#danis (murderbot)

[specialagentartemis]

The Murderbot Diaries and Terminator: Dark Fate: What Does a Killer Robot WANT, Anyway?

The Terminator (1984) is probably the most famous killer robot in media, setting the image for a what a killer robot is.  It’s shaped like a bodybuilder, weapons built into its metal skeleton, eyes hidden behind cool and impersonal sunglasses, a threateningly “foreign” accent, and no feelings, no remorse, and no desires besides killing its target.  Kyle Reese describes it to Sarah Connor bluntly: “That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead!”  And the film supports this wholeheartedly.  We get a few scenes from the Terminator’s perspective, and they do not really indicate that it has much in the way of personality or free will.  It’s scary because it is a ruthlessly efficient, tireless, and analytical machine built to kill.  It will not stop until its target is dead, or it is.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) gives us a nice Terminator, a Terminator captured from its controlling Skynet and re-programmed to help Sarah and John Connor rather than hunt them.  This Terminator gives slightly more suggestions that it has a personality of its own, but ultimately it is still now ruthlessly efficient, tireless, and analytical in protecting its charges, but it still dies at the end in the course of fulfilling its objective.  It was, after all, programmed by the human rebels to protect John Connor, and it did.

Did the Terminator want any of that?  The second film halfheartedly cares a little, and the first film certainly did not at all.  It’s an irrelevant question.  It’s a robot; it’s incapable of truly wanting anything, it just does as it’s programmed.  It fulfills its objective.

In modern sci-fi, that’s not really a satisfying answer anymore.  It looks like a human, has human organic parts built into it, and it clearly has the ability to process large amounts of information and make complex and reasoned decisions.  Why do we write it off so thoroughly?  Does a Terminator like what it does?  Would it choose this?  What does a Terminator want?

The Murderbot Diaries (2017-present) by Martha Wells isn’t a direct answer to this question, but it sure is considering it.

The titular Murderbot is very similar to the Terminator: a human-form cyborg, a robot with human organic parts built in, a machine with guns in its arms made to do a job and that job being to protect and/or oppress humans.  But as a thinking, feeling, complex entity, it has opinions about that job.

You know what else is a clear response to early Terminator movies’ fundamental uninterest in the Terminator’s inner life and personal opinions on things?  Later Terminator movies.  Specifically Terminator: Dark Fate (2019).

The fact that The Murderbot Diaries and Dark Fate came out at roughly the same time, in the same sci-fi AI-story zeitgeist, looking back critically at the 80’s and early 90’s Terminator and asking, well, what would it do if it didn’t have to murder, who would it be if it had the choice, is telling.

The Murderbot Diaries stars Murderbot, a SecurityUnit owned by a callously greedy and corner-cutting company that uses such SecUnits ostensibly to protect but in reality to intimidate, control, and surveil human clients.  It calls itself “Murderbot” and all SecUnits as a whole “murderbots” for a reason.  The world of the books sees SecUnits as mindless killer robots kept in check by their programming, in a very similar way that the Terminator was presented in 1984. We see the story from Murderbot’s point of view: it’s snarky, depressed, anxious, bitter, funny, and very opinionated.  It also really, really hates intimidating, controlling, and surveilling people, and it specifically broke its own programming meant to keep it compliant so it wouldn’t have to hurt people.  Instead, it wants to half-ass its job and watch soap operas… but it’s sympathetic to humans in danger despite itself, and when it chooses humans it cares about, it will go to great lengths (ruthless, but very tired and full of fear and pity) to protect them.  What does it want?  To be given space; to not be given orders; to have the ability to take its time and watch its shows and determine what its job as Security means to it.

Terminator: Dark Fate takes a different tack.  (It’s actually about three badass women and I’m very sorry for focusing on the man-like character here BUT) Dark Fate presents an alternate timeline off the main series, where the Terminator succeeded in killing young John Connor.  Previously, we had seen Terminators that would not stop until they were dead; this one fulfills Reese’s other warning.  It will not stop until John Connor is dead.  Well…. it succeeded.  John Connor is dead.

Now what?

In the opening scene, we see this from his mother Sarah Connor’s perspective.  The Terminator appears out of time, ambushes and kills young John Connor, and then stands there looking impassively at the destruction it wrought while Sarah screams.

It looks cold and satisfied when that scene is first presented.  But when we see it again from the Terminator’s perspective, it seems to just stand there, staring stupidly, suddenly with no direction in life.  It fulfilled its objective.  It followed its programming.  Now it has no more objective, can receive no more orders, and its programming has nothing more to tell it to do.  It eventually disappears into the woods, learns more about humanity, grows a conscience, lives in a little cabin with a woman and her son fleeing an abusive husband in an apparently mutually very supportive relationship, chops wood, drives a truck, and gives Sarah Connor insider information to allow her to track down other incoming Terminators as a way of atonement.  It does have remorse, if given time to think for itself and realize it.  It doesn’t really want to hurt people, and even, similar to Murderbot, has a drive to use its strength and intimidating-ness to protect the people it chooses.  It mostly wants to be quietly and safely left alone.

Both the Terminator and Murderbot are killer robots left adrift, aimless, reeling, suddenly having to decide for themselves what to do with their lives for the first time.  Both are stories that circle back to the original Terminator premise and say, okay, but that killer robot isn’t killing for the sheer thrill of it, it was forced into doing that by a top-down authority in control of its programming.  That would kind of fuck someone up, actually.  It’s a hopeful narrative: these things are people, and they don’t want to be hurting other people.  When given the option, they just want to rest, make amends, understand the truth, find a place they belong, and see the people they care about safe.  And I think it’s fascinating that not only is smaller, literary sci-fi asking this question and telling this story, but so is the Terminator franchise itself.

We also just as blatantly see the evolution of Sarah Connor as a character.  In The Terminator (1984) the Terminator is sent to kill Sarah Connor.  When I was watching it recently with some friends who had never seen it before, they guessed—almost correctly—“oh, it’s because she’s the rebel leader in the future!”  Sorry guys, this is a 1980s mainstream sci-fi blockbuster.  Her as-yet unborn son is going to be the rebel leader.  That’s why the robots in the future need to kill her, before she gives birth to the hero of the humans.  Blech, I know. 

Over the course of the movie, though, she becomes tough, fierce, and brave, the type who can and will survive the apocalypse; in future movies and tv series (like The Sarah Connor Chronicles, 2008, where she gets to be the eponymous title character this time!), she gets to be a strong leader in her own right.  This is particularly true in Terminator: Dark Fate, where Sarah Connor is a tough, grizzled, middle-aged Terminator-fighter, who steals heavy weaponry from the government to track down and kill Terminators arriving from the future.  She becomes a mentor to the new woman being hunted down by the new Terminator threat, Dani Ramos.  This time, though, Dani isn’t fated to be the mother of the human rebel leader—she is destined to become the human rebel leader herself.  Along with Dani’s own Kyle Reese figure, a cybernetically-augmented human fighter from the future named Grace, women get central action-hero and rebel-leader roles in Terminator: Dark Fate, feeling like an awkward apology for the sexism inherent in the premise of 1984’s The Terminator.  (However, Dark Fate stops short of committing to the Dani-Sarah/Grace-Reese parallel and letting them be lesbians.  It’s still a mainstream action movie, I guess.)  We even see the development of a curt but resentfully respectful understanding between Sarah Connor and the Terminator that killed her son.

