#Guess who just finished system collapse

[theaceace]

I hope preservation and PUMNT start matching freed SecUnits with their hyper intelligent ship AIs like those anxious cheetahs that get service dogs

[rafeandonlyrafe]

crash

words: 2k

warnings: car crash, drinking, partying, soft!rafe, descriptions of blood, rafe and sarah actually get along, underage drinking? (i guess sarah but this doesnt fit in with the obx timeline), topper and sarah dating, established relationship, surgery, hospital setting, injuries, fluffy, they say i love you a lot

“you good to drive top?” rafe tosses the keys towards his friend. rafe usually wouldn't trust anyone else with his truck, but he wouldn't drive with even one drink in his system when he has such precious cargo.

“yeah, man.” topper catches the keys one handed with ease, pulling sarah behind him with his free hand.

rafe looks to you, wrapped against his side, steps slightly wobbly, a small giggle escaping your lips as he opens the back door for you.

“why thank you.” you step in with rafes help, immediately flopping down in the seat. 

“gotta buckle up, baby.” rafe may be slightly tipsy as well, but he's not as far gone as you are, having indulged with your girlfriends at the party, including sarah who is clearly the drunkest out of the group as topper has to physically lift her into the passenger seat.

“mkay.” you hum, letting rafe do up your buckle in the middle seat before you collapse against his side, eyes closing instantly as your tiredness sets in.

“did you have fun?” rafe asks as topper gets in, his arm wrapping around your shoulders.

“mhm.” you hum out again, not wanting to actually open your mouth to speak as the truck moves out of its parking spot, topper carefully driving down the road as he squints slightly into the darkness before turning the brights on to illuminate the road more.

“just head to mine, top.” sarah says, reaching over to place her hand on his bicep. “you can spend the night.”

“in the guest bedroom.” rafe adds on. he can't see sarah roll her eyes, but he knows she does.

“shh, young love is cute rafey.” you mumble, rubbing your head against his chest like a cat would snuggle into their owner.

“im like only three years younger than-” sarah can't finish her sentence as topper blares on the horn seconds before another truck rams into the passenger side, sending the truck spinning through the intersection. before you even realize what is happening, you're upside down, then right side up, then upside down again before the truck ends up on its tires once more, now off the side of the road.

“fuck!” topper shouts out, his hands running over his body, checking to see that he’s okay before turning to look to sarah, who is clearly shaken but uninjured. “everyone okay?”

“baby?” rafes arm caged you against his body during the impact, but the rolling dislodged you as the top of the car crunched down.

“shit…” you groan, reaching up to touch your forehead, having smacked it against something in the crash. you pull your hand away to realize that your fingertips are red with blood.

“im bleeding.” you wheeze out, panic suddenly setting in as you try to move before realizing you’re trapped, leg pinned under sarah’s seat which has been pushed in towards you from the impact.

“baby, baby!” rafes voice breaks through your panic as his hands grip at your wrists until you stop your flailing. “stay calm, im getting us out.”

topper is able to kick his door open before rounding the now completely wrecked hood to get sarah out. he looks at the intersection to see the truck that plowed into them now blocking the center of the roadway. 

“i-i can’t get out rafe. my leg is pinned. i-i think its okay though.” you’re not sure if your words are the truth, afterall, your head feels completely fine and judging from the blood you have to wipe away from your eye, its not.

“okay, shit.” tears stream down rafes face as he looks over you, allowing himself a split second of panic before he instantly begins to move in the crumpled truck, tearing at the bottom of his shirt until he’s able to pull off a chunk, moving it to your forehead and pushing against the cut despite your grimace.

“its okay.” rafe assures you softly. “ive got you. you’re okay. you’re okay.” the repeating words are partially for rafe as he reaches with his free hand to under the seat, feeling that your leg isn’t bleeding, just stuck at the ankle by a bar under the seat.

“call 911!” rafe yells, and sarah instantly pulls out her phone from her back pocket, glad it survived the crash.

“fuck-i-” tears form in your eyes as the pain sets in, as you see the panic in rafes face and realize how bad you must look. “im scared.”

“im scared too baby, but its gonna be okay, just stick with me.” rafe can’t help himself, he leans forward and presses a kiss to your cheek despite the sweat and drops of blood, he needs to reassure you that everything will be alright.

when rafe pulls away from the kiss, his eyes are blown wide, brows raised. “what is it?” you begin to squirm again.

“nothing, i got you.” rafe works to unbuckle his and then your seatbelt as the fabric of his shirt is now dyed completely red with your blood. he doesn’t want to tell you how shockingly cold and clammy your skin felt when he pressed a kiss against it.

“topper!” rafe shouts. “try to move this fucking seat!” rafe can’t just sit still, managing to push at it with one of his legs as topper pries at the seat, the sound of sirens approaching.

“see that, baby?” rafe looks at you, even able to tell in the dim lighting that your face has gone unnaturally pale. “help is coming, okay?”

it’s a fire truck that arrives first. they do a quick assessment of everyone at the scene before helping topper and rafe, who have not given up on moving the seat. they get it to budge just enough for you to pull your leg out with a sigh of relief as the ambulance arrives.

“come here.” rafe feels a pang of pain is side, but he ignores it as he climbs out of the car, pulling you into his arms. “she needs to go first.”

rafe knows eventually they’ll all get taken to the hospital, but you’re his priority.

“the other guys got a broken leg-” a firemen begins to explain to the emts as they lower the gurney. 

“and hes the one that fucking hit us!” rafe shouts. “my girlfriends got a head injury, she’s going first.”

the emt takes one look at you and nods, motioning for rafe to lay you down. the emt instantly takes over, applying more gauze to your forehead but leaving the crumpled bit of rafes shirt there, hoping that it’s clotting underneath.

they raise the gurney up, rafe climbing in the back with you as a second ambulance pulls up, probably to take the other driver.

rafe tries to talk to you as the emt moves around the back of the ambulance, checking the rest of your body, grimacing slightly when she sees your ankle, which is already swelling and turning purple.

the ride and transfer into the hospital is a rush, and despite rafe not wanting to leave your side, you’re taken for further examination while he has to stay behind.

“sir, we should get you checked out too.” a nurse says softly, his voice too calming for rafe, which just causes the anger he’s been holding inside to bubble over.

“not until i know y/n is okay.” he says firmly, walking out of the waiting room before he can say another word or start punching shit and get himself kicked out. rafe moves towards a tree, pummeling his fists into the bark until they’re bloody and bruised. 

with the anger now at a simmering level, rafe walks back into the emergency room entrance, looking for an update on your condition, only grunting his disapproval before slumping into one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs.

rafe doesn’t even realize that he’s fallen asleep until he's being shaken awake by topper.

“y/n.” rafe stands suddenly, cursing at himself for falling asleep in the first place, but his body crashed from the adrenaline.

“shes alright. the doctor just updated us.”

rafe walks past topper, noticing sarah sleeping in one of the other waiting room chairs, relieved to see that they're both fine and not admitted.

“room 1007.” topper calls out as rafe moves past the nurses station to find you.

you are still groggy as the medicine works it's way through your system, and the feeling of stitches on your head is an unusual weight against your skin, yet you still smile widely when rafe enters the room.

“im okay.” you confirm instantly as he rushes to the side of your bed.

“god,” rafe places his hand on your cheek, his gaze darting between your eyes and the gash on your forehead, looking a lot less serious now that the bleeding has stopped. “im so sorry baby.”

you shake your head. “i really am fine. this nice nurse was explaining to me that head injuries bleed a lot and always make it seem worse than it is. and my ankle is just bruised and sprained, not even broken.”

“you won't be using that ankle any time soon anyways.” rafe leans forward to press a gentle kiss against your cheek. “you're getting carried everywhere, i hope you know that.”

you laugh before suddenly stopping, watching as rafes face turns pale, a sheen of sweat seeking to suddenly appear over his face.

“rafe?” you watch as he blinks heavily, once, twice, then his eyes slide closed as he drops forward, landing on the bed, body completely slack.

“nurse! nurse! help!”

--

“ma’am, you should be resting in your own bed. you're still a patient here.”

you're well aware you're a patient, moving around the floor in your hospital gown and hauling the iv attached to your arm.

“ill rest when i know my boyfriend is okay.”

“he had internal bleeding and wasn't seen for hours after the crash. he's in surgery but it won't be short, we are being as thorough as possible to make sure he's going to be okay.” the nurse explains to you gently.

