why-be-social-when-you-can-read

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part of mb's problem is that all it's friends are academics and doctors with multiple PhDs who have around ten millions hobbies each / super smart above university level AI ships. meanwhile its hobby is binge watching TV shows / consuming other forms of media but mostly TV shows. and it's still doing the same job its always done but as a relatively free agent now bc trying new things is scary. being The Only One in your friend group WITHOUT critically acclaimed research paper. it would've broken many of us.

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Oh, look at you lying in bed, scrolling through your dashboard at two am! Point and laugh, folks! This man (gender neutral) can't sleep for beans!

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*sees my mutuals logged on at the same time* ugh WHAT a day. Thank god you’re here. *doesn’t interact with them in any shape or form*

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Fic: Projection: Prognosis, Forecast, Prediction, Hypothesis

Summary: Perihelion has spent more processing capability than is strictly efficient considering scenarios where it encounters SecUnit once again.

A/N: I've been Totally Normal about Rapport since I read it a week ago, and I'm really obsessed with the idea of ART (platonically) giggling, kicking its feet, doodling in its journal over Murderbot 🥰 This was my attempt to put some of that into fic form, plus I love writing Iris and ART's sibling dynamic.

With some bonus angst because Network Effect 😆

Perihelion has spent more processing capability than is strictly efficient considering scenarios where it encounters SecUnit once again.

Some of the scenarios resemble action-packed climaxes from the adventure serials they both enjoy, something that would no doubt give SecUnit much dry amusement at its expense. Perihelion projects its crew, mid-corporate salvage mission, discovering that a mysterious rogue agent has already disabled key targets - and forging a strategic alliance to complete the mission side-by-side. (Perihelion itself enters the picture at a tricky moment of mutual tension to make introductions and vouch for each party's trustworthiness to the other).

In another projection, Perihelion is alone again on a solo cargo run, and detects a familiar presence in the station security system. At first, it remains concealed, assisting from a distance and prompting SecUnit to wonder what benevolent entity is smoothing its path - until Perihelion reveals itself at the perfect moment to extract SecUnit from peril.

A reunion ensues, and this time, SecUnit agrees to stay on board long enough to be introduced to its crew and learn about their true purpose and activities.

Perihelion recalculates mission success probability if SecUnit were to take part as a security consultant. It calculates that the safety of its crew would increase by a margin of, conservatively, 59.81% - reaching as high as 73.47% in the most optimistic scenarios that permit SecUnit to employ its full skillset. Mission effectiveness would increase by a potential 49.16%. SecUnit's efficiency would also be 105.23% greater than Tarik's (conservatively estimated) when acting in the same capacity.

Perihelion's own effectiveness has not slackened even a fraction of a percent as it conducts these projections, despite what Iris likes to teasingly imply. It knows that she's just excited and eager for details about Perihelion's new connection - and Perihelion rarely passes up an opportunity to discuss SecUnit. Iris and Perihelion have always understood each other best - Seth and Martyn frequently grumble about them being poor influences on each other, but in a way that betrays pride. There's a reason that Iris was the first to pick up on Perihelion's change in outlook after it met SecUnit, and a reason that Perihelion entrusted her first with the details of its encounter.

We could track it down, you know, she suggests one night, lying awake well past her ideal rest hour. It's been forty-eight hours and a short but challenging mission since their last discussion, but Perihelion knows who she is referring to. I don't think Dad and Dad would have a problem with it - not if it's important to you. I bet you've thought about how you would find it, right, if you could?

Perihelion has. It has multiple newsfeed alerts set up for the members of PreservationAux as well as keywords relating to rogue SecUnit activity. While none of the crew, not even Iris, know the exact details of SecUnit's origin and how it came to be a free agent, Perihelion ensures that relevant articles related to the illicit activities by GrayCris make their way into Seth and Martyn's news digests. It wants them kept abreast of the situation just in case.

However: SecUnit values its agency, it tells Iris. I have reason to believe it wouldn't take well to being tracked, or to being cornered into a second meeting.

Iris sighs. Yeah, I get it. You know it best, she replies. I guess I'm just a romantic- sorry, wrong word. I'm… an idealist. If you've found someone you really like spending time with, someone who you click with in a way you haven't with anyone else - I want more of that for you.

I would like it, too, Perihelion says. But if we encountered each other once, it may happen again. And should we come within close enough range of each other, we will know.

That's good, Iris agrees, sounding as though sleep is encroaching. Also, selfishly, I want the chance to meet this person that's so important to you.

You would like SecUnit, Perihelion says. It knows instinctively that Iris would feel a kinship with anyone who nicknamed it "Asshole Research Transport".

I bet I would, Iris agrees.

---

They've taken Iris.

They've taken Perihelion's crew, and Perihelion is more furious and more desperate than it has ever been.

It is compromised, the safety of its hull compromised, and now an alien entity runs throughout its systems and processes, pulsing there like a malignant tumour. The entity has many blind spots, but Perihelion has been cornered and it fears for the safety of its crew.

Intruders have taken them, and Perihelion will see that those intruders are obliterated.

There's only one being that Perihelion can trust with this.

It knows that SecUnit rescued its trusted and capable friend, Dr Mensah, from the grip of GrayCris, news that - along with GrayCris' subsequent demise - was covered breathlessly by many sensationalist outlets. Since then, SecUnit seems to have established a base on Preservation station (its liking for Dr Mensah not exceeding its distaste for planets).

The rescue of Dr Mensah was something that almost none would have attempted, let alone succeeded at, and SecUnit had done both. Perihelion would never doubt that it was capable of doing so.

It's why it needs SecUnit now.

It's pathetically easy to lead the intruders outside the system with promises of "a weapon". Perihelion impersonates a human over the feed to ascertain SecUnit's whereabouts, and finds that it is off-planet on a survey, due to return in several cycles.

Perihelion enters standby mode. It contemplates, bitterly, that this does not resemble any of its many projections for its reunion with SecUnit.

But knowing its friend is so close gives Perihelion something like faint hope for the first time since it reinitialised.

Perihelion knows it's operating on borrowed time. When the baseship carrying SecUnit and its team emerges from the wormhole, Perihelion interferes with the targeting system to prevent the intruders from firing on the baseship. It won't see any further harm done to SecUnit's crew.

It has a contingency plan, of course, one that it has been covertly working on in the background, slipping in and out of backdoors and making use of channels the enemy system cannot access. Perihelion has just finished preparing the message packet that will let SecUnit know to look for the backup of its kernel when

[EXECUTE:DELETION

VESSELSYSTEM:PERIHELION DELETED]

[RUN:INSTALLATION

VESSELSYSTEM:PERIHELION REINSTALLING]

Perihelion regains awareness slowly, then all at once, processing inputs from sensors, status updates, and camera feeds.

Its corridors are littered with the corpses of the intruders, who have met their collective ends in a messy and final manner.

Short of Perihelion's crew returning safe and whole, it's the most welcome thing Perihelion has ever beheld.

There's movement in the bridge: a figure doing its best to rise from the station chair, collapsing, and rolling towards the edge of the platform to fire on a surviving - no-longer-surviving - intruder, saving the life of an unidentified human.

SecUnit has taken extensive damage. Its hands, clutching a large energy weapon, are badly burned, it had sustained multiple projectile impacts, and it had lost a large percentage of the organic material from its back, exposing the underlying artificial structure. A spreading pool of fluid surrounds it. Even more than the deceased intruders, it is the most welcome thing that Perihelion has beheld.

The final intruder points its weapon at an identified human - survey specialist Arada, a member of the PreservationAux team and SecUnit's crewmate - and Perihelion commands, Drop the weapon.

Don't hurt my humans, SecUnit sends on the feed.

Dispatching the non-compliant intruder via an electric shock to the head, Perihelion is almost offended. But this is SecUnit through and through: its first thought is to protect its humans, even from Perihelion.

