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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Danny phantom dc crossover idea:
Clone at the grave
Idk how but Danny ends up in gotham. Except da boi is a lil messed up. Aspects of his ghost form are peeking through in his human forms.
This inculdes
Green eyes (lowkey glow sometimes)
Some white hair
Some scars he got in Ghost form.
He also has a vivisection scar (could be part of reason he is there). There are also other various scars some that used to only show on his ghost form but are now on his human form, it's overall concerning.
The thing is Danny is also a bit bloody (red blood) and looking like he was in a fight. So he looks for a safe place and what better than to follow some kind ghosts from Gotham's cemetery. He's the King and Gotham (I love sentient ghost/spirit gotham) for some odd reason is like 'I like this kid/king so no spooky shit to hurt him' also in the cemetery I think there is just etiquette for the ghosts to not hurt each other and be respectful seeing as that is their final resting place. Anyways he's led to a grave and to just sit and chill and try to heal or overall not fully die.
Unbeknownst to him, he is sitting on the grave of formally dead Jason Todd. A grave that the bats have some surveillance on cause ya know of course they would have surveillance on an empty grave. So when poor old Danny is chilling there, the bats are made aware. When they look what they see is what honestly looks similar to a dead Jason Todd, albiet a bit smaller and white hair tuft not the exact same. And considering that Jason is very much (sorta) alive and not at the cemetery, they come to the conclusion that 'hey is that a clone?' Which is a very concerning question.
Cue bats taking a trip and coming close to the 'body' cause really it seemed like a dead body. But then Danny moves, opens his eyes and Boom ya got green, eerily close to Lazarus green which only increases their belief that this dude may possibly be some sort of clone.
So we got confused, suspicious, (concerned) bats. And meanwhile Danny is just ??? With seeing these dudes sorta surrounding him in a cemetery where he is still injured.
Now what happens next could go various ways.
They could go on the agressive detain and ask questions later.
There could be a fight.
Danny may use his spooky abilties to disappear.
Danny may simply fall unconscious and leave the bats to deal with him.
Danny could confuse them with sassiness,
OR he could be like 'ayo help would be appreciated'
OR he could be like 'can't a guy chill in a cemetery by himself'.
Overall the possibility of him leaving with the bats or going off by himself is up in the air and really depends on what type of vibes you want in this story.
Some fun things that could be included...
Bats insistent that Danny is a clone while Danny is like 'No'
OR Danny legit going like 'wait really a clone? Tell me more'
Maybe Jason and Danny meet on the street and are just like that Spiderman meme.
OR they meet and are like hey 'dead buddies' type deal
OR they meet and Jason is suspicious and shit
Batfamily members asking why there are two Jasons, wondering why one is smaller and how his hair changes.
Danny hiding from the bats causing confusion and chaos along the way
Hello batfamily adoption, Bruce reputation preceeds him.
Some 👀 when they see the vivisection/autopsy scar (maybe they don't even know its actually a vivisection until later)
Danny's spookiness peaking out more and more
Maybe at some point or something one of the magic users like Zatanna or Constantine encounter Danny and they are def unsettled. Maybe they can't tell he's the ghost king or a halfa but they know something is wrong. Maybe they knew Jason was a bit wonky in the death sense but they are like "this 'clone' is on a whole other level of fucked". This of course makes the bats wanna investigate more about the 'creation' of cloneDanny, wondering what is his purpose and how he came to be Danny and in gotham and why.
Ya know I like to think that Danny never actually tells them he's a halfa. Cause, ya know secrets and also who is he to crush their clone theory dreams.
The thing is, is that they def think Danny is a really spooky and unsettling 'clone'. Seemingly more dead than alive than Jason is. They never have moments where they think Jason is not actually breathing. His eyes seem more glowy green than Jason's and his tuft of hair seems to glow occasionally but so quick that you think it's a trick of the light. He seems so quiet and his 'presence' isn't that of a normal human. Sometimes they forget Danny is close by.
It makes them think of how Jason could have come back.
One thing I think would be present is that Danny is having issues with changing forms which was why they were sorta mixing. So when he finally is able to fully separate and they see his blue eyes, and fully black hair and they turn to Damian and are like 'ya know you two actually look pretty simi-'
So yeah this is an idea I've been in the process of figuring out. Lots of possibilities though, but if anyone also wants to have some fun with this, please do!! Never can have too many cakes after all.
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