“ill go sit.” you say, mostly because you feel like your legs might give out at any moment, and you're tired of hopping around on your one good ankle. “but i will not be resting until i know rafe-”

a bell dings and cuts you off, the nurse rushing off without another word.

“shit.” you groan, just glad she ran off in the opposite direction of where rafe is in surgery. 

you hop back to the waiting room and drop into the seat next to topper.

“im so sorry, y/n.” topper says, apologizing yet again.

“it wasn't your fault, top.” you shake your head. “he hit us out of nowhere, you couldn't have done anything.”

“maybe if id just gone a little slower-” you tune out whatever else topper is saying, stomach churning as you watch in waiting for an update on rafe.

--

“he's awake and asking for you.”

“thank god.” you jump up, cringing when you land on your hurt ankle. 

“im taking you there in a wheelchair whether you like it or not.” the nurse whose been with you all night says. “but ill walk fast.”

you sit on the chair, needing to get to rafe as fast as possible, and you know the nurse understands just how much you need to see him as she rushes down the hallway.

“baby.” rafe is sat in bed, looking so much younger and vulnerable in that moment. “are you okay?”

“me?” you laugh and shake your head, moving to carefully sit on the bed next to him. “you just got out of surgery. you needed a blood transfusion.”

“mmm.” rafe shakes his head. “are you okay?” he asks again.

“yes.” you nod, tears coming to your eyes. “im okay now that you're okay. don't you ever put your health off again just for me.”

you lean forward and press your lips against rafes, kissing him softly even though he can barely manage to move his mouth to meet you.

“i love you.” you tell rafe. “and i don't want to live without you.”

“i love you too baby.” rafes cheeks stretch as he smiles, and your chest flutters with relief as the spark in his eyes comes back.

sfw tags: @winterrrnight @bejeweledreverie @ladyinbl00d @ethanthequeefqueen @drewsephrry @wearemadeofstardust0

[onnoffwrites]

I have been losing my shit over this damn panel for the past THREE DAYS (more or less) and I need to yell somewhere so it's gonna go here.

It all began when I was writing my fic (I think this was for My Immortal), and I needed to recap significant hakukai moments. And I remembered "hey, I should include this one thing saguru said during sunset manor that was stupidly super gay for no fucking reason" bc like, yea hakukai not canon, but if canon was gonna give me a whole ass confession then I might as well use it. So, like always, I head to mangadex to look for this panel... Except... It's not there... The line... The line's not there... But I remember... I remember something about "the only one to disrupt/disturb my thinking/mind"... Where... I didn't imagine that right? I mean I read a lot of google translated Chinese fanfics but... I REMEMBERED reading that line... In a manga... In English... ON mangadex...

This is where I should mentioned, that if you weren't around for the Great Collapse of Mangadex. Then... Well, so there was this period of time where mangadex just DIDNT EXIST. Bc there was some cyber?? Attack??? On the site??? I can't fully remember. But it like wiped out most of the site. The mangas r just, gone. So mangadex fixed it. It took a while bc they figured "might as well revamp our site and system". And they did. And it's great. And it looks beautiful now, even more than before.

But see. The line I remembered? Yea... Yea that was from before The Collapse. And mangadex let multiple translation groups submit their translations. So u can read diff translations of diff group, see how things are interpreted differently... And... I remembered this one, that I posted here up top, but I remembered there was another. One that had The Line.

And it was driving crazy so, like usual, I asked my cn friend. But my cn friend (why am I still saying that, it's @beingvv , that's the friend) has A Life, and isn't always online, and we love that for ppl. So. I'm still crazy. I can't trust my own damn mind and memory bc why tf do I remember something that isn't there (happened before btw, but that has nothing to do with this).

Luckily, I have a friend who knows jp. UNLUCKILY, I don't have the jp raws and it's from chapter 300 and we are in the thousands. So, I went back to losing my mind. Until I found it again, and realized. Heyyyyyyy there's a whole ass ANIME. So like the baggage my dear friend had the misfortune to be saddled with, I went to find the ep, timestamped it, yelled begged them for help.

This is where I lose my damn mind the first time in the recent weeks.

(thank you my dear piglet, u don't even go here but u tolerate my insanity)

THIS. THIS WAS THE LINE. THATS WHAT I REMEMBERED.

So, I feel a little more sane (bc my mind didn't fabricate a memory again) and also A LOT more insane bc WHY WOULD U SAY THAT, HAKUBA SAGURU 😭😭😭 WHY WOULD U SAY IT LIKE THAT 😭😭😭

In any case I feel validated. Told beingvv about my discoveries (for whenever they come back) not that they need it cn fandom already got the correct translation. And finished writing my fic.

And then Saguru's comeback was announced.

So I've been losing my shit for 3 days on twitter, looking at all my fave KR and JP accounts and the things they say.

And then someone dug up and old tweet thread that talked about this panel. Specifically, op talked about the nuance in the word choice used.

Here's the og thread if anyone wants to read or Google translate it urself.

(mkppyong my love, bless you)

Bc mkppyong talked to a jp acquaintance about ??? Uh I dunno just language I guess. POINT IS. They pointed out that gosho used specific words/phrases that really wasn't needed if all he wanted to say was "the only one who drives me crazy/mad." But he did used them. It's specifically "his thoughts/mind" that's being driven crazy. And that if he wants to just talk about Saguru's mind being disrupted/confused, then there's rly no need to use the words "go crazy"

And then they wrote out a whole symbolism about clocks and saguru and being broken down/disrupted and I lost my shit over the clock symbolism, sue me 😭😭😭

I don't think I'm making sense anymore bUT WAIT, THERES MORE, THE FINAL BLOW

THE THAI TRANSLATION

This is where I expose myself more than I ever want to, but here's a fact. I'm thai

Here's a second fact. I'm SHIT at Thai. I've been bad at this language before I got good at English. My Thais as good as an elementary student. Every time I understand difficult words I get confused bc where did I know THAT from???

In any case, point is, I saw that tweet, read the text, immediately understood it and began losing my shit all over again... And then I doubted... Bc like, I'm not good with this lang anymore... Maybe im understanding it wrong? So I look up Google.

Google: คลุ้มคลั่ง just means go crazy

So I was like, damn guess I'm wrong, read too much into this. BUT SEE BC I LIVE HERE I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARENT A DISGRACE. And so my friend said:

SO WELCOME TO MY THIRD ROUND OF INSANITY.

HAKUBA SAGURU WHY WOULD U SAY THIS SHIT IN FRONT OF LIKE NINE OTHER PPL 😭😭😭😭😭 BOY WHY R U TELLING THEM UR OBSESSED 😭😭😭 youre driving ME crazy 😭😭😭

So. Here we are. At the end. I have no idea how tf I'm supposed to end this post. I'VE been obsessed for 3 days straight. I don't have a lot of braincell left in me (there weren't any to begin with). I don't have a statement to wrap this post up in a nice little bow. Go make ur own conclusion I dunno.

But I would not have been losing my shit over this stupid panel for a month if it wasn't for the fact that eng translation was missing a pretty crutial thing in what Saguru said. I don't know if this was a mistranslation or a misunderstanding or something, but the English translation was lacking. And I love and have always been thankful and grateful to the ppl who worked hard to translate mangas in their free time, and do it all for free, bc I haven't had any real way to rent/borrow mangas from renting shops/libraries in years. So this was one of the only ways I can read mangas. But, even as I checked the raw panel with Google lens just now, even google translate it as "the only one to make my thoughts go round." No where was there any mention of "case" and "solving." So that's just, multiple accounts of ppl who knows jp, including native jp speakers, all saying that this panel is Saguru saying "the only one to drive me crazy". And man I rly hope this doesn't make me come off as ungrateful or like shitting on the translation team, I'm rly not. But yea. Uh. The translation was wrong. And I remembered that there used to be a diff eng translation. And it led me to go to all this trouble and journey to find out what was actually said. And here we are, at the end.

The only one who could disrupt Saguru's thinking.

The only one who could disturb Saguru's mind.

The one whose sole existence drives him mad.

The only one to make his mind obsess over till he's driven to madness.

Or to use the symbolism mkppyong wrote: the only one to break down the clock, the precise and accurate mechanism, that is Hakuba Saguru.

[bots-and-cons]

Could I get something for Soundwave and a workaholic con!reader? Platonic or romantic is fine. I'm interested in seeing how he'd handle someone who overworks themselves but doesn't have the same capabilties of handling it all like SW can.

Thanks!