I lay this out because in the same way I see the literary DNA of the Terminator in Murderbot, I see elements of Sarah Connor in Dr. Mensah.  She’s the human protagonist—the one who would be the protagonist if All Systems Red had been from the human perspective—and feels like the answer to a similar question to “what does a killer robot want?”, namely, “what if, instead of enemies locked into battle to the death, the badass human and the killer robot worked together and came to an understanding? What if they could be friends instead of enemies?”  Mensah also feels like a feminist response to some of the issues I had with Sarah Connor—that she didn’t get to be the leader herself, that despite her own strength and tenacity being the mother to the leader was the most important thing she would do—and responds to them in a similar way that Dark Fate somewhat apologetically does. Mensah is the leader of her society (her planet).  Mensah is a mother and she is a scientist and a leader and gets her badass action-hero moments (MINING DRILL).  She is the first to reach out to Murderbot.  To ask it how it feels, and calm down the others later when they’re afraid; her relationship with Murderbot is unique.  She’s a foil to Murderbot in a parallel but opposite way that Sarah Connor is a foil to the Terminator.  And while in Dark Fate they are not friends (the Terminator did still kill Sarah’s son, even if it didn’t specifically want to) we see the same kind of desire reflected: what if they were at least allies?  What if they were working together?  How would that relationship go?  What kind of understanding could they come to, about what it means to be human and to be machine? It's a smaller part of the movie and they don't give a whole lot of answers, but it's there.

Both All Systems Red (and the subsequent Murderbot Diaries books) and Terminator: Dark Fate were released in a very different sci-fi zeitgeist than The Terminator was.  They’re both looking back, and reacting to it: Dark Fate directly, The Murderbot Diaries indirectly.  And they’re approaching the concept of the Terminator and its Sarah Connor figure with similar questions: What does the robot want, aside from its programming to kill, and if it could be freed of its programming to kill, what kind of relationships—with society, with the concept of self-determination, and with its human woman foil—could it potentially be able to develop, with that freedom?

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 2

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which the legal complexities are a bit overwhelming.

When they're out of sight of the B-Es, Murderbot takes its weight off Ratthi, and he asks if it's alright. It says it is, but Iris suggests it stay with them for the last router. MB agrees, and Art recalls its shuttle. MB hopes this might encourage the B-Es to believe they've left.

The original B-E team told Art's team that the new ship was a scheduled arrival, not in response to the beacon. Seth thought that was a lie, so they've been operating under the assumption that B-E have more reinforcements waiting at a nearby wormhole. Unfortunately, no support ship from Art's university has been as forthcoming.

"Phase I of Plan A: Get the Hell Out of Here" involved getting decontamination routines into the locals' MedUnits, so they can decontam themselves of the alien remnants. Everything was proprietary and antiquated, so it took longer than expected. At least everyone's level of paranoia about contamination was up to MB's standards, so they didn't have as much trouble as they might have.

Phase II is the legal case for independence, which Pin-Lee is also working on. To summarize without the technical details, B-E has to make a case that the contamination can be effectively sealed to colonize it, and if they can't, the old colonists become salvage. So, the next step is to ask the colonists what they want, but it's unclear who to ask as they've split into even more factions. MB recounts a conversation between Thiago, Karime, and Mensah about how the colonists have been dealing with what they did to each other. MB thinks they should first get somewhere they won't be corporate slave labour THEN deal with their feelings.(1)

The last router isn't too far, and by the time they get there, the other operation, that MB would have been monitoring security for before the redacted incident,(2) is in progress. Karime, with Three, have arrived at the second colony site, where the colonists went after they discovered the pre-Rim site's contamination. MB monitors things from afar.

Iris and Tarik start on fixing the router. MB thinks about how, if the shuttle failed, the humans could walk in the direction of the space elevator until Art's drones found them and it sent down another shuttle. Meanwhile, MB could walk in the other direction and… it tags the rest of that thought for deletion.(3)

MB notices that Three's body language is a little too stiff, and asks if it's running the human gait code. Three says it is, but makes some adjustments, and says it's difficult. MB says it's doing great. It thinks how they don't want the colonists to know Three is a SecUnit, because they'll still remember how intense Art was about bombing the planet to get its SecUnit back.

Art is monitoring everything, because it's still unhappy with its humans being on this planet at all. (MB shares a transcript of a conversation demonstrating how intense it was about it when planning all this. It then adds some context, describing how Iris explained its behaviour: Art has just been through a trauma, and will act out verbally until it's fully processed. In response, Thiago said Art just enjoys terrifying people, and Iris smiled politely and ignored the comment so they didn't have to fight about it. This makes MB realize in realtime that Iris is Art's Ratthi.(4) MB then clarifies that Thiago wasn't quite right: Art doesn't enjoy terrifying people, but it does enjoy getting its way, and terrifying people is one of many tools it uses to do so. But, Iris is correct that Art is still processing, and MB would worry about the fact that Art had such great success with arming its pathfinders, but it's got a lot on its plate right now.)

It's difficult to watch Karime go into this meeting, and it's almost as difficult to watch Three being so awkward, trying to be human. MB knows it must have been that awkward at some point as well, but that doesn't make it easier. They're meeting with Bellagaia, who leads Faction One who want to cooperate, and Danis and Variset, who lead Faction Two who don't know what they want or who to trust. Karime was the best candidate, not only as Art's best negotiator, but also as one of the least threatening-looking.

As the meeting gets underway and the nicenesses observed, Tarik is carrying the tools back to the shuttle, while Iris tunes into the team feed to watch the meeting, and Ratthi watches Tarik walking.(5)

At the meeting, Bellagaia tells Karime there's another colony here. After some confusion, she clarifies that she means another colony site at the pole, where there's some terraforming still going on. Art cusses, and when Karime clarifies privately, Art suggests maybe Bellagaia is intoxicated. They debate whether their imaging could have revealed it, but they didn't expand much past the terraforming equipment, so likely never would have seen it.

Bellagaia continues that they split when the contamination first became obvious. The equipment blocks some comm signals, so they haven't been in regular contact in some time. Then when the latest outbreak started, they worried about spreading it to a community that was never infected. Danis mutters that they only think the pole colony was never infected, and they could be dead by now.

Karime says they can go to the pole and ask them what's going on and warn them about B-E, but asks if B-E knows about them yet. Danis says Faction Two would never tell them, though Variset is less confident in that, and even Danis acknowledges subfactions might have done so.

Another human points out that the colony site wouldn't have been on the charter, because it wasn't meant to be a secondary site. On Art, Seth groans, and it takes MB a moment to figure out why: this means another revamp of the forged charter, while they're already running out of time.

More debate in the feed about how they missed the site.(6) The unnamed human is named, Corian, who uses vi/vir pronouns, and is the local historian and record-keeper. When Karime asks if there's anything else to know about the other colony site, Corian says contact ended twenty years ago, and there have been reports of attempted connections, but no verified contact since. The group was separatist already, so the lack of communication isn't so surprising. And, vi has no records of where the official site was set up. There were only rumours that it was in a cave system.

This leaves Karime a little visibly sunken, and the rest of the team visibly shaken as well. Karime asks if vi thinks it's another contaminated site, and Corian says either way, the problem is obvious.

