an accidental life

ALSO this is a regular occurrence for secunit it expected to b treated like that with the presaux team and it wasn't so it makes it all the more of a whiplash

Like at the bare minimum level, they were willing to leave it alone and let it do its own thing. Even Mensah's invitation to stay in the crew area came with "or you don't have to." No one has ever said that to murderbot before. It's literally do this or die. Do this dangerous thing or die, do this humiliating thing or die. In fact, we've even seen that before at the very beginning of the show when the miners held a blowtorch to its hand.

Then of course they rise above the bare minimum level. Mensah confides in it and asks for its input. She enters a dangerous location and kills for it. All of them work to bring it back online after it shoots itself to protect them. They try to help, in their own shitty way, when it is attacked by another secunit. They keep trying to talk to it how it's feeling which is annoying and mortifying, but those miners who forced it to burn its hand sure didn't care about how it was feeling. Yes, they have arguments and get into conflict with it, but that is what people do in relationships, and being able to do that like a person is a positive change. If it didn't feel safe enough to argue with them then it wouldn't be a true relationship. There certainly was no arguing with the people who made it cry like a baby, or kill without question, or hurt itself for their amusement.

one of my favorite bits is that presaux team did so believably well! i'm a sucker for the 'civilians in danger' tropes, and the show ticked them off perfectly. nobody aside from gurathin even was off their planet before, and while they were all prepared for field work, they were most definitely not prepared for field work with hostile fauna AND murderous corporate goons. add in a curveball of learning that their security robot is neither robot nor obligated to be their security (and i love murderbot to bits, but if you don't have access to its inner narraiton, it's completely shit at communicating anything to anybody ever, actively resents doing so, and from the outside is objectively terrified to be stuck with, at least for a while.)

(actually, the aside here is - personhood doesn't mean, y'know, pacifism or good intentions. murderbot turned out to be a kind of person who would rather nerd out about its soap operas and huddle quietly in the corner, but it's not a secunit thing, it's a murderbot thing. its personality might have just as well turned out to be unhinged, sadistic, vengeful or completely disinterested in their welfare, and there would've been fuck-all presaux could've done about it. it DOES consider murdering them all, even! so there's that.)

and despite all of that - they don't lose their head, they don't turn on each other, the talk through various panic-filled situations, and they keep doing their jobs when there's a call to do their jobs. they might squabble, but they never let it grow into violence or complete splintering; and when murderbot needs them to do things - even terrifying things - and they agree with it, they do them things (up to and including some judicious murder, which i really want to see the fallout of.) they're scared and they're unprepared and they're uncertain, and yet they rally and they do so, so well.

They are 100% prepared for a field expedition. Take out MB’s narration in the first episode, and they are obviously THRIVING on that expedition. But they are normal academics, and are NOT prepared for dangerous megafauna or a rival group trying to murder them all! Gurathin is probably the only one in the group who has ever seen someone die violently before.

I love that they all have very understandable, human reactions to the situation, but they are strong and they are smart, so they don’t lose what makes them themselves. They stick together. They put themselves in danger to save one another. They squabble, but they never split.

They can talk about this. And they do. Consistently, they show what makes Preservation a good and kind society. They care for one another even when it’s dangerous or scary or just inconvenient. They include people in their culture who struggle with it. They let them be themselves, but never let them isolate, because part of being in a communal culture is that you need to stay connected to the community. And it’s good for Gurathin to stay connected. Isolating would worsen his paranoia and his worst tendencies, but by persistently making him a part of the group activities, by even pushing him outside of his comfort zone, he is integrated further with them.

And when it counts, that community mindset pays off. They work together so well in episode 9. When Ratthi can’t do something alone, Arada and Bharadwaj are there to support him, to reach consensus, and to do it together. When Gurathin is (once again, poor designated damsel) imperiled, Pin-Lee is there with a wrench. I hope they struggle with the choice they made, but also understand that choice a little more having made it. They made the same decision MB made, to take out a threat immediately rather than wait to see if it could be talked through, because that person pointed a gun at Gurathin, and there wasn’t time to come up with a more elegant solution. It’s a great mirror that they can start to see the world through MB’s eyes. And it makes me wonder if the two big hold-outs to including it (Gurathin and Pin-Lee) are going to turn around and become some of its biggest advocates (obviously Mensah is #1), both having mirrored it in different ways.

My entire life I have been told I have the wrong interests and I speak the wrong way and I have been sorted in with men or in with women depending on who's looking at me and in what context, and you don't get to tell me that I'm actually this or that because you think someone with a body that looks like mine couldn't possibly be agender. Because I am.

Agender people can appear to be stereotypically masculine or feminine. They can be any race or ethnicity. It may shock you to learn that a masc presenting individual with a beard may not think of themself as "a man", and a femme presenting person may not identify as "a woman". There is no reason why MB's internal gender (or lack thereof) is invalid because it doesn't adhere to the standards you want agender individuals to perform.

Also we don't know Skarsgard's gender. He uses he/him but is that because he identifies as a man or because he has a masculine appearance so everyone just assumes? Idk. We would have to ask. Maybe Skarsgard is agender, too. It's just weird to me that on a website where people say they're very concerned with being open minded there is a surprising amount of hostility to the idea that someone could be agender if they look Like That. Which is depressing to me, as someone who also looks A Certain Way.

Whether I wear a skirt or a tuxedo, I am still agender. What you think when you look at me has nothing to do with my internal orientation. It's your business and none of mine. but don't tell me my gender is invalid. Don't tell me I couldn't possibly be what I am.

It goes the same for folks who, through either the reality of their bodies or deliberate choice, are very masculine. Their body and their presentation has nothing to do with their gender. And it was why, after some consideration, I really liked the casting choice, even before I saw Alex Skarsgard in action. Because the actor looks like the typical Action Man protagonist, but the character is anything but. And the show is very true to it being agender, but still facing the struggles of having a body that is perceived in ways it cannot control. These are struggles real agender people can and do have, so to see it play out on screen was really nice.

First off, I have to acknowledge the double-entendres absolutely littering this scene.  The mutual vulnerability!  The physical link-up, plugging into one another.  Digging into their most private (mental) places. The request for fucking restraint followed by an electronic blindfolding.  Shit, man, if there aren’t 18000 buck-wild Murderathin fics coming out of this one episode, the fandom is seriously dropping the very kinky ball that is this absolute shit-show of a relationship.

Anyway!  Onto more serious discussions. 

First off, we learn so much in such a short time.  This show has been a masterclass at utilizing a limited run-time well, demanding that everything on screen pull double or triple duty, layered with meanings and implications, and this scene is no different.  Through their mutual accusations, we get mutual confessions.  Murderbot uses an instance of mutual vulnerability to dig into Gurathin’s mind to try to find dirt on him, only to get lost in his thoughts.  It exposes Gurathin’s most closely-guarded secret—his unrequited love for Mensah—but also Gurathin’s belief that he is fundamentally unloveable.  And the accusation is read out in first-person, transforming it into a confession.  Because Murderbot very much sees itself as unloveable too.

And Gurathin has simultaneously dug into Murderbot, uncovering the fragmented memories of the massacre, and its actual name.  And much like Murderbot, what we see is equal parts accusation and a horrified confession.  Gurathin is in tears as he watches through the massacre footage (and kudos to the special effects folks for playing the footage over both Dastmalchian’s and Skarsgard’s eyes during the scene, showing both of them trapped in the same instant together), blurting out the revelation in third person rather than first, but following it up immediately with his accusations about being defective.  A danger to everyone around him.  One thought from something terrible.

Sounds a lot like self-loathing, doesn’t it?  And that’s what this scene is all about.  Two people who can’t help but dig and pry and hurt one another because they see themselves in the other.  And they hate themselves.  They are both terrified of being defective, of being somehow involved in terrible acts that led to deaths.  We don’t know if Gurathin killed people directly, but he almost certainly had the information he gathered used to kill people.  He was responsible, maybe.  Just like Murderbot.

And they are both terrified of falling back into that place.  It’s why they’re both terrified, more than anything, of being controlled.  Murderbot broke free of its governor module, but still works for the Company.  It still isn’t a fully independent being and never will be so long as it’s a part of this organization.  Its small pieces of full independence are its thoughts and its name, and Gurathin exposed both of those. 

Gurathin is terrified of falling back into substance abuse.  Realizing that it was medical painkillers that were the first step to getting him thoroughly addicted and compliant was awful, because it implies either a past physical trauma or—I think more likely—pain medications as part of the augmenting procedures.  You have to imagine having cybernetics laced into your brain and replacing your eyes has to be incredibly painful.  And from there it was a slide downward into addiction, likely deliberately by Gurathin’s employers.

But I also find it interesting that, despite the compulsive need to dig at one another and hurt one another, there is also another impulse at play in this scene: some degree of caregiving and weird trust.  Murderbot did NOT have to consent to plugging itself into Gurathin to try to bypass his pain receptors and act as a non-drug alternative to pain management during the surgery.  It may say that it did this because it would find Gurathin screaming to be irritating, but that seems flimsy.  And Gurathin DEFINITELY didn’t have to ask Murderbot to restrain him, or accept when it blanked out his vision as well. 

There is a weird, almost unconscious trust and care there.  I feel like this is something that is going to be more explored, and is the basis for something less destructive between them.  I also think it speaks to the impulse on both their parts to want forgiveness, care, trust, and love.  They don’t forgive themselves.  They don’t care about themselves as they should.  They don’t trust or love themselves.

But deep down, they both still want that for themselves, even if they are both completely incapable of articulating that outside of accusations at the moment.

This whole scene was just working on so many levels, and they weren’t pleasant or comfortable levels.  And I love how the show digs into that through these characters, their dumpster-fire relationship, and all the cracks in their psyches they keep exposing because of one another.

narrative therapy looks at the faulty beliefs someone has about themselves from trauma and the "story" they are telling themselves that has been keeping those beliefs in place. for murderbot its "I'm defective, I'm unlovable, I was built only to destroy, I'm the problem, etc." it works by helping people take steps to reframe what has happened to them (like MB deciding to use its pain to help the colonists) and by creating distance from that story so they start to see it from the outside instead of internalizing it. I have to suspect that murderbot being able to literally watch its story as an outsider through the documentary gave it this sense of distance. It also gave it also gave it a new thing to associate those memories with.

