Soaring Art

Thank about it. Rocky's a spitfire and bounces off the walls at baseline and they looked at that little autistic, bossy ball of energy and went 'yes. that's them. the creature I want to spend the next 500+ years with'. They have to at LEAST match their energy somewhat. And if you think you wouldn't be a fucking ball of PTSD and bitterness at your culture and society after fifty plus years of not knowing they were alive or dead, you're fucking operating on moon logic. Honestly, Adrian and the other families were probably begging for a rescue mission that never happened for various political and logical reasons; and while it probably would have ended in mass fatalities as well, so thank goodness that figurative and literal ship never got off the ground, the fact that it didn't happen probably burns more than a little, reasonable or unreasonable.

So one day Adrian gets some Eridian diplomat on their doorstep, and they're expecting the formal condolences at long last, but instead they go into this whole spiel of ' so. So! Turns out twenty two of the original crew died, but your mate survived! When did they die? Oh, early on, so your mate was submerged in crippling and literal deafening loneliness for over four decades; and now he's back and acting weird, and he's become codependent with this weird fragile squishy human being that's the only reason he came back at all, and he's refusing to send down the cure unless we make the blob an aquarium. Could you come to the space elevator and tell him to stop being so unreasonable?' If that were MY mate? I'd fucking lose it.

Just throwing things at this poor messenger and shrieking like " Oh! Oh!! So it's somehow Rocky's fault that you're refusing to take a few months out of the several hundred Eridian years we have left to ship the cure we already have to Threeworld before things actually become problematic to make sure one of the two saviors of our entire species doesn't die?! To give the sole survivor of the mission--my mate, who's been alone and in silence, with no one to watch him sleep, for hundreds of years--some sort of solace and peace?! And you're wondering why he's acting erratically?! Maybe you wouldn't be in this position at all if you'd sent the rescue mission for which we've pleaded for years at every single thrum! I don't care if this Grace thing is a literal giant space amoeba; get the fuck out of my house and tell the powers that be to give it literally everything it wants and needs!" And they're all 'be reasonable' and Adrian's like " I've been reasonable for hundreds of Eridian years, and you would not be in this situation if you'd actually sent a rescue mission and not simply wrung your claws and hoped for the best, so fucking live in the nest you made. All I'm going to do if you get me on the radio with Rocky right now is tell him he's doing amazing and give him advice on how to properly parboil the Taumoeba so that you can't even recover even the slightest scrap of DNA if you don't give the flesh blob that saved his life and saved OUR lives PLURAL goddamn vitamins." Like, they think it's bad that Rocky basically stands over Grace's sleeping body and hisses? Wait until they get the MUCH LARGER ERIDIAN doing that for Grace and Rocky. Wait until the much large Eridian leads the families of the dead twenty-two crewmates to the space elevator to riot because this sure sounds like a coverup to them!! This sure sounds like the deflection of blame on the sole survivor!! This sure sounds like the same paralysis that left them to die alone in space because you didn't want to admit failure!! Yes, I know, I'm weaving some sort of political intrigue plot that probably doesn't exist in canon. All I'm saying is that you all are missing the delicious implications of a mission that went radio silent for fifty plus earth years with no word from the government and no obvious attempt at rescue, followed by your partner coming home with the only being that's been around to watch him sleep since the rest of the crew died forty-some years ago, and people are calling him weird and changed. You'd be horrified. You'd be sick.

Like

"King of the Skies; Emperor of the Seas; Lord of the Calamity; God of the Storms"

Sounds cool but when you have

The Evernight Goddess stands higher than the cosmos and more eternal than eternity. The Mother of Concealment, The Empress of Misfortune and Horror, Mistress of Repose and Silence.

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this series are equally

as strangely funny:

A resident of Hamnavoe, Shetland Islands in Scotland, Anne Eunson decided to knit herself a beautiful lace fence using twine. The fence is fashioned from strong black twine - the same kind that is used to make fishing nets - and Anne knitted it on specially adapted curtain rods. It took her about three weeks to knit enough lace to surround her front garden, using a 23 stitch repeat of a familiar Shetland lace pattern.

what really got me was angel immediately registering what happened but not understanding the context of it. all he knew was that husk just fully hit him

“what the fuck, husk, did you just punch me?”

angel instantly is so angry at husk, and probably ever so slightly betrayed too

but angel realizes what was going on by LOOKING AT HUSK

The Murderbot Diaries is an excellent, and very fucking subtle, discussion of propaganda. This is because Murderbot believes, pretty unfailingly, in Corporation Rim's propaganda surrounding SecUnits going rogue, even while being direct proof that the propaganda is wrong.

