[The Murderbot Diaries]

Last art of 2024–full pic of SecUnit (probably from Exit Strategy). Hats off to Martha Wells—I have never read a book series nearly as many times as I have with Murderbot.

a billionaire can never be held accountable, therefore a billionaire must never make a management decision

i have a suggestion

forcefemming the billionaires won't help

sorry I thought you were someone else

@teameagleworks

This video has been getting AI accusations and it isn't! All these types of woods exist! Though some of them are local names, I was able to track all of them down! Here are all the woods shown in the video!

Purpleheart Wood: Peltogyne genus, native to Central and South American rainforests. Freshly cut it's light brown, then turns into rich shades of purple. It turns brown in UV light so it has to be finished with a UV inhibitor to keep those gorgeous colors.

Namnu (various): A type of precious wood found in China/South Asia, sourced from various different species of trees, hence the different examples shown here. High grades of the wood are known for the optical effect shown in the video. Unfortunately the types of trees that produce the wood are all critically endangered, which is why the examples shown are all items or pillars or fragments of pieces. The species are all strictly protected and new trees cannot be harvested.

That example in the video is just that one video that goes around with the inside of a tree that's been struck burning while it still stands, but sometimes trees that have been struck by lightning and are cut down can have neat burn patterns in the wood (example), as the lightning goes to ground, so some people might want that. Who am I to judge.

Chicken-blood vine wood: Species is Spatholobus suberectus and it's only that bright when it's cut, it dries to a more woody color. Here's a page with examples of what the wood looks like when it's dried and some things made with it.

Amber wood: This one took a while. There's a video out there claiming this is "petrified amber wood". That's not possible, I'm a geologist I would know. Since the video is in Chinese originally I presume, "amber wood" must be a translated local name. It's sandalwood, which has that gorgeous bright red color. Even tracked down the video the clip is taken from. "Chandan wood" is another name for sandalwood. Which smells amazing.

Rosewood: The most well known of the woods here in my opinion. There's a number of rosewoods, all in various shades of pinks and reds. True rosewoods are from the genus Dalbergia. Sadly they're all endangered, but illegal harvesting continues.

Purple hainan huanghuali: Dalbergia odorifera, the Chinese rosewood.

Pink oak - Likely pink ivory (Phyllogeiton zeyheri). You need a permit to cut down one of these trees, but it really is that pink. One of the most expensive woods in the world, up there with sandalwood.

Burmese huanghuali: Rosewood...3! This is either Dalbergia oliveri or Pterocarpus indicus, but given that Pterocarpus indicus is descripted as having purplish heartwood, I'm guessing it's Dalbergia oliveri. Though it's not a true rosewood, Pterocarpus indicus is also sadly endangered.

Liudao wood: This is Abelia biflora, though it looks like it has been reclassified as Zabelia biflora recently. Either it only looks like that when the bark is being peeled or it's the lighting in the videos. BUT this wood is used in making Buddhist prayer beads because of both its grain pattern connects to philosophy and its mention in Tibetan Buddhist texts.

Thank you for all that work!! I recognized some of the woods (since my siblings in law woodwork) but not all of them, and was going to look into them when I woke up, but you've gone and brought up all the treasure from the rabbit hole!

A lil Murderbot for @asmalldarkmannamedfurrisky ! Thank you so much!! ^u^

Stole a handful of half hours here and there and managed to finish the Murderbot bookmark #3 - Rogue Protocol! Murderbot should absolutely be wearing some kind of spacing gear here but I wanted to draw the hoodie outfit, so?? Handwaves

so I've been OBSESSED with Murderbot

I've already largely changed my mind on it's design like 3 times but Vico Ortiz remains my ultimate inspiration

this line ripped out my intestines and choked me with them

murderbot is peak queer rep because it’s about living as an inherently transgressive form of being, it’s about the complexity of passing, or the complexity of hiding, or the nuance of never fitting binaries and not wanting to even when fitting those binaries is seen as “better”, and it’s about making people uncomfortable just by existing, it’s about measuring forms of freedom and having to decide which you’ll save and which you’ll sacrifice. but most importantly it’s peak queer rep because murderbot is free for like five minutes and it immediately attracts the nearest supposedly-rare transgressive-illegal-superbot (ART) in a hundred light year radius to be its best friend, and what’s that if not your classic Queer On Queer Magnetism

