#PresAux

[cooking-with-hailstones]

Murderbot 1x07 thoughts

Man, they're REALLY driving home the parallels between secunits and leebeebee, and not even trying to be subtle about it.

The moment of reckoning, where they were getting ready to acknowledge and process what happened with leebeebee was interrupted by worm attack (oh Arada you big beautiful nerd I love you so much), and we never got that tension resolved. Mensah is trying but the team is so rattled and Gurathin you're NOT HELPING. (Sidenote I think it's so interesting how deadset he is on secunit being the biggest threat to them! Even after it saved his life. Even after all the evidence. He's still so paranoid and jealous that he cannot see or flatly refuses to see that Murderbot is everyone's best and maybe only chance of survival.)

Anyways, then we get another secunit attack, and very clearly they're outgunned. (Great intro to that scene btw. "That's when I learned that more advanced secunits can jam my threat assessment" - BOOM attack! Nicely done.) The only reason they win is because the secunit destroys the worm eggs and it comes back and RIPS ITS HEAD OFF - see what I mean? PARALLELS. NOT SUBTLE.

And of course, what do they do? They cheer! They're jubilant. And we get this lingering shot of the other secunit's broken faceplate, the rictus of pain and fear on its dead face. And murderbot stays and looks at it for a while.

It too was a person. And for all the PresAux team (minus Gurathin) claim to see Secunit as a person, they don't yet. Not really. Mensah is getting there. But the rest of them are still like "awwh we adopted this sweet kicked puppy from the dumpster WAIT SHIT THE DOG ATTACKED SOMEONE OH NO"

(BOOK SPOILERS FOR TV ONLY PEOPLE UNDER THE CUT!!!)

I think this makes murderbot's decision to leave at the end of this season make more sense to the audience. Because the team isn't ready for it yet.

"You don't actually see me as a person. You don't see constructs as people. And I need to go figure out how to be a person and I can't do that if you don't also think of me as people, and only think of me as this kicked dog that you rescued from a dumpster. I don't want to be a pet that you have to rehabilitate and civilize"

Except it would never actually say that or articulate that in that way but, you know what I mean. That's the vibe.

[thesparkinthefire]

I love the conflict PresAux is in. They want to see Murderbot as a person - a abused and traumatized person learning how to interact with others. But they also see it as a robot that will kill people if they so much as indicate to be a threat. They call Murderbot a part of the team and then question if it actually is part of the team. Does it want to help them get out of thid alive or is it trying to escape for its own sake?

"Hell yeah we blew up an evil SecUnit that was about to kill us!" vs "Oh no Murderbot killed this person, who threatened to kill us :(" vs "Hell yeah the evil SecUnit who tried to kill us got it's head chewef off!"

[needlesandnilbogs]

thinking about my summer research group, and while that's math research not fieldwork for science, there's still kind of the same vibe as the original network effect or asr surveys --- we're in this together with not many outsiders hanging around the physical space we're in, we spend most of the day in the same physical space, etc

but also, group chat. i want presaux group chat that's 25% logistical updates (running late, feeling sick, can you let me into x space), 25% pictures of the chalkboard/whiteboard from group discussions or other saving/sharing progress, 25% group troubleshooting of code, and 25% people dropping random related resources and notes and code snippets and stuff that might vaguely help out

and also i really want the private dms between any two of them (especially either arada and overse or arada and ratthi) that's just whining about more and more highly specific work things, mixed in with the usual best friend private chat stuff like one-sentence life updates, random incomprehensible-to-outsiders stuff, memes/spinstagram spreels, complaining, etc. bonus points if that chat is spread across at least three platforms and occasionally spills into the group chat

[teamage]

A piece I did for 2025 Murderbot Diaries New Year Gift Exchange (@mbd-gift-exchange) for @kungsljus. They requested holiday convention stuff inspired by the celebration in Network Effect (but with Murderbot having a good time) or Murderbot enjoying nature with anyone out of its friend client group. So here it is, celebrating and being involved in its own way.

The wizard robot in the upper right media corner is Kungsljus's D&D OC.

The picture was originally in monochrome because of the deadline, so I'm adding it here too.

Best viewed in browser, the details may get lost otherwise. Also on AO3.

Enjoy!

[ineedlelittlespace]

PresAux really went through it in Network Effect.

[ytsenohhero]

ep 7 is honestly so good bc there are so many little personal touches that they're giving to all the humans that are so charming and satisfying and hilarious and real

[crabs-brencil]

another sketch spawned in the discord lmao

[marypenelope]

I am, at best, conflicted about the Murderbot series thus far.

There's plenty to be said about how the queer aspects (the polyamory and MB's pronouns especially) are being handled awkwardly at best, not to mention how the eye contact scene was extremely ableist.

I could also complain about how they took the boring route of making Sanctuary Moon a Star Trek rip off when the actual show as described in the books is about a colony, not a ship of explorers or whatever. There's plenty of little details I could nitpick about

But I think, representation issues aside, there are 2 things that really bother me

First is the way PresAux is treating Murderbot. In the books, despite not always knowing how to behave around it or interact with it, the team nevertheless always respected it as a person. For them to go so far as to have Gurathin (who never liked Murderbot, but still never treated it as an object) to openly and blatantly state his intention to have it melted down for scraps after the mission, and no one to call him out on him literally planning the death of a sentient being??? That's insane. I don't care if we've added in some CorpRim backstory for the guy, that is not something he would say or that PresAux would let him get away with saying.

