#preservation and so maybe

[in-tua-deep]

Thinking about murderbot being a rental unit and how that interacts with its trauma

Bc like. The most important bots it meets are all from vastly different situations and backgrounds than it. ART has been valued and loved by humans its whole life - its dad is literally the captain and its sister is one of its crew! And they clearly cherish, love, and value ART. Miki is a less sophisticated bot, but also so clearly loved and cherished. They ordered it to protect itself! And it had the capability to reject that order! That says a lot about the love, trust, and mutual respect they had for one another.

Even Three, another secunit, seems pretty different from murderbot. It was made by the company it’s working for and the vibe I got was that it and the other two secunits were sort of permanently assigned to that ship?

Which, look. Humans imprint on anything and build familiarity. The more time we spend with something the more sentimental we might get about it. If Three was on that ship for a long time, I wouldn’t be shocked if at least some of the humans on board were pretty chill or even affectionate towards it (in a condescending and dehumanizing way probably, but still). And even so, the length of time spent around the same secunits clearly allowed Three to establish bonds with its fellow secunits if nothing else!

But being a rental unit means murderbot went from group to group. The other secunits it worked with were always Temporary Company (will never see them again after this contract likely) and also Active Threats to murderbot bc they’re the most likely to notice murderbot is rogue and be forced to report it. Even the humans were Temporary, so even if there were Nice Humans they’d be swapped out with Bad Humans soon enough.

Like. No wonder it insists it doesn’t have friends. If you don’t have Feelings about people then those feelings can’t be hurt when you’re inevitably torn away and never allowed to see them again (or have your very memories of them torn out of you and erased)

(Feelings about media are okay because the media can go with you, right?)

It’s funny to point at Three when murderbot makes sweeping generalization about secunits bc it’s an unreliable narrator but also. Just having feelings about how specifically being a rental unit effects murderbot and its relationships to others

[t4transsexual]

im the evil transsexual undoing transphobes and baby trans ppls fearmongering about bottom surgery and informing trans ppl yes u can get bottom surgery theres a very low risk involved with them and theyre very customizeable. im out here letting the baby tgirl know that a neovagina can actually be penetrated and im telling the nonbinary butch that they can actually get two seperate penises if a surgeon lets them (if they get on t) AND they can keep their urethra where it is. im out here undoing years of fearmongering fuck u all. hits u with my research beam

[anna-scribbles]

if the agrestes weren't rich i think that gabriel would be the normal one. like gabe's problem is that he stopped running into natural limits due to absurd wealth and his obsessive nature led him to develop some kind of god complex where he won't accept that anything is out of his control. I think that if gabe was broke again and just simply couldn't afford to go on an international goose chase for ancient magic artifacts of untold power, if he had to work a 9-5 to live and couldn't just disappear into his basement lair to commit domestic terrorism and say evil monologues to himself, then he would be way more normal. he'd just be some guy. he might even let himself have a mowhawk again. but I think that emilie would be way LESS normal if they weren't rich. like emilie needs so many people to be obsessed with her so much all the time in order for her to function. and gabe would still have his toxic codependent obsession with her, sure, but that wouldn't be nearly enough. emilie has to be at the center of the world's spotlight at all times because she doesn't know how to exist if she's not performing. anyway all this to say I am so certain that if the agrestes were not disgustingly wealthy, emilie agreste would one million percent be running a massive family vlogger youtube channel

[plantingthepast]

chosen ones

[alicornze7]

Silly guys goin' on silly adventures:]

@rorydrawsandwrites's puppeteer au but the only difference is that jax gives consent

My contribution to this wonderful au has been long overdue:')

Rambling in tags ehe (cw: ribbun:p)

Well maybe it's not the only difference

[bepomepo33]

LAMB

Full comic under the cut (it’s a bit low quality on here tho lol)(crunchyyyyyy)

[lindseymcdonaldseyelashes]

Leverage 4x14- "The Boys' Night Out Job"

[canisalbus]

My auntie keeps Golden Guernsey goats on our island, like many of our local unique breeds of livestock they nearly went extinct in the starving during ww2 occupation surviving by only one smuggled flock. They're super friendly and energetic and their colouration might be of interest :eyes:

Oh OH these are very pretty

[pearsandrust]

in the 2.1 quest, aventurine has this interesting bit of dialogue with his future self:

??? (Aventurine's future self): Haha, of course, I know you all too well... But, it's strange — why did you decline that invitation? You had the chance to embrace Elation. Was that not what you most wanted? But you chose the IPC instead... ???: For the Preservation? Hmph, I doubt it. Do you even have anything in common with the Preservation? Aventurine: I thought you knew... Didn't you say you had me pegged?

aventurine's future self is snarky, cynical, condescending. he's fully committed to the "reckless gambler" persona, abandoning all else for the sake of keeping up his facade. he never stops acting, and so his beliefs align perfectly with those of the elation, an aeon associated with trickery and theatrics. what aventurine's future self fails to take into account in this conversation is that present aventurine is not only him, but rather a superposition of his past and future selves. in other words, he's forgetting that kakavasha is also a part of the present aventurine. and while aventurine may not have much in common with the preservation, kakavasha does.

