I appreciate that we're mostly water an all, but the amount of mucus that has been expunged from this decrepit form is ungodly.
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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.
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oooh what kind of things do you bake? I'd love to try them sometimes 💞 have a sweet day!!
hello anon!!!!! thank u for giving me an excuse to talk about BAKING
sooo just before covid i took a 3 week dessert course and kind of became obsessed??? during lockdown i used to watch tons & tons of videos on process nd technique instead of physically yaknow Doing Anything bc i hated the idea of ~wasting ingredients~ at my mediocre skill level which looking back was an insane approach but i kinddd of think it helped bc when i started making things more regularly the improvement was p quick !!
my fave thing to bake is pastry (puff, choux, shortcrust, filo) so basically any kind of sweet tart/croissant/eclair/profiterole/pie ❤️ i also love a savoury curried egg or chicken puff but that's kind of a gamble bc what EYE think is an okay level of spice does not fly for everyone else. when it comes to large batches for a party or something i usually stick to sweet 2 be safe
pictured: fruit mascarpone tart → mango danish → tiny baby pains au chocolat <33
course i make cake and stuff too and it's FINE but i also know lots of ppl who are better at it lol. i'm pretty Terri at piping anything more complex than a simple swirl so when it comes to deco i tend to stick to covering the top with store-bought macarons/fruit and calling it a day. also maybe it's just me but full layer cakes are such a hassle to cut and store...... i adore a cutieful low commitment CUPCAKE tho <33
my order of preference when it comes to baking is pastry > cookies/brownies/cupcakes > layer cakes >>>>> bread. ugh BREAD i cannot figure her out but i Want to...... someday...
thing is bread is honestly such a delicate process where ur final product will flop unless the ratios are justé right and u proofed at something.000001 degrees and mercury is in retrograde whereas the rules of pastry are more relaxed and intuitive and involve doing vaguely unhinged things like holding fistfuls of ice cubes before you handle ur dough so the heat from ur palms doesn't melt the butter... it's also great for LAZY BITCHES LIKE ME because a "4 hour recipe minus baketime" sounds intense until u realize 3h15 mins of that is just chucking the thing in the fridge between rolls
choux au craquelin is probably what i make the most often. love a textured little cream puff!!! versatile and scalable and easy to transport... she's that girl truly
also today i remade the mango one i was telling k about and it turned out muchhh better with a chunkier filling yay 🥭
convinced i'm never going to get a pretty cross-section in my life but wtvr they still tasted good !!!
goals for the future:
bread but specifically this yummy pesto babka i had in february
creme brulee donut......... need her
crookie but less dry bc i've been kind of unimpressed by the ones i've had so far
something citrusy w/o relying on chocolate as a crutch
basically i really love baking! like experimenting/trying new recipes ofc but also just the process of consciously altering and improving upon stuff you've already made :')
and yeah feeding ppl is bonus <3 hope u have a good day too!!!
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why are these half a decade old challenge quests better designed than any boss from Olympus onwards
Notice the buster down isn't some absurd thing like 90% for 10 turns
Notice how they properly mix removable and unremovable effects
Notice how they indirectly buff Quick to make all 3 card types have their own strategies
- Arts can loop, but against Berserkers will struggle more than normal due to the natural NP gain reduction the class has.
- Quick does the least base damage, but in exchange can gradually wear him down by stacking antiheal
- Buster can burst through the healing, but requires the most setup since you need to both reach the break bar limits before healing kicks in AND need to have a way to cleanse the initial debuff.
It's not just "REDUCE DAMAGE FROM [current meta color] BY A FUCKLOAD (TURNS: TOO MANY) ((UNREMOVABLE)) (((ALSO IGNORE IGNORE DEFENSE)))"
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