#when to use except

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[technically-human]

Partner is a difficult word to translate

[marzipanandminutiae]

no but genuinely I lose a little more patience for people who won't wear wool, leather, silk, or fur every day that I live in a world where plastic is increasingly the only damn kind of clothing you can find (or the only kind of fabric for sewing, even)

obviously, animal cruelty is horrible. I believe that even industries that rely on the deaths of animals should make their lives as good and their ends as humane as possible. and many of these industries need tighter environmental regulations on their production practices- some of the chemicals involved are highly toxic and ill-controlled at times

but at some point, you have to wake up to the fact that the only alternative we've found to date is destroying our planet

it's all plastic. and plastic is horrible for the world- the environment, humans, and especially animals. how cruelty-free is it to cause mass habitat loss? or climate change that disrupts food sources for those animals on a vast scale? how is that better than the deaths of a relatively small proportion of animals comparatively?

(and don't even start with "but pineapple leather! but cactus leather!" when those are still basically plastic due to heavy plastics use in their production processes. there is currently no non-plastic alternative to most animal-based textile products)

I've always tried to keep in mind that we all have to decide where our line is, that we all consume and there's no way of living in this world that doesn't take something from it. that for me, plastic clothing is to be avoided as much as possible, and for others, animal clothing products are to be avoided as much as possible. that the choice is equally valid

but I'm having a hard time seeing it as valid anymore when it just feels like trying to push the unpleasant part away from yourself so you can pretend your choice has no negative impacts. you're not wearing animal skin (or wool that an animal didn't even die to produce), so surely your way of doing things is better! no animals were harmed in the making of your outfit!

except. they were.

they and all the rest of us.

[linktoo-doodles]

ochako visiting toga at the psych ward every day after the war

[inkedinserendipity]

just finished re-reading all systems red and the way martha wells' narration directly tracks murderbot's thoughts is, like, diabolical in retrospect.

because on my first read-through, i'll be honest. i did not remember the presaux crew at all. pin-lee and gurathin show up in exit strategy and i, remembering nothing about those two except ":D! presaux friends!" expected them to be like "omg hey murderbot!" because i figured the presaux crew would be excited to see their secunit again. i did not remember pin-lee's temper or gurathin's skepticism. because the presaux crew kinda blurred together for me in the first book. because that's how murderbot saw them too!

all systems red has the most en media res of all en media res beginnings. not just because it starts in the middle of an action sequence, but because it also starts in the middle of an emotional sequence. the survey has been happening, for, what - a couple of weeks? - by the time asr starts. murderbot has already met the crew. they have already formed impressions of it. but, crucially, it has formed almost no opinions of them*.

it's been watching media and half-assing its job. and at this point in murderbot's journey, and therefore its internal narration that forms the text, a human is a human is a human. it is not invested in their work, so we don't hear about the start of their survey. it literally starts paying attention to them when they are in danger and when they start to realize that it is a person, because that is when murderbot has to start paying attention.

and this is why i remembered almost nothing distinct about the presaux crew. there are a lot of crew members, but murderbot spends very little time thinking about them as individuals. so the narration tends to skim over their distinct personalities, because murderbot doesn't really consider them* at all!

and then of course we come to exit strategy and network effect, and the contrast could not be more clear. now it's got opinions about everyone, and because it has a better grasp on their personalities, the narrative does too. oh yes that's arada, wibbly bulwark, the human murderbot trusts to not be overconfident and ignore its advice. that's gurathin. it doesn't like gurathin. that's pin-lee, the combatunit of lawyers, well-dressed and sharp-tongued. and of course, that's ratthi (tag: bestie!!), who stays in the car because he will get himself killed by something.

and of course, there's dr mensah. but she was always an exception.

*dr mensah is, as she always is when it comes to murderbot, an exception to this generalization. that's tag: intrepid explorer like blorbo from my shows! that you're talking about. even when murderbot mostly tried to avoid humans at all costs, even murderbot paid attention to her. from asr to now, that has been and remains perfectly true.

[johnnyshrine]

★ 093 // “POV: You Died :("

[beebfreeb]

Yeah, sure, I'll make up stuff about those blue things that show up for maybe 2 seconds at most. Why not.

I imagine it's very funny to be reused graphics.

[zombiecowboy65]

Need to know more about freshman year Jeremy. Need to know why the freshmen avoided him and what Cody meant by not the kind of guy you wanted to get into an argument with back then, yk? Need to know about the careful lectures Rhemann sat him down for and how he ended up with Noah at that banquet. Need to know about how he felt when the officers finally remembered to tell him about Noah and the ride to the station and how long it took his family to come bail him out. Or was it Rhemann? Need to know where they were and how long it took them to get him help after , because he says he wanted to spiral out and feel nothing at all, so he didn’t stop there. Need to know how the conversation went with his parents where he “took Bryson down with him anyway”. Need to know about those 5 weeks in rehab and how alone he must’ve felt when he came back. Need to know more about how Rhemann welcomed him back with open arms when his family shuttered him out, need to know about him meeting Adi and the slow reception of him back into the Trojans after such a disastrous night

[weirdghostcat]

I'm a little disappointed that no one has drawn this version yet

[starscream-is-my-wife]

Two bots cursed with love, doomed with guilt

[aardvaark]

very sophie-like of sophie to use the name Violet Cesario for her dating profile. as in Viola, a character from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, who disguises herself as a man named Cesario. for the record, Twelfth Night is a romantic comedy and this is an alias for a dating app. i hope she doesn’t want to date anyone who shares her interest in Shakespearean theatre because that will very much read as a fake name to them lol.

