Some headcanons for Tarik from The Murderbot Diaries, whom I have latched onto. (Only some of them are mean.)
He looks like a man from Turkey (Tarik is a Turkish name, and he plays the oud, an instrument from Turkey). If I had to assign a face to him, I would see him as looking like Onur Tuna. Lightly tanned skin, dark hair, blue eyes. But his nose is more Hawk/hooked because distinctive noses are 👨🍳💋
He mentioned he played the Oud and Bouzouki, and while he's modest about it in System Collapse, he actually plays and sings incredibly well.
Most ‘vulnerable’ emotions he feels are masked by anger, annoyance, or a forced calm/neutrality. He learned quick that any ‘weak’ emotion would earn him punishment. (Things like love, happiness, optimism)
He’s actually pretty heavily augmented. Most are hidden by artificial skin or dismissed as ‘medical prosthetics’ due to injury. Which, technically, isn't a lie, but don't worry about that.
Gives Murderbot a run for its money in the paranoia department.
He also gives Murderbot a run for its money on its hatred of dealing with and discussing emotions.
He's meticulous at keeping his augments up to date, but is very careful about things like malware and spyware. He scans everything before downloading it and is hesitant to let even someone as sophisticated as Art help him. (Yes, Art takes this personally.)
He has a pretty high pain tolerance.
He speaks the in-universe form of Kurdish and Arabic along with common.
As a member of a Combat Unit, he was taught how to use firearms, hand-to-hand combat, torture methods, how to resist torture, how to fly aircraft, stealth operations, and how to assess danger.
Alrighty, since I got a large majority of Maybes (and Nos but shhh) on the last poll, I wanted to add some more info to see if those individuals could be convinced to support a Murderbot Server. (If I have at least 15 likes on this post by 3/16/26, I'll make the server)
It would be a fandom space to chat about the books, show, ships, and speculate on the universe.
It would be a very chill atmosphere ( face it, we all have social anxiety) with no pressure to interact more than you want to. Though there will be opportunities to, and maybe some silly server rewards for participation.
There will be multiple ways to make suggestions/ask questions, both publicly and privately.
There would also be sections where you could build your own characters, roleplay, or request roleplay partners, and share artwork/writing. This includes a list of suggestions for your favorite fanfics.
The server would be highly organized with easy-to-understand channels and categories, making it easy to navigate and understand.
It would be Bipoc, LGBTQIA, & disabled friendly.
The server would have a 0-tolerance policy for toxic behavior. This is always a huge issue in fandom spaces, even in small, more niche fandoms. You can disagree with people's views on ships or headcanons. Still, if you start acting like an asshole or the Morality Police, you're out. Period.
There would be rooms where talking about shipping with Murderbot would be permitted, but only to people with a specific role. So if you don't want to ship Murderbot or see Murderbot ships, you won't have to interact with that content.
It will be 18+, but the NSFW will be limited to its own section cause not everyone is comfy with spicy talk even if they're a legal adult.
In Network Effect we are introduced to what boils down to human governor modules. And that got me thinking
what if corporate's give augments to the people that they've enslaved that they can control on demand?
Like they can make you see things with ocular augments or alter what your see. They can make you do things with limb augments. they can embed a literal shock collar into you so if you don't obey them, they can electrocute you to the point of death. Or just torture you for fun.
and then that made me think about Tarik and him being on a kill squad I know it's not mentioned in the book that he's an augmented human. It says that he is human, but that's from Murderbot's perspective so he's not a reliable narrator on who is an augment who is a regular human (especially if steps were made to hide those things from scanners. You can alter your HubID and I'm sure that Peri and Seth don't want other people to know they have an EX-Kill Squad member onboard)
They could have just “winter soldiered” him but in a world of Augments, legal slavery/torture, body modification, and powerful synthesized drugs that's just boring.