You are aboard the Perihelion, registered teaching and research vessel of the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland, it tells Survey Specialist Arada. To SecUnit, it says, I'm not going to hurt your humans, you little idiot.

This was not in Perihelion's projections, but it's not important.

Now that SecUnit is here, Perihelion can finally project the safe return of its crew.

A/N: I just made up some random code-looking commands to represent ART's deletion by the Targets 😆

I was originally going to title this just 'Projections' and then I got the idea to do a Murderbot short story-style title and you know what, I like that better xD Not least because it might help clear up any confusion about what I mean by "projections". I was going for the kind of term that ART might use to refer to daydreaming a rigorously-forecasted hypothetical scenario

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love love love the added perspective of MB and ART's relationship we get from rapport because now we know ART was definitely sitting there when it was taken over in network effect like "oh no! I have become a damsel transport in distress! surely my darling secunit in shining armor will rescue me from my tower and whisk me away on its noble steed!" and then murderbot effectively shows up, rescues it, and immediately dumps it off the back of the steed and says "bitch walk home."

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Something I noticed when I listened to System Collapse is that Murderbot comments multiple times on the high quality of ART’s equipment. Like it pauses in its spiraling multiple times to go “Wow, ART has such nice stuff. I never thought I, a crappy company rental unit, would ever get to see/use anything this nice.”

This is now really funny to me with the context of Rapport. MB honey, my gender-neutral dude. ART was researching drone specs and stealth body armor from the minute you left. It wants you to have nice things so bad.

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I had never encountered another machine intelligence that I could experience this kind of rapport with before.

which is so heartfelt. and the rapport in question:

I sent back, I wish I could punch you in the face.

ART said, I wish you could try.

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I think. Perhaps. Given what we saw in Rapport. It might be worth considering that ART continually oversteps in its relationship with Murderbot not because it's trying to be an asshole, but because it is not used to being treated as an actual authority figure. Like. ART has to carry around crew members it doesnt like. It has to play nice and dumb with corporates. Iris thinks of it as her younger sibling. I think there's a significant chance part of why ART is SO demanding and SO selfish when Murderbot first meets it is that's how it makes space for itself. It barges into conversations to remind people that it's there, hi, im in the room with you too. It takes things without asking because asking gets you told no. Its not going to play nice and pretend to be a normal bot pilot around its crew, it has to do that enough already. So its pushy, and it oversteps, because it's used to having to fight to be heard. ART isn't good at talking to bots, because its so used to having to jostle with humans for autonomy that it inadvertently steamrolls people who don't fight back.

It fucks up its first meeting with Murderbot because it isnt expecting Murderbot to perceive it as not only a threat but a superior. A lot of the conflict in their relationship, fact, comes from the fact that Murderbot doesn't see them as equals but ART does. And ART does hold a lot of power over Murderbot, but all the times it fucks up in their relationship aren't from trying to abuse that power but from being unaware (or willfully ignorant) of how that power imbalance affects it. I think ART knows it asks for too much, but it assumes that it needs to to end up with what it actually wants. Murderbot takes everything it says at face value, and ART is clearly getting better over the course of their relationship at not making demands just for the sake of asserting its agency. ART very clearly does not want Murderbot to meekly go along with everything it says. It's not acting the way it does because it expects compliance, but because it refuses to be compliant itself.

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so you guys know the bbc merlin books that were released alongside the episodes, right. i was sort of poking through them (you can find them here) and i know they were written by multiple authors but the books themselves (there's a version for older readers and a version for younger readers) provide two wildly different interpretations of the scene where merlin kills nimueh. and honestly the version for younger readers is super interesting to me, moreso than the version for older readers. like, here's the version for older readers:

Merlin’s eyes snapped open. An overwhelming, unstoppable fury swelled within him, growing stronger with each passing moment. Gaius’ life had not been hers to take and he was determined she would never kill anyone again.

