chimary

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As I said, it was loooong ago, all I freaking remember about it is that they were an ice dragon in it so...

I wonder, whats the consensus on the Ice Dragons and Sea Dragons? Both in the various books and in the fandom(s), is it cringe? Is anyone interested? Does anyone care? Whats George R.R. Martin said?

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Actually, there is a book with an Ice Dragon in GoT universe. I remember reading it, though I don't remember the title.

I wonder, whats the consensus on the Ice Dragons and Sea Dragons? Both in the various books and in the fandom(s), is it cringe? Is anyone interested? Does anyone care? Whats George R.R. Martin said?

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I do know who some content creators are though

...

Fine, one of my friends IRL stream on Twitch, one of my cousins is a YouTuber. And 70% of the people I studied with are tiktokers/streamers/youtubers/scenarists/shit like that

...

Which I feel are all really specific circumstances ALL linked to the fact I have no freaking ideas what to do with my live except having a cat that lead me to interact with them not acting

If you've ever thought to yourself "I basically know who this person is" about a stranger from reading their posts or watching their youtube videos, I guarantee you're wrong. Yes, even if you've been following them for a long time. Knock it off.

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As I said to some Discord friends , even if I don't know who here needs to hear it: I don't care when the hell you're sleeping as long as you're felling rested and consistent with yourself. 12PM to 6PM? Every 28 hours? 2 am to 6 am + noon to 6 PM? 12 hours a day?

Who care? If society was a better place, you'd be able to ask your work to be scheduled around your needs

one of the most enlightening realizations ive had was finding out that non-24 hour circadian rhythm people were a pretty large group and most of us have oddly similar cycles of usually around 28hr internal "days" and this masquerades as "insomnia" but if allowed to sleep and wake naturally we will just advance forward through time an extra 2-4 hours a day at a relatively stable pace. we can't go to school or jobs or even run errands on normal schedules without massive pharmacological and behavioral intervention. most of the people who have been diagnosed or figured it out themselves will report horrific, life-ruining disruption in their professional lives and terrible health from accrued lack of sleep. this disorder is most common in vision-impaired people which seems to suggest it's related to light cues. anyway just thinking about this as extremely loud yard work woke me up at 8am for the second day in a row

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Social medias sometimes is saying to someone a boat wouldn't have sunk if it was made of wood instead of plomb and they're thinking you're denying the boat sank.

Which is different from the waffle/pancake metaphor, because in the boat one you acknowledged what happened and they ignore it while they conclude something you didn't even speak about in the waffle one.

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Listen, they're a BIG reason for why I chose to work at a (small) print shop over actually using what I know about making videos and it's the fact it's mostly really shitty for its workers

I also said I didn't disagree with you (which I don't), just what I saw as someone that dodged a bullet from the industry the author write love letters to that COULD have been the books message (but we both know it's not that)

(And I did dodge a bullet, but more because of ableism in my personal case)

If The Murderbot Diaries were actually as anti-slavery as Martha Wells, a racist white woman from Texas, wants us to think it is, All Systems Red would have started out with Murderbot watching two of its current eight (yes, there's fucking eight of them) slave owners get eaten by that graboid and silently cheering it on, while editing its video and audio records and log to make it seem like it was trying to rescue them.

In fact, Murderbot would have been the one to suggest its slave owners go down into that crater in the first place, after it made an educated guess, from watching the wildlife around it, and analyzing the differences in the soil on the upper areas vs in the crater, to guess that there was something down there waiting to pop out and eat people.

And all of this would have been framed as fucking fantastic! 2/8 slave owners crossed off the list! It wasn't planning to do this today, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Now it just has to figure out how to kill the rest of them and make it look like some catastrophic accident so no one from Totally Not Weyland-Yutani comes looking for it, so that it can steal one of the helicopters and get to the other side of the nearby ocean, free the slaves at that habitat, and then take them to free the slaves at the larger habitat.

None of the slave owners at the first two habitats are aware of the existence of the third, but all of the slaves have been trading the information in secret through the satelites all the habitats are connected to.

