fragile soft machines

west. on a mission to fail the turing test. “some prophecies are self-fulfilling / but i’ve had to work for all of mine.”

[aldieb]

🪴🎠📚

i like editing things, writing things, and drawing things. i blog about books, sff, and nice images. i have a lot of fun looking closely at art to see what makes the gears go.

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an art form that fights back ⋆ books and publishing ⋆ endless forms ⋆ equestrian tag ⋆ finely threaded sky ⋆ keep your head up ⋆ knight tag ⋆ more than gold i need electricity ⋆ nature held me close ⋆ no one who loves you can kill the wolf ⋆ obligatory frog reblog ⋆ on the way ⋆ pain is also perception ⋆ places tag ⋆ self and other ⋆ tell them stories ⋆ that which resembles the grave but isn't ⋆ the fire becomes the mirror ⋆ the future waits on fiercer surgeries ⋆ the hole in the telling ⋆ the shining and perishable dream itself ⋆ we cannot accept poems about grass ⋆ who are you really wanderer ⋆ you are a house ¶ dust ⋆ honey darling ⋆ math warlock ⋆ winterbreaker ⋆ wolfgirl

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[darkspaceboytoy]

Look I think it is commendable to write a book. That takes work no matter what. But man are there some bad ones out there.

[darkspaceboytoy]

Folks I won’t say it again all authors must be killed

[souplover13]

image: reply. "I was just thinking we should kill all authors". end ID.

[lady-of-vitreous-sight]

it's nice how everything in the world can be described by well ordered and complete systems of rules that fully explain all possible perspectives and interpretations and can answer every question and account for [your phone rings, i hold eye contact with you, my grip on your hand tightens] don't pick that up. that's from godel. block that number.

[aldieb]

mostly stopped losing my mind for no reason right in time for 12 weeks until half marathon aka i need to follow training plan instead of just screwing around. we can do it (maybe) (no) (yes) (idk) (scared)

[i2-xmf]

“IMG_0247” (2008)

[withbriefthanksgiving]

ID: golden sunlight shines through gaps in green trees at the end of a wide street in residential area. End of ID.

[ymutate]

Helen Whitaker, England

" Sycamore Seed "

Glass , copper and brass

[aldieb]

finishing organizing my storygraph list of books read had me sadly googling "thorn of emberlain news" because the site's metadata has a 2026 release, and actually... i might set my heart on at least one more gentleman bastards (less optimistic about the overall series being finished). there's a fairly recent reddit thread where lynch himself is talking to people in the comments, and the thing about this situation vs rothfuss or martin is that i really don't think there are any intractable story-related problems with finishing, "just" author personal problems 🤔

[aldieb]

Top 5 things that start with the letter "a"?

1. i can cover a lot of ground here by saying animals. yay creatures

2. my childhood bestie’s name is annika… only slightly guilty for putting her below every animal on earth but technically she’s already encompassed by that category

3. more broadness: aliens. the creatures are also the best part of sci-fi

4. androgyny? everyone get more nonbinary with it

5. the humble ampersand. what a wonderful typographical symbol &&&&&&

[aldieb]

Top 5 Meals 🍛

1. Tofu Rice Veggie Bullshit Forever (my preferred way to go is soy-marinated tofu and bell peppers/mushrooms/broccoli in the stir fry). subgenre: Tofu Noodle Veggie Bullshit (pad see ew is my best friend), but i tend to get that as takeout rather than making it myself

2. these creamy beans with some kind of hearty cracker for dipping (the original is good but i’ve kind of redone this recipe over the years by subbing in chickpeas, using coconut cream instead of heavy cream [does not taste like coconut!], and using nutritional yeast instead of parmesan)

3. grilled cheese and tomato soup (in order to make this list the grilled cheese should be made with nice cheese, pesto, and a fried egg and should be cooked in butter with garlic and red pepper)

4. i am a big breakfast enjoyer so let’s say a diner-type breakfast spread with scrambled eggs, hash browns, toast and jam, and orange juice

5. bunch of varied delicious stuff to dip into using a nice breadlike substance… shoutouts to ethiopian and mediterranean food

[aldieb]

Top 5 fun facts?

this kind of made me forget every small digestible segment of knowledge i ever learned lol. i hope these should suffice

1. i’m sure we all know the humble byte (8 bits of data), but did you know that 4 bits/half a byte is known as a nibble

2. frogs chew with their eyes: they push their eyes downward when swallowing in order to move the food down their throat

3. if a horse leaves iceland, it can never return (for disease protection and interest in maintaining a pure bloodline in icelandics)

4. the first ever computer mouse was made out of wood

5. the largest organism on earth might be a mushroom colony (armillaria ostoyae) that covers 3.5 miles

[shadysalmons]

frozen pines

[achillesinhighheels]

#bymyselfmaxxing

[nobrashfestivity]

Howardena Pindell Untitled 1972–73 American, born 1943 Acrylic and cut and punched papers on canvas Dimensions Overall: 87 1/2 × 91 1/8 × 1 3/4 in. (222.25 × 231.46 × 4.45 cm) Collection Modern and Contemporary Art Credit Line Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Endowment Object Number 2017.8 Vmfa

[aldieb]

[not realizing that i’m talking like a cartoon villain again] it would be so crazy if feeling comforted and calmed by someone else’s presence mid mental episode was real and not made up for romances

[bidonicart]

doodled one of my favorite Disco Elysium quotes on a paper scrap at work

[arcanetrivia]

[Image description: A sketch of Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium, looking sadly off into the distance. Handwritten text around him says, "A tremendous loneliness comes over you. Everybody in the world is doing something without you." /end description]

[briannyssey]

dude star wars is so good and/or bad and/or mediocre sometimes, depending

[zenaidasden]

Ohh so that's why they called that one show Andor

[aldieb]

top 5 pieces of art

i’m going to constrain this to visual art to make narrowing down choices easier!

1. almond blossoms by vincent van gogh: yes this is basic i’m afraid, but it’s very nice having such a basic favorite piece of art because i’ve been gifted a coaster and a keychain with this design and used to have a poster of it. (it’s also my desktop bg and my avatar on most sites other than tumblr.) i think this speaks to what i like best about it: it’s both a soothing backdrop that’s easy on the eyes and a piece that you can get lost in if you follow the details of the branches. when i see the original in person one day i will step into it and never return

2. symphony of the sixth blast furnace by evgeny sedukhin: thanks tumblr for introducing me to this painting. i adore art where light is given weight and texture and dimension, and i’m a big fan of Shapes. the title is also a poem to me

3. "the unicorn in captivity": i love that she lives in the met cloisters so i can go see her anytime and get lost in the weave of the fabric. i love that we don’t know why the series of tapestries was created or what the letters stand for. i love that she’s become so popular as a piece of art for people to remix and create even more layers of potential meaning

4. green star quilt by wally dion: this is also a tumblr find and quite a recent one, but i think it'll stick around as a favorite for a while. i like green and complex machinery, what can i say... it's made of circuit boards!

5. really hard to pick a specific piece, but jacob van loon's landscape series goes crazy. this one's eutrophos ii. i almost spent an inadvisable amount of money on one of these this spring but something unknown went wrong and i was refunded :(