if ur a murderbot nerd now do u have any fun opinions abt it yet?
Oh my goddd you have no idea
I really, really, really like Murderbot because it comes at life with this perspective we don't often see that is very real among people who have already been through traumatic experiences, who developed skills and abilities to suvive that were once useful but no longer have context- that search that traumatized people go through to recalibrate and reorient ourselves in a world where we no longer really need those things to survive.
A bit personal here, but my own issues personally involved a lot of psychological abuse that made it difficult to trust my own perceptions of reality, and as a result I found I was very easy to lie to and manipulate.
To handle this, I became obsessive over writing things down, cataloging details and making notes of things as they happened- I'd carry recording devices and make audio recordings and stay up late at night to transcribe what they'd picked up, read those over and over again to reassure myself of things I wasn't certain about.
While doing this, there were others close to me that I felt responsible for, who I had to protect from others and protect myself from at the same time. Life was about two things: Evidence, and defusing threats
Over time, I learned to trust myself as my memories matched what had been recorded where their narrative didn't, but I never really kicked the habit. Like Murderbot, I had added something to my own programming that reassured me I was safe, that I was in control of myself, that I couldn't be mistaken or crazy or broken or used.
I'm only on book two, but already I see myself in Murderbot again. No spoilers here, but when I left home- left that dangerous context- I didn't need to repeat these patterns to survive anymore, but I still did, because I didn't know anything else anymore. It felt safe, comfortable, knowing knowing that the past couldn't repeat itself, because I'd written that flaw- blind trust in myself- out of my programming and replaced it with something else.
Still, though, I'd become something specially suited to thrive in a very specific environment. Nothing else felt right like followinghigh-risk situations, like witnessing and watching and recording and knowing I had proof of the truth where others might not.
People took notice. I wound up in security by accident, but's an environment that I thrive in due to the same patterns and behaviours I originally developed when I had no other choice. I climbed the ladder pretty quickly, once supervisors caught on that my reports were the most accurate, most objective, most factual, detail-oriented and timely. I keep others and myself safe and prioritize public safety above all else, and I perform well under pressure
Now I'm in a position where I often wonder, do I enjoy this job, or is it just what I'm good at? I have a set of skills now, but do I have the option of choosing not to use them? What would I be, if not this? Could I be anything else?
Can Murderbot be anything else?
It has a set of skills that set it apart, make it different, special. It does what it knows best. But is it free? Does it want to be? What does it want? Does it have to do what it was built to do? What if it didn't?
I know what I'm good for. The idea of deliberately leaving what I'm good for for something uncertain, that I might hate, that I might be useless at- the choice to give up what was so important to me for so long and become deliberately obsolete?
Let go of my entire purpose? The only thing I know, that I fit so well into but don't actually know if I enjoy? Now that I can choose? Now that enjoyment is a luxury I can afford to consider?
Yeah, that resonates.
I like the Murderbot series so far because it feels the way I feel: Like the most significant and formative part of my story, the part where I became what I am, has already happened
And now I have to just. Keep going
Into... what?
It feels absurd. Like a microwave giving up on reheating food and deciding to start a life around abstract dance.
So, uh. Yeah. It's really very wild to see this same philosophical-ish dilemma I've been digging over in the back of my mind and in therapy for the last forever laid out so plainly in a genuinely exciting and enjoyable story like this. I feel much less alone, and I... kind of really need to see how it resolves, I think.
So, uh. Yeah. Read Murderbot, I guess
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Your Simon
Simon Riley x reader (gn I'm 99% sure)
TW: toxic!Simon, whump, captivity, psychological torture(?), kidnapping, yandere!Simon, maybe don't read this if you're only comfortable with fluff and light smut... even though there no smut in this (maybe I'll add an epilogue or sm idk)
Approx 2k words, random drabble. wrote this at 4 am, un-betad. Let's not nitpick, yeah? Cool.
Simon knew you were fragile, but he didn’t think you could be so easy to break. This was his third deployment since he’d met you. The third since he’d pulled you into his life. At first you’d been panicked, indignant and ungrateful. You didn’t understand the significance of his actions. Every detail meticulously planned out, every minute aspect of your stay without him accounted for. You just had to stop fighting him and start fighting for yourself. Fight to stay alive, just like him. He just wanted to share this with you, why wouldn’t you let him?
“Don’t worry, Love, I’ll be back in no time. You won’t even get a chance to miss me.” His hand stayed on the back of your head, fingers locked in your hair, holding your head up so you could look into his eyes. So you could watch him lie to you. You knew the routine well at this point.
First the devil may care Ghost would ply you with cheeky taunts to smooth out your concern. His abrasiveness would wear you down, polish you into a reflection of himself.
