#idr my tags lmao

[paeinovis]

Just a normal podcast about Paul Blart Mall Cop 2

[ingoodjesst]

one thing i really like about the apothecary diaries is how fluidly maomao moves between high- and low-class society, between the rear palace and the pleasure district, allowing us to see the parallels in the power dynamics. in both settings, we see women trying to make the most of their relative stations with whatever tools available to them, which are often shared. much of the politics of the series centers women and the ways they try to navigate the world through seduction, marriage, beauty, fashion, manipulation, etc, because these are the things they're valued for. their appearance, their social graces, their "purity", their marriageability, their ability to bear children, and beyond - these all lend political, economic, and social leverage to themselves and their families regardless of class.

the mystery angle in particular enables the story to closely examine what tools and motives are available to women in the apothecary diaries in a way that's contextualized and humanized. it's also how the series highlights said women operating with a keen awareness of society's expectations and systems. whether that's applying deathly white powder to maintain impractical beauty standards, faking illnesses to deter certain visitors, using parlor tricks to subtly punish callous men, or wearing ostentatious outfits to hide a certain truth, each mystery we encounter reveals more about what it means to navigate the world of the apothecary diaries as a woman in addition to revealing their cleverness (or lack thereof) in doing so.

maomao is no exception to the rule, often weighing similar questions of propriety and power before she acts - although she does engage from a unique position. she's a literate woman from the lower class with special circumstances surrounding her birth, versed as an apothecary, and favored by highly ranked members of the court. this, plus her marked lack of ambition beyond medicine, gives her a lot of mobility between and (relatively) unbiased insight into both the high- and low-ranked parts of society. in turn, we readers are given a fantastic protagonist to explore what i consider a core draw of the series: seeing how maomao chooses to move through the world, highly conscious of her own social positioning as well as that of all the other women around her

[flowersforvax]

It's hard keeping up with memes when you're a fairy, and also a walrus. She doesn't know what's going on but she's pretty sure people are inviting her to knock on their door

[mango-fizz]

I DID AN ART TRADE WITH @kiora06 !!!!!!! she colored my lineart :3 LOOK AT HOW PRETTY IT IS AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHJ i actually really like it a lot thank you so much im gonna cry ,

[turtle-ly]

*puts a catra in your lap*

[eshidu]

Munoora & Mutton for the rain prompt

Mutton still has both arms. Munoora’s hair isn’t pink.

I wonder when this kiss happened? :^)c

Characters belong to @salami-dono (Mutton, left) and @painted-bees (Munoora, right)!

[herooflions]

This is like a silly thing to be proud of but I beat my first invaders in Elden Ring today!!

[rodenka]

poppy season! ✿

[lexicals]

System collapse notes made as I read:

(Spoilers, obvs, mostly out of context)

Amazing opening page as usual. This feels like coming home I'm so happy

Side note, "one of you" - like, is this being delivered to an actual audience, or does mb just like to pretend it is? I know it's just an in-universe excuse for the conceit but either option is so good

ART canon tax fraud?? ART canon embezzlement???

ART @ BE ship: "people die in car crashes all the time. I just thought that was interesting :)"

The note about iris having grown up alongside ART is so funny. And the note about her being ART's ratthi is so sweet from both sides of that comparison

I adore Three so much. The fucking baby deer comparison killed me this poor construct

I could be misremembering but it feels like secunit's narration has more colloquialisms than before, which is fun if I'm right

Love than mb and mensah have the exact same reaction to the extra settlement lmao. Handshake meme

ARGUCUSSION

SECUNIT YOUR BOUNDARIES. YOUR NEEDS. PLEASE STOP TELLING PEOPLE YOU'RE FINE

"Fun stuff like space battles and rescuing people and space monsters and throwing asteroids at planets" this bot loves its cheesy tv so much I'm gonna cry

WHY DO YOU KEEP REDACTING THINGS SECUNIT PLS THIS IS STRESSFUL. I can't tell if this is it editing out trauma discussion or something else

Mb casually using ART as a dictionary lmao

Oh god is it hurting over 2.0 specifically. Oh man of course it is. God this poor bot I'm so 😭

Mb and ART working as a team so fluidly.... best friends......

Ratthi can tell secunit is busy thinking/working just by glancing at it.... FRIENDS.....

"SENTIENCE SUCKS" LMAO. YEAH OKAY WE'VE ALL FELT THAT

MB JUST HAS THE VIDEO FILE OF RATTHI ALMOST GETTING EATEN BY A WORM ON HAND. AMAZING

Mb and pin-lee bonding over watching scifi car crash videos. Incredible

SECUNIT THE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCIES. LITERALLY TRYING TO JUMP OUT OF A PLANE WITHOUT A PARACHUTE. PLEASE

I'm gonna cry pls mb stop beating yourself up for being traumatised. This is exactly what you were giving mensah shit about!!!!!

"It was always my job to get hurt" I Am Going To Fucking Cry

CITING ITS SOURCE ON THE PRE CR HISTORY LESSON LMAO

God I feel like this poor bot spent six books building up its confidence and it's all just been shattered after the thing with 2.0. Like it's so palpable in the narration that it thinks it's broken in some way and is forcing itself to carry on regardless but with no regard for its own survival, which has always been of pretty high priority for it even in ASR!! It's let itself get beaten up in the other books but it's never been reckless like this. Mb please stop punishing yourself.....

