LunarBlade and the many Hyperfixations

The greatest scene in anime history.

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

As of 30 May 2026:

From: AwardsBuzz interview about Murderbot 12 May 2026

episodes will be a little longer

boiling down the 3 remaining novellas into a single season

is ambitious for visual effects and action

the core is a character commenting on its life

they are not trying to replicate what they did in the first season

season 2 is totally new stuff

season 2 will be around 350 minutes / 5 hours long (so about 35 mins per episode)

intending to deliver within about a year (before June 2027)

he's looking forward to the visual effects and sound so he can see his mind on the screen

bunch of new characters being introduced

showing the new characters s1 to see how the show feels like

getting a lot of the original cast but not ALL of the cast

he's hoping it will have something for everyone

both repeatedly called it ambitious and super ambitious

From Martha Wells Q&As on Platform Decay 10 May 2026:

they’re filming in Madrid right now, and Martha is going to go see it in June.

for the next season they’re doing Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy, with some changes.

it's just Chris and Paul, brothers, who are the writers, directors, and producers.

they’re trying to figure out ways to show the interactions between ART and Murderbot, or Murderbot and the ComfortUnit.

changing things from a first person internal narration to third person in three dimensions.

In the second season they’re going to continue with showing Sanctuary Moon and some other shows.

I don’t think anyone gets much choice on what they look like. There’s something I want to tell but I can’t tell… It’s kind of fun. (regarding a discussion about muttonchops = secunit with a beard?)

From Martha Wells Q&A on Platform Decay 8 May 2026:

they are filming now

Martha doesn’t think they have cast ART yet (there's a stand-in reading lines)

said that next season will be all the way through Exit Strategy

She was very happy with the changes to the tv series for logistical reasons and considers it a parallel universe to the books

(She specifically mentioned she wished she had thought of LeeBeeBee for the book)

Also from 8 May 2026:

Martha is consulting on the show

likes their approach to portraying how ART and SecUnit communicate.

From 6 May 2026 Q&A (private discord attendees):

The TV show struggled (is struggling?) with portraying ART's presence.

They want to do something unique that also gets across the way that MB and ART communicate in a way entirely inhuman (ie, theyre not planning on doing scrolling text)

Martha hasn't seen final design for ART, has seen the initial ART design.

Has seen Tapan, Rami, and Maro design/costumes.

She is going out to the set to consult in June.

From 5 May 2026 Q&A (private discord attendees):

There will be 10 episodes and they will be longer (S1 Eps were supposed to be longer but the voiceover changed the calculations so they were shorter than intended.

Get to see Sanctuary Moon and Worldhoppers plus a few other new shows.

From Toa instagram story 13 March 2026:

Directors on site in Madrid scoping out potential filming sites

From The Coode Street Podcast Episode 692 December 2025 podcast interview with Martha on Murderbot release date:

No, it'll be 2027.

They're working on it now.

They're kind of in the pre-production writing the script and you know, doing the production design and all that kind of stuff and then they'll film it next year.

And then they'll be out in 2027.

Same podcast, consultation with Martha on the TV show:

No, I talked to them a lot.

They call me all the time when they're working on it and they need questions and answered fast.

Because sometimes and stuff like that, I know you don't know what you don't know until you get ready to do something that you need something answered really quickly.

Yeah, so we talk about it a lot.

From instagram stories and posts:

the directors have been in madrid since March 2026

skarsgaard is in madrid from early April 2026

(potential 2cm hair growth from tourist photo in Madrid)

Yeah, I bet. “You know that’s a you problem.”

“Oh.” Three was disconcerted. Welcome to the consequences of your actions, Three. It said hopefully, “It can’t be a we problem?”

“No, it can’t,” I said. “Get in the shuttle.””

you encounter a secunit for the first time.

it saves your life in a situation where no one else would have been fast, strong, agile, and composed enough to do so.

your security team is immediately more alarmed by its presence than the attack that is obvious to you as the bigger issue at the moment

they insist it's dangerous and struggle to relax enough to take their weapons off of it

then a combatbot attacks your group

somehow this secunit, much smaller than the bot, unarmored, without any heavy weaponry on its person, manages to take it down. some real jaw-dropping action, all over in less than a minute

then it leaps into a room with two combatbots and not only survives, but it gets your unconscious friend out alive

then it immediately comes to your own rescue, disabling impressive combat armor

it then is dead-set on killing your attacker who is already immobilized and harmless

clearly this is an incredibly competent and dangerous and powerful person

then miki tells you that it IS rin and you finally put it together that not only is this person competent in the field, but it is also calling all its own shots and has truly come here all on its own and volunteered its services to help and protect you without needing to be asked or ordered

