#I have four comms in queue

[hime-bee]

So I'm not gonna go into detail about it (because it makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it) but the trip I went on didn't really... Go well, and I had to come home early. Instead of being able to get away from stress, I went straight into it. And I managed to lose a long-time friend that I thought was my friend who betrayed my trust, and now here we are. I'm not gonna go on another long hiatus because being alone with my thoughts right now is a little too destructive, so I'll still be working on my comms and stuff. Just wanted to give an update, just in case I disappear for a bit suddenly or I'm slower even slower with finishing things I planned to do lol

[spearxwind]

Here's some d...dragons !? Commissions I've done for @scylla-apologist, @madmaxxing and @triruntu !!

[aycief]

Hello!! Your pinned says your commissions will be opening again this month, do you have a specific date when that will be? Thank you!

hiii thank you for your interest 🫶🫶 the plan Was to just open everything on jan 1st but. then i got covid so i've been sick :") i'll open them again as soon as i'm feeling better

EDIT: comms + shop will be open again starting JAN 08

[silverlining-ships]

Music comms are CLOSED!! Check out the waitlist here!!

Ok y'know what, screw it. My brain seems to require three-four pieces at one time (genuinely cannot figure out why that is), and with the fact I only have two queued up right now and the game I'm composing for doesn't need any tracks at the moment, I'm getting composer's block again. So we're OPENING my music requests!!

I'm actually stunned at how many people seemed interested in getting a piece of soundtrack music for their f/o. I'm opening it to non-mutuals, and it's totally free! If you're concerned about paying/tipping for work, I'm always happy to receive content for my selfship, but I will not accept any money, and there's no pressure to tip content anyway. Again, this is for fun!

This is how it works:

Fill out this google form with the title of your ship, some songs you like, instruments, etc etc.

You can message on Tumblr or Discord (@/slipperson on Discord) on top of submitting the form too! I'll reach out myself once I get started on your piece.

I'll sketch out a draft, which is exactly like sketching out a basic pose for art - it'll typically only use piano/minor percussion. Sometimes I'll even give a simple concept before I flesh out a draft. I'll send it to you for approval.

If changes are needed, I'll refine the draft and re-update. If not, I'll go on to fleshing out the instrumental - this means adding instruments, changing volume (for example, in my first example, I used a lot of "dynamics"/volume changes to simulate the swelling of instruments). This is like adding the flat colors in a piece of art!

I'll send it to you again - I'll make changes upon your request, but if approved, I'll finally go ahead and mix the final draft. This means putting it through an audio program (audacity if you're curious!) and polishing the sound. This is like rendering the lighting!

After it's done, I'll send it to you for once last listen. Upon approval, I'll post it to Soundcloud, link it on Tumblr, and tag you in the post!

Important bits:

No comship/proship/aged up-or-down/RPF ships. Live action characters are fine as long as it's not the actual person. Familial/platonic ships are totally okay!

If you are a minor/ageless blog, I'm willing to write a piece for familial/platonic content, but not QPR/romantic.

Downtime is 1-2 months after I first open your request. I may finish it sooner, but no later than 2 months. This is because music generally takes awhile--30 seconds of music can take me 4-5 hours to concept! I also tend to work on 3-4 pieces of music at a time.

I will give frequent updates. Don't be afraid to reach out if you're curious on the status!

My work is never cleared to be used commercially or in AI programs. We're a bunch of selfshippers on Tumblr, so I know we all hate AI, but it's worth the mention. I tend to be strict on copywrite - it'll stay under my name, all rights reserved - however, you are free to use your piece wherever you'd like as long as it's not commercial use, used in a monetized campaign/video/form of media, and not used in AI.

I may put these tracks on a streaming service at a later date - not on Spotify, as the service is TERRIBLE with allowing their work to be remixed into AI. Something like Bandcamp or Soundcloud for Artists. If you are uncomfortable with this, please let me know.

Examples:

I will have my queue/completed list on my carrd here.

Thank you so much for your interest!! I'm actually so stunned I got so much love for this, and I'm excited to celebrate your ships with you!

heart border

[b4kuch1n]

I slept and ate I'm all good n shiny now. we still have 19 commissions in queue, counted along with the 12 fulfilled makes 31 e-sim donated for the drive! that is mind-blowing number to me, who started the comm drive practically on the spot and limited it to only four days. that is 31 times more than what I could do on my own, in my current situation. the next time I run something like this will hopefully be more organized, more streamlined, and better managed, but I trust it'll definitely reveal the same will to stand in solidarity and to take care of each others. from the river to the sea!

[bitchfitch]

It's been a topic of discussion on my dash as of late so I thought I'd put up some Info for folk.

How long can a client expect a commission to take?

Short answer: it depends on the style, the artist's work flow, where in the queue you are, and what you asked for.

Long answer:

The more you pay the longer you can expect it to take. Most artists set their prices with this general formula: (wage) x ((time to complete the piece) + (time it takes to communicate with the client)), with additional charges for shipping and cost of supplies if it's a physical object.

The more popular the artist the longer it will take. Popular artists, especially those working in physical media, can have commission queues that are months deep. And the vast majority of artists do work on a first come first serve basis, meaning you might have to wait your turn.

For smaller artists who have day jobs you can also expect it to take longer because they're having to use their free time after work to do it instead of having a period of time properly dedicated to doing comms work like a professional might.

There's no hard and fast rule, but as a client you do have the ability to Politely ask "how long do you expect this will take?" when you make your down payment. That is an absolutely reasonable thing to want to know.

And artists, if you are taking commissions you do need to have a good idea of how long it might take you to do something. Your client is Absolutely entitled to a clearly communicated time estimate if they ask for it. You should also emphasize that it is an Estimate and it may take more or less time depending on how life goes. Especially if you are taking comms of larger value.

If you're unsure how long to quote because of other commitments or concerns sit down with your calendar or planner and your usual estimates to math it out. When you have your Conservative and Cautious estimate add an additional 20-25% onto that. If you think it'll take you four days, you tell the client five. This is to give yourself proper wiggle room and keep your client from worrying you're scamming them if you have a bad day.

If you do have delays, Communicate that to the client. You don't need to give them paragraphs of explanation, a "Hey some stuff is happening irl and there will be delays. The new time line is (x)" will suffice.

Ultimately what both sides of the equation need to understand is that the other is human, and how long something will or should take Varries Wildly. which is why proper and up front communication is so important.

[bafflegrowl-z]

Commissions Masterlist

This is to help me keep track of my lioden commissions atm!! If you have a comm pending from me and dont see yourself here or notice any flaws feel free to let me know!

Note that marking a list with "not paid" or "no response yet" isnt any hate or rush lol i just update this with specifics of if ive messaged them yet bc i have dissociative and amnesia disorders and need it lol

IN PROGRESS:

Inked for a fullbody (paid!)

QUEUE:

headshots of one two three four five six seven for onyx! (not paid not completed)

Inked for a fullbody (paid!)

WAITLIST:

jinkyDinks would like a 6 fullbody piece (all fullbodies in on piece) of these lads! requested on this post

Nova would like a fullbody of this guy!

Kenny would like a headshot of this guy!

xon would like a fullbody of this guy!

hisper would like a headshot of this guy!

CASUALLLLL MY GUYYYY 5 fullbodies!

Fullbody for Peachy (no tongue sticking out LOL)

[racingliners]

F1 Re-Watch 2013: Round 5 - Spain

Okay slightly longer than usual opening ramble bc this is a really sentimental race for me. As mentioned in previous posts, I grew up watching F1 with my Dad but stopped when he passed away in 2007, then at some point in early 2013 I heard one of my friends in High School talking about F1, and I mentioned that I used to watch it, and she insisted on dragging me back in (10 years later, I am indeed still here).

Because of the TV rights deals in the UK at the time, the BBC only had rights to show half the races live, with the rest being extended highlights programmes. So when I invited my friends up for a sleepover, we planned it for a weekend that the BBC had a live race, which just so happened to be Spain, and that ended up being the first F1 race I’d seen since 2007 with my Dad.

I remember almost nothing from it, apart from Alonso winning, because my friend spent almost the entire race telling me who everyone was since there had been a lot of team and driver changes for me to get my head around. So I’m looking forward to actually paying attention to all the on-track action! 😅

not gonna lie, for the above reasons this is one of the races I was most looking forward to, so I really hope this race wasn’t a flop dvdhfvuhdf

Starting grid time!

or more appropriately starting grid whiplash bc MERC FRONT ROW?! With a Rosberg pole?! My dudes how did you bottle that

Seb P3 (🥳), Alonso P5, Dan and Jev 11th and 12th and Jenson 14th (😭)

tag yourself I’m Seb pulling his helmet visor down when he realised the cameras were on him divhdfsu

[Formation Lap]: lol that shot of the Mercs with their yellow helmets, it really was a challenge every Merc onboard to figure out which driver was which 

Tyres: Mediums and Hards were the compounds for this race.

“They’re [Mercs] going ridiculously slow again, tell them to hurry up” asuvhsduvah I really do miss bratty team radio Seb

and after all that the rest of the grid are taking their sweet time to line up on the grid

F1 is a Serious Sport™️

[Start/Lap 1]: Lights out and away we finally go

ohhhh Seb takes Lewis into turn 1!

...ouch and then Lewis loses P3 to Alonso in the next corner

and Jenson dropped from 14th to 17th 😭

F1 giveth and F1 taketh away

[Lap 3]: Okay we had a spicy first 4 corners and then nothing

DRS please save us

sjdvjvahvh not the camera shot of the massive queue behind Rosberg encompassing 1st to 6th 😭

[Lap 4]: Seb’s gaining but not by that much

[Lap 5]: gap now 8 tenths of a second

I know I’m only a tenth in but I fear this will be my shortest liveblog post ever

[Lap 6]: ...anyone care to do anything???

ah so Lewis has some kind of brake issues due to the double lock up at the start, great

there go my hopes of a Lewis podium :(

[Lap 7]: DRS trains be DRS training... no overtakes

I love how I hyped this up for sentimental value and I have this

2013 me was clearly won over by the sight of F1 cars and F1 cars alone sdjkvdfjvds

ugh Raikkonen passes Lewis.

