Heads up. I'm gonna complain about Murder Drones. Almost all of this rant is about how the show makes me feel so its a subjective opinion. Do not beat me for this because you disagree with me. You are allowed to disagree, you can even tell me that. Just no beatings please and thank you.
If you don't wanna read me complain then ignore this post I guess.
My biggest pet peeve with murder drones as a show is the weirdly inconsistent tone. Especially in relation to all the murder.
Murder Drones is a horror comedy. I get that. Death is played for laughs. Random drones die constantly in a variety of awful ways and we're supposed to think its funny. It usually is. If this was like, scary movie or another horror comedy I would have zero problems.
Thing is Murder Drones also wants you to treat the struggles of its perspective characters as if they have genuine meaning. And that makes me FEEL things that I'm not sure the show intended for me to feel.
Because you know, we're watching Uzi transform into a horrible gribbly monster and eat a bunch of drones. We're watching Uzi try to kill V and V try to kill Uzi. The music is rising as V's own stinger is turned against her.
This is MEANT to be a dramatic moment. But like, at least two students were dead before the monster mash even started and LITERALLY no one cared. The first thing V does in episode 4 is execute some kid to make rolecall go faster and the most N can muster is a nasty look.
Braiden shoots a kid in the face with his bow and arrow and seems completely unbothered. This is a guy he has (presumably) known for several years and he's dead now and not even his killer can muster a reason to care.
Within the same scene Braiden seems to INTENTIONALLY try to kill Uzi with the very same bow and we're supposed to care now?
Unironically why. Why should we care. Because she's the main character? Bro its a horror comedy they die all the time. Because she's funny? See my previous comment. Because she has a rich interior life and probably doesn't deserve to die?
Alright then, lets follow that. Uzi has a rich interior life and probably doesn't deserve to die. I can buy that. Cool. What about the kid V shot? Did they have a rich interior life too?
What if they did? What if they all do? Every Tom, Dick and Harry we watch get mangled in this show might not have been a threadbare caricature after all. Just a DEEPLY stupid person.
That thought enters my brain in episode 4 and it sits there. It has sat there ever since.
From episode 5 onwards the show kinda sidelines a lot of the death as comedy elements and starts treating murder a lot more seriously. Like I don't think the maid drones dying in ep 5 is meant to be funny. Its meant to show how genuinely horrible the Elliots were.
The show doesn't really have any mooks left to kill at this point. Just actual characters. We watch Alice die by her own sword, we watch Beau sacrifice themselves to save V. We watch V's fakeout death in episode 6 and then [Coping about my second fav character] we watch Doll die TWICE.
We find out sweet little Tessa, who never hurt anyone and who's only crime was kindness, has not only been dead for YEARS but her murderer wears her skin like some ghoulish cosplay.
Episode 8 is a god damn nightmare. The closest we get to comedy is Cyn swearing after Khan saves N and Lizzy desperately trying to escape from Sparky the lizard. No one dies in these comedy moments tho. We're 4 episodes deep in "people dying is kinda sad actually" at this point. Half the show treats death as if it matters.
Uzi gets her fucking core ripped out and has to desperately shove that shit back in her chest with the stumps where her hands USED to be be while her boyfriend gets mangled behind her. Her eyes are sparking and twitching and filled with animal terror. This is not supposed to be funny, its straight up body horror. Genuinely harrowing shit.
And then the last scene of the entire show is Uzi giving a presentation to her terrified classmates, mirroring the presentation from episode one.
V has seemingly murdered one of the kids in the back and throws her severed head at Uzi. Nobody cares. Uzi spooks her classmates with monster mode. They scream in terror, roll credits.
That scene didn't give me tonal whiplash. It fractured my tonal vertebrae. What The Fuck.
Is this supposed to be funny? Because I'm sure as hell not laughing anymore. That is a whole ass child V just murdered back there. The Solvers not even around anymore, Uzi ate her, literally nobody is making V do this.
There are two obvious conclusions to draw here. Either the Oil problem Uzi brings up all the way back in episode one is still unresolved and the DD's are still gonna kill everyone, overheat and then die or V's genuinely just killing kids for fun.
WHY DOES THE SHOW END LIKE THIS.
It genuinely makes me feel stupid for getting invested in these characters. It makes me feel stupid for believing in Uzi. It makes me feel stupid for feeling sorry for V.
The message of the show rings loud and clear then. "Its ok to kill people actually."
Is that what the creator was trying to say with his silly little robot show? Probably not. Thats what I get tho. You don't get to spend half the show acting like death matters and then play it for laughs in the very last moment bro.
And then theres the fanfiction.
The reason I know I'm not the only one who picked up on "Murder is ok actually" is because the Murder Drones AO3 tag is full of people uncritically regurgitating that take.
I know its fanfic and people can write whatever they want and such but its fucking stunning the lengths I've seen people go to in an attempt to convince their readers that all the murder is actually ok.
Not that the murder was bad but its in the past now and we need to move on from that and be better and such like the show tries to say in episode 3. People straight up minimising the very real harm the DD's have done and continue to do.
I saw Uzi spit out an unironic genocide apologia in a fanfic once. Not an apologia of her half baked anti human retaliatory genocide, SHE ACTUALLY TRIED TO JUSTIFY HER OWN PEOPLE GETTING EXTERMINATED.
This is exactly why I hate loving 40k so much. You get some incredibly space brained takes coming from people trying desperately to explain that the explicitly cruellest and bloodiest regime imaginable is not only neccessary for humanity to survive but in fact completely justified.
Bro. Shut the fuck up. Get out of the kitchen. Never cook again.
I always thought that kind of brain parasite was exclusive to 40k thanks to all the authoritarian imagery drawing in the lowest common denominator. Turns out if you make people like a character they can do whatever the fuck they want and someone will justify it. Sadge.
And I know not every fanfic is like this. I've read murder drones fanfics where we actually unpack the moral implications of a mountain of corpses so big you can live in it being made by THREE PEOPLE.
I've also read murder drones fanfics which embrace the horror comedy roots of the show more deeply than the show ever did.
I'm fine with both lanes. Just for the love of god PICK ONE.
I've seen random mook WD's armed with weapons (somehow) try to kill the murder drones in fanfics before. They're played as villains. Not antagonists. Villains.
FOR WHAT? NOT WANTING TO DIE?!
You can't kill people for a living and then act shocked and upset when the people you're killing try to kill you back. Best case scenario morality calls that a draw. Usually it means you're the bad guy.
The worst part is I can't even filter this shit on AO3. I honestly wouldn't be so pissy about this if I could. Thing is there is no "The murder is ok actually" tag on AO3. The closest you get is the Full Company tag which I do filter because its ALWAYS like that in a Full Company fanfic. Full Company fanfics unironically ruined Full Company for me.
Outside of Full Company though its a gamble every time I start a new MD fanfic whether or not the author is gonna try and justify killing and eating people. If I wanted to read that shit I'd open a Genestealer Cult codex.