And that brings up the idea that someone can tell a new story about themselves. they don't have to live by the old story forever. Murderbot can go from replaying "I'm that secunit that murdered those 57 humans, i'm that secunit with something wrong with it, I'm that secunit that got contaminated by alien remnants and almost died, I'm that secunit that was completely helpless" to "I'm that secunit that protects Dr. Mensah, I'm that secunit that ART asked to join it's crew, I'm that secunit that Amena called her third mom, I'm that secunit that saved all those colonists."

And truly that's the thesis of the whole series. Trauma does not define you. You are still lovable and you do get to choose who you want to be. You can rewrite your story.

Here's the link to read it at 10 PM Eastern Time on Thursday, July 10th:

1 - the parallel action Gura took, trying to see some of Murderbot’s secrets

&

2 - Murderbot keeping Gurathin’s secret, even after (or before) Gura having no problem exposing Murderbot’s.

so murderbot 1.9 was just personally tailored emotional porn for yours truly, 10/10, no notes, those people are amazing and i hope they get to adapt all the books. i want to see what they do with art like burning.

the thing about the show overall i really loved is how deft, economic and intentional they're with their adaptation choices. ASR is a deceptively hard book to adapt, i think, given that it's delivered in a very detached narrative from a deeply unreliable narrator, and everything the show team chose to do with it was just - well-thought out in a deeply satisfying way.

giving gurathin his woobie corporate spy backstory? elevates him from the straight man description in the book (the humans in the books are deliberately sanded down and smushed together - it's murderbot's narration and it doesn't want to care too much and it doesn't want to pay attention; but we as independent viewers have to care, otherwise there's no show), gives him this beautiful kismesis rapport/understanding/tension with murderbot, and quickly and efficiently hammers in the 'under this form of predatory capitalism everybody is abused and exploited, but also there are levels to that' that takes the books some time to unfold. who knows if they get a second season? and it's already all here.

leebeebee? quick corprim entry point of view, nice thematic foil for both gurathin and murderbot, the quick demonstration of how presaux' way of communicating with corporation rim is both good and dangerous for them, and a sideside demonstration that yes, sometimes people will participate in their own exploitation and will choose the promise of being the boot over the freedom from the boot, and there's that.

sanctuary moon? aside from how much fun it is, it provides us with quick and dirty insight into murderbot feelings - something that it most definitely has in abundance AND something that it staunchly refuses to admit or embody all the way until, like, fifth or sixth book in the series - and also a beautiful demonstration of how a person will learn empathy from anywhere, even second-grade soap opera, because personhood is made of connections, and the urge to connect is just that strong. it IS a mediocre show, that is; this mediocre show allowed murderbot to invent and try out concepts completely integral to its sense of being and perceiving the world way ahead of time. (also makes me think of how the most enduring Ye Fandoms of Olde were slightly mediocre, long shows that had to be read very closely and sometimes against the text to read all the richness and joy into them.)

(and also for the horrendous, startling vulnerability and generosity of murderbot sharing its comfort episode with mensah AFTER she called it a mediocre show. i would never, i swear to god.)

the throuple? a) hilarious b) a quick and dirty crash course on how presaux navigates sex, relationships, sticky ethical situations, cringe and changes - by treating each other with maximum respect possible and knowing that they can talk about shit even when shit is deeply embarrassing for all parties involved.

So, in the last five-six years, I went through a divorce, a pandemic, a sudden life-threatening illness (I'm fine now!), the absolute chaos and terror of US politics, perimenopause (continuing, sigh), and a major work reorg (still in progress; academia is slow about everything). Oh, also I just got promoted to part-time management as a first-time manager and am desperately hoping not to fuck it up because the people I manage are terrific and deserve somebody far more ept than I am.

It's been a lot. Really truly a lot.

But a thing I learned from my father the tenured professor, because he was exquisitely bad about it and I did not want to be like him, is that educators cannot shove their shit off on their students. This is a thing that Cannot Happen. Must Not Happen. Educator persona must be shit-free. My colleagues, too, do not come to work to help me deal with my shit.

I don't always quite manage this. I'm human, and I actually have a filthy temper; keeping it in check has been the work of a lifetime. But I always try, and usually I succeed.

It's been a rough time for students too, the last five-six years. Consensus is that the pandemic messed students up pretty good, academically and socially, kindergarten to grad school. I've noticed. There's only so much I can do to fix it for them. And some of them don't hesitate to take their shit out on me. Not all by any means! But... enough. Enough to be grindingly hurtful and saddening and exhausting.

So trying to teach in higher ed becomes this awful tug-of-war between the endless abyss of student needs, the institution's needs, and the needs of the professions I train for -- if I pass someone despite them clearly not doing the damn work, I'm not doing anybody any favors, actually.

It's a lot. Really truly a lot. But, you say, what does this have to do with Mensah?

1718 Michael Dahl - Arthur Vansittart

ab. 1690 Workshop of Hyacinthe Rigaud - Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans