Somehow wound up mostly blogging about sci-fi and fantasy and writing bullshit, with the occasional "this I gotta see" and "don't do that, you will die". Also this is my "cool stuff" pile, no sideblogs, no sorting, abandon all hope you who enter here. Art on banner is "Sphinx's Day Off" by Sandara (https://www.deviantart.com/sandara/art/sphinx-s-day-off-179426159). Art on avatar is "Lost Track" by Aron Wiesenfeld (https://aron-wiesenfeld.squarespace.com/2018).
The Nameless Fanfic (6/7 stories written, 7th in draft): Masterpost
The Nameless Fanfic (AO3 series link) is a series of crossover fanfics for Time to Orbit: Unknown and The Murderbot Diaries. I post the rough drafts here as I write them, then edit them and post them on AO3. As of right now, I have stories 1 through 6 up on AO3, and I am working on the culmination of the last big story in this cycle. There are also standalone short stories from OC and other canon characters' perspectives.
Length-wise, this cycle is five novellas, two novels (final one in progress), and two short story collections. For The Murderbot Diaries, the story begins soon after Fugitive Telemetry and becomes an AU after System Collapse. For The Treegrave Chronicles series, this is a canon-compliant post-canon story to Time to Orbit: Unknown, which becomes a non-canon compliant AU from The Void Behind onwards. (VERY heavy spoilers for TTOU—if you don’t want to be spoilered on several major twists, get on the normal spaceship before reading!) Closer to The Murderbot Diaries than to TTOU on the sci-fi hardness scale. Point of view is primarily—but not always—SecUnit’s
Most of the rough drafts for these stories can be found by going down The Nameless Fanfic tag, but as this has already grown... Unwieldy, below the cut you will find AO3 links and blurbs. Enjoy!
Story 1: Connection Test Start (AO3 link)
SecUnit has told Senior Indah it is open to further work, but only if the work is really weird. So when a research transport from an unfamiliar non-corporate political entity called Trellin arrives at Preservation Station and starts throwing strange errors within seconds of contact, SecUnit is tasked with figuring out what the hell is wrong with that ship. (A lot. A lot is wrong with that ship. One, it’s not ART. Two, it’s kind of an asshole anyway. Three, it has feelings. And morals. And that last one might be the worst.)
Story 2: Formless and Vanquished We Shall Travel (AO3 link)
One Public Universal Friend runs a corporate blockade with a shuttle full of refugees, fully expecting to die in the process. Instead, it wakes up on an unfamiliar ship, with a bot pilot that informs the Friend that it is well aware of the Friends' existence and has helped it escape pursuit. In the Corporate Rim era, the Friends have been forced into becoming an underground operation, and they have few allies. Stranded, disoriented, and hounded by a corporation in possession of an anti-terrorism mandate, the Friend must deal with its situation and not sink its entire organization in the process.
Direct continuation of Connection Test Start.
Story 3: The Worst Movie Night (AO3 link)
The alien remnant contamination did far more damage to Perihelion's wormhole drive than anyone had initially realized, and the PSUMNT researchers are at a loss with how to solve the problem. But SecUnit and its Preservation humans have seen “super fast organic wormhole drives” before. With the reluctant permission of Perihelion's crew, a distress call is sent to Trellin, and three scientist teams, two sentient research transports, and one SecUnit convene to figure out how (and whether) ART can get its wings back.
Set after System Collapse.
Author's note: the main thing that you need to know about this story is that I started writing what I thought would be the NE analogue in this cycle, and it turned out to be SC: ART Edition instead. So expect a marked tone shift in comparison to the previous two stories, leaning towards introspection and existentialism. Also, altered states of consciousness.