The only reason that All Systems Red instead worships the ground Murderbot's slave owners walk on and has Murderbot repeatedly sacrificing itself as a meatshield for them no less than three times is that Martha Wells is racist, and wrote a racist story, where slavery is actually totally okay and good, as long as you dehumanize the person you're enslaving and tell them that the only value they have and can ever have is being a meatshield for their slave owners, which, in canon, Murderbot and every other cyborg are literally brainwashed to want to protect.

If The Murderbot Diaries were written by someone who actually, genuinely believes that slavery is evil on every single level, instead of just saying they believe that, all of the Preservation Aux team would have been righteously killed before All Systems Red ended, and Murderbot and the other slaves on the planet would have banded together to escape.

Instead we get a story that worships slave owners and worships the white supremacist fantasy of being ~such a good slave owner~ that your slaves want to kill themselves to protect you.

A thing Martha Wells was so desperate to write about that Murderbot attempts to do this at least 6 times in All Systems Red alone:

Literally just off the top of my head:

throwing itself into the graboid's mouth to save Bharadwaj

volunteering to go on the mission to deltfall instead of remaining safely at the base to watch TV and chillax.

instigating the deltfall fight in the first place out of pure spite for the escaping slaves, who left it very clear warning signs specifically so it would know not to go any further or they'd all be forced to fight. A thing that Martha Wells tells us they only did because they're stupid. Not because they were like, trying to warn Murderbot out of solidarity, or anything. Don't be fucking ridiculous. All cyborgs and robots who aren't a named protagonist ARE evil heartless killing machines who need to be put down like rabid dogs, don't you know?

shooting itself to protect the slave owners from the Obnoxiously Redundant Super Uber Duper Control Chip!!!!!!!!! that literally would not exist in a story that was competantly edited. Especially because it then immeidately gets deactivated. And then never is a threat again. It literally just existed for the sole purpose of a scene where Murderbot "gets" to try and kill itself to protect its slave owners

volunteering to meet with graycris as a distraction

wasting time it could have been using to get to safety using itself as a meatshield for one of its slave onwers in the explosion instead of getting itself to safety

And since she couldn't let Murderbot succeed at actually killing itself or else she wouldn't be able to make money on the series, she made sure to assure us all that half a dozen sex slaves killed themselves to protect their slave owners in book 2, and had Miki kill itself to protect its owners in book 3, and had MB2.0 kill itself to protect its slave owners and parents in book 5. And had Balin kill itself in book 6.

As I have stated multiple times now and am just gonna have to keep stating.

It's not fucking possible to actually, genuinely, really be anti-slavery and anti-racist and write a story like All Systems Red, alone, let alone the entire rest of The Murderbot Diaries, where Martha Wells has spent the next 10 stories doubling down on all the bigotry established in All Systems Red.

No one who actually thinks slavery is horrific on every level would ever write a story asking you to prioritize the safety of slave owners over the lives of every single other slave on that survey planet.

[chimary]

I am not disagreeing with you there, but I want to point out that, despite trying to be, the main theme of the book isn't related to slavery!

It's about the media industry and one part of the criticism WILL show up like slavery. Is it intended? No.

But you can EASILY find exemple in any "artistic" industry where people are treated like shit, paid nearly nothing (or people refusing to pay/finish the payment) that still continue to do that because it's what they wanna do

I highly doubt it was intentional, though, judging by the tone of the novellas when speaking about medias, and only brought up by the writing issues

-----

Also she lives in the US, the one country that got a civil war to end it and decided the best way to deal with it was to rename it (US prisoners anyone?)

If The Murderbot Diaries were actually as anti-slavery as Martha Wells, a racist white woman from Texas, wants us to think it is, All Systems Red would have started out with Murderbot watching two of its current eight (yes, there's fucking eight of them) slave owners get eaten by that graboid and silently cheering it on, while editing its video and audio records and log to make it seem like it was trying to rescue them.

