— Murderbot, Artificial Condition, Martha Wells

Need to find me somewhere other than this fae platform? You’re in luck. I made a Carrd that will lead you to my other accounts.

Want me to write a snippet or draw some stick figures for you?

Send me an ask with a prompt and any other information you think might be pertinent, and I will try to make it happen. No promises, but I love a challenge.

Feel free to look at the “my art” and “my writing” tags to see what that looks like. :)

I occasionally indulge in roleplay and collaborative writing and would love to discuss more if you’re interested. Additionally, if you ask really nicely, I can run a tabletop one-shot via Discord for you and your group.

Want to buy me a coffee? You can tip me here or buy me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/noprotocol (your tips fund cat treats for my kitties).

TL;DR Send me an ask, let’s talk!

PS: Looking for the Murderbot discord server? Send me a message. 😁

So, uh, I'm working on a small, Murderbot-flavored server called "New Tideland." It's not quite ready for prime time, but it's getting there.

If you're interested in chilling there and watching me paint the walls, feel free to drop by:

Artificial Condition - listen-along (update)

OK, this is starting very soon!

We start from next weekend (23/24 Nov)! If you are interested you are welcome to join our beginner/everyone friendly little server!

For more details, please read my previous post.

For quries you can contact me, @crabs-brencil and our new moderator @theres-no-protocol-for-this

Come listen to my favorite Murderbot book and check out the Murderbot Transit Hub, great for folks who are new to TMBD and fandom veterans alike!

There’s a little rat inside your head.

This rat doesn’t know anything, but it knows that sometimes snacks fall into its cage, and sometimes the floor shocks its feet.  It likes the snacks, and it hates the shocks.  It will tell you to do things that produce snacks, and it will tell you not to do things that produce shocks.

This little rat is not the only power inside your head, and it might not be the strongest, but it’s there and it has influence.

So pay attention to how you’re treating the little rat.

If every time you learn something new, you say to yourself “ugh, I’m so ignorant for not already knowing this,” you’re shocking the rat.  You’re teaching it to be afraid of learning new things, to associate it with embarrassment and self-criticism.

Remember to feed the rat instead.  Tell it “now I know, and that is good,” and let it eat its snack in peace.

If every time you take care of yourself and your home, you say to yourself “ugh, I never do this enough, and I’ll never get it right,” you’re shocking the rat.  You’re teaching the rat that it was safer when you didn’t try to take care of things.

Feed the rat instead.  Praise what you have done, forgive what you haven’t, so the rat can feel safe.

When the rat takes a step in the right direction, even if the step is too small or slow or not in quite the right direction, feed it.  Don’t shock it for being imperfect; it’ll only learn not to take any steps at all.  Feed it, and let it get bolder, and take bigger steps, and give it bigger rewards for those bigger steps.

Be kind to your little rat.

🐀🐀🐀 *pat, pat, pat*

thank fucking god I'm not 14 anymore

hey if you are 14-17 It does get better you are just in your caterpillar goop era

Also sometimes the goop era lasts a little longer than other people's goop

Reporting in just 6 weeks shy of 50 years-old: You will re-goop several times in your life, often emerging with different wings and maybe even different skills. You're gonna be okay.

Fuck I needed to hear this today.

There's many goops but things do generally get better with each goopening. Especially that first one.

ART, visibly on the edge of a meltdown because SecUnit replied to a message from Holism with "k": i'm going to puke stop talking to Holism i swear to god. baby you're everything to me please please don't fuck Holism

OP your tags are killing me

Getting top surgery on the Pansystem University of Mihara and New Tideland research vessel Perihelion

My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.

I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”

I searched and searched for the post this graphic was from, and the OP deactivated, but I kept the graphic, because my BFF does the same thing, uses her imagination to come up with the worst pain she can imagine and pegs her “10″ there, and so is like, well, I’m conscious, so this must be a 5, and then the doctors don’t take her seriously. (And she then does things like driving herself to the hospital while in the process of giving birth. Probably should have called an ambulance for that one!)

