Second Of February (1/2)

Lydia Blakeley (British, b. 1980)

I hope this email finds you well ,2021

Oil on linen

Todoroki « fake boyfriend » Shoto, protector of the lesbians

trios of assholes are my favorite - especially of the sibling variety

I do agree that it is generally not ok to expose people to graphic/traumatizing images without their consent

but damn it. if you are still willingly supporting an industry where standard practice in the treatment of sentient beings is so cruel, and the consequences for humans and the planet so terrible that you cannot even watch a few seconds of footage without getting traumatized….then you are one massive hypocrite

If I were to be in charge of creating a Murderbot film or TV series, I would start with an introduction from Murderbot speaking directly to the audience going something like, “So, you wanted my account of these events for your documentary, but rather than just using my internal memory, I’ve pieced this together using drone footage, the habitat security cameras, and the helmet cams of the team. I’ve cut out all the boring bits and all your messy, human, biological processes. Where I thought it would be helpful to explain my thought process at the time, I’ve added my own commentary to the events. I also thought it needed a bit of ambience, so I’ve used audio clips from the soundtracks of these shows,” list of names like Adventures Through Space and Time, and Pirates of the Sixth Dimension go scrolling up the screen, “to enhance the mood. Overall, I’m pretty proud of it and I think it’s got a much better narrative coherence than a lot of serials I’ve watched but I can give you the raw footage if you really insist.”

Then the entire thing would be filmed as if on in-universe cameras, making use of having drones flying around everywhere constantly to justify wide shots and the like.

We get Murderbot’s sarcastic inner monologue like a commentary track on the whole film.

Anytime we see footage from Murderbot’s perspective, there are text overlays of feeds like IM chat in one corner, and hub alerts in another. There’s also picture-in-picture so that it can see what different groups of people are doing when they’re spread out in the habitat or whatever, and what it’s seeing can be pushed off to one side while it’s paying attention to stuff that’s going on somewhere else (or watching Sanctuary Moon). There should be several moments when a soap opera is taking up basically the entire screen, with some tiny thumbnails down in one corner showing the research crew working or talking or whatever.

Any time someone mentions the company, there’s a blur over that person’s mouth like when footage censors swearing, and the audio has been obviously dubbed over with a slightly different sound quality, or maybe the tone is slightly different. It’s really obvious that something else was said originally and “the company” has been spliced in over the top of whatever was said originally. The only exception is Murderbot’s commentary monologue which just uses “the company” in perfectly normal audio.

Any logos/written text with the name of the company is also obviously censored throughout. 

when people talk about some deep shit dazai has said they always bring up the “do you really think there’s any value in the act of living” line but they never bring up

goofy lawyer text posts + ace attorney is a match made in heaven

[ GALES OF SONG ], a venti animatic!

some things stay with you forever.

and one night shi qingxuan takes one of that bitter spiritual power candies and lies in bed… he doesn’t utter in his mind that password he and the earth master had chosen together out of a book of poetry for his private communication array because he thinks it will work, he utters it because if he knows it will not work… but it works

there is only silence on both sides, but the connection is open… if he speaks, black water will hear it… if black water speaks, he will hear it…

neither speaks, both know… both lie in their bed, on their back, rigid as sticks… the minutes pass

why doesn’t he kick me out of his communication array? shi qingxuan thinks

why did he reach for me? he xuan thinks

they are hopeful and they are terrified

an hour passes and it’s almost as if they were lying next to each other… and they know how it feels to lie next to each other

doesn’t he hate me? does he still care about me?

their hearts are agitated by a myriad of question

the hours pass and eventually shi qingxuan’s spiritual energy terminates… the exhaustion puts him to sleep, the shock keeps he xuan awake

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