#worldsentwined

[specialagentartemis]

Trick or treat!

Happy Halloween!

Here's an eerie song, a fannish classic, and also a total bop about SPACE GHOSTS

[baladric]

Cyber Punk knew this was a terrible idea. He had a program running statistical analysis in the background as he skimmed through news articles about their latest fight, and all the numbers added up to 100% stupidity. He shouldn’t be here; the risk of being caught rose exponentially with every minute he stayed. Even with the makeup and hair gel washed off, even in jeans and a hoodie instead of his tight black-and-neon studded leather costume, there was a chance Bright Blaze would recognize him when he woke. If he woke. He would, of course he would—everyone knew the city’s hero always got back up after a fight. But the speed of his recovery would affect Cyber Punk’s future plots, so he had to see it for himself. That was why he was here, in the hospital, at his enemy’s bedside. No other reason.

literally OBSESSED with Operation: Boyfriend by @worldsentwined and i’m so fcken jazzed that i got to draw the main characters, sasha and charlie :’)))

if you like extremely flustery crushes poorly disguised as supervillainous moral crises, enemies to lovers, plotty amnesia and guys who are a little too close to actual sunshine (read: Literally On Fire), you should give it a read!!!!!

[naomilibicki]

Bringing this back, since the day is approaching!

Here’s the first of my gifts for the FTH Auction! This is for @naomilibicki, a drawing of her character Hlbiri-jimbhi. (I am SO excited for you all to be able to read her book some day, it is amazing!)

[wanderingmongoose]

Inspired by @worldsentwined’s felted mole and other excellent mole god renditions, here is my own little version of @meganwhalenturner’s mole god, patron of making bad art

[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)

[reallyhardydraws]

OC commission from @minutia-r to @worldsentwined ! tysm ❤️

[commissions open!] ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[traveltobeprovedwrong]

Thanks @euphcme for tagging me to make myself with this picrew!

Tagging: @thatsluttytiefling, @jamdoughnutmagician, @sleepy-insomnia-bear, @worldsentwined and @mountainwanderer!

[minutia-r]

Two Truths and a Lie!

Rules: Share two truths and one lie about yourself, tag five people to guess your lie and to share their own, make sure to guess the lie of the person who tagged you!

I was tagged by @suolakurkkutulehdus about two weeks ago, and I kept meaning to reply and not doing it /o\

Anyway! Without looking at any answers you may have given--my first instinct was to say that the earrings made with human teeth was the lie, but upon reflection it seems like the sort of thing you include to look like a lie but is actually true. Are they possibly your own milk teeth, or some sort of Victorian mourning jewelry?

My actual guess is that the lie is that you've broken your arm twice and your leg once, because that seems like the sort of lie which is plausible because it's mostly true but the numbers are wrong. Like, for instance, you've actually broken your leg twice and your arm once.

Okay, here's mine:

The only one of the Star Wars prequel trilogy I have seen is Attack of the Clones

My first online fandom was on usenet

I have never (yet) defaulted in a fic exchange

I tag @worldsentwined, @bamboocounting, @mage-pie, @ilthit, and @eightopals, and anyone who wants to guess my lie and/or tell your own; if you don't feel like it please disregard!

[mistpodfics]

Saw you down at the space bar written by Kiraly | @worldsentwined

A Murderbot/Mandalorian Podfic read by mistbornhero with a cover by @green-fifteen for the event VoiceTeam filling the challenge Role Model

Murderbot encounters a stranger at a bar. Threat assessment: inconclusive.

Podfic Length: 03:27 minutes

[naomilibicki]

Finally hung my ornaments above my desk! Luna moth is by GlassArtStories; the boys are by @reimenaashelyee and the girls are by @worldsentwined. I don't know if the people who made the hamsa have a web presence.

[the-lincyclopedia]

First-line patterns

Thanks for the tag, @cricketnationrise!

Rules: List the first line of your last 10 (posted) fics and see if there's a pattern.

I'm gonna guess there won't be, because some are song parodies, some are drabble series, and some are more standard fics, but I guess we'll see.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Count Claudio? [BEATRICE] He said he knew/She'd been untrue/But she's been no such thing

Like Passing Notes in Secrecy Eugenides resented being forced to dine daily with his horrible relatives and the rest of Eddis’s court.

The Thief of Queens Gen walked down the row of long cafeteria tables that had been set up in the gym, looking for board 56.

Stargazing, Skinny Dipping, and Slideshows Five minutes later, Bitty and Jacques meet at the beginning of the path down to the lake.

I Just Keep Spying on the Queen I'm afraid that he's your boyfriend

It Sure Is Exhausting, Always Being Called the Shadow Princess I have this thing where people close to me keep dying/At night I think I hear them call

Would it be enough if I could never give you peace? Irene was not much older than Eddis, but Irene’s parents and brothers had died years before Eddis’s had, and she had, accordingly, come of age substantially sooner.

there's you in everything i do Shitty says that avoiding seeing each other’s wedding-day outfits until the beginning of the wedding ceremony is an outdated, patriarchal tradition that needs to die and that makes no sense to carry over into a queer context, but Bitty has a complicated relationship with tradition and would like to participate in at least a few of the conventional aspects of weddings, and Jack doesn’t mind.