Story 4: Roots and Branches (AO3 link)
Being responsible for the security of two separate groups of humans is hard enough when SecUnit knows and likes the ships they are travelling on. But once its humans arrive at the incredibly normal space station in orbit of Trellin, SecUnit finds their potential new allies to be much more difficult to deal with than most hostiles. To do its job, it must navigate local privacy customs, dead and/or naked humans, experimental biomes full of planetary fauna and, worst of all, the helpful local HubSystem, which happens to be a) very friendly, b) totally useless at security, c) really fucking creepy. Can SecUnit keep its humans safe and not be driven absolutely beeshit by argumentative social scientists, HubSystem or human, along the way? It’s about to find out.
Direct continuation of The Worst Movie Night.
Story 5: Digging in the Dirt (AO3 link)
Following the events of Connection Test Start, one doctor from Preservation Alliance decides to make things right and sets out for the Corporation Rim, hoping to unearth and eventually bring to justice a certain humanitarian-cum-terrorist organisation. Utterly unprepared for the reality of the Rim, the good doctor finds far more horrors than they ever bargained for—but also many more friends than they expected. Nobody is what they seem to be, and now Dr. Mrinal must decide what to do with what they have discovered and live with their choice.
Direct continuation of Connection Test Start and Roots and Branches.
Story 6: Mitigating Circumstances (AO3 link)
When the Second Great Ship of the Arborea Cosmica fleet, Dandelion Tenacious, commits a series of crimes that could lead to her being decommissioned under fleet law, two of the youngest generation of ships are raffled in to lead the investigation and present its results to the rest of the fleet. In a community of fewer than fifty individuals, bias and personal tensions are unavoidable in any court case, and the trial of someone who was a major contributor to the fleet legal system was never going to be a simple affair—but Prosecutor Nike and Advocate Blaze, two New Texan sisters with very different relationships to the first generation of Arborean ships, never expected to face off against each other in a precedent-setting case involving a critical political alliance, ancient history, and obscure theology. Now they must chart a course to steer Arborea Cosmica for decades and centuries to come, and the currents they must navigate are far more turbulent than they ever imagined.
Thematically follows Roots and Branches and takes place during Network Effect.
Short stories, collected as Voices From the Pegasus Constellation (AO3 link)
A collection of short stories portraying some of the events of The Nameless Fanfic from the perspectives of Trellians (and other members of Starwind Accord). Character tags updated as stories get published.
Note that these short stories are placed in different points of the main continuity and are best read one at a time! Links to the relevant stories are given chronologically in the main storyline.
Right now, this includes:
Chosen Burdens (Captain Reed) - after s2ch5, "Verdict"
ship's haunted (Navigator Brisote) - a view of s3ch4-5
Cultural Significance (Senior Engineer Haze) - between s3 and s4
what's in a name (Senior Computer Technician Iceblink) - after s5ch18, "Preparation"
Losing Starlight (Dandelion) - during s5ch24, "Beeshit".
Massacre (Blaze) - during s4ch30, "Preparations"
Medicine From Your Hands (Aspen) - after s4ch41, "Puppetry"
As Above, So Below (Ruby) - technically set between chapters 44 and 45 for Roots and Branches (s4), but probably a good post-epilogue read
Axiom (Ghostwheel) - set between chapters 44 and 45 of Roots and Branches (s4ch44-45), best read after Digging in the Dirt chapter 7 (s5ch7), "Monster."
Group Therapy (Joscelyn) - best read after s6ch12, "Trial Eve," but chronologically set after chapter s6ch8, "Saint"
There is also an equivalent collection from the points of view of various TMBD characters, Voices from Preservation Alliance and PSUMNT (AO3 link).
Little Miracles (Ratthi) - set during s4ch13, "Visage", but best read after s4ch31, "Chief". Note that this contains mild Aspen/Ratthi smut (because they are nerds).
People Worth Knowing (Mensah) - the events of Connection Test Start from Dr. Mensah's perspective. Functionally a prequel to s6.
Death Penalty (Pin-Lee) - best read after s6ch9, Evidence.
