we get a lot of really great stuff in system collapse about murderbot's relationships with ART and ratthi, which makes sense, because it spends almost the entire book with them. but i also love how even though mensah isn't there for most of the story, other people keep reminding mb of her:
chapter 2, page 25: “From ART’s personnel file, she [Karime] was older than Mensah and she didn’t look like an intrepid space explorer, either, even in the protective environmental suit.”
2, 27: “It took Karime three seconds to process the abrupt statement. (She was almost as good at not looking annoyed as Mensah was.) She kept her expression neutral and patient.”
2, 28: “In the underground colony room, Karime lifted her brows. ‘Another occupied site?’ I thought she was being careful not to show too much reaction. It was the way Mensah would have played it.”
4, 70: “Iris looked at me and I saw her hesitate, because her hesitation looked a lot like Dr. Mensah’s hesitation. And I realized I really didn’t want to go down there.”
5, 104: "Iris has that same thing as Dr. Mensah, the thing where she’s able to look and sound calm under circumstances where shit is possibly about to go down.”
it's spent so much time with her and it knows her so well and respects her so much that she's the model against which it compares all other humans. it thinks about her when they're not together. it's protective of her. it has such total faith in her competence. it (non-romantically) loves her and doesn't want to not see her again. idk man, it just gets to me! and they were teammates (oh my god they were teammates!!)
bonus:
I said, aloud, "You have to be kidding me." (ch. 2, p. 28)
seven pages later, in reaction to the same thing:
Mensah had had time to review the feed video. She muttered, "Oh, you have to be kidding me."
Yeah.
twinsies 🥰
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Tuk didn't like this. She didn't like having to carry the tank and mask, didn't like being on the ship, and certainly didn't like this coal-ition.
But they could help Mom and Dad get rid of the RDA and they were healing Neteyam so she was trying not to whine. Well not too much.
It made her feel a little better that Loak and Kiri didn't like this place either. Spider was still deciding.
Right now they on a tour of the ship, their guide looked like a fluffy Prolemuris, or as Dad called them, a monkey. It was boring.
Only the others found it cool and that's cause Spider can breathe and all the new creatures they saw and the science thingy's.
So when Tuk heard the sound of kids laughing around the corner she followed it.
Down a large hallway she saw a giant door with a huge sign that said something care something. She wasn't really paying attention when Dad and uncle Norm tried teaching her how to read.
Looking back and seeing that the others were too busy to stop her she walked in.
Inside was a giant room filled with kids, tables, stuff, more stuff and toys.
"Hi, are you new here?" she looked down and saw another creature that looked like their guide, a tiny fluffy monkey thing.
"Uhh yeah. What is this place?"
"This is the youngling centre. It's where we stay until our parents can take us home. I'm Marl."
"Tuk."
"...what are you?"
"Huh?"
"What are you? I've never seen anyone so tall, or blue."
"Uh a Na'vi. ..what are you?"
"I'm a Ursa." for a moment they stared at each other. As most children do when seeing something/someone new.
"Put your foot in for freeze tag!"
"Ooo freeze tag! Come on lets go play!"
"What's freeze tag?"
"It's a new game we just learned. Its easy." The little Ursa grabbed Tuk's tail using it as a leash to pull her along.
.
Freeze tag was Tuk's new favorite game. She loved running and there was lots of running and even if she got caught she could get out if someone unfreezed her.
The books were also fun. Marl read to her and let her hold the book. She liked the one's by Robert Munch, she also liked his funny name.
There were lots of other things to do too. There was a climbing area with fake tree tops and lots of ropes to swing on. In the back there was a shallow pool to swim in, it was fun but she didn't like having to dry off with the scratchy towels.
There were was blocks that stuck together which made building easier. Tons of markers, crayons, and paint that was hard to get back at home. They even got lunch.
"Okay kids you know the rules, grab a plate a drink and find a spot to sit."
"Teacher Max we need a chair for Tuk!"
"One chair coming right up...wait who?"
"Tuk. She's new."
It was at this moment Tuk realized she hadn't noticed the two adults in charge here. And it was at this moment that said adults realized they had one more child than usual.
"Oh hey, nice to meet you. Tuk was it," she nodded. "I'm Max and that's Kim. We're the teachers here."
Of all the new creatures and beings Tuk's seen so far it was only now that she was nervous. Humans had that effect on her. Not all humans, Spider definitely never made her nervous, but new ones did.