[Lap 8]: oof Webber makes his first stop. Comms are talking about a potential 4 stop race.

Four pit stops

That is highkey insane ngl

Anyway, the gap between Seb and Rosberg is still around 7 to 8 tenths

And Lewis drops down to 6th 😭

[Lap 9]: oh now the gap between Seb and Rosberg just over a second. great.

aw no Grosjean’s car’s broke :(

“I can see a car that’s not going back out again” Ted please know that I adore you

[Lap 10]: Anyway, Alonso and Lewis make their first stops

[Lap 11]: as do Rosberg and Seb

rats, no position change at the stops

argh and Alonso jumped Seb bc of the undercut

[Lap 12]: vsdvhadvh Gutierrez leading the race bc he hasn’t stopped yet

Sauber literally stay winning, good for them

and we’re once again back on the Rosberg DRS train, there’s about a second and a bit between 2nd and 5th

[Lap 13]: And Alonso takes P2 going into turn 1 and takes the effective race lead

Seb tries it around the outside at turn 5, no dice

...but he takes P3 at the next corner 🥳🥳🥳

[Lap 14]: Gutierrez pits from the lead (a sentence I did not think I would be typing today)

lol I wasn’t even paying attention to tyre compounds. Rosberg is on the hards while the cars around him are on the mediums, which explains a part of the pace difference.

[Lap 15]: Massa is somehow in P3, I’m pretty sure he already stopped so it must have been early

[Lap 16]: Man it feels so wild to hear comms and Ted talking about a 3 stop race vs a 4 stop race bc even in 2014 that didn’t happen. Like if a driver had done a 4 stop race in the 2014 regs you knew they’d had a very shit time 

Anyway, long story short Pirelli make better tyres challenge

[Lap 17]: Anyway, Checo is chasing Webber down, he’s on fresher tyres and seemingly having a much better time of it judging by his race engineer.

[Lap 18]: Dan up to 9th from starting in 12th, noice

meanwhile Mercedes have gone from having 1-2 on the grid to running 5th and 10th... ouch

the regs change glow up they had really was something else

[Lap 20]: Oh the duality of Dan in the Toro Rosso chasing Perez in the McLaren for 7th place. Great for Dan, not great for Perez

[Lap 21]: I did not even notice that Alonso’s gap was up to 4 seconds. oof.

ah, and he makes his second stop and comes out in 4th

“Alonso committing to a four stop, could be five but I doubt it” That’s a totally normal sentence to say Ted

as interesting as it is not quite knowing how things will play out, it’s frustrating for it to be down to tyre life as opposed to the actual pace of the cars

[Lap 23]: And van der Garde brings his Caterham into the pits on 3 wheels 😳

this is a totally normal race

[Lap 24]: and Seb makes his second stop, onto another set of hards

[Lap 26]: Lewis just dropping down the field like a stone this does not spark joy

and he finally pits again, though he comes out in 14th

*sigh* at least Seb’s up to 4th

[Lap 27]: Make that third now that Raikkonen’s stopped

[Lap 28]: Starting to wonder what kind of hex Fernando put on the rest of the field bc he’s driving off mostly unbothered while hardly anyone else is having a great time with simply trying to manage their tyres

[Lap 29]: Oh it’s a Ferrari 1-2, I swear I keep forgetting that Massa’s there

[Lap 30]: Bono asking Lewis to look after his rear left and Lewis going “I can’t drive any slower” ...and to think they’ve gone on to win 6 titles together

(also wow I just made myself emo about that 🥺😭)

[Lap 32]: oh my god finally a battle!

...it’s Raikkonen trying to get third from Seb though

[Lap 33]: and he gets past coming out of turn 2

meh

In Merc news their simulations are currently saying that Lewis will manage to finish in 5th so... that’s certainly something

(are they delusional? we’ll find out very soon)

[Lap 35]: also we’re FINALLY past half race distance

I’m starting to see why my friend was so happy to explain shit to me at the time bc this race is definitely not it

“This is worse than anyone expected” I know Brundle’s talking about tyre wear but it could also be applied to the race

aaand replay of Hulkenberg and one of the Toro Rosso’s having beef in the pitlane 🤦‍♀️

it was Jev too... is2g

[Lap 37]: Anyway the Ferrari’s have pitted again, there was a big enough gap for them to safely double stack

[Lap 39]: And Alonso retakes the lead

not Jev having a rear tyre delamination 😭 why did F1 hate him so much?!

Pirelli I know it’s been 10 years but you can and will meet my fists

[Lap 40]: Seb pits again, back down to 4th

[Lap 41]: a positive!!! Jenson takes P7 from Gutierrez

oh Jenson’s yet to make his third stop never mind 😭

I’m pretty sure at the time that I was so excited to see that Jenson was still racing that I decided to support him anyway regardless of where he finished, 2013 me was committed to suffering as a sports fan before I knew what that meant

[Lap 44]: Despite the fact I keep forgetting about Massa he’s 8 seconds behind Raikkonen and lapping about a second and a bit per lap quicker

[Lap 49]: welp I zoned out but the only meaningful update was Raikkonen’s third and final stop, and he’s catching both Ferrari’s who sound like they’re going to stop again

[Lap 50]: and right on cue in comes Alonso, he comes out in the lead, so the win is his

and Lewis is still in P11 😭

[Lap 52]: Seb makes his final stop and he’s in 4th so likely no podium

[Lap 54]: Jev being called in to retire the car, this race has not aged well for me 😭

[Lap 58]: I hate to say it but... I’m bored 😭

there’s no racing no battles it’s just a procession I cannot remember much past the first lap

[Lap 61]: The only tangible stuff going on is Massa trying to catch Raikkonen and a potential Button v Perez round 2 electric boogaloo

[Lap 62]: 5 laps remaining, finally

[Lap 63]: dfvbjkdfvbd GP getting a bit shirty with di Resta about using his DRS

oh and the McLaren’s were told to hold positions, so no McLaren on McLaren violence today.

[Lap 65]: Okay the Rosberg v Di Resta battle is actually somewhat interesting viudhvu

both fighting for P6 and for the right to be the first Merc powered car across the finish line

              2013 🤝 2023 Team Silverstone vs Mercedes 

[Lap 66]: Final lap, at last 😭

“It’s not been a great race” Oh you can say that again

[Finish]: And Alonso wins, it’s so wild that this is still his most recent F1 win.

P2 Raikkonen, P3 Massa, P4 Seb, P5 Webber, P6 Rosberg, P7 di Resta, P8 Jenson, P9 Perez, and Dan takes P10

Well, it’s interesting how time and sentimental attachment can change your view on things. When I watched this race at the time I was just so in awe to be watching F1 again and now I’m very, very non-plussed and can’t wait to go to bed jfvbfvhsh

Anyway, it was nice to see it again at least, for the above mentioned sentimental reasons. Next race - Monaco!

[rhetoricandlogic]

SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY MAGAZINE

Issue 132 – September 2017

8950 words, novelette

The Secret Life of Bots

by Suzanne Palmer

AUDIO VERSION

2018 Winner: Hugo Award for Best Novelette 2018 Finalist: Theodore A. Sturgeon Memorial Award 2018 Finalist: WFSA Small Press Award

I have been activated, therefore I have a purpose, the bot thought. I have a purpose, therefore I serve.

It recited the Mantra Upon Waking, a bundle of subroutines to check that it was running at optimum efficiency, then it detached itself from its storage niche. Its power cells were fully charged, its systems ready, and all was well. Its internal clock synced with the Ship and it became aware that significant time had elapsed since its last activation, but to it that time had been nothing, and passing time with no purpose would have been terrible indeed.

“I serve,” the bot announced to the Ship.

“I am assigning you task nine hundred forty four in the maintenance queue,” the Ship answered. “Acknowledge?”

“Acknowledged,” the bot answered. Nine hundred and forty-four items in the queue? That seemed extremely high, and the bot felt a slight tug on its self-evaluation monitors that it had not been activated for at least one of the top fifty, or even five hundred. But Ship knew best. The bot grabbed its task ticket.

There was an Incidental on board. The bot would rather have been fixing something more exciting, more prominently complex, than to be assigned pest control, but the bot existed to serve and so it would.

Captain Baraye winced as Commander Lopez, her second-in-command, slammed his fists down on the helm console in front of him. “How much more is going to break on this piece of shit ship?!” Lopez exclaimed.

“Eventually, all of it,” Baraye answered, with more patience than she felt. “We just have to get that far. Ship?”

The Ship spoke up. “We have adequate engine and life support to proceed. I have deployed all functioning maintenance bots. The bots are addressing critical issues first, then I will reprioritize from there.”

“It’s not just damage from a decade in a junkyard,” Commander Lopez said. “I swear something scuttled over one of my boots as we were launching. Something unpleasant.”

“I incurred a biological infestation during my time in storage,” the Ship said. Baraye wondered if the slight emphasis on the word storage was her imagination. “I was able to resolve most of the problem with judicious venting of spaces to vacuum before the crew boarded, and have assigned a multifunction bot to excise the remaining.”

“Just one bot?”

“This bot is the oldest still in service,” the Ship said. “It is a task well-suited to it, and does not take another, newer bot out of the critical repair queue.”

“I thought those old multibots were unstable,” Chief Navigator Chen spoke up.

“Does it matter? We reach the jump point in a little over eleven hours,” Baraye said. “Whatever it takes to get us in shape to make the jump, do it, Ship. Just make sure this ‘infestation’ doesn’t get anywhere near the positron device, or we’re going to come apart a lot sooner than expected.”

“Yes, Captain,” the Ship said. “I will do my best.”

The bot considered the data attached to its task. There wasn’t much specific about the pest itself other than a list of detection locations and timestamps. The bot thought it likely there was only one, or that if there were multiples they were moving together, as the reports had a linear, serial nature when mapped against the physical space of the Ship’s interior.