Mensah taps MB in the feed, so MB loops her in as well. Some of the other colonists are protesting that there's no evidence of another contaminated site, but Bellagaia looks exhausted, and Karime's still just listening intently to Corian, though vi has little more to add.

Mensah had had time to review the feed video. She muttered, “Oh, you have to be kidding me.” Yeah.

=====

(1) A truly noble goal. Though, I'm not sure we'd be better off if more humans were able to detach/compartmentalize enough to do that. (2) Surely this can't last all book right? We have to get an answer eventually? (3) Even aside from its old traumas, Murderbot is dealing with such big fresh ones. It's so much. My poor blorbo. (4) This is one of the little quotes I was spoiled for, and I'm so pleased to find it in its original context. And, we haven't spent a lot of time with Iris, but I can see it. But, this also indicates a little bit of... Well, Ratthi's always been there, but Mensah's always been MB's focus-human. It's interesting that it considers Ratthi its primary human, since that seems to be Art's dynamic with Iris. (5) Another bit I was spoiled for, and WHO CAN BLAME THE GOOD PEOPLE OF TUMBLR?! (6) This is a little bit wearing on me, I feel like they're just repeating over and over to confuse and add tension? Also I don't remember mentions of air bubbles in Network Effect over the settlements… It's all just a bit odd to me.

[bethany-sensei]

I heard y’all wanted some aspec characters. Well maybe I can interest you in:

Tempest—arospec, first appears in Balances as… ok Tempest is kind of hard to explain, because he’s very lazy and also an extremely adept (read: ridiculously op) magic user, so calling him deuteragonist to the main character Akieryon would be inaccurate. Because he rarely has problems that he doesn’t solve in ten minutes or less often with bloodshed. He used to be a bodyguard, but he’s doing some light ambassador work these days. If you like Murderbot, you may enjoy Tempest as well.

Seikhiel—asexual, first appears in The Shadow Prince as a possible antagonist (though if you’ve been here long enough, you may already know him from Outside In). He’s a 5000yo Demonslayer who likes quiet nights at home with good tea and a good book. His entire world is about to be upended because there’s one particular individual who causes him to act without thinking, when really he’s old enough to know better.

Dani—aromantic, supporting cast in Balances. For a butch no-nonsense captain of the guard, she causes a surprising amount of nonsense.

[loquaciousquark]

4-Sided Dive Highlights - Critical Role C3 up to E32 (Sept 7, 2022)

We'll pretend this summary is timely, okay? This episode definitely came out yesterday and not three weeks ago.

Anyway! Tonight on 4-Sided Dive we open with Liam telling everyone about super creepy short story The Jaunt. Ashley Johnson lands host with a natural 20 and is joined by Liam, Marisha, and Sam. Ashley's opening host shtick involves her pretending to answer a phone and talk about the guests, and she makes herself laugh more than once.

What the Fuck is Up With That? The mini Divine Gate around the moon is very weird. Marisha is convinced it was a prototype because it existed pre-Calamity (the two missing gods were already missing by that time). Dani (and Sam?!) remind us that there are 12ish Prime Deities and nine Betrayer gods (previously eight before Vecna's ascension). Sam is convinced the moon gods are Betrayer gods and that those studying them are attempting to release them.

Liam says since the city on the moon existed prior to the Calamity, it could be super advanced. "It could be like San Franscisco in 1880! It could be Hoboken in New Jersey. Orlando!" Sam posits that perhaps the people come from a floating city swiped up during the Calamity, but Liam claim the moon was locked away prior to this. Sam shakes his head violently. "No! What the buh buh? Didn't the Divergence happen after the Calamity? Yeah. Dani's nodding. I'm right!"

Dani: The texts say the gods were banished before the Age of Arcanum, when the cities rose. Ruidus was already around during Avalir and any gods trapped there were already forgotten. However, we still haven't seen the texts ourselves, so we're hearing the information through the lens of third- and fourth-hand accounts.

Marisha thinks the flares are the people of the city trying to reach out to people to accrue followers and increase the gods' powers. Sam wonders if it's like an NK city where it's beautifully built up and no one lives. She wonders if the Shadowfell is involved.

Marisha also wonders if everyone Imogen sees in her dreams are people astral projecting to the moon. Liam wonders if they're in fact trying to keep the moon a secret and are murdering anyone who discovers the moon's power.

Marisha also points out that the two banished gods were banished even before the distinction was drawn between Prime Deities and Betrayer gods; there were no good or bad gods at that time. Is being Ruidusborn literal?

Everyone agrees Ira just wants to sow chaos. They talk about killing the other Ira in C2 and agree this is a different Ira. Marisha texts Matt to ask what his deal with that name.

FCG! What the heck! Liam always gives Sam one layer when he creates the characters, but he was surprised multiple times with this one. Liam and Sam both know the mechanics of the murderbot switch, but FCG does not. It's a similar mechanic to Caleb's issues with killing humanoids with fire in C2. FCG was one point away from the stress point threshold during the Deathwish Run. Sam did NOT know FCG was an Aeormaton. He guessed that perhaps Dancer wasn't his true maker, but left gaps in the story for Matt. He has NO clue who the "D" is who sold FCG to Dancer.

Ashley didn't know the time discrepancy existed between Fearne & Birdie/Ollie. However, Ashley did know her parents were perhaps not everything Fearne thought they'd be, as Ashley wanted to explore the dynamic of not having great parents for Fearne when she herself (Ashley) has wonderful parents. She does think Morri genuinely loves Fearne, and envisioned Morri creating the postcards for Fearne out of love. Ashley told Aabria that she didn't think the postcards were from the parents.

Sam loves the T1000. Ashley likes Hal. Roy from Blade Runner is Liam's favorite bad robot.

The Tower of Inquiry! Morning coffee cup slogans? For Laudna (from Sam): World's Best Dead. Fearne: It's not stealing, it's borrowing. FCG is his own coffee cup. Orym: Sun's out, guns out.

The Deep Dive! Orym thinks Imogen is intelligent and wise, but he's seen her give in to the dark side. He sees shades of Dorian and Opal in her and wants to encourage her to stay on course. Marisha thinks Imogen is the one most likely to be susceptible to her emotions. They wonder about what will happen with Imogen gets in front of Otohan, which they think will be soon. ;_;

FCG finds great joy in being therapeutic. However, the revelation that anything good he does was a Trojan Horse for assassination was crushing. Sam doesn't know if he believes FCG has a soul; is the glowing thing a heart, a soul, a battery? They dive deep into organic electrical signals and the nature of life and being alive.

Matt responds to Marisha's text. "What do you mean? I do not. Are people upset that sometimes people share a name in the history of the world? I am far from the only Matt." Everyone helps Marisha draft a comforting reply.

Lauda has a bit of arrested development when it comes to her dolls. Laudna genuinely thinks the dolls might be a bit alive since they saw marionettes come to life; it speaks to her childhood & her gullibility. It's hard to play a warlock and have them not be a little impressionable.

Morrigan being Fearne's grandmother was Ashley's idea. Her mom started building birdhouses from scrap during COVID, one of which was very fairy, creepy, hag-house-ish; "Morri" the name was also originally a 35-pound cat she used to have, so there's bits of that cat and her mom's birdhouse in Fearne's backstory along with horrifying Scandinavian folk tales, etc. Her mom has only seen a few episodes and doesn't really understand the show, aww.

FCG doesn't want to return to Dancer, but does want her approval. He wants the group to fix him so he can be friends with Dancer again.

Laudna is trying so hard to get away from Delilah, but Delilah is getting bolder and Matt is serving up more "juice." Marisha originally intended to go into more sorcerer levels, but feels with everything with Delilah it's truer to take warlock levels now.

Fearne was tempted to go back to the Feywild with Yu. At another time, she might have said "yes."

Liam has to balance his love for past characters with keeping the Bells Hells in their own story. He thinks Keyleth was actually closer to Derrig than Orym.

Tower of Inquiry, Redux! While pulling, Sam reveals his first name is actually Samuel Brent (his mom wanted to call him Brent) and his middle name is Oscar. This could be a joke, but he seems quite genuine. Part of his family still calls him Brent, ha!

Ashley has lost the notebooks with all their inventory. Oh, Ash. Favorite magical items? Portable hole, immovable rod, that love potion they used one time, Wand of Smiles, Deck of Many Things. For his home game, Sam made up some super nerdy glasses that raises your INT score by one for a few minutes.

Marisha pulls another Jenga block. The tower is quite trembly by this point. Everyone loves playing so carefully and meticulously around Fearne's chaos; Ashley's favorite thing is saying something and hearing everyone else go, "No, no!"

Liam goes up to pull a block AND DELIBERATELY PUNCHES OVER THE TOWER. Our editors give us a slow-mo triple replay and photoshop laser red eyes over his own. Gasp! First, the question: in a slasher movie, Orym would be the final girl & Laudna (or Chetney) would be first blood. Tower-toppling consequences: Liam must wear Laudna's hands for the rest of the show.

Marisha loved the conversation with Ashton about their fears. It was funny to have him confront her for being scared and then immediately admit to being afraid.

Crawl! This game is new to me, but they apparently played it on the show about four years ago.

Liam loves hearing about the characters from past campaigns. It's like hearing about all the cool things your aunts and uncles did.

Laudna is happy because Marisha was trying to make someone not defined by her trauma. She likes that she's moved past it in a lot of ways.

Sam loves the flat earth thing. He also decides in this moment that FCG also things the Chroma Conclave was an inside job. No one saw those dragons!

Holy smokes, I've hit a character limit for these bullets. Did you know there's a 4096-text-characters-per-block limit on tumblr? I sure didn't until now!

The moon has always been a thing of happiness for Orym for years, so to hear it's a secret ominous god-prison now has really messed with him. He had no idea the moon was going to be the center of the campaign when he created the tattoos. Aww!

Liam creeps up on Sam with his long spooky fingers and genuinely frightens Sam, which is HILARIOUS.

Laudna doesn't really doubt she was alive; she meant that in a more philosophical sense. She fears she's never been in control of her own life and has always been a pawn in someone else's schemes. OUCH.

Sam has been writing down quotes since the beginning of the game. He thought FCG would note them down as things he perceived to make you tick.

FCG getting opened up felt weird, but he liked getting answers.

Marisha wonders if she needs to do a sage ritual for her dice. It's fine, even though they're not rolling well. Ouch, ouch, OUCH.

Fearne's father's vision is just a bad dream to her. It's not real, so she doesn't need to worry about it.

Sam reveals the Flat Earth Society legitimately asked him if he wanted to be a member?! What!! He replied and told them that he didn't genuinely believe the earth was flat, so they wrote back and asked if they could send a membership card to FCG instead of him. Oh my gosh! This is so weirdly sweet and unsettling, ha! He hasn't replied back yet to the second request.

Liam fully expects to tangle with Artana Voe soon. Prescient!

Fearne gave the gnarlrock shards to Imogen & Laudna because if she gave them both rocks, it would strengthen their friendship.

FCG is a cleric with no obvious divinity. He doesn't know where his powers come from. Sam doesn't know much about the Changebringer, but he likes exploring things in characters he hasn't done in his own life, so he's wondering if FCG should perhaps turn to faith in this time of great tumult. Sam is also excited to get to high-level cleric spells that are not easy to reflavor as robot tech like summoning angels and talking to your god.

Ashley loves jazz and listens to a lot of her dad's old albums. She likes Brubeck, Miles Davis, etc.

Infinite money ad read: Sam jumps out of an airplane and reads the copy before he lands.

We end the episode with random-draw costume ideas to be worn on the next 4SD episode. Disco dinosaur, art school demon, garbage robot, laser werewolf, 90s mermaid. It's nearly spooky season, oooh!

And that's a wrap. Is it Thursday yet?

[wonkyreads]

JOMP BPC - May 31st: read in may

[ineedahugesticktobeatyou]

2022 Reading Challenge | A book with a character on the ace spectrum

14/40. Murderbot - Martha Wells

«Certe volte, anche se ti fanno un torto, non puoi farci nulla» le dissi. «Puoi solo sopravvivere agli eventi e andare avanti.»

I said, “Sometimes people do things to you that you can’t do anything about. You just have to survive it and go on.” [Murderbot: Artificial Condition - M. Wells]

★★★★✩

[em-dashes]

“What’s in Ornament County, anyway?”

A town. Some houses. Hopefully a graveyard.

“I think,” I say, “we’ll see.”

- YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SUDDENCE

> GENRE: road trip, superpowers, very low sci-fi. Firestarter meets Logan.

> THEMES: loss and grief

> POV: first person present tense (dual alternating timelines)

> TARGET WORD COUNT: 40k (novella)

> STATUS: first draft completed (23k words)

After losing caretaker Marisa, eleven-year-old Dany with hidden abilities will do anything--including hitchhike with a complete stranger--to reach Suddence, a little abandoned town in the middle of nowhere holding secrets, answers, and most importantly--closure.

Read More for how the story developed:

This project was originally two separate stories: SUDDENCE, a Midnight Special-inspired short film idea I had in university about a 10-year-old girl running away with a fellow cult member to free the monster living inside her head; and UNTITLED DANNY PROJECT, a comic idea about a superpowered kid losing their caretaker after years on the run and having to figure out how to go on on their own.

But both stories on their own didn’t really draw me in. SUDDENCE felt, well, too much like Midnight Special for me to invest in, and I just could never figure out how to progress UNTITLED.

Around April or May of 2021, after feeling particularly drained by my sci-fi project APHELION, I craved working on something simpler, on a smaller scale, but I didn’t know what I could work on. I picked up Murderbot around this time, and it hit me that a book didn’t have to be long and sprawling to be compelling. I could write a novella, just like Murderbot!

That led to me looking at my project ideas again, coming across SUDDENCE and UNTITLED. This time, a thought clicked: both stories had enough similar elements that I could actually just combine them to make one single story.

I took Zahiri the road trip driver from SUDDENCE, and Danny (now Dany for whatever reason) from UNTITLED. I mashed the two stories up, and that became this: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SUDDENCE. (I elongated the title because I felt the single-word title was too vague.)

I wanted to create a story that was less about the superpowers and more about The Journey and the relationships and Dany’s internal struggles and grief of losing a caretaker. If you’ve seen Hanna, that’s the kind of vibe I’m going for. There are still action scenes that showcase the main character’s abilities, but much of the story is also exploratory and mellow.

