Fandom consumer. Parent. Spouse. Xeriscape gardener. Rabbit hole enthusiast. 40-something. Neurodivergent (ADHD). Bisexual/pansexual. She/her.
64 posts
Latest Posts by excellent-desert - Page 2
I made a comic of one of my favorite Network Effect scenes!
This was so fun!! I love Murderbot!
desperately need a dude i can nickname “sweet elf,” who hasn’t slept in 3 days, is vegetarian, translates plato for fun, got kicked out of oxford at the age of 18 for penning the first pro-atheism work in the english language and mailing it to every bishop in england, distributes political pamphlets in handmade hot air balloons, hallucinates from stress, plays with paper boats and rocks while declaring these to be serious forms of scientific experimentation, hangs out with lord byron, casually writes some of the greatest poetry in the english language but then threatens to quit constantly because he’s not famous yet, is convinced he is dying of consumption despite no proof, blows things up with gunpowder unprovoked, and is addicted to sailing as fast as possible while refusing to learn how to swim.
otherwise interesting post ruined by the bold insistence that you can never accidentally abuse someone & that all abusive people are self-aware evil masterminds
tumblr discourse after 13 years on this fucking website
Dealing With Executive Dysfunction - A Masterpost
The “getting it done in an unconventional way” method.
The “it’s not cheating to do it the easy way” method.
The “fuck what you’re supposed to do” method.
The “get stuff done while you wait” method.
The “you don’t have to do everything at once” method.
The “it doesn’t have to be permanent to be helpful” method.
The “break the task into smaller steps” method.
The “treat yourself like a pet” method.
The “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing” method.
The “put on a persona” method.
The “act like you’re filming a tutorial” method.
The “you don’t have to do it perfectly” method.
The “wait for a trigger” method.
The “do it for your future self” method.
The “might as well” method.
The “when self discipline doesn’t cut it” method.
The “taking care of yourself to take care of your pet” method.
The “make it easy” method.
The “junebugging” method.
The “just show up” method.
The “accept when you need help” method.
The “make it into a game” method.
The “everything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method.
The “trick yourself” method.
The “break it into even smaller steps” method.
The “let go of should” method.
The “your body is an animal you have to take care of” method.
The “fork theory” method.
The “effectivity over aesthetics” method.
For some reason the versions of this where he gives two salutes is being deleted and replaced with a version with a quick cut to a cheering crowd so I’ll just share it here 🙃
Reblogging for *ahem* posterity.
they forcefemming luigi so straight men will be incentivized to learn about why the us healthcare system is broken
in absolute tears about the pride module at my work
Parent of non-binary kid here. I concur. You’ll pry her dresses from her cold dead hands.
Also… Murderbot can look like a tall, muscular, broad-shouldered man AND STILL be non-binary. Not male-aligned, even!
people really need to stop conceptualizing nonbinary as a third defined gender. there are countless ways to be nonbinary and nonbinary genders are personal and unique to each individual. stop assuming things about nonbinary people. stop telling nonbinary people they’re not nonbinary because they don’t present or act or call themselves in the specific way which you have conceptualize nonbinary.
A caveat to this study: the researchers were primarily looking at insect pollinator biodiversity. Planting a few native wildflowers in your garden will not suddenly cause unusual megafauna from the surrounding hinterlands to crowd onto your porch.
That being said, this study backs up Douglas Tallamy's optimistic vision of Homegrown National Park, which calls for people in communities of all sizes to dedicate some of their yard (or porch or balcony) to native plants. This creates a patchwork of microhabitats that can support more mobile insect life and other small beings, which is particularly crucial in areas where habitat fragmentation is severe. This patchwork can create migration corridors, at least for smaller, very mobile species, between larger areas of habitat that were previously cut off from each other.
It may not seem like much to have a few pots of native flowers on your tiny little balcony compared to someone who can rewild acres of land, but it makes more of a difference than you may realize. You may just be creating a place where a pollinating insect flying by can get some nectar, or lay her eggs. Moreover, by planting native species you're showing your neighbors these plants can be just as beautiful as non-native ornamentals, and they may follow suit.
In a time when habitat loss is the single biggest cause of species endangerment and extinction, every bit of native habitat restored makes a difference.
“Andrew kissed him like this was a fight with their lives on the line, like his world stopped and started with Neil's mouth.”