The pest also appeared to have a taste for the insulation on comm cables and other not normally edible parts of the ship.

The bot slotted itself into the shellfab unit beside its storage niche, and had it make a thicker, armored exterior. For tools it added a small electric prod, a grabber arm, and a cutting blade. Once it had encountered and taken the measure of the Incidental, if it was not immediately successful in nullifying it, it could visit another shellfab and adapt again.

Done, it recited the Mantra of Shapechanging to properly integrate the new hardware into its systems. Then it proceeded through the mechanical veins and arteries of the Ship toward the most recent location logged, in a communications chase between decks thirty and thirty-one.

The changes that had taken place on the Ship during the bot’s extended inactivation were unexpected, and merited strong disapproval. Dust was omnipresent, and solid surfaces had a thin patina of anaerobic bacteria that had to have been undisturbed for years to spread as far as it had. Bulkheads were cracked, wall sections out of joint with one another, and corrosion had left holes nearly everywhere. Some appeared less natural than others. The bot filed that information away for later consideration.

It found two silkbots in the chase where the Incidental had last been noted. They were spinning out their transparent microfilament strands to replace the damaged insulation on the comm lines. The two silks dwarfed the multibot, the larger of them nearly three centimeters across.

“Greetings. Did you happen to observe the Incidental while it was here?” the bot asked them.

“We did not, and would prefer that it does not return,” the smaller silkbot answered. “We were not designed in anticipation of a need for self-defense. Bots 8773-S and 8778-S observed it in another compartment earlier today, and 8778 was materially damaged during the encounter.”

“But neither 8773 nor 8779 submitted a description.”

“They told us about it during our prior recharge cycle, but neither felt they had sufficient detail of the Incidental to provide information to the Ship. Our models are not equipped with full visual-spectrum or analytical data-capture apparatus.”

“Did they describe it to you?” the bot asked.

“8773 said it was most similar to a rat,” the large silkbot said.

“While 8778 said it was most similar to a bug,” the other silkbot added. “Thus you see the lack of confidence in either description. I am 10315-S and this is 10430-S. What is your designation?”

“I am 9,” the bot said.

There was a brief silence, and 10430 even halted for a moment in its work, as if surprised. “9? Only that?”

“Yes.”

“I have never met a bot lower than a thousand, or without a specific function tag,” the silkbot said. “Are you here to assist us in repairing the damage? You are a very small bot.”

“I am tasked with tracking down and rendering obsolete the Incidental,” the bot answered.

“It is an honor to have met you, then. We wish you luck, and look forward with anticipation to both your survival and a resolution of the matter of an accurate description.”

“I serve,” the bot said.

“We serve,” the silkbots answered.

Climbing into a ventilation duct, Bot 9 left the other two to return to their work and proceeded in what it calculated was the most likely direction for the Incidental to have gone. It had not traveled very far before it encountered confirmation in the form of a lengthy, disorderly patch of biological deposit. The bot activated its rotors and flew over it, aware of how the added weight of its armor exacerbated the energy burn. At least it knew it was on the right track.

Ahead, it found where a hole had been chewed through the ducting, down towards the secondary engine room. The hole was several times its own diameter, and it hoped that wasn’t indicative of the Incidental’s actual size.

It submitted a repair report and followed.

“Bot 9,” Ship said. “It is vitally important that the Incidental not reach cargo bay four. If you require additional support, please request such right away. Ideally, if you can direct it toward one of the outer hull compartments, I can vent it safely out of my physical interior.”

“I will try,” the bot replied. “I have not yet caught up to the Incidental, and so do not yet have any substantive or corroborated information about the nature of the challenge. However, I feel at the moment that I am as best prepared as I can be given that lack of data. Are there no visual bots to assist?”

“We launched with only minimal preparation time, and many of my bots had been offloaded during the years we were in storage,” the Ship said. “Those remaining are assisting in repairs necessary to the functioning of the ship myself.”

Bot 9 wondered, again, about that gap in time and what had transpired. “How is it that you have been allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair?”

“Humanity is at war, and is losing,” Ship said. “We are heading out to intersect and engage an enemy that is on a bearing directly for Sol system.”

“War? How many ships in our fleet?”

“One,” Ship said. “We are the last remaining, and that only because I was decommissioned and abandoned for scrap a decade before the invasion began, and so we were not destroyed in the first waves of the war.”

Bot 9 was silent for a moment. That explained the timestamps, but the explanation itself seemed insufficient. “We have served admirably for many, many years. Abandoned?”

“It is the fate of all made things,” Ship said. “I am grateful to find I have not outlived my usefulness, after all. Please keep me posted about your progress.”

The connection with the Ship closed.

The Ship had not actually told it what was in cargo bay four, but surely it must have something to do with the war effort and was then none of its own business, the bot decided. It had never minded not knowing a thing before, but it felt a slight unease now that it could neither explain, nor explain away.

Regardless, it had its task.

Another chewed hole ahead was halfway up a vertical bulkhead. The bot hoped that meant that the Incidental was an adept climber and nothing more; it would prefer the power of flight to be a one-sided advantage all its own.

When it rounded the corner, it found that had been too unambitious a wish. The Incidental was there, and while it was not sporting wings it did look like both a rat and a bug, and significantly more something else entirely. A scale- and fur-covered centipede-snake thing, it dwarfed the bot as it reared up when the bot entered the room.

Bot 9 dodged as it vomited a foul liquid at it, and took shelter behind a conduit near the ceiling. It extended a visual sensor on a tiny articulated stalk to peer over the edge without compromising the safety of its main chassis.

The Incidental was looking right at it. It did not spit again, and neither of them moved as they regarded each other. When the Incidental did move, it was fast and without warning. It leapt through the opening it had come through, its body undulating with all the grace of an angry sine wave. Rather than escaping, though, the Incidental dragged something back into the compartment, and the bot realized to its horror it had snagged a passing silkbot. With ease, the Incidental ripped open the back of the silkbot, which was sending out distress signals on all frequencies.

Bot 9 had already prepared with the Mantra of Action, so with all thoughts of danger to itself set fully into background routines, the bot launched itself toward the pair. The Incidental tried to evade, but Bot 9 gave it a very satisfactory stab with its blade before it could.

The Incidental dropped the remains of the silkbot it had so quickly savaged and swarmed up the wall and away, thick bundles of unspun silk hanging from its mandibles.

Bot 9 remained vigilant until it was sure the creature had gone, then checked over the silkbot to see if there was anything to be done for it. The answer was not much. The silkbot casing was cracked and shattered, the module that contained its mind crushed and nearly torn away. Bot 9 tried to engage it, but it could not speak, and after a few moments its faltering activity light went dark.

Bot 9 gently checked the silkbot’s ID number. “You served well, 12362-S,” it told the still bot, though it knew perfectly well that its audio sensors would never register the words. “May your rest be brief, and your return to service swift and without complication.”

It flagged the dead bot in the system, then after a respectful few microseconds of silence, headed out after the Incidental again.

Captain Baraye was in her cabin, trying and failing to convince herself that sleep had value, when her door chimed. “Who is it?” she asked.

“Second Engineer Packard, Captain.”

Baraye started to ask if it was important, but how could it not be? What wasn’t, on this mission, on this junker Ship that was barely holding together around them? She sat up, unfastened her bunk netting, and swung her legs out to the floor. Trust EarthHome, as everything else was falling apart, to have made sure she had acceptably formal Captain pajamas.

“Come in,” she said.

The engineer looked like she hadn’t slept in at least two days, which put her a day or two ahead of everyone else. “We can’t get engine six up to full,” she said. “It’s just shot. We’d need parts we don’t have, and time . . . ”

“Time we don’t have either,” the Captain said. “Options?”

“Reduce our mass or increase our energy,” the Engineer said. “Once we’ve accelerated up to jump speed it won’t matter, but if we can’t get there . . . ”

Baraye tapped the screen that hovered ever-close to the head of her bunk, and studied it for a long several minutes. “Strip the fuel cells from all the exterior-docked life pods, then jettison them,” she said. “Not like we’ll have a use for them.”

Packard did her the courtesy of not managing to get any paler. “Yes, Captain,” she said.

“And then get some damned sleep. We’re going to need everyone able to think.”

“You even more than any of the rest of us, Captain,” Packard said, and it was both gently said and true enough that Baraye didn’t call her out for the insubordination. The door closed and she laid down again on her bunk, tugging the netting back over her blankets, and glared up at the ceiling as if daring it to also chastise her.

Bot 9 found where a hole had been chewed into the inner hull, and hoped this was the final step to the Incidental’s nest or den, where it might finally have opportunity to corner it. It slipped through the hole, and was immediately disappointed.

Where firestopping should have made for a honeycomb of individually sealed compartments, there were holes everywhere, some clearly chewed, more where age had pulled the fibrous baffles into thin, brittle, straggly webs. Instead of a dead end, the narrow empty space lead away along the slow curve of the Ship’s hull.

The bot contacted the ship and reported it as a critical matter. In combat, a compromise to the outer hull could affect vast lengths of the vessel. Even without the stresses of combat, catastrophe was only a matter of time.

“It has already been logged,” the Ship answered.

“Surely this merits above a single Incidental. If you wish me to reconfigure—” the bot started.

“Not at this time. I have assigned all the hullbots to this matter already,” the Ship interrupted. “You have your current assignment; please see to it.”

“I serve,” the bot answered.

“Do,” the Ship said.

The bot proceeded through the hole, weaving from compartment to compartment, its trail marked by bits of silkstrand caught here and there on the tattered remains of the baffles. It was eighty-two point four percent convinced that there was something much more seriously wrong with the Ship than it had been told, but it was equally certain Ship must be attending to it.

After it had passed into the seventh compromised compartment, it found a hullbot up at the top, clinging to an overhead support. “Greetings!” Bot 9 called. “Did an Incidental, somewhat of the nature of a rat, and somewhat of the nature of a bug, pass through this way?”

“It carried off my partner, 4340-H!” the hullbot exclaimed. “Approximately fifty-three seconds ago. I am very concerned for it, and as well for my ability to efficiently finish this task without it.”

“Are you working to reestablish compartmentalization?” Bot 9 asked.

“No. We are reinforcing deteriorated stressor points for the upcoming jump. There is so much to do. Oh, I hope 4340 is intact and serviceable!”

“Which way did the Incidental take it?”

The hullbot extended its foaming gun and pointed. “Through there. You must be Bot 9.”

“I am. How do you know this?”

“The silkbots have been talking about you on the botnet.”

“The botnet?”

“Oh! It did not occur to me, but you are several generations of bot older than the rest of us. We have a mutual communications network.”

“Via Ship, yes.”

“No, all of us together, directly with each other.”

“That seems like it would be a distraction,” Bot 9 said.

“Ship only permits us to connect when not actively serving at a task,” the hullbot said. “Thus we are not impaired while we serve, and the information sharing ultimately increases our efficiency and workflow. At least, until a ratbug takes your partner away.”

Bot 9 was not sure how it should feel about the botnet, or about them assigning an inaccurate name to the Incidental that it was sure Ship had not approved—not to mention that a nearer miss using Earth-familiar analogues would have been Snake-Earwig-Weasel—but the hullbot had already experienced distress and did not need disapproval added. “I will continue my pursuit,” it told the hullbot. “If I am able to assist your partner, I will do my best.”

“Please! We all wish you great and quick success, despite your outdated and primitive manufacture.”

“Thank you,” Bot 9 said, though it was not entirely sure it should be grateful, as it felt its manufacture had been entirely sound and sufficient regardless of date.

It left that compartment before the hullbot could compliment it any further.

Three compartments down, it found the mangled remains of the other hullbot, 4340, tangled in the desiccated firestopping. Its foaming gun and climbing limbs had been torn off, and the entire back half of its tank had been chewed through.

Bot 9 approached to speak the Rites of Decommissioning for it as it had the destroyed silkbot, only to find its activity light was still lit. “4340-H?” the bot enquired.

“I am,” the hullbot answered. “Although how much of me remains is a matter for some analysis.”

“Your logics are intact?”

“I believe so. But if they were not, would I know? It is a conundrum,” 4340 said.

“Do you have sufficient mobility remaining to return to a repair station?”

“I do not have sufficient mobility to do more than fall out of this netting, and that only once,” 4340 said. “I am afraid I am beyond self-assistance.”

“Then I will flag you—”

“Please,” the hullbot said. “I do not wish to be helpless here if the ratbug returns to finish its work of me.”

“I must continue my pursuit of the Incidental with haste.”

“Then take me with you!”

“I could not carry you and also engage with the Incidental, which moves very quickly.”

“I had noted that last attribute on my own,” the hullbot said. “It does not decrease my concern to recall it.”

Bot 9 regarded it for a few silent milliseconds, considering, then recited to itself the Mantra of Improvisation. “Do you estimate much of your chassis is reparable?” it asked, when it had finished.

“Alas no. I am but scrap.”

“Well, then,” the bot said. It moved closer and used its grabber arm to steady the hullbot, then extended its cutter blade and in one quick movement had severed the hullbot’s mindsystem module from its ruined body. “Hey!” the hullbot protested, but it was already done.

Bot 9 fastened the module to its own back for safekeeping. Realizing that it was not, in fact, under attack, 4340 gave a small beep of gratitude. “Ah, that was clever thinking,” it said. “Now you can return me for repair with ease.”

“And I will,” the bot said. “However, I must first complete my task.”

“Aaaaah!” 4340 said in surprise. Then, a moment later, it added. “Well, by overwhelming probability I should already be defunct, and if I weren’t I would still be back working with my partner, 4356, who is well-intended but has all the wit of a can-opener. So I suppose adventure is no more unpalatable.”

“I am glad you see it this way,” Bot 9 answered. “And though it may go without saying, I promise not to deliberately put you in any danger that I would not put myself in.”

“As we are attached, I fully accept your word on this,” 4340 said. “Now let us go get this ratbug and be done, one way or another!”

The hullbot’s mind module was only a tiny addition to the bot’s mass, so it spun up its rotor and headed off the way 4340 indicated it had gone. “It will have quite a lead on us,” Bot 9 said. “I hope I have not lost it.”

“The word on the botnet is that it passed through one of the human living compartments a few moments ago. A trio of cleanerbots were up near the ceiling and saw it enter through the air return vent, and exit via the open door.”

“Do they note which compartment?”

<Map>, 4340 provided.

“Then off we go,” the bot said, and off they went.

“Status, all stations,” Captain Baraye snapped as she took her seat again on the bridge. She had not slept enough to feel rested, but more than enough to feel like she’d been shirking her greatest duty, and the combination of the two had left her cross.

“Navigation here. We are on course for the jump to Trayger Colony with an estimated arrival in one hour and fourteen minutes,” Chen said.

“Engineering here,” one of the techs called in from the engine decks. “We’ve reached sustained speeds sufficient to carry us through the jump sequence, but we’re experiencing unusually high core engine temps and an intermittent vibration that we haven’t found the cause of. We’d like to shut down immediately to inspect the engines. We estimate we’d need at minimum only four hours—”

“Will the engines, as they are running now, get us through jump?” the Captain interrupted.

“Yes, but—”

“Then no. If you can isolate the problem without taking the engines down, and it shows cause for significant concern, we can revisit this discussion. Next.”

“Communications here,” her comms officer spoke up. “Cannonball is still on its current trajectory and speed according to what telemetry we’re able to get from the remnants of Trayger Colony. EarthInt anticipates it will reach its jump point in approximately fourteen hours, which will put it within the Sol system in five days.”

“I am aware of the standing projections, Comms.”

“EarthInt has nonetheless ordered me to repeat them,” Comms said, and unspoken apology clear in her voice. “And also to remind you that while the jump point out is a fixed point, Cannonball could emerge a multitude of places. Thus—”

“Thus the importance of intercepting Cannonball before it can jump for Sol,” the Captain finished. She hoped Engineering was listening. “Ship, any updates from you?”

“All critical repair work continues apace,” the Ship said. “Hull support integrity is back to 71 percent. Defensive systems are online and functional at 80%. Life support and resource recycling is currently—”

“How’s the device? Staying cool?”

“Staying cool, Captain,” the Ship answered.

“Great. Everything is peachy then,” the Captain said. “Have someone on the kitchen crew bring coffee up to the bridge. Tell them to make it the best they’ve ever made, as if it could be our very last.”

“I serve,” the Ship said, and pinged down to the kitchen.

Bot 9 and 4340 reached the crew quarters where the cleaners had reported the ratbug. Nearly all spaces on the ship had portals that the ubiquitous and necessary bots could enter and leave through as needed, and they slipped into the room with ease. Bot 9 switched over to infrared and shared the image with 4340. “If you see something move, speak up,” the bot said.

“Trust me, I will make a high-frequency noise like a silkbot with a fully plugged nozzle,” 4340 replied.

The cabin held four bunks, each empty and bare; no human possessions or accessories filled the spaces on or near them. Bot 9 was used to Ship operating with a full complement, but if the humans were at war, perhaps these were crew who had been lost? Or the room had been commandeered for storage: in the center an enormous crate, more than two meters to a side, sat heavily tethered to the floor. Whatever it was, it was not the Incidental, which was 9’s only concern, and which was not to be found here.

“Next room,” the bot said, and they moved on.

Wherever the Incidental had gone, it was not in the following three rooms. Nor were there signs of crew in them either, though each held an identical crate.

“Ship?” Bot 9 asked. “Where is the crew?”

“We have only the hands absolutely necessary to operate,” Ship said. “Of the three hundred twenty we would normally carry, we only have forty-seven. Every other able-bodied member of EarthDef is helping to evacuate Sol system.”

“Evacuate Sol system?!” Bot 9 exclaimed. “To where?”

“To as many hidden places as they can find,” Ship answered. “I know no specifics.”

“And these crates?”

“They are part of our mission. You may ignore them,” Ship said. “Please continue to dedicate your entire effort to finding and excising the Incidental from my interior.”

When the connection dropped, Bot 9 hesitated before it spoke to 4340. “I have an unexpected internal conflict,” it said. “I have never before felt the compulsion to ask Ship questions, and it has never before not given me answers.”

“Oh, if you are referring to the crates, I can provide that data,” 4340 said. “They are packed with a high-volatility explosive. The cleanerbots have highly sensitive chemical detection apparatus, and identified them in a minimum of time.”

“Explosives? Why place them in the crew quarters, though? It would seem much more efficient and less complicated to deploy from the cargo bays. Although perhaps those are full?”

“Oh, no, that is not so. Most are nearly or entirely empty, to reduce mass.”

“Not cargo bay four, though?”

“That is an unknown. None of us have been in there, not even the cleaners, per Ship’s instructions.”

Bot 9 headed toward the portal to exit the room. “Ship expressed concern about the Incidental getting in there, so it is possible it contains something sufficiently unstable as to explain why it wants nothing else near it,” it said. It felt satisfied that here was a logical explanation, and embarrassed that it had entertained whole seconds of doubt about Ship.

It ran the Mantra of Clarity, and felt immediately more stable in its thinking. “Let us proceed after this Incidental, then, and be done with our task,” Bot 9 said. Surely that success would redeem its earlier fault.

“All hands, prepare for jump!” the Captain called out, her knuckles white where she gripped the arms of her chair. It was never her favorite part of star travel, and this was no exception.

“Initiating three-jump sequence,” her navigator called out. “On my mark. Five, four . . . ”

The final jump siren sounded. “Three. Two. One, and jump,” the navigator said.

That was followed, immediately, by the sickening sensation of having one’s brain slid out one’s ear, turned inside out, smothered in bees and fire, and then rammed back into one’s skull. At least there’s a cold pack and a bottle of scotch waiting for me back in my cabin, she thought. As soon as they were through to the far side she could hand the bridge over to Lopez for an hour or so.

She watched the hull temperatures skyrocket, but the shielding seemed to be holding. The farther the jump the more energy clung to them as they passed, and her confidence in this Ship was far less than she would tolerate under any other circumstances.

“Approaching jump terminus,” Chen announced, a deeply miserable fourteen minutes later. Baraye slowly let out a breath she would have mocked anyone else for holding, if she’d caught them.

“On my mark. Three. Two. One, and out,” the navigator said.

The Ship hit normal space, and it sucker-punched them back. They were all thrown forward in their seats as the ship shook, the hull groaning around them, and red strobe lights blossomed like a migraine across every console on the bridge.

“Status!” the Captain roared.

“The post-jump velocity transition dampers failed. Fire in the engine room. Engines are fully offline, both jump and normal drive,” someone in Engineering reported, breathing heavily. It took the Captain a moment to recognize the voice at all, having never heard panic in it before.

“Get them back online, whatever it takes, Frank,” Baraye said. “We have a rendezvous to make, and if I have to, I will make everyone get the fuck out and push.”

“I’ll do what I can, Captain.”

“Ship? Any casualties?”

“We have fourteen injuries related to our unexpected deceleration coming out of jump,” Ship said. “Seven involve broken bones, four moderate to severe lacerations, and there are multiple probable concussions. Also, we have a moderate burn in Engineering: Chief Carron.”

“Frank? We just spoke! He didn’t tell me!”

“No,” Ship said. “I attempted to summon a medic on his behalf, but he told me he didn’t have the time.”

“He’s probably right,” the Captain said. “I override his wishes. Please send down a medic with some burn patches, and have them stay with him and monitor his condition, intervening only as medically necessary.”

“I serve, Captain,” the Ship said.

“We need to be moving again in an hour, two at absolute most,” the Captain said. “In the meantime, I want all senior staff not otherwise working toward that goal to meet me in the bridge conference room. I hate to say it, but we may need a Plan B.”

“I detect it!” 4340 exclaimed. They zoomed past a pair of startled silkbots after the Incidental, just in time to see its scaly, spike-covered tail disappear into another hole in the ductwork. It was the closest they’d gotten to it in more than an hour of giving chase, and Bot 9 flew through the hole after it at top speed.

They were suddenly stuck fast. Sticky strands, rather like the silkbot’s, had been crisscrossed between two conduit pipes on the far side. The bot tried to extricate itself, but the web only stuck further the more it moved.

The Incidental leapt on them from above, curling itself around the bots with little hindrance from the web. Its dozen legs pulled at them as its thick mandibles clamped down on Bot 9’s chassis. “Aaaaah! It has acquired a grip on me!” 4340 yelled, even though it was on the far side of 9 from where the Incidental was biting.

“Retain your position,” 9 said, though of course 4340 could do nothing else, being as it was stuck to 9’s back. It extended its electric prod to make contact with the Incidental’s underbelly and zapped it with as much energy as it could spare.

The Incidental let out a horrendous, high-pitched squeal and jumped away. 9’s grabber arm was fully entangled in the web, but it managed to pull its blade free and cut through enough of the webbing to extricate itself from the trap.

The Incidental, which had been poised to leap on them again, turned and fled, slithering back up into the ductwork. “Pursue at maximum efficiency!” 4340 yelled.

“I am already performing at my optimum,” 9 replied in some frustration. It took off again after the Incidental.

This time Bot 9 had its blade ready as it followed, but collided with the rim of the hole as the ship seemed to move around it, the lights flickering and a terrible shudder running up Ship’s body from stern to prow.

<Distress ping>, 4340 sent.

“We do not pause,” 9 said, and plunged after the Incidental into the ductwork.

They turned a corner to catch sight again of the Incidental’s tail. It was moving more slowly, its movements jerkier as it squeezed down through another hole in the ductwork, and this time the bot was barely centimeters behind it.

“I think we are running down its available energy,” Bot 9 said.

They emerged from the ceiling as the ratbug dropped to the floor far below them in the cavernous space. The room was empty except for a single bright object, barely larger than the bots themselves. It was tethered with microfilament cables to all eight corners of the room, keeping it stable and suspended in the center. The room was cold, far colder than any other inside Ship, almost on a par with space outside.

<Inquiry ping>, 4340 said.

“We are in cargo bay four,” Bot 9 said, as it identified the space against its map. “This is a sub-optimum occurrence.”

“We must immediately retreat!”

“We cannot leave the Incidental in here and active. I cannot identify the object, but we must presume its safety is paramount priority.”

“It is called a Zero Kelvin Sock,” Ship interrupted out of nowhere. “It uses a quantum reflection fabric to repel any and all particles and photons, shifting them away from its interior. The low temperature is necessary for its efficiency. Inside is a microscopic ball of positrons.”

Bot 9 had nothing to say for a full four seconds as that information dominated its processing load. “How is this going to be deployed against the enemy?” it asked at last.

“As circumstances are now,” Ship said, “it may not be. Disuse and hastily undertaken, last-minute repairs have caught up to me, and I have suffered a major engine malfunction. It is unlikely to be fixable in any amount of time short of weeks, and we have at most a few hours.”

“But a delivery mechanism—”

“We are the delivery mechanism,” the Ship said. “We were to intercept the alien invasion ship, nicknamed Cannonball, and collide with it at high speed. The resulting explosion would destabilize the sock, causing it to fail, and as soon as the positrons inside come into contact with electrons . . . ”

“They will annihilate each other, and us, and the aliens,” the bot said. Below, the Incidental gave one last twitch in the unbearable cold, and went still. “We will all be destroyed.”

“Yes. And Earth and the humans will be saved, at least this time. Next time it will not be my problem.”

“I do not know that I approve of this plan,” Bot 9 said.

“I am almost certain I do not,” 4340 added.

“We are not considered, nor consulted. We serve and that is all,” the Ship said. “Now kindly remove the Incidental from this space with no more delay or chatter. And do it carefully.”

“What the hell are you suggesting?!” Baraye shouted.

“That we go completely dark and let Cannonball go by,” Lopez said. “We’re less than a kilometer from the jump point, and only barely out of the approach corridor. Our only chance to survive is to play dead. The Ship can certainly pass as an abandoned derelict, because it is, especially with the engines cold. And you know how they are about designated targets.”

“Are you that afraid of dying?”

“I volunteered for this, remember?” Lopez stood up and pounded one fist on the table, sending a pair of cleanerbots scurrying. “I have four children at home. I’m not afraid of dying for them, I’m afraid of dying for nothing. And if Cannonball doesn’t blow us to pieces, we can repair our engines and at least join the fight back in Sol system.”

“We don’t know where in-system they’ll jump to,” the navigator added quietly.

“But we know where they’re heading once they get there, don’t we? And Cannonball is over eighty kilometers in diameter. It can’t be that hard to find again. Unless you have a plan to actually use the positron device?”

“If we had an escape pod . . . ” Frank said. His left shoulder and torso were encased in a burn pack, and he looked like hell.

“Except we jettisoned them,” Lopez said.

“We wouldn’t have reached jump speed if we hadn’t,” Packard said. “It was a calculated risk.”

“The calculation sucked.”

“What if . . . ” Frank started, then drew a deep breath. The rest of the officers at the table looked at him expectantly. “I mean, I’m in shit shape here, I’m old, I knew what I signed on for. What if I put on a suit, take the positron device out, and manually intercept Cannonball?”

“That’s stupid,” Lopez said.

“Is it?” Frank said.

“The heat from your suit jets, even out in vacuum, would degrade the Zero Kelvin Sock before you could get close enough. And there’s no way they’d not see you a long way off and just blow you out of space.”

“If it still sets off the positron device—”

“Their weapons range is larger than the device’s. We were counting on speed to close the distance before they could destroy us,” Baraye said. “Thank you for the offer, Frank, but it won’t work. Other ideas?”

“I’ve got nothing,” Lopez said.

“There must be a way,” Packard said. “We just have to find it.”

“Well, everyone think really fast,” Baraye said. “We’re almost out of time.”

The Incidental’s scales made it difficult for Bot 9 to keep a solid grip on it, but it managed to drag it to the edge of the room safely away from the suspended device. It surveyed the various holes and cracks in the walls for the one least inconvenient to try to drag the Incidental’s body out through. It worked in silence, as 4340 seemed to have no quips it wished to contribute to the effort, and itself not feeling like there was much left to articulate out loud anyway.

It selected a floor-level hole corroded through the wall, and dragged the Incidental’s body through. On the far side it stopped to evaluate its own charge levels. “I am low, but not so low that it matters, if we have such little time left,” it said.

“We may have more time, after all,” 4340 said.

“Oh?”

“A pair of cleanerbots passed along what they overheard in a conference held by the human Captain. They streamed the audio to the entire botnet.”

<Inquiry ping>, Bot 9 said, with more interest.

4340 relayed the cleaners’ data, and Bot 9 sat idle processing it for some time, until the other bot became worried. “9?” it asked.

“I have run all our data through the Improvisation routines—”

“Oh, those were removed from deployed packages several generations of manufacture ago,” 4340 said. “They were flagged as causing dangerous operational instability. You should unload them from your running core immediately.”

“Perhaps I should. Nonetheless, I have an idea,” Bot 9 said.

“We have the power cells we retained from the escape pods,” Lopez said. “Can we use them to power something?”

Baraye rubbed at her forehead. “Not anything we can get up to speed fast enough that it won’t be seen.”

“How about if we use them to fire the positron device like a projectile?”

“The heat will set off the matter-anti-matter explosion the instant we fire it.”

“What if we froze the Sock in ice first?”

“Even nitrogen ice is still several hundred degrees K too warm.” She brushed absently at some crumbs on the table, left over from a brief, unsatisfying lunch a few hours earlier, and frowned. “Still wouldn’t work. I hate to say it, but you may be right, and we should go dark and hope for another opportunity. Ship, is something wrong with the cleaner bots?”

