i like to make fun of murderbot for being all "i hate everyone, i don't care about anything or anyone, fuck off" while simultaneously caring very much about the people around it and the situations it finds itself in. i love how it "accidentally" ends up caring quite a lot about the friends it makes along the way.
but i think something that i tend to forget is that murderbot actively decides to care - at least at some point in its story.
idk, as a person that struggles with depression, this paragraph from artificial condition really resonates with me. prior to all systems red, murderbot had contracts. it had routine and it had protocols. it knew what it had to do to just get by, how to perform so no one would notice it had disabled its governor module. it was deeply depressed, yes, but it was functioning (for lack of a better word).
in artificial condition, murderbot's routine is gone. it cannot go on in that state of numbly going-from-contract-to-contract, putting in as little effort as possible, consuming media to cope. that option is gone because it escaped (and note that escaping the company was not an active choice, it kinda happened to it). murderbot has two options now: it can either gather all its energy; actively do something new and difficult and distressing; change something in its life and try. or it can let the numbness and the emptiness take over and stop trying. if murderbot wants to survive as a rogue secunit, it has to try. no matter how difficult that is.
the wording in that paragraph really hits home for me. the way the non-caring sees an opportunity to slip in and to take over. does murderbot even care? does anything really matter? is anything really worth the hassle? wouldn't it be so much easier to just let your mind slip away a little, to go numb, to be passive, to watch media and wait for things to happen to you? wouldn't it be nice to stop thinking and struggling and feeling complicated things? to stop making an effort? you've been dealing with a lot lately and maybe it's time to just shut down. maybe you'll just take a little break. just slip deeper into this chair and start the show. time flies when you're not paying attention. trying is exhausting. who cares if you don't do the things you wanted to do, you were supposed to do. it'll be fine. let's just ignore those things for now. just let the non-caring take over. just stop thinking. you can deal with the aftermath later. just watch your shows. who cares.
but murderbot cares. it decides to care. it decides to fight with all it has and i think that is so brave. and i think in the later books caring is less of an active decision for murderbot. once you start caring, it's easier to keep going than to stop; and murderbot, for all its "i'm a grumpy rogue secunit, leave me alone" behavior, knows just how important caring is. so it's not that it doesn't know what's happening; rather, it lets itself care.
tl;dr: caring is not the default for murderbot, it's just the more difficult of two options. and it decides not to take the soft option. it decides to struggle. it decides to care. and so it does.
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sorry im emotonal and going off of the other asks sent about machete and just i need to stress how beautiful it is to me that machete sees himself so undeserving of love and affection and feeling as if vasco's too good for him but despite all that he is so incredibly devoted to vasco and loving towards him (in his own way) but is so incredibly clear to anyone with eyes that just how in love he is with vasco. like it's not done out of a "oh god please never realize that you're too good for me here here let me overdo it with the affection" its done with the "i love you, and will always love you, no matter what happens to us or separates us, and i will give it to you as long as i am able, and if you ever leave, i won't be okay, but will still love you, and want you happy". like he doesn't use his own feelings of being undeserving taint his love or the way he loves for vasco, and it's so, so beautiful
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I finally have some free time to draw sketches and tell you about my headcannons with (young) Harvey and Dr. Stone!! 💥💥
The first headcanon: Harvey really likes to touch Stone's funny sticking-out hair with his antennae (I have no idea what to call it lol). OF COURSE, Dr. Stone gets angry, and Harvey just giggles and watches him—
The second headcanon: I thought it would be funny if Dr. Stone had (and maybe still has) a secret hobby of collecting minerals and stones. it's pretty funny that a sullen and angry dude collects and examines all sorts of stones, and then writes something in his book, muttering something under his nose. if Harvey somehow found out about his husband's hobby, he could throw him beautiful stones while he was going somewhere.
The third headcanon: Harvey loves hugging Dr. Stone very much, when he does this, this old fart immediately starts to get angry and swear, but after 15-20 minutes calms down and falls asleep. maybe Harvey does this on purpose so that his husband at least sometimes gets a full sleep
(not) Old people,,,,
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if Sigma worked at the ADA dazai would call him pet names relentlessly, doesn't matter when, where, or who's listening:
"Hey pretty bird~ could you..."
"Oh, birdy can handle that, can't you, birdy?"
"Me and pretty boy are gonna go check out the crime scene,"
"Come on sweetheart, please, pretty please do my paperwork?"
"Morning darling~"
"Who decided to put their hands on our little bird," (no one touches Sigma. the entire ADA agree's on that one)
"Want to join the rest of us for lunch angel?"
"Good job, love,"
"Go get'em princess~"
"Hey hun could you help me with this report?"
"Come on beautiful, can't be late to that meeting or Kunikida's gonna have both of our heads,"
he doesn't stop, ever, and it starts spreading to the rest of the office.
Yosano will jokingly use the pet names when they're off the job or making fun of Dazai, but honestly takes to using them at work as well after a while, they're really pretty when they blush, wat can she say? (transfem!Sigma x Yosano yuri.... I think maybe)
Kunikida, after months of yelling at Dazai for being unprofessional and Sigma telling him "it's fine, really, it... it's not that much of a bother", will deadpan the pet name's with a very tired "I can't believe this is what my work like has come too" tone, esepcially cause Dazai will only refer to Sigma as said pet names in his reports (which Sigma and Kunikida always revise) and in the office groupchat/email chain.
Ranpo uses them in the gc.
Fukuzawa is tired of getting the reports from Dazai where a birdy is missed by Kunikida and Sigma's tireless revisions.
everyone else knows exactly who's being referred to when they hear those pet names, even if they don't use them themselves, just like Sigma pretends to not like it, but responds every time he hears one of his many titles.
they become his monikers in the field. Dazai is elated.
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