Content warning:
A potentially sensitive blog and I need to say it mentions abuse of autistic children.
The two critical factor about me which I suppose lead to this blog are two loves and a hatred:
I love the Murderbot Diaries and the character who I (don’t need to say this, but some people may have missed it) love the most (other than SecUnit, obviously) is Gurathin*.
I also love science, it’s my passion: especially the communication of science.
My hatred (and this will need clarifying, as I have limited reserves of hate and use it sparingly) is of the people who run, coordinate, organise and monetize the anti-vaccination movement. I don’t hate someone caught up in their often seemingly plausible and oh so seductive lies, I hate the Wakefields and the Kennedys and the Bigtrees.
And one reason I hate them is for the way they portray autism: they claim autistic children are “vaccine damaged” and they promote dangerous “cures” (horrific things like MMS, aka bleach).
As if autism were a thing to be feared, that autistic children are somehow broken.
I HATE THIS
This idea that you can cure autism, that autism could or should be defeated, that it’s a form of damage.
Hopefully that indicates where I’m coming from…
The Corporation Rim in The Murderbot Diaries is a capitalist hellscape.
In this horrific future world where we have the literal, explicit, slavery of constructs and the enslavement of bond workers I can imagine that those in power might encourage (even force) parents of autistic children to “treat them”, make them “normal”.
Hopefully you can see this would be very much NOT what I’d see as a good thing, but an extension of the terrible things we already see being done today.
And what if one “treatment” was a form of augmentation: something that is in the autistic person's brain “correcting” their behaviour to “act normal”, a device which might be said to “govern” their behaviour. Like ABA, but a device in your brain.
In the Murderbot Diaries we have Gurathin, an augmented individual who has made his way to Preservation. The nature of his augments are never made explicit (though he does apparently have a better connection with the feed, and visual augments- though we don’t know if the two are related). I think Gurathin is great, and the Murderbot Gurathin canon relationship is brilliant and extremely funny, Exit Strategy:
(“I don’t want to be a pet robot.”
“I don’t think anyone wants that.”
That was Gurathin. I don’t like him. “I don’t like you.”
“I know.”
He sounded like he thought it was funny. “That is not funny.”
“I’m going to mark your cognition level at fifty-five percent.”
“Fuck you.”
“Let’s make that sixty percent.”)
There is friction, a lot of it, in their relationship. An obvious root cause of this is their similarity**, as Murderbot says in Fugitive Telemetry to take just one little example:
“Gurathin seems to hate talking to strange humans almost as much as I do. ”
Perhaps his augments are why? Perhaps Gurathin’s augments’ purpose (or one purpose) was to moderate his behaviour, like the awful treatments promoted for autistic children in our world, the augments’ intent was to make him act like “normal”, or allistic people. Perhaps this is why he (remarkably) notices that their SecUnit is acting unusually, or not like a normal SecUnit? Perhaps Gurathin knows what it is to have something in your head controlling you, like SecUnit’s governor module.
Gurathin asks:
“You don’t blame humans for…what happened to you?”
I wonder what happened to Gurathin?
I’m so glad the both of them found Preservation.
So- it’s just a thought!
*I adore ART
** there is the ‘revealing that it’s rogue, calls itself Murderbot and the whole ‘killing 57 clients’ thing’ too, but they seem to have gotten past that!
I was thinking "oh but I can't be autistic, I'm so good at eye contact and small talk! I know all the right ratios for looking/not looking and asking/answering questions! I even know the best posture to communicate low-stakes friendliness (about 15 degrees from facing them. weight on one leg. 70% eye contact. still hands.) everybody says I'm great!" before realizing I may be refuting my own point
If you like lawyer jokes, here are some of the best recorded interactions that have happened in actual courts or trials
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, ‘Where am I, Cathy?’
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!
________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
________
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
________
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can’t remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He’s 20, much like your IQ.
________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid
________
ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death..
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I’m going with male.
________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
________
ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral…
________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
________
ATTORNEY: How far can you see at night?
WITNESS: I can see the moon, how far is that?
I’ll raise you Highlander, X-Files and Due South.