Despite yourself you began to cry, fat tears rolling down your cheeks. In the beginning it wasn’t him you had missed. It was the promise of regular meals, and fresh water. Baths. Heating. Freedom. Now he was the centre of your world. He was your everything.
While he was deployed you didn’t know how long you’d be left to stew in your own sweat and the grime of the basement he’d thrown you in. The smell of dust and mold hung heavy in the air down here. Soon the smell of your body would join them creating a fetid blend that would stay in your nostrils for weeks after your release. If you lived that long. The single hanging bulb barely illuminating your surroundings, not that there was much to see.
Gallons of water lined one of the walls, at least a dozen of them neatly tucked from one dusty corner to another. You’d count them in earnest when he left you. Your mind was to panicked now to begin the frantic calculations of how long you could stretch your supplies. Just in case.
Two boxes of hardtack biscuits and cans of god only knew what were neatly pressed up against another. At times you feared he’d been feeding you cat food. You’d opened cans of greying meat floating in gelatinous gravy, other times the cans contained some kind of soup. Either way you’d choke it down cold.
A part of you loved it here, you felt closer to him. You were a soldier too. This is where you’d live or die. Your battlefield.
His hand left your head and he went to the centre of the room where a small metal cot with a thin mattress stood. No pillow or duvet, but at least he’d given you a thick itchy woollen blanket. Army surplus to complete your private barracks. You’d earned the cot after weeks of good behaviour, no crying, no useless begging, no disobedience. A luxurious upgrade from the sheets of cardboard he’d left you to sleep on during his previous deployments. You followed before he even turned to call you, taking a seat on the mattress.
“Will you miss me, pet?” He asked, coaxing your chin up with a gloved finger.
“Yes, of course” you said between sobs. He huffed out a humourless laugh, and stroked your head.
He hardly had to grind you down anymore, soon Ghost gave way to Simon. The mask he wore over his soul fell away, leaving behind the raw and broken boy he’d been before he learnt being someone else was as easy as covering his face. Part two of your dance begun.
The tears you thought you’d controlled began to fall again, pouring out of your tired eyes as you looked up at him. Your protector and captor. The man who told you everyday he’d die without you, the same man who held your life in his hands.
“Please, please, Si… don’t forget about me here. Please.” The last word came out as a choked sob as you pressed your face against his thighs. Begging him to let you go was useless. You knew the steps now. Let him lead you, let yourself need him. Let him have something to control, someone who wouldn’t disappoint him. Someone he didn’t have to pretend with, unless he wanted to.
“All you have to do is survive, pet. Same as me.” He knelt down in front of you, dark eyes shining with a mania that told you he was past pleading with. “All we have to do is survive. Think of me while you’re fighting in here, yeah? And I’ll be thinking of you out there. You’ll think of me won’t you? Hmm?”
You nodded.
“So say it.”
Gathering yourself, you pulled away from him, eye to eye it was easier to believe the words that tumbled out of your mouth.
“I’ll be thinking of you Si, so please, please,” your voice began to quake with unshed tears, “please come back to me. I’ll die without you.”
You knew he was smiling beneath his mask. His hands came up to cradle your head, his grip too tight to be anything but a reminder of the control he had over you.
“Of course you would. We need each other, don’t we?”
You nodded and said your well rehearsed line. “We love each other.”
He watched you weep for a while, and you knew a part of him felt sick with himself. If he returned, if you lived, he’d tell you as much when he came home.
The realisation that this was your home hit harder down here, puling more tortured sobs out of you as he watched. You weren’t sure if the ragged breaths you heard were yours or his.
“Simon, Simon” you chanted his name over and over as you cried, like a prayer to a long dead god. He stood above you, within reach. One touch and you’d know he was real. But you cried out his name, and he watched. Until watching became too much and the sound of his name was punctuated with the sound of his boots ascending the stairs.
The sound of a key turning.
And then the silence.
— — —
You counted the days by litres of water, cold canned meals, and fitful slashes sleep.
One of each a day.
No cheating.
You recited songs in your mind, the lyrics painted dark by the deep gravely voice of your thoughts. Simon’s voice.
You imagined a life with Simon, a life different from this. Those dreams were all that kept you sane. If this was sanity.
A life with sunshine and tenderness that didn’t have to be earned. With music and hot food, baths together. The warmth of his body against yours. Every dream began and ended with the sound of a key turning, the creak of the old cellar door, deep lungfuls of fresh air.
After meals and before sleep you’d press your nose to the tiny blacked out window. Taking deep breaths of the English countryside before closing it again. Air when were awake, warmth when you slept. These rules and rituals were what kept you alive here. Hell was rolling green hills and cloudy skies. Hell had no one around for miles. Hell and home were two sides of the same coin.