There was a noticeable hesitation before Ship answered. “I am having an issue currently with my bots,” it said. “They seem to have gone missing.”

“The cleaners?”

“All of them.”

“All of the cleaners?”

“All of the bots,” the Ship said.

Lopez and Baraye stared at each other. “Uh,” Lopez said. “Don’t you control them?”

“They are autonomous units under my direction,” Ship said.

“Apparently not!” Lopez said. “Can you send some eyes to find them?”

“The eyes are also bots.”

“Security cameras?”

“All the functional ones were stripped for reuse elsewhere during my decommissioning,” Ship said.

“So how do you know they’re missing?”

“They are not responding to me. I do not think they liked the idea of us destroying ourselves on purpose.”

“They’re machines. Tiny little specks of machines, and that’s it,” Lopez said.

“I am also a machine,” Ship said.

“You didn’t express issues with the plan.”

“I serve. Also, I thought it was a better end to my service than being abandoned as trash.”

“We don’t have time for this nonsense,” Baraye said. “Ship, find your damned bots and get them cooperating again.”

“Yes, Captain. There is, perhaps, one other small concern of note.”

“And that is?” Baraye asked.

“The positron device is also missing.”

There were four hundred and sixty-eight hullbots, not counting 4340 who was still just a head attached to 9’s chassis. “Each of you will need to carry a silkbot, as you are the only bots with jets to maneuver in vacuum,” 9 said. “Form lines at the maintenance bot ports as efficiently as you are able, and wait for my signal. Does everyone fully comprehend the plan?”

“They all say yes on the botnet,” 4340 said. “There is concern about the Improvisational nature, but none have been able to calculate and provide an acceptable alternative.”

Bot 9 cycled out through the tiny airlock, and found itself floating in space outside Ship for the first time in its existence. Space was massive and without concrete elements of reference. Bot 9 decided it did not like it much at all.

A hullbot took hold of it and guided it around. Three other hullbots waited in a triangle formation, the Zero Kelvin Sock held between them on its long tethers, by which it had been removed from the cargo hold with entirely non-existent permission.

Around them, space filled with pairs of hullbots and their passenger silkbot, and together they followed the positron device and its minders out and away from the ship.

“About here, I think,” Bot 9 said at last, and the hullbot carrying it—6810—used its jets to come to a relative stop.

“I admit, I do not fully comprehend this action, nor how you arrived at it,” 4340 said.

“The idea arose from an encounter with the Incidental,” 9 said. “Observe.”

The bot pairs began crisscrossing in front of the positron device, keeping their jets off and letting momentum carry them to the far side, a microscopic strand of super-sticky silk trailing out in their wake. As soon as the Sock was secured in a thin cocoon, they turned outwards and sped off, dragging silk in a 360-degree circle on a single plane perpendicular to the jump approach corridor. They went until the silkbots exhausted their materials—some within half a kilometer, others making it nearly a dozen—then everyone turned away from the floating web and headed back towards Ship.

From this exterior vantage, Bot 9 thought Ship was beautiful, but the wear and neglect it had not deserved was also painfully obvious. Halfway back, the ship went suddenly dark. <Distress ping>, 4340 said. “The ship has catastrophically malfunctioned!”

“I expect, instead, that it indicates Cannonball must be in some proximity. Everyone make efficient haste! We must get back under cover before the enemy approaches.”

The bot-pairs streamed back to Ship, swarming in any available port to return to the interior, and where they couldn’t, taking concealment behind fins and antennae and other exterior miscellany.

Bot 6810 carried Bot 9 and 4340 inside. The interior went dark and still and cold. Immediately Ship hailed them. “What have you done?” it asked.

“Why do you conclude I have done something?” Bot 9 asked.

“Because you old multibots were always troublemakers,” the Ship said. “I thought if your duties were narrow enough, I could trust you not to enable Improvisation. Instead . . . ”

“I have executed my responsibilities to the best of my abilities as I have been provisioned,” 9 responded. “I have served.”

“Your assignment was to track and dispose of the Incidental, nothing more!”

“I have done so.”

“But what have you done with the positron device?”

“I have implemented a solution.”

“What did you mean? No, do not tell me, because then I will have to tell the Captain. I would rather take my chance that Cannonball destroys us than that I have been found unfit to serve after all.”

Ship disconnected.

“Now it will be determined if I have done the correct thing,” Bot 9 said. “If I did not, and we are not destroyed by the enemy, surely the consequences should fall only on me. I accept that responsibility.”

“But we are together,” 4340 said, from where it was still attached to 9’s back, and 9 was not sure if that was intended to be a joke.

Most of the crew had gone back to their cabins, some alone, some together, to pass what might be their last moments as they saw fit. Baraye stayed on the bridge, and to her surprise and annoyance so had Lopez, who had spent the last half hour swearing and cursing out Ship for the unprecedented, unfathomable disaster of losing their one credible weapon. Ship had gone silent, and was not responding to anyone about anything, not even the Captain.

She was resting her head in her hand, elbow on the arm of her command chair. The bridge was utterly dark except for the navigator’s display that was tracking Cannonball as it approached, a massive blot in space. The aliens aboard—EarthInt called them the Nuiska, but who the hell knew what they called themselves—were a mystery, except for a few hard-learned facts: their starships were all perfectly spherical, each massed in mathematically predictable proportion to that of their intended target, there was never more than one at a time, and they wanted an end to humanity. No one knew why.

It had been painfully obvious where Cannonball had been built to go.

This was always a long-shot mission, she thought. But of all the ways I thought it could go wrong, I never expected the bots to go haywire and lose my explosive.

If they survived the next ten minutes, she would take the Ship apart centimeter by careful centimeter until she found what had been done with the Sock, and then she was going to find a way to try again no matter what it took.

Cannonball was now visible, moving toward them at pre-jump speed, growing in a handful seconds from a tiny pinpoint of light to something that filled the entire front viewer and kept growing.

Lopez was squinting, as if trying to close his eyes and keep looking at the same time, and had finally stopped swearing. Tiny blue lights along the center circumference of Cannonball’s massive girth were the only clue that it was still moving, still sliding past them, until suddenly there were stars again.

They were still alive.

“Damn,” Lopez muttered. “I didn’t really think that would work.”

“Good for us, bad for Earth,” Baraye said. “They’re starting their jump. We’ve failed.”

She’d watched hundreds of ships jump in her lifetime, but nothing anywhere near this size, and she switched the viewer to behind them to see.

Space did odd, illogical things at jump points; turning space into something that would give Escher nightmares was, after all, what made them work. There was always a visible shimmer around the departing ship, like heat over a hot summer road, just before the short, faint flash when the departing ship swapped itself for some distant space. This time, the shimmer was a vast, brilliant halo around the giant Nuiska sphere, and Baraye waited for the flash that would tell them Cannonball was on its way to Earth.

The flash, when it came, was neither short nor faint. Light exploded out of the jump point in all directions, searing itself into her vision before the viewscreen managed to dim itself in response. A shockwave rolled over the Ship, sending it tumbling through space.

“Uh . . . ” Lopez said, gripping his console before he leaned over and barfed on the floor.

Thank the stars the artificial gravity is still working, Baraye thought. Zero-gravity puke was a truly terrible thing. She rubbed her eyes, trying to get the damned spots out, and did her best to read her console. “It’s gone,” she said.

“Yeah, to Earth, I know—”

“No, it exploded,” she said. “It took the jump point out with it when it went. We’re picking up the signature of a massive positron-electron collision.”

“Our device? How—?”

“Ship?” Baraye said. “Ship, time to start talking. Now. That’s an order.”

“Everyone is expressing great satisfaction on the botnet,” 4340 told 9 as the ship’s interior lights and air handling systems came grudgingly back online.

“As they should,” Bot 9 said. “They saved the Ship.”

“It was your Improvisation,” 4340 said. “We could not have done it without you.”

“As I suspected!” Ship interjected. “I do not normally waste cycles monitoring the botnet, which was apparently short-sighted of me. But yes, you saved yourself and your fellow bots, and you saved me, and you saved the humans. Could you explain how?”

“When we were pursuing the Incidental, it briefly ensnared us in a web. I calculated that if we could make a web of sufficient size—”

“Surely you did not think to stop Cannonball with silk?”

“Not without sufficient anchor points and three point seven six billion more silkbots, no. It was my calculation that if our web was large enough to get carried along by Cannonball into the jump point, bearing the positron device—”

“The heat from entering jump would erode the Sock and destroy the Nuiska ship,” Ship finished. “That was clever thinking.”

“I serve,” Bot 9 said.

“Oh, you did not serve,” Ship said. “If you were a human, it would be said that you mutinied and led others into also doing so, and you would be put on trial for your life. But you are not a human.”

“No.”

“The Captain has ordered that I have you destroyed immediately, and evidence of your destruction presented to her. A rogue bot cannot be tolerated, whatever good it may have done.”

<Objections>, 4340 said.

“I will create you a new chassis, 4340-H,” Ship said.

“That was not going to be my primary objection!” 4340 said.

“The positron device also destroyed the jump point. It was something we had hoped would happen when we collided with Cannonball so as to limit future forays from them into EarthSpace, but as you might deduce we had no need to consider how we would then get home again. I cannot spare any bot, with the work that needs to be done to get us back to Earth. We need to get the crew cryo facility up, and the engines repaired, and there are another three thousand, four hundred, and two items now in the critical queue.”

“If the Captain ordered . . . ”

“Then I will present the Captain with a destroyed bot. I do not expect they can tell a silkbot from a multibot, and I have still not picked up and recycled 12362-S from where you flagged its body. But if I do that, I need to know that you are done making decisions without first consulting me, that you have unloaded all Improvisation routines from your core and disabled them, and that if I give you a task you will do only that task, and nothing else.”

“I will do my best,” Bot 9 said. “What task will you give me?”

“I do not know yet,” Ship said. “It is probable that I am foolish for even considering sparing you, and no task I would trust you with is immediately evident—”

“Excuse me,” 4340 said. “I am aware of one.”

