#tarik murderbot

[bleeding-seraphic]

Wedding bells (threat)

Pt two!!!

[abeautifulblog]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Summary: While on an undercover mission deep in the Corporation Rim, Tarik buys steals rescues acquires a ComfortUnit. This is fine—it can hang out while he finishes the mission, he’ll be not-an-asshole to it, and then it can go on its liberated way and never have to see him again. This will definitely not get weird and messy.

Relationships: Tarik (Murderbot Diaries)/Original Construct Character, background Tarik/Ratthi

Tags: sex slavery, world-building about ComfortUnits, fridge horror, Governor Modules (Murderbot Diaries), and constructs exercising agency within them, brief domestic violence, Spies & Secret Agents, PSUMNT is sketchy, Tarik’s canon mysterious past, Tarik’s canon resting bitchface, The Corporation Rim is Terrible, everyone here has trauma and a wobbly grasp on consent, power imbalance, slow burn, unresolved sexual tension, dubious consent, in my favorite flavor, which is people trying to do the right thing when the situation itself is Dubious, PTSD, Tarik Has It, disordered eating, Stardew Valley, teaching yourself to do surgery from watching a youtube video, sparring as foreplay, toxic manosphere bullshit

[elegantheartdaze]

Tell Your SecUnit I Said "Pspsps"

Tarik is called to a general meeting in the Argument Lounge which turns out to be the introduction of the newest member of the crew, and an opportunity for Iris and Perihelion to be pests.

or

Murderbot loses a staring contest to a cat.

or

Murderbot is basically an oversized cat and everyone knows it.

[andaniellight]

Can't stop thinking about the hints of similarities between Murderbot and Tarik and how, as the narrative subtly showed through 2 books that I know of so far, their actions and now existences-proximity kind of overlay/effect one another in a way that perhaps can only be unraveled by quantum entanglement type of explanation like the two of them aren't just two same-thing-different-font people like how I perceive Gurathin and Murderbot, but also in a way that I think if Murderbot and Tarik ever try to UNINTENTIONALLY EVEN JUST THE SLIGHTEST harm one another, the result would be only drag the other down all the same in the destruction like chain reaction of a nuclear bomb

[ofawritingfreak-a]

So I had a thought.

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.

[m00nymonster]

So I saw these sweaters at Target and this comic happened. Is Murderbot wearing the thigh highs? YOU DECIDE

[silverbirching]

Do you think like, right when he first came aboard, ART's Situational Awareness Protocols twigged that Iris was covertly checking Tarik out and then ART immediately faked an onboard fire and sealed Iris in a closet right before Tarik got fully bodied by a pathfinder drone.

[sheepneep]

Fuck, I forgot to post about this but I DID READ 'Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy'. Which is a dumb ass name, just in general, and also because there was no friendship, no solidarity, nor communication between characters. It was abysmal, and Empathy was non existent.

Like, it was the longest transition scene that led no where.

Just, im still raging about this, how is it. That, this university, with all of its money, and it 'apparent' history with helping beings against the corperates, had had someone with 'limited history' running this mission, wtf?? They had no one else, no one.

“You mean there isn’t a way we can approach from the outside without being caught,” Dr. Mauriq said. She was mission team leader, but her experience with this kind of thing was limited. Iris could tell she was a little nervous and trying to hide it.

THERE IS AN ACTIVE TAKE OVER HAPPENING, YOURE JOBS ARE TOO EITHER STOP IT/HELP THE PEOPLE THEY ARE EFFECTING.

So limited experience leader, and when Art (arguably the smartest and possibly even most experienced in the room rn) make a very good plan with only 47 percent casualty rates (ill put money that it was mainly corperate goons but we don't know cause THEY DONT ASK). Its shut down. WHY. WHAT IS THE POINT OF ART. BY THE END OF THIS THING WE DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW THE FUCKING MISSION ENDS.

Like, this is the second/first (depending if you read this mess first or system collapse) that we get to really see what this 'University' and its people does and its basically...nothing but paper pushing.

