The idea of an mb cozy mystery is delightful on so many levels, and I am HERE for it!!!
ahh I'm so glad! It's one of my wips I wanna do Justice to because writing a mystery is kind of hard, but I'm also really excited to work on it because it has a really fun premise that I wanna sink my teeth into!
I don't have a good snippet of the mystery part to share yet as I'm just at the point of establishing the background, who the OCs are, what their deal is, etc, buuut Murderbot's nice visit to Preservation goes sideways when the museum curator's assistant is found dead outside of the station... wearing an antique spacesuit with no helmet on o3o
and the museum curator is Ratthi's friend, so mb agrees to investigate, except all of the evidence it turns up seems to point to her as the culprit, and so mb struggles with its loyalty to Ratthi and its commitment to bringing a killer to justice 👀
I loved that Fugitive Telemetry is basically a cozy mystery in its structure and when the idea of a body in an antique spacesuit popped into my head, I knew I had to write something for it :D :D
(I might need to be gently pressured into continuing this because I keep intimidating myself out of working on it for fun, but that's neither here nor there ;P)
thank you for the ask! and yanno what here's a snippet below the cut too
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I’d just made it back to Preservation Station after eight months away, and already I had a full itinerary. Unfortunately, I’d made it just in time for a planetside festival that Mensah wanted me to come to (similar to the other one I’d been to, this one would include a bunch of different live performances so I guess I wasn’t too bothered), plus there would be additional shows here on the station at Makeba Hall before and after the festival, and there was a new exhibit opening up on the station, of which one of Ratthi’s friends was the curator.
The exhibit was on various kinds of textiles used in spacefaring and would have centuries-old artifacts. Apparently, there were even environmental suits that had been used by the earliest space-faring humans from before they figured out how to go anywhere beyond their originating planet’s moon. ART was sad it couldn’t stick around to see it, so I promised to take multi-angle recordings with my drones when I went through.
I was looking at the ads (which were tastefully subtle, because this was Preservation) for the upcoming Grand Opening event when Ratthi came up behind me with a grin on his face. “Faraji said she’d be willing to give us a personal tour before it opens, if that sounds like something you’d like.”
“Just us, no one else?”
“Her assistant will probably come along, but otherwise yes, just us.”
That did sound appealing. Especially because I’d be stuck at the crowded festival for at least three days in a row. If I could front-load some quiet time, it’d probably help me make it through.
“Okay. When?” Usually I’d be down for anything whenever, but as I mentioned, I had a full itinerary. Well, almost full.
“Now, if you want. Or tomorrow if that works better.”
I’d be heading down to the planet tomorrow. “Let’s go now.”
I would love to know about Leonide's punchable face!
“Leonide’s eminently punchable stupid face” is a description Arada uses in one of my many smaller bits of her pov of network effect… this one is going to be another standalone unless a miracle occurs and I finish all of network effect (different wip in that list) in a reasonable timeframe lol
snip:
"I can go first, if you like," Arada offered. (Count one fuckup. Overse had told her she was allowed to tally them, but she wasn't allowed to do anything else until she was back on the ship. And she had to keep track of her wins too.)
"Not necessary," Leonide said, doing something with her face. "You understand the former colony planet in this system is now wholly owned by Barish-Estranza."
("Whatever you do, babe, this isn't a time for justice. Lie long enough to get out of there and then I'll let you rant to me for as long as you need, hey?" Overse'd said.)
Arada tensed her shoulders, but she was good, she didn't get mad, she didn't punch Leonide in her eminently punchable stupid face. "Of course."
Realized while at work, but Mensah pov of murderbot from end of all systems red to exit strategy goes like, she gets kidnapped and held hostage, it appears from fuck off nowhere after she thought it dead and tries to fucjing sacrifice itself and die to save her, she rescues it and frees it, it fucks off and she has to deal with realizing they fucked up bad in some major ways with their new buddy, she deals with the political and legal fallout and bullshit with gray cris and says a throwaway line about milu, then she's kidnapped and worrying that its been captured and is suffering, and suddenly our dear murderbot appears from out of goddamn thin air like an avenging angel to rescue her, tells her yes actually it heard that throwaway interview line and decided to start a diplomatic incident because of it, and then immediately tries to sacrifice itself to save her yet again
Honestly Mensah snapping on that company gunship was her fucking recognizing a pattern of behavior, like hey murderbot my new bestie can we fucking please not spend every meeting in a groundhog day purgatory loop repeating kidnapping-suicidal sacrifice-mutual rescue pretty fucking please?
Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head.