#you ever look around at ur friends and go shit these bitches are gay! #not on purpose but sure are! #murderbot is also equally a neurodivergence allegory ofc #really any marginalized identity allegory (tags via op)

your shapes and bold colour choices and shark teeth

Pushing my ART is a giant scary spider agenda

"i want a dislike button on ao3" so you want less fanfic. even if you don't think you want less fanfic you want less fanfic. because when people start getting dislikes on their fanfic they will want to write less fanfic. hope this helps <3

Dislike buttons aren't that bad

for fanfic? for things people put their hearts and souls into for free? for creative works where there is literally no reason to downvote a fic except to just be mean? where negative reception (and even just unwanted constructive criticism) could potentially kill someone's passion for their fic or even their motivation to ever write again? You're right! They're actually not that bad!

They're terrible! And it would be a terrible idea to ever implement them.

if you dislike the fic just fucking leave you're not being forced to finish something you're not enjoying. back button. if you're feeling especially hateful you can even block authors now.

Downvote buttons work (to the extent that they work at all) on platforms like Reddit and Quora because the downvote is not a communication to the person who wrote the post, but a community consensus on the value and relevance of the post. These platforms have systems to display the "best" posts at the top of the dash, and giving readers buttons to tell other readers that a post is relevant and interesting or off topic and offensive is how they generate that ranking.

A kudos on AO3 is NOT a ranking system, it is a communication to the author, it's a "thank you" button.

Note that it's called "kudos" not "like" or "upvote". You can sort by kudos if you wish to find the fics that the author has been thanked for the most.

But there is no ranking system or algorithm, there is no "best fics first" button, and the kudos button is for the author, not the other users. So a downvote button would serve no practical purpose.

Culturally, as an archive and also as the product of a community with a gift economy, AO3 does not promote the concept of "better" or "more valuable" or "more relevant" fic. The OTW (the nonprofit that runs AO3) and the community of fans who created and comprise the OTW and who use the archive believe very strongly that ALL fanfiction is valuable and worth preserving, and understand that tastes are varied and subjective. The tag system and search operators allow users to find the fic they think is worth reading without having to rely on the consensus of a community that may not share their tastes and priorities.

Because of this, a "best fic first" feature that a downvote/upvote system exists to support would be antithetical to the site's mission and contrary to the values and needs of the community the site is for.

Without a "best" ranking system, all a downvote button would be is a "no thank you" communication to the author.

And I'm sure you can see why setting up a system to email an author with "these people wanted to let you know real quick that they don't like your work" would be assinine.

There are at least three dislike buttons on AO3. They aren't actually labeled "Dislike", though; you have to know the AO3 lore in order to recognize them.

One of them is labeled "Back". If you're fancy like me, you'll even have a physical button on your mouse for just this purpose. The other two are labeled "Mute" and "Block".

When I was a kid the messaging was "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." A lot of adults refused to practice what they preached, but that is what kids were told.

It's a lesson a lot of folks could do with internalizing.

completely obsessed with the brazilian cover of artificial condition

splatoon fans are like “you GOTTA listen to ‘freshwater freekin it’ that one is straight fire” and link you to a song composed of synthesized cat meows, first graders playing recorders, and vine booms. and then by the end you’re absolutely furious because they’re right

splatoon fans in the notes are behaving how you might expect

Its real now thanks op

i cannot BELIEVE

“Abyssal”, new Secret Knots comic.

The implication of Sleeping Beauty appears to be that you can just hack into someone else’s curse and change the terms of it. Magic can’t break a curse, but it can change the conditions that break the curse.

What’s the wiggle room on that. If you’re cursed to be a bear until a certain wizard dies, can someone just tinker around with your curse and go “Actually you’re cursed to be a bear until Tuesday,” or does the curse breaking condition have to be something roughly equivalent to the original terms of the curse, one hundred years of slumber being roughly equivalent to instant death

they r important to me

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Yes! Eliot had read reports of a mission in Antartica where this exact thing had happened, so he incorporated it in the poem. There is a double meaning, obviously, because it's also a reference to Jesus on the road to Emmaus. But it is very much on purpose. He wrote:

 "The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted"

Also the cameraman