Anyway, I finished the first draft today! I started the document on May 17th 2021, so it took me almost exactly six months to get here (November 19th). Now I’m letting the story ruminate so I can tackle it with fresher eyes in the second draft.

C’est tout! I won’t be running a taglist for this wip because taglists have been stressing me out lol.

-Emily

[accidentalspaceexplorer]

Favorite Books of 2020

I read some really excellent books in 2020! Four of my top ten are romance novels, 4 of them are fantasy, and three of them are science fiction (since Harrow the Ninth is both sci-fi and fantasy). Despite reading twice as many fantasy books in 2020 as romance or sci-fi books, however, I ended up with a lot of romance novels on my top 10 list. My list tends to be about my investment and feelings in the book, so it makes sense that romance novels often inspired me to have many feelings about them. But I did think it was interesting!

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary: This romance novel deals with a lot of pretty intense stuff, and yet manages to be incredibly delightful! The set-up is unique and really lets us get to know the main characters on their own before diving into the romance, and I just loved it.

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir: I know not everyone loved the sequel to Gideon the Ninth as much as the previous one, but I was sucked in from page one. I loved trying to puzzle out all of the big and little mysteries of the book and guessing at the worldbuilding behind the curtains.

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert: I connected so hard with the main characters of this one, despite how different our lives are, and they were incredibly cute together! A delight even when it hit on difficult topics, just like its predecessor.

Network Effect by Martha Wells: I was so excited for this book and it did not disappoint me!! I think Murderbot really benefited from the extra time and space for plot and snarky comments that a novel allows for, and it was engrossing and hilarious.

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows by Olivia Waite: Another one of the sequels I was highly anticipating this year, The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows was a really fabulous romance novel that dug very deeply into the historical context it was set in. I loved the main characters, who felt very real, and I appreciated that they were older characters with more life experience under their belt.

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert: Yes, both of these books are on my favorites list! They’re really that good! Like Take a Hint, Dani Brown and The Flatshare, this romance novel deals with some pretty intense stuff, but it knows when to hit you and when to give you some adorable fluffiness to balance it out.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon: I’ve been eyeing this one for a while, since I love generation ship stories, and this one really didn’t disappoint! I found the story deeply profound and moving, and the setting is very well fleshed out.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke: If you had told me five years ago when I first tried to read this that I would be putting it on a favorites list someday, I probably wouldn’t have believed you, despite the number of people who raved about it. But after watching the miniseries, I dived back in, and I found myself spellbound. There’s a lot of depth to the world that is very subtly touched on, and I loved that! (The footnotes are great!!)

Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone: I’m really not surprised that this in on here, because I’ve loved both of the previous two books in the series! Full Fathom Five is where you can start to see the connections between the books, which I enjoyed, and the worldbuilding continued to be excellent and fascinating! I’m looking forward to the next one.

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett: I read this one quite near the end of 2020, but it gets a place on this list because I found the complexity of the worldbuilding to be deeply fascinating. Plus, I didn’t guess the mystery before the conclusion, which is always nice!

Honorable mentions to Beach Read and Because Internet, both of which are excellent, but didn’t get a spot in my top ten because I didn’t have quite as many emotions about them.

[souldagger]

x-men and murderbot...

answered murderbot but here’s xmen!! the character i least understand: i feel like i don’t really Get warren or daken for some reason interactions i enjoyed the most: any xkids interactions.. or emma or dani w their students 🥺🥺🥺 the character who scares me the most: so many of them have powers with Creepy Potential but i cant remember any that genuinely scared me atm fkjngk the character who is mostly like me: i dunno cess maybe hottest looks character: berto or monet 😌 one thing i dislike about my fave character: bold of u to assume i can choose a favourite xman one thing i like about my hated character: that he died <3 a quote or scene that haunts me: the entire limbo arc in new xmen for some reason oh my god. also yeah it's twelve a death that left me indifferent: please this is comics a character i wish died but didn’t: please this is comics pt.2 most of them have been dead at some point fkjngf xavier should’ve stayed dead tho my ship that never sailed: oh u know,

[atamascolily]

lily liveblogs “terminator: dark fate,” part five

HEY, time for our industrial end sequence!!  This time, it’s on a dam because we had fire and machinery in previous films, and we’re switching to a different element.

(this means that the next film would have ended with a FOREST fight scene, right? Right.)

[parts one, two, three, four]

The NPCs run for cover. I have no idea what dam this is supposed to be! It looks like Hoover, but I honestly have no clue where they are at this point.

Carl and the chassis are fighting in the water. Then the oozy metal part comes up and grabs him from behind! I hate it when they double-team like that.

Wow, they just barely keep from going over the edge there. Oh, wait, too soon...

Sarah dislocates her shoulder. Ow. Grace pops it back in. Sarah gets another "Fuck!"

The Rev-9 vaulting out of the water is just like in the beginning....

"No, no, Grace, really...?" YES GRACE. She yells back at them to wear their seatbelts!!! WOW... Sarah snarks back at her because what good is it if you can’t get a one-liner in right before you go over the edge into the abyss and certain death?

OH my god the Rev-9 on the windshield is so fucking scary right there they are UNDERWATER in the DARK aaaaaaaaah.

Okay, I'm not sure how if they would have survived that in real life, but fuck if that underwater fight scene isn't as cool as hell.

A legit complaint I've seen is that the bulletproof vests would weigh them down too much to get to the surface with the air they have, but... I mean come on, if that's your only factual complaint about this movie, I think they did a good job.

Cut to them on top of the dam again, wow that was fast. This scene with the three badass women battered and bruised and clinging to each other.. MY HEART. MY POOR HEART!!

Ah, here it is... Grace's power source! The EMP substitute I’ve been waiting for. Then Carl shows back up.. with a weapon for Sarah. Triumphant theme music. The whole family is here. Oh, and meds for Grace. YAY. wouldn’t want to pass out halfway through the climactic fight scene.

Wow, this functionally dysfunctional found-family is only together for like half a day and I need a million TV episodes about them STAT.

Oh, of course it's a hydroelectric dam...so generators!

Oh, hey, Grace gets her chains from the poster! Nice.

Murderbot bonding time! The Rev-9 talks to Carl: "You and I were built for the same purpose. And Legion is the only future." SO MANY FEELS ABOUT THIS.

"I know she's a stranger to you. Why not let me have her?" POLITICAL QUESTION OF THE MOMENT, KTHANX. But also proof that even though the REv-9 is good at mimicking humans and predicting humans, it still doesn't UNDERSTAND humans.

"Because we're not machines, you metal motherfucker," Sarah snarls. And I think we're up to six fucks for Sarah at this point? I've lost count.

Have I mentioned that the splitting Terminators are creepy? Have I? HAVE I? Because they are.

Oh, dear, Sarah Connor confronting her nightmare of flaming death murder skeletons again.

Geeeeee, I wonder if that turbine will do anything...

Oh, Grace is stabbed, I guess she's gonna pull the power source out and take him down with her... or not. But at least now Dani’s going to object way less about self-sacrifice, since she’s already doomed.

I don't know why the REV-9 goes back to one; I feel like he's stronger and fights better in two parts? But you do you, I guess.

Pretty sure it's not over yet because Dani still hasn't done anything against the REV-9 herself. Oh, good, and Sarah gets to relive yet another nightmare of a metal skeleton stalking out of the flames. ONLY THIS TIME IT'S ON FIRE, TOO. (I guess that's the polyalloy bits melting away??)

