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2026 Murderbot Diaries New Year Gift Exchange
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Published:
2026-01-31
Words:
114
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
15
Kudos:
42
Hits:
132

Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

Summary:

It's the Lunar New Year, and Amena has the perfect gift for SecUnit

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

A digital drawing of Murderbot and Amena from The Murderbot Diaries. They wear matching tracksuits that look very similar to the adidas chinese new year tracksuits, except the logo has been replaced with the Chinese character 福 (fú) (meaning fortune). Murderbot is in blue and Amena is in red. Amena waves and yells, "First mom! Second mom! Baba! Over here!" In the background, red lanturns wave above a festive street.

Amena waved her arm in the air above her head, her voice full of excitement. Mensah spotted us from across the plaza first and pointed us out to Farai and Tano before making her way over.

"Don't the two of you look nice," she said. It wasn't actually a question. I didn't know how to answer her, even though when I'd first tried on the clothes Amena had made for me, I had... liked it.

A digital comic of Murderbot and Amena from The Murderbot Diaries. In the first panel, Amena hands Murderbot a bundle, saying, "I made this for you, for the parade." In the second panel, she looks up at it with big sparkly eyes and says, "try it on!" In the third panel, later, Murderbot wears the tracksuit, looking impressed and thinking, "pretty nice." From out of panel, Amena says, "I also made this!" Murderbot turns to see, and is shocked by what it sees. In the final panel, Amena says, "ta-da!" She is wearing a creepily realistic horse mask. Murderbot looks on, disturbed.

<<Horses are an objectively weird looking fauna. It's not my fault threat assessment tagged the mask as hostile at first>>

Bonus w/ added context

A digital drawing of Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries wearing a Song Dynasty style hanfu in dark grey and blue with a red tie around its waist

Bonus bonus: Murderbot in 汉服, (hàn fú) (traditional clothing worn by the Han people)

Notes:

Happy New Year!!! Welcome to the year of the fire horse (in mid february) (close enough)

I really liked the lunar new year prompt, but I still tried to sneak in some feed graffiti there behind Amena. It says 新年快乐 (Xīn Nián Kuài Lè), or happy new year. Amena is holding some red hard currency cards, which I thought could be a fun twist on the more traditional red envelopes given for the new year. They're both wearing clothes that were ~heavily~ inspired by the adidas chinese new year tracksuits, since they look sick, but since Murderbot hates logos they say 福 (fú), or good fortune, blessings, etc., which is usually calligraphy-ed on lunar new years decorations.

I also added in perhaps the most stupid comic I've ever made <3 hope you enjoy