savvycats

[savvycats]

hi im relistening to artificial condition and just realized that at no point do murderbot or ART make proper introductions and it's making me giggle. ART pretends to be a normal bot pilot to lull mb into a false sense of security, waits until murderbot is effectively trapped and unable to escape, and then proceeds to threaten it and scare the shit out of it by way of greeting. and murderbot, understandably, does not then proceed to ask what to call it or anything, it's just like. this guy fucking sucks. i'm gonna call it "fucking sucks".

AND ART PUTS UP NO PROTEST.

like okay we don't know exactly how much access ART has to murderbot's... data? thought data? we know it derives something from how murderbot interacts with the feed (access to interpretable emotion), we know it just sort of barges in wherever it wants, we know from system collapse that "no, ART can't read my mind, it just knows me really well", so like. it probably doesn't have context for the origin of this new nickname, which murderbot presumably begins calling it with no explanation.

but ART's smart so like it definitely knows what ART stands for, given (gestures at murderbot's entire disposition), and this is just so funny to me. ART refers to murderbot by some complicated string of letters and numbers that any other bot would use, and murderbot refers to ART as "you jackass" and ART's probably just soooo pleased that its newest bestie4lyfe gave it a nickname it's all so unbelievably funny

[savvycats]

I don't think I can express how much I fancy her

[savvycats]

“stop traumadumping to your friends tell this to your therapist” my god they paywalled human connection

[savvycats]

Its a peg or be pegged world

[savvycats]

Laurent Grasso (French, 1972) - Studies into the Past (series) (2025)

[savvycats]

do care + did ask + im hugging you + im hugging you + im hugging you + im hugging you + im hugging you

[savvycats]

me: So then we take the liquified wood pulp, and dry it again, into these thin sheets. caveman: [confused, but trying to keep up] uh huh. me: And we take the graphite stick - it doesn't need to be wrapped in wood like this, but we like making them this way so you don't get graphite on your hands. And that's what we draw with. caveman: [eyes lighting up] Oohhh so you use the wood pulp sheets to paint on them, like hides? me: Exactly! And now, you could use this method to draw anything you can visualise with your mind's eye, but for the sake of this demonstration, let's draw a vision of a woman with features of an animal whose powers and traits she represents, and a figure that is stylised and exaggerated beyond what nature really allows. caveman: As wide as she is tall, with tits to match? me: Exactly. caveman: This is the only sensible use of this technology.

[savvycats]

Hello?

[savvycats]

Uhuhhh this was going to be a painting but this sketch has gripped me so I don’t think I’m going to touch it

I’m in shambles

[savvycats]

We smokin those Hedgespun Habanero Hoagies. We smokin those Arcadian Ayahuasca Applejacks. Hit the blunt so hard it permanently lowered my Clarity. I shot a load through her Gate of Horn. Last Huntsman stepped to me got his Heart turned into toilet paper. I'm built different. Privateer tried to jump me and I turned his Seeming into a Definitely. I'm feral. I'm worse than a Beast. My Kith don't even have a Blessing, that's how fucked I am. My stacks so thick I got the Coin Regalia askin me for a loan. This shit ain't nothin to me, man.

[savvycats]

the thing about being nonbinary is that you really do start to forget that other people have such strict walls around what is and isn’t allowed for genders. i thought we all agreed that we made that up. could you climb out of the cave real quick and feel the sunshine for a minute.

[savvycats]

...what is the "sex is just rock climbing" category

It was kind of a joke between me and a friend ("you wouldn't judge someone for having gone rock climbing with a bunch of different people") but honestly the more I thought about it the more I bought into it unironically because:

It is a physical activity done with one or more partners

You should only go rock climbing with people you trust to not let you fall

You should not go rock climbing with someone who is drunk or currently incapable of rational decision-making

Some people get super super super into rock climbing and do not shut up about all the places they have climbed and how many are left on their bucket list and these people are usually men between the ages of 20 and 35 and like it's fine dude I'm glad you're happy but I don't know what most of those mountains even are

While many consider it a fun activity, pressuring someone into climbing when they don't want to (or ignoring their feelings and just dangling them off a cliff,) could cause both psychological and physical trauma

There is no moral value to it whatsoever. Who you have gone rock climbing with (or whether you have rock climbed at all) has no bearing on who you are as a person. Imagine telling someone "it's not that heights make you nauseous, it's just that you haven't found the right person to belay you!" or "you need to save your first time rock climbing for someone special." That would be absurd.

For some people it is a deep and moving personal experience.

historically I have not asked myself "will this aggravate my hip flexor injury" before participating when perhaps I should have 😔

[savvycats]

I understand that when folks criticise the self-labelled "cozy" genre as an effort to produce "games about nothing", they're talking about trying to opt out of having opinions by producing a game with a perfectly politically neutral premise (which is impossible), but whenever I see the phrase that gremlin voice in the back of my mind is like:

[savvycats]

Photomontage of the evolution of a tornado : Composite of eight images shot in two sequences as a tornado formed north of Minneola, Kansas by Jason Weingart

[savvycats]

Just finished The Devils, by Joe Abercrombie. For the guy whose reputation is all about "grimdark," this book is funny as Hell. It's witty and clever and the only real gripe I had about it is that it very much has a "first book in a trilogy" ending, when I expected it to be a standalone novel. I'm looking forward to the rest when it comes out.

An alternative-europe fantasy novel is only as good as its map, and this one is a hoot. I love it. Britain is relegated to an insignificant rock crowded out by the compass rose, the most important cities in europe are the Vatican and Troy, and Atlantis is off the coast of spain??? Also Serbia is there.

It has an incredible opening:

So, the hapless Brother Diaz, newly appointed vicar of the Chapel of Holy Expediency, is tasked by Pope Benedicta the First to escort the long-lost Princess Alexia of Troy – or as she was known until yesterday, Alex, an orphaned street-rat thief and swindler – from the Holy City to claim her rightful throne and heal the schism between the eastern and western churches, in the name of the Father, the Daughter, and the Holy Spirit.

He is assisted by his unsavory congregation – a vampire, an elf, one of the top three necromancers in Europe (or top four, depending on your opinion of that absolute hack Sukastra of Bivort), an elderly Templar, and a few others besides.

It's about as brutal and bloody as you'd expect from Abercrombie, but it's also very, very funny. I recommend it. I think that y'all will go nuts for Vigga, for reasons that will become immediately obvious.

[savvycats]

My favorite brutalist building in boston isn’t even city hall, although it is gorgeous. It’s the humble boylston portals.

See, part of what makes brutalism what it is is a commitment to form as ornamentation. There are nearly no decorations here, no style motifs. the most we get are the modern columns with the little circles on top. The boston globe, when it was built, compared it to a mausoleum. But look at the inside:

See how, just by choosing materials thoughtfully, you can have the sun do your ornamentation for you? How a plain surface can be a canvas for light and shadow?