So I found this and sent it to her. Because this is what they want to know: how badly is this pain affecting you? Not on a scale of “nothing” to “how I’d imagine it’d feel if bears were eating my still-living guts while I was on fire”. 

I hate reposting stuff, but I’ll never find that post again and OP is deactivated, so, here’s a repost. I can delete this later, i just wanted to get it to you and I can’t embed images in a chat or an ask. 

This is possibly why it took several weeks to diagnose my fractured spine.

Pain Scale transcription:

10 - I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain. I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.

9 - My pain is all that I can think about. I can barely move or talk because of my pain.

8 - My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.

7 - I am in pain all the time. It keeps me from doing most activities.

6 - I think about my pain all of the time. I give up many activities because of my pain.

5 - I think about my pain most of the time. I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.

4 - I am constantly aware of my pain but can continue most activities.

3 - My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time.

2 - I have a low level of pain. I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.

1 - My pain is hardly noticeable.

0 - I have no pain.

It’s also really important to get this kind of scale to people who have chronic pain, because chronic pain drastically lowers your perception of how “bad” any kind of pain actually is, and yet something like this pain scale is extremely user friendly. 

For example, if someone asked me how much pain I’m in at any given time, I’d say hardly any, and yet I’m apparently at a chronic 2.5, and it only goes up from there depending on the day. 

There’s also a similarly useful “Fatigue Scale”

I haven’t been below a 5 on this scale for 4 years 

Here’s the fatigue scale

Fatigue scale image desc:

10: can barely move; can’t talk

9: can barely move; can talk

8: can move, but can’t do much more than watch TV

7: can watch TV and play a game on my phone simultaneously

6: can do work on my computer lying in bed

5: can get around the house, but definitely couldn’t go out

4: can run a light errand

3: can get in my 10,000 steps, making my fitbit happy

2: can do three or more activities in a single day

1: going clubbing!

See also the Mental Health Pain Scale by Graceful Patient:

Mental Health Pain Scale transcription:

MILD

1 - Everything is a-okay! There is absolutely nothing wrong. You’re probably cuddling a fluffy kitten right now. Enjoy!

2 - You’re a bit frustrated or disappointed, but you’re easily distracted and cheered up with a little effort.

3 - Things are bothering you, but you’re coping. You might be overtired or hungry. The emotional equivalent of a headache.

MODERATE

4 - Today is a bad day (or a few bad days). You still have the skills to get through it, but be gentle with yourself. Use self-care strategies.

5 - Your mental health is starting to impact on your everyday life. Easy things are becoming difficult. You should talk to your doctor.

6 - You can’t do things the way you usually do them due to your mental health. Impulsive and compulsive thoughts may be hard to cope with.

SEVERE

7 - You’re avoiding things that make you more distressed, but that will make it worse. You should definitely seek help. This is serious.

8 - You can’t hide your struggles any more. You may have issues sleeping, eating, having fun, socialising, and work/study. Your mental health is affecting almost all parts of your life.

9 - You’re at a critical point. You aren’t functioning any more. You need urgent help. You may be a risk to yourself or others if left untreated.

10 - The worst mental and emotional distress possible. You can no longer care for yourself. You can’t imagine things getting any worse. Contact a crisis line immediately.

These are so important! SO SO IMPORTANT SHARE THIS AND SAVE IT TO SHOW YOUR DOCTORS!

This is the first time I’ve seen the fatigue scale, and HOLY MOLY that’s a revelation!!! These should be on all hospital and doctor office walls.

I’ve never seen the mental health one! or the fatigue one! I printed out the pain one and gave it to my GP. 

this, because “I broke both my middle fingers but didn’t know I had”. This, because “I’m not depressed, this is normal for me.” This, because “I work out twice a week, why would you say I’ve got chronic fatigue?”

I’ve always gone by the Allie Brosh pain scale.

