Integritea

[yearofdoodles]

for mug suggestions. This one belongs to ART

ART designating a drone to exclusively just carry this around and piss everyone off

[gremlynn-draws]

My feelings are intense. For better or for worse.

[forthegothicheroine]

I like to think there's an Ankh-Morpork show (perhaps a live stage show) that's a combination of Great British Bakeoff and Forged in Fire where they bake dwarf bread and then attack a ballistic dummy with it.

[goldensonata]

Murderbot's Pterrible Pterosaur Ptorment

nobody tells you this but youre genuinely just allowed to draw yourself as a giant creature doing some jurassic park type shit to your favorite characters. im revolutionizing the self-insert game

[tellebook]

Compulsory by Martha Wells (ISBN: 9781645241720) is a tiny but perfectly formed gem from the Murderbot Diaries universe.

In this short story prequel, our favorite socially-anxious, media-obsessed SecUnit is deep into episode 44 of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon when a human miner gets herself into mortal trouble over something utterly pointless (to Murderbot, anyway). Cue the classic internal dilemma: save the human and pause the show, or… just not?

Sharp, funny, and quietly profound, Compulsory gives us another delicious look at Murderbot’s early days — awkward, cynical, and slowly figuring out what it means to be more than just a machine. If you love clever sci-fi with a sarcastic AI protagonist who’d rather watch soap operas than deal with humans, this one’s for you. Short enough to read in one sitting, memorable enough to stay with you.

Highly recommended.

[st4rshiptr00per]

murderbot: im so good at not making faces 95% of the time its basically my job

the other 5%:

[unidentifiedspoon]

network effect.png

[monykatyche]

Give me a prickly narrator who would rather be left alone with their shows, and I am in.

I recently finished Network Effect (Martha Wells), and the thing that stuck with me is not the plot. It is the voice. I only clocked this time around that most of the Murderbot Diaries are narrated after the fact. Murderbot is recounting what already happened, which means it gets to editorialize, undercut its own feelings, and skip ahead whenever a moment gets too sincere. That is such a human thing to do. We do not hand our vulnerability to just anyone. Being seen can feel like giving away a bit of your power.

So every time Murderbot is exasperated that it has a feeling, and then more depressed when it realizes it actually has to deal with the feeling, I recognized something. I think a lot of us do. Maybe the neurodivergent crowd most of all. Is that part of the reason Murderbot likes Dr. Mensah so much, that she creates a space that lets it (Murderbot) decide what and when to share?

Network Effect is the fifth book and the first full novel in the series, and it swept the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus. But the scale is not why I loved it. This is character-driven science fiction. It is for readers who like people and want a break from saving the galaxy from one more overpowered enemy. It is probably not for world-building completists, or plot-addicts who want a story of a hero conquering kingdoms in the name of [insert honourable reason]. (That is not a typo.)

It also left me thinking about consent. A SecUnit is not supposed to boss its clients around. When a client is about to wander into something with teeth, the SecUnit hauls them clear, then explains what is happening and asks them to please hold still and stop helping. Murderbot narrates this the way the rest of us narrate a group project, with visible suffering. When Murderbot hacks its own governor, it keeps that rule for the humans but finally claims it for itself too, deciding what to share and when, so others can no longer pull information or action out of it.

Early on in the series, it is clear that Murderbot is fond of the folks from Preservation. Is it because they treat consent as something to protect, which makes them the opposite of the Corporation Rim, where a SecUnit is just property?

Two things I keep turning over. Why do you think Murderbot really avoids being vulnerable, self-protection or something else? And how would the world be different if consent checks were an everyday thing?

[dooplissss]

for someone obsessed with robots I sure can't draw them

more murderbot art

[bottle-conjuror]

murderbot, meet perihelion.

[shailiiscreative]

Guys i think Denethor may be the one doing the spell checking

[arosaces]

From anything that is popular at all, Murderbot sure is my favourite aroace character.

I do understand people who don't vibe with non-human characters as aroace rep, but personally growing up I was always soooo pissed when even machines had to fall in love (which was also treated synonymous with sexual attraction) to prove that they were a Person.

Murderbot diaries ask the age old SciFi question of "what does it mean to be a person?" without answering "sex and love", and that means a lot to me personally.

[vforvielka]

faramir ✨

[hawksongweaving]

New off the loom! I love weaving projects that look like a character from a Tamora Pierce Novel would wear!

[zybilna]

One thing that makes me kinda sad is seeing people who feel like TTRPGs just aren't for them because they bounced off of some element that is clearly just a symptom of them trying out D&D5e. Like people who have had a hard time with learning the rules would probably do well with any system where the rule formatting and play culture around learning them aren't a mess. One friend of mine didn't like waiting a long time for turns to come up in combat, not even knowing that many games don't even use a turn-based structure.

A lot of D&D5e defenders on here like to claim that asking someone to learn a new system is "gatekeeping" somehow, but I'd argue that acting like one game is emblematic of the entire medium to the exclusion of people who don't click with that one game is way more meaningfully a form of gatekeeping, even if it's fully unintentional.

I strongly believe that not all RPGs are gonna appeal to everyone, but there is an RPG out there for everyone, and I just hope that people who haven't clicked with the most common option to be introduced to can find something that works for them.

[fallenstarworkshop]

asking someone to learn a new system is "gatekeeping"

God forbid we require people to learn how to play the fucking system they're playing.

[theotherwesley]

He was as tall as he was tall, and his eyes were the color they were. To describe his hair one would say that he had some. His face had all the features you'd expect, and none of the ones you wouldn't. "There he is," people would often say of him, but only when he was there. And they were right.

[only-knives]

*taps mic* the queer community needs to make more effort to make pride events accessible despite corporate influence on pride and structural inaccessibility.

the queer community needs to hype up disability pride month (july btw) while queer pride month is happening. the queer community needs to amplify disabled queer experiences.

the queer community needs to recognize intersex people and how many of us have disabilities related to our intersex variation - and this Still Does Not Prove Eugenicists Right.

the queer community needs to fight ableism and love disabled people. queer or not. also quick question. why do you think the right paints us as insane predators.