The second issue I have is about the shows composition/presentation/whatever its called. I think they had a great way to push things being from Murderbot's POV by explicitly using the security cameras and drones to frame how the show was shot overall. I think it would have been more interesting visually, and I think it would have better fit the narrative. I mean, with the drones especially you could have basically all the regular ass shots that are already in the show, just throw in that bit of worldbuilding about where the video is coming from! Yeah, it'd mean they have to get a bit more creative about it in later episodes/seasons, such as when MB doesn't have a ton of access to security cameras or when it's drones are destroyed, but at least that's interesting!

Sigh.

I did actually mostly like Skarsgård's performance, though. It was a bit over the top, but really conveyed just how awkward Murderbot is in basically any situation where it has to interact with others. I also like that the show blatantly displays MB lifting social scripts from Sanctuary Moon.

I don't know. I'm going to keep watching for now, but so far I'm honestly disappointed

[specialagentartemis]

At the inspiration of the Murderbot Discord community, especially @blessphemy, I made a little Murderbot Diaries zine!

PresAux’s Favorite Foods, as described by themselves. A combination of headcanons about the characters and Preservation food culture, and inspiring myself to draw fun little things with my range of nice markers again.

[cooking-with-hailstones]

More Murderbot 1x06 thoughts...

Also connecting thoughts to this preview clip from episode 7

While PresAux is, understandably, completely freaked out by Murderbot shooting Leebeebee's head off, the crew has to acknowledge their own hypocrisy in their reaction.

Because if Secunit is a person, then the evil survey secunit that attacked them at deltfall was ALSO a person. And Mensah stabbed it with a mining drill and Arada and Pin Lee squashed it with a hopper. And they were all pretty jubilant about it!!

Now, Murderbot was pretty wigged out from the combat override module while that was happening, so it might not have noticed their reactions. But... at the end of episode 6, when everyone is crying and screaming and throwing up (literally), it thinks to itself: "in the media humans would cheer and be thankful when they were saved. But these humans didn't look happy or grateful"

Murderbot is not unjustified in wondering why it didn't get a similarity jubilant, excited reaction to killing Leebeebee as when the team killed the Secunit. And I think that's something the PresAux team is going to have to think about a lot, and hold in tension with their revulsion and horror at Secunit's actions.

[agentem]

Emily watches “Murderbot”

Okay so I didn’t know they were dropping more than one episode so I only woke up early enough to see one and will have to get to the others later. I thought it wasn’t as good as I had hoped but wasn’t as bad as I feared? I am not sure that makes sense.

I love books. They are my favorite media, but I am aware more people like movies or TV so to get people to read the books, you need a good adaptation to act as a sort of commercial for the books? That way more people join the fandom and you can have ALL THE MUTALS (or make all the money if you are the author, I suppose). It just gives a general idea for people who will never read? Like Spark Notes.

I feel a lot of people in fandom get into the weeds of “the adaptation is not exactly like the books” and I feel you have to let that go. It will never be the case. (Again, I think the books will always be better. No matter how good the adaptation. Unless the book is bad or has holes to begin with.)

So to me this is kind of like my blorbo. It’s another SecUnit going through very similar things to the one I read about… but it’s a different individual. Maybe I will call it “Two” since we already have a Three.

Some spoilers

I was very upset the scene in THE RISE AND FALL OF SANCTUARY MOON that it took inspiration from was a romantic scene between a human and a bot. I thought it should hate that.

I also thought the cold open needed to cut immediately to it sitting and watching TV in its cubicle before cutting to the credits.

I like the SecUnit’s voice over better than the scenes where it interacts. I know those are supposed to be awkward but I want them to be more fun awkward? Is that a thing? The parts most interesting to me are about the PresAux crew that wasn’t in the books. Everyone has a funny name for Gurathin. Their dancing. When they all huddled and Gurathin was embarrassed.

Some of the actors are a bit stiff (Pin Lee, Bhardwaj) I hope they get more comfortable in their roles as it goes on. I read a review that said the first three episodes were slow but the later ones were much better so I will hold off on a final judgement.

[crabs-brencil]

been too ao3author-pilled to draw recently but art recap i guess lmao, featuring almost every tmbd character, atla soka, dbh connor, tsp, and one (1) nameless oc

[ueeyasu]

two of em

[mayasaura]

Favorite moment in the first Murderbot book what when someone—I think probably Ratthi?—was outraged on Murderbot's behalf, trying to explain either to or around it that its situation was unfair and slavery which is bad, and Mensah shuts him down with, "You think it doesn't already know that?"

That was when Mensah completely won me over. How clearly she understands Murderbot's full personhood; not just as a sentient being, but as a rational adult capable of understanding its own life and the injustices done to it.

[ao3cassandraic]

Doylistly... this would require the entire production crew, writers included, to forget that they suited up an actual human being in the blue SecUnit costume.

Which really, really doesn't seem likely to me.

I think Blue SecUnit's death will be coming back around. Maybe as one of those awful delayed-reaction mental wrenches when (probably) Arada just... realizes, and crumples. Maybe Murderbot tosses off another bit of snark about it, which would alienate it and them even further. Maybe they try to scapegoat Murderbot and either it or Mensah points out (less or more gently) what hypocrites they're being. (Possibly even Arada, if the millipede re-enters the conversation.)

Spoilers for the released e7 teaser (which, now I look at timestamps, OP hadn't seen when writing this):

"I want them to get past the violence," Mensah says. I think she isn't specific because she means all the violence.

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?