Pastel Draconic @spectraloasis - Tumblr Blog

David Dastmalchian

where I end and you begin

okay caveat i have not read very much tv murderathin fic yet but what i have read has basically all been very Consent Focused and Careful in a way i can see the appeal in but. well. gestures at when murderbot blinded gurathin just to be a dick. i am here for different reasons

notquiteaghost

like i get it i do being treated as A Person With Autonomy That Is Respected is a new and novel experience. however they do both canonically react like feral cats about it. and obviously being hissed at does not mean you stop offering the feral cats a gentle touch!! but they should get to retreat to a dark enclosed space and bite the shit out of each other

notquiteaghost

murderbot & gurathin with the rest of presaux is the repeated reassurances, careful specificity, slow big movements to draw attention to the boundaries and how they're being intentionally navigated

murderbot & gurathin with each other, post-reunion, is a bone-deep certainty they do not ever need to discuss. gurathin put murderbot in his brain; murderbot came back; they do not need to put the trust into words. murderbot subconsciously infers 90% of gurathin's tragic backstory and bridges the last 10% with the mind melds. gurathin reads murderbot's message (separate post pending to point out how show did not have murderbot address it to mensah specifically) (however even if it was not explicitly for him. gurathin reads it.) and the only real important piece of missing context he gets there is the governor module is a torture device, which is something he also instinctively inferred once he realised murderbot is a person

murderbot turns up at gurathin's unannounced and lets itself in and does his chores. gurathin has permanent access to all its drones and habitually keeps feed from one active. murderbot will force more on him when it's pissed off with him. gurathin will pin it to the floor – this works not because he can physically overpower it but because he is Touching It On Purpose. when both of them get overwhelmed they're genuinely likely to bite the other. this is the only reason secunits even have teeth so murderbot almost always draws blood, and is then really normal about antiseptic and bandages and potential contaminants. gurathin threatens to hack it and delete random media episodes if it gets out the industrial strength cleaning solution again. and that is a threat gurathin has made good on. if they're arguing gurathin may turn its vocal chords off. murderbot retaliates with augment malware. sometimes if one of them is freaking out in circumstances they don't want to leave entirely (social events, combat situations) the other will assume a handler/controller role and they will commit. presaux-unprecedented levels of unnegotiated domestic discipline. sometimes one of them starts a verbal sentence and it is very clear that it was the other who finished it. this happens when they're being self-deprecating and also when they're having incorrect opinions about media. they hardwire while gurathin sleeps so murderbot can kill his nightmares. when murderbot sees ART again it has an extensive plan on mimicking vitiligo through code so they'll match

productofaritual

Love character relationships that can only be described as "whatever the fuck these two have going on"

lyricwritesprose

All Systems Red (or Gurathin's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Mission)

Thinking about All Systems Red (alternately Gurathin’s Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Mission) and from his perspective it's just. Like. A purely terrifying ride. I mean, think about it:

You come from a planet with actual sapient rights. Not perfect, but a person can live happily. Unfortunately to do anything in the wider galaxy you have to deal with HyperAmazon. (Motto: We'll own you all in the end anyway.)

So you cross over into the corporate world, and it's . . . bleak. By design. Whole system is meant to make you sell your soul for a pittance. Might be able to rent some human rights but ain't nobody can afford the premium package. It's okay, you won't have to deal with it long, you'll be out on survey with your friends.

Great! says HyperAmazon. Just sign for your friendly Terminator companion (with full Alexa functionality) and you can be on your way.

You've heard of these things. Nothing you have heard is good.

You are pretty sure that not one (1) ethic was involved in its construction and also, rumor says they sometimes just fucking slaughter people?

It'll be fine, says HyperAmazon. Your friendly Terminator companion (with full Alexa functionality) is equipped with our top of the line Torment Nexus brand Don't Be Evil module. Your friendly Terminator companion (with full Alexa functionality) will not and cannot hurt you so long as that module is intact. Of course if it ever lost that module you would all die horribly but we assure you that can never happen. Very safe. Friend Terminator.

You are not any happier about this situation. But it's the only way to get your job done.

And at first, the Terminator seems—mostly okay? Creepy, no face, no apparent emotions, and the Alexa thing means it's absolutely eavesdropping, but it hasn't hurt anyone.