This is my current WIP! It revolves around one of Mensah's children (Mizan, who featured in one of my Murderbot September microfics) growing up to follow in Secunit's footsteps by joining Station Security because he's grown up watching it protect the people he loves and can't help finding that a little inspiring. Snippet below!
Mizan resists the urge to shove his hands in his pockets and visibly sulk his way back to his apartment. The disapproval radiating off of Secunit is bound to spill out, and Mizan struggles to keep from bracing for it the way he would have as teenager sneaking back onto the farm in the wee post-curfew hours. He can almost feel it wrestling its thoughts into words. He suspects it's mostly trying to filter what is likely a stream of exasperated swearing into something useful, if the look on its face is any clue.
In the end, it takes a little less than ten awkward minutes to break the silence. Mizan hesitates at the foot of a set of stairs that he just knows are going to make his half-healed bruises ache all the more, and Secunit shoos him towards a bench without being told what the hold-up is. It purses its lips when Mizan winces in the process of easing himself down to sit.
“Humans shouldn't do security. You're bad at it.” Secunit pauses, then hurries to tack on a quantifier that doesn't exactly help. “Not you specifically. Just…humans. You did okay. But you shouldn't be doing it at all.”
Mizan decides he’s not going to touch the accidentally backhanded compliment. He takes a breath and blows it out, contemplating how to approach this conversation without resorting to the yelling he wants to do. After all, “that’s not fair!” would sound silly coming out of the mouth of a six-foot-two adult in a Station Sec uniform.
SecUnit meeting Gurathin: IDK he seems a bit isolated and withdrawn but the rest of them seem to like him
SecUnit getting to know Gurathin: He's infuriating. He accused me of being a danger to my clients. He doesn't like my favourite TV show. He keeps being right about where plans were going to go wrong (rude), and pointing out when I'm doing something reckless (even more rude, I already know I'm being reckless, fuck off). He's my client and if you touch him I'll rip your fingers off. I'm sending him a silly video of me pretending to be human but only because he asked and I need to hold the moral high ground. designation: I don't like him.
Other people meeting SecUnit and Gurathin: IDK he seems a bit isolated and withdrawn but SecUnit seems to like him.
Murderbot loves to pull a "I know I said that [this thing the reader most likely didn't believe anyway because of the sus way it was said] was true, but what actually happened was [thing that isn't shocking in the least]"
In some other timeline there’s a version of The Murderbot Diaries where Mensah is the main character and it’s a political drama and people complain about Murderbot only showing up when characters are in trouble and it’s a terrible character and doesn’t make sense. The actual Murderbot Diaries are a series of fanfics and ART is an oc.
Okay, okay guys. Hear me out. I like The Murderbot Diaries as much as anyone else in the Gardener of Preservation fandom. Warmells is an amazing writer, t's a banger set of fics, honestly could stand as its own orginal series of novellas (heck, the fifth one is probably even novel length)-- but we gotta remember... it IS still fanfic.
I'm not saying that folks can't adopt the stuff in it their own fanon! Just remember it is fanon, and you don't HAVE to use it.
So as a reminder to folks, here are popular headcanons that NEVER appear in the original GoP show:
We do not know how SecUnit governor modules work, or how Murderbot turned it off beyond the line "All company equipment is the same"
We DON'T know any of the details of how it killed all those miners-- we know it was at a place called 'Ganaka Pit' from that old news article Pin-Lee dragged out, that's all
Speaking of which, we know VERY little about how ComfortUnits work. Based on that interrogation scene from S2e3, they're used for much more than sex, whatever Murderbot might call them.
we know pretty much NOTHING of what Murderbot did in that 3/4s of a season it was absent for
also
and i can't state this one enough
WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE THAT THE TRANSPORT THAT KIDNAPPED THE OCEANIC SURVEY TEAM IS A SAPIENT AI
ESPECIALLY NOT A TOP SECRET SUPER ADVANCED AI
WHO IS MURDERBOT'S BFF
we especially don't know if Murderbot calls it a cute nickname
y'all. Y'all. I know the wait for the next season has us all chewing off our own arms. but this is hiatus brainrot. ART IS FUNCTIONALLY AN OC STOP PUTTING IT IN ALL YOUR FICS
anyway by im gonna go back to giffing that MenLee makeout session byyyyyyeeee
So, I've been writing my story about Amena's life at college and beyond for a while now, and am in the process of writing about a Mensah kid joining Station Security, all of which made me think about what alllll of the Mensah kids get up to as they grow up and how MB's presence in their family affected them.
