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If this isn't in James Gunn's movie, I'll be sad. Do they need to pay for likeness rights or can they fake a Swastikar without a dime going to the Muskrat?

Superman desperately scanning the street during a fight to find the most morally acceptable car to throw at his opponent, knowing that not everybody has insurance, and loss of transportation can ruin a life -

A wave of incredible relief washes over him as he spots the hard geometric lines and silver paintless sheen of a Cybertruck.

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Something something vampires have no reflection so he can't even try to see his brother's face anymore when he looks into the mirror

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Very silly question, what was the thing that launched gugu past blorbo lines? Quite curious :3

SO THE ANSWER IS KINDA DARKISH apologies ;AAA; And it has spoilers for E05 too.

I've always had a soft spot for depressed uptight characters who slip into Coping Through Chemistry (Badly) in their desperation to function. There's the rationalization/denial, the fact at first it kinda works but then it pulls them under; their struggle between pleasure, their projected image of self-control, how little they actually have, and the consequences -- That's emotionally compelling, and it can add further dimension to a character who'd rather fool everyone into thinking they're too smart to be in pain. I already headcanoned Gurathin as someone who played chemistry with his own brain because the CR is hell, probably encourages it, and also look at this dude: He'd overclock himself if he could. It was a fun headcanon!

... And lo! Thus LeeBeeBee sauntered in going "hey you look down, do you want some speed :)", and Gurathin went very "no!!", and I was like. Oh. Oh, you didn't experiment, babe.

You were in Trouble.

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this post was made unrebloggable, so im stealing it

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A witch puts a spell on a girl, a sleeping spell that promises the girl shall wake through true love’s kiss. Men come and kiss her. She slumbers. Women come and press their lips to hers, but still she sleeps. Many years past, and the girl remains still. One bright morning,  a lost little boy finds her resting spot and clears the dust and grime from her face. He offers her a kiss on her forehead, and her eyes flutter open. She never feels romantic love for a man nor a woman, and she cares for the boy until the day she dies.

A young woman is imprisoned in a castle by a monstrously formed prince. The servants of the castle hope for them to fall in love, and when the spell is broken they assume their prayers have been answered. They are all surprised, but nonetheless pleased, when it is revealed to them that the young woman and prince are the truest of friends, and nothing more.

They say the kingdom is ruled by an evil queen, a woman who is incapable of loving. She is unmarried, she has no consorts, and she wishes for no partner. She is the wretched queen, the heartless queen. She must hate her daughter, for her daughter is beautiful, and women are incapable of liking another woman who’s prettier than themselves. It must be for this reason that the princess was sent away, not for how she was attacked by a man in the woods. They say the kingdom is ruled by an evil queen because she cannot love. The queen loves her daughter, and that is enough for them both.

There lives a prince who is forced to choose a bride at the ball. He meets many beautiful women, but find none which he loves. He spies one in a gorgeous gown and wonder in her eyes, and he dances with her all night long. The kingdom is sure he has found his bride. When the clock strikes midnight he tells her how he will never love a woman, or a man, in the way he is expected to. The beautiful woman smiles and tells him she expects nothing from him. The next morning the prince and the beautiful woman are missing, having run off together to see the world. They leave their shoes behind in their haste.

Many kinds of love exist. It doesn’t all have to be romantic.

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Murderbot thoughts after Ep 6

In Escape Velocity Protocol (Ep 4), Pin-Lee and Arada (and Ratthi?) kill to protect Mensah and Murderbot. And they do it in a particularly gruesome way, by squishing the hostile with the hopper.

They are greeted as rescuing heroes. Nobody throws up or asks why they did that.

In Ep 6, Murderbot kills to protect the PresAux crew. It's also a gruesome killing, but to be fair, a headshot was the only option.

The crew reacts with trauma and shock, and a lot of questioning of Murderbot's actions. "That was a person!"

So the hostile SecUnit wasn't a person?

