#so while i don't think MB means “friend” in the same way referring to them as when it refers to ART for instance

[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.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot #𓄿 #hi i'm READY to write a thesis about murderbot i am having way too much fun with this #i created a pretty excel spreadsheet and everything #i don't know why i did this but now i can look at them while i think about this more! so i figured i'd share them haha #i didn't count uses of 'friendly' but special shoutout to when MB is all alone in its cold cubicle missing 20% of its body mass #and starts putting on a show because 'the friendly noise would keep it company' 😭😭 #i feel sick thinking about murderbot all alone on its own not knowing what its like to have friends watching media for 'the friendly noise' #also YES okay i wanted to make a point about miki there but i just #couldn't bring myself to talk about that more so... yeah #also uhhh this data is very subjective #i didn't count particularly ironic uses of 'friend' and generally did not count every instance of friend and sometimes it was a hard call #also i probably shouldn't have counted the times murderbot refered to drones or secsystems as its friends (often after hacking them) #but murderbot does seem to care about them and shows kindness and respect and sometimes points out that a system is friendly #so while i don't think MB means “friend” in the same way referring to them as when it refers to ART for instance #i still think its CUTE and also kinda funny how many times that happened so i decided to keep those!!! #but yeah take my data with a grain of salt lol

[yuikomorii]

Ngl I have to agree with what @kirua9 said and that’s because she stated facts. Shu is the most boring character in Diabolik Lovers and I really tried to give him a chance but his routes bored me and made me feel uncomfortable. I should also mention that he pissed me off. Idc he’s “depressed”, so is everyone else and they’re not as annoying as him, neither do they degrade Yui as much as he does. Not even Laito is that shameless and that says a lot lol. I really don’t get why people like him so much, the only times he is alright is when he “takes responsibility and shows his king qualities😍😍” and that’s because the plot wants him to suddenly find the motivation to become a good king and the fact every character supports him makes it even more annoying to me. He isn’t perfect, he needed a 17 year old to wash and clean him, and he only treated her like a maid for 90% of his HDB route. His DF route is probably the least memorable one and his MB was pure trash in terms of the way he acted towards Yui. Maybe it’s the Reiji stan in me who simply can’t stand him but I really don’t get his popularity in the Japanese fandom; his looks ain’t even that good, I’d say everyone looks more interesting than him.

// You’re kinda right, Anon. I really like Shu as a character but only because I like the way he thinks sometimes or his dynamic with Yuma in general but when it comes to his relationship with Yui or his complexity? Heck no!

I understand why some people like him; perhaps they relate to him because they have lost someone close to them or because they are lazy as well but the thing is... Shu's laziness isn't amusing at all; it's more on the concerning side. Everyone prefers to relax in bed or listen to music at some point, but a lack of motivation to do basic stuff is already a major issue. I don't want to compare traumas, but his past is by far the least bad. His mother was strict, but she cared about and loved him, which is something other Diaboys didn’t experience. I understand that losing a friend can be devastating, but this gives you no right to become so sadistic.

I don't excuse them, but I understand why the triplets were mean to Yui; after all, the person who hurt them the most was a woman, and they developed the mentality "All women are the same," but I don't get why Shu slvt-shames and insults Yui's face and body so much. I understand you have high standards, but your past literally gives you no reason to treat women this way, and that is what I find disgusting ://

I also don’t like that he always complains about Yui’s immaturity for the sole reason that she gets easily embarrassed. Okay, he prefers mature women over girls, but how is she supposed to react when you kiss her in public out of nowhere??? And I met a lot of Shu stans who kept hating on Yui for "being mean" to him despite the fact that he deserved it. I recall a scene in which she refers to him as a good-for-nothing, and while it may appear rude, she got a point. That isn't even his route, but given that he uses her as his personal maid or slave in HDB, she wasn't entirely wrong.

I used to like his HDB route, but now that I'm paying more attention to it, it's not as good as I remembered. But I really like his CL route; it's definitely his best one in my opinion. The only thing I liked about DF was that he let Yui keep Lily; I can't say no to kittens.

In terms of looks, I've never considered him stunning because I see guys who look like that all the time. He definitely doesn’t look bad but I agree that every other Sakamaki has prettier features.

Excuse my harsh tone; I'm just retaliating for how many times he complained about Yui's face. I would have ignored it if he was teasing her or just “joking” but he was serious all the time so… deserved?:>

[jess-the-vampire]

Okay, so what is it about TomStar that you like? Cause I've tried to see what so appealing about it, but I honestly just can't see it. Heck, Janstar and Starkie seem more viable, and I don't even ship either of those ships!

There’s alot of reasons to find Tomstar to be very appealing and interesting as a relationship. While most of these ships consist of characters who’ve only known each other for a year, Tom and Star practically grew up together throughout most of their lives (Not like jarco who barely talked, these two canonly hung out together alot apparently), and they clearly meant a lot to each other at one point. But they had a falling out because they just weren’t ready for a relationship, neither of them, Star being too stubborn and Tom not being emotionally ready for one.

But how do they overcome those aspects of themselves? Through each other and through growing up. They took some time on their own, went through some stuff, and have become more mature to try again.

While Marco for some reason is taking steps back in maturing, Star and Tom are moving forward and putting others first (and don’t tell me Tom isn’t, the kid literally had an arc allowing him to let Star make her own choices and move on from him ) and a lot of it comes off each other, Tom learns his mistakes initially because Star made him realize just how he’d been acting. And Star no longer treats his anger the way she used to, now accepting that he’s trying and not flat out treating him like he can’t be hurt. Yeah, Tom is a little immature in MB, but he is still a kid. And he does realize his faults in the episode. He’s got some growing up to still do but he is still taking steps to move forward and accepting his actions were wrong. Star inspires Tom to do better, to be better, and that all strives from how much relationships mean to Tom.

Tom is clearly lonely, he clearly has almost no one to support him or spend time with him. It must’ve been a real ache to lose practically his only real friend because of his actions. I always wondered what Tom finds appealing about Star, but I think I get it. Star is everything Tom wishes he could be, the person he wants to be. He admires her, and having her support helps make him feel hopeful he can do better.

And it’s so beautiful to see how far they’ve come. They work through their issues together now, building a stronger relationship then before where there was so little communication between them. They’ve moved past that because they genuinely care about each other. How can anyone take Tom enduring through pain and misery to rid himself of his insecurities and Star holding him through his pain as not being such a heartbreaking and powerful moment between characters who initially started off arguing over silly things? Star didn’t even want to be in the same room as him for two seasons, but now we see she’s always cared about him, even if she doesn’t always show it.

Star clearly has never hated Tom, she’s clearly been persistent on pushing him away, but she doesn’t think he’s a bad person nor thinks he deserves the worst. Take CS as one would but it does tell you despite everything Star never really wanted Tom out of her life no matter how much she acted like she did.

I do also find Tom being biologically a monster interesting. I mean yeah Mewni doesn’t refer to him as one but in reality you know if Tom and his family made one wrong move they’d be monster labeled right out of the gate. Marco, even with the arm, which is curable, is never gonna be seen as a monster unless they pull off it’s your personality that can make one a monster and tie it somehow into his behavior. But even then that’s not quite the same thing. it’s really interesting having Star date a more monstrous figure if you wanted to do more with the eclipsa parallels.

I find the idea of these two to be REALLY interesting. It’s interesting to watch two royals who grew up together as kids have a falling out, but recover from it and choose to improve themselves for each other and their people. There’s so much interesting story potential here, and their dynamic is really interesting when you think about it.

for some people it could be from an aesthetic point of view, but i’m actually really more engaged in their relationship. They both come from these powerful and fascinating kingdoms and i can only imagine how interesting it would be for those two to combine. I like relationships that allow you to see their progress, to see how much they’ve grown together through the show, it’s really lovely and i think it’s so sweet no matter what happened between them.....they just mean a lot to each other and they just want the other to be happy.

[existentialstatesofmind]

Opening Up

Clare: raised an eyebrow at the mention of dark manga. “Thank you. I’ll have to download it to my tablet and check it out. But I will be careful. Especially when I read late at night.” She probably wouldn’t be able to sleep at all if she stumbled across the wrong manga. Clare laughed at Kota’s story. “One group of boys ruined it for everyone, huh. I guess the sewing and child development units would be worse especially if they didn’t choose to be there. I do want to learn how to cook. I can’t complain about getting my wish.” She shrugged. “She locked herself in a locker? If Nakashimi is so shy she was hiding from people not that long ago, I’ll just have to remember to be patient with her. Sounds like she’s trying to change.” At the mention of girls not wearing pants, Clare thought she was already experiencing culture shock. “I can’t win.” She grumbled. She smiled at Kota and playfully smacked his arm soon as he laughingly mentioned picturing her in Visual Kei style. “I already got the memo that I can’t pull off the Goth look from Eli! Okay, does this mean I have to freeze every time we go outside until Spring? I really can’t bring any pants with me?” She said in dismay. The leggings would be fine for school, they had to wear uniforms in the first place. The rest of the time was what concerned Clare. “Glad I found this out now. What if I pack all the wrong things? This is going to be a disaster. Are there other social norms to keep in mind while shopping?” Clare bristled at being called a Yankee. She’d mostly heard it in reference to New Yorkers usually with the word ‘damn’ preceding it and she was Canadian. “I was hoping you would. Dakota, if they think you slept with other girls before we started dating I won’t tell them differently. Not even Alli because it’s none of her business if my boyfriend’s a virgin or not. Sleeping in my room might make everyone at our new temporary school think we’re having sex. I don’t care. I can stop wearing my purity ring if we need to make it more believable.” She nervously twisted said ring around on her finger. Clare would do almost anything to keep from losing Kota the way she’d lost K.C especially since she was a lot more attached to her current boyfriend. However, she drew the line at having sex because you ‘were supposed to’. Wanting to because they loved each other was another story. “Japanese girls are lucky they’re not held to different impossible standards. However, I can’t just start having sex. Are you still okay with waiting? Whenever we are both ready, we’d have to take things really slow. There’s a lot to consider besides how I’m going to feel if I go against my beliefs. Birth control is out of the question for one thing.” Clare ignored Kota when he turned away. She had never spoken to a real celebrity before and she didn’t get to rehearse what to say. Who knew what would come out of her mouth if she wasn’t being guarded right now? Of course, it would’ve been far worse if he’d took her to meet Melanie Martinez backstage at a concert where she thought it was appropriate to jump up and down screaming in his ear and to ask for pictures and autographs. She shook Melanie’s hand. “I am so I know you’re not on tour right now. Are you here to shoot a music video or record a new album?” Clare asked still suspecting there must be another reason Melanie was in town. She listened the story about Johnny Depp with wide eyes. “You really did all of that, Kota? How old were you?” It was unbelievable, he knew all of these famous people and MB was blowing up. She smiled when Melanie mentioned bowling. It was very cool she did normal things though Clare wondered how she could without being mobbed. A disguise? Renting out a private bowling alley? “Yes of course you can!” She told Melanie. “Did Kota tell you about the exchange program we’re going on to Japan? I have to figure out what I need for about six months, and I had no idea what Kota was up to.” Clare said apologetically. She laughed glancing at her boyfriend. “He told me he’d give me a tour.”

Kota: looked at Clare. "You can choose what category you read. If you have drama selected and find a story it'll also show what other categories it's in such as fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and more that way you have a warning. Plus you need to judge the manga by the cover, if the picture looks scary the book will be scary." he explained not wanting her to read horror before bed. "If you want I can teach you the basics. I'm not sure if they'll require you to use a wok or not, but I can teach you how to use that too." he offered. "Well, the locker was unlocked so she mainly hid, but yes please be patient and know when she yells it's not out of anger." he smiled at her and listened to what she had to say. "No you don't have to freeze, you can wear pants when we're out together. I've heard by guys they're really warm and I may have to wear them. They are allowing us to have a Cultural Festival a little later so we'd be able to experience it first hand. Right now girls are asking my kendo club do a Host Cafe, but it probably won't be allowed. Our class will be doing a reverse maid cafe and you don't need to ask for pictures, you'll already get them. It's required that the entire class take a picture in their costumes which means I get to see you dressed as a guy since you'll be in charge of the register and the host. It'll be easy since you'll mainly take the customers to their seat and sit them down and that also means you get to wear pants." he assured and listened to her mention her purity ring and kids at school, he automatically put his hand on hers. "Clare, remember we're staying with Yohio. He's one of my best friends and probably already thinks we sleep in the same bed, but knows I'm a virgin and he hasn't told anyone. No one in school is going to know about us sharing a bed even if they sleep over. Emi and I can stay in my room and you can stay in yours with whomever sleeps over. You don't need to even take your ring off. A lot of girls will probably just look at it as a regular ring. I don't care if it takes me a while to lose my virginity. I'm not ready to lose it either. I have Emi and like you said birth control is out of the question and condoms break so even if I were ready, I wouldn't have sex. The only thing one hundred percent effective against pregnancy is abstinence and I don't want to risk having an Emi of my own running around. I wouldn't be able to deal with a crying baby and one that's hyperactive during the day. We can talk more when one of us is ready to take that step, but right now we're on the same page." he assured and kissed her head. When Clare asked Melanie her question, he looked at Melanie too. "Well, I came here to get away. This is my home away from home and Kota and I don't end up in another American scandal when we're here." Mel shrugged honestly. "I was 13 and yes. We really did run away to the UK." he confirmed. "Besides it's not like I can runaway to another country anymore." he sighed. "You could always run to America and we can hang out for about a day until videos of you get uploaded to youtube or something. 'This just in Kota Anderson just landed in LAX. Paparazzi are already on scene." Mel said mimicking a fake reporter as she and Kota laughed. "Not to mention the mobs." he stated. "Yes, like when we went out to eat. 'Can we get pictures and autographs?' 'Are you two dating?' and then the scandals began." Mel laughed. "But we squashed them in about a week." he reminded. "He did tell me about going to Japan, but not as an exchange program. I told him not to tell you he's meeting me. I'm glad to see he kept my promise." she smiled. "I want a tour too. We can go have some fun." she smiled and Kota lead them out of his office leaving Melanie's dresses in there. "What do you want to see first? I can't take you into the place where everything is made though, it's too dangerous. I can take you to other offices and to Yohio's lab." he explained.

#ou

[existentialstatesofmind]

Weekend Fun

Clare: looked around the table. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask who Bren was but something about the way Kota's family was acting made her think she should just wait until Dakota was ready to tell her himself. Especially since even his mom didn't want to about him. She mentally did a head count trying to figure out if it was possible that Dakota had another brother. Clare thought she'd meet everyone but she realized now that includding Kota there were 'only' four brothers plus Kelly but Dakota had specifically said he had five sibilings and only one sister. When Clare had met everyone she'd assumed that he'd worded that badly and meant there were six kids in his family. "Good to know, I just won't go in there." Clare didn't plan to explore Dakota's house by herself anyway. She smiled at Stacy knowing if she'd made it this long without angering the Grandma's spirit, Clare would be just fine. Besides the Andersons didn't strike Clare as being super uptight about things like girls sleeping in the same beds as boys. As long as they weren't doing anything it was fine. Such a nice change. Clare often felt like she couldn't be herself around her family because they'd judge her for having so many friends who were boys. It was dumb, she wasn't going over to their houses to play kissing games or anything else they were so worried about. Why couldn't her parents just trust her? Clare was confused when she realized Dakota and his sibilings weren't talking about their Grandma being in their hearts and memories. Had they really divided up her ashes?! Clare wasn't going to ask. There were somethings she didn't need to know (she'd be spooked if she found out Kota kept his piece in his pocket somtimes, for example), and it might've been in her will. Clare didn't expect Emi to answer everything she asked her. It was a lot and Emi was only five. She just wasn't going to underestimate Emi and talk down to her. She had hated it when teenagers and adults did that to her. "Yeah! Like how some words in English start with a hard or soft C." She looked at the paper Emi wrote on. "The second symbol is the ee sound?" Clare checked to make sure she had it right. Clare wasn't sure if she would recognize it on a menu (so she'd know not to order it). Maybe if she tried to practice drawing the symbols at home for fun. They'd never look like Emi's. It was a beautiful language though and Clare was interested in learning what she could. "English is a lot easier than Japanese but we don't start learning how to write in cursive until third grade and then we're not allowed to turn in papers in print again until middle school. At least the symbols you can already draw are cool. Plus you get to learn more languages than the other kids around here." Clare comforted her. If she was here long enough, she'd be taking French in school and could chose Spanish as an elective too. "I'd rather play with a live octopus than eat it too." She admitted, smiling and laughing at Emi's story. "I hope we can get it fried. However, the California roll sounds delicious. I love avocados and I like crab too so imitation meat is fine by me." Clare smiled at Kota. "I can't wait to go to New York, it sounds like my kind of city." Her parents had promised a trip there. She just didn't know when. With the way things were going, she seriously doubted they'd all go as a family. It would probably be like the ski trip she took to Maine with Dad and Darcy while Mom stayed home. "Oh. Is Tokyo far from where you lived?" Clare kissed him softly in reply. She'd been oblivious. She thought Dakota had a girlfriend at another school and wanted to be the kind of friends who gave each other dating advice. Even when she'd found out he didn't, Clare just didn't think she'd be his type. Sometimes you got a second chance to be a first girlfriend and that was pretty special. Clare didn't see any reason why she couldn't consider Dakota her first real boyfriend if their trial period went well. K.C took her on all of one date, it hadn't been much of a relationship. She'd actually spent more time 'dating' Eli before realizing they'd rather stay friends. After they rode back to the Andersons, Clare got out of the van and waited on Dakota to get Emi. She went inside with them after it was decided that Bren wasn't there despite the light being on. "Okay. If Bren asks for it." Clare told Kota's mom hesitantly not sure what it meant when a mom gave you permission to hit a son you hadn't met yet. He must be a troublemaker since she'd sent Bren, and only Bren away to school, and he'd gotten expelled. No one seemed to like him. Up until now, Clare thought Dakota had a great relationship with all of his sibilings. To her they were all really lucky. Her much smaller family didn't have as much love to go around. This turn of events was surprising. She put the bag from the restaurant in the Anderson's icebox while Dakota was gone. After they'd walked to his room, Clare took off her shoes too. "Thank you. How cute, I love it." She said referring to the bathroom's sign. She raised her hand up to touch the sign, her fingers traced lightly over the writing before Clare went inside the bathroom carrying the bag Kelly had given her earlier. "I'll take purple." Clare said selecting a soft-bristled tooth brush. "Has this been approved by the American Dental Association?" She joked since they'd been talking about Home Alone at the restaurant. Soon as Dakota left, she took off everything except her panties and put on the grey pj pants and pink short sleeve shirt from Victoria's Secret. Clare stuffed her clothes in the bag and checked her reflection before leaving the bathroom. She got into the bed, wrapping herself in the blanket like they'd talked about so they could cuddle without it being super awkward. Clare looked at Dakota shyly and lay on her side facing him, she rested her head on his chest. "Is this okay? Are you comfortable?"

Kota: watched as Emi taught Clare about the symbols. "No, it makes the shi sound. There aren't any ee sounds in Japanese." she corrected. "Good night has six symbols." she said and started to write the symbols. "O-ya-su-mi-na-si." she said pointing to each symbol. "That's the thing Emi has trouble with." Kota pointed out. "She knows more languages and sometimes uses them." he added. "So do you." Emi whined. "That girl was lost." he stated. "Pero el telefono?" Emi asked looking at him. "Again, the person didn't know English. Were you listening in?" he asked her. "I tried to listen into your other conversation, but you were talking too fast." she said honestly. "That's because the other person was in New York and that's how fast they talk." he explained and listened to Clare talk to Emi, then smiled at Clare when she smiled at him. "They talk faster than Eminem raps in New York." Ash pointed out. "Only if they're in a hurry or if you're ordering food at certain places. Normally they talk as fast as Eminem raps." he explained. "We decided to go to New York without Kota, biggest mistake in our life." Dom complained. "No calling him while he was with grandpa was the bigger mistake." Ash added and Kota looked at them. "That's because you hung up on me when I answered my phone, then again when I tried calling back. You even hung up on grandpa." Kota stated. "That's because you answered in Spanish." Dom argued. "I was in freaking Spain. I thought you were a client, you called grandpa's phone. When I called back you told me 'English' then hung up the three times I tried calling." he stated. "But you hung up on us when we called your phone." Ash said. "Because I was busy and couldn't play your game." Kota said honestly. "Stop fighting." Emi stated and Kota sighed. "Lo siento." he said looking at her. "Esta bueno, pero no mas." she said sticking her tongue out at Ash and Dom. "No mas." he assured and with a smile and both Ash and Dom apologized as well. "It's only good if you can talk fast to understand and keep up with the New Yorkers. I mean we got invited by grandpa to the same places he took Kota, but we'd have to be there three days after they were since they were there on business for the first three days and the food they were eating seemed odd at the time so we didn't go." Dom stated. "Fried plantains are great." Kota said looking at them. "Should've accepted. We aren't going on business trips any time soon." he confirmed. "I have to take over MB and work on new products, we start selling them in America soon." he said honestly. He kissed Clare back as she asked Emi the question. "Well, we lived in part of Tokyo called Narita, Chiba Prefecture. It's over an hour to Tokyo City." she stated. When they were getting ready for bed, Kota listened to Clare say she was taking purple and nodded, then laughed a bit when she asked about the toothbrush knowing she was joking. Once she joined him in his bed and they were cuddling, he nodded. "Yea, I'm comfortable." he whispered and kissed her head before falling asleep.

#wf