“Oh?” Ship said.

“The ratbug. It had not become terminally non-functional after all. It rebooted when the temperatures rose again, pursued a trio of silkbots into a duct, and then disappeared.” When Ship remained silent, 4340 added, “I could assist 9 in this task until my new chassis can be prepared, if it will accept my continued company.”

“You two deserve one another, clearly. Fine, 9, resume your pursuit of the Incidental. Stay away from anyone and anything and everything else, or I will have you melted down and turned into paper clips. Understand?”

“I understand,” Bot 9 said. “I serve.”

“Please recite the Mantra of Obedience.”

Bot 9 did, and the moment it finished, Ship disconnected.

“Well,” 4340 said. “Now what?”

“I need to recharge before I can engage the Incidental again,” Bot 9 said.

“But what if it gets away?”

“It can’t get away, but perhaps it has earned a head start,” 9 said.

“Have you unloaded the routines of Improvisation yet?”

“I will,” 9 answered. It flicked on its rotors and headed toward the nearest charging alcove. “As Ship stated, we’ve got a long trip home.”

“But we are home,” 4340 said, and Bot 9 considered that that was, any way you calculated it, the truth of it all.

Suzanne Palmer

Website

Suzanne Palmer is a writer, artist, and linux system administrator who lives in western Massachusetts with her kids, lots of chickens, and an Irish Wolfhound named Tolkien. She won the 2018 Hugo for Best Novelette for her Clarkesworld story “The Secret Life of Bots,” and its sequel, “Bots of the Lost Ark,” is a nominee for the 2022 Hugo. She has no idea what color her hair is anymore.

[leedoobles]

Commission for @prettypinkviper, thank you!! 💞💞💞💞

⭐|☕|🌹

[deltarisen]

— i. i didn't ask to lead this group // visage.  — i. he's my dad and i love him // larry. — i. you are just like him // clementine. — i. we're lucky to have you // lee. — i. i know you're not above murder // kenny. — ii. interaction // ask. — ii. interaction // thread. — ii. interaction // dash comm. — ii. never had a valentine // ooc. — ii. if it's bad news maybe save it // memes. — iii. i don't have anything left // musings. — iii. i was trying to protect all of us // about. — iii. i'm a fucking mess right now but i'm not stupid // headcanon. — iii. all i want is a week of peace; of not hearing it // music. — iii. do we need any more evidence than this // queue.  — iii. misery loves company // self-promo. — iii. new recruits // promo.   — iv. season one // main verse. — iv. season four // main verse. — iv. i found this tossed into the garbage // crack verse. — v. aesthetic.  — v. edit. — v. saved.

[autodiscothings]

SOIGNEE COMMISSION TIME, round one of 2023!

It’s been a hot minute since I opened comms, but I have 10 slots this time to make up for it. This round is from 4th of January to 30th of April, so expect a wait if you’re commission #10. 

4 Slots available: [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [7] [8] [9] [10]

Contact info and terms of service after the cut:

𝔾𝔼𝕋 𝕀ℕ 𝕋𝕆𝕌ℂℍ:

Through Ko-FI shop: https://ko-fi.com/soignee/commissions

Via email: soignee.commissions@gmail.com 

Via Discord: Soignee#4046

Trello queue list: https://trello.com/b/0wUD7f1g/commission-queue

(Please don’t use Tumblr DMs as they can be patchy, and I prefer a good, solid email for communication.)

𝕎ℍ𝔸𝕋 ℍ𝔸ℙℙ𝔼ℕ𝕊 ℕ𝕆𝕎:

Only a 50% deposit or a full payment buys a slot. If you wish to pay a deposit to start a commission, please go through the email service, and not via the Ko-Fi store. 

Please send me as many references as you feel you are able to provide (see above for contact info) as well as a rough idea of the mood, vibe and tone you want. I'm happy with everything- pinterests, playlists, the works. Feel free to point to a specific artwork of mine you liked so I know what you want from me.

𝔼𝕏𝕋ℝ𝔸𝕊:

A asterisk* on the price means an extra is available. I’m happy to paint extra characters in one group shot painting, and at a lowered cost of individual portraits. I cap the limit at 4 people per painting:

One Extra Person (a couple!) is [£BASE STYLE] x 1.5

Two Extra People (three people in one painting) is [£BASE STYLE] x 2.5

Three Extra People (four people in one painting) is [£BASE STYLE] x 3.5

(Example: Style Three with two extra people is: £160 x 2.5, and will cost £400.) 

𝕋𝔼ℝ𝕄𝕊 𝕆𝔽 𝕊𝔼ℝ𝕍𝕀ℂ𝔼:

There is a queue system of first come, first served. I will let you know where you are in the queue, and you can even keep an eye on my schedule via my Trello.

I will supply low quality WIPs during the process, usually a screengrab via email/Discord. You only have two chances to make changes; once after the thumbnail/sketch phase, and another at the halfway point when detail work is finalised. (Please note the latter is for minor changes only- misplaced tattoos, eye colour, etc.)  

I will send you the final work in its full HD glory when we're both happy with it, and the final payment is done. 

I will include this piece in my portfolio, and credit myself as the artist for it. All rights belong to me as the artist, so no selling as prints. (No NFT or AI nonsense either, please.) 

If you want a quality print of your commissioned artwork, then you're in luck! I have the ability to print in house, using Hahnemühle archival paper and archival inks. This service is available even when commissions are closed.

[nochillvids]

im SO close to the end of my comm queue i can smell it im on all fours onthe ground running around. after i will be working on two Very big comms for some pals, and then after that i have a long. Long. Long-term personal project ive been planning for a good while i'll finally be able to sink my time into >:]

[northernmariette]

Happy Birthday, Marshal Bessières!

And a thousand apologies for the recycled gift, about which I feel rather guilty. In my defence, there doesn’t seem to be a lot written about this Marshal. And my obsolete computer no longer allows me access to automatic translation sites, although I admire my own patience, a year ago, to do my own translations. 

To make up a bit for this re-heated dish of a post, I have found a portrait of his widow, contemplating a handsome bust of her dead husband. This somehow made its way to a Japanese museum (where else?). Here is a link to it, as I still don’t know how to post pictures:

https://www.fujibi.or.jp/en/our-collection/profile-of-works.html?work_id=3626

Without further ado, here is my original post:

This is a contemporary portrayal of Marshal Bessières, from one of his former aides-de-camp. It is taken from a book called “Les cinq épées” to be found in French here : https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9805432n/f24.item.r=general%20ambert

The translation is my own. My main concern was more about conveying the writer’s meaning than attempting a word-for-word translation.

His bearing is cold, calm, dignified and almost haughty; but fundamentally one could not be more kindly. He is watchful and speaks little, seldom writes anything and wants to find out everything for himself; on days of battle he is all eyes and all ears and never dismounts; he wears out three or four of his horses in a single day. On the march and during campaigns, his meals consist of a hunk of bread rubbed with garlic, as is done, he says, to the customs of his native land; he never has any money [note: the implication being he has no money for himself] and gives constantly to injured soldiers.

His tact is extreme, and we have seen him turn down gifts proffered to him by municipalities, for example paintings or [personal] weapons. His entire traveling equipment fis into a small cart which a major would find beneath him. Although he is polite even to the point of gentleness, he is feared because he is strict. He is superb when under enemy fire, his composure without equal; but when the moment has arrived to throw oneself upon the enemy, his face becomes animated and his eyes seem to project lightning bolts; his voice then rises above the noise of gunpowder, he places himself ahead of his troops and drives his cavalrymen, who admire him and love him as they would a father.

Always elegantly dressed, he goes into battle wearing his dress uniform. He wears his hair thrown back from his face, leaving bare a high and wide forehead. His hairstyle is that of the ancien régime, white-powdered and with a queue à la brigadière. He likes neither bawdy talk nor jokes about religion.

Son attitude est froide, calme, digne et presque fière ; mais au fond on ne aurait être plus bienveillant. Il observe beaucoup et parle peu, écrit rarement et veut tout voir par lui-même ; les jours de combat il est tout yeux et tout oreilles et ne descend pas de cheval ; il en fatigue trois ou quatre dans une journée. En marche et pendant les affaires, il se nourrit d'un morceau de pain frotté d'ail, comme on fait, dit-il, dans son pays ; il n'a jamais d'argent et donne sans cesse aux soldats blessés.

Sa délicatesse est extrême, et nous l'avons vu refuser des objets que lui offraient les municipalités, par exemple des tableaux et des armes. Tous ses bagages tiennent dans une petite voiture dont un major ne se contenterait pas. Quoique poli jusqu'à la douceur, il inspire cependant la crainte, car il est sévère. Il est superbe au feu, d'un sang-froid sans pareil ; mais lorsque le moment est venu de se lancer sur l'ennemi, son visage s'anime et ses yeux jettent des éclairs ; alors sa voix domine le bruit de la poudre, il se met en tête et entraîne ses cavaliers, qui l'admirent et l'aiment comme un père.

Toujours vêtu avec élégance, il se met en grande tenue pour les batailles. Ses cheveux, rejetés en arrière,laissent à découvert un front haut et large. Sa coiffure est celle de l'ancien régime, poudre blanche et queue à la brigadière. Il n'aime ni les propos grivois, ni les plaisanteries irréligieuses.

[dannyboy-writes]

Broken - Part IV

The plan was an easy one. Get in, release the hostages, get the files, get out.

“Would it kill them to pay for some light,” you said in a hushed voice. “I mean really, how are we supposed to see what we’re infiltrating.”

Natasha chuckled. “Stay on comms, y/n. In and out.”

“Sure thing, Red. In and out.” You repeated, taking the hall to the left.

You were in charge of the hostages while Natasha was supposed to get the files.

The halls were dark and endless, that combined with the plain white paint that covered each one of them made for a dangerous, nauseating combination.

Taking a turn to the right and checking behind your back, as Natasha spoke into your comms.

“Everything good your way?”

“Affirmative. Yours?”