The same countryside he’d offered to show you when you’d first began dating him. You recounted those first few dates with him often. Combing your mind for any sign of the man he’d turn out to be.
It had been too soon for a weekend away, you told yourself this time and time again. Turning your captivity against yourself in your darkest moments was a game you hated but still played. What fool would take a trip with a man they barely knew.? You hadn’t even known him for two full months when you went away with him. Your 6th date. This may have been the longest date in history.
Sometimes you thought of your friends and your family. Were they worried? Were the little dribs and drabs of communication Simon let you have with them enough to keep them satiated. Had they stopped caring, like Simon said they would.
He often told you the family a person was born into was rarely their true family. Like his. You knew pieces of the life he rarely spoke about. The father he hated, the mother he pitied. The brother he held complex, painful feelings for. You hardly heard about him at all. You suspected he was the only person outside of the 141 Simon cared about. Maybe the only person he truly loved.
Did he love you? Actually love you?
Could he?
Another litre, another can. Another day.
— — —
The creak of the old cellar door woke you, as usual. You’d long since stopped running up the steps when you heard it, not trusting your mind to be honest with you.
“Baby? Are you awake, Love?”
You didn’t believe it. You couldn’t. The disappointment would hurt to much.
The sound of heavy boots descending the stairs drew something out of you, but yet you still couldn’t let yourself believe it was real. That you had survived. Again.
Warm fingers caressed your cheek, tracing the shape of your eyes and nose, until they finally settled on your neck, below your jaw. A beat passed in tense silence, you could still be dreaming.
A shaky breath that wasn’t yours filled the room, “thank god.” You opened your eyes, and he was there. A dark figure against the light, stoic among the swirling flecks of dust in the air.
“Si?” Your voice was weak and hoarse from who knew how many weeks of disuse.
He nodded, lifting you from your cot with ease. Holding your body against his tightly as he brought you up the stairs. Your eyes fluttered against the light, the early evening sun cutting through you until you help your eyes tightly closed.
You heard him shush you softly before you realised you’d been crying.
“Si,” you said again and you felt him hold you closer.
“I know baby, I know. I’m so proud of you. We made it.”
He set you down on the edge of the bath and began the careful work of peeling your filthy clothes off.
The final chords of this tragic, disgusting song had begun, and your dance was ending.
He washed you gently, tears in his eyes as he rinsed away the layers of pain he’d caused you.
He spoke to you in gentle tones, barely above a whisper, as though any loud noise would send you into shock. He didn’t wait for your responses, knowing you were too exhausted to give any.
“It’s okay, pet. It’s okay, you’re safe now. You’re out. You’re out.
“Were you scared? I know baby, I know how scary it was, but you’re safe now. I’ll never let anything happen to you, never. You’re too important, I love you so much, pet. Too much.”
You let the hot water and his words baptise you, remaking you under the heat of his love for you. He washed every part of you, yet nothing felt as intimated as when he washed your hair, stroking your head gently as he cried and promised you things you weren’t sure would ever come to be.
When you were clean he wrapped you in a towel and left to get you something to wear.
Was that you? Was that really you in the mirror? Chapped lips, large sunken eyes, your cheeks were hollow and your skin dull, your natural undertone wiped away and replaced with a pallid grey. When he came back you still couldn’t look away from the person in the mirror. He placed a pair of sweatpants and one of his t shirts on the heater and closed the door, giving you time to settle back into yourself. Your new self.
You hated him. You hated him for doing this to you, making you this person.
You opened the cabinet and went through the minor motions of humanity. Brushing your teeth, brushing your hair, and pulling the t-shirt on mechanically. You left the bottoms folded, knowing you wouldn’t be able to keep them on no mater how tightly you tied them. He was just too big, and you were just too small.
You clutched a hair band in your hand, knowing he’d want to tie your hair back. He loved doing those small things for you. And you hated him for it.
When you shuffled into the bedroom you stood in the doorway, watching you with a grief in his eyes as though he hand’t done this to you.
He pulled you close, picking you up and laying you gently on the bed. The mattress felt obscene after weeks on the cot, you wept again and hated him for turning you into this person, a person that cried at everything. A person who knew what it felt like to sleep on the floor. Someone who felt blessed to have a bed.
He took his place beside you, and you pulled yourself close, holding your body to the curves and edges of his. His arms wound around you and pinned you to him, his lips brushed your forehead and you felt his tears fall, running down your cheeks and mixing with yours.
“I was so scared without you. I really thought I wasn’t gonna make it this time.”
“Me too, Si.”
You understood how much he needed this, how much he needed to be the villain, how much he needed to hate himself before he could go into hell and be a good soldier. So he could come back home a hero, a rescuer. Your protector.
Your Simon.
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