she says he won't let her get a dog, which is fine, because they're in an apartment, and that's the kind of thing people say about their partners. he won't let me get a dog. and you're at a dinner party and you tilt your head a little to the side just like that dog he won't let her get, because is this the thing that's going to upset you? you don't know every corner of their relationship, she could be joking, they could have had so many healthy conversations about the dog, right, and maybe she's not letting herself get the dog because of money and time and whatever. but, like, she did say let
and she wants to move away from his hometown and he wants to stay and then he tells you with a wink and a conspiratorial stage whisper don't worry i'll convince her and she laughs about it - so clearly this is something they laugh about. but you do just stand there and stare at him like what the fuck, man. you can't say what you want to say which is why do you get the final say on everything because they're both obviously aware of the other person's stance on this and have obviously had private conversations about it and what are you going to do about it except make a scene and then he'll be mad at you and call you one of those bitches behind your back and she'll cut you off, which is a loss that doesn't feel worth it just because he makes you a little skeeved out every 3rd comment
and they both agree he just isn't the type to get flowers which is fine because everyone shows love differently, and are you really gonna judge someone based on their sense of individual relationship responsibility? maybe he's constantly cleaning her car and writing her poems and making her furniture or something. maybe she doesn't even like flowers and this is perfect, actually. and no you couldn't date him, obviously, ew; but like, she tells you she's happy. you almost send her a tiktok that says don't be 25 and the cool girl that doesn't need anything, you'll hate not getting flowers at 30, but that's like, starting drama & you shouldn't start drama needlessly.
and you're a little older than her but not so much older you can pull the whole trust me on this one babe thing and besides that wouldn't have worked anyway (when does it ever) and besides you have trauma so you and your therapist both agree that you're always looking for a problem even when there isn't one. and you tell yourself that just because you see them for 15 minutes every month does not mean you can identify every single red flag based on a single shitty half-joking(?) comment
and besides, what are you going to do? she says i actually wanted another stand mixer but thankfully he stops me when i'm about to spend too much money and you're standing there like are you okay? is this normal? is this just something people say? and again - what are you going to do?
to your therapist you try to language it - it's not, like, any of my business. but sometimes, doesn't it feel like - you should do something. there's got to be something, right? you've tried dropping little hints but they sail right through and you've tried having a single serious conversation and she got upset because why does it matter to you, yes it's different but we're happy, it doesn't need to make sense to you and you're like. really unwilling to push a boundary about it anymore; because the truth is that you know logically it shouldn't matter to you, as long as both parties are happy.
and besides, you've been wrong before. it's just... like, every time you see them both, something else happens, some kind of shiver down your spine like do you even hear each other when you talk. it's their strange, bickering orbit. just the way he's on his phone through dinner or watching sports instead of helping in the kitchen or, fuck, another one of these little throwaway comments he makes about we'll see about that, babe. she laughs when he calls her passions stupid shit and meanwhile she gets him tickets to see the knicks and he tells you well at least she's smart about something and still! it's none of your business.
you say get the dog anyway and she laughs. like, this is is you being funny. and not you saying - no really. get the dog. get the dog and get out of here. pack up and start running.
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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.
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list of things that the marauders fandom made up: a summary
the marauders naming themselves the marauders. there is no evidence for it, and on the map, it is written the marauder's map. the marauder is a synonym of some sorts to rascal, raider
james "fleamont" potter and sirius "orion" black. remus (john) is the only one who has a canon middle name, actually
on that note, lily's middle name. jean, jane, jolene. the only (canon) thing we know about it is that it starts with a j
the personalities of sirius black, james potter, peter pettigrew, remus lupin, lily evans, (characters that have been given little backstory), barty crouch, mary macdonald, (characters that have been mentioned once or twice or, on barty's case, given almost little to no backstory) marlene mckinnon, dorcas meadowes, regulus black, pandora lovegood (literally dead when the series started)
their relationships with each other and the ways that they interact (enemies to lovers dorlene, best friends to lovers marylily, the very exact dynamics between the marauders and other characters, even the dynamic between the black brothers)
grant chapman
all the other marauders era character ocs
almost all of the ships (besides jily and fralice): wolfstar, jegulus, jegulily, nobleflower, marylily, marylene, dorlene, dorlily, pandorcas, rosekiller the list goes on and on
the idea that the prank has been something dramatic that had put a strain on their relationship. sirius seems to be showing no remorse about it whatsoever, remus seems very unbothered
the fact that sirius had long hair before azkaban, too. (he canonically has short hair. moody, in the order picture, described him as "sirius, before he had long hair.")
remus' scars. they are, not once, mentioned or described in canon
remus being a casanova. once again, no canon evidence. the only one of them who seems to have been interesting to the hogwarts population was sirius, who seemed "uninterested"
james and sirius being "dumb". they're one of the only characters in the series, along with hermione granger and a few others, who are described as "exceptionally bright" and "exceptionally smart"
pretty much the whole lore
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Honestly there’s a lot of untapped potential for drama in continuations of the Everyone Hates You ending. Like here’s a bunch of Voices that you’ve traumatized and then left to rot, assuming they would never come back, but they’re here, and they’re out for blood.
Stuck in a world without change, they’re going to remain exactly as they were in their worst moments, forever hating and doomed to never get better, their wounds never healing. What would the worst version of themselves look like?
And do you try and help? Can you help, after everything you did to them. Or do you double down, and forsake them completely, becoming the big bad overlord of this new world of yours?
(trick question, I’ve thought about this a lot and am working on designs for the lil guys but as the worst versions of themselves.)
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Happy birthday, @a-very-fond-farewell! I figured you would enjoy seeing Mr. Abyss in a silly apron ;)
And Ga On be like: "DON'T MIND IF I DO"
... possibly connected to Who Holds the Devil, I guess, since Yo Han is cooking? The future we're all longing for, or something. Especially Ga On since he finally gets to bury his nose against Yo Han's neck like he's always wanted. That boy.
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