I don’t really know if this is platonic or romantic, depends on how you interpret it I guess

•Soundwave can be pretty competitive, and working is no exception

•He doesn’t make it obvious that he wants to get more done than you, but he does try to be faster and better

•Soundwave works a lot more than he should, but he’s so used to it that it doesn’t affect him that much anymore

•He rests when he needs it, but he also has trouble telling when exactly he needs rest, so it’s a bit problematic, but he manages to make it work

•You also work a ton, but you tend to overwork yourself more than him, because you don’t want to leave things unfinished or continue them later

•So if you start something, you need to finish it, which costs you a lot of sleep

•Soundwave is well aware of this, but due to the whole decepticon mentality he has, he doesn’t offer his help to you, thinking it would offend you and make you think he considers you to be weak

•If you don’t ask for help, surely you don’t want it, right?

•But you’re also very bad at asking for help, so when you finally start getting a really bad headache and almost collapse, Soundwave decides to intervene

•He doesn’t think you’re weak or anything, he just knows you try to do way too much on your own

•It’s not really a common practice for decepticons to ask for help for anything, everyone is expected to deal with their own problems and most of the time it’s seen as a weakness if you ask for help

•You don’t particularly like the others seeing you in such a vulnerable and weakened state

•Soundwave helps you to your habsuite and locks you out of the Nemesis’ system, so you can’t work even if you want to

•He makes sure you get a lot of rest, and without telling you, he takes on most of your workload as well

•So even when you come back, you don’t have that much to do and you’ll have to ask him for more work so he’s in control of how much you can do

[marco-le-loser]

Here, have an unrevized snipet of a fic ✨️

The sound of shattering glass rang through the hall, breaking through the foreboding silence.

“What… are you talking about?” N froze, glass-cleaning rag still in hand.

“They're clearing the library,” J responded, almost nonchalantly, “they've been planning to for a while but I guess they're finally doing it.”

By the time J had finished speaking, N was already gone, having bolted from the room, the pile of broken glass and his cleaning cloth long forgotten.

Nononono, they can't! They can't clear the library!

He skidded around the corners of the manor, nearly knocking into tables and other butler-drones as he ran.

Worker drones are not built for running. They were built for manual labor, for serving. Strenuous activities such as sprinting would overheat their systems. but that didn't matter to N.

They can't take her!

The main doors to the library were in sight, N could feel his system trying to shut down but he held out, determined to get to V before they did.

Bursting through the door he wiped his head around frantically, only to find there were no more broken drones lining the edges of the bookshelves. No more spare parts littering the floor, no more sounds of error screen beeping.

No…

The sound of sobbing was heard from deeper in the Library.

“Tessa?” N hobbled to the source of the sound where he saw her. The crumpled figure of Tessa wailed like a mother who just lost their child. The sharp cries of pain filled the now empty library as she clung desperately to the last remaining drone. She remained there, standing motionless in her maid dress with an error blinking on her screen.

N wobbled over, collapsing at Tessa's side. Upon his arrival, Tessa composed herself just enough to speak.

“I didn't let them take her. I couldn't,” she spoke through broken sobs.

N looked into Tessa's eyes, he could almost feel her pain. He turned to V, reaching up to take her lifeless hand in his, and wept.

[coquelicoq]

System Collapse, or: Adventures in Just Standing Here

Chapter 2, page 27: "On my mission (make that 'mission' because I was actually just standing there) the humans were already finishing up."

3, 36: “I backburnered all those feeds, though I kept a channel open with Three, who was still doing a good job of sitting there with Karime and not screwing anything up. I wasn’t doing a good job of standing here, because my current three humans had just volunteered to go check out the new probably-not-apocryphal colony site.”

3, 62-63: “You’re stalling, ART-drone said. I am not. I can stand here and be useless without any ulterior motives, thanks. […] At least while they were fucking with Tarik nobody was noticing that I actually hadn’t made a report yet and was in fact just standing there."

4, 68: “On our private connection, ART-drone said, SecUnit. Shit, I’m just standing here watching."

4, 69: “Iris said, ‘We need to stop it. SecUnit, you okay with that?’ Sure, whatever. I sent her an affirmative through the feed. Tarik hurried over and cut the power. Then we all kind of stood there for a second.”

6, 123: "I realized I'd just been standing here again when Ratthi, still monitoring my drone video from the shuttle, asked, 'What's that other door for? Another section of the hangar?' So I’d missed that, nice."

6, 124: "Nothing was happening, I might as well stand here as anywhere else I guess."

7, 157: “I walked out of the big chamber into the corridor, and just stood there."

anything: *happens*

murderbot: 🧍‍♂️

Bonus:

ART-drone was cycling through shows for us to watch in background, but I was actually really in the mood for a good long stare at a wall. (6, 136)

Not that trauma is making me revert back to my company days of feeling helpless and unable to take initiative or anything...😂💀🤖

[dragonnan]

Secret

May Prompts 2024

Full disclosure this is a completed story on AO3. However this fit the prompt perfectly and this is not a story that has seen much attention so double bonus! Haha!

May 12: "Secret"

It had all started in Dartmoor.

It had nearly been 2am by the time they'd finished up at the field and had staggered back to the hotel. Sherlock had left hours earlier so John had offered to remain behind with Greg while they had filled in the local constabulary; a greying man a year out from retirement along with his replacement-in-training. Well out of his jurisdiction, and glad of it, Greg had suggested a stop at the hotel bar before heading off to bed. John had been more than happy to erase the evening in alcohol and they'd ended up having several drinks before finally splitting off towards their respective rooms. The room he shared with Sherlock was dark when John wrestled his key into the lock and swung the door. Opting to spare his vision, he switched on only the bedside lamp – filling a corner of the room with a warm yellow glow. The bed was empty, of course. The bar had been empty of everyone save himself and Greg so it was anyone's guess as to where Sherlock had wandered off. No doubt burning off the events of the night in his own way, John didn't dwell on the other man's fluctuating mood – moving instead towards the loo... only to find the door locked.

“Sherlock?” A double rap of knuckles met only silence. “Sherlock, you alright? Open the door.”

“John?” The soft warble of his voice was enough to pump a shot of adrenaline through John's chest – alarm pushing him to rap the door a bit more firmly. “Sherlock, let me in.”

“John? What's wrong?” The voice came from behind him, this time; Greg rubbing at his forehead and looking about as knackered as John felt and far worse than he should be feeling after just two pints. Granted, it had been preceded by drugged mist, explosions, and giant dogs.

“It's Sherlock. Not sure what's going on,” he filled in softly. Greg, for his part, moved to rubbing his eyes.

“Well, aye, he's probably just paggered.”

An odd scramble followed Greg's comment. And then there was the sound of breaking glass.

“Shit,” setting his feet, John didn't hesitate in throwing his shoulder against the door – forcing it open onto another shadowed room. More scrambling followed – like something hard scraping against wood – and then Sherlock gave a short yelp and the shower curtain collapsed just as Greg blasted the room with the overhead light. John winced at the retina blinding afterimage – groaning as he pressed his palms against his eyes.

“Christ, ta for that...”

Eyes slow to adjust with the near blinding, it took John a moment to focus on the figure wrapped up in plastic. The curtain, with its pattern of small frogs in sailor hats, jutted up in a way suggesting something sharp was tenting it. Now fully in the tub, Sherlock had curled into himself as much as the limited space would allow.

“Please, don't... I'm fine.”

“Bollocks, you're fine,” John muttered; reaching for the curtain and pulling it aside...

Greg actually stumbled back – knocking something over that John couldn't be arsed to care about because his focus was completely on the figure huddled before him.

It was Sherlock... or... what looked like Sherlock. But...

“Good Christ, are those antlers?”

John shook his head, hard, with eyes squeezed tight. That fucking mist. No doubt still in their systems and an evening of drinking couldn't have helped matters. “Dammit, we're still hallucinating.”

An unexpectedly wild giggle burst from Lestrade. “Oh, ya think, do ya? Naw, I was thinking Sherlock literally turned into a bloody antelope!”

“Faun.” Both of them, now, looked back to Sherlock who still had antlers and, from the waist downward, a heavy layer of reddish brown fur, a scattering of dainty white spots, and...

“Hooves. He's got hooves.” John made that statement with the observation of someone of whom fate had delivered into madness. Of course he had hooves. He was half a deer, apparently.

Groaning, Greg staggered back towards the main room to drop into a chair. “Is it normal for a drug to last this long? I mean, I've done a fair bit of reading on the effects of stuff like cocaine and marijuana and even methamphetamines but this just seems...”

