#ep 4 cabin fever

[hisuian-history-makers]

Pre-Episode 4 Theory

Post Episode 4 Theory

I knew I was right to be skeptical about Uzi going full Murder Drone! But wow—there is a lot too unpack with what this one introduced.

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First off, what’s wrong with Uzi’s classmates? Why were they so afraid of her when Doll was going all prom murder? The first time I slightly get cause they were surprised by her speaking a bit suddenly. But the second time? They all saw Uzi exit the tree lining before she spoke!

Unless it’s right in front of them—they barely react/register tragedy, going as far as to play it off as a joke. I thought Lizzy was a singular case due to being best friends with Doll. She at least seemed far more nonchalant about killing off her classmates. And she isn’t even AS infected!

The promo showed who was going to be killed.

Once again, I’m reminded these are robots trying to mimic human society. Their emotional intelligence is pretty poor overall considering they barely react to deaths afterward. Following mob/herd mentality, no continuous sense of self-preservation, and having very loose morals.

The fact they found more comfort in known murderers is concerning. Makes me wonder how their parent's generation even survived.

(Also, it was Nori’s idea to create the doors and not Khan's? “Build doors against the coming sky demons!–The singularity awakens...”)

—

Two; How in the world can Uzi’s AbsoluteSolver create organic matter?! I was under the strong impression that it used nanites to affect general things. Yet this is on a completely another level.

Something which her mother seemed to be aware of. Uzi made f*cking bat-like wings and a mouthed tail out of nothing. People appear to be debating whether she was fully herself or AS crazy during that scene in the ep comments. It. It could either way to be honest. We see her puke up (streaming) oil from Daren and look at her oil-covered hand in horror. Her eyes/visor flickering between a Murder Drone X to high temperature warning to AS symbol in one eye.

And yet she goes into murder mode pretty quickly. Laughing eerily similar to V from Ep 1.

She tricked V by begging to speak to N, then during the falling talk was clearly in full control of herself. I hate the Absolute Solver program.

—

Sidenote, We see how V has indeed been hiding things. “New body, same horrors, huh, Cyn?” Who from a very brief flashback from N is the fourth yellow-eyed drone Tessa restored. We kinda knew about her from the beginning since we see “Absolute Solver attempt block by Administrator CYN.” post-reboot slap. She had the AS symbol plus the large distended mouth in the flashback. She—she had a human arm in her mouth showing it off to N (I think.)

How she maintains an Administrator position in the JCJenson corporation—shown to hate rogue/free-thinking AIs—I’ll never know...

Another, or the same arm, was shown in a chandelier a few seconds after. The flashback ends with what I believe to be a black hole in the sky. Or maybe a blotted out sun?

Red eyes were visible when N fries that monitor touching the buttons. Except for them being rounder than a drone’s so we can rule out Doll.

—

Thirdly. There was more to Nori than we could imagine given the little bug recognizing 02.

Register Torture Chamber complaint??? Either Nori used torture chambers(!) on other drones or was subjected to one. She seemed to have a descent into madness after the core explosion. If the box of “Family Memories before Nori went Kooky & Insane” was any indication. I did miss that when I first watched the episode...

Nori didn’t just see the three Murder Drones, she saw countless descended from the sky that the doors were her idea in the first place. There are so many questions we can ask about this: Did Nori and Yeva know about the Zombie Drone thing? Did they not use their abilities in public to avoid turning as Uzi does? Will Doll eventually turn—or is it only older AS “02”? How often did Worker Drones turn into Zombie Drones back on Earth that there needed to be a training tape about them? I really hate AS.

—

4th—AbsoluteSolver does indeed cause the same overheating issues in Murder Drones. It feels nice to get a confirmation for this since we could only speculate. Uzi burns in sunlight now. She can regenerate like a Disassembly Drone too. All while still having wings, a stinger/mouthed tail, and the AbsoluteSolver abilities. The purple protagonist has the programming to become a far deadlier AS/Murder Drone hybrid.

Took down V like it was barely anything. Where did her new wings and tail even go when N caught her? Do they fold into her body like the Murder Drone's own ones do?? Her tail??? I thought J’s AS heart-thing was fleshy cause it used human ribcage remnants. Clearly, we know otherwise that it becomes an extension of advanced AbsoluteSolvee users... What did Cyn/Tessa/JCJenson create? (nightmare fuel)

—

Lastly, character growth! Uzi showed her softer side and insecurities in this episode. N appears to be losing his doormat qualities defending himself. V’s still mean—but worried mean~ She is looking out for N, and very afraid for them.

Glitch and the crew really stepped up their animation ability in this episode. Characters are far more fluid. We see their expressions range, the episode was less joking to bring home how serious Cabin Fever was. At least more so compared to the other three episodes—nice.

More in the tags. >>>>>>>>>>>>> 2nd Post-Ep Four Theory

[velvet-vox]

The insane, untapped potential of Rebecca from Murder Drones.

Hello Murder Drones Tumblr. My name is Markiplier, and I'm the fastest man alive.

To the outside world, I'm a regular Reddit user hiding in their mother's basement, but secretly, I've done nothing except consume Rebecca content for the past 72 hours, with only one objective in mind: spread the truth about this one, singular character that I didn't give a single damn about to convince you that she could have been someone important in an alternate universe.