so this person is incredibly competent, dangerous, powerful, AND kind, AND fiercely protective, AND reassuring, AND intelligent, AND selfless

and it's still coming up with great ideas and still thinking proactively about how it's going to face down or distract another combatbot as though there's no doubt in the world that it, still bleeding heavily, still unarmored and barely armed, is ready for another round with a terrifying machine that appears to be nothing BUT armor and weapons

so you step forward to help treat its injuries

and it jerks back a step with the single most frightened face you've ever seen, as though you had lifted your arm to inflict pain and it was helpless to stop you

behind you, even miki can read the devastating expression that's breaking your heart and says "abene won't hurt you, secunit"

where did the fearsome fighter from moments ago disappear to?

Permanent invitation link:

A small and casual discord for art, meta, discussion and joy about Mensah and Murderbot in the books and the TV show (+ those people orbiting them). This is a server that accepts any and all interpretations and preferences of the two. From platonic to romantic, everything in between and everything outside - nobody is wrong if it's bringing you joy.

The server is shipping friendly, polyship friendly and gen/SFW and NSFW friendly. So YES thats means MensARTbot and Mensahbothin and of course Mensahbotcule.

This server was made way back in March to be a home-base of sorts for the upcoming Mensahbot September event, then turned into a casual chill chat zone with mensahbot enjoyers from all the discords and some special edition people from AO3/tumblr who don't do large discords.

I want to stress it's basically an organised casual chat and not a fandom server. There's a bit over 30 people right now.

Current active chats include:

What does the Mensah farm actually farm?

Are Farai and Tano also Mensah's?

Steven Universe fusion of Mensahbot

Asexual fuck or die project

What happens if Mensah force feed SecUnit meat to Ratthi.

Mensahbot playlist/songs

Mensah and MB curled up listening to ART do a full cast bedtime reading of Sanctuary Moon

Later during my 6-month employee review, the same supervisor said, "sometimes when you correct people, you can come on a little too strong and intimidate or offend people."

We went over the specific instances he was referring to, and I said, "I don't think I was unfair or too harsh in any of those situations. I think I was just straightforward for clarity."

He said, "maybe you don't realize your tone is too harsh because you're Autistic?"

So there it is.

If someone's very obviously singling you out to be outright cruel and unfair, you must give them the benefit of the doubt, because you're Autistic and cannot understand.

If you're being straightforward and normal, but someone thinks you're being unfair, you do not get the benefit of the doubt, because you're Autistic and cannot understand.

debates i didn't know existed + a very humorous distinction

hostiles = antagonists that Murderbot is worried about 😳

Marianne Dashwood, living a plot perfect for a tragic death by illness to preserve the beauty of her first attachment and disappointment? Nope, she lives and loves with her whole heart again. Maria Rushworth, the fallen woman who cheated on her husband does not die for her crimes or even fall into poverty or prostitution, her father and Aunt Norris will provide for her. She is punished, but she's protected. Lydia Bennet? Her two sisters will provide for her for the rest of her life. Her husband's debt will not destroy her. Miss Bates? There is an entire community around her no matter what happens and her newly rich niece will provide. No woman is even left as a governess, Miss Taylor is Mrs. Weston, Jane Fairfax becomes Mrs. Churchill instead. Mrs. Smith is pulled out of her indigent state by Anne and Wentworth.

The only woman Jane Austen allows to suffer a terrible fate is off-page and dead long before the novel begins: Eliza Brandon. Eliza Williams, her mother's affair baby, is ruined by Willoughby. Colonel Brandon could easily have washed his hands of her and her affair child, but he doesn't. Eliza Williams is going to be okay. Her child will be okay.

Antagonist women never fall into poverty or die for their crimes, most of them are even in loving marriages. Fanny Dashwood is cruel to her mother and sisters-in-law, one could imagine her falling low in karmic retribution, but no, she's fine. Lady Susan, the delightful anti-heroine, marries a baronet at the end of her novel. No punishment looms on the horizon for her promiscuity and deception. Caroline Bingley has a loving family that will never turn her away and an independent fortune. Mary Crawford has a loving sister. Isabella Thorpe may have lost the big prize, but she has her mother. Never is a woman thrown to abuse or poverty, even when they have attacked other women. The only punishment would come from their own conscience or regret for the goodness they have thrown away.

I wouldn't kill him, because he looked as frightened as I was. I looked at him...and I saw myself.

⚠️Spoiler alert⚠️

This is when MB and Farai first met (every time I read this scene, it feels like Farai is interrogating her spouse's affair partner🥹)

And i'm happy to see the two of them building trust in each other in the latest series.

+The cutest part