She knew her Dad used to be one, loved and liked uncle Norm and all the human scientists her family knew. But ever since what happened to Neteyam and their home, both the old one and new one, she was a little nervous.
"Do you like it here so far?" Luckily for her Max had noticed her nerves and knelt down to give her the advantage of height and to look her in the eyes.
She nodded.
"Well that's good. What do you like so far?"
"...the games...and drawing stuff and the food, it's good." he laughed.
"Well thank you, it's a family recipe. And I'm sure Kim will be happy to hear that you like the games she's taught the kids."
With that he gave her a chair and left her to finish her meal with Marl.
..
"Hi Tuk, I'm Kim."
"...hi."
"I noticed that your really tall. How old are you? 20?"
"No? I'm only 7." she smiled.
"What?? No way. You're almost as tall as me!"
"Actually Teacher, I think she's taller than you."
"No!"
"Tuk Tuk, stand up! Let's see!"
She got up and true enough she was taller than the adult by 2 inches.
"Holy...I didn't actually think you'd be taller than me." Kim had seen tall kids before but never had she met a kid taller than her this young.
The children laughed cheering that finally someone was taller than their shortest teacher. Tuk couldn't help but join in, standing on her tippy toes to make her even taller.
"Okay, okay that's enough. Calm down. Now, Tuk, since your so tall do you think you could help me with something?" Tuk hesitated but nodded.
Kim lead her to a tall bookshelf that had a doll stuck ontop of it.
"This has been stuck there for the whole day and we can't get it since the bookshelf can't be climbed and the ladder is broken. So what I'm thinking is you get on my shoulders and grab it. Sound good?"
"I get on your shoulders?"
"You don't have to if your scared of heights, I can ask one of the other kids or just wait."
"I'm not scared of heights," she pouted. "I just don't think you can carry me. I'm big and your small."
"Oh really?" and before Tuk could say anything she was tossed over Kim's shoulder.
"Still think I'm too small!" the blue child shrieked with laughter until she was put down and together the two got the doll down.
...
"What do you think the emergency is about?"
"Maybe Smelv burnt dinner again."
"Nah I don't think so. Captain look a little too tense for a simple fire alarm."
"So I called all of you here because we have a missing child. She was last seen on a tour of the ship with her siblings. Her name is Tuk and she is a Na'vi; tall, tail, blue, bi-pedal." he brings up a hologram of her from the security footage.
"...JAMES CAMERON WAS RIGHT?!"
"...shit I knew we weren't expecting another kid."
....
"Dad! Dad! Can I go to school here?"
"Your grounded. As are all of you." he added looking at his older kids. Plus Spider.
"Aww, Kim, Max, can I go to school here?"
"...uh Tuk, I think that's a question for another day..." preferably when your mom isn't about to bite my head off thought Kim.
"Yeah definitely. Definitely not the best time right now." Max was sweating bullets trying not make eye-contact with the Captain who was very not subtlety growling at him.
'We fucked up.' they both thought.
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I am going to try and put this in as few words as possible, because my roommate and I spent an hour talking about this today; but there is truly nothing more incredible to me than human creativity.
Like, you’re telling me someone made this? You’re telling me this art came from someone’s own hand? You’re telling me this story came from someone’s mind? You’re telling me that someone as flawed and mortal and lost as me made this?
There is a beauty in math and in science, I am not here to argue that. But mathematics existed long before us. Science will exist long after us. And while the knowledge we have is a wonder, it is not ours. We did not make one and one equal two, we only learned and accepted that it did.
But our art is not universal. Our music was born through us. Our writing will die with us. And there is so much more beauty in knowing that we have made something. People have language and culture and poetry not because it was fact, but by our own whim and design.
This is something AI can never fulfill. An algorithm cannot create, it can only compile. A computer generated image has no link to us, to human emotion. To human flaw and struggle and passion.
Art is beautiful, and creation is the most powerful thing a person can do. Your stories, your art, hell, your fanfic and original characters, they exist not because of universal laws of math and physics, but because of your mind and skill; and if that isn’t the most amazing thing in the world, then what is?
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hi! your blog is one of my favourites and i absolutely adore reading your thoughts. my grandfather recently passed away and it feels like i lost myself with him. how do i continue living after this? there is this constant weight on my chest and it feels like an emptiness has made a home inside of me. how do i go on when it feels like the world crashed on my shoulders?
hello, love! this is so very sweet and kind of you, and i hope you're treating yourself gently and kindly right now - there aren't words for a loss like this. that heaviness is difficult, and hard, and painful. it's okay if things don't feel okay, right now, or even soon - i think that's something that a lot of the people i know that have gone through similar grief feel: like they should be able to get back to a relative 'normal' in a [insert far too short period of time].
but it's okay if it hurts. that's where i'd like to start. you're allowed to feel that emptiness, that world-crashed feeling that goes beyond words, beyond time. don't feel like you have to rush this to feel some sort of better. things get easier with time, i promise you this, but sometimes painful feelings are important to feel, too. cry, scream, feel your emotions. they're a part of you. grieve.
it's perhaps a little silly, but when i think about death i always think about a couple of space songs: mainly drops of jupiter by train and saturn by sleeping at last. there are perhaps others that speak to the emotions better, but these two have always hit something a little deeper for me, and are popular for a wide-reaching reason.
and while personally i don't know much about grief like this, i do know a lot about love; and i think they're a lot of the same thing.
the people we love are a part of us, and this is why it takes from us so deeply when we lose them, because it does feel like we've lost a part of ourselves in the wake of it. but it's because they were so central to our experiences of living - our lives, that the separation introduces a hollowness - a place where they used to be. a home that now goes unlived in.
an emptiness, like you said.
but just because they're not here physically, doesn't mean he's not still there, in your heart, in your life, your memory. you can hold him close in smaller ways, as well: steal a sweater, or cologne/scent for something a little more physical and long lasting for remembering. hold onto the memories you cherish, the things that made you laugh, the ease of slow mornings and gentle nights. write them all down, slide a few photographs in there, go through it and add more when you miss him. keep them all close, keep them in your heart.
you're not alone, in this. he's still there, with you, it's just - in the little things.
he's with you in the way you see and go about your daily life, in doing what he liked to do, in the ways he interacted with the world that you shared with him. the memories you recall fondly when the night is late or the moment is right and something calls it into you like a melody, an old bell, laughter you'd recognize anywhere.
but i think, perhaps most importantly above all others - talk about him. with your family, your friends, his friends, strangers; stories are how we keep the people we love alive. the connections they've made, the legacies and experiences they've left behind, and so, so many stories.
how lucky, we are - to love so much it takes a piece of us when they go. grief is the other side of the coin, but it does not mean our love goes away. it lives in you. it lives in everyone who knew him, in the smallest pieces of our lives.
the people we love never really leave us, like this: they're in how we cook and the way we fold our newspapers, our laundry, in the radio stations we tune in to and the way we decorate our walls, our photo albums. they're in the way we store our mail, organize our closets, the scribbled notes in the indexes of our books. the meals we love and the drinks we mix, the way we spend time with one another. they've been passed down for generations, for longer than history - and we are all the luckier for it.
think about what you shared with him, and do it intentionally. bring him into your life, like this, again. whether it's crosswords or poetry or sports or anything else. if one doesn't help, try another. something might click.
i hope things feel a little easier for you, as they tend to do only with time. i hope you find joy in your grief, even if it is small and hard to grasp at first. know that your hurt stems from so much love that there isn't a place to put it properly, and that it is something so meaningful and hurting poets and storytellers have been struggling to put it into words and sounds that feel like the fit right for eons, and that it is also just simply yours. sometimes things don't have to make sense. sometimes they just are - unable to be put into words or neat little sentiments, as unfair and tragic as they come.
but i promise it will not feel like this forever. your love is real. and perhaps, on where to begin on from here - i think it's less on finding where to begin and just beginning. and you've already started. you've taken the most important and crucial step: the first one.
wherever you go, after that, from here? you'll figure it out. you always have, and you always do. it'll come, as things always do. love leads us, as does light - and you're never alone in your hurt. in your grief, your missing something dear to you. i think if you talk about it with others, you'll find they have ways of helping you cope as well - and they have so much love of their own to spare, too.
as an aside, here is the song (northern star by dom fera) i was listening to when i wrote this, for no other reason more than it makes me think of connections, and love, and how we hold onto the people we love and how they change us, wonderfully and intrinsically. it's a little more joyous than the others i've mentioned, and plays like a story, and it made me think of what is at the core of this, love and stories and i am here with you, and maybe it'll bring you some joy, if you'd like it. wishing you all my love and ease 💛
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