieces from my friends Before they were my friends, that i just saved as a "fan", that THEY lost years later... I have pieces they hadn't Seen in years. And every year I Probably save at least a few more pieces that will become like, totally scrubbed from technology otherwise. idk. i think it's nice to have an archive of this art that is in my taste but also like, that i'd likely Lose otherwise.

i Hope people save my art. I don't honestly Think anyone does, but I Hope that like, if my shit ever blows up and all my accounts get scrubbed, Someone has at least one drawing I made saved to their computer 2 remember me. u know. Its like a scrapbook. I remember these ppls characters, i remember the communities at the time, i remember how i felt when i first saw the piece. Its really inspiring but also genuinely like, really Important to me and sentimental. I kinda think everyone should have their own collection but I think people are genuinely Scared to right click & save ppls art LOL. Genuinely where is the harm, though.

[sugar-and-spite]

i was trying to explain something that happened in a ffxiv dungeon to my sister (who does not play ffxiv) so i made this masterful artist's rendition

[foldingfittedsheets]

I feel the need to share since my lube post is going around that my life is just like that since I worked at the sex shop. Sex Ed is a very standard topic. People just immediately pick up a vibe from me and even in situations where someone doesn’t know I used to sling dildos for a living they’ll just start confiding sex stuff to me.

Not in a creeper way. But like this weight had been lifted and they can finally talk freely about sexual topics. The energy I put off is just so blasé and accepting that people tell me about their sex lives, usually very quickly after meeting me. They usually then have a moment of panic or regret and apologize but I always reassure them that I used to work in a shop and that I see nothing odd about talking about it.

My go-to line is, “I’m a creature devoid of judgement.” They always laugh. Then the questions get more specific or people start asking for brand recommendations. It’s always been funny to me.

My beloved has always been a little confused by it. “People don’t just start talking to me about sex! I know you don’t bring it up. It just always seems to go there when people talk to you.”

“It’s just my energy.”

The first time I was meeting their mom she was coming to stay with us. We picked her up from the airport and brought her home. My beloved went upstairs to use the bathroom. When they came back down their mom was asking me questions about vibrators and their jaw hit the floor.

In our room later they said, “She doesn’t even talk to me about that stuff! She’s so embarrassed about sex topics, I cannot believe she was asking you about that!”

“What can I say,” I shrugged, “I’m a creature devoid of judgement.”

[crowmaturgy]

I am asexual but I have the superpower of aesthetic attraction and rose tinted eyes. Everyone I love always looks beautiful

[minalots]

ARE YOU IN PAIN LIKE I AM?

(Now on inprnt!)