Yep, Grace is gonna sacrifice herself to save Dani from the REV-9 and remove her power source. Oh, wow, Dani has to stab her and pull it out herself. That's gonna cause some more trauma. Another round for everyone!  

Dani gets to go after the REV-9... but it goes badly, because drama. Sarah yells for Carl to wake up, and it works!! He distracts the REV-9 long enough for Dani to stab him in the eye with the power source and... I guess that sets it off???

[why the hell didn't they augment Grace with more than one of those things? Maybe Dani will fix that in the future when she gets there. maybe that's something to add in fix-it fics. And where did they get them? Did they take them from destroyed Terminators and weld them into humans?? What happened?? ]

Carl and the REV-9 fall into the abyss together, because OF COURSE THEY DO, because just when Sarah has learned to forgive/accept Carl as he is, she has to lose him because RULE #1: SARAH CONNOR MUST ALWAYS SUFFER. And the REV-9 rips his flesh off and they both die when the EMP goes off, and it mimics the lightning flash in the beginning.

Oh, so yet again, Sarah Connor has to stand and watch a Terminator she cares about die in a fire. GOOD JOB PACKING ON THE ANGST, PEOPLE.

"For John." OH MY GOD, WAY TO GO OUT IN STYLE AND ALSO MY HEART.

The difference between this and the first film is that Sarah isn't alone at the end. The difference between this and the second film is that Sarah and Dani are... not equals, exactly, but they are more equal than Sarah and John were at the end of T2. They're veteran and leader, not mother and son. Dani and Sarah understand each other in a way that no one--not even John--can because of what they've suffered and lost. The cycle repeats, and yet it’s subtly different each time

cut to Grace as a kid on a playground, oh now there's some loaded symbolism in this francise, lol. And there's Dani looking through the chain-link fence at her right on cue, like Sarah looking at her might-have-been kids in T2. Is this where the filmmakers got the idea that Dani is Grace’s “mother”? LOL, nice try, guys.

She walks over to the car where Sarah is waiting for her. It's a Jeep, just like the one she drove to Mexico in at the end of T1. She tosses Dani the keys and moves over to the passenger seat AND IF THAT AIN'T A STATEMENT, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS.

"I won't let her die for me again," Dani says. "then you need to be ready."

Dani puts the car in gear and they drive away down the eucalptyus-lined streets of the California suburbs where everything is green and tranquil and beautiful, and while the movie ends perfectly here as is, I can also see how they would have linked it into a trilogy like they'd originally planned. But alas, this is probably the end until the all-but-inevitable next reboot.

And THEN the credits roll, and we get the main theme at the end, and I jut have to say, it's not the same as in the other movies, where we had to listen to the whole thing first THEN we heard it in the film itself. But nobody has the goddamn patience for credits anymore, which is why Marvel started sticking bonus scenes in theirs to keep people in their seats.

...but wow are these credits long. Oh, well, the music's good and I learn random tidbits this way, like how the writers have little imagination when it comes to naming minor characters, and just give them the same name as their actors (Diego, Gabriel, Alicia, etc). 

sadly, all the deleted scenes and bonus content is on the blue-ray and not the DVD sigh.

So. Was this a perfect film? No. It was written by committee, and I think it shows. Did it deliver what I hoped for--Sarah Connor being a badass, snarky dialogue, and cool action sequences? Yes. Did I enjoy watching it? HELL YES. Will I be thinking/ranting about it for a long time. YOU BET.

Was it "necessary"? Of course not-but is ANY piece of art ever really "necessary"? Who cares! It was fun, and it was thoughtful, it was interesting to me, and it was wayyy better than most of the recent rounds of sequels and reboots. 

And to be honest, if they can make a bajillion Fast and Furious movies, and James Bond, and John Wick, and Mission Impossible and Karate Kid action flicks featuring men (not to mention Star Wars and remakes of every single animated Disney film AND a three-part Hobbit movie trilogy), I think I can enjoy a female-led action movie with zero guilt whatsoever without having to justify its existence to anyone.

(I can’t think of a single other action film with three badass female leads, who have complete character arcs and aren’t sexualized for the male gaze... and if there is, I want to watch it STAT)

[daeneryses]

I was holding out judgement on this season of GoT (lol no i actually wasnt) bc i was hping that SOMETHING would happen, something to make it make SENSE. but new leaks are here, and oh boy OH BOY

im gonna rant now

in my humble opinion, the fundamental problem of this season (and maybe s7 as well) is that all those characters that they cut out started to be important. You want a second dance of the dragons? fine, but you need fAegon.

 You want the RW to be avenged? we all do, but you need Stoneheart. You want a compelling clash of queens? You need Arianne. You want us to give a fuck about the Ironborn? we need both euron AND victarion. or fine, leave victarion out, but don’t try to merge him with euron who is on another league of villainy. that dude’s twisted.

fAegon’s importance to the overall story is ATONISHING to me bc i never gave a fuck about him while reading the series, but they really needed him to take out cersei before dany ever came to westeros, and then she can go all fire and blood on him AND THEN SHE REDEEMS HERSELF AND POSSIBLY DIES IN THE WAR FOR THE DAWN. IT WASNT THAT DIFFICULT FUCKING H E L L. EVEN WITHOUT THE YOUNG GRIFF, WHY DIDNT DANY OBLITERATE KL AND TOOK CERSEI OUT L A S T SEASON???? THEN SANSA WOULD ACTUALLY HAVE A REASON TO DISTRUST HER, AND THE CONFLICT WOULD MAKE SENSE. GOD I CANT BELIEVE THEY ARE SO FUCKING STUPID. 

DAENERYS WAS MEANT TO DIE FIGHTING AGAINST THE OTHERS, AS WELL AS HER DRAGONS, AND WE WITNESS THE DEATH OF BOTH ICE AND FIRE AND IT MAKES SENSE AND ITS HEARTBREAKING AF (FOR THOSE OF YOU FUCKERS THAT ARE LIKE “iF yOu ThInK tHiS hAs A hApPy EnDiNg U hAvEnT bEeN pAyInG aTtEnTiOn”) BUT IT STILL MAKES NARRATIVE SENSE.

OR FINE, DISCARD THE WHOLE FANTASY ELEMENT AS THEY HAVE BEEN DOING THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRETY OF THE SHOW. YOU CAN STILL MAKE GOOD THINGS. VARYS COULD HAVE PLANTED THE SEED OF PARANOIA IN DANY’S HEART WHILE HE WAS PLOTTING TO CROWN JON. THEN SHE STARTS LASHING OUT BC SHE SEES ENEMIES EVERYWHERE BC OF VARYS. AND THERE IT IS U HAVE A CONFLICT. 

EVEN WHAT HAPPENED LAST EPISODE WAS FIXABLE IF THEY HAD FLESHED IT OUT FOR LONGER THAN 1 AND A HALF EPISODES. 

god i was robbed of a whole seaosn of dark!dany CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT STORYLINE BEING PROPERLY HANDLED??? emilia would’ve KILLED IT, and i honestly think they would’ve been praised bc it was ballsy. but nah, i guess that disney money is too sweet to abandon.

im just too fucking bitter rn, the only thing that kept me from being like this was the hope that arya would have a nice fucking endgame but nah, she’s an antisocial murderbot who hates family and love. neat.

[sahibookworm]

I always have a feeling that I only gush about the same books all the time and I’m not very good at giving recommendations to other readers – but I’m actively trying to change that mindset. I even wrote a rec post for Jane Austen fans last year, and another one featuring books with book loving characters and I think they were well received, so I hope I’ll be able to do something similar in the coming months as well. But before that, I wanted to try out this wonderful recommendations book tag created by Ellyn @ Allonsythornraxx. Do make sure to checkout their blog for more such amazing bookish content and now let me get started…

Rules:

Thank the person who nominated you

Answer all the questions down below

Pingback to the creator: Ellyn @ Allonsythornraxx

Nominate 5+ bloggers to do this tag

*Feel free to not take the term ‘book’ too literally, please recommend graphic novels, comics and other works too!

1. Recommend a book from one of your favourite genres

YA Fantasy is one of my favorite genres ever and I could go on and on with my recommendations for it, but one book I really loved but don’t talk enough about is The Merciful Crow. This book has great characters, important themes, a very wierdly gross but interesting magic system and a beautiful love story. Can’t wait to read the sequel.

2. Recommend a short book

The Test is very short, just around 100 pages I think but the dystopian world it depicted and the way it completely blew my mind was brilliant. A total mindf*ck of a book that’ll make you question yourself.

3. Recommend a book-to-screen adaptation

I will always recommend the Lord of the Rings trilogy if I’m asked for adaptations. I think the movies are beautiful and brilliant and I could watch them again and again.

4. Recommend a book out of your comfort zone

This is How You Lose the Time War is a sci-fi novel which itself is not my usual genre. But it also has time travel and the writing is very lyrical and metaphorical which I usually hate. So, this is a perfect example of a book out of my comfort zone but it’s so so beautiful and made me very emotional while reading.

5. Recommend a book series

Just a few weeks ago, my answer to this question might have been something very different. But I discovered the Murderbot Diaries recently and I can’t tell you how much in love with it I am. This series is an absolute delight to read and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

6. Recommend a standalone

Steel Crow Saga is a very well written fantasy novel which has an expansive world, a great group of characters and some very important commentary on colonization and war. I thoroughly enjoyed it and just didn’t wanna accept that it’s a standalone. I really hope the author decides to write more books in this world.

7. Recommend a book you don’t talk about enough

You Bring the Distant Near is family saga at it’s finest. It’s so beautiful and emotional and just made me feel every single word. I know it’s been nominated for some awards but I still don’t think it’s talked about enough, and I’m equally guilty of that. Please read this book my friends….!!!!

8. Recommend your ‘staple’ book

If there’s one “book” you can associate with me, it’s the Mahabharata. So, in relation to that, my staple books have to be the Celestrial trilogy by Sangu Mandanna. These books are fun and intense and explosive and I can’t wait to read the finale.

9. Recommend the book/s that got you into reading

While the initial seed was the Mahabharata and other Indian epics, the book that got me into reading English novels has to be Sherlock Holmes.

10. Recommend 3+ bloggers who recommend great books

I’m so lucky to have a lot of friends who are always recommending me amazing books but the top ones have to be

Nandini @ Novels and Nebulas

Krisha @ Bookathon Blog

Dany @ Ambivert Reads

I Tag:

Krisha || Dany || Ahana || Shruti || Jane || And anyone else who is interested.

The Ultimate Recommendations Book Tag I always have a feeling that I only gush about the same books all the time and I'm not very good at giving recommendations to other readers - but I'm actively trying to change that mindset.

[atamascolily]

lily liveblogs “terminator: dark fate”, part four

In which Sarah Connor suffers for the cause in the most ironic way possible.

(one, two, three)

I've already waxed poetic elsewhere about the "My entire body is a weapon"/ "Save it for the ladies" exchange, but let's just say the Rev-9's claim of "Metal hip - two tours in Afghanistan" is a) a great manipulation, and b) might even be true - certainly the part about the metal hip is! And the "thank you for your service," / letting him pass through is just... the irony... I can't even...

(and also, this MAKES SENSE when you realize that Legion was designed to process people and manipulate/control them and THAT'S why he's so good at it).

Sarah Connor gets picked up by a smarmy dude named Officer Rigby. "You belong in your own private cage," he tells her. He's probably going to die soon, and we are not supposed to be sorry about it. (And meanwhile, some random dude yells in the background, "I want to go, too!" No, you don't. Trust me.)

Grace does not believe in bureaucratic bullshit. And she won't accept "detainees" instead of "prisoners". YASS. At least there's fresh meds for her.

Oh! I just realized why she steals the guy's clothes.. it's because nothing else would fit her. It's tough being so tall.

Grace pulls the fire alarm and Sarah recognizes an opening when she sees one and manages to kick Rigby in the groin and take him and both her guards down with both hands in cuffs behind her back. LEGEND. Kyle Reese would be so proud of her, especially since he pulled the same stunt back in T1 in the police station sequence. 

Grace starts opening doors and people rush to get out, oh please let this not be a slaughter.

The dude who was with them (Flacco?) slams the door into the Terminator's face and he gets punched into a wall for his trouble. I hope he survived...

The Rev-9 jumps UP into the rafters, holy shit, and is scrabbling over the metal fence like the Rev-7s in the future scene, and it's so a) predatory and b) so feral and inhuman... and that guard who sassed Dani looks terrified as hell as she faces him down.. and gets slashed for her troubles.

Slaughter ensues, but only people in official uniforms thus far... Every one of them is mobbing the Rev-9 and just getting stabbed.

Oh, good, they found a helicopter. Someone gets punched out the door after them, and you think it's the REv-9 who did it, but it's actually Sarah! YASS. Dani wants to wait for her and Grace wants to get away. Dani doesn't want to leave Sarah (hey, callbacks to earlier!) and jumps out of the helicopter with the gun as the REV-9 runs at her. Dani starts shooting the REV-9 which is very cathartic for her, but Sarah tackles her and pulls her into the helicopter. The REV-9 jumps for it, but misses, and falls the ground and just looks... annoyed despite having no expression whatsoever.

The REV-9's accent with the sheriffs is interesting. There's the same "good ol' boy" attitude as "That's a nice bike" in T2 and the same cut back to our heroes that speaks volumes.

Cut to a forest in Texas. I have no idea if this is botanically accurate or not because I have no experience with Texas flora. But there are pine trees and maple trees, I can tell you that much.

I like how Sarah and Grace are ready to draw when they knock on the door of this ordinary-looking house in the woods, and Dani just looks at them like they're crazy.

Hey, and it's the same music as in the prologue, as Sarah recognizes the Terminator! He says her name and she raises her gun to shoot him except that Grace intervenes and she hits the ceiling.

“My name is Sarah Connor, you killed my son, prepare to die...” No, okay, she doesn’t actually say that, but I’m gonna do it for her.

Sarah stalks off when they won't let her shoot the Terminator. Dani and Grace exchange a look, and Dani goes after Sarah while Grace deals with Carl (his nom de... paix, I guess). They have the ... "So you're a cyborg, too?" talk, which goes about as well as you can expect.