kakavasha bet his life on his sister's necklace. he kept his father's shirt, even after it was drenched in blood. all he wanted was to preserve the lives of the people he loved, and that is why aventurine believes in preservation more than elation. because he is still kakavasha at his core.

so when aventurine says "I thought you knew", he's not trying to mock his future self. it's more of a hopeless statement, a final admission of defeat. he says it because in that moment, he realizes that he will one day forget his origins. he says it because he looks at his future self and finds no trace of the person he thought he was. that's why he's so angry in his next line:

Aventurine: We're done. Either stop talking, or disappear from my sight. ???: That's fine. But, who exactly is about to disappear here?

and his future self's reply just solidifies his biggest fear: that he really is going to lose himself in the act.

aventurine is always, always losing. every passing day takes him further away from his family, his home, and the person he used to be. and as terrible as it is, he knows his future self is right -- he will eventually disappear underneath the facade. kakavasha, the only version of himself he loves, will die. and then he'll truly have nothing left.

it is all so ironic. the universe's luckiest man, and he couldn't even save himself.

[gottaread2]

It means so much to me that Ed Nygma once described himself like a butterfly and later on Oswald saw a butterfly encased in ice and decided that was how he was going to deal with Ed.

[electricalhuzzah]

my brain is doing terrible horrible mental gymnastics trying to justify the science of impregnating stanford pines. horrible thought process in tags

[in-tua-deep]

I’ve seen critique of the way show!murderbot said it felt good after killing leebeebee (thank goodness, I really disliked her - though at the same time I actually think that it’s interesting for the preservation team to have someone very blatantly objectify murderbot right in front of them and show them how other humans likely treated it)

but,, I didn’t really read it as it feeling good about killing someone so much as feeling good that it has made the team realize that it isn’t some little robot that wants to be human, and it doesn’t want to be assimilated into their group because it isn’t human. It’s a construct. They cannot and should not assume that it wants to be like them - it shouldn’t have to change or be human to be accepted

So I thought it was more of a “it feels good that this is making them rethink their little uwu poor little meow meow narrative when that’s kind of condescending and I am way more familiar with how fucked up my situation is than they are?”

Idk, any thoughts?

[ao3fujoshevik]

"the Photographer's 'second sight' does not consist in seeing but in being there. and above all, imitating Orpheus, he must not turn back to look at what he is leading -- what he is giving to me!"

link click: bridon arc | excerpts from camera lucida (roland barthes)

[fisheito]

... peace on planet bottom, then there's whatever this is

[pseudophan]

Dan has been more touchy with Phil since their comeback, but I specifically feel like in the last few videos he’s been EXTREMELY touchy! The door is opening more and more🚪👀

yeah........ dan is soooo calculated is the thing. phil is more likely to be touchy without thinking about it too much, but dan is like... he's so hyper aware. when he's getting extra touchy you know it's on purpose, it's deliberate, they are Up To Something

[mcytegg]

another thing that kills me abt the conversation team awesome had after ro had made the decision to leave s4 behind was how at the start of the convo, it was all three of them talking face to face w mapicc, ro, and zam all stood together but as things progressed— the gap between ro and mapicc & zam became so large that there is both a metaphorical and literal chasm between them as they are saying their final pieces, and ro is saying her goodbyes. things ended w ro looking upon mapicc and zam amidst the chaos of their own creation and turning away from it all (turning away from them) and w them watching her go from a distance.

and like. tbh. idk if ro has said otherwise so ill take it back if she has but i just dont,,, have a reason to believe that she would have ever Not left, yk? even if she didnt have her own plans, if she Had wanted to join the team genuinely, if she wasnt massively distrusted— i dont think s4 ro ever wouldve ever been happy to destroy a world she had spent the entire season trying to preserve. even if it was w mapicc and zam, for as much as she loved them, she hated their destructiveness until the very end

i think After this ro definitely changed— if her helping end the server in s5 is indicative of anything, but like even during s5 itself she didnt LIKE the destructiveness. she never once turned her back on mapicc no matter what he said or did until he gave her a real reason to by (and the other abyss people) starting to destroy the server once again, and killing ro nd the one teammate of hers on lalas that she Actually cared abt

like even when she joined the players and agreed to help destroy things, the destruction was pitched to her by zam and mapicc as going back to what once was w the destruction just being a means to get there bc ro herself isnt someone who enjoys destruction for the sake of destruction— she'll fw almost Anything as long as it has meaning she can understand, and they made sure to give her smt she'd understand bc they know this abt her

which like . :')))) i cannot emphasize enough how much it Kills me that when given a choice on who they could end the world w, ro was the one zam & mapicc chose. they chose her and refused to go back on either killing everyone else or dying together in their efforts no matter how difficult and shitty things got. devotions were able to trust ro and had the choice to keep her by their side this time around, and ro was finally able to accept the inevitability of change and valued the sense of belonging she feels w her friends over the server, her own morals, and just,, everything bc none of it has any meaning if she isnt w the people who give things meaning to her

sorry i feel like this doesnt rly make sense but i wanted to yap abt team awesome bc they actually mean so very much to me. their relationship was permanently changed bc of s4 and now all 3 of them have this weird bond/attachment that transcends seasons & teams