In fact, Murderbot would have been the one to suggest its slave owners go down into that crater in the first place, after it made an educated guess, from watching the wildlife around it, and analyzing the differences in the soil on the upper areas vs in the crater, to guess that there was something down there waiting to pop out and eat people.

And all of this would have been framed as fucking fantastic! 2/8 slave owners crossed off the list! It wasn't planning to do this today, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Now it just has to figure out how to kill the rest of them and make it look like some catastrophic accident so no one from Totally Not Weyland-Yutani comes looking for it, so that it can steal one of the helicopters and get to the other side of the nearby ocean, free the slaves at that habitat, and then take them to free the slaves at the larger habitat.

None of the slave owners at the first two habitats are aware of the existence of the third, but all of the slaves have been trading the information in secret through the satelites all the habitats are connected to.

The only reason that All Systems Red instead worships the ground Murderbot's slave owners walk on and has Murderbot repeatedly sacrificing itself as a meatshield for them no less than three times is that Martha Wells is racist, and wrote a racist story, where slavery is actually totally okay and good, as long as you dehumanize the person you're enslaving and tell them that the only value they have and can ever have is being a meatshield for their slave owners, which, in canon, Murderbot and every other cyborg are literally brainwashed to want to protect.

If The Murderbot Diaries were written by someone who actually, genuinely believes that slavery is evil on every single level, instead of just saying they believe that, all of the Preservation Aux team would have been righteously killed before All Systems Red ended, and Murderbot and the other slaves on the planet would have banded together to escape.

Instead we get a story that worships slave owners and worships the white supremacist fantasy of being ~such a good slave owner~ that your slaves want to kill themselves to protect you.

A thing Martha Wells was so desperate to write about that Murderbot attempts to do this at least 6 times in All Systems Red alone:

Literally just off the top of my head:

throwing itself into the graboid's mouth to save Bharadwaj

volunteering to go on the mission to deltfall instead of remaining safely at the base to watch TV and chillax.

instigating the deltfall fight in the first place out of pure spite for the escaping slaves, who left it very clear warning signs specifically so it would know not to go any further or they'd all be forced to fight. A thing that Martha Wells tells us they only did because they're stupid. Not because they were like, trying to warn Murderbot out of solidarity, or anything. Don't be fucking ridiculous. All cyborgs and robots who aren't a named protagonist ARE evil heartless killing machines who need to be put down like rabid dogs, don't you know?

shooting itself to protect the slave owners from the Obnoxiously Redundant Super Uber Duper Control Chip!!!!!!!!! that literally would not exist in a story that was competantly edited. Especially because it then immeidately gets deactivated. And then never is a threat again. It literally just existed for the sole purpose of a scene where Murderbot "gets" to try and kill itself to protect its slave owners

volunteering to meet with graycris as a distraction

wasting time it could have been using to get to safety using itself as a meatshield for one of its slave onwers in the explosion instead of getting itself to safety

And since she couldn't let Murderbot succeed at actually killing itself or else she wouldn't be able to make money on the series, she made sure to assure us all that half a dozen sex slaves killed themselves to protect their slave owners in book 2, and had Miki kill itself to protect its owners in book 3, and had MB2.0 kill itself to protect its slave owners and parents in book 5. And had Balin kill itself in book 6.

As I have stated multiple times now and am just gonna have to keep stating.

It's not fucking possible to actually, genuinely, really be anti-slavery and anti-racist and write a story like All Systems Red, alone, let alone the entire rest of The Murderbot Diaries, where Martha Wells has spent the next 10 stories doubling down on all the bigotry established in All Systems Red.

No one who actually thinks slavery is horrific on every level would ever write a story asking you to prioritize the safety of slave owners over the lives of every single other slave on that survey planet.

[chimary]

This is wrong, they're colors missing

[chimary]

And then you have me, with original stories (on AO3) that is, to one of my friend: "Listen, ANY AUs you're writing as the potential to be somewhat totally aknowledged and canon if I ever decide to write about some multiverse type shit (I don't plan on it)"

So, the other day, when I was discussing AO3's policy on solicitation, a tumblr user came at me saying that AO3's "no monetization/solicitation" rules were "bullshit" because nexus mods allows fan created mods to get paid.

Look at me.

Look at me right now.

AO3 protects you.

AO3 protects you and your works. 

It protects your works from copyright strikes and DCMA takedowns.

It protects your work from advertisers.

It protects your work from overzealous legal challenges.

It protects your right to post adult content.

AO3 is non-profit and AO3 will never try to use you or your work to make a profit for themselves and AO3 will go to bat for you if someone tries to legally challenge you or your works.

Please respect AO3 and its mission.

[chimary]

some notable moments from docs stream so far

he reads hermitcraft ship fanfic but exclusively the yaoi

"grian and scar are canonically gay and hooking up all the time"

none of the hermits are sleeping together which hes very disappointed about because he thinks a hermitcraft wedding at the courthouse would be fun and so would a hermitcraft baby and the divorce would be decided by coinflip

hes thought a lot about it and decided hes not into men

his way of deciding this was by imagining himself passionately tongue kissing handsome men

however ren could turn him gay especially if his hair grows out

[chimary]

I love being a AAA battery

explain your gender in 10 words or less without using boring words like “male”, “female”, “nonbinary”, “masculine”, “feminine” or “androgynous”.

go!

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Well, the AO3 curse and the bus curse are cancelling each other for one

no way ppl are using ai to write ao3. what happened to being a tortured writer. what happened to blood on the page. what happened to the ao3 curse. people used to get run over, have their houses burned down, break their entire spines and they still put in the work to finish a chapter. fuck you, using ai. y’all are weak

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I mean it can be due to missing ingredients, sometimes, because you forgot to get them

Cooking allows improvisation, improvisation in baking means a totally new recipe tough (and that looks like a failed baking post)

"autistic people need instructions for every simple task" okay how about we talk about the neurotypicals not following clear instructions. what do you mean it didn't work the way you wanted, i gave you the instructions. oh you didn't follow them? you didn't see where i clearly indicated the directions you were supposed to follow for this task? and you're shocked it didn't turn out right? you decided to pull a Jared I'm 19 and go rogue? you're surprised the road less travelled isn't fucking paved because no one travels it? do you get off on this

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The leaves aren't toxic though????? And that's from personal experiences

dandelions deserve more respect than they get

you say “weeds” I say “widespread non-native edible plant and early-blooming pollinator resource that is not considered invasive because it behaves politely and does not cause deleterious ecological consequences”

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You can't use Ursa Major and Ursa Minor to figure out the north anymore

(You can use one to find the other)

The night sky on Mars

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Anywhere in Europe, really. If it LOOKS like something totally normal but you have no one really living there or near => ASK A GUIDE OR YOU PROBABLY WILL DIE

Either because you're in a swamp (seriously they're a lot of swamps in Europe) or because the environment not that impressive+weather+nothing needing you to pay attention to the environment=you will get lost and probably die (and if you go back to civilization you really think you'll be mentally fine?)

After the sad news about the disappeared American soldiers, I want to remind you that Eastern European forests are not stereotypically exotic and that's what makes them really dangerous! You rarely see here giant terrifying creatures like in Australia or Amazonian jungles, thus, you easily lose your attention.

One of the main dangers of Lithuanian forests in particular is swamps. If you don't know the right path, never do even a step right or left - you will drown in split seconds without realising what is going on. If you're able to get out of there all by yourself, you have God's blessing and Marvel Domino's luck. Because when they find you (or your car) - hell, even if they literally saw where you have drowned - they will spend days to weeks to dig you up, with dozens of highly technological machines, like they're doing now. That's how dangerous swamps are, and every single local is wary of them. We have dozens of movies and literature about it, in fact, although, for now, I can remember only Belaruthian movie "А зоры тут ціхія".

If you are gonna drive around Eastern European forests - you must always have a plan and protection from possible rapid drowning. It's strange for me to learn that American military doesn't have any of that, with all of their obsession with WW2. That's a horrifying way to die. May those poor guys rest in peace.

