[OTA] All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend

[serialskiller]

Who: Murderbot and You
When: Post Info Meeting, Post Muppets
Where: All over the place!
Summary: Critical failure to cope
Warnings: Discussion of slavery, exploitation of sentient beings, capitalism, death all likely here.


1. And I was runnin' far away [STELLAR DINING ROOM]
With no food being served in the dining room, there's no reason anyone is going to be there, so it's where a Murderbot hides while breaking down, while breaking apart internally. Those who regularly check in on it will find their messages returned unopened, because...look. It's too much. It's all too much.


2. Would I run off the world someday? [ANYWHERE PUBLIC]
As sense returns, Murderbot realizes others will be in similar broken states, emotionally. For the first time since Jinx expanded its drone fleet, it's going to be flying them all at once, trying to seek out those who have hidden away, those who need company but not people. Don't be surprised if a drone just comes and hovers near your character, listening and saying nothing. It means well, really it does.


A few of the drones do have speakers, though, so if you attempt to engage it in a conversation, you'll get that.


3. Nobody knows, nobody knows [ADULT POOL]
While not the same sort of Event the Muppets showing, there's a couple times early in October that the projector over the Adult Pool will inexplicably be showing episodes of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. If someone looks for the source of this, they'll notice MB up by the projector itself, its media player auxed into the projector.

You know. Good calming relaxing material. Right?


4. And I was dancing in the rain [SAND DOLLARS]
Finally, coming back to itself, trying to figure out a path forward, Murderbot...it finds itself wanting to having something to hold onto of its crew that it now knows it'll never see again. Find it hiding in a closed cafe, where no one will look for company, surely. Find it with the one photograph it has of the PreservationAux survey team and its watercolors, trying desperately to capture the faces it has in memory and the personalities that go with it. A young woman with black hair and sharp eyes, looking like she's arguing about something. A motherly older woman with deep skin, smiling like she's proud of the viewer. A man with pale eyes and visible augmentations along one side of his face, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. Another man, a man too pretty for his own good, reaching out a tentative hand, compassion written across his face.

The paintings, they aren't enough to capture the personalities, but it has to try, it has to do something, it has to hold onto these people. Memories can be erased, but it wants the people it loves down on paper, for others to see.


5. I felt alive and I can't complain [WILDCARD]
darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 to plot

Comments

2

[cacophonish]

Jeff's nose is pretty much buried in a notebook, where he's been filling out page after page with what looks like song lyrics, guitar tabs, scribbled notes, and the occasional doodle, for when he can't figure out how to articulate his thoughts in words. He's humming a little, singing under his breath, trying to work something out, way too distracted to notice the drone at first.

Eventually, though, he looks up and spots one hovering nearby.

"Oh! Hey, little dude."

[serialskiller]

It hums back the snatch of melody that Jeff had been humming, right back at him. You know, helpfully.

[cacophonish]

Hey, that actually is helpful! Hearing the melody hummed back at him, through a speaker, gives him a chance to really listen and feel it out... Jeff shoots the drone a smile, and tweaks the melody a little as he sings the next bit. No words yet, just vibes and tunes.

[serialskiller]

The drone faithfully echoes the new version back, and then sort of hums a few more notes. A suggestion for what to add?

[cacophonish]

The look on Jeff's face: a moment of illumination, followed by excitement as he repeats it, then scrawls something down in his notebook. It looks like a sort of... wavy line mapping out the melody.

"Oh! Man, that flows so much better now..." He holds up his hand for a high five, should the drone choose to, uh... gently bump into his palm?? "Thanks, little dude. I never collaborated with a, uh..."

Look, Jeff's from a time when drones, like... weren't really a part of the public consciousness.

"...tiny robot?"

[serialskiller]

Is it funnier to leave Jeff with his delusion of the drone's nature?

Perhaps.

Is it also pretty insulting?

Yeah.

"Drone."

[cacophonish]

"Oh. Sorry."

A beat. Drone doesn't really mean much to Jeff, not in the context of robots-- er, not robots. Robot... adjacent... beings? His only real frame of reference is:

"Like... a bee?"

[serialskiller]

The drone droops a few inches, then bolsters, flying closer to Jeff's face.

"...not quite. Kind of. They serve the same sort of purpose, leaving the hive and scouting. But they're not independent. They're external cameras with microphones and speakers I can send out so I can be multiple places at once."

[cacophonish]

Okay, that... That makes sense! Jeff takes a moment to absorb that, then nods in understanding. "Right on, that's cool..."

Though that does beg the question:

"So... who are you?"

[serialskiller]

"SecUnit. Rin. The big hunk of metal and flesh who refused to kill you."

[cacophonish]

Blink.

Hang on.

Processing...

"OH!" Jeff remembers it now! "Thanks for that, by the way."

[serialskiller]

"Thanks for not killing you? You're welcome, I suppose. I haven't killed anyone on the ship, yet."

[cacophonish]

That 'yet' definitely makes him a little squeamish, though he knows, he knows, that violence and murder sometimes seem unavoidable here. The battle royale, the zombies... Jeff's just been fortunate, so far, to have missed all those horrible experiences.

"That's good. I mean, it is good, right? Because it means... you haven't had any... any reason to. Right?"