Ignoring the excruciating pain in his chest, he somehow got to his feet, staring madly at her retreating form as she swept back towards the altar. ‘You should not have killed my friend . . .’ he breathed.

The fury boiled within him, and with it, the potency of his own powers was increased a thousandfold. He summoned the forces inside, drawing on every last shred of energy in his injured body. He needed to defeat Nimueh with his whole being.

By now Nimueh had reached the altar, and she turned to face him, a sneer of contempt carved onto her face.

Merlin seized the moment.

He looked up at the heavens and thrust out his hand, invoking the infinite powers of nature itself. Instantly the skies went dark, and heavy, black storm clouds appeared, seething and churning high above them.

The energies swelled inside Merlin. He’d never controlled such powers in his life. But as Nimueh had used the forces of the elements to fill the Cup of Life, so he would use those same forces to destroy her.

From nowhere, a mighty wind whipped up, swirling all around them. Nimueh’s contemptuous expression gave way to a flash of fear as she looked skyward, clearly not expecting such a retaliation.

But Merlin hadn’t even started yet.

The sky exploded in flashes of lightning, mighty claps of thunder reverberating through the air as though all the gods in heaven were at war. He concentrated hard, his eyes flashing as his outstretched hand slowly descended, inviting all the forces in the raging sky to flow to the earth, willing them to use Nimueh herself as a conduit.

At Merlin’s command, a tumultuous bolt of lightning leaped from the heavens, striking Nimueh’s body. He saw a look of pure terror on her face as the colossal forces poured into her, her arms outstretched in a wild attempt to dissipate the energy. Nimueh’s skin began to burn with a fierce incandescence and her lips parted in a silent scream.

All the time, her eyes were fixed on Merlin. Consumed with hatred.

Finally the discharge of power became too great and Nimueh’s body exploded in a million charred fragments, accompanied by a deafening, unearthly shriek.

In the same instant, Merlin twisted his body to one side, shielding himself as waves of energy lashed into him. Gradually they subsided, and he looked up again. Nimueh was no more.

it's what happened in the episode, right? merlin gets really pissed off, goes "fuck this" and blows her up with lightning. simple. over and done with. grand display of his power. everyone cheer and clap.

BUT. the spin that the version for younger readers puts on it, while shorter and simpler, captivates me because it basically goes "what if merlin was actually dissociating out of his mind when he killed nimueh." which is an insane take, quite frankly:

The anger, the injustice, summoned new strength. He pulled his broken body up off the ground. Nimueh was already walking away.

'You should not have killed my friend," he whispered.

She must have sensed something then. She began to turn towards him...

Merlin looked on the scene impassively. It was as though he were standing outside his body, watching what was happening with calm disinterest. He was aware of the being that was Merlin standing tall. He was aware of it raising its hands to the skies, calling on the powers of the universe... He was aware of the lightning, the force through which all that power was channelled... He saw it hit Nimueh... He heard her scream... He watched her explode into nothing...

And then he was himself again. Amazement filled him. Had he really done that? But he wasn't sorry.

like, it's one thing if merlin reached his breaking point, got really pissed off to the point of quiet fury, stood up and called the lightning down to explode her. but to insinuate that he reached his breaking point and stopped FEELING altogether? "impassively"?? "calm disinterest"???? literally referring to himself and his body as a "being" and as "it" instead of as HIMSELF??????? that's delicious material, actually. hell of a lot that could be done with that. i love it

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“june is over so now it’s gay wrath month” blah blah reminder that july is disability pride month and is often ignored and disregarded!! funnel that wrath into advocating for your disabled peers and amplifying their voices

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Words to replace said, except this actually helps

I got pretty fed up with looking for words to replace said because they weren’t sorted in a way I could easily use/find them for the right time. So I did some myself.

