The Northern Kingdom

[ID: Screenshot of tumblr tags reading “please op i am desperate for the context.” End ID.]

Sure, here ya go:

Lord George Gordon Byron was an English poet in the early 1800s.

He wrote several narrative poems that influenced the gothic genre and was a HUGE fucking slut. HUGE. This bisexual mess slept with so many fucking people it was insane, no gender was safe. Unfortunately that “no one was safe” mentality did not work out well for him bc there were a LOT of rumors that he impregnated his half-sister.

His only child from a legitimate marriage was from his wife, Lady Anne Isabella Noel Byron, who straight-up left him after a year. You know how divorce was uncommon in the 1800s? His wife was just so fed up with him that she did not care and left when her daughter was five weeks old.

This daughter was named Ada and would become known as Ada Lovelace.

Byron signed the separation papers and then left the country to have sex elsewhere and would later die when Ada was eight.

During that time if a couple divorced, usually the Dad would get full custody, so just in case he tried anything Lady Byron made sure to play the devoted and overattentive mother.

Lady Byron was absolutely paranoid that her daughter would become an insane gothic mess like her dad so she decided the only thing to do would be to make sure she did not become a Poet™. So she heavily encouraged Ada’s interests in science and mathematics.

Around the 1830-40s, Ada met Charles Babbage through a mutual friend and he showed her his prototype for a mechanical calculator. She got absolutely obsessed with this machine and began helping him out with it to the point where her notes on it became more extensive than his.

She also added notes to a translation of a paper on this engine that is considered to be the first published algorithm.

These notes on the engine and translation became the basis for computer programming.

She’s considered The First Computer Programmer™

It’s nice to see our boys so comfortable and relaxed after the Yi City Tragedy Porn arc from whence we’ve just returned.  Wei Ying, much like a bunny himself, is skipping around and poking things, while Lan Zhan is staid and stoic as ever. Until, he sees the bunny lantern.  He takes a rather pregnant pause to look at it, and given this is The Untamed, I’m actually a bit surprised we did not flash back immediately to the Original Bunny Lantern.

But let us do that for you now - this is the day Lan Zhan consciously fell in love.

Unfortunately, Wei Ying is having a bit of a flashback of his own, or rather a vision of what he thinks is A-Yuan.  Now, what’s interesting is this is the moment that WuJi (or Wangxian as we all know it’s really called) starts playing in the background.  It’s a particularly romantic choice to associate WuJi with A-Yuan because at this point we, the audience, have probably figured out that A-Yuan = Sizhui =  their son, i.e. the ultimate evidence of Lan Zhan’s love and devotion.

It’s fairly obvious by now that the bunny lantern is intimately linked with his emotions for Wei Ying, but in case it wasn’t, we now see Lan Zhan look right at him - and Wei Ying is beaming and gorgeous and entirely too easy to fall in love with.  Heck, we’re all Lan Zhan at this moment. 

I’d like to point out that during the entire 38 seconds that it takes Wei Ying to have this trip down memory lane, Lan Zhan is steadfastly staring at him.  Finally, Wei Ying feels his gaze and turns around, so that they can proceed to stare at each other for another 26 seconds (no Baifan Mountain but still respectable), whilst WuJi plays, in front the entirety of Tanzhou and my gay eyes.  (Let’s do the math, at this point, Lan Zhan hasn’t taken his eyes off his Socialist Bro here for a full 1 min 4 sec.  That’s some intense camaraderie.)

At this point, Wei Ying, never one to miss the opportunity to take the piss out of the bae, points out the bunny lantern and reminds Lan Zhan that he drunkenly admitted to liking rabbits. (Hey man!  What happens in Yueyang etc…)

And then, Hanguang-Jun looks at him like this:

And I am not sure how I’m supposed to even live having perceived that look on that face, but well, let’s just assume I’ve been dead this whole times BECAUSE HE KILLED ME.

And when Wei Ying suggests they buy the lantern, and Lan Zhan agrees, and then Wei Ying gives him THAT SMILE and Lan Zhan gives him THOSE COW EYES, I need to immediately lie down for a million years.  

You guys, you are in public!  You literally just dismembered a man and found your old pal’s decapitated corpse!  There are CHILDREN around!  WangXian don’t give a fuck.  Lan Zhan casually carrying that fucking bunny lantern in front literally EVERYONE as if it were Wei Ying’s purse is the image I’m willing to die for.  Fare thee well!  I’ll be in my coffin, listening to WuJi.mp3.

Art by chirido_san

I got this email from Fight For the Future and it is really helpful in communicating where we currently are in the fight against the KIDS Act and KOSA.

We should be using this time during the Senate's break to be calling, spreading the word, and doing everything we can to push back against these harmful bills. The return from break around July 15th, which is when Cruz said he wanted to consider the bills. So please, call while you can.

The ones I recommend for the purposes of reading C-literature:

Three Friends of Winter: In the Eastern tradition, the Three Friends of Winter are the pine, bamboo, and plum tree. While many plants and trees begin to wither away or shed their leaves as the days become progressively colder, the pine, bamboo, and plum still display surprising signs of vitality and retain their green foliage throughout the winter. My favourite setting is the default one and 'The Great Wall'.

Buddhist ceremony: Mount Shigi is located close to the city of Nara, Japan. It is believed to be the place where the Buddhist deity Bishamonten — patron of warriors and protector of the righteous — first appeared. This soundscape combines varied chants sung during the early morning fire ceremony, and during the Daihannya-Sutra that takes place every day in the main temple. My favourite settings are 'Morning Fire Ceremony' and 'Pilgrims'. Obviously this is recorded in a Japanese temple, so it's not the same, but it's nice nonetheless.

Cinematic East: This soundscape overflows with contrasts - on one side, the loud drumming of giant taiko drums; on the other, the quiet breathing of the small shakuhachi flute and the subtle tones of the guqin. The only setting I like here is 'War Drums' but with the guqin, for action scenes.

Tibetan Spirit: Tibetan Buddhism regards music as an important mean to prepare the mind for spiritual enlightenment. During monastic rituals, chants are sung mostly in unison, accompanied by cymbals, bells, and drums. Sometimes other wind instruments join the ensemble too, such as the dungchen, the famous Tibetan long horn. Again, not Chinese Buddhism, but close enough :) I like all the settings here.

From India: Mainly a bhajan song, which already had existed during the Tang Dynasty and they are used in Indian Buddhism, so you can imagine our heroes hearing one on their arrival to India. The tanpura setting is also historically accurate, and the worship ritual one.

Medieval Village: If you turn off the 'Fire Bell' sound, it could sound like a Tang Dynasty village :)

a) you try to take one of them hostage but their SecUnit takes you hostage and embarrasses you in front of your crew instead

b) that bunch of humans finds out about alien contamination

c) for whatever reason they are roaming on surface

So you go on a mission to a remote separatist installation, possibly happy to be free from that bullshit, with a clear task

and then there's them again, and

d) they send their fuckass SecUnit instead of you know A REAL PERSON to a meeting with you, which, disrespectful

e) they prepare a video presentation or whatever, what the fuck is wrong with them

f) your colleagues backstab you right at the meeting with that fucking bunch

g) you have no choice but to follow the weirdos

h) All that:

Comany name? [redacted] "the company" and you know that all lowercase is spite

MB repeatedly complains that it's the cheapest flimsiest made unit, the Temu bot. But it's rental was probably really expensive and it and every other SecUnit we see is extremely high performing

1 line about how Ratthi is extremely popular and everyone seems happy. There's just an ever rotating cast of hookups and flings in the background that Murderbot is desperately trying to not notice.

For that matter polyamory seems to be the societal norm and you know there's polyvule drama happening that MB is erasing it's memory about.

In the second novella Perihelion is a complete mystery to MB, it's mostly just intimidated and like "ok this is my life now". Where as in Network Effect and "Rapport" we see that Peri is utterly enamored with Muderbot, it think MB is the best thing to ever happen.

MB has 0 self awareness and doesn't really know much about SecUnits or contructs in general it just contantly projects it's own feelings and opinions onto everyone else. Every other contruct is the series acts counter to what MB says.

For that matter it projects onto humans too. Murderbot has the emotional intellengence of a rock. It hates and fears itself and so projects that into believing everyone else fears it. And most humans don't. I'm not even talking about the hippie commune Preservation people, some of the rando Corporate Rim tertiary characters and Mihira and Tidelands people aren't particularly afraid of MB.

Unprocessed 2.0 emotions

[redacted]

they knew that space was there because they can perceive it directly. it's literally right overhead all the time for their entire evolution. they know the faces of thousands, millions of stars, as soon as they tip their faces up. eridani is a name from two thousand years ago. all their stars have been named and known and watched and sung about for longer than any individual human civilization. they have always known the eridian star was there.

Storytelling via fight choreography

Here is the excellent analysis that this vidder is most famed for, and probably also one of the most watched wangxian clips on douyin.