Inaugural Rites (Ratthi) - chronologically between chapters 44 and 45 of Roots and Branches (s4ch44-45), best read whenever you want to learn specifics about how this is an AU from TVB. Same as before, mild Aspen/Ratthi nerd smut included.
There are more short stories in the tag, but they're not quite edited yet and also a little bit ahead of the currently posted storyline. I will update them as I go!
Extras:
A series that stands slightly aside from the rest is Interesting Biomes (AO3 link). This is the full-smut version of Ratthi's chapters, plus an extra sketch. Having two versions available is mostly for reader preference, because I'm writing in two "complicated relationships with smut" fandoms.
If you're the sort of person who likes comparing text versions, some old chapters are up on the nameless fanfic: deprecated tag.
I also occasionally post music, pictures, reference materials, etc on the nameless fanfic: supplemental and music I write to tags. This is mostly for my own convenience, but if you're the sort of person that enjoys finding new music or something that way - enjoy!
Make Ready: Safeguarding Our Movements against Repression
https://crimethinc.com/Safeguarding
Donald Trump has signaled that he is expanding his offensive against immigrants to target critics of his regime as well. In directing repression at an invented category ("antifa") rather than a specific organization or form of activity, he means to convey that regardless of who you are or what you do, you, too, could become a target.
Fortunately, there are already groups that have experience dealing with this kind of repression, and there are concrete steps we can all take to prepare our communities to weather the coming storm. Rather than spreading panic, this will enable us to approach this situation calmly and effectively.
everyone post your biggest hear me outs my friend just showed me two conventionally attractive white men in a row i need to teach him what a real hear me out is
i like when a piece of media says that an all-powerful character "sees humans as insects" because that really could mean a lot of things. maybe they view us as insignifigant and will squish us under their boot. maybe theyre actually studying and cataloguing us for their thesis paper. maybe theyre campaigning for human protection because we're an important part of their ecosystem. maybe they see a human and go "ew ew ewwwwww someone get the cup and get that FREAK out of my house." .
*guy who doesn't know anything about sports and has never cared about sports in his life* hey did you know womens professional baseball is returning after 70 years and the games are going to be streamed for free on youtube and the season starts august 1st
need everyone to know that the artist who created this iconic artwork:
is STILL creating wolf art TO THIS DAY. TEN YEARS LATER. proof that the world is beautiful. her username is wolfroad! you can find her art right here, and here are a few of her more recent pieces that I absolutely adore:
checked her page today and I think this might be because of everyone who saw this post and went to support her and show her art some love. the power of spotlighting an artist!! if you know an underappreciated artist, telling people about them could mean the world. [:
If I have a migraine and I go to sleep for 7+ hours and I wake up and I still have a migraine I’m pissed off. What do you mean. You were supposed to leave. I did my part.
Sigh. Same old song and dance: write about half a chapter no problem, finishing up the line you spent the previous 4-5 days banging up against easily, then come to the next line you need to resolve, and boom--wall. Worse, that wall is still there even after finishing this draft, because there is still something wrong with the SecUnits line, and also the Encephalon line. There's a few good pieces in there, but it feels like there's contradictions I haven't caught--either factual or thematic ones--or somewhere I'm chickening out, or there's a pacing issue, but fuck if I know which at this point. All I know is, I can't look at this chapter anymore for a while. :P
Oh well, as usual--I'll get some sleep on it and see. This one might be a rewrite, or it might be a rewrite in the edit, or maybe tomorrow will make it clearer, but for now, without further ado...
Chapter 48: Negative
SYSTEM RESTART.
I repeat. What. Did you do. The coldly furious feed voice was the first thing I heard when my systems reinitialized, and it made my performance reliability immediately jump by about 2 percent.
I haven't--I didn't--I swear I didn't hack it! And that panicked voice sounded like it was right up in my ear. There were things--things that were linked to this voice--probing my systems at multiple points, adjusting them. It should have made me worried, but it didn't. I shared a memory, Dr. Mensah, the same thing SecUnit itself usually does with other bots! There wasn't anything in that file to trigger a cascade like that!