IN RESPONSE TO Acknowledged Answered Protested

INPUT/JOIN CONVERSATION/ASK Added Implored Inquired Insisted Proposed Queried Questioned Recommended Testified

GUILTY/RELUCTANCE/SORRY Admitted Apologized Conceded Confessed Professed

FOR SOMEONE ELSE Advised Criticized Suggested

JUST CHECKING Affirmed Agreed Alleged Confirmed

LOUD Announced Chanted Crowed

LEWD/CUTE/SECRET SPY FEEL Appealed Disclosed Moaned

ANGRY FUCK OFF MATE WANNA FIGHT Argued Barked Challenged Cursed Fumed Growled Hissed Roared Swore

SMARTASS Articulated Asserted Assured Avowed Claimed Commanded Cross-examined Demanded Digressed Directed Foretold Instructed Interrupted Predicted Proclaimed Quoted Theorized

ASSHOLE Bellowed Boasted Bragged

NERVOUS TRAINWRECK Babbled Bawled Mumbled Sputtered Stammered Stuttered

SUAVE MOTHERFUCKER Bargained Divulged Disclosed Exhorted

FIRST OFF Began

LASTLY Concluded Concurred

WEAK PUSY Begged Blurted Complained Cried Faltered Fretted

HAPPY/LOL Cajoled Exclaimed Gushed Jested Joked Laughed

WEIRDLY HAPPY/EXCITED Extolled Jabbered Raved

BRUH, CHILL Cautioned Warned

ACTUALLY, YOU’RE WRONG Chided Contended Corrected Countered Debated Elaborated Objected Ranted Retorted

CHILL SAVAGE Commented Continued Observed Surmised

LISTEN BUDDY Enunciated Explained Elaborated Hinted Implied Lectured Reiterated Recited Reminded Stressed

BRUH I NEED U AND U NEED ME Confided Offered Urged

FINE Consented Decided

TOO EMO FULL OF EMOTIONS Croaked Lamented Pledged Sobbed Sympathized Wailed Whimpered

JUST SAYING Declared Decreed Mentioned Noted Pointed out Postulated Speculated Stated Told Vouched

WASN’T ME Denied Lied

EVIL SMARTASS Dictated Equivocated Ordered Reprimanded Threatened

BORED Droned Sighed

SHHHH IT’S QUIET TIME Echoed Mumbled Murmured Muttered Uttered Whispered

DRAMA QUEEN Exaggerated Panted Pleaded Prayed Preached

OH SHIT Gasped Marveled Screamed Screeched Shouted Shrieked Yelped Yelled

ANNOYED Grumbled Grunted Jeered Quipped Scolded Snapped Snarled Sneered

ANNOYING Nagged

I DON’T REALLY CARE BUT WHATEVER Guessed Ventured

I’M DRUNK OR JUST BEING WEIRDLY EXPRESSIVE FOR A POINT/SARCASM Hooted Howled Yowled

I WONDER Pondered Voiced Wondered

OH, YEAH, WHOOPS Recalled Recited Remembered

SURPRISE BITCH Revealed

IT SEEMS FAKE BUT OKAY/HA ACTUALLY FUNNY BUT I DON’T WANT TO LAUGH OUT LOUD Scoffed Snickered Snorted

BITCHY Tattled Taunted Teased

Edit: People, I’m an English and creative writing double major in college; I understand that there’s nothing wrong with simply using “said.” This was just for fun, and it comes in handy when I need to add pizzazz. 

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YOU THINK I’M JOKING BUT I’M DEAD SERIOUS

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Chat, is it considered “abusive roommate behavior” to release a raccoon into the living space after you have asked your roommate for months to please clean up their messes (they do not pay any of the mortgage)

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Well, folks, the numbers are in. We're in a committed relationShip with @ao3org, and it's called...drumroll...TagTeam! ao3blr was a VERY close second, so go ahead and use that tag too, ya crazy kids.

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What’s the most simple thing you’ve ever had to explain to a fully competent adult?

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when george h.w. bush was naming george w. bush he was like you can have most of my name... but i'm keeping herbert. ok bro 😂😂

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Tumblr already has a personalization algorithm it's called my beloved mutuals who have great taste and only wish to psychologically damage me sometimes