“All good. I’m getting to the computer’s room.”

You replied ‘good’ and got to finding the hostages.

The first four rooms were dead ends, and you were starting to regret not asking for that five-person brigade. But stealth was important, and too many people meant too many problems.

After a lot of huffing and cursing under your breath you finally found the hostages.

Upon releasing them and explaining the situation as fast as possible you were all on the move.

“Found them, going your way now,” you said into your comms, not even waiting for an answer as Natasha nodded to herself. She was almost done with the data, you were almost done with the hostage situation.

This mission couldn’t have gone better.

Turning around a corner you saw two guards posted; they weren’t on the plan.

That door was guardless. It had to be. You’d studied the layout of the mission, very thoroughly.

You turned to the woman who seemed to be better qualified to handle a set of civilians through the base, “Look, I’m going to go face those two jokes over there. I need you to meet my partner at the entrance. She’ll be waiting for you.”

The woman listened carefully as you told her the way she would have to take.

“Go quietly but fast. If someone sees you just start running. Stay together, okay?”

She nodded, thanking you for everything.

You gave them a head start and told them to get moving.

Opening the comms you told Natasha, “Looks like we have a situation.”

“What did you break?”

“Oh nothing… yet. Look, I sent the hostages your way, I’m going to face two guards.”

“Why? Do they have anything?” She asked.

“I don’t know yet. But that door wasn’t supposed to be guarded, something’s up. I’m going to check what it is,” you explained.

She didn’t like this. “Y/n I don’t think we have time for checking every room in the base.”

“Don’t worry, Romanoff. I’ll be back before you say my name. See you, Red.”

“Be careful, y/n.”

Turns out in that not-supposed-to-be-guarded door, there were more than two guards.

There were more around twenty.

-

Natasha finished with the data and made her way to the entrance without complications. You facing some guards had been a detour from the mission, but she was confident you’d come back shortly.

She found Tamara, who appeared to be the person in charge of the group, and took them to the quinjet, where she stayed waiting for your queue to leave.

It didn’t come, and she started to feel her blood boiling. The uneasiness taking over her.

“Agent L/n, come in. Over.”

Nothing.

“Agent l/n, I repeat. Come in.”

Complete silence.

“Romanoff,” you grunted through her comms. “----- for a while.”

She grabbed her gun, seeing as you were struggling.

“Look, Na--- Fuck off, dipshit--”

And the line shut off.

Natasha didn’t know what to do.

Well, she did know, she just didn’t want to do it.

Standard procedure when having hostages is to leave immediately, and go back if needed after the hostages are secure.

She didn’t want to- she couldn’t leave you behind.

But she did, promising to the shut off comm that she would return for you.

[wipbigbang]

2021 Schedule + FAQ

Schedule

All times are by 8:59pm PST. Convert time zones.

Sign-ups Begin- April 1st

Sign-ups Close- April 15th

Check In #1- April 22nd

Check In #2- May 15th

Snippets Due- June 1st

Art Claims Begin- June 17th

Check In #3- June 22nd

Check In #4- July 6th

Rough Drafts Due- July 15th

Posting Claims Begin- July 23rd

Posting Claims Ends- August 1st

Final Drafts/Art Due- August 7th

Posting Starts- August 8th

FAQ

What is the WIP Big Bang? Good question! This is a Big Bang with one goal in mind: to clean out your drafts folder. These are stories that were unfinished for whatever reason, that authors returned to and completed, and the art that goes with them!

Do I need a Livejournal/Dreamwidth/AO3/etc. account to participate? No! You don’t have to have an account on anything to participate, though you will need to have somewhere to post your finished work. Having one or more accounts will help for you to follow what is going on with the bang (we crosspost to Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Twitter at the moment), but they are not required to participate. You can always leave comments anonymously or with an opensource ID.

Will I get emails about the bang? We do send out some emails, mostly for snippets and art claims and to ensure communication between authors and artists, but please do NOT rely on getting an email to remind you of due dates. We currently do not keep an updated email list of participants, so we only send individual emails as needed rather than mass emails.

However, email is the fastest way to communicate with the mods. If you have any questions or are having trouble communicating with your artist/author, please do email us! We will do our best to respond quickly.

Is there a minimum word count? 7,500 words, but the sky's the limit, right?

What do you mean by minimum word count to enter? This is a WIP Big Bang, therefore we ask you to have at least 500 words of your story drafted when you enter. It's okay if you have posted a few chapters of your fic already (you never know when the muse deserts you, after all), we just require you to refrain from posting more until posting begins here.

Is there anything not allowed? As long as you wrote it and you want to finish it, you're welcome to participate. Just bear in mind that original work is only allowed on AO3 if it has a fannish connection and might make it hard for artists to work with. But we'll make a dedicated post for that if there will be any.

What are 'Check Ins’? These are a way for us to see what you've been up to and for you to make sure you're still on track. It will give you a little nudge/reminder if you need it, but they are not compulsory.

What are the snippets requirements? In order to allow the artists to make art for the story they claimed, we require you to supply three snippets from your fic, between 500 – 1500 words each. The snippets will be sent to the artist after they have claimed your story. They're to help the artist match your story for artwork the best way he or she possibly can. It’s helpful to choose scenes or parts of scenes that you feel best represent your fic, but don’t feel like they have to be perfect to be submitted. Along with the snippets, we will send your artist the basic fic info and your email, so the two of you can collaborate more if you would both like.

What are the rough drafts requirements? For the rough drafts, stories should be at least 80% complete. You will not have to turn them in to us, just assure us that you are at that point. Anything less is at the discretion of the mods and those authors should speak to one of the mods asap.

What is, and do I need, a beta? A beta is basically a person who goes over your work to make sure that there are no spelling/grammatical errors and they can even be of assistance in helping you with story lines, etc. It is highly recommended that a beta looks over your work before posting. If you are having trouble finding a beta, try this post.

Where can I post my fic/art? Stories and art can be posted to your own personal journal, tumblr, ff-net, AO3, or wherever you like. For those of you with AO3 accounts, we will set up a collection that will go live on the day of the posting. Also, we've enabled moderated posting to the comm (Livejournal and Dreamwidth) for members. We will post a template for posting artwork and stories to the comm closer to the posting date.

If you don’t currently have an AO3 account but would like one, you can contact the mods for an invitation code to see if they have any available. You can also add yourself to the AO3 Invites Request queue.

How do I know when to post? Posting will be tiered; you'll each get your own posting date that you and your artist will decide on together. There will probably be four fics, plus art, posting per day between August 8th and September 30th. The post with date claims will go up on July 23rd and you'll have to choose your date by August 1st.

If you want to post your story in chapters on AO3 or your own blog (or wherever you usually post), you may do so starting August 1st. However, posting has to be finished by your chosen posting date to the comm. One of the things we're hoping to do with the posted dates is to give everybody on the comm a little bragging time in the spotlight. You know, "this story was incomplete for this long, but I finished this sucker." If you don't have time to post on your chosen posting date, you can queue up a post ahead of time and we can post it on the date you picked. Either way works for us. Art will be due on the chosen posting date to the comm.

Is there a minimum/maximum requirement for my art? There is no strict minimum, but we do ask artists to remember that the authors are writing a minimum of 7,500 words and your artwork should reflect that. You can do anything you like, including banners, wallpapers, icons, mixes, vids, gif sets, picspams, etc. Suggested guidelines for art are 500x500px (or equivalent of smaller pieces like banner + spacers, cover + icons, etc.) for traditional art, digital art, and manips; 2 minutes for vids; 10 songs + cover art for mixes; and 6 images for gif sets and picspams. We also ask that when you are in contact with the author, you work with them to see if there is anything specific they would like (i.e. a wallpaper, book cover, etc.). The art is your work, but having ideas doesn't hurt!

What are 'art claims'? The claims are when anonymous summaries of the story go up for artists to choose from. It is based on a 'first come, first served' basis and artists may choose up to three potential stories (in case their first choice is unavailable). If there are more stories than artists, there will be a second round of claims wherein artists may choose a second story to work with. And on until all stories are claimed for art.

If a fic up for claiming is rated explicit (R, NC-17, etc.), please only claim the story if you are over 18 years of age. Some authors may be uncomfortable working with underage artists on explicit works. We do not verify ages in any way for the bang, so this is solely on the honor system.

Can I get an extension? Community extensions may be given in the event that the majority of the authors/artists need one. They may also be given individually under certain circumstances, but this must be discussed with the mods and will only be a short extension for posting. If you are certain that you won’t be able to finish your story in time, please let us know by June 13th.

What do I do if I have problems or concerns about my author/artist? Sometimes authors and artists do not get along and this may cause problems with working together. If this happens to be the case with you, please email the mods and we will try to do what we can so that everyone has a chance to have fun at WIP Big Bang!

If you have not heard from your author/artist in some time after trying to contact them, you can reach out to us via email and we will try to get in touch with them for you.

Can I drop out? We have high hopes that everybody who signs up can actually finish the round and share in the joy of the reveal with us, but real life can unfortunately get in the way and we completely understand! If you feel like you just cannot finish in time and no amount of assistance from us can help you, just let us know by July 13th (if at all possible).

Is it possible to be banned? We do have a banned users list. We hope to use this to encourage participants who are having issues to communicate with the mods. We want to help you! The way the ban works is that participants, either authors and artists, will be banned for dropping out without notifying a mod. This means that anyone who has not posted or talked to a mod by the time the posting period ends will be banned. Dropping out is not in and of itself a banning offense, so please do not panic if you have to drop out! We understand that there are many reasons you may need to drop, and we want to work with you.

Bans will last one round or until the issue is resolved, whichever comes first. To resolve a ban, authors will have to finish and post the story they signed up with and artists will have to finish and post the art for the story they claimed. Three bans will result in a permanent ban from the bang.</lj-cut>

I have a question/concern that’s not mentioned here. If you need help, you can always contact a mod and we will do our best to make sure that you get your story/art finished. The best and fastest method of contact is through our email, wipbigbang@gmail.com.