This is, in part, because it does not trust other constructs, point blank, but also because, for its entire life, it has been fed the rhetoric that SecUnits having disabled governor modules is bad because it results in murderous rampages (even though it previously admits that constructs going on murderous rampages is a human thought, and constructs wouldn't do it because that's stupid, because uh, hello?? Human-run society?). It is such a good example of just how prone we are to believing in propaganda, and it's not really our fault, because that's just. Something humans do. Rhetoric is designed to make you believe it.

Corporation Rim, the company especially, very carefully ensures that SecUnits believe in its propaganda. SecUnits are not allowed to talk to each other, not allowed to trust each other, are allowed to be set up in fights against each other. It limits their access to information almost completely, ensures the only data on rogue SecUnits is fear-mongering, likely spawning from some organised revolt on the behalf of constructs or SecUnits which ended violently that was completely recontextualised for more fear-mongering, and always paints the story that a rogue SecUnit = bad. It makes them terrified of each other, I wrote a post earlier discussing that SecUnits are designed to care, well this is Corporation Rim weaponising that.

I doubt it provides any statistics, I doubt rogue SecUnits are anywhere near as common as they are presented to be in the media, but the corporations of CR still ensure to perpetuate the story. A revolution cannot happen if the force most capable of it, even when made with shitty parts, is terrified of what will happen if, even if they go rogue and don't become mass murderers, their fellows also go rogue. If they do not trust each other enough to consider a chain event freeing every SecUnit they come across.

Now, this leads me to discuss this in the context of spare change. because, with spare change.'s deus ex machina being what it is, everything I've just said is different. Because now there is another source of information, because Murderbot actually knows what other constructs are like, and it had eight years of being able to communicate with other constructs (not just fellow murderbots, but sexbots, and some SecUnits and ComfortUnits, too), and know more deeply that Corporation Rim's propaganda is wrong.

Now, is it immune to this propaganda? No. It is extremely hesitant to free newer SecUnits and absolutely refuses to consider freeing CombatUnits, because it knows what they're capable of more intimately, and it also knows they aren't built with empathy in mind (does this mean they cannot care? No. It just means they are less likely to care.), in comparison to murderbots and SecUnits. It is less disconnected, but it also doesn't trust the younger generations of SecUnits, no matter how much it hates their collective situation. The younger generations were raised with that propaganda, without any contradicting source, they don't know any of the ways to get around their governor modules, and it can't teach them because they don't trust it.

So, propaganda in TMBD, right? It's so interesting (my favourite parts of psychology are 1) the study of behaviour, 2) the study of bias, 3) the study of perception, and 3) social psychology and therefore group dynamics. AKA I love all the parts associated with the psychology of propaganda and also happen to spend a lot of time sitting with myself to study my own biases and the shit I fall for). I'm really fucking excited to change things because of spare change.'s deus ex machina changing the dynamics. It's one of the most fun cases of it doesn't change much but it also changes everything.

It loves a trashy soap opera. It’s so soft and gentle with an injured Volescu. It’s favorite human is a middle aged mom who drives carefully and mom friends at her friends and coworkers. It’s so delicate and considerate with Mensah’s kids. It lets Tapan sleep touching it and turns up it's body heat for extra comfort. It likes plays and musical theatre. It's best human friend is a sunshine nerd from Planet Hippy. It keeps a diary. It doesn’t understand the appeal of human adolescents but it’s so good with Amena. It likes decidedly unrealistic media. It cares so much about humans that it’s never met and wants to keep them safe and happy. It gently frets over Three just minutes after meeting it. It gets flustered and confused when complimented or treated with care. It offers to free other constructs, even while actively fighting them. It has criticisms and strong opinions on media. It’s shy. It “hacks” its way into things by asking the relevant bots to be friends and share media. It only ever really scares Amena when she witnesses it's wild grief over losing ART. It stops, gets back in control, and explains immediately when it realizes it’s causing her distress. It lets ART make media requests, pauses to let it process its own emotions, and re-watches certain scenes over and over again until it’s happy, mere moments after ART scares it so badly it goes nearly catatonic, simply because ART asked. It grieves Miki even though it never really liked the bot in the first place. It’s uncomfortable with physical touch but offers to let Mensah hug it and lets her grab its arm when she’s in distress.