“Potent...” John offered – still transfixed by the absolute realness of the fantastical nature of Sherlock's form; as well as the fact that, aside from the rapidly fading buzz of alcohol, he didn't feel the least bit high. That said, the drug they'd been exposed to was completely unknown and it occurred to him that all three of them should have headed straight for the nearest hospital to be placed under observation.

“John, you are not hallucinating.” Sherlock had finally managed to tear the curtain free from his – well his... yeah. He remained crouched in the tub, however; his hooves... feet... slipping on the smooth porcelain.

It was then that John noticed the streak of blood on the rim of the tub.

“Damn, you're bleeding.” Pushing away all thoughts of deer people, John stepped forward to grasp Sherlock's upper arm – preparatory to helping him from the tub. This close he could feel the tremble running through Sherlock's body. He felt nearly hot to the touch and John cursed again at the realization Sherlock had been alone and sick while he'd been off making an evening of it. “Come on. Let's get you lying down so I can take a look at that injury.”

He refused to acknowledge the sensation of soft fur brushing against him as he helped Sherlock to stand. Between them, they managed to get Sherlock to the other room – Greg moving forward to help when the two of them emerged from the bathroom. Soon Sherlock was stretched out on the bed and John was examining the three inch gash across his right forearm.

“I cut it on the mirror when it broke.” His voice had resumed shaking – his whole body consumed with tremors.

“Yeah, well, its gonna need stitches. My kit is in the back of the car. Greg, do you mind?”

Grunting his reply, eyes still a bit dazed, Greg went to collect the bag while John gave the rest of Sherlock's body a scan for other injuries. Of course, this also forced him to confront the... less than human aspects.

“It's not real.” And maybe if he said that enough it would be true.

“I assure you it is. And had I the ability I would have changed back in order to avoid all of this. You weren't... humans are not meant to know of us...”

Cold bathed down from the crown of John's head to pour into his belly. “No. Nope. This is the side effect of a very powerful drug! Nothing more!”

“Do I look like a hallucination, John!” Sherlock roared – pushing himself to stand just as Greg returned from the car.

“Hell’s bloody bells...” Greg breathed.

Both men stood frozen as sobriety finally asserted that what they were seeing was actually, terrifyingly, real. And then Sherlock jerked, spun towards the nearest bin, and vomited.

An hour later, Sherlock sat, huddled and miserable, beneath the comforter while John and Greg finished up cleaning the bathroom of broken glass, scattered toiletries, and the torn remnants of Sherlock's clothes. Compartmentalizing had gotten them both this far but now, with no other activities to distract them, they were forced to confront the reality in the other room.

John could admit that he felt... well, terrified... Not of Sherlock, specifically but more... as though he had had the floor drop away – revealing a black and endless depth. It was apt that he felt he couldn't find his footing. Sherlock, for his part, had been very quiet during this time. Now, though, he sighed.

“Mycroft tried to warn me this would happen – eventually.”

John swallowed. Of course, Mycroft. He was one of these... these beings... as well. How many were there, then? Seeing the question on his face, Sherlock answered.

“There are more of us than you would think. As you can understand, however, it has been crucial to our safety that we remain hidden. If it weren't for what happened, yesterday, you would never have known about me.”

Trying, very hard, to get past the gut twisting wrongness, John moved to the chair directly opposite of the bed. Greg, for his part, still stood near the door. “You mean the mist?”

Sherlock shook his head; his antlers catching the soft light. “It's a reaction to coming face to face with a predator to our kind.”

John frowned. “Do you mean... the dog? I don't understand. I've seen you interacting with dogs, even patting then, dozens of times. Why would this...?”

“It wasn't a dog,” Sherlock swallowed, “It was a werewolf.”

Desperately putting the fur, antlers, and bloody hooves out of his mind, John scrambled for normalcy in the best way he knew how. By arguing.

“No... no I saw it. It was a dog. You said it was a dog.”

“Yes – I said it was a dog. But what did you see before I said that?”

He wasn't quite ready to accept that his flatmate was hooved much less that fairy tale monsters roamed the moors. But then the other part, of what Sherlock said, registered in his mind.

“Hold up – what do you mean by 'before you said that'?”

And here, Sherlock looked down, fingers pulling at the duvet. “I... our kind... we have the ability to alter perception. Not much – less so the younger we are – but enough to make you see a dog instead of a werewolf simply by speaking an absolute imbued with Power. It helps that you already expected to see a dog.” Here he looked up through his lashes. “Did you truly believe any drug would give everyone the exact same hallucination?”

John, though, still wasn't ready for all of... that. “That dog had an owner. Two owners – they admitted to creating this entire legend. Are you saying they had a werewolf and didn't know about it?”

“They knew exactly what they had. They thrive on trickery and no doubt were ecstatic over the chaos they caused.”

“So how did two, uh, humans end up in possession with that... that... that creature?”

Sherlock's eyes squinted shut. “They weren't human. They were satyrs. Similar to faun in appearance but far more powerful. They, too, can speak words of Power but unlike faun they can cloak their true nature from all creatures – including my kind. I didn't realize what they were until a short time ago.”

Hunched over his knees, John braced his hands on his thighs and breathed.

Finally giving in to the madness, Greg walked to the other chair where he dropped down with all the exhaustion of a man who hadn't slept for two days. Both hands scrubbed over his eyes. “So, what, you just speak one of these power words and we go back to seeing you as a human?”

Sherlock's lips pulled back, briefly, and John caught a glimpse of sharp canines. “No. At least not for a long duration given my form would merely be hidden from sight. The actual nature of my true body would still leave traces behind. As it is, faun are required to alter their shape in a manner which allows for full integration with humanity. It is, rather, a more physical process. And a painful one.”

At John's tipped head, Sherlock wrapped his arms about himself. “I can transform my shape. Well, once the adrenaline surge wanes enough to allow for it. It is not pleasant, however.”

“Does this happen a lot? Whenever you encounter a... well... a, ah, werewolf?”

Sherlock leaned back against the headboard – antlers tapping the wall. “Fortunately they are quite rare, nowadays. This is the first werewolf I've ever encountered. The last known sighting was more than sixty years ago.” Then, stretching, Sherlock swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Now, if you don't mind, I need some privacy.”

It wasn't until he was back out in the hallway that John realized he'd just been kicked out of his own room.

Greg offered a pitying look. “I've a roll away in the closet if you want.”

John was about to accept when both of them startled at the sudden groan from the other side of the door. This was followed by what John could only imagine as the spongy snap of wet bone – immediately followed by a muffled scream.

“Jesus-” Without thought on the matter he immediately threw open the door and rushed back inside... to find Sherlock nude, soaked, and fully human, collapsed in a heap next to the bed.

Read the rest of the story on AO3

@totallysilvergirl @sgam76 @helloliriels @sevdrag

[andbrokenmemories]

full murderbot thoughts post

Alright! Finished with Book 7 of Murderbot, System Collapse, and collected my thoughts on the series.

Maybe one day I'll do one last round-up to read novellas and maybe write a Properly Structured Review Innit, so for now this is gonna be the messy notes version of this. Let me give a paragraph or two of review-y thoughts, here, though. Set the stage and all.

So: I liked them a lot! I wouldn't ever say I struggle with sci-fi, but I think in practice I struggle with sci-fi. For other genrefic novels, tropes i Enjoy the Consumption of can usually keep my interest alive long enough; like, Black Sun and Fevered Star didn't light me on fire, but there was a lot of dynamics and play within the space that I could consistently enjoy and keep. Chewing down the line on. real strawberry lace fiction. real gummy worm fiction

Sci-Fi usually struggles more with that, I guess. Or, rather, I don't enjoy genrefic sci-fi for sci-fi's sake? There is, i think, a needle to thread of Good Spec-fic, of "oooh literature on a Weird Way of Existing". that style can keep me hooked, and Murderbot Diaries manages that with all the intricacies of the SecUnit experience. and also you can just have a lot to say! and murderbot has a lot to say! overall 8.5 out of 10. book 1 is a 9 out of 10 (yippeee strained relations distrust etc); book 2 is an 8.5 out of 10 (ART good); book 3 is a 7 out of 10 (i dont really remember those people); book 4 is an 8 out of 10, book 5 is an 8.5 out of 10 but i think it'd be a bunch higher if i didnt find the middle a bit bloated; book 6 is a 7.5/10, book 7 is an 8/10. loose thoughts from my journal from here on. spoilers for the whole series begin in earnest.

