#murderbot headcanons

I think engaging in fandom and fan culture would be genuinely extremely constructive for secunit

Like yes it would get insanely frustrated over bad takes and fanon it disagrees with (to the point of hacking to find out the sci fi equivelent of peoples email addresses and signing them up for spam messages if it REALLY hates their take) but consider:

communication and engagement over the feed, no eye contact or stress about being discovered

shared topic of interest so it doesn't have to stress to find what to say nearly as much

Its feelings of media making it feel more like a person, of how its easier to care about fictional humans than real ones, and learning so much from its favorite media would not be alone, there would be connection and understanding with others, and maybe even learn other reasons the media it loves means a lot to people. Both validation and gaining new perspectives in a safe way

so. as you could probably tell from my fic. i fucking love any instance of mb taking up fiber arts!!! 👍 absolutely feral for it!!!! like! i like the headcanon that fiber arts are so important on preservation, and there must be family techniques for certain things that get passed down from parent to child as kids learn how to work with fiber and!!!! family!!!!!!! i dunno i am struck incoherent at the thought of mb's humans teaching it fiber arts like! they care it and it care them,,,,,🥹 i am just always so verklempt when mb participates in any preservation life/traditions not bc it needs to "fix" itself and blend in but to be part of a community, even if it's a human one

and smth smth ok maybe mb is a horrific killing machine murderbot of a thing only good for security and violence (as mb sees itself) but! this killing machine is learning how to make things!!! those hands are capable of spinning out more than just a long thread of hurt as its own life has been for so so long and now are weaving something different. smth it chose! smth smth imagery and symbolism of life and one's choices reflected in thread and fabric and smth smth mb taking the power into its own hands now to choose creation instead of destruction!!! and it's even the creation of smth beautiful! it's thread (spinning)/fabric (weaving, knitting, etc), these soft things that keep you warm, that clothe you (confer upon you dignity) and can be personalized! you can choose to use whatever colors and patterns and make anything you want and express yourself! and smth smth the care and love instilled in these hand made things! even just one item of clothing would require potentially hundreds of hours of labor poured into it. it's highly valued and it's treasured and seen as important. and things that get worn out and old get patched and fixed instead of thrown out. nothing is disposable! the fixes can be beautiful (via embroidery)!!!! like. fuck.

also it's a hobby mb can do that keeps its hands busy and isn't consuming media (not that there's anything wrong with consuming media; for so long it was the only thing it could get away with bc no one could see watching/reading stuff inside its head (the only place where it had any freedom and anything belonged to it; the company could still own mb's body but it could never own its thoughts again) and escaping from its vicious understimulated boredom and grim ass reality surrounded by all the worst the world had to offer). but i firmly believe that everyone needs a hobby that makes you create shit, rather than just passively consume shit, and fiber arts are really perfect for mb (and really any construct, i think). after all, weaving and knitting (and crochet?? not sure here) are just like,,,primitive methods of coding. it's math!!! a bunch of the first coders for computers were women bc they were knitters and they understood that shit!!! code and computers can claim lineage all the way back to the creation of textiles and there's just smth so fucking poetic to me for a construct, a machine intelligence, to touch its roots like that. (and it's also preservation's roots!!!) also mb can totally still consume media while doing it lmaoooooooooo

my specific mb & three fiber arts/crafts headcanons are:

mb being talented at hacking -> talented at coding -> talented at understanding knitting/crochet patterns, so i think mb is technically better at knitting & crochet (esp very elaborate things like lace) than three, but three is better at stuff like embroidery (freehand and requires better visualization or smth??), tho both of them are still very proficient in the opposing skills

or rather mb is theoretically proficient at embroidery but basically never does it unless it feels like it can't patch smth in an aesthetically pleasing way without embroidery. it's not that mb cares that much about aesthetics/visual appeal, but also it has realized with time that it doesn't enjoy when its things look banged up/bad bc things that look shitty are like,,,things it associates with its time spent as company property. it's people who are respected and have rights that have things (esp clothes) that look nice. mb will never have much of a sense for fashion and defaults to things like many pocketed cargo pants and hoodies, but those clothes could at least be clean and neat instead of dirty/ragged/scruffy

(oh, besides knitting and crocheting, lace can also be made by bobbin, tatting, and needle. mb is better at bobbin lace which is like coding, again, and three is better at needle lace. they're equally proficient at tatting lace? i don't think either of them would do tatting much since it's very limited in pattern. mb doesn't bother with bobbin lace as much as it does knit lace since it creates smaller scale decorative things whereas you could knit a very elaborate lace shawl, esp if you have super fine yarn, like with the orenburg goat down that goes into orenburg shawls, or uhhh shetland knit lace tho i dunno what kinda fiber they use for that off the top of my head)

oh yeah, they're both proficient in spinning as well but they're not huge on it? spinning is smth that is more commonly handled by (spinning) bots anyway, for plant based fibers like cotton and linen (produced by ag-bots). families with farms and livestock that produce wool like sheep and goats are more likely to spin those animal fibers by themselves since yarn is better for trade. i think maybe young children in families with fiber producing livestock tend to be taught and then tasked with a lot of spinning as a way of teaching them patience and stuff

i have already mentioned in my fic that arada does weaving and convinced mb to get a loom so she could have a weaving buddy. it's fine. mb doesn't dislike it and it can get very complicated, which is more interesting for it, but given how much of its time it spends off preservation and how not-portable looms are, it only ever does it when it's on preservation station.

I want it to slowly befriend and even more slowly come to love an oc I’m making for universe.

Disclaimer: I’m not any sort of aro or ace at all myself, therefore don’t have any experience with how being demiromantic works. I only know what I’ve read (sorry)