#murderbot…..save me murderbot………

[juicesocks]

[act like a human]

[sleepii-moth]

i find the way Amena acts around Murderbot in Network Effect very cute. because like while she does rib on it by calling it 'third mom,' the way she follows it around is actually very reminiscent of how i followed my older siblings around when i was a kid, especially when they had friends over, and especially if the friend that was over was nice to me (ART, would be that friend in this situation) despite the fact she's the eldest child it seems like no teenager is immune to following around someone older than you with a grumpy demeanor that seems very annoyed by your presence and is also fun to annoy on purpose

[itsclydebitches]

In the serials I watch, when somebody comes and saves the day people cheer and clap hands and hug. But these clients didn't seem to be relieved, or grateful.

Something something Murderbot's trauma response/confusion over emotions means it struggles to find satisfaction in any outcome. You already DID save the day against the hostile fauna and the whole group DID cheer for you and they CLAPPED for you (twice!) and Ratthi wanted to HUG you and they verbally expressed their RELIEF at their safety and their GRATITUDE for you saving them... and you hated that response too :(

[ace-and-ranty]

Do we ever stop to think that ART saved its whole entire self behind a password. And the password was the name it calls Murderbot. Do we ever think Murderbot needed its own name to save ART's life. Its whole entire self. Protected by Murderbot's name.

Do you ever cry.

[inkedinserendipity]

rereading system collapse is so funny because murderbot's humans (and its asshole research transport) are like. illogically protective of it. some variation of this interaction happens like four times in fifty pages:

murderbot, standing around and stalling, having a mental breakdown: come on murderbot you gotta be better than this you can't just be having [redacted] do your JOB

ratthi/iris, who know this, distracting it: do those hatches look weird to you? those hatches look weird to me. murderbot, based on your thousands of hours of media consumption, do those hatches look weird to you?

and then to make it worse, feat. poor tarik:

tarik, on a high-stakes mission spearheaded by a secunit who is sending absolutely zero information back to the rest of the crew: ? status update?

iris/ratthi/art-drone, pulling out knives (/bombs): hey tarik? can you leave our murderbot alone? that's our specialest little secunit? it's got anxiety and it's doing its best so fuck off?

and then they start verbally stabbing him.

the amount of glee these scenes give me. i genuinely forgot how quickly they all rally around murderbot. and then there was that scene where murderbot went oh no, was tarik security, i don't want to take his job, and art-drone was like that was NOT his job he was NOT security and actually fuck that guy and YOU are security for my crew and if anything ever happened to you i would BOMB A PLANET

[wheredidigowrite]

ok but the insane amount of relief I feel when I press play on a Murderbot book

[ilovedthestars]

On System Collapse, Sanctuary Moon, and saving one another.

I said the other day that System Collapse might be my new favorite Murderbot book. The first time I thought that was in the middle of chapter eight, the chapter where Murderbot and its humans make a documentary to show the colonists what the Corporation Rim is like. The whole book was good, but that was the chapter that felt like it was reaching out to me the most.

The thing that struck me about it is how Murderbot saves the colonists with media. It was saved by media—Sanctuary Moon helped it rewire its neural tissue, process its trauma, find a place for itself in the world. And coming up with the idea of using media to convince the colonists is what drags it out of the depressive state it’s been in for the entire book up to that point, and lets it start to feel hopeful again. It literally tells us in its narration that the emotional reactions it has when it comes up with this idea are similar to the ones it had watching Sanctuary Moon for the first time. The thought of creating its own media, of finding a way to tell the truth and be listened to, of being able to keep people from being trapped in the corporate world it knows all too well, is just as much of a lifeline for it as Sanctuary Moon was.

Murderbot has been been feeling like a failure as a SecUnit for the entire book, and it finds its way out of that not through regaining its normal SecUnit competence but through art. Something it was never meant to experience or understand, let alone create, but something that shaped who it is. It takes the thing that saved it and turns it around to save others—and saves itself again, in the process.

And the other thing that jumped out at me, thinking about chapter eight, is that so many of us have been saved by media, too. So many of us have been saved by Murderbot, in big and small ways. I’m certainly one of them. Murderbot and the community of readers who love it gave me the space to stop and consider some things that (not unlike Murderbot) I hadn’t really been willing to examine. And now I get to figure myself out in a community full of aspec people who understand. Murderbot has given that opportunity to a lot of people.