[iwoulddieforienzo]

Personally I think percabeth is at its best when Grover is in it. I don’t necessarily mean in a polycule way I just think it’s great when he’s around

[vintage-bentley]

I do not feel comfortable being openly homosexual in the company of “queer” people. Even hinting that I experience absolutely no attraction to the male sex is stressful, because often this results in a bunch of questions that equally feel like bafflement and interrogation. “What about THESE men?” No, not them either. No men. “But this man identifies as a woman!” I am not wired to be attracted to pronouns. “What about this man? He’s femme!” He is still a man, and I am still a lesbian. “So just no men at all?” YES. What is so hard to understand about that? Why can’t you just accept that female homosexuality exists, that it isn’t an evil ideology, and that it’s just how I and many other women are born? Why can you accept and understand so many things, but draw the line at a woman having no interest in the male sex?

[keferon]

“Thoughts about the concept of this connection between all the Terrans”!?

Very curious now 👀

SO BASICALLY.

The concept is rather simple right. Telling this for the people who didn't watch Earthspark. You feel something -> everyone else feel the same thing. And this connection ties two humans and five Cybertronians. Simple.

But the IMPLICATIONS. It's all fun and stuff when the connection is about feeling someone being happy. But the moment you start to think about other emotions? That's a nightmare.

What about fear? Embarrassment? What about boredom? Boredom doesn't sound bad but imagine. Your sister wants to talk about her special interest. You don't even understand it but you are trying to be supportive and polite so you listen to her anyway. Except - the whole family knows what you actually feel.

The concept of emotional connection is a horror story material. There's always a whole lot emotions in your head. You can't do something embarrassing without all your siblings immediately knowing about that. Good chunk of privacy is just GONE. You fucked up and now ashamed? Everyone felt that. You saw a big spider and it gave you a tiny heart attack? All your siblings know.

You have a tough time and feeling down? All your brothers and sisters suffer from it. And you know it. And they know it. So they all grow tired of you constantly ruining their mood. And you can feel them starting being annoyed. But you can't turn off your own emotions can you?

You have a crush? Every. Each. One. Of your brothers and sisters. Can feel. Every time you're fucking horny. If it isn't a disaster then what is it? I would go insane if I had to live like that.

Moving to the more..physical territory.

Are you sure humans and Cybertronians have all the same emotions? What about the emotions humans don't have? What about Cybertronians feeling something and humans being absolutely unable to process it because he don't have the part of the brain responsible for that?

Or perhaps Cybertronians getting dysphoria because they keep experiencing the feelings they weren't built for?

Oh and. Can your siblings feel when you are in pain? Because if they can then you probably don't want to make fighting with evil forces your every day routine.

And you definitely don't want your enemies knowing about the connection right? Because those are war criminals. They would not hesitate to use it. They would rather quickly figure out that in order to disable the whole family they just need to get one person and then damage them REALLY bad. And humans are reeeeeaally easy to damage.

The show doesn't go that far of course. But it could. Easily. Just imagine.

[scintillating-scales]

Dude I need claws SO bad. Except I need prosthetics to be really sturdy, so I can actually like. Use them for shit. Like I wanna be able to wear them to help me climb or claw at stuff or whatever I need them for. But people only make like plastic or foam or resin claws. It's not STRONG enough. I need like. IRON claws. STEEL claws. Claws I can climb trees and rock faces with. Claws that could kill a man if I wanted them to. It's a fucking TRAGEDY these aren't a thing, and I swear to God I'm about to learn metalworking just so I can make myself a suitable set.

Edit: someone actually made me some 👀 he's open for commission if anyone wants their own set. Check the RBs for my post !!

[sesamestreep]

it’s wild to me that like every modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (and by modern I mean “made recently” not “set in modern times”) is like Hell Bent on coming up with a Reason™️ that Watson stays with Holmes and trots around with him on adventures all the time despite the inconvenience and the danger and all, and so it’s like “oh, Watson’s a gambling addict, he loves uncertainty and mystery” or “oh, Watson’s an adrenaline junkie, he gets off on being constantly in danger from criminals” or even like “Watson’s atoning for sins of the past of BEING IN THE WAR by solving crimes with Holmes now” or WHATEVER. And it’s like, girl, maybe he’s just in love! Did you think of that?? Maybe he’s got a crush and it’s making him do stupid things. Maybe he’s just got bad taste and his type is guys who don’t know how to refold newspapers properly but can identify different types of cigar ash by sight, smell, and taste. And wrote a monograph on the subject. Maybe he’s down bad is all. I mean, Keep is simple, stupid!!!