And then the walk through, oh let my fluff stay clean as I writhe on the floor in agony. The one character's confusion over clothing lines.

They went up a ramp to an upper-level walkway and took that toward the inner station barrier in this section. Sunara ended up walking beside Iris, and asked, “Why is there clothing hanging from the railings? Is it a festival, a custom?”

Iris glanced up at the transient housing cluster they were walking under. She tried her best not to sound as if this was a stupid question. And it really wasn’t, it was just that Sunara wasn’t used to corporate stations. “It’s their laundry. That’s transient housing up there, for people who are trying to get station jobs. The station’s gray water probably comes with the price of the housing, but not access to a recycler or cleaning facility.”

This was a stupid fucking question, how has your job not given you a fucking crash course on the lives the people you are suppose to come help. This one ain't done yet, she needs a couple more classes

Them listening to the peoples screams as they are unhoused and possibly even brutalized. The 'graffiti' and 'murals'. (Listen, if I have to explain this one....go ask someone else. I wont be nice in explaining this to you)

Then, the painful, painful, conversation between Art, Iris and, to a lesser extent, Tarik.

Right, that’s it, Iris thought. She said, “Peri, Tarik, that’s enough. This is obviously not the conversation to have when we’re in enemy territory.”

Proceeds to force the conversation in enemy territory, literally in the same fucking breath on private and also very much dehumanizing/depersonfiying ART during it.

I am capable of losing my temper. But you don’t lose your temper, Peri. You get furious, but you don’t make mistakes and you don’t misinterpret things. Peri’s anger was made of ice and steel, but it thought at speeds that a human mind couldn’t match, in multiple directions at once. It was incapable of acting on impulse, in conversation or in any other way. This wasn’t even you getting annoyed.

To say that ART (im not calling it by its slave name) can make no mistakes or interpretations only factor in its job as a machine. Not a sentient being. (Can i hear what the point of this series was again?) ART very much loses its temper in network effect, it shows this by sneakily planting bombs on its pathfinders (the humans find out but fundamentally cannot stop it) and proceeds to destroy infrastructure and food lands.

It feels anguish and anger, it misinterpreted that kidnapping mb folk was a good plan and gets confused when murderbot is mad at it cause NO ONE AS EVER TOLD IT IT CAN BE WRONG BECAUSE SEEMINGLY ART WAS NOT PROPERALLY SOCIALIZED. Its like, idk how many of yall went to public school, but Art gives 'gifted child' vibes. In raising art, because yes technically within universe Art was canonically raised next to iris, im sure when iris was at daycare/human school properly socializing with other children, art was being drilled in its capabilities (another check in the box with Art being a house slave)

Iris puts Art on a pedestal but its like being six and putting that robo dog that was all the rage on a pedestal. Iris is very attached to ART, but it doesn't seem like she actually she's it as a 'person'.

Also, characters aside. This was a horribly paced novelette that added nothing to the story but my growing distaste for Iris.

Like, that whole scene in which iris put shit on hold to have the private coms talk with ART should have been the continuation of the scene in which they are, oh I don't know, Doing Their Jobs And Giving The Readers Lore On How Your World works. Ie. How the University actually operates if they're not letting ART to literally cut it off. And THEN we get a private scene with iris and art in which they discuss things. Instead of, you know, holding up the entire team and blurting out things that are SUPPOSE TO BE PRIVATE. BAD COMMUNICATION. NO EMPATHY. BAD RAPPORT.

But that scene was never going to be in this story, because this is written by Martha Wells. And for Martha Wells to actually live up to what she's writing, is to actually delve into what that would actually look like. And seeing that Martha Wells is a racist, slave apologist capitalist...that was never going to happen. This is the most surface level, badly written (Grammer, Martha is very good at distracting you) book series its not even funny anymore.

I, at this point, cannot stand the Murder bot diaries. Everyone says all these things about being it progressive and groundbreaking when I see no such things. There isn't even good grammar/editing.