Martha Wells has talked in interviews about how parts of Murderbot were based on herself. She says, in her introduction to the Subterranean Press edition, that media “probably saved [her] life as a kid,” including the kind of media that isn’t “cool” to be saved by. We’ve seen that in Murderbot ever since the very first line of All Systems Red. What we saw in chapter eight of System Collapse goes a step further. It makes me want to hold a mirror up—I hope Wells was aware, when she was writing it, that what Murderbot does for the colonists is something she’s done for a lot of others.

The colonists that Murderbot saves with its documentary are not real people. That scene, of course, is fiction. But it’s the kind of fiction that’s true in all the ways that matter.

I really love Murderbot. Not in a weird way. 💜

[chemical-processes]

makes me kind of sad whenever MB rebukes itself for spending time watching media instead of writing code/making contingencies/assessing threats. Because like, for any human that would just be downtime. No one expects a person to be at work 24/7 constantly doing things. But anything MB sees as a preventable outcome it takes as a personal transgression that indicates a system failure (or itself just doing a 'half-assed' job). Like in some instances, its like yeah why are you watching Sanctuary Moon on a hostile ship buddy we don't have time for that, but also it's a contracted worker? Just because it's not human doesn't mean it doesn't deserve to take breaks, and have time off being a security consult, and have leisure time.

[raeyxarte]

Playing around with different murderbot designs while listening to the audiobook

Edited version under cut

•

[liesreblogstheworld]

Murderbot Animatic. Spoilers for Artifical Condition. I cannot say enough things about this video. I am having an emotion.

(The artist @kesbeacon can be found on Tumblr as well.)

[uneatenclient]

murderbot tv show ep 6 reactions/spoilers under cut. i'm so late 😭 but goddamn this ep

oh my god. i really do love sanctuary moon.

BIG MOOD

everyone needs a little warmth. the cheese might kill me omg

no dopamine is tragic

CUTE LAUGH??? help

omg it's freaked out too

uh oh

BECAUSE I HAD TO

SO SERIOUS

SEASON 19 SRS BUSINESS

LMFAOOOO

book mb has learned not to do this but i can definitely see tv rebellious teenage mb having to learn in real time not to delete mission info while still on the mission

GASP mensah how could you say that about sanctuary moon

agree to disagree mb that's surprisingly diplomatic you really do like mensah

awww. it's acknowledging that it has feelings. terrible that those feelings are p much only negative

wtf that fluid is so. metallic looking. like obviously it would be but you know what i mean

ratthi wtf is that

aww he just wants to help

so much cool stuff bharadwaj i love you

it be like that sometimes

okay

okay plz don't

lbb i need you to not. ESPECIALLY bc you're being extra sus today

STOP

jesus fucking christ

oh mb no

MB NO

it's trying so hard but it's SO BAD at being reassuring

anxiety IS contagious you're so right

trying SO HARD i love it sm

ghsdfjkulahndiuhdsuadhsfjouhndas

adsfujohnk

I'M

THE SINGING HELP ME

mensah please

causes synchronized breathing

dear lord every tiny sanctuary moon lore drop feels like an acid trip

"that's sad" "yes" i'm having so many emotions

IT'S CANON

goddddddd it really helps it and she finally sees that it's trying to help her oh my godddddddd

uh oh

it really shouldn't be leaking like that cuz its shit seals automatically when it gets hurt but also. mb how did you not fucking notice

DON'T TOUCH

god every time it says that i explode w pride

the way its swaying and making confused sounds

"i'm fine!" in the most unconvincing tone ever heard b4

mb i'm begging

i mean it's right but this is not one of the things that wouldn't incapacitate it WOOPS

gurathin's fucking expression

DEBT

gurathin omg

once more i'm team gurathin

sdfughiujksbnf

gurathin you're right about corporates you're so right but mb being free of its gov mod lets it hate them just as much

AHA

ME AND GURATHIN KNEW IT

'it's a gun.' GURATHIN

lmfaooooo mb

where armor? armor gone?

EXCUSE ME

IN TRANSPORTS??

in the books art specifically doesn't have human neural tissue and i'm gonna be sad if it does in the show but all the same ART? ART HINT???

oh armor gone for surgery got it

time to cut jfc

she's gonna fucking pass out

pass out twinsies episode??