I like murderbot diaries the most when its reasonably omniscient, dynamic feeling, with a bunch of pieces moving around; and when those pieces are the psychology of murderbot as it navigates shit. i popped the fuck off when at the start of the long one [that's Network Effect] we got an interlude of murderbot interacting with mensa and her family and Caring and augh. ouagh.

WE HJAVE TO PUT ON THE BEST DAMN TALENT SHOW THI S COLONY HAS EVER SEEN!!!! [this was right when i got to the documentary part of the last book lol]

what if the other sec units went stereotypical serial killer robot and murdered all their handlers. like yes i get an argument against that that goes down the line of “and then we wont be able to extract from the situation and everyone gets killed in retribution” but, also, i feel like early in this series there was a lot of text talking about how sec units don't actually. think like that. in real life. I dont know, maybe i havent adjusted to a Thematic Choice where actually that was unreliable narration, but i find my brain getting caught up on that every time. like comparing how murderbot talks about how sec units think early in the series to later on. bwah.

anyway [in regards to the end of Exit Strategy] something very unique but kind of hash tag relatable about an extended sequence of a character reconstructing their memories from base principles, all sortakinda drunk. seeing all those cute and Telling and I See How It Is moments, which i derived a lot of value from, really fun capper to a book. good times. and then they hit 100% and the microwave goes Ding and they sit right up in bed and go Damn. That was stupid. I'm leaving.

when the panopticon surrounds you on every level and you have a lot of time to think on your self and your connection to your self and gain access to every system that makes you up and makes you you and all you can manage to acheive with it is the recreation of the panopticon within the self. and being without the panopticon is uncomfortable and foreign and strange. when the character does not allow the narrative to woobify them. 😍

ships you can talk to (who talk back only in concepts) are a gender by the way. that first scene [at the end of All Systems Red] of Murderbot working out its take on the all of it to a ship who can't really talk back, and was more or less the default “easily Manipulated bot pilot” that we just kind of sidestep each time going forwards, but like. was also the Same Thing as Mbot in not having anyone to really talk this out with. we are both on the same level. we, two, have not been taught to sell our class, our people out to the humans; we can be Niceys to one another. you can seek that out and find it. there are glimmers and moments like that throughout the whole series going forwards. which kind of makes hanging out with the humies boring unless they're one of the like 3-4 that i feel have an Interesting Social Dynamic with murderbot

following on from that, i immediately started visualising ARTs feed-self as a Kirby Endboss mass of glowing, dazzling, flowing dials/lenses/clocks towering over everyone else. with speech bubbles violently louder than everyone elses. Like that was how my brain went “how would the graphic novel get this Concept of ‘I could squish you like a bug with one instant of thought you are nothing to me you little it/its freak’ across". and its good. its good

[in regards to Network Effect, and trying to sum up my whole feelings on 2.0]: Whoops! Your clone headmate you made underbaked on purpose came out with ADHD and joié de vivre and is kicking its feet up and down in its partition watching comfort media while you go through the shit that made the Expanse expand. that made the signal is. that made the Space [face/off-style pause] Dead

So, what're my big takeaways with the whole series? Everyone trying to Do Therapyspeak on Murderbot and it usually Not Working is nice. There is something wrong with you, and that's not like a puzzle to be unraveled, but the perspective the text then takes on everything else. this world isn't, like, Fascinating and realized with any special flair, but you get to have moments where Murderbot exposits how fucked shit is to other people, or judges a situation it's bitter about as people around it get Fucked Over, and it's just like. It's a fun level of fucked up, in a way, sure, but it's also those moments of like. Ah. Murderbot does not set out to be protagonist-ly about this world, to be deeply critical, to wikia-mode about it all. Only to be constantly drawn to such anyway, to being Bitter and having to exposit to make certain points land because it needs certain points to land because. shrugs, gestures. The World. All of it. but then we go back to like “Hey do you think you have trauma maybe?” “FUCK you” and it's consistent and that's all chewy in a way I find nice. It's nice. We're having a niceys time. smile emoji

[percyaugod]

L10 AU

03 AU where one winter when the turtles are kids, maybe five or eight, there's a collapse in one of the lairs, could be because of something like an earthquake, construction failure, etc. In the collapse, Donnie is crushed and dies. The pieces of rubble are so heavy the others can't move it to get the body and regretfully have to leave it.

The extreme cold preserves Donnie so it's still in perfect condition when Bishop and his team come to investigate reports of an "alien" being found in the sewers. They're even able to revive it with experimental procedures since the head was mainly left unharmed. A few of the less important organs, what appeared to be a shell, and the left arm needed to be replaced though.

The subject had no recollection of anything before being revived, likely a side effect of being dead for an extended time even if the effect was lessened by the cold. This means Bishop couldn't get any answers from it about whether there was more like it or where they might be. Though he could still stuffy it and test its capabilities.

The newly labeled L1038451 has an unexpected problem that messed with the data. The subject couldn't feel pain and they had no way of knowing if this was normal or another side effect of it temporarily expiring.

Bishop sitting in his lab wondering what he could do next with this creature when he notices it running across the doorway of his lab. He immediately gets up and chases it down, which is surprisingly hard considering its small size.

Bishop demands who let it out of its cell when he notices one of the tools from an earlier experiment in L10's hand. When did it even grab that? Bishop looked from it to L10's face and saw the most cheeky smile. Why this little- Bishop is going to make sure it can never leave its cell again.

It leaves its cell on its own again less than two days later. Making sure to pull on Bishop's pant leg and everything so he knows.

Bishop doesn't understand! No matter what locks or security system he puts up it somehow opens them! At the same time making sure to erase the camera footage so he doesn't know how. Then it just seems to seek him out to show off its win. Worst of all it started greeting him with this irritating "Guess who, Bippy?"

As Bishop is grumbling he notices hasn't seen L10 in a while. Why doesn't he believe it's because he's finally contained that thing?

Bishop searched the facility and found L10 in his cell. With a bunch of parts that weren't in there the last time Bishop put him back in. Is- Is he making a drone in there? How does it know how to make a drone?

Before Bishop realizes it he's sitting in the cell with L10 watching it build and sometimes offering tips and ideas. When it's finished and L10's eyes light up with joy Bishop almost feels… pride?

That feeling is short-lived as L10 gets up and runs out of the cell giggling, locking Bishop inside behind him.

L10 does eventually learn how to hack into Bishop's bank account and order stuff to be sent there. Bishop's looking so confused when he sees purchases under the name "Elton". Elton? El-ton. L-10. L10!

[cartoonscientist]

so basically im a giant cockroach and i just got finished reading metamorphoses by franz kafka and like, idk, i get that it is very important in human culture but i guess there are just some things i want to go over re: my lifestyle that i think were misrepresented in a harmful way that i think might discourage people from being reincarnated as a giant cockroach which sucks because we’re one of the most stable life forms in the face of climate change and collapse, so (note: i do respect that gregor samsa was not born as a cockroach and would probably have more challenges than someone like me who was born into a cockroach society with a full cultural support system, but i argue that this is more the fault of systemic failure to accommodate megafauna during the period the novel is set in and also even today)

[graham--folger]

guess who just finished system collapse

[galadhir]

So I bought the latest Murderbot book, System Collapse as soon as it came out, on both audiobook and ebook, and I have to say that I was ever so slightly disappointed. It is a really good example of a Murderbot novella, just like the other ones in the series, but my problem is that with it coming after Network Effect I was hoping for other things.

When Network Effect finished with ART excitedly cleaning its interior because Dr. Mensah would be coming aboard, I was excited to be able to read about ART and Mensah meeting and learning to appreciate each other.

When we got the blurb for System Collapse and it became obvious that SecUnit was having something of a breakdown due to accumulated trauma, while Barish Estranza was up to its corporate worst, I was excited at the thought that Three might have to take over some of SecUnit's more running-about-and-murdering-people duties, while SecUnit had to take the trauma treatment.

I wanted to see how the Preservation humans and ART's crew got along. Which I guess happened with Ratthi and Tarik. But I suppose I had got used to the extra space and slightly more leisurely pace of the novel, and was not prepared to go back to the tight focus of a novella.

This is all entirely my fault for having expectations, rather than just trying to enjoy what I got for its own sake. And in fact I remember feeling a little disappointed with Network Effect when that came out, while now it is my favourite in the series. So I'm sure after a few more reads and listens I will also learn to appreciate System Collapse for what it is, instead of what it isn't.

And let's face it, SecUnit was due a collapse! And now I'm eager to find out if Three gets a starship of its own with Holism. I like the fact that they are the serious non-fiction nerds of the series, while Perihelion and SecUnit are the sci-fi geeks. Bless!