To do so, I had to consult the classics. Rewatch the entire series again, hogging the murder drones rebecca tag, checking out her Wikipedia page (which has to be rewritten by the way, cause it sucks), create a new Rebecca centered gallery on Pinterest, and stalk the channels of her main worshippers, all in the name of my research.

Once I had collected enough data and ideas, I was finally ready.

Today, I'm going to shed light on some unknown traits and misconceptions surrounding the character, all the while showcasing all the ideas that I've gathered that would have made Rebecca a more prominent part of Uzi's and maybe even N's development.

This was by far the hardest undertaking I've ever imposed upon myself in the history of this blog. Please, enjoy the following content at your own risk and expense.

Chapter 1: The Origins.

Some context for those of you who are uninitiated in the Becca cult, Rebecca is this girl:

She's a minor side character inside of episode 3 and 4, and a background character inside of episode 2; she's infamous in the community for being a "bully" and trying to steal N from Uzi while already dating and making out with other classmates.

Despite never committing genocide and being the only member of the cheerleader trio to not have been responsible for anybody's death, she's pretty hated by the fanbase at large or plainly forgotten/dismissed, at best people just don't care about her and see her as just too unimportant to be hated, at worst they kill her in the most gruesome of ways or accuse her of racism, homophobia, eccetera (before killing her, of course).

Although pretty unpopular, she still has her own niche of fans who gather up at the table to worship her; furthermore, there are a lot of fanarts from people who don't even like her where she survived the events of Cabin Fever but is now disabled and confined to a wheelchair.

The reason behind such treatment is due to the fact that Rebecca has committed five of the worst cardinal sins a fictional character can make: being an obstacle to the most popular ship in a fandom; being mean to a fan favourite such as the main character without any clear motivation; being annoying by proxy according to other characters reactions without doing anything to disprove it, thus reinforcing the idea in the audience that you are annoying; being unimportant to the overall story without having any obvious redeeming or interesting qualities while being perceived as graving in each and everyone of your few scenes; and, of course, being a woman.

But besides all that, whose mostly common knowledge, what else is there to say about Rebecca? What are some of her less noticeable traits and characteristics that make her worth it of an analysis and a rewrite to better include her inside the plot?

Well, unfortunately, the answers are not as uplifting and as satisfying as Rebecca's stans were hoping they would be. Even in an alternative universe, I doubt she would really be as important as some of the other characters, more so an important character for Uzi's development. Maybe even N's.

But don't let this statement fool you into safety: I genuinely believe canon Rebecca is simultaneously so much better and so much worse than the community believes her to be. Rebecca is as much of a freak as Uzi, but not in her obnoxious, extroverted way, nor in Doll's sociopathic, introverted way: she's their uncommon middle ground who somehow manages to be more messed up than the both of them in certain aspects.

Chapter 2: "The quirks"

Upon commencing my research, I've quickly realised that I might be even more unnerved by Rebecca than I was with Yeva, and it's all due to the fact Rebecca facial expressions and body gestures might be the single most obtuse and undecipherable details that Liam has decided to insert into the background of his story. You probably don't understand what I'm talking about because you haven't been losing sleep at night like I did, but let me show you the pictures:

Noticing anything wrong?

Everyone else upon seeing V is immediately frozen in terror or just surprised by the Disassembly Drone presence, but Rebecca instead just looks mildly.... annoyed? Intrigued? It's hard to tell by the image's shots alone but the only time where Rebecca's facial expressions change to the shocked looks of the Worker Drones on the right is when Lizzie says her infamous line and socially excluses her from the popular kids table.

There could be more to say about Rebecca's following lines "Fine, I forgive her! Settle." and how they don't really mean what you think they mean, because, just like we are going to see in a moment, Becca really doesn't give a damn about murder, in some ways, even more than the other Workers, but I haven't found a single more compelling meaning besides, you know, Rebecca's family, which we are soon going to be talking about.

Other weird facial expressions that she does are the weird look that she has when escaping Prom, her reactions to people dying in Cabin Fevers, and probably every single scene she's in when you think about it hard enough.

She also does this weird thing with her fingers. A sign of anxiety? She looks fairly inexpressive. Yet again, she might have learned to mask her emotions and the hand gesture could be a way to let it all out without putting too much attention upon herself. But why? Is the guy standing right beside her one of her parents? More of that in a minute.

Finally, and this is the biggest point of speculation, there's a high possibility that Rebecca might have sensory issues, a possibility that we are going to treat as fact, thus explaining why she's so afraid of falling out of the boat in this scene: aside from the fact that Worker Drones are probably not waterproof judging by the text in episode 1; Rebecca is literally experiencing sensorial discomfort from the erratic movements of the boat, and even if she was able to survive in water, she wouldn't be able to swim due to her disability. (Other possible evidence of this is the squirm she emits when the door of the abandoned cabin Uzi is in slams shut. Darren also reacts to it, but in a much more normal manner).

But now you might be asking: "If she really had sensory issues making these moments where she lacks balance scarier, why did she pick up cheerleading?" Which nicely segway's us into the next part:

(Side note, I've only specifically searched for sensorial discomfort in relation to sex, and based the rest on preemptive knowledge, thus I might have messed up some parts of this analysis; I'm sorry to anyone who experiences these issues and didn't find their inclusion in this essay accurate.)

Chapter 3: Becca the 13th

In the following segment, the line between canon and fanon, reasonable and made up blurs, but I beg you to stay patient and follow my thought process: the far fetched parts are based on the elements already present in the show to make Rebecca a more interesting characther while tying her to the themes of the show and to the preexisting dynamics.

In my research to answer the question "Why did Rebecca pick up cheerleading" I looked up a site explaining all the reasons why girls decide to get into cheerleading, and I've singled out these answers as the most likely possibilities for Rebecca's interest in the sport.

Passion for the Sport: Many women who become cheerleaders have a genuine passion for cheerleading and enjoy the physical and artistic aspects of the sport. They may see cheerleading as a way to express themselves creatively and be part of a team.

Opportunities for Performance: Cheerleading provides opportunities for women to perform in front of large audiences, which can be a rewarding experience for those who enjoy being in the spotlight and entertaining others.

Team Camaraderie: Cheerleading often involves working closely with a team of other cheerleaders, which can foster a strong sense of camaraderie and friendship. Many women value the sense of community and teamwork that comes with being a cheerleader.

Scholarship Opportunities: In some cases, cheerleading can provide opportunities for women to earn scholarships for college or other educational benefits. This can be a motivating factor for women who are looking to further their education.

Personal Development: Cheerleading can help women develop valuable skills such as teamwork, communication, leadership, and time management. These skills can be beneficial in both personal and professional settings.

Love for Dance and Performance: Cheerleading often involves elements of dance and performance, which can appeal to women who have a passion for these art forms. For some women, cheerleading offers a creative outlet to express themselves through movement and choreography.

Which one of them is the most likely?

If your answer is all/some of them, then you are probably right, as there could always be more than one reason driving an individual to commit the actions that they do.

If your answer is none of them, then you must be pretty bold to make such an assumption, but you can't be blamed as it's finally time to bring up the two big elephants in the room:

These two.

Rebecca's relationship with the other cheerleaders can't be anything but toxic, it just makes sense to me: Lizzie's not afraid to throw people under the bus if it means that she gets to stay on top of the social hierarchy, with Doll being the clear exception at this point of the story due to their closeness and intimacy, making Rebecca the most direct victim of Liz and Doll the main target of Becca's jealousy; she can't act too much on her jealousy though, cause Lizzy can just cut out her wings whenever she feels like, so most likely all of the bullying that she does on Doll is subtle and only at most convenient of times. Doll probably doesn't react to Rebecca's bullying seeing as she is Lizzy's second best friend and killing her would inconvenience the cheer's squad, but if her reaction to Rebecca's speech in The Promening is anything to go by then she has at least built up a certain resentment for her throughout their time spent together.

Rebecca is kind of like Heather Duke with the personality of Heather McNamara and Veronica's shaky presence inside of the trio. No, I'm not going to diagnose Doll and Lizzy as Heathers, do that yourself.

But we're going to bring back up the DLR trio back in a moment, as the time has come to fire up the Chekhov's gun:

Remember when I said that we were going to bring up Rebecca's family later on? It's finally time.

In the same boat scene that we talked about earlier, Rebecca asks N this question: "So, my friend wants to know if you've killed her family... and are single."

In case you didn't pick up on it, this is a common tactic used to taste the waters in a relationship, when someone uses the excuse of having another friend who has a crush on you to see if you are up for dating. Naturally, the underlying message of this tactic is "I'm the one friend who I was talking to you about, I'm interested in you. Are you interested in me?" but that's not where Rebecca's sentence stops, no, before doing that Rebecca specifically asked N if he might have killed her friend's family, with the implication that she's talking about her own family.

So... Rebecca is without parents, just like Doll and she was probably left with just her dad much like Uzi. Where the differences between Rebecca and the rest of the cast starts to shine is in her reaction to the death of her parents. Where Uzi's and Doll's mood worsened after the death of one or both of their parents, Rebecca seems to be happier for it.

We can take this a step even further and assume that the possibility that N might have killed her family could be the big reason as to why she's so attracted to him, even more than the other classmates (keyword "family". It means that she could have had a brother or sister too, though I doubt it): she hated her parents, is happy with their deaths, and views N as her saviour and white knight in the dark for killing them.

If we look back at the shot from episode 2, we can come up with a couple of theories: she's probably alone at the parents teachers conference, or, and this is the most interesting alternative, the guy who stands right beside her is her dad, the weird hand gesture that she's doing with her fingers could be genuine anxiety about her dad finding out that her teacher has some bad things to say about her school performance and punishing her for it, which could also further explain why she does anything that Lizzie says if the theory that Lizzie's father is the Teacher is true.

Due to her sensory issues, it's possible that Rebecca's hatred for her family stems from a streak of physical abuse received at home and exacerbated by her already frail physique. She probably has been living alone with her dad for a while, like the girl from the 2017 It movie; so for her to hate her mom too, unless she was still alive and didn't show up to the parents/teachers conference, there are a couple of possible explanations: A, her mother died when she was too young for her to give a s##t about her; B, her mother was also just as abusive as her dad; or C, the most compelling explanation, as it parallels Khan's and Uzi's relationship: Rebecca's father uses the death of her mother as an excuse to wallop into self pity and be abusive, similarly to Khan but ten times worse, thus leading Rebecca to hate her mom even if she never knew her just by virtue of constantly hearing her name being used as justification for her dad's awfulness.

