[OPEN LOG] I've a heart of gold in the smallest size

[serialskiller]

Who: Murderbot and y'all
When: Early December
Summary: My normal approach is useless here.
Warnings: Squishy things like bot emotions. Also risk of fall damage.

1. More than an illustration [About Anywhere]
Murderbot's gotten pretty good at painting landscapes, thanks to Bob Ross, but now it's stepping out of that comfort zone and trying to sketch people. Well. Parts of people. The way a ponytail falls over a shoulder, but without a face. An incomplete hand with tidy nails, gripping onto some sort of pole or cane. A single shoe, a black leather mary jane. An individual eye. A man's mustache and nose. Hair in a braid. What is unmistakeably Max's knee, smoldering after being shot.

It doesn't seem satisfied with any of it, though the renderings are detailed and very photorealistic. After all, its mind's eye is a literal camera. Of course it registers every detail. But as it rips out a page and crumples it up to toss away, it happens to hit the nearest person with the paper ball instead.


2. Points of articulation [The Memorial]
There's a sweatshirt Murderbot received as a Sundries gift months ago that it's never worn in public. And never will now. Near everything else people have set up, Murderbot folds the shirt so the number 57 on the back, like the numbers on the back of a sports jersey, are visible, and sets it out with everything else.

Yeah, this memorial was originally meant for previous passengers, but there's nowhere else for it to properly...you know.

"And you got the number wrong anyway, dumbass. Sixty-one. It was sixty-one. They counted too."

Beside that, he also sets some of Jinx's tools and half-finished creations, and then turns to slip away before anyone notices it was here.

...oops, too late.


3. Come to life on a brass spring [Promenade]
Look, the new brass statue in the Promenade is weird and Murderbot is climbing it. That's it, that's the prompt. Come bother it?


X. Such a wonderful plaything [Wildcard]
darkersolstice or darkersolstice #9463 to plot

Comments

[serialskiller]

"Fuck! I mean, uh..." Right, it is improper to use that word in front of juvenile humans. "I'm sorry, Fio. I didn't mean to hit you. Are you alright?"

[not_the_last]

She holds on to it for that same moment, and makes herself let go when it does. And takes a breath, and a long beat, to be sure of speaking steadily when she does.

"I think we're all right?"

[sabigoe]

Gasp. Both at the word and how loud that sounds in a library. It's managed to entirely wake her up from her stupor. There's an apology quickly followed after, so she won't chide Rin for it.

"I'm alright, Rin-Rin!" A smile. It's just paper. She grabs the ball from her head and although she should probably just toss it in a garbage bin as it intended, she unfurls it without much thought, "What were you working on?"

[pointofhonoria]

Somehow, it really is. "Shrill? Y'know, that's a new one. Points for not going for some accent comment, that's the lazy option."

Interrupted every few words by a grunt as she climbs the goddamn statue. She pauses for a moment when she's secure with the sash as a foothold, the dip of his vest as a handhold, before moving to pull herself up towards the shoulder.

[actuallyawolf]

"... what makes them watercolours instead of regular colours?"

Wolves do not know very much about painting. It's pretty, she knows that. Ylva wanders over to try to take a look at what it's working on now.

2

[winepouring]

When Shi Qingxuan had come here, he wasn't actually expecting to run into anyone else.

Now that he has, he stands a few paces back - to let the other man(?) pay its respects - and tactfully averts his eyes to give some semblance of privacy, though he can hear everything that's being said. A gloomy air falls across Shi Qingxuan's pale face. A problem with the memorial? Sixty-one people... It isn't hard to imagine a tragedy like that occurring here. It also isn't hard to understand the emotion that forgetting them would bring.

Shi Qingxuan just looks down at the few small, flat, rectangular boxes made of folded paper that he's carrying in his hands as he waits. As much as he wants to make this as non-awkward as possible, though, there's still that moment where Shi Qingxuan hears Murderbot rise and then lifts his own gaze.

And then, there they are. Now they've made eye contact, and it would be more awkward not to at least acknowledge each other. Shi Qingxuan inclines his head in greeting, carefully asking, "Were you able to add them?"

[serialskiller]

"Everyone has accents to me, I'm not from Earth." What, had you been imagining it as American? British? It's not even speaking English, but Corporate Rim Tradespeak.

Again, it offers its hand once she's in reach.

[serialskiller]

"Just some drawings. I'm not happy with how they're looking. I'm frustrated with myself." With her, it manages to get out some feelings words, honest ones.

[serialskiller]

"Mm. They're not people who died on this ship. They're from an incident back in my universe, where fifty-seven human miners and four ComfortUnits were killed at a mining installation. So I'm not adding their names here, it's not quite appropriate. But I am remembering them. Where I'm from, the incident was covered up, erased. There isn't anyone else to remember it."

