#why yes i watch too much

[arctic-hands]

If not for covid, the cost of food these days, and my medical dietary restrictions I would host a pot luck were we all make old timey recipes

[egophiliac]

buckle up lads we're going BACK INTO THE BOOK

[comradesummers]

love seeing people on here watch btvs for the first time. at first they're like, i'm watching this silly goofy show from the 90's and i'm having so much fun! and then by the time they've entered the torment nexus you've been living in for over a decade, they're too invested to leave. it's like watching people being slowly dragged into hell.

[moeblob]

A lil guy !

[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.

[d1sc01nf3rn0]

I'm seeing a lot of people with neurodivergency, specially under the autism spectrum say that "Laios is annoying, never shuts up, is insensitive, and I can't stand him"; and the irony is not lost on me lmao.

[maranull]

these are my baby gays your honour, I'm adopting them

[000marie198]

The fact that each of Zuko's little sisters, canon and fanon, are not only powerful benders but also total chaotic gremlins who fear no one

Azula is among the most powerful firebenders, is a master of psychological manipulation and wouldn't hesitate bitch

Toph invented metal bending, is a walking lie detector, cackles in joy at chaos, would wipe out an army singlehandedly for funsies

Kiyi melted a thick metal door down with zero training and she's like 5 or 6!

The world isn't ready for Zuko's three gremlin sisters teaming up. Zuko himself isn't ready for his three gremlin sisters teaming up

[the-herdier]

I've probably posted about this before a long time ago, but... what if a big part of why Stein is the way he is is that he got very very sick as a toddler (possibly something congenital) and had to spend a lot of time in the hospital and undergo many procedures? Hence his fascination with how bodies work. It could also explain his social awkwardness too- you can't exactly socialize with other children when you're laid up in bed, nor can you really get the same kind of interactions with your parents that those other children get. Maybe he felt neglected by his family because of his illness? Could be why he got mad at Medusa for saying she would abandon Crona as soon as she wasn't "useful" anymore.

[mashmouths]

so i started this show and it just gets worse and worseeeee not only did it lift the romance subplot directly from twilight (and not well) but they also are trying to play the forbidden love angle hard in the fantasy racism vein except it's a "cross-species" relationship between the two whitest people i've ever seen in my life and there are three people of color in the whole (first season of the) show who aren't villains and it seems that every other episode (and sometimes ebery episode and sometimes twice an episode!) there is a man physically or magically subjugating a woman and i keep waiting for the big reveal at the end to be stolen from fucking rainbow rowell

[gjsxj0]

mindless rambling in tags don't mind me

[swan2swan]

Why are the biggest self-professed experts in fandoms always such rank amateurs?

[yeoldehetalian]

@hetalia-rarepairweek

I envisioned them out of their elements forced to survive in a desert wasteland. Cuba trades in cigars and rum. Canada has gone half feral and is the muscle in the outfit.

[angelnumber27]

*he spilled my cup of paint water all over everything idk why I said he spilled watercolors I just woke up girls

I literally walked away for two minutes tops to make coffee and came back to his ass sitting on this water color palette and my painting open after spilling my watercolor water all over it

Look at that face. He knows he did something wrong hahahha

[scarysanctuary]

you guys are so funnyyyyyy, i hope i never become "normal" and not "disgusting" so that i can keep upsetting people by shipping controversial ships, because really, what am i doing other than existing? worst case scenario youre right, and i do have personal issues and i am working through it/comforting myself through fiction, right? what is so wrong with that? I havent hurt and wont hurt a damn soul by shipping "weird" fictional couples.

[vulpinesaint]

kind of unfortunate that so many fantasy epics are also war novels because i will be honest i just do not like war novels that much... the grand clashing of forces is compelling obviously but it requires characters to talk about so much practical battle strategy and while i can get my brain to comprehend all these fantasy maps and kingdoms and borders and battalions and front lines and army movements it takes up. so much space in the book. feels like i'm fighting a war of my own trying to get through it sometimes