Another little sign that PrexAux team might say that they view constructs differently than the Corporation Rim does, but they still have some unconscious bias to unlearn.

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it had no choice

it needed to blast its cache

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Thinking about how The Murderbot Diaries is a character that is completly and fully character driven to the point where the very writing and book format is revolved around it.

The first book is short, concise. It skips a bunch of scenes over the course of many weeks. It focuses purely on what Murderbot thinks is important and worth focusing on. Thats why the majority of the book is dedicated to its thought process, its complaints, or it's fear. It skips over "meaningful" scenes because it doesn't find them important. Like most of the conversations, like it helping Volescu. It doesn't care. It does care when it feels uncomfortable and wants to be left alone. It does care when its scared and something big might happen. It does care about Mensah which is why the few scenes that are more meaningful are with Mensah and then back to narration.

The books get longer and longer as they go on, showing how as Murderbots journey continues so does its ability to care. More intimate moments, more admitting to us that it's afraid, it doesn't want this, it does want this. It begins to describe and pay attention more and more to whats going on around it and it grows to decide what it wants and it's all so beautifully conveyed through writing.

Even The Company was such a clever and subtle way of telling us something. Because everything in the books centers on how Murderbot thinks. Murderbot would never aknowledge its feelings towards The Company and therefore we never knew of it until someone pointed it out. And that too is development because now Murderbot cares enough to let us know. To let itself know. It still shuts down, draws away in its own thoughts. But each book gets longer and longer with less time between them because Murderbot is slowly learning to pay attention, and interact, and aknowledge the present moment. Its learning to care

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One of my favorite things about That Scene in ep6 was how the arrival of SecUnit clearly DOES make Gurathin feel safer. Because he immediately gets angry.

Like, he had to be pissed before, on some level. Especially when the person in front of him confessed to (as far as she knew) murdering Mensah. No way some part of him wasn't screaming for revenge. But all he showed externally was fear, grief, shock. Because those passive, even submissive reactions are the only acceptable ones he's ever been allowed to show in a situation like this, I'll bet on it.

But the second Murderbot steps into the room and eliminates the threat, he goes off on it. And like, it's darkly funny on a lot of levels, yes, but also a sign that the terror's let up enough that he's 'allowed' to show anger. Whoever LBB represented to him that he was afraid to even look her in the eye, Murderbot clearly doesn't fall into the same category. He yells at it. Thank god, my man is yelling, he's gonna be ok.

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Murderbot episode 6 highlights (2 of 2)

Fanboy. Fanconstruct.

MB goes Swedish. Translation:

37% prestanda palitlighet · smorjning fel - 37% performance probability · lubrication error

Brick

joke

MB goes tsundere. Translation: I definitely didn't forget him on purpose.

In which every Gurathin fan wishes to be there to hug him 🥺🥺🥺

BOOM HEADSHOT

In which Pin Lee loses their shit which, relatable to me as I tend to laugh my ass off in situations I shouldn't

Once again, Gurathin ✨

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I wonder if the Murderbot show is going to do a reckoning with the fact that Arada and Pin-Lee also just killed the shit out of an enemy without negotiating because in the moment it was either that or die?

Like are we going to address the elephant in the room that is the fact that the enemy SecUnit was not less of a person than LeeBeeBee, or are we just going to let that sit because to the humans, it's different, even as they try and reckon with the issues surrounding their own SecUnit, and to our protagonist SecUnit it seems reasonable because eliminating hostile targets quickly and efficiently is just good sense?

Both LeeBeeBee and the enemy SecUnit were acting under orders from a corporate entity that owned them, and got killed by our heroes in defense of their friends. Is our SecUnit blowing off LeeBeeBee's head different from Arada and Pin-Lee landing the hopper on the enemy unit? Or does it just feel different?

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That one scene from Network Effect by Martha Wells.

Ngl, drawing that last panel was kind of satisfying. I wish I had skills to draw what happens right after but alas.

