#THIS CAN BE MY THESIS 😭

[scificrows]

Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

[chemblrish]

My thesis supervisor: I've been thinking about something you said last week - that you aren't sure if you're going to do a master's degree. I believe you mean you're considering moving to another city?

Me: ...no. I'm not sure if I'm going to do a master's at all.

Him: why not?

Me: I worry it'll be too hard for me.

Him: [gives me a long look] Do you hear yourself?

[flowercrowngods]

so this is very embarrassing but i tanked my laptop yesterday (a week before submitting my thesis. everything is going great can you tell), my bike got messed with so i gotta go get it fixed, and this time next week i gotta print my thesis and have it bound three times. all of this will land me at several hundred €€€. i can get my bike fixed in spring or live without a laptop and study for my finals in some other way technically, but if anyone would like to chip in, that’d be super appreciated 🥺🫶

here’s my ko-fi. anything helps! 🤍🌷

[sulfies]

Just finished "flying machine 2.0" mission..... Just bc of that I have decided in my HC Ezio hates that stupid fckn thing

[stupidlittlenemo]

The new season of Dimension 20 is gonna be absolutely unhinged and unpredictable

[cupiidzbow]

frowny face. i’ll be honest actually do think it’s kinda concerning how people can’t just. sit down and take characters or media with a critical eye sometimes on here, like there’s stuff idgaf abt like i don’t care that you like a character that was a murderer or corny villain or something that literally doesn’t matter. that is literally the least of my worries i literally do not care. it’s more of like. being in infatuated with characters that are like egregious racists, literal nazis….. slave owners .. actual oppressors who hate minorities very loudly IN their media 😭 and the people backing you up and supporting you very loudly that u like them. like idk if it’s bc I see fandom spaces in a different lens already bc ( gestures to self ) black person. any ounce of criticism you give to someone is deflected with tears or wanting pity for liking the media they like cause they ‘can’t help it’ and I’m like. is. is this really how you live your life .

[hauntingblue]

Last arcane episode ever..... here we fucking go....

[hannie-dul-set]

thesis proposal defense tomorrow 😞😞😞.

[linusbenjamin]

Lost 4.10 | Something Nice Back Home

[purpurussy]

.

[fitzrove]

[shaking and biting] but what does it MEAN. what does it SAY what is the THEME

[pendraegon]

WHY WONT MY ADVISOR EMAIL ME BACKKKK

[meezer]

IT'S OFFICIAL. I'M DOING MY THESIS ON VIDEO GAMES

[sleepymarimo]

the urge to make silly little mood boards for me and my silly little characters who I love sm

[skitskatdacat63]

@lesharl-eclair here is the vettonso timeline I mentioned at some point!! I was gonna make a more refined version but ah, the original is fine so I'm posting it for you <3

Its written so its as if their careers began at the same time. There's obviously some parts where they deviate from each other(I blame Fernando), but they're pretty similar, no??

Here's some notes I have:

They both started at technically the same team(if you ignore that Seb raced one race for Sauber): Minardi/STR. And they spent 3 seasons either racing for that team or testing(Fernando for Renault, Seb for BMW teams), before being promoted to the team where they won their respective WDCS.

They both spent six seasons with their WDC team. And both won their WDCs using Renault engines. Both were pretty much the golden boys of their teams, beloved by their team principal and team in general. Unfortunately both aren't consecutive because Fernando tried out McLaren lol.

They spent a similar amount of years at Ferrari(five and six respectively.) Neither could win a WDC with Ferrai(😔) And both joined Ferrari in a very similar way. When Fernando joined, he ousted Kimi and it was very uncertain where Kimi was going. I think the commentators in 2009 predicted McLaren? (But he ended up taking a sabbatical obv.) But pretty messy, right? The literal same exact thing happened with Fernando and Seb in 2014-2015. They finally announced at the end of the season, even though it was pretty obvious, that Seb would be replacing Fernando. And where did Fernando go? McLaren! The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself. I guess I find it funny that Fernando replaced his former rival under somewhat messy circumstances, only for his other rival to do the exact same thing to him years later.

Okay McHonda and Alpine blah blah blah. Anyways they're probably going to have both end up competing their careers after two years with Aston Martin. This honestly is my favorite parallel. Because it's very sweet to me that Seb replaced Fernando, in an aforementioned messy way, only for Fernando to take Seb's seat in a very peaceful, almost "passing the torch" type exchange 🥰

[bradshawsbitch]

Me, at my social work office just absolutely bawling