It's clear whatever the incident is sits heavy on Murderbot. After all, if it's actively refraining from adding their names, it remembers them, all 57+4.

[pointofhonoria]

"Everyone has accents to everyone except the folks with the same, don't stop them making comments."

She takes the hand once she's actually up there and with a last grunt drags herself up to join it, heaving a breath as she does.

"Right, well, okay, managed that. Getting down might be the real issue." She looks around. "Real different view of the Promenade from up here..."

[thefreak]

Eddie blinks rapidly at that admission. It has him pausing, assessing it, and reconsidering all the assumptions he has made of it.

"Maybe so. Just means it's a good thing that we didn't meet until now." It's as simple as that, really. Does it matter if they wouldn't have been friends back then? Not really, in the long run.

"I was a much more cynical person before I came here. And was quick to form some conclusions and make assumptions about people without knowing all the facts. It was harder for me to make friends." Between the events from Spring Break and now on the ship, he likes to think everything has helped to open up his eyes a little bit, and his heart.

[serialskiller]

"Heart of the ship. In some ways, I think the Promenade drives us more than the pretend engines do."

It waves lazily at someone across the Promenade from them.

[serialskiller]

It picks up its pencil, beginning to sketch again between stolen glances at Eddie.

"The ship changes everyone. On previous voyages, it was almost always for the worse. It's how you get a batch like the ghosts who possessed everyone in October. But this voyage is different, apparently."

[pointofhonoria]

"Interesting way of puttin' it, but can't say you're wrong. Backbone of the place, heart of it... we do all spends so much time down here, never seems empty. Closest thing to walking down a street back in Gallery that you can really get around here."

It's alive. People flit in and out. Grab drinks and food and bits and bobs. Talk and walk and live their lives. It does feel a little different than the other decks with less, now she thinks about it.

[serialskiller]

"Like the public area of a space station or transport hub." Closest equivalent it knows. There are no streets to walk in space. But it's agreeing, not arguing, almost fond of the area and those passing through. "I get this kind of view often with my drones. It's different with eyes, though."

[winepouring]

"I see..."

Shi Qingxuan hangs his head in sympathy. Something like that doesn't surprise him, and he doesn't even begin to guess how the person in front of him came to be aware of that particular tragedy. It could be any number of reasons, any number of personal connections that Shi Qingxuan doesn't really have the right to pry into.

More so, it's clear that that incident holds a great deal of importance.

"There's nothing to say you can't create your own memorial in their memory. Even if they weren't here, they can still be remembered and honored."

[serialskiller]

"Maybe. I don't really know how to create a memorial, or what someone is supposed to do there. This is the only memorial I've ever seen, before."

It doesn't exactly come from a place with much use for spirituality.

[pointofhonoria]

"I'd reckon so. All things gotta be different in person. And, well, with your own eyes you got your nose to filter out."

Crabb might be being a bit of a harmless shit, still. It's got the same facial structure as any human, does the mechanical part of its brain compensate enough that it won't suddenly become aware of its own nose, or does it get to suffer that stupid little flaw of the humanoid condition too?

"You must see a lot with those things, the way you have 'em flitting about all the time. Far more than the rest of us, day to day."

[winepouring]

"I haven't seen many like this myself," he admits, "but when there isn't a place to bury or honor the dead here, this memorial takes that role, doesn't it? So yours should be a place where you can write their names, so they can be remembered as well..."

He glances back down at the paper rectangles in his hands as he trails off, and if he was going to make any other suggestions, he doesn't voice them when he looks up again.

"Since it's for people from your own universe in particular, though, then it should follow what people usually do to honor the deceased there."

Because the idea that one simply doesn't isn't something that even crosses his mind.

[serialskiller]

Yes, it does briefly go cross-eyed, looking at its nose.

"Only what anyone else could see in public spaces if they were there. I'm not being nosy about private matters or anything."

[serialskiller]

"For humans, the bodies are burned and the ashes are ejected into space or tossed out with trash if you're on a planet or moon. For ComfortUnits, the inorganic parts are taken and repurposed, and the organic parts are disposed of similarly to humans."

The Corporate Rim is a coldly practical thing.

[sabigoe]

"Sometimes I feel that way too when I draw!" She quickly finishes opening up the piece of paper, seeing the drawing of... an individual eye. That's far better than anything she can do when she usually does dots for eyes, so she looks upon it in confusion.

"Huh? This looks really nice! It's like it's staring back at me..."

[winepouring]

Shi Qingxuan's face pales a little, and then he clears his throat.

"...And after that...?"

[serialskiller]

"And after that, nothing. People move on. Why, do they do more, where you're from?" It frowns, peeking uncertainly at Shi Qingxuan.

[serialskiller]

"Yeah, I guess the drawing and I couldn't see eye to eye." Shhhh, don't tell anyone it has a sense of humor, they'll never believe you.