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That would explain a lot and I am onboard. Don't have much time left to resolve these arcs this season, but by the time of Exit Strategy? Maybe add more of what they're doing during Artificial Condition and Rogue Protocol? Hell yes.

Unpopular opinion but I actually like how the Murderbot tv show took each of the character’s primary personality trait in the books and is apparently making that the endpoint for this season’s character arcs. Meaning they’re not there yet, they gotta work for it.

Pin-Lee in the books is known to be confident with a take no shit attitude? -> in the show they have difficulties setting boundaries and speaking up about their wants/needs

Ratthi is effortlessly everybody’s bff? -> Ratthi is kind of trying too hard, he keeps inserting himself into other people’s business out of what seems to be a lack of self confidence he is compensating for

Arada is a peacekeeper? -> Arada sucks ass at reading the room and intuiting what other people want/need

Baradwaj is understanding and non-judgemental? -> She kind of thinks she knows better than other people, either in her field of work or about the CR vs Preservation

Gurathin is quiet but self-assured in his skills? -> he’s a big ball of nerves that doesn’t feel like he fits in and needs to prove himself

Mensah is calm and decisive? -> unsure and anxious

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George Tiller was murdered 13 years ago today (May 31 2022)

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I think what I love about Vontra is that you immediately pick up that she's an antagonist.

Spoilery bits below, mostly I'm rambling.

We spent this whole movie with characters being introduced as threats, they attack Roz, break her, steal peices of her, insult her. Roz is subjected to the brutality of the food chain every scene of the movie, but for the animals this is natural, this is normal. You eat others, others eat you, you fight to stay alive every day.

Roz's compassion in encoded into her, it's the human pack bonding that makes everyone in the film think she's weird, and she never loses this most human part of herself. Proof that she was made by human hands, it saves her and everyone else.

Except that it's a part of human kind that humans in power don't like.

The place that made Roz wants everything to be perfect, it's a city of the future, an oasis for select humans to escape what is slowly revealed to be a world in ruins from climate change, but we never see more of that except the passing scenery of destroyed cities.

Life is still growing, still thriving, and corporations are still building walled cities and promising the ultra wealthy a completely subservient servant class.

When the ship arrives to collect Roz, the ship she's been trying to signal half the movie, we don't know what to expect. Are they friendly? Are they here to fix her? She's been slowly breaking down the final half of the movie, leaking fluid, losing peices, shutting down as her battery depletes faster and faster. She gets fatigued, she uses a prosthetic, she goes days without moving.

She is disabled.

And down from this ship that is supposed to rescue her drops a peppy sounding companion who promises to 'fix' her.

Even though she is programmed to sound happy to put others at ease, as she states, you know immediately that she is Bad News.

The way she talks down to Roz, her manner of speech, her constant invasion of personal space, her pointed questions that are obviously accusations.

Yeah we all went "ooh toxic yuri >3" because we love queer coded villains getting flirty.

But it was also very obviously meant to feel violating, specifically similar to medical violation.

Roz was on display as a disabled robot, something in need of repair, in need of help, but Vontra saw her as something needing to be Corrected, not simply fixed but full factory reset, all the bits of her that are unique sent away to be studied.

Roz wanted help, she wanted to belong, she wanted to be repaired, but she also still wanted to be HER. However it's her disability that influenced her changes in coding, she needed to create her own updates to get around issues she faced, and it created a personality she enjoyed being.

She wanted a choice, but Vontra was programmed to see all deviation from the norm as something in need of repair. Roz wasn't a person in need of help, she was a defect to be collected, studied, adjusted, and put back out into production.

Respecting Roz, her boundaries, her thought process, even her willingness to be touched, it didn't even occur to Vontra. Because Vontra is a robot programmed to collect broken robots, and Roz is a broken robot.

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ok ok hear me out: when Roz is all covered in The Moss, she grows flowers in the springtime <3 (yes, this was just an excuse to draw her in a flower crown, but you KNOW im onto something here!)

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Funny how life works.

Funny how life works.