#MBD Arada

[doctorquixote]

Everybody just figured out which drone SecUnit was watching them through at the same time. 1/10th of a second later it's the same picture but MurderBot's face is recoiling from the eye contact.

Ratthi has that version as the background on his work station display surface.

(this is beautiful, I love it)

how tf did they even get that pic wow

[riseandfallofsecunit]

Ratthi’s locket has photos of his best buddies inside

[thirtheenprimes]

ART: I can blow them up

Murderbot: For fucks sake no stop it let me do my job

ART (quietly): you're not the one calling the shots

ART (to Arada): I can blow them up

[petuline]

Hi. So, it occurred to me that it's been a while since the previous round of Very Important Research.

Last time, Thiago won... or, lost, I guess, by an overwhelming margin, so this time I decided to not include him.

Therefore, please behold for round #2,

Again, if it's someone else, or if you want to elaborate or whatever, feel free to do so in the comments. In the interest of Very Important Research of course.

[elexuscal]

my dear headcanon for the future of MBD verse is like

okay so Arada, Overse, and Ratthi all know what's up with The Perihelion cuz they were on board for it

then Mensah and Pin-Lee are brought in on the loop because they help with the legal clean-up

i also think it likely that Bharadwaj gets brought in, because a) her voice was used in that documentary, b) she collaborates closely with Murderbot, c) they're FRIENDS your honor

which means, of the entire main PresAux group, the only one left out of the loop is Gurathin

so from his perspective, a whole bunch of his colleagues/friends got kidnapped

complete mystery how or why for months

when the Preservation ship gets back they're all like. "Nah it's okay. we've got a new alliance 👍"

"where's SecUnit?"

"it decided to stay with the crew of The Perihelion?"

"the ship that kidnapped it?"

"yeah."

"...."

Perihelion is top secret after all. can't tell just anybody.

now. could ART give permission to let SecUnit's remaining primary client in on it? sure. sure.

but it's looking forward to getting to mess with the guy SecUnit claims to detest, and evaluate things first hand.

[rosewind2007]

Okay so System Collapse is released soon!

Yay!

Everyone has expectations (and I for one am thrilled for various reasons) but one thing I think everyone can agree is that no one is expecting to see Gurathin (it’s set in the immediate aftermath of Network Effect and unless Murderbot was being negligent to the point of deceit, Guarthin wasn’t on that Preservation Responder*)

Can people therefore take a moment to consider just how utterly bereft and terrified Gurathin must be feeling around now (MBD universe)?

Ratthi is missing! So are Arada and Overse, but Fugitive Telemetry and to some extent Exit Strategy make it clear Ratthi is Gurathin’s best (according to Murderbot only) friend

Mensah and Pin-Lee have headed off after them…

Gurathin is stuck, alone (Volescu has retired) on Preservation Station

How terribly alone must he be feeling?

*Gurathin being in the responder would be a plot twist I would be so here for…but…well, it ain’t going to happen is it?

[rosewind2007]

Nice to see some numbers here! My numbers agree with @gamebird , any differences are due to exact sampling time point, slight differences in the way we extracted the data and probably some errors (mostly by me)

I have also done some analysis of the Murderbot Diaries fics—in my case I wanted to see how many fics had the / in the relationships (at least one)

There are ~236 in total (includes podfics), there shouldn’t be any duplicates which approximates to 12.8% of all 1,839 works in the MBD tag

This is not swamping the fandom

Of the 236, there seem to be ~53 which are MB/G-it’s the second most popular / pairing, the most popular being MB/ART which has ~79

Other than MB/G and MB/ART the only / relationship in the top ten is the canonically married Overse/Arada (36)

I would also point out that an awful lot of the / fics are hyper-cautiously tagged: often not even containing a kiss (I know, I wrote them)

The Ship Manifest: Actual Murderbot shipping numbers

I looked at what had been updated on AO3 in the last month in the Murderbot Diaries tag. It was a nice even 50 works.

Of these, 10 are Murderbot/Gurathin and 9 of those were updated in the 8 days. 4 of those were multichapter fics and a couple of those multichapter fics published multiple chapters.

3 fics were MB/ART, with one of those 3 fics being counted in the MB/G ones as well. The other two are single chapter, one of which is Rape, I know some people filter those out.

The Murderathin surge is kinda unusual. Multiple multi-chapter fics finished in the last week, several short stories inspired by each other or bits of art were put out there. And then there's the art, some of which hasn't even been posted here on Tumblr.

But with all that, like I say, non-ship stuff is still over 75%. And for the fandom as a whole, it's more like 90% (I ran the numbers just a couple weeks ago).

----

Here, from 7/17/23, looking at all ship fic in TMBD tag:

Let's see what's changed in a year!

To start, we had 960 fics roughly July 2022. Now (7/17/23) we have 1,825. Almost double!