0: Hi. I am not experiencing any pain at all. I don’t know why I’m even here. 1: I am completely unsure whether I am experiencing pain or itching, or maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth. 2: I probably just need a Band Aid. 3: This is distressing. I don’t want this to be happening to me at all. 4: My pain is not f—ing around. 5: Why is this happening to me?? 6: Ow. Okay, my pain is super legit now. 7: I see Jesus coming for me and I’m scared. 8: I am experiencing a disturbing amount of pain. I might actually be dying. Please help. 9: I am almost definitely dying. 10: I am actively being mauled by a bear. 11: Blood is going to explode out of my face at any moment. Too Serious For Numbers: I probably have Ebola. It appears that I may also be suffering from Stigmata and/or pinkeye.

hope is a skill

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

favourite additions

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

It may not be apparent to everyone how to easily find out who wrote the poem in the tags, so: @mumblesplash

(an instant-classic example of a Tumblr thread where so many people add value!)

So wherever you look, be it near or far,

know Hope can be found wherever you are.

If you’re a goy and you need somebody to remind you Hope is a fighter with blood on her knuckles, I want to share with you what we Jews say in times like these:

We will outlive them.

This isn’t just a statement of hope. It’s also a curse: when the tyrants who want us dead are gone, when Titus and Hitler and Czar Nicholas and Stalin are dead, when the names of the shahs and sultans are forgotten, the Jewish people will endure. We will still stand proud beneath the Arch of Titus and bellow “where are you? Because I am here!”

Today if you are a woman, a trans person, a person of color, a disabled person, any person who needed this not to happen, I want you to look Trump dead in the face and say “we will outlive you.” When he’s dust in the wind and his name blotted out, we will be here. When his regime falls and its enablers rightly damned by historians, we will be here. WE WILL OUTLIVE HIM.

And if you’re currently thinking “not me, though,” let me introduce you to what we call the 614th mitzvah, the only one that’s not in the Torah: NEVER GIVE HITLER A POSTHUMOUS VICTORY. If he would have wanted you dead, you fight like hell to stay alive. Do not go gentle into that good night. Spit and claw and tear and punch your way into the light.

Because: we will outlive them.

does anyone wanna hold hands until we feel a little braver

the reblog map is all of us holding hands btw

We are each other's night sky. No one is alone here.

I'm certain this is on Tumblr somewhere, but I haven't seen it around, so I'm sharing it myself

the hatred for anything labeled as “AI” is truly fucking insane 😭 just saw someone berating spotify’s “AI generated playlists” you mean the fucking recommendations? the fucking algorithm? the same brand of algorithm that recommends you new youtube videos or nextlfix shows or for you page tweets? the “you might like this” feature? that fucking AI generation?

"AI" is such a broad label, it's hard to fault people for not digging too deeply to understand what's under the hood.

But yeah, your YouTube recommendations and ads placement are all AI-generated. We call the brains of NPCs and enemies in video games "AI," too. The chatbots on many sites are some flavor of AI, generative or otherwise. The software that scans cell cultures for the presence of cancer is also AI.

And so is Midjourney.

The word "AI" can describe a dozen different technologies, from bread sorters to image generators.

May I recommend You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place. It's a book about what kinds of tools are considered AI, how some of them work, and how weird they are in their own right (positive). This is not a book that will bash AI, if that's what you're looking for. But it will offer a historical view of what has been and a discussion about how some of it works.

Imagine you could pass any law you wish; HOWEVER, to keep it interesting, it can't have a moral component on your end, i.e. it can't be something you think should be done as a "good person" action, because otherwise we'd keep seeing the same few things here (and a good chunk of them would be virtue signalling) and that would be boring. (So you're not allowed to ban something you think is harmful to people in general, but you ARE allowed to ban something you think is annoying to a lot of people, or harmful to you in particular.) What law do you pass?

For me, under those restrictions… I can't ban some particular things that annoy me because they ALSO have a moral component from my perspective (that is, I think they're annoying AND they cause harm to the world), which excludes the stuff I complain about the most. So I'll have to go with the stuff I complain about SECOND-most.

I'd make a change to product-labelling laws. "What the thing actually fucking IS" would have to be in larger text than "what flavour or scent it is", because I shouldn't have to squint to figure out if something is shampoo or conditioner, or deodorant or anti-perspirant, especially if it's a brand I don't normally buy.