Ugh. I am now obligated to write Ratthi/Tarik because they're dynamic is too good. The sunshine+Grump/Skeptic who would probably die for the sunshine (they even have a misunderstanding leading to a hiccup in their relationship. Come ON)
Write something sweet
Write something devestating
Make a suggestion (Rebagle or comment)
A resolution to their ‘fight’
Voting ended onMar 13
There's so much untapped potential. And I will write regardless but I do like it when people let me know what they're interested in reading
Aw, a skeptical, mission-minded combat specialist who's haunted by his bloody past as an enforcer for the Corporates getting with the sunshine scientist who sees the good in everyone and is obnoxiously supportive
Ratthi / Tarik is adorable. I'm gonna die
I'm also worried for Tarik, because if he makes Ratthi cry Murderbot will rip his arms off.
We all agree that Ratthi was super stoked that Murderbot gave him permission to touch it? Yeah it wasn't a hug, just a ploy to stop Barish-Estranza from knowing what it was, but he was still allowed to touch Murderbot.
After fuming about the stupid corporates he probably gets mushy and thanks Murderbot for trusting him.
Construct!Art is experiencing significant pain for the first time = a toddler falling and whacking their head and looking up at their parent to gauge whether they're hurt or not.
What if: In Network Effect, the escape pod was noticed sooner or it was picked up with Murderbot and Amena? And Mensah was also there, as a treat?
-
Ratthi, Overse, and Mensah are also present for Murderbot's Emotional Breakdown. Murderbot, looking back to see their terrified faces, they're looking at it like the humans in media look at the Evil SecUnit. (They are scared, but it's for Murderbot, not of Murderbot. They know it too well to not realize something is wrong.)
It wrestling with the loss of ART, its perceived loss of its humans’ trust, and the guilt of making Ratthi see it kill up close and personal. (A scenario Murderbot never wanted to happen.)
Thiago could also be there. Maybe feeling kinda vindicated at first, watching Murderbor kill those targets so violently. Really rub in how scary and dangerous Murderbot is. Telling Mensah ‘Get back from it! it's going to kill you!” when she steps closer to speak with it—then being made to feel like an asshole later when Murderbot tells them about ART and what it did for him.
Murderbot constantly laments about how the SecUnit education was crap. Can you imagine it just sitting in on one of the lessons during its time in Art? Pretending it doesn't really care, but having this fascinated look on its face, maybe even wanting to ask questions of the instructor. Or ask Art some clarifying questions. (Which Art teases it about later)
A snippet of a thing that wouldn't leave my brain until I wrote it.
Murderbot is hurt, and Perihelion is now somehow in a Construct body.
__
Murderbot woke up and pushed itself up onto its elbows. It felt blood sticking to its forehead and felt something leaking down its side. Just Great. A door hissed open off to its left; its ocular input hadn't come back online fully, so it couldn't tell if it was a threat. (Its Threat Assessment was definitely saying it was a threat. What else could it be?) Allowing reflexes to take over, Murderbot pushes off the floor, but its leg gives out, and it falls onto its backside. Shit. Shit. What the fuck? It isn't stunned, but it still takes 0.5 seconds to start dragging itself backward. The floor was slick with something, and there was some damage to its hip joint. Its hand groped for the weapon it had dropped. Until a voice came through to it on the feed.
It's me, you little idiot, Art said as it walked through the door. Yes, Walked. Art was now fully in focus, a medkit in one hand and a small energy weapon in the other. Yes, it now had hands. It'd taken a construct body. It was tall, maybe 5 inches taller than Murderbot, with skin darker than Ratthi's but not as deep as Mensah's. But something was odd about its complexion; it looked like someone had splashed white paint on its body and even in its hair. White strands stood out starkly against its forehead and temples, where the curls were generally a deep brown, almost black. One eyebrow and eyelash were bright white as well.
"What? Art how—?"
"There'll be time for that later," Art said as it approached Murderbot. Halting when Murderbot resumed crawling back from it. Art let out an exasperated sigh, "We don't have time for your usual wounded animal routine." Murderbot glares at Art. It wasn't acting like a wounded animal. It was acting like a Murderbot that had just restarted after being violently slammed into a wall, thank you very much.