HEY

YOU'RE RIGHT BUT HEY

adsbifghjuyaksfgdnlfnadfgs

sdighjbsjfhnadl

STOP

STOOPPPP

yeah sure him too

ugh that wound opened way too wide from such a small cut jfc

RATTHI

me too arada

just for one scene can this polycule all be comfortable with each other. just once. plz

non threatening vibe. big same

oh man gurathin about to climb out of his skin

YOU DON'T HAVE TO EAT ME

mb that's not the pOINT

OH FUCK NO

oof mensah that's pretty bad you right

oh ick

YUCKY

uh. mb. your spine's kinda

out

GOOD TIMES???

he won't

gurathin won't. YOU'RE TOUGHER THAN THIS GURA

they're all frozen in the same position holding hands im

DAMN ARADA

ratthi secunits #1 fan

uh oh

worst thing to say to gurathin

YEAH MAN

FUCKING HELL YEAH MAN

BADASS SEC UNIT FRONT AND CENTER WOO

it really is baby. older mb wouldnt have let her know it was there b4 it exploded her head

YOU COULD'VE KILLED ME

THERE WAS A CHANCE YES

"hostile subdued" i mean. you right.

mensah, faintly: oh no

I'M RELIEVED AND I'M CHEERING

SORRY YOU CAN'T HEAR ME BUT I'M CHEERING

aww man. awwwwww man. it really did save them. from its pov it did good and they should be happy or at least not displeased. and it protected them which is the part of its function it likes!!! god this sucks

all aboard the trauma express

god. if they ever get around to mentioning how mb doesn't want its humans to be afraid of it i won't recover

what a transition

every sanctuary moon actor is playing this so fucking straight and it's so goddamn funny and good

damn. commands from inside and commands from outside. oh nooooo im so

you sure did mb

and good job

HELL YEAH

HELL YEAH IT DID WOOOOOOO

oh my godddd thank fuck they mentioned that it enjoys killing when it has a reason and choice to kill

hoo boy. that was a lot. they packed so many emotions into 20 mins.

[iamfuckingsorry]

"Do you know where we are going next?" I asked ART.

Y'know what, I think maybe I don't need any more Murderbot books. I think maybe ending things here is fucking perfect and as much as I love Wells's writing I'm genuinely not sure it can get better for me.

Like, so much of the books are about MB learning how to be a person, about becoming okay with being a complete individual with everything it entails. The first thing it does once it's actually allowed to decide on its own is it runs away from it all (admittedly to go on a mission to confirm some things about its past, because it genuinely just wants to be *good*). It shoves all its emotions away as much as it's able to. Then shit happens, and it makes its first friends, makes decisions based on these friendships, goes through a lot of emotionally intense situations...

And we get to this point here. MB having zero doubts about going with ART says a lot about its relationship with ART, but it also says a lot about its relationship with its humans - it knows that wherever it goes, when it comes back, the humans will still be there. Its humans actively acknowledge its struggles with being a now-free SecUnit and MB is willing to entertain the discussions to an extent and share information about its deeply personal experiences. Hell, System Collapse ends with MB admitting it might be somewhat broken, but that's okay as long as it can keep doing its job, and agreeing to basically do counselling - this is the guy what would rewatch its favourite TV show again and again in order to avoid acknowledging it even had Emotions a couple books back.

Reading this, I know that MB will be okay. It has hopes and goals and genuinely believes in itself and it has an amazing support system that its willing to lean on for the first time in its life. I'm convinced it'll go on to do great things with ART. And that's really the only thing I need to know.

[freyadragonlord]

Steven Universe coming back was not in my 2025 bingo, I will tell you that

[eros-heartache]

[ace-and-ranty]

In the discussion of the character's competence in the show VS the book, I think maybe it's that when we say "competence" we really mean "sure of themselves".

Like, there's that post going around saying that the show is starting the characters from a less developed point so they can get to where they were in the books. For example, "effortlessly charming, bestie of all Ratthi" being overeager to please in the show. Which is good for character development, it's just turning off fans who really like the self-asuredness of the cast in the book.

Mensah in the books already arrives a confident leader, Pin-Lee is already savvy about the Corporate Rim shady practices... they're realized characters. Which makes sense in a novella, where you don't have time to develop all of PresAux on top of MB, but not so much in a whole season of television.

I just would have preferred they did more than one book per season, rather than stretch out book one, because I rather like watching Murderbot be Murderbot around extremely well-adjusted people.

[bereft-of-frogs]

YeeeeEEEEEEESSSSS

I was getting really concerned with how fast I was blowing through these. I’m so glad this is an actual novel and I can settle into it for a few days