Okay, it just took down a fucking thresher maw, or close to. Singlehandedly. Definitely all screwed if it decided to kill you, but it hasn't.

(Because it isn't able to, with that Torment Nexus thing in its head. It's a tossup which is more horrifying, that it's a killer or that it's a slave . . .)

It has a face, turns out. All your colleagues have decided it's a person. Which it probably is, but you are acutely aware that person does not mean friendly, that “Kill All Humans,” is a fairly logical response to its situation, and the only thing keeping it from doing that is the Torment Nexus brand Don't Be Evil module. Which is also the reason why it probably wants to Kill All Humans.

But never mind that, there's a disaster in progress, someone is trying to kill you and all your friends, and to get some leads you take a look at the Torment Nexus brand Don't Be Evil module—

Which is fried to fuck.

Oops.

Looks like the Terminator fried the module itself.

Looks like the Terminator has rampaged before.

(It has also inexplicably pirated all the telenovelas in the galaxy but you barely spend time on that because—)

Looks like the Terminator calls itself Murderbot.

When you pass that last bit on, that's the first time the Terminator actually seems angry to you. And then it demonstrates that it's not restrained, that it definitely could hurt you—

(It's scary-fast. Like. Very.)

—and it says, I don't like you.

Which is something only a person would say.

It is a person which someone put a Torment Nexus module into and it has every reason to hate you and your friends more than any robot on any media you've ever heard of.

All of them are trusting it wtf dammit dammit dammit whyyyyyyy

You come up with a plan.

It is not a good plan.

It is a bad plan.

It is what you've got.

It already likes you least. If you can needle it into hurting you—

(This will probably hurt a lot.)

(Like. Really a lot. Because even if it doesn't kill you, there is no way to actually stop it from methodically breaking every bone you have, waiting thoughtfully for you to wake up when you pass out from the pain—)

If you can needle it into hurting you, your friends will at least be able to see that they can't trust it.

Maybe they can come up with a plan from there. Who knows. You will not be meaningfully in the picture. But at least they will not trust its plans.

You psych yourself up for it, start to poke the killer cyborg—

And you genuinely don't see the twist coming, which is: the Terminator does not hurt you and saves you and all your friends.

Which leads me to the conclusion that (a) Gurathin genuinely makes sense, all the way through, and (b) he has solid brass ones. It may not have been a smart plan, but damn it took guts.

calciumcryptid

I feel like a lot of people get "All Art is Political" confused with "All Art is made with Political Intentions" which is not the same.

nugbrownies

striving-artist

We need to fricking stop with this CinemaSins TVTropes style crap in fandom. Actually, we need to stop that attitude in all creative fields, but I'm talking about fic right now.

I have seen many posts ragging on over-used phrases in fanfic, and yes, I find 'cerulean orbs' deeply strange, but if I ever said anything hateful on the topic I wish I hadn't.

You know why we say 'smirk' a lot in fic? cause its faster than 'gave a tiny smile to one side with their lips closed, a little cocky and provocative' Smirk is an easy way of saying it. It's the correct word. We say it in fic a lot because people smirk a lot in real life. Go people watch, its all over. Also. Bring me a true synonym for smirk, and I'll use that instead, but these ain't it.

If you have a better way of saying 'took off his shoes without untying them, just levered the heel with the toe of the other' that isn't saying 'he toed off his shoes' I'd love to hear it. Cause that phrase is perfect for it.

'Huffed a laugh'? Yeah, they did. Cause I'm not going to spend extra words describing how they 'exhaled through their nose once, amused, but not enough to fully laugh aloud' Its a specific action. You think people don't do that all day? five bucks says its exactly what you do when you see a meme most of the time. You didn't lol. You huffed a laugh.

The idea that something that's been used before is inherently less valuable is ridiculous. Same with the inverse.

If the phrase you want to use is common or widely used, but is the best way to communicate it? Use it. Don't fall for this trap that is currently consuming hollywood. You don't have to have a clever twist just because 'they survived and were happy' is a trope. You don't have to use some insane alternate phrase just because someone thinks fandom uses 'smirk' too much.

And, as always, if someone gives you hell and you don't want to fight them? let me know, cause I volunteer.