If I exclude & and look only at / ships: 79 ART/MB (was 24 a year ago) 49 Gurathin/MB (was 17 a year ago) 35 Arada/Overse (wasn't in the top 10 a year ago) 12* MB/3 11* Amena/Iris 8* Farai/Mensah/Tano 6* MB/Mensah 5* Bharadwaj/Pin-Lee 5 ART/CSU 5 OC/OC 4* Gurathin/Thiago 3 01/02/03 2* MB/OC 2 ART/3 2* ART/Ratthi 8* Gurathin/Ratthi 3* Gurathin/3 and Gurathin/3/OC 2 Gurathin/OC 1* Ratthi/Miki 1* ART/Gurathin/Ratthi 1* Ratthi/3 1* Mensah/Pin-Lee 1 Ratthi/3/Pin-Lee 1 MB/Reader 1 ART/OC 1 Arada/Overse

The first three ships listed and any with * are definite in their number. The rest are put together by excluding all other pairings in a clumsy attempt to get AO3 to tell me more than the top 10 stats or forcing me to do a tag search.

245 "/" ship fics out of 1,825 is 13.42%. We were 6% last time, although I suspect I didn't know how to search quite as well as I do now. Even if I only look at the top 10 relationship options this time, we're still at 8.93%. So! There are more ship fics than there used to be, percentage-wise. But still ... not that many as a percent of total fics out there.

Now to look at Explicit fics!

78 Explicit fics (22 last year) ART/MB - 36 (6 last year) No / pairing listed - 8 Not sex - 6 (2 last year) Gurathin/MB - 5 (1 last year) OC/MB - 4 (None last year) OC / OC - 3 (1 last year) ART/OC - 2 (1 last year) Amena/Iris - 2 (1 last year) ART/Ratthi - 2 (1 last year) ART/3 - 2 (1 last year) Gurathin/OC - 2 (None last year) The rest are one-offs: 3/MB, 3/ART, Ratthi/Arada/Overse, MB/Everyone, Arada/Overse, ART/Gurathin.

Also: ART/MB - 36 (18 of which are rape, rape-elements, or non-con) No / pairing listed - 8 (6 of which are rape, rape-elements, or non-con) OC/MB - 4 (4 of which are rape, rape-elements, or non-con) Gurathin/MB - 5 (2 of which are rape, rape-elements, or non-con) One-offs for rape: Gurathin/OC, OC/OC, MB/Everyone.

All figures are derived solely by reading the characters/relationships listed, tags, and warnings.

Reading through the first of 4 pages of returns (66 entries) on unrated fics shows none whose tags indicate shipping, sex, or rape. So not an impact to the numbers reported above.

We have 27 works that are not in English. We have 221 works that include the word 'podfic' in a field.

23 works by Anonymous, 3 by orphan_account (one of those 3 is a finished fic that is part of a series with 3 other named authors - the other 2 fics appear to be truly orphaned)

Highest word count is Variable Affection at 204k. Next is Properties NULL at 104k. Third is the ongoing Corporate and the Construct at 84k as of today.

[Important note discovered later: I have double-counted some shippy fics. I ended up counting the fic once for every pairing listed. This artificially skews the numbers higher than they really are. I figure it's around 10%ish ship-fic.]

[broken-risk-assessment-module]

Murderbot Sitting Normally

For Isilee from the MBD Discord <3

This is my gift for the Murderbot Gift Exchange! The prompt was “Art of MB sitting in a truly ridiculous way, completely blank-faced.” and boy did I have fun. 

[Image IDs:

1: Ratthi is sitting sprawled in a high-backed armchair, leaning on one arm with out foot up on the other. He’s wearing cuffed jeans, a button-up shirt, a sweater, and is holding up some in-progress knitting on a needle. Murderbot is sitting cross-legged on the top of the chair, its chin in its hand, looking down at the knitting. There are drones flying around them, Ratthi is looking at one as he talks, the other is pointed at the knitting.

2. Murderbot is laying on the floor, its arms by its sides, with its legs propped up on a wall. It looks mildly annoyed. Mensah is standing near its head, bending over it with her arms crossed. She’s looking slightly to the side, at one of Murderbot’s drones, with a wry smile. 

3. A depiction from the bathroom scene in Network Effect. Ratthi is leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed. His head is tilted slightly, and he’s looking down at the floor with a slightly worried expression. Amena is sitting on the bathroom counter, looking worried, and looking at Murderbot who is on her right. Both Ratthi and Amena are wearing Preservation Survey uniform, and Amena is wearing a sleeveless jacket that has been noticeably patched. Murderbot is sitting next to her, with its knees pressed up to its chest with its arms wrapped around them. Its head is nestled in its arms so that its face is half-concealed. It looks annoyed, and is glaring off to the right, away from the others. 

4. Arada is sitting at a table, her head resting on one hand. She’s talking to a drone hovering on her left. Murderbot is on her right, not facing her. Its sitting backwards on a chair with its legs over the back, and is leaning on the edge of the table. Its looking down and backwards, and is smiling slightly. 

5. Murderbot is laying in a chair, its back on the seat and its legs up against the back. Its head is hanging off the front of the chair seat, and it has its arms crossed. It looks unimpressed. 

end IDs]

[riseandfallofsecunit]

Courtroom sketch from The Company v. Unsecured SecUnit (with Preservation as an intervening third party)

Pin-Lee represent SecUnit after it is sued for patent infringement, conversion of trade secrets, and corporate espionage by The Company.

[monstyra]

how tf did they even get that pic wow