~

Also I'm excited (and a little nervous) at the thought of a Murderbot TV series.

I'm excited because

you can do so much with a series in which a SecUnit is the pov character - think about how you could tell a story from the perspective of a being who is regularly experiencing life through security cameras and flying drones and

I'm not sure I can think of another series with a protag like SecUnit, who avoids eye contact, expresses emotional discomfort by turning and facing the wall, is extremely touch averse, and above all is agender and asexual and quite vocal about that.

When have we ever had a tv series where the main character's pronouns are 'it'? If they only keep that, the series will be revolutionary.

But I'm nervous because

Look at the guy they cast as SecUnit. Did he have to be so white? MB lives in a universe where most of the important characters are black or various shades of brown. It kind of defeats the importance of having so many important characters of colour if they're mostly there in order to be rescued by a white main character.

The show runners are both male. It would be so easy for a pair of straight cis male writers to ignore the widespread queerness of the setting and all the things most queer/non-neurotypical readers find so endearing about SecUnit and turn it into yet another male power fantasy where a heavily armed and deadly cyborg solves everyone's problems with ultra-violence.

It would be so easy for them to call SecUnit 'he' and churn out something like Robocop or Judge Dredd where the uncommunicative white guy with a heart of gold and a big gun gets to be the hero again. That would make it more marketable. It would make it more relatable to the straight cis white guys who make up the desired audience for SF shows (or so I've heard.) And it would take away from this agender asexual person someone who was very rare and precious to them.

Honestly listening to cis people talking about Murderbot is painful enough now when they must have read the book and they must have been bombarded for thousands of words with instances of it being called 'it' and insisting that gender was inapplicable to it and it found sex distasteful. Somehow even after all of that they will insist on calling it 'he' or 'she.' God knows how much worse it could get if the TV series did it too.

[adventures-in-a-world-of-fiction]

Review: System Collapse by Martha Wells

I finished reading System Collapse by Martha Wells, the latest book in The Murderbot Diaries series at around 1:30am yesterday. Here is my review of the book, and the fact that I finished it at 1:30am is probably the first thing that should go into the review. I went to bed at a reasonable time night, but usually read for a bit as part of my going-to-bed process. With System Collapse, I was reading in bed and kept thinking, "Just a little bit more," until I'd read the entire book and it was well past a reasonable time for me to be asleep.

So that should tell you something about the book's plot being compelling.

More detailed thoughts on the book, including multiple spoilers, below the cut. TL;DR - if you're already a fan of the series, I would definitely recommend it. If you haven't read The Murderbot Diaries yet, start with the first one in the series (All Systems Red) because you will get very confused if you try to start here.

I actually spent the first chunk of the book thinking that I wasn't going to like it as much as the other books in the series. This isn't to say that this book is bad, but that the bar set by the rest of the series is so high that I didn't think this one was quite reaching it. The start of the book felt overwhelming. We're thrown straight into action and a load of character names are flung at us, and I spent a good chunk of the opening confused because I couldn't remember who half of these characters were, but the book didn't stop to introduce them again.

This could be a me problem. If you've read Network Effect recently (or if you're just better with names than me), this might not be an issue for you. Still, that was my first reaction, so it felt right to include it. If anyone else reading the book finds the beginning a bit overwhelming, stick with it, it will all start making sense soon.

I also have mixed feelings about "redacted." I absolutely love the concept of the incident behind "redacted" and I think it's great that we're seeing the impact of everything Murderbot has been through and how its friends are treating that, as well as how it reacts to it. I also really like that its approach to a subject it finds upsetting is to decide not to think about it and just trim that out of its narrative. That feels very in-character and fits with things we've seen it do before. That said, it felt very heavy-handed in execution. It took us several books to learn that every time a character or the narrative mentions "the company", what's actually happening is that Murderbot is actively editing the company name out of the story. Compared to that, having "and then... redacted" come up every few pages felt as subtle as an energy weapon to the face. It took me out of the story because every time it happened, it felt like the author was waving a flag saying "redacted" in my face and going, "here's your hook to keep reading, so you can learn what this is about." Having the exact same idea, but half the number of "redacted" in the text before we get the reveal would have felt stronger to me.

I do find it interesting though how Murderbot is constantly second-guessing itself in this. It keeps noticing every time it misses something or doesn't necessarily make the best decision. In previous books, Murderbot has been an anxious mess at times, but its felt confident of its abilities in tough situations. It knows what it can do and makes decisions. In this book, it felt a lot more uncertain, and it's both a nice contrast and gives an opportunity for the dynamics between it and ART to be shown. I liked ART-drone messaging Murderbot encouragement privately. We see that the others around it have a lot more faith in it than it has in itself.

The lack of drones was also an interesting shift. We've seen Murderbot use drones and security cameras constantly through the series, using multiple "eyes" to look at everything. Having it deal with a limited (and dwindling) supply of drones and having to cope with not being able to see everything it wants to adds to the experience because we're seeing something new. It changes the dynamics of some of the tense scenes, and we get to see the impact on Murderbot at an emotional level.

What I absolutely loved was Murderbot putting together a video presentation, especially that it came up with the idea. We've seen Murderbot make little videos before - like showing a kid a compilation of it fighting with the gory bits edited out - and being interested in things like video effects ART used in comms, so this felt like a fantastic payoff to that. Murderbot's massive interest in media becomes crucial to saving the day in a way that felt incredibly satisfying to read, as well as having a lot of fun humour in how the process of editing happened.

I also loved the little touch of ART-drone faking someone's voice and Ratthi commenting on how this is unethical and actually against Preservation's laws - but under these circumstances he thought it was justified. This felt really fitting given all the conversations earlier this year about the SAG strike and one of their concerns was film companies using their likenesses for future films. Given how long books take to be edited and published, I'm confident this moment was written before the actors guild started getting press talking about the risk of actors being effectively copied for other media projects without their permission, but it still made me laugh that we have this scene with an AI copying a person for a film and it being called out as problematic. 

I thought the concept of the ART-drone was fun. It's an interesting idea to have ART be able to split itself apart and merge back together later, and I thought it was nice that while the subparts are still recognisably ART, they're not identical in behaviour because they're focused on different stuff.

I liked Murderbot's hesitation around teaching the other SecUnits how to hack their governor modules. It made sense that Murderbot would be worried about them coming after its humans, but ultimately choose to set them free.

There were lots of fun moments through the story. As usual, Murderbot's sarcasm adds a lot of humour. I particularly liked the exchange when Ratthi comments about some hatch shapes being scarier than others and Murderbot going off and analysing its media files to back up this theory. Plus ART-drone's complaint about wasting processing power on this was fun.

I liked the little aside about Murderbot having attempted to make a code patch to remove its anxiety.

I liked that Murderbot was so determined to keep Ratthi safe and kept insisting he stay in the shuttle, and there was a great line about how much Ratthi loves wandering around on planets and how good he is at finding trouble. "SecUnit wants me to remind all of you about the time I nearly got eaten."

I can't remember all the little moments that were in there that made me chuckle, but there were plenty. I don't think it was as funny as the first book in the series but it was fun enough.

All in all, I definitely liked the book and if you're a fan of the series, I would recommend it. By the second half of the book, I was gripped and kept reading after I should have been asleep because I needed to know how things turned out. I don't think it'll be my favourite in the series, but it was a great continuation of the story. If you haven't read the Murderbot Diaries series, this isn't the book to start with. So much that happens in it depends on or calls back to what happened in Network Effect or the other books that you absolutely should start with the first book and read them in order.

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 11

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which family means no one's secrets get revealed.

Murderbot spends the trip recharging a bit. The hopper is faster than the ground vehicle, which is good for travel time but bad for its nerves about human safety. MB hopes B-E don't know about the construction access, and if they do, won't be able to find where the HSUs moved the tunnel vehicle.

Iris grabs a med kit and says MB's leakage is worrying her. MB says it should stop soon, and thinks its power drain is a worse problem. It kind of just wants to watch Sanctuary Moon with Art-drone, only Art-drone is even worse off, so it puts on some World Hoppers instead.

Leonide asks if MB is really a SecUnit. Iris tells her to mind her own business. Leonide calls her oversensitive, goes silent for 5.3 seconds, then bursts out to ask if someone is really watching media right now. Tarik deadpans her about distracting himself while flying, and she says fuck all of them in response.

