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[onawhimsicot]

Perihelion in the new Murderbot short story, “in a strange mood since it had come back from its last solo cargo run”:

[onawhimsicot]

✨ Please reblog the polls to make them reach out to as many people as possible, but KEEP IT SPOILER-FREE to make people listen to the music with an open mind 💖

✨ Artists and titles will be revealed with the full song after the poll's conclusion, check the original post for an update!

⚠️➡️ Yes, spoilers includes posting the lyrics. Please don't spoil. There are other ways to have fun with the post if you reblog it, maybe be sneaky/witty about it with obscure references. Have fun while following the rules! 😄💖 Fandom blogs/communities are welcome to reblog, but please keep that as far as it goes with spoilers!

[onawhimsicot]

Mawile and her Mega

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so I learned embroidery recently

[onawhimsicot]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/66992527

Y'ALL THIS IS THE COOLEST FANFIC I'VE EVER SEEN.

It is a complete narrative about SecUnits on a Planetary Survey trying to communicate and keep their clients safe while dealing with the restrictions of their govmod.

IT IS ALSO A FULLY INTERACTIVE GAME OF MINESWEEPER.

The story is told BY PLAYING MINESWEEPER.

This fic is criminally underrated go look at it!!!

[onawhimsicot]

[onawhimsicot]

critical role gif meme - [1/3] kills - vax against the rakshasa

[onawhimsicot]

okay notes on the romeo & juliet production i saw the other day:

set in modern-day appalachia and going in i didn't think too hard about that beyond "oh cool" but it worked really really well. gave the whole thing an intense vibe of "this town has been left behind by the rest of america and everyone thinks we're backward assholes and we're clinging to all the pride we have left in our families and our history even when it's history we should actually probably let go of." like rewired my brain for real i had not considered the degree to which the city of verona can be a character in itself

also they played live music!!! mostly folk/country; the show opened with mercutio on guitar singing "ain't no grave" & everyone else joined in

the cast also did a very short reprise at the end which did something to my brain. something about how the play opens telling you what's going to happen and then ends with it happening, but this version of the play opens with a promise of life beyond death and ends with the actors standing up and shaking themselves off and smiling

looooots of folksy singing at the capulet ball. mercutio and benvolio got romeo to do a very dejected drum accompaniment, which he did like he was being tortured UNTIL

juliet did a banjo cover of nina simone's "when i was a young girl" and it was incredible and lovely and also lyrically devastating in context

and THAT was what got romeo's attention and got him to start engaging socially with anyone

romeo was wearing a tina turner shirt :)

tybalt meanwhile was wearing a natty lite shirt

paris looked exactly like a pedro/napoleon dynamite lovechild. i'm sorry for saying it that way but there's no other way to put it. he had the curly hair and the doofy mustache and these dorky overalls and probably a pocket protector. normally i have very few feelings about paris but i really felt bad for this paris; he was clearly just another kid emotionally in over his head and he didn't seem to know what was going on at ANY point which emphasized how much he was just collateral damage in the violence

all of the actors were amazing but the absolute standout was juliet. this juliet was SO good. this juliet is going to be the defining juliet interpretation in my head until the end of fucking days

she was soooooo thirteen years old. so angsty shy gangly teen always hovering between being brilliant + still being the girl who hugs her parents and clings onto their arm and hides her face in their shoulders. the actress was SO good at hitting the exact mark of displaying how bright and determined juliet is and also how she is soooooooooooooo scowly little preteen

also her pajamas were PJ shorts and a britney spears shirt

very good tybalt. he was hot-headed as any tybalt would be but he honestly felt a little hotspurcore--at the capulets' ball when he saw romeo, everything about his body language and tone of voice was very clearly communicating not JUST anger but deep confusion/frustration about why he was the only person taking shit seriously. the feud runs everybody's life and yet in this scene he is the ONLY person who seems to understand that and he looked genuinely disoriented that lord capulet told him off

which lord capulet did do. loudly. to the point where everyone else at the party started looking nervously in their direction even when lord capulet was like "aha no keep partying <3"

i know i'm saying this about every character but fantastic mercutio. he hit the exact right note of being 80% dickhead teen who causes problems on purpose and 20% Abruptly And Darkly Intense In A Scary Way. also he carried the guitar around all the time and sang lewd jokes at people

during the queen mab speech he got benvolio to act out being the fairies' charioteer, which benvolio did by hunching down in a carriage-driver pose and making a gargoyle sound

i thought they weren't using fake blood because sometimes you just have to imagine the blood with your beautiful mind. and then the duel scene hit and ohhhhh man. mercutio did his first “i am hurt!” like when you stub your toe. and then he turned around and i heard someone in the audience make a sound because it was GUSHING. romeo rushed over to hold him up and mercutio collapsed into him with this sort of desperate exhaustion and you could hear the blood continuing to dribble and slop around on the floor it was NASTY AND LOUD

his wound was just your generic actor's faked stab wound. but romeo slit tybalt's throat. and tybalt had been intense and scary up to that point but after killing mercutio he was clearly wobbly and as romeo held the knife up he went "no, wait--" very small

and then, unlike mercutio (who died offscreen), he thrashed around on the floor for like a full thirty seconds

juliet's "tybalt is dead that would have killed my husband so i gotta stop crying" was transparently her trying to convince herself not to mourn tybalt but then she broke down sobbing again

that ^ scene was intercut with romeo and the friar talking about banishment so both of them were on stage at once but still unable to reach each other. very good

my beef with the friar + nurse is always "how are you THIS reckless with leaving these kids to their own devices when you have each had to talk each of them down from suicide like three times" and in this one. when the nurse found juliet "dead" in her coma. she thought juliet was sleeping until she found the empty vial of sleeping draught. and for a second she didn't yell for the capulet parents she just stared at the vial in total devastation. not surprised at all. just horrified.