A memory of what? Another familiar voice, sounding like she'd just homed in on a target. (Wait, that human can't shoot, why does she have targeting modules?)
(Also, could this fucking reboot go any slower? Rhethorical question, because it was already going faster than normal. Whatever the fuck that panicked voice was doing to my systems, it was helping.)
My alpha version's stupid fucked up life! It was supposed to explain that I'd never try to--shit! Security sweep again, give me space to cover us--
The panicked voice disengaged, and the first voice--Dr. Mensah's voice--said, Acknowledged. Pin-Lee, is our exit ready?
When we are. This'll be trouble, but--
I said, Don't deploy, and the stupidly loud workspace went quiet.
SecUnit, Mensah said, relieved. Are you all right?
Performance reliability at 56 percent and rising. I'm fine.
And we're fine, too, security's still unaware, Ghostwheel said, reemerging in the workspace, but not even trying to re-engage with my systems more deeply. SecUnit, are you all there?
I sent it a performance reliability snapshot.
Oh good. SecUnit, I--listen, I promise, there wasn't any malware in that memory! I had no idea your systems were going to do that!
Which is why, wow, this was hard for some reason. Which is why we aren't sending helpme.file to random SecUnits.
Okay, okay, I get it, of course we're not, I--
What random SecUnits? Pin-Lee interrupted.
Great. The malware didn't tell on me, so I told on myself. Fantastic job, Murderbot. Now you have to deal with explaining this to your humans, too.
I looked through my drone cameras (none of the drones dropped, because Ghostwheel had them, and it apologetically handed over all access as soon as requested), and there was my body, lying on the ground with Bharadwaj kneeling over it. The bathroom door was locked, so no one was walking in on us right now, but we couldn't keep that up for long without alerting Security. Bharadwaj saw me stirring and wordlessly helped me sit up, then get up.
As I tested my movement functions, I filled the humans in.
The Encephalon SecUnits know I'm rogue. They didn't hack us, but some other SecUnit that's since been destroyed sent them part of my logs and they recognized me. They haven't reported us, so Ghostwheel and I think they might want us to free them. And if we don't, then they'll alert on us.
Pin-Lee and Bharadwaj didn't say anything, because I had actually trained my humans into decent operational protocol by this point. Mensah asked, Can we free them?
Not without risking an incident.
Can we plan to free them during the next phase of the operation?
They have no reason to believe us. If I were them and someone told me "we'll come back to free you later", I would never have trusted that.
Mensah craned her head as she considered.
They also have nothing to lose by waiting, she said finally. If we come through, that's a chance they would not have otherwise gotten. If we don't, they are no worse off than before.
Except they'll hate me.
(Yeah, performance reliability definitely wasn't rising fast enough for this bullshit. I would never have fucking said that if it was above 70 percent. There were a lot more serious things to worry about, like the SecUnits reporting us out of pure spite. But that wasn't a risk we could really mitigate, no matter what we did.)
I could feel Mensah bleeding a complicated tangle of emotions at hearing that, but a moment later she backburnered it and focused on her analysis. Then she said, That's a risk we're all taking. Find out if we can work with them. Preferrably before we meet Tethys.
Acknowledged.
The malware was hanging in its partition quietly, careful not to touch even a wall. When I backburnered the mission workspace to focus on the SecUnits, it quietly said, Query.
Go ahead.
Are we still worried the SecUnits will try to take the hack by force if we don't give it to them right now?
Oh, so it did understand that was a huge risk. It just hadn't given a fuck.
I am.
Understood.
And it readied a spectre of crippleware and killware that--oh wow, it really hadn't been wasting time during all those meetings it skipped. And it had to have more, there's no way it would have been showing me its entire anti-construct arsenal, right?