"This is the part where you let me repair your leaking bits so we can escape and regroup with the humans." Art's tone implied it was saying this to be encouraging and helpful, and not a huge, sarcastic asshole. Which the wounded secunit didn't believe for one second.
"No. I can handle patching myself up. Give me the medkit." Murderbot said as it stuck out an arm impatiently. Art made a skeptical face that put Murderbot in an even fouler mood.
"Unless you intend to remove your hand or arm, again, you won't be able to adequately reach and repair yourself. It's better if I do it." Art said as it takes one step closer to Murderbot, who scoots back in response. "Alright, fine. I'll give you the medkit on one condition: you tell me why you had an emotional collapse when you thought I was deleted." Fucking asshole. Murderbot and Art stare at one another for only 3 seconds, but it passes as slowly as an eternity. With a reluctant grunt, which was the closest Art would get to a concession from Murderbot, the SecUnit tugs off its shirt.
"Thank you," Art said as it knelt beside the SecUnit and opened the medkit. "If it makes you feel better, I won't touch your skin unless I absolutely have to." It was looking at Murderbot's face, and for a moment, Murderbot intended to just stare ahead down the hallway. But it decided to shoot Art a glare instead. The bot-pilot now had a face it could glare at, so why not? Their eyes met, Art's construct eyes weren't brown nor gold, but an in between, like the core of a flame where it burned the hottest. Murderbot quickly snapped its gaze forward again as Art set to patch up the mangled bits of its hips and back. As promised, Art's hands didn't even graze Murderbot's skin until the one time it needed to tilt the SecUnit's torso to get at a hard-to-reach spot. The contact made Murderbot jolt, even if it wasn't entirely unpleasant. A long 10-second silence stretched between them.
"You're important." —Art is looking at Murderbot's face again—"I had that emotional collapse because you're important and I thought you were gone." Art's expression almost makes it look like Art was getting ready to tell a joke about Murderbot's slow processing speed to respond to the question. But that joke doesn't come. which made the SecUnit nervous in a way that nearly plummeted its performance reliability.
"Not important in a weird way," Murderbot continued. It felt a strange flushing sensation along its skin that it didn't know how to explain if Art noticed. Emotions were complicated, far too complicated to discuss now in a potentially hostile situation. Or ever, now that it thought about it. Art didn't comment on anything for a painfully long time as it finished the repairs. When the medkit was snapped closed, Art stood up to its full height.
"You're important in a not weird way to me, too." Art said as it offered a hand to help Murderbot up. It was a simple gesture that Murderbot could accept or ignore, and maybe, given the circumstances, it should have ignored it. But after pulling back on its damaged shirt, Murderbot reaches up and accepts the hand, letting Art pull it to its feet. It gingerly tested its weight on its repaired hip, and when the joint held, it finally let go of Art's hand.
Could you imagine if ART got a construct body? It’d be a menace to society. Why wouldn't need a construct body? Idk science? Understanding certain concepts? (Like how it uses Murderbot and it's humans as filters to understand Media). Subterfuge against the Corporates? Maybe it just wants to be MORE chaotic.
It’d also go around hugging its crew because that's something Art would definitely want. It'd also love invading Murderbot's personal space. But it will respect Murderbot's desire not be touched. (This is, of course, after it does attempt to touch Murderbor and Murderbot threatens to damage its ‘New casing’)
I honestly think that, because he had to download Murderbot's thoughts/experiences, he truly understood it in a deep, fundamental way. That while he had his right to be suspicious, he was horribly wrong about Murderbot's character and intentions.
And that their treatment at the hands of the Corporations was more similar than either of them realised.
It's like he's actually SEEING murderbot for the first time.
ellievsbear
titsay
stormborns
discoholicmusic
jbbartram-illu
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