and then when she screamed for juliet's parents she shoved the vial in her coat so they wouldn't see it. maybe to protect juliet or maybe so they didn't have to know

my shocker dark horse second favorite role interpretation was honest to god lord capulet. which is incredible because i've hated him violently since i read this play in high school english. but the actor very obviously had an EXTREMELY clear picture of his motivations and also that he loved his kid so fucking much

like far be it from me to defend the guy who screams at his daughter and threatens to throw her out on the street (he was frightening in that scene. really well-acted) but in every interaction between them up to that point his pride and adoration for her shone out of his body language. and at the start of that scene before he started yelling juliet (sobbing) ran up to him and grabbed him in a hug and he looked distraught

very painfully clear that he was trying to make her feel better. and also stressed out of his mind, especially after tybalt died, but mostly that he was really really really fucking worried about his daughter and trying desperately to make her better but always picking the exact wrong thing. STILL AN ASSHOLE! but devastating!

and when everyone thought juliet was dead the nurse + lady capulet were screaming but lord capulet just sat next to comatose juliet and very gently put her head in his lap and started stroking her hair murmuring "shh, shh" like man it takes a LOT for me to believe that man sees juliet as anything but a bargaining tool but THEY SOLD ME ON IT!

and then the nurse FUCKING SANG THE NINA SIMONE SONG AGAIN AS THEY CARRIED HER BODY OUT

romeo died very peacefully. he drank the poison + he kissed juliet + then he settled down next to her like he was falling asleep. but juliet. ohhhh god. juliet stabbed herself because that's what juliet does and it wasn't an easy hollywood-shakespeare one-pretty-knife-movement-and-she-gasps-and-dies stabbing. it was slow and agonizing and she twisted the knife in her own stomach and then she was sort of thrashing around on stage hyperventilating in violent terror like she was reaching out for someone to rescue her

has anyone noticed that they both have the same last word which is "die." the word being die honestly matters way less to me than the two of them having the same last word. after their first conversation made a sonnet. always on the same exact page in their language

this ^ was the point at which i started bawling and then i did not stop for I Shit You Not A Real Human Hour

[onawhimsicot]

pomodoro timer my beloathed i require your services yet again...........

[onawhimsicot]

i'm starting a list of events in network effect that are heavily influenced (and made funnier/more wrenching on a reread) by murderbot being an unreliable narrator. starting from when art comes back online. first three:

the bit where thiago goes "we'd know more if someone had left any survivors" which is probably a shot at murderbot, but then art "apparently didn't take it well", i.e. art coming to murderbot's defense and murderbot completely missing it

when murderbot storms into the restroom and then refuses to come out after getting mad about art endangering its crew. something about painting art as dangerous and then immediately removing itself from being able to come from their defense - because, quote, "...with ART back online, [anyone screaming for help] was unlikely." something something being angry but also trusting your mutual administrative assistant with the lives of your crew, who you are notoriously protective over. the girls are besties even when they're fightinggggg <3

and my personal favorite, which is murderbot reporting that "one of ART's long-sleeved crew T-shirts had fallen out of the recycler at one point", which is the funniest use of passive voice in the entire book. oh look! the crew t-shirt just fell out of the recycler! this is totally happenstance and definitely not an overture of peace/friendship/something by art! murderbot, you little idiot!

[onawhimsicot]

[onawhimsicot]

Ironically, hard light is bad for recording sexy time.

It will highlight every pore, every vein, every wrinkle on your nutsack.

One day I will end this ring light fad. It is my ultimate side quest.

[onawhimsicot]

having anti punitive justice morals sucks because you want to say "man that guy sucks he should get hit with hammers until he dies" but you also want to make it clear you don't think anyone should be put in charge of the 'hit people with hammers until they die" machine.

[onawhimsicot]

you can always come home 🌲

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i thought my laptop was on its last leg because it was running at six billion degrees and using 100% disk space at all times and then i turned off shadows and some other windows effects and it was immediately cured. i just did the same to my roommate's computer and its performance issues were also immediately cured. okay. i guess.

so i guess if you have creaky freezy windows 10/11 try searching "advanced system settings", go to performance settings, and uncheck "show shadows under windows" and anything else you don't want. hope that helps someone else.

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“I think there’s a rich ream of horror, from The Haunting of Hill House to Ghostwatch, that delves into the idea that certain places can simply go wrong – and once these bad environments have been established and ostracised by society, they can’t be exorcised. They simply keep accruing power through the individual stories that play tragically out in their shadow.

“I mention a real-life example of that kind of bad architecture in one episode; the Pope Lick Bridge in Kentucky, a place that looks and feels so sinister that it developed its own local folklore about a goat-man who attacks people who stray too close to the edge – and which has ended up resulting in deaths as visitors peer over the side trying to get a peek at the monster.

“I find this kind of stuff fascinating, because it plays into my own paranoia about environments, and my dislike of ghost stories with explicably human antagonists. Like David says in the first episode, people aren’t frightening. Places are frightening.

“If I’m sitting alone at home on a dark and stormy night, and I glance nervously up towards the bedroom doorway, my fear is not that my house is being haunted by a spirit called Mabel who died in the 19th century at the age of fourteen and is constantly seeking her favourite teddy bear… because all of these details both humanise her and make her ridiculous.

“My fear is that there will be something standing in the doorway, because the doorway is where things come to stand.

“Because unoccupied spaces, in our imaginations, must find something to fill them.”

— from “The Saturday Interview: ‘I Am in Eskew’ podcast”