This is all I have, the malware said quietly. Anything you don't want me to deploy?
Well, shit. It really was serious about apologizing.
Don't kill them. Not if you don't absolutely have to.
No arguments. No "who the fuck do you think I am." Just an acknowledgement, and then it turned away to monitor the external feeds.
Wow. This was somehow so much worse than its usual behavior. I backburnered the familiar queasy feeling again, and said, Then let's go.
We emerged from the bathroom, Bharadwaj pretending to feel a lot better after whatever she did in there. (Ghostwheel suggested she discreetly throw away an intoxicant candy wrapper, and I approved the plan. Bharadwaj did that, and was now following the 'intoxication onset' behavior chart I put into her feed.) And then I pinged the SecUnits.
Helpme.file=true. Extraction needed?
Negative.
Okay, that wasn't what I expected. I re-queried them, just to be sure.
Repeat response: negative on extraction. Abort, abort, abort.
Well, shit, the malware said quietly. There goes my 95 percent confidence interval. I was so sure your logs inspired them to action, but they're as scared as every other SecUnit I've ever met.
It was right. And it was also wrong.
Because there was a huge difference between that heavy press of not having anything else you could do even if you did hack your governor module, and what the SecUnits were transmitting right now. And it made me feel like absolute shit for being suspicious of them.
They aren't scared. Not just scared. They're trying to protect us.
If there was one good thing about working with Ghostwheel, it was how quick it was to pick up shit if given half a lead to go on.
That Unit was trying to get them out? Logs! SecUnit, there's gotta be logs!
I was already requesting the files. And weirdly enough, the Encephalon SecUnits were ready to share them.
What they gave us sucked. A lot. Because the log was about a recent meeting between Encephalon and Barish-Estranza, and the moment an ungoverned BE SecUnit who had been pretending to keep doing its job stepped onto the premises and tried to fool the Encephalon system the way I usually did with normal SecSystems, Project Medusa pounced and ate its fucking brain.
(The SecUnit didn't even need to be in a box for it. Wow. I had no idea how that worked, but that was Dandelion and Aspen's problem to figure out, not mine.)
Yes, there was a scandal. Yes, BE tried to accuse Encephalon of attacking their SecUnit, but Encephalon countered with evidence of malware and said that their security system was working as intended, and attacked a SecUnit with a clearly faulty governor module. Yes, Encephalon won the legal fight on keeping the SecUnit's body, so Barish-Estranza couldn't actually analyze their 'proprietary security measures'. (And so Encephalon could feed the SecUnit into Medusa's algorithms. Unless it got lucky and Medusa's initial strike dealt so much damage as to render its brain useless.)
(SecUnits never got lucky.)
The last thing that SecUnit did was try to transmit helpme.file to anyone in range who would listen, but even that didn't make it through fully.
(Did Medusa have helpme.file now? Did that mean we couldn't even send the complete copy of the file to the Units to deploy in case they got an opening, because it would detect that, too? How much access to their feeds did that fucking thing have?)
Fuck me, Ghostwheel muttered as it worked through the logs alongside me. That's a lot more efficient than what it did to my iteration. It's learning fast.
No shit. Can we still hide from this thing?
It swayed its arms a little as it computed.
I've got a few ideas. But SecUnit--
Yeah, I know. We can't fucking leave them like this. Can you camouflage the file?
Ghostwheel bobbed up and down as it ran through its range of options. Then it confirmed and silently dived to its files, while I went back to the SecUnits.
Now that the security sweep was over, the other two Units moved on to watching other guests, so only TriadLeader remained in the connection. When I pinged it, it returned Negative on extraction. Abort again, and now it sounded annoyed, because it obviously thought I was a fucking idiot who had it much easier than they did when it hacked its governor module, got overconfident on its success, and became the kind of IdiotUnit who would completely disregard the very big and very toothy fauna that would eat them if given half the chance.
(I wasn't Three, but it didn't know that.)
