#they seem very cute 😭

[voidboxed]

A small doodle for today’s episode :)

[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.

[mylove-thresher]

los perritos son requete chulis y los quiero morder mentalmente porque creo que saben a cake de vainilla

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

liking Reed has irrevocably changed my relationship to fiction because now i'm automatically sympathetic towards villains.

the villain is planning and plotting to keep the love of their life by their side? we love to see a motivated individual take charge of their life. villain is planning to destroy the world? yesss king, omg you're absolutely cooking. the villain has a sad backstory and is incredibly messed up by their trauma? even better. i love you so much, i want you to find peace and happiness and/or fulfil all of your dreams and wishes. (this includes destroying the world.)

[moe-broey]

The..

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 6!!!

[jwooyoung]

my 'stepsister' had a baby the other day but she just moved to fuckass arizona a couple months ago so I won't even be able to MEET her daughter unless I make a trip over there :((((((((

[theflyingfeeling]

...💌

[timothylawrence]

Rocky workout scene except it’s me trying to gain the courage to publicly post a wyll x tav fic

[tariah23]

That Ceechynaa girl’s music is whatever but she’s cute (when I first saw her, at first glance, I thought she was Megan because of her outfits and hairstyle) but she seems alright. I think it’s cute that she posts enthusiastically about her dolls that she collects 🥹.

[akkivee]

i pulled jiro!!!!! tho it’s not my favourite interpretation of jiro’s confidence issues, i did enjoy seeing middle child syndrome as a part of jiro’s conflicts this season!!!! bc of that need to prove himself tho, he played to his strengths well, like rallying others’ motivation for example, which did its job in showing what he is capable of!!!!!

[mottinthemainpot]

Not me making up backstories for people on the bus 😭😭😭

[pausegame]

Rewatching Absolution and hope cast crops up in future games 🥲 I would love Qwydion to be a companion eventually 🥺 also the plot is interesting and ends on a cliffhanger so I hope it has some sort of follow-up in Veilguard 👀

[girlivealwaysbean]

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THIS SHOW LMAO 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[yunogf]

i feel so bad for jaehyun :(

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

Little snippet from Olena's recent BBC interview ❤️💔