Ohh tarik and mb shared corpo trauma..... can we talk about that maybe

Ratthi correcting iris about the ex-secunit thing.... ouuououugghghh

"Under normal circumstances that would be kind of hilarious" mb honey as a reader. That IS hilarious

Mb "so is this guy your..... ex-security..... not that I'm feeling jealous or insecure rn....."

HEY GUYS YOU EVER HAVE A PTSD FLASHBACK SO BAD YOU PASS OUT. GUYS

HEY GUYS HAVE YOU EVER HAD YOUR BRAIN-CRASHING PTSD FLASHBACK ANALYSED IN DETAIL BY A BUNCH OF PEOPLE YOU WANT TO RESPECT YOU

Mb once again having the worst time of its life but being offered a media archive by a friendly bot: oh fuck yes hello there

Ooooh pre-corpo media no less......

THE ART THERAPY-SPEAK..... "that’s for humans" "this affects the part of you that is human" I'm going to yell and yell and yell

"No, it doesn't read my mind, it just knows me really well" 🥺

I feel like MW has gotten more up to date on current gender/pronoun usage since the earlier books which is nice to see. We've had neopronouns before but having pronouns attached to feed/character intros is new and appreciated

Mb: "aw fuck am I being tall and intimidating again"

Local secunit physically repelled by power phrase "sexual discussion" like a fucking skyrim shout

VISUAL EQUIVALENT OF A WET BLANKET..... SECUNIT......

OHH...... OHHHHH!!!!! OHH MY GOD THE. IS THIS THE. WHEN I TALKED ABOUT THE CONCEIT EARLIER.........

Oh okay no BUT MURDERBOT NEW CREATIVE DIRECTOR POSITION BABEY!!!!!

And ratthi is so supportive. God I'm so. AAAAUGH

Just patch out the anxiety lmao. New mental illness fix dropped please restart your OS to apply

Telling your bestie to fuck off IS a kind of love language and I'm glad that ART appreciates it 😌

LITERALLY "(INTERNAL SCREAMING)". LMAO

Mb literally in a life or death situ rn: I could just burn part of this person's brain out to save us..... that seems mean though :/

"I lack a sense of proportional response" LMAO ART. At least it's self-aware

"I didn't come here to make friends" says the secunit who literally cannot go anywhere without forming some kind of allyship with someone

The delayed-hack though, that's fun. Wonder whether this file is gonna slowly make its way from CR secunit to CR secunit as mb gradually becomes some kind of mythic figure, lmao

"Be safe" 🥺

FINAL GIRL IS OUT. FINAL DRONE IS IN

ART: "Oooh you guys care about me ^^ lol"

LMAO ART YOUNGER SIBLING BEHAVIOUR

ALSO YES SET THREE UP WITH THE OTHER CRAZY SMART AI THEY CAN ALL GET A SECUNIT BESTIE!!!!

Murderbot trauma acknowledgement 😌 You go working through your feelings mb you're doing so well ily

WHERE ARE WE GOING NEXXXTTTT THAT IS INDEED THE QUESTION!!!

Summary thoughts: this was really good and I like that MW has taken the time to address the NE fallout before moving on to whatever is coming next, I'm mostly just excited for that whatever-comes-next now. I didn't expect this story to still be focused on the same planet, but it's cool that it was! And now we're moving on with more machine intelligences and rogue secunits in play!! And they mentioned the comfortunit from artificial condition so hopefully that'll come back into play soon as well! I feel like something is building up wrt construct rights in the setting and I'm very excited to see that, but in the meantime I loved getting this familiar romp through MB having a very bad day and working through its emotions while also trying not to die. And it was fun having the twist on the usual formula with things being so isolated and it having to handle everything while being off its game, it felt a lot more tense than some of the other entries just by virtue of the fact that MB's narration was so much less confident than usual, and it made it really nice to hear the fire come back to its voice once we hit that point in the story. 11/10 as usual I love this bot so goddamn much

[paleweave]

i'm a bl author now

[grapecaseschoices]

are we going back to the early aughts? what is with this new (ancient) trend of if wips where gender selectable is only m/f?

[boyslit]

more flight lesson perfects feat. Diasomnia and Octavinelle (with bonus air guitar Floyd)

[dxppercxdxver]

damn american getting to see the crane wives (imagine i’m shaking my fist at you like an old curmudgeonly british man). that sounds so cool!!!!

lmaooooo sorry bee i’m beaming the experience into your brain with my powerful psyche

but fr it was so fun!! it was so hot and my legs hurt like Immediately (small venue standing room only) but they played songs that i knew!! and listening to everyone sing along was so cool (the hand that feeds in crowd chorus was crazyyyyy)

also all my friends had a wonderful time and it was so lovely to see them so happy :]

[tethered-heartstrings]

total word count goal: 12360 current word count: 14577 😎

[quieteclipse]

chubby hinata art makes me wanna squeal so bad, i love her so much

[nerkmidcharm]

do u like my aliens