Signed
Elder Millenial
Being part of old fandoms in 2024 is so fucking embarrassing. Yeah I like klance still 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ and yeah I just reblogged Regulus Black art 😒😒😒😒😒 and so what I think about Andrew Minyard every day 😑😑😑😑😑😑😑 don’t even get me started on trc
Polynesians did also rely on a form of a physical map called a stick chart, illustrating the specific wave and swell patterns surrounding different island chains. These were particularly helpful during cloudy conditions when the sun and stars were less useful. To navigate the Marshall Islands, the Marshallese represented ocean swell patterns using parts of coconut fronds and shells as islands. Like a subway map, they don’t so much represent distances as they do relationships. The complex and decorative stick charts were often only understood by the person who made them. They were memorised before a voyage by the pilot who would lie on the floor of a canoe to get a sense of swell movement and often lead a squadron of 15 or more boats.
There these seemingly contradictory societal double binds that are used to enforce conformity.
Example: A Lesbian is told that "everyone is actually bi" while a bisexual woman is told to "pick a side". Seems contradictory but really they just want us to be straight lmao.
Another one: A woman who does not perform womanhood to society's standard is not a real woman vs. You can never change the gender you were born with. One is butchphobic/anti gnc women, the other is transphobic. Clearly both enforce transmisogyny.
The insidious thing is that these double binds also foster inter community division. Its easy to hear one side of these, for example: "everyone is a little bi" and assume that means bisexuality is more accepted. But on the other side bisexual people are getting the same shit.
None of these are contradictory when you realize that bigots simply don't want lgbtq+ to exist at all.
Incredible. I ship it so hard.
A crossover for the ages.
“Sit down and shut up, men don’t have oppression to speak on, so men speaking on their problems is always and in every circumstance speaking over women/in opposition of feminism”
is just an extension of
“sit down and shut up, men are supposed to be stoic about their problems”
from toxic masculinity,
but this time dressed up dressed up in twisted-pro-feminism reasoning that doesn’t actually address the underlying problem with the attitude of societal repression of men’s emotions and discussions of things by which they’re negatively affected (be that by oppression or not).
This is just incredible.
the mythology of Ronan Lynch
There is still value in understanding the darkness and the dirt.
Yes. Preach! If I can’t love my deeply fucked up fictional and RL historical characters, what is even the point of reading?
some ppl thought that adding black ppl to iwtv meant they were gonna "wokeify" anne rice and the bigots got mad at that mere promise while the leftists with poor media comprehension got mad at the failure to fulfill it but. anne rice works cannot be wokeified. she wrote about horrible lil gremlins with these nasty lil disrespectful unorthodox kinks lol. you will find sweeping romances in there and 0 of them healthy. the optics are bad, bad, bad! she would never get a publishing deal today because one of her characters would psychologically abuse the other one, and there wouldn't even be an after school special moment in the book where someone mentions the word "gaslight"!
the amc iwtv creators did not set out to distance themselves from the atrocities anne rice wrote, they set out to lean into them! to get closer, uglier, deeper in the dirt! how could you not recognize this from the very first episode when instead of making louis a white plantation owner they made him come from a black family who enslaved black ppl for capital gain and didn't feel real bad about it! perverse situation from the get go. you've recognized the ways in which the characters are evil and can be morally improved? congrats on step 1! step 2 is knowing these stories are not really interested in doing that. now you can finally begin to use your critical thinking as intended to ask: if these stories are not morality plays, what are they for? what do they say? well. great questions, now we're talking!
have your intersectional readings but kill the dichotomy, seek the nuance, bask in a narrative layered and baked in the complex stench of humanity! there is still value in understanding the darkness and the dirt. and sometimes when everyone's a murderer in your sandbox we can bury the word "problematic" and just have some fun ✌️🏽
Lighting your hot colleague’s cigarette is almost as sexy as stealing stealing it.
Sam Rockwell and Eric Bogosian, not sure of the year... I fucking love this picture. 🔥
this will probably nvr see the light of day but i do think in s3 they should hve dreamlaudia (like dreamstat) but hve both bailey and delainey play claudia interchangeably, with lestat hallucinating bailey's claudia more and louis hallucinating dealiney's claudia more. rlly commit to the memory is a monster bit. idk i think it'd be poetic in the way tht they both love her so much but can't remember what she rlly even looked like
He's going to fuck that old man -> Assad is getting Mr bogosian's clothes off on my puter
He's going to fuck that old man -> baby vamp Daniel Molloy is going to top that 515 yr old vampire on my puter