They arrive at the terraforming end of the tunnel to find an obstruction in the hangar, but it's just the shuttle, with a hat! Ratthi deployed the survival tent to keep the dust out. His voice makes MB's performance spike upward with relief.(1)

Ratthi pushes the button for the tent to pack itself up, and they all load into the shuttle. Leonide boards first, but only to make room for Iris and MB to get Art-drone in safely. MB can feel Art watching in the feed for any funny business or betrayal, but MB thinks she just knows the fastest way to escape is to help.

With Art-drone failing, the pathfinders need a little assistance. MB steps in to do what it can, though they're far from the drones it's used to.

Unfortunately, just as everyone's starting to relax, they pull out of a dust cloud and find an armed B-E shuttle following. Iris offers "to authorize deadly force" which MB doesn't need but appreciates. MB positions the pathfinders so that one takes a blow and explodes into a cloud of sensor-scattering debris, allowing the other to swing around and bop the B-E ship on the nose.(2)

The shuttle fell away, still intact but probably dealing with damage, a disoriented bot pilot, and a terrified human crew. Our shuttle powered upward, back on course and widening the distance between us.

As they come out of the comm blackout zone some time later, they see another ship, but quickly determine it's one of their own, a University ship finally come to help.

They pick up a B-E transmission and, having decoded their encryption in just two days, play back the whole argument about whether to engage. Leonide asks for comms, and when given, stands with her team in telling the others to stand down.

The channel got so quiet, Tarik tapped it to make sure it hadn’t gone dead.

Art-prime takes over the pathfinders, redirecting them now that they're not needed for defence. Art-prime starts integrating Art-drone, and Art-drone asks which ship came to help. Art tells it to guess. Art-drone pessimistically declares it must be Holism. They finish the handoff, and as Art-drone goes dead, Iris makes a sobbing noise that startles MB. In a private connection, she asks if there was time for a full transfer, and MB confirms it. Iris adds that she always gets emotional at the thought of losing any part of her Peri and its experiences.

I know, I said. And I did know, and now I was having an emotion. Like a big overwhelming emotion. It felt bad but good, a weird combination of happy and sad and relieved, like something had been stuck and it wasn’t stuck anymore. Cathartic, okay. This fits the definition of cathartic. It was like the way I’d felt when I killed the Target who threatened Amena and laughed at me because I was upset when I thought ART was dead. Except without the violence, and that only lasted a minute or so, and this seemed like it would go on a while.(3) Nobody was dead and I hadn’t had a relapse of my stupid memory thing. And if I did have a relapse, at least I knew what it was now. Don’t just sit there, ART said to me and Iris as it brought the shuttle into its docking module. Console each other. I said, You fuck off at the same time as Iris said, Oh, shut it, Peri, and that felt even better.(4)

=====

(1) I just bet! (2) Insert a skeletor NYEHEHEH giggle from me here. Nonfatal, but completely effective. Love to see it. (3) I just need to take a minute to have my own emotion at this. Like, I keep saying on main and anywhere people will listen that engaging with anger will give you a short-term good feeling and a long-term bad habit that becomes more and more deeply patterned on your daily life and harder to break. And, I just love seeing allusions to that in this sort of fiction. Like, it was a necessary violence, and there's no denying that the feeling was justified afterwards. But, violence and anger are not pathways to fulfillment and joy. The more you give in to the rage bait, the more that anger takes over your life and affects everything you do and everyone you interact with. It's important to be aware of those choices. And I love that Murderbot's commitment is to trying to save life, even when it's life that's threatening itself or its humans. It doesn't always work, but it does make it easier to live with yourself. (4) Yep, it's definitely a love language for Art.

[chidoroki]

I already asked officiersnicker about it but i would like another opinon and also i love to speak with my fics with people. And I love yours analysis of Ray and Isabella.

Still about the Isabella has twins after the escape AU

Ray has been under a lot of stress// emotional mess moments// grief since the attack of the bunker right? And everything here happened in like…one month? October - Novemnber 13th? I'm not sure than Ray has sleep enough during all days. Except for few nights where he was able to rest, like in the Paradise. Same with food, probably. Except wome good meals, he has not had the best diet. And before that, he and the rest of the team were just coming back of exploration and were probably already tired.

And then after their arrival in the human world, Emma vanished + the worry for his mum + the discovery that he has blood siblings + he's forced to live with them.

Then Ray will work to pass all the exams in the human world for be freed of the scholar system since school is obligatory for a 13 years old child. He has to finish all the exams to not have to worry about it. I don't know if he will pass it as much easly than Norman. I guess yes. But maybe not as quick. He barely study in almost 2 years after all. or it will be super easy for him. Who know. He's super worried for Emma. He barely sleeps and eats because he's so focused on his search. 100% not enough sleeping time for his age. He drinks too much coffee. He also help Norman with the creation of his entreprise.

He's almost never at home or goes to work very early so nobody is awake or return very late so everyone is asleep.

So he barely interact with Isabella or the twins. Which make him feel bad. While orther GF kids visit their mum and the babies very often. ((The babies quickly learn to say "Noma" when they see Norman =) and gave such nickname to a lot of GF kids)) Ray will feel awful *of course they love more Norman than me. I'm such a bad son and bad brother but i must find Emma, she count on me to find her, i will make thing better as soon i find Emma*

And i decided that, around 18th December, he will collapse from (physical/emotional/mental) exhaustion, and suffer from overwork. So he'll be forced to stay at home until half January. To rest, to have a better diet, to babysit the twins (Gilda will have to show him how change a diaper because he didn't know and he refuses to ask his mum because he's ashamed to not know already XD). At the end, he'll work at home but with Isabella to control his working hours.

"You can't tell me to go to sleep, mum. I can decide myself

"Like when you decided that three hours of sleep by night were enough for you?"

Do you think that it's believable that he collapses from exhaustion and suffers from overwork after only a little more than one month? He's only 13 after all. Physically he's a child.

Correct. The shelter blowing up, losing Yuugo & Lucas, invading a farm to steal medicine for Chris, the journey to the paradise hideout, the Seven Walls, the trip to the demon capital where all of Norman's annihilation plan takes place, followed by the trip back to Grace Field to take over headquarters and finally crossing over into the human world all happen with a month. I often find myself looking back at the full timeline Tag once put together because everything these kids accomplished in the span of a couple years is insane.

Oh, Ray definitely doesn't get enough sleep. If there's any possibility that their family could be in danger, he's on guard to protect them.

And it's not like this is a new behavior either. I'm sure he spent many nights studying everything he can in order to successfully prepare the escape plan to save Emma & Norman as well.

Not to mention that he's suffered countless nightmares during his years at Grace Field (and probably afterwards too).

So yeah, safe to say that Ray was absolutely paranoid once in the human world and everyone set out to search for Emma. The poor guy was already a mess during the three weeks without her after Goldy Pond, not only from keeping a constant watch over the rest of the kids but worrying whether or not Emma was alive and safe as well.

Just imagine the amount of stress, panic, heartache and anger (towards demon god and possibly himself) Ray felt during those two years. It's amazing he doesn't look completely exhausted during ch181 because he totally should be after all the hard work and effort he put into finding our best girl. (okay, so it depends on the panel really, but he looks relatively normal for a majority of them! here he does look tired though.)

I would hope he doesn't become so immersed in looking for clues during the Emma search that he misses out on meals, but if he's out with others then I'm sure he's keeping track of when his family eats so they don't collapse and taking a moment for himself to do the same. With him being the team chef, he's gotta know that eating will allow him to keep his energy up to continue searching.

(now that I think about it.. searching for Emma in the human world is kinda like the Sevens Walls; it's a totally new, unknown place for him, where he has no idea if progress is being made or not. it may not play intricate mind games on him like the Seven Walls, but he's surely losing his mind all the same. biggest difference is that his number one support is not beside him trying to solve this mystery, which add a whole new level of difficulty to this trial.)

Anyways, add all that on top of the elements in your story and this boy will be lucky if he manages to sleep a half hour a day. I still believe Isabella would provide as much assistance as she could while she recovers, but then the idea of caring for the twins will probably hold Ray back from searching for Emma as often as he would like to.

I have little doubt Ray would have any trouble with passing some exams with all the knowledge he's retained from the endless supply of books he's read throughout his entire life. Only problem might be exactly when would he actually have time to take such exams in between worrying about everything else going on with mom, the siblings and Emma.

Coffee will definitely become Ray's new friend during all this.

