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A graceful cascade, Sylvan Pass area, Yellowstone National Park

(c) gif by riverwindphotography, May 2025

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Alexander Skarsgård ↳ MURDERBOT 1.06

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Geghard Monastery, Kotayk, Armenia, partially carved out of the mountain, was founded in the 4th century.

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Murderbot 1.07 · Complementary Species

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I’m out of practice at controlling my expression

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Apple TV Murderbot + Text posts

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in case anyone wants to play unicorns just so you know i'm a hybrid unicorn-pegasus with fire for my mane and tail and also i'm built like a percheron and the feathering above my hooves is also fire but it's magic so it won't hurt you so don't worry also i have a scar on my nose from the magic lightning bridle i used to have to wear before i escaped

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you know what time it is

FAVORITE MURDERBOT EPISODE SO FAR (once it is done i will do a final poll. for now this is what we have)

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I can't tell you how much I need Ratthi to make Murderbot a friendship bracelet

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Episode 7 of Murderbot

It's been a second since I've done a more analysis-style post, but I'm feeling quite excited post-episode 7 and I wanna get my thoughts out there. There's a lot I could get into, so I'm only going to focus on a few parts.

Warning for TV spoilers and an image of a decapitated head.

Before watching this episode I made a post stating the following:

also also. i feel like the point about bharadwaj being attacked at the beginning of the show where it has to be asserted that “it wasn’t a monster, its just an animal doing what animals do” is interesting as well… hm I see so its more difficult for the team to maintain objectivity and/or sympathy when they feel directly threatened or fearful. i wonder what parallels could be drawn from that!

Indeed, this episode acknowledges the immediate aftermath of the team seeing Murderbot, well, murder. It's one thing to know a SecUnit can kill versus seeing (and feeling, in the case of those getting sprayed with blood) a SecUnit kill. And like I point out in that post, they are now struggling to maintain their objectivity and sympathy. Where once, humanity (and I use this word purposefully) was easy to grant Murderbot, it is now creating a new set of problems for the characters... now they're forced to ask: why would a person (meaning human) do this? why would a person (human) not understand the gravity of this? (how much of a person is it really?)

The issue with that line of thinking is that they haven't managed to separate human from person. Because Murderbot is not a human, it is a construct. It see itself as a construct, it likes having its armor on, it likes having guns in its arms, it likes being strong and it doesn't like a lot of things it deems as "human" things. It's the team that wants to see Murderbot as a human rather than a person, and Murderbot can't be a human, not even if the crew repeats it over and over again.

Murderbot, obviously, is mostly frustrated that the team doesn't understand that violence is necessary here. It points out that Dr. Mensah was willing to kill a SecUnit, that's basically the same thing. Dr. Mensah... acquiesces but I wonder if she's truly grappled with the personhood of constructs. I say this, because, similarly to the previous episode ending on Leebeebee's decapitation, this episode ends on the decapitation of a SecUnit.

The difference being that Leebeebee's body was looked upon with horror and ongoing grief, but the SecUnit is looked upon as an eliminated threat. Or rather, it's barely even glanced at!

Whereas Leebeebee has remained a constant horror, that they've been replaying through their minds, delaying their own escape/safety as they think about her death and frustrating Murderbot when it just wants them to move onto the next self-preserving move, the SecUnit's death is forgettable.

When a human dies, they struggle to prioritize their immediate safety, because how could they? But when a SecUnit dies and, say, one of their crew faints, they are immediately prepared to prioritize his immediate safety.

For Murderbot, there is no difference between the death of a dangerous human or a dangerous construct. But for the humans, they have not yet grappled with this difference.

So they ascribe personhood to Murderbot, but they are not truly prepared for what it means to consider Murderbot, and associated constructs, a person. And Murderbot may be forced to wade through the consequences of this.

I also want to note this moment:

She's accusing Murderbot of not caring about the team, but, functionally, is enforcing the idea that humans are the priority (to be mourned, to be saved, to be sympathized with) and that Murderbot is solidly the outlier.

Because, look, we (meaning Preservation Alliance and accidentally implying humans) take care of each other! And you, Murderbot?

You kill people, including your own (meaning humans you should care about and accidentally implying constructs you're the same as).

What an amazing episode to show that the crew is not yet prepared to understand Murderbot! And Murderbot, despite how it will probably feel justified in thinking these humans are irrational, continues to deeply crave a chance to have... something. I'm sure it hasn't figured it out, yet. There's a reason why it showed its face when Mensah insisted. It didn't have to, but it chose to.

And to top this off, I'd like to acknowledge this bit I wrote yesterday:

i feel like the point about bharadwaj being attacked at the beginning of the show where it has to be asserted that “it wasn’t a monster, its just an animal doing what animals do” is interesting as well...

The animals make another appearance as well! Look at me, making well-timed observations. And this episode, the animals do what animals do. They fulfill their instincts and mate and lay eggs. And then, they protect their eggs from those that have harmed them, through what they've determined is the easiest route to safety, by killing and eliminating the threat.

Sounds familiar...

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SecUnit coming in clutch with a nice save

MURDERBOT (2025)

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It's wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sounds like the halves are discrete (...) As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do.

MURDERBOT (2025)

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made this for my twitter but there's more fans here so have a murderbot fan cam ✨ (it would hate this)

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Speef is real to me. I'm sorry for that.

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can't wait for when PresAux's giant anxiety-riddled meow meow with big sad eyes that they've all bonded with starts talking shit and they realize it's actually a huge asshole

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The Murderbot show does such a good job at making you forget that Murderbot is an angry rogue killing machine.

Oh it has downloaded silly little shows and deleted the hopper manual? Silly little guy (gn).

Oh it has the piece of a printer stuck in it and doesn't even care? Silly little guy (gn).

Oh it's team leader is having a panic attack and it's helping her calm down by watching an episode of its favorite show with her while dropping lore to take her mind off? Silly little guy (gn).

Oh it is helping perform spinal surgery on itself to fix the hoppers wiring? Silly little guy (gn).

Oh it's team is being held hostage by an evil woman and- HOLY SHIT IT EXPLODED HER HEAD

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One sad side effect of big box stores is that you just don’t get lifelong hyper fixation guy access like you used to.

Like yeah I can go to Menards and buy a door.

But it used to be I could go to the door store, and speak to a man whose sole passion in life was doors and who would talk about the history of door insulation patterns over the last 50 years without stopping to breathe.

That man is gonna find me the BEST door option for me.

Seriously my neighborhood had one of these. They were across the street from the lighting shop owned by the guy who could tell you the exact date, off the top of his head, that your property got electrical wiring based on your address.

Now these guys rarely get to own a shop, make a good living, and sell the very finest doors for decades. They’re relegated to Reddit posts which are informative but ultimately do not replace door guy having a door shop.

I don’t want to talk to some miserable, underpaid 20 year old who was in plumbing last week and in doors this week and doesn’t know a hammer from a hanger.

I want my door guy back.