Rebecca could have, in just a couple of minutes, grown attached to N in the same way Uzi's grown attached to him throughout the course of the series: by viewing him as a sort of comfort net for the horrible things that have happened to her and as the one who saved her from her awful home life (by killing her parents).

Her dad probably did the interview right after Khan and thus implying a small space of time where he left her alone for god knows whatever reason, died to Eldritch J right before Uzi and N came in to stop her and Khan finally arrived to the crime scene, thus leading Rebecca to assume that N killed him in episode 4 and, through a connection made up by her wild immagination, her mom aswell.

So, for Rebecca, unlike Uzi and Doll, the day her parents died must have been the best day of her life; knowing how Doll lost her parents and looked pretty happy on the outside, Rebecca took this as a positive that her life could only improve; leading to the time spent between the ending of episode 2 and her death in episode 4 to be happiest period of her life, especially after episode 3 where Doll was revealed as a serial killer and went into hiding, making Rebecca the only friend Lizzie had left and solidifying her place in the social hierarchy.

When you think about it, we never see Rebecca being "happy" before episode 3, and while it could just be because we don't see enough of her, it could also really be that she was unhappy with her home life; Lizzie and Doll clearly weren't helping as despite Doll being at the bottom of the abuse trio of Lizzie and Rebecca, it's pretty clear by the framing of the show that Rebecca was always the most replaceable member of the trio, Lizzie was the master manipulator holding all of the cards of the social hierarchy thanks in part to her dad's influence, and Doll was Lizzie's irreplaceable (until V) main enforcer who at any moment could have just snapped and physically threatened Lizzie with her powers; leading Rebecca to feel constantly anxious of her every move. Plus, it must have been fairly obvious to the entire school that Doll and Lizzie had an affair going on and Rebecca wasn't part of it, therefore other students could have definitely picked up on her anxiety and started a gossip behind her back, leading her to feel even worse about herself than she already was. Which also, in turn, parallels Uzi and her feelings of being socially ostracized, making them even more of a foil to each other, with the main difference being that Uzi tried to fit in by becoming a hero to the colony and failing, while Rebecca carved her own unstable niche into society that she has to constantly struggle to maintain (Doll being at the positive end of the spectrum in this case, by being popular without struggling and willingly giving up said popularity for her revenge fantasies).

Her fear of losing the social stability and bullying immunity provided by Lizzie and Doll eventually turned into paranoia, forcing her to make up lies about dating people, like the guy "Brad" who she supposedly went to Prom with despite that apparently never being the case. To maintain the lies as truthful, she eventually benefitted from the ripple effect that those lies had created for her thanks in part to her good looks: now having the reputation of a nymph, she could get people to have sex with her, probably using it as an excuse for never actually being in a relationship with anyone (Darren is one of those people, she wasn't dating him, she was just making out with him).

There's also much to be said about the way Rebecca views sex and relationships as a whole; I'm not too sure about this talking point due to the aforementioned sensory issues that she has, but she could view sex as a sort of escapism fantasy, which also carries over in her love fantasy of N, and her relationship with the other cheerleaders as a semi functional support system, yet again other similarities with Uzi who, at the start of the series latched onto her fantasy of becoming a hero as escapism from her unfortunate school and home life, and, with a little stretching, we could say that Lizzy and Doll were to Rebecca what N and V are to Uzi, though not quite as healthy.

To ensure that Rebecca's views and actions on sex don't jive with her possibly having sensory issues, I've looked up information regarding the way people with these types of problems engage in sexual activity, and luckily for me, none of what I've found seemed to contradict any of the points I've brought up.

Here I have isolated all of the results of my research that fit Rebecca the most. Note: all of these apply to "some" individuals, not "every" individual. You don't have to check out all of these to have sensory issues regarding sex and other similar activities. I'm not a medic, so don't take any of these as gospel.

Perhaps the most obvious way that disordered sensory processing can affect sexuality is through physical touch. Some individuals may dislike hugs and embraces. Others may seek out a lot of touch or intense touch experiences.

Bright lights may agitate individuals with disordered sensory processing during intimacy. Play around to find the best lighting for you and your partner. Try using candles, soft bedside lighting, or turn off the lights completely! Avoid engaging in intimacy directly in front of a window or another uncontrollable light source.

An environment with a surplus of visual stimulation can be overwhelming and distracting. A cluttered environment can limit your partner’s ability to engage in intimacy because they are using energy to process visual inputs. For this reason, seek out clean, neutral, and minimalist spaces! In turn, assure your partner that it is okay to close their eyes during intimacy. This can help to calm their senses and allow them to focus on you, rather than the environment.

Background noises such as music, television, or roommates speaking next door may be distracting to individuals with disordered sensory processing. Find a quiet, private place to engage in intimacy. Avoid integrating music into the environment unless your partner suggests it!

Some individuals with disordered sensory processing have difficulty understanding where their head is in space; they may become disoriented or sensitive to different head positions. On the other hand, they may seek out intense vestibular sensations by engaging in extreme movements and positions. While some individuals may feel more comfortable being stable and stationary, others crave motion.

Sex is also most likely viewed as a coping mechanism for Rebecca, even if the main reason why she probably does it is to remain upon the popular girls in the school.

All of this added context makes Rebecca's death in episode 4 far more tragic, yet less random than some of the other campers. It comes as a result of one, yet fatal flaw: Her need to stay at the top of the food chain.

At this point in the story, Rebecca was getting closer to N, she could have just simply kept nurturing this relationship until it would have developed into something more genuine and mutual. It could have come to the point where eventually, once N would have chosen Uzi over her (because of course he would), she could have come to accept it and move on with her life instead of keep chasing her escapism fantasies and fawning over her parents possible murderer, maybe she would have even befriended Uzi in the process. But no. Her ego was her downfall: once N went away and could no longer satisfy her current needs, she decided to keep improving her social position, an easier thing to do now that Doll was out of the hierarchy, and proceeded to reinforce her reputation by making out with Darren, which got her accidentally killed by Uzi.

Accidentally, just like the death of her parents probably was.

Her death is almost perfect, even better than some of the others in the show: while Doll's death was brutal and heart wrenching but not really satisfying, Tessa's death mostly happened in the background and the show spent very little time on it, Alice's, Beau's, Yeva's and her husband's death depend on how you view their characters and if you think it fits, and V's death is the closest to perfect but wonky in certain aspects of its execution (just like V's arc in general), Rebecca's death is the perfect conclusion to her character.

She dies segmented, broken in pieces, part of her still lives for a couple of minutes, while the other gets eaten by what is essentially the character's foil of the one girl she was jealous of, and whose disappearance greatly benefited Rebecca. While crawling to the other campers, she must have suffered the whole time, just like she suffered her whole life before episode 2, the split of her torso represents her inability to pick up just one road, and in a meta context represents the fact that she is the middle ground between various character's situations.

It also represents the split in her life's trajectory: she was unhappy with her parents and was happy when they died, then became happy with her life and is now unhappy as she's slowly dying of a pain comparable to the one provided by her dad. All of this because of her ego.

And then lastly, as the final nail in the coffin, once she finally reaches the other students, her insides spilling out (reference to Melissa-titanium Doll's death post), everybody immediately forgets about her, just like they did with Uzi. She spent so much time climbing the social ladder, afraid and paranoid that she might tumble down and her parents would punish her for it, only for her to be immediately forgotten about once her systems shut down, still considered meaningless, tying her death also to Doll's and possibly Uzi's one, as the middle ground exploration of the theme of failure: Uzi fails but manages to achieve everything she had ever wanted, Doll fails but manages to achieve nothing, Rebecca fails but manages to achieve half.

It also ties back to Tessa as an alternate version who got freed from her parents abuse and had a chance to live a better life but still died soon afterwards because of a mistake she made.

Chapter 4: The Results

As you can see, just by using all the stuff present in the show if you squirm hard enough for it, with some added details we get a lot of utility out of Rebecca as a character:

- She develops Uzi, develops N, and develops and challenges Nuzi even more than she does in canon, but in a much more meaningful way.

- She works simultaneously as a foil to Uzi and Doll due to her benefiting from the death of her parents, and as well as a foil to Uzi and Tessa, who both had pretty bad parents but never wanted them to die.

- Her relationship with her dad also serves as a foil to Uzi's and Khan's father/daughter relationship, possibly helping to strengthen Khan's arc by showcasing a worse version of himself to the audience, rendering the reconciliation between father and daughter all the more sweeter.

- She deepens Uzi's and Doll's relationship in a different way than the Nori/Yeva parallels, by showcasing us a middle ground between the two characters that is simultaneously so much better and so much worse than the both of them.

- She also deepens the parallels between Uzi and Tessa, by showing us what could have happened if Tessa had the same sadistic tendencies of Uzi and left her parents to die intentionally (side note: Rebecca leaving her parents to die intentionally is also what could have happened in this made up canon. I doubt Rebecca finds joy in other people's suffering, but I can't help but think that she might have finally felt relief when the source of abuse in her life was finally gone), basically doubling as the middle ground between Uzi and Tessa but without their engineering skills, yet again, being so much better and so much worse than both characters.

- She serves to make Uzi more interesting by virtue of being foils but not in the obvious, narrative way of Doll, rather, in a more subtle, social way: if played right, her death could have hunted Uzi in ways the deaths of her other classmates didn't, by finally making Uzi question if she was ever in the right or if she isn't as much of a monster as Doll is.

- Further explores the themes of abuse present in the show and better ties said themes to Lizzy and Doll, who are currently lacking.

- She could have been used as a "tease" for Cyn, something that I haven't talked about until now (Uzi's and Cyn's middle ground). From what we know about Cyn, it seems like she was coded with some sort of robo neuro divergence, similar to the one that Rebecca possibly possesses; the details of Bec's story could have been reworked to parallel some of Cyn's story details, giving Uzi (and the audience) a taste of what Cyn's story or personality is like before meeting the real deal.

- She also, canonically, served to develop me.

Before I started working on this project, I never gave too much of a care about Rebecca. I didn't hate her like many people did, I actually liked her even if that liked soon turned into contempt once the serious writing for this essay actually started, but now I can confidently say that I'm a Rebecca enjoyer, the ideas that I've come up with for her are just too interesting for me to view her in the same way ever again, and I hope that this lecture might have also slightly changed your opinion of Rebecca as well.

