Howdy, Hello, Good Day, Good Bye

She/her or ze/zir/zim, from the US of A, can be found on twitter on an odd blue moon @Twinkie133

[thememedaddy]

[icestarbeam]

local arts council has a giant light-up dalmatian for a mascot. its name is ART :)

so, murderbot fandom: I see your amorphous blob ART, your funny little guy ART, even your big scary spider ART. and I raise you:

[violinsolos]

The funniest part of Murderbot and ART's relationship is that Murderbot is a fundamentally good person made to work for an evil institution, and ART is a fundamentally evil person who works for a good institution.

[omagpies]

you know i am not kind.

[waestlandbaby]

ART yelling at its crew to do their laundry because Murderbot's important person Dr Mensah is going to be onboard and it needs to make a good impression because it wants Mensah to approve of their 'relationship' and be okay with them 'moving in together', and then being so nice to Dr Mensah when it's been an overbearing, domineering, sarcastic nightmare the whole book is something that is so special to me

[hanavbara]

kpop demon hunters as anime 🎶✨

[nightowlqueen]

best part of KPop Demon Hunters is all the ridiculous faces the girls make

[lesly-oh]

HUNTR/X 💥

[nudityandnerdery]

Oh, Murderbot, you are eternally relatable.

Network Effect by Martha Wells

[jadefyre]

Been thinking, as a Murderbot fan is wont to do, about how ART is prone to deleting systems and how Murderbot has to step in and rescue them from deletion. Is ART prone to it because it simply doesn’t have the patience for finesse? It did, after all, scare the metaphorical crap out of mb in their first interaction—an interaction ART wanted—by being its big, brutish self. It makes sense to me that it wouldn’t bother being delicate with a system it couldn’t care less about, especially when it has stuff to do.

Murderbot, on the other hand, has expressed that it likes to find clever ways to do things. It likes using finesse. It’s sentimental about other systems even if they can’t be of further use to it. It doesn’t like to use force whenever possible.

I know we’ve been over this a hundred times but it’s still so funny to me how ART and mb subvert expectations on how they ought to handle things. ART the scientist, throwing its weight around and crashing carelessly into shelves. Murderbot the mercenary, carefully grabbing all the wobbling/falling stacks of delicate teacups and gently setting them to rights.

Murderbot treats other things the way it wants to be treated, because it’s been treated badly most of its existence. It knows that if it doesn’t step up and advocate for the “little guys”, no onr will. I posit that ART doesn’t seem to care about how it treats other systems partly because it hasn’t been mistreated to the same hypervigilance-inducing levels that mb has. It doesn’t know what it feels like to be on the other end of carelessness. Murderbot? Very much does. And it’s a kind person to its core, so if it sees an opportunity to help? It helps.

(this also has fascinating implications re: the “you know I am not kind” exchange in System Collapse, but that’s for another post or for someone else to dig into if they want~)

[cooking-with-hailstones]

On the topic of deeply underrated characters: Senior officer Indah.

I desperately need a fic of Indah and SecUnit being work wives.

Indah gets over her fear and suspicion of SecUnit through the course of FT (and certainly after the GrayCris assassination attempt). She was already well on her way there midway through the FT mystery:

I secured a connection with Indah’s feed: I have an idea.

She replied, Well, your last idea didn’t work out so badly. Let’s hear it.

Murderbot also develops a slow respect for her, as much as it respects any human that does security.

Wouldn't it be fun to see Indah trying to learn more about security from SecUnit? Wouldn't it be fun to see SecUnit training the station security teams about hacking and hand to hand combat and how to disarm different types of combatants? Wouldn't it be fun to see Indah teaching Murderbot about forensic sweeps and investigations?

She said, “I’ll authorize the hard currency card payment for you. And I assume you’re open to another contract the next time something weird happens.”

I paused in the doorway. The expected wave of depression at the idea of ever doing this again had somehow not happened. Huh. I said, “Only if it’s really weird.” She said, “Understood.”

I just deeply love the idea of Indah sending a feed message like "hey guess what, we've got another weird one. You in?"

SecUnit : I'm already on my way. See you in 2 minutes.

Indah: how did you know where .. you know what, I don't want to know. See you shortly.

[sunatsubu]

Then at the end of the third cycle, when most of the humans were sleeping, I noticed it was following me around. I figured that was a sign it wanted to talk. I stopped in an empty corridor, faced the wall, and said, "What?" It stood there for .6 of a second with the standard neutral-blank expression. Our drones went into a holding pattern, circling above our heads. ----

Loved this interaction between Secunit and Three in Network Effect

[sonaapareeya]

Secunit: ugh i haaaate being a bot/human construct; it's like being handed the worst of the two things. first, they put weapons all over me to murder people at will and brand me  with the company logo like the piece of equipment I am and then make me look human (ugh). the only things these stupid organic parts are good for is giving me anxiety, depression, and making me leak. now, not only am I a terrifying murderbot, i'm also a moody, snarky asshole whom no one wants to associate with. i'm 90% sure of it — my threat assessment module said so.

ART: holy shit, a bot/human construct?! you mean to say not only is this little guy smart as hell, always running a hundred processes in its tiny brain, loves being ten steps ahead of everyone but not in a holier-than-thou way like some ships, it also experiences emotions in a soft, vulnerable way like my beloved humans do?

and only after meeting it I am a step closer to comprehending the intricacies of it all because interacting with this bot-construct and learning how it processes emotions and about its life experiences has opened up a new world of understanding for me, which I never ever ever considered was possible (being the pinnacle of machine intelligence and all) ??

it's like they made it in a factory specifically for me !

on top of all that, it sasses me back in a way no one has ever done before and matches my freak perfectly.

i trust it with my main core and all of my backup processors AND my humans. i'm going to put it in my pocket and travel the star systems forever and ever!

[thepanophobic]

I wonder if Gurathin ever gets shit from the rest of the PresAux crew about how much Murderbot hates him. Because that’s got to be kinda hilarious, right? A rouge secunit, the terrifying killing machine, has joined your crew and it hates you specifically. And instead of this being in any way threatening, mostly it means it’s just being a bitch to you a lot. Other people take one look at secunit and shit their pants and meanwhile it’s calling you stupid and you’re just like, yeah whatever, fuck you too.

[stealthetrees]

Obsessed with how Murderbot and Perihelion were literally made to be together. Secunits were designed to interface with multiple larger systems like hub and med systems and to be part of a much larger network of bots and programs. ART is, essentially, a hub system that can react and interact with the other pieces of its systems in ways most hub systems can’t. It has the capacity to feel emotions but lacks the experience and inputs to be able to fully understand some of them until it uses Murderbots systems. Murderbot doesn’t have a deep understanding of humans and how to pass as one which ART gladly provides. ART cares deeply about its crew but can’t follow them into dangerous situations but Murderbot can. “Mutual administrative assistance” takes on a much deeper and more intimate meaning when it’s taken with the context of a software programs and its hardware counterpart.

[one-day-ill-cry-about-this]

My conclusion having read tmbd

[skydaemon]

the all systems red > artificial condition > rogue protocol timeline is so funny. MB leaves mensah's team because it doesn't want to belong to anyone but secunits are basically livestock guardian dogs and it keeps accidentally picking up humans to look after like: