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Full of holes

On the route

I need to go

Road construction

Lane obstruction

Let me go

egg

Im.. Soft 🥺🥺🥺

Me? I had some really spectacular bruises and a lil friction burn on my nose from where Mr. Airbag and Ms. Glasses had a disagreement. That's it. That's it.

I was driving a little tiny coupe and went more or less head-on with a pickup truck. The entire engine and hood of my car was twisted rubble that was not connected to the rest of the car afterward. I sat down on the verge, about twenty or thirty feet from the accident, while I waited for the cops and EMTs to work their way through the traffic backup to get to us, and found that I was sitting beside one of the headlights of my car. The whole entire headlight, bulb and reflector and cover and frame and all.

All I had were bruises and that little friction burn. That's it.

Crumple zones save lives. So do seatbelts and airbags; half the bruising was the exact shape of my seatbelt in livid crimson and black on my torso. It was and remains the most insanely intense bruising I have ever experienced in my life. BUT IT WAS JUST BRUISING!! Unpleasant, sure, but eminently survivable and didn't even require much treatment beyond not wearing a bra for a few days. But all the force that created that spectacular bruising was force that wasn't flinging me through the windshield or impaling me on the steering column. My car crumpled and crushed and dissolved but it held me safe and secure and protected.

No actually. Combat rated vehicles have standards for crash and shock absorbtion. Obviously you dont have airbags and crumple zones on an armored vehicle, but you do have multi-point harnesses, rollover protection, fire suppression systems, internal padding, seats designed to absorb sudden impacts and protect the users... AND THEY STILL HAVE TO ASS CERTAIN ROAD SAFETY LAWS TO BE ALLOWED ON THE ROADS

It is also less repairable than a military vehicle. Military vehicles are often fixable with basic tools and skills. You can wrench, bolt, hammer, and weld on those things.

The cybertruck however. Needs special advanced glue and a depot level repair facility. For basic shit.

Awful vehicle.

"'Again, I have a court order,' Pin-Lee said, grabbed my other arm, and they walked me out."

"Pin-Lee said, 'We’re not taking questions now,' shoved Ratthi into the hotel’s transport pod, then grabbed my arm and pulled me in after her."

"Arada walked in then, and came over and patted my shoulder."

Some manhandling unithandling and a little pat. :)c

I didn't mean to write meta. The stuff above was supposed to be the whole post! I literally said I wouldn't write any new meta today, but urggggggh. My hand slipped.

I haven't been rereading ASR on repeat like the other books, so I got myself into misremembering canon trouble!

Whenever I have the show playing while doing other things, I always end up yelling at them to stop touching it when I get to the last episode. Bc they don't just touch it; it feels like they touch it a lot. And... I'd kinda had the picture form in my head that this was a TV-only situation, something to reinforce for the casual viewer just how happy PresAux are to have it back.

But... no, that's a book thing!

In fact, the book shows more instances of the team touching it than the show, which only has two that I caught (Ratthi gripping its shoulders in excitement after its memories are restored; Arada warmly touching its arm after it gets dressed in human attire). They might have still done all the dragging and pulling in the show universe, but we don't see that.

Anyway. I don't remember exactly what I had thought when I first read ASR; I might have not even paid much attention to it.

Bc here's the thing — Murderbot inadvertently recorded these actions like a human would. Not only did it leave off the explicit aversion (that the reader doesn't find out about until the next book), but it even left off any implicit aversion. By leaving these actions so bare, human readers easily slip back into the human perspective. We understand these are actions of protection, of care.

We know these touches were a message — a signal to the other humans to back off.

Even though there's only four instances, putting them together like this, I suddenly get the impression that it wasn't the thought of cleaning Mensah's farm or being a bodyguard no one shot at that repelled it. It wasn't even that it realized it wants to make its own decisions — that is merely the conscious thought it put to the subconscious feeling.

The feeling that drove it away was the more visceral experience of being touched in this way. Yes, it cares for the team and interprets their actions in good faith. It may even fully realize the intention behind the touches.

None of that can negate the reality that, to a person who has always been a possession, the touches are gentle but possessive.

The coercion lacks threat or force, but it exists, and Murderbot can feel it on its skin. The revulsion toward infantilizing was born of being pulled along benevolently by its arms, the way parents might grip their child's hands to steer and stride faster past danger. The fear of becoming a pet bloomed right from under the affectionate pat on its shoulder.

Ratthi and Pin-Lee, great non-verbal communicators with other humans, view the grabbing and pulling as a necessary touch. Aside from being visually protective, any gesture that signals for others to "back off" is also visually territorial, which they consider just as necessary to safely get SecUnit out of there as the court order. But it's the "territorial" aspect of the equation that is exactly the perspective and the problem for Murderbot.

Here's the other thing, perhaps the much bigger but vastly simpler thing — to the humans, it's just a touch. To Murderbot, this is the very first time it's being touched with loving care outside of its armor.

GETS ME EVERY TIME