35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music

[offinventory]

who: Murderbot aka Eden Rin & others
what: The Entertainment Feed events, other plots with Murderbot.
when: All month
where: The Entertainment Feed, around Trench, in memories

content warnings: see individual starters. None in main post.
Note: This post includes open prompts for The Entertainment Feed. Feel free to write TL's and tag each other.

I don't care. I'm a cat. (Book Club)

This month, the book club meets Tuesdays September 13th and 27th. It is reading The Trials of Morrigan Crowe by Jessica Townsend, available via written or audio formats.

Murderbot mostly facilitates the conversation—asking questions about the idea of a person being cursed. Can a child truly be responsible for all the terrible instances in an area? What is it like living with a death sentence? How does Morrigan being plucked away from death and taken to a wholly different land strike everyone when they too have been plucked away from their homes, death sentence or no?

Given the memory shares, other books come up as well. Discussions without a common base not only derail the book club but raises some tempers. Eventually Murderbot stands up to someone exclaiming 'Eden!' and another 'Rin?' "How about you two go read those books and meet back afterward?" it asks deadpan.

All this pressure give me anxiety (Silent Disco)

This month, the silent disco happens Fridays September 2nd, 16th, and 30th. Headphones and music are available. Play your own music or listen to DJ's mix. (open)

Though Murderbot wears headphones much like anything else, the music is so soft as to be nearly silent. It listens more in its personal feed, where the sound quality isn't lose being routed to an external device and reprocessed with environmental sounds. It doesn't dance but walks around the disco and sometimes across the floor. When anyone appears in distress, it glowers at the 'guilty' party and offers what help someone might need.

Small drones, wispy smoky things, float amid the dim lighting, listening and watching everything and everyone. Recognition software (again for distress) helps Murderbot more inputs than it can otherwise handle. It bobs its head slightly to demonstrate it's chill, and rounds once more close to the DJ's set up.

We improvise, all right? (Fast & Furious viewings)

This month, two Fast & Furious films air Thursdays September 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. Come and go as you please. See one, see both, see them all. Watch missed movies at any time during the week in smaller viewing settings.

Sitting in the back, Murderbot watches the large viewing screen as cars are stolen, raced, and complete utterly unrealistic stunts. It's unlike any life it has lived, even when it stole modes of transportation, flew quickly, and were dramatically destroyed. It smiles at a quip, and when it's done, Murderbot lets everyone else file out first.

The question isn’t ‘what are we going to do’, the question is ‘what aren’t we going to do?' (Memshare books)

Murderbot is collecting as many of the memshare books as it can. Feel free to read and go into any memshare here, find your own book, etc.

On a special bookcase close to the entrance, special magical books sit. Engrossing reads. These are books Murderbot has found or been given. Within them lie any number of memories. Some of them Murderbot has gone to. Others it hasn't. They may be people's lives, but books are books. Historical themes are popular over and over again. Why wouldn't these?

Comments

[offinventory]

His assessment for media type sounds right, but it still makes Murderbot wince at the thought of living like that. Conflicts that engulf the entire galaxy? It's read about the war between the company and GrayCris, and that's only corporate. Everyone not affiliated with them mostly carries on living their lives. For those on mining installations, they are shitty shitty lives... but not war.

"That sounds like a great series of stories," Murderbot says, "but terrible for life. How's it compare to here?" Trench, after all, always has something going on. Not war. Plenty of blood and death.

[survivalthroughhate]

"Trench has less direct fighting and struggles for power in it." Something that has caused Maul some trouble in adjusting, just as he had with Deerington, though by now he's gotten more used to the idea he doesn't need to fight every single minute of his life to get what he wants.

"But it has the same amount of suffering, misery, and pain as I am used to," he adds on. That's not much different than his own galaxy, although sometimes here it still outstrips what he is used to, as what happened when Maul temporarily broke when his memories were broadcast on the network and everyone saw Savage's death.

[offinventory]

The suffering in the Corporation Rim isn't always obvious. Mining facilities are isolated; out of sight out of mind. That's only the most obvious sign. Trench has corruption, beasthood, blood pollution, curses... "It's not great for the average Trenchie or Sleeper," Murderbot agrees.

"What portions of your universe had less suffering, misery, and pain than the rest of it?" it asks. "Why do you think that is?"

[survivalthroughhate]

One of Maul's fists eases up under his chin as he thinks about the answer to that question. "I don't know that suffering and pain can be measured out on such a scale, saying this group of people has more and this place has less depending on where you are located in the galaxy. Everywhere you go there is misery and someone suffering just as much as the next person."

[offinventory]

Murderbot notes 'a module for quantifying pain and suffering' as not for later but it dislikes his answer. A model like that could be convincing to people who believe in data.

"Pain and suffering are not equal," Murderbot says, "We may not easily quantify it. However, the suffering can be different. It is where I'm from. Miners stuck in asteroid belts, whose children are born to slavery, who are always hungry suffer more than those people who live aboard the corporate headquarters space station, who have options and enough food and some amount of leisure time."

"The amount of pain and suffering anyone or any place will suffer isn't predetermined, it isn't set simply by living," Murderbot says. "Thinking that way is a cheap out for thinking about it."

[survivalthroughhate]

Maul isn't sure he likes the point that Eden brings up, mainly because it's something that others have tried to tell him as well. Maul feels his suffering is quantifiable, something that can be measured on a scale. Hearing otherwise intrudes upon his own rigid mindset.

"Let someone else have their turn. I have spoken long enough." The nature of book club in letting everyone talk gives him an out on continuing a debate that he doesn't want to.

closed?

[offinventory]

One of the oldest, simplest outs in the books. They're touching heavy topics, though, and Murderbot wants people to get things out of book club. Good things. It cannot force Maul to reconsider what he believes in. It doubts pushing on it would help.

"Okay," Murderbot says, "What does anyone else think—about this or another topic the book brings up?"