"Not Far From the Tree" is not the final title, but it will be a multi-chapter fic (one chapter per sibling) set roughly 10-15 years post-canon. I don't have a snippet yet because it's still in the outline process, but the plan is to focus on a snapshot of each kid's life, the role Secunit plays in it, and maybe some glimpses of how Preservation itself has shifted to make room for a growing community of free constructs. One kid takes over the farm as their parents retire. Another goes into immigration law. Amena becomes a therapist for traumatized machine intelligences. Etc. It's still a ways off yet as I'm working on the Station Security fic currently, but it's definitely on the horizon.
It's so important to acknowledge the very real and sometimes truly horrible failings of the healthcare profession and the pharmaceutical industry while never ever ever letting them drive us into the arms of pseudoscientific bullshit. This is something I feel really strongly about.
Hi, friend! 😊 1) Thank you for the tag and 2) I NEED to know more about the three soulmates fic!!
this is a bittersweet one! the title is a bit misleading; it's not about soulmates in a romantic fate-based system, but rather an AU in which sufficiently strong/meaningful emotional bonds cause soulmarks to appear on your skin. three believes that secunits cannot get soulmarks, until it realizes that murderbot has soulmarks for ART and for most of presaux. this gives it some complicated feelings given how much it cared about 1 and 2. its soulmarks do eventually make an appearance (the reason it hadn't gotten soulmarks before is because of the way cubicle maintenance worked at its company) and it has many feelings about this.
snippet under the cut:
It is a series of coincidences that lead me to the moment, but mainly the itching corrosive rain that makes its way through our armor and bites at our skin. 1.0 is sure it can handle this on its own, until Perihelion points out that there is a section of its back that it cannot reach and that will continue to be affected by the substance until it has been thoroughly cleaned. 1.0 suggests detaching its own hand for this purpose. I offer my assistance as an alternative.
We strip off our clothing and stand under the shower spray, our bodies only different inasmuch as company models and random genetic material cause variation. 1 and 2 looked almost identical to myself in configuration, although they differed in the cloned human tissue.
Then 1.0 turns around, and I see that it is different in another way as well.
"What is that?" I ask. "On your back."
"Some sort of corrosive precipitation ART hasn't identified yet," says 1.0, as if I have said something incredibly stupid.
"I know that part," I say, reaching out towards the inflamed skin but stopping several centimeters away. "But... the marks."
Covering a large section of 1.0's upper back from shoulder blade to shoulder blade is a net of blue lines, in an arrangement similar to machine language but not close enough to be intelligible. Its organized complexity reminds me of Perihelion, or more accurately of Perihelion's mind. The reddened skin at its edges only serves to accentuate the vivid blue of the mark itself.
There are smaller marks as well, blending into each other and touching at the edges so that it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. I think there are at least five, winding around its side and down its upper arm.
1.0 freezes for a moment. Its muscles visibly tense. "The marks?"
"They look like soulmarks," I say. I do not know what else they could be.
"That's what ART thinks they are," says 1.0. "It doesn't really make sense, but they started appearing a few weeks after we rescued ART's crew."
"But... SecUnits don't get soulmarks," I say. I am aware that this is not helping my track record of saying incredibly stupid things, but I am truly confused.
"That's what I thought too," says 1.0. "ART says it's doing some research or something to be sure, but it thinks it's either because I was too isolated to form that sort of connection before or just because I've gotten my skin regenerated so often they never stuck." Before I can say anything, it adds, "Speaking of which, I really need you to help get that stuff off my back if I'm going to keep this skin."
I keep thinking about it as I scrub 1.0's back with several different implements, figuring out how to get the clinging film off just as 1.0 starts getting fed up with the whole process. All the organic skin of its back is reddened now, tinting the parts of Perihelion's mark that cross it and leaving the parts on its inorganics unchanged. It's the only mark that covers both organics and inorganics—the others only touch its organic skin.
I know how soulmarks work. I've seen enough of them on clients—human clients who developed marks on their human skin in response to human emotional connections. It's typically a joyful affair, although there are occasions when the distribution of marks could mean poorly for a relationship, if a client has developed a closer emotional bond with someone other than their committed partner. But in the vast majority of cases I have observed, it is a reassurance, a validation of something already understood.
I do not know what it means that Murderbot 1.0, a cheaply produced SecUnit who avoids emotions as if they are a threat, has six or more of these marks. I do not know what that means about me.
RULES: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous and tag as many people as you have WIPs. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then you post a snippet or tell them something about it!
Thank you so much for the tag, @mercurialfeet ! 😊 I've seen this tag going around, and I know a lot of writers I follow have likely already been tagged, so no pressure to anyone: @elexuscal @jadefyre @specialagentartemis @needlesandnilbogs @ilovedthestars
Current WIPs (no official titles here, just vibes and working titles):