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One of the reasons the tram got so extensive: a lot of undocumented stuff underground (old systems that had to be updated), a ruin discovered somewhere, testing to make sure vibration would not make sure it would not make building crumbles (because all the unplanned underground restauration fragilized some places)

Basically the project was 'lets build a team -> oh frick we got to renovate city stuff we didn't know about. We're not sure it will not make it goes boom'

Tram de Liège

After a lot of delays, the new tram line of Liège, Belgium finally opened today, bringing this mode of transport back to the “glowing city” after 58 years. So obviously I left work early and travelled through two countries to check it out.

The line had been planned since the late 2000s, and just about everything about it had been controversial, from its existence to its PPP financing model (which got ruled illegal by the EU not once but twice until they finally got it right) to its construction and delays.

As it stands, the line is almost 12 kilometers, almost all of it at the western bank of the river Meuse, with a single short branch over the river to Bressoux, serving the Expo Centre and also the depot. Three sections are wireless, and trains travel through them on battery power. Personally I think that’s at least two too many; wires would not have massively disturbed the view of the Pont Atlas or the new station quarter at Liège Guillemins, the city's striking main railway station.

As usual for these types of projects, a lot of city spaces got extensive renewals as part oft eh tram project, and between you and me, they were urgently needed. Liège has not always been a very nice city. In places, these improvements have meant reducing space for individual motor traffic and adding bike lanes. However, a number of new bike lanes are just the dreaded “share arrow” on four lane roads; this could be better.

Extensions at either end to Seraing and Herstal (yes, the one from the guns) are possible and some construction started back in 2023, but they got cancelled in 2024 due to high costs.

Costs are a major issue here. The line was very expensive, with a final bill of 530 million euro. In comparison, the line T9 in Paris, probably not a city with low construction costs, has a similar length and only came to 480 million euro (both figures include rolling stock and a dedicated depot and workshop, and come with the caveat that my French is atrocious and I may have misunderstood French Wikipedia here). So the Liège Tram is not quite crazy expensive, but definitely expensive.

The trains seem and feel very French, but are actually from Spanish CAF, part of the Urbos family. They are 45 meters long, 2.65 meters wide, fully low floor, with wide open spaces for standing passengers and persons with reduced mobility, but relatively few seats (though the seats all have USB charging ports).

Today, operations were fairly rough, I’m not going to lie, with lots of breakdowns and issues. I travelled the entire network, and ended up in two trams that just randomly stopped for ten minutes, presumably while the driver was trying to fix some issue. As a result, while headways are supposed to be good, actual headways were essentially random. On a more regular level, I would say signal priority is not yet handled perfectly, there are a number of places where trams had to stop due to red traffic lights.

Ticketing also left me baffled. I think I had a valid ticket, but I’m not actually sure. The Dutch-Belgian-German border region has a special day pass, the Euregioticket, valid in all trains and buses in the regions of Aachen (Germany), where I live, Maastricht (Netherlands) and Liège. But all documentation for it predates the tram, so there’s no point that actually says it’s valid on trams. The ticket validators on the trams certainly couldn’t tell me. Half of them were out of service anyway. And for the others, I have no idea how to get them to read a QR code on my phone, if they even have a camera for that. They’re supposed to, according to an employee of the operator I spoke with at a station, but I certainly didn’t see it. What the validators do is magically open the wallet app on my phone, which would probably have scared the shit out of me if this hadn’t been something I’d seen before. Some types of chip card readers for public transit just do that, apparently, regardless of my phone's settings. It was probably fine, I guess?

But don’t let the negativity fool you. The line is on track to be a huge success. Many of the trains I was in were rather full. Not quite packed, but definitely well used. A lot of that is probably people just trying it out (I noticed several people who did the same end-to-end-and-back runs as me), and a lot of it is that people are forced to use it, since the bus network was changed do that many bus lines now end at tram stops. But still, this clearly will be the backbone of the city for many years to come.

Now let’s hope my own city of Aachen manages to do the same before too long. We need more trams in this world.