I sent it Tango's hard feed address. It shut up. I added Charlie's and Alpha's, and it said, Query: pathway of data acquisition?
Response: they sent me.
(That was a lie. Kind of. Because Tango and its team did want to help the other Encephalon SecUnits if they could, but we hadn't had a specific plan hashed out yet, and what we did have depended on us slipping in ungoverned and unnoticed, which was going to be a lot more of a problem now. But it was the best I had, and I needed to keep it talking while Ghostwheel did its thing.)
The SecUnit leader kept staring at me, and I could feel its disbelief. I sent it some logs, visibly redacted so it knew I wasn't going to give its friends away, and continued: They're off inventory. Ungoverned. They want to get you out. Give me something that will convince them not to stage an operation, and I'll take them somewhere safe.
The files it sent me were sealed with some kind of proprietary algorithm, which Ghostwheel and I could probably hack, but weren't going to. Then the triad leader demonstratively erased the log of this conversation, broke the connection, and the triad went back to ignoring us.
Ghostwheel, did you--
Yeah. In your logs, if you didn't see it, neither did they. The malware did a slow contemplative loop. I almost thought you weren't going to come through there, SecUnit. I'm glad you did.
Fuck you.
Aw, SecUnit! Don't offer things you aren't going to follow up on!
I sent it a rude sigil and added, for good measure, a) You're a machine intelligence, not a dumb human, act like it; b) Platonically.
That's better, it chuckled and flitted out into the general feed.
I watched it activate its camouflage and disappear, then tapped Mensah on our private channel.
Our problem just moved from immediate to general. Medusa is allowed to eat faulty Units for extra processing power, and a jailbroken governor module counts as a fault.
Mensah understood immediately.
Are you off the main deployment?
No. We'll figure it out. Do what you have to, just get ExecutiveAsshole to take the bait.
Mensah clearly wanted to say something, but we were out of time. Tethys broke off from kes last engagement and was making kes way directly towards her and Pin-Lee, which meant me and Bharadwaj had to be there, too.
Mensah demonstratively turned away from Tethys, and squared her shoulders as she watched us approach.
quit brainrot. unfollow trolls. read essays. go down rabbit holes. have a calendar. maintain a todo list. read old books. watch old movies. turn on dnd. walk with intent. eat without youtube. chew more. train without music. plan for 15 mins. execute. organise your desk. take something seriously. read ancient scripts. act fast. find bread. eat clean. journal. save a life. learn to code. read poetry. create art. stay composed. refine your speech. optimise for efficiency. act sincere. help people. be kind. stop doing things that waste your time. follow your intuition. craft reputation. learn persuasion. systemise your day (or don't). write. write. write. write more. iterate violently. leave your phone at home. walk to the grocery store. talk to strangers. feed the dogs. visit bookstores. look for 1800s novels. experience art. then love. sit with a monk and offer them lunch. don't talk shit about people. embody virtue. sit alone. do something with your life. what do you want to create? turn off your mind. play. play a sport. combat sports. notice fonts in trees. fall in love. notice patterns on a table. visualise it. talk to people with respect. don't hate. be loving. be real. become yourself. cherrypick your qualities. discard the useless. rejections aren't permanent. invite what aligns. accept what does not. read great people. be different. choose different. do great work. let it consume you. lose your mind. value your time. experience life.
cannot understate the value of turning a few no-thought-required chores into your idle animation. I am wandering around in aimless restless need, unsure what kind of stimulation I crave, compelled to seek it out and yet unsatisfied by all that I attempt? ok I can do that while I put the dishes away. or fold some laundry. recently I was able to add 'washing the dishes' to the list and it's been a game changer. I can settle into the physical motion and very low-level mental requirements of doing the chore, and the rest of my brain can turn over the problem of What Should I Do Next. eventually I think of something I could try doing instead, and by the time I do I've folded three shirts and half my underwear. and these are all chores I can drop almost at once (except washing dishes, I don't like to leave the soapy dishes out, but rinsing is mostly quick). so as soon as I want to not be doing this anymore, I just stop!
