why-be-social-when-you-can-read

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the struggle of working with a useless human when you’re from a five-armed race

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project hail mary (2026) has a puppeteer listed on wikipedia project hail mary has a puppeteer on board a puppeteer to play rocky rocky is going to be at least partially a puppet rocky has a puppeteer im normal im normal im normal i am a normal amount excited to see a rock spider alien puppet sass ryan gosling to tau ceti and back

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ryland grace: un-suiciding a suicide mission

mark watney: suiciding a non-suicide mission

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SORRY BUT YOUR PASSWORD MUST CONTAIN ONE NUMBER, ONE CAPITAL LETTER, THE COW AS WHITE AS MILK, THE CAPE AS RED AS BLOOD, THE HAIR AS YELLOW AS CORN, AND THE SLIPPER AS PURE AS GOLD

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The push and pull of “relationships can be very affectionate and still be platonic” and “those are the gayest motherfuckers I’ve ever seen”.

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It’s not an ex-SecUnit.

You can’t be an ex-SecUnit until you’re dead.

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who want me

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Brazil compared to Pluto.

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No, Google Docs, there is a distinct difference between "cussing" and "cursing."

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PSA:

1. If you are not silly, it is vital you become silly

2. If you are silly, you must stay silly

2. If you used to be silly but have stopped, you must make all efforts to return to silliness

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underrated funny part of system collapse is murderbot repeatedly being like 'no one knows wtf three wants to do ever because three doesn't know how to want things yet' but most of three's narration in network effect was 'i want to rescue murderbot. i want to do a good job rescuing murderbot. i hope i get a good grade in rescuing murderbot. i want to rescue murderbot so bad that im going to attempt to talk a terrifying murderous spaceship out of its plan for a planetary bombardment' mb just consistently says the most blatantly wrong shit about everyone it's ever met lmao

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So I've finished re-reading All Systems Red, and of course I can't help but have thoughts about the differences between the book and the TV show.

Bear in mind, this yap session is purely vibes. Just what I felt, or the impressions the book left me, in contrast to the experience of watching the series.

Anyway.

One stark difference I noticed is how Book!PresAux conducted themselves. Much more mature, put together, and dare I say, more experienced. (I suppose since in TV!MB SecUnit's been free for a much shorter amount of time, it would make sense.) I can't put a finger on it but, Book!PresAux somehow feels more "experts" and "we know our shit so don't fuck with us", impersonal, and even a tad dispassionate at times.

Which leads to how their relationship with SecUnit cultivated quite differently as well. TV!MB gave us a bunch of scientists who, beyond their expertise, are quite open with their vulnerabilities, which led them to rely on SecUnit a bit more (in frequency and in intensity). The changes in narrative definitely lends to this impression, especially the parts when, 1.) after finding out the missing parts of the map, Mensah went with Bharadwaj to do a field survey, and 2.) when the gang decided to visit DeltFall cross-continent, among other things.

TV!MB in #1, SecUnit was left in the hab. We got Bharadwaj on a weird pissing contest with Mensah, and the agonising conversation between Gurathin and SecUnit in the hab. The other members were seen in the middle of negotiations about their borking arrangements, which, agreed, is important. But maybe, misplaced priorities? They were attacked by a huge-ass violent hostile fauna, there are missing parts in the info packet they received, they could be in grave danger, is their arrangement for shared copulation really what's Q1 right now?

Book!PresAux were quite meticulous and methodical in tackling this initial predicament. From brainstorming which portions of the missing parts they're visiting, to gathering samples, even the descrtiption of how Mensah is the best pilot of the group and she has protocols in place which everyone *has* to follow when they're driving, which, by the way, saved them from immediate death (autopilot "glitched" which could have crashed them into a mountain)... This first number already has Book!PresAux portrayed as a well-oiled machine built on expertise and competence AND compassion. They knew their parts, and they performed their parts very well. SecUnit was really there to just Secure them and Make Sure They Do Not Die.

The second part, TV!PresAux paying a visit to DeltFall, definitely a different scenario. Twas a word-by-word teleplay from how it happened in the book, up until the point when they arrived near the DeltFall habitat vicinity. They got the "land outside the perimeter" and the "leave Ratthi inside the hopper, he doesn't have weapons training" part, but that's about it.

In the book, PresAux was with SecUnit in approaching the hab. It even gave direct feed access to Mensah to show her what it's picking up visually, and asked Mensah to join the search when it had a rough idea of what happened. They moved like a team, almost like a strike team, even, with SecUnit taking point, PresAux falling behind so they can provide immediate support if shit hits the fan.

Which, in both book and TV, shit really did hit the fan. Murderbot was attacked by the combat-overridden SecUnits. There was a violent altercation, the combat module override was implanted on its data port, then Mensah killed the SecUnit, and there was a whole Relay Game of Save SecUnit featuring Mensah dragging SecUnit to safety, Overse (ommited on TV) waiting by the hab hatch to open when Mensah returns, and Ratthi piloting the hopper, making it hover near the hab entrance and pulling the party inside so they can escape. Once inside the hopper, Overse immediately retrieving a medkit to help fix SecUnit, blah dih blah, then SecUnit kills itself.

Much of PresAux's intrepidity was stripped from the TV, on this scene. In the show, PresAux was left a long ways away from the hab, SecUnit asked Mensah to stay behind, and even faked interference so it can go inside the hab alone. Pin-Lee went back to the hopper, pouting, because Mensah ordered them to do so (which is Not Cool, ngl). Arada and Pin-Lee got in some weird argument which led Ratthi to get a gun for himself and be the clumsy reinforcement. Hilarious, and juvenile, to say the least, with the way they're acting, AND with how SecUnit treats them (sometimes).

Book!PresAux, in contrast, is like a bunch of veteran adventurers, led by Mensah the intrepid intergalactic explorer. And that's something I felt was missing in the TV show.

In an effort to juxtapose humanity's disgusting traits, TV!PresAux was shown to be a people a tad too concerned with their consensus and emotions and relationships, and their depiction of expertise in their fields etc suffered for it. Don't get me wrong, they are still shown to be experts in their jobs, but there's little to no showing of it. They were mostly depicted as a bunch of chill nerds who aren't really that much concerned with The Job. Which is weird, since I was under the impression that TV!PresAux had to rely on these scientific surveys in order to prove that non-corporation entities are capable of surviving independently from Corporation Rim. Book!PresAux had a more "we're used to these kinds of scientific expeditions, we know what we're doing, stay back SecUnit or you'll get hurt" kind of vibe.

And because of that, as I mentioned earlier, Murderbot's relationship with PresAux was cultivated differently from book and TV show.

In TV!MB, the dynamic was almost SecUnit being absolutely needed by PresAux, how could they possibly survive without it, we need it we need our friend don't leave us we love you and we're good people, see? we don't make decisions without full consent of the group, we promise you won't get abused anymore!

As opposed to Book!MB where PresAux was a group of people who are independent, intrepid, vvvv competent, they didn't *need* SecUnit, they *WANTED* SecUnit because its their friend.

TV!MB was SecUnit doing so much for PresAux that they almost feel indebted to it thus they needed to buy its contract from the Company. Book!MB was PresAux being the adult friend who had a great albeit dangerous adventure with SecUnit, and they loved the weird relationship they developed with it, okay you're going home with us. TV!MB was a story of what SecUnit was doing FOR PresAux, Book!MB was a story of what SecUnit was doing WITH PresAux.

There's much more nuances and caveats involved - I haven't the brain power to include them now, but, bottomline is, Book!PresAux is very different from TV!PresAux.

Of course, Noma Dumezweni killed the show's portrayal of Dr Mensah, as did everyone else in the cast; the TV show just gave us another iteration of our beloved story. Never as a replacement to the text, but as a supplement to the books, and treating it as such makes the show more enjoyable. I just wish more of PresAux's in-text personalities were kept, would've been so much cooler.

TL;DR: TV!PresAux a bit more lax, compared to Book!PresAux who were more "serious"; and TV!MB was "needed", Book!MB was "wanted".

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"you can use ai to improve spelling and grammar"