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My summary of The Murderbot Diaries so far, three books in:

Murderbot: I can’t believe I have to keep these humans from getting themselves killed. Everywhere I go, there are humans who need protecting and this cuts into really valuable media consumption time. This is so annoying.

Everything in the universe, including Murderbot’s own presumably unprecedented free will: You could just not protect the humans.

Murderbot: … No.

(And it’s great.)

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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~)

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My old landlord sent me a check for money they owed me a mere ten years after I moved out! Dreams really do come true. I'd like to thank whatever other tenant sued them & made this possible

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That was the low battery notification

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It's called hard sci-fi because it's not as easy

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me (user since 2010) everytime this site is in a 50/50 situation of being nuked every 3 years

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the thing is that childhood doesn't just end when you turn 18 or when you turn 21. it's going to end dozens of times over. your childhood pet will die. actors you loved in movies you watched as a kid will die. your grandparents will die, and then your parents will die. it's going to end dozens and dozens of times and all you can do is let it. all you can do is stand in the middle of the grocery store and stare at freezers full of microwave pizza because you've suddenly been seized by the memory of what it felt like to have a pizza party on the last day of school before summer break. which is another ending in and of itself

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its just embarrassing when you make a fandom related post and it doesnt get any notes like okay. so no one want to play tuoys with me. no one wants to play with our little guys together. okay thats fine. yeah its cool... puts my hands in my jacket pockets. kicks a beer can that was on the side of the road a little

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this too shall pass