Poor Sarah looks so broken sitting outside alone. Dani uses her people skills to rally her. Sarah's admission that she never took photos of John is a) heartbreaking, and b) good tactics, especially given how previous Terminators used photos, and how the REV-9 uses facial recognition software.

Sarah's sarcasm as she contemplates Carl's family photos is biting and hilarious and poignant especially given what she just said to Dani (and how a photograph was what brought Kyle to her in the first place). MY HEART.

We are meant to parallel Carl's treatment of Alicia and Mateo with Sarah and John, and Sarah and Carl in "Without purpose, we are nothing". The irony that Carl understands Sarah in this way, and that Sarah has been getting her raison d’etre from a Terminator the whole time... way to lay on the pain, writers!

I've heard a lot of critique of this film claiming that Terminators just wouldn't act like Carl, and I think that's not accurate. What exactly do people think a Terminator WOULD do after they finished their mission instad? It's not like Skynet or Legion or whatever gave them any other programming, and we know from T2 they can't self-terminate. So what are they supposed to do, just stand there??

Even though Carl doesn't have his chip removed the way the T-800 in T2 did, Terminators are very accomplished at learning and mimicking humans. They are adaptable. And I think the filmmakers are right that the T-800 would try to find a new mission--paralleling the old one--to give his life purpose. I think this is a very plausible plot device, and also a great opportunity for irony and parallels, which this franchise thrives on and I personally love.

(There's great fic from Carl's POV on A03 by Tyellas that expands on this that I LOVE, so you should all go read it RIGHT NOW.)

I also LOVE the growing parallels not only between Sarah and Carl, but Carl and Grace that the film keeps emphasizing YASSS.

Sarah is NOT PLEASED to learn she's been manipulated the whole time by the robot who killed her son.Understatement of the year. I was wondering when she was going to shoot him!

"Do you believe in fate, Sarah?" OW, MY HEART.

Oh. Interesting. So when Sarah destroyed Skynet, she released Carl from his programming, thus allowing him to learn?? Okay, I'll buy it. Which means that Carl was released at the same time as the other Terminators in all three films (though we get into the simultaneity problem, but that's a headache for another time). It's plausible if I don't think too hard about it, so I'll buy it. I wish people would stop calling plot elements they don't like/agree with "plot holes". That's... not what it means.

[so who is sending the other terminators? Are they from Legion or Skynet? what is their purpose? Since Sarah is a wanted woman in America, it makes sense if she was killing Terminators in Mexico, which makes me wonder if she's been protecting Dani until now???) I have a feeling the film will not answer this question.]

There's a dog curled up at Carl's feet when they cut to the next scene. This is NOT a plot hole, as some people have claimed. This is actually a clue that Carl IS as human as he claims to be... i.e, he seems to have mastered whatever subtle cues that makes the dog recognize him as human, and not a foreign predator. Obviously, YMMV, but I don't see it as a plot hole.

The secret storage armory is de riguer for a Terminator film, but I also enjoy the deadpan social commentary about human barbarism coming from a reformed murderbot. "And also, this is Texas." He's definitely living in the right state for that.

Wow. The training lesson at the shooting range was everything I could have hoped for. I love Sarah's wry smile as the watermelons explode.

OF COURSE SARAH CONNOR "KNOWS A GUY" with an EMP, lol...

Kudos to Carl for getting his family out of the way and for preparing him for this day. But it's clear he won't be back.

... how about that leather jacket and sunglasses? because he's about to start being way less human and way more machine.

oHHHHH he leaves the sunglasses behind, I was NOT expecting that. NICE WORK.

hello rev-9 smashing the family photographs, that's not symbolic of anything at all.

Hey, did they take all the guns with them or is the REv-9 going to use them against their owner?? was leaving the photo of the van on the fridge intentional? Too early to tell! Either way, ironic given Sarah's caution with photos earlier!

Sarah's withering expression as Carl lectures about interior design is GOLDEN.

I now want a road trip movie about this dysfunctional found family. I cannot believe they are only together for less than 24 hours. Thank goodness for fic.

"I don't commit treason for just anybody," is such a great line and one of my favorites in this film.  

Of course the EMP is probably going to disable/take out Carl AND Grace AND the Rev-9 because that's just how this kind of movie works, but there you go.

Sarah telling Carl to shut the fuck up is GOLDEN, they work so well together. Mommy and Daddy, indeed.

AHHH, the major bringing them the EMP on the sly gets shot. It's tough being a minor character in these films. Dani pulls him into the van but I can't help but notice in that position he's a human shield.

Okay, so leaving photos on the fridge was NOT intentional... maybe Sarah should have had an op-sec chat with Carl about that??

Oh, hey, the flesh-like bit of the REV-9 jumped out of the copter while the chassis keeps flying. That's a neat trick. And the moment where the fleshy bit jumps in and they merge is always cool.

Okay, so they're going to the air base. I guess another fight is in order. Ah, this is where the planes are coming in. Apparently, Grace is piloting. That answers my question from the trailer.

They just run the van right up the ramp and the Major is there to take awkward questions. "District contractors" indeed. I hope he'll survive this movie, but I have my doubts. Oh, he's not going with them - I don't know if that increases his chances or not. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF RELATIONSHIP DO HE AND SARAH HAVE ANYWAY??

They didn't bother to close up the back before taking off??? Wow. Okay, I guess that works...

Carl uses himself as a shield for Sarah, which just makes her mad...

The Rev-9 flips out of the burning helicopter onto the ramp, and Carl just takes him down and shoots him. It doesn't take, but it's pretty glorious. SARAH AND DANI ROLL THE VAN OVER HIM OH MY GOD.

Needless to say, I'm pretty sure the Rev-9 will be back... in an EVEN BIGGER PLANE.

Oh, so the EMP is dead...? Maybe they can improvise something.

Flasback! Dani beats the punks that are harassing Grace and talks the last guy into not shooting her because "this is what Legion wants us to do". FUCK YEAH.

"FUCK FATE" is basically the motto of this series (and a slightly more concise, if vulgar, reframing of "no fate but what we make for ourselves" or "no fate" in T2).

OH MY GOD THAT LOOK ON FUTURE!DANI'S FACE WHEN SHE RECOGNIZES GRACE...

"You are the future" - okay, this is very moving and dramatic, but I feel like Grace should have mentioned this back on the TRAIN why the fuck did she wait this long.

"You're John..." Sarah gasps... and just adopted a kid. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, Y'ALL. Carl was right, she needs a purpose or else she’s just going to self-destruct.

YESSSSS, I love it when movies answer my questions: apparently future!Dani told Grace not to mention it earlier, because younger!Dani wouldn't be able to handle it. Ah, the ouroboros of causality... I'll buy it, but I still think the film would have been stronger if they had had this conversation earlier on the train.

plane vs. plane hijinks ensue. Grace puts the ship on autopilot so she can actually do stuff. There's a lot of flailing as the ship starts to explode. The REv-9 climbs aboard and uses his oozy bits to rip all the flesh off Carl's hand. There's a humvee with a parachute, but the way the scene is laid out, it's kinda convolunted, but okay.. ... They bust the door open so the humvee can drop out. Carl pins the chassis to the plane but the oozy bits escape and go running free towards them. The plane explodes seconds after the humvee pulls free and parachutes to the ground.... okay.

Sarah Connor's "Aw, fuck," as they land on the hydroelectric dam is GOLDEN.