[half-a-stache]

[ghost-the-bean]

When the Cabin Fevers

[parabugz]

V !! (artblock

[therantingsage]

Because I promised this, and I really wanted to do it anyway, here's a really really long-winded rambling dissertation on:

Why N and Uzi secretly dating since before episode 5 is genuinely super plausible and also stupidly hilarious /pos

Under the cut cuz it got obscenely long oops-

Idk where to start, so I'll just cover my bases: why people think they've been in a relationship already in the first place.

We all saw this scene:

And legit it can only be implying one of two things. Either A: this is his confession of feelings for her. Or B: this is him admitting that they've been dating for a while at this point. With the hearts it's pretty clear that this statement is meant to be romantically interpreted, and Nori's aghast reaction confirms that that's how it's being interpreted.

Obviously no matter the interpretation, N only writes that because he can't think of anything else to snap Uzi out of it and thereby stop this confrontation from ending poorly. And it works obviously so good on him for the quick thinking.

Two things that make me lean towards the 'we're dating' interpretation over 'confession' interpretation, though: firstly, he's not writing this to tell Uzi something, he specifically calls out to Nori before writing it. "Hey btw I'm dating your daughter" makes more sense than "Hey btw I like your daughter romantically" because if it was the latter, Nori has far less reason to be mad at Uzi about it rather than N. It's not like Uzi can control how N feels. But if they're dating, that means Uzi is partially to blame for that and Nori can get upset at HER.

Secondly, the awkward wording. Like it's really vague and without the hearts you'd have no reason to assume anything but platonic meaning. But these are words we, and him, have heard before:

...from Uzi, in response to a question about who she is and, by proxy, the nature of their relationship. She says it defensively, follows it up by telling N to shut up. N repeating her wording which, again, is a description of the nature of their relationship....but this time implying something romantic with it, it suggests the idea that it had romantic implications the first time.

I don't think it's far-fetched to say Uzi at least has feelings for N at this point in the story. I don't think anyone's arguing that that's not true. But the idea that 'hang out' means the exact same thing both times is what I'm arguing here. They're dating, but this version of N is a stranger to her. A cute stranger, as she says, but a stranger nonetheless who she isn't comfortable admitting to that she's dating him in the future to his face.

Backing up a bit, Uzi's reaction to Nori's reaction:

This is a clear and obvious parallel to the previous episode, when 'Tessa' says "Don't date my robot, please."

In both instances, someone gets on her case about the idea of them dating, and in both cases she doesn't deny it but instead defends both his and her own agency in the matter. No one is allowed to tell them what to do and Uzi refuses to let anyone try.

When Nori says it, though, she does seem to try and deny it for a moment. "I'm not-" She cuts herself off so we can't say for certain what she was going to say (if anything. it's entirely possible she started that sentence with no plan how to finish it, I do that a lot personally). But that's also because, like, she's Uzi. If this was meant to be a secret relationship, it would probably be her who made that decision. And like with butler N, she has no reason to disclose that kind of information to a stranger. She'd probably try and deny it whether its true or not.

As for when it would've started, after camp is the only big timeskip where we don't have much clue went on during. Cabin Fever is a big episode for them, and the three episodes that come after it are all back-to-back-to-back. The only time it makes sense to have started is sometime between eps 4 and 5.

And guys. Guys.

This, more than anything to me, paired with the idea that they've been dating for a while by the time the most recent couple episodes happen.....doesn't this seem so, so romantic? You could easily call this a love confession! So easily! It sounds like one much more than 'we just kinda are hanging out a lot idk' at least.

Like, rephrase that even a little: "Being with you makes scary things fun. Being with you makes me feel brave. It makes me feel safe. So I want to keep being with you."

And Uzi agrees with that sentiment. He promises to stick with her. And she laughs and smiles with him as he makes the scary thing she's been dealing with into something fun, something they can laugh about. The together line gets repeated in the most recent episode, directly calling back to this scene as well.

Like, just...AGH. In Cabin Fever he says it once as they're falling and a second time once they're grounded. The second time its a question, and one she eagerly answers with physical affection, which is super rare for her. In Mass Destruction its a statement, because he already knows her answer. Its a repeated promise. A vow.

Backing up again. Let's assess some interactions under this context. Assuming they're dating in secret. Because it paints so many things in a different light and basically nothing contradicts it which is fricken wild. This:

Isn't a sheepish Uzi trying to hold her crush's hand in a moment of fear. This is an Uzi who wants to keep their relationship a secret but is so in need of comfort right now she's willing to risk exposing them to get it.

This:

Her being so relieved because she almost watched him die but he's alive he's ok and she doesn't care who sees it because she needs to hug her boyfriend rIGHT NOW GUYS I DON'T CARE I'M HUGGING MY BOYFRIEND-

This whole scene. Uzi interacts with him so gently here. She's not gentle with anybody else at all. She sees him stressed and uses his own "you good?" on him and it's just so dang tender when you think about it. Because no one else can hear them talking to each other. It's just these two sending face texts and everyone else's focus is on the Sentinal so they can afford to be as couple-y in this conversation as they want.

And after:

Blushing because they like each other so so dang much.......sweating bullets because the other two can see them do this. Suddenly without either of them really thinking about it they're being romantic around other people and wow! That's nerve-wracking! Peak young love early-in-the-relationship behavior they ain't slick.