Don't Stop Queen's-Thieving Just a gods-blessed Thief/Who occupies a lonely niche/He's a midnight sneak going anywhere

Bi Pride and a Lack of Prejudice “Lizzie?” William said one night a few months into their relationship.

I'm going to say I don't notice many patterns. But anyway, I tag @cartograffiti, @eponymiad, @the-knights-who-say-book, @worldsentwined, and anyone else who wants to play!

[ilthit]

AO3 stats game

I was tagged by @keirgreeneyes!

Rules: Give us the links to your wonderful words with the most hits, most kudos, most comments, most bookmarks, most words, and least words.

Most hits: The Makings of Fate (Scum Villain's Self-Saving System), in which Shen Yuan transmigrates without a System, gets the hell out of dodge, and ends up as Tianlang-jun's pet cultivator. This fandom is active!

Most kudos: Bonus Material (Scum Villain's Self-Saving System), in which Shen Yuan transmigrates into a Qiu Manor servant on the night of the massacre, and ends up Shen Jiu's adopted little brother. This and Makings of Fate have a much smaller difference in kudos than in hits, which is easily explained; Makings of Fate is chaptered and was published over a period of time, whereas Bonus Material is a one-shot.

Most comments: Also The Makings of Fate.

Most bookmarks: Also Bonus Material.

Most words: Mid-Autumn Festival, part of the Lin Moniao series co-authored with minutia-r based on our Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades TTRPG campaign. The second, third, and fourth most words are also installments in that series. They have practically no hits or kudos but that's kind of to be expected!

Least words: I have several 100 word drabbles posted as single works. And art posts with less, but that's not really the point of the question.

I'm tagging @ehrenyu @d20owlbear @minutia-r @worldsentwined

[baladric]

For the art ask thing - 5, 20, 27?

!!! thank you!!!!!!!!

5. What work are you most proud of (regardless of likes/reblogs)?

gosh, honestly?? this guy!!!!

like.. it's gotten zero attention, and i'm sure a fair amount of it is i made beshelar GINGER, but 1) i was a dingus and didn't account for the warm light brown i actually made his hair when i chose the filter i then laid over top of the piece and then i spaced out on fixing the issue and 2) god i have so many complaints about the concept of an entire nation of one single skin tone and one single hair color, so he can be GINGER if i WANT him to be ginger

and just. there's. four hands in this. there's FOUR HANDS and they all RIP, plus their facial expressions, plus the draping and design of cala's AU'd robe (in the pirate au, cala isn't an Athmaza, he's a hedge maza in the republic of pirates, so i wanted the robe to be more like a smock!!), the perspective on deret's right hand, the TEA CUP, and deret's scars and proportions, like!!!! idk, this is one of those drawings that grabbed me by the throat at like 10 at night and then i came out of a fugue state about an hour and a half later with undoubtedly the best anatomy i'd ever drawn (and arguably still some of the best, though it has its issues), plus the softness the idea of such an ecstatically happy, sleep-ruffled deret instills in me..... i just. am so in love with it still. weeping crying etc etc

20. Is there anyone you'd love to collaborate with next year?

hmmmMM i've never done visual art collabs, but honestly if dearest young @calaathmaza ever wanted me to color anything.... afj;wkefojdsf

also i fully intend to brush up my illustration game for my beloved celebros' shit, bc god DAMN does Blackbird deserve all the art in the world, and that registers to me as collab honestly, probably bc we've not yet fused into one single being (it's getting a little touch and go tho; if i start talking about cat fostering on here, please tell my mother i was always, always mad at her ❤️)

27. Biggest surprise while creating art this year?

god, myself, honestly??? all of a sudden i have this drive to create in a very focused and flexible tenor i've never experienced before, and it's just fuckin wild. my skills have grown so precipitously since the dinky locked tomb stuff i was posting in january and i've developed a bad habit of staring at my own art, whispering "holy shit" with tremulous reverence.

also the wild shock of having ENGAGEMENT on the shit i make (both visual and writing), like that has been mind-boggling. people like my art!!! people like my art A LOT!!!! what!!!!!

artist wrapped ask meme!

[naomilibicki]

Now that the book has been out for a couple of weeks, I am going to reblog this, which contains SPOILERS

In case anyone hasn’t heard, my friend @naomilibicki has written an AMAZING book called The King is Dead, which someone really needs to get on publishing already so I can make all of you read it. These are her characters, Nirithu and Risokh. :)

[swordbreakerz]

Holding up me and @worldsentwined 's fight with spirit characters. BEHOLD! gay people

[minutia-r]

for the multifandom poetry fest, for @worldsentwined's prompt: Any, any, came back wrong

The dead are a sacred gift.

We treat them with respect We are called by their names Their families become ours.

We don’t take them Fresh from the slaughter Wear them like cloaks Plunder their memories.

I could protest— It was an accident; I didn’t mean to!— But I’m not so weak and sniveling.

No excuses.

My family has been butchered Those that remain rightfully shun me I can never go back beneath the earth.

Why shouldn’t I take And take And take?