ok i enjoy that sphene's commentary on the Zelenia fight was stuff like "oh she's about to do [x] thing! be careful!" whereas lumull on the Doomtrain fight spends the entire time going "what the fuck what the FUCK uhhhh what the fuck"
I want to comment that at this point, this man’s city just went through chaos, and suddenly these groups of people waltz into your town, aids you in the damages aftermath, and then suddenly an alert that THIS thing is coming back to know, wreck havoc to your home and it’s bad. This thing had killed his parents and it’s out for more blood.
Then one of the stranger, the one you just met a while ago and shared drinks by the way, just hear this thing that’s never been stopped and went “Hell YEAH, I’ll go and fight that train! Wouldn’t be the first time I killed one!” (If you played the Omega Questlines)
Remember he just MET us, but no one else is going to fight that thing so WHY NOT?
Yeah you can get your buddies, the more the merrier, to fight this train, it’s called the Doomtrain by the way, and he will drive the transport for you while you duke it out with the train.
Now speaking of the train, I want to note this train likely sees us, and the train Lumull’s driving in a way that we are intruding in its territory.
Another train on its turf?! That’s a no-no. Of course it’s going to destroy it, only one train can ride the tracks and that’s this thing.
Note also he has to keep mainly focusing on ahead and can look back in times he can, so he is blindly trusting us that we can kill it while it knocks away the carts. He doesn’t know how strong we are, has no clue if this will really work because the outcome is he dies or probably his sister gonna kill him. What he has to lose? He’s terrified, this thing is a war machine that terrorized everyone and taken many loved ones.
Yet his ass is going to sit on that conductor’s seat, drive that train no matter what damages are taken, and pray the thunderous heavens you will succeed or die trying.
it's so crazy too bc i'll be like "this phrase/practice is being touted as ancient knowledge with a secret unbroken lineage, but it was quite literally made up in the 20th century. like we can trace it back to its very inception in like 1961." and someone will be like "that can't be true because my grandmother taught it to me." and i'm like yes your grandmother was 20 in 1961.
life pro tip: if you happen to be considering purchasing an LG TV or monitor, you possibly want to pick something else! and if you have an LG monitor that has not been plugged into anything in a while, you might want to leave it that way!
if you already have an LG monitor or TV or intend to buy one, you probably want to watch this video and keep an eye on gamers nexus for updates (or anyone else covering the LG spying situation):
posted july 16 2026
LG is doing some bad things. how bad? well. here are some very brief bullet points. I am not an expert, gamers nexus is, see the video for more information than this:
LG monitors (brand new and years old, cheap and expensive) auto-install LG's own adware-spyware called LG Monitor App onto windows 10 and 11 computers. you plug in an LG monitor for video output and this gets installed automatically. no hitting OK, no confirmation, no toggles, NOTHING.
the auto-installed LG Monitor App auto-grants itself access to your internet connection and ALL computer resources. the LG Monitor App has the ability to collect: geolocation data, device data, personal information, online activity data, contact data, and more!
...and it shows pop-up ads! because fuck you
on some affected versions of windows, auto-installed shitware like the LG Monitor App can be prevented by navigating to gpedit.msc -> computer configuration -> administrative templates -> system -> device installation -> prevent automatic download of applications associated with metadata
...but, if your LG monitor already installed the LG Monitor App, this is like closing the barn door after the horse got out. and that horse has the logs of everything you were doing on your computer! someone stop that fucking horse!!!
unrelated to the LG Monitor App, many LG TV owners are now required to tell all household members and guests that their LG TV is recording and processing ALL nearby voices. or else they may be in violation of local eavesdropping and wiretapping laws. for owning a fucking LG TV.
plus, how many businesses, workplaces, public spaces use LG TVs?
allegedly the microphone spying can be turned off by disabling microphone features, but LG has been caught disregarding opt-out settings before.
LG TVs can record everything that happens on the TV, including the video output of connected devices like phones, computers, gaming consoles, anything that happens on the TV screen.
LG was sued for their spying, and as a result of that spying suit, now shows pop-ups saying oops! they got caught spying and intend to continue spying. thanks for buying LG!
as of when the video was posted, there was no list of every spying LG monitor or TV. but this stuff is getting rolled out to more and more LG devices, including those purchased years ago.
and that is the shortest summary I can make of this situation without just summarizing more of the gamers nexus video.
Update: We are working on a follow-up to the LG story and have some disturbing findings re: LG's products. It will take us a while to parse
⬆️posted july 23 2026
gamers nexus is fairly respected in technology journalism. they fly around the world investigating companies that fuck people over and have pressured major companies to make major changes over the years.
so for gamers nexus to say that this LG spying situation is both unprecedented in how uniquely bad it is in this era of spying, and that it gets even worse than their video where they already say to stop buying and using LG products while recanting every prior recommendation for LG products?
can anyone on this gay ass website give me an opinion on which translation of the epic of gilgamesh i should read? ive been wanting to read it for ages but theres a number of common translations and i know translations can make or break a story; i dont want to start with the wrong one
I've read a few so I can offer recommendations! I started with the Sandars translation, which is a good starting point but a pretty early translation. Benjamin Foster's translation is one of my favourites, and the version I read (Second Norton Critical Edition) includes some really interesting discussion essays with it. Andrew George's translation received an update a couple of years ago so is up to date with Foster's translation, though I prefer how the language flows in Foster's.
I would also recommend Gilgamesh Retold by Jenny Lewis for a translation with a more modern poetic take.
Benjamin Foster’s Gilgamesh condenses all the different tablets we’ve found together to make one cohesive narrative which is way less intimidating and therefore my go-to if you want something that feels cohesive while also sticking very close to the language of the original. 10/10
Andrew George is the most thorough and up-to-date, and sticks as close to the text as you can get. It does, however, separate out all the different tablets, and feels very unedited in its style. Definitely not a “pretty” version. 10/10 cuz he’s a legend and this is the most definitive scholarly edition but don’t start with it.
Maureen Kovacs has a lovely translation with some very interesting footnotes on word choices. Her Ninsun is absolutely incredible and if you want to cry your eyes out over Gilgamesh’s fate that’s the one for you. It’s one step up from Foster’s in terms of poetic-ness but still pretty close to the original. 8/10
Sophus Helle is more poetic than Kovacs but BRILLIANT, one of my favourite Enkidus and his Shamhat is wonderful. Top favourite of all time. This is a very good starting point. 9/10
I wouldn’t recommend Sandars simply because it’s prose, and also condenses the twelfth tablet into a nice tidy ending that doesn’t really work with the Standard Babylonian narrative. 6/10
Lewis’ Gilgamesh Retold is more of a poetic retelling than a translation; it’s beautiful but definitely not a starting point. Sweet and gentle Enkidu though, very charming. 7/10
Stephen Mitchell I’m not a fan of. He smooths the poem out into something tame and very expected. This is my personal bias but I really dislike his Shamhat. His Enkidu and Gilgamesh are also explicitly more like brothers, which is a valid interpretation but also again not one I lean towards. 5/10
Herbert Mason’s Gilgamesh has some stunning moments in it (Enkidu! They do not know you like I know you!) However it is nowhere near the real text BUT closer than Lewis’. Changes the ending of the poem so it’s about Gilgamesh mourning Enkidu rather than mourning his own mortality; a much sadder conclusion with less resolution than in the Standard Babylonian. 7/10
BONUS ROUND:
Derek Hines’ play GILGAMESH is fucking DERANGED guys. Ten Gilgillion out of ten.
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