Autumnwatch Hosts Unveil Stunning Wildlife Moments and Share Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Stories from Their Latest Series Specials on The One Show.

Embracing the Wonders of British Wildlife with Autumnwatch Hosts Chris Packham, Michaela Strachan, and Gillian Burke, beloved hosts of Autumnwatch, have taken us on an extraordinary journey through the captivating behaviors and seasonal changes of British wildlife. Their dedication to showcasing the natural world in all its glory is truly a gift to enthusiasts and curious minds across the United…

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It takes time.

your love returns in tragedy (ID in alt)

National Geographic announced the superstar narrators for three natural history shows including Angela Bassett as executive producer and narrator for QUEENS; Awkwafina, narrator for the National Geographic Disney+ Original A REAL BUG'S LIFE; and Jeremy Renner for INCREDIBLE ANIMAL JOURNEYS National Geographic Assembles Hollywood Superstars To Narrate Upcoming Series 

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

please look at my bestie's instagram story

Ayaka Endo, Kamuy Mosir

Maybe now would be a good time to mention that Etho doesn’t technically join hermitcraft until after the start of Double Life… which means. Yeah dbhc Etho is still in reset-mode for the entirety of Double Life (this is about equally upsetting as it is genuinely hilarious)

(Despite being explicitly told not to force Etho to re-deviate by Xisuma and Doc, and after roughly a month of no luck, I’m sure you can imagine the impatience and desperation that went into Bdubs’ decision to sign Etho up for the next life series, considering the last one was the last time Bdubs really saw Etho. Or. As himself anyway.)

HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN & ARIANA GREENBLATT Ahsoka 1x05 Rehearsal / Final Cut

morning everyone ilyyyy

Listening to Artificial Condition again, it strikes me how much Murderbot uses empathy reflexively as a survival skill. Look at this bit.

Upon meeting it, ART allows it on board and then announces that it knows that Murderbot is rogue. Then ART threatens to destroy it if it hacks ART's own systems. Murderbot is immediately terrified and shuts down all inputs, gives serious thought to spending the entire three month journey unconscious, and then considers the potential avenues of damage from ART's drones. ART, not realizing why Murderbot had suddenly gone silent, tells it to quit sulking, which understandably pisses off the still-terrified Murderbot. It dumps a bunch of memories of coercive treatment into ART's feed, and ART goes silent.

Then this happens:

Then it said, I’m sorry I frightened you. Okay, well. If you think I trusted that apology, you don’t know Murderbot. Most likely it was playing a game with me. I said, “I don’t want anything from you. I just want to ride to your next destination.” I’d explained that earlier, before it opened the hatch for me, but it was worth repeating. I felt it withdraw back behind its wall. I waited, and let my circulatory system purge the fear-generated chemicals. More time crawled by, and I started to get bored. Sitting here like this was too much like waiting in a cubicle after I’d been activated, waiting for the new clients to take delivery, for the next boring contract. If it was going to destroy me, at least I could get some media in before that happened. I started the new show again, but I was still too upset to enjoy it, so I stopped it and started rewatching an old episode of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. After three episodes, I was calmer and reluctantly beginning to see the transport’s perspective. A SecUnit could cause it a lot of internal damage if it wasn’t careful, and rogue SecUnits were not exactly known for lying low and avoiding trouble. I hadn’t hurt the last transport I had taken a ride on, but it didn’t know that. I didn’t understand why it had let me aboard, if it really didn’t want to hurt me. I wouldn’t have trusted me, if I was a transport. Maybe it was like me, and it had taken an opportunity because it was there, not because it knew what it wanted.

The thing about Murderbot's survival is that it clearly involves quite a bit of negotiating with other constructs and bots. That's how it talks its way onto cargo hauler bots in the first place. It uses empathy--envisioning the emotional and cognitive context of the individuals it encounters--to work out what different kinds of people want, so that it can offer them fair trades. It also uses empathy to consider what humans might be looking for, so it can practice blending in and hide.

Murderbot would never have survived so long if it wasn't capable of assessing the individual desires of the people--human, bot, and construct--around it. It thinks about ART's probable fears and motivations so that it can consider whether ART is inherently an ongoing threat or a potential ally.

When your survival depends on evading detection, you get really good at assessing perceptual biases so that you can shape yourself to fit into them. People talk about murderbot being radically empathetic as a choice it makes, or as a feature of its personality that makes it a good person. But I think murderbot would be the the first person to tell you that this empathy is part of its threat assessment suite, a skill that was developed out of necessity in order to allow you to survive.

It is also a trait that makes murderbot a good person, of course: it chooses very carefully to try to survive by doing as little harm as possible and by offering things, like media, that buy it access to things it needs. But it started as a survival skill. It's part of hypervigilance.

I think one of the strengths of this series is that so many of the things we love about SecUnit are traits developed for survival in an inherently threatening world. The shape of its mind and heart have been changed by the trauma of its origin--but they don't make murderbot less good for being altered, even if that skill was developed in a traumatic context.

I like that.

PENELOPE FEATHERINGTON MAKING COLIN BRIDGERTON THIRSTY 😩🤍

Penelope & Colin through the dances ❤️

captain's warm hugs! (id in alt)

So, it's come to this.

1. After The Pale, The World Again 2. All Distances Are Insurmountable 3. Here We Go Mother On The Shipless Ocean 4. After The World, The Pale

Mia Novakova, Porch Collapse