His tone of voice in this scene is gentler I think than we've ever heard from him before (Michael Kovach you are so damn good at your job). His loss-filled fury is cooled in an instant when he realizes how close he came to hurting his girlfriend. It's heartbreakingly gentle before 'Tessa' cuts him off.

And when she cuts Uzi off:

He looks like genuinely pissed at her. "Did you really just interrupt my gf while she was talking?? She's scared and you're disrespecting her tf is wrong with u??"

And like- the fact he was genuinely willing to off Tessa for her. Like he realizes there's a possibility she tried to get his gf killed for no reason and upon her not even trying to deny it he just kills her instantly. Because it's no longer a question of the universe or Uzi. It's a question of Tessa or Uzi, and its a choice his heart has already made before this point.

But here's like. The thing about all this that gets me. This is meant to be a secret relationship, right? Like nobody but them is supposed to know about this. And the fact that we the audience didn't have any reason to assume them to be an established relationship without heavy headcanoning means they did a decent job at that, right?

Guys. Guys.

N is terrible at keeping secrets. Like. Horrendously bad at keeping things on the down-low. Every single time in the series he's supposed to not spill info he like. Fails. It's wild. And because the relationship happens after "Inclusive reflexes!" that means that Uzi damn well knows this and still trusts him to try.

But based on V's reaction to the handholding in Dead End:

I'm honestly willing to bet she knew. She doesn't sound surprised, just annoyed that she has to see it. Which means N probably like, heard her badmouthing Uzi or something and got like way too defensive about it and she clocked him instantly. Because he's bad at keeping secrets. And she doesn't bother mentioning it during any of these episodes out loud because she doesn't care what these idiots do in their free time.

Can you imagine how many hundred close calls they must've had? How many times Uzi must've had to aggressively shush him or cover his mouth because he was going to say something slightly too sappy in public? The only reason we don't get to see the time period between eps 4 and 5 is because it would've been painfully obvious that these two dating is the worst kept secret in the entire bunker. I'm going insane.

Uzi fell in love with a proud himbo and they both know it. It's genuinely a miracle they didn't clue the audience in sooner.

[lalitia]

So... What's the deal with Alice?

Ok so we all know that Alice was experimented with in the cabin fever labs cause she said so EP 6 right?

But somethings wrong, if we take a look at the subjects list in EP 7 we can't see any information about her, though all experiment subjects should be there

And if we pay close attention we can notice that ALL drones have names written with 4 letters EXEPT for Alice that has her's written with 5 letters which may not seem like much but it's still weird, just like this:

What is that supposed to mean? witches? why call people infected with the solver witches, considering that she is supposed to be one too? And that's where we get to another point

Alice doesn't show any signs of the solver so was she experimented on at all?

It's not like she could even be cured with the patch CAUSE SHE ISNT IN THE FRICKING LIST

So could she have ran away???

If we look at the picture taken at the camp (probably after humans were extinct) she also isn't there, of course she could just be somewhere else in this case but Nori and Yeva are there, so why wouldn't she? Even she was just in the back of the picture

In the end it's like Alice doesn't fit in AT ALL

Something is really weird here

[nat0041]

Something I've been working on for the past couple of weeks!! Drawing each murder drones episode in the style of a Wings of Fire Book for my au! The Murder Arc :)

Ep 1- Pilot- V/Whiptail the SandWing

Ep 2- Heartbeat- Thad/Toucan the RainWing

Ep 3- The Promening- Doll/Ashlily the NightWing-RainWing hybrid

Ep 4- Cabin Fever- Uzi/Nebulawatcher the NightWing-RainWing hybrid

Ep 5- Home- Cyn/Scolopendra the HiveWing

Ep 6- Dead End- N/Pangolin the SandWing

Now to wait for eps 7 and 8 >:]

[casinocupsfan123]

MURDER DRONES FRICKIN RULES!!!!

Im on ep 4 Cabin Fever and OMGGGGG

NUZI FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Watch episode 3 to see why...)

also this is some murder drones for @the-floof-lover :)

Enjoy your N and Uzi!

[haastera]

N accidentally contributed to V's death

In a way N might be partially responsible for V's death.

The Absolute Solver wanted to get to the bottom of Cabin Fever Labs. That's why it saved its main host, N, V, and UZI from the Sentinels in Ep6 instead of letting them all die. That's why it arrived on world in the first place.

These are wormholes rather than blackholes, meaning they connect two spaces together (instead of destroying the planet instantly)

The A.S could have been directly helping itself (and the others by default), by making a wormhole to bypass the now blocked elevator.

Or it could have sent tentacles through the wormhole to kill/abduct the Sentinels like it did in the Security room earlier in the ep, saving all 4 of them.

That was until N cut UZI's hand off, severing the connection and accidentally resigning V to death.

The A.S did seem a little desperate here, as it clearly thought that its plan of using blood to distract the Sentinels would work a second time.

When it doesn't work she fumbles for her sword like she was caught off guard, making it more plausible that she would risk discovery to save herself from this unanticipated turn of events.

^About to get shot

As if the A.S did nothing here it risked losing its primary host to the Sentinels.

Why else would the Solver hijack UZI's body to create a wormhole in this moment?

[the-simple-creature]

The teacher has the AS or at least is VERY suspicious.

He is the ONLY person (besides Tessa, V, and N) that cares about her being damaged.

"We think there might be something damaged with her programming, how is she at home?" Teacher - episode 2

This relates to the EXACT thing Tessa said.

"We know it mutates in damaged AI..." Tessa - episode 6

Why specifically him? "Oh, he just cares about his students!" No, no he doesn't.

Lack of care towards students.

He was straight up told that his students where EATEN.

"So missing some campers here." "Yo, I get hungry, idiot." "No name calling, just a question."

He gave ZERO fucks that the students got munched, he wasn't even mad or annoyed at V.

Colored eyes

OK, I'll admit it, this one might be a bit of a stretch, but he is the only "adult" drone with differently colored eyes... except of course Yeva and Nori, whom are infamous for having the solver.

Conveniently missing

He is always just... missing from the action. Look to episode 4, supposedly he was just sitting there with his hat and chair... doing nothing, that never sat right with me. He would have been an easy target for Uzi.

Damn near emotionless.

This can easily be explained away by: "His job has drained him." but I think it's more then that, if he was in cabin fever labs I'm willing to bet that he has been through some shit.

Miscellaneous.

A detail in episode 4 I saw was that when you look at his list, for some reason, halfway down it says ":D friendship", I have no idea what that's about. This is the ONLY emotion he has shown so far.

At around 13:05 in episode 4 you see orange eyes looking at N, it's most likely Doll because they changed her base eye color in ep-5 at least to a weird orange, but this is before that point, her eyes are still red.

Lizzy somehow NEVER dies, I suspect that this could be her father (the teacher) saving her.

He's the only character (besides Uzi) we've seen drink something on camera, probably robo-whisky but we never see what's in the flask.

[hisuian-history-makers]

Random Theory: Is Copper 9, one of Saturn’s Moons?

Specifically Titan. I know, I know. It has been called on exoplanet—but you have to think that this is at least a thousand years in our future.

Year 3071. We know as our sun slowly loses fuel to burn it’s pull on Earth gets weaker… What if in the future where we have different fuel sources, better shielding, if Mercury got pull in it, and Venus began to shield us? That it started to pull us in closer? I know it’s a weak theory when you get real world physics involved—yet I wanted to know this was about this:

The drone (Cyn?) from N’s flashback flickers between being a silhouette and normal. A hand, maybe even a human one, flickers as well like how he saw Uzi in the pilot. We can see sunlight being blocked by a big round shape. Venus is known as Earth’s Twin due to them being close in size. Plus it only takes a few days for Tessa and backup to arrive on Copper 9. Their ships were closing into orbit at the end of Heart Beat.

Another thing to think about is. What did the core blast do to the ringed planet and moon near Copper 9? Could Saturn have been frozen over, maybe even the mini-moon too?

Why else would they being shining white? Even the freaking rings which should just be dust and meteors caught in the planet’s gravity.

Another point is dwarf planet Pluto is smaller than our Moon which is 3,475 kilometers long diameter-wise. Pluto is 2390 km. Titan is about 5149.46 kilometers! It would be big enough to have a smaller moon despite originally being a moon. As for the name change? It was simply renamed after the most common resource.

Or it could be a planet in another solar system.

But that’s boring, why not Saturn’s moon Titan?

[l0v3sickl0s3r]

please everyone look at the murder drones storyboards on youtube it helps you see stuff so much better i didn’t even notice uzi bumped into that doorway in ep 4 cabin fever until i saw it

[space-woomy]

Hi, random M.D rant real quick:

I LOVE M.D so much, but I feel like it could've been better with just a few more episodes. Something to more cohesivly link together episodes. Like, 1-3 are fine in terms of pacing and putting everything together. They're all within a time frame and follow their own mini arc. But, after 3 we kind of just suddenly jump into camp 98.7. I know that it is set up at the beginning with khan telling uzi about it, and then in ep 3 when they discovered Doll's necklace and parents. I just feel like we could've used an episode between 3 and 4 to better understand things, and add a bit more to the world.

This all honestly comes from that one murder drones fan episode on yt that takes place between 4 and 5. It works SO well for the pacing, and adds to V's character and the overall story in general!

I think the series could've benefitted from 2, maybe 3 more episodes. 1 between episodes 3 and 4, we're they'd investigate what doll was doing and actually talking about. They find documents about the expirements in cabin fever labs, but they're vague about everything and all that, maybe there's a hint to the patch in there! At the same time, uzi is using the solver powers more, and maybe starts eating more oil slowly, and then at the end, Uzi goes to khan for help! Through lout the episode N could be like: "Well, if your mom and the solver are related, maybe you could ask your dad about it?" And uzi is like "I'd rather die." But ends up asking him by the end! Then we go into camp 98.7! Then, an episode between 4 and 5, which would just be the fan epsidoe. Maybe including how the tape that N found was used to hack into their system because that was not really explained well. I didn't even know that's what happened until I saw a video where the guy explained it. There could MAYBE be an episode that takes place between 5 and 6. The cliffhanger where they meet Tesa and J2 happens in the between episode, and not the end of 5. This one could be optional, i feel like the pacing is ok for these episodes

Whatever

Rant over

I NEED episode 8 NOW

[samiiola]

(BTW idk if anyone has done this poll since ep 7 has been released and I've also been very inactive here so I'ma try to post here often now 😭)

[conniewoof]

IMPORTANT QUESTION!!!

Does anybody actually like Murder Drones episode 2 “Heartbeat”? I swear in polls it’s always the least picked.