(as if he wasn't a fan of it already. at least, i'm pretty sure it's coffee considering the steam coming from the cups. s2ep3 has them drinking water but the next ep shows ray's was colored brown as well as during that moment in the paradise hideout. so.. apologies. i'm rambling about nonsense.)

I can see how he might prioritize looking for Emma rather than care for Isabella and the twins. Not only are there other people who are more suited for those roles (our medics Zack & Anna looking after Isabella and Gilda watching over the twins since she used to help looking after the babies while at GF along side Emma. not to mention she is that Mom Friend) but also because Ray's relationship with his blood family is kinda rocky at the moment as well. He would feel bad about kinda ignoring them though.

Pfftt, I imagine Norman acting so smug whenever he's around the twins with Ray as they would prefer to spend time with him rather than their actual brother.

MHHMM exactly! Gilda would totally teach Ray how to handle the twins better. He's already a decent brother since he's had to look after everyone else since the escape, but never to children that young (that I'm aware of).

I live for any sort of interaction between Isabella and Ray just acting like a typical mother and son. Of course they would both try to mend the bond they have to a more normal state but they would be so snarky with each other too and I would literally die if we had the chance to see them act this way.

It would absolutely be believable that Ray would crash after that chaotic last month the demon world. It's honestly amazing that he didn't (from what we've seen anyways). I have no doubt that once Emma is found and they return home that night, Ray passes out instantly and stays asleep for a good day or two. It'll be the first time in his entire life that managed to sleep soundly without any sort of worries.

[charbend]

System Overflow Chapter 2

Frank sat in his chair, still spinning from his rough landing. He stared helplessly at the screen in front of him, which moved to keep itself a fixed distance in front of his face. He stood up sharply, his chair sliding back into the wall of his cubicle.

The cubicles next to him were empty. He could still feel the warmth from Jason’s hand.

His breathing started becoming panicked. “They’re gone. Okay. Some weird flash of light took my friends. Were we friends? Jason would probably think so, but I don’t know about Sanjay.”

He chuckled nervously. Probably not the thing to be worrying about right now.

Looking past his cubicle group, he tried to spot anyone else who might still be in the office. There weren’t many people on this floor, so a visual inspection was quick. He was alone.

“Is there anybody else here?” he called out.

All he heard back was the air conditioning kicking in.

Okay. Deep breaths. Maybe everyone who’s left will be at the emergency meeting site. Right? He glanced around. This feels like it could be considered an emergency.

He stepped out of his cubicle. The screen followed him, and he eyed it warily. “You told everyone that the teleportation thing was going to happen, right? Any chance you could tell me something helpful, instead? Something that will make me feel a little less like the sky is falling?”

The screen didn’t respond. It maintained the same message:

Unable to finish teleportation operation. Emergency procedures engaged.

Please wait while procedures are confirmed…

Error! Planet [Earth] does not fit any emergency procedure conditions!

Engaging Auto-Sweep to clean loose ends.

“Hmm. No. Well, I guess I should get to my own ‘emergency procedures’ then.”

He tried side-stepping the ominous message, but it remained resolutely in the center of his vision. Frustrated, he swiped his hand at it, and it slid to his peripheral vision, compressing into a neat little notice with an exclamation mark.

“Oh, great. I have a personal heads-up display now. Just what I always wanted…” With his vision now clear and feeling like he had a bit more control over the situation, he set off. 

Okay, first step in meeting at the evacuation site: find a map to the evacuation site.

He heard a crashing boom from outside.

I’m sure that’s fine.

<O/%%%%%/O/%%%%%/O>

It was not fine. He stood on the second floor landing of the stairs, where he had found emergency exit procedures. He’d had a moment to look at them before his attention was drawn out the window beside the map.

Frank worked in an office that its architect might sell as a ‘timeless look for industries of all kinds’, but could charitably be called a brutalist enclosure for humanity. ‘Office’ and ‘Park’ were not words that should be joined together.

This office was considered accessible, which meant that it sat right off the freeway. From the window that Frank stood at, he had a good view of the road.

He was glad he hadn’t gone out for lunch yet.

The entire roadway was a wreckage of steel and wheels, the occupants having either crashed when magic screens showed up in their faces while driving, or disappeared entirely, leaving vehicles to drift aimlessly.

This was the first time he’d seen people since his coworkers had been teleported.

Unfortunately, this was also the first time he’d seen dead people. He turned away, queasy.

This isn’t good.

With a little prompting, he pulled back up the notice.

Error! Teleportation capacity exceeded.

8,126,934,201 / 7,000,000,000

“This is happening everywhere.” He glanced back out the window before looking away. Guess it’s not gonna be climate change that gets us.

He dismissed the notification again, letting it collapse to the side of his vision. He stood back up, and continued down the stairs. The assembly point was downstairs. Hopefully someone would be there.

<O/%%%%%/O/%%%%%/O>

Even after waiting for a while, no one else showed up. He was alone at the office.

Frank sighed. “I never thought I’d find myself wishing remote work was abolished.”

He looked around the little courtyard. If it weren’t for the unwelcome notice in the corner of his vision, it would be a lovely day. The sun was out, giving a nice, gentle warmth as he sat on a bench in the middle of the nice, manicured lawn. There wasn’t even a single plane in the sky to break the calm of the day.

Suddenly, a new screen popped into view.

Auto-Sweep process engaging.

Errors to resolve:

[Users] on world

Unusual energy signatures on world

Unknown Skills detected

His stomach sank. “What now?”

Resolving: Unknown Skills detected

Categorizing Skills...

Integrating Skills...

Unknown Skills no longer detected

Resolving: Unusual energy signatures on world

Analyzing energy signatures…

Integrating energy signatures…

New Skills created!

Resolving: [Users] on world

Error! [Users] on world that has been evacuated.

Recategorizing [Users]...

Another pop-up appeared in Frank’s view. This one appeared to be a status sheet, though it was filled with all manner of data that he couldn’t parse at a glance. What did draw his attention, however, were a few lines at the top:

Frank Vila

Human [User]

As he looked, it changed to:

Frank Vila

Human [Native]

Then it disappeared.

Resolving: [Users] on world

Error! [Users] on world that has been evacuated.

Recategorizing [Users]...

[Users] recategorized!

[Users] no longer on world.

All errors resolved!

Beginning terraforming…

The blue screen stopped updating, and a green screen appeared. Frank ignored it, compressing it to the side of his view immediately. He laid down and looked at the sky. “I was not ready for today.”

The clouds scudded by as he lay there, letting himself have a moment to just be, without worry.

Distantly, another explosion sounded.

“Yeah, okay, so much for that. Let’s take a look at the information I have, shall we?”

He flipped open the blue screen, the log of messages he’d received still present.

“Whatever this is, it looks like it was trying to teleport everyone on Earth. Obviously, it failed. That means there are definitely still others out there. At least…” He squinted at the numbers. “One billion and some change. That feels like a lot, at least.”

He scrolled up further. “I guess the 7 billion lucky winners are off in the ‘tutorial phase’, whatever that means. Jason and Sanjay are probably there, and…” he was struck by a thought. “My family! They’re caught up in this too.”

He reached for the phone in his pocket, before he remembered that it was still at his desk. I need to check in on them. Right now I have no leads on what is happening to them, or where they are. I’ll need to get my phone, but I’m concerned about this latest message. All the [Users] on the planet, which I assume is everyone, are now considered [Natives]. He tilted his head. “Hmm, feels a bit like a downgrade, but I don’t know where everything fits in. It said it’s some System, right? So, a [User] feels pretty straightforward, but [Native]? I have no idea.”

He glanced at the green notification at the side. Maybe this will give me some clues. He pulled the green notification over, letting the blue screen disappear.

Type changed to [Native]!

[Native] : generally reserved for unintelligent life, [Native] provides System access. This access can expand and change as [Native] is affected by terraforming. For more information, see [Lifeform] type.

The screen vanished shortly after he finished reading it.

“Okay. So, definitely a downgrade,” he said shakily. “Subject to terraforming can’t be good, can it?”

He stood up on wobbly legs, and gave one last look around. No one had shown up yet. It was time to move on. He started heading back to the office. “If I can get in contact with my family, great. If not, maybe I can reach out to someone else. Sanjay seemed to have an idea of what was going on; maybe someone else does as well.”

His stomach growled. Jason had some food stored away, too. Anxiety straddling his shoulders like a child he’d never had, he made his way back to the office, eyes peeled for signs of this ‘terraforming’.

It didn’t take long to find him, as a glowing blue squirrel jumped him on his way in the building.

***

You can find this on Royal Road! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/83902)