Art (asshole Research Transport) - Tumblr Posts

YES. I've been saying it forever: Perihelion is the magic school bus Research and Transport Vessel Research and Teaching Vessel

Transport + Teaching (+trolling, omniscience, no regard for rules, power that resembles straight up magic, science-focused, kidnapping, physical transformation, mandatory interactive lessons) ART's kernel owes its base coding to a digital copy of Ms. Frizzle's brain that they merged with her OP vehicle of educational adventure.

one of the reasons i love the murderbot diaries is how it doesnt flinch in trying to grapple with some of the Big Questions, such as "why is it that Humanity™ is the goal to strive towards for artificial intelligence if it wants to be acknowledged as a person?" and "What does it look like when someone is both undeniably a person but also unapologetically nonhuman?" and "what if the magic school bus had a gun"

These are both glorious.

Two collab pieces I did with @hazelek! We've been working on these since October and it's been such a joy to see our styles come together like this.

The process:

I roughly sketched a pose idea

I sketched my Murderbot

Haze sketched their ART

I inked

Haze colored

This was for the one on the right. The left was the same process but the roles were swapped.

I love how this piece of art invokes such a wide spectrum of relationship mutual administrative assistance depending entirely on how literally or figuratively you choose to interpret it.

This is MB’s fear when they first meet.

This is a facetious representation of ART’s ambitions for people it cares about. (Remember - it’s a spaceship. Putting people inside itself is possessive, yes, but also literally just what it does

This is a horrifying representation of the threat ART always poses to autonomy

(It’s some other stuff that if you’re sensitive about, skip the purple smalls)

It’s bondage and vore, sure -

But it’s also a depiction of a giant blue cryptid tasting (eating?) a trussed up construct that —- isn’t struggling.

So:

It is also a representation of acceptance and trust.

I don’t understand where so many people get so entirely caught on single narratives - especially in a fandom that basically exists bc everyone reading this series takes something unique from it - and none of us take precisely what MW puts in. That is the literal nature of narrative.

That is the literal nature of narrative.

Ok that said honestly I did not intend this when I started this repost. I was actually just musing about the lovely art. So let me get back to it.

/soapbox of exasperated huffing

Frankly my favorite thought about the piece is the way it makes me think of how I usually conceptualize ART’s sensory experience as a bot with spaceship and drone senses. Bc of what it is (made of data, literally immaterial) it interacts with other data-beings like an amoeba in an agar dish. So many depictions of it are poking at how to MB it is huge and smothering. Intimidating just by being what it is. I intend more expansion on this but what was supposed to be a quick repost has already gone haywire so pausing there - but I am VERY interested in bot and construct sensory experiences.

One more Murderbot holiday gift 💛 this one's for a friend who's not on Tumblr. So glad to have been introduced to you by a mutual friend! It's been great getting to know you and I hope your 2024 treats you right!!