i have loved the stars too fondly

This is really awesome actually. I wasn't familiar with these before at all.

Here's some that I found in reasonably good (photo) quality:

It's honestly quite incredible how accurate these are to real life (although I guess it's not that surprising since I assume most/all of these were made based on someone that the sculptor knew). One of the facial paralysis ones lowkey looks like me right to the head tilt. This guy from ~1700 years ago was just like me fr...

A lot of artists and companies could learn a thing or two from the Moche on how to portray disabled people. Not even joking.

Hello friends especially in the Murderbot fandom! I'm doing Artfight again! Let's attack each other!

I hereby present reasons for Eva Stratt to be named that

1. Andy Weir did his research bad (boooring)

2. Stratt has a German dad and a Dutch mom but lives in the Netherlands (plausible)

this is valid and i think in Mass Effect specifically they take the parallelism one further and ensure planet names and species names aren't immediately obvious connected (human/Earth actually does have a conceptual relationship; both are related to a word for "ground, earth" in Indo-European, but not the same word). but i don't think this one is entirely tolkien's fault as she posits--or maybe it's just his fault when it comes to (some) fantasy races? like you rarely see Orc or Troll capitalized.

what i think is going on here linguistically is that early science fiction especially established the capitalization because aliens were Inhabitants of Place: the Venusians of Venus, the Martians of Mars, later the Vulcans of Vulcan, and so forth. so at least in the science fiction case the generalized rule isn't what you do with a word for a species of biological organism (human, dolphin, aardvark are all common nouns), it's what you do with a demonym--and demonyms are capitalized because they derive from proper nouns. A German is from Germany, an Egyptian is from Egypt. and similarly designations for other kinds of groups of people are also often capitalized: a Catholic adheres to Catholicism, a Republican votes for the Republican party (but a conservative votes for conservative politicians--no capitalization), etc. this is indeed the argument for capitalizing Black in reference to african-americans: you're not describing a generic attribute in this context, you're referring to a culture, some members of which do not even have especially dark skin.

i think i do prefer not capitalizing species names in SF, but i think it works best when you're also making sure pure not doing the pulpy/retro "the aliens from Android are Andorians" thing. if you aren't, then you can also make a linguistic distinction more easily between (say) an asari born and raised on Earth--an Earthling for sure, though not a human--and a human born and raised on Thessia.

Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.

So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.

But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.

It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?

So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:

Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.

And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.

So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".

So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.

My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.

Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.

Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.

Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).

Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues

According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.

Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.

For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.

Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life

Aaand a close-up:

HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE

I do not trust you with your own life because you are good and kind and noble